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Woman is savaged by an angry beaver in Russia

Chris Pleasance
Daily Mail, UK
Thu, 14 May 2015 18:55 UTC
Image

While beaver attacks are rare, they are not unheard of. A fisherman died while trying to take a picture of a beaver in Belarus in 2013 after the animal bit through an artery in his leg, causing him to bleed to death
A woman in Russia who had her leg ripped open by an angry beaver was saved after a neighbour came running over and stabbed it in the head.

Evgenia Eliseeva, 24, was at home in her village in southwest Russia's Lipetsk region when she went outside to get a better phone signal to call her mum.

But as she started dialling she felt a terrible pain in her leg and looked down to see a large animal had bitten into her calf.

Miss Eliseeva said: 'I was in complete shock and had no idea what it was at first.

'I thought it might have been a dog that had jumped on me. It was quite dark but it seemed to be standing on its tail as it was so tall.

'Then it he got on all fours and charged at me again. Its teeth were in my leg and it was furiously shaking its head from side to side.

'I was screaming like a maniac and this man suddenly appeared out of nowhere and attacked the beaver.'

The woman's rescuer, local man Hleb Yefremov, 54, said: 'I heard the girl scream and saw this giant hairy beast attacking her.

Comment: Other beaver attacks in the recent past: Animals increasingly losing the plot: Vicious beaver attacks snorkeler off Nova Scotia's coast, Canada

Animals losing the plot: Couple attacked by beaver in Watchung Reservation, New Jersey

Beaver mauls man near Rochester: 'It was like watching a horror film'

Paddling family of three attacked by a beaver in Austria

Vicious beaver attacks and kills man in Belarus

      Read More...
Wolf

Police shoot dog following savage attack which left owner's flesh hanging off his arm and leg in Gloucester, UK


Western Daily Press
Thu, 14 May 2015 18:40 UTC
Image

A pit-bull type dog
A dog has been shot by police officers in Gloucester after it attacked its owner so badly he had "flesh hanging from his arm and leg".

A force spokesman said officers contained the animal in a garden in King Edwards Avenue at about 1.50pm.

An attempt to stun the dog using a taser failed and officers were forced to kill it using a shot gun.

The owner, who has been taken to Gloucestershire Royal Hospital for treatment, was attacked by the dog after he attempted to put its collar back on.
      Read More...
Fish

Study: Oxygen depleted 'dead zones' found in Atlantic open waters for the first time


Phys.org
Thu, 30 Apr 2015 16:49 UTC
Atlantic dead zone
© NASA Earth Observatory
The dead-zone eddies found in the Biogeosciences study are somewhat similar to the one seen in this picture, which was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on NASA's Terra satellite in late 2011.
A team of German and Canadian researchers have discovered areas with extremely low levels of oxygen in the tropical North Atlantic, several hundred kilometres off the coast of West Africa. The levels measured in these 'dead zones', inhabitable for most marine animals, are the lowest ever recorded in Atlantic open waters. The dead zones are created in eddies, large swirling masses of water that slowly move westward. Encountering an island, they could potentially lead to mass fish kills. The research is published today in Biogeosciences, an open access journal of the European Geosciences Union (EGU).

Dead zones are areas of the ocean depleted of oxygen. Most marine animals, like fish and crabs, cannot live within these regions, where only certain microorganisms can survive. In addition to the environmental impact, dead zones are an economic concern for commercial fishing, with very low oxygen concentrations having been linked to reduced fish yields in the Baltic Sea and other parts of the world.

"Before our study, it was thought that the open waters of the North Atlantic had minimum oxygen concentrations of about 40 micromol per litre of seawater, or about one millilitre of dissolved oxygen per litre of seawater," says lead-author Johannes Karstensen, a researcher at GEOMAR, the Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, in Kiel, Germany. This concentration of oxygen is low, but still allows most fish to survive. In contrast, the minimum levels of oxygen now measured are some 20 times lower than the previous minimum, making the dead zones nearly void of all oxygen and unsuitable for most marine animals.

Dead zones are most common near inhabited coastlines where rivers often carry fertilisers and other chemical nutrients into the ocean, triggering algae blooms. As the algae die, they sink to the seafloor and are decomposed by bacteria, which use up oxygen in this process. Currents in the ocean can carry these low-oxygen waters away from the coast, but a dead zone forming in the open ocean had not yet been discovered.

Comment: Perhaps increased methane outgassing and undersea volcanic activity (it is estimated there are up to one million of these 'submarine volcanoes') are contributory factors to these open water 'dead zones'?

The significant increase of fish die off's and strange migratory behaviour of marine life could be considered another potential signs of such activity also.

As the number of volcanoes erupting right now is greater than the 20th century's YEARLY average, a comparable escalation in activity of their underwater counterparts seems logical.

      Read More...
Attention

Jumbo kills 80-yr-old man in Hanur, India


Deccan Herald
Wed, 13 May 2015 16:29 UTC
Image

Asian elephant
Kondaiah Naika, 80, was killed by an elephant at Gundekallu forest of the Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary on Tuesday evening.

Naika hails from the nearby Bandalli village in the taluk. The incident occurred when he was on his way to get some forest produce. His body was found by Forest personnel who were on their routine beat. The body was handed over to Naika's family members after post mortem.

A case has been registered at the Hanur police station.
      Read More...
Binoculars

Arctic terns arrive late on breeding grounds in Iceland

Zoë Robert
icelandreview.com
Tue, 12 May 2015 13:39 UTC
Image
© Jamumiwa/ Wikimedia Commons.
Arctic tern
The Arctic tern has arrived in Iceland a week later than usual, according to ornithologist Jóhann Óli Hilmarsson in the South Iceland town of Stokkseyri, mbl.is reports.

The birds, which make a roundtrip of around 90,000 kms (56,000 miles) from Iceland or Greenland to their wintering grounds in Antarctica, take part in by far the longest known migration in the animal kingdom.

Arctic tern nesting has gone badly in parts of Iceland in recent years due to a lack of sandeel for the young birds.

Comment: See also: Migrating birds still delayed by cooler than normal weather in Canada

Winter bird migrants from Himalayas stay south in Tamil Nadu, India

      Read More...
Attention

Unusual fisher attack on dog in Ledyard, Connecticut

Jaimie Cura
patch.com
Thu, 14 May 2015 12:00 UTC
Image

Buca the dog attacked by fisher
When Buca the dog arrived at the back door covered in blood, his family had no idea what happened.

"Large pools of blood were all over the rear steps," Edward H. Wenke, III told Patch.

This was around 10:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 6.

"We heard no disturbances prior to this occurring," he said. "The next morning we found his blood trail leading out of the woods in our rear yard."

The Wenke family lives on Colonel Ledyard Highway, near Wolf Ridge Gap in Ledyard. Buca weighs 18 lbs.

"We originally thought it may have been a coyote," Wenke said. "However, the following night, I heard a series of bizarre 'crying/screeching' from the same wooded area. After research on the web, I found several audio files of fisher cats that were exactly what I had heard."


Comment: See also: Boy bitten by a fisher in Rehoboth backyard, Massachusetts

      Read More...
Attention

Woman buried alive by bear following attack in Russian woods

Will Stewart
Daily Mail, UK
Wed, 13 May 2015 11:31 UTC
Image

Saved for dinner: Having left her with serious injuries, the bear mistakenly believed Natalya Pasternak to be dead and partially buried her beneath a pile of leaves - apparently planning to return later and eat her
A Russian woman has been buried alive by a bear which was apparently saving her for its next meal after attacking and seriously injuring her.

Mother-of-two Natalya Pasternak, 55, had a miracle escape after her friend managed to flee the forest near Tynda in the Amur region and raise the alarm.

Having left her with serious injuries, the bear mistakenly believed the postal worker to be dead and partially buried her beneath a pile of leaves - apparently planning to return later and eat her.

But having been rescued alive, the woman is now fighting for her life in nearby Tynda Hospital.
      Read More...
Fish

Just for fun! Dolphins caught going on whale rides in Hawaii

Dan Wighton
Techly
Wed, 13 May 2015 09:56 UTC
dolphin whale

Dolphins and whales have shown play behavior
We know dolphins are playful. We know dolphins are smart. We know dolphins have sex for pleasure. We get it - dolphins just wanna have fun. But did you know dolphins like to go on whale rides?

Well, they do. A lot.

The following clip shows how, around the islands of Hawaii, dolphins and humpback whales have been engaging in some form of sea wrestling, with the whales lifting the dolphins out of the water and letting them slide down their backs.

There are a number of pictures across a number of locations, meaning that this behaviour is more widespread than first thought.

The observers noted that the behaviour was unlike other animal symbiotic relationships in that it was not for a beneficial purpose (such as parasitism), but almost certainly for play.

Comment: What we can learn from Nature!

      Read More...
Bizarro Earth

Plane records flight through mysterious antimatter thundercloud

Stephen Morgan
Digital Journal
Wed, 13 May 2015 20:39 UTC
Thunder Clouds
© NASA
Screenshot NASA YouTube video thunderclouds.
In what sounds like a tale from the Bermuda Triangle, an atmospheric physicist, called Joseph Dwyer, was flying through a massive thunderstorm, when he suddenly found himself in the middle of a huge cloud of antimatter. The physicist was piloting a modified Gulfstream V plane on a scientific mission and came across the strange phenomenon by accident.

Dwyer and his co-pilot mistook a line of thunderstorms for the Georgia coast on their radar, but by the time they realized this, they had no way out.

As they entered the heart of the storm, the scientific instruments on board suddenly began to register something totally unexpected.

The plane was being surrounded by positron-electron explosions causing peaks of high-energy, photon gamma rays - a clear sign of antimatter.

The plane plunged downward and began to shake violently. "I really thought I was going to die," Dwyer said.

So what is antimatter?

ExtremeTech explains that;
"Antimatter is the name we give to particles with the same mass, but opposite charge, as the particles of which we are composed. When an antiparticle comes in contact with its corresponding "normal" particle, they annihilate each other and release gamma rays. In this case, the team detected a large number of positrons (the antiparticle of an electron) in that storm."
But the positrons in the storm seemed to somehow steer themselves towards the plane, and what force did that remains a mystery.
Matter-antimatter annihilation
© CERN
Image of an actual matter-antimatter annihilation due to an atom of antihydrogen captured during a CERN experiment.
It is possible the plane itself was interacting with the antimatter. Nature says that the positrons could have been annihilated in the immediate vicinity of the aircraft, or even on the plane itself.

Aleksandr Gurevich, an atmospheric physicist at the Lebedev Physical Institute in Moscow, suggests that the plane's wings could have become charged, producing extremely intense electric fields around them, causing the creation of positrons.
      Read More...
Bizarro Earth

Giant squid washes up on New Zealand beach


The New Zealand Herald
Thu, 14 May 2015 02:24 UTC
Giant Squid
© Facebook, Kaikoura Marine Centre and Aquarium
The giant squid washed up at South Bay in Kaikoura yesterday.
A monster from the deep has washed up on a beach in Kaikoura.

The giant squid, spotted at South Bay, is around 7 metres in length from top to tentacle.
Posted by Kaikoura Marine Centre and Aquarium on Tuesday, 12 May 2015
Photos of the creature were posted to Facebook by Kaikoura Marine Centre and Aquarium, who said they moved the find "before the birds got to it."

"We got help to move it to the aquarium where it is safe inside a freezer," they added.

The Marine Centre says the giant squid has a body over 2 metres long, with eyes that are 19 centimetres in diameter.

They have the squid in a freezer with glass windows so it can be viewed by the public.
      Read More...
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