] SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- The Navy has agreed to
] limit its peacetime use of a new sonar system designed to
] detect enemy submarines, but which may also harm marine
] mammals and fish, an environmentalist group said.

Report: Navy to limit sonar to protect whales

] FRENCH VALLEY, California (AP) -- A crematorium owner who
] removed heads, knees, spines and other parts from dozens
] of bodies and sold them to medical researchers was
] sentenced to 20 years in prison.

What is it with these crematorium owners?

Man sentenced for selling body parts

] "He was straight up," he added. "He raised a healthy
] tiger. They should find him a job with animals."

Tiger in da hood

] Now in the current issue of the journal Science,
] researchers say they have found spotted knapweed's deadly
] secret: a potent and previously unknown poison that it
] releases through its roots into the soil to kill off
] neighboring plants. By eliminating its neighbors, the
] weed can appropriate all the water and nutrients that the
] other plants would have taken, and it has plenty of new
] space to spread out in.

Forensic Botanists Find the Lethal Weapon of a Killer Weed

] British scientists have shown in a controlled experiment
] that the extreme bass sound known as infrasound produces
] a range of bizarre effects in people including anxiety,
] extreme sorrow and chills -- supporting popular
] suggestions of a link between infrasound and strange
] sensations.

I'd like to see a better article on this.. the idea is VERY interesting.

Feel a ghost? Perhaps it's infrasound

] The Red Planet still will seem small though. Even though
] Mars is twice the size of the moon, it will be 145 times
] as distant.
]
] With binoculars, or better yet a telescope, observers can
] start to pick out details on the planet's surface. The
] view from even a modest telescope should reveal the
] planet's southern ice cap, Beatty said.

Went to New Hampshire this weekend, to check out Mars. Mars would have been a lot more interesting if it wasn't 40 degrees out and winds of 30-40mph. Too bad. :(

Our best look at Mars, ever

] A 10-ton whale that leaped into a yacht near Australia
] seems to have survived the impact without major injury,
] authorities said, but the only known albino humpback
] faces a new threat, human stalkers.

Ever since I saw this story last week, I've been wondering if he's okay. I'm glad he is. Now people should just leave him alone!!!!

Rare white whale survives boat collision

] The researchers claim this is the first photograph of a
] minke whale letting one go in the icy waters of
] Antarctica. It was taken from the bow of a research
] vessel.

Stinky!!!

Whale flatulence stuns scientists (August 14, 2003)

] Robert Short held a white pail as his mother, Laurie,
] drove the family truck home Tuesday from the chicken
] house on their farm in Laurel. Inside the pail was a
] yellow chick with four legs.
]
] The bird appears to be healthy, chirping like any other
] chick. The Shorts even let the chicken walk around their
] kitchen - on two legs, although the second pair were
] visible.

Yay chicky!!

Four-legged chicken born in Del.

As remarkable as the cat-drawing lesson was, it was just a hint of Snyder's work and its implications for the study of cognition. He has used TMS dozens of times on university students, measuring its effect on their ability to draw, to proofread and to perform difficult mathematical functions like identifying prime numbers by sight. Hooked up to the machine, 40 percent of test subjects exhibited extraordinary, and newfound, mental skills. That Snyder was able to induce these remarkable feats in a controlled, repeatable experiment is more than just a great party trick; it's a breakthrough that may lead to a revolution in the way we understand the limits of our own intelligence -- and the functioning of the human brain in general.

Savant for a Day