Oregon man wakes up to find dog ate 3 of his toes

A diabetic Oregon man with no feeling in his feet woke up to find his dog had eaten part of his right foot, including three toes.

The Roseburg News-Review reports that the 61-year-old man, whose name was not disclosed by police, was in serious condition after calling 911 at about 3 a.m. on Tuesday.

The man told emergency responders that he fell asleep on his couch and woke up to find pieces of his foot missing.

Roseburg veterinarian Alan Ross says that the dog may have been trying to rid his owner of dead tissue, and says he may have been attracted to the foot if it were infected or gangrenous.

Ross says the dog doesn’t need corrective action because it wasn’t “acting out of meanness.”

via Oregon man wakes up to find dog ate 3 of his toes – Boston.com.

Earth is heading for sixth mass extinction ‘that will eradicate 75% of life’

Earth may be on the brink of a sixth mass extinction on the scale of the apocalyptic event that wiped out the dinosaurs, a study claims.

The researchers say that unless action is taken now to reverse the harmful effects of human activity on eco-systems, a full-blown mass extinction could occur within a few centuries.

Recovery from such an event, which could eradicate more than three-quarters of all life on Earth, may then take millions of years.

Only five previous mass extinctions have occurred in the last 540million years.

They are classified as the Ordovician event (443million years ago); the Devonian event (359million years ago); the Permian event (251million years ago); the Triassic event (200million years ago) and the Cretaceous event (65million years ago).

The last mass extinction, thought to have been triggered by a meteor impact in Mexico, was marked by the loss of 76 per cent of species including the dinosaurs.

A new study of mammal populations raises the alarming prospect of a sixth mass extinction, this one a direct result of the effect humans are having on the planet.

Scientists in the U.S. compared extinction rates from the fossil record with the speed at which mammals are vanishing today.

Within the past 500 years, it is estimated that at least 80 species of mammals have become extinct out of a starting total of 5,570 species.

This compares with an average extinction rate for mammals of less than two species disappearing every million years. …

via Earth is heading for sixth mass extinction ‘that will eradicate 75% of life’ | Mail Online.

You Saw an Eastern Cougar? No You Didn’t

Federal wildlife biologists have declared the eastern cougar to be extinct.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has concluded there are no longer any wild populations of mountain lions in the eastern United States. Researchers believe the subspecies has probably been extinct since the 1930s.

Wednesday’s declaration paves the way for the eastern cougar to be removed from the endangered species list.

There have been numerous sightings of mountain lions from Maine to South Carolina. But the wildlife service contends those cougars were either escaped or released captives, or came from the West or from South America.

The agency’s decision to declare the eastern cougar extinct does not affect the status of the Florida panther, another endangered wildcat.

In other news, the Philadelphia area has been named the most toxic in the country.

via You Saw a Mountain Lion? No You Didn’t – Local News – Philadelphia, PA – msnbc.com.

New Zombie-Ant Fungi Found

The world just got a little weirder: Scientists have identified four new species of brain-controlling fungi that turn ants into zombies that do the parasite’s bidding before it kills them.

Identified from samples collected at two sites in Brazil’s tropical rain forest, each of the four species specializes in controlling a different species of carpenter ant.

The original zombie-ant fungus, Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, was first identified in 1865, and it seems to exist around the world. [Mind-Controlling Parasites Date Back Millions of Years]

“So we knew, right off the bat, there was a range of other species within that,” said study researcher David Hughes, an entomologist at Pennsylvania State University. “I think it will turn out to be in the hundreds.”

Once it infects an ant, the fungus uses as-yet-unidentified chemicals to control the ant’s behavior, Hughes told LiveScience. It directs the ant to leave its colony (a very un-ant-like thing to do) and bite down on the underside of a leaf — the ant’s soon-to-be resting place. Once it is killed by the fungus, the ant remains anchored in place, thanks to its death grip on the leaf.

Ultimately, the fungus produces a long stalk that protrudes from the ant’s head, shooting spores out in the hopes of infecting other ants. Two of the four newly discovered species also sprouted smaller stalks elsewhere, including from the victim’s feet and lower leg joints – the equivalent of knees.

The spores of the four species also had distinct features and germination processes.

Hughes is concerned that one of the four fungus species, O. camponoti-novogranadensis, may not be around for much longer. During their visits to Brazil, Hughes and his colleagues saw that the high-elevation site where the species was found had become markedly drier and hotter. Hughes attributed the change in conditions at the Parque Estadual de Itacolomi, which is near the World Heritage Site Ouro Preto, to global warming.

The ants can survive this shift in the local climate, but “the fungus can’t,” he said. “What we think we will see is the extinction event of the fungus we just managed to describe.” (Hughes said fungi are essential aquatic organisms living in terrestrial environments, making them extra-sensitive to a drying climate.) …

via New Zombie-Ant Fungi Found – Yahoo! News.

The great UFO hoax

Back in 1967 a group of students strategically placed UFOs across the country. Two ‘landed’ in Kent.  … 1967 was a huge year for UFO sightings in the UK and a group of engineer apprentices at the Royal Aircraft Establishment in Farnborough decided to make the headlines.

Through meticulous planning they created a fleet of UFOs and planted them on the same line, the same distance apart, across the country from the Bristol Channel to the Kent coast. In Kent, one ‘landed’ on a golf course in Bromley and another on the Isle of Sheppey both to be found by members of the public.

The discoveries caused quite a stir and even Ministry of Defence was alerted before it was realised that the whole thing was an elaborate hoax. Here is some BBC archive footage of a Kent ‘space ship’ as it is being inspected by the authorities:

via BBC – Kent – History – The great UFO hoax.

A “war of the worlds” rag week hoax by aircraft engineering apprentices was treated as a real alien invasion of Britain – for a few hours at least, according to newly released Ministry of Defence files. The army’s southern command, four police forces, bomb disposal units, RAF helicopters and the MoD’s intelligence branch were all mobilised in the early hours of Monday 4 September 1967 to meet the threat.

They went into action after the police and RAF were flooded with calls from the public reporting the discovery of six small “flying saucers” in locations in a perfect line across southern England from Sheppey to the Bristol Channel. It was not until a Scotland Yard bomb disposal squad with orders to check one of the objects with portable X-ray equipment arrived at Bromley police station, south London, that the hoax was uncovered – the Ever Ready batteries were a bit of a giveaway.

Another of the “saucers” was sent to be examined by Home Office scientists at Aldermaston and a third was inspected by the chief designer of the guided weapons division of the British Aircraft Corporation. One saucer which was found at Chippenham, Wiltshire, was blown up in a controlled explosion. The Whitehall papers released at the National Archives show that within Whitehall the “1967 flying saucer hoax” was regarded at the MoD as an “obviously very successful practical joke”. ….

via Alien invasion hoax fooled MoD, archive papers reveal | World news | The Guardian.

Are these articles purposely vague and frustrating? Who did the hoax being reported? How did they do it? What materials did they use? What did people see? Did they fly or where they all found on the ground? What is “rag week”? Who found the objects? Where are the interviews with the people from the time? What were the consequences for the hoaxers? Lets have some reporting.

 

 

Tidal effects change ‘habitable zone’ concept

…By studying the tides caused by low-mass stars on their potential earth-like companions, Heller and his colleagues have concluded that tidal effects modify the traditional concept of the habitable zone.

Heller deduced this from three different effects. Firstly, tides can cause the axis of a planet`s rotation to become perpendicular to its orbit in just a few million years. In comparison, Earth’s axis of rotation is inclined by 23.5 degrees — an effect which causes our seasons. Owing to this effect, there would be no seasonal variation on such Earth-like planets in the habitable zone of low-mass stars. These planets would have huge temperature differences between their poles, which would be in perpetual deep freeze, and their hot equators which in the long run would evaporate any atmosphere. This temperature difference would cause extreme winds and storms.

The second effect of these tides would be to heat up the exoplanet, similar to the tidal heating of Io, a moon of Jupiter that shows global vulcanism.

Finally, tides can cause the rotational period of the planet (the planet’s “day”) to synchronize with the orbital period (the planet’s “year”). This situation is identical to the Earth-moon setup: the moon only shows Earth one face, the other side being known as “the dark side of the moon.” As a result one half of the exoplanet receives extreme radiation from the star while the other half freezes in eternal darkness.

The habitable zone around low-mass stars is therefore not very comfortable — it may even be uninhabitable. From an observer’s point of view, low-mass stars have so far been the most promising candidates for habitable exoplanets. Now, due to Heller’s findings, Earth-like exoplanets that have already been found in the conventional habitable zone of low-mass stars, have to be re-examined to consider tidal effects. …

via New conditions for life on other planets: Tidal effects change ‘habitable zone’ concept.

Scientists solve mystery of disappearing sunspots

Laura Zuckerman – A trio of top solar scientists said on Wednesday they had solved the mystery behind the disappearance of sunspots, a phenomenon that has stumped astrophysicists worldwide for more than two centuries.

The research, which will be published on Thursday in the journal Nature, shows that unusually weak magnetic fields on the sun paired with reduced solar activity cause sunspots to disappear.

Sunspots appear to the human eye as dark spots on the sun, some as wide as 49,000 miles, according to NASA. They are caused by intense magnetic activity, or storms, on the sun’s surface, which is plasma. Sunspots often emit particles into space which are known as solar flares.

Sunspots went missing from 2008 to 2010 in a rare occurrence that first was reported in 1810.

Although it is well documented that the sun goes through regular 11-year cycles of high and low solar activity, sunspots are not prone to disappear for an extended period, the researchers said.

“Understanding sunspots is important because solar activities influence space weather, which affects technology in space and on the earth,” Montana State University solar physicist Piet Martens, who conducted the study with two other scientists, said in a statement. …

Scientists said the ability to better forecast extreme lows in solar activity, like the disappearance of sunspots, could help protect communication systems by altering the orbits of satellites or shutting down sensitive systems.

via NewsDaily: Scientists solve mystery of disappearing sunspots.