The Sunday night fire that hit a shopping mall in the shopping district of Baclaran is still burning. Firefighters found it difficult to battle the two-day fire due to the absence of windows and doors, textiles stored in the mall and lack of water and equipment.

Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have been able to hide three-dimensional objects by using artificially engineered materials that redirected lights around the object. The discovery is one step closer to hiding people and objects from visible light. The researchers, led by Xiang Zhang, used metamaterials that deflected light, radar or other waves around an object such as water flowing around a smooth stone in a river.

Preliminary studies of the latest outbreak that killed at least 38 Warao Indians in northeastern Venezuela indicate that it may be a type of infectious rabies transmitted by bites from bats, according to indigenous leaders and researchers from the University of California at Berkeley. Though laboratory investigations have yet to confirm the cause, but the symptoms include fever, body pains, tingling in the feet followed by progressive paralysis point to rabies, said the husband-and-wife team of anthropologist Charles Briggs and public health specialist Dr. Clara Mantini-Briggs. The victims also had an extreme fear of water coupled with convulsions before death.

A controversial new "thrill ride," has been added to New York's Coney Island, only it's not actually a ride, and most would agree, there is no "thrill" in waterboarding. The store front attraction uses robots that look human to depict the act of waterboarding, a method of torture that gives the victim a feeling of drowning. A life size figure in a dark sweat suit and holding a bucket of water stands over a figure in an orange jump suit who is tied to a tilted board. Putting a dollar into a machine causes the robotic man in the sweat suit to dump water onto the face of the bound figure, whose face is covered by a towel. For 15 seconds, voyeurs watch the robot in the orange jumpsuit convulse.

Forensic examination of the bones contained in an athletic shoe found Friday on a beach near here indicate it is from a human foot. Police in Clallam County announced the finding by the King County Medical Examiner on Monday. However, forensic experts are not sure if the foot belongs to a man or a woman.