I nearly spat out my coffee when I read this headline: Korean Researchers to Clone Sept. 11 Rescue Dog.

But it’s true. And it gets SOOO much stranger.

First off, the dog in question, a 15 year old ailing German shepherd named Trakr, is winner of BioArts International’s Golden Clone Giveaway contest. Here’s a video of Trakr’s story which explains why he’s the winner: it vacillates between being TOTALLY surreal and TOTALLY weepy (just wait until the end; I dare you not to get a bit misty).

The contest is run under the umbrella of BioArt’s ”Best Friends Again” program. Yes that’s right, as in let’s be best friends again after you, my dearly beloved dog, pass away.

You see, BioArts, a bioengineering company in California, held a competition to find the world’s most “clone-worthy” dog. The winner, whomever the lucky hound be, got to be cloned for free. And that lucky winner happened to be Trakr, who made himself a hero locating the last human survivor under 10 meters of debris at Ground Zero shortly after 9/11.

(The whole Trakr story is WAY more endearing than just that. Turns out Trakr was a retired police dog from the Halifax Regional Police force when his handler Constable Jamie Symington decided to call in “sick” so that he and Trakr could venture down to NYC to save some lives. You can see photos of the hero hound (and his mildly hunky handler)here.)

Well Trakr already escaped death once: Jamie saved him from the police dept.’s policy to euthanise its retired canines. Sadly (and by sadly I mean heart-crushingly weepy) today Trakr can no longer use his hind legs due to “a degenerative neurological disorder that is linked to exposure to toxic smoke at the site” reports Chosunilbo, the Korean newspaper.

Within the next month, BioArts will send a sample of Trakr’s somatic cell genes to Dr. Hwang Woo-suk’s lab so that the previously disgraced Korean scientist can clone the diseased dog. Trakr the puppy will be due in November. If it’s a go, then it appears that the dog’s genes and doc’s rep will both get reprieve. 

You know all those fuzzy headlines about different animal species pairing up? You SO know what I’m talking about. Like baby hippo and tortoise become fast friends, Hurricane Katrina orphan puppy best buds with baby tiger… that kind of pukey cute stuff.

Well, I’ve just come across what may be the most bizarre, intimate and gross animal pairing yet: the chicken and the gecko.

Some poor Aussie doctor was cooking himself some eggs when lo and behold there was a dead little GECKO INSIDE THE EGG. Yeah. Ew. And as if to read our minds and in a feeble attempt to allay them “health authorities say the discovery is nothing to be alarmed about” according to ,a href=http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/16/2246597.htm>ABC News.

Like any good confused and fascinated citizen he took some pics and made his egg into a headline.

Now I know you’re asking yourself HOW HOW does this happen. Well, the dominant theory at Australia’s Egg Corporation is that the GECKO CLIMBED UP THE CHICKEN’S CLOACA. The question remains: why???? 

So imagine that you are Momma North Atlantic Right Whale. You are just one of 350 to 400 of your species, making you officially ”endangered” so you’re feeling pretty desperate about staying alive to reproduce and ensuring that your babies do as well. Which is getting harder and harder - especially around the Boston Harbor area - cause those damn container ships keep on running your friends over, crushing their skulls and slicing off their tails.  Even though you’re like 40 or 50 feet long, those metal mammoths of the sea or about 900. Squishy.

A recent analysis of your population suggests that, unless there are fewer deaths from ship strikes and fishing gear entanglements, you and your buddies are never going to recover. Collisions killed 24 of the 67 right wales reported dead (that’s reported only) between 1970 and 2007. Scientists argue over how to fix the problem. Avoid certain areas, re-route shipping channels, just plain slow down...all of these may help. Except the slowing down; a 90,000 ton ship doesn’t have to move that fast to be lethal.

But slowing down DOES make it easier to avoid the whales. If anyone is looking or LISTENING that is. And now they can.

Scientists at Cornell’s Ornithology Lab (yes, that means birds, but who cares) are piloting a project whereby buoys floating around the waters off Massachusetts (and especially in the shipping lanes) detect the sounds of right whales, triangulate their location and then broadcast it to ship captains. It’s called the Right Whale Listening Network and you can enjoy their terrifying interactive graphics and pretty pictures.

Of course the ship captains still have to CARE about the info when they get it, but if some regulatory intermediary is FORCING them to watch and then FINING them millions of dollars if they don’t comply, it might work. Happy Momma Right Whale.

(PS. Right whales are called right whales cause they float to the surface when dead, making them easier to harvest..hence the “right” whale to go after. Huh)

(PHOTO: PAPARUTZI)
I am in London at the moment with the boyfriend (though we are heading to see my baby niece in Heidelberg tomorrow) and we’ve been watching some Errol Morris documentaries. He is probably best known for his amazing 1988 crime documentary “The Thin Blue Line,” in which Morris essentially reveals that inmate Randall Adams had been wrongly convicted of killing a Dallas, Texas cop. It’s fuckin’ amazing. Of course it made me want to track down the prosecutor and court psychiatrist and have THEM sit down on the electric chair to which they had condemned Adams. Annnnnways.

Morris also made a film called “Gates of Heaven” about the pet cemetery business. It’s pretty odd. Or shall we say, the people who feel passionately about pet cemeteries are pretty odd. Of course this brings up the question, what DO you do with your pet after they die. There are the obvious choices: burial in either the backyard, illegally in the favorite park, in a proper pet cemetery or scattered as ashes wherever you choose.

Alternatively (and I do mean alternatively) you could:

Have them stuffed. Nothing says eternal love like a taxidermied tabby cat perched upon the mantle

Have them stuffed and ROBOTICIZED. If a life-life expression isn’t lively enough for you, add some animatronics to your stuff pet. Have them sit on their favorite kitchen chair and paw at your arm for dinner....the options are endless.

Or...or....USE THEIR FUR TO KNIT A SWEATER. The closest thing to snuggling up to Fido? Of course if you have a small cat, this might only make a hat or single mitten. Start collecting stray hairs now.

We always joke (half joke) that our office cats keep our stress levels nice and low.

But it’s true. They really do, according to a recent study out of the Minnesota Stroke Initiative that found that cat-less souls had a 40 percent higher risk of dying from heart disease.

Here’s what the lead researcher, who owns a cat, had to say in Twincities.com: “There may be an effect even on blood pressure but we haven’t looked at that. It could clearly have a beneficial effect that we don’t completely understand at this point.”

The study didn’t find such a protective effect in dog owners, but I don’t know. Dogs keep me pretty happy too. 

Sooo my google news alerts came up with this headline: ”Snakes on the Great Plains? Fort Collins researcher says 20-foot-long pythons could be moving north from Florida”

And needless to say it grabbed my eye. Because Gordon Rodda, a zoologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, projects that escaped Floridan pet pythons could grow to 20 feet in length and snake their way up the American lines of latitude - up the coast of California for example. Next up, is a study examining how the giant constrictors - including boa constrictors and yellow anacondas - could invade the continental US.

Nothing like wittle snakey wakey slithering away in a bid to freedom. 

If you’ve ever tried traveling with a dog on a road trip, you’ll know it can take some extra planning to ensure you find a hotel that accepts pets. Especially if your pet is a large, lovable stinky type, such as a Labrador Retriever. But there is one lab that is always welcome at the Fairmont Copley Plaza in Boston, because, well, she actually she lives there. Catie Copley resides in a warm little bed by the St. James street entrance, where she waits patiently for guests to take her on her favorite walks around town. Heh. But seriously. Had I known, I would TOTALLY be staying at the Fairmont for the AAAS meeting. 

It’s all win-win.

See, we’re major fans of polar bears here. Oh yes. They’re beautiful magical, and in juvenile form, adorable, creatures. But they’re also getting screwed over what with the melting arctic ice. So buy yourself one of Eleanor Grosch’s (she’s the lady who designs all those fab Keds critter pattern flats) polar bear prints for $40. And she’ll donate all the money to the global warming awareness group Stop Global Warming.

Cool huh? Like I said. It’s win-win. 

Who says that us humans are always biased towards those charismatic megafauna. Here I was thinking that the poor little iceworm was a neglected creature (on two counts: it’s both small, and sort of gross looking) when it turns out that they’ve got their VERY OWN FESTIVAL, in Cordova Alaska going on this weekend! Now I’m already in love with Cordova for a number of reasons - this just seals the deal really. Apparently they have a large ice worm puppet that weaves through the main street just like a Chinese new year dragon. I love it!

The first iceworms I saw were almost mistaken for “yellow ice” only they were a shade too neon and we were high up in the BC mountains far from other hikers, and hence pee-ers. There was a little clump of them on this ice field. Way the hell in the middle of nowhere. Up close they were kind of gross in that way that swarms of little niggly things are. But from a distance there was something quite beautiful about the vision they presented.

Well I’ve since learned about these frigid worms. Get this, if their temperature reaches 5°C their membranes liquefy - good bye wormie. They’re just such strange creatures. So they burrow up from the bottom of the glacier and descend again to its depth in the morning and evening. It’s been suggested that they excrete some sort of antifreeze to facilitate their movement through the snow. They feed on snow algae (of course). And there are MANY of them around. There are some seven billion of them occupy the Suiattle glacier in the North Cascades alone, reports the North Cascade Glacier climate project. That’s like the entire human population. Turned into tiny worms. Stuck in a glacier. Craziness.

Anyways, so now that you know how rad these creatures are join me in celebrating ice worms from afar this Saturday. Huzzah!

Did you know there is a species of hummingbird called Anna’s hummingbird? Me neither. But did you also know that the males have this swoopy-diving-lady-attracting dance where they chirp at the bottom of the swoop and that chirp is actually generated by their TAIL FEATHER flapping around in the 50 mph airstream? Yeah. Me neither.

Thanks Berkeley news office!