American Buddhist Net

(CNN) -- An estimated 125,000 Western lowland gorillas are living in a swamp in equatorial Africa, researchers reported Tuesday, double the number of the endangered primates thought to survive worldwide.

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A mother and daughter on a berry-picking excursion in northwestern Ontario, Canada, claim the giant, black, hulking figure they saw last week might be the legendary sasquatch, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported Monday.

Helen Pahpasay and her mother say they were scared stiff when they saw the mysterious creature spot them in their truck and then run into the woods near Grassy Narrows, Ont., about 140 miles east of Winnipeg, Manitoba.

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By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Phoenix Mars Lander may have detected perchlorate, a potentially toxic substance used in rocket fuel, in soil samples taken from the Red Planet, NASA scientists said on Monday.

The space agency said further tests were required to confirm the presence of perchlorate in Martian dirt and rule out contamination from the spacecraft.

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Aug 4, 2008

DEVOTEES of a local Buddhist temple on Monday released 300,000 shellfish into the waters off Pulau Ubin as part of a traditional practice known as animal liberation.

The rite, which is tied to Buddhist belief in reincarnation, commonly involves the release of birds, fish and turtles.

Members of the Thekchen Choling Temple in Beatty Lane, though, chose to liberate cockles instead.

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Regardless of whether or not the monks have "tamed" them, these animals are still wild at heart and hence unpredictable...I foresee eventual tragedy in this.

Hmm, the tiger in the photo looks pretty zonked. I wonder if any "special ingredients" are added to the boiled chickens he's "filled up with" prior to tourist visits... Robyn
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By RICHARD WHITE

A TODDLER creeps up behind a snoozing tiger — and incredibly, PETS it.

The big cat is one of three which have been totally tamed by monks at a Buddhist temple.

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Dean Radin

...Our perceptual system unconsciously filters out the vast majority of information available to us. Because of this filtering process, we actually experience only a tiny trickle of information, by some estimates a trillionth of what is actually out there. And yet from that trickle our minds construct what we expect to see. So when we pay attention to our favorite white-shirted basketball team, the likelihood of clearly seeing darker objects moving about is substantially reduced. That includes even obvious objects, like gorillas. Psychologists call this phenomenon "inattentional blindness," and it's just one of many ways in which our prior beliefs, interests and expectations shape the way we perceive the world and cause us to overlook the obvious.

Because of these blind spots, some common aspects of human experience literally cannot be seen by those who've spent decades embedded within the Western scientific worldview. That worldview, like any set of cultural beliefs inculcated from childhood, acts like the blinders they put on skittish horses to keep them calm. Between the blinders we see with exceptional clarity, but seeing beyond the blinders is not only exceedingly difficult, after a while it's easy to forget that your vision is restricted.

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08/03/2008
By Helen T. Gray

...Is there an afterlife for animals? Or as a popular question puts it, "Do all dogs go to heaven?"

Jack Vinyardi of Kansas City, Mo., an ordained interfaith chaplain of pets, said he is asked that question all the time as he comforts people about to lose or who have lost a pet.

He tells them there is no faith that claims to know unquestionably what happens to animals when they die.

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Aug 1, 2008
By Craig Covault

The White House has been alerted by NASA about plans to make an announcement soon on major new Phoenix lander discoveries concerning the "potential for life" on Mars, scientists tell Aviation Week & Space Technology.

Sources say the new data do not indicate the discovery of existing or past life on Mars. Rather the data relate to habitability--the "potential" for Mars to support life--at the Phoenix arctic landing site, sources say.

The data are much more complex than results related NASA's July 31 announcement that Phoenix has confirmed the presence of water ice at the site.

International news media trumpeted the water ice confirmation, which was not a surprise to any of the Phoenix researchers. "They have discovered water on Mars for the third or fourth time," one senior Mars scientists joked about the hubbub around the water ice announcement.

The other data not discussed openly yet are far more "provocative," Phoenix officials say.

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By Fiona Macrae
Last updated at 8:19 AM on 01st August 2008

He is 8ft tall and has a roar that could start an avalanche.

Despite this, the yeti has always managed to remain abominably elusive.

But yesterday, claims that the legendary beast really does exist took a giant step forward.

Scientists have used microscopes to analyse of strands of hair found caught on some rocks in jungle near the India-Bangladesh border.

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Sat Aug 2, 2008
By Paul Majendie

BEIJING (Reuters) - Astrology expert Raymond Lo has a word of warning for China's Olympic leaders -- they should wear an ox pendant to ward off bad karma at the Olympics.

The Beijing Games open at eight minutes past eight o'clock in the evening on the 8th day of the 8th month in 2008, a time that traditionally offers the perfect combination of good luck and prosperity.

The Olympics are being staged in the Year of the Rat but, according to Chinese animal astrology, that could spell trouble for anyone born in the Year of the Horse.

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A Memoir by Philip Chabot with Laurie Anne Blanchard - One man takes on the U.S. Government's experiments using telepathy

Mon, 7 Jul 2008

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Finally, after several decades of secrecy, an unusual and compelling true story of deception and subterfuge is finally told. This book is an in-depth look at one man's harrowing experience with the United States Government as a Psychic Spy. Now, 40 years later, Philip Chabot finally tells his story with his new book, OPERATION BLUE LIGHT: My Secret Life Among Psychic Spies (Cherubim Publishing / September 2008 / $26.95 / 294 pages).

In the 1960's, Chabot feels there was a definite conspiracy where the American government took advantage of a select group of people who had ESP. The government used and took advantage of these victims as spies and guinea pigs to find out about what other countries were up to. Chabot was one of them.

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Friday, August 1, 2008

INDEPENDENCE, Mo. -- A 97-year-old woman says her cat's early morning yowling saved her from a house fire. Grace George, of Independence, said her cat Boo Boo's yowling from an open bedroom window early Wednesday woke her up from a sound sleep.

"I got so aggravated," George said. "I didn't know why she was doing that."

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August 1, 2008

PORTERVILLE, Calif. -- Hundreds of people have been flocking to see what they believe is an angel in the window of a California carpet store.

Owners of the store in Porterville said they receive a visit from the apparition every night.

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APINYA WIPATAYOTIN

Thailand will host the world's first international meeting on fireflies with over 200 firefly experts from 20 countries taking part to discuss the latest findings on the lightning bugs. The International Symposium on Diversity and Conservation of Fireflies will be held at the Botanical Garden Organisation in Chiang Mai from Aug 26-30.

Suyanee Vessbutr, chief of the organisation's technical and research department, said the symposium was a follow-up of a meeting of firefly experts from around the world in Portugal last year.

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July 31, 2008 edition
By Douglas Fox

‘C’mon babies, let’s walk!” Lynea Lattanzio, a fit 50-something woman with curly brown hair, slides open her kitchen door and five, 10, 15 cats rush through the opening like water gushing out of a pressurized spigot.

“C’mon guys,” she calls out. “Let’s go for a walk!” The flock follows her down the steps.

Ms. Lattanzio, sure enough, is herding cats. But as she crosses the lawn and opens a gate, the subtleties of cat herding emerge. Individuals run in spurts and stops, in a manner distinct from sheep. A black cat, two tabbies, and a Siamese drop out of the procession. They’re replaced by three new cats that materialize from under a tree, eager to tag along for a minute as Lattanzio strolls down to the shady banks of the Kings River, 50 yards away.

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Walking in the footsteps of Apache chief Mangas Coloradas

Story and photos by Jerry Eagan

...A friend recently asked, "How do you find the places you hike?" Read the history, I replied. Once I've got a "target area" in mind, I go. Once there, I ask the spirits of the Apache, Anglos and Hispanics who were there: Where do you want me to go? What do you want me to see? Find? Who are you? Reveal yourself to me. After I explained this process, my friend said, "Well, then, it seems the Spirits lead you." I don't take that lightly, and I feel grateful for those gifts from "them."

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07/30/2008

CANEY, Kan.—A dog at a southeast Kansas zoo has adopted three tiger cubs abandoned by their mother. Safari Zoological Park owner Tom Harvey said the tiger cubs were born Sunday, but the mother had problems with them.

A day later, the mother stopped caring for them. Harvey said the cubs were wandering around, trying to find their birth mother, who wouldn't pay attention to them. That's when the cubs were put in the care of a golden retriever, Harvey said.

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Wednesday, July 16
DAVID BIRD

As someone who enjoys a good action movie, especially one involving prolonged swordplay, e.g. Robin Hood, The Three Musketeers, etc., I was totally blown away by the observation below. And why am I not surprised to learn that it occurred between two members of the corvid family, arguably the smartest birds in the world?

Russ Balda, an ornithologist who is no stranger to bird behaviour, especially that of jays, and renowned for his research on memory in birds, was watching a solitary American crow eating seeds on a platform feeder about one metre square at a bird-feeding station in Flagstaff, Ariz. Unlike the Steller's jays that were coming and going, caching sunflower seeds, the crow was taking its time, being choosy over which seeds to pick up in its bill.

...The use of a tool as a weapon by the Steller's jays in Balda's report should not be altogether surprising, either, as captive blue jays have been observed tearing paper into strips to rake in food from outside their cages.

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The loss of billions of bees raises questions about our pesticide controls.

By Al Meyerhoff
July 30, 2008

...There is increasing reason to believe that Gaucho and other members of a family of highly toxic chemicals -- neonicotinoids -- may be responsible for the deaths of billions of honeybees worldwide. Some scientists believe that these pesticides, which are applied to seeds, travel systemically through the plant and leave residues that contaminate the pollen, resulting in bee death or paralysis. The French refer to the effect as "mad bee disease" and in 1999 were the first to ban the use of these chemicals, which are currently only marketed by Bayer (the aspirin people) under the trade names Gaucho and Poncho. Germany followed suit this year, and its agricultural research institute said it concluded that the poisoning of the bees was because of the rub-off of the pesticide clothianidin (that's Pancho) from corn seeds.

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Tuesday, July 29, 2008

SICKLERVILLE, N.J. -- Tipping the scales at an unbelievable 44 pounds, this corpulent kitty gives new meaning to the phrase fat cat.

"I have never seen a cat this fat in person, not even anything close to it. She is a big kitty cat," says Jennifer Andersch of the Camden County Animal Shelter.

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# 28 July 2008
# NewScientist.com news service
# Matt Walker

Wild orangutans have been spotted using naturally occurring anti-inflammatory drugs.

Four individuals have been seen rubbing a soothing balm onto their limbs, the first known examples of orangutans self medicating. Great apes have never before been seen using drugs in this way. Remarkably though, local people use the same balm, administering it in a similar way to treat aches and pains.

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Mon Jul 28, 2008

SUKHUMI, Georgia (Reuters) - In the capital of Georgia's breakaway province of Abkhazia, cracked steps lead up to a battered 1970s monument featuring a baboon.

"Polio, yellow fever, typhus, encephalitis, smallpox, hepatitis and many other human diseases were eradicated thanks to tests on primates," the inscription reads.

Once the pride of Soviet science, Sukhumi's Institute of Experimental Pathology and Therapy is now a shadow of the pioneering centre that helped defeat polio and saved countless thousands of lives in World War Two with penicillin treatments.

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July 28th, 2008
by Sahil Nagpal

Phnom Penh - A rare wild gaur seriously gored a Cambodian fisherman, then injured two bystanders who had come to see what the fuss was about, before dropping dead, police said Monday.

Hin Sarun, the deputy police chief of Svay Chet district in Banteay Meanchey province on the north-western Thai border, said the rare but angry bovine emerged from scrub on Saturday and menaced a group of fishermen before seriously wounding angler Cheng Chat, 25.

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On the eve of a Lords ruling over US demands for his extradition, a British computer hacker claims that American prosecutors threatened to haul him before a military tribunal

* Jamie Doward, home affairs editor
* The Observer,
* Sunday July 27 2008

When he wakes up this morning, Gary McKinnon will be 72 hours from learning whether he is on the fast track to a 60-year prison sentence, thanks to his obsession with aliens.

McKinnon, 42, from Enfield in north London, is accused by American prosecutors of illegally accessing top-secret computer systems in what they claimed in one legal document was 'the biggest military computer hack of all time'.

The self-taught IT expert insists he was simply looking for information the US government had on UFOs and is adamant that he never damaged any of its computer systems.

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