THE BIG RETORT

Recently a homeless man who wandered the streets of Utah pushing a shopping trolley was tracked down by a private detective. He had some money coming to him from an inheritance and didn’t know it. It was hoped the windfall would turn his life around. However good fortune did not always shine on Max Melitzer. TheBigRetort exclusive… it began with a rollover. Penniless Max Melitzer may have inherited a fortune that many hope will allow him to turn his life around, however his has not always been a rags-to-riches fairy story: but a tragedy. July 1990... It was a Tuesday afternoon... A highway in Wyoming five miles east of Rock Springs. The driver drifted off the road and overcorrected the vehicle, according to the Wyoming Highway Patrol. Unfortunately all four passengers were not wearing seat belts and were ejected from the car as it did a rollover. Cindy Lee Jones, 36, died on the way to the hospital, and Glen Chrietzderg, 36, also of Ogden, died later at the University of...

 The 2012 Olympic torch has been unveiled by that creative London design team Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby. But was the inspiration for the 'flame' really an upside-down building? TheBigRetort remarkable expose... It may come as a shock to the eventual Olympic torchbearer, but as he or she pounds through the streets of London, a rather tall building may cast a shadow over the 2012 event… the Shard . Shock! Horror! Oh no! What can they mean? We mean that the flame of the original idea may have kindled out of the minds of Barber and Osgerby as they stared out of their back window - and upside down - in Brockley. Libellous speculation we grant, but we are neighbours and have also hung out of our back window - and seen it upside down. (Admittedly though this was after a heavy party.) Whatever... we feel certain that this dynamic and innovative duo is going to light up the whole of London - from 2012, and beyond.

Pakistani leaders have protested that the country's sovereignty has been violated by the US following a series of drone strikes that have left 17 militants killed in the country's northwest tribal region. All of Monday's strikes were in South Waziristan, near the Afghan border. The attacks display to militants and the Pakistani government that President Barak Obama will not hold back when it comes to tracking down the enemy in a capture or kill policy that is more about the killing. 'Wanted dead, that's the policy at the Whitehouse now,' a Washington insider informed TheBigRetort.

The former head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Khan, is due to appear in a New York court for his arraignment, and has insisted he is innocent of the charges Defence team member claims evidence undermines procecution. William W Taylor, on behalf of Mr Straus-Kahn, has written that there is evidence to "gravely undermine the credibility of the complainant in this case". Mr Strauss-Kahn faces charges of sexual assault and attempting to rape a hotel maid last month. It will be his first appearance in court since he was released on bail set at $6m (£3.65m).

An international team at the CERN institute in Switzerland has managed to create 300 atoms of "anti-hydrogen" and stop them from collapsing into oblivion for a grand total of almost 17 minutes. Five thousand times longer than they had previously achieved. The research, published in the journal Nature Physics, represents a landmark in one of the most potentially profound areas of science. However, it also awakens  the spectre of an antimatter weapon so destructive that it may herald the end of every living creature on the planet. Be that as it may… TheBigRetort Is an antimatter weapon a giant leap closer for humanity? Antimatter was created in the laboratory for the first time last November. Long the preserve of science fiction writers, in Dan Brown’s bestseller Angels & Demons a tiny device with the destructive power of a nuclear warhead hinges on a plot to blow up the Vatican, it has often been dismissed as alarmist by the scientific community.  That was until ...

German diners may be both relieved and concerned that the recent E.coli outbreak may have been narrowed down to a single suspect - sprouts.  TheBigRetort asks, were the warning bells ringing a decade prior to the recent outbreak? If German sprouts do turn out to be the culprit responsible for 22 deaths (and climbing) German health watchdogs, may find it prudent to further examine a scientific paper that presaged such an event - over a decade ago. The paper, which was published in January 1998 and was researched by a number of Japanese scientists, the National Institute of Infectious Diseases amongst them. The group, using cultivation, immunofluorescence microscopy, and scanning electron microscopy, demonstrated the presence of viable enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli O157:H7 not only on the outer surfaces but also in the inner tissues and stomata of cotyledons of radish sprouts grown from seeds experimentally and contaminated with the bacterium. HgCl2 treatment of the outer ...

Have we been subjected to the S-factor? With reports in the Daily Mail that Cheryl Cole has been invited back on board X-Factor USA one wonders if the whole thingy was a complete set-up - masterminded by non other than that Svengali of the Tabs Lord Cowall of Hollywood. One can but wonder how the sheeple out there fall for Simon Cowell's shenanigins. But my how that angst-ridden look that Cheryl Cole seems to have perfected this week really hacks us off. Is this the same woman who subjected wannabe hopefuls in Britain to her ‘professional’ judgement on that dreadful show that deserves no further mention?  We mean... the X Factor. (Break that one down like this, X-F-Actor, and add the seven missing  letters accordingly to the "F".) There is nothing worse than a young woman, now a multimillionaire, beautiful yes, and spoon-fed success too, collapsing at the first signs of personal failure. Don’t have her back Simon! TheBigRetort : Failure is good. Success sucks....