Panda To Student, "Hug This"...

Panda Bites Student Who Wanted Hug

BEIJING (Nov. 22) - A college student in southern China was bitten by a panda after he broke into the bear's enclosure hoping to get a hug, state media and a park employee said Saturday.

The student was visiting Qixing Park with classmates on Friday when he jumped the 6.5-foot - high fence around the panda's habitat, said the park employee, who refused to give his name.

The park in Guilin, a popular tourist town in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, houses a small zoo and a panda exhibit. It was virtually deserted when the student scaled the fence surrounding the panda, named Yang Yang, the employee said.

He said the student was bitten in the arms and legs. Two foreign visitors who saw the attack ran to get help from workers at a nearby refreshment stand, who notified park officials, the employee said.

The student was pale as he was taken away by medics but appeared clear-headed, he said.

"Yang Yang was so cute and I just wanted to cuddle him. I didn't expect he would attack," the 20-year-old student, surnamed Liu, said in a local hospital, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

Liu underwent surgery Friday evening and was out of danger, but will remain in the hospital for several days, Xinhua said.

Yang Yang, who was flown to Guilin last year from Sichuan province, was behaving normally on Saturday and did not seem to suffer any negative psychological effects, the park employee said.

He said it was not clear whether the facility would add more signs around the enclosure or put more fences up.

"We cannot make it like a prison. We already have signs up warning people not to climb in," he said. "There are no fences along roads but people know not to cross if there are cars. This is basic knowledge."

Pandas, which generally have a public image as cute, gentle creatures, are nonetheless wild animals that can be violent when provoked or startled.

Last year, a panda at the Beijing Zoo attacked a teenager, ripping chunks out of his legs, when he jumped a barrier while the bear was being fed.

The same panda was in the news in 2006 when he bit a drunk tourist who broke into his enclosure and tried to hug him while he was asleep.The tourist retaliated by biting the bear in the back.

When are humans ever going to wake up? Look at some of these incidents, what would YOU expect the bear to do? Once again, "ignorance and stupidity" rule the day.

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Whales & Dolphin Lose

Supreme Court Says Navy Trumps Whales

WASHINGTON (Nov. 12) - The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that military training trumps protecting whales in a dispute over the Navy's use of sonar in submarine-hunting exercises off the coast of southern California.

Writing for the majority in the court's first decision of the term, Chief Justice John Roberts said the most serious possible injury to environmental groups would be harm to an unknown number of the marine mammals the groups study.

"In contrast, forcing the Navy to deploy an inadequately trained anti-submarine force jeopardizes the safety of the fleet," the chief justice wrote. He said the overall public interest tips strongly in favor of the Navy.

The Natural Resources Defense Council and other environmental organizations had sued the Navy, winning restrictions in lower federal courts on sonar use.

Dolphins, whales and sea lions are among the 37 species of marine mammals in the area.
The Bush administration argued that there is little evidence of harm to marine life in more than 40 years of exercises.

Joining Roberts' opinion were Justices Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

The court did not deal with the merits of the claims put forward by the environmental groups. It said, rather, that federal courts abused their discretion by ordering the Navy to limit sonar use in some cases and to turn it off altogether in others.

Justice John Paul Stevens did not join the majority opinion, but said the lower courts had failed to adequately explain the basis for siding with the environmental groups. Justice Stephen Breyer would have allowed some restrictions to remain.

Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter dissented, saying the prospect of harm to the whales was sufficient to justify limits on sonar use.

In complicated sonar exercises, ships, subs and aircraft must train together in order to track modern diesel-electric submarines which can operate almost silently.

The Navy says the area off southern California is the only location on the West Coast that is relatively close to land, air and sea bases as well as amphibious landing areas.

NRDC said the ruling is a narrow one.

"I don't think it establishes a bright line rule," said Joel Reynolds, director of NRDC's marine mammal protection program. "The court acknowledged that environmental interests are important, but in this case that the interest in training was greater, was more significant than interest in the environment."

The Navy challenged restrictions that included shutting down sonar when a marine mammal is spotted within 2,200 yards of a vessel.

The case is Winter v. NRDC, 07-1239.

"Hey, screw the animals and environment, we have to perfect our "naval tactics" for efficiently "killing" other humans." Training my ass. That's okay though, because one of these days in the not to distant future, when humans totally whack each other into extinction, the animals will still be here. Thriving and prospering without having to worry about the faux pas of mankind.

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Parrot Saves Kid

Talking Parrot Saves Toddler's Life

Willie the parrot is no bird brain. He's being credited with helping save the life of a 2-year-old girl who was choking Friday at her Denver-area home while her babysitter was in the bathroom, according to CBS4Denver.com.

"While I was in the bathroom, Willie (the parrot) started screaming like I'd never heard him scream before and he started flapping his wings," said Meagan, the sitter who owns the bird. "Then he started saying 'mama baby' over and over and over again until I came out and looked at Hannah and Hannah's face was turning blue because she was choking on her pop tart."

Meagan quickly performed the Heimlich maneuver on the child, which dislodged the food.

"If (Willie) wouldn't have warned me, I probably wouldn't have come out of the bathroom in time because she was already turning blue, her lips


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Antarctic Octopus, Great White Cafe & 5,000 NEW Species

"Uh, Don't Find This"

Octopuses had Antarctic ancestor: marine census

OSLO (Reuters) - Many octopuses evolved from a common ancestor that lived off Antarctica more than 30 million years ago, according to a "Census of Marine Life" that is seeking to map the oceans from microbes to whales.

Researchers in 82 nations, whose 10-year study aims to help protect life in the seas, found a mysterious meeting place for white sharks in the eastern Pacific Ocean and algae thriving at -25 degrees Celsius (-13 Fahrenheit) in the Arctic.

"We are approaching a picture of the oceans ... from micrcobes to whales," said Ron O'Dor, co-senior scientist of the census of the 2007-08 findings by up to 2,000 scientists.

The $650 million census is on track for completion in 2010, assessing about 230,000 known marine species, a statement said. It has identified 5,300 likely new species, of everything from fish or corals. So far, 110 have been confirmed as new.

Among the findings, genetic evidence showed that the tentacles of the octopus family pointed to an Antarctic ancestor for many deep sea species. A modern octopus called adelieledone in Antarctica seemed the closest relative of the original.

Octopuses apparently spread around the world after Antarctica became covered with a continent-wide ice sheet more than 30 million years ago, a shift that helped create oxygen-rich ocean currents flowing north, a report said.

"Isolated in new habitat conditions, many different species evolved; some octopuses, for example, losing their defensive ink sacs -- pointless at perpetually dark depths," the census said.

SHARK CAFE

Other findings showed that white sharks traveled thousands of kilometers to spend six months at what researchers called the "White Shark Cafe" in the Pacific between Hawaii and California.

"During this time, both males and females make frequent, repetitive dives to depths of 300 meters" it said. Researchers said the purpose was unknown but may be linked to food or reproduction.

Mapping the oceans is helping researchers to work out how to protect marine life from threats including over-fishing, pollution and climate change. The census could identify areas needing conservation, or help define rules for seabed mining.

At one extreme, scientists found algae thriving in Arctic waters of -25 Celsius, kept from freezing because salt concentrations were six times more than in normal sea water.

And in the mid-Atlantic, researchers found anemones, worms and shrimp around the world's deepest known active hot volcanic vent, over 4,100 meters deep.

Among other findings were a predatory comb jelly anchored to the seabed in waters 7,217 meters (23,680 ft) deep near Japan. "It was found at a depth thought incapable of supporting predators like this one," a statement said.

The discovery of a wealth of new species was not a sign that the oceans were healthier than thought.

"The things that we're discovering ... are not the kind of things you want to see on your plate very often," O'Dor said, adding that people had fished the big, attractive species.

Even so, 95 percent of the ocean was unexplored. The census "will synthesize what humankind knows about the oceans, what we don't know, and what we many never know," Ian Poiner, chair of the census's steering committee, said in a statement.

"It is just a matter of time". With 95% of the oceans unexplored, and who knows how much unexplored land mass remains, it is just a waiting game before the remnants and signs appear acknowledging the existence of dragons. Not to mention Godzilla, or, an as yet unknown species that led to the creation of Godzilla. After all, Godzilla has to be based on something. Past or present. Don't YOU think?

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