A Peruvian desert has turned out to be the final resting place of an ancient sperm whale with teeth much bigger than those of the largest of today's sperm whales. The fossil, dated at 12–13 million years old, belongs to a new, but extinct, genus and species described in Nature today1. Named Leviathan melvillei, it probably hunted baleen whales. A team of researchers recovered 75% of the animal's skull, complete with large fragments of both jaws and several teeth. On the basis of its skull length of 3 metres, they estimate that Leviathan was probably 13.5–17.5 metres long, within the range of extant adult male sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus). Its largest teeth, however, are more than 36 centimetres long — nearly 10 centimetres longer than the largest recorded Physeter tooth.
Modern sperm whales lack functional teeth in their upper jaw and feed by suction, diving deep to hunt squid. Conversely, Leviathan had massive teeth in both its upper and lower jaws, and a skull that supported large jaw muscles. It may have hunted like raptorial killer whales, which use their teeth to tear off flesh. Co-author Klaas Post of the Natural History Museum Rotterdam in the Netherlands stumbled across the fossil in November 2008 during the final day of a field trip to Cerro Colorado in the Pisco-Ica Desert on the southern coast of Peru — an area that is now above sea level owing to Andean tectonic activities. The fossils were prepared in Lima, where they will remain.


The name given to the creature combines the Hebrew word 'Livyatan', which refers to large mythological sea monsters, with the name of American novelist Herman Melville, who penned Moby-Dick — "one of my favourite sea books", says lead author Olivier Lambert of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris.
The authors think that Leviathan, like the extinct giant shark, preyed on medium-sized baleen whales, which were between 7 and 10 metres long, smaller than today's humpback whales and widely diverse at the time. The authors speculate that Leviathan became extinct as a result of changing environmental conditions. "Top predators are very sensitive to the changes in their prey," Lambert says. Changes in number, diversity or size of baleen whales, as well as the climate cooling that occurred at around Leviathan 's time, would have had dire impacts. The creature's surviving cousins — Physeter, pygmy and dwarf sperm whales — are specialized deep-diving squid hunters that occupy a different ecological niche from Leviathan. According to vertebrate palaeontologist Lawrence Barnes at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, this discovery demonstrates that sperm whale-like cetaceans were much more diverse in the past and that the modern sperm whale and pygmy sperm whales are the "only surviving vestiges of a larger evolutionary radiation of related whales in the past".

All sperm whales have characteristically large foreheads to hold their 'spermaceti organ', a series of oil and wax reservoirs buttressed with massive partitions of connective tissue. Scientists have long thought that this organ helps sperm whales to dive deeply to feed. The curved 'basin' atop Leviathan 's snout suggests that it also had a large spermaceti organ, even though it probably did not dive to feed. The authors speculate that, if Leviathan hunted baleen whales near the surface, the large spermaceti organ existed long before modern sperm whales became specialized for foraging squid at depth.
The organ could have served other functions, such as echolocation, acoustic displays or aggressive head-butting. "Spermaceti organs could be used as battering rams to injure opponents during contests over females," says evolutionary morphologist David Carrier of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. According to Carrier, at least two nineteenth-century whaling ships were sunk when large males punched holes in their sides with their foreheads, Carrier adds, and Leviathan may have used forehead ramming to dispatch its prey.

A caged, 2-inch turtle traveling with a 10-year-old girl caused a crew to turn around a taxiing plane, take the girl and her sisters off the flight and tell them they couldn't bring their pet along.

These are the consequences of the use of an alternative to napalm by Russsian army back then. It was done as a test inside of the brick houses. The temperature was so high that it made bricks to melt and form such icicles.
This abandoned Russian fortress is one of the creepiest places we’ve seen. The reason it looks this way is that the Russian army used the abandoned fortress to test the influence of Russian alternative to napalm inside of the brick houses. Due to very high temperature of napalm the bricks started melting just like ice melts in the spring forming the icicles, however these icicles are made of red brick.

Researchers at the space agency believe they have discovered vital clues that appeared to indicate that primitive aliens could be living on the planet. Data from Nasa's Cassini probe has analysed the complex chemistry on the surface of Titan, which experts say is the only moon around the planet to have a dense atmosphere.

They have discovered that life forms have been breathing in the planet’s atmosphere and also feeding on its surface’s fuel. Astronomers claim the moon is generally too cold to support even liquid water on its surface. The research has been detailed in two separate studies. The first paper, in the journal Icarus, shows that hydrogen gas flowing throughout the planet’s atmosphere disappeared at the surface. This suggested that alien forms could in fact breathe. The second paper, in the Journal of Geophysical Research, concluded that there was lack of the chemical on the surface. Scientists were then led to believe it had been possibly consumed by life. Researchers had expected sunlight interacting with chemicals in the atmosphere to produce acetylene gas. But the Cassini probe did not detect any such gas. Chris McKay, an astrobiologist at Nasa Ames Research Centre, at Moffett Field, California who led the research, said: “We suggested hydrogen consumption because it's the obvious gas for life to consume on Titan, similar to the way we consume oxygen on Earth. "If these signs do turn out to be a sign of life, it would be doubly exciting because it would represent a second form of life independent from water-based life on Earth.” Professor John Zarnecki, of the Open University, added: “We believe the chemistry is there for life to form. It just needs heat and warmth to kick-start the process. “In four billion years’ time, when the Sun swells into a red giant, it could be paradise on Titan.” They warned, however, that there could be other explanations for the findings. But taken together, they two indicate two important conditions necessary for methane-based life to exist.

Christopher Go, another amateur astronomer from the Philippines, then independently photographed and videoed Friday’s incident. Experts said the amazing impact was either a comet or an asteroid. Video of the incident has been uploaded to YouTube. "When I saw the flash, I couldn't believe it," said Mr Wesley, who is well respected in the astronomy field. "The fireball lasted about 2 seconds and was very bright. "There were no visible remains at the impact point for the next half hour or so, until sunrise put an end to the imaging." Mr Go added: “I still can't believe that I caught a live impact on Jupiter," Their discovery came after Nasa scientists disclosed that they had had solved the mystery behind a strange “bruise” on Jupiter. Using an infrared telescope on Hawaii, Nasa scientists found evidence that Jupiter was apparently struck near its south pole, and credited Wesley. Mr Wesley, from Broken Hill, in central Australia, first spotted the scar the size of the Pacific Ocean that was left near Jupiter's south pole last year. Using an infrared telescope on Hawaii, NASA scientists found evidence that Jupiter was struck, crediting Mr Wesley. Follow-up observations made with the Hubble space telescope suggested it was made by an asteroid with a force equivalent to a few thousand nuclear bombs. Hubble is certain to be switched from other duties again to photograph Jupiter and give professional astronomers as much information as possible about the new collision. The latest hit near the equator has not left any visible mark so far, but astronomers are on the lookout. The absence of a detectable “gash”, and the short impact time, has led scientists to believe Jupiter was likely struck by a meteor. "We've never seen a meteor slam into Jupiter," said Glenn Orton of Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. With these impacts now apparently less rare than once imagined, astronomers will also be re-examining observations of light and dark spots on Jupiter in historical records. In 1686, Italian astronomer Giovanni Cassini noted a dark spot on Jupiter that was about the same size as the largest bruise seen after Comet Shoemaker-Levy hit the planet in 1994. A British Astronomer Royal, George Airy, saw another dark spot that recorded as being nearly four times bigger than shadows cast by Jupiter's main Galilean moons.

The town of Palmerston, Australia is now the unwilling host of a parrot frat party. Hundreds of lorikeets appear to be drunk: The disoriented birds are passing out cold and falling from tree branches.

Though seemingly inebriated parrots have been spotted before in Palmerston, never has the town seen this many at once. The situation concerns veterinarians, since the birds are injuring themselves, and, untreated, could die.

About eight lorikeets arrive each day to the Ark Animal Hospital, which cares for about thirty at a time. “They definitely seem like they’re drunk,” Lisa Hansen, a veterinary surgeon at the hospital told the the AFP. “They fall out of trees… and they’re not so coordinated as they would normally be. They go to jump and they miss the next perch.” Hansen and colleagues nurses them to health by feeding them a “hangover” broth that includes sweet fruit.

Literally drunk parrots have appeared in other parts of the world, for example in Austria in 2006, when birds ate rotting, fermenting berries. This time the inebriated birds remain a mystery: Some locals speculate that the birds are feasting on something something alcoholic, but others fear they have caught an unknown illness.

This Wednesday, May 26, 2010 image made from video provided by ALPHA TV shows a frog hopping across a section of key northern highway near the Greek town of Langadas, some 12 miles east of Thessaloniki. Authorities closed the highway after three car drivers skidded off the road trying to dodge the frogs. Thessaloniki traffic police chief Giorgos Thanoglou said the amphibians probably left a nearby lake to look for food.
"There was a carpet of frogs," he said. Authorities closed the highway after three car drivers skidded off the road trying to dodge the frogs. No human injuries were reported.