MelSkunk's stories

When Florida's Fish and Wildlife in West Palm hadn't recieved more than one skunk nuisance call in 8 years, they were worried. Sure, it was good that skunks weren't getting into garbage cans or nesting under people's porches, but skunks are an important part of Florida's ecology, eating rodents and insects, and themselves being eaten by such creatures as owls. But skunks are alive and well all over Florida, though they grow less common the farther south you go. A general call out on the F&W website recieved 1,820 replies of skunk sightings and sniffings. A survey of 1000 biologists, animal control people and wildlife rehabbers didn't reveal such overwhelmingly positive results, but still, skunks don't seem done for yet. Todd Axten, one of the nuisance animal control people asked, was worried when he heard skunks might be endangered in Florida. A former pet skunk owner, he has a 'soft spot' for skunks. "They have that ferret face. They're a big fluff ball."

It's so quick, you might blink and miss it. As part of a plethora of 'fight' images for a new commercial for Nike, called "The Battle", mixes up the imagry of youth aggression, sports players, and two fighting dogs.
The Rottie snaps, the pitbull lunges, jaws gape and snap, and it's over. But that's too much, says a variety of groups ranging from dog groups, rottie and pit bull breed rescues to dogfight investigators. "What they're showing is classic street fighting."noted an investigator, agast."...We were going for an edgier, racier ad." says a Nike spokeswomen, but dog groups say that sort of image makes the wrong people want to own 'mean' breeds, and makes the right sort of owner afraid of them. "With this three-second clip, they just told millions of people it's OK to fight dogs, and . . . wear our Nikes while you do it."
Dogfighting is illegal in all 50 states.

There really is somthing odd about humans, and now with the Human Genome Project, science is finding out why.The newly-discovered gene, known as Tre2, is only found in humans and a few higher primates, and scientists think that it might have be the seed that caused much of the genetic change in humans, duplicating, mutating, and making them so very different from any other primate.

OMGr0x0r!! It seems that gamers aren't the antisocial malcontents that the media so often likes to paint them. Professor Talmadge Wright and colleagues at Loyola University, Chicago, have been studying Counter Strike culture, and have discovered that it's, amazingly enough, okay to shoot stuff.
Not only that, the social fun and humour of the game was not lost on them. "It gives people an option of actively participating in some kind of fantasy role they could not do in real life that allows them to play with their own feelings," said Prof Wright, pointing out that these online communities both build good teamwork and freindships while allowing people to blow off steam and relax. The study also notes that other researchers are often clouded by the idea that "mindless activity" has no place in a world that demands visable productivity.