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A week-old giant panda cub has received her own blog as China seeks to raise public awareness about protecting the endangered animal, state media said Monday. The blog, named "Baby Panda Home", has debuted on the Sina website. It features photos, regular updates on the panda's growth and discussions among online panda fans. The panda blog is designed and written in a deliberately childish style, as it describes life at the Giant Panda Breeding and Research Center near the city of Chengdu in southwest China. "Mummy says it will be very hot outside today. So we'll stay together inside where...

BEIJING (Reuters) - A giant panda in China has given birth to the heaviest cub born in captivity after the longest period in labor and elsewhere twin pandas each gave birth to twins, Xinhua news agency reported. Six-year-old Zhang Ka delivered the baby on Monday at the Wolong Giant Panda Research Center in the mountainous southwest, Xinhua said. The cub weighed just 218 grams (half a pound), but was still the heaviest panda ever born in captivity, where most cubs are born at between 83 and 190 grams, Xinhua said. "It is very rare for them to be even near...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Officials in Taipei denounced yesterday Beijing's selection of two giant pandas intended as gifts to Taiwanese people as a "political plot" to force Taiwan to reunify with the Chinese mainland. Taiwan officials yesterday blasted Beijing's selection of two giant pandas as gifts to Taiwanese people as a plot to force Taiwan to reunify with the Chinese mainland. Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Chairman Joseph Wu said that China cannot send its giant pandas to Taiwan without Taiwan's prior consent. Commenting on China's announcement earlier in the day that it has chosen two...

A critical software bug has been discovered in several of the most widely used anti-virus programs. It could be exploited to take control of a computer or to steal information, according to an analysis produced by the independent security analyst who made the discovery. The glitch affects 39 different Symantec products - including both home and enterprise versions of its anti-virus software. It resides within the Symantec anti-virus library, which is used by all of the packages. The analyst, Alex Wheeler, discovered that a critical error occurs when the Symantec anti-virus library decompresses files from "RAR" format for analysis Symantec...

That's bang out of orderFireworks packaging ... 'appalling design'A FIREWORKS firm has provoked outrage by using a picture of the Twin Towers exploding on a box of rockets.The packaging shows the World Trade Center towers in New York ablaze with missiles flying at them.The rockets, are called Shock And Awe — after the 2003 Coalition campaign in Iraq — and the Towers sit over the words “200 shot barrage”.Horror ... 9/11 attackThe towers were destroyed by al-Qaeda fanatics in hijacked passenger jets on September 11, 2001, leaving 2,800 dead.Helen Chaplain, 31, was sold the rockets by a street dealer —...

One might expect the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to focus exclusively on advancing the health and development of humans—perhaps even with a special concentration on human children. But since 2001, NICHD, a subdivision of the National Institutes of Health, has provided $1,178,450 to a "Fisheries and Wildlife" professor for research focusing at least in part on "giant panda habitats" in China's Wolong Nature Reserve. NICHD, moreover, is not the only federal agency showering taxpayer money on this professor. A National Science Foundation grant that runs from 2002 to 2006 is scheduled to give him $1,111,407 to...

San Diego Zoo The Zoo's animal care staff observed Bai Yun give birth at 9:57 p.m. via a close circuit camera installed in the Giant Panda Research Station birthing den Aug. 2. The gender of the newborn will not be known for sometime. SAN DIEGO – Bai Yun, the San Diego Zoo's 13-year-old giant panda, gave birth to a cub Tuesday night after three hours of what doctors called "uneventful" labor. Panda Team Leader Don Lindburg said Bai Yun immediately picked up the newborn and placed it on her chest, shielding it from view behind her massive arms. For the...

We got a new panda at the Washington Zoo. Just born. "The cub weighs just ounces and was born at 3:41 a.m."

CHIBA ZOOLOGICAL PARK Friday, May 20, 2005 at 07:55 JST Futa, a two-year-old male panda, is proving a hit at Chiba Zoological Park. He can stand on two legs like a human being for about 10 seconds, an unusual feat for the species, zoo officials say.

TOKYO (AFP) - A lesser panda is proving a hit at a zoo near Tokyo as it can stand on two legs like a human being for about 10 seconds, an unusual feat for the species, zoo officials said. The two-year-old male panda named Futa stands up several times a day when "it sees something interesting", said Hiroyuki Asano, an official of Chiba Zoological Park, southeast of the capital. "We have kept lesser pandas for nearly 20 years at this zoo, but I have not seen one like Futa, which can stand for such a long time," Asano said. "Futa...

BEIJING — A study of giant panda poo in China has proved the endangered animals are expanding their horizons, Xinhua news agency said on Wednesday. The faeces were found in Fengxian county, in northwest China's Shaanxi province, where giant pandas hadn't been seen since before the 1970s, it said. In December, a farmer told the Fengxian County Wildlife Management Station that he had spotted an animal that looked very much like a giant panda and had seen giant panda dung while collecting bamboo leaves on a local mountain. "Experts with the Shaanxi Provincial Wildlife Management Station confirmed that the dung...

Yago: Last time we talked, in March, you said that it's important to listen to hip-hop because it gives you a sense of what's going on in the street. Have you heard the new Eminem song that's been out? Kerry:You know, I heard Eminem on "Saturday Night Live" last night. I heard the song that he did. I don't know if that's part of his new [album] or not. I liked it. But that's the only thing that I've heard in the last weeks. I'm on the trail. I'm campaigning every day.

Panda Software Reports a Spam Message That Downloads a Trojan The message is sent with the subject field: Osama Bin Laden Captured GLENDALE, Calif., April 22 /PRNewswire/ -- Panda Software's PandaLabs has detected a spam message currently being sent to users which tries to get recipients to visit an advertising page and which also downloads a Trojan to users computers. The characteristics of the message are: From: the name of the sender is variable, although it tries to make recipients think it has been sent by the BBC or CNN. Subject: "Osama Bin Laden Captured", Message text: "Hey, Just got...

A Japanese scientist could soon become stinking rich with an invention to be ready by 2005 that would use Panda dung to create electricity. Fumiaki Taguchi, emeritus professor of Kitasato University in Tokyo, embarked on the project five years ago when he asked Ueno Zoo for a bucketful of one of their most popular residents' faeces. Bacteria inside the panda's belly must be pretty special to be able to digest tough bamboo leaves and shoots, he reasoned. "If a panda can support such a big body by eating bamboo leaves, it's really different from other animals," Professor Taguchi said. "There...

<p>WASHINGTON -- Tian Tian may be ready for sex, but Mei Xiang definitely isn't.</p> <p>The two pandas, star attractions at the U.S. National Zoo, were staying apart Wednesday after some testosterone-fueled rough play Sunday sent female Mei Xiang scrambling into the safety of her favorite tree, where she stayed for 36 hours.</p>

Feminism Advanced as Remedy in Panda Mating Incident By Dover Smeed CNSNews.com Satire March 27, 2002 (CNSNews.com) - A national women's group is demanding the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. take measures to provide "a safe and nurturing feministic environment," for the zoo's female panda following an unsuccessful attempt at mating by its male counterpart. Officials with the zoo Tuesday disclosed that Tian Tian, a 265-pound male giant panda, bit and pinned down Mei Xiang, the zoo's 205-pound female panda, in a furtive mating attempt on March 24. Zoo scientists reported that Mei Xiang was able to escape to a...