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An American woman who cannot cope with the death of her dog is seeking ways for her deceased pitbull to be cloned. The South Korean Biotech Company RNL Bio has sent the woman an offer to clone her dog Booger for 150.000.

The woman, Bernann McKunney from California, was especially fond of the dog, because it had saved her life once when she was attacked by another dog. Though the other dog did manage to bite her arm off.

The poor animal died one and  a half years ago. Mrs. McKunney had tissue from Booger’s ear frozen in by an American biotech firm. Now certain cells will be removed from from that tissue and injected in canine reproductive cells. These will be injected in 8 pitbull bitches.

According to RNL Bio, the success rate for cloning the dog is expected to be around 25 percent. Never before has a dog been cloned for commercial purposes.

If successful the South Korean company expects multiple additional orders for their technique. Demand is supposed to grow in the coming years. When this happens the price for a cloned dog can be lowered to 50.000 dollars.

                                     Dolly, the famous cloned sheep

The number of deadly shark attacks in 2007 has declined to only one case. A French woman swimming alone in New Caledonia was the unfortunate victim.  This number is the lowest in at least twenty years.

According to researchers from the University of Florida the low number of shark attacks. which result in fatalities, is caused by ever improving medical treatment. Though this has caused the  number of nonfatal shark attacks to increase. Around 71 nonfatal shark attacks have been reported through 2007.

During the 90’s, each year around 50 cases were reported. From 2000 until now this amount has steadily increased to an average of 65 every year.

The researchers of the International Shark Attack File see parallels between tourist behavior and increasing shark attacks. Each year more people spend time at beaches, swimming and surfing. Out of all shark attacks victims, 65% are surfers and windsurfers.

             Back in the days, when sharks weren’t pussies yet 

In the small zoo in the Belgian town Olmen-Balen, the Olmense Zoo, a lion dug up an explosive this Monday. Simba the lion found the grenade in a pile of sand, dumped on the terrain earlier by construction workers. The sand was supposed to be used in the construction of new animal housing right across the lion’s cage.

During the afternoon, the zoo owner noticed Simba showing unusual interest at an object in the pile of sand. ” When I took a closer look, I saw a grenade was sticking out. We had to get the lions out of the cage first, then we were able to safely take out the grenade. At the moment a large steel fence is placed around the dangerous spot.”

Interesting note: a couple years ago, the zoo was also in the news when a grenade was found inside.

You can visit the Olmense Zoo website here

                                   The original Simba

  About 4000 people showed up at the funeral of Ah Meng, the Sumatran orang utan of Singapore Zoo, on Sunday morning. Ah Meng, who died of old age on Friday, was a Singapore tourism icon as well as the face of the zoo for many years. She was 48 years old.

Ah Meng is survived by four children and six grandchildren.
Alagappasamy Chellaiyah, Ah Meng’s minder for 36 years, said: “All the 25 orang utans knew that something had happened because she (Ah Meng) died in the facilities. They knew that Ah Meng (was) gone. They were very quiet. Even the free ranging orang utans, they came, they refused to take food.”
Judging from the turnout at the funeral, it is clear that Ah Meng had touched the hearts of many.

For two hours starting 9am, people from all walks of life queued up to pay their final respects to Ah Meng. Many of them were visibly upset.
The atmosphere was sombre. Strangers were sharing with each other their encounters with Ah Meng.

“It’s very sad. Every time (on) my son’s birthday, I come over here,” said a member of the public who attended the funeral.
“Many years ago when we were small girls, we used to come to the zoo and look at Ah Meng,” said another.

In 1992, she became the first and only non-human recipient of the Special Tourism Ambassador award. Zoo officials, who were visibly distraught by Ah Meng’s death, said they will continue their work with Sumatran orang utans, who are critically endangered with only about 7,500 left in the world.

source: Channel News Asia

A wasp plague has prevented three Qantas flights from taking off properly at the airport of Brisbane in Australia. This has become clear from a security report. The insects had made nests in parts of the Airbus A330-fleet of Qantas, as a result of which they disturbed the flight equipment.

In one of the cases a plane had to make a stop while already taking off. This caused the brakes to overheat the tires, which in turn caused six out of eight tires to blow up. The airplane remained stranded on the tarmac. The pilot was forced to start the braking procedure while already traveling at a speed of 226 kph. In turn the brakes reached a temperature of 685 degrees. Since the incidents Qantas implemented a weekly wasp nest checkup on their fleet.

read more here