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The thing was the size of a pickup truck. It reeked of decomposing mammal, and it was covered in what appeared to be long, white hair. “We’ve seen whales wash up before, and some that had been stuck on the shore for a few weeks, and never have they grown hair like that,” she said. Lynn touched it and said it was “firm but squishy” and felt blubbery. She could tell it was the body of something; she just didn’t know what. Tegner was confused by the long tendrils that appeared to be attached to it. He could see them...

Tsukumo No. 24. (Laboratory of Physical Anthropology, Kyoto University) ================================================================================== The risk of death from an encounter with a shark may be grossly exaggerated in popular culture, but that's likely small consolation to a man who lived and died 3,000 years ago. His remains now represent the oldest known shark victim ever found. According to an analysis of his bones, the man had a particularly nasty meeting with one of the marine predators, in the Seto Inland Sea of the Japanese archipelago. Nearly 800 wounds scored his skeleton, none of which showed any signs of healing - suggesting, strongly, that...

TACOMA, Wash. - When Jamie Bisceglia met up with some fishermen who had hooked an octopus during a fishing derby in the Tacoma Narrows August 2, she saw an opportunity for an unusual picture. "It was a photo contest in the derby. So, crazy me, hindsight now and looking back, I probably made a big mistake," Bisceglia said. Bisceglia put the octopus on her face and posed. At first, it grabbed with her with its suckers, and then did something she didn't expect. It bit her on the face. "It had barreled its beak into my chin and then let...

After some haggling over which jurisdiction was responsible for two dead whales washed up in Pacifica, crews on Tuesday began ripping up mammal flesh and burying the weighty beasts after neighbors complained of their rotting stench. An excavator dug into the whale flesh, tearing skin and muscle, before getting ready to sink the pieces of blubber and bone deep into the sand. Pacifica's Interim Chief of Police Dan Steidle said that after more than a month of discussion, it's been determined that the area where the whales washed up on April 14 and May 5 belong to the San Francisco...

As an eerie reminder of the tragedy that befell the Japanese people more than 12 months ago, a 150-foot Japanese fishing boat has been spotted on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, floating aimlessly off the coast of the Haida Gwaii islands, British Columbia. In the aftermath of the Japanese earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan on March 11, 2011, up to 8 million tons of wreckage was washed out to sea -- 2 million of which is thought to still be floating...

A reconstruction of Nectocaris pteryx Copyright 2009 Marianne Collins A recent study sheds new light on a previously unclassifiable 500 million-year-old squid-like carnivore known as Nectocaris pteryx. “We think that this extremely rare creature is an early ancestor of squids, octopuses and other cephalopods,” says Martin Smith of University of Toronto (U of T) ’s Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) and the Department of Natural History at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM). “This is significant because it means that primitive cephalopods were around much earlier than we thought, and offers a reinterpretation of the long-held origins of...

Palaeontologists have drawn with ink extracted from a preserved fossilised squid uncovered during a dig in Trowbridge, Wiltshire. The fossil, thought to be 150 million years old, was found when a rock was cracked open, revealing the one-inch-long black ink sac. A picture of the creature and its Latin name was drawn using its ink...

  Windows 7 might be getting all the attention lately, but Windows XP is having a quiet little renaissance of its own -- not only have sales of the venerable OS been extended until 2010, Microsoft is selling an ultra-secure version to the Air Force. The custom build ships with over 600 settings bolted down, and a security patch turnaround of just 72 hours compared to the standard edition's 57 days -- all because Steve Ballmer personally stepped in and approved the project at the Air Force's request. The effort's to standardize and preconfigure the OS has paid off:...

I have NO idea Why FREEREPUB deleted my last post... It was about non-USA (non-American) citizens and their view on USA... (Being that they have NO right to judge OR view OR tell USA what to do)... FREEPER, I NEVER typed a vulgar word that a child of ANY AGE would not, could not, and SHOULD not be able to read. IF you want to ban me after this message because I spoke against your deletion of my last message (which had NO offensive words to/from/about children)... then I SHALL and WILL label you to the same level as wikkipedia...

'Body sushi' uses woman as buffet table November 4, 2005 BY JANET RAUSA FULLER Staff Reporter Advertisement The "body sushi" special at Kizoku Sushi and Lounge isn't special so much for the fish as for the platter it is served on: a semi-nude woman. The River North restaurant began offering the $500 all-you-can-eat dinner special in its private lounge about two weeks ago by word of mouth. Customers must make reservations in advance, and there is a four-person minimum. Ever since the restaurant at 358 W. Ontario sold the first special to two couples last Sunday, it has logged 19...

<p>THERE'S nothing genteel about this finger food. Corporate bigwigs are forking over as much as $700 a head for dinner parties where guests are served sushi off a naked woman.</p> <p>The secret gourmet trend has taken off in the past six months in L.A., and now New York is getting on the act.</p>