Free Republic

You can’t argue with the research… Researchers have long known that people who have frequent sex are generally healthier Most health benefits seem to be linked to penile-vaginal intercourse Frequent sex may also bring longer life, fewer coronary events, lower blood pressure Researchers have long known that not only is sex fun (when done with the right person, of course), but that people who have frequent sex tend to live longer and have healthier hearts and lower rates of certain cancers. These studies also show that men with an active sex life have healthier sperm, and sexually active women have...

A British expedition to one of the deepest parts of the ocean has discovered an enormous species of crustacean that looks like a prawn and is 11ins long. The so-called ‘supergiant’ – a type of amphipod - was discovered more than four miles below the surface in waters north of New Zealand. Most amphipods are usually 0.8in-1.2in long. But the new specimen, found by a team from the University of Aberdeen, was ten times the size.

Amy Mattson of Mequon was driving south of Port Washington earlier this month when she spied an all-white buck standing in a field. The nose of the 6-point buck appears to be pink in the photos that she and a friend shot. A pink nose and presumably pink eyes - a deer bereft of any color - means the two appeared to be observing a rare albino deer, according to the state Department of Natural Resources. "It was very pretty," Mattson said Saturday, the first day of Wisconsin's traditional nine-day gun season. In the dim light of late afternoon, "it...

Natural systems endure an ever evolving cycle of growth and deterioration. The deterioration accumulates and dominates whenever we fail to put the growth to productive use. Too often, failure to manage and utilize the productive growth results in catastrophic destruction through disease and wildfire. This boom and bust cycle is the natural way. We recently returned from a road trip through four western states. Throughout the trip we observed the stark difference in the management of private and public lands. In general, private lands show the pride of ownership while public lands demonstrate the widespread deterioration inherent in failure to...

Nature Journal of Science, ranked as the world’s most cited scientific periodical, has just published the definitive study on Global Warming that proves the dominant controller of temperatures in the Earth’s atmosphere is due to galactic cosmic rays and the sun, rather than by man. One of the report’s authors, Professor Jyrki Kauppinen, summed up his conclusions regarding the potential for man-made Global Warming: “I think it is such a blatant falsification.” The research was conducted by CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, which invented the World Wide Web, built the multi-billion dollar Large Hadron Collider, and now has...

“Nature is almost everywhere. But wherever it is, there is one thing nature is not: pristine,” writes science journalist Emma Marris in her engaging new book Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World. She adds, “We must temper our romantic notion of untrammeled wilderness and find room next to it for the more nuanced notion of a global, half-wild rambunctious garden, tended by us.” Marris’ message will discomfort both environmental activists and most ecologists who are in thrall to the damaging cult of pristine wilderness and the false ideology of the balance of nature. But it should encourage and...

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, tucked away in the northwest corner of Michigan's Lower Peninsula, won the title of "Good Morning America's" Most Beautiful Place in America. Tens of thousands of viewers voted online for this Michigan park, which is one of the nation's best-kept secrets. The hidden gem boasts 64 miles of beaches along Lake Michigan, two islands, 26 inland lakes, more than 50,000 acres of land, and the monumental sand dunes from which it gets its name. In June, "GMA" set out in search of the most beautiful places in America. Viewers nominated their favorite places online, sending...

I remember taking a forestry class my freshman year of college. The curriculum, presented by a veteran instructor from the California Department of Forestry, covered several related topics that included ecology, biology, life cycles, wild-land fire control, conservation, and commerce based on those natural resources. I never heard the associate professor use the word "environment" or "environmentalist" during the course. Granted, it was years ago, and course outlines do change over time as new information on any given subject becomes available. But, the disconnect suggests the environmentalist movement is a recent concoction that has little basis in traditional resource management...

PASADENA, Calif. -- A five-year survey of 200,000 galaxies, stretching back seven billion years in cosmic time, has led to one of the best independent confirmations that dark energy is driving our universe apart at accelerating speeds. The survey used data from NASA's space-based Galaxy Evolution Explorer and the Anglo-Australian Telescope on Siding Spring Mountain in Australia. The findings offer new support for the favored theory of how dark energy works -- as a constant force, uniformly affecting the universe and propelling its runaway expansion. They contradict an alternate theory, where gravity, not dark energy, is the force pushing space...

GENEVA (AP) -- A senior official at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says solar storms pose a growing threat to criticial infrastructure such as satellite communications, navigation systems and electrical transmission equipment. NOAA Assistant Secretary Kathryn Sullivan says the intensity of solar storms is expected to peak in 2013 and countries should prepare for "potentially devastating effects." Solar storms release particles that can temporarily disable or permanently destroy fragile computer circuits. Sullivan, a former NASA astronaut who in 1984 became the first woman to walk in space, told a U.N. weather conference in Geneva on Tuesday that "it...

Seen coiled around a branch in an undated picture, a new species of snake called the ruby-eyed green pit viper (Cryptelytrops rubeus) has been discovered in Southeast Asia, according to a recent study. The snake lives in forests near Ho Chi Minh City and across the low hills of southern Vietnam and eastern Cambodia's Langbian Plateau. Scientists collected green pit vipers from Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia between 1999 and 2003 and examined them in the lab, using physical characteristics and genetics to identify new species. "We know this species from only a few specimens, and very few people in...

McGill geology researchers' discovery of high concentrations of CO2 at mid-ocean ridges confirms explosive nature of certain volcanic eruptionsBetween 75 and 80 per cent of all volcanic activity on Earth takes place at deep-sea, mid-ocean ridges. Most of these volcanoes produce effusive lava flows rather than explosive eruptions, both because the levels of magmatic gas (which fuel the explosions and are made up of a variety of components, including, most importantly CO2) tend to be low, and because the volcanoes are under a lot of pressure from the surrounding water. Over about the last 10 years however, geologists have nevertheless...

Three new pics at link.....

So much for the environmental Apocalypse of 2010, or whatever it was that the greenies took to calling last April's Deepwater Horizon explosion and subsequent oil spill. First, it turned out that, just four months after the explosion, nearly all the oil that leaked into the Gulf of Mexico -- once estimated at 200 million gallons -- had disappeared with scant ill effect. Now a federally funded field study in the journal Science reports that some 200,000 tons of toxic methane gas from the spill -- which experts once estimated would remain in the gulf waters for as long as...

When we think of reality show, we think trashy housewives and serial dating, but this is not your typical reality show. Instead, Sarah Palin's Alaska is a unique look into faith, family, love, strong American values and the natural beauty Alaska has to offer. “It really goes into the life of Sarah Palin not the politics of it,” Roxy Stahl from Motive Entertainment tells Townhall, adding that the show is designed to be a documentary rather than a reality series, showcasing the great outdoors. During the course of the series, viewers will get to know Todd Palin’s grandmother Lena, an...

Beautiful song

Someone has slipped sliced-open beer cans around the necks of at least three gulls in the Bay Area, and now an animal rescue group is trying to find the birds and the person or people responsible. "It's sick. What's the next level of this kind of abuse?" said Rebecca Dmytryk of Monterey County-based WildRescue. Dmytryk said she first heard about the birds after getting some disturbing photos at the end of September that showed a gull with half a Budweiser can stuck around its neck like a collar. She has confirmed sightings at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, a beach...

HELENA, Mont. – A Montana woman fended off a bear trying to muscle its way into her home Thursday by pelting the animal with a large piece of zucchini from her garden. The woman suffered minor scratches and one of her dogs was wounded after tussling with the 200-pound bear.

Environmentalism: Liberal Rebellion Against Death I believe the liberal’s twisted environmentalism is due to their own alienation from nature. It also stems from their spiritual helplessness. Extreme liberalism is rebellion against death, which is really rebellion against life as it is. Why do they become vegetarians? Not because they think it’s healthier—it’s to avoid the anxiety that comes from eating meat—acceptance of death. Why are they absurdly anti-war? Same reason. They flock to urban centers where people are supreme, and where nature has been subdued or eliminated. Seems odd for environmentalists, but it isn’t. The city is the greatest example...

Sorry for the long hiatus, but life called me and I had to reply. But here I am, back again in all my thrifty glory, with some fun things to share and some amazing things to look forward to. Today, the fun sharing stuff: I’ve been to a few yard sales recently and picked up oodles of stuff for a song or two. Some of it was stuff to keep, like a Lucy Davies framed print of a blue and white kitchen counter (much like my own) to hang above my kitchen counter! Asking price was $2.00, but since I...

Wildlife officials have killed a grizzly bear in Wyoming and a grizzly bear in Montana to head-off potential lawsuits. The Montana grizzly killed and partially consumed Kevin Kammer at a Gallatin National Forest campground near Cooke City, Mont. on July 29. The Wyoming grizzly killed 70 year-old botanist Erwin Evert on June 17 on the Shoshone National Forest near the East Entrance of Yellowstone National Park. The circumstances were quite different, but the decision to kill the bears was undoubtedly influenced by a 1996 court case over the terrible bear mauling of 16 year-old Anna Knochel at a U.S. Forest...

I found this video of a pelican landing on the water at Sea World, during a live show. Before you realize what landed on the water, one of the Killer Whales chomps on the pelican and dives with it. The next thing you see is all the whales having a food fest on the remains in front of all the spectators. It's real funny, nature at it's finest. Here is the link, Orca Eats pelican During Show @ Sea World

With MANY THANKS to FoxNews website. When there is a massive oil spill, and the one in the Gulf of Mexico is, the silent victims of it is nature in itself. This special slide show presents not only the animals that have been rescued, and sadly in some pictures, those that have been lost, but the clean up efforts and also of protests that have been going on.

While no animal was injured beyond being ruffed up and maybe bruised a bit, this video is a good lesson for showing how dangerous wild deer can really be. If you do a google search you will find that Bambi has been known to attack and kill domesticated pets and even humans when protecting their young. Here are just two different stories about humans being attacked and killed by deer in the past few years.  One was in Southern California when a man was just picking tomatoes in his back yard, ( Man dies 3 weeks after deer gores...

University of California librarians are urging professors not to submit research to Nature or 66 related journals to protest a 400 percent increase in the publisher's prices. A new contract with Nature Publishing Group would raise the university's subscription costs by more than $1 million, library and faculty leaders wrote in a letter this week to professors throughout the 10-campus system. With recent budget cuts, UC libraries simply can't handle the higher price, which would take effect in 2011, the letter said. Boycotting the Nature group would be a huge step for a university that, according to UC estimates, has...

"HARRISON, Wis. — David Schoone, a farmer in this lush region of northern Wisconsin, says a lone gray wolf sneaked up on his school-age daughter three years ago as she bounced on a trampoline in his backyard. More recently, Mr. Schoone was chased into his pickup truck by a wolf, and his cousin's wife had to run from two wolves that descended on her from opposite sides of a shed. This month, he lost two young steer to wolves. "We gotta watch all the time," said Mr. Schoone, 43 years old, who carries a loaded rifle when he works in...

Rarely are currency exchange rates as good for the American dollar as that of Asian countries. In Asia, the American dollar carries a lot of clout and with the recent devaluation of the USD; it is a good thing that these countries offer an excellent trip for so little cost to Americans.

PARIS – As airline losses from the volcanic ash cloud spiraled over $1 billion on Monday, the industry demanded EU compensation and criticized European governments for relying too much on scientific theory — not fact — in their decisions to shut down airspace across the continent. Shares of some European airlines fell as flight disruptions from the volcanic cloud moved into a fifth day, and the International Air Transport Association complained of "no leadership" from government leaders — one of whom admitted to EU dissension about how to respond. "It's embarrassing, and a European mess," IATA CEO Giovanni Bisignani told...

PORTLAND – About two dozen women marched topless from Longfellow Square to Tommy's Park this afternoon in an effort to erase what they see as a double standard on male and female nudity. click image to enlarge A group of women and men who had shed their tops march down a Congress Street sidewalk from Longfellow Square to Tommy's Park. They were promoting the freedom of women to be topless in public. The group attracted many amateur and professional photographers. The women, preceded and followed by several hundred boisterous and mostly male onlookers, many of them carrying cameras, stayed on...

But that guy nearby wearing the Armani and taking a business call on his BlackBerry, now he looked suspicious so police hauled him in for questioning. The line above is a figment of my imagination; the headline is not. In fact, I think the guy or gal who wrote that headline should retire; they'll never write a better one. Ever. Here's the story:

It appears that the story is being mischaracterized. We've heard that what Governor Palin is pitching to television executives is not a "reality show" but rather more of a "Planet Earth" style documentary showcasing Alaska's resources, people, history, and splendor. If the project comes to fruition, it will not be an Alaskan version of the Osbournes. The show will be more "PBS/Ken Burns" instead of "MTV/The Osbournes". This sounds like it's another opportunity for Governor Palin to promote Alaska -- which is, of course, one of the promises she made when she stepped down from the governorship. The star of...

Sarah Palin and reality show producer Marc Burnett have reportedly been shopping around a TV docudrama in Hollywood this week. Disappointingly, the subject will not be Bristol-Levi baby drama, or a look at Palin’s nascent comedy career, but rather… Alaska. One source described the show as a “planet-Earth type look” at the former governor’s home state. Palin and Burnett were seen leaving ABC today, Entertainment Weekly reported, and have met with Fox and CBS execs already. The pair will reportedly talk with NBC Universal TV Chairman Jeff Gaspin tomorrow...

“What Is It? The Nature of the Sacrament of the Altar”When the Lord God brought the children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt and led them up to the Promised Land, he provided for them along the way. He gave them food and drink for their journey, to sustain them as they traveled. He gave them bread from heaven. It came in the form of a fine, flake-like thing that fell on the ground in the morning, for them to gather up. The first time the Israelites saw it--they had never seen such a thing before--they were amazed, and...

arth’s climate changes are extraordinarily complex phenomena. They represent decadal, to millennial, to epochal changes in weather patterns as nature continuously attempts to compensate for solar heating imbalances in and between the atmosphere and oceans. Read more: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/climategate-what-we-should-be-doing-about-natural-climate-change/

Is this Sasqauch? At the end of the article on OV's site is a video of an animal that could be mistaken as something it is not. Which made me think about all the rumors about Big Foot. Do you think that this is how the legend got started? Maybe some Indians might have saw a bear walking around like a man, and thought that maybe it was half human and half bear? So maybe that is why they called it Sasquatch, which in english means "hairy giant." So what do you all think? Ok, I know that on...

Nature editor Philip Campbell forced out of independent panel after saying there was nothing to suggest a cover up by scientists at the University of East Anglia ‘The scientists have not hidden the data. If you look at the emails there are one or two that are jargon’ - Philip Campbell. A member of an independent panel to investigate claims that climate scientists covered up flawed data on global warming has been forced to resign after sceptics questioned his impartiality. Philip Campbell, editor in chief of Nature, stepped down from the panel yesterday, just hours after its official launch, after...

Check out this cool video of a penguin doing all he can to keep three or four Orca killer whales from making him their lunch. After about a minute of going to and fro to escape the clutches of their jaws, the penguin decides to take his chances with the humans instead. So before they know it, the people in the raft have a guest and he does not seem to be in too much of a hurry to jump back into the water. Eventually the whales decides to head back out to see if they can find other...

This is a video of a penguin being chased by three or four Orca killer Whales. After about a minute of going to and fro to escape the clutches of their jaws, the penguin decides to take his chances with the humans instead. So before they know it, the people in the raft have a guest and he does not seem to be in too much of a hurry to jump back into the water. Eventually the whales decides to head back out to see if they can find other prey for dinner. follow this link to see video...

Video of what happened last year during the "Believe" show at San Diego's SeaWorld, a pelican decided to drop in for the show. Unfortunately for the pelican, the whales decided to take a brake from the show and have the pelican for lunch instead. The person who captured this video was in the right place at the right time. Unfortunately for the pelican it was in the wrong place at the wrong time. During a portion of the show where a young child it introduced to a friendly whale, the pelican landed onto the pool. Suddenly out of nowhere...

Photographer Norbert Rosing, wanted to shoot some photos of some sled dogs with the sunset as a backdrop. So he found the perfect spot around Canada’s Hudson Bay. He had it all set up with a local who tethered his dogs to a stake for the shoot. The photographer set his equipment up at a distance to allow for the right effect from the sunset in the background and just as he was ready to begin the shoot, an unexpected visitor arrived. What you will see in the accompanying photos is a polar bear doing something so unexpected, that it...

In these series of photos, you will see a polar bear come upon some sled dogs tethered to a steak. Normally you would think that a dog tethered to a steak would be lunch for a polar bear, but these pictures tell a completely different story. From what I can see, the polar bear just wanted to play and get a little brotherly love. The professional photographer who took these photos said, the bear came back every night that week to play with the dogs. Excellent photos, taken by Norbert Rosing when he was in the wilds around Canada’s Hudson...

We got art plus sound. It reminded me of the Light and Sound desert presentations of Egypt. Those of us on tour sat there on the sands, nighttime all around us, taking in the light sprays and sound reverberations in one of the most awesome art shows I’ve ever had the privilege of attending. Pyramids loomed in front of us. History spoke over time. And we were held captive.

Third World countries like Haiti stand to suffer the most economically. The strongest earthquake to hit Haiti in more than 200 years crushed thousands of structures, from humble shacks to the National Palace and the headquarters of U.N. peacekeepers. Destroyed communications made it impossible to tell the extent of destruction from Tuesday afternoon's 7.0-magnitude tremor or to estimate the number of dead lying among the collapsed buildings in Haiti's capital of about 2 million people. International Red Cross spokesman Paul Conneally told the Associated Press that an estimated 3 million people may have been affected by the quake and that...

Interesting. From this book (sorry, not all of the formulas converted right): Mathematical Signatures in Nature: A Sign of Design? “[The Universe] is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures, without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it...” – Galileo Galilei1 Math is the universal language, but it is not a human construct. Sure, we create symbols for numbers and mathematical computations, but math itself is more fundamental. 2 + 2 = 4 is universally true, universal in the sense that everywhere in the universe it...

This is a video of a half a million birds swarming over Sacramento California. I just want to know who estimated that there is a half a million. Are they sure there are not a million, or maybe only 100,000 instead? Well either way it is pretty cool, and reminds me of the movie by Alfred Hitchcock, "The Birds".Check out the video of the Birds over Sacrament here These following two paragraphs are from an article at "The Independent", and it is about the phenomenon called a murmuration; Winter must must be coming... because the starlings are flocking. Here are...

Check out this is a video of a half a million birds swarming over Sacramento California. After watching this I thought about a B movie I watched back in the late 70s called "Swarm". It was about a bunch of Americanized bees that wrecked havoc in Houston. Well the way these birds are flying over the city of Sacrament reminded me of the way the bees swarmed over Houston in the move the swarm. Check out the video of the Birds over Sacrament here

These images may look like just pretty patterns, but they are visual representations of songs sung by whales and dolphins.

Steven MalangaKilling Field Autumn 2009 Environmental groups’ view of the animal world sometimes resembles Disney’s Bambi, with owls and rabbits mingling peacefully and Man lurking as the only predator, aided by his evil servant the hunting dog. A good example is the National Wildlife Federation, which wants to reintroduce wild animals into the suburban and urban enclaves from which development has expelled them by encouraging homeowners to develop “healthy and sustainable wildlife habitats” on their properties. The NWF has even produced a television program—Backyard Habitat, shown on Animal Planet—in which experts advise homeowners in places like Chicago about how...

October 06, 2009, 0:00 p.m. The Convenient DeathBy the Editors Wait for patients to die before taking their organs, and the organs won’t be as fresh. Let doctors take the organs from living patients — even if it means causing them to die a little faster than they otherwise would — and the supply of usable organs will go up. Some other patient will get a second chance at life, and the dead guy won’t miss anything: What could possibly go wrong with this idea? The editors of Nature are well aware that this proposal might seem a little...