Mona Lisa comes back from the grave!

The mysterious beauty who with her captivating "slight" smile, hanging in the Louvre Museum in Paris is coming closer to emerging from the grave.

The remains to be of Lisa Gheradini, who is believed to have inspired Leonardo da Vinci to create the immortal painting Mona Lisa, are about to be exhumed by researchers.Discovery of a skeleton, the fourth since the bone hunt began last year, beneath an altar in the church of the new derelict convent of St. Orsola, sparked the news that "Mona Lisa is coming from her grave".

"The skeleton doesn't belong to the Mona Lisa, but it's hinting to her burial. Indeed, she might be just underneath," Silvano Vinceti, president of a private organisation known as the National Committee for the Promotion of Historic and Cultural Heritage, told a news conference on Wednesday.

Vinceti's ambitious project aims to possibly reconstruct Lisa's face in order to see if her features match that of the iconic painting.

Indeed, most scholars believe that the Mona Lisa, known as La Gioconda in Italian or La Joconde in French, is the portrait of Lisa Gheradini, a member of minor noble family of rural origins who married the wealthy merchant Francesco del Giocondo.Known for controversial claims, such as letters and numbers are hidden inside the Mona Lisa painting, Vinceti has based his search in the convent on documents found by historian Giuseppe Pallanti some years ago.

The historian, who is not involved in the project, traced back Lisa's life from her birth on June 15, 1479, to her death at the age of 63. Pallanti found several important documents, such as Francesco del Giocondo's will. There, the merchant asked his younger daughter, Marietta, to take care of his "beloved wife," Lisa.At that time, Marietta, one of Lisa and Francesco's five children, had become a nun, so she brought her mother to the nearby convent of Sant'Orsola.

Lisa remained there until her death on July 15, 1542, according to a document known as a "Book of the Dead," found by Pallanti in a church archive.

The record noted that the whole parish turned out for her funeral, showing that Lisa was rather famous in Florentine society.According to Vinceti, ancient documents also appear to support the latest skeletal discovery."The ledgers kept by the nuns tell us that the skeleton belongs to Maria Del Riccio, a wealthy woman who died in 1609," Vinceti said.

He added that only Maria Del Riccio and Lisa Gheradini, who were not nuns, were given special burials in the convent."The method of burial used during this period for secular people was to stack graves one above the other," Vinceti said.

He said that georadar analysis suggests another burial leis beneath the newly discovered skeleton."Since Maria Del Riccio died in 1609, it's likely that we'll find the burial of Lisa Gheradini as we continue digging," Vinceti said.

World's tallest dog and cat named

Archaeologists will continue excavation until the end of October. Then all the bones exhumed will undergo a series of tests to try to identify them.Eventually, comparisons will be made with the DNA of Bartolomeo and Piero, Lisa's children who are buried in the church of Sanitissima Annunziata in Florence.

"Whether we have found qaMona Lisa's remains or not will be announced early next year," Vinceti said. Great Danes are huge and ferocious looking giants. Keeping them as pets deserves a special prize.Denise Doolag of Otsego, Michigan, USA has received a special prize for her pet Zeus from the Guinness Book of World Records. Zeus has been named as the World's Tallest Dog.

Zeus towers 7 feet 5 inches above his owner. The three-year-old measures 44 inches from foot to wither, making Zeus the same size as an average donkey. The humongous hound weighs a whopping 115 pounds and eats around 12 cups of food a day, which is equivalent to an entire 30-pound bag of food.

Despite his voracious appetite and the corresponding cost, Doorlag is very happy about her pet and his new honour."Zeus is an awesome dog," she was quoted as saying in a Guinness press release."

The only downside is that everything costs more; the food, medicines, transport. We had to get a van to be able to transport him, oh, and if he steps on your foot - he leaves bruises!" When she goes out with Zeus," The most common thing people ask is: 'Is that a dog or a horse?' and 'Where's his saddle?'"Zeus broke the record of the previous record-breaking tallest dog, Giant George, who is one inch shorter. Zeus is therefore the tallest dog ever recorded in history, according to Guinness.

New, colourful, long-nosed monkey found

In terms of the tallest cat, that honour went to a feline named Savannah Islands Trouble. Unfortunately, the cat isn't around to celebrate the victory. He died on August 15 at the age of four years and five months, according to owner Debby Maraspini's tribute page.

He 'escaped his home on August 15 and was tragically killed," she wrote. He was 19 inches tall, earning him the Guinness record.

Savannah Islands Trouble was, as his name suggested, a Savannah Cat, which is a relatively new breed. Such cats are produced when an African Serval is crossed with a domestic feline.

"When I first saw it, I immediately knew it was something new and different - I just didn't know how significant it was," said John Hart, a veteran Congo researcher who is scientific director for the Lukuru Wildlife Research Foundation, based in Kinshasa, when his research team came upon a shy, brightly coloured monkey species living in the lush rainforests at the heart of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In fact, the find was something of a happy accident. Hart first spied the suspect monkey in 2007 while sifting through photographs brought back from a recently concluded field expedition to a remote region of central DRC. Yet the image that caught his eye hadn't been taken in the field.

It was snapped in a village, and showed a young girl named Georgette with a tiny monkey that had taken a shine to the 13-year-old.It was a gorgeous animal, Hart said, with a blond mane and upper chest, and a bright red patch on the lower back.

"I'd never seen that on any animal in the area, so right away I said, 'Hummm,'" he said. Hart through five years of field work, genetic research and anatomical study, and a list of collaborators formally introduced to the world a new primate species, dubbed Cercopithecus lomamiensis, and known locally as the lesula.

It turned out that the little monkey that hung around Georgette's house had been brought to the area by the girl's uncle, who had found it on a hunting trip.

It wasn't quite a pet, but it became known as Georgette's lesula. The young female primate passed its days running in the yard with the dogs, foraging around the village for food, and growing up into a monkey that belonged to a species nobody recognised.

The lesulas live in thisi isolated region in groups up to five strong, and feeds on fruit and leafy plants.