Free Republic

From grasslands to seashores to forests and backyards, birds are disappearing at an alarming rate in the United States and Canada, with a 29% population drop since 1970 and a net loss of about 2.9 billion birds, scientists said on Thursday.

A common parasite found in cats may be affecting human behavior on a mass scale, according to a scientist based at the University of California, Santa Barbara. While little is known about the causes of cultural change, and biological explanations often stimulate social and scientific debate, a new study by the U.S. Geological Survey published in the August 2 issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society, Biology, indicates that behavioral manipulation of a common brain parasite may be among factors that play a role. "In populations where this parasite is very common, mass personality modification could result in cultural...

WASHINGTON — If unmarried women turned out in force for elections, they could shape the results. But they don’t. It’s a tantalizing problem, especially for Democrats, whom unmarried women tend to favor. If the 20 million who didn’t vote in 2004 had turned out, John Kerry would be in the White House, based on figures released by a liberal get-out-the-vote group. If they had even turned out at the same rate as married women, Kerry probably would have won.

WASHINGTON - About 300 cats, nearly a third of them dead, were removed from an elderly woman’s Virginia home after neighbors complained of a stench coming from the house, police said on Tuesday. The house, less than a mile from late President George Washington’s historic Mount Vernon estate, looked neat from the outside with manicured lawns and bright flowers, but inside it was overflowing with wild cats, feces and urine. “Cats were coming out of the cabinets and drawers and were inside the walls. There were hundreds of them,” Fairfax County Police officer Richard Henry told Reuters. He said animal...