A team from the Museum of Rockies in Montana State and the State Museum of Pennsylvania has described two gigantic vertebrae and a femur that it collected in New Mexico from 2003 to 2006 in a research report.

The bones belong to the sauropod dinosaur Alamosaurus sanjuanensis: A long-necked plant eater related to Diplodocus which roamed what is now the southwestern region of the US and Mexico about 69 million years ago.

In their report, the palaeontologists have written how carrying the the vertebrae alone was a “killer” task taking up an entire day because they carried them 1.2 miles through 100- degree heat, a website reported.

Denver W Fowler at Montana State University, who led the team, said: “Alamosaurus has been known for some time, its remains were first described in 1922 from the Naashoibito beds of New Mexico.

“Since then, more bones have been discovered in New Mexico, Utah, some really nice material from Texas, and Mexico, including a few partial skeletons.”

He said the sheer size of the new bones had caught the researchers by surprise, who had believed that a fully grown Alamosaurus measured around 60 feet long and weighed about 30 tons.

The enormity of the new bones puts Alamosaurus in the same size league as other giant sauropods from South America, including Argentinosaurus which weighed about 70 tons, and is widely considered to be the biggest dinosaur of all.

Dr Fowler said: “Over the past 20 years, Argentinean and Brazilian paleontologists have been unearthing bigger and bigger dinosaurs, putting the rest of the world in the shade.

“However, our new finds not only show that Alamosaurus is newly recognised as the biggest dinosaur from North America, but also that it was right up there with the biggest South American species…”

He added: “We found a shed Tyrannosaurus tooth with another Alamosaurus neck bone that we were excavating. The Tyrannosaurus may have lost its tooth while feeding on an Alamosaurus carcass.” Zeenews

A day before the voting ended yesterday night, the Philippine government mounted a “last ditch” effort through the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) by ordering all local government officials from governors down to barangay captains to urge Filipinos around the country to cast their vote for the underground river.

Agencies under the DILG, including the Philippine National Police, Bureau of Fire, Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, were also ordered to urge their members and linked groups to vote for the underground river.

The other six New 7 Wonders of Nature, based on provisional results, were South America’s Amazon River, Vietnman’s Halong Bay, Argentina’s Iguazu Fallas, South Korea’s Jeju Island, Indonesia’s Komodo Island and South Africa’s Table Mountain.

The New7Wondres Foundation, meanwhile, clarified that “it is possible that there will be changes between the above provisional winners and the eventual finally confirmed winners.”

It said that the list released early today was “in alphabetical order” and not in any position of ranking.

The foundation said that the voting calculation is now being checked, validated and independently verified. The official New 7 Wonders of Nature will be announced early 2012, it added.

“The results will now be checked, validated and independently verified. Once the voting validation process is completed, in early 2012, New7Wonders will then work with the confirmed winners to organise the Official Inauguration events,” Bernard Weber, the foundation’s founder and president, said as he announced the provisional winners.

Weber announced that “one or more” may be erased from the list of the provisional winners.

“It may happen that one or more of the provisional winners announced today will not be confirmed during the validation process, New7Wonders will issue a media update should this happen,” he said.

Weber also commended the other participants and the people who joined the voting for the search for the new seven wonders of the world.

“I would like to thank the many champions, citizens, voluntary organisations, public bodies and governments that have helped promote the New7Wonders of Nature campaign over the past four years, starting with over 440 locations from over 220 countries and all the way to the 28 Finalist candidates from whom the New7Wonders of Nature have been chosen,” he said.

The foundation said that more than a million cast their vote since the start of the search. From 440 contenders, the list was trimmed to 220 and then to a shortlist of 77.

From 77, the number of contenders was trimmed further down to 28 and finally the seven provisional winners.

The votes were cast through text, internet and by telephone. By  Angelo L. Gutierrez, The Pinoy

It was his little Pomeranian puppy that drew his attention to these dainty beings. “The puppy always went after them and played with them when I took it out for a morning walk,” Mr. Siddhartha told The Hindu. As a nature lover he soon became interested in them and started photographing them.

Today the former District Forest Officer has a huge collection of pictures of over a dozen species of butterflies he has clicked in Vijayawada city and surrounding areas. Some of his best pictures have been taken in and around Andhra Loyola College campus, Nimmakuru and his own village Angaluru.

These insects are very sensitive to hot and dry weather. They are so delicate that their wings get damaged even if we hold them for a brief moment. Preferring well shaded places they can be spotted more frequently on canal and irrigation or drinking water tank bunds, he observes. “Butterflies can, of course, be found where the flowers are. They feed on the nectar and pollen of flowers. They are particularly fond of the flowers of plants that belong to the cruciferae family,” he said revealing his knowledge in botany. They can be spotted after the climate cools down with the onset of the monsoon and disappear once the rains intensify, he said. Delicate as they may appear, they work hard to find the food they require.

The adult butterflies cruise at a speed of 11 miles and hour usually 15 feet above the ground covering 80 to 90 miles a day to feed on nectar and pollen. Mr Siddhartha has established contact with the Butterfly Conservation Society, Hyderabad, and has conducted field trips for members. He along with other friends who are fond of butterflies, want to start a butterfly conservation club in Vijayawada. Those interested can contact him at 9441030900. By G. Venkataramana Rao, The Hindu

Michael Zasloff has published a letter in the July 21 issue of the Journal of Investigative Dermatology, in which he recounts several documented incidents of serious injuries to dolphins, presumably inflicted by sharks. These bites, some larger than a basketball, healed in weeks without leaving the dolphins disfigured, without causing them apparent pain, and without becoming visibly infected.

“If I saw this in a human being, I wouldn’t believe it,” Zasloff said. “It should awe us. You have an animal that has evolved in the ocean without hands or legs, which swims faster than we can, has intelligence that perhaps equals our social and emotional complexity, and its healing is almost alien compared to what we are capable of.” [See images of healing dolphins]

Zasloff has always been interested in harvesting nature’s bounty of self-made drugs. He discovered the natural antibiotics that frogs use in their skins and a possible cancer treatment in the dogfish shark.

Miraculous dolphins

Several remarkable abilities work together for the seemingly miraculous healing in dolphins. First, even with a large gaping wound in their side, dolphins don’t bleed to death. Zasloff said they may use their diving mechanism, which cuts off the blood flow to unimportant parts of their bodies, to reduce the flow of blood to the injury while it clots. [The Ocean's Deepest Divers (Infographic)]

Second, during the healing process the dolphins’ wounds don’t show signs of infection. Researchers have discovered that their skin and blubber contain compounds with antibacterial properties, which may help stop infections in the open wounds.

The dolphins also don’t show typical reactions to pain while they are recovering from these injuries. Usually, a deep open wound would alter an animal’s behavior and eating habits for a few weeks. In his discussions with dolphin handlers, Zasloff discovered that the dolphins eat and behave normally even when they are seriously injured.

The healing ability itself is pretty miraculous, Zarloff said. In a matter of weeks the dolphins can completely replace the missing tissue — even gouges the size of two footballs — without a dent in their body shape. They may get this regenerative ability from special stem cells, like some amphibians that re-sprout limbs.

Potential for human treatment?

Understanding the dolphin’s blubber-regenerating abilities could be useful to humans. The techniques these seagoing mammals use to rebuild their tissue could rely on some special type of stem cells or proteins, and it may be something humans could appropriate.

“This is an animal of extreme similarity structurally to us,” Zasloff said. “This could be the source of information, the place to find some [answers to the] great mysteries that we as physicians are trying to solve.”

The other proteins the dolphins are known to produce during healing, like a pain-relieving or anti-bacterial compound, could also work on humans. Because the dolphins create their own pain-relieving compound, there’s a chance it wouldn’t be addictive to humans as are many pain relievers on the market today. By Jennifer Welsh, Yahoo Daily News

The US department of the interior has upheld a decision to classify the bear as “threatened” – a status that gives them less protection under the law.

The government said it did not find that polar bears were on the brink of extinction, needed to qualify for the status of “endangered”.

Environmental campaigners have said they will challenge the decision.

‘Anti-science decision’

Under the Endangered Species Act, the status of “endangered” requires the government to assess the impact of greenhouse gases on the bears’ Arctic homelands.

When the government is considering permits for oil development in northern Alaska, it must include greenhouse gas emissions in its decision.

When the polar bear was listed as “threatened” by the administration of former US President George W Bush, officials invoked a special rule saying the Endangered Species Act could not be used to regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

So an “endangered” listing is a more powerful tool for limiting industrial activity that causes greenhouse gases.

The Centre for Biological Diversity – one of the groups trying to get the polar bear listed as “endangered” – said the ruling showed that the administration of US President Barack Obama was continuing to defend Bush-era “anti-science decisions”.

It says polar bears face an 80% chance of extinction within 40 years and it will continue to challenge the US government in court. By Rajesh Mirchandani BBC News

The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture convened the first-ever statewide meeting of shelters Tuesday to address this issue.

About 50 representatives of shelters from Erie to Philadelphia, along with humane officers, municipal officials, rescue groups, and state dog wardens, outlined an array of animal-control problems facing communities.

“We are at a tipping point,” said Jessie Smith, special deputy secretary of the Bureau of Dog Law Enforcement. “The law says we must pick them up, but there isn’t anyone on the other side whose duty it is to shelter the dogs.”

Shelter operators said they were having trouble persuading municipalities to pay what they considered their fair share to cover the costs of transporting and caring for stray animals.

State dog wardens, whose duties include stray-dog pickup, said they were being turned away from area shelters and have had to transport dogs as far as 100 miles to find a shelter to take them to.

The issue was brought to light in the southeastern part of the state last summer when the Delaware County SPCA announced that, beginning in July 2011, it would no longer take in stray dogs.

“We’re in a crisis in Delaware County,” Springfield Township Police Chief Joe Daly told the group. “There are 7,500 animals a year that go there, and there’s no other shelter in the county. I will have no place to put them.”

The Delaware County SPCA, which did not have a representative at the meeting, said it would no longer accept strays because it wanted to become a “no-kill” shelter.

Other shelters are limiting admissions for space.

Dog warden supervisor Harold Walstrom said the number of stray dogs in his Central Pennsylvania region, which had been on the decline, increased again as shelters stopped taking in all animals.

The Philadelphia-based Pennsylvania SPCA, which won the contract to handle the city’s animal control in 2008, says the $1 million from the city is not covering the costs of caring for the majority of the 32,000 animals it takes in each year.

Executive director Sue Cosby says her group is reevaluating its options for next year.

Driving the problem here, Cosby said, is that Pennsylvania, unlike New Jersey and other states, has no state law mandating that counties provide for animal control as a government service.

Animal shelters that take strays rely on private donations, municipal support, minimal state contributions ($30 per dog), and grants.

Delaware County SPCA gets $119 per animal from municipalities, up from $20 in 2009. But the hike has caused at least three municipalities – Aston, Lower Chichester, and Chadds Ford – to opt out.

Some shelters, such as the Humane League of Lancaster County, are refusing services to municipalities that don’t pay.

“We raised the fees to match the cost,” said the league’s executive director, Joan Brown. “We lost $250,000 last year taking in strays and not being compensated.”

Tom Hickey Sr., a member of the state Dog Law Advisory Board, is meeting with municipal officials and county commissioners to figure out a solution to the Delaware County problem.

One idea: building a state-of-the-art regional facility to provide animal control, adoptions, and behavior training.

“Without a place to go, we’re going to have sick and wounded dogs wandering the streets, and more animal abuse. That’s not acceptable,” Hickey said. “It’s not just dog owners’ responsibility; it’s everyone in the county’s responsibility.” By Amy Worden, Philadelphia Daily News

At New Gokul, already dubbed the “Hilton of farms”, cows are worshipped by the Hare Krishna devotees who lovingly chant Sanskrit mantras and play relaxing music to them as they are milked or fed their favourite cabbage, carrots and jagari – raw sugar cane.

When Dominic Grieve QC MP cuts the ribbon and unveils the plaque at the £2.5m centre, he will do so under the docile gaze of 44 cows and bulls, adorned in flowers and brushed with coloured paint powders by devotees.

Among those attending – along with the Hare Krishna spiritual leader His Holiness Bhakti Caru Swami, a variety of MPs, mayors and inter-faith representatives – will be Aditi and her calf Gangotri.

Aditi, a two-year-old brown and white Meuse Rhine Issel, rose to prominence as a bovine peace offering after a very public and acrimonious dispute between Bhaktivedanta Manor, the UK headquarters of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, and the RSPCA three years ago. Devotees from the Hertfordshire temple were outraged after the society insisted on humanely putting down a 13-year-old Belgian blue-jersey cross named Gangotri when it became injured during mating, despite their assertions that it was sacrilegious to kill a cow.

A year later, the RSPCA conceded it had offended religious sensibilities and donated Aditi as a peace offering. When its calf was born a month later, it was named after its late predecessor.

“Aditi and Gangotri are both well,” explained communications secretary Radha Mohan Das. “They will be special VIP cows at the event – but then, all our cows are stars.”

The project claims to be the blueprint for future sustainable farming. Its bovine occupants – who graze on land donated by the former Beatle George Harrison to the Hare Krishna movement – live in luxurious, hay-filled pens where monks play music and sing chants each morning as the cows are milked. Milk is only taken from the cows by hand, and after their calves have had their fill. Every animal can expect to live to an old age without fear of the abattoir.

“One very devoted lady came and started playing her harp to them the other day,” said Mr Das. “They really are the stars of our community; such sweet animals. We see our cows in the way a young child might see their pet dog. They are treated like the VIPs of the cow world and they can be quite bossy sometimes.”

Tractors are banned, so bulls plough the fields that provide vegetables for both human and bovine occupants as well as working the mill to grind grain for flour.

Asked why the Attorney General had been invited to attend the opening, Mr Das said: “We have a long-standing relationship. He has a particular interest in cows and rural aspects of the community. We did try and get the most senior person possible, but the Prime Minister was a little bit too high.”

Surrounded by 30 saffron-clad priests chanting 5,000-year-old Vedic mantras as well as thousands of devotees celebrating the Hindu feast of Diwali, Mr Grieve will watch the welcoming ceremony involving the lighting of a Yajna sacred firepit surrounded by four traditional altars. The rites will be completed with the first ceremonial entrance of the cows and bulls into their new home with prayers for peace and safety.

Guests will be treated to traditional dances, ox-power demonstrations – and some of what the farm acknowledges is the most expensive milk in Britain. Mr Das said the farm hopes to start selling it at £3 litre, explaining that the price might be high, but people will be willing to pay more for a “compassionate alternative”.

“If you drink milk from the supermarket, you may be drinking milk from a cow that is not alive any more,” Mr Das said. “We will take pleasure when people make the ethical choice to drink the milk from cows treated with love and care throughout their lives – it will be worth the cost.” By Terri Judd, The Independent

That leaves Energy Northwest and three PUDs in Clallam, Pacific and Mason counties to decide what to do with plans to build 32 wind turbines without the project’s largest investor.

The wind farm would be the largest in Western Washington and generate 60 to 80 megawatts of power. Conservationists are concerned about the effect of wind turbines on the marbled murrelet, a seabird listed as threatened on the federal endangered-species list.

Grays Harbor PUD commissioners questioned whether the project could get timely approval from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to meet lease and financing deadlines.

The commissioners on Monday opted not to commit $1.14 million to pay for more extensive environmental review, The Daily World in Aberdeen said.

To take advantage of $122 million in zero-interest financing from the Recovery Act, the utility said permitting must be done by 2011.

“It has great wind, but it comes with a lot of baggage,” PUD General Manager Rick Lovely told commissioners, who were also concerned about possible lawsuits.

Jack Baker, an Energy Northwest vice president, said he “respect(s) the rights of any organization to make such a cost-risk analysis.”

Baker said Energy Northwest will ask the three other utilities if they can cover the $2 million environmental review.

He added that the project did studies that found no serious threat to the marbled murrelet, but decided to complete a fuller study. Seattle Times

But when the so-called organ-grinder monkeys reach sexual maturity around 5 years old, they can turn dangerous and destructive.

Wildlife officials adamantly oppose capuchins as pets. Helping Hands, a Boston-based service monkey training academy, believes they’re better equipped than any other animal to help the physically disabled with certain chores-but doesn’t endorse them as pets.

The 9- to 12-pound monkeys can turn the pages of a book, pick up dropped items, push buttons on remote controls, load DVDs and open water bottles. That, said wildlife experts, isn’t good enough.

“Can you imagine going into the jungle, grabbing a monkey out of a tree and taking him home? He’d rip your face off-as he should, as he should,” said Lynn Cuny, founder and chief executive of a sanctuary, Wildlife Rescue & Rehabilitation Inc. in Kendalia, Texas.

She has about 25 capuchins in two enclosures. Beth Preiss, a captive wildlife regulatory specialist with the Humane Society of the United States in Gaithersburg, Md., also isn’t a fan of capuchins as pocket pets.

“Keeping monkeys as pets threatens public health and safety as well as animal welfare. They can attack, they can spread disease and the average pet owner cannot meet their needs in captivity,” she said.

The same concerns can arise using wild animals as service animals, she said. The American Veterinary Medical Association and the ASPCA oppose primates as assistance or service animals.

Twenty-one (Illinois is considering the issue this week) states ban pet primates. About 15 states allow primates as pets and the rest require permits. Congress is considering the Captive Primate Safety Act, which would prohibit interstate commerce in pet primates. The bill is pending in the Senate.

Helping Hands said it socializes and trains its monkeys to federal standards. Since 1979, the organization has placed 145 capuchins with disabled people. It costs about $40,000 to breed, raise, train and place each monkey. The animal and lifetime care is free of charge to recipients.

“Unfortunately in the U.S., many monkeys purchased as pets do not get the care and attention they deserve throughout their 30- to 40-year lifespan,” said Megan Talbert, executive director of Helping Hands, explaining why the organization won’t embrace the idea of capuchins as pets.

The Internet has made it easy for anyone to get a pet monkey, Preiss said. And Hollywood hasn’t helped.

In 2006, the number of capuchins at the Primarily Primates sanctuary in San Antonio, Texas, soared and the population grew to 130, said executive director Stephen Rene Tello. He blamed television’s “Friends” and the story line featuring a capuchin called Marcel.

It’s about time to see the castoffs from people who got capuchins because of “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Night at the Museum,” he said, calling the phenom Hollywood’s “pet of the month.”

Most people won’t unload a capuchin until it has grown out of its baby and juvenile stages, Cuny said.

“If you’ve ever seen a baby monkey, your little heart just melts in place. They are beyond adorably precious. The problem is people only see that. Babies are adorable, whether they are baby wombats, elephants, monkeys or a child,” Cuny said.

She said anyone considering a wild animal for a pet should do some research. “And if they love animals, they will not contribute to the cruelty that gets those animals into the trade to begin with.”

There are probably fewer than 100,000 pet capuchin monkeys in the United States, estimated Dr. Stephen Zawistowski, executive vice president & science adviser for the ASPCA in New York.

“They are destructive. They can tear a house apart. We are talking rip the curtains down, knock everything off every shelf you have. Think about a critter-who is more agile and able to reach places than a cat-having a tantrum. You can’t house train them. They evolve to live in trees,” Zowatowski said.

Many pet monkey owners will have the animal’s teeth removed so they don’t bite off their fingers, he said.

Joseph “Babe” Hamric of Chesapeake, Va., was attacked twice in two weeks in March by his pet capuchin named Noah, police said. The Vietnam vet, who got the monkey to help him cope with post traumatic stress disorder, told reporters the first attack occurred because he stepped on the monkey’s tail. The second attack was unprovoked, he said.

Noah was not from Helping Hands, which gives its animals to people who are physically disabled as a result of spinal cord injury or disease. “Our service monkeys are not trained to provide emotional support for people with PTSD or other anxiety disorders,” Talbert said.

Tammy Zaluzney of Washington, D.C., spent 14 years on staff at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and cautions against any wild animals as pets.

Hollywood may whet people’s appetites, but too often capuchin owners just want an animal that is different from the neighbors, she said, warning their 15 minutes of tame won’t last.

“Other people are replacing a child or have a monkey as a surrogate child,” she said, “and here’s a furry little human in Pampers and overalls.” By Sue Manning, Syracuse

About 8 to 15 dolphins were first reported in the chilly Hackensack River on Wednesday. They’ve been swimming near the towns of Hackensack, Teaneck and Bogota (ba-GOH’-tah).

Bill Sheehan of the Hackensack Riverkeeper group fears there’s not enough food in the river in the winter to sustain the dolphins.

The Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine has been contacted. The center says it can’t act until the dolphins are in distress.

Dolphins have wandered into New Jersey rivers in the past, including a pod that caused a stir in the Shrewsbury River in the summer of 2008, and stayed in the area for over 7 months. Several of them were believed to have died as temperatures dropped. The News & Observer