Polish Yeti caught on film

Yeti experts are heading to Poland after a local man filmed a “monstrous, hairy creature” while on holiday in the Tatra mountains.

There have been rumours of a Polish Yeti in the area for centuries but this is the first time one of the strange creatures has been captured on film.

Piotr Kowalski, 27, from Warsaw was on a walking holiday in the Tatra mountains in Poland when he saw a mountain goat on one of the slopes. As he started filming, his attention was suddenly grabbed by the Yeti creature emerging from behind some rocks.

“I saw this huge ape-like form hiding behind the rocks. When I saw it it was like being struck by a thunderbolt,” he told the daily Superexpress.

“Coming from Warsaw, I never really believed the local stories of a wild mountain ape-man roaming the slopes. But, now I do.”

The film has been handed over for examination to the Nautilus Foundation, which deals with unexplained phenomena.

“The film clearly shows ‘something’ that moves on two legs and is bigger than a normal man,” says Foundation President Robert Bernatowicz.

“But because the camera shakes so much it is difficult to say what it is exactly. We need to go to the site and see what traces, if any, were left.”

via Polish Yeti caught on film – Around the World – Austrian Times.

Is the “Austrian Times” reliable? Another story on the site says “Police are investigating claims an alien peed on a German man’s sun lounger while being chased by German fighter planes.”

This Yeti story is also on other sites:  examiner | shortnews | inquisitr | romainiantimes (same owner as the “Austrian times”?) The Sun also has this same story:

Here is the video. Moves like a human in a costume. That’s my first impression. Perhaps time will tell.

What I want to know is… why is this Yeti wearing shorts and a backpack?

Conjoined rattlesnakes OK after separation surgery

A veterinarian at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum was successfully able to separate a pair of conjoined rattlesnakes, an official said Friday.

“They both appear to be stable,” Craig Ivanyi, the museum’s associate executive director for living collections, said of the western diamondbacks, who were born connected at the neck. “We continue to be optimistic.”

The rattlers were found two weeks ago at a north side construction site and brought to the museum.

Experts determined the snakes needed to be separated in order to survive. Keeping them attached, Ivanyi said, would have caused one of the two to become highly stressed due to the other becoming dominant.

If left in the wild, Ivanyi said, the snakes would likely have not been able to feed properly and would have been picked off by predators.

The surgery was performed Thursday by Dr. Jim Jarchow, a veterinarian the museum consults with on issues related to reptiles and amphibians, Ivanyi said.

via Conjoined rattlesnakes OK after separation surgery | www.azstarnet.com ®.

Standing broom in Prattville sweeps in paranormal researchers and the curious

A broom mysteriously stands on its own at what will be the Vintage Blu consignment shop when it opens on Main Street in Prattville, Ala., Tuesday, August 25, 2009, as owner Christy Burdett makes a call to find out some of the history of the building. The phenomenon has been studied by paranormal researchers.

via Standing broom in Prattville sweeps in paranormal researchers and the curious – Breaking News from the Press-Register – al.com.

This is not mysterious. My broom will do this. You just have to have the right angle and bristles. Here are a few more pictures (okay, the first two may be the same broom.) Many different brooms will work. I first saw this at the”Trees of Mystery, Mystery Spot”  when I was a kid, which I think is where the yellow broom below was photographed.

Lightning helps create artificial blood vessels

Regrowing skin, bones and even organs might seem like something out of a mad scientist’s lab, but the reality isn’t so crazy. Jorge Ribas finds out how tissue engineering could help the sick and injured. … -discovery

Lightning bolts could help create artificial organs, according to new research by scientists at Texas A&M University.

An electrically charged block of plastic gives way to a series of tunnel-carving lightning bolts when a nail is driven into it. Adding human blood vessel cells to the tunnels could create a template upon which an artificial organ could grow.

“One of the biggest problems in tissue engineering is how to create a vascular network to feed the growing tissue,” said Arul Jayaraman, a professor at Texas A&M who, along with his colleague Victor Ugaz, co-authored the study that appears in the journal Advanced Materials. “The structure of these networks closely resembles the human vasculature.”

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The artificial organs begin as clear blocks of biodegradable plastic about the size of an inch-thick stack of Post-It notes. An electron beam fills the block with electricity, then the scientists drive nails into either end of the plastic block.

With each strike of the hammer, lightning streaks through the block and exits through the nail, leaving tiny tunnels in its wake. “It’s pretty spectacular,” said Jayaraman. “It looks just like lightning bolts.”

… “If you took kidneys from five different people and sliced them open, you would not see the exact same vascular pattern, at the microscopic level,” said Hunziker, “even though the overall structure would be the same.”

Creating a block of what resembles frozen lightning is only a first step to growing new organs.

via Lightning helps create artificial blood vessels – Discovery.com- msnbc.com.

Milk drinking started around 7,500 years ago in central Europe

The ability to digest the milk sugar lactose first evolved in dairy farming communities in central Europe, not in more northern groups as was previously thought, finds a new study led by UCL (University College London) scientists published in the journal PLoS Computational Biology. The genetic change that enabled early Europeans to drink milk without getting sick has been mapped to dairying farmers who lived around 7,500 years ago in a region between the central Balkans and central Europe. Previously, it was thought that natural selection favoured milk drinkers only in more northern regions because of their greater need for vitamin D in their diet. People living in most parts of the world make vitamin D when sunlight hits the skin, but in northern latitudes there isn’t enough sunlight to do this for most of the year.

In the collaborative study, the team used a computer simulation model to explore the spread of lactase persistence, dairy farming, other food gathering practices and genes in Europe. The model integrated genetic and archaeological data using newly developed statistical approaches.

Professor Mark Thomas, UCL Genetics, Evolution and Environment, says: “Most adults worldwide do not produce the enzyme lactase and so are unable to digest the milk sugar lactose. However, most Europeans continue to produce lactase throughout their life, a characteristic known as lactase persistence. In Europe, a single genetic change (13,910*T) is strongly associated with lactase persistence and appears to have given people with it a big survival advantage. Since adult consumption of fresh milk was only possible after the domestication of animals, it is likely that lactase persistence co-evolved with the cultural practice of dairying, although it was not known when it first arose in Europe or what factors drove its rapid spread.

via Milk drinking started around 7,500 years ago in central Europe.

‘Crystal Palace Puma’ is a panther, big cat expert says

A big cat researcher claims to have solved the mystery of the “Palace Puma”.

Neil Arnold said a large wild cat spotted by a woman in a woods in Crystal Palace two weeks ago is in fact a black leopard or panther.

The author of Mystery Animals of the British Isles said decades of sightings across southeast London are a result of a number of large exotic cats being released into the wild by their owners in 1976, when it was deemed necessary to buy expensive licences to keep them.

Mr Arnold said sightings of big cats such as that by Helen Barrett in woodland at Fox Hill on Saturday, August 8, were of the offspring of these “pets”.

In last week’s Streatham Guardian Mrs Barrett described how she had seen a 5ft puma or panther on a pathway between Church Road and Auckland Road.

Police searched for the animal but could find no trace of it.

Mr Arnold said the animals “are no threat to humans”.

via ‘Crystal Palace Puma’ is a panther, big cat expert says (From Croydon Guardian).

Devon river team’s piranha shock

A “killer” fish native to South America has been found in a Devon river.

The Environment Agency said its staff were amazed to find a dead piranha in the East Okement tributary of the River Torridge.

The piranha, which has razor-sharp teeth, is generally considered to be the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world.

The 35cm (14in) fish was spotted by Bob Collett, Dave Hoskin and Eddie Stevens during a sampling trip on the river.

Among the species the team would have expected to find in the river were salmon, brown trout, bullheads, stone loach and minnow.

“What we actually discovered was something we would not expect to find in our wildest dreams – we could hardly believe our eyes,” Mr Stevens said.

“After completing 20m of the survey, a large tail emerged from the undercut bank on the far side of the river.

“Our first thought was that a sea trout had become lodged in amongst the rocks and debris collected under the bank, but when it was removed from the river we were speechless to find it was a piranha.”

Tests carried out on the dead piranha revealed it had been eating sweet corn, which proved it must have been kept as a pet.

via BBC NEWS | UK | England | Devon | Devon river team’s piranha shock.

Wind, current combined to raise E Coast sea level

Folks living along the East Coast were in higher water early this summer thanks to a change in the wind and current flow.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Monday the higher than normal sea levels were caused by persistent winds from the northeast — pushing water toward shore — and a weakening of the Florida current that feeds water into the Gulf Stream.

Water levels ranged from six inches to two feet above normal in areas from Maine to Florida during June and July, the agency said.

While the ocean varies and unusual conditions do occur, Mike Szabados, director of NOAA’s Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services, said in a statement, “What made this event unique was its breadth, intensity and duration.”

The high water was intensified in June by a strong spring tide, officials added.

While it wasn’t a record for northeasterly winds or for the decline in the Florida current, the combination of the two helped raise sea levels all along the coast.

via Wind, current combined to raise E Coast sea level – Yahoo! News.