Nothophantes horridus=horrid ground-weaver IN PLYMOUTH ,DEVON,U.K.

A FIND OF A NEW COLONY OF BRITAIN'S RAREST SPIDER -Nothophantes horridus=horrid ground-weaver=FIND MORE ABOUT HORRID GROUND WEAVER =https://www.buglife.org.uk/campaigns-and-our-work/horrid-ground-weaver=https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=horrid+ground+weaver&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=643&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjDo_W25PfKAhXC6xQKHYirBjoQ_AUIBigB#imgrc=hoGs3-hjw0AAfM%3A

Secret lives of badgers revealed

The subterranean secrets of badgers have been revealed by a BBC film crew.

Over two years, tiny cameras placed deep underground recorded the comings and goings of a wild badger family.

While the animals have been well studied outside of their setts, until now, little has been known about their behaviour while underground.

Never-before-seen behaviour was filmed, including the badgers diligently making their beds each evening before leaving the setts for a night of foraging.

The crew also captured newborn cubs on camera, as well as grooming and fighting between the older animals.

The footage was recorded for a BBC Natural World wildlife programme.

Newborn badgers

About 300,000 badgers live across Britain, their tracks and trails criss-cross the =read more =http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7242930.stm

BRITIAN,S WEIRDEST COUNCIL HOUSES.

These are the tenants who have gone above and beyond to turn their local authority dwellings into something special, including the Sistine Chapel, a Gaudi-inspired indoor garden and even a baked bean museum. A new one-off Channel 4 documentary meets council house tenants like Robert Burns, a former decorator who made his three-bedroom Brighton terrace home into a replica of the Sistine Chapel. Robert has spent 12 years transforming his humble abode into a homage to one of the most iconic artworks of all time, Michaelangelo's ceiling and The Last Judgement fresco. He also recreated the frescoes on the walls of the chapel, which were painted by famous Renaissance artists - but in a quirky twist, instead of just showcasing the lives of the saints and important religious events, he inset several very modern stars including Wayne Rooney, ex-Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho, Nigella Lawson and Simon Cowell.

It took him three times as long to complete his work as it took painter Michelangelo to complete his masterpiece in Rome. But what makes his feat more spectacular is that the talented artist has never even been to Italy - or been taught how to paint artistically. 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3441760/One-Britain-s-weirdest-council-houses-mock-cruise-ship.html#ixzz403NMpy00
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Gravitational waves: Numbers don't do them justice

"It's astonishing; it really is." Jim Hough can't stop repeating the phrase.

The veteran gravitational wave hunter from Glasgow University has come to the National Press Club in Washington DC to witness the announcement of the first direct detection of ripples in the fabric of space-time caused by the merger of two "intermediate-sized" black holes.

The numbers look bald on paper, but it's when you try to imagine the scenario being described in those numbers that you rock backwards.

Imagine two monster black holes spinning down on each other in space. One has a mass which is about 35 times that of our Sun, the other roughly 30. At the moment just before they coalesce, they're turning around each other several tens of times a second. And then, their event horizons merge and they become one - like two soap bubbles in a bath.

David Reitze, executive director of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatories (LIGO), described it thus: "Take something about 150km in diameter, and pack 30 times the mass of the Sun into that, and then accelerate it to half the speed of light. Now, take another thing that's 30 times the mass of the Sun, and accelerate that to half the speed of light. And then collide [the two objects] together. That's what we saw here. It's mind boggling."=read more = bbc link=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-35553549

How to have sex the 17th Century w ay-Contents of Britain's first sex guide REVEALED

'Aritstoteles Master-Piece' - dubbed the dirtiest book of the time when published in 1684 - was sold secretly from under the counters of bookshops for centuries. The original 'lover's guide', it contains a bizarre mix of superstition and sex facts, about everything from the "actions of the genitals" to the "benefits of marriage". One chapter, entitled 'A word of advice to both sexes at the time of copulation', advises men to "creep in by little and little" to get their wives into bed. "When the husband cometh into his wives chamber, he must entertain her with all kind of dalliance, wanton behaviour, and allurements to venery," it begins.READ MORE -http://www.express.co.uk/news/history/641140/Sex-17th-Century-Britain-first-sex-guide-revealed-history-uk

British firefighters give pets miniature oxygen masks The masks are ordered in from America at a cost of £90 a set

Pets as small as hamsters, snakes and rabbits are being given a lifeline by British firefighters as new miniature oxygen masks are installed at fire stations across the UK.

The life-saving devices come in three sizes, the largest for dogs, a medium version for cats and little dogs and the smallest for pets like rabbits, guinea pigs and hamsters.

The masks, which are ordered in from America at a cost of £90 a set, have even been used in the US on tortoises and snakes.

So far 16 fire stations have received the sets, which are entirely funded by charitable donations to the organisation Smokey Paws.=READ MORE =http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/pets-health/11937588/British-firefighters-give-pets-miniature-oxygen-masks.html

Vanishing wreck, Westward Ho!

Every few years the shifting sands of Westward Ho! beach reveal the remains of a wooden ship which has been seen intermittently since at least the mid 19th century, when it was described as “a very old wreck”.

The oak-framed ship lies parallel to the pebble ridge, about 650 metres to the seaward side.  It is around 25 metres long and 7.6 metres wide with semicircular bows (at the north end) and a more oval stern.  The planking is joined to the frames by trunnels (wooden nails, which swelled as they absorbed water).  Trunnels were used in shipbuilding from prehistoric times until the late 18th century.=READ MORE =https://new.devon.gov.uk/historicenvironment/explore-devons-heritage/vanishing-wreck-westward-ho/

Scientists discover one of human's earliest ancestors - and it's a worm named after a doughnut

Scientists have found one of human's earliest ancestors 12,000 feet deep under the ocean - a weird pink worm named after a doughnut. The four-inch (10 cm) long Xenoturbella churro - named for its resemblance to the popular fried-dough pastry - is one of four species discovered 1,700 metre deep in the Gulf of California. Previously Xenoturbeklla was only known from a single species found in the North Atlantic, puzzling biologists for almost six decades. Now expeditions half a world away by scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at California University in San Diego, the Western Australia Museum and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) have helped properly=READ MORE=http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/scientists-discover-one-humans-earliest-7303384

Lucan-dead-son-missing-peer-granted-official-death-certificate

The only son of missing peer Lord Lucan has consoled the son of the nanny his father murdered in 1974 - saying they 'both lost parents' that night.

Lord George Bingham has finally been granted a death certificate 42 years after his father vanished following the murder of Sandra Rivett, nanny to Lord Lucan's three children.

He applied for the certificate under the Presumption of Death Act, which came into effect in 2014, so he can inherit the title as 8th Earl.

Lord Lucan disappeared after Ms Rivett was found murdered at the family home at 46 Lower Belgrave Street in central London on November 7, 1974. His disappearance has come to be one of the greatest mysteries of the past 50 years, attracting an endless series of conspiracy theories

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3429800/Lord-Lucan-dead-son-missing-peer-granted-official-death-certificate.html#ixzz3zVPjsfZF
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Eagle-eyed: Dutch police to train birds to take down unauthorised drones

As the use of drones increasingly worries everyone from firefighters and air traffic control to law enforcement, Netherlands’ national police have aligned themselves with a group that hates flying robots on principle: the bald eagle. Dutch police have joined forces with Guard From Above, a raptor-training security firm based in the Hague, to keep wayward drones from causing trouble by snatching them out of the sky. Guard From Above’s chief executive officer Sjoerd Hoogendoorn described the project in a press release as “a low-tech solution for a high-tech problem”. He and the company’s chief operating officer, Ben de Keijzer, train birds of prey to catch unauthorised unmanned vehicles – Hoogendoorn’s background is in private security, de Keijzer’s is in bird-handling and training.READ MORE =http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/01/dutch-netherlands-police-birds-unauthorized-drones

How to Fix Image Thumbnail Not Appearing Bug in Blogger

If you use blogger to daily push out new updates to your blog, then this morning you might have noticed your entire image thumbnails suddenly got disappeared from the homepage of your blog. This leaves you thinking that you may have done some unnecessary editing to your template, which might be the reason image thumbnails are not appearing on the homepage or archive pages. However, that’s not the case, image thumbnails are broken because of a new bug that recently blogger users are facing. Today in this article, we will show you, How to fix image thumbnail not appearing bug in blogger.READ MORE -http://www.mybloggerlab.com/2014/11/how-to-fix-image-thumbnail-not-appearing-in-blogger.html

Cavemen dined on TORTOISE 400,000 years ago, new research reveals

Roast tortoise was on the menu for cavemen 400,000 years ago, according to new research. Tortoises were a staple of early Paleolithic people's diets, remains dug up in an ancient cave have revealed.  they formed a staple part of early Paleolithic people's diets . It had been thought they mostly ate large game and vegetables with turtle, now protected under EU law, off the menu even then. Now archaelogists have found specimens of the creature all over Quesem Cave, near Tel Aviv, Israel, and at different levels showing they were eaten throughout 200,000 years of human habitation. The cave was only unearthed in 2001 and excavations are continuing to shed new light on our primitive ancestors' lifestyle.=READ MORE -http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/technology-science/cavemen-dined-tortoise-400000-years-7294540

Black tarantula named after Johnny Cash

A new species of black tarantula that lives near Folsom Prison, California, has been named after Johnny Cash.

The famously black-clad country singer wrote a song about the prison, and also played a historic series of concerts for inmates there in the 1960s.

Aphonopelma johnnycashi is among 14 new tarantula species from the southern US which have been described by biologists in the journal ZooKeys.

Their study completely rewrites the family tree of the Aphonopelma genus.

One of dozens of tarantula genera, this group was previously considered to include more than 50 separate species.

As part of his PhD research at Auburn University in Alabama, Chris Hamilton carefully whittled that down to 29. He eliminated a lot of double-counting, but also defined 14 species that were entirely new to science.

I have a Johnny Cash tattoo so I was very happy that it worked out that way

Chris Hamilton, Biologist, Florida Museum of Natural History

"We really tried to clean the taxonomy up," said Dr Hamilton, now a postdoctoral researcher at the Florida Museum of Natural History.

"The only way we could do that was by looking at over 3,000 specimens, both from the wild and from natural history collections.

"A lot of previous names got eliminated. But there were 14 that were genuinely unique and new."=READ BBC LINK=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-35473946

Just How Smart Are Ravens?

More »

tags: ravens, intelligence, behavior, birds, ornithology

Common Raven, Corvus corax.

Image: John James Audubon.

Some of you know that Bernd Heinrich has spent many winters studying ravens and their behavior. This month, Heinrich and his colleague, Thomas Bugnyar, published an article inScientific American that explores the intelligence of ravens. In this article, they investigate the question; do the birds consciously contemplate alternative behaviors and choose the most appropriate ones, or are they merely relying on instinct or learning to perform specific actions by rote?=READ MORE =http://scienceblogs.com/grrlscientist/2007/04/09/just-how-smart-are-ravens/

Mouse gets caught in 155-year-old trap in Reading museum

 A 155-year-old Victorian mouse trap on display at a museum sprung into action again to claim its latest victim.

Ollie Douglas, assistant curator at the Museum of English Rural Life, was baffled when he discovered the dead mouse in the trap, which was in a cabinet.

He said the rodent could have entered the trap to make a nest, but got stuck inside.

The trap is one of hundreds kept at the museum.

Mr Douglas said: "We think that the mouse chewed at the label and got interested in chewing at the string attached to the label."

'See-saw mechanism'=read more =bbc link=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-35503613

‘Punk rock and UFOs: Cryptozoology meets Anarchy’ playlist

“Punk rock and UFOs: Cryptozoology meets Anarchy,” which is the first book from the author of this blog Mike Damante, is officially out.

Author Mike Damante will be on hand Friday playing punk and emo songs.

“Punk rock and UFOs: Cryptozoology meets Anarchy” looks at cryptozoology as an underdog science, while challenging our inner process of belief by examining our cognition, memories and media literacy. This is his first proper book, put out by DiAngelo Publications, which has published titles “Journey Of The Heart,” hip-hop heavyweight Slim Thug’s “ How To Survive In A Recession,” Zen and the Art of Skiing” and others. “Punk rock and UFOs: Cryptozoology meets Anarchy” is available in digitally ( Kindle, Apple, eBook formats) and physical copies online at Barnes and Noble, Amazon and from the publisher’s site .

The launch party for the book will be at 9 p.m. Friday at Dirt Bar, Dirt Bar, 1209 Caroline. Damante will be on hand DJ’ing and there will be some books for sale ($14, cash -read more only.) From 3-5 pm. at on Feb. 13 at RiverOaks Bookstore 3270 Westheimer, the first official book signing, along with a reading and question and answer session will take place.

As a bonus chapter of the book, there is a UFO-gazing playlist with songs about aliens, cryptozoology and other themes reflected in the book. Check out the songs below ( Some language may be NSFW).read more http://blog.chron.com/miked/2016/01/punk-rock-and-ufos-cryptozoology-meets-anarchy-playlist/

Save St Eval's slow worms before sending in bulldozers, say consultants

Controversial plans to build 100 homes on the site of the former RAF base at St Eval could depend on the transfer of hundreds of slow worms and grass snakes to help them survive the arrival of bulldozers.

Read more: http://www.cornishguardian.co.uk/Save-St-Eval-s-slow-worms-sending-bulldozers-say/story-28183607-detail/story.html#ixzz3yBVnXuqw 
Follow us: @cornishguardian on Twitter | cornishguardian on Facebook

Trapped 45ft sperm whale dies on beach in Norfolk after injuring tail

A 45ft sperm whale weighing around 30 tonnes has died after getting stuck on a beach.

The whale got stuck beneath the cliffs at Hunstanton, Norfolk, injuring its tail on Friday just hours before low tide.

A second whale managed to free itself and swim away to safety with the rest of the pod.

"It was obviously a very distressing scene earlier. We would ask the public to stay away from the beach."

Richard Johnson, senior maritime operations officer for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency

It is quite rare for whales of this size to come so close to the coast and -read more -http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/wildlife/12117169/Trapped-45ft-sperm-whale-dies-on-beach-in-Norfolk-after-injuring-tail.html

How old are fairytales?

Fairytales
Fairytales much older than previously thought, say researchers
Study of fairy story origins traces some back thousands of years, with one tale dating back as far as bronze age

Illustration of Beauty and the Beast, one of the fairytales believed to date from thousands of years ago.
Illustration of Beauty and the Beast, one of the fairytales believed to d
Fairy stories such as Beauty and the Beast and Rumpelstiltskin can be traced back thousands of years to prehistoric times, with one tale originating from the bronze age, academics have revealed.

Using techniques normally employed by biologists, they studied common links between stories from around the world and found some have roots that are far older than previously known.

Durham University anthropologist Dr Jamie Tehrani, who worked with folklorist Sara Graça da Silva, from New University of Lisbon, believed the research – published in the Royal Society Open Science journal – has answered a question about our cultural heritage.

These stories have been told since before even English, French and Italian existed
Dr Jamie Tehrani
In the 19th century Wilhelm Grimm, of the Brothers Grimm, believed many of the fairy stories they popularised were rooted in a shared cultural history dating back to the birth of the Indo-European language family.

But later thinkers challenged that view, saying some stories were much younger, and passed into oral tradition having first been written down by writers from the 16th and 17th centuries.

Tehrani said: “We can come firmly down on the side of Wilhelm Grimm.
“Some of these stories go back much further than the earliest literary record and indeed further back than classical mythology – some versions of these stories appear in Latin and Greek texts – but our findings suggest they are much older than
Read more
The academic said Jack and the Beanstalk was rooted in a group of stories classified as The Boy Who Stole Ogre’s Treasure, and could be traced back to when eastern and western Indo-European languages split – more than 5,000 years ago.

Analysis showed Beauty and the Beast and Rumpelstiltskin to be about 4,000 years old. And a folk tale called The Smith and the Devil was estimated to date back 6,000 years to the bronze age.

The story, which involves a blacksmith selling his soul in a pact with the devil in order to gain supernatural ability, then tricking the evil power, is not so well known today, but its theme of a Faustian pact is familiar to many.

The study employed phylogenetic analysis, which was developed to investigate evolutionary relationships between species, and used a tree of Indo-European languages to trace the descent of shared tales on it, to see how far they could be demonstrated to go back in time.

Tehrani said: “We find it pretty remarkable these stories have survived without being written. They have been told since before even English, French and Italian existed. They were probably told in an extinct Indo-European language.”

Fairytales often have themes common to humans throughout the world and through all ages, such as family, betrayal, violence and survival, he said.

And he said we enjoy the magical element, explaining: “I think it is human nature to think about that territory about the edges of what is possible and impossible.”

'Wrong kind of sun' delays trains

Trains approaching Bath Spa station have been slowed down by the mad March heat.

In a move already dubbed 'the wrong kind of sun' by some commuters, Network Rail has imposed speed restrictions on stretches of line in the west.

Operator First Great Western says the worst affected area has been between Filton Abbey Wood and Stapleton Road in Bristol, but there have also been delays in Wiltshire and in Bath itself.

The curbs – called heat speeds – have been implemented because of the effect of the spring heatwave on the tracks.

Read more: http://www.bathchronicle.co.uk/Wrong-kind-sun-delays-trains/story-15658300-detail/story.html#ixzz3xWfidHLP 
Follow us: @BathChron on Twitter | BathChron on Facebook