Quarry cave lost in time yields 'unknown species'
By Tamara Traubmann
Scientists said yesterday they had discovered a prehistoric ecosystem dating back millions of years containing previously unknown species of crustaceans and invertebrates similar to scorpions. The animals, found in a cave in the Nesher quarries near Ramle, which had been sealed off from the outside world.
"So far animal species were found in the cave, most of which we believe, are unknown to science," said Dr. Hanan Dimantman, a biologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in a press conference held yesterday at the university. The researchers said the discovery came about when a small opening was found, leading to a cave extending to a depth of 100 meters beneath the surface of the quarry.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/721997.html
Giant Crater Found: Tied to Worst Mass Extinction Ever
By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
posted: 01 June 2006
06:07 pm ET
An apparent crater as big as Ohio has been found in Antarctica. Scientists think it was carved by a space rock that caused the greatest mass extinction on Earth, 250 million years ago.
The crater, buried beneath a half-mile of ice and discovered by some serious airborne and satellite sleuthing, is more than twice as big as the one involved in the demise of the dinosaurs.
The crater's location, in the Wilkes Land region of East Antarctica, south of Australia, suggests it might have instigated the breakup of the so-called Gondwana supercontinent, which pushed Australia northward, the researchers said.
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060601_big_crater.html
Wal-Mart sings song of change at annual meeting
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RAll Reuters News
FAYETTEVILLE, Arkansas (Reuters) - "Wal-Mart: The Musical" opened way, way off-Broadway on Friday to a standing ovation.
Of course, the Fayetteville, Arkansas, audience was packed with thousands of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. employees and shareholders, as the company kicked off its annual meeting with an hour-long, mini-musical that emphasized changes at the world's largest retailer.
Wal-Mart has been touting improvements ranging from more fashionable clothing and organic products in its stores to attempts to be more environmentally friendly, including an overhaul of its fleet of trucks to avoid spewing diesel fumes while goods are being delivered. (New power units keep air conditioning on in the trucks while their engines are off.)
Wal-Mart has a legion of increasingly vocal critics who have hammered the company for what they consider poverty-level wages and stingy benefits for its employees.
At the same time, the company is pushing to overcome an image as a retailer whose customers shop in its stores for cheap prices on basics like laundry detergent and toilet paper, but then go off to competitors Target Corp. and Best Buy Co. Inc. for trendier fashions and electronics.
Target's sales growth has far outpaced Wal-Mart's in recent quarters, and the trend continued last month, when Wal-Mart posted a 2.3 percent increase in sales at its U.S. stores open at least a year, while Target's rose 5.7 percent.
Still, Wal-Mart's shares were up 3.4 percent this year through Thursday while Target's shares were down 10.4 percent amid concerns that Wal-Mart's push into higher-priced items could cut into Target's sales.
The retailer, which draws some 130 million U.S. shoppers a week, is trying to entice those shoppers to spend more at Wal-Mart, with items like baby clothes made of organic fabrics, plasma televisions and its Metro 7 clothing line.
SONG AND DANCE
The musical that opened the annual meeting -- held at the University of Arkansas's Bud Walton Arena -- included a number that encouraged customers to "Step Across the Aisle," in which one character sings: "They stop to buy a Milky Way, discover we have Chardonnay."
Interspersed with production numbers with performers dancing around with grocery carts and a Broadway-style ballad "The Day That I Met Sam" that harked back to Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, the company showed videotaped messages from executives.
Those executives pushed everything from fast-selling products, such as a $470 patio set; to overhauls of break rooms, to make employees of its Sam's Club stores more comfortable; to the company's international growth.
"Nobody loved change more than Sam Walton," the founder's son and current chairman, Rob Walton, said in his remarks following the musical. But he also conceded that his father might have been surprised at the pace of change.
Lee Scott, Wal-Mart's chief executive, summed up the changes with the slogan "Wal-Mart Out in Front," a program that includes becoming a better place to work, broadening Wal-Mart's appeal to all customers, improving operations and efficiency, driving international business and making "unique contributions to the community."
"We are changing more rapidly and profoundly than we ever have," Scott said.
But one thing that hasn't changed much over the past several years is the company's stock price. Wal-Mart stock finished September of 1999 at $47.56, almost exactly where it was trading Friday afternoon.
"I'd like to see some income," one frustrated shareholder said during the question and answer session. "I can't wait forever. I'm 80 years old."
The Wal-Mart annual meeting is as much a pep rally for employees as a business meeting where board members are elected and shareholder proposals are heard. Aside from the musical, employees were also serenaded by Beyonce and recent American Idol winner Taylor Hicks.
But not all attendees were at the meeting to do the Wal-Mart cheer and be entertained by big production numbers.
Among the critics were shareholders bashing the company for what they called the out-sized disparity between the compensation of top executives and lower-level store employees, calling on the company to disclose its political contributions and advocating humane slaughter for chickens sold in the grocery aisles.
None of the shareholder proposals introduced at the meeting was approved.
(Additional reporting by Emily Kaiser)
http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.asp?feed=OBR&Date=20060602&ID=5767207
Having taken Europe, NYSE looks East
Tokyo, Hong Kong could be next for NYSE-Euronext
E-mail | Print | | Disable live quotes
By David Weidner, MarketWatch
Last Update: 5:12 PM ET Jun 2, 2006
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Having conquered Europe, don't expect NYSE Group Inc. Chief Executive John Thain to be satisfied with only two of the world's seven continents.
The NYSE on Friday announced a nearly $10 billion merger with Euronext (FR:005777: news, chart, profile) that would create the world's first cross-continent system of exchanges. Should it proceed -- the Deutsche Boerse looms as a spoiler to the agreement -- the deal would create a market behemoth with a value close to $20 billion. See full story.
Since he took the Big Board job in January 2004, Thain has appeared to be a man with a plan. He shook the foundations of the NYSE by introducing broad-based electronic trading, public ownership and a merger with one of the nation's pre-eminent electronic markets, Archipelago Holdings.
In striking the deal with Euronext, Thain said his first objectives were to diversify the NYSE's (NYX :
64.51, +2.06, +3.3% ) income stream and to expand geographically
Now, with a fresh agreement with Europe's biggest cash-equities market, talk is already turning to the NYSE's next move.
"The most logical place would be Asia," Thain said during a press conference announcing the Euronext deal. "But we have a lot on our plate. ... The question of Asia is certainly a legitimate one."
http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=%7B9B283FAF-E59F-43D9-96BB-86CC2F12BC63%7D&siteid=google
By Tamara Traubmann
Scientists said yesterday they had discovered a prehistoric ecosystem dating back millions of years containing previously unknown species of crustaceans and invertebrates similar to scorpions. The animals, found in a cave in the Nesher quarries near Ramle, which had been sealed off from the outside world.
"So far animal species were found in the cave, most of which we believe, are unknown to science," said Dr. Hanan Dimantman, a biologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in a press conference held yesterday at the university. The researchers said the discovery came about when a small opening was found, leading to a cave extending to a depth of 100 meters beneath the surface of the quarry.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/721997.html
Giant Crater Found: Tied to Worst Mass Extinction Ever
By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
posted: 01 June 2006
06:07 pm ET
An apparent crater as big as Ohio has been found in Antarctica. Scientists think it was carved by a space rock that caused the greatest mass extinction on Earth, 250 million years ago.
The crater, buried beneath a half-mile of ice and discovered by some serious airborne and satellite sleuthing, is more than twice as big as the one involved in the demise of the dinosaurs.
The crater's location, in the Wilkes Land region of East Antarctica, south of Australia, suggests it might have instigated the breakup of the so-called Gondwana supercontinent, which pushed Australia northward, the researchers said.
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060601_big_crater.html
Wal-Mart sings song of change at annual meeting
advertisement
RAll Reuters News
FAYETTEVILLE, Arkansas (Reuters) - "Wal-Mart: The Musical" opened way, way off-Broadway on Friday to a standing ovation.
Of course, the Fayetteville, Arkansas, audience was packed with thousands of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. employees and shareholders, as the company kicked off its annual meeting with an hour-long, mini-musical that emphasized changes at the world's largest retailer.
Wal-Mart has been touting improvements ranging from more fashionable clothing and organic products in its stores to attempts to be more environmentally friendly, including an overhaul of its fleet of trucks to avoid spewing diesel fumes while goods are being delivered. (New power units keep air conditioning on in the trucks while their engines are off.)
Wal-Mart has a legion of increasingly vocal critics who have hammered the company for what they consider poverty-level wages and stingy benefits for its employees.
At the same time, the company is pushing to overcome an image as a retailer whose customers shop in its stores for cheap prices on basics like laundry detergent and toilet paper, but then go off to competitors Target Corp. and Best Buy Co. Inc. for trendier fashions and electronics.
Target's sales growth has far outpaced Wal-Mart's in recent quarters, and the trend continued last month, when Wal-Mart posted a 2.3 percent increase in sales at its U.S. stores open at least a year, while Target's rose 5.7 percent.
Still, Wal-Mart's shares were up 3.4 percent this year through Thursday while Target's shares were down 10.4 percent amid concerns that Wal-Mart's push into higher-priced items could cut into Target's sales.
The retailer, which draws some 130 million U.S. shoppers a week, is trying to entice those shoppers to spend more at Wal-Mart, with items like baby clothes made of organic fabrics, plasma televisions and its Metro 7 clothing line.
SONG AND DANCE
The musical that opened the annual meeting -- held at the University of Arkansas's Bud Walton Arena -- included a number that encouraged customers to "Step Across the Aisle," in which one character sings: "They stop to buy a Milky Way, discover we have Chardonnay."
Interspersed with production numbers with performers dancing around with grocery carts and a Broadway-style ballad "The Day That I Met Sam" that harked back to Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, the company showed videotaped messages from executives.
Those executives pushed everything from fast-selling products, such as a $470 patio set; to overhauls of break rooms, to make employees of its Sam's Club stores more comfortable; to the company's international growth.
"Nobody loved change more than Sam Walton," the founder's son and current chairman, Rob Walton, said in his remarks following the musical. But he also conceded that his father might have been surprised at the pace of change.
Lee Scott, Wal-Mart's chief executive, summed up the changes with the slogan "Wal-Mart Out in Front," a program that includes becoming a better place to work, broadening Wal-Mart's appeal to all customers, improving operations and efficiency, driving international business and making "unique contributions to the community."
"We are changing more rapidly and profoundly than we ever have," Scott said.
But one thing that hasn't changed much over the past several years is the company's stock price. Wal-Mart stock finished September of 1999 at $47.56, almost exactly where it was trading Friday afternoon.
"I'd like to see some income," one frustrated shareholder said during the question and answer session. "I can't wait forever. I'm 80 years old."
The Wal-Mart annual meeting is as much a pep rally for employees as a business meeting where board members are elected and shareholder proposals are heard. Aside from the musical, employees were also serenaded by Beyonce and recent American Idol winner Taylor Hicks.
But not all attendees were at the meeting to do the Wal-Mart cheer and be entertained by big production numbers.
Among the critics were shareholders bashing the company for what they called the out-sized disparity between the compensation of top executives and lower-level store employees, calling on the company to disclose its political contributions and advocating humane slaughter for chickens sold in the grocery aisles.
None of the shareholder proposals introduced at the meeting was approved.
(Additional reporting by Emily Kaiser)
http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.asp?feed=OBR&Date=20060602&ID=5767207
Having taken Europe, NYSE looks East
Tokyo, Hong Kong could be next for NYSE-Euronext
E-mail | Print | | Disable live quotes
By David Weidner, MarketWatch
Last Update: 5:12 PM ET Jun 2, 2006
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Having conquered Europe, don't expect NYSE Group Inc. Chief Executive John Thain to be satisfied with only two of the world's seven continents.
The NYSE on Friday announced a nearly $10 billion merger with Euronext (FR:005777: news, chart, profile) that would create the world's first cross-continent system of exchanges. Should it proceed -- the Deutsche Boerse looms as a spoiler to the agreement -- the deal would create a market behemoth with a value close to $20 billion. See full story.
Since he took the Big Board job in January 2004, Thain has appeared to be a man with a plan. He shook the foundations of the NYSE by introducing broad-based electronic trading, public ownership and a merger with one of the nation's pre-eminent electronic markets, Archipelago Holdings.
In striking the deal with Euronext, Thain said his first objectives were to diversify the NYSE's (NYX :
64.51, +2.06, +3.3% ) income stream and to expand geographically
Now, with a fresh agreement with Europe's biggest cash-equities market, talk is already turning to the NYSE's next move.
"The most logical place would be Asia," Thain said during a press conference announcing the Euronext deal. "But we have a lot on our plate. ... The question of Asia is certainly a legitimate one."
http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid=%7B9B283FAF-E59F-43D9-96BB-86CC2F12BC63%7D&siteid=google
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