I’m High on Crystal Meth: Time to Kill and Eat A Bobcat
Via the Mercury News:
A 38-year-old Morgan Hill man has been charged with being high on methamphetamine, owning a stash of sharp cockfighting ankle spikes, and skinning a bobcat before he ate it.
Henry Arnibal was not charged with eating a bobcat. That’s not illegal, but killing one without a permit is against the law, Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Steve Lowney said. Arnibal didn’t have a permit. All the charges, filed Monday, are fish and game violations, except for the penal drug charge. All are misdemeanors.
Arnibal was arrested Nov. 7 on Sleepy Valley Road in unincorporated Morgan Hill. He was allegedly high on meth. Deputies found 50 roosters, gaffs, sharp hooks that are attached to roosters’ legs for illegal cockfights, and the preserved carcass of a bobcat. Arnibal told authorities that the large feline had eaten five of his roosters, according to Lowney. He killed it with a .22-caliber rifle, authorities allege.
The (Unexplained) Death of Bats
Via New Times:
The abandoned iron mine at Mine Hill in Roxbury used to provide a winter home for 3,000 bats — the largest bat hibernaculum in the state. The last time Jennie Dickson, a wildlife biologist with the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, counted, there were about 100 bats there.
“That’s not good,” she said. For the past five years, the bats of the eastern United States have been dying in like numbers — one of the worst environmental catastrophes in recent years.
What biologists like Dickson knew was that the dying bats could be found with an off-white fungus on their nose and wings. What was causing the die-off was uncertain …
Did Prehistoric Giant Squids Make Art From Bones?
It sounds completly crazy. But it’s what a group of paleontologists are claiming — the first sentient beings on Earth to create art may not have been humans, but monstrously large, tentacled sea creatures called “kraken” who lived 200 million years ago and possibly arranged bones in geometric, decorative patterns. io9 explains further:
For decades, paleontologists have puzzled over a fossil collection of nine Triassic icthyosaurs (Shonisaurus popularis) discovered in Nevada’s Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park. Researchers initially thought that this strange grouping of 45-foot-long marine reptiles had either died en masse from a poisonous plankton bloom or had become stranded in shallow water.
But recent geological analysis of the fossil site indicates that the park was deep underwater when these shonisaurs swam the prehistoric seas. So why were their bones laid in such a bizarre pattern? A new theory suggests that a 100-foot-long cephalopod arranged these bones as a self-portrait after drowning the reptiles.…
Thousands of Dead Birds Wash Ashore in Ontario
Via CTV:
Thousands of dead birds will be collected from an Ontario shoreline on Monday as the province’s Ministry of Natural Resources tries to determine what killed the waterfowl. Officials estimate as many as 6,000 dead birds have washed up on the Georgian Bay’s shoreline.
The carcasses are scattered along a nearly three-kilometre stretch near Wasaga Beach. “You just want to cry,” resident Faye Ego told CTV Toronto on Saturday.
Authorities speculate that the birds may have been killed by a form of botulism after eating dead fish. Locals said they noticed some dead fish on the beach a few weeks ago and a few dead birds earlier in September. During Monday’s cleanup, crews will be trying to tally up the total number of dead birds on the shoreline …
This #OccupyWallStreet Dog Hates Banksters!
You know your movement is rockin’ the interwebs when you have a Tumblr blog for animals supporting it.
See more conscientious animal objecters to the current state of capitalism at: Awwccupy Wall Street …
Soy Protein Present in Egg Yolks and Chicken Tissues
Via Health Freedoms:
There is a growing market today of consumers trying to avoid soy in their diet. Many people have developed soy allergies, and a number of people are concerned about the plant estrogen properties of soy protein. Soy protein is linked to the rise in hypothyroidism, early puberty in young girls, and lower testosterone levels in men, among other problems. Much of this research is documented in Dr. Kaayla Daniel’s book The Whole Soy Story.
What most people do not realize, however, is that due to the predominance of soy in animal feeds, soy protein is probably present in your food even if it is not listed as an ingredient anywhere. Very little testing has been done to determine if the soy protein from the animal feed is passed into the end products we consume. Most laboratories do not even have tests available to test for this.
Professor M. Monica Giusti,…
Mystery Behind Virgin Births Explained
Explaining a virgin birth by means of a serpent? God must have a sense of irony. Jennifer Viegas writes on Discovery News:
An eastern diamond rattlesnake recently gave successful birth five years after mating, according to a new paper that describes this longest known instance of sperm storage, outside of insects, in the animal kingdom.
The study, published in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, also presents the first documented virgin birth by a copperhead snake. In this case, the female never mated, proving that snakes and certain other animals can either give true virgin — dadless — birth, or may store sperm for long periods.
Actual mate-less virgin birthing, known as parthenogenesis, “has now been observed to occur naturally within all lineages of jawed vertebrates, with the exception of mammals,” co-author Warren Booth told Discovery News. “We have recently seen genetic confirmation in species such as boa constrictors, rainbow boas, various…
You Can No Longer (Legally) Have Sex with Animals in Florida
Matthew Hendley writes in the Broward-Palm Beach New Times:
… Senate Bill 344, which bans “sexual contact” and “sexual conduct” with animals, goes into effect on Saturday [October 1].
Unfortunately for animal sexers, several people have faced charges in Florida after being caught fornicating with fauna; however, we couldn’t find a case of anyone being convicted. Police say Eugene Hickman, a 54-year-old DeFuniak Springs resident, was arrested in June after his grandson walked into a bedroom and saw him naked on top of the family bulldog, attempting to have sex with it.
According to the Walton County Clerk, Hickman is scheduled to go to trial in November on an animal cruelty charge as well as a charge of lewd and lascivious exhibition charge for allegedly doing the deed in front of the kid … Still, State Sen. Nan Rich’s bill banning sex with animals didn’t pass until her third attempt because legislators were…
Chimpanzees Are Spontaneously Generous After All
Via ScienceDaily:
Researchers at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center have shown chimpanzees have a significant bias for prosocial behavior. This, the study authors report, is in contrast to previous studies that positioned chimpanzees as reluctant altruists and led to the widely held belief that human altruism evolved in the last six million years only after humans split from apes.The current study findings are available in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
According to Yerkes researchers Victoria Horner, PhD, Frans de Waal, PhD, and their colleagues, chimpanzees may not have shown prosocial behaviors in other studies because of design issues, such as the complexity of the apparatus used to deliver rewards and the distance between the animals.
“I have always been skeptical of the previous negative findings and their over-interpretation, says Dr. de Waal. “This study confirms the prosocial nature of chimpanzees with a different test, better adapted…
Dolphins Address One Another By Name
Their names, however, are whistle patterns. New Scientist reports:
Stephanie King of the University of St Andrews, UK, and colleagues monitored 179 pairs of wild bottlenose dolphins off the Florida coast between 1988 and 2004. Of these, 10 were seen copying each other’s signature whistles, which the dolphins make to identify themselves to each other.
The behavior has never been documented before, and was only seen in pairs composed of a mother and her calf or adults who would normally move around and hunt together.
The copied whistles changed frequency in the same way as real signature whistles, but either started from a higher frequency or didn’t last as long, suggesting Dave was not merely imitating Alan.
Parasite Tricks Male Rats Into Becoming Cat Food
Via ScienceDaily:
When a male rat senses the presence of a fetching female rat, a certain region of his brain lights up with neural activity, in anticipation of romance. Now Stanford University researchers have discovered that in male rats infected with the parasite Toxoplasma, the same region responds just as strongly to the odor of cat urine. Is it time to dim the lights and cue the Rachmaninoff for some cross-species canoodling?
“Well, we see activity in the pathway that normally controls how male rats respond to female rats, so it’s possible the behavior we are seeing in response to cat urine is sexual attraction behavior, but we don’t know that,” said Patrick House, a PhD candidate in neuroscience in the School of Medicine. “I would not say that they are definitively attracted, but they are certainly less afraid. Regardless, seeing activity in the attraction pathway is bizarre.”
For a rat, fear of…
Number Of Species On Earth Estimated At 8.7 Million
Ever wonder how many species are sharing this Earth? Apparently it’s 8.7 million, give or take a few. This takes into account the few thousand plant or marine species we haven’t discovered yet or documented. Via Physorg:
That is a new, estimated total number of species on Earth — the most precise calculation ever offered — with 6.5 million species found on land and 2.2 million (about 25 percent of the total) dwelling in the ocean depths.
Announced today by Census of Marine Life scientists, the figure is based on an innovative, validated analytical technique that dramatically narrows the range of previous estimates. Until now, the number of species on Earth was said to fall somewhere between 3 million and 100 million.
Furthermore, the study, published today by PLoS Biology, says a staggering 86% of all species on land and 91% of those in the seas have yet to be discovered, described and…
Mother Bear Kills Cub and Itself to Escape ‘Crush Cage’ Torture for ‘Bear Bile’
Photo: SlimVirgin (CC)
AsiaOne reports:
The Chinese media has reported on an extraordinary account of a mother bear saving her cub from a life of torture by strangling it and then killing itself. The bears were kept in a farm located in a remote area in the North-West of China. The bears on the farm had their gall bladders milked daily for ‘bear bile,’ which is used as a remedy in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).
It was reported that the bears are kept in tiny cages known as ‘crush cages’, as the bears have no room to manoeuvre and are literally crushed. The bile is harvested by making a permanent hole or fistula in the bears’ abdomen and gall bladder.
As the hole is never closed, the animals are suspect to various infections and diseases including tumours, cancers and death from peritonitis. The bears are fitted with an iron vest, as they often try to kill themselves by…
China’s Economic Boom Fueling Poaching In Africa
Greg Neale and James Burton writes in the Guardian:
Elephant poaching in Africa and Asia is being fuelled by China’s economic boom, according to a study of the ivory trade.
Authors of the new report found that the number of ivory items on sale in key centres in southern China has more than doubled since 2004, with most traded illegally. The survey comes amid reports of a dramatic rise in rhino poaching across Africa, and a spate of thefts of rhino horns from European museums and auction houses.
Based on the results of their survey, the ivory researchers are calling for China to tighten its enforcement of ivory trading regulations, saying that such a move is vital to reduce the number of elephants that are killed illegally. The report is published on the eve of a meeting in Geneva of the Cites organisation, which is responsible for controlling trade in endangered wildlife species.
Esmond…
South Korean Scientists Clone Beagle That Glows Fluorescent Green
Could Tegon, the glowing dog, be the key to finding cures for many human diseases? Via Reutuers:
South Korean scientists said on Wednesday they have created a glowing dog using a cloning technique that could help find cures for human diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, Yonhap news agency reported.
A research team from Seoul National University (SNU) said the genetically modified female beagle, named Tegon and born in 2009, has been found to glow fluorescent green under ultraviolet light if given a doxycycline antibiotic, the report said.
UK Scientists Warn Of Future ‘Planet Of The Apes’ Scenario
Could ongoing experiments involving the mixing of human and non-human DNA produce monstrous, over-intelligent hybrids down the road? In the U.S., human cells are already being implanted in mouse embryos, so we’ll likely be facing the rats of NIMH, rather than talking chimps who smoke pipes. The Telegraph reports:
Action is needed now, according to a group of eminent experts. Their report calls for a new rules to supervise sensitive research that involves humanizing animals.
“The fear is that if you start putting very large numbers of human brain cells into the brains of primates suddenly you might transform the primate into something that has some of the capacities that we regard as distinctively human..speech, or other ways of being able to manipulate or relate to us.”
Currently research involving great apes, such as chimpanzees, is outlawed in the UK. But it continues in many other countries including the US, and British scientists are…
Cryptozoology Meeting In London
Can the search for monsters and mystery creatures please become a reputable branch of science? Scientific American has a report on a meeting of experts who take the matter very seriously. Maybe they can investigate my mother-in-law (*slide whistle*):
The meeting was chaired by Henry Gee. Henry explained how the discovery of Homo floresiensis led him to take seriously the idea that “perhaps stories of other human-like creatures might be founded on grains of truth” (Gee 2004).
Dr. Michael Woodley showed how species discovery curves for large marine animals generally seem to match the numbers of undiscovered species purported to exist on the basis of circumstantial accounts. In discussing several key ‘Cadborosaurus’ and long-necked seal accounts, Michael also explained how – since most cryptozoological claims are published in the ‘grey literature’ – they escape evaluation, even when this is deserved or even required.
If cryptozoology is imagined as the investigation of ‘target’ animals whose existence…
Monkey Wedding Called Illegal By Indian Officials
Humanity, look out. There is no way by causing this action, it will turn out well for all of humanity. Via the Huffington Post:
In the small village of Talwas, Rajasthan, Raju, a well-known cigarette smoking monkey, and his bride Chinki were married, according to Stuff.
Raju had become a local celebrity after Ramesh Saini, a rickshaw driver, adopted him three years ago when he found the monkey unconscious.
He’s been a surrogate son to the childless Ramesh ever since.
“I want to enjoy the feelings of a son’s marriage through Raju’s wedding.” Ramesh told the publication. “We will welcome the bride in our house … after the wedding with all rituals.”
Military’s Best Secret Weapon: Dolphins
Assassinating enemy divers with CO2-filled syringes? Parachuting from the sky and blowing up enemy ships kamikaze-style? Acoustically detecting a 3-inch ball 200 meters away in complete darkness? All this and more as Skeptoid covers the James Bond’s of the sea, deployed first by the USSR and today by the Indian Navy and U.S. Navy Marine Mammal System:
Dolphins and sea lions have advantages that are hard for navies to ignore. They swim far faster than divers, and are much easier and cheaper to deploy than remote underwater vehicles. They can dive hundreds of meters and return, with no concern about decompression, quicker than a human diver could even get suited up. Dolphins’ underwater acuity is such that they can acoustically detect a 3-inch ball 200 meters away in complete darkness, and even discriminate between different kinds of metal. A dolphin’s brain is famously larger than a human’s, in part because so much of…
Food Ark: Will Seed Banks Save Our Sources of Food?
“Experts estimate that we have lost more than half of the world’s food varieties over the past century”. Charles Siebert writes in National Geographic:
Svalbard Vault Mountain (Cutaway). Illustration: Global Crop Diversity Trust
A crisis is looming: To feed our growing population, we’ll need to double food production. Yet crop yields aren’t increasing fast enough, and climate change and new diseases threaten the limited varieties we’ve come to depend on for food. Luckily we still have the seeds and breeds to ensure our future food supply — but we must take steps to save them.
Six miles outside the town of Decorah, Iowa, an 890-acre stretch of rolling fields and woods called Heritage Farm is letting its crops go to seed. It seems counterintuitive, but then everything about this farm stands in stark contrast to the surrounding acres of neatly rowed corn and soybean fields that typify modern agriculture. Heritage Farm is devoted…
