Study Study shows drinking donkeys milk is good for you. Cleopatra would bathe in it as part of her beauty regime.
Milk from donkeys, which was still being drunk in Victorian times, contains less fat and is more nutritious than cows milk.
Researchers have found that drinking donkeys milk could be a good way to lose weight and protect your heart.
The study at the University of Naples, Italy, compared the effect of donkey milk compared to cows milk in diet and health.
and donkey milk provided the same amount of energy but that the latter caused more weight gain as it raised metabolism.
Rodents that were given the donkey milk also showed lower levels of triglycerides, unhealthy fats that affect the heart,
Plants like the Venus Flytrap demonstrate a small amount of intelligence when they attract a fly into their sticky trap and close their mouth around it.
In a somewhat similar display of plant intelligence, Poison ivy plants are able to sense danger through the proximity of a person or animal,
and as a defense mechanism, the plant will shoot out a poisonous spay. But are plants trainable?
Worlds Most Dangerous Animals After doing some research, Ive assembled a list of the top eight animals that pose the greatest threat to humankind.
Mosquito#An estimated 2-3 million fatalities a year Venomous Snakes#An estimated 50,000-125,000 fatalities a year Deer-An estimated 2, 000-4, 000
Scorpions#An estimated 800-2, 000 fatalities a year. Big cats (Lions Tigers, Leopards, etc)# An estimated 800 fatalities a year.
Crocodiles#An estimated 600-800 fatalities a year. Bees#An estimated 400-600 fatalities a year.
Elephants#An estimated 300-500 fatalities a year. For those of you who think in groups of 10,
you can add hippos with estimated 100-150 fatalities a year and that most overrated of evil sea creatures, the shark, with somewhere around 100 fatalities a year.
The reason I find this to be such an intriguing list is because of the animal in the number 3 slot,
that vicious creature weve learned to love and hate, the deer. On a recent trip to South dakota my wife and I had the misfortune of colliding with a deer late one evening.
While I had just enough time to stomp on my brakes and wear a flat side onto my tires,
it wasnt quite enough time to avoid the deer that appeared out of nowhere in the darkness.
The deer apparently had no way of intellectually connecting the engine noise, screeching tires, and blazing headlights with the coming danger.
The U s. Department of transportation estimates that the white-tailed deer alone kills around 130 Americans each year simply by causing car accidents.
In 1994 the predator#deer had a banner year, causing 211 human deaths in car wrecks.
In the U s. there are about 1. 5 million deer/vehicle collisions annually, resulting in 29,000 human injuries and more than $1 billion in insurance claims in addition to the death toll.
Approx 50%of all the accidents happen in Oct, Nov, and Dec during mating season. Deer also carry the ticks that transmit Lyme disease to about 13,000 people each year.
Economic damage to agriculture, timber, and landscaping by deer totals more than $1. 2 billion a year.
Yes one of the worlds most dangerous animals in the world is the lowly deer.
This is one of those facts that if told to people living in the 1800s, they would have found it quite amusing.
But it also points to the fact that, up until this point, deer are an animal that is not capable of learning.
Evolutionary theory would lead us to believe that given the confrontational nature of deer and cars,
that some amount of learning should have been passed down from one generation to the next. Indeed there is empirical evidence of this being true with birds
where the number of dead birds found stuck in the grills of cars has dropped dramatically over the past few decades.
But the same is not true for deer. So the question becomes#are deer incapable of learning,
or have we simply not found the proper systems or techniques for training them? Speculating on this notion,
if we were able to increase the intelligence of deer just slightly, then logically they would become aware of the dangers of running in front of cars.
Nearly all other animal species have learned to avoid cars, so it seems reasonable that deer must simply be missing something.
In fact, if we push this line of thinking to the comical extreme and we increase deer intelligence a few steps beyond collision avoidance,
the deer-crossing signs found many places along roads could be rotated 90 degrees and changed from deer-crossing#signs to car-crossing#signs for the deer to read.
Perhaps this comes across as little more than an amusing idea but it brings us to a much larger topic to consider#animal intelligence.
Animal Intelligence Are animals capable of learning? Many animals have special cognitive abilities that allow them to excel in their particular habitats,
but they do not often solve novel problems. Some of course do, and we call them intelligent,
but none are as quick-witted as humans. In the 1970s, Herbert Terrace, a psychologist at Columbia University, trained a chimp named Nim Chimpsky to recognize 125 different sign language gestures
and use these signs to communicate on an elementary level. Circus trained animals such as horses, elephants,
and tigers have learned to respond to human voice commands. In fact most dogs are able to display a high degree of perception from being immersed in the communication of their owners.
But is it possible to raise this existing level of intelligence even further As an example,
if we were able to raise the intelligence of a silk worm, could a silk worm be trained to automatically weave a tie
#or create a shirt#?#To make this a more plausible, would it be possible to create a material frame that a silk worm could navigate around,
effectively creating a shirt that could later be harvested, #dyed, and packaged for sale? Swallows are the pesky birds that create the dirty mud nests on the sides of buildings.
With a little training, would it be possible to teach the swallows to work with cement instead of mud,
and use cement to build foundations for buildings instead of their mud nests. Perhaps they could even be trained to build monuments or towers.
Think that sounds a little too farfetched? Well, here is another variable to consider. Growing Rocks The idea of growing a rock sounds equally farfetched at first glance,
Corals are marine animals that exist as small polyps, typically in colonies of many identical individuals.
the polyps lay down a skeleton that is characteristic of their species. A head of coral grows by asexual reproduction of the individual polyps.
While its easy for me to blur the lines between plants and animals and between organic and inorganic material,
#CDC Confirms Lemon Eucalyptus oil as Effective as DEET Mosquitoes can be a huge problem. Its easy to say youll never use DEET,
My home state boasts mosquitoes that rival your house pet in size and stature. But even still, many fear the toxicity of DEET and try to avoid it even with those mini-monsters landing on you noon and night.
The CDC confirmed that lemon eucalyptus oil can be as effective as DEET in repelling mosquitoes
when oil of lemon eucalyptus was tested against mosquitoes found in the US it provided protection similar to repellents with low concentrations of DEET.
Dr. Mohammed Abou-Donia of Duke university studied lab animals performance of neuro-behavioural tasks requiring muscle co-ordination.
He found that lab animals exposed to the equivalent of average human doses of DEET performed far worse than untreated animals.
especially after we recently saw that scorpion venom can be used to create pesticides. Strano has filed for a patent on the sensor,
Did you know that tigers could climb trees? Neither did the chicken...Tragically hilarious...The other side of the fence is always greener,
and the dog begins#..#The bomb-shelter hotel is a big hit among survivalists...Theres nothing quite like freshly grown toad straight from the garden...
Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer...Not exactly a hotel where you can order room service...
and the moose isnt talking...Finally, a ride specially designed for people without Social security...Troll food.
Great britain is the only country where the Queen can also be her own pet...His face says it all...
bankers and traders sit at the top of the food chain#the carnivores of the system,
fat or salt to children, including the use of cartoon characters like Toucan Sam, the brightly colored Froot Loops pitchman,
Toucan Sam can sell healthy food or junk food,#said Dale Kunkel, a communications professor at the University of Arizona who studies the marketing of childrens food.
This forces Toucan Sam to be associated with healthier products.##The guidelines, released by the Federal trade commission, encompass a broad range of marketing efforts,
whether they might ultimately share the fate of Joe Camel, the cartoon figure used to promote Camel cigarettes that was phased out amid allegations that it was meant to entice children to smoke.
Our proposal really covers all forms of marketing to kids, and the product packaging and the images and themes on the cereal boxes have tremendous appeal to kids,
officials at USDAS Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service are responsible for the studies. Federal environmental law requires the agency to complete such reviews before deregulating biotech crops.
according to APHIS. The program will most certainly be more timely and efficient, #for a biotech industry that has gained 7 million acres of crop cultivation in two years,
gurjum balsam, Sumatran dragons blood resin, olibanum, galangal, oleo gum resin, and frankincense. The RPG Series via Neatorama Share Thissubscribedel. icio. usfacebookredditstumbleupontechnorati n
#The primary jailbreak apps store, Cydia#named after the insect that bores into apple trees#now earns about $10 million in annual revenue and counts about 4. 5 million active weekly users hunting
said the company can detect which customers are tethering their iphones to other devices using an unauthorized hack;
whether or how AT&T challenges the creators of the hacks. Because of its technology, AT&T is more vulnerable than Verizon to unlocking,
#Wind Turbines Contributing to Decline of Bat Population Wind turbines are a major threat to bats.
because they eat large numbers of crop damaging insects, reducing the amount that has to be spent on pesticides.
Researchers urged policy-makers not to wait before addressing the issue of bat decline. Not acting is not an option because the life histories of these flying,
nocturnal mammals#characterised by long generation times and low reproductive rates#mean that population recovery is unlikely for decades or even centuries,
According to the researchers, a single colony of 150 big brown bats in Indiana ate almost 1. 3 million potentially damaging insects a year.
#Stink Bug Epidemic Spreads to 33 U s. States Stink bugs Stink bugs, the smelly scourge of the Mid-atlantic, are hitchhiking
Officially known as the brown marmorated stink bug, sightings of the pest have been reported in 33 states, an increase of eight states since last fall.
video) I would say people now regard them as an out-of-control pest, #says Kim Hoelmer, a research entomologist at the U s. Department of agriculture in Newark, Del.
The National Pest Management Association warns homeowners this week that the bugs growing populations are likely to make infestations significantly worse this year.
The bugs have been spotted as far west as California, as far north as Minnesota and as far south as Florida.
The eight states recently joining the stink bug party are Arizona Iowa, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin, according to the USDAS Greg Rosenthal.
Rosenthal says a report of a stink bug in a state does not necessarily mean that the pest is established
Stink bugs are named for the pungent smell they emit when frightened, disturbed or squashed. They have glands that produce a defensive compound,
which has a strong odor that repels predators, #Hoelmer says. It makes them particularly obnoxious.#
#Entomologist David Rider of North dakota State university says there are more than 4, 700 species of stink bugs in the world#250 of them in the USA and Canada.
Some of these are agricultural pests, while others are beneficial predators that feed on insects#but now its just the brown marmorated one in the USA thats causing all the fuss.
Last summer, there was a major infestation of the brown, three-quarter-inch bugs in homes throughout the Mid-atlantic, the worst reports coming from West virginia, Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New jersey.
In this area people are literally finding thousands in their homes,#reports Tracy Leskey, a research entomologist with the USDA in Kearneysville, W. Va. Theyre just a stinky nuisance for many,
but the bugs can be devastating to farmers. They feed on a wide range of important food crops,
Some growers have lost their entire crop to stink bug infestations, #Hoelmer says. This adds up to many millions of dollars of losses in crop values.
#USDA officials take this pest seriously and are hard at work trying to understand effective ways to control it
and combat stink bugs. Funding for the USDAS stink bug research in fiscal year 2010 totals nearly $1. 09 million,
The two seasons when people most notice the bugs are in the fall #when they come inside homes looking for warmth and shelter#and in the spring,
The bugs dont bite and arent poisonous. They dont transmit disease and dont suck blood,
The bugs probably got to the USA in the late 1990s by hitchhiking in container ships from Asia.
the Asian bugs have few natural predators in the USA. Native species do not seem to recognize them as prey,
However, a tiny parasitic wasp from Asia known as a Trissolcus wasp#a bug smaller than a gnat#is showing promise as a possible biological control.
These wasps, which are natural enemies of the brown marmorated stink bug in Asia, might be able to nip the stink bug explosion in the bud by preying on brown marmorated stink bug eggs, the only type of eggs that species of wasps eats.
Hoelmer says that research is underway to determine whether it will be safe to release this specific species of wasp into the wild in the USA:
We already know that each species of Trissolcus only recognizes certain kinds of stink bugs as suitable food for their offspring.
If they cannot locate their species of stink bug hosts, they wont reproduce and they wont survive.
However, we want to be sure that any wasps that are released to control the brown marmorated stink bug will not create problems for other stink bugs,
especially species that are beneficial.##Via USA Today Share Thissubscribedel. icio. usfacebookredditstumbleupontechnorati
#Food Dyeâ##s May be linked to Hyperactivity in Children Artificial dyes in food are limited not just to candy.
#said Kantha Shelke, co-president of the food research firm Corvus Blue. Or cheese#cheese is naturally a pale color
Dogs see limited color, but apparently their owners dont like buying dull, gray chow. Now, federal regulators are reexamining artificial ingredients they have deemed long to be prompted safe
by scientific studies suggesting that color additives might be linked to hyperactivity in children and other health effects.
the FDA banned Red No. 3 in cosmetics, medicines and some other products because it was linked to cancer in mice
because pests dont eat it #or die if they do. Even simply soaking cassava for a few hours will help as it also contains an enzyme called limnarase that liberates the cyanide over time.
the ingredient theobromine is dangerous to dogs and cats. Most of us love our furry friends and it is vital you keep your favorite treats away from them.
#Pepsico says it is the worlds first bottle of a common type of plastic called PET made entirely of plant-based materials.
Traditional plastic, called PET, is used in beverage bottles, food pouches, coatings and other common products.
Traditional PET plastic is made using fossil fuels, like petroleum, a limited resource thats rising in price.
Some dogs were born to dance...Oh honey, quick! Get the camera!..I think Ill sleep here...
As with most giraffes, they never really know what their role in life is...If you can unravel a lime with your tongue,
The real reason why pandas are going extinct. Darwin is watching!..After it was over,
In a brilliant stroke of marketing genius, Tonka is making a play to replace the stork in baby lore...
and sell other earthly odors like horse, pigs, manure and straw. LINK Share Thissubscribedel. icio. usfacebookredditstumbleupontechnorati c
#Zombie Ants Controlled by Four New Species of Fungi A stalk of the newfound fungus species Ophiocordyceps camponoti-balzani,
grows out of a zombie#ants head in a Brazilian rain forest. Originally thought to be a single species, called Ophiocordyceps unilateralis,
of which can mind control#ants#cientists announced last week. pics) The fungus species can infect an ant,
take over its brain, and then kill the insect once it moves to a location ideal for the fungi to grow
and spread their spores. All four known fungi species live in Brazils Atlantic rain forest, which is rapidly changing due to climate change
It is tempting to speculate that each species of fungus has its own ant species that it is adapted best to attack#
Healthy Camponotus rufipes ants scamper across a Brazilian forest floor. The four newly identified zombie#fungi species use different techniques to spread after infecting an ant, the researchers found.
Some of the fungi species create thin infection pegs#that stick out from a victims body
and infect passing ants, Hughes said. Other fungus species develop explosive spores on infected ants bodies.
When other ants come near the cadavers, the shooting spores can hit the unwitting passersby, turning them too into zombie ants.
Lodged in a zombie ants brain, the fungi species direct#the dying ants to anchor themselves to leaves or other stable places,
as pictured above#roviding a stable nursery#for the fungus. For instance, as the Ophiocordyceps camponoti-balzani fungus is about to kill the ant, the insect bites down hard into whatever substance its standing on.
This attachment is so strong that a dead zombie ant can remain stationary even when hanging upside down,
the scientists say. A white fungus stalk (left) of the Ophiocordyceps camponoti-rufipedis species begins to poke through the head of a zombie ant two days after death.
Also noticeable are faint, white, slightly fuzzy fungal growths on the ants joints. Once the insect dies
the fungus rapidly spreads through the body. During the first couple days, though, very little evidence of the fungus is visible from the outside.
During later stages of Ophiocordyceps camponoti-rufipedis infection, the fungus rapidly consumes the nutrients inside a zombie ant
and begins to colonize the outside of the ants body. The fungus stalk growing from the back of the head also becomes longer and more noticeable.
The mature fungus stalk, shown growing from a zombie ants head during the final stage of infection,
differs among fungi species. For instance, Ophiocordyceps camponoti-rufipedis creates just a single stalk (pictured), while Ophiocordyceps camponoti-balzani forms a forked stalk.
Ants arent the only zombie-fungi hosts#ther insects also fall prey to fungus. Above, a wasp is infected by a Cordyceps fungus species that hasnt yet been named or formally documented.
Fungi of the Cordyceps genus are the products of a tightly evolved arms race between hosts
and parasites, study author Hughes noted. That means the fungi are locked often into one type of host#specialization that might spell doom for fungi species as host species die out.
Unlike ants, many insect species that fall victim to zombie fungi are very difficult to identify after the fungus has spread around their bodies the scientists noted.
They may be less cuddly than pandas#but for the overall health of the planet, fungi are inestimably more important.#
#Crickets too can fall prey to zombie fungi (as pictured), though little is known about the fungus species that brought this insect to its horrific end.
Hughes plans to remedy that#nd expects to find many more zombie fungus species in the forests of Brazil.
#Scientists Fatten up Monkeys to Study Human Obesity Shiva is twice his normal weight and carries much of it in his belly.
Shiva belongs to a colony of monkeys who have been fattened up to help scientists study the twin human epidemics of obesity and diabetes.
The overweight monkeys also test new drugs aimed at treating those conditions. We are trying to induce the couch-potato style#
who directs the obese resource#at the Oregon National Primate Research center here. We believe that mimics the health issues we face in the United states today.#
#The corpulent primates serve as useful models, experts say, because they resemble humans much more than laboratory rats do,
not only physiologically but in some of their feeding habits. They tend to eat when bored,
a caged monkeys food intake is much easier for researchers to count and control. Nonhuman primates dont lie to you,#said Dr. Grove,
who is a neuroscientist. We know exactly how much they are eating.##To allow monitoring of their food intake,
some of the obese monkeys are kept in individual cages for months or years, which also limits their exercise.
That is in contrast to most of the monkeys here who live in group indoor/outdoor cages with swings
demand for the overweight primates is growing as part of the battle against the nations obesity epidemic, according to Dr. Grove and other researchers working with such monkeys in Florida,
Rhythm Pharmaceuticals, a start-up company in Boston, tested its experimental diet drug on some of the Oregon monkeys.
After eight weeks, the animals reduced their food intake 40 percent and lost 13 percent of their weight, without apparent heart problems.
In another study, a group of academic researchers is using the monkeys to compare gastric bypass surgery with weight loss from forced dieting.
what cannot be done with people#kill some of the monkeys to examine their brains and pancreases.
The primate center here, which is part of Oregon Health and Science University, has more than 4, 000 monkeys, mostly rhesus macaques.
About 150 of them are the rotund rhesuses. Some receive daily insulin shots to treat diabetes,
and some have clogged arteries. One monkey died of a heart attack a few years ago at a fairly young age.
Shiva a young adult, gained about 15 pounds in six months and weighs about 45 pounds, twice the normal weight for his age.
Like other monkeys with a weight problem, he carries much of the excess in his belly, not his arms and legs.
The monkeys daily diet consists of dried chow pellets, with about one-third of the calories coming from fat, similar to a typical American diet,
Gummy bears were abandoned because they stuck to the monkeys teeth. They also drink a fruit-flavored punch with the fructose equivalent of about a can of soda a day.
In all, they might consume about twice as many calories as a normal-weight monkey. Dr. Grove and researchers at some other centers say the high-fructose corn syrup appears to accelerate the development of obesity and diabetes.
It wasnt until we added those carbs that we got all those other changes, including those changes in body fat,#
who helped create an obese baboon colony at the Southwest National Primate Research center in San antonio. Still,
and monkeys get fat because of a high-fat diet is not a good suggestion, #she said.
Dr. Hansen, who has been doing research on obese monkeys for four decades, prefers animals that become naturally obese with age,
just as many humans do. Fat Albert one of her monkeys who she said was at one time the worlds heaviest rhesus, at 70 pounds,
ate nothing but an American Heart Association-recommended diet, #she said. Mice and rats remain the main animals for medical research,
but the effects on rodents often do not mirror those in people. Rinat Neuroscience had an experimental drug that sharply reduced appetite in rodents.
But obese baboons in San antonio doubled or tripled their food intake when they got the drug.
The surprising result prompted Pfizer, which acquired Rinat, to explore whether the drug instead could promote weight gain,
perhaps for cancer patients or others suffering from wasting. Some companies see no need to use primates to study obesity and diabetes,
saying it is almost as easy to do human studies. Monkey studies can cost up to several million dollars.
The animals are so precious that only a small number can be used. And there are ethical reviews before a study can begin.
Doing primate studies is about as difficult as doing human studies from an ethical standpoint,
#said Dr. Lee M. Kaplan, director of the weight center at Massachusetts General Hospital, who is one of the researchers in the bariatric surgery study here.
Animal rights activists say primate studies subject animals to needless suffering like the stress of being caged.
what they said were mistreated and unhealthy monkeys. Jim Newman, a spokesman for the primate center, said the accusations were unfounded and that after both instances,
inspectors from the Department of agriculture found no violations of rules. Activists also question whether the studies are needed.
when pregnant monkeys ate the high-fat diet, their offspring had metabolic problems. The babies were also more prone to anxiety
Terrorizing Monkeys with Mr. Potato Head is Research?##Alisa Mullins of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals wrote in November.
She noted that in the study, fetuses were taken from wombs and killed so their brains could be dissected.
She also questioned the need to study fat monkeys: Gee, couldnt he have hung out at the local Mcdonalds
He also defended keeping the animals in some studies in individual cages. Not all labs do.
the monkeys are housed in pairs and separated only at meal times so that researchers can monitor what each monkey eats.
These are said social animals Janice D. Wagner, a professor of pathology there. We think they are happier that way.#
#But Dr. Grove said he needed the animals separated at all times so they could snack between meals,
since that is an important reason people gain weight. And allowing them outside, even one at a time, would mean they would exercise more.
the obese monkeys are following. This is a booming industry in China, #said Dr. Grove. They have colonies of thousands of them.#
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