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Zoo Won’t Let de Blasio Hold Groundhog After He Killed One Last Year The NYPD isn't the only city organization that has lost complete confidence in the esteemed Mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio. After he dropped the groundhog during last year's Groundhog Day celebrations, the Staten Island Zoo has unequivocally banned De Blasio from holding or handling any more of their animals in a celebratory setting. - Mayor de Blasio won’t be killing any more groundhogs — zoo handlers are forbidding the butter-fingered mayor from holding the critter at the annual shadow-sighting ceremony on Feb. 2, The...

The recent news that a Colorado man was diagnosed with the plague may have left some wondering: Does that still happen here?The answer, somewhat surprisingly, is yes.While the last plague epidemic in the United States was back in 1924, when 37 people died in Los Angeles, the much-feared disease still surfaces in humans from time to time, though it's very infrequent — and fully treatable with antibiotics if it's caught in time."Plague... spread from urban rats to rural rodent species, and became entrenched in many areas of the western United States," the CDC explains. "Since that time, plague has...

RICHMOND, VA - The Richmond Flying Squirrels, Double-A affiliate of the 2012 World Series Champion San Francisco Giants, have announced their plans for Salute to Scandal Night on Thursday, August 1st. Headlining the night will be $1 hot dogs available at all of the Flying Squirrels concession stands. Related Content Promo Preview "Scandal night is meant to be a fun, tongue in cheek night and what hotter of a scandal right now than Anthony Weiner," said Flying Squirrels Vice President and COO Todd "Parney" Parnell. "His scandal just couldn't have come at a better time in regards to the Flying...

Epigenetic changes affect neurotransmitters that lead to pair-bond formation. Love really does change your brain — at least, if you’re a prairie vole. Researchers have shown for the first time that the act of mating induces permanent chemical modifications in the chromosomes, affecting the expression of genes that regulate sexual and monogamous behaviour. The study is published today in Nature Neuroscience1. Prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster) have long been of interest to neuroscientists and endocrinologists who study the social behaviour of animals, in part because this species forms monogamous pair bonds — essentially mating for life. The voles' pair bonding, sharing...

X-rays may not heal broken bones, but low doses of ionizing radiation may spark other health benefits, a new study of mice suggests. Radiation in high doses has well-known harmful effects. Scientists had thought low doses would do less extensive damage but could add up to big problems later. But radiation acts differently at low doses, producing health benefits for mice with an unusual genetic makeup, Randy Jirtle of the University of Wisconsin–Madison and colleagues report online November 1 in the FASEB Journal. Antioxidant vitamins, such as vitamins C and E, erased those health gains. “What goes on at high...

Enlarge Image Young at heart. Cross-sections of mouse ventricles show the visible change in size when old hearts are immersed in young blood. Credit: Francesco Loffredo It's time to turn back the clock on an aging ticker. Drawing on an odd experimental technique invented more than a century ago but rarely done now, researchers have found that a blood-borne protein makes old mouse hearts appear young and healthy again. It's not clear yet whether humans would react the same way, but scientists are hopeful that this discovery may help treat one of the heart's most frustrating ailments. "This is probably...

A US ambassador in Syria was bloodily murdered on September 11, 2012. In the immediate aftermath, the Obama Administration knowingly put forward erroneous talking points and intelligence, likely in the hopes that their mishandling of terrorism would not hurt the President's reelection campaign. The IRS, starting as early as 2010, scrutinized and targeted Tea Party groups. The Administration dismissed these claims for three years; yet, as the Tea Party has been vindicated, President Obama is scrambling to save face, saying that only lower-level employees knew about this partisanship. Today, it was also revealed that the Obama Administration is secretly wiretapping...

Matt Miller, an Idaho-based science writer with The Nature Conservancy, says rodents and other small livestock represent a low-impact meat alternative to carbon-costly beef. Miller, who is writing a book about the ecological benefits of eating unconventional meats, visited Colombia several years ago. At the time, he says, conservation groups were expressing concern about local ranchers clearing forest to provide pasture for their cattle — activity that was causing erosion and water pollution. "They were encouraging people to switch from cattle to guinea pigs," Miller says. "Guinea pigs don't require the land that cattle do. They can be kept in...

Cats' Family Tree Rooted In Fertile Crescent, Study ConfirmsCats, with their penchant for hunting mice, rats and other rodents, became useful companions as people domesticated, grew and stored wild grains and grasses. Eventually, cats also became pets but were never fully domesticated. Even today, most domestic cats remain self-sufficient, if necessary, and continue to be efficient hunters, even when provided with food. (Credit: Michele Hogan) ScienceDaily (Jan. 29, 2008) — The Fertile Crescent of the Middle East has long been identified as a "cradle of civilization" for humans. In a new genetic study, researchers at the University of California, Davis,...

Ice Age warmth wiped out lemmings, study findsBy Michelle Warwicker BBC Nature 26 November 2012 Last updated at 22:07 Lemmings became "regionally extinct" five times due to rapid climate change during the last Ice Age, scientists have found. **SNIP** Instead the tests revealed that genetically distinct populations of lemmings were "present at different points in time" during the Late Pleistocene, 11,700 to around 126,000 years ago, meaning that the lemming population had been wiped out multiple times and then re-colonised some time after, possibly from populations in eastern Europe or Russia. The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the...

State inspectors say a New Mexico school district's food warehouse is infested with rodent droppings, food hazards and improperly placed rat poison, and district officials refused to discard the food in question. The state Environment Department says officials cited last week five "high risk violations" at the food warehouse of Gallup-McKinley County Schools. State inspector Andrew Wilson wrote in a memo that the warehouse was littered with rodent droppings throughout, contained rat poison in a walk-in refrigerator and had cases of food with ice accumulation on top.

For the uninitiated, Pinky and the Brain are characters from the Warner Bros. cartoon Animaniacs (I watched it a lot when I was a kid) They're lab mice. Pinky is just a complete moron. Brain is a supposed genius bent on world domination, but fails at everything he sets out to accomplish.

A wayward mouse forced the grounding of a US-bound SAS flight on Tuesday, leaving 250 travellers stranded at Stockholm’s Arlanda airport as crews tried in vain to capture the rogue rodent. Police return stolen bike after 15 years (23 Aug 11) McDonald's advert fakes 'Swedish' farmland (23 Aug 11) Sweden fears swimming Danish raccoon invasion (23 Aug 11) Shortly before the scheduled 10.30am take off of the Chicago-bound Airbus 330, a security guard spotted the mischievous mouse scurrying across the floor of the aircraft. “Unfortunately the mouse has not been found and caught, despite an extensive search onboard and numerous...

The teeming trillions of bacteria in the digestive tracts of mice have been shown to affect the animals' brain development and behaviour.Mice bred in sterile environments without these "gut flora" were seen to be more adventurous and less anxious than mice with normal gut flora. The research adds weight to the idea that gut bacteria are a critical part of the overall development of mammals.

odents get a bad rap as vermin and pests because they seem to thrive everywhere. They have been one of the most common mammals in Africa for the past 50 million years. From deserts to rainforests, rodents flourished in prehistoric Africa, making them a stable and plentiful source of food, says paleontologist Alisa J. Winkler, an expert on rodent and rabbit fossils... Rodents can corroborate evidence from geology and plant and animal fossils about the ancient environments of our human ancestors and other prehistoric mammals, says Winkler, a research professor at Southern Methodist University... Rodents -- rats, mice, squirrels, porcupines,...

Rat infestation forces students out of classroom. The rodent frequently visiting several South Florida kindergarten classrooms isn't quite as cuddly and cute as Mickey Mouse and doesn't have teachers smiling like Chuck E. Cheese. Broward County School officials have been forced to evacuate eight classrooms at Tamarac Elementary because of a severe rat problem, reports the Sun-Sentinel. The rodents have overrun the kindergarten area of the school, forcing the students to a cleaner learning environment in another area. Luckily, students are about to be released for winter break, which gives school officials a couple of weeks to get the rats...

(CNN) -- Niko Mushi hated rats, as did most people in his village near Tanzania's Mt. Kilimanjaro -- until he learned the critters had a nose for land mines. Mushi, 32, has been working with giant African pouched rats for almost seven years. He now enjoys their company -- "They're just like my friend," he says -- but he concedes he was skeptical when the man who conceived the idea for HeroRats first told him they could sniff out live ordnance. "I thought maybe he was making some jokes," Mushi said. "I was amazed that rats could do such a...

What's up with President Obama and his bizarre ability to attract insects like flies, bees and rodents? The latest was his press conference yesterday, when a fly landed just above his mouth. Previously, the president had to swat a fly away during an interview, and a similar instance occurred during a planned photo op in Iowa. Then he was swarmed by bees, and even had a rodent come running towards him during a presser in the Rose Garden. http://www.glennbeck.com/content/show/2010-06-23/

Kelis is known for going at animal rights organization PETA. In just revealed album artwork however, the "Acapella" singer gives new meaning to the word associated with "female dog". In the photo pictured above, Kelis appears as half dog/half woman, perhaps embracing change, PETA or simply those who have called her a B**tch in years past. Whatever it is, the look is not something you see everyday. Earlier this year, Kelis penned an open letter to PETA, addressing their concerns over her decision to wear fur on a regular basis. "If I started wearing endangered animals then talk to me....

Clemson University is fighting back against an invasion of squirrels on its South Carolina campus. The Anderson Independent-Mail reports workers spent much of December trapping Eastern gray squirrels, catching and euthanizing the 200 rodents allowed under federal law. The squirrels have caused problems in recent years, killing about 100 mature trees by chewing on the bark for food and making their territory. About 10 percent of the campus' trees have been damaged in some way, likely costing the school about $1 million in the past decade. Clemson officials tried a squirrel birth control program, but it didn't do enough to...