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The ABA Journal has this interesting thought attributed to Justice Scalia. Asked to comment on whether the quality of advocacy before the U.S. Supreme Court was too low, Justice Scalia is quoted as saying: “I used to have just the opposite reaction. I used to be disappointed that so many of the best minds in the country were being devoted to this enterprise. “I mean there’d be a … public defender from Podunk, you know, and this woman is really brilliant, you know. Why isn’t she out inventing the automobile or, you know, doing something productive for this society? “I...

Concluded Thursday in Jeddah, experts and specialists from the countries of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden a regional meeting to prepare a regional plan to keep the sharks in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden from extinction Meeting prepared by the regional body to maintain the environment of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, whose membership includes countries bordering the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden and take the city of Jeddah-based. He warned the Secretary General of the Professor Ziad Bin Hamza [Abu Ghararah] to the sharks in the region has been in recent decades...

There may never be a better time or place to have an encounter with the world's largest fish than right now off the Alabama coast. For the last few weeks, unprecedented numbers of whale sharks have been seen cruising just a few miles off the beach, their broad snouts and tall dorsal fins breaking the surface as they swim lazily along, mouths agape, sucking in plankton.

In partnership with Discovery Networks, "Shark Week" on The Early Show kicked off Monday. To dive right in to this week-long series, we dispatched CBS News science and technology correspondent Daniel Sieberg to the Bahamas. Words to describe the shark often include scary, powerful and predator, but there's another word that should come to mind: endangered. In fact, a recent study found that about one-third of all sharks around the world face possible extinction because of overfishing. Twenty miles off Grand Bahama Island, at a place called "Tiger Beach," dive master Stuart Cove is trying to lure sharks to our...

The Dubai Mall, a major shopping centre, has introduced the Shark Dive which allows visitors to dive into one of world’s largest aquariums in full diving gear and wade amongst 33,000 aquatic animals. The Shark Dive at Dubai Aquarium and Underwater Zoo features sand tiger sharks, giant groupers and sting rays as well as thousands of smaller fish species. Visitors from 10 to 68 years of age have experienced the sheer thrill of Shark Dives and have unanimously voted it as “exhilarating.” “I was surprised at how peaceful it is on the dive,” said one shark diver. Another added: “You...

Senator John F. Kerry's office announced today that he’s joining forces with the Discovery Channel to help end the illegal practice of shark finning. Throughout the channel's 22nd annual "Shark Week" of programming, it will run public service announcements and push an online petition to support a bill Kerry introduced in April that would close a loophole for shark fin transport and strengthen enforcement to ensure sharks are transported with their fins attached. In shark finning, fisherman slice off a shark’s fin primarily for use in shark fin soup. But critics say the practice has led to a seventy-five percent...

The man attacked by a shark on the New South Wales South Coast on Saturday morning says the experience will not stop him surfing, though it might take a while before he ventures back into the water. Les Wade was surfing at Seven Mile Beach at Gerroa just before 9:00am (AEST) when he felt something push him from behind. He says he thought it was another surfer but then he turned and spotted a shark. "I didn't realise what had happened," he said. "I paddled back out and said, 'I think there's a shark and I think it's just bit...

Page last updated at 08:41 GMT, Monday, 22 June 2009 09:41 UK E-mail this to a friend Printable version Great whites 'plan' seal attacks Matt Walker Editor, Earth News Great white shark Pre-planned and perfectly executed. Great white sharks do not aimlessly wander the ocean waiting to stumble upon their next meal. Instead, the biggest sharks identify a location from which to strike, and then search the surrounding killing zone for their next victim. That suggests that the sharks use a premeditated hunting strategy akin to that used by some human serial killers.

OCEAN SPRINGS — Little is known about whale sharks or why they come to the northern part of the Gulf by the hundreds in June and July, within 30 miles of the Coast. But they do. And biologists from USM’s Gulf Coast Research Lab took what they do know about the giant, docile animals from the data they have collected and went whale shark hunting last week. They were successful beyond their wildest expectations, placing satellite tags on three and measuring and documenting several more. Shark biologist Eric Hoffmayer and research assistant Jennifer McKinney, along with a German videographer...

Call it catch and release. Jessica Alba will not face any criminal charges for plastering shark posters all over Oklahoma City on behalf of a conservation group. "The decision has been made to close the case," police Sgt. Gary Knight says in a statement. "The case will not be presented to the district attorney's office." Alba found herself in hot water last week when photos surfaced of her papering over a United Way billboard as part of a guerrilla-style campaign for White Mike, an L.A.-based group aiming to raise awareness of the endangered great white shark. She quickly apologized for...

Sharks are to be trained like dolphins to feed from keepers and even roll over and have their tummies tickled. Brave keepers at British aquariums will use the techniques after research showed they responded well to tuition. Experts hope the training will reduce stress levels for the captive beasts. The UK's Sea Life Centres are to begin a period of intensive tuition by using coloured boards and sounds to train the sharks in a similar way that scientist Ivan Pavlov trained his dogs. Sharks - superorder Selachimorpha in Latin - learn the signals and then when they see or hear...

Adventure enthusiasts who think they have gone through it all, should get ready to dive in with sharks at the Dubai Aquarium & Underwater Zoo at The Dubai Mall. The mall launched its first shark dives as part of the Festival at The Dubai Mall on Saturday. The shark dive gives thrill seekers the opportunity to swim amongst 33,000 aquatic animals within the 10 million-litre tank at Dubai Aquarium. Divers can explore the aquarium while coming face-to-face with resident sand tiger, reef, Leopard sharks, giant groupers and stingrays, among others. The dive is organised in association with Al Boom Diving....

A fisherman in Port Charlotte caught a 1,060-pound hammerhead shark Thursday morning in Boca Grande, the St. Petersburg Times reports. Here's the story from outdoors writer Terry Tomalin: The 12-fathom deep Pass is known for its big tarpon and even bigger sharks. It is not uncommon for anglers to see their catch bitten in half by big bull sharks and giant hammerheads. To be more precise - great hammerheads. The species, found through most of the world's oceans, can reach lengths of up to 18 feet. In 2006, the same angler that caught Thursday's shark caught an even larger hammerhead...

A NAVY diver who lost a hand and a leg in a Sydney Harbour shark attack is back diving and walking, and says he wants to return to work at the scene of the attack. Doctors said navy clearance diver Paul de Gelder was lucky to survive the mauling by a 2.7-metre bull shark off Garden Island Naval Base on February 11. After seven weeks in hospital, Mr de Gelder says he is determined to put the experience behind him. He is already walking with a prosthetic leg, driving high performance cars and confronting his fears head-on by swimming with...

In just a short time, one of the rarest sharks in the world went from swimming in Philippine waters to simmering in coconut milk. The 13-foot-long (4-meter-long) megamouth shark (pictured), caught on March 30 by mackerel fishers off the city of Donsol, was only the 41st megamouth shark ever found, according to WWF-Philippines. Fishers brought the odd creature—which died during its capture—to local project manager Elson Aca of WWF, an international conservation nonprofit. Aca immediately identified it as a megamouth shark and encouraged the fishers not to eat it. But the draw of the delicacy was too great: The 1,102-pound...

Even if directing three Bollywood macho men, two sizzling beauties and one Australian pop diva didn't seem a tough bet for debut director Anthony D'Souza, wielding the megaphone for 40 sharks for an underwater action sequence for Blue surely gave him the jitters. "The scariest part of Blue' was in fact the sharks. Getting them to act in my film was not easy," said D'Souza. The particular scene with sharks has actors Sanjay Dutt, Akshay Kumar and Zayed Khan in the frame and it called for a lot of safety measures. The director explained: "We had shark handlers present on...

When Captain John “J.C.” Burke phoned in a secondhand report of a great white shark swimming in an estuary on Naushon Island on September 21, 2004, Dr. Greg Skomal rolled his eyes. “Yeah, okay. Sure,” Skomal recalls saying dismissively to his friend. “Send me a photo.” Skomal, a senior biologist for the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries and the state’s top shark expert, was understandably worn down from 17 years of supposed sightings of the creature. Save for a video of white sharks swimming near the bow of a boat off of Provincetown, he had only seen sporadic evidence to...

SALES of an Australian-made device to repel sharks are booming after three recent attacks in Sydney. SeaChange Technology, the Adelaide company that produces the electronic "Shark Shield", says inquiries have tripled over the past two months and sales have increased by 50 per cent. "We cannot keep up with production. Twice in the past two months we've increased our production line only to find immediately that we have to do it again," SeaChange Technology co-founder Paul Lunn said. The device, which costs between $600 and $700 depending on the model, weighs 80 grams and can fit into the palm of...

Mr Rhys Jones and his wife, Jo, were separated in the darkness after jumping from different ends of the 125ft boat, which was anchored off the Galapagos Islands. The couple and 13 British friends were woken by crew as flames and smoke billowed from the engine room. They jumped into the sea, where they knew there were Hammerhead and reef sharks, because crew feared the boat would explode. Mr Rhys Jones, 55, a keen sailor, said: “All of a sudden we saw huge yellow flames shooting up from the boat. One of the crew jumped into the sea and started...

HEY'RE the ones who got away: a group of Sydney fishermen and kayakers survived a frightening encounter with a great white shark off Long Reef yesterday. Luckiest of all was 29-year-old Steve Kulcsar, who was knocked off his kayak by the 5m giant, which circled him for a minute as he trod water. The close shave happened on the same day Perth man Brian Guest was taken by a white pointer of similar size while snorkelling on the other side of the country - and comes after a string of other alarming shark incidents.

WHITE pointers caused terror on opposite sides of Australia yesterday as a giant shark lunged at kayakers off Sydney and a Perth diver was taken feared dead. Brian Guest, 51, was diving for crabs with his son at their local beach near Rockingham, 30km south of Perth, when he disappeared about 7am. His son, Daniel, 24, swam ashore and raised the alarm. Witnesses saw fins and blood in the water. ''Something very traumatic and pretty violent has happened there and we are treating it as a probable shark attack ,'' acting police inspector Mark Valentine said. The three emergency service...

After an almost five-year dry spell, the Underwater World Singapore's leopard shark breeding programme has found success. Three adult female leopard sharks are kept in reef tanks while two male sharks are rotated between them and thereafter the breeders take a backseat and let nature take its course. Jeffrey Mahon, curatorial director at Underwater World Singapore, said: "We had a male with a couple of females and sometimes they breed and sometimes they don't. We get egg cases but none of them were viable as they're not fertilised. "We brought in another male about a year and a half ago...

The thought of a 15ft great white shark ripping through a metal cage and heading straight for you is the stuff of nightmares – but it was a reality for two scuba divers in Mexico. The terrifying incident unfolded as the two men took part in an ‘ultimate shark diving experience’ and watched the two tonne shark feeding on tuna. Caught on camera, the film shows the shark suddenly veering towards the cage, jamming its head between the bars and smashing it to pieces while the divers scramble for safety. One of the divers, calling himself ScubaDubaDive, posted the hair-raising...

Great white sharks travel huge distances and mysteriously spend up to six months gathered at an isolated spot in the Pacific Ocean between California and Hawaii. Satellite tagging has revealed that male and female sharks make frequent and repetitive dives together, which may be linked to courtship. The stretch of ocean the sharks make for - from both California and Mexico - is not a particularly rich feeding ground but it may act as a "singles bar" where they can find a mate. "There is something going on there but as yet we don't know," said marine biologist Professor Ron...

A survivor and a rescuer in one of the deadliest episodes in U.S. Navy history — the sinking of the USS Indianapolis in World War II — will be reunited Thursday at Lakeland Regional High School. The cruiser, which carried parts for the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima, was sunk by a Japanese submarine on July 30, 1945, four days after it delivered the parts to Tinian Island. After it was sunk, 900 crew members spent days in shark-infested waters; only 316 survived. One of the survivors, Don Blum of Scarsdale, N.Y., will attend the program Thursday, called...

Australian scientists have found that antibodies in shark blood could potentially be a potent weapon in the fight against cancer. Sharks have immune systems similar to humans, but their antibodies - the molecules which actually fight disease - are exceptionally resilient. Researchers believe this quality could be harnessed to help slow the spread of diseases such as cancer. Potentially, it could lead to a new generation of drug treatments. The Australian team found that shark antibodies can withstand high temperatures as well as extremely acidic or alkaline conditions. GutThis means they would potentially be able to survive in the harsh...

According to the archaeological record, sharks (and rays, their close relative) were the number two source of protein for coastal Chumash after sardines, at least for the past 1,000 or so years... Specifically, the coastal Chumash were eating the easier-to-catch near-shore species such as leopard shark, angel shark, soupfin shark, and swell shark... The Chumash also ate many species of rays, but seemed to prefer the shovelnose guitarfish, which is wide like a ray in its torso but lanky and finned like a shark on the tail... The guitarfish, like other small sharks and rays, lives part of its life...

SCIENTISTS have been stunned by the discovery of a shark that had eaten a polar bear. Part of the jaw of a young polar bear was found in the stomach of a Greenland shark in Svalbard, northern Norway. Kit Kovacs, of the Norwegian Polar Institute, said: "We've never heard of this before. "We don't know how it got there. We can't say whether or not the shark took a swimming young bear or ate a carcase.

Something seems fishy about the following story of a shark being stolen from a shed. Unless the shark was a gang member from New York who snapped his fingers and walked in lock step with his brothers, I know Peter Benchley wouldn’t believe it. So why should I? (A live shark was stolen from a shed, police said today. The marble shark - one half of the only breeding pair in the UK - was taken from a garden in Farnborough, Hampshire, over the weekend.

A MOTORIST spun out of control and ploughed through a terraced home – killing two sharks and injuring a parrot. The driver of a silver Vauxhall Astra careered into the dining room at the front of the property, smashing the fish tank and hitting a bird cage. Luckily the homeowner, Joanne Taylor, her partner Craig Harding and her sons Nico, 13, and three-year -old Lleyton, were sleeping upstairs at the time. Police are now searching for the driver and passenger, who were seen running away from the scene in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffs, just after 2am Saturday morning. Joanne said: "There was...

A shark can be seen jumping out of the water to the left of the surfer.

Lifeguards spotted what they believed was a great white shark off Martha's Vineyard yesterday, forcing the closing of beaches and prompting the inevitable references to "Jaws," the movie thriller that was filmed on the island. The dorsal fin of the shark, sticking some 2 1/2 feet out of the water, was spotted 75 yards offshore at South Beach in Edgartown. Authorities received reports of other sightings along State Beach, on the island's northeast and the site of the opening scene of "Jaws." "It definitely creates some excitement in town," said Trish Lyman, a resident who works at The Boneyard surf...

Look at all three. Witnesses also saw sharks there too. Not unusual in warm weather (and sea temperatures) in Florida. By end of month they move north up Gulfstream.

Surfer Todd Endris needed a miracle. The shark — a monster great white that came out of nowhere — had hit him three times, peeling the skin off his back and mauling his right leg to the bone. That’s when a pod of bottlenose dolphins intervened, forming a protective ring around Endris, allowing him to get to shore, where quick first aid provided by a friend saved his life.

MUMBAI: An Israeli woman and an Italian man survived on a life raft for eight days in the Arabian Sea after their yacht sank in a storm, the Indian Coast Guard said on Tuesday. The couple, identified as Libi Belozerzki, 27, and Pierpaolo Mori, 35, set out from the Maldives on a yacht planning to sail to the Red Sea, but their boat overturned in a late monsoon storm, said Commandant Raj Putran of the Indian Coast Guard. Putran said ships in the area were told to look out for the missing sailors after the Rome Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre...

New York officials are trying to determine if a dead thesher shark discovered on a Queens beach Sunday morning is the same fish that caused a minor panic among swimmers and sunbathers when it swam to shore, MyFoxNY reported. Swimmers and sunbathers at Rockaway Beach, N.Y., were enjoying a peaceful day of sun and sand Saturday when the tell-tale sign of a dorsal fin slicing through the waves sparked a panic. The fin belonged to a 7-foot thresher shark that was caught in the surf, seemingly determined to swim onto the shore instead of back out to sea. Fear soon...

The hourly rates of the country's top lawyers are increasingly coming with something new -- a comma. A few attorneys crossed into $1,000-per-hour billing before this year, but recent moves to the four-figure mark in New York, which sets trends for legal markets around the country, are seen as a significant turning point. On Sept. 1, New York's Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP will raise its top rate to more than $1,000 from $950. Firm partner Barry Ostrager, a litigator, says he will be one of the firm's thousand-dollar billers, along with private-equity specialist Richard Beattie and antitrust lawyer Kevin...

The genetic potential to create fingers and toes apparently existed ages before animals even crawled onto land, dating back to the distant common ancestors of sharks and humans, research now reveals. ADVERTISEMENT The research focused on a group of genes that control how and where body parts develop in animals, including people. Scientists investigated the activity of these "Hox genes" in embryos of the spotted catshark. Unexpectedly, they discovered that a spurt of genetic activity that helps digits such as fingers and toes develop in limbed animals was seen in shark embryos as well. "Genetic processes were not simple in...

There were fins all around, the killer sharks just circling, waiting, assessing their prey in their usual silent, sinister way. For the men strung out in the oil-streaked water, clinging to the sides of flimsy rafts or floating in sodden life-jackets, the sight was terrifying and the underwater brush of leathery skin against a submerged leg, or the nudge of a snout, was gut-wrenching. These men were already survivors, the remaining 900 sailors of the U.S.S. Indianapolis. Just three-quarters of the crew had managed to get off the heavy cruiser when she was blown apart by torpedoes from a Japanese...

Documentary on the USS Indianapolis, its sinking, and the worst shark attacks in history, on Discovery Channel right now.

Doctors use shark skin grafts to treat burned terror suspect 24.07.07 Surgeons treating the terror suspect burned in the Glasgow Airport car bomb attempt are going to use "grafts" of a skin substitute made from shark cartilage and cow tendons. Kafeel Ahmed, 27, is being treated at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary. The process is called Integra Dermal Regeneration Template. "It tricks the body into creating new skin cells," explained Steve Jeffrey, a surgeon who worked in Australia perfecting the treatment. Silicone implanted with shark skin extracts is laid on the burns for two weeks before it is removed and replaced...

BEIJING - Sharks could face extinction within a generation from overfishing for their fins, a conservation group said on Wednesday, calling on the Chinese government to lead the way in their protection. More than 90 percent of shark fin is consumed in China and demand is growing rapidly as the economy develops leading to more sharks being caught, many illegally in areas that are supposed to be protected, according to the group WildAid.....

Five Democratic presidential candidates are planning to pay homage to America's leading trial lawyers' group, the American Association for Justice, by turning out at its annual convention in Chicago this weekend. Senators Clinton, Obama of Illinois, and Biden of Delaware are scheduled to speak to the lawyers on Sunday, as are a former senator, John Edwards of North Carolina, and Governor Richardson of New Mexico.

INDIANAPOLIS - Sixty-two years after Japanese torpedoes sank the USS Indianapolis in shark-infested waters, an exhibit in the vessel's namesake city documents its tragic end in the final weeks of World War II. The exhibit at the Indiana War Memorial, opening Saturday, includes letters and telegrams about the cruiser's July 30, 1945, sinking, the ship's bell and even the type of life jacket that kept the oil-drenched servicemen who survived afloat in the ocean for more than four harrowing days. "We're trying to keep the story alive and the museum would make it permanent. It will make the story live...

SARASOTA - Sharks in one Florida river are getting a dose of human medicine, and now scientists want to know if it's a prescription for trouble. Scientists recently found traces of prescription antidepressants, cholesterol-lowering drugs and synthetic estrogens in the blood of young bull sharks in the Caloosahatchee River on Florida's southwest Gulf Coast. This summer, they'll study the issue more widely. On Friday, scientists with Mote Marine Laboratory fished for bull sharks as part of research to find out what drugs the sharks encounter most and whether the doses are large enough to alter how they behave and reproduce....

Scientists: Hammerhead has 'virgin birth' in zoo's shark tank By David Fleshler South Florida Sun-Sentinel May 23, 2007 A hammerhead shark captured in Florida Bay gave birth without sex, according to scientists who said they used genetic analysis to account for the mysterious appearance of a pup in a tank of female sharks. The research was to be published today in the British journal Biology Letters. The phenomenon, known among biologists as a "virgin birth," had been observed before among some snakes, lizards and birds, but never a shark, the scientists say. The issue arose in late 2001 at a...

DUBLIN -- Female sharks can fertilize their own eggs and give birth without sperm from males, according to a new study of the asexual reproduction of a hammerhead in a US zoo. The joint Northern Ireland-US research, published today in the Royal Society's Biology Letter journal, analyzed the DNA of a shark born in 2001 in the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha . The shark was born in a tank with three potential mothers, none of whom had had contact with a male hammerhead for at least three years. Analysis of the baby shark's DNA found no trace of any...

Newswise — Fewer big sharks in the oceans led to the destruction of North Carolina’s bay scallop fishery and inhibits the recovery of depressed scallop, oyster and clam populations along the U.S. Atlantic Coast, according to an article in the March 30 issue of the journal Science. A team of Canadian and American ecologists, led by the late world-renowned fisheries biologist Ransom Myers of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, has found that overfishing in the Atlantic of the largest predatory sharks, such as the bull, great white, dusky and hammerhead sharks, has led to an explosion of their ray,...

TOKYO (AFP) - A goblin shark -- a rarely seen species often called a "living fossil" -- was caught alive in Tokyo Bay but died after being put on display, an aquarium said. ADVERTISEMENT The grey, long-nosed shark was caught in fishermen's nets around 150 to 200 metres (500 to 650 feet) deep. It was discovered by officials of the Tokyo Sea Life Park when they took a boat with local fishermen on January 25. "We were able to bring it to the aquarium alive and show it to the public," said an official at the park. But the shark...

Turning Sharks into Robotic Sentries It seems like science fiction, but the U.S. military would like to use sharks as underwater spies. The folks at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), who dream up the future of weapons and military systems, envision squads of sharks prowling the oceans with sensors that could transmit evidence of explosives or other threats. The military use of marine animals isn’t new. For decades, the navy has used dolphins and sea lions to patrol harbors, salvage expensive hardware, and locate potential sea mines. Indeed, mounting chemical, auditory, or visual sensors on a shark is...