— via deviantART
The Octopus Double Ring / Brass Knuckles is lasercut from 1/8″ Black Acrylic — via Etsy
The Phoenix Zoo has just recieved eight Komodo dragon babies on loan from the Los Angeles Zoo. Four males and four females, all from the same clutch, hatched between 6 August and 11 August. They weigh about 5 ounces each — via ZooBorns
John H Brackenbury highly commended. Four-spotted Orbweaver. (Araneus quadratus). Mare’s Way, Cambridgeshire, England — via British Wildlife Photography Awards 2011
There is concern mine drilling holes in the Tarkine in north-west Tasmania could be a death trap for Tasmanian devils.
Tarkine National Coalition spokesman Scott Jordan says he counted nine uncapped drill holes at the proposed site of a Shree Minerals mine in the Arthur-Pieman Conservation Area.
The group says nine of the marsupials died recently in a similar uncapped bore hole on a farm.
He says devils are enticed into the holes and can become trapped — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Two wily goats have led Queensland police and residents on a merry chase through suburbia after knocking on the door of a local councillor.
Paul Tully was at his electorate office at Goodna, in Ipswich, west of Brisbane, on Thursday morning when he went to investigate persistent knocking.
No, it was not a disgruntled constituent but two goats, curious at their own reflections, butting their horns against the glass front door.
Then they took off, leading Mr Tully, police, locals and council officers on a farcical two-hour chase — via redwolf.newsvine.com
This is a WIP redo of my old Red Balloons piece. I’d love some crit on this. Limited palette for t-shirts, but I feel that it isn’t done yet — via deviantART
A dog who was recently rescued from being a orphan has been doing some rescuing of his own.
When one of his neighbours fell, Thor the pooch sprang into action to let his owners know something was wrong – possibly saving the elderly woman’s life.
Barbara Simmons, 78, fell on the side of the road while checking her mail on a hot day earlier this month.
She said she yelled for help but no one came to her rescue for at least a half hour. Thor, a dog with a heroic name, noticed Simmons and went to check it out.
He was just so gentle and like, ‘are you okay, are you okay?’
explained Simmons. It was like somebody asking, ‘are you okay, are you okay?’
— via redwolf.newsvine.com
The blue-ringed octopus is a tiny cephalopod that packs a lethal punch. It lives in the Pacific from Japan to Australia, usually between rocks in a tidepool, and can be as small as a quarter up to 6 inches in diameter. It only displays its rings when disturbed. That is also when it bites. The bites are generally painless, characterised by some paleness around the bite and possibly a blood blister. Once the neurotoxins set in, the victim experiences shortness of breath, muscle spasms, and occasionally vomiting. If treatment is not sought fast enough, the victim may eventually die of paralysis — via Sarabellum: Wet and Salty
An artificial cerebellum has restored lost brain function in rats, bringing the prospect of cyborg-style brain implants a step closer to reality. Such implants could eventually be used to replace areas of brain tissue damaged by stroke and other conditions, or even to enhance healthy brain function and restore learning processes that decline with age.
Cochlear implants and prosthetic limbs have already proved that it is possible to wire electrical devices into the brain and make sense of them, but such devices involve only one-way communication, either from the device to the brain or vice versa.
Now Matti Mintz of Tel Aviv University in Israel and his colleagues have created a synthetic cerebellum which can receive sensory inputs from the brainstem — a region that acts as a conduit for neuronal information from the rest of the body. Their device can interpret these inputs, and send a signal to a different region of the brainstem that prompts motor neurons to execute the appropriate movement — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Two red panda cubs a male and a female, were born at the beginning of August at the Dublin Zoo — but they have only recently ventured out of the den. From the time they were born their mother, Angelina, kept moving the cubs to different hiding places around the habitat to keep them protected — via ZooBorns
In a victory for dogs and cats everywhere, pet stores in Toronto will no longer be able to sell dogs and cats, as the Toronto city council voted to crack down puppy mills
that have been supplying the dogs and cats to these stores. The city council in Toronto voted this week to close a loophole that made it possible for the unlawful puppy mill breeders to sell the animals they raise through local pet stores — via redwolf.newsvine.com
The ABQ BioPark is thrilled to announce the birth of two male Snow Leopards. Kiran and Kalmali, born 21 July 2011, are beginning to venture into their exhibit with their mother, Kachina, on the Zoo’s Cat Walk — via ZooBorns
Scientists have gained new knowledge into how viruses such as flu and HIV jump between species.
The research, by Edinburgh and Cambridge universities, should help predict the appearance of new diseases.
The scientists wanted to understand how viruses such as bird flu infect distant species like humans.
They found they were better able to infect species closely related to their typical target species than species that were distantly related.
However, the research also suggested that when diseases make a big leap they may then spread easily in species closely related to the new victim, regardless of how closely related these are to the original target species — via redwolf.newsvine.com
A diabetic dog has found a new home — with eight-year-old twin girls who have the same condition.
The Scottish SPCA was struggling to place Staffordshire bull terrier Roxy due to her daily insulin needs.
Catherine and Graham Hendry, from Ballater, Aberdeenshire, said the fact their daughters Louise and Katie also have type one diabetes made them want Roxy more.
The dog and girls now all have their injections together — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Guinea pigs are sociable animals and Swiss law prohibits owners from keeping the furry rodents on their own. But what happens when one dies? Don’t fret, just call Priska Küng, who runs a rent-a-guinea pig
service to provide companionship for grieving, lonely animals in the twilight of their years.
Swiss animal lover Priska Küng runs a kind of matchmaking agency — for lonely guinea pigs that have lost their partners. She lives with around 80 of the furry, squeaky little creatures, in addition to six cats, a number of rabbits, hamsters and mice in the village of Hadlikon, some 30 kilometers from Zürich.
Küng, 41, rents out her guinea pigs, a service that has been in high demand in the Alpine nation ever since animal welfare rules were tightened up a few years ago. Switzerland has forbidden people from keeping lone guinea pigs because the animals are sociable and need each other’s company.
As a result, the sudden death of a guinea pig, shocking enough in itself, can also place the hapless owners outside the law if they only had two of the pets.
That is where Küng comes in. Because they hardly ever die at the same time, even if they are exactly the same age, people who don’t want a new guinea pig and lose one of their two animals need an interim solution,
she says.
Without her rent-a-guinea pig service, the owner would have to purchase a new, probably younger guinea pig as a companion to the ageing survivor, whose eventual death would force the purchase of yet another guinea pig, locking the owner into an endless cycle of guinea pig purchases in order to adhere to Swiss law — even though he or she may only ever have wanted one guinea pig in the first place
Graeme the trainspotting cat has attained rock star status among commuters at his station.
Every morning the laid-back feline leaves home and saunters down to the platform on the Hurstbridge line to mix with travellers heading off to work.
The pampered cat cannot get enough of attention, with scores of regulars calling him by name as they stop for a chat and give him a pat on the head.
Safety conscious, the sociable moggie is meticulous about using the subway to cross to the city-bound platform, rather than take a dangerous short cut across the tracks — via redwolf.newsvine.com
An American man’s bequest of $8 million for an Australian volunteer wombat rescue program may never reach the program.
Brigitte Stevens from the Wombat Awareness Organisation says the man’s family is contesting the donation he made in his will — via redwolf.newsvine.com
— via unurth
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