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The rare surviving Olympia oysters of Tomales Bay, once an integral part of the Indian diet and a staple during the San Francisco Gold Rush, are being wiped out by voracious alien snails. Half of the oysters native to the pristine estuary along the Point Reyes National Seashore are being devoured by whelk snails, also known as Atlantic Oyster Drills, according to a new California Sea Grant study. The gluttonous predators drill into the shells of oysters and suck out the insides. "There are whole areas of Tomales Bay where there are very few adult oysters left," said Ted Grosholz,...

SALT LAKE CITY — Never mind the ick factor, a Utah boy is trying to get into the record books by covering his face with live snails. Eleven-year-old Fin Keheler, from Sandy, allowed 43 of the slimy mollusks to be put on his face Saturday. He wants the Guinness World Records to verify his effort. The Guinness web site says the record set in 2007 for snails on the face for 10 seconds is eight. The boy says he has since learned the record was 36. Fin made three attempts on Saturday. Sitting back in a reclining chair, snails gathered...

SALT LAKE CITY -- Never mind the ick factor, a Utah boy is trying to get into the record books by covering his face with live snails. Eleven-year-old Fin Keheler, from Sandy, allowed 43 of the slimy mollusks to be put on his face Saturday. He wants the Guinness World Records to verify his effort. The Guinness web site says the record set in 2007 for snails on the face for 10 seconds is eight. The boy says he has since learned the record was 36. Fin made three attempts on Saturday. Sitting back in a reclining chair, snails gathered...

Producers warn the price of snails - one of France's more exotic foodstuffs - is about to soar, because of economic development in eastern Europe.France consumes more than 14,000 tonnes of snails every year but practically none of them are actually French. With the most prized species now under protection, the industry relies on central and east European imports. But economic progress in countries like Poland and Bulgaria means less appetite for the hard work of snail-gathering. Until now, every year rural families there could earn a decent wage from collecting the animals in the fields and woods. So the...

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados — A breed of giant, ravenous snails that first appeared in Barbados five years ago has thrived on the tropical island, destroying crops and prompting calls for the government to eliminate the slimy pests. A nocturnal "snail hunt" last weekend reported finding hundreds of thousands of giant African snails swarming the central parish of St. George, the country's agricultural heartland, where farmers had complained of damage to crops including sugar cane, bananas and papayas. "We saw snails riding on each other's backs and moving in clusters," said David Walrond, chairman of the local emergency response office, which organized...

NATURE TO THE RESCUE - AGAINThe deadly sea snail venom that will take away your pain By Nigel Hawkes, Health Editor Times Online A NEW painkiller based on the venom of a sea snail will be available in Britain from today. Prialt, or ziconotide, is the result of more than 20 years’ research by a scientist born in the Philippines, Baldomera Olivera, who is a professor at the University of Utah. It is 1,000 times more potent than morphine but, unlike that drug, is not addictive. It is aimed at people suffering from severe, chronic pain who would normally...

Sinister secret of snail's escape By Richard Black Environment Correspondent, BBC News website Right-handed flame box crabs find left-handedness hard to swallow Snails with left-handed shells can have a big advantage in life - predators may find it impossible to eat them. That is the conclusion of research just published in the Royal Society's journal Biology Letters. Scientists from the US examined whelks and cone shells preyed on by the crab Calappa flammea. They found the crab is unable to open left-handed shells because it only has a tool for peeling them on its right claw; so it discards them....

THE organiser of France's greatest snail-eating festival has paid tribute to the Polish gastropods that appear to have saved Gallic gastronomy. Just over two months after the referendum in France on the European constitution, when Poles were denounced as a danger to the French way of life, Jacques Pommier said that the Polish imports had rescued the Burgundy Snail Festival. Mr Pommier is chairman of the festival committee in Digoin, Burgundy, where 15,000 people ate 96,000 snails during a banquet this weekend. Like most of the snails eaten in France, the ones in Digoin had been gathered in Eastern Europe....

A snail eating caterpillar is described. It hunts down snails, ties them down with silk and devours them. "Such oddball lifestyles tend to develop in isolated ecosystems where there's a limited variety of creatures, as in Hawaii. "There's more room for evolutionary experimentation," says Gillespie. For example, Hawaiian insects evolved without ants as predators or competitors for food."

Paris - Sixty-five percent of French citizens think United States President George W Bush's re-election is a "bad thing", according to an opinion poll published on Thursday. Just 23% of respondents felt the Republican president's victory is "a good thing," with 12% expressing no opinion either way, the poll published in Le Parisien newspaper showed. On future Franco-US relations, at a low over France's opposition to the US-led military action in Iraq, almost three-quarters (74%) of those questioned expected to see no change while 12% looked forward to improved ties and just seven percent expected things to get worse. The...

Frenchman crowned world champion snail spitter MOGUERIEC, France, Aug 2 (AFP) - A French algae fisherman retained one of the world's lesser-known sporting titles at the weekend - that of champion snail spitter, propelling the tiny creature a total of 9.38 metres (31 feet). Alain Jourden, 43, beat back the challenge posed by 110 pretenders from 14 countries including Belgium, Britain, Germany, Italy, Spain and Sweden, but failed to surpass his own world distance record of 10.4 metres. "Wind conditions were not favourable," said one of the organisers of Sunday's event, which drew 2,000 spectators to the tiny Brittany port...

The lethal toxins produced by cone snails are in hot demand for neuroscience research, and are being developed as potent drugs. Laura Nelson visits a would-be snail ‘farmer’, for whom milking time is fraught with danger. 24 June 2004 LAURA NELSON This article is from the news section of the journal Nature Marine cone snails are among the most venomous beasts on the planet. © Nature Jon-Paul Bingham fumbles around for a condom. Big Bertha is waiting. There’s an awkward pause. “It has to be the non-lubricated kind,” he says. Bingham rips open the packet and slips the prophylactic over...

Dan Rather will be on Larry King in a few minutes to gin up interest in his full-hour interview with former pres. Clinton (7:00 sunday, cbs) "Veteran newsman Dan Rather discusses the beheading of an American hostage, and his interview with former President Bill Clinton. Tune in at 9 p.m. ET. "

Man nearly dies after eating slugsOctober 20, 2003A SYDNEY student who ate slugs from a suburban backyard for a $20 dare got more than he bargained for when he contracted a potentially deadly form of meningitis. The young man was diagnosed with eosinophilic meningitis, or swelling of the brain membranes, five weeks after eating two slugs in 2001, the Medical Journal of Australia reports today. His friend also ate slugs but vomited them up, losing the $20 but saving himself a potential case of meningitis, parasitologist John Walker said. There have been numerous similar cases recorded since 1971, including a...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) - Dracula is not the only creature repelled by garlic -- snails and slugs are also put off by the pungent herb. And now British scientists have produced a special garlic extract that may just be the answer to gardeners' prayers. "It works well in repelling and killing snails," Dr Gordon Port, of Newcastle University in northern England, said on Friday. Using garlic to kill snails and slugs is not new. Monks for example grew it in gardens to keep pests away. But Port and his colleagues have...

OK, if nobody else will do it, I'm going to patch up this spat between the United States and France. As you know, our two nations are not getting along, as evidenced by the high-level meeting in Paris last week, during which French President Jacques Chirac and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, in what aides described as ''a frank exchange of views,'' bit each other. Yes, relations are at an all-time low. The French view us as a bunch of fat, simplistic, SUV-driving, gum-chewing, gun-shooting, mall-dwelling, John Wayne cowboys who put ketchup on everything we eat, including breath mints....

"France has neither winter nor summer nor morals. Apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country. France has usually been governed by prostitutes." ---Mark Twain I would rather have a German division in front of me than a French one behind me." --- General George S. Patton "I just love the French. They taste like chicken!" ---- Hannibal Lecter "Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion." --Norman Schwartzkopf "As far as I'm concerned, war always means failure" ---Jacques Chirac, President of France "As far as France is concerned, you're right." ---Rush Limbaugh, "The...

PARIS - France held secret military exercises in order to better prepare for an eventual surrender should they ever be attacked, say officials in the government. The training exercises, which began within days after the September 11 terrorist attacks in America, focused on a coordinated effort between the French government and the military in case they are confronted by the slightest act of aggression by a foreign country. "The policy of of an immediate and unconditional surrender is not left up to chance as many would believe," says Jean-Pierre Le Carche, deputy assistant to the French U.N Envoy. "Every aspect...