After a spectacular performance in the 800m in Berlin at the World Championship final, South African runner Caster Semenya's gender was called into question. Afterall, se not only performed exceptionally well, but she didn't look much like a woman. The controversy can now be laid to rest, as testing shows that her testosterone levels were found to be higher than normal, but still within the range that will allow her to continue to participate in women's races.

Sources within the Athletics South Africa organization said that she was tested three years ago. Semenya had reportedly taken a standard urine test, which is taken by all athletes, instead of a gender verification test to make sure that she was eligible to compete.

The source told the Guardian:

"She was tested three years ago when she started competing and it was found that she is a woman. She may have rather high levels of male hormones but she is definitely a woman."

Another source revealed to the paper that she had been tested and found to be a woman. In addition, the source revealed that the issue of whether or not an athlete is tested has to be kept confidential, and tat the results are only made known if there is a problem.

Marking 40 years since the Fab Four famously strode across the famous north London street, hundreds of Beatles fans swarmed Abbey Road on Saturday, singing beloved Beatles songs and blocking up traffic for blocks. The famous photo depicting John, Paul, George and Ringo crossing the street graced the cover of the band's final album recorded together, "Abbey Road."

The image remains one of rock's most iconic and most recognized album covers. It is endlessly imitated and parodied, and remains the subject of speculation and study decades later. While the shoot itself only took minutes to produce the photo, fans have studied the image so carefully, looking for signs and symbolism in the imagery. Some fans eventually came to the conclusion that Paul McCartney had secretly died (he appears barefoot and out of step with the others). McCartney himself has joked about the conspiracy theory, and in 1993 he even poked fun at it by calling his concert album "Paul is Live."

The Beatles decided to shoot the image in August 1969 while they were recording together for the last time. Photographer Iain Macmillan stood on a stepladder while police held up traffic and the band walked back and forth across the street.

In China, raising children is about to take on a whole new dimension thanks to genetic testing. 30 children ages 3 to 12 and their parents are participating in a new program that utiizes DNA testing to identify genetic gifts and predict the future.

Conducted by the Shanghai Biochip Corp., the test is a simple saliva swab that collects as many as 10,000 cells that enable scientists to isolate eleven different genes. By looking closely at the genetic codes, scientists claim that they can extract information about a child's athletic ability, IQ, focus, memory, emotional control, and more.

At a cost of just $880, Chinese parents can sign their children up for the test and five days of summer camp in Chongqing. Here, the children are evaluated in various settings, including art, music and sports, amongst others. By combining the scientific results from the genetic testing with observations by experts throughout the week of camp, they will then make recommendations to parents about what their child should pursue. They also believe that it could help predict possible career paths.

Nevermind swine flu, China has a potentially bigger problem on its hands - the pneumonic plague has settled in one remote farming town. Three people have died at the hands of the disease so far, prompting authorities to kill rats and fleas on Tuesday as they disinfected and sealed off the town.

The town of Ziketan in Qinghai province in northwestern China is about 300 miles west of Beijing. Police have set up checkpoints around the town after the outbreak was first detected on Thursday. The pneumonic plague is a lung infection that can kill a person in as few as 24 hours if left untreated, and in a highly populated country like China, it is imperative to contain the outbreak so it does not spread to the larger population and cause mass deaths.

Medical staff are currently disinfecting the area, and are killing rodents and insects that are capable of being carriers for the bacteria. Authorities are also keeping close tabs on those people who have come into contact with those infected.

Authorities are also urging anyone who visited the town since mid-July and has developed a cough or fever to seek immediate hospital treatment. Pneumonic plague is spread easily through the air, and can be passed from person to person through coughing.

A new strain of HIV has been discovered in France, and most worrying is the fact that it may not be detected on standard AIDS tests. The new variety of human immunodeficiency virus appears to have originated in a gorilla disease that was first isolated in 2006.

The three previously known HIV strains were related to a chimpanzee illness. Experts say that the new strain should still be treatable with the same anti-retroviral drugs that help curb the other strains of HIV.

Researchers indicated that they found the new strain in a 62-year-old woman who tested positive in 2004, shortly after she moved to Paris from Cameroon. The woman is not sick, and had lived in a suburb of the Cameroonian capital and had no contact with apes or wild animal meat. She did, however, indicate that she had several sexual partners. Researchers said the likely contracted the new HIV strain from another person infected with it.

Writing in the magazine Nature, researcher Jean-Christophe Plantier of the University of Rouen said that the discovery "highlights the continuing need to watch closely for the emergence for new HIV variants, particularly in western central Africa, the origin of all existing HIV-1 groups."

Professor Paul Sharp of the University of Edinburgh told the BBC that the virus may have jumped from gorillas to chimps to humans. He added:

"The medical implication is that, because this virus is not very closely related to the other three HIV-1 groups, it is not detected by conventional tests.

The original strain of HIV is believed to have jumped from apes to humans about a century ago, from either the bite of an infected animal, or a person killing and eating a sick chimp. Analysis of tissues perserved by doctors in colonial-era Belgian Congo show that HIV-1 began to spread among humans between 1884 and 1924.

In the country of Austria there is a town called Fucking. With a name like that and the signs that are most certainly erected in the city to display its name, one can only imagine the kind of things that tourists and others might get up to. The town has a very real problem on its hands, with tourists constantly posing for photos underneath the signs in the town and having their pictures taken while having real or simulated sex.

Town officials are attempting to curb the problem, and have decided to install cameras to catch them in the act. They are hoping that the cameras will be a deterrent as people will then know they are being watched, and instead of doing what the sign suggests, they'll instead pose for a much tamer picture.

25-year-old Sun Danyong committed suicide last week after a fourth-generation iPhone prototype that he was responsible for turned up missing.

A recent engineering graduate, Sun had landed a job handling product communications for the electronics manufacturing company, Foxconn in Shenzhen. He was charged with shipping iPhone prototypes from Foxconn to Apple.

According to reports coming out of China, Sun got 16 prototypes from the assembly line at a local Foxconn factory on July 9th. At some point over the course of the next few days, he discovered that one of the phones was missing and suspected that it was left at the factory. However, he was unable to find it. On Monday, July 13, Sun reported the missing phone to his boss, and then on Wednesday three Foxconn employees illegally searched his apartment. They have also been accused of detaining and physically abusing Sun during the investigation, but this has not yet been substantiated. Surveillance videos in Sun's apartment building showed that on Thursday just after 3am, he jumped out of a window in his apartment building to his death.

Foxconn, which is based out of Taiwan with factories throughout Asia, makes Apple's iPhones and iPods, as well as numerous other hardware devices for other international technology companies.

Every move Apple makes is documented in the press and online on various websites. There are entire blogs dedicated to following the latest Apple rumors and speculation. Because of the way Apple works - relying on the element of surprise to build up excitement for product launches - there is immense pressure on its business partners to help it maintain secrecy. Until now, the missing phone has been merely speculation on gadget sites.

ES Group, who is the stage company that Madonna has been using on the tour, released a statement about the incident that has claimed two lives and injured 6 more yesterday. The London based group writes:

"We were incredibly saddened by the tragic accident during the construction of a stage at the Velodrome at Marseille. Our thoughts at this current time go out to the families and loved ones of the two men who died and to those who have been injured.

Two of our Directors have flown out to Marseille to visit the injured and to get a better understanding of what caused the accident. At present, it would not be appropriate to speculate on potential causes of the accident, but we are working closely with the French authorities to investigate what caused this incident. This is normal practice for such an incident and we will provide a further update as soon as it is possible.

There is absolutely no technical or other connection between the incident at the Dodgers Stadium in November 2008 and the tragic accident yesterday (July 16 2009) at the Velodrome in Marseille."

According to the Marseille hospital authority, a second person has died after the roof of a stage being built for an upcoming Madonna concert collapsed. The British worker died Friday from injuries suffered in the accident.

A French worker was killed instantly on Thursday when the roof fell apart on top of several workers. Eight others were injured, including an American who is currently in serious condition. None of the victims' identities have yet been revealed.

The cause of the roof collapse is not yet known. Police suspect that a faulty power winch may be partially to blame.

Madonna cancelled the performance after the accident.

Pope Benedict XVI broke his wrist after a fall in his chalet during a vacation in the Italian Alps. Hospital officials and the Vatican confirmed the accident, and said that he underwent successful surgery Friday.

Tiziano Trevisan, a spokesman at the Umberto Parini hospital in Aosta, said that the operation was performed under local anesthesia and went well. Surgeons operated on the Pope's wrist to reduce the fracture, a procedure which is done to realign the broken bone fragments.

The Vatican also issued a statement revealing that the pope fell in his room in a nearby chalet overnight. Despite the accident, the 82-year-old celebrated Mass and had breakfast before heading into the hospital. Upon arriving at the hospital, an X-ray was done of the pope's right wrist and a fracture was found.