Rattlers

A Texas man spent 45 minutes in a tub with 87 rattlesnakes to set a world record. Oh, and he wasn’t bitten. The article says he set another record last year by holding 10 rattlesnakes by their tails in his mouth. What a fun hobby.

Newly Visible Comet

I just stumbled across this news that Comet 17P/Holmes is now visible to the unaided eye: “The comet is exploding and its coma, a cloud of gas and dust illuminated by the sun, has grown to be bigger than the planet Jupiter. The comet lacks the tail usually associated with such celestial bodies but can …

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Tutankhamun’s Mummy

The mummy of boy Pharaoh Tutankhamun has been moved from its sarcophagus in his tomb and placed on public display for the first time in a climate controlled glass case. Not being an Egyptologist, I was somewhat surprised to learn that this mummy has been kept in the tomb all along. That seemed a little …

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Hunting Ban Makes Hunting More Popular

News from the United Kingdom is that the hunting ban enacted there in 2005 has actually increased the popularity of hunting: “Against expectations, hunting has been able to continue, legally for the most part, with little difference in style. As Simon Hart, chief executive of the Countryside Alliance, puts it, ‘most people would find this …

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Washoe, RIP

Washoe, a chimpanzee who sent the field of primatology into a tizzy by learning American Sign Language, has died at age 42 after a short illness. From the age of 10 months, Washoe was raised by cognitive researchers R. Allen Gardner and Beatrix T. Gardner, who taught her to make recognizable signs in American Sign …

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