On March 26, we reported that the U.S. has imported specially trained dolphin recruits to Iraq to locate underwater mines. They now have their first dolphin defector, since one of them has gone AWOL. Takoma disappeared during his first military assignment.

Takoma and his partner Makai were videoed as they somersaulted over an inflatable dingy carrying their handlers. Their mission was to sweep the way clear for the arrival of the British ship Sir Galahad. Takoma never returned. His handler, Taylor Whitaker, says, “Why would they go missing when they have the best food and daily spruce-ups and health checks?”
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The people who clean up public floors and surfaces worldwide are getting fed up with trying to scrape up chewing gum. Pressure is mounting on gum makers to invent non-sticky gum. In China, discarded gum is a menace in Tiananmen Square. Chinese authorities are trying to develop a chemical strong enough to dissolve the gum. In Singapore, the chewing gum ban of 1991 is still in place, except for those who need to chew for medical reasons. In the U.K., local governments want to tax chewing gum to pay for the cost of removing it. Cigarettes are already taxed in many countries, in order to pay for the health problems they cause. One official says, “It’s a serious filth that threatens the environment.read more

President George Bush today revealed that he has had a secret life for many years as an expert brain scientist. “Yes, I’ve published over a hundred papers in the area of brain science,” the President said on his way to Camp David this morning.

Some of the president?s most well-received efforts are “Anterior Cingulate Cortex Dysfunction in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder Revealed by MRI and the Counting Stroop,” published in Biological Psychiatry, vol. 45, no. 12, June 15, 1999, pp. 1542-52, and “Short-latency Compensatory Eye Movements Associated with a Brief Period of Free Fall,” authored along with F. Miles in Experimental Brain Research, vol. 108, no. 2, March 1996, pp. 337-40.
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Authorities are threatening to close one of Great Britain’s most famous zoos after it was revealed that it is breeding genetically altered Kodiak Bears in order to sell their paws into the Chinese aphrodisiac market.

Bear paw soup is prized even above the skin of the White Rhino as an enhancement to male potency in China. Among cognoscenti, the eating of the actual paw itself is preferred to any drinking of soup. “The soup is for the sissy,” one user said, “it’s the paw that counts.”

Bear paw restaurants across China sell the paws in a “sandwich” between two rice dough pancakes, flavored with Hosin Sauce.
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