Friday, August 18, 2006
Online dating is planned for orangutans
Single male (red hair, long arms, interests include hanging in trees and grooming) seeks female for long-distance relationship and possibility of meeting up in future to help save species.
Zookeepers in the Netherlands are planning to hook up Dutch and Indonesian orangutans over the Internet and believe the link could at some stage be used as an online dating service where apes could get to know one another and keepers could work out whether they would be compatible mates.
First things first: A romantic dinner for two.
"We are going to set up an Internet connection between Indonesia and Apeldoorn so that the apes can see each other and, by means of pressing a button, be able to give one another food, for example," said Anouk Ballot, a spokeswoman for the Apenheul ape park in the central Dutch city of Apeldoorn.
She said the chance of two orangutans actually mating as a result of the online interaction was small due to the problem of transporting them between the Netherlands and Indonesia. "But I wouldn't rule it out completely," she told The Associated Press.
<" http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060816/ap_on_fe_st/online_orangutans">Full Story Here
Doctor busted for paying 14-year-old girl for sex
A doctor has been arrested for paying a 14-year-old girl to have sex with him in June, police said.
Hitoshi Wada, 39, head of Juo Higashino Clinic in Hitachi, is accused of violating the anti-child prostitution and pornography law. He admitted to the allegations during questioning, investigators said.
Wada paid the third-year junior high school girl to have sex with him at a hotel in Kamisu on June 29 while knowing that she was under 18, local police said. They had got acquainted with each other through a mobile phone matchmaking site.
The girl told police that he paid her less than he had promised. "He promised to pay me 30,000 yen, but he actually gave me only 5,000 yen," she was quoted as telling investigators.
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Bees build nest in starving dog
East Pennsboro Police Chief Dennis McMaster has seen a lot of horrible things in his long career as a police officer.
But he says nothing was more shocking than seeing bees flying in and out of an open tumor in the side of a dog named Merrick.
McMaster says the insects had built a nest in the 9-year-old yellow Labrador retriever found June 26 by a letter carrier in the 300 block of West Perry Street.
Officers who responded to the report found a dog so emaciated that its rib cage was in plain view, the chief says.
"It could not stand up ... Its breathing was labored ... He was literally skin and bones."
The township animal control officer took the dog to the West Shore shelter of the Humane Society of the Harrisburg Area. The next day, Merrick died while en route to a veterinarian appointment at the society’s East Shore shelter.
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"The Largest Pizzas That You Will Ever See"
The largest pizza ever baked was one that measured 122 feet and 8 inches in diameter, made at Norwood Hypermarket, Norwood, South Africa on December 8, 1990. They used 3,968lbs of cheese and 1,984lbs of tomato puree.
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Married people live longer
Here's some bad news for the confirmed bachelors and runaway brides of the world: They don't live as long as married people, especially if they never get married, according to new research.
Many studies have found that unmarried adults tend to die earlier than those who are married, but most did not differentiate between those who were separated or divorced and those who never got hitched.
In the new study, Robert Kaplan of the University of California at Los Angeles and Richard Kronick of the University of California at San Diego studied census and death certificate data collected from almost 67,000 U.S. adults between 1989 and 1997.
After taking into account age, health and several other factors likely to influence longevity, the researchers found that between 1989 and 1997, those who had been widowed were almost 40 percent more likely to die than married people living with their spouses. Those who had been divorced or separated were 27 percent more likely to have shorter lives. Those who had never been married were 58 percent more likely to die during this period. The never-married "penalty" was greater for men than women.
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Inmate Kills Self With Toilet Paper
Investigators said a 35-year-old South Carolina man killed himself just two days after being convicted of committing a lewd act on a minor.
Howard Darrell Melton was found unconscious in his prison cell at Kirkland Correctional Institution in Columbia Friday morning, according to a press release from the state Department of Corrections.
The State Law Enforcement Division is investigating the death.
"We did have a confirmed suicide from the Department of Corrections," said Ted Kennedy, chief deputy coroner for Richland County.
The State newspaper reported that Richland County deputy coroner Ted Kennedy said Melton suffocated himself by stuffing toilet paper in his mouth and his nostrils.
When Melton was in the custody of the Spartanburg County Detention Center, he was considered a suicide risk. Melton was taken to Kirkland early Thursday morning.
Melton ran Timber Creek Retriever Training with his black Labrador retriever, Timber, according to The Herald-Journal.
Man Holding Yard Sale Hit With Hatchet
A man holding a yard sale at his home was injured when an assailant attacked him with a hatchet and then apparently drove off in the man's van.
Harley Tapp, 85, had surgery to repair injuries to his head and arm after the attack Monday afternoon. Police were looking for the attacker.
"This guy needs to be in jail," Tapp's son, Bobby Tapp, said. "If he'd do this to an elderly man, imagine what he might do to a child or pregnant woman."
Police believe robbery was the motive for the attack. A man who came by the yard sale asked Tapp for a specific item when no other customers were around, and Tapp led him to a shed to get it, Knoxville Police investigator Patty Tipton said.
When Tapp's back was turned, the man grabbed a hatchet and attacked him. The man ran off with some cash stolen from Tapp.
Relatives later discovered Tapp's van was missing, and police believe the attacker may have driven off in it.
An Old Friend A Great Bar Band
I found an old friend of mine named slim on myspace he's lead singer of the band the midtown hounds a band from good old kansas city check them out on there myspace profile and if your ever in kansas city go see them live. And make sure to buy slim a beer.
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Man in court for allegedly raping mom
A 37-year-old man accused of raping his 70-year-old mother appeared briefly in the Rustenburg magistrate's court on Wednesday.
He told the court he intend to apply for legal aid. His case was postponed to August 28 when his bail application would be heard.
The suspect is accused of raping his mother at her home in Lethabong near Rustenburg on July 30. He allegedly crept into her bedroom, held her by the throat and raped her.
He then locked her into the house and ran away. The old woman broke the window and went to neighbours to seek help.
They then called the police and he was arrested.
Three men in a boat: nine months living on raw fish and the occasional seagull
They survived by eating raw fish and seagulls, drinking rainwater and keeping desperation at bay by reading the Bible. Three Mexican fishermen, who say they left port nine months ago, have been picked up safe, and almost sound, on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.
"We thought about death a lot but we never lost hope," Salvador Ordóñez told Mexican television in a telephone interview from the Taiwanese-manned tuna fishing boat that rescued the three men last week.
Mr Ordóñez, Jesús Vidaña and Lucio Rendón said they set off on October 28 from the sleepy fishing and tourist town of San Blas in the Pacific coastal state of Nayarit. The three men, all in their 20s, were intending to catch some shark in deep water and had taken a few days of food and water on board their 27-foot boat with two outboard motors.
Everything was going normally until they had problems with their fishing equipment. Then they ran out of fuel. "The wind started taking us," Mr Ordóñez said, remembering the Marias Islands penal colony (itself some 50 miles from the mainland) slowly disappearing on the horizon. "Day after day we saw the islands getting further away and that was a terrible moment. To see them there and not have the fuel to get to them."
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