After seeing these pictures I remember childhood and the way I was hanging out with my friends. We used to walk and walk, with no set destination. Apparently that’s what wolf cubs do, too.

Bjørn and Birgit Sandberg were on a holiday at their cabin in Rendalen, Norway, when six wolf cubs – about two months old – paid them a surprising visit after feasting on a moose in the woods. “There’s clearly been a party here. There were only bones left” Bjørn Sandberg told Aftenposten.no on Tuesday.

They’re supposed to be the offspring of a wolf pair from Østerdalen, that wandered westward.

It was the first time Bjørn and Birgit saw wolves and though they were aware they may be adult wolves in the area they grabbed the camera and got all the six wild wolves pups in a sensational picture. First one in Norway.

Well, the G-8 has a vision, but do they have a plan?

Japan’s PM Fukuda was able to save face – “The G8 nations came to a mutual recognition that this target — cutting global emissions by at least 50 percent by 2050 — should be a global target.”

The United States got heard. Emerging economies, India, China, Brazil are included – “It has always been the case that a long-term goal is one that must be shared. So the G-8 has offered today is a G-8 view of what that goal could be and should be but that can only occur with the agreement of all the other parties.”

Environmentalists criticized the statement – “So little progress after a whole year of Minister meetings and negotiations is not only a wasted opportunity, it falls dangerously short of what is needed to protect people and nature from climate change.”

The EU thinks – “new, shared vision by the major economies” that would support the UN-led effort on a new global warming accord. This is a strong signal to citizens around the world.”

In the end, it will be up to individual countries, says Fukuda, “The G8 will implement aggressive midterm total emission reduction targets on a country by country basis.”

My bet, a lot of money was wasted at the G-8 Summit if anybody thought the purpose was to come away with a workable and enforceable plan to get the world to be better stewards of our home.

Image : eitb24.com

I always thought I would like to meet the guy named Tunnel. You know the first guy who thought, “We don’t need to go around this (whatever), we can go through it.” That’s my kind of person. But, what about when it’s mother nature who is doing the digging and a tunnel is really not what we want or where we want it?

That seems to be the case with the Perito Moreno Glacier. The big ice cube has experienced a rupture doing this year’s winter months in the southern hemisphere. More cause to be alarmed? Or can we just chill? Chilling, by the way, might help the world cool down a bit, no?

Image : LaNacion

Can an oil man talk America into weaning itself from its dependency on the black gold? Is there a quick fix, even partial quick fix.

Pickens thinks so. It’s wind power.

What do you think?

Twelve-year-old giant panda, Guo Guo, who was relocated after May’s devastating earthquake in the Sichuan province of China gave birth to twin cubs on Sunday. She became the first panda to bear cubs since the disaster and the first to give birth around the globe this year.

The elder of the two small pandas weighs only 170grams.

Guo Guo was one of the six pandas evacuated from the Giant Panda Research Center in Hetaoping to breeding bases. After traveling more than 100km during gestation, the evacuation process turned out to be exhausting and Guo Guo got medical attention as soon as she arrived in the new shelter. Congratulations to the new mother which has also managed to give birth each year for the last three years.

And if you think pandas are cute, you are sure to get a kick out of these Pandas’ Sneezing Fits.

Source

In the seaside town of South Shields, in north east England, on King Street a greedy seagull enjoys a sandwich in the sky. How is that possible you may ask? Well, there’s a story, somehow similar (at least to some shoppers) to Alfred Hitchcock’s movie, ‘Birds’.

A 27-year-old woman, from Northumberland, was trying to eat her sandwich when a giant and “ruthless” seagull came from behind and managed to steal the tasty pieces of bread. She’s not the only one. More shoppers complained that they’ve been terrorized by seagulls that are trying to steal food from people walking on the streets.

‘These seagulls are so desperate for food it seems they’ll approach people to take food rather than fight for scraps on the floor’ said Maisie Harrison, 68, from Whiteleas.

The municipality used to spend money on proofing some of the buildings on King Street but their efforts were in vain. Just make sure you don’t have a snack with you when passing by or you’ll get “attacked”, too.

Is there another solution? You guys know anything?

Remember how horny Labord’s Chameleons are?

There’s a guy in China who’s not going to die young of violent sex and he’s blaming it on a vegetarian lifestyle. Or more precisely, that’s what his doctor is telling him. When the guy saw that friends of his were suffering from obesity, high blood pressure, coronary heart disease and diabetes he decided to become fit, the vegetarian way.

It worked, but … he also lost his sex drive. The doctors are telling him, “Animal fats are necessary for human beings to maintain nutritional balance. Sex hormones are affected by eating an exclusively vegetarian diet by virtue of the absence of animal fats necessary to stimulate them.”

Maybe this guy, who lives in China’s northern province of Heilongjiang (that’s cold country, southern Siberia cold where there is nothing else to do but, you know…) needs to get him a pet Labord Chameleon, eh? Vegetarian diets cutting into sex drive? I’m not sure.

Do you know the answer?

I am not sure how many musketeers there were, but, there are at least eight G-8 Summiteers who are acting like their Disney counterparts. The group
just started meeting today and have already all but concluded that they won’t reach a deal on fighting global warming.

Here’s why:

1. Global inflation resulting from soaring food and fuel prices are too much.

2. African poverty is too big

3. Japan’s PM Fukuda can’t get everyone on the same page.

4. Can you say Copenhagen 2009 instead of making a decision now?

5. The Canadian Environment Minister – “I don’t think we’re expecting a deal. That will come under the UN auspices in Copenhagen next year.”

6. President Bush wants emerging economies, China, India and Brazil to sign on. That’s not happening.

7. France says that they are not optimistic.

8. Nobody is.

The end result expected – a ‘fuzzy agreement on long term goals.’ In that event, Fukuda will save face and everyone else can wait for the new U. S. president to take office in January 2009.

What? No leadership without the U.S.? Come on guys!

The Junior Eight Summit group handed the senior group a proposal -

1.  ”put forth a treaty that includes all nations and has strict but reasonable guidelines for meeting greenhouse gas emission targets.”

2.  “have progressive short- and long-term goals and a revised framework which ensures that promises are kept.”

3.  “promote the rights of children, especially girls”

4. “boost investment in Africa”

5. “tackle education and health problems”

6. “further gain a young person’s perspective on global issues.”

7. ”Let’s turn young people’s ideas into actions, and not just words.”

The J-8 Summit started in Britain in 2005 and has met annually since. The declaration was adopted by 39 young people aged 14-17 who are representing the G-8 and other countries – Japan, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, the United States, Iraq, Mongolia, Nepal and South Africa.

The Bible says “a little child shall lead them” (Is. 11:6). When will we old goats begin to follow?

After spending most of its lifespan incubating inside its shell, a tiny chameleon that only lives in southwestern Madagascar, hatches, engages in brutal sex and then dies.

Image: Christopher J. Raxworthy

Real name Furcifer labordi or Labord’s chameleon, it’s one of the smallest known chameleons on Earth. It’s also become famous for being able to quadruple or quintuple its body size in just 60 days. Males are slightly bigger (up to 9cm) than females (up to 7cm).

Kris Karsten at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, US, studied the growth patterns, lifespans and behavior of these little fellows. He came out with some great facts that have been detailed in the July 1 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Apparently they hatch in synchrony in early November, for six-seven weeks they grow up to 0.1 inches a day (much faster than any known lizard) and reach maturity, mate and then before April they all die after losing strength – no exceptions.

Image: Daniel Rakotondravony

Just before dying the chameleon females burrow through about a half foot of sand to lay a dozen eggs that will again hatch in November, to continue the cycle.

“It is amazing to think that for most of the year, this chameleon species is represented only by developing eggs buried in the ground,” said Christopher J. Raxworthy, of the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Too much sex

After studying them for five seasons and seeing more than 400 F. labordi chameleons, Kris Karsten thinks that because of “violent sex” they lose much of their strength, this being the reason why they die so young. Karsten and his colleagues saw several falling out of trees for no apparent reason.

“These males will fight fiercely in long, rather drawn-out combats, and their courtship behaviour is also rather violent,” Karsten told New Scientist.

Most of the chameleons in Madagascar hibernate during the dry season to conserve energy, but not the Labord’s chameleon. Researchers are now trying to figure out why!