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A new amphibian species can survive on land with no nostrils, lungs, or legs, say researchers who discovered the bizarre beast. The creature, found in Guyana, is part of the wormlike group of amphibians known as caecilians. Only one other caecilian species is known to live without lungs.

SAN LUIS, Colo.—A creepy string of calf mutilations in southern Colorado has a rancher and sheriff's officials mystified. Four calves were found dead in a pasture just north of the New Mexico state line in recent weeks. The dead calves had their skins peeled back and organs cleared from the rib cage. One calf had its tongue removed. But rancher Manuel Sanchez has found no signs of human attackers, such as footprints or ATV tracks. And there are no signs of an animal attack by a coyote or mountain lion. Usually predators leave pools of blood or drag marks from...

Man commits suicide after disappearance of prized bull semen stocks IKI, Nagasaki -- Both the prefecture and the Japan Agricultural Cooperative (JA) branch here are investigating after some 1,300 tubes of prized bull semen went missing and a person connected with the material committed suicide. A prefectural inquiry discovered the frozen semen -- valued at 1,220-510 yen per tube for a total loss of about 1.5 million yen -- was missing in August, and JA Iki has set up a special investigative committee to try and shed light on the disappearance. According to the prefecture's animal husbandry section, the 0.5...

It's no surprise men like women with ample cleavage - but do dog owners feel the same about their pups? According to a kennel in England they do. At the Wallace Kennels in Essex, a pair of chocolate Labradors now have homes thanks to £1,200 breast enhancements.

Buggy Rollin

FORT WORTH - A treasure trove of priceless photographs were recently found dumped under a bridge in South Fort Worth. Among the found photographs were images of President John F. Kennedy's motorcade just moments before his assassination, a young President George H. W. Bush and Gwendolyn Brooks, the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize. The photographs were found underneath Interstate 20 and Oak Grove in South Fort Worth by the Code Compliance illegal dumping team. The location is a well-known dumping ground monitored by the department. Whoever tossed the pictures away apparently had no idea they were throwing...

I have a Canadian maple leaf does anyone know where I can sell it?? Thanks, Luigi

Copenhagen’s sex trade did brisk business during the recent business climate conference. The global climate challenge may have been on the daytime agenda during the recent World Business Summit climate conference in Copenhagen, but in the evenings many businessmen, politicians and civil servants are reported to have availed themselves of the capital’s prostitutes. “We’ve been extremely busy. Politicians also need to relax after a long day,” says ‘Miss Dina’, herself a prostitute.

A boffin at the Bulgarian national Space Research Institute has stated that not only are aliens living among us, but that they object strongly to "immoral behaviour" by humanity - such as causing global warming. "Unnatural" acts such as use of cosmetics and "artificial insemination" are also frowned upon by the extraterrestrial visitors. Luchezar Filipov, deputy head of the space institute at the government's Bulgarian Academy of Science, made these startling assertions to Bulgarian media earlier this week. The Sofia Echo, referencing other local media, quotes the eminent space brainbox as stating that "they [aliens] are here right now, among...

Australian authorities plan to corral about 6,000 wild camels with helicopters and gun them down after they overran a small Outback town in search of water, trampling fences, smashing tanks and contaminating supplies. The Northern Territory government announced its plan Wednesday for Docker River, a town of 350 residents where thirsty camels have been arriving daily for weeks because of drought conditions in the region. "The community of Docker River is under siege by 6,000 marauding, wild camels," local government minister Rob Knight said in Alice Springs, 310 miles (500 kilometers) northeast of Docker. "This is a very critical situation...

He looks like he's had a very bad week. Video herePresident Barack Obama’s Thanksgiving address this year talks about giving thanks but also acknowledges some grim realities: the economy may be on the mend but the job situation is still very much broke and American remains at war. In the case of the economy, Obama notes the general progress and vows to tackle the jobs issue. In the case of the military, he thanks military personnel and their families. Here’s the address via You Tube:

AWESOME VIDEO. IT SAYS IT TOOK THEM OVER 13,000 HOURS TO MAKE THIS. WORKING EVERY SINGLE DAY FOR 8 HOURS A DAY WOULD BE 4 YEARS 5 MONTHS AND 18 DAYS! WOW. AND THATS INCLUDING WEEKENDS! READ DESCRIPTION BELOW! Turn your sound on for this. Read this first, then watch. This is almost unbelievable. See how all of the balls wind up in catcher cones. This incredible machine was built as a collaborative effort between the Robert M. Trammell Music Conservatory and the Sharon Wick School of Engineering at the University of Iowa .. Amazingly, 97% of the machines components...

An Australian man has been slashed across the abdomen and face by a kangaroo that was holding his dog underwater. Chris Rickard was walking his blue heeler Rocky yesterday morning when they surprised a sleeping kangaroo in Arthur's Creek, north-east of Melbourne. The dog chased the animal into a pond but it then turned and pinned the pet underwater. When 49-year-old Rickard tried to pull his dog free, the kangaroo turned on him, attacking with its hind legs and tearing a deep gash into his abdomen and across his face. Mr Rickard, now in a stable condition, said: "I thought...

Who's your daddy? Oh, damn. It's Charles Manson. A 41-year-old man, who was adopted as a 10-year-old and raised in Illinois, spoke out recently about the harrowing discovery. "It was like finding out your father is Hitler," Matthew Roberts told The Sun newspaper. Roberts found out about his long-lost daddy about a dozen years ago after using a search agency to find his birth mother. The birth mother told him that she had been raped and that the 1960s Helter Skelter killer was his father. ------ "I'm a peaceful person - trapped in the face of a monster," Roberts said....

TOFTE, Norway (Reuters) - Norway opened on Tuesday the world's first osmotic power plant, which produces emissions-free electricity by mixing fresh water and sea water through a special membrane. State-owned utility Statkraft's prototype plant, which for now will produce a tiny 2-4 kilowatts of power or enough to run a coffee machine, will enable Statkraft to test and develop the technology needed to drive down production costs. The plant is driven by osmosis that naturally draws fresh water across a membrane and toward the seawater side. This creates higher pressure on the sea water side, driving a turbine and producing...

A U.S. Census worker found dead in a secluded Clay County cemetery killed himself but tried to make the death look like a homicide, authorities have concluded. Bill Sparkman, 51, of London, might have tried to cover the manner of his death to preserve payments under life-insurance polices that he had taken out. The policies wouldn’t pay off if Sparkman committed suicide, state police Capt. Lisa Rudzinski said. “We believe it was an intentional act on his part to take his own life,” said Rudzinski, who helped lead the investigation.

LONDON: A first edition of Charles Darwin's seminal On the Origin of Species will be sold this week after it was found in a family's toilet in southern Britian, an auction house said on Sunday.

UP to a million Hindu devotees have gathered in a village in Nepal to witness the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of animals in a mass sacrifice that has drawn widespread criticism. Worshippers travelled long distances, many coming from India, to attend the two-day Gadhimai festival, which honours the Hindu goddess of power and takes place once every five years in southern Nepal. A huge cry of "Long Live Gadhimai!" went up after the village temple's head priest launched the event with the ritual sacrifice of two wild rats, two pigeons, a rooster, a lamb and a pig. The crowd...

Racial attacks like the ones behind the arrest of 32 suspects in Denver are part of a trend spreading across the country, gang experts said Saturday. As part of the trend, black gang members videotape the assaults in trendy tourist districts and sell them on the underground market as entertainment. "They knock a young white guy out with one blow to see if his knees will wobble and surround them and take their money," said the Rev. Leon Kelly, who runs a Denver gang-prevention program. "It's a joke." The gang members crave the notoriety of having their one-punch knockouts recorded...

As scientists, Governments and Industry look for viable replacements to our quickly dwindling supply of fossil fuels, attention has again turned to biofuels and the potential they offer. You’ve all no doubt heard of Ethanol, rapeseed and other popular bio-diesel crops, but it is now possible to turn our quickly growing garbage mountains into biofuels. Scientists have now discovered some amazingly effective, mutually beneficial, symbiotic processes that could single-handedly solve both imminent problems with the creation of “bio-fuels” and “synthetic fuels” derived directly from our trash and garbage. Full article is: http://www.oilprice.com/article-biofuel-of-the-future-turning-our-garbage-into-energy.html

A CONVICTED murderer and former aide to the Duchess of York has absconded from an open prison in England. Jane Andrews failed to return to East Sutton Park prison in Kent, England on Sunday night. Andrews was jailed for life for murdering her boyfriend Thomas Cressman, 39, at their flat in Fulham, west London, in September 2000. She beat him with a cricket bat and stabbed him with a kitchen knife in a jealous rage after he refused to marry her.

LANSING , Mich., A Michigan lawmaker is requesting a hearing for a bill that would give the state an official tartan, or Scottish-inspired plaid pattern. State Rep. Richard LeBlanc, D-Westland, who introduced an identical tartan bill that failed to gain steam in 2007, said he supports a tartan made by Scottish weaver Kati Meek, 69, of Alpena, Mich., the Detroit Free Press reported Monday. Meek said the tartan includes colors representative of Michigan's forests, lakes, beaches , cherries and snow. "I used Michigan's natural colors. There's some pretty gross tartans, and this I think is one of the more attractive...

MOAB, Utah, A 48-year-old man who has not used money in nine years and resides in a desert cave in Moab, Utah, said he loves his simple existence. Daniel Suelo said while he shops for clothes by going through garbage, he is content with living an existence where he does not have to worry about a job, mortgage or other concerns that plague most U.S. residents, The Denver Post reported Sunday. "The understanding that, really, we all possess nothing is the cornerstone of all spiritual endeavors and religions," Suelo said. A former Peace Corps volunteer, Suelo said he also will...

Artist Jens Werner Andersen from Norway painted his house in Burberry check pattern. He said he woke up one day and thought it would be a fun idea. The 33-year-old decided to turn his home, a former public lavatory building in Larvik, Norway, into a "gathering place for happy people". We wonder if his neighbours were quite so happy

A VICTORIAN man was almost drowned by a kangaroo after he dived into his farm dam to save his pet dog. Chris Rickard, 49, of Arthurs Creek, is being assessed by Austin Hospital surgeons after being mauled by the 1.5m roo at 9am (AEDT). He only managed to end the attack when he elbowed the kangaroo in the throat as it tried to hold him under water, The Herald Sun reported. By then he had already suffered a deep gash across his abdomen as the kangaroo tried to disembowel him with its hind legs, as well as a deep gash...

A MAN who went in search of his biological father was shocked to learn it was famed serial killer Charles Manson. Matthew Roberts, a 41-year-old DJ who lives in Los Angeles, said the shock of discovering his father sent him into depression. "I didn't want to believe it. I was frightened and angry. It's like finding out that Adolf Hitler is your father,” Mr Roberts told The Sun. "I'm a peaceful person - trapped in the face of a monster." Despite his revulsion Mr Roberts has been exchanging mail with Manson, who is serving life in Corcoran State Prison in...

Is this cause for concern? I’m not sure, perhaps it’s common in severe cases of H1N1 that have progressed into a severe pneumonia. We attempted to contact the Polk County Medical Examiner on Sunday and were told to call back on Monday. Iowa has officially recorded 21 H1N1 deaths, including seven in Polk County alone. But the county’s medical examiner said he has performed autopsies on some residents who were never diagnosed with H1N1, but actually had it. “In the autopsy, what we’re seeing is very heavy, wet hemorrhagic lungs, lungs with a lot of blood in them,” said Dr....

So efforts by scientists to re-create the big bang — that moment, if one can speak of a moment, as in time, before there was time, or at least a decent wristwatch, when energy, or some hot gooey primordial stuff, spewed out a burgeoning universe, eventuating in the birth of galaxies, the advent of life, and the eventual cancellation of Charles in Charge — have failed once again. It seems that the quixotic quest to find Higgs Boson, once thought to be the front man for an Air Supply tribute band, but which turns out to be the “God” particle,”...

Condoms may make for safe sex, but a city teacher says they made for unsafe conditions at a Manhattan high school. Karen Hollander is suing the Department of Education over injuries she says she suffered following a nasty spill on garbage and "slippery foreign substances" that included condoms discarded by students at the High School of Art & Design. Hollander says she suffered injuries to her head and nervous system after her Nov. 12, 2008, tumble at the Second Ave. school. The suit says school officials failed to maintain safety in the cafeteria by allowing trash that included condoms to...

The color test is simple. There are 8 screens, and each screen you are given a word and two buttons to choose from.

HOUSTON - Chris Hardman won't be insulted if you don't believe him. After all, not even his fiancee believes in UFOs. But Hardman swears he has videotaped dozens of extraterrestrial spacecraft over the past year, both here in Houston and in Austin. "Most of them are triangular in shape or kind of a teardrop," Hardman says. He posts his videos on his YouTube channel where you can now view 51 clips, including last Saturdays close encounter with what he describes as an alien flying machine that approached within a few hundred feet. "They're totally silent but this is the one...

"I couldn't understand what I was looking at," said the woman, whose identity the newspaper has agreed not to disclose. It was a work sheet called "Solving Equations using Multiplication and Division!" and it featured a photo of a black man wearing a straw hat, shirt and suspenders, with his mostly toothless mouth wide open. As if to underscore the man's stupidity, at the bottom of the picture was written, "NO WAI!!!" The mother learned that her son, the only black student in his eighth-grade pre-algebra class at Lenape Middle School, was teased by another student when the assignment was...

What's the difference between Landrieu and a $20 Whore?

November 20, 2009 (DURANGO, Colo.) -- A person in a chicken costume ruffled the feathers of Durango's city council as its members discussed rules for backyard fowl. At a council meeting Tuesday, someone in a chicken costume quietly entered the council chambers just as the mayor was discussing a recently-passed backyard hen ordinance. The costumed chicken took a few turns, flapped its arms, then took a seat in the nearly empty gallery. Several minutes later, the big bird left -- without identifying itself -- after laying an egg on the floor. [snip]

The past of human evolution is more and more coming to light as scientists uncover a trove of fossils and genetic knowledge. But where might the future of human evolution go? There are plenty of signs that humans are still evolving. However, whether humans develop along the lines portrayed by hackneyed science fiction is doubtful. Clichés dashed An old cliché has the highly evolved humans of the future sporting large heads to hold their advanced enlarged brains, "but that's nonsense, whole nonsense," said paleontologist Peter Ward at the University of Washington at Seattle, author of "Future Evolution." "If you've ever...

It's Barbie In A Burkha: World-Famous Doll Gets A Makeover To Go Under The Hammer For 50th Anniversary [Pics in URL] DAILY MAIL REPORTER 21st November 2009 One of the world's most famous children's toys, Barbie, has been given a makeover - wearing a burkha. Wearing the traditional Islamic dress, the iconic doll is going undercover for a charity auction in connection with Sotheby's for Save The Children. More than 500 Barbies went on show yesterday at the Salone dei Cinquecento, in Florence, Italy.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- Wide-eyed children around the world will be hearing from Santa's "elves" at the North Pole after all. During Christmas seasons for decades, these dedicated elves responded to thousands of letters addressed to "Santa Claus, North Pole." All that was ending with a U.S. Postal Service decision to discontinue the program based in the small Alaskan town amid privacy concerns. The elves from Santa's Mailbag vowed to fight the decision, while North Pole residents voiced outrage. A reversal of the Postal Service move was announced Friday. "We never wanted to spoil people's Christmas," said agency spokesman Ernie...

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. (AP) - A 39-year-old Southern California man has been arrested for misdemeanor child annoyance after allegedly paying a teenager $31 to spit in his face. The Ventura County Sheriff's Department says Charles Hersel was arrested Wednesday in a sting operation at a mall in Thousand Oaks. He's free from jail pending a court hearing. A sheriff's statement says Westlake High School students claimed Hersel paid them to yell profanities, spit and slap him in the face. Several also claimed he offered them cash to urinate and defecate on him.

Unless you've just arrived in 2009 on a time machine, you know that smoking isn't good for you. Did you know, that smoking isn't good for your computer, either? It's true, at least according to Apple. Two readers in different parts of the country claim that their Applecare warranties were voided due to secondhand smoke. Both readers appealed their cases up to the office of God Steve Jobs himself. Both lost. Back in April, Derek copied us on his e-mail to Jobs: I took my mid 2007 apple macbook (black) into the Jordan Creek Apple Store in West Des Moines,...

During the big Michigan Week jump, Ohio State University's Mirror Lake and a baby pool have a lot in common. The jump, which will take place tonight, is one of many student traditions. But Ohio State also is a research university, so it was inevitable that someone would apply a little science to this ritual. Last year, students in the College of Earth Sciences tested the water in Mirror Lake before, during and after thousands plunged in to psych themselves up for The Game. "Interesting results from last year's study include a lake-wide temperature increase of approximately 3 degrees Fahrenheit...

Two fingers and a tooth removed from Galileo Galilei's corpse in a Florentine basilica in the 18th century and given up for lost have been found again, a Florence museum said Friday. Paolo Galluzzi, director of the Museum of the History of Science, said three fingers, a vertebra and a tooth were removed by enthusiastic admirers from the astronomer's body in 1737, 95 years after his death, while his corpse was being moved from a storage place to a monumental tomb, opposite the tomb of Michelangelo, in Santa Croce Basilica in Florence. One of the fingers was recovered soon after,...

The two remaining Beatles have teamed up for a duet on Starr's forthcoming solo album, Y Not. It's a band renuion! Sort of ... Paul McCartney appears on two tracks... "Paul was doing the Grammys, so he came over to the house and was playing bass on [new song] Peace Dream," Starr explained. "I played him this other track and Paul said, 'Give me the headphones. Give me a pair of cans'. And he went to the mic and he just invented that part where he follows on my vocal. That was all Paul McCartney, and there could be nothing...

video 1:54

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- California tax officials say an interior designer's false disability claim was uncovered when he was spotted on a home improvement television show. Fifty-six-year-old Ronald Hunt of Los Angeles was sentenced Tuesday to 200 hours of community service and ordered to pay more than $180,000 in restitution, unpaid taxes and fines. He pleaded guilty to two felony counts of fraud.

A Ugandan government official has said that the bodies of people who die from drinking an illicit local gin should be caned six times before burial as an example to the living. District commissioner Edwin Komakech advocated the corpse-punishing on Saturday at a security meeting in the Amuru district. Some who make the local gin, called waragi, have begun distilling it with poisonous methanol. Over 50 people have died in the last two months in Uganda from drinking the gin. Last week, police said they would launch an investigation into the making of the dodgy waragi. In Uganda, the bodies...

Good grief!

Authorities are searching for an armed robber who was carrying a child when he attacked a man in Norwalk, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. The suspect allegedly approached the victim outside a store in the 11000 block of Rosecrans Avenue on Oct. 28. The suspect, who was carrying a 4- to 6-year-old boy, demanded the victim's wallet and alcohol he had just purchased. The robber was last seen getting into a dark-colored vehicle.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) -- Authorities say a severely overweight South Carolina man stayed in his recliner without moving for eight months until shortly before his death. Firefighters had to cut Tillmon Webb from the chair after his mother called paramedics because he was in pain. Greenwood County deputies say the 33-year-old weighed about 800 pounds when he died Wednesday at a hospital....

Posted on 11/19/2009 9:29:16 AM by Eleutheria5 I saw this on Reuters as I sat down just now, but then Reuters went down before I could get more details, possibly due to excess traffic caused by the event. But apparently, two people were injured at the upstate New York mall, one a US army recruiter, the perp is in custody, possibly hospitalized, and that's all I know. I can't find anything more just yet, though I did look. Anyone with more info, please contribute. http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=7613002

What a cat-astrophe! A ferocious feline turned her owners into a pair of scaredy cats in their Midtown apartment yesterday, holding them hostage at claw-point until the cops came to their rescue. Rosa Davila and her son, Victor Marte, 27, cowered behind a bedroom door at their pad on West 42nd Street about a half an hour while the raging Russian blue held them at bay.