Me And My Android



That photo is beyond creepy for more reasons than I can list here.

On the right is a Japanese robotics expert. On the left is his robot.And apparently it's a very convincing avatar of the man himself. The face is filled with more than 50 sensors and points of movement, and the scientist can speak through, see through its eyes (via cameras) and generally live inside his doppelganger in a virtual reality kind of way.

Fascinating, and slightly horrifying, to think that those who can afford to do so will be able to soon order up a new version of themselves, which can be upgraded as technology improves, and repaired in ways that the human version can't be. Basically, you can get another version of yourself made that never grows old, never sleeps and which you can engage in conversation.

Just how ready is the human race for this kind of thing? Not very, but it such a revolution is unlikely to cause much of a fuss. The only panic created will be by those who want their own synthetic version of themselves but can't yet get one because robot makers will become so overwhelmed by the demand.

Bizarre, yet extremely interesting. The inventor can actually speak his own thoughts through the mouth of the robot.

Could we actually see reality where those who can afford it will be able to send their replicant self out into the real world, while they stay at home, with virtual reality googles and microphone in place, to udertake their their duties?

Probably.

I've been following the growth of robotics even since reading Philip K Dick's synthetic human novels (Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep, We Can Build You) as a teenager, but even this avalanche of replicant reality is taking a while to sink in. So much to think about. Not all of it good.

Westworld is closer than you think.

From the UK Daily Mail :

Japanese robotics expert Hiroshi Ishiguro has unveiled a robot doppelganger of himself.

Germinoid is a humanoid robot designed in his creator's image, down to the tiniest of details.

It sits on a chair and gazes around the room in a very human-like fashion, just like its creator.

Implanted beneath Geminoid's skin are 50 sensors and motors that can be controlled by simple movements Dr Ishiguro makes.

He can see through its 'eyes', talk through its internal speaker and shrug or scowl if prodded and poked. Compressed air forced through its body make Geminoid's chest rise and fall as if breathing.

Dr Ishiguro believes robots like Geminoid will in future allow people to be where they cannot be. Speaking through Geminoid, he says, has become natural, an extension of himself.

The close similarity between Dr Ishiguro and his robotic replica has caused some curious psychological effects, he said.

"When the body of Geminoid is touched by somebody, I get very similar feelings of being touched," he said.

Go Here To Read The Full Story

Smarter Than The Average Human



Must have been a David Attenborough documentary, but one of the most vivid images stuck in my head from recent years of ape-watching, on the TV, was of a huge mother orangutan sitting in a canoe, using a paddle to cross a river.

She had been hanging around the local village, imitating the women scrubbing clothes on the rough wood of the little boat dock, and watching carefully as the men climbed into their canoes and paddled away.

One day the orangutan climbed into an empty canoe, took a moment to master the paddle, and off she went.

A few hundred years ago, the religiously fear-struck would have hung the poor orangutan for witchcraft. Apes aren't supposed to be like humans. They're animals. And, God forbid, they are not supposed to be smarter than us.

But an increasing number of scientists and researchers are now claiming that not only are many of the great apes all but genetically identical to humans, they are also a close match for intuitive abilities, cognitive brain functions, and have better memories than most of us.

Considering that only 60 or so years ago, there was little research of any value done on our closest living relatives, it is unnerving to keep reading of just how smart apes can be.

Not scary, just...strange. My generation, at least, were not raised to think of apes and monkeys as anything other than pretty stupid. When I was a kid, stories that apes had been seen using sticks as tools was widely dismissed as coincidental, a mere fluke. And that was only 30 years ago.

But as these stories below explain, apes using tools is no coincidence. They know exactly what they're doing. As apes in the wild die out in horrifying numbers, victims of deforestation, bush meat hunts and the awful ebola virus, we are learning just how brilliant these creatures are, and how much they have to teach us, about themselves, and ourselves, and the history of us as a species.

Not only can they be smarter, they are more evolved.

From the International Herald Tribune :

For some time, paleontologists and evolutionary biologists have known that chimp ancestors were the last line of today's apes to diverge from the branch that led to humans, probably 6 million, maybe 4 million years ago.

Chimps display a remarkable range of behavior and talent. They make and use simple tools, hunt in groups and engage in aggressive, violent acts. They are social creatures that appear to be capable of empathy, altruism, self-awareness, cooperation in problem solving and learning through example and experience. Chimps even outperform humans in some memory tasks.

"Fifty years ago, we knew next to nothing about chimpanzees," said Andrew Whiten, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. "You could not have predicted the richness and complexity of chimp culture that we know now."

Frans de Waal of Emory University in Atlanta said that as recently as a decade ago there was still no firm consensus on many of the social relationships of chimps. "You don't hear any debate now," he said.

In his own studies at the Yerkes Primate Research Center at Emory, de Waal found that chimps as social animals have had to constrain and alter their behavior in various ways, as have humans. It is a part of ape inheritance, he said, and in the case of humans, the basis for morality. The provocative interpretation was advanced in his recent book, "Primates and Philosophers."

Other reports shortly before the symposium had elaborated on the abilities of chimps as toolmakers. Jill Pruetz, a primatologist at Iowa State University, described 22 examples of chimps in Senegal making stick spears to hunt smaller primates for their meat.

A team of archaeologists led by Julio Mercader of the University of Calgary reported finding stones in Ivory Coast that chimps used 4,300 years ago to crack nuts. Today's chimps have often been videotaped using rocks as a hammer to open nuts. The old stones with starch residues from nuts, the researchers said, were the earliest strong evidence of chimp tool use, and the finding suggested that chimps had learned the skill on their own, rather than copying humans.

Other researchers combine field work showing chimp behavior in natural habitats with laboratory experiments that are created to disclose their underlying intelligence - what scientists call their "cognitive reserve."

In experiments with mirrors, researchers showed that chimps had an awareness of themselves that is absent in monkeys but present in dolphins and all the great apes. Similar tests by Emory scientists showed some self-recognition among elephants. These behaviors were reported by de Waal and his associate J.M. Plotnik.

At the symposium, researchers said the interest in learning more about chimps was not just a case of knowledge for the sake of knowledge. Their behavior and intelligence, scientists say, may offer insights into the abilities of early human ancestors like Australopithecus afarensis, the apelike "Lucy" species that thrived more than 3 million years ago. A more urgent motivation for the research, primatologists say, is that these are sentient beings and the closest living relatives of humans, and their survival is threatened.

(Jane) Goodall recalled that when she went to Africa nearly a half-century ago, at least a million chimps lived in the continent, and "now there are perhaps only 150,000."

From LiveScience :

Since the human-chimp split about 6 million years ago, chimpanzee genes can be said to have evolved more than human genes, a new study suggests.

The results, detailed online this week in the Proceedings of the large brains, cognitive abilities and bi-pedalism.

Jianzhi Zhang of the University of Michigan and his colleagues analyzed strings of DNA from nearly 14,000 protein-coding genes shared by chimps and humans. They looked for differences gene by gene and whether they caused changes in the generated proteins.

Genes act as instructions that organisms use to make proteins and thus are integral to carrying out biological functions, such as transporting oxygen to the body’s cells. Different versions of the same gene are called alleles.

Changes in DNA that affect the making of proteins are considered functional changes, while “silent” changes do not affect the proteins. “If we see an excess of functional changes (compared to silent changes) the inference is these functional changes occurred because they were positively selected, because they were useful in some way to the organism,” said study team member Margaret Bakewell, also of UM.

Bakewell, Zhang and a colleague found that substantially more genes in chimps evolved in ways that were beneficial than was the case with human genes.

Let It Snow, China, Whenever You Like

That the weather can be controlled, to some degree, seems to remain in the realm of fantasy for most people. But it is an actuality. Russia and China, in particular, have had some great successes over the decades, forcing rain clouds to open up and 'influencing' wind cycles to blow pollution and smoke away from cities.

You just don't hear about it much.

What the United States is doing in the realm of weather control is pretty well top secret, although there have been some very interesting patents filed for control systems related to weather.

During the Hurricane Katrina horrors, a little bit of talk drifted out about "research" that had been going on for years that might lead to a day when even a monster hurricane like Katrina could be broken up, lessened or even dispersed.

But China is now proudly showing off its weather control abilities, boasting that it will skies of rain and (some) pollution during key events during the 2008 Olympic Games.

The Chinese have just given a very public demonstration of something few outside of China even knew they could now do. Make snow fall.

Incredible stuff :

China claimed yesterday to have caused a snowfall for the first time as part of its increasingly ambitious attempts to control the weather.

Officials in the meteorological bureau in Tibet said they had used "rain-seeding" techniques to trigger a snowfall over the city of Nagqu last week.

"This proves it's possible for humans to change the weather on the world's highest plateau," said Yu Zhongshui. The bureau said it had produced just under half an inch of snow at a height of 15,000ft.

Mr Yu said the experiment was conducted in the hope it would lead to alleviating drought on the northern Tibetan plateau, whose grasslands are turning brown as global warming melts and drains its permafrost.

The government also hopes that the project will benefit the great river systems of China. The Yellow, Yangtse, Salween, Mekong and Brahmaputra rivers all rise in Tibet, and the effects of damming and over-extraction for agriculture are beginning to threaten water supplies to major cities.

Weather Control : A Long Established, Though Secret, Reality

2001 : US Company Makes 'Weather Control Powder' To Disperse Hurricanes

Electronic Weather Control : Why It Doesn't Rain Much Anymore

Does Russia And US Have Technology To Control Hurricanes? The Wall Street Journal Says Yes

Real Mourners At Funeral For Fictional Character


Raoh is dead. Long live Raoh.

Who the f..k is Raoh, some of you ask?

Clearly you haven't been watching enough action-packed, colour-drenched, blood-splattered Japanese anime.

We in The West like to point at some of cultural events in Japan and shake our heads in disbelief, amazement and smirk-filled wonder. "They're just so whacky!"

Of course, most Japanese look at the events detailed in the story below and think the exact same thing.

The hype of manga and anime in the US, UK and Australia makes out as if every single Japanese person lives, breathes and sleeps the usually violent little comic books and animated movies.

They are popular, and millions are utterly obsessed by the ongoing storylines, but they are not Japan itself. As Crocodile Dundee is not Australia. As drunken English northerners in love with men who can kick balls real good smashing up Italian cafes is not England. As campus massacring psycho killers is not the United States.

Still, it's an interesting social phenomenon, anywhere in the world. Which is why it's here, on this increasingly un-updated blog (I'll try to keep it more regular).

What is it? An anime funeral of course, in the (semi) real world. Real mourners for the fictional death of a fictional character :

A lone temple bell tolled through the Tokyo night. Seven priests chanted the doom-laden lament for the dead. Thousands of black-suited mourners queued solemnly in the rain to offer incense and prayers to their fallen hero, Raoh.

As the tears rolled down the cheeks of the bereaved, few seemed bothered that nobody had actually died.

For although Raoh exists only in the fantasy world of manga comics and anime cartoons, the grief experienced by ordinary Japanese at his funeral yesterday was real.

“He was like a father figure to me,” Makoto Sounodai, a 21-year old Tokyo student, said. “I feel about him the way Westerners feel about Elvis.”

Roland Kelts, of Tokyo University, an expert on anime, described the scene at the Koyasan Tokyo Betsuin temple last night as “perhaps the most extreme blurring of reality and fantasy that Japanese pop culture has produced”. The full Buddhist shokonshiki, or spirit-rising ceremony, represented the first time that a Japanese temple had held a funeral for a fictional character.

As the arch villain of one of Japan’s best-loved — and most violent — comics, Raoh has as wide a fan base as any music or film star. “Raoh showed us the inner strength of men and showed that power can rule the world as effectively as love,” said a sobbing 38-year old fan who called himself Lina, after one of the characters in the story.

As the seating inside the temple overflowed, 2,500 mourners watched the hour-long ceremony on giant screens outside. Those with seats at the front, who included the cartoonists and voiceover actors involved in the series, fingered Buddhist juzurosaries as Raoh’s soul was “sent back to his native star”.

In Fist of the Northstar, a manga series that started in the 1980s, Raoh is a vast, merciless tyrant whose cruelty and thirst for power make him supreme in the futuristic, postapocalyptic wastelands. Raoh’s brother and hero of the series, Kenshiro, has struggled to defeat this despot for nearly three decades and, in the latest movie, succeeds.

Although the action in Fist of the Northstar involves severed limbs and blood-soaked executions, many admire the series for its complex plots and moral dilemmas. Keiko Tsurugai, 35, a mother of three, said that her love for the comics arose from the way they tackled the dichotomy of love and hatred between brothers.

Seeing as this event came ten days before the Japanese premier of a new film in the Raoh series, it should probably be thought of as a unique cultural event, and a stunningly effective international publicity coup.

Can I Have My Arm Back, Please?



Unfortunately, this crocodile had to be shot so that Taiwanese police could retrieve the arm of the veterinarian, who lost it while treating the massive reptile :

Dramatic television footage showed a police officer firing on the animal to wrest the severed limb from its jaws.

Chang Po-yu, 38, from the southern Kaohsiung city's Shou Shan Zoo, was injecting the sick crocodile with anaesthetic when it attacked him.

Can't Smoke In Your Local?

Build Your Own Pub

A property developer in Wales knew the all out smoking in public ban was coming. He loved nothing more than going to the pub, having a pint and lighting up a cigarette. He wasn't happy about the ban, so he built his own pub, big enough to sit 90 people, in his garden.

It's not open to the general public, but the locals in his village love it. They can smoke away without having to worry about being fined.

Go Here For The Full Story

India : Children Cheaper Than Buffalo

A sad, dehumanising story from the London Times about child slaves in India. Hard to believe that an animal is valued more highly, at least in commercial terms, than a child :

It is cheaper to buy a child than a buffalo in India, according to activists who marched on a summit of South Asian nations in Delhi yesterday to protest against human trafficking.

Most end up in bonded labour or working as prostitutes, the leaders of Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save the Childhood Movement) said as they escorted more than 200 children to the gates of the Indian Parliament to call for changes to legislation.

“While buffaloes may cost up to 15,000 rupees (£177), children are sold at prices between 500 and 2,000 rupees,” Bhuvan Ribhu, who conducted a study to be released later this year, said.

(Activists) claim that more than 50,000 Nepalese children and 40,000 Bangladeshi children are bought and sold across the border every year by scouts rounding up workers for farms, carpet factories, quarries and brothels.

Desperately poor parents frequently exchange their children for money, often as little as $5.

Some falsely believe that their children are being taken to work as domestic servants and will send money home. Few ever return. Others trade their sons and daughters to pay money lenders.

Up to 15 million children in India, most of them from low-caste families, could be enslaved to work off someone else’s debt, according to a Save the Children report published last month on the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery by Britain. The report also said that children account for a fifth of India’s workforce in sandstone quarries and nearly a third of sex workers.

India still has more than 12.6 million child workers aged 5 to 14. In Asia the estimated number is 122 million, according to the International Labour Organisation. India still has more than 12.6 million child workers aged 5 to 14, the largest number of any country in the world.

The Angel In The Vatican



A quite beautiful tourist photo from inside the Vatican has become one of the fastest e-mail distributed images in the world. No doubt you can see why.

It's hard to miss The Angel Of The Vatican, even if a close-up (below) reveals the remarkable image has been caused by light beams and reflections coming together to form a cherubic winged glowing vision. You can clearly see where a light beam curves around the surface of the pillar to form the shape of the 'angel's' head.




But don't let me spoil it for you. If you think it's an angel, well so be it.

The photos were taken by British tourist Andy Key and sourced from the UK Daily Mail.

Read The Daily Mail Report On 'The Angel In The Vatican' Here

It's A Rock....With Hair

And It's Worth A Million Dollars



Is it April 1 already? This has got to be fake. In the few minutes I've devoted to trying to verify this story, or the claim that rocks can grow hair, I've found nothing to back up what you see in the photo or can read in the story below.

We'll file this one in : No F..king Way! for now.

From the Epoch Times :

An unusual rock went on display in Beijing. This rock has "hair," almost identical to human hair, growing out of its "head."

The rock is iron gray in color, naturally smooth and rounded, and is similar to a cobblestone.

There is also a very thin layer of scalp tissue connecting the "hair" to the rock. The hair is grey in color and similar to the color of the rock itself. The hair grows quite naturally from the top with the longest strands being about 15 centimeters (6 inches) long. The hair is slightly coarser than human hair.

Only two other hair-growing rocks have been reported in the world; and both are in a Taiwan Museum.

The value of the rock is estimated to be around 10 million Yuan (approximately USD 1.3 million)

Maybe the fact that the 'Rock With Hair' is on display at a Fashion Cafe in Beiijing gives the game away.

Or maybe not.

'Toadzilla' Caught In "Breeding Frenzy"



It weighs almost a kilo and was described as being "the size of a small dog." This is one of the largest cane toads ever found in Australia. A volunteer group called 'Toadwatch' picked it up during what was described as a cane toad "breeding frenzy" in the Northern Territory.

'Toadwatch' night patrols see groups of locals hunting down the cane toads and destroying them, as they fight a front line war against the invasion.

So far they've had some great successes, and while it may be all but impossible to completely eliminate the toads, the volunteers, including mums and dads and kids armed with torches, plastic bags and heavy gloves, have managed to keep the toads out of a number of pristine environments.

From the Sydney Morning Herald :

The 861-gram monster male is the largest to be caught anywhere in the Northern Territory, according to environmental group FrogWatch.

The warty pest was picked up by local volunteers during a community toad bust at Lee Point last night.

Measuring 20.5cm in length, the colossal male was one of 39 toads caught in the middle of "a breeding frenzy", said FrogWatch coordinator Graeme Sawyer.

He said NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) ToadBusts were finding low numbers of toads in the city, except for Lee Point and the Coastal Reserve.

First released in Queensland, cane toads have since multiplied and marched across Australia, poisoning millions of native animals, including crocodiles in World Heritage-listed Kakadu.

If you're a creature that can poison crocodiles, then you are extremely dangerous.

Pandas Get Porn

A young male panda in a Thai zoo has been put on an "intensive mating course."

Stop laughing, it gets better.

The "course" includes daily viewings of pornographic and a low-carb diet. But it's not working. Six year old Chuang Chuang isn't all that interested in his five year old partner Lin Hui.

There's a couple of obvious problems with this "intensive mating course".

Firstly, even a male panda could be expected to feel uncomfortable watching porn with a bunch of zookeepers and researchers standing around waiting to see how he reacts.

Secondly, this story doesn't specify what kind of 'porn' the panda is being shown.

You are left to presume that it is footage of pandas mating, but does that qualify as porn? Isn't that more like nature footage?

Or did they go out and specifically create 'panda porn' for the pro-mating program? Did it have a slap-bass heavy soundtrack? Were pandas dressed as cheerleaders and football players?

No details.

The final obvious problem comes with this admission from one of the zoo's veterinarians. "We sought expert opinions from China and have been closely monitoring their behaviour."

Maybe the pandas are shy? And just who are these Chinese experts providing opinion on panda porn?

The veterinarian, Kannikar Nimtragul, revealed the panda porn videos were only 15 minutes long.

Fifteen minutes? So they're just straight hardcore then? No lead in? No build up? Maybe Chuang Chuang would like to see some examples of panda seduction, or pawplay (sorry) before he gets aroused enough for some real-life action :

The panda's keepers hope to warm him up before next week, when his partner will be fertile and could be impregnated.

That sounds suspiciously like that poor panda is about to get molested.

"We had to educate Chuang Chuang about how to mate," Ms Kannikar said.

"He showed some interest in the sounds of the video, but not really the footage."

Giant pandas, notorious for their low sex drive, are among the world's most endangered animals.

It's been said before, but it's worth saying again : If pandas don't want to reproduce, maybe it's time to let them die out. Maybe Nature is telling these pandas their time on Planet Earth is over.

Perhaps it's not the porn, or the low-carb diet, or the fact the zookeepers decided to keep the two young pandas isolated from each other in a bizarre attempt to build up desire.

Or maybe the pandas are too freaked out to mate, because they're surrounded by people who can't stop staring at them, who show them porno and do things like this :

Chiang Mai held an elaborate, traditional Chinese wedding for the couple in 2005 in the hope of encouraging them to procreate, and is considering bringing in a snow machine to help recreate a mountainous habitat.

The panda's keepers hope to warm (Chaung Chuang) up before next week, when his partner will be fertile and could be impregnated.

That sounds suspiciously like that poor panda is about to get molested.

$10 Million Damages Awarded In Lawsuit To Kill Of Rumours That Corporate Profits Are Funnelled To Satan

It's now confirmed, at least in the United States and the UK : Satan is not getting rich off Pampers nappies or Pringles chips.

A court in Salt Lake City has ordered four men to cough up more than $12 million in damages to corporate bohemoth Proctor & Gamble for spreading the conspiracy theory that P & G were funnelling profits to The Very Devil Himself.

P & G has been pursuing legal action to kill off the rumours for more than a decade and have lost, acccording to them, hundreds of millions of dollars in sales.

How does such stupidity get started? An agent for a corporate rival has been blamed for starting the rumours in 1994, but P & G first attracted the attention of Satan-hating, Anti-Christ anticipation American Christians in the 1960s when they :

began to take exception to a company logo showing a bearded and horned man surrounded by 13 stars. This was said to be a perversion of the passage in the Book of Revelations that describes "a woman clothed with the sun, and with the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of 12 stars." The stars in the company logo supposedly spelled out 666, the number of the beast.

Despite denying it all, P&G dropped the logo in 1985.

Makes you wonder how many other product boycotts and corporate conspiracy theories began with "agents" from rival companies.

Meet The 'Shuman'

Genetically Modified Sheep Is 15% Human

In ancient Greek mythology they were called 'chimera', animals made up of parts of other animals, and sometimes humans, that occasionally helped great warriors and heros on their quests, but more often featured as monsters, and visions of a nightmare world.

But chimera are mythology no more.

From the UK Daily Mail :

Scientists have created the world's first human-sheep chimera - which has the body of a sheep and half-human organs.

The sheep have 15 per cent human cells and 85 per cent animal cells - and their evolution brings the prospect of animal organs being transplanted into humans one step closer.

Professor Esmail Zanjani, of the University of Nevada, has spent seven years and £5million perfecting the technique, which involves injecting adult human cells into a sheep's foetus.

He has already created a sheep liver which has a large proportion of human cells and eventually hopes to precisely match a sheep to a transplant patient, using their own stem cells to create their own flock of sheep.

The process would involve extracting stem cells from the donor's bone marrow and injecting them into the peritoneum of a sheep's foetus. When the lamb is born, two months later, it would have a liver, heart, lungs and brain that are partly human and available for transplant.

There is certainly a massive worldwide market for such organs. In the UK, thousands die each year for want of replacement organs when their own have become too damaged or old to continue functioning efficiently :

At present 7,168 patients are waiting for an organ transplant in Britain alone, and two thirds of them are expected to die before an organ becomes available.

Scientists know full well the controversy they face trying to move the creation of chimera to grow organs into full production.

...the development is likely to revive criticisms about scientists playing God, with the possibility of silent viruses, which are harmless in animals, being introduced into the human race.

Dr Patrick Dixon, an international lecturer on biological trends, warned: "Many silent viruses could create a biological nightmare in humans. Mutant animal viruses are a real threat, as we have seen with HIV."

The full-blown nightmare scenario? Animal rights activists are afraid of 'cellular fusion' where a human-animal hybrid would be born combining the features man and sheep.

Chilling.

One day, human rights groups and animal rights groups may need to combine their resources to fight for the rights of 'shuman'.

'Chaos' In Natural World As Global Warming Brings An Early Spring

Warmest Recorded Autumn And Winter In Parts Of Europe For 300 Years

Bears are waking up early, flowers are blooming weeks before they did last year and birds are migrating well ahead of time.

These are just some of the examples cited in this Reuters story (excerpted below) about the 'chaotic' changes in the natural world as spring arrives early in the Northern Hemisphere.

And Global Warming, claims the story, is to blame :

Spring officially starts on Wednesday at 0007 GMT when the sun passes north over the celestial equator but scientists say the biological clocks of animals and plants are running ahead of time, perhaps upset by global warming.

Orange trees, olives and peaches are blooming weeks ahead of schedule in Greece, geese are cutting down on migrations in Canada and the United States and bears have been unable to hibernate in Bulgaria.

Red Admiral butterflies and swallows -- usually a sign of summer after the birds spend the winter in Africa -- have been spotted early in the Netherlands after the warmest Dutch autumn and winter since records starting in 1706.

Winter in the northern hemisphere was the warmest since global records began in the late 19th century, spurred by a warming trend of recent decades and an El Nino warming of the Pacific, according to the U.S. government's weather agency.

And some experts predict that 2007 could eclipse 1998 and 2005 as the warmest on record.

Scientists say that weather is always chaotic but U.N. reports project that extreme events such as droughts, heatwaves and floods are likely to become more frequent because of a warming widely blamed on use of fossil fuels.

All 20 bears in a Bulgarian conservation park are awake after most skipped a hibernation normally lasting until April.

"The bears did not even try to sleep this winter. For the first time it happened to almost all of them," said Anton Paunkov, spokesman of the "Four Paws" foundation.

In Kew Gardens west of London, daffodils, crocuses and snowdrops have been opening early. In Britain, some birds such as chiffchaffs and blackcaps no longer bother to migrate.

Some farmers may benefit from longer growing seasons but many worry that early flowering exposes crops to late frosts or pests. Normal insect pollinators such as bees may not be around when the flowers bloom.

Among benefits, high winter temperatures may have helped keep winter heating bills down, helping limit high oil prices at about $60 a barrel.

Killer, Meat-Eating Frogs Invade San Francisco



"It's like something out of a...horror movie," begins this story from SF Gate.

They ain't kidding. Here's the short version :

....killer frogs take over peaceful pond, then after terrorizing and eating everything alive, start eating each other.

But it's not a horror movie, this is actually happening in Lily Pond, in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.

The amphibians in question are called 'African clawed frogs' and they can grow five inches long. As their name implies, they have sharp claws curving out of their huge back feet.

It's a mystery how these vicious little brutes got into the pond in the first place. But they've wreaked terrible damage on the native frogs, turtles and fish. The fear is the frogs will get out of the pond and into the waterways of San Francisco. It hasn't happened yet. But some believe it will be only a matter of time, unless the killer frogs are wiped out.

"They've eaten everything they can get their mouths around, and now they're eating each other," said Eric Mills of the animal rights group Action for Animals.

There was a plan in 2003 by the California Department of Fish and Game to drain the pond, but this plan was abandoned after community anger over a pike-poisoning incident by the department shortly before the pond draining was supposed to begin.

....park workers have used nets and traps baited with chicken to yank about 2,500 adult frogs out of the pond. The frogs are then sent up to Fish and Game in Yountville, where they are euthanized by a special nerve poison.

But the Terminator toads just keep coming back.

"They are cute, but tough," Mills said. "I saw a heron swoop down and grab one. He had it in his bill for a while, tried to eat it, then just gave up and spit it out."

In fact, about the only thing known to eat the frogs are crocodiles -- but that solution is probably out.

For now, anyway.

Dog 'Adopts' Orphaned Squirrel



I've come across literally hundreds of stories over the years of orphaned or abandoned 'baby' animals being adopted and raised by adults of another species. For all the violence and cruelty of the natural world, there are also many wonderfully 'humane' and kind examples of empathy and compassion.

But this story is something special. A baby squirrel has been adopted by a Maltese terrier named Pitty Pat in Arkansas.

The orphaned squirrel was found by the Wootton family, who fed the squirrel with a bottle for a few days. They left the squirrel alone in a room with the mother dog and her puppies. The next thing they knew Pitty Pat was nursing the squirrel :

....the squirrel has settled in, just like one of Pitty Pat's puppies.

....there's even some sibling rivalry.

The family said they're thinking about what to name the little squirrel, and hope to one day release it back into the wild.

Spiders Get Cuddly

Not all spiders eat other after sex. In fact, new research shows that at least two species of 'whip spider' are downright affectionate towards each other and their siblings. They cuddle, they caress, they nurture their young. Life for 'teenage' whip spiders is, however, more dangerous, and more aggressive.

This report from Live Science explores the touchy-feely side of arachnids :

Social behavior is extremely rare in arachnids, a group of critters typically defined by their aggression, clever hunting methods and even predatory cannibalism.

"This was the best example I had ever seen of friendly behavior in an arachnid," said lead study author Linda Rayor, a Cornell University entomologist.

"I was amazed at how incredibly interactive the groups are," Rayor said. "They are in constant tactile contact with one another. They are constantly exploring one another and interacting with their siblings."

Rayor and her colleagues studied two whip-spider species, dime-sized spiders common in Florida, called Phrynus marginemaculatus, and a much larger species found in forests and caves in Tanzania and Kenya, Damon diadema.

Observed in glass houses, the two arachnid families were often seen engaging in sibling-sibling and mother-baby interactions. In one experiment, the siblings were removed from a familiar cage and placed randomly into a large unfamiliar cage. Within minutes, they gathered back together.

Mothers of both species nurtured their young. Often, the mama whip spider would sit in the middle of her offspring and slowly stroke their bodies and whips with her own feelers.

Whereas amicable behavior continued into adulthood for P. marginemaculatus, teen life was rougher for D. diadema. After these arachnids reached sexual maturity, the scientists found evidence they had outgrown their cuddly behavior: adolescent spiders had missing or injured legs attributable to fighting.

Past studies have focused on the more visible features, such as the adult's courtship displays and fighting behaviors, so scientists had assumed the creatures were solitary and cannibalistic predators.

Snow 'Doughnuts'




It looks like something man-made, but Mike Stanford, the man who spotted, and photographed, this oddity claims it is a natural occurence, though only under the rarest of conditions.

From the Seattle Times :

..snow rollers (as they're also called) form when there is a hard layer on the snow, covered by several more inches of dense snow.

"Then you add a steep slope and a trigger such as a clump of snow falling out of a tree or off of a rock face."

As gravity pulls a clump down, it usually rolls down the hill and collapses, creating (what is also called) a pinwheel. Or it will not roll at all, and come down in an avalanche of snow. But if the snow is the perfect density and temperature, it rolls down leaving a hole in the center...Strong, gusty winds also can be a factor...

Followers Of 'Jesus 2' Get Mark Of The Beast To Show Their Devotion

He claims to be both the Second Coming of Jesus and the Anti-Christ.

Confused?

Not as confused as some of his followers are. They are lining up to get 666 tattoos to show both their devotion, and faith in the man they believe is the new Messiah :

A few weeks ago, in a tattoo parlor in the hip art deco district of Miami Beach, people were lining up to get "666" tattooed on their bodies, and then smiling through their pain. But these are not devil worshipers. They see themselves as devout followers of Jesus Christ.

But the major difference that separates them from other Christians around the world is that the Jesus Christ they worship is alive and well -- and living in the suburbs of Houston.

These people belong to a new movement devoted to a man who calls himself the Second Coming of Jesus, and also claims the title of Antichrist, which to him is the next incarnation of Jesus on earth, not an evil being.

One follower said, "I just want to make sure (the 666 tattoo is) visible, that everyone knows my life belongs to the man."

Another said, "I want everyone to know I'm one of the antichrists."

The man they follow makes life easy for his true believers. He doesn't see much as being sinful, is big on the entertainment and fun side of being a good Christian and doesn't mind a glass of fine scotch :

"Jesus drank wine because he didn't have Dewar's."

If his ministry ever loses its popularity, he could always go into writing advertising copy.

Stink Of Rotting Fish Kills Five

The stench of dead fish from the hold of a Thai fishing boat was enough to kill five men.

They weren't killed by the smell, however. But it was strong enough to knock them unconscious and into the water where they drowned :

Five Thai fishermen died and two were taken to hospital after inhaling gas released by rotting fish in the hold of a trawler, police said on Tuesday.

They fainted at the smell of the decomposing fish kept in the bottom of the trawler along the Andaman coast of southern Thailand....