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Sea slug sheds penis after mating and grows a new one

16 Mar

Peculiar indeed.

Sea slug, Chromodoris reticulata, discards its penis after sex and grows another. Image Alamy


Sea slug, Chromodoris reticulata, discards its penis after sex and grows another. Image Alamy

 

Sea slug sheds its penis after sex, scientists find

By John-Paul Ford Rojas   |  13 Feb 2013  |  www.telegraph.co.uk

As a post-coital ritual it has been described by researchers as “extremely peculiar” even among the often surprising behaviours of the animal kingdom. Scientists have discovered that the love life of a sea slug involves more than just losing its heart.

A study of the thumb-sized animal by Japanese biologists has revealed how it sheds its penis after sex, before growing a new one.

“No other animal is known to repeatedly copulate using such ‘disposable penes’,” they wrote in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.

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Bicycle mishap impales boy’s butt

11 Mar

This story is a reminder for bicyclists to regularly inspect their rides for safety reasons. This is not breaking news but I am glad I was able to find a more primary source with other sources notated vs the usual snarky USA re-post sites.

Image http://en.rocketnews24.com

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Image http://en.rocketnews24.com

Chinese Student’s Bicycle Seat Breaks and… Gyah!

Feb 25, 2013 by Master Blaster  | http://en.rocketnews24.com

On 21 February, reports of a loud “Phfffft” sound were heard around the world. Experts traced the source of this sound back to the anal sphincters of millions of Chinese netizens simultaneously shuddering upon hearing this tale of a bike ride gone terribly, terribly wrong.

According to China’s tt.mop and weibo.com websites, the young student was riding to the first day of school for the year. It was a day young students all around looked forward to as one of hope, learning and new experiences.

But for one boy his first bike ride to school was to become anyone’s worst nightmare.

In what must have been a one-in-a-billion fall, the bicycle’s seat got bent over exposing a cold, merciless steel rod which penetrated the boy’s buttocks.  The seat was unable to be removed.

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Australian woman says dolphins saved her and her dog from drowning

7 Mar

Thanks dolphins!

Ms. Karyn Gitsham. Image 7News Australia

Ms. Karyn Gitsham. Image 7News Australia

The Carrickalinga cliffs where Karyn Gitsham had her amazing rescue. Image 7News Australia

The Carrickalinga cliffs where Karyn Gitsham had her amazing rescue. Image 7News Australia

Image 7News Australia

Image 7News Australia

Australian woman says dolphins saved her and her dog from drowning

By David Ferguson  |  Tuesday, March 5, 2013  |  www.rawstory.com

A woman who fell from a cliff into the sea while trying to rescue her dog said Tuesday that a pod of dolphins saved her life. According to Perth’s Channel 7 News, Karyn Gitsham was walking her dogs on the beach at Carrickalinga, on South Australia’s Fleurieu Peninsula, as she does every morning, when one of them got into trouble.

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Sinkhole that took man’s life may be considered his grave

5 Mar

The details of this story are startling and heartbreaking. A healthy 37 year old man man perishes when his bedroom is swallowed by a sinkhole. A weeping brother who recounts his attempted rescue. The relative clutching a tattered family bible carefully salvaged by precision backhoe work by solemn demolition crews. Jeffrey Bush was only 37 when he lost his life. What about the rest of his family? The house was in their family for generations. These are tough times for a working class family to have such tragic losses. Imagine losing everything you own and news crews from around the world watch you literally pick thru what you have left.

Sources say “sinkhole season” has only begun in Florida and another has been found 2 miles away. I hope tragedies like these lead to better uses of land and water resources. People’s lives may depend on it, and not hypothetical future generations but people living in Florida today. Don’t let Jeffrey Bush’s death be for naught.

 

 

 

Florida sinkhole now considered victim’s grave

March 5, 2013  |  www.freep.com

After demolition work Monday revealed the giant sinkhole that swallowed a Tampa-area man as he slept Thursday night, crews began filling in the chasm presumed to be his grave.

During a brief ceremony at 4 p.m., the family of 37-year-old Jeffrey Bush placed a teddy bear, a photo, notes and flowers into the bucket of a backhoe, which dropped them into the estimated 60-foot-deep hole in Seffner, about 15 miles east of Tampa. Then came a truckload of gravel, the first in the process of filling in the yawning hole that took Bush without warning.

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Guam pins hopes on poisoned mice wearing parachutes

4 Mar

I love creative solutions. Hopefully, this will work.

Image davidbenardo, flckr http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidbenardo/7108492583/

Image davidbenardo, flckr http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidbenardo/7108492583/

Parachuting poison mice combat Guam tree snakes

www.islandsbusiness.com  |  Thu 28 Feb 2013

HAGATNA, Guam— The US Department of Agriculture will drop mice laced with a sedative deadly to brown tree snakes around the island’s Andersen Air Force Base over the next couple of months.

Daniel Vice from the US Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services has told Radio Australia’s Pacific Beat the snake is a serious threat to wildlife.

“Virtually all of the tropical west Pacific is potentially at risk from brown tree snakes,” he said.

“We’ve had them turn up on virtually every island in Micronesia associated with some sort of transportation from Guam.”

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Probable case of spontaneous human combustion in Oklahoma

19 Feb
Photo of the deceased's home, from CBS-affiliate in Fort Smith, KFSM.

Photo of the deceased’s home, from CBS-affiliate in Fort Smith, KFSM.

Mr Vanzandt fits the general profile, alcoholic, 60+, possibly socially isolated. Though SHC victims are often smokers as the Sheriff says “a cigarette burn will not do that”

CLICK TO LISTEN TO PHONE INTERVIEW: Sheriff Says Man’s Death Was Spontaneous Combustion

Sheriff: Spontaneous Human Combustion May Have Killed Man

by and , www.5newsonline.com  |  February 19, 2013

Sheriff Ron Lockhart said his office is investigating whether a Sequoyah County, Okla., man died after spontaneously bursting into flames.

The sheriff said 65-year-old Danny Vanzandt’s death might be a rare case of spontaneous human combustion.

“This is a case that I’ve never seen before,” Lockhart said.

Emergency crews responded to Bawkin Road in Sequoyah County about 10:50 a.m. Monday (Feb. 18) after a neighbor told police she saw smoke coming from next door, Lockhart said. Vanzandt’s brother, Aaron, tells 5NEWS he and his stepson found the body around 11 a.m. and called 911.

“The body was burned and it was incinerated,” Lockhart said.

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Hundreds injured in Russian meteor explosion

15 Feb

Oh wow. Truly amazing event captured by average people on a variety of devices. I cannot imagine how massive the shockwave was. Video of this event is great because you can hear the strange sounds, enormous boom, wonder, and confusion.

The latest reports state that close to 1,000  people have been injured and chunks of the meteor have been found in a local lake.

I may be updating this information several times today as the story evolves.

Map

Suspected landing site of the meteor. The fact it is underwater will make recoverey slower, more dangerous and hopeuflly discourage black market trade in the highly valuable meteorite. Image from http://t.co/9k5ZrKRF

Suspected landing site of the meteor. The fact it is underwater will make recovery slower, more dangerous, and hopefully discourage black market trade in the highly valuable meteorite. Image from http://t.co/9k5ZrKRF

 Meteor Fragments Are Said to Rain Down on Siberia

By ELLEN BARRY and ANDREW E. KRAMER  | February 15, 2013  |  The New York Times

MOSCOW — Bright objects, apparently debris from a meteor, streaked through the sky in western Siberia early on Friday, accompanied by a boom that damaged buildings across a vast territory. Russia’s Interior Ministry said more than 1,000 people were hurt, 200 of them children, mostly from shards of glass that shattered when the meteor entered the atmosphere.

Many of the injuries were suffered by residents of the city of Chelyabinsk, about 950 miles east of Moscow, in a region where many factories for defense, including nuclear weapons production, are situated. But there was no indication of damage that resulted in any radiation leaks, officials said.

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Otter made “devil noise” before attack

7 Feb

Talk about a slow news day in Boca Raton. “Friendly back yard otters” are wild animals and like all wild animals they should be left alone by humans and the small yappy animals that are the pets of humans.

Soviet Army finally drops cloth foot wraps for socks

5 Feb

This is an amazing example of how old habits die hard. Boy do these look like a pain to put on. Makes you wonder what’s next. Toothpaste instead of wood ash?

Soviet era instructions for putting in foot-cloths. Image WikiCommons

Soviet era instructions for putting in foot-cloths. Image WikiCommons

Agence France-Presse Young soldiers learned how to wear portyanki in 2007. Image — Getty Images, http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com

Agence France-Presse Young soldiers learned how to wear portyanki in 2007. Image — Getty Images, http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com

Russian soldiers to trade foot wraps for socks

Jan. 15, 2013, 8:30 a.m.  |  http://www.kyivpost.com

MOSCOW — A Russian official says it’s time for the nation’s soldiers to switch from foot wraps to socks.

Since the late 17th century, Russian soldiers have been using wraps, rectangular strips of cloth that are carefully wrapped around their bare feet to prevent blisters from tall heavy boots with no laces.

But Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who took the post two months ago, said he was surprised to learn that some soldiers are still using the wraps, called “portyanki” in Russian, and told them to use socks instead.

At a televised meeting with military officers Monday, he said, “In 2013, or at least by the end of 2013, we must forget the word portyanki.”

Czar Peter the Great adopted the custom from the Dutch army in the late 17th century.

Priest given leave for “Non-Sexual Self Bondage”

3 Feb
Father Thomas Donovan of St. Aloyius. Image from http://andelino.files.wordpress.com

Father Thomas Donovan of St. Aloyius. Image from http://andelino.files.wordpress.com

ICK with a capital I. First, the 911 call with the priest obviously gagged is hilarious and worth hearing. Second, the scenario that lead to the 911 call seems like the actions of a vengeful rent boy. To me a sex worker tying up the priest and then callously leaving him helpless and bound seems less loathsome and creepy than “Non-Sexual Self Bondage.” I think it an error to state he was not drunk or on drugs. To say the guy was loaded makes his actions wayyyy less creepy than the calculated lucid high weirdness he engaged in IN THE CHURCH.

The video is kind of tacky, rife w/ editorializing.  Skip to 0:13.

 

Springfield Diocese: Priest Suffering from Non-Sexual Self Bondage

January 22, 2013 5:31 PM  |  http://stlouis.cbslocal.com

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (KMOX) – The Catholic Bishop of the Springfield Diocese has issued an official explanation about a rather bizarre 9-1-1 call made by one of his parish priests.

The statement from Bishop Thomas Paprocki was distributed after all the Masses this past weekend at St. Aloysius Church in Springfield.

It said Father Thomas Donovan of St. Aloyius Parish in Springfield is suffering from a psychological condition called non-sexual self bondage. It’s a condition where a person deals with the extreme stress in their live through self bondage.

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Drunk guy single handedly kills 70,000 chickens

21 Jan

Factory farming may have incredible yields but as this story illustrates it is an incredibly delicate balance. I kind of feel sorry for this poor young guy. He went out to a concert and partied hearty, passed out, woke up soaked in urine and the Stalin of poultry.

Mighty thanks to Karnak for tipping me off to this story many moons ago.

21-year-old Joshua Shelton, of Delmar.

21-year-old Joshua Shelton, of Delmar.

Maryland Man Charged in Deaths of 70,000 Chickens

By Benjamin R. Freed  |  August 28, 2012 9:30 AM  |  www.dcist.com

An eastern Maryland man was arrested last weekend at a poultry farm in Delmar, Md. on charges that his drunken antics led to the death of 70,000 chickens.

Soak that in a bit—70,000 chickens.

A deputy from the Wicomico County Sheriff’s Office responded to a call from the farm’s owner shortly after 9 a.m. Saturday. The owner complained that the power to his three chicken coops had been shut down over night, cutting off the feeding machines along with the water supply and cooling fans.

With no food, water or cool air, the entire flock of 70,000 birds was found dead, according to a Wiciomico County news release. When the chicken farmer inspected the shed housing the controls for the shut-down systems, he discovered an unknown young man passed out on the floor of the shed, wearing only in a T-Shirt and boxer shorts. The farmer told the deputy the man reeked of booze and appeared to be soaked in his own urine.

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Bigfoot hoax ends in tragedy

17 Jan

This story had the perfect headline. Yes it is tragic, but what a way to go.

Bigfoot hoax ends badly: Montana jokester hit, killed by car

www.latimes.com  |  By Rene Lynch  |  August 28, 2012, 11:31 a.m.

A Montana man who was apparently trying to trigger a Bigfoot sighting by dressing up in a costume and darting out onto a dark stretch of highway was struck and killed by two passing cars, officials said.

Randy Lee Tenley, 44, of Kalispell, Mont., was apparently wearing a Ghillie suit at the time. That's a camouflage outfit -- sometimes used by military snipers or hunters -- designed to resemble dense, thick foliage.

"What we know so far is that we had a couple of guys out, allegedly trying to prompt a sighting of Bigfoot," Montana Highway Patrol Lt. Col. Butch Huseby told the Los Angeles Times. The officer added: "This is one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen. Really."

(more...)

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