MelSkunk's stories

UK residents needed for nation wide hazel dormouse survey
Wed 5 Sep 2001 - 11:46

Brits are being asked to take part in the largest ever survey of one of Britain's rarest and smallest animals, the hazel dormouse. But these sleepy animals are hard to spot, so the public is being asked to hunt for nuts. Hazelnuts eaten by the dormouse have a distinctive hole on one side, with nibble marks around the edge. Researchers are hoping finding out the range of the hazel dormouse will help avert extinction.

For images on what to look for, and where to send suspect shells, visit the BBC article here

Giant squid no longer loners of the deep
Tue 4 Sep 2001 - 16:14

The famous and elusive giant squid (Architeuthis Clarkei) may no longer be so hard to find.
Scientists at the Wellington National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in New Zealand suspect there are thousands of the animals living in two breeding colonies off of the South Island. In the last 18 months, the group has recieved more dead specimines than have been found in the last decade elsewhere. NIWA had received 12 of the creatures, which weigh up to 650 pounds, with 18 foot long tentacles. This makes for an encouraging place to start looking for the Giant Squid, the great mystery of the deep, alive. The NIWA are hoping to photo or capture the first live Giant Squid ever.

Read the Globe and Mail article here

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Bullies, con stress, bad bosses: social stress could kill...
Tue 4 Sep 2001 - 16:13

US researchers putting mice in stressful social situations they can't get out of are discovering that it leads them to develop a possibly deadly over-activity by the immune system. Mice exposed to two hours of another, more agressive mouse were twice as likely to die from exposure to a desease as mice that were going through severe hardship.

Though the research was on mice, the condition mimics the human problem of toxic shock.

Read the article here

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Did a dino go 'quack'?
Sat 1 Sep 2001 - 06:52

Most people think of ornithomimids as swift, ostritch like dinos that lived on plains and grasslands, like they were seen in Jurassic Park. But new fossils show that these dinosaurs had true duck bills, like a bird, and probably filtered their food out of water instead of hunting. The fact that their remains are generally found in wet, swampy locations helps confirm this new theory. If this theory is correct, these dinosaurs will be the largest known land animal to 'filter feed', as they may have topped 1000 pounds. Read the National Geographic article and see photos.

Barney the lobster saved from the pot
Thu 30 Aug 2001 - 15:19

A yard long, barnacle-encrused lobster turned up in a shipment of live seafood to a London restaurant. William Copper, head chef at Kaspia, said "(The lobster) was too big and too beautiful to cook." This beautiful crustacean, named "Barney", is now at the London aquarium awaiting re-release into his home ocean off of Cornwall. Barney may be over 60 years old, and is merely 4 inches shy of the largest lobster ever caught. The BBC article (with photo) is
here.

Big Bang Astronomer, 86, Dies
Wed 29 Aug 2001 - 10:04

Sir Fred Hoyle, the astronomer who first coined the term "Big Bang", died at 86 this week. Despite popularizing the theory with a catchy name, he was a proponent of the Steady State theory. Besides this, he is best known for his development of the Panspermia Theory, a "life seeded by intergalatic dust or comets" idea.


Read the BBC Article.

More than 100 animals dead in Brazilian Zoo
Fri 17 Aug 2001 - 14:32

Over 100 animals were found dead when new owners bought a zoo near Rio De Janeiro in Brazil. Enviromental authorities were brought in, and charges have been laid against the previous owners, who, unsatified with running a zoo, were looking into starting a sex club and may have abandoned the animals up to two months before they sold the property.

The animals represented three quarters of the animals in the zoo, and many of them were endangered species. The new owners have closed the property to try and bring the remaining animals back to health.
BBC article can be found here.

California Ferret Petition hits 28,000, Hopes for 30,000+ by September
Wed 15 Aug 2001 - 12:16

Californians for Ferret Legalization has been passing around petitions for the legalization of (of course) ferrets. As of yesterday, the running tally of signatures for this year's petiton has reached an unprecedented 28,000.

To drum up more signatures, the group plans a symbolic ride for the petition from San Fransisco's East Bay to Sacramento on September 5th.

More information on the petition and other ferret legalization news, as well as printable copies of the advertisement poster and petition can be found at the CFL website.

Please consider signing up your Californian freinds and sending it in by August 29th for the final count.

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Virtual Fish swim through Internet
Wed 15 Aug 2001 - 12:15

DaliLab Inc (short for Distributed Artificial Life) has started Daliworld.net, a virtual internet fishtank. Like Napster, this takes advantage of connected nodes of computers, but instead of sharing files, you're sharing fascinating, realistic fish in a reef enviroment.

Unlike the average screensaver, the programmers of Dali have tried to create an artifical ocean enviroment, where fish can swim as they please across the internet, living, dieing and multiplying like real fish. There is even code set in for further generations' evolution and adaptation to avoid preditors and to find better places to swim.

True, it doesn't take a lot of smarts to be a fish, but this is another example of the vast changes in processing power in computers.
To download DaliWorld's fish program, go to the DaliWorld website

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Toronto gay paper Xtra focuses on furry and plush
Tue 14 Aug 2001 - 12:21

Now, first of, I'd like to note this isn't some "New Yorker" sort of gay publication. It's always full of sex articles, the raunchier the better. So the focus on sex is not actually something they themselves as the publication (and presumably their readers) see as bad. Also, as a gay publication, they choose to focus often on homosexuality in the various fandoms.