Recently at Team of explorers and film makers returned from their expedition to the Peruvian Amazon in search of the giant anaconda and repeatedly came across stories and eye-witness accounts of the Yacumama. They decided to systematically interview every tribe they met in the jungle to see if the descriptions varied. Not only did every report corroborate the other but they also supported the data and theories of Mike & Greg Warner and the Yacumama (Black Boa). The photographs, locations, size, habitat and morphology of the Yacumama are all publicly available at http://www.bigsnakes.net
The Warners intend to prove the existence of the Yacumama (mother of the waters) through scientific best practise during their ground expedition in the dry season. Media packs are available for corporate sponsors and the public can donate online.
Mike & Greg Warner
Warner Amazon Expedition, 2011
Click for video
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Argentina woman survives 23-storey hotel fall
BBC - The aftermath of the fall was captured by a passer-by with a mobile phone
A woman has survived after falling from the 23rd floor of a hotel in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires.
Her fall was broken by a taxi, whose driver got out moments before the impact crushed the roof and shattered the windscreen.
Eyewitness said the woman had climbed over a safety barrier and leapt from a restaurant at the top of the Hotel Crowne Plaza Panamericano.
She was taken to intensive care for treatment for multiple injuries.
The woman, who has not been named, is reported to be an Argentine in her 30s.
The taxi driver, named by local media as Miguel, said he got out of his vehicle just before the impact after noticing a policeman looking up.
"I got out of the car a second before. If I had not got out, I would have been killed," he told Radio 10.
"I was only 10 metres from the impact. It made a terrible noise," he added.
The Hotel Crowne Plaza Panamericano overlooks the Obelisk, one of the best known landmarks in Buenos Aires.
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Where's the beef?
wtma - A California woman is telling Taco Bell restaurants, “Yo quiero real beef in my taco.”
She’s accusing the fast food chain of shortchanging customers by packing very little beef in products that are supposed to be stuffed with meat. Taco Bell now faces a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of the woman by the Montgomery, Alabama law firm Beasley Allen.
Attorney W. Daniel "Dee" Miles III charges that a mere 35 percent of the restaurant's taco filling was solid meat. Therefore, she claims Taco Bell is guilty of false advertising by claiming its products contain "seasoned ground beef" or "seasoned beef."
The lawsuit alleges that in addition to meat, Taco Bell uses water, isolated oat product, wheat oats, soy lecithin, maltodextrin, anti-dusting agent, autolyzed yeast extract, modified corn starch and sodium phosphate in their "beef."
Miles alleges the stuff Taco Bell uses is “junk” and that he wouldn’t eat it.
In response, Taco Bell says its company “prides itself on serving high quality Mexican inspired food with great value. We're happy that the millions of customers we serve every week agree. We deny our advertising is misleading in any way and we intend to vigorously defend the suit.”
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Bill would permit shooting feral animals
ksl - A Utah lawmaker wants to change the state's animal cruelty law to make it legal to shoot and kill feral animals. But the proposal is not sitting well with animal advocates.
Officials with the Humane Society of Utah say the bill, sponsored by Rep. Curt Oda, R-Clearfield, is "cruel and archaic" and question its intent.
It changes the animal cruelty statute so that it does not prohibit "the humane shooting or killing of an animal if the person doing the shooting or killing has a reasonable belief that the animal is a feral animal."
The questions arise in defining "reasonable belief" and how people can tell if an animal is feral.
"The public is not trained to determine what a feral animal is," said Humane Society executive director Gene Baierschmidt. "By appearance it may not be feral. For a cat, if it's not nice, it may just be an old cat."
"There's going to be situations where people could be killing people's pets and not even realizing it. It just gives a lot of leeway and opens the door for a lot of abuse to take place." -Gene Baierschmidt
Baierschmidt's concern is letting people essentially go vigilante on animals at large.
"There's going to be situations where people could be killing people's pets and not even realizing it," he said. "It just gives a lot of leeway and opens the door for a lot of abuse to take place."
Baierschmidt says there are professionals that handle this job and it's better to leave it to them.
Putting a number on the feral cat population is difficult. Salt Lake County Animal Services estimates 20 to 25 percent of the 16,000 cats that will enter Salt Lake County shelters in 2011 may be feral. It usually comes down to an assessment of behavior.
Utah wouldn't be the first state to look at letting its people put down feral animals. Most notably in 2005, many Wisconsin residents got behind a proposal to hunt feral cats but the plan ultimately died.
Multiple attempts by KSL to reach Rep. Oda Friday were not returned.
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The ET effect on religion: Did Jesus have incarnations on alien planets?
ibtimes - An extraterrestrial being is that funny-looking creature with frail limbs who pops his oversized head out of the Saturn-like dwelling in which he lives and flies, and who makes himself available for mortal gaze when and where he pleases. He is the ultimate bogeyman, instigator of curious debates, one who holds the high seat in enigma's realm.
Some believe he exists, some don't. Now there is a new study that throws some light into the effects of the extra terrestrials on science and religion. This is one topic that's been over-discussed and no new 'findings' will seal the lid on this lively debate.
Scientists and theologians discussed the potential impacts of aliens on society and religion at a meeting of the London Royal Society recently and a report of their findings was published early this month.
Though the discovery of extraterrestrial life may not affect people's faith in their religious beliefs it could make them think if gods took incarnations on alien planets, the researchers said, according to a report in space.com.
According to Ted Peters, who is a theologian at the Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley, if people believed in the existence of aliens, it could make them ask if Jesus Christ has appeared more than once in the universe.
"It's been argued for a couple of centuries now whether one incarnation of God as Jesus Christ for the entirety of creation is sufficient, with some thinking that God would do so multiple times as appropriate for the capacity of any individual species to comprehend," Peters told SPACE.com.
In an article published in the Philosophical Transactions journal of the Royal Society, Peters raises several questions regarding the impact the confirmation of alien life will have on religion.
"Conventional wisdom seems to suggest that terrestrial religion would collapse under the weight of confirmed knowledge of extra-terrestrial intelligence (ETI). Because our religious traditions formulated their key beliefs within an ancient worldview now out of date, would shocking new knowledge dislodge our pre-modern dogmas?"
He poses the question if confirmation of ETI will cause terrestrial religion to collapse, and answers in the negative.
Peters conducted a survey, titled 'The Peters ETI Religious Crisis Survey' to determine the effects of a discovery of extraterrestrial intelligence on religion. More than 1,300 individuals worldwide from multiple religious traditions like Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, evangelicals, Orthodox Christians, Mormons, Jews, Buddhists and non-religious groups participated in the study.
The study found that a vast majority of believers, regardless of which religion they followed, thought their faith systems will not collapse if alien intelligence was confirmed. About one-third of the people thought religions other than theirs would be affected while a vast majority of nonreligious people said aliens would change faith systems as a whole.
"It became clear that the vast majority of religious believers, regardless of religion, see no threat to their personal beliefs caused by potential contact with intelligent neighbors on other worlds," says Peters.
However, if alien intelligence, and by extension alien religions, are confirmed, there would be ready converts, Peters said.