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Koreans ready for commercial mass-production… of dogs

by friver ~ August 9th, 2008

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RNL Bio is the Seoul-based company that has fired the opening shot in the race to profit from nutty pet owners.

This week, RNL Bio released five pit bull puppies cloned form the dead dog of an American woman named Bernann McKinney.

The deceased canine who provided the DNA for this historic achievement bore the appropriately dignified moniker, “Booger”.

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World’s first double arm transplant

by friver ~ August 8th, 2008

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This German patient is sure to be clasping double armfuls of happiness to his painkiller-saturated breast right now, after being the first person in history to receive transplants of two complete arms.

A team of 40 medics labored for 15 hours in a hospital near Munich, Germany to give the unidentified patient back the appendages he lost six years ago in a horrible accident.

And what does one say after waking up with someone else’s hands? “It’s alive!”? Well, according to the doctors the patient’s first words were, “Very good.”

My question is, where did the arms come from? Strangest Science News suggests that the patient watch the film “Idle hands”.

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Super-athlete pills: just in time for the Olympics

by friver ~ August 7th, 2008

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Here’s something all those Beijing-bound Olympic athletes would love to have in their duffel bags: fat-burning, endurance-enhancing pills fresh out of development, presumably not yet tested for in the barrage of drug tests they’re sure to undergo for the next few days.

To save myself from a load of acronyms and scientific gobbledygook, I present this link to the full article.

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World’s smallest snake!

by friver ~ August 5th, 2008

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The smallest snake in all the world has been found, and it wasn’t the one in my pants after all.

Meet Leptotyphlops carlae, indigenous to the easternmost Caribbean island of Barbados, less than 4 inches (10 cm) long when fully grown, and for about 15 minutes, internet star.

The little guy was discovered by an evolutionary biologist from Penn State University named Blair Hedges, who, after realizing he had found a new species of snake, did what any regular guy would do and named it after his wife Carla.

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Space pioneers of the non-human kind

by friver ~ August 2nd, 2008

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The Time website just came out with a cool photo essay about animals in space. The photo essay is supposed to commemorate NASA’s fiftieth anniversary, but I’m more interested in the animals themselves.

Are they heroes? Pioneers? Hapless experimental test subjects?

The handful of images including the one above may not suffice to reach a conclusion, but it does give a person a lot to think about.

Slideshow here

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One more thing to blame genes for

by friver ~ August 1st, 2008

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Lazy? Never feel like going out and exercising? would you rather sit in front of the TV or surf the web like you’re doing now?

It could be because of your genes.

A team of scientists at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte have used to number studies to come to a conclusion that genetics may predispose some of us to laziness. I think I just heard a nation of couch potatoes moan for joy.

Complete article here.

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White tiger mama replaced by golden retreiver

by friver ~ July 31st, 2008

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When a white tigress at the Safari Zoological Park in Kansas, USA suddenly stopped caring for her three newborn cubs, park owner Tom Harvey brought in some special help: a golden retriever who had just finished weaning her own pups.

The plan worked, and the noble pooch adopted the tiger cubs as her own: nursing them. cleaning them and basically picking up where their biological mother left off.

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Anyone want a 44-pound cat?

by friver ~ July 30th, 2008

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If you happen to have a little extra room in your life… you might want to make a lot of room for one not-so-little kitty who’s up for adoption.

Her name’s Princess Chunk: 44 pounds of feline tubbiness looking for a home. The current world record stands at a little over 46 pounds, though Guinness World Record officials have discontinued the category in fear of pet owners harming their cats in an attempt to break the record.

Princess was found wandering around Voorhees, New Jersey and is currently in a pet shelter awaiting adoption.

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Octopus with 96 tentacles

by friver ~ July 26th, 2008

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In Japan’s Shinma Marine Aquarium is a preserved specimen of a Common Octopus (Octopus vulgaris) with 96 tentacles. yes, 96 tentacles. How did that many arms fit onto its body? Think of it as a really bad case of split ends, only with tentacles.

The monster octopus lived in the aquarium for five months and gave birth to normal young. Scientists think the extra graspers were due to an aberration in the mollusc’s self-regeneration abilities.

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This new foot care procedure sounds fishy to me.

by friver ~ July 25th, 2008

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And yet it would seem to be an honest to goodness trend.

Fish pedicures, is what it is.

You dip your toes into a small fish-tank, where a school of small carp, called doctor fish (you don’t expect them to be called mortician fish or anything, do you?) nibble on the dry and unwanted little bits of flesh on your little piggies.

Yum.

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