God Bless the Internet

“These little bunnies, about 6 days old, were attacked by a dog and orphaned. Two out of the litter of five did not survive, and these three were not doing very well.”
“Noah is a non-releasable, one-legged homing pigeon/rock dove that is in the rehab center. Noah kept going over to the bunny cage and looking in—even sleeping in front of the door to the cage.”
”Then suddenly, there were only two bunnies in the cage. To everyone’s surprise there was the tiny bunny under Noah’s wing sound asleep! That little bunny rabbit had crawled through the cage, preferring a featherbed!”
“Now, they are all together and the bunnies are doing GREAT. When the bunnies scoot underneath Noah’s feathers, he carefully extends his wings out to surround them and then they snuggle. When one of them moves and they start sticking out here and there, he gently pushes them back under him with his beak! It is a beautiful and amazing thing to see.”

アドレス…http://cuteoverload.com/2009/07/12/god-bless-the-internet/

＊単語＊
orphaned.......孤児になる
homing.........家へ帰る
rehab..........リハビリ
crawled........這う
featherbed.....甘やかす、
scoot..........駆け出す
underneathe....下に


＊要約＊
親が死んでしまった子ウサギを、ハトが親代わりに守ってあげているということが起きた。
子ウサギは生後６日目ぐらい。犬に襲われて親ウサギが死んでしまい、３匹の子ウサギはリハビリセンターに収容されたものの状態はあまりよくなかった。
ハトの名前はノアで、リハビリセンターにいる伝書鳩で一本足のため野生には帰れないの。ノアは子ウサギたちのいるケージの前で座り込んで眠っていました。その後、なんとノアの翼の下からウサギが出てきたそうだ。
ウサギがノアに近寄るとノアは翼を注意深く広げてウサギを迎え入れており、ウサギがうろちょろすると優しくくちばしで自分の翼の下へと戻してやっている光景が見られる。

＊感想＊
うさぎと鳩という組み合わせは珍しいと思いましたが、トムとジェリーみたいに異種間で仲良くしている光景が好きなのでとても和みました。

Doctors choose sex for hermaphrodite baby

Doctors face a very difficult dilemma – they have to decide which sex to choose for a newborn child.
The parents of the unusual baby are trying not to interfere in the doctors’ decision-making process. The young couple is just praying to God to help the experts on genetics make the right decision and not break the life of their long-awaited baby.
The family of Muscovites - Sergey and Olga - has been waiting for their baby for a long time. Sergey was very happy when the doctors told them that Olga was pregnant.
Olga, 20, had a very easy pregnancy. She was working as long as she could, and her colleagues would have her labour at the workplace.
The child’s sex was not actually important for the parents.
Olga even asked the doctors not to tell her the sex of her child.
“We wanted it to be a surprise. We wanted this child so much,” Olga says.
The child was born in time.
The young mother almost burst into tears when she heard the first cry of her child. However, Olga could not understand why doctors did not bring the baby to her. A few hours later the doctor came to Olga’s ward and tried to explain that her child was a　hermaphrodite. The newborn child had both female and male traits.
“Doctors say the child is half a girl and half a boy at the same time. They also say that the child can successfully be formed either as a boy or as a girl,” Sergey says.
Five days after the labour, Olga checked out from the hospital, but her baby was put to the　pathology department, Life.Ru reports.
Now experts are waiting for the results of the genetic examination.
“In this particular case only genetics can say for sure which type of development, male or female, the child’s organism is more prone to.
We are going to love our baby in any case,” Sergey says.
According to the experts, in this case the main thing is not to be mistaken with the genetic predisposition of the child's organism.
There is nothing difficult in the medical operation to form the child’s sex.
“There were cases when an androgynous child was brought up as a boy, but when he became a teenager, he started to feel like a girl,” doctors say.


アドレス･･･http://english.pravda.ru/society/stories/06-07-2009/107958-hermaphrodite_baby-0

＊要約＊
物理的に男性の性質と女性の性質を持った子供が生まれてくるということがあった。モスクワ在住のセルゲイと妻のオルガは生まれてくる赤ちゃんの性別にこだわりが無く、生まれてくるまで男の子か女の子か知らせないよう医者に依頼していた。
出産当日、特に問題なく出産が進められて無事に赤ちゃんが生まれたのだが、数時間後、産まれてきた子どもは男性の性質と女性の性質を両方持っていることを告げられ、男の子として育てるのか女の子として育てるのか選択を迫られた。
出産から5日後にオルガは退院したが、赤ちゃんは現在も遺伝子調査などで病院に残っており、現在結果を待っている状態のようだ。
専門家によると子どもの性別を決める手術自体はそれほど難しいものではないようだが、「子どもの性別をどちらにするのか」という選択は親にとって非常に難しいものだと思われる。

＊単語＊
dilemma..........ジレンマ
newborn child....生まれたばかりの子供
genetics.........遺伝学
pregnancy........妊娠
particular.......特定
predisposition...傾向

＊感想＊
今までもこんなことを聞いたことはあったけれど、作り話だと思っていました。実際にそんな人がいるなんて驚きました。この際、３つ目の性別として扱ってもいいのではないでしょうか。

Cows that burp less methane to be bred A cow that burps less is being bred by Canadian scientists in an attempt to reduce the greenhouse gases responsible for global warming.

Cows are responsible for nearly three-quarters of total methane emissions, with most of the gases coming from burps which are 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.
Stephen Moore, a professor at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, is examining the genes responsible for methane produced from a cow's four stomachs in order to breed more efficient, environmentally friendly cows.
Mr Moore, professor of agricultural, food and nutritional science, has recently published a study in the Journal of Animal Science having completed primary tests to breed animals that produce 25 per cent less methane.
However, more work needs to be done before the long-term impact is known.
He said: "We are working on producing diagnostic markers for efficient animals. We are looking at the next generation of technologies that will enable us to determine the genetics of an animal through a blood test or testing some hairs that you might pluck from the animal."
Ways of having cows produce less methane is to grow them faster, thus lessening the period between them standing in a field and getting to market.
Mr Moore said cows could also be bred to better covert food into muscle, so producing less methane and waste.
Another method already being used to reduce methane emissions is feeding livestock a diet higher in energy and rich in edible oils, which ferment less than grass or low-quality feed.
Nancy Hirshberg, spokesman for the New Hampshire-based Stonyfield Farm, an organic yogurt producer in which Groupe Danone holds a majority stake, said: "If every US dairy farmer reduced emissions by 12 per cent it would be equal to about half a million cars being taken off the road."

アドレス･･･＊要http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/sciencenews/5612957/Cows-that-burp-less-methane-to-be-bred.html

＊要約＊

温室効果ガスとして二酸化炭素の20倍強力なメタンはウシのゲップに大量に含まれていて、世界のメタン排出量の実に4分の3近くがウシのゲップによるものらしい。
そこで温暖化対策の一環としてウシのゲップの量を抑える研究がカナダで進められている。
Stephen Moore氏は、環境に優しいウシを交配するためウシの4つの胃でのメタン発生にかかわる遺伝子を研究している。
メタン排出量が通常より25％少ないウシを誕生させるための初期試験に成功したが、しかし長期的な効果を測るには更なる研究が必要らしい。

＊単語＊
three-quarters......四分の三
methane.............メタン
emissions...........放出
burps...............げっぷ
environmentally.....環境面で
diagnostic..........診断
livestock...........家畜

＊感想＊
牛がこんなに有害なげっぷをしているなんて知りませんでした。
牛をその改善のために改良するのは良いのですが、そのせいでこの先なにか牛に害が生じ無ければいいです。

Revolting record for maggot man

A MADCAP prankster has smashed the world record for transporting maggots — after carrying
17kg in his MOUTH. Charlie Bell moved two square foot of live maggots in one hour using only his chops. The-35-year-old, from Leyton, East London, admitted: "It was disgusting. "I had been practising at home with rice for months but until that day I'd never had a mouth
full of maggots. "I've handled them a bit on fishing trips but this was a whole new level. "I didn't realise that they would smell so revolting. They do their business in the tubs and
so they stink of ammonia. It was like putting my head down a filthy public toilet." The former steel fixer, who has a YouTube site where he performs other stomach churning
pranks, revealed: "I was gagging and heaving violently but I was determined to do it. "I was getting bits of their innards caught in my teeth and gums and my face got very sore.
I must have swallowed loads of them but I managed not to be sick." He added: "At one point I thought I couldn't go on but somehow I did it."

アドレス…http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/weird/2443511/Revolting-record-for-
maggot-man.html

＊要約＊
チャーリー・ベルさん（35歳）が1時間で17キログラムのウジ虫を口にくわえて別の容器に移すという
ギネス記録を樹立した。
彼は今まで1時間１５キログラムのギネス記録を2キログラムも更新しギネス記録保持者に認定されたそうだ。
彼は記録更新前に練習はしていたそうだが、実際にウジムシを口にくわえたのは当日が初めてで、想像以上の苦行であったとのこと。
彼は数ヶ月間コメを使って練習していたそうだが、チャレンジ当日に初めてウジ虫を口にしたらしく、
不快なにおいがすることを知らなかったそうだ。非常に苦痛で何度もリタイアしそうになったらしい。

＊単語＊
smashed.......つぶされる
maggots.......ウジ虫
chops.........チョップ
revolting.....不快
stink.........悪臭を放つ
filthy........汚らわしい
gagging.......ギャグ

＊感想＊
うじ虫を口に入れるなんて考えられません。
こんな気持ち悪いことをしてまでギネス記録とりたいと思うなんて頭おかしいと思いました。