A Japanese man, who was mystified when food kept disappearing from his kitchen, set up a hidden camera and found an unknown woman living secretly in his closet.

The 57-year-old unemployed man of Fukuoka in southern Japan called police on Wednesday when the camera sent pictures to his mobile phone of an intruder in his home while he was out.

Officers rushed to the house and found a 58-year-old unemployed woman hiding in an unused closet, where she had secreted a mattress and plastic drink bottles. Police suspect she may have been there for several months.

"I didn't have anywhere to live," the woman was quoted as telling police.

Local police confirmed that they had arrested a woman for trespassing, but would not comment further on the case.

Computer to 'read' mind images

A computer has been trained to "read" people's minds by looking at scans of their brains as they thought about specific words, researchers said on Thursday.

They hope their study might lead to better understanding of how and where the brain stores information. This might lead to better treatments for language disorders and learning disabilities, said Tom Mitchell at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, who helped lead the study.

Dr Mitchell's team used a type of brain scan that can see real-time brain activity. They calibrated the computer by having volunteers think of 58 different words, while imaging their brain activity. Then they imaged each of the volunteers thinking about the 58 different words, to create a kind of "average" image of a word.

"If I show you the brain images for two words, the main thing you notice is that they look pretty much alike," Dr Mitchell said, adding that the next step is to study brain activity for phrases which may involve very different ideas.

Hello, it's... Gordon Brown

Gordon Brown has taken to "cold calling" members of the public in the latest charm offensive aimed at restoring his battered popularity.

Mr Brown, reeling from a string of poor election results, has been randomly phoning critics who have written him letters of complaint to make the point that he really does listen.

While Downing Street officials insisted it was not a new initiative, media reports yesterday said the idea had come from his newly appointed strategy chief Stephen Carter. Mr Carter, a former public relations chief, wanted to "humanise" his new boss, PR Week reported.

"Carter thought it was a good idea to have Brown call people personally," an insider told the industry magazine. "Carter will choose a letter or e-mail at random, have one of his team at Number 10 prepare a response, then get Brown to call."

Businessman to shower money

An Indonesian businessman will throw 100 million rupiah (€6,900) from an airplane tomorrow as part of a marketing ploy for his second book.

Tung Desem Waringin, author and motivational speaker whose first book was a bestseller, is known for his unorthodox marketing methods.

A spokesman for the organisers, Diki Sidik, said Jakarta police had refused to issue a permit for the event but Mr Tung would go ahead with the plan outside the capital.

"Rather than spend a lot of money for unsuccessful marketing, better give the money to the people," Mr Sidik said.

Millions of Indonesians live on less than $2 a day.

Gay couples to wed in Greece

Couples who have found a legal loophole to hold the first gay weddings in Greece are determined to go ahead with the services despite threats from prosecutors and the wrath of the powerful Orthodox Church.

Taking advantage of Greek civil law not clarifying the gender of people wishing to marry, a gay and a lesbian couple are planning to marry on the tiny Aegean island of Tilos.

Neither gay marriage nor "registered partnership" rights to same-sex couples are allowed in Greece and a senior Greek prosecutor said yesterday the mayor of Tilos would face criminal charges if he proceeded with the weddings.

But the Greek Gay and Lesbian Community (OLKE) said the weddings would go ahead as planned although they would not reveal details for fear they may be disrupted.

The Orthodox church which remains influential strongly opposes marriage between homosexuals.

"We view this phenomenon of homosexuality as an illness of the body," Metropolitan Bishop Chrisostomos told national NET TV. "The church cannot accept the union of homosexuals."

First vertebrate sex

Australian scientists unveiled yesterday the fossilised remains of the oldest vertebrate mother ever discovered, a 375-million-year-old placoderm fish with embryo and umbilical cord attached.

The fossil, found in northwest Australia, is proof that an ancient extinct species had advanced reproductive biology.

"It dawned on me after studying the specimen that this was the earliest evidence of vertebrates having sex by copulation, not just spawning in water," said John Long, head of sciences at the Museum of Victoria in Melbourne.

The placoderms, often called "the dinosaurs of the seas", were the rulers of the world's lakes and seas for almost 70 million years, some species reaching over 20 feet in length. Placoderms are from the late Devonian period when land animals evolved from fish.

Dr Long said little was known about how reproductive changes from spawning eggs to internal fertilisation affected the evolution species.