Why animals eat psychoactive plants

Johann Hari, author of 'Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs', learns about drunk elephants, the stoned water buffalo, and the grieving mongoose.

The United Nations says the drug war’s rationale is to build “a drug-free world — we can do it!” U.S. government officials agree, stressing that “there is no such thing as recreational drug use.” So this isn’t a war to stop addiction, like that in my family, or teenage drug use. It is a war to stop drug use among all humans, everywhere. All these prohibited chemicals need to be rounded up and removed from the earth. That is what we are fighting for. Boing Boing has more.

18 Of The Biggest Creatures That Lurk Beneath The Ocean's Surface

Earth's oceans contain 99% of the living space on the planet, yet less than 10% of that space has been explored by humans. If these are the colossal sea creatures we know about, imagine what is yet to be discovered.

Animal Pictures

The Daily Drift

Editorial Note: Beginning tomorrow (January 28, 2015) we will be altering our listing of daily readers to reflect the countries alone and not include individual locations within each country. This will save a lot of time typing on our part.

Hey, wingnuts, yeah, we're talking to you ...!

 

Carolina Naturally is read in 200 countries around the world daily.   

    
He invented the flush toilet - affectionately known as the 'Crapper' ... !

Today is  -  Thomas Crapper Day

Don't forget to visit our sister blog: It Is What It Is

Some of our readers today have been in:

The Americas

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Brasilia, Porto Alegre, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, Brazil

Greater Sudbury, Hamilton, Henry Farm, Montreal and Quebec, Canada

Bogota, Colombia

Chacarita, Costa Rica

El Colorado, Mexico

Managua, Nicaragua

Luquillo, Puerto Rico

Europe

Brussels, Zaventem, Belgium

Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina

Glavinitsa, Bulgaria

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Lancaster and London, England

Paris, Rouen and Salon-De-Provence, France

Berlin and Bonn, Germany

Athens and Nikara, Greece

Reykjavik, Iceland

Dublin, Law, Swords and Waterford, Ireland 

Brescia, Grammichle, Monza and Reggio di Calabria, Italy

Riga, Latvia

Luqa, Malta

Rotterdam, Netherlands

Lisbon, Portugal

Bucharest and Feleacu, Romania

Moscow, Starominskaya and Ussuriysk, Russia 

Edinburgh, Scotland

Belgrade, Serbia

Bratislava and Kosice, Slovakia

Madrid, Oviedo and Tarragona, Spain

Kista, Sweden

Kiev and Vinnytsya, Ukraine

Asia

Dhaka, Bangladesh

Beijing, China

Bangalore, Chetput, Delhi, Kolkata, Shillong and Trichur, India

Jakarta, Indonesia

Tabriz and Tehran, Iran

Tokyo, Japan

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Singapore, Singapore

Colombo, Sri Lanka

Bangkok, Thailand

Dili, Timor-Leste

Africa

Lagos, Nigeria

The Pacific

Adelaide, Strathfield, Subiaco and Sydney, Australia

Diliman and Quezon City, Philippines

Today in History

1695   Mustafa II becomes the Ottoman sultan in Istanbul on the death of Amhed II.  
1825   Congress approves Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma), clearing the way for forced relocation of the Eastern Indians on the "Trail of Tears."  
1862   Abraham Lincoln issues General War Order No. 1, setting in motion the Union armies.  
1900   Foreign diplomats in Peking fear revolt and demand that the Imperial Government discipline the Boxer Rebels.  
1905   Russian General Kuropatkin takes the offensive in Manchuria. The Japanese under General Oyama suffer heavy casualties.  
1916   President Woodrow Wilson opens preparedness program.  
1918   Communists attempt to seize power in Finland.
1924   Lenin's body is laid in a marble tomb on Red Square near the Kremlin.  
1935   A League of Nations majority favors depriving Japan of mandates.  
1939   President Franklin D. Roosevelt approves the sale of U.S. war planes to France.  
1941   The United States and Great Britain begin high-level military talks in Washington.
1943   The first U.S. raids on the Reich blast Wilhelmshaven base and Emden.  
1959   NASA selects 110 candidates for the first U.S. space flight.  
1965   Military leaders oust the civilian government of Tran Van Huong in Saigon.  
1967   Three astronauts are killed in a flash fire that engulfed their Apollo 1 spacecraft.  
1973   A cease fire in Vietnam is called as the Paris peace accords are signed by the United States and North Vietnam.  
1978   The State Supreme Court rules that Nazis can display the Swastika in a march in Skokie, Illinois.

Adorable Loch Ness Ladle

The next time you're cooking up a hot pot of soup, why not reach for this adorable ladle? The Nessie Ladle has the body shape of the mysterious Loch Ness monster but this guy's got stubby little legs so that it can stand on its own.
Designed by Ototo for the modern store Animi Causa, the turquoise blue ladle, unfortunately, isn't ready to ship out until February. The cleverly designed product costs $15.99.

Deflategate

Deflategate: How Players Alter Footballs and Why

The Patriots are being accused of breaking an NFL rule by deflating game balls. Learn how the level of inflation affects the ball in play.

Bernie Sanders Exposes How The Koch Primary Is Undermining American Democracy

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) isn’t letting the Koch secret meeting go by unnoticed. In a statement, Sanders connected the dots between Citizens United and the Koch brothers primary that several potential repugican candidates are taking part in this weekend.

Senator Sanders said, “Americans used to think Iowa and New Hampshire held the first caucus and primary in the nation every four years. Not anymore. Now the ‘Koch brothers primary’ goes first to determine who wins the blessing and financial backing of the billionaire class. This is truly sad and shows us how far Citizens United has gone to undermine American democracy.”

Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Scott Walker (r-WI) are all speaking a secret Koch conference this weekend to make their pitch for the millions of billionaire dollars that will required to fuel their 2016 repugican presidential campaigns. The connection between the Koch agenda and governing became obvious when Mitch McConnell cut off debate on the Keystone XL pipeline so that repugican senators could get to the Koch meeting.

Campaign finance is a very complicated issue, but what isn’t complicated is the direct connection between the wingnut billionaires campaign contributions and the way the repugicans run Congress. The outsized influence of billionaires on the right is bad for our electoral process, and there is a direct relationship between the Koch money and repugican policies. The Koch brothers have bought the repugican cabal.

The impact of their purchase is that it won’t be repugican voters who decide which candidate will represent them in 2016. The Koch brothers and a handful of billionaires will pick their nominee in secret conferences and meetings. Once the Kochs have a nominee, the choice for voters will be between the Koch agenda disguised as the repugican cabal and the Democratic candidate.

America is quickly moving towards a system of governance where voters choose between a candidate funded by oligarchs and the Democrats. This is a sad state of affairs for the country’s representative democracy, and the biggest reason Citizens United must be overturned.

Is SCOTUS Preparing To Gut Another Civil Rights Law?

The wingnut majority court has been spoiling for a fight over the 1968 Fair Housing Act (FHA) for quite a while ...

Last Wednesday was the fifth anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision on Citizens United v The Federal Election Commission which basically turned the country’s election process into an auction. A few years later SCOTUS stripped voters of much of the protection of the Voting Rights Act. On Wednesday, two days after the holiday honoring Martin Luther King, the Roberts Court ramped itself up to do it again.

The wingnut majority court has been spoiling for a fight over the 1968 Fair Housing Act (FHA) for quite a while. Not so much the law, but the related application of an argument called disparate impact. SCOTUS had earlier agreed to hear two other cases but both evaporated. Magner v Gallagher was dismissed in February 2012 by agreement of both sides then Mount Holly v Mount Holly Gardens Citizens in Action, was settled in November 2013. That settlement appears to have been largely at the urging of the Obama Administration and some civil rights groups out of fear over the Court’s agenda.

SCOTUS got its third shot this week in the case of Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs v. The Inclusive Communities Project. In the 2008 suit Inclusive Communities (ICP) an organization seeking to improve housing opportunities in Dallas, charged that the scoring system used by the state (DHCA) to award federal tax credits for low income housing disproportionately placed those projects in areas with high percentages of poor and/or black residents. This, ICP charged, limited the ability of poor and minority persons to relocate into mostly white areas. DHCA argued in return that its scoring system was based on solid legal grounds and awarding the credits to projects in minority communities was the result, not the intent.

This brings us to disparate impact. This is an argument that allows suits brought under the FHA to claim that a discriminatory action has impacted a protected group more than others, but does not require proof that the alleged discrimination was intentional. That over the last 40 years appellate courts have consistently upheld disparate impact decisions makes the SCOTUS agreement to hear this case a bit inexplicable.

In the original suit ICP was unable to prove that the scoring system was imposed with discriminatory intent but did prove to the court’s satisfaction that nearly all of the housing units approved under that system were in areas with less than 50 percent white population. That ruling was subsequently upheld by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Texas is asking the court to bar the use of disparate impact in fair housing cases. Its argument is that the language of the law bars housing discrimination “because of” race, color, religion, sex, familial status, or national origin,” and that the word “because” implies volition by the offender. ICP argues that the numerous rulings upholding the doctrine of disparate impact could have been interrupted if Congress had chosen to change the law. That they did not do so, even while otherwise amending the law in 1988, argues that they intended the law should cover such impact.

Dozens of Amicus briefs have been filed on both sides of the issue. Those for the respondent (ICF) are largely from consumer groups, housing advocates, and human rights organizations. Those on behalf of the petitioner (DHCA) come from real estate interests, lenders, credit reporting companies, and other businesses.

One of the latter, filed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Bankers Association, supports the Texas claim about the letter of the law. It maintains that the respondent is asserting a new right of action that the Court has never recognized and that the court has a longstanding and well developed framework to address whether Congress intended an action to proceed. That framework entails a more demanding statutory inquiry than is put forth in this case, i.e. the respondent must show “affirmative evidence of congressional intent” to permit a cause of action for disparate impact.

Other petitioner briefs concentrate on the harm disparate impact does to their businesses. One, filed by a consortium of insurance companies, alleges that imposing a liability its basis strikes at core principles of sound insurance practice and would impair state laws which control insurance regulation.

ICF’s argument and of briefs supporting it mainly focus on the value of the outcomes of disparate impact. One, filed by 16 organizations including the National Consumer Law Center, ACLU, and the National Organization of Women, calls the 40 years of interpretation of disparate impact by federal courts “transformative in combating housing discrimination,” but contends that discriminatory barriers to equal housing remain deeply entrenched.

The brief looks at two contemporary forms it says have had devastating consequences. It blames discrimination in subprime lending for many of the problems that caused the foreclosure crisis. Here, it says, disparate impact analysis provides an essential tool, allowing the examination of aggregate lending data to uncover disparities and determine if they can be justified by credit risk or any other legitimate business considerations.

The second area is sex discrimination against victims of domestic violence. The brief cites the example of disparate impact analysis used to determine whether zero tolerance policies in public housing present women with unacceptable alternatives, enduring domestic abuse or calling police with a possible eviction as the result.

That brief shows in part the importance of this case. Fair housing is more than being given an even shot at putting a roof over one’s head regardless of race, religion, gender and all of the other language of protected classes. It also means the cost of that roof, keeping that roof, and having that roof located in an area of one’s choosing. And disparate impact goes behind housing. It is used to protect civil rights in other areas including employment, education, and yes, voting.

Keep your eye on this court. Chances are they are about to do more violence to the rights of many of our citizens.

Kansas' Sam Brownback Is Stealing More From Children And Retirees To Fund Tax Cuts

Brownback's latest trickle down approach to make up for gross revenue shortfalls "crippling the state's finances" include cutting classroom funding for schools by another $127 million, cutting state…

Despite his state facing bankruptcy, experiencing several credit downgrades, and a billion dollar deficit due to monumental tax cuts for the rich and corporations, Kansas repugican Sam Brownback will not stop decimating Kansas schools. In fact, in his state of the state address last week, Brownback promised the repugican-dominated legislature that after conferring with business and corporate donors, “we will continue our march toward zero income taxes.” This is in spite of a projected $5 billion revenue loss over the next few years due to tax cuts for the rich and their corporations. As an aside, it is noteworthy that the Koch brothers’ corporate headquarters are located in Kansas.

Brownback’s latest trickle down approach to make up for gross revenue shortfalls “crippling the state’s finances” include cutting classroom funding for schools by another $127 million, cutting state payments to pension funds by $446 million, and stealing about $350 million from the state’s transportation department funding. None of the cuts will save Kansas economy now or in the future, and in fact will cost the state much, much more in the long term. However, it is obvious that the state’s fiscal health, like schools, retirees’ pensions and transportation infrastructure are of no consequence to Brownback. He is Hell-bent and duty-bound to give the Kochs and Grover Norquist exactly what they want; abolishment of taxation and eventually a bankrupt state and he is thankful to god for the opportunity to further damage any remaining semblance of the state’s fiscal health.

Brownback has already been ordered by two separate courts to increase funding for Kansas schools according to “bare-minimum” requirement levels in Kansas’ Constitution. As of last June, Brownback was required to increase education funding by hundreds-of-millions of dollars to meet the minimum requirements, but he adheres to a higher trickle down power than court orders that prevent him from rescinding even one penny of tax cuts for the rich to adequately fund educating Kansas children. The education funding cuts are courtesy of repugicans’ love-fest with block grants that are just wingnut-speak for massive cuts.

According to research, the long-term costs for under-funding education are greatly increased in several areas, but higher costs later will give Brownback and repugicans more reasons to slash spending in those “several areas.” The problem with cutting school funding is that less education funding creates higher levels of poverty and higher public assistance spending. In fact, as poverty rises among uneducated Kansans, healthcare costs increase for a sicker “adult population” and jailing a “more delinquent future adult population. However, for Brownback and repugicans, rising social costs work to austerity advocates who will have a reason to “slash spending” to prevent bankrupting the state’s economy.

Cutting state-mandated contributions to pension funds is another means of not only paying for the rich and wealthy’s tax cuts, but it is a proven tactic to slash retirement payments later. It is bad enough that state workers are effectively paying for tax cuts for the rich, but according to the director of Kansas Public Employee Retirement System, cutting payments by $446 million now will cost the state over $3.7 billion in the long term. In fact, it is a typical, and diabolical repugican scam to create retirement system shortfalls in the future that Chris Christy employed in New Jersey as cover to slash workers’ retirement benefits to fund more tax cuts for corporations and the rich in the future. The repugicans have used a similar tactic to eventually starve Social Security by refusing to raise the income cap that would keep the Trust flush for generations.

Although one understands the twisted thinking in cutting education and pensions to make further social program cuts in the future, slashing transportation funding now to preserve tax cuts for the wealthy is just beyond comprehension. Brownback is stripping an additional $350 million from the state’s transportation department that will create greater costs in the future as roads deteriorate more and material costs naturally increase. According to a ‘heavy construction’ trade group, not repairing a crumbling transportation infrastructure now will “create bigger problems” later on. Despite a decade-old sales tax increase to pre-fund transportation repairs, Brownback has already stolen $1.2 billion from the transportation fund to keep the state finances afloat due to gross revenue shortfalls. Revenue shortfalls that are in spite of a budget surplus Brownback inherited, and promptly squandered on tax cuts as well as an addition billion-plus dollars to increase corporate and rich people’s wealth. It is precisely the same actions shrub-repugicans used to create a stunning revenue shortfall at the federal level that Brownback is repeating and the Koch Congress pants to repeat.

It is bad enough Brownback is cutting more from education, taking more from retirees, and transferring more from transportation to fund his wealthy donor’s  trickle down cuts, but the ‘short term cuts will not produce long-term solvency for the state” according to the Kansas City Star editorial board. The newspaper’s editors were just as dumbfounded over Brownback’s promise to “continue our march to zero income taxes” as any half-witted Kansan, and rightly noted that no matter how much he starves the state, schools, roads, social programs, and retirees’ pension accounts, none of them has produced any job growth.

The editors remarked that Brownback’s spending cuts “leave the state barely able to meet its statutory obligations, much less invest in its citizens and the future,” but what the editors fail to understand is that starving the state government, and Kansas citizens, to death is exactly what Brownback’s masters at Koch Industries and anti-government fanatic Grover Norquist have tasked him to do. It is also what the Kochs are likely conniving with senate repugicans to achieve while they meet this weekend instead of debating the doomed Keystone pipeline.

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder Stuck On Repeat

Snyder has no intention of allowing the people of Detroit any say-so when it comes to Detroit Public Schools. …

So now Michigan is stuck with Snyder 2, which is rapidly shaping up to be the mirror image of Snyder 1 when it comes to the second junta governor’s undying belief in emergency management as the ultimate salvation for whatever ails troubled municipalities. Oh, and his companion belief that democracy and voting rights are for chumps.

It’s good to be king.

The short version is as follows; roughly two weeks ago, Snyder installed Emergency Manager #4 to oversee Detroit Public Schools in a rather blatant move to prevent the democratically elected School Board from having any control over the entity they were elected by the people of Detroit to control. Even though the recent departure of Emergency Manager #3 was supposed to mean that the schools would finally be released from Snyder’s grip and returned to Detroit School Board control – or at least that’s what most of us were led to believe – Snyder pulled another one of his famous slight-of-hand tricks to maintain control and next thing we knew some guy named Darnell Early from Flint was being installed. The deal apparently happened so fast that even his people in Flint didn’t know the man was leaving until he was gone. For details, no one could do the story justice any better than Curt Guyette for the Detroit Metro Times, who opens his piece as follows:

When Rick Snyder took a seat at the Burton International Academy in Detroit last week, a sense of déjà vu hung heavy in the air.

With emergency manager Jack Martin’s 18-month term about to expire in two days, the stage was set, at least theoretically, for the elected school board to regain some measure of power. Instead, Snyder came to the elementary school on Detroit’s west side to announce that Martin was stepping down and being replaced by Darnell Earley, the appointed emergency manager in Flint.

In other words, democracy was being put on ice — for the fourth time in less than six years.

Snyder has no intention of allowing the people of Detroit any say-so when it comes to Detroit Public Schools. The fact that there is scant evidence that emergency management has produced any measure of real progress for Detroit schools, especially given the length of time they have been given free reign over the entire system, doesn’t seem to matter.

Snyder’s decision more than two years ago to ignore the will of the people and install Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr over and above its elected leaders as King of Detroit is now being heralded by many as a brilliant stroke, and Orr is a virtual rock star. The fact that Snyder ignored and spat upon the election results of November 2012 when Michigan voters overwhelmingly voted to repeal Snyder’s upgraded Emergency Manager law, steamrolling his will right over their voting rights, is pretty much a hush-hush issue these days. But as criminal an act as that was, at least Orr did finally leave once his term was up, and the city – for the most part – was returned to its duly elected leaders.

But here we are with EM #4 at Detroit Public Schools, and the very real possibility that Snyder can keep his middle finger jammed up our backside playing this game for as long as it gets him off. Hey, it’s little surprise the man feels like he can screw Detroiters  again with impunity. It was, after all, so good to him the first time.

Burqa-clad ‘ISIL militants’ turned out to be men en route to clandestine tryst with their girlfriends

Two men detained as suspected jihadists in the province of Mardin in south eastern turkey were actually wearing burqas to disguise themselves in order to visit their girlfriends secretly, police have found.

According to a Jan. 21 statement issued by the Mardin Governor’s Office, the two burqa-clad men, identified only by their initials M.D. and Z.T., were detained by police as suspected Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants.
The two were “unmasked” after a police team noticed that one of the burqa-clad “women” was actually wearing men’s shoes. Security forces took the suspects to a nearby police station as a precaution against a possible lynch attempt after a local crowd had gathered.

“The investigation has revealed that the men were wearing burqas to hide their love affairs,” the Mardin Governor’s Office stated. The men had resorted to the burqa disguise in order to clandestinely visit their girlfriends, whose families oppose their relationships.

Man 'cooked alive' while using malfunctioning sauna

A woman has been left devastated after she found her father's blackened, charred body inside a malfunctioning sauna. Dennis Antiporek, 68, left a note for his family saying he was going to relax in the sauna at his condominium complex in North Miami Beach, Florida, on Sunday.

Man who admits killing his mother insisted on cats' names being added to murder indictment

A man from Massachusetts who confessed to killing his mother and her two cats has been ordered to undergo a mental evaluation before a judge will consider a request to change his plea to guilty.

Matthew McAveeney, 46, of Winchester, has pleaded not guilty to murder in the beating death of his mother, Barbara, and to animal cruelty charges. McAveeney fled Massachusetts after her slaying and was arrested in North Carolina in October. He later confessed to the crime on camera.
"To my mother Barbara McAveeney and to her cats, Pumpkin and Puffy McAveeney, I apologize deeply," he said to news cameras in October as he got out of a police van. McAveeney also requested to amend the indictment to include the names of the cats. "(The indictment) does not name animals that were killed.

YouTube link.

"The animals were living beings; they had lives; they had personalities; they had identities. If I am going to be convicted of killing them, I would like them to be known for what they were and who they were by their names," he said. The judge allowed the change. McAveeney will return to court after a mental evaluation. The judge will decide then whether to accept the plea change request.

13 Coolest Hotels Converted From Bizarrely Different Structures

Traditional hotels may make for reassuringly comfortable homes away from home, but they can be bland and even boringly similar to one another - wherever in the world they might be.
Fortunately, for the more adventurous vacationer, there are plenty of accommodation options that offer something slightly different while still retaining all the modern amenities of more conventional hotels.

Reinventing the Potato

A couple of years ago, we linked to a story about how the variety of apples diminished to just a few kinds, and the efforts of one man to bring back their glorious diversity. The same fate has befallen potatoes. Thanks to market forces, particularly the demands of the French fry industry, the overwhelming majority of potatoes available in the U.S. are Russet potatoes. Contrast that with the many kinds of spuds that are still grown in South America. Potatoes were first cultivated thousands of years ago in the Andes mountains, on the border of what are now Peru and Bolivia.

Back then, the potato was synonymous with diversity. The Andeans inhabited a mountainous mosaic of microclimates in which one plot of land presented a very different set of growing conditions than its neighbor. No single variety could survive in such a heterogeneous landscape, so the Andeans diversified — to the extreme. Farming so many different types of potatoes also provided a more interesting and enjoyable diet, a tradition that is still alive today. “If you go to a typical Andean household,” explains Stef de Haan, a researcher at the International Potato Center in Lima, “they will eat what is called chajru, which means ‘mixture’ in the Quechua language. They sit around a big bowl of potatoes. And the joy of eating those, the culinary delight, is that every time you pick a potato, you pick a different one. In Quechua, especially when it comes to the taste of potatoes, they have this whole unique vocabulary — almost like somebody from France would tell you about the taste of wine.

Now a few folks are trying to bring back potato variety in the U.S. One is helping chefs develop ways to harness different tater flavors, colors, and textures, while another is encouraging diversity on farms. Read about the many types of potatoes we could be eating soon at Modern Farmer.

The World's Largest BBQ Pit Can Cook 4 Tons of Meat a Time, Is Hauled by Its Own Big Rig

Check your pockets. Do you have $350,000 handy? If you do, then you can own the Undisputable Cuz, this gloriously huge portable barbecue pit now on sale on eBay. Terry Folsom of Brenham, Texas is the current owner. Why he would ever want to part with it is a mystery, especially once you hear what it has to offer: the trailer-mounted assembly is 75 feet long and contains a walk-in cooler. It can cook 4 tons of meat at a time, which is enough to a good family weekend get-together.

Breaking Beard

King Tut's Beard Broken Off, Wrongly Glued Back on

After being broken off during cleaning, inappropriate epoxy glue is now holding together the long, narrow beard on the famous mask of King Tut.

Inside A Papyrus

Peering Inside an Ancient Papyrus

A new tech that takes advantage of subtle differences in the way X-rays pass through different substances helps researchers discern writing within an ancient scroll.

Vesuvius Scrolls

Burned Vesuvius Scrolls Read for First Time

Using a powerful X-ray procedure, Italian researchers have been able to read scrolls buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D.

Colosseum Seat Numbers

Red Seat Numbers Found on Rome's Colosseum

The numbers were painted on the arches of the Colosseum to guide visitors to their respective stands, according to their social class.

Human 'Atlas'

Human 'Atlas' Reveals Where Proteins Are in Body

The map reveals exactly which proteins are special to organs, and which ones are common across all tissues in the body.

Human-Like Hands

Human-Like Hands Came Before Actual Humans

Some of the earliest members of our family tree were able to do relatively sophisticated tasks with their hands.

Apes and Ebola

Ebola Has Crushed Gorilla and Chimp Populations

A conservationist points to the harm Ebola has done to gorillas and chimpanzees and argues for a vaccine for the great apes.

World-Class Swimmer

Brainless Animal Turns Out to Be World-class Swimmer

No brain? No problem for jellyfish, which turn out to be more aggressive than passive, at least in terms of their swimming.

Poached Rhinos

Record Number Of Rhinos Poached in S. Africa in 2014

Poachers killed 1,215 of the iconic savannah animals last year.

Great Whites and Boat Engines

Why Great White Sharks Try to Eat Boat Engines

A recent shark encounter captured on video reveals how some boat motors attract hungry great whites.

Beneath Antarctic Ice Shelf

Fish Found in Extreme Spot Beneath Antarctic Ice Shelf

Researchers were startled to find fish, crustaceans and jellyfish near a submersible camera after drilling through nearly 2,500 feet of Antarctic ice.

Squid Flash

Squid Flash, Flicker for Communication and Camouflage

Mysterious creatures likely use skin color changes for interaction with other squid as well as for camouflage.

Pygmy Hippos

Captive Pygmy Hippos May Have Kidney Issues

A study of pygmy hippo autopsy data reveals a high incidence of kidney disease.

Deflategate?

Deflategate? Check Out These INflating Animals

These creatures really know how to show off by puffing themselves up.

Baby orangutan kept in chicken cage saved after months of neglect

A baby orangutan rescued from a house in Borneo is making a slow recovery after he was kept in a chicken cage and fed condensed milk. The orangutan, Budi, was so malnourished when he was saved by an International Animal Rescue (IAR) team that his bones were malformed and his limbs swollen from a lack of protein. Budi is about a year old and was rescued in December.

He was kept in the cage for the whole 10 months he was living as a pet at the property. His owner, a woman, told authorities that she was willing to hand Budi over and she knew he was sick. "The owner said that she was afraid to give Budi any fruits and thought that giving condensed milk would be sufficient," says Dr Ayu Handayani, who rescued Budi. The orangutan is now receiving intensive treatment at IAR's Indonesian center.
The pain he is suffering is clear, as he cries whenever he is touched or moved. "We cannot even imagine how much pain this small baby has suffered," says IAR's Indonesian program director Dr Karmele L Sanchez. "His eyes fill with tears every time he's moved by the doctors and he screams in pain. It's really amazing that Budi has been able to survive this long." Budi is also receiving treatment for a severe metabolic disease affecting his bones.

YouTube link.

He was unable to sit on his own when he first arrived at the clinic, but can now sit for short periods. "At the moment we are still worried for his life and trying to minimize his pain. But Budi is a very strong little baby and he is fighting very hard to survive," says Dr Karmele. It's too early to know whether the neglect Budi faced will leave him with permanent damage.

Animal Pictures

The Daily Drift

Hey, wingnuts, yeah, we're talking to you ...!

 

Carolina Naturally is read in 200 countries around the world daily.   

    
Everybody Loves Bubble Wrap ... !

Today is  -  Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day

Don't forget to visit our sister blog: It Is What It Is

Some of our readers today have been in:

The Americas

La Plata, Argentina

Porto Alegre, Brazil

Montreal, Ottawa, Port Hardy, Quebec, Toronto, Vancouver and Winnipeg, Canada

Bogota, Colombia

El Colorado, Mexico

Boaco, Managua, Nicaragua 

Lima, Peru

Luquillo, Puerto Rico

Europe

Huntingdon, London, Oldham and Woking, England 

Helsinki, Finland

Cerny and Vendome, France

Hamburg and Muenchen, Germany

Athens, Greece

Reykjavik, Iceland

Dublin and Waterford, Ireland

Brescia, Italy

Riga, Latvia

Sandsli, Norway

Poznan, Poland

Bucharest, Feleacu, Ipotesti and Maerus, Romania

Bratislava, Presov, Slovakia

Ljubljana, Slovenia

Madrid, Pinar de Chamartin and Ribatejada, Spain

Asia

Rangoon, Burma

Beijing and Zunyi, China

Bangalore, Gubbi, Jodhpur, New Delhi, Panaji and Shillong, India

Tehran, Iran

Tel Aviv, Israel

Seongnam and Seoul, Korea

Cheras and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Singapore, Singapore

Colombo, Sri Lanka

Chum Phae, Thailand

Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Africa

Cape Town, South Africa

Lusaka, Zambia

The Pacific

Brisbane, Kensington, Strathfield, Sydney and Whitfield, Australia

Hagatna, Guam

Today in History

1699   The Treaty of Karlowitz ends the war between Austria and the Turks.  
1720   Guilio Alberoni is ordered out of Spain after his abortive attempt to restore his country's empire.  
1788   A fleet of ships carrying convicts from England lands at Sydney Cove in Australia. The day is since known as Australia's national day.
1861   Louisiana secedes from the Union.  
1863   President Lincoln names General Joseph Hooker to replace Burnside as commander of the Army of the Potomac.  
1875   Pinkerton agents, hunting Jesse James, kill his 18-year-old half-brother and seriously injure his mother with a bomb.  
1885   General "Chinese" Gordon is killed on the palace steps in Khartoum by Sudanese Mahdists in Africa.   
1924   Petrograd is renamed Leningrad.
1934   Germany signs a 10-year non-aggression pact with Poland, breaking the French alliance system.  
1942   American Expeditionary Force lands in Northern Ireland.  
1943   The first OSS (Office of Strategic Services) agent parachutes behind Japanese lines in Burma.  
1964   Eighty-four people are arrested in a segregation protest in Atlanta.  
1969   California is declared a disaster area after two days of flooding and mud slides.  
2005   Condoleezza Rice is appointed to the post of secretary of state. The post makes her the highest ranking African-American woman ever to serve in an U.S. presidential cabinet.

The Truth Hurts

The ever-growing list of Obama veto threats

If these bills reach his desk, President Barack Obama has threatened to veto them:

—Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. Would ban most abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy.

—No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act. Would ban taxpayer funding for abortion, a prohibition that is already largely in effect.

—Natural Gas Pipeline Permitting Reform Act. Would accelerate the approval of natural gas pipeline projects by requiring a decision on applications within 12 months.

—Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act. Amendments would overturn Obama’s executive actions on immigration and expose hundreds of thousands of younger immigrants to deportation.

—Regulatory Accountability Act of 2015. Would establish tougher requirements for writing federal regulations, which critics say would create confusion and delays.

—Promoting Job Creation and Reducing Small Business Burdens Act. Would weaken requirements under the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial overhaul, which put banks and Wall Street under the most sweeping rules since the Great Depression.

—Keystone XL Pipeline Act. Would approve construction of a long-stalled oil pipeline to carry tar sands oil from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

—Save American Workers Act of 2015. Would narrow the definition of fulltime workers who must be offered employer-provided health insurance from those working at least 30 hours weekly to those with a 40-hour minimum.

Besides those specific bills, Obama has also threatened to veto any bill that places new sanctions against Iran, saying they would threaten ongoing negotiations over its nuclear program.