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Even the fastest animal in the world can't outrun the effects of climate change, according to experts. Cheetah populations are especially vulnerable to rising temperatures because hotter days are forcing them to behave more nocturnally, putting them in greater competition with other predators such as lions and African wild dogs, according to a study published in the journal Biological Sciences on Wednesday. Researchers from the University of Washington investigated the impacts of temperature on the activity timings and overlaps between four species of large carnivores in Africa, including lions, leopards, cheetahs and African wild dogs. They found that temperature shaped...

Recent scientific findings date their arrival earlier than ever thought, sparking hot debate among archaeologists For much of its length, the slow-moving Aucilla River in northern Florida flows underground, tunneling through bedrock limestone. But here and there it surfaces, and preserved in those inky ponds lie secrets of the first Americans.For years adventurous divers had hunted fossils and artifacts in the sinkholes of the Aucilla about an hour east of Tallahassee. They found stone arrowheads and the bones of extinct mammals such as mammoth, mastodon and the American ice age horse.Then, in the 1980s, archaeologists from the Florida Museum of...

For the first time in three decades, paleontologists are about to revisit one of North America's most remarkable troves of ancient fossils: The bones of tens of thousands of animals piled at the bottom of a sinkhole-type cave. Natural Trap Cave in Wyoming is 85 feet (25 meters) deep and almost impossible to see until you're standing right next to it. Over tens of thousands of years, many, many animals—including now-extinct mammoths, short-faced bears, American lions and American cheetahs—shared the misfortune of not noticing the 15-foot-wide (4 meters) opening until they were plunging to their deaths. Now, the U.S. Bureau...

The cave is cool and damp -- prefect for preserving prehistoric remains, Meachen says. "It's like a refrigerator in there, and probably has been for 20,000 years," she said. "Some of the bones we're finding there have collagen in them. That is where you could get the ancient DNA." The scientists saw bones falling out of a part of the cave, and decided to start digging there. "That was the fossil layer," she said. "There is so much to dig. We have two more years for funding that we can be out there, so we are going to try to...

(Reuters) - Scientists excavating an ancient Wyoming sinkhole containing a rare trove of fossils of Ice Age mammals have unearthed hundreds of bones of such prehistoric animals as American cheetahs, a paleontologist said on Friday. The two-week dig by an international team of researchers led by Des Moines University paleontologist Julie Meachen marked the first exploration of Natural Trap Cave at the base of the Bighorn Mountains in north-central Wyoming since its initial discovery in the 1970s. Meachen said the extensive excavation that began late last month uncovered roughly 200 large bones of animals like horses that roamed North America...

Four villagers in north-east Kenya have chased down and captured two cheetahs which were killing their goats. The owner of the goats told the BBC that the cheetahs had been picking off his animals one by one, day by day. The men waited until the hottest part of the day before launching the chase over a distance of four miles (6.4km). The cheetahs got so tired they could not run any more. The villagers captured them alive and handed them over to the Kenya Wildlife Service.

Video of Cheetahs meowing. Very cute! http://www.wimp.com/cheetahsmeowing/

South Africa: Man Photographs Cheetahs Attacking Wife The photos taken by a tourist from Scotland show his wife on the ground, hair flying, blood on her neck, with two cheetahs nearby (Violet D'Mello poses with a cheetah while being photographed by her husband Archibald during a visit to Kragga Kamma game reserve near Port Elizabeth, South Africa.) JOHANNESBURG — The photos taken by a tourist from Scotland show his wife on the ground, hair flying, blood on her neck, with two cheetahs nearby. The Port Elizabeth Herald reported Friday that Violet D'Mello of Aberdeen, Scotland, was attacked by cheetahs on...

A woman tourist from Britain in a South African game park was mauled by two cheetahs in a horrific attack. Violet D'Mello was petting the "tame" cats in the petting area of Kragga Kamma Game Park with other tourists when they began attacking an eight-year-old girl. The woman watched in horror as they clawed and bit her leg ... Suddenly, the cheetahs left the girl and began eyeing the little girl's seven-year-old brother who was trying to flee. Just as D'Mello tried to intervene, the two animals turned their attention to her.

BRUSSELS, Belgium — An animal lover was mauled to death by cheetahs after entering their cage at a zoo in northern Belgium, authorities and zoo officials said Monday.

Former strip club owner Michael Galardi bankrolled the plan to bribe San Diego councilmen to repeal a no-touching law at the clubs, but he was not the leader and organizer of the plan and should not be penalized as such, prosecutors said. JERRY RIFE/Union-Tribune Michael Galardi testified in the council bribery trial. In documents filed Thursday with the court, prosecutors took the unusual step of objecting to a sentencing recommendation by the neutral U.S. Probation Office by saying it is too harsh. Prosecutors are better known for objecting when they consider recommendations to be too lenient. The government disputed the...

GLEN ROSE -- This is a story of love turned obsession and of a green-eyed, bald little girl with a French accent who wished it to come true. This little girl was named Claire Smith. She lived with her mother, Sophie, her father, Craig, and her baby brother, Cole, in a house in a town called Keller. One day in April 2005, when Claire was 4 years old, the doctors told her she had a tumor named for a man, Max Wilms. It was very scary because Claire had to go through a lot of very painful treatments for six...

A Sunny Isles Beach woman's efforts to scale her way into her locked apartment Sunday morning ended in tragedy when she fell to her death from the roof an 11-story building. The accident occurred at 10:30 a.m. as the woman, believed to be in her mid-20s, returned home from a night out to her condo at the Ramada Plaza Marco Polo Beach Resort, 19201 Collins Ave. Employees said the woman appeared to have lost her keys or locked herself out of her apartment. Police did not release her name but those who recognized her said she was an exotic dancer...

Rare cheetahs spotted in Iran By Ali Akbar Dareini The Associated Press TEHRAN, Iran — Two groups of rare Asiatic cheetahs were spotted in central Iran in recent months, raising hopes that one of the world's fastest-moving creatures could be saved from extinction, a conservation official said Saturday. Iranian wildlife scientists saw four adult cheetahs in August, two months after camera traps revealed a female cheetah with her four cubs resting under the shade of a tree, said Houshang Ziaei, an official of the Environment Protection Organization of Iran. Once ranging from the Red Sea to India, the Asiatic cheetah...

WASHINGTON - Washington's National Zoo proudly showed off its new, rare litter of endangered cheetah cubs on Friday, only the second in the zoo's 116-year history. The 10-week-old cubs -- three females and two males -- bounded playfully around their 4-year-old mother, Zazi, and frolicked in grass of an outdoor enclosure as a bank of news cameras captured the public debut. The young felines weigh only 9 pounds (4 kg), about the size of a house cat, and are still being nursed by their mother although they have begun to eat some meat.

SAN DIEGO (AP) - An FBI spy told a federal jury Wednesday that former strip club owner Michael Galardi paid bribes through a former southern Nevada lawmaker and another associate to a Las Vegas judge. The judge was not named, and U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Miller in San Diego struck the testimony from the record after defense lawyers objected that Tony Montagna's testimony was not relevant to the corruption trial of former Clark County Commissioner Lance Malone and two San Diego city councilmen. Government prosecutors argued the testimony was relevant because it established that Galardi and Malone bribed public officials...

SAN DIEGO (AP) - A retired Navy commander, an insurance underwriter and a fan of conservative talk radio were appointed Friday to a jury that will decide whether two San Diego councilmen took money from a Las Vegas strip-club owner in exchange for trying to ease restrictions on touching dancers at adult bars. The jury of eight men and four women will hear opening statements Tuesday in the trial of Councilmen Ralph Inzunza and Michael Zucchet, who have pleaded not guilty to charges of fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and extortion in an alleged scheme to repeal San Diego's...

The highly anticipated corruption trial of two San Diego city councilmen is scheduled to begin Tuesday with much more at stake than the freedom and careers of young politicians. The reputation of the city and the future of its Democratic-majority council will be on the line. The trial could bring a backlash against politicians in general, revealing their behind-the-scenes behavior and giving constituents an unprecedented peek at their elected officials beyond images and slogans. "To a certain extent, the system is on trial," said Geoffrey C. Morrison, a lawyer for cooperating defendant John D'Intino. "What's going to end up happening...

<p>FBI agents leave Cheetah's in Las Vegas after the raid Wednesday.</p> <p>LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AP) -- Dozens of FBI agents conducted raids in two states as part of a public corruption probe seeking information about strip club owners and their possible involvement with elected officials.</p>

ALLIED troops and Kuwaiti zoo-keepers came to the rescue yesterday of six young lions and two cheetahs languishing in the private zoo of Saddam Hussein’s eldest son, Uday. Under the watch of a dozen armed soldiers, the animals were coaxed into cages with lumps of raw meat. They were then taken by military truck from the fenced compound in Uday’s section of his father’s Baghdad palace to a new home in the city’s main zoo. Uday, known for his love of fierce animals, fast cars and beautiful women, owned several lions, tigers and cheetahs, some of them gifts from friendly...