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In what can only be described as a youngster doing the 'puff, puff, pass', West Australian dolphins may be using blowfish - or 'blowies' - to get high, scientists have found. Murdoch University researcher Krista Nicholson, who monitors dolphins occupying the Peel-Harvey coastal waters off Mandurah, said there were several records of them interacting with blowfish in estuaries and coastal waters around the world. The young dolphin Huubster tosses a blowfish in the air. Photo: Mandurah Dolphin Research Project ============================================================================================================================== She said that in Australia, scientists had seen juveniles mouthing blowies in the Leschenault estuary in WA's South West and...

Reporting from Tokyo -- Veteran chef Yutaka Sasaki has a plan to remove the fear of eating one of the most poisonous fish on the planet: He wants to feed it to the emperor. The blowfish, known here as fugu, carries a deadly neurotoxin with no known antidote. An average-sized fugu is chock-full of the poison tetrodotoxin -- in its blood, liver and even its sex organs, Sasaki says. But he scoffs at the centuries-old ban on the Japanese monarch eating the delicacy, sought after by many Japanese as daring cuisine. "The prince and other royalty have eaten fugu, so...

TOKYO — Blowfish testicles prepared by an unauthorized chef sickened seven diners in northern Japan and three remained hospitalized Tuesday after eating the poisonous delicacy. The owner of the restaurant in Tsuruoka city, who is also the chef, had no license to serve blowfish and was being questioned on suspicion of professional negligence, police official Yoshihito Iwase said.

LONDON (Reuters) - Police investigating the death of a former Russian spy from suspected radiation poisoning have found levels of radiation in a London sushi bar where he ate just before he became sick, health officials said on Friday. "The police reported that they had found some radiation there (in the Sushi bar). We are assessing the level of that and the potential risk to people that might cause," Pat Troop, head of the independent Health Protection Agency, told the BBC.

[Here's a condensed version of what happened on the show] In late Feb2003, shortly before the Gulf War II, an Iraqi clerk walked into our embassy in Italy and wanted to defect. He handled codes for the Iraqi secret police (Mukbarat sp?). Of course, we wanted him to give us some intelligence info in exchange for asylum. The man said that he was hearing lots of traffic about a terrorist planning meeting in Libya and that he was supposed to go there as a clerk. We tracked the man to Libya and he got the details of the upcoming meeting...

WASHINGTON - Sen. Edward M. Kennedy snubbed President Bush yesterday, refusing to attend a Rose Garden speech on the ``No Child Left Behind Act.'' Kennedy and Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), the top Democrats on the Senate and House education committees, boycotted the event, angered by inadequate funding for the measure they worked with Bush to enact last year. ``They simply won't cough up the resources to make school reform work,'' Kennedy said. The act redefines the federal role in K-12 education and aims to increase school accountability and parent involvement. ``The era of low expectations and low standards is ending;...