When western scrub jays encounter a dead bird, they call out to one another and stop foraging.
The jays then often fly down to the dead body and gather around it, scientists have discovered.
The behaviour may have evolved to warn other birds of nearby danger, report researchers in California, who have published the findings in the journal Animal Behaviour.
They conducted experiments, placing a series of objects into residential back yards and observing how western scrub jays in the area reacted.
The objects included different coloured pieces of wood, dead jays, as well as mounted, stuffed jays and great horned owls, simulating the presence of live jays and predators.
Alarming reaction
The jays reacted indifferently to the wooden objects.
But when they spied a dead bird, they started making alarm calls, warning others long distances away.
The jays then gathered around the dead body, forming large cacophonous aggregations. The calls they made, known as “zeeps”, “scolds” and “zeep-scolds”, encouraged new jays to attend to the dead.
A former council member of al-Qaida says he opposed the 9/11 plot because it involved killing civilians, and the Taliban already had warned that such a horrific action would produce “consequences” that would be intolerable.
The comments come from Abu Hafs al-Mauritani, who identified himself as a former al-Qaida Shura council member in an interview just days ago on the Al-Jazeera TV network.
According to the MEMRI report, al-Mauritani, who also is known as Mahfouz Ould al-Walid, told the interviewer that during the al-Qaida preparations for the 9/11 attacks, the details were not revealed.
“Nobody said anything about hijacking airplanes, about destroying towers, or about attacking the Pentagon with hijacked planes. It was not presented this way, but just as a violent operation that would be carried out against the USA, leading to thousands of casualties,” he said.
He recalled discussing the strategy with others.
“All those present predicted that the U.S. response to such an operation would not be restricted to a missile attack from afar, as was the case following the Nairobi and Dar es Salaam attacks. They thought the natural response would be an invasion into Afghanistan and the toppling of the Islamic Emirate in Afghanistan.”
He continued: “I was the staunchest opponent to such an operation. My opposition was based on religious legal grounds: Jihad is not about pointless killing and destruction.”
He said in the interview: “Jihad is the pinnacle of Islam, one of the finest acts possible, but it does not mean that you can kill and destroy regardless of the consequences. While Islam considers it to be a form of worship, it takes into consideration the consequences of these actions. Anybody who considers the consequences of 9/11 back then realizes that it did more harm than good.”
He said his concern was that civilians would be killed, “and our religion forbids us to kill civilians.”
“In Islam, a civilian is anybody who is not involved in fighting. This includes women, children, the elderly, and ordinary people.”
Al Qaeda Iran Deal?
ISLAMABAD – On March 30, Heshmatollah Attarzadeh, the commercial attache at the Iranian consulate in Peshawar, capital of Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province, was “recovered from outside Iran and returned to Iran” after being abducted by militants on November 13, 2008.
In a terse statement, the Iranian Intelligence Ministry announced that Attarzadeh had been freed after a “complicated intelligence operation” by Iranian intelligence forces, without giving further details, apart from a dig at Pakistan: “Following the failure of the Pakistani government to secure the release of Attarzadeh, my ministry took the initiative and managed to rescue the diplomat,” Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi said.
ranian state-owned Press TV, he said Israel’s Mossad and the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States, under orders from the US, were behind his abduction.
Iran’s First Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi, after a meeting with Attarzadeh, did not comment on these claims, instead taking time for a little back-patting. “The freedom of the diplomat shows the all-out might of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its all-around dominance in the realm of intelligence,” Rahimi was quoted by the semi-official Fars News Agency as saying.
Investigations by Asia Times Online show that while the Iranians did indeed secure Attarzadeh’s release, it came at a price: a deal with al-Qaeda that resulted in the release of high-profile prisoners from Iranian custody. And in the negotiating process, Iran supplied weapons to a top Taliban commander allied with al-Qaeda.
Three separate DNA tests of the hair reported it “came from a human-like creature which is not a Homosapien yet is more closely related to man than a monkey”.
Yeti hunters claim Yeti DNA is less than one per cent different to that of a human. But no-one has confirmed that “fact” to date, because no Yeti has ever been found or tested for DNA.
Until now. The DNA tests were carried out at universities in Moscow, St Petersburg at Idaho in the US. It is understood a fourth DNA test is also being carried out in the UK.
What do you think? Is it real? Or just a huge hoax? Tell us below.
“We had ten samples of hair to study, and have concluded that they belong to mammal, but not a human, and not the animals known to the area where they were found, like a bear, or wolf, or goat, or any other animal,” Professor Valentin Sapunov of the Russian State Hydrometeorological Institute said.
“It was a branch of our university in St Petersburg that carried out a DNA test, and the Zoological Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences. The tests were performed by laboratory of electronic microscopy and laboratory of molecular genealogical classification.”
Advance booking.— Subject to the provisions of the clauses specified hereunder advance booking
and reservations of accommodation in an Express service or ordinary service whose distance of the route
exceeds 120 kilometres shall be permitted on application made orally or in writing by or on behalf of the
bonafide passengers, and where reservation is made no person or persons other than the person or persons for
whom the accommodation is so reserved shall occupy such accommodation except with the permission of the
conductor on duty in the Express service or ordinary service whose distance of the route exceeds 120
kilometres:
(i) Advance booking shall mean sale of passenger tickets not less than 2 hours in advance of the
schedule time of departure of the stage-carriages.
Advance booking shall be permitted not more than ten days in advance of the date of the intended
journey.
Advance booking shall be stopped when the number of tickets for which passengers seats are provided
in the stage carriage is sold out.
Advance booking shall be according to priority of application and for this purpose an advance booking
register in the prescribed form R.R.S.S. shall be maintained or caused to be maintained by the holder of the
permit of the Express service or ordinary service whose distance of the route exceeds 120 kilometres.
However where the advance booking is done by computerised reservation system, it would be enough if
necessary reservation application forms are preserved along with a journey bill showing the date, time and
service together with the boarding and destination points for each reserved passenger and the seat allotted. Reserved seats shall be permitted to be occupied only on production of the ticket or tickets booked in
advance for the intended journey.
For the purpose of identifying the seats reserved rows of the seats shall be assigned with distinguishing
letters in capital in the alphabetical order, and individual seats shall be assigned with distinguishing numbers
in the serial order, and the letters and the numbers so assigned shall be displayed conspicuously on the rows
of the seats, and the individual seats, respectively.
A plan showing the arrangement of seats shall be made available for the applicants to enable them to
have their choice of seats from those seats which have not been reserved already for other passengers….
…
Restriction of persons and goods near drivers seat.— No person may sit nor may any goods be placed
on the right of the driver of a transport vehicle fitted with right hand steering control and on the left of the
driver of a transport vehicle fitted with left hand steering control.
Stopping places.— The Transport Authority, may, if no stopping places have been fixed for a stage
carriage in accordance with the provisions of any statute, fix such places for such carriages after consultation
with such other authority as it may deem desirable. Such stopping places shall be indicated by means of notice
boards. The driver of a stage carriage shall stop it at such stopping places when so required by any person
wishing to alight or to enter but he need not stop the stage carriage for a person wishing to enter it if it is
already full. Halts for the purposes of setting down or taking up passengers shall be limited to the time
reasonably necessary for such purpose, on routes along which stopping places have been fixed, no driver of a
stage carriage shall stop it at any place other than such stopping place except—
(i) when failure to stop the vehicle would constitute an offence punishable under these rules or under any
law for the time being in force; or
(ii) in the case of a mechanical breakdown.
245. Provision of public stands for public service vehicles.— (a) The local authority shall apply
to the Regional Transport Authority for approval of any ‘scheme for construction of a public stand for
any class of public service vehicles. The application shall be accompanied by a sketch of the proposed
site and the blue print of the structures proposed to be erected with the approval of the Director of Town
and Country Planning, Madras and a fee as specified in the Table under rule 279 and shall contain the
following particulars, namely:—
The advantage of having a public stand;
The class of vehicles for which the stand is proposed;
The extent of the site proposed and the nature of roads in the locality;
The number of vehicles likely to use the stand;
The maximum number of vehicles that can be stationed at any one time;
“There’s a reason it’s the global top selling science fiction book of all time.” – NibblyPig
If you have a chance, track down the excellent full cast audiobook (unabridged!) released in 2007. It’s more like a radio play than a traditional audiobook, and highly enjoyable.
You must be logged in to post a comment.