News of the Whirled

https://nypost.com/2020/09/22/mta-board-to-officially-ban-pooping-in-subways-buses/

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s board is slated to formally ban defecating on its subways, buses and transit facilities during its meeting on Wednesday.

The dirty deed is already barred under current rules, which subject any rider to a $100 fine for “create[ing] a nuisance, hazard, or unsanitary condition (including, but not limited to, spitting or urinating).” But the rule change will specifically add “defecating” to the list of bodily expulsions.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/deer-caught-gnawing-human-bones-first-time-180963178/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=editorial&utm_term=8152024&utm_content=archival&fbclid=IwY2xjawEtk7NleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHf382hpGF9gGiCJe3K5opaLQppgHP99ccc5hqHJieHMWYdLRqheflvjs3Q_aem_gb2cn6AriYeRAoTY697cnQ

In what may be the most disturbing study published so far this year, researchers photographed the first-known instance of a white-tailed deer gnawing on human bones. As George Dvorsky reports for Gizmodo, in 2015, a camera trap captured images of a deer with a human rib sticking out of its mouth, likely gnawing on the bone to release minerals.

The bone-chewing deer was detected during a study of animal scavengers at the 26-acre Forensic Anthropology Research Facility in San Marcos, Texas, a “body farm” where researchers from Texas State University study the decomposition of human bodies. Researchers usually place a cage over the bodies to prevent large animals from scavenging the corpses. But, according to the case report published in The Journal of Forensic Sciences, researchers were hoping to record how scavengers impact decomposition. So they placed the body in a wooded area in July 2014 without a cage and used cameras to record the animals that stopped by to snack.

It wasn’t until 182 days after death—when much of the body had decomposed and the dry rib cage was exposed—that the deer appeared.

https://www.2news.com/news/national/montana-man-to-be-sentenced-for-cloning-giant-sheep-to-breed-large-sheep-for-captive/article_eefa08da-7f54-11ef-8403-13be26fbbc72.html

An 81-year-old Montana man faces sentencing in federal court Monday in Great Falls for illegally using tissue and testicles from large sheep hunted in Central Asia and the U.S. to illegally create hybrid sheep for captive trophy hunting in Texas and Minnesota.

Prosecutors are not seeking prison time for Arthur “Jack” Schubarth of Vaughn, Montana, according to court records. He is asking for a one-year probationary sentence for violating the federal wildlife trafficking laws. The maximum punishment for the two Lacey Act violations is five years in prison. The fine can be up to $250,000 or twice the defendant's financial gain.

In his request for the probationary sentence, Schubarth's attorney said cloning the giant Marco Polo sheep hunted in Kyrgyzstan has ruined his client's “life, reputation and family.”

However, the sentencing memorandum also congratulates Schubarth for successfully cloning the endangered sheep, which he named Montana Mountain King. The animal has been confiscated by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services.

“Jack did something no one else could, or has ever done,” the memo said. “On a ranch, in a barn in Montana, he created Montana Mountain King. MMK is an extraordinary animal, born of science, and from a man who, if he could re-write history, would have left the challenge of cloning a Marco Polo only to the imagination of Michael Crichton,” who is the author of the science fiction novel Jurassic Park.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/10/18-treated-for-severe-nausea-in-stuttgart-after-opera-of-live-sex-and-piercing?fbclid=IwY2xjawF2vbtleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHWSQGszVRJyngUyRhLjzwBfsHMvdShT9ZLFba_GBtlN3FjEADf8WBzEEKQ_aem_BT0lfx_OKrdWj1ci70U_6w

Eighteen theatregoers at Stuttgart’s state opera required medical treatment for severe nausea over the weekend after watching a performance that included live piercing, unsimulated sexual intercourse and copious amounts of fake and real blood.

“On Saturday we had eight and on Sunday we had 10 people who had to be looked after by our visitor service,” said the opera’s spokesperson, Sebastian Ebling, about the two performances of Sancta, a work by the Austrian choreographer Florentina Holzinger. A doctor had been called in for treatment in three instances, he added.

Holzinger, 38, is known for freewheeling performances that blur the line between dance theatre and vaudeville. Her all-female cast typically performs partially or fully naked, and previous shows have included live sword-swallowing, tattooing, masturbation and action paintings with blood and fresh excrement.

“Good technique in dance to me is not just someone who can do a perfect tendu, but also someone who can urinate on cue,” Holzinger told the Guardian in an interview earlier this year.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/14/weather/sahara-desert-floods-climate/index.html

(CNN) — Striking images from the Sahara Desert show large lakes etched into rolling sand dunes after one of the most arid, barren places in the world was hit with its first floods in decades.

The Sahara does experience rain, but usually just a few inches a year and rarely in late summer. Over two days in September, however, intense rain fell in parts of the desert in southeast Morocco, after a low pressure system pushed across northwestern Sahara.

Preliminary NASA satellite data showed nearly 8 inches of rain in some parts of the region.

Errachidia, a desert city in southeast Morocco, recorded nearly 3 inches of rainfall, most of it across just two days last month. That’s more than four times the normal rainfall for the whole month of September, and equates to more than half a year’s worth for this area.

“It’s been 30 to 50 years since we’ve had this much rain in such a short space of time,’ Houssine Youabeb from Morocco’s meteorology agency told AP last week.

https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/03/florida-man-eats-feral-pig-meat-contracts-rare-biothreat-bacteria/?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=ars&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_mailing=Ars_Daily_031925&utm_medium=email&bxid=5d89243d3f92a4636c93c27a&cndid=75602866&hasha=0a74f0cdaee2b90a465b52c559d76de6&hashb=1b57e0e9c2a06b2cf9e475bd0d3635a51a236074&hashc=56377dcf64a3cd7e205aa0fa079b88ee402b349ac7166ab346ad9ef01848cfe7&esrc=OTnewsletterpromo&utm_content=Final&utm_term=ARS_DailyDigest

In the fall of 2020, a 77-year-old man in Florida realized he had gotten one of the worst gifts imaginable—one that kept on giving.

According to a case report published in this month's issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases, the man showed up at a Gainesville hospital with chest pain that just wouldn't go away. For nearly two years prior, the man—a pastor living on a rural farm with dogs and goats—had been in and out of hospitals and on and off of various antibiotics.

Generally, the man wasn't in the best health. His medical history included Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and heart failure with reduced ejection fraction. For the latter, he had an automated implantable cardiac defibrillator (AICD) placed—and it was not his first. The man had a notable history of having gone through multiple defibrillators and revisions, including getting a new generator in 2018. Some possible reasons for such a history could include heavy use of the device and infections.

https://www.fox10phoenix.com/news/mini-dachshund-escaped-owners-continues-evade-capture-remote-island?utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=trueanthem&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwY2xjawJiDLRleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHtZEzS_G2zPhoDrW5QJyjw9ftIHAgnR3nPs-MkQJOMhwPy4g6y4yYzzOrxQ6_aem_0oe1g90UOQi2fgJt7Nz_jw#so2o130w8sf9ctbbnteic7dd0peao4kk6

A miniature dachshund named Valerie, who has spent almost a year and a half lost on a remote island in southern Australia, has been spotted in the wild — now rescue workers and islanders think they're finally close to catching the little pup.

 

https://x.com/channel4news/status/1925953873522331664?s=61&t=xTeqGpGpjkxH_9_aKRc3ow

One out of every 100 Mississippians has an STD:   https://www.kplctv.com/2025/08/05/stds-are-rampant-mississippi-this-one-is-now-considered-an-epidemic/?fbclid=IwY2xjawMB2xdleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETEzbW05Tk5ZdXU1YmVSbzQ0AR6QwrihfDtFgStNfXPlfsSpO85G1GlOhli79J-jrYHEEYWrjovU9JxqA7U0FQ_aem_ftSyGZ3W-fTvv1_EFka8fg

JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) - If you gathered 100 Mississippians in a room, statistically, at least 1 of them has an STD.

The STD rate, depending on your source, is around 1,200 per 100,000 Mississippian, or 1 per every 100. The state has long been plagued by high rates of gonorrhea, chlamydia, and HIV.

In years prior, Hinds County had the dishonor of having the highest STD rate of any county in the country.

However, the state’s current boom of congenital syphilis, which follows a nationwide trend, has the medical community now labeling it an epidemic.

According to a 2023 report from the CDC, Mississippi ranked 3rd in the country for reported cases of primary and secondary syphilis. In that same report, Mississippi ranked 5th for gonorrhea and 2nd for chlamydia.