Free Republic

LARGO, FLORIDA (BNO NEWS) -- A U.S. teenager, who was critically injured earlier this week while playing a game of Russian Roulette with friends, has died at a hospital in central Florida, police said on Sunday. The incident happened at approximately 7:30 p.m. local time on Friday when 17-year-old Thorin R. Montgomery was playing a game of Russian Roulette with his friends at his home in Largo, a city about 19 miles (30 kilometers) west of Tampa. First responders found him suffering from a gunshot wound to the head. Detectives said Montgomery was playing the game with three of his...

Oxygen may be the clue to first appearance of large animals, says Queen’s prof The sudden appearance of large animal fossils more than 500 million years ago – a problem that perplexed even Charles Darwin and is commonly known as “Darwin’s Dilemma” – may be due to a huge increase of oxygen in the world’s oceans, says Queen’s paleontologist Guy Narbonne, an expert in the early evolution of animals and their ecosystems. In 2002, Dr. Narbonne and his research team found the world’s oldest complex life forms between layers of sandstone on the southeastern coast of Newfoundland. This pushed back...

'Darwin's tortoise' takes her secrets to the grave at the age of 176 By Mark Chipperfield in Sydney (Filed: 24/06/2006) Harriet, a 23st Galapagos tortoise, has died in a Queensland wildlife park at the age of 176, carrying to her grave the mystery of her origins. John Hangar, a senior veterinarian at the Australia Zoo on the Sunshine Coast, said the reptile suffered a heart attack on Thursday. "Harriet sadly died last night after, thankfully, a very short illness," he said. "She had a heart attack and passed away quietly overnight." Harriet made it into the Guinness Book of World...

Darwin's nightmare: Toxic toad evolves to secure supremacy Wednesday February 15, 07:13 PM PARIS (AFP) - He's fat, ugly and poisonous -- and he's mutating. He's the cane toad (Bufo marinus), a species which was introduced into the Australian state of Queensland 70 years ago to tackle insect pests in canefields and has since become an ecological catastrophe. Weighing in at to up two kilos (4.4 pounds), the unwanted anuran has extended its range to more than a million square kilometers (386,000 square miles) in tropical and sub-tropical Australia, crushing native species in its relentless A team of University of...

Just caught this on LBC (Lebanon Broadcasting Corp) news in Arabic about one hour ago (9:15 p.m. Eastern Time).They showed a dramatic review of the day's events in Baghdad centering around liberation of central Baghdad.One clip showed US tanks moving into the historic square with the huge Saddam statue that was toppled. This square seems to be very near a hotel for Westerners in Baghdad.Next clip showed the two Iraqi guys holding up a banner assailing and ridiculing "human shields" as "wankers" and urging them to 'go home'.The final clip was of what appeared to me to be a "human...