Hillside Lightning Storm wallpaper
Big cats love Calvin Klein cologne
Workers in Wildlife Conservation Societies around the world are using a new technique to lure big cats to their heat-and-motion-sensitive cameras and keep them there long enough to enable them to be identified. The new technique is to spray the area with cologne, but not just any fragrance – it has to be Calvin Klein’s “Obsession for Men”.
The idea began in the Bronx Zoo in 2003, when general curator Pat Thomas decided to test the effects of 24 fragrances on two cheetahs. The zoo had long sprayed perfumes on rocks in the cats’ enclosure to keep them curious, but Thomas decided to be a little more scientific and test individual scents.
The results showed “Obsession for Men” was a clear winner, with the cats spending an average of 11.1 minutes in savoring the scent and obviously loving the musky perfume, rubbing their cheeks against trees that had been sprayed.
The next time you go to the zoo and everyone around the big cat exhibit smells like they took a bath in “Obsession” you’ll know why.
Teen Sailor Abby Sunderland Found Alive; Family Is ‘Relieved’
The teen attempting to become the youngest sailor to circumnavigate the globe has been found stranded at sea after a storm tossed her boat on its side and snapped the mast.
The 16-year-old hit rough seas and lost radio contact in the Indian Ocean.Abby Sunderland, 16, told search and rescuers around 11 p.m. PST Thursday that she was unharmed and had righted her boat, but had lost sailing capacity. Her family, sick with worry while Sunderland was lost at sea, was elated to hear the news.
She displayed a lot of courage and cool under pressure.
Japan unfurls Ikaros solar sail in space
Japanese scientists are celebrating the successful deployment of their solar sail, Ikaros.
The 200-sq-m (2,100-sq-ft) membrane is attached to a small disc-shaped spacecraft that was put in orbit last month by an H-IIA rocket.
Ikaros will demonstrate the principle of using sunlight as a simple and efficient means of propulsion.
The technique has long been touted as a way of moving spacecraft around the Solar System using no chemical fuels.
As far as I know the Japanese still have plans to launch a space based solar generator that will beam clean energy back to earth.
Army Corps documents raised concerns that barriers “could instead funnel oil into more unprotected areas and into neighboring Mississippi.” The AP reported on May 26 that the Army Corps released documents that day that “signaled support for parts of the state plan, including berms that would be built onto existing barrier islands,” but stated that parts of the plan “could inadvertently alter tides and end up driving oil east — into Mississippi Sound, the Biloxi Marshes and Lake Borgne.”
This is elementary school level physics where you put a pile of mud on a plank and poured some water down the slope. No surprise the water tends to follow the path of least resistance, around the mound of mud. Gov. Jindal seems to be more concerned with scoring cheap political points than actual solutions. Besides not seeming to care much about neighboring states like Mississippi. Mississippi Gov. Barbour on the other hand is in denial about the whole catastrophe.
Oil Disaster Shows Need for Endangered Species Act Overhaul
The MMS also ignored the Endangered Species Act, which demands consideration of impacts on endangered species. Since January 2009, the MMS has approved 346 drilling plans without getting required permits — but even if they’d followed the Act’s letter, it probably wouldn’t have mattered.
Reviews would only have considered the physical footprints of wells, ship traffic and other relatively small impacts. That’s because the Endangered Species Act only requires consideration of events that are “reasonably certain to occur.” That a wellhead would blow — as happened 36 times in the Gulf between 1992 and 2006 — and release a steady stream of oil was not so far-fetched as the industry insisted, but it wasn’t reasonably certain.
FDA Panel Votes to Approve Gilenia, First Oral MS Drug
An FDA expert advisory panel today overwhelmingly recommended approval of Novartis’s Gilenia, the first oral drug for multiple sclerosis (MS).
Gilenia (generic name, fingolimod) would be used for the relapsing form of MS. The drug significantly reduces MS attacks. However, it has serious side effects, with possible heart, lung, liver, and eye toxicity and increased risk of infection. Patients must be closely monitored, the panel advised.
tangledwing 