Friday, March 28, 2008
More Monkey Business: The Hundredth Monkey Effect
According to Wikipedia, The Hundredth Monkey Effect generally describes the instant, paranormal spreading of an idea or ability to the remainder of a population once a certain portion of that population has heard of the new idea or learned the new ability. However, for those of you that don't know the origin of this phenomenal Effect, you're not only going to get excited you're going to instantly re-realize how freaking similar we are, as today's modern civilization, to this wonderfully wild species.The year was 1952. The setting was an island somewhere in the south seas. A few anthropologists were studying the behavior of the macaques, a Japanese Monkey native to the islands with a diet consisting primarily of sweet potatoes. By routine, the monkeys would dig up a potato, break it in half and eat only from the center in order to avoid the potato's sandy coat, discarding the rest. After one potato, the monkey would go back to dig another. One insightful afternoon, a pioneering monkey decided to rinse his potato, allowing him to eat it whole, and dig for fewer potatoes. Consequently, he not only began enjoying a cleaner habit, he instantly created more free time to enjoy the things he loved to do. Was he praised immediately?
Just the opposite. His family and friends just couldn't understand why he was doing something so different! Despite this, some of the onlooking monkeys became privy to the transition and began washing their potatoes too. Slowly but surely, many more of the surrounding monkeys shared in the innovation. Hundreds of monkeys continued to hold fast to their comfortable method even though they began to notice the abundance the other monkeys were enjoying at the beach. Now, supposedly when the hundredth monkey took the leap of faith, all the rest followed. Most remarkably and due to an evident mass consciousness, the paradigm immediately shifted amongst the monkeys inhabiting the neighboring islands too!
Full Story
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Do Not Feed The Pigeons...in a thong!
A 58-year-old man who fed pigeons wearing only a skimpy thong which was back to front has been fined £150.Neighbours spotted David Batchelor in his street in Perth in the underwear which left his genitals partly exposed.
Perth Sheriff Court heard that children walking home from school had been passing by at the time.
His lawyer said that Batchelor had been drunk and there was no sexual element to the way he had behaved. He admitted committing a breach of the peace.
When officers had turned up to investigate they found Batchelor still partially dressed and with his flimsy thong on the wrong way round.
At the court previously, Fiscal Depute Hannah Kennedy said: "The witnesses watched as the accused walked between the common close entrance and the pavement. He went behind some bushes outside his house.
"There were a large number of schoolchildren passing his home address at this stage.
"He returned to his flat then reappeared still wearing this item.
"It was still exposing his genitalia. The witnesses were alarmed by his actions and concerned for the children who had passed."
Batchelor claimed he had not seen anyone around, but then confessed he looked at everyone as they went past and the "schoolgirls were bonnie."
Mrs Kennedy added: "Asked why he did it, he replied 'I don't know. I was just feeding the birds and if I was wanting to do that I would just go down town and get a whore'."
Sheriff Michael Fletcher said: "The alcohol seems to be at the root of the problem and nothing much can be done about that, given his attitude towards it."
BBC News
Rogue monkey accused of Rape!
According to The Sun newspaper, the 3ft langur monkey had lived peacefully beside villagers in the Hyderabad region for years.But the primate was overcome by lust after watching a couple engaged in amorous activities in a field, and is said to be copying the behavior.
An elderly woman is reported to have died of shock after the monkey jumped on her.
A local villager said: "It's awful. It keeps trying to do what it saw in the field!
"We're waiting for a forestry team to catch it" she added.
India has had problems with monkey violence in the past, and in some areas has resorted to training larger, more violent monkeys to combat the pests.
Last year the deputy mayor of Delhi was killed after being attacked by a hoard of wild monkeys on a balcony.
In another incident in Delhi a monkey is claimed to have snatched a two-year-old baby from its mother's arms.
The city now employs monkey catchers to round them up and return them to nearby forests. Local authorities have met resistance when they try to move the monkeys to other areas.
Culling the creatures is seen as unacceptable to devout Hindus, who see the monkeys as manifestations of the god Hanuman and often feed them.
Telegraph
Is Knut a Polar Bear on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown?
According to the Daily Mail, orphan and former cuteness-porn star Knut has let his child stardom go to his head. Markus Roebke, one of the Berlin Zoo's keepers, claims the larger-than-life polar bear (whose silver-screen debut comes this spring) is a "publicity-addicted psycho." Roebke adds, "he actually cries out or whimpers if he sees that there is not a spectator outside his enclosure ready to ooh and aah at him." Poor Knut. Looks like unless he wants to take the Corey Feldman route, he should do like Shirley Temple, quit the biz, and take to politics.Source: Gridskipper
Life Imitates 'Caddyshack': Gophers Triumph Over Man
Bill Murray must have winced when he heard that mankind's latest salvo in the valiant war against gopher-dom ended in a massive explosion that sparked a prairie fire outside of Calgary, Alberta, over the weekend.Even though there was a ban on fires in the area, two Canadian men went into a field with a device called the Rodenator.
The Rodenator dumps a mixture of propane and oxygen into gopher holes, then lights them up like a Fourth of July fireworks display, causing an underground shock wave, killing the gophers and collapsing their tunnels.
Problem was, after a couple of successful blasts, the two Canucks overfilled one of the holes, and the flames jumped out and onto the dry grass, starting a fire that threatened several homes and caused $200,000 in damage.
Check out this video of the Rodenator in action!
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
No Bait! Fish May Respond to Sound
Call them Pavlov's fish: Scientists are testing a plan to train fish to catch themselves by swimming into a net when they hear a tone that signals feeding time.If it works, the system could eventually allow black sea bass to be released into the open ocean, where they would grow to market size, then swim into an underwater cage to be harvested when they hear the signal.
What's next, teaching them to coat themselves in batter and hop inside a fryer?
"It sounds crazy, but it's real," said Simon Miner, a research assistant at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Wood's Hole, which received a $270,000 grant for the project from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Miner said the specially trained fish could someday be used to bolster the depleted black sea bass stock. Farmed fish might become better acclimated to the wild if they can be called back for food every few days.
The bigger goal is to defray the costs of fish farming, an increasingly important source of the world's seafood. If fish can be trained to return to the farmer after feeding in the open ocean for several days, farms could save money on feed and reduce the amount of fish waste released in concentrated areas.
FULL STORY
Elephants Shoot Excellent Video!
For the upcoming BBC documentary series Tiger - Spy in the Jungle, filmmakers enlisted the help of elephants to capture the tigers with hidden HD cameras. The large "trunk cam" (pictured here) was the most ludicrous of the devices carried by the elephants, while the smaller, lighter "tusk cam" proved to be easier for the elephants to carry for long periods of time. In addition, various log and rock cams were placed along the ground and activated by motion sensors when animals came close.Apparently elephants move so smoothly that the improvised footage resembles that shot with a Steadicam rig. Look for the show on BBC One this Sunday, March 30th.
Source: Gizmodo
Here's what it looks like when a sloth bear checks out its reflection in the lens.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Animal Planet Launches DVD Training Series
The next page in the cause for responsible pet ownership may be found in Animal Planet's new DVD training series.Revealed at the 2008 Global Pet Expo in San Diego, the series is designed for pet adopters. Two million free DVDs will be sent to shelters across the country by Animal Plant Pet Video.
Pet Pulse reporter Annabella Asvik has the story. Click on the video at the top right to watch this interview.
For more information on the training series, visit animalplanetpv.com
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