Our Animal Friends
Researchers at England's Cambridge University, and others in Tallahassee, Fla., and Cleveland, are training dogs to screen patients for prostate and lung cancers by detecting distinct smells of tumors in patients' breath. One researcher reported a success rate of 87 percent, which rivals that of some expensive technology. (The genesis of the research was a 1989 journal article reporting that a border collie attacked a woman's mole that turned out to be a malignant melanoma and ignored her after the mole was removed.) [ABC News, 6-11-02]
Among Recent Animals in the News: the Asian paradise tree snake, which actually flies (by thrusting itself from high places, flattening out and undulating its body) (reported in Singapore in August), and a species of millipede from the West Indies, which, when zoo-dwelling capuchin and owl monkeys rubbed them on their fur, caused the monkeys to go into a delirious frenzy (an "ancient primate form of hallucinogen," according to one millipede expert), similar to the way cats react to catnip (August). [Yahoo-Reuters, 8-8-02] [Miami Herald, 8-8-02]
Supposedly Lower Orders of Animals: Recently, the journal Science reported that chimpanzees in West Africa have learned to smack certain nuts with specially chosen stones at precisely the correct strength that will break open the delicate shell without obliterating the food inside (June), and that crows have been observed bending discarded wires in just the right configuration for use in retrieving food from hard-ro-reach places (August). [Sault Star-AP, 6-22-02] [Yahoo.com-AP, 8-8-02]
In a three-month period this summer, three 5-foot-long sturgeons have jumped from Florida rivers directly onto anglers, sending them to hospitals with injuries (all together: a cracked sternum, five broken ribs, two collapsed lungs, several broken teeth and various lacerations). According to a wildlife expert, sturgeons are docile, have no predators, and apparently jump only "because they can." [Miami Herald, 8-12-02]
Researchers at England's Cambridge University, and others in Tallahassee, Fla., and Cleveland, are training dogs to screen patients for prostate and lung cancers by detecting distinct smells of tumors in patients' breath. One researcher reported a success rate of 87 percent, which rivals that of some expensive technology. (The genesis of the research was a 1989 journal article reporting that a border collie attacked a woman's mole that turned out to be a malignant melanoma and ignored her after the mole was removed.) [ABC News, 6-11-02]
Among Recent Animals in the News: the Asian paradise tree snake, which actually flies (by thrusting itself from high places, flattening out and undulating its body) (reported in Singapore in August), and a species of millipede from the West Indies, which, when zoo-dwelling capuchin and owl monkeys rubbed them on their fur, caused the monkeys to go into a delirious frenzy (an "ancient primate form of hallucinogen," according to one millipede expert), similar to the way cats react to catnip (August). [Yahoo-Reuters, 8-8-02] [Miami Herald, 8-8-02]
Supposedly Lower Orders of Animals: Recently, the journal Science reported that chimpanzees in West Africa have learned to smack certain nuts with specially chosen stones at precisely the correct strength that will break open the delicate shell without obliterating the food inside (June), and that crows have been observed bending discarded wires in just the right configuration for use in retrieving food from hard-ro-reach places (August). [Sault Star-AP, 6-22-02] [Yahoo.com-AP, 8-8-02]
In a three-month period this summer, three 5-foot-long sturgeons have jumped from Florida rivers directly onto anglers, sending them to hospitals with injuries (all together: a cracked sternum, five broken ribs, two collapsed lungs, several broken teeth and various lacerations). According to a wildlife expert, sturgeons are docile, have no predators, and apparently jump only "because they can." [Miami Herald, 8-12-02]
