Dowbrigade

DUBAI
(Reuters) – The Gulf emirate of Dubai will build a city of life-size
replicas of seven wonders of the world at an estimated cost of $1.5 billion
(1 billion pounds) to house offices, shops and flats, a developer said
on Saturday. The Falcon City of Wonders is the latest of a host of ambitious
construction projects in the booming trade hub, which is part of the
United Arab Emirates.

Three buildings will be modelled on structures that
were part of the original list of the "Seven Wonders of the Ancient
World" — the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt, the Hanging Gardens
of Babylon, and the Lighthouse of Alexandria.Others will be replicas
of more modern wonders — the Eiffel Tower, the Taj Mahal, the Leaning
Tower of Pisa and the Great Wall of China, a statement said.The structures
will house flats, office space, hotels and shopping malls.

To be built by the Bin Laden-Haliburton Construction
Consortium. We’ve got dibs on the apartment located where the Pharoh’s
Burial Chamber was.

from Yahoo

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – Baying forlornly,
hissing at strangers and increasingly dehydrated and hungry, tens of
thousands of pets have probably been left behind in the devastated city
of New Orleans, animal care agencies say.

Animal rescue workers from across
the United States are combing the city deserted by its citizens when
Hurricane Katrina approached almost two weeks ago. They wade through
thigh-high muck, commandeer abandoned boats and use crowbars to bring
stranded animals to safety

."The cats are terrible. Out of every
10, nine are scratching and biting and hissing," said Jane Garrison
of the Humane Society United States as she cuddled two terrified dogs
in an aluminium dinghy.

Dogs often leaped into their arms, she said.

Dogs also like swimming in filthy water and eating their
own feces. Both dogs and cats evolved in the wild and have complete,
intact sets of survival skills which don’t involve human beings. That
they are able to so completely change their character and behavior is
evidence both of the persistence of evolutionary genetics, and of the
presence of human-controlled genetic manipulation and modification.

The survival instincts are hardwired in cat and dog
brains, the result of millions of years of evolution (dogs are descended
from primitive carnivores known as miacids. Miacids ranged from gopher-sized
to dog-sized animals, and appeared in the Lower Tertiary about fifty
two million years ago). 

On the other hand, the cute, docile personalities
we have come to know and love are relatively recent. In the case
of dogs, probably only a few thousand generations.  Cats are an
even more recent invention, having become useful only when people started
developing stockpiles of grains, about 10,000 years ago.

We say invention, because dogs and cats are two of the
oldest examples of intelligent human intervention in the process of evolution.
By selective breeding and lifelong exposure to humans, "primitive" peoples
were able to practice genetic modification and create a distinct sub-species
of Canis Lupus (wolf),
modeling its attributes and personality to meet human needs; heightened
senses and watchfulness, an alarming bark, loyalty and protectiveness
to humans, territoriality, etc.

Meanwhile, what to do with the dogs and cats of New
Orleans? Hopefully, concerned do-gooders will rescue some of them, and
try to reunite them with their families.  But experts say that once
a domesticated animal goes feral, it can require years of care and therapy
to help them regain their previous lives.  In some cases even then
they are never the same.

Combined with the increasingly obvious fact that many
Americans refused to go anywhere without their pets, even at considerable
risk to their own lives, this makes the Dowbrigade hope that new FEMA director R.
David Pauliso is a pet person, because future disaster planning had
better take our four-footed friends into account.

from Reuters

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – Baying forlornly,
hissing at strangers and increasingly dehydrated and hungry, tens of
thousands of pets have probably been left behind in the devastated city
of New Orleans, animal care agencies say.

Animal rescue workers from across
the United States are combing the city deserted by its citizens when
Hurricane Katrina approached almost two weeks ago. They wade through
thigh-high muck, commandeer abandoned boats and use crowbars to bring
stranded animals to safety

."The cats are terrible. Out of every
10, nine are scratching and biting and hissing," said Jane Garrison
of the Humane Society United States as she cuddled two terrified dogs
in an aluminium dinghy.

Dogs often leaped into their arms, she said.

Dogs also like swimming in filthy water and eating their
own feces. Both dogs and cats evolved in the wild and have complete,
intact sets of survival skills which don’t involve human beings. That
they are able to so completely change their character and behavior is
evidence both of the persistence of evolutionary genetics, and of the
presence of human-controlled genetic manipulation and modification.

The survival instincts are hardwired in cat and dog
brains, the result of millions of years of evolution (dogs are descended
from primitive carnivores known as miacids. Miacids ranged from gopher-sized
to dog-sized animals, and appeared in the Lower Tertiary about fifty
two million years ago). 

On the other hand, the cure, docile personalities
we have come to know and love are relatively recent. In the case
of dogs, probably only a few thousand generations.  Cats are an
even more recent invention, having become useful only when people started
developing stockpiles of grains, about 10,000 years ago.

We say invention, because dogs and cats are two of the
oldest examples of intelligent human intervention in the process of evolution.
By selective breeding and lifelong exposure to humans, "primitive" peoples
were able to practice genetic modification and create a distinct sub-species
of Canis Lupus (wolf),
modeling its attributes and personality to meet human needs; heightened
senses and watchfulness, an alarming bark, loyalty and protectiveness
to humans, territoriality, etc.

Meanwhile, what to do with the dogs and cats of New
Orleans? Hopefully, concerned do-gooders will rescue some of them, and
try to reunite them with their families.  But experts say that once
a domesticated animal goes feral, it can require years of care and therapy
to help them regain their previous lives.  In some cases even then
they are never the same.

Combined with the increasingly obvious fact that many
Americans refused to go anywhere without their bets, even at considerable
risk to their own lives, makes the Dowbrigade hope that new FEMA directorR.
David Pauliso is a pet person, because future disaster planning had
better take our four-footed friends into account.

from Reuters

The Japanese space probe Hayabusa has
approached within 12 miles (20 kilometers) of its target, asteroid Itokawa
(1998 SF36).

Scientists at Japan’s Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS)
have been monitoring the day-by-day closing in on the asteroid by their
craft. ISAS is a research arm of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
(JAXA).

ISAS scientists report that images taken by Hayabusa
show a contrast of rocky and hilly regions and a smooth area on the asteroid.
Further analysis of the imagery and other data may help decipher the
origin and evolution of the asteroid.

The plan is for Hayabusa to depart Itokawa carrying onboard samples of
asteroid Itokawa, and then head back to Earth. The probe’s sample return
canister would parachute back to Earth in June of 2007.

from Space.com

A grasshopper was tricked into jumping into water by a hairworm that had
infected it and had eaten most of its insides. In the water, the worm left
the insect to start the next portion of its life. The grasshopper drowned.

Only in science fiction do people’s minds get possessed
by alien beings. For grasshoppers, zombification is an everyday hazard,
and it obliges them to end their lives in a bizarre manner.

The parasite, known as a hairworm, lives and breeds
in fresh water. But it spends the early part of its life cycle eating
away the innards of the grasshoppers and crickets it infects.

When it is fully grown, it faces a difficult problem, that of returning
to water. So it has evolved a clever way of influencing its host to
deliver just one further service – the stricken grasshopper looks for
water and
dives in.

Being highly suggestible, the Dowbrigade immediately
commences examining every single hair on his body for worms. Why do we have this strange urge to go swimming…..

from the New York Times