Wildlife smugglers will do just about anything for a quick buck, including sneaking a live predator onto an airplane with no regard for the risk to the animal or fellow passengers.
This illegal activity reached a devastating and absurdist extreme recently when a man reportedly smuggled a live crocodile onto a plane departing from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
via Extinction Countdown: 20 die in air disaster after smuggled crocodile escapes on a plane.
Could this be what we’ve all been waiting for? NASA has announced it will hold a special news conference Thursday “to discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life.”
via AOL
But, whether it’s for super-strong sutures for surgery or an air bag, how do you come up with enough raw material? Spider farms have been tried, but arachnids tend to kill each other.
“The problem is that the spiders are territorial, and so no matter what you do, there are only a certain number of spiders you can put in a certain space,” says Lewis.
That’s where the goats come in.
via nsf.gov
Many Americans are furious at the new TSA security checks, while others say they are willing to endure them if it keeps them safe.But one small, though growing, group of people appear to be positively enjoying the new regulations.Breaking out their bikinis, Speedos, body paint and racy underwear, various passengers around America are using the stringent new measures to explore their exhibitionist sides.
via Mail Online.
This week a Darth Vader costume dating from the era of Star Wars sequel The Empire Strikes Back (1980) is to be sold at auction at Christie’s in London. We talk to actor Dave Prowse about his time as the man behind the mask.
via BBC News – Dave Prowse: The man behind Darth Vader’s mask.
Interviews with Twilight Zone Companion author Marc Scott Zicree and Six Million Dollar Man star Lee Majors.
The coyote to the right was caught on video running loose in the middle of Chicago at 3:00 am on Monday morning. The police didn’t seem to know what it was doing there, but Brad Block, a supervisor for the Chicago Commission on Animal Care and Control told Chicago Breaking News that the coyote is let loose in the city to monitor the rodent populatio
via Let Loose the Coyotes? Chicago Embraces Rat-Hunting Predators | Discoblog | Discover Magazine.
An Idaho judge has set bond at $100,000 for a Boise woman police say posed as a physician and duped at least two other women into having their breasts examined by her at Boise-area nightclubs
via Reuters.
An angler had a shock in the US – when a mystery fish bit him back with distinctly human-looking teeth.
Frank Yarborough was fishing in Lake Wylie, South Carolina, when he hooked the fish which was 5lb and nearly 1ft 8ins long.
Surgeons in China saved a little girl’s hand – by grafting it on to her leg for three months.
Nine-year-old Ming Li lost her hand when she was run over by a tractor on her way to school in July.
But her arm was too badly damaged to reattach it to her wrist so doctors temporarily attached it to her right calf instead.
via Orange UK.
This Cave Has Been Sealed for Over 5 Million Years—And It’s Crawling with ‘Aliens,’ Scientists Say
www.popularmechanics.com
Its unique environment hints at the possible nature of extraterrestrial life.
www.livescience.com
Scientists have used AI to design bacteriophages, or viruses that infect only bacteria. Does the prospect of designing viruses with AI pose threats to biosecurity?
Interstellar object spotted shedding metals in way that defies science
www.dailymail.co.uk
Scientists have been left puzzled after spotting that the mysterious interstellar object in our Solar System is 'bleeding' metals in a way that has never been observed before.