Free Republic

White-bellied tree pangolins are being hunted illegally in large numbers in West Africa. Photo courtesy of Justin Miller/Pangolin Conservation ========================================================== ORLANDO, Fla., Oct. 16 (UPI) -- Researchers from Florida and Illinois are leading a global effort to understand and protect the world's most trafficked mammal -- the little-known pangolin. Also called a scaly anteater, the cat-size pangolin is hunted and killed for its scales and meat in Africa and Southeast Asia. New research includes the so-called "Pango-Cam" attached to their backs to provide crucial information about the pangolin diet and territory. Without quick efforts to understand how to breed the...

Russia’s Investigative Committee has launched a criminal case against Robert Scales, a retired US major general and a Fox News military analyst, who said in a live broadcast that the only way for the US to turn the tide in Ukraine is to start killing Russians. The criminal case is launched under an article on “Public calls for unleashing an aggressive war through the mass media”, according to a statement on the official website of the committee. The investigators believe that such statements “break not only the norms of the Russian legislation but Article 20 of the International Covenant on...

LANSING, Mich., Oct. 7 (UPI) -- A proposed law in Michigan is aimed at ensuring beer drinkers who pay for a pint get at least 16 ounces. The measure was introduced in the House last week, MLive.com reported. It would ban what barflies refer to as "cheater glasses" with thick bottoms so they look like they hold a pint but actually take a few ounces less. State Rep. Jim Irwin, a Democrat from the college town of Ann Arbor, said the state regulates meat and other foodstuffs to make sure buyers get what they pay for. Irwin introduced a similar...

Scientist Stumped by Actual Dinosaur Skin by Brian Thomas, M.S. * Being the first ever to examine a dinosaur fossil long buried in sedimentary rock is thrilling enough for a field researcher. But a team working in Canada found an exhilarating bonus on a hadrosaur fossil fragment—it had actual skin still attached. They found the duck-bill dinosaur fossil near Grand Prairie, Alberta. University of Regina physicist Mauricio Barbi operates state-of-the art synchrotron equipment that can detect and identify chemical signatures without destroying samples. He plans to use the technology to investigate the special fossil and its skin. He told Canadian...

Just days after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border by climbing a wall, a Chicago priest says what he did was wrong and urged parishioners in his Southwest Side church to apologize if they had done the same. "And by recognizing you did something wrong, you can't keep it doing it," said the Rev. Gary Graf of St. Gall Roman Catholic Church in Chicago's Gage Park neighborhood. "I'm begging the people to take a different tactic." --SNIP-- Graf paid for the trip but took about $3,000 from a church collection to pay coyotes, or people who smuggle others into the U.S. for...

KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) -- A 73-year-old Japanese woman climbed to Mount Everest's peak Saturday, smashing her own record to again become the oldest woman to scale the world's highest mountain. Tamae Watanabe reached Everest's 8,850-meter-high (29,035-foot-high) summit from the northern side of the mountain in Tibet on Saturday morning with four other team members, said Ang Tshering of the China Tibet Mountaineering Association in Nepal. Watanabe had climbed Everest in 2002 at the age of 63 to become the oldest woman to scale the mountain. She had retained the title until she topped herself a decade later.

As the Federal Reserve downgraded its economic projections, Chairman Ben S. Bernanke admitted that the central bank's board was in the same distressing position as the average American family — frustrated by the slow recovery, limited in its options and largely reduced to hoping for the best. "I certainly understand that many people are dissatisfied with the state of the economy," Bernanke told reporters Wednesday when asked about the Occupy Wall Street protests. "I'm dissatisfied with the state of the economy." The Fed noted in its official statement after its two-day meeting that economic conditions strengthened somewhat from July through...

One of the worst effects of the collapse of media credibility is the current inability of viewers to gain any insight or even discern any clues as to the future direction of the economy. This is a relatively new phenomenon, leaving those who need to plan ahead, with little guidance other than rough guesses. Unemployment rate reports are exposed as little more than expected propaganda. Fortunately there exists a seldom-discussed indicator, unknown to the average entrepreneur, which has over the years proven to be unusually and surprisingly accurate. This indicator involves very little cost, and requires little training to master....

KATMANDU, Nepal - A veteran Sherpa guide scaled Mount Everest for a record 17th time Wednesday, beating his own previous record, mountaineering officials said. Appa, who goes by one name, reached the 29,035-foot summit with seven other Sherpas and a Western climber, said Ang Tshering, president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association. Appa, 46, is one of the most respected climbers in the mountaineering community. His closest competitor — fellow Sherpa guide Chewang Nima, 41 — scaled the peak a 14th time last year. Appa, who now lives with his family in Utah, was leading a team calling themselves the "Super...

TOKYO - A mountaineering company claimed that a 70-year-old Japanese man on one of its expeditions Wednesday became the oldest person to scale Mount Everest, edging the record-holder by three days. A spokesman for Guinness World Records in London said it couldn't immediately confirm the feat. Takao Arayama, aged 70 years, 7 months and 13 days, scaled the 29,035-foot peak, according to Toshinori Koya, who heads Tokyo-based company Adventure Guides, which planned the climb. The Guinness World Records Web site says the record has been held by Yuichiro Miura, also of Japan, who reached the summit at the age of...

Today I finished the book "Cobra II," written by retired Marine Gen. "Mick" Trainer and New York Times correspondent Mike Gordon. The authors chronicle in great detail the strategic and military missteps that followed the fall of Baghdad in April 2003. The book is particularly important because its publication was the catalyst that launched the "revolt of the generals" a few weeks ago. Their book appears about three years into this war. As I read, I couldn't help but imagine (given today's political atmospherics) how a book like Messrs. Trainer and Gordon's might have read had it appeared three years...

BAGHDAD (Army News Service, April 7, 2006) – A battalion-sized task force of approximately 700 Soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment, 1st Armored Division, is providing additional security and support in southern Baghdad. Task Force 2-6 is currently working with the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, to mitigate terrorist activity as the Iraqi parliament begins selecting the new government. “We were called to Iraq to assist Multi-National Division – Baghdad, to provide support to Operation Scales of Justice here in southern Baghdad,” said Maj. Jeff Grable, executive officer, 2nd Bn., 6th Inf., 2nd BCT, 1st Ar....

BAGHDAD, March 15, 2006 – A battalion task force from the 2nd Brigade, 1st Armored Division -- part of U.S. Central Command's "call forward force" in Kuwait -- has deployed to the Baghdad area, Multinational Force Iraq officials announced today. Military officials said the deployment is part of a broader plan, known as "Scales of Justice," that includes repositioning Iraqi security forces and coalition forces in the run-up to the Shiia Muslim observance of Arbaeen and over the vulnerable period of the formation of the new Iraqi government. Arbaeen commemorates a religious leader's martyrdom. "I have discussed this with...

Researchers at The University of Manchester funded by the Fungal Research Trust have discovered millions of fungal spores right under our noses - in our pillows. Aspergillus fumigatus, the species most commonly found in the pillows, is most likely to cause disease; and the resulting condition Aspergillosis has become the leading infectious cause of death in leukaemia and bone marrow transplant patients. Fungi also exacerbate asthma in adults. The researchers dissected both feather and synthetic samples and identified several thousand spores of fungus per gram of used pillow - more than a million spores per pillow. Fungal contamination of bedding...

Feb. 24 — By Deborah Charles WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Attorney General John Ashcroft on Monday announced 55 people have been charged with trafficking in illegal drug paraphernalia as part of a nationwide crackdown. Ashcroft said selling drug paraphernalia is a billion-dollar industry and sales have skyrocketed through purchases over the Internet. Of 17 indictments returned in the investigation, ten are against national distributors of drug paraphernalia and seven involve businesses located in Western Pennsylvania, he told a Justice Department news conference. Ashcroft said drug paraphernalia sales had soared with the advent of the Internet, which allows easy access to anyone...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 27 — Saying that overloading may have contributed to a fatal plane crash this month in North Carolina, federal aviation officials announced today that thousands of passengers flying on small planes over the next month will have to tell ticket agents how much they weigh, or step on a scale, to check whether existing estimates of average passenger weight are accurate The Federal Aviation Administration is ordering all 24 airlines that operate the small planes to collect weight information from a sampling of their flights. Investigators suspect that a Beech 1900 that crashed on takeoff in Charlotte, N.C.,...

c="http://a799.ms.akamai.net/3/799/388/242d09bcd616f7/www.msnbc.com/news/1657534.jpg" border=1>The duckbill fossil, named Leonardo, is laid out for display at the Phillips County Museum in Montana. The numbers are keyed to information about areas of the 23-foot-long fossil. A separate portion of the tail can be seen in the background of the photo. Dinosaur Mummy shows some skin! Fossilized duckbill dinosaur provides rare clues about diet and appearance By Alan Boyle MSNBC Oct. 14 — A mummified dinosaur from Montana has revealed how the creature looked and how it lived 77 million years ago — down to the texture of its skin and the contents of its stomach,...

Though we shared the same Alma mater at Chapel Hill. I'd never been to Greensboro. But I knew "the Scales case" It had captured national headlines during the Red Baiting McCarthy era. I recalled that Scales was the son of Greensboro Aristocracy and the only american who served time in a Federal penitentiary for being a member of the Commnist Party......