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Giant pythons capable of swallowing a dog and even an alligator are rapidly making south Florida their home, potentially threatening other southeastern states, a study said. "Pythons are likely to colonize anywhere alligators live, including north Florida, Georgia and Louisiana," said Frank Mazzotti, University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences professor, in his two-year study. The pythons thriving in Florida are mostly Burmese pythons from Myanmar that were brought over as pets and then turned loose in the wild. From 2002-2005, 201 of the beasts were caught by state authorities, but in the last two years the number...

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan, Feb. 4, 2008 – As millions of Americans gathered around their televisions to watch Super Bowl XLII last night, servicemembers here rolled out of beds, cots or sleeping bags to watch the big game in the early morning hours. The New York Giants and New England Patriots each had plenty of rooters here, but one soldier assigned to Combined Joint Task Force 82 took special pride in the Giants’ stunning 17-14 upset of the previously unbeaten Patriots. Before he joined the Army, Lt. Col. Nate Rivers, CJTF 82’s logistics maintenance chief, played in the National Football...

"Skeleton of Giant" Is Internet Photo Hoax James Owen for National Geographic News December 14, 2007 The National Geographic Society has not discovered ancient giant humans, despite rampant reports and pictures. The hoax began with a doctored photo and later found a receptive online audience—thanks perhaps to the image's unintended religious connotations. A digitally altered photograph created in 2002 shows a reclining giant surrounded by a wooden platform—with a shovel-wielding archaeologist thrown in for scale. (Photo Gallery: "Giant Skeletons" Fuel Web Hoax) By 2004 the "discovery" was being blogged and emailed all over the world—"Giant Skeleton Unearthed!"—and it's been enjoying...

Islamists damage giant rock Buddha By Ben Quinn Last Updated: 2:11am BST 11/10/2007 Islamist radicals in Pakistan have attempted to destroy an ancient carving of Buddha by drilling holes in the rock and filling them with dynamite.The Buddha is thought to date from the seventh century AD The 23ft high image was damaged during the attack, which brought back memories of the Taliban's destruction six years ago of the giant Buddhas at Bamiyan, in neighbouring Afghanistan. The Buddha, in the Swat district of north-west Pakistan, is thought to date from the seventh century AD and was considered the largest in...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 9, 2007 – As part of its continued commitment to honoring troops and their families, software giant Microsoft Corp. announced today that it has become a corporate supporter of the Defense Department’s America Supports You program. The America Supports You program connects citizens and corporations with military personnel and their families serving at home and abroad. “As the demands of service continue to challenge and strain America’s armed forces, domestic efforts to support soldiers and their families grow increasingly important,” said Curt Kolcun, vice president of Microsoft’s Federal Division. “Joining America Supports You is a key part of...

Giant-pumpkin growers at the Topsfield Fair broke the world record this weekend for heaviest pumpkin - twice. For just a moment, Bill Rodonis, of Litchfield, N.H., held the title with a 1,566-pound pumpkin. Then Joe Jutras, of Scituate, R.I., crushed it with a pumpkin weighing 1,689 pounds. Both men beat last year's record of 1,502 pounds, but only Jutras will make it in the Guinness Book of Records. "To be that much over the world record from last year is incredible," Jutras said. He also received a $3,500 check for first place and he will probably make double that amount...

Giant bones challenged 18th-century intellectuals By Dan Hurley Post columnist Today, the valley is dry, dusty and unremarkable, but 250 years ago it was one of the most fascinating spots ever discovered in the North America. From the very first time in 1739 that local Indians led a contingent of French explorers to the salt licks near the Ohio River in what is today Boone County, Ky., the spot raised intellectually troubling questions. European and American scientists understood the importance of salt licks and why thousands of modern buffalo, deer and elk beat broad paths to the marshy lick, but...

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A giant, smiling Lego man was fished out of the sea in the Dutch resort of Zandvoort on Tuesday. Workers at a drinks stall rescued the 2.5-metre (8-foot) tall model with a yellow head and blue torso. "We saw something bobbing about in the sea and we decided to take it out of the water," said a stall worker. "It was a life-sized Lego toy." A woman nearby added: "I saw the Lego toy floating towards the beach from the direction of England." The toy was later placed in front of the drinks stall.

Deep in the Congolese jungle is a band of apes that, according to local legend, kill lions, catch fish and even howl at the moon. Local hunters speak of massive creatures that seem to be some sort of hybrid between a chimp and a gorilla. Their location at the centre of one of the bloodiest conflicts on the planet, the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, has meant that the mystery apes have been little studied by western scientists. Reaching the region means negotiating the shifting fortunes of warring rebel factions, and the heart of the animals' range...

May 2, 2007—Jupiter's most turbulent moon, Io, is renowned among scientists for its flashy volcanic displays. But even experts were surprised when they saw this plume of gas vaulting nearly 200 miles (320 kilometers) over the moon's north pole. The giant frozen jet—about as tall as the state of New Hampshire is long—spewed from a volcano known as Tvashtar in February, just as NASA's New Horizons spacecraft was cruising by on its way to Pluto. The passing craft captured several images of the event, providing an unprecedented view of volcanism on Io, the most geologically active body in the solar...

A WOMAN'S email to the help desk of Telecom New Zealand was rejected by a computer system because her name was Gay and "inappropriate for business-like communication". Gay Hamilton, from the northern South Island town of Nelson, said while she was actually gay, she was concerned that the country's biggest public company was spending its time and resources on trifling issues, the Herald on Sunday reported. "If they do have to put content filters on, then maybe they should ensure that it only gets genuinely abusive words," she said.

NEW YORK — A quick-thinking commuter saved a teenager who fell on the subway tracks by pushing him down into a furrow between the rails, allowing an approaching train to pass right over them, police said. An 18-year-old man had some kind of medical problem Tuesday and fell onto the tracks, which are a few feet below platform level, police said. Wesley Autrey saw him fall, jumped down onto the tracks after him and rolled with him into the rut between the rails as a southbound train was coming in.- snip-

December 22, 2006—Like pulling a shadow from the darkness, researchers in Japan have captured and filmed a live giant squid—likely for the first time—shedding new light on the famously elusive creatures. Tsunemi Kubodera, a scientist with Japan's National Science Museum, caught the 24-foot (7-meter) animal earlier this month near the island of Chichijima, some 600 miles (960 kilometers) southeast of Tokyo (see Japan map). His team snared the animal using a line baited with small squid and shot video of the russet-colored giant as it was hauled to the surface. The squid, a young female, "put up quite a fight"...

Oil Sinks $2.50 for Lowest Level in Year Nov 16 4:26 PM US/Eastern By BRAD FOSS Associated Press Writer The price of oil sank by more than $2 a barrel Thursday, settling at its lowest level in a year as traders focused on the bearish aspects of conflicting market trends. OPEC is cutting output, but the U.S. economy is slowing; winter is near, but the country has an abundance of home heating fuels. These mixed signals help explain why crude futures have settled in a range roughly between $57 and $61 since the beginning of October. The retail price of...

Biologists have discovered giant invasive oysters that could threaten efforts to restore native oyster species in San Francisco Bay. Government staffers and volunteers removed 256 of the exotic mollusks last week after searching the mudflats between the Dumbarton Bridge and the San Leandro Marina, biologists said Thursday. Scientists have not identified the species, which grow up to 9 inches long and in a variety of shapes. They don't know how the exotic oysters got here or how they could affect the bay if their population expands. Biologists are concerned the monster oysters could take over the best habitat and form...

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) - July 19, 2006 - A University of Illinois researcher had discovered a fourth copy of a rare letter Abraham Lincoln had written by to the nation's governors in 1861. The letter John Lupton found Tuesday in the Lehigh County Historical Society's holdings was one Lincoln wrote as part of an unsuccessful ratification process for a constitutional amendment Congress adopted during the term of his predecessor, President James Buchanan, that would have made slavery the law of the land. The president remembered for abolishing slavery had been willing to push the amendment as "kind of a carrot...

Scientists said Monday they have found the first widespread evidence of giant hydrocarbon lakes on the surface of Saturn's planet-size moon Titan. The cluster of hydrocarbon lakes was spotted near Titan's frigid north pole during a weekend flyby by the international Cassini spacecraft, which flew within 590 miles of the moon. Researchers counted about a dozen lakes ranging from 6 miles to 62 miles wide. Some lakes, which appeared as dark patches in radar images, were connected by channels while others had tributaries flowing into them. Several were dried up, but the ones that contained liquid were most likely a...

NEW YORK (AP) — Arif Mardin, the legendary Grammy Award-winning producer who worked with stars including Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan and Norah Jones, has died. Mardin, 74, died Sunday, said his publicist, Lydia Sherwood. He had been suffering from pancreatic cancer.Born in Turkey, Mardin came to the United States in 1958 after a meeting with Dizzy Gillespie and Quincy Jones convinced him to make music his career. He attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston, graduating in 1961. Mardin started working at Atlantic Records in 1963, subsequently became a producer and arranger, and ultimately a senior vice president. He...

Japanese researchers find new giant picture on Peru's Nazca Plateau The new Nazca Plateau image discovered by the research team from Yamagata University. (Photo courtesy of Yamagata University)A new giant picture on the Nazca Plateau in Peru, which is famous for giant patterns that can be seen from the air, has been discovered by a team of Japanese researchers. The image is 65 meters long, and appears to be an animal with horns. It is thought to have been drawn as a symbol of hopes for good crops, but there are no similar patterns elsewhere, and the type of the...

When stars explode as supernova, they carve giant bubbles in space. Our own solar system is enveloped by such a structure from a long-ago explosion. Now scientists have shown that our bubble is being pinched and bullied backward by another expanding bubble forged from multiple supernovas. Our bubble is called the Local Bubble by astronomers. It’s shaped like an hourglass. The bully goes by the name of Loop 1 Superbubble; it’s the result of several exploded stars over the past few million years, researchers figure. Superbubble’s outer boundaries are marked by hot, expanding gas that radiates low-energy X-rays. Superbubble is...

Merkel's 'small steps' bring giant leap in popularity By Tony Paterson in Berlin (Filed: 22/01/2006) Angela Merkel, Germany's Chancellor, has confounded her critics by emerging as the country's most popular leader for more than a decade - only two months after being elected. Dismissed only six months ago as a humourless and dowdy East German, Mrs Merkel is riding a wave of unprecedented public approval that last week placed her at the top of Germany's key opinion poll rating for politicians. Angela Merkel's image has changed for good The monthly survey conducted by the ZDF television channel found voters rated...

Giant crabs colonise Rome’s ancient ruins By Web Editor. Filed under Generalon October 28th, 2005 (ANSA) - A rare species of crab has taken up residence in one of the city’s most important archaeological sites and is not only thriving but also growing to abnormal proportions. The freshwater crab ‘Potamon fluviatile’ was already known to survive in small numbers in rivers and waterways from Sicily to Tuscany, where it generally grows to a length of about 4 cm. But according to three zoologists at the Roma 3 university, an isolated colony of the crabs is also doing very well in...

Real Angry Over Real Estate Why a recent Supreme Court ruling has lots of homeowners hot under the collar By Silla Brush 10/10/05 Stan Dunn and his wife, Barbara, had just sold their home in California and were about to retire to the Buffalo suburb of Cheektowaga this spring when they heard the rumblings: A developer might tear down their new home--and more than 300 other nearby houses--in order to build a new complex of apartments, townhouses, and businesses to eliminate blight and boost the economy. And while town officials are excited at the prospect, the Dunns say they have...

TOLEDO BEND RESERVOIR, Texas - One biologist compares the persistent green weed to "The Blob," the title character in the 1950s sci-fi classic flick that grows and grows and consumes everything in its path. Other scientists describe the plant as looking like little heads of lettuce or squished green grapes. Then they use terms like noxious, invasive and just plain scary. Even the species name sounds sinister: salvinia molesta. No one has anything good to say about what's more commonly known as giant salvinia, a Brazilian tropical floating fern that's found a home in slow-moving streams and freshwater ponds and...

President Bush, his brother Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and congressional leaders have all but abandoned their efforts to keep Terri Schiavo alive. But not Mary Porta and her giant spoon. When she heard on Sunday that religious activists planned to stage a protest in Washington on Monday, the Florida woman left the vigil outside Schiavo's hospice and checked herself -- and her five-foot-high Styrofoam spoon that says "Jeb, Please Feed Terri" -- onto a flight to the capital. The utensil was still wrapped in United Airlines plastic and tagged with a security seal from the Department of Homeland Security when...

Man 'not to blame' for extinction of giant wombat By Roger Highfield, Science Editor (Filed: 31/05/2005) Humans may have been unjustly accused of wiping out the giant kangaroos, wombats and other massive marsupials that roamed Australia 40,000 years ago, new research suggests. One study by British and Australian scientists reveals today that humans co-existed with megafauna - large native animals such as the Diprotodon, a three-ton, wombat-like creature, a ferocious, marsupial "lion" and the world's all-time biggest lizard - for at least 15,000 years. Another, by a Queensland team, suggests it was climate change, rather than early Australian aborigines, that...

NEW YORK (AP) - Secretary General Kofi Annan's chief of staff called the United States an "ungainly giant" that only plays by its own rules, criticizing the U.N.'s largest donor in unusually strong terms Sunday. Mark Malloch Brown said the U.S. contributed most to the development of international law in the last century, but was now the country most opposed to international constraints. "This ungainly giant of a nation that has led the world in advancing freedom, democracy and decency, cannot quite accept membership in the global neighborhood association, and the principle of all neighborhoods - that it must abide...

Ice Age armadillos the size of cars, fossil shows Builders have found the fossil of a giant armadillo, which lived up to 2 million years ago and would have been the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, in southern Peru. "They were carrying out work inside a private home and stumbled upon this surprise during the digging," Pedro Luna, an archaeologist from the National Institute of Culture, said. The armadillo order first evolved around 50 million years ago in South America. The type found in Cusco was a glyptodon, one of the biggest ancient armadillos from the Ice Ages. "It was...

SCOTIA, Calif. - Financially troubled Pacific Lumber Co. is the victim of its corporate owner's excesses, not increasing government restrictions on logging, according to a state water agency's controversial new study. The state Water Resources Control Board's 18-page report blames Texas-based Maxxam Inc. for shifting hundreds of millions of dollars in profits from Pacific Lumber in "subtle and complex ways," forcing the North Coast timber giant to cut trees "at rates that greatly exceed sustainable forest practices." The state report claims Maxxam has funneled nearly $725 million in Pacific Lumber earnings into its own Houston, Texas, coffers over the past...

Rosemary Curtis (R) holds the hand of her boyfriend Michael Belardo as he hangs in the 'Superman' pose during a Suspension Convention in Providence, Rhode Island, April 2, 2005. From tentative first-timers to well-practiced masters, more than 100 aficionados celebrated their passion for body suspension at the three-day gathering, held in an old textile mill.

GRAEFENRODA, Germany (AFP) - With his jolly face and little paunch, Reinhard the potter resembles the garden gnomes he produces by the dozen in this little village in Germany where, they say, the phenomenon began. Reinhard Griebel grew up surrounded by gnomes in Graefenroda, tucked in the forests of the eastern German state of Thuringia. This village of 3,500 people claims to be the birthplace of "nanus hortorum vulgaris", or the common garden gnome, which local folklore says was dreamed up by a local potter in 1880. The craftsmen of the village, including Reinhard's great-grandfather, wasted no time in capitalising...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - California's attorney general sued the Bush administration Thursday over its plans for the Giant Sequoia National Monument, home to two-thirds of the world's largest trees. The U.S. Forest Service plan would illegally allow commercial logging in the monument, alleges the suit filed in San Francisco federal court. It argues former President Clinton's April 2000 proclamation creating the reserve south of Sequoia National Park bans logging unless it is "clearly needed" for public or environmental protection, which it says isn't the case under the management plan adopted in December. The service adhered closely to Clinton's proclamation, responded spokesman...

A pig of a pigeon by BILL MOULAND, Daily Mail 08:59am 1st March 2005 He flies through the air with the greatest of difficulty and the bird table gives an audible sigh when he lands on it. Meet Hercules, the bird who puts the pig in wood pigeon. Since he arrived in photographer Chris Balcombe's garden, none of the other wild birds has had a chance to sample the peanuts on offer. Hercules simply hoovers them up and sits there waiting for more. Mr Balcombe, 44, gave him his name because of his size, strength and the fact he...

PRAGUE, Czech Republic - Targeting elderly customers, a Czech company has started manufacturing extra large cellular phones, an official said Monday. advertisement The company, Jablotron, said it had noticed older people sometimes have difficulties when using cell phones, which tend to be smaller and smaller.

A hundred old ladies could live in this shoe. Built with 80 cowhides, 1,200 feet of rope and 300 pounds of adhesives, this supersize "638-D" beauty is the latest addition to Minnesota's oversize landmarks. Scraping the factory rafters, the creation of Red Wing Shoes was crowned the world's largest shoe by the Guinness Book of Records at a special measuring session Saturday at a Las Vegas trade show. Using ladders, cranes and special rigging equipment, 60 employees and retirees built the boot in Red Wing over 13 months and finished it in time to mark the company's 100th anniversary Feb....

A woman in Brazil has given birth to a "giant baby" weighing 17lb (8kg) - twice the size of an average newborn. Ademilton dos Santos is the heaviest boy ever born in Brazil, says the Brazilian Gynaecological Association. Ademilton was born by Caesarean section on Wednesday at a hospital in Salvador in north-eastern Brazil. He is Francisca Ramos dos Santos' fifth child and doctors said his unusual size was probably due to his mother's diabetes condition. Pediatrician Luiz Sena Azul said Ademilton "could truly be considered a giant baby, for he was born weighing what a six-month-old-baby normally weighs". 'Surprise'...

PITTSBURGH (AP) - A 7 1/2-year-old monster buck named Goliath, allegedly stolen in 1999 and then returned to the ranch where he was raised, has died. The massive deer died Dec. 6; tests will determine the cause. The life span of a deer is 10 to 15 years. "It could have been due to a lot of the stress that he endured from being away from here," said Diane Miller, who raised the buck with her husband at their Wild Bunch Ranch, about 60 miles north of Pittsburgh. "It's just like losing a family member." Goliath, believed to be the...

(For fans of Monty Python's Flying Circus) The AP* has uncovered startling new details on the death of Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat following an assiduous investigation. The AP* recently obtained highly classified documents from an as-yet unidentified member of the CIA*. Those documents revealed that Arafat was literally scared to death while lying in hospital when a giant hedgehog peered into his private room’s window. Witnesses, who wish to remain anonymous, have identified the enormous rodent as Spiny Norman, the long-time nemesis of Britain’s notorious arch-criminal, Dinsdale Piranha. The CIA* operative, who previously worked for the UK’s MI5* was...

LIMA, Peru (Reuters) -- Peruvian police say they have seized nearly 1,540 pounds (700 kilograms) of cocaine hidden in frozen giant squid bound for Mexico and the United States. The drugs were covered in pepper to divert sniffer dogs and sealed in several layers of plastic and other wrappers, Peruvian police said on Monday.

Ronald Reagan leaves such a grand legacy that it is almost impossible to single out one achievement over the others. Until, that is, you remember the three Presidents who preceded him. If Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter had made a movie together, it would have been called, "Honey, I Shrunk the Presidency." They did that with eight years that veered from corruption to bumbling and dispiriting performances that left the White House a place of international scorn and derision. Americans were losing faith not only in their government, but faith in the ability of any President to make...

Relatives remember Leonid Stadnyk as the smallest boy in his class at school. Then he began to shoot up, and 20 years later he has not stopped growing. Standing 2.54 metres tall in his bare feet, Mr Stadnyk, 33, is believed to be, by a considerable distance, the world's tallest living man. The softly spoken giant, who lives in a remote village in Ukraine, is a clear 17.8 centimetres taller than the man now recognised as the Guinness world record holder. But while the 2.36-metre Radhouane Charbib, from Tunisia, revels in his international celebrity, Mr Stadnyk makes a reluctant record-holder....

Expedition hunts giant meteor 07.02.2004 By SIMON COLLINS, science reporter An international scientific expedition will fly to Stewart Island next week on a quest to track down a meteor that may have sparked a tsunami that possibly wiped out a legendary Chinese fleet 500 years ago.Expedition leader New York oceanographer Dallas Abbott has found survey evidence of a huge undersea crater caused by a meteor impact 20km wide and more than 153m deep just south of the Snares Islands, 120km southwest of Stewart Island. The expedition is going to remote Mason Bay on the west coast of Stewart Island to...

<p>There's an old saying in the water world: "In the East, people take water for granted. In the West, people take it from each other."</p> <p>On Friday, leaders of four Southern California agencies signed a Colorado River water pact that, depending on your point of view, either represents a break from that legacy or a new chapter in hardball politics.</p>

A giant star has been caught in the act of swallowing three planets, one after the other, with each "meal" accompanied by a massive eruption. "It has been suggested in the past that stars might engulf planets in this way, but we believe we have actually caught this action for the first time," says Alon Retter of the University of Sydney, Australia. The star, known as V838 Monocerotis, is about 20,000 light years from Earth. In January 2002, it temporarily became the brightest star in the Milky Way, 600,000 times more luminous than the Sun. At the time, astronomers struggled...

Bones of giant birds pose mating mystery By Steve Connor 11 September 2003 A study of the fossilised bones of a giant bird which died out about 800 years ago has revealed that the female was three times the size of the male. Scientists discovered that the largest giant moa birds were not a separate species, as originally thought, but an extreme example of sexual dimorphism. A study of the DNA extracted from the bones of large and small moas revealed that the females were huge, weighing up to 250kg and standing up to three metres tall. The males were...

SINGAPORE (AP) -- An 8-foot-long Komodo dragon lizard in Singapore's zoo has been receiving traditional Chinese acupuncture treatment for a nerve disorder. "Tirto is now more relaxed and is beginning to enjoy his treatments," a spokesman for the Singapore Zoological Gardens, Vincent Tan, said Tuesday. He said the 8-year-old, 94-pound male lizard, has been receiving twice-weekly treatments for a neurological disorder from veterinarian Oh Soon Hock for the past three weeks. Komodo dragons, the world's largest lizards, are prehistoric-looking reptiles that can grow up to 10 feet long and weigh more than 200 pounds. They have long claws and serrated...

LONDON (AP) - History has seen many superpowers, from the empires of Rome and ancient China to the vast colonial conquests of Britain and France. But never has a single nation so dominated the planet as America at the start of the 21st century. This, in the eyes of many around the world, is far from a good thing. They worry that America is a superpower out of control, "unrestrained by any laws or any conventions other than its national interest,'' said James Rubin, a former U.S. assistant secretary of state who lives in London. In the wake of the...

Hewitt stunned by giant 6-10 Croatian, playing first Wimbledon, topples No. 1 seed 06/24/2003 By JULIET MACUR / The Dallas Morning News WIMBLEDON, England – The giant who must duck through doorways stood on Wimbledon's hallowed Centre Court on Monday, wide-eyed and casting a long shadow. In front of nearly 14,000 fans, with the tournament's defending champion glaring at him from the other side of the net, Ivo Karlovic of Croatia, who is 6-10, was terrified. He hadn't played in a Grand Slam tournament before – in fact, he had played only 10 tour-level matches in his career – and...

1950DA asteroid will fly near Earth in 2880. What will happen, if it collides with planet Earth? American scientists have already simulated the situation. The asteroid was first discovered 53 years ago. It is the only space rock of the many thousands discovered so far, which is considered to be a potential threat to Earth. According to recent calculations, the giant asteroid might collide with planet Earth on Saturday, March 16th, 2880. Dr Steven Ward and Dr Erik Asphaug of the University of California at Santa Cruz conducted a detailed computer simulation of the collision with 1950DA. The results of...

Elusive African Apes: Giant Chimps or New Species? John Roach for National Geographic News April 14, 2003 A mysterious group of apes found in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo in central Africa has scientists and conservationist scratching their heads. The apes nest on the ground like gorillas but have a diet and features characteristic of chimpanzees. The apes are most likely a group of giant chimpanzees that display gorilla-like behavior. A far more remote possibility is that they represent a new subspecies of great ape. Researchers plan to return to the region later this month to collect more clues...