Carbon mesh pins down universal constant

SYDNEY: The world’s thinnest material can shed light on the exact measurement of one of the universe’s fundamental physical constants, a new study reveals.

Researchers led by physicist Andre Geim from the University of Manchester in the U.K., used graphene – a sheet of carbon just one atom thick – to gauge the exact measurement of the fine structure constant, a fundamental physical constant defining the interaction between fast moving electric charges and light.

Their results were published online in the current edition of the journal Science Express, ahead of publication in the U.S. journal Science.

The fine structure constant was first introduced by physicists in attempts to understand atomic structure and has long mystified scientists because there seemed to be no natural mathematical relationship that described the constant, like a circle’s circumference divided by its diameter describes the universal constant pi.

Foundations of life

In this new study, the U.K. and Portuguese researchers shone light through sheets of graphene and found that it absorbs a surprising amount of light considering its extreme thinness. The material’s opacity is due to its molecular structure: a mesh of carbon atoms and bonds that looks something like chicken wire (when rolled up, graphene forms carbon nanotubes and when piled in layers it forms graphite).

They found that the exact value of light absorbed by graphene – 2.3 per cent of visible light – divided by pi gives the value of the fine structure constant (approximately 1/137). As the researchers point out, few other universal constants can be described so simply.

“We were absolutely flabbergasted when we realised that such a fundamental effect could be measured in such a simple way. One can have a glimpse of the very foundations of our universe just looking through graphene,” said Geim, who was part of the team that discovered graphene in 2004.

“Change this fine-tuned number by only a few per cent and life would not be here because nuclear reactions in which carbon is generated from lighter elements in burning stars would be forbidden. No carbon means no life,” he added.

Acting like light

Theoretical physicist Ross McKenzie from the School of Physical Sciences and the Centre for Organic Photonics and Electronics (COPE) at the University of Queensland, Australia, describes the research as “very beautiful”.

“It’s rare in condensed matter physics to get something so clean and elegant, particularly in the way the theory agrees with the experiment,” he said.

Graphene can be used to calculate the fine structure constant because its crystal structure is unique among solids, according to McKenzie. As electron waves travel through the crystal, the symmetry of the carbon atoms forces the relationship between the electron wavelength and energy to be the same as the relationship for photons in light. As a result, the electrons effectively act as photons, but move at a much slower velocity. This property in turn leads to other unique properties that rely on the fine structure constant.

Chemical physicist Paul Meredith, also from COPE, said the research represents a “great leap forward” in terms of manipulating graphene. “The first step towards making a device, especially a nanoscopic device, is the ability to manipulate this material and they’ve cracked it,” he said.

Graphene has very high conductivity so could be used in a variety of structured electronic materials, Meredith said. Possible uses include flexible transparent electronics or transparent electrodes for solar cells, as well as innovative uses in medicine.

Ion engine enters space race

The test chamber is one of the biggest in Europe

Engineer Neil Wallace peers into a huge vacuum chamber designed to replicate – as far as possible – the conditions of space.

Cryogenic pumps can be heard in the background, whistling away like tiny steam engines.

Using helium gas as a coolant, they can bring down the temperature in the vacuum chamber to an incredibly chilly 20 Kelvin (-253C). The pressure, meanwhile, can drop to a millionth of an atmosphere.

This laboratory in a leafy part of Hampshire is where defence and security firm Qinetiq develops and tests its ion engines – a technology that will take spacecraft to the planets, powered by the Sun.

Ion engines are an “electric propulsion system”. They make use of the fact that a current flowing across a magnetic field creates an electric field directed sideways to the current.

This is used to accelerate a beam of ions (charged atoms) of xenon away from the spacecraft, thereby providing thrust.

Neil Wallace, technical lead of the electrical propulsion team at Qinetiq, winds open the door of the testing chamber.

The most exciting time for us will be when that space craft comes over the horizon Neil Wallace, Qinetiq

He points to some large metal blocks at the bottom of the chamber.

“These are the xenon pumps and these are cooled down by the helium compressors to approximately 20 degrees Kelvin,” he explains.

“So any gas atoms that strike those panels, they freeze. After you’ve been running the engines for a number of hours you can see a frost – it looks like snow – which is actually frozen air and xenon.”

During testing, the engine fires ions towards the opposite end of the chamber, which has a protective coating of graphite.

“The ions are travelling very fast, at approximately 50km a second,” he says.

“When they strike the other end of the chamber, they actually knock atoms off the surfaces they strike; it’s analogous to sand-blasting on an atomic level.”

Cruise control

The ion engine developed by Qinetiq, the T5, will be flown for the first time on the European Space Agency’s Goce spacecraft. The mission will fly just 200-300km above the Earth, mapping the tiny variations in its gravity field.

GOCE – EUROPE’S GRAVITY EXPLORER 1. The 1,100kg Goce is built from rigid materials and carries fixed solar wings. The gravity data must be clear of spacecraft ‘noise’ 2. Solar cells produce 1,300W and cover the Sun-facing side of Goce; the near side (as shown) radiates heat to keep it cool 3. The 5m-by-1m frame incorporates fins to stabilise the spacecraft as it flies through the residual air in the thermosphere 4. Goce’s accelerometers measure accelerations that are as small as 1 part in 10,000,000,000,000 of the gravity experienced on Earth 5. The UK-built engine ejects xenon ions at velocities exceeding 40,000m/s; Goce’s mission will end when the 40kg fuel tank empties 6. S Band antenna: Data downloads to the Kiruna (Sweden) ground station. Processing, archiving is done at Esa’s centre in Frascati, Italy 7. GPS antennas: Precise positioning of Goce is required, but GPS data in itself can also provide some gravity field information ‘Space arrow’ to map Earth’s tug

A replica of the T5 engine sits in the test facility at Qinetiq. It is tiny – weighing 3kg, and looks rather like the oil filter of a car.

Yet despite this humble appearance, it took 20 to 30 years to develop, at a cost of tens of millions of pounds.

In space, ion engines will draw electric power from solar panels, generating a thrust equivalent to the weight of a postcard.

This incredibly gentle thrust could, in theory, take a spacecraft beyond our Solar System, if sustained for long enough.

Goce is staying very close to Earth, flying in an ultra-low orbit, where it will encounter wisps of air.

The benefit of an ion engine on this mission is to provide drag compensation, or cruise control.

“This spacecraft is [travelling] at a speed of about eight and a half kilometres per second,” says Neil Wallace.

“As it travels around the Earth, it’s going through the upper atmosphere and it experiences a buffeting.

“They need to compensate that buffeting very accurately and that’s what we’re doing, so we’re actually providing cruise control for that spacecraft.”

Real flight

Various types of ion engine have been used before on only a handful of space missions, including Smart-1, the European mission to the Moon, and Nasa’s Deep Space 1, which flew by a comet.

The T5 ion engine being tested

Future Esa missions such as BepiColombo, bound for the innermost planet, Mercury, will also use the technology.

Qinetiq gets to test its T5 engine for real this summer, when Goce is launched from the Russian space port of Plesetsk. It will go up on the same type of rocket that failed three years ago, destroying Europe’s Cryosat ice mission.

Neil Wallace says the nature of the space business makes watching any launch a dramatic event.

“You spend 10 years working on a mission, treating the components and equipment like a newborn baby. You never take it out of the clean room, and then you put in on the top of 100 tonnes of high explosive and set light to it,” he says, laughing nervously.

“But no, the most exciting time for us will be when that spacecraft comes over the horizon and the ground station picks it up, and you can see the engines are doing what we’ve always said they will do.”

The delicate line between genius and madness

WHERE do you draw the fine line between brilliance and madness? That is the question raised by hotshot television producer Adam Boland, who has spoken for the first time about his diagnosis with bipolar disorder.

Bipolar disorder is the mental illness characterised by huge swings in mood and energy levels.

“When you’re on a high, you feel you can do anything,” says Boland, 32, director of morning television at the Seven Network. “Things that would normally take a week get done in an hour. There’s no stopping you. It’s an exciting state to be in.”

Boland has been a key player in propelling Seven to number one in the ratings and is widely regarded as Australia’s most talented young TV executive. In an interview to be published in Good Weekend tomorrow, he talks not only about the disorder, formerly known as manic depression, but his decision to stop taking mood-stabilising drugs.

“The question of medication is a really tricky one,” he said yesterday. “It makes you normal, and while that shouldn’t be seen as a bad thing, I have an issue with just being normal.”

Essentially, Boland believes the drugs blunt his creative edge.

He now has counselling instead of taking tablets and accepts that, along with the highs, he is subject to bouts of debilitating depression. “You have to trade off the downside because the upside is so good.”

Boland’s illness was diagnosed by Professor Gordon Parker, executive director of the Black Dog Institute, who estimates that about 600,000 Australians have bipolar disorder. According to Professor Parker, it is more common in high achievers than in the rest of the population.

This week, both NSW Treasurer Michael Costa and rugby league star Tim Smith revealed that they have the disorder.

For most people diagnosed with the condition, medication is the best option, Professor Parker says. “There will be a drug or drugs that will work for you. It’s a suck-it-and-see process.”

Lawyer jailed for masturbation act

A flick of the wrist has landed a lawyer in jail for contempt of court.

A judge sentenced defence attorney Adam Reposa to 90 days in jail for making a lewd gesture and simulating masturbation while standing before a County Court-at-Law judge in March.

At a contempt hearing Monday, Judge Jan Breland said Reposa, 33, rolled his eyes and looked at her while motioning with his right hand.

Reposa said the gesture came from near his hip and was aimed at a prosecutor while discussing plea negotiations in a drunken driving case.

Reposa’s attorney asked for a sentence of one day in jail.

Visiting State Judge Paul Davis, however, said it was his “honor to uphold the integrity of the judicial process” and sentenced Reposa to 90 days. The attorney was led from the courtroom in handcuffs.

Davis said he teaches a course on courtroom decorum to new judges and said such cases are very rare.

He also noted that Reposa had fluctuated between apologising for offending Breland and justifying his behavior as a zealous attorney defending a client.

In a closing argument, First Assistant County Attorney Randy Leavitt said Reposa’s gesture was just the latest in a string of offensive behaviour, which included calling prosecutors vulgar names in court.

So, Mr Putin, what do you see in this nubile 24-year-old rhythmic gymnast?

This is the kind of question Mrs Merton might ask:

 

‘So, Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, what do you see in a 24-year-old, sensationally beautiful gymnast with a penchant for posing semi-naked that you don’t see in your lovely, middle-aged, matronly wife Ludmilla.

 

 

It is also the kind of question that hardly needs answering for the millions who have tuned in to the YouTube film of Alina Kabaeva performing a decidedly provocative gymnastic routine.

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Just good friends? Russian president Vladimir Putin hands Alina Kabaeva the Order of Frienship at an awards ceremony in the Kremlin in 2001

 

This sudden, frenzied interest in a woman who, until yesterday, was frankly a rather obscure Russian athlete, comes after a Moscow newspaper reported that Mr Putin recently split with Ludmilla and is preparing to marry the young and very pretty Miss Kabaeva.

Flower power: A Russian website alleged that Alina – seen here in one of her more provocative poses – was seen kissing Putin in a Moscow restaurant

The speculation may go some way to explaining why Mr Putin suddenly posed topless for the cameras on a Siberian fishing holiday last summer.

 

While his muscled and hairless torso were a particular hit among female and gay voters, perhaps he was simply trying to impress his new mistress.

 

There is added piquancy in the fact that, despite her youth, Miss Kabaeva has recently been made an MP.

The gymnast is one of a number of young and beautiful Russian dancers and athletes who, under Mr Putin’s patronage, have lately become deputies in the Duma – Russia’s lower parliament.

Known as Putinskie Krasotki - ‘Putin’s Babes’ – they were brought in with the cynical but successful aim of ’sexing up’ his United Russia party.

The bloc took more than 60 per cent of the vote in the December elections.

One Russian spin-doctor boasted at the time of their arrival in the Duma: ‘We are now definitely ahead of all parties in terms of ladies with sex appeal among our MPs.

‘These young women are full of energy and eagerness to become serious law-makers.’

 

That remains to be seen. After all, it would be like Gordon Brown packing the backbenches at Westminster with a confection of the pop group Girls Aloud, the triumphant British women’s cycling team and topless dancers from London nightclub Stringfellows.

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Natural beauty: Born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in 1983, Alina moved into modelling after gymnastics. She also appeared in an action movie

Racy edge: Alina’s raunchies shoot saw her pose naked with only fox furs to protect her modesty

Flexible friend: Alina competed in the new sport of rhythmic gymnastics for Russia at the Sydney and Athens Olympics

 

To be fair to Miss Kabaeva – already promoted to deputy head of the Duma’s committee on youth affairs – she is more demure than her fellow Babes, one of whom has posed naked for Playboy.

 

 

All over? Putin and his 50-year-old wife Ludmilla are rarely pictured together

 

Yes, Miss Kabaeva has taken off her clothes for a magazine, but poses tastefully wrapped in a fur rug. Her modesty is protected by lingerie in other shots. All the same, Ruth Kelly she ain’t.

 

But how did Mr Putin actually get to know Miss Kabaeva?

One of Russia’s most popular beauties, she is the reigning Olympic rhythmic gymnastic champion and global darling of the sport.

She is said to be blessed with ‘extreme flexibility’ and practically unbeatable when performing ‘on the carpet’ – to use a gymnastic term.

‘I could not believe my eyes, when I first saw her,’ recalls her coach Irina Vine.

‘The girl has the rare combination of two qualities crucial in rhythmic gymnastics – flexibility and agility.’

The sport is a combination of ballet, dance and gymnastics in which competitors manipulate ropes, balls, clubs, hoops and ribbons.

And Alina was very good. Aged only 15, she won the gold medal in the 1998 European Championships. The following year she secured the world title and was favourite to repeat the success at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

Disaster struck, however, when she dropped her hoop and it rolled off the carpet. She went home with only a bronze and all of Russia wept with her. It is said that this was when she first came to Putin’s attention and made his acquaintance.

 

There was more embarrassment at the Goodwill Games in Brisbane the following year when, having won five medals, she tested positive for a banned diuretic.

 

Tough guy: President Putin happily poses for pictures during a fishing trip to Siberia last year. He is more reluctant to be pictured with wife Ludmilla

She was stripped of her titles, though her coach said that it had been an honest mistake, caused by using an Australian food supplement.

 

Joy was unconfined when Alina won the All-Around rhythmic gold medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics. The sport had a new superstar and pin-up girl.

But a knee injury was dogging her career and, after one retirement and a comeback, she announced in February that her time on the carpet was at an end…time to concentrate on politics and support for her President.

What then of the first First Lady? 50-year-old Ludmilla Putin’s talents lie in linguistics. She has a degree in Spanish, can speak French and has taught German at Leningrad State University in Putin’s home city of St Petersburg.

She married him there in July 1983. At the time of the wedding, Miss Kabaeva, was only two months old.

 

Ludmilla followed her husband on his KGB postings and lived in East Germany for four years, where one of their two daughters, Maria and Katja now aged 23 and 21, were born.

 

Many talents: Alina Kabaeva worked as a model and a waitress before becoming a MP

But rumours about the state of the Putin marriage have been rife for some time in Moscow media circles.

The story that she and the President have already, in fact, divorced appeared in the Moscow tabloid Moscovski Korrespondent.

The newspaper claimed that the secret divorce came through in February and that Mr Putin will marry the gymnast-turned-MP in St Petersburg on June 15.

The article cited a source close to an event planning company saying the firm was competing for the right to host the wedding at an imperial palace on this date.

By that time, Mr Putin will have stepped down from the Presidency and have been replaced by his hand-picked successor Dmitry Medvedev.

Mr Putin will become Prime Minister and chairman of the ruling party, United Russia.

No one in Russia or elsewhere believes that by leaving the office of President he will have relinquished any of his real power.

As the story of his divorce circulated around Moscow, it was claimed that Putin had been seen having an intimate dinner with Kabaeva in a city centre restaurant earlier this year.

Last night, her father muddied the waters when he said he hadn’t heard if his daughter was marrying or not.

But he added: ‘If she marries such a man it will be great. He’s quite similar to me.’

Neither the Kremlin nor a spokesman for Miss Kabaeva were prepared to comment. Some even suggest the story has been deliberately leaked by the Kremlin to allow them to impose further restrictions on Russia’s mass media.

Ironically, Mr Putin was last night staying at the Sardinian villa of newly re-elected Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi – another diminutive leader with an eye for the ladies.

The 5 Historical Figures Who Died The Weirdest Deaths

A small handful of great individuals are not content to get their names in the footnotes of history and then quietly expire. No, these brave few achieve greatness and then top it off by kicking the bucket in a way so ridiculously implausible that people would have talked about them for years even if they hadn’t done anything else.

These are five historical figures who died deaths that would make sure their names were written just a little bit bigger in the history books.

President Félix Faure: Sexed to Death

Think of him as the William Howard Taft of French presidents, both in his relative innocuousness and in terms of facial hair. He was nominated to run for president because his party wanted someone as plain vanilla as possible in order to avoid controversy. Faure seemed to fit the bill perfectly.

Until the day he died, that is.

Cause of death:
Bow-chicka-bow-wow.

On February 16, 1899, French president Félix Faure decided to make a booty call in his own office. Now who would have the privilege of receiving such a dubious invitation? None other than Marguerite Steinheil, a total babe who was not unlike the neighborhood bicycle, if you get our drift. Right about when they were reaching the petit mort (French for orgasm) Faure had himself a grand mort (French for having a fatal stroke right in the middle of orgasm).

We’ve been making arrangements to see that we meet our makers in more or less the exact same way.

Marguerite then went on to sleep with a number of other famous dudes including King Sisowath of Cambodia. Now we aint’ sayin’ she’s a gold digger, but she really decided not mess around with the lower income bracket.

Still, congrats to Faure. Not only did he die happy, but he also died the way he lived: serving as a symbol to the world for the people of France, where infidelity in the workplace is what hockey is to Canada. And who wouldn’t want to help him shuffle off his pants/mortal coil? Guy had the bitchingest mustache in all of Western Europe.

Chrysippus: Death By Performing Donkey

Chrysippus is one of the greats when it comes to philosophy. He helped create propositional logic and helped lead a group of philosophical badasses called the Stoics. But, like the greatest philosopher of the modern age (Andrew WK), when it was time to party, he would always party hard.

Cause of death:
Legend has it, the man was partying with his donkey, who will go unnamed, and the donkey had a little too much to drink. No, we’re not making this up.

The rumor further has it that the inebriated donkey then tried to eat some figs. Now, a donkey eating figs is apparently the most ridiculous thing possible, since Chrysippus started laughing so hard he keeled over and died. We’re trying to picture it, but we’re almost afraid to. Even if his donkey got up on its hind legs, batted the fig across the room with its dong, and then caught the rebounding fruit in its mouth, it wouldn’t make him laugh that hard, would it?

Unless of course he was stoned out of his mind.

The whole incident was a huge blow to the field of Greek philosophy–not only because the Stoics lost one of their greatest advocates, but because most philosopher parties after the death of Chrysippus were totally lame.

Aeschylus: Killed By Wildlife Conspiracy

Aeschylus is widely regarded to be the founder of Greek tragedy, so he’s probably the guy you should blame for depressing the hell out of you during freshman English. Modern scholars have determined that Aeschylus is also the only man in history to have a name that is literally impossible to pronounce.

Cause of death:
Bludgeoning. With a turtle.

You see, eagles in the area surrounding Sicily loved turtles just as much as Kel from Kenan and Kel loved orange soda. There’s just one problem with eating them–getting past that hard shell to the gooey center. So what do they do? They lift turtles up to great heights, and then drop them on rocks to crack them open.

Who loves turtles? Sicilian eagles love turtles.

The popular theory is that Aeschylus was just milling about out in the sun one day when an eagle mistook the top of his bald head for a rock and unleashed a world of tortoise-related hurt on the poet out of a perfectly innocent desire for a mid-afternoon snack.

That’s the popular theory. One undoubtedly promulgated by fear-mongering toupee and Rogaine merchants hoping to make a fast buck off of bald men’s crippling terror of death from above. It’s worth noting that the turtle supposedly survived. How convenient for the turtle.

And while far be it from us to accuse the eagle and the turtle of plotting the murder of one of history’s greatest tragedians, it is also worth noting that neither of them were brought in for questioning.

Arius: Farted His Bowels

Arius was one of the most prominent heretics of early Christianity. Most modern historians will tell you that all of humanity was pretty much batshit insane right up to some point in the early 20th century, so you can imagine how bad it must have been back then. That’s why Arius was labeled a “heretic” for humbly suggesting that there might have been a time when Christ hadn’t existed.

Like, say, before he was born. HERESY!

Cause of death:
How can we put this delicately? He shat out his internal organs.

According to one of his political opponents: “A faintness came over him, and together with the evacuations his bowels protruded, followed by a copious hemorrhage, and the descent of the smaller intestines: moreover portions of his spleen and liver were brought off in the effusion of blood, so that he almost immediately died.”

Pic unrelated

If your sphincter clenched airtight at that description, you’re not the only one. But fear not–some have speculated that Arius didn’t die of natural causes, and was in fact poisoned. If that’s true, then the assassin in question must be one of the biggest assholes in the history of murder. Political assassination is one thing, making your political enemy evacuate his own intestines is another.

But this is all pure speculation. Without any real evidence of foul play, we’re going to have to chalk this up to natural causes. Excruciating, stomach-churning natural causes. Stay, regular, kids!

Herod the Great: Gangrene of the …

Herod the Great was a king of Judaea, most well known for his hand in the construction of the Second Temple and for something called “Massacre of the Innocents,” which as it turns out wasn’t the name of his awesome garage band.

Cause of death:
Pissing off God.

According to modern scientists, Herod suffered from not only a severe kidney disease, but something called Fournier gangrene.

From the above-linked article:

“The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus recorded details of his death, telling of symptoms that included intense itching, intestinal pain, shortness of breath, convulsions, and gangrene of the genitalia.”

Gangrene. Of. The. GENITALIA.

In layman’s terms? Dickrot.

OK, can we just stop the article right now? We totally do not want to think about that. We’re just thankful this is a work-friendly site, so they wouldn’t be tempted to tack on a picture of this affliction.

What could possibly cause symptoms so unimaginably painful and (literally) emasculating? Modern science doesn’t have the answer, but the Bible sure does! After all, Herod was responsible for the Massacre of the Innocents.

According to Christian tradition, when he found out that the son of God had just been born and that he was no longer King of the Jews, Herod decided that a reasonable, measured response was to kill as many babies as he possibly could and just hope that one of them was Jesus. There were only three problems with this brilliant plan: 1) There are a lot of babies in the world, and it would be very difficult to kill all of them, 2) The wholesale murdering of hundreds of babies is the kind of thing that God tends to frown upon, and 3) Jesus is Jesus and therefore very difficult to kill, even in baby form.

Needless to say, not only did the plan fail, but it irritated God enough that he responded by murdering Herod’s kidneys and junk.

Obviously, the whole “God did it” theory hasn’t been proven, so we’ll let you draw your own conclusions. But which would you rather believe: That God was responsible, or that this shit could pretty much happen to anyone?

Spanish Mothers in Debt After Trying a Nude Fund-raising Calendar For School

Seven middle-aged Spanish mothers who posed for a tongue-in-cheek nude calendar – a fundraiser for their children’s tiny, rural school – are now saddled with debt and 5,000 unwanted copies.

One of the photos shows the mothers with Christmas tinsel as their only garb – no private parts on view. Other goofy poses include a shotgun-toting mother wearing only a fox pelt and kneeling on a table, and another shows a woman covering her body with a red umbrella on a picnic table.

A group of British women made more than a million pounds and worldwide headlines when they came up with the idea of a discreet nude calendar for 2000 to raise money for leukemia research. Their story was made into a hit movie, “Calendar Girls.”

In Spain, the photos came out as calendars in November and at first proved to be a big hit. But the plan fizzled.

The women acknowledge being rank amateurs in publishing and advertising, and because of a miscue with a distributor they missed out on the Christmas shopping rush. Now, sales of the $8 calendar have dried up and they owe a printer nearly $16,000.

“The sad part for us is figuring out what to do with them because it is not something you can recycle,” said Rosa Garin, 36, one of the models in Serradilla del Arroyo, a village of 400 people in northern Salamanca province.

The hamlet is a snapshot of rural Spain: quaint but graying, with retirees accounting for 75 percent of the population. The arrival of a new family with small children is greeted like manna from heaven. Funding for services is scant.

Its elementary school has one classroom and one teacher who handles its seven pupils, spanning four grades, and ranging in age from 7 to 11. But it is so cramped, the village matrons came up with the idea of building a recreation center for their kids.

“Nobody remembers the villages. Everybody comes and says, ‘Wow, this is so pretty, what lovely countryside, you live so well here,’ but then they don’t help you at all. They give you absolutely nothing,” Itziar Zamarreno, a 40-year-old town councilor who posed for the calendar, said in an interview Tuesday.

Among other pictures, she appears as Miss October, covered only with fox fur and holding a borrowed shotgun. This reflects a desire to depict typical scenes in an area where hunting is popular.

“I do not like to hunt. I do not like to kill things. But we had to do something representative,” she said.

The plight of the mothers of Serradilla del Arroyo resurfaced recently because the distributor filed a complaint alleging they were behind on payments and local media picked up the story.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.