The Smoky Mountains
National Park has a hog of a problem
National park biologists are trying to come to grips with
a hog infestation in the Great Smoky Mountains National
Park.
In 2009, the park's hog team removed 620 wild
hogs, the third highest since the hog control program
started in the late 1950s. Biologists say the hog population
spiked last year because of a bountiful mast crop that
enabled the sows to produce more than one litter.
Park biologist Bill Stiver told the Knoxville News-Sentinel
the introduction of wild, semi-domesticated hogs into the
park has made hog control even more difficult.
"The
speculation is that hunters are illegally releasing feral
pigs that eventually make their way inside the park," Stiver
said. "It's a major problem not just here, but all over
North America."
He said numerous hogs killed this
year had spotted markings and curly tails associated with
domestic pigs.
"We're getting a handful of animals
that morphologically look different from our traditional
wild boar," Stiver said. "Some of them act different, too.
Instead of running away, they let you walk up to them."
Hogs in the park date to the early 1920s, when a herd of
European hogs escaped from a game reserve on Hooper's Bald
in the mountains of Graham County, N.C. The wild hogs moved
into the park by the 1940s and began to wreak havoc on the
ecosystem by eating rare plants and salamanders, defecating
in streams and turning up the ground.
MORE:
http://www.theleafchronicle.com/article/20100125/NEWS01/1250319/1002/news01
Aptly named.
Organizers of the "Antiquities Theft in Israel"
exhibition could not have chosen a more fitting name for
their display.
Burglars on Wednesday broke into the
Ashdod Museum where hundreds of artifacts recovered from the
black-market were on show and snatched several valuable
items, including a silver ring belonging to Alexander the
Great and gold earrings.
The Israel Antiquities
Authority said the popular exhibition had been running for
four years.
AP RSS FEED
This kid had issues, I'm
sure, before this
An Italian man who argued with his son over Sony
PlayStation tactics was recovering in hospital on Monday
after the teenager stabbed him in the neck with a 15-inch
kitchen knife, police and hospital officials said.
The man, identified as Fabrizio R., suffered a deep cut to
the throat after his 16-year-old son, Mario, attacked him
during an argument on Sunday over the soccer video game FIFA
2009.
Police said the argument broke out when the
46-year-old storekeeper offered his son advice on tactics to
improve his play, and then turned the television off in
response to his son's behavior.
Fetching a knife from
the kitchen, Mario stabbed his father in the neck before
returning to clean the weapon at the kitchen sink in front
of his mother and leaving it to dry on the draining-board.
Forty-six year-old housewife Monica B,. told Italian daily
Il Corriere della Sera that she had no idea what had
happened until her husband stumbled into the room, clutching
his throat.
MORE:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100125/od_nm/us_italy_stabbing
I thought it was Matrix
mixed with Ferngully mixed with Dances with Wolves mixed
with Aliens 2 mixed with The Last Samurai...
"Avatar" is closer to smashing box offices record set by
"Titanic."
This article says it already passed
it...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100125/film_nm/us_boxoffice
James Cameron's sci-fi saga was No. 1 at
the box office for the sixth-straight weekend with $34.9
million, flying past "The Dark Knight" to become the second
highest-grossing film domestically with $551.7 million and
creeping toward the $600.8 million first-place mark set by "Titantic."
It's also on the verge of passing "Titanic" on the worldwide
chart.
The top 20 movies at U.S. and Canadian
theaters Friday through Monday, followed by distribution
studio, gross, number of theater locations, average receipts
per location, total gross and number of weeks in release, as
compiled Monday by Hollywood.com are:
1. "Avatar," Fox, $34,944,081, 3,141 locations, $11,125
average, $551,741,499, six weeks.
2. "Legion," Screen
Gems, $17,501,625, 2,476 locations, $7,069 average,
$17,501,625, one week.
3. "The Book of Eli," Warner
Bros., $15,732,463, 3,111 locations, $5,057 average,
$60,735,686, two weeks.
4. "Tooth Fairy," Fox,
$14,010,409, 3,344 locations, $4,190 average, $14,010,409,
one week.
5. "The Lovely Bones," Paramount,
$8,418,192, 2,571 locations, $3,274 average, $31,242,633,
seven weeks.
MORE:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100125/ap_en_ot/us_box_office
Ever wonder how much money
goes into those late light shows that Conan and Leno have
wrangled over cost?
Its more than you'd think...
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/la-fi-ct-latenight25-2010jan25,0,1007390,full.story
NASA Prepares for STS-130
At NASA Kennedy Space Center's Launch Pad 39A, workers
closed space shuttle Endeavour's payload bay doors for
flight during the weekend.
Pad maintenance and checks
will be conducted until launch day, which is targeted for
Feb. 7 at 4:39 a.m. EST.
The six STS-130 mission
astronauts will review flight data and practice in-flight
maintenance procedures today at NASA's Johnson Space Center
in Houston.
At the conclusion of the executive-level
Flight Readiness Review that will be held at Kennedy on Jan.
27, the official launch date will be announced during a
press briefing.
Commander George Zamka will lead
the STS-130 mission to the International Space Station
aboard space shuttle Endeavour. Terry Virts will serve as
the pilot. Mission Specialists are Nicholas Patrick, Robert
Behnken, Stephen Robinson and Kathryn Hire. Virts will be
making his first trip to space.
Shuttle Endeavour
and its crew will deliver to the space station a third
connecting module, the Italian-built Tranquility node and
the seven-windowed cupola, which will be used as a control
room for robotics. The mission will feature three
spacewalks.
From NASA
Greetings!
