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Yep, I've had these articles open awhile, so in order to get them out of the way I'll post them here! =) I promise, later there will be a post of actual sustenance.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070219/sc_afp/australiawildlifedevils_070219112726
Tasmanian devils face extinction from mutant cancer
Mon Feb 19, 6:27 AM ET
"A mutant cancer which causes facial tumours on Australia's Tasmanian devil has brought the carnivorous marsupial to the brink of extinction, a leading researcher has said.
Local populations of the animal, popularised as Taz by Warner Bros. in its Looney Tunes cartoons, have already been savaged by the mysterious disease which results in malignant facial tumours.
Hamish McCallum, professor of wildlife research at the University of Tasmania's school of zoology, said the disease, which usually results in death six months after the appearance of the first lesions, could lead to the extinction of the species within a decade.
"I won't say that it's the most likely outcome but I think at this stage there is an unacceptable risk that we may lose all populations on mainland Tasmania," he told AFP Monday. "And I think probably in the next 10 years."
McCallum, who on Tuesday will attend the largest conference on the issue since the disease was discovered in 1996, likened the illness to AIDS in humans for its ability to destroy entire populations of the dog-like animal.
"It's very different biologically from AIDS but it seems almost uniformly fatal," he said.
"There are virtually no cases were animals have survived for more than six months with the disease."
McCallum said that in some places the disease is estimated to have reduced local populations of the animal by as much as 70 percent.
The Tasmanian devil is found only on the island state south of the Australian mainland.
Early European settlers named the feisty marsupial the devil for its spine-chilling screeches, dark appearance and reputed bad temper which, along with its steeltrap jaw, made it appear incredibly fierce
Fearful that the entire Tasmanian devil population could be wiped out by the mysterious illness, environmental authorities recently took four colonies of healthy animals off the island and placed them in zoos in mainland Australia.
They are also removing the diseased animals from the wild when they can to prevent the spread of the tumours which grow large enough to prevent the animals from feeding and also lead to rotting of the jaw.
Warner Bros have also decided to help, allowing Australian officials to sell plush toy versions of the Taz character, often drawn as spinning like a mini-whirlwind, to help raise funds for research to save the animal.
The cause of the disease is not yet known but McCallum said while it appeared to have originated in just one animal it was spread widely through contact with other animals, mostly by biting.
"It would be some form of weird mutation," he said of the disease.
"Animals biting each other seems to be the most likely explanation at the moment and a lot of biting occurs during mating."
McCallum added there was no evidence to suggest the disease had spread to other animals."
http://worldwildlife.org/news/displayPR.cfm?prID=338
Biggest Bust in a Decade of Tiger, Bear Parts in Russia
For Release: 01/19/2007
"WASHINGTON - Russian law enforcement officials today seized three Siberian tiger skins, eight tiger paws and 332 tiger bones as well as 531 saiga horns and 283 Asiatic black bear paws near the Russian border with China, making it the the largest bust of its kind in at least a decade. The seizure took place in a village near Russia's eastern border with China in an area where World Wildlife Fund (WWF) works with government authorities to combat the illegal trade of wildlife products when police stopped a car that had its passenger seats removed and was stuffed full of bags. The driver claimed to be delivering bags of potatoes but upon inspection police discovered the animal parts.
Poaching for illegal wildlife trade for use in traditional medicines, as trophies and in fashion is a significant threat to many species in this region. Dozens of Siberian tigers are killed by poachers annually in Primorye and Khabarovsk regions of Russia and their skins and body parts are smuggled to China. Saiga antelope horns are often smuggled to Russia through Kazakhstan and on to China. Asiatic black bear and brown bear are usually killed for their gall bladders and furs. The paws are eaten in soup.
"Endangered species do not belong on your mantle or in your soup," said Crawford Allan, Director of TRAFFIC North America, the wildlife monitoring arm of WWF and the IUCN - The World Conservation Union. "To secure the future of these animals in the wild, TRAFFIC and its partners are working to build capacity and boost cooperation among Russian, Chinese and Mongolian authorities to improve cross-border coordination and strict enforcement of wildlife laws."
All species represented in the seizure are protected by Russian and international law. The global CITES treaty (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) prohibits all commercial international trade in the Siberian tiger and the Asiatic black bear, for example. Russian law prohibits the taking, purchase, sale, transportation, or export of these protected species.
WWF regards the Russian Far East as a critical conservation priority for endangered Siberian tigers and Amur leopards and has focused on reducing poaching, curbing illegal logging in tiger habitat, and protecting key species in the region since the early nineties. WWF has established anti-poaching ranger brigades, helped create new protected areas, and trained and educated government officials on the illegal trade of wildlife products.
"We haven't seen a wildlife bust out in the countryside like this in a decade," said Dr. Darron Collins, managing director, Amur-Heilong program, World Wildlife Fund. "It's horrible that such a slaughter took place and the demand for these products is still there, but the criminals were caught and that alone demonstrates Russia's commitment to quelling the problem. The big question now is how will these guys be prosecuted?""
OMFG Bees! 12/23 NEVER FORGET http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2243176
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070301/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_web_friends;_ylt=Ao66uPmcrSHUYE_yIFZFTIMEtbAF
Tortoise and hippo friendship deepens post tsunami
Thu Mar 1, 6:11 AM ET
"A giant tortoise and an orphaned baby hippo who forged an unusual friendship after the 2004 tsunami in southeast Asia are the stars of a new Web site so fans can follow their progress.
Mzee, a 130-year-old Aldabran tortoise, became a surrogate parent and inseparable friend to hippo Owen who was washed out to sea off the coast of Kenya, rescued by villagers and taken to a wildlife park where the tortoise lived.
The devastating Indian Ocean tsunami that hit in December 2004 left 230,000 people killed or missing, including 170,000 in Indonesia.
The animals' friendship came to international attention when New York-based father and daughter team, Craig and Isabella Hatkoff, teamed up with the park's chief environmentalist Paula Kahumbu to write a book about the pair, "Owen & Mzee: The True Story of a Remarkable Friendship."
They have now released a second book, published by Scholastic, chronicling the deepening friendship, with Owen and Mzee living, sleeping and playing together, but also creating a language of their own.
"They have created sounds unique to hippo or to tortoise and use gentle nods and pushes to communicate with one another," said a spokeswoman from Scholastic which has just released "Owen & Mzee: The Language of Friendship."
The second instalment in the animals' story follows their remarkable friendship at Haller Park Animal Sanctuary nearMombasa, Kenya, which is operated by Lafarge EcoSystems, a unit of Kenyan cement maker Bamburi.
But as well as updating readers on the friendship, Hatkoff's publishing company, Turtle Pond Publications, this week also launched Web site www.owenandmzee.com to update fans on the animals with a weekly blog from caretaker Stephen Tuei.
"Their true story that borders on the unbelievable teaches us many beautiful lessons on many levels," said Hatkoff in a statement.
"The Web site allows us to continually update the public on the pair's current developments and offers kids new set of online creativity resources and applications at the same time.""
Some weird new psychedelic octopus. Maybe from the antarctic? I can't remember. http://www.livescience.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/img_display.php?pic=070225_antarctic_octopus_02.jpg
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20070302/sc_livescience/hugeoceandiscoveredinsideearth
Huge 'Ocean' Discovered Inside Earth
by Ker Than, LiveScience Staff Writer
Fri Mar 2, 3:05 PM ET
"Scientists scanning the deep interior of Earth have found evidence of a vast water reservoir beneath eastern Asia that is at least the volume of the Arctic Ocean.
The discovery marks the first time such a large body of water has found in the planet’s deep mantle.
The finding, made by Michael Wysession, a seismologist at Washington State University in St. Louis, and his former graduate student Jesse Lawrence, now at the University of California, San Diego, will be detailed in a forthcoming monograph to be published by the American Geophysical Union.
Looking down deep
The pair analyzed more than 600,000 seismograms—records of waves generated by earthquakes traveling through the Earth—collected from instruments scattered around the planet.
They noticed a region beneath Asia where seismic waves appeared to dampen, or "attenuate," and also slow down slightly. "Water slows the speed of waves a little," Wysession explained. "Lots of damping and a little slowing match the predictions for water very well."
Previous predictions calculated that if a cold slab of the ocean floor were to sink thousands of miles into the Earth’s mantle, the hot temperatures would cause water stored inside the rock to evaporate out.
"That is exactly what we show here," Wysession said. "Water inside the rock goes down with the sinking slab and it’s quite cold, but it heats up the deeper it goes, and the rock eventually becomes unstable and loses its water."
The water then rises up into the overlying region, which becomes saturated with water [image]. "It would still look like solid rock to you," Wysession told LiveScience. "You would have to put it in the lab to find the water in it."
Although they appear solid, the composition of some ocean floor rocks is up to 15 percent water. "The water molecules are actually stuck in the mineral structure of the rock," Wysession explained. "As you heat this up, it eventually dehydrates. It’s like taking clay and firing it to get all the water out."
The researchers estimate that up to 0.1 percent of the rock sinking down into the Earth’s mantle in that part of the world is water, which works out to about an Arctic Ocean’s worth of water.
"That’s a real back of the envelope type calculation," Wysession said. "That’s the best that we can do at this point."
The Beijing anomaly
Wysession has dubbed the new underground feature the "Beijing anomaly," because seismic wave attenuation was found to be highest beneath the Chinese capital city. Wysession first used the moniker during a presentation of his work at the University of Beijing.
"They thought it was very, very interesting," Wysession said. "China is under greater seismic risk than just about any country in the world, so they are very interested in seismology.”
Water covers 70 percent of Earth’s surface and one of its many functions is to act like a lubricant for the movement of continental plates.
"Look at our sister planet, Venus," Wysession said. "It is very hot and dry inside Venus, and Venus has no plate tectonics. All the water probably boiled off, and without water, there are no plates. The system is locked up, like a rusty Tin Man with no oil.""
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/03/03/blackbeard.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
Is it Blackbeard's ship? Archaeological booty says aye
POSTED: 9:24 a.m. EST, March 3, 2007
"RALEIGH, North Carolina (AP) -- A shipwreck off the North Carolina coast believed to be that of notorious pirate Blackbeard could be fully excavated in three years, officials working on the project said.
"That's really our target," Steve Claggett, the state archaeologist, said Friday while discussing 10 years of research that has been conducted since the shipwreck was found just off Atlantic Beach.
Archaeologists and historians planned Friday to review 10 years of research on the shipwreck. It is the oldest shipwreck discovered off the North Carolina coast
The ship ran aground in 1718, and some researchers believe it was a French slave ship Blackbeard captured in 1717 and renamed Queen Anne's Revenge.
Several officials said historical data and coral-covered artifacts recovered from the site -- including 25 cannons, which experts said was an uncommonly large number to find on a ship in the region in the early 18th century -- remove any doubt the wreckage belonged to Blackbeard.
Three university professors, including two from East Carolina University, have challenged the findings. But officials working on the excavation said Friday that the more they find, the stronger their case becomes.
"Historians have really looked at it thoroughly and don't feel that there's any possibility anything else is in there that was not recorded," said Mark Wilde-Ramsing, director of the Queen Anne's Revenge Project. "And the artifacts continue to support it."
Wilde-Ramsing said a coin weight recovered last fall bearing a likeness of Britain's Queen Anne and a King George cup, both dated before the shipwreck, further bolster their position.
So far, only 15 percent of shipwreck recovered
So far, about 15 percent of the shipwreck has been recovered including jewelry, dishes and thousands of other artifacts. The items are being preserved and studied at a lab at East Carolina University, and eventually more will become available for the public to view, Claggett said.
Nearly 2 million people have viewed shipwreck artifacts since 1998, including at a permanent exhibit at the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort and at a maritime museum in Paris, project officials said.
Researchers shared some of their findings Friday at the North Carolina Museum of History. They said studying the artifacts will provide insight into the era's naval technology, slave trade and pirate life.
Blackbeard, whose real name was widely believed to be Edward Teach or Edward Thatch, settled in Bath and received a governor's pardon. Some experts believe he grew bored with land life and returned to piracy.
He was killed by volunteers from the Royal Navy in November 1718 -- five months after the ship thought to be Queen Anne's Revenge sank."
The Napkin Fiction Project: http://www.esquire.com/fiction/napkinproject
Very interesting. I love to write on napkins, personally... I do physics on them every once in a while. There's just something relaxing and informal about writing on scraps and in margins that is very much enjoyable. Oh, and doodling. I'm a doodler. =P
http://www.tampontification.com/donate.php
Clicking there and following the directions, yup, that's all, and that's how easy it is for them to donate pads and tampons and whatnot to homeless shelters and all that jazz. Pretty swell if you ask me.
http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?id=40326
Arkin, Carell Get Smart
12:00 AM, 28-FEBRUARY-07
"Newly minted Oscar winner Alan Arkin will reunite with his Little Miss Sunshine co-star Steve Carell in the big-screen version of Get Smart, which Peter Segal is directing for Warner Brothers, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Arkin will play the chief of CONTROL, the organization that fights the evil forces of KAOS. Edward Platt played the character in the 1965 TV series on which the movie is based.
Carell is on board as secret agent Maxwell Smart, with Anne Hathaway as Agent 99. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Terence Stamp also have been cast.
Andrew Lazar, Charles Roven and Alex Gartner are producing the comedy. Mosaic, Mad Chance and Callahan Films are the production entities involved."
Sounds pretty awesome to me... hopefully they just don't screw it up. Too many bad sequels and remakes lately. But Get Smart is awesome, I saw a few episodes on Nick at Night or something the one time we went down to Charleston, when we were out at the Red Roof Inn near the beach. Man, did we go down there for Easter? With Nana? Damn.
http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=19089
Indiana Jones 4 Starts Filming June 18
February 27, 2007
"Fox411 talked to Steven Spielberg at the Oscars' Governors Ball who revealed that Indiana Jones 4 starts filming on June 18.
Paramount will release the anticipated film on May 22, 2008. Other than Harrison Ford, no cast members have been officially announced."
Hold on, wait for it (again)... eeeeeeeeee! I'm so freaking exciiiteeed...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070219/sc_afp/australiawildlifedevils_070219112726
Tasmanian devils face extinction from mutant cancer
Mon Feb 19, 6:27 AM ET
"A mutant cancer which causes facial tumours on Australia's Tasmanian devil has brought the carnivorous marsupial to the brink of extinction, a leading researcher has said.
Local populations of the animal, popularised as Taz by Warner Bros. in its Looney Tunes cartoons, have already been savaged by the mysterious disease which results in malignant facial tumours.
Hamish McCallum, professor of wildlife research at the University of Tasmania's school of zoology, said the disease, which usually results in death six months after the appearance of the first lesions, could lead to the extinction of the species within a decade.
"I won't say that it's the most likely outcome but I think at this stage there is an unacceptable risk that we may lose all populations on mainland Tasmania," he told AFP Monday. "And I think probably in the next 10 years."
McCallum, who on Tuesday will attend the largest conference on the issue since the disease was discovered in 1996, likened the illness to AIDS in humans for its ability to destroy entire populations of the dog-like animal.
"It's very different biologically from AIDS but it seems almost uniformly fatal," he said.
"There are virtually no cases were animals have survived for more than six months with the disease."
McCallum said that in some places the disease is estimated to have reduced local populations of the animal by as much as 70 percent.
The Tasmanian devil is found only on the island state south of the Australian mainland.
Early European settlers named the feisty marsupial the devil for its spine-chilling screeches, dark appearance and reputed bad temper which, along with its steeltrap jaw, made it appear incredibly fierce
Fearful that the entire Tasmanian devil population could be wiped out by the mysterious illness, environmental authorities recently took four colonies of healthy animals off the island and placed them in zoos in mainland Australia.
They are also removing the diseased animals from the wild when they can to prevent the spread of the tumours which grow large enough to prevent the animals from feeding and also lead to rotting of the jaw.
Warner Bros have also decided to help, allowing Australian officials to sell plush toy versions of the Taz character, often drawn as spinning like a mini-whirlwind, to help raise funds for research to save the animal.
The cause of the disease is not yet known but McCallum said while it appeared to have originated in just one animal it was spread widely through contact with other animals, mostly by biting.
"It would be some form of weird mutation," he said of the disease.
"Animals biting each other seems to be the most likely explanation at the moment and a lot of biting occurs during mating."
McCallum added there was no evidence to suggest the disease had spread to other animals."
http://worldwildlife.org/news/displayPR.cfm?prID=338
Biggest Bust in a Decade of Tiger, Bear Parts in Russia
For Release: 01/19/2007
"WASHINGTON - Russian law enforcement officials today seized three Siberian tiger skins, eight tiger paws and 332 tiger bones as well as 531 saiga horns and 283 Asiatic black bear paws near the Russian border with China, making it the the largest bust of its kind in at least a decade. The seizure took place in a village near Russia's eastern border with China in an area where World Wildlife Fund (WWF) works with government authorities to combat the illegal trade of wildlife products when police stopped a car that had its passenger seats removed and was stuffed full of bags. The driver claimed to be delivering bags of potatoes but upon inspection police discovered the animal parts.
Poaching for illegal wildlife trade for use in traditional medicines, as trophies and in fashion is a significant threat to many species in this region. Dozens of Siberian tigers are killed by poachers annually in Primorye and Khabarovsk regions of Russia and their skins and body parts are smuggled to China. Saiga antelope horns are often smuggled to Russia through Kazakhstan and on to China. Asiatic black bear and brown bear are usually killed for their gall bladders and furs. The paws are eaten in soup.
"Endangered species do not belong on your mantle or in your soup," said Crawford Allan, Director of TRAFFIC North America, the wildlife monitoring arm of WWF and the IUCN - The World Conservation Union. "To secure the future of these animals in the wild, TRAFFIC and its partners are working to build capacity and boost cooperation among Russian, Chinese and Mongolian authorities to improve cross-border coordination and strict enforcement of wildlife laws."
All species represented in the seizure are protected by Russian and international law. The global CITES treaty (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) prohibits all commercial international trade in the Siberian tiger and the Asiatic black bear, for example. Russian law prohibits the taking, purchase, sale, transportation, or export of these protected species.
WWF regards the Russian Far East as a critical conservation priority for endangered Siberian tigers and Amur leopards and has focused on reducing poaching, curbing illegal logging in tiger habitat, and protecting key species in the region since the early nineties. WWF has established anti-poaching ranger brigades, helped create new protected areas, and trained and educated government officials on the illegal trade of wildlife products.
"We haven't seen a wildlife bust out in the countryside like this in a decade," said Dr. Darron Collins, managing director, Amur-Heilong program, World Wildlife Fund. "It's horrible that such a slaughter took place and the demand for these products is still there, but the criminals were caught and that alone demonstrates Russia's commitment to quelling the problem. The big question now is how will these guys be prosecuted?""
OMFG Bees! 12/23 NEVER FORGET http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2243176
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070301/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_web_friends;_ylt=Ao66uPmcrSHUYE_yIFZFTIMEtbAF
Tortoise and hippo friendship deepens post tsunami
Thu Mar 1, 6:11 AM ET
"A giant tortoise and an orphaned baby hippo who forged an unusual friendship after the 2004 tsunami in southeast Asia are the stars of a new Web site so fans can follow their progress.
Mzee, a 130-year-old Aldabran tortoise, became a surrogate parent and inseparable friend to hippo Owen who was washed out to sea off the coast of Kenya, rescued by villagers and taken to a wildlife park where the tortoise lived.
The devastating Indian Ocean tsunami that hit in December 2004 left 230,000 people killed or missing, including 170,000 in Indonesia.
The animals' friendship came to international attention when New York-based father and daughter team, Craig and Isabella Hatkoff, teamed up with the park's chief environmentalist Paula Kahumbu to write a book about the pair, "Owen & Mzee: The True Story of a Remarkable Friendship."
They have now released a second book, published by Scholastic, chronicling the deepening friendship, with Owen and Mzee living, sleeping and playing together, but also creating a language of their own.
"They have created sounds unique to hippo or to tortoise and use gentle nods and pushes to communicate with one another," said a spokeswoman from Scholastic which has just released "Owen & Mzee: The Language of Friendship."
The second instalment in the animals' story follows their remarkable friendship at Haller Park Animal Sanctuary nearMombasa, Kenya, which is operated by Lafarge EcoSystems, a unit of Kenyan cement maker Bamburi.
But as well as updating readers on the friendship, Hatkoff's publishing company, Turtle Pond Publications, this week also launched Web site www.owenandmzee.com to update fans on the animals with a weekly blog from caretaker Stephen Tuei.
"Their true story that borders on the unbelievable teaches us many beautiful lessons on many levels," said Hatkoff in a statement.
"The Web site allows us to continually update the public on the pair's current developments and offers kids new set of online creativity resources and applications at the same time.""
Some weird new psychedelic octopus. Maybe from the antarctic? I can't remember. http://www.livescience.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/img_display.php?pic=070225_antarctic_octopus_02.jpg
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20070302/sc_livescience/hugeoceandiscoveredinsideearth
Huge 'Ocean' Discovered Inside Earth
by Ker Than, LiveScience Staff Writer
Fri Mar 2, 3:05 PM ET
"Scientists scanning the deep interior of Earth have found evidence of a vast water reservoir beneath eastern Asia that is at least the volume of the Arctic Ocean.
The discovery marks the first time such a large body of water has found in the planet’s deep mantle.
The finding, made by Michael Wysession, a seismologist at Washington State University in St. Louis, and his former graduate student Jesse Lawrence, now at the University of California, San Diego, will be detailed in a forthcoming monograph to be published by the American Geophysical Union.
Looking down deep
The pair analyzed more than 600,000 seismograms—records of waves generated by earthquakes traveling through the Earth—collected from instruments scattered around the planet.
They noticed a region beneath Asia where seismic waves appeared to dampen, or "attenuate," and also slow down slightly. "Water slows the speed of waves a little," Wysession explained. "Lots of damping and a little slowing match the predictions for water very well."
Previous predictions calculated that if a cold slab of the ocean floor were to sink thousands of miles into the Earth’s mantle, the hot temperatures would cause water stored inside the rock to evaporate out.
"That is exactly what we show here," Wysession said. "Water inside the rock goes down with the sinking slab and it’s quite cold, but it heats up the deeper it goes, and the rock eventually becomes unstable and loses its water."
The water then rises up into the overlying region, which becomes saturated with water [image]. "It would still look like solid rock to you," Wysession told LiveScience. "You would have to put it in the lab to find the water in it."
Although they appear solid, the composition of some ocean floor rocks is up to 15 percent water. "The water molecules are actually stuck in the mineral structure of the rock," Wysession explained. "As you heat this up, it eventually dehydrates. It’s like taking clay and firing it to get all the water out."
The researchers estimate that up to 0.1 percent of the rock sinking down into the Earth’s mantle in that part of the world is water, which works out to about an Arctic Ocean’s worth of water.
"That’s a real back of the envelope type calculation," Wysession said. "That’s the best that we can do at this point."
The Beijing anomaly
Wysession has dubbed the new underground feature the "Beijing anomaly," because seismic wave attenuation was found to be highest beneath the Chinese capital city. Wysession first used the moniker during a presentation of his work at the University of Beijing.
"They thought it was very, very interesting," Wysession said. "China is under greater seismic risk than just about any country in the world, so they are very interested in seismology.”
Water covers 70 percent of Earth’s surface and one of its many functions is to act like a lubricant for the movement of continental plates.
"Look at our sister planet, Venus," Wysession said. "It is very hot and dry inside Venus, and Venus has no plate tectonics. All the water probably boiled off, and without water, there are no plates. The system is locked up, like a rusty Tin Man with no oil.""
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/03/03/blackbeard.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories
Is it Blackbeard's ship? Archaeological booty says aye
POSTED: 9:24 a.m. EST, March 3, 2007
"RALEIGH, North Carolina (AP) -- A shipwreck off the North Carolina coast believed to be that of notorious pirate Blackbeard could be fully excavated in three years, officials working on the project said.
"That's really our target," Steve Claggett, the state archaeologist, said Friday while discussing 10 years of research that has been conducted since the shipwreck was found just off Atlantic Beach.
Archaeologists and historians planned Friday to review 10 years of research on the shipwreck. It is the oldest shipwreck discovered off the North Carolina coast
The ship ran aground in 1718, and some researchers believe it was a French slave ship Blackbeard captured in 1717 and renamed Queen Anne's Revenge.
Several officials said historical data and coral-covered artifacts recovered from the site -- including 25 cannons, which experts said was an uncommonly large number to find on a ship in the region in the early 18th century -- remove any doubt the wreckage belonged to Blackbeard.
Three university professors, including two from East Carolina University, have challenged the findings. But officials working on the excavation said Friday that the more they find, the stronger their case becomes.
"Historians have really looked at it thoroughly and don't feel that there's any possibility anything else is in there that was not recorded," said Mark Wilde-Ramsing, director of the Queen Anne's Revenge Project. "And the artifacts continue to support it."
Wilde-Ramsing said a coin weight recovered last fall bearing a likeness of Britain's Queen Anne and a King George cup, both dated before the shipwreck, further bolster their position.
So far, only 15 percent of shipwreck recovered
So far, about 15 percent of the shipwreck has been recovered including jewelry, dishes and thousands of other artifacts. The items are being preserved and studied at a lab at East Carolina University, and eventually more will become available for the public to view, Claggett said.
Nearly 2 million people have viewed shipwreck artifacts since 1998, including at a permanent exhibit at the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort and at a maritime museum in Paris, project officials said.
Researchers shared some of their findings Friday at the North Carolina Museum of History. They said studying the artifacts will provide insight into the era's naval technology, slave trade and pirate life.
Blackbeard, whose real name was widely believed to be Edward Teach or Edward Thatch, settled in Bath and received a governor's pardon. Some experts believe he grew bored with land life and returned to piracy.
He was killed by volunteers from the Royal Navy in November 1718 -- five months after the ship thought to be Queen Anne's Revenge sank."
The Napkin Fiction Project: http://www.esquire.com/fiction/napkinproject
Very interesting. I love to write on napkins, personally... I do physics on them every once in a while. There's just something relaxing and informal about writing on scraps and in margins that is very much enjoyable. Oh, and doodling. I'm a doodler. =P
http://www.tampontification.com/donate.php
Clicking there and following the directions, yup, that's all, and that's how easy it is for them to donate pads and tampons and whatnot to homeless shelters and all that jazz. Pretty swell if you ask me.
http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?id=40326
Arkin, Carell Get Smart
12:00 AM, 28-FEBRUARY-07
"Newly minted Oscar winner Alan Arkin will reunite with his Little Miss Sunshine co-star Steve Carell in the big-screen version of Get Smart, which Peter Segal is directing for Warner Brothers, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Arkin will play the chief of CONTROL, the organization that fights the evil forces of KAOS. Edward Platt played the character in the 1965 TV series on which the movie is based.
Carell is on board as secret agent Maxwell Smart, with Anne Hathaway as Agent 99. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Terence Stamp also have been cast.
Andrew Lazar, Charles Roven and Alex Gartner are producing the comedy. Mosaic, Mad Chance and Callahan Films are the production entities involved."
Sounds pretty awesome to me... hopefully they just don't screw it up. Too many bad sequels and remakes lately. But Get Smart is awesome, I saw a few episodes on Nick at Night or something the one time we went down to Charleston, when we were out at the Red Roof Inn near the beach. Man, did we go down there for Easter? With Nana? Damn.
http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=19089
Indiana Jones 4 Starts Filming June 18
February 27, 2007
"Fox411 talked to Steven Spielberg at the Oscars' Governors Ball who revealed that Indiana Jones 4 starts filming on June 18.
Paramount will release the anticipated film on May 22, 2008. Other than Harrison Ford, no cast members have been officially announced."
Hold on, wait for it (again)... eeeeeeeeee! I'm so freaking exciiiteeed...
