UNNATURAL NATURE NEWS

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CREATURE FEATURES OF A DISTURBING VARIETY

DON'T GO OUTSIDE THERE'S RATS & BATS & BUGS & STUFF

Oh, yeah, and SNAKES!!!

Scary Monsters All Around

Today we learned that however nasty our houses and apartments are, the great outdoors is even worse. That's why we keep it outside. So, just don't go out there, and you'll be fine. Unless they come inside.


ULSTER STAR
"LISBURN MEN FIND GIANT SNAKE IN THE AMAZON"
This snake eats Volkswagons! With the top down!!!

' A leviathan of the jungle, which reports say reaches 40 metres [120 feet] in length and two metres [6 feet] in diameter, it dwarfs any snake known to science. This anaconda is not green but dark brown and is known by the locals as the 'black boa' or 'Yacumama'. "Yacumama is translated as Mother of the Water and reports of this giant snake abound throughout the Amazon basin and history." Mike, who is partially sighted, has spent 23 years researching the beast but it was only six months ago when his son discovered his research documents and they decided to take part in the incredble journey. Cryptozooologist Mike of Hillhall spent his life savings setting up the expedition with Greg to find out more about the snake, which reports say can engorge water then shoot a monkey out of a tree like a water canon. "The data is immense and will take months to fully appreciate but already it supports our theories of 'channels' created by these giants as they make their way through the dense jungle knocking down trees 90 feet tall, but more importantly we managed to catch one of these reclusive giants on camera as it made its way through one of its watery channels." There was an amazing postscript to their trip when an anaconda, believed to be the one they located in March, is thought to have been responsbile for smashing the house of an elderly couple in a small village in Peru earlier this week. '

THE BALTIMORE SUN
"Science sheds light on Baltimore rats"
Now if they could only do something about those DC rats.

' "Most rats are like people in Baltimore," said Glass, who after 25 years in the city has had occasion to observe both. "They marry someone next door or down the block at most, and are happy to live in the neighborhood they grew up in." '

NY TIMES
"A Human Language Gene Changes the Sound of Mouse Squeaks"
Won't this confuse the bats?

' People have a deep desire to communicate with animals, as is evident from the way they converse with their dogs, enjoy myths about talking animals or devote lifetimes to teaching chimpanzees how to speak. A delicate, if tiny, step has now been taken toward the real thing: the creation of a mouse with a human gene for language. '

LIVE SCIENCE.COM
"Bats Recognize Individual Voices"
Good news, bat news.

' Scientists have not known how bats recognize their buddies, in order to stay together, and also avoid creating interference between their echolocation calls. The screech of a bat is louder than a rock concert. A study last year found that bats actually shut their traps for microseconds so they can hear the leader and take direction. Now researchers say greater mouse-eared bats can recognize individual bat voices. '

MCCLATCHY
"Deadly bat disease spreading fast, scientists warn lawmakers"
More bat news, same bat channel.

' "Never in my wildest imagination would I have dreamed of anything that could pose this serious a threat to America's bats," Merlin Tuttle , a biologist with Bat Conservation International who's studied the creatures for 50 years, told two House of Representatives subcommittees. He called the bat-killing disease, which could threaten eight species with extinction, "the most serious threat to American wildlife in the past century." According to the Agriculture Department , bats eat pests that otherwise would cost farmers up to $1 billion a year in damages. The disease, called "white-nose syndrome," makes bats awaken from hibernation prematurely and leave their caves. Freezing, unable to find insects to eat, they fall from the sky and die. About 95 percent of infected bats perish, and the disease appears to spread from bat to bat, infecting entire caves, officials said. The main clue to their deaths is fungus-encrusted noses and wings. Whether the fungus causes their deaths or is merely a symptom of a failing immune symptom is unknown. '

UPI
"Insomniac flies resemble insomniac humans"
Yes, I've seen them late nights at the diner. In my soup. Doing the backstroke, according to the waiter.

' U.S. scientists have created a line of fruit flies that they hope might someday help shed light on the mechanisms that cause insomnia in humans. The flies created by the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis only get a small fraction of the sleep of normal flies and resemble insomniac humans in several ways. For example, if researchers turned on a light at night, insomniac flies awakened and stayed up the rest of the night, while healthy flies went back to sleep. '

LA TIMES
"Heidi Pratt used to eat ants? Watch your back, Spencer"
Now we know why they call them "Speidi."

' "I know she's gonna win," says Holly Montag at the MTV Movie Awards about her sister, Heidi Montag, letting it slip that Heidi and her new hubby Spencer Pratt are actually competing against each other in the "I'm a Celebrity ... Get me Out of Here" reality show. But they have formed something "like an alliance." Are we surprised? "I have seen my sister build fires and eat ants ... that was growing up, for fun. She has a much better chance than anyone is giving her credit for," Holly says. '

FIRST COAST NEWS.COM
"Chickens Help Jacksonville Fight Mosquitos"
Who you callin' chicken?

' Meet Red, on the front line of Jacksonville's fight against mosquitos. He's a sentinel chicken, monitoring mosquito diseases in Jacksonville. "This is early in the year to have this significant of an increase in mosquitos and it was prompted by that large storm we had," Richard Smith of Jacksonville Mosquito Control told First Coast News' Erich Spivey. "We couldn't even sit on the patio because we were fighting mosquitos," says Jacksonville resident Jane Entenza. '

LIVE SCIENCE.COM
"Deer Disoriented by Power Lines"
Happens to the best of us.

' Last year, a team led by Hynek Burda and Sabine Begall discovered that free-ranging cattle and deer tend to align their bodies in a north-south direction. The animals sure seemed to be responding to the geomagnetic field. If so, the zoologists reasoned, they should lose their orientation when they graze or rest near power lines, because the current passing in the lines distorts Earth's magnetic field. If not, and the animals are reacting instead to the sun or some other cue, power lines should have no effect. By observing wild roe deer and studying aerial images from Google Earth of cattle in European fields, Burda, Begall and three colleagues confirmed their hypothesis. In general, the animals faced every which way near the lines. (East-west power lines were an intriguing exception; cattle tended to align with them, for reasons still unclear.) What's more, cattle gradually regained their north-south body orientation the farther they moved away from the lines. The study is the first strong demonstration of magnetic alignment in mammals other than rodents or bats. An internal compass could well be handy equipment in the roaming lifestyle of grazing animals. '

YAHOO NEWS
"NY man arrested buying drugs with slaughtered pig"
See? They were disoriented by power lines.

' Syracuse police say a 45-year-old man offered a slaughtered pig as partial payment for a bag of crack cocaine. They say two men were spotted making the deal on a street corner just before 8 p.m. Thursday. Angelo Colon of Fulton was arrested on a misdemeanor drug possession charge and 42-year-old Omar Veliz faces a felony drug sale charge. Police say Colon paid half a pig and $10 for a $50 bag of crack. Veliz told police the pig was for a celebration for a relative being released from jail. While officers were arresting the suspects, someone took the pig. '

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IT'S END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT

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ENVIRONMENTAL HOLOCAUST-DENIERS STILL JUST SAY NO TO GLOBAL WARMING

THEY MUST HAVE OCEAN-FRONT PROPERTY IN VEGAS

About Time For Regime-Change In America?

This November, let's make each & every one of these crypto-nazi pigs Houseless, or Senateless. They've been fiddling while Rome burned: Couldn't care less about global warming, you, me, our kids, the planet, any of it. Next year, we'll put them on trial. Real trials, not Bushco show-trials. Here's there ratings by environmental groups. Hurt them for it, where it counts, at the ballot box.

LEAGUE OF CONSERVATION VOTERS
"National Environmental Scorecard"

" 2008 DIRTY DOZEN: The members of the League of Conservation Voters (LCV), the independent political voice for the environment, today voted Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to the 2008 "Dirty Dozen" list. LCV members voted online to decide which 2008 candidate had committed the most egregious offenses against the environment. 25,000 concerned citizens voted for the next member of the "Dirty Dozen," and chose Sen. McConnell by an overwhelming margin. "

SIERRA CLUB
"McCain Scores a ZERO on the Environment "

" Statement of Carl Pope, Sierra Club Executive Director: 'We were appalled two weeks ago when John McCain was the only Senator who chose to skip a crucial vote on the future of clean energy in America-dooming the measure to fail by just a single vote. As it turns out, this was merely the most recent example of a clear pattern of missing the most important votes on energy and the environment--as his abysmal LCV score clearly demonstrates. McCain missed votes to save his constituents $499 million dollars at the pump and at least $550 million on their energy bills, while creating more than 10,000 new clean energy jobs in his home state. Out of 535 Members of Congress, John McCain is the only one who chose to miss every single key environmental vote scored by the League of Conservation Voters last year. When it came time to stand up and vote for the environment, John McCain was nowhere to be found.' "

Natural Resources Defense Council
"Tell the Senate to Strengthen and Pass the Climate Security Act!"

" As the world's leading global warming polluter, America has an obligation to act now to avert the most catastrophic outcomes of the climate crisis. Scientists are telling us that a rise of more than two degrees Fahrenheit threatens to trigger the irreversible melting of the Greenland ice sheet, a 20-foot rise in sea levels, and the extinction of innumerable species. Tell your Senators to support amendments that will strengthen the Climate Security Act and then to pass it. "

AFP
"Baltic Sea gasps for air as marine dead zones spread: WWF "

" The World Wildlife Fund cautioned Monday that the spread of so-called marine dead zones, where nothing can survive due to lack of oxygen, could cause the Baltic Sea ecosystem to collapse. Ironically, marine areas are drained of life when they receive excess nutrients, mainly nitrogen and phosphorus from agriculture and other runoff, that act as fertilisers and enhance plant growth. When the excess algae and other organisms die and sink to the bottom, they are decomposed by bacteria that suck up all the available oxygen, in a process called eutrophication. "

REUTERS
"Floodwaters held at bay as cleanup starts"

" Levees held on the Mississippi River on Monday in the worst Midwest floods in 15 years as residents tackled a slow, smelly recovery from multibillion-dollar losses that may boost world food prices. Fears that up to 5 million acres of corn and soybeans have been lost in the heart of the world's biggest grain and food exporter have fed growing concerns that world food inflation will worsen even as energy prices set records. "

TIME
"The Gulf's Growing 'Dead Zone' "

" Since 1990 the dead zone, which begins in summer and lasts until early fall, has averaged about 6,046 sq. mi. But the threat is growing. A study released last week by scientists from Louisiana State University (LSU) and the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium estimated that this year's dead zone would be more than 10,000 sq. mi., roughly the size of Massachusetts. But that prediction was made before massive floods hit the Midwest: with the flow of the Mississippi at dangerous levels, and with rains sweeping fertilizer off drowned farms, the dead zone could grow even bigger. The Louisiana fishing industry, the second largest in the nation, is already hurting, with shrimp catches falling in the dead zone's wake. The U.S. is not alone in grappling with this aquatic byproduct. As modern, chemically intensive agricultural practices spread around the globe, so does hypoxia; a 2004 U.N. report documents nearly 150 dead zones globally. But none compare to the black hole in the Gulf of Mexico. "This year would be the largest since we've started keeping records," says R. Eugene Turner, a zoologist with LSU who led the modeling effort. "It's definitely getting worse." "

NPR
"Intel Report Eyes Climate Change-Security Link"

" National Intelligence Council: National Intelligence Assessment: Threats to national security: Climate change: Same category as nuclear proliferation, terrorism & radical Islam. Consequences: Drought. Flooding. Crop failures. Famine. Storm surges. Weather events. Sea level rise. Political instability, resource wars, mass migrations, State failure. "

ORLANDO SENTINEL
"Florida circa 2100: Global warming's toll"

" You might not recognize the Florida that global warming could create by 2100. And the troubles just start at the coast. Beach erosion and coastal flooding worsen. Wells and rivers turn salty. Habitat for endangered animals could be lost. That's what scientists expect as the heated ocean water expands and glaciers melt, causing the seas to rise, potentially by several feet during the next century. How quickly Florida will feel the pressure from a sea-level rise depends on the pace of global warming during the next decade. But scientists warn that some rise will be inevitable, even if greenhouse-gas emissions were controlled today. Here are some of the expected effects: Our coastal cities would be destroyed. About 387 miles of the state's 825 miles of sandy beach are critically eroded. As the oceans expand and glaciers melt from the changing climate, the seas will rise. Tide gauges show that effect has started, with a documented sea-level rise of 7 to 9 inches this past century. "

FOX NEWS
"NASA Scientist: Put CEOs On Trial for Global Warming Lies"

" 'Special interests have blocked the transition to our renewable energy future,' Hansen writes in an opinion piece posted on the institute's Web site. 'Instead of moving heavily into renewable energies, fossil fuel companies choose to spread doubt about global warming, just as tobacco companies discredited the link between smoking and cancer. Methods are sophisticated, including funding to help shape school textbook discussions of global warming.' 'CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of the long-term consequences of continued business as usual,' Hansen continues. 'In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.' "

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TO POST A COMMENT: CLICK ON "COMMENTS," "Post a Comment" or "# of COMMENTS" just below the SOCIAL BOOKMARKING LINKS (Digg, Delicious, etc), about three inches down from here. Please do comment. Thank you.

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