Striking new evidence has been discovered that shows the origins of one the world’s greatest dinosaurs, the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Although thought to have lived throughout what is now western North America, the bipedal predator may very well have hailed from further afield, as these fascinating images portray… Confused? Read on.

Source: CrazynFunny

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We’re used to the weird and wonderful here at Environmental Graffiti but even we did a double take when we came across a mouse hanging ten. Yes, that’s right, a surfing mouse.

Australian surfer Shane Wilmott has trained his four pet mice to ride the waves. Using their tails as rudders, the mice are set on custom-made mice-sized boards – no glue or ties, they can jump off at any time – and are let loose on the water.

Bunsen, Harry, Curly and Chopsticks we’re taken to the beach one day and owner, Shane says they took to the sea likes ducks to water. And in case anyone is aghast at the very thought of pet mice surfing, they’re never taken out when the water is too cold and are rinsed afterwards with fresh water.

Check out the video made by producer Justin Gane:

Source 1, 2

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Finally, proof that exercise is bad for your health: Yesterday, a jogger in Arizona discovered that exercise is not as good for you as people profess. During her regular run she was attacked by a rabid fox, who it turns out was also remarkably insistent.

After the fox bit the jogger on the foot she went to grab it by the scruff of the neck only for the fox to firmly clamp its jaw on her arm. Despite trying to shake the it off, the fox would not let go so the lady had to run the mile back to her car with fox in situ. That’s one dedicated jogger.

Image: mikebaird

By the time she reached the car she had managed to pry the fox free and, wrapped in a shirt, she chucked it in the boot and set off to seek medical attention, both for herself and the animal. A struggle at the vet saw the feisty fox bite the animal carer too, so once it was confirmed the creature was indeed rabid both the jogger and the vet received anti-rabies injections.

Image: Everything is Permutated

The local Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office released a statement saying:”… it is very difficult to prevent the attack of a wild rabid animal once in progress.

“Although containing the animal for testing is beneficial, immediate treatment is always the priority.”

There was no mention of a statement to joggers about the risks they’re running with their health while partaking of their favorite sport.

Source BBC News

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Soaring nearly 8,000 feet high above the East Javanese horizon, Mount Bromo coughs up deadly pillars of toxic volcanic steam, sand and sulphur. But the locals don’t run from this giant tourist draw. They climb towards it. This time of year, you see, is when they feed the volcano.

Image: Thomas Hirsch

The annual festival of Yadnya Kasada is observed by the Tenggerese people of Indonesia in remembrance of the legend of Roro Ateng, an historic Queen. Mythology holds that Roro Ateng bargained with the great volcano for fertility, promising to repay its gift of children with the sacrifice of her youngest offspring.

Each year, pilgrims journey to the top of Bromo to appease the great stratovolcano with whatever meager offerings they have, including food, animals, and money. They offer their sacrifices and prayers for happiness and good health, and that the mountain gods won’t send rivers of lava raining down the ancient slopes.

Image: Alex Lapuerta

The disenfranchised of East Java don’t have to wait long for their prayers to be answered. The poorest among them gather during the month-long festival and await the sacrificial day. For, as the others shower gifts into the crater, geophysics won’t let those gifts stay for very long. With fishing nets and blankets at the ready, the Javanese poor collect the gods’ rejects and head home a little richer than before.

The festival, held unfailingly since the 15th century, guarantees a small, but reliable, cash bonus to a few lucky Javanese each year.

Sources: 1, 2

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Leather is one of the most versatile materials available to an artist. Normally the preserve of clothing or sofas, artists have been using it for centuries as a form of decoration and self expression.

From the elaborate saddle covers of the 5th century BC Nomads of the Altaic Region to modern day contemporary wall hangings, working with such an unforgiving medium as leather requires a truly masterful skill-set to produce a work of art from what is basically tanned animal hide. Fortunately the advancement of both tools and techniques has enabled artists to do more with leather than ever before, most notably in the realm of sculpture and intricate pictures. Let’s celebrate the skill and talent of the master craftsmen and women with a look at five incredible works of leather art.

1. The Hunters (Painted Leather)

Unlike dyeing leather, when you paint on leather the paint isn’t absorbed into the material and therefore artists have to be very careful not to bend or twist the leather as the paint can crack or flake off.

This vibrant depiction of two traditional hunters with their quarry is a brilliant illustration of the intricate detailing that can be achieved when using paint on leather. The use of form, colour and texture makes this painting appear three-dimensional while helping to give an illusion of movement in the huntsman’s clothing.

2. The Guitar (Sculptured and Carved Leather)

This piece won a Blue Ribbon at the 2008 Tennessee State Fair and is a brilliant example of the possibilities that exist when using leather as an art medium. It is life-like and immaculately detailed with a character all of its own. The artist has even gone so far as to include the Tennessee state flag on the body of the guitar.

3. Tipping the Hat (Carved Leather)

This incredible picture of a man tipping his hat carved into suede leather is a superb illustration of master leather craftsmanship. Excellently proportioned, even the hand is perfectly formed. A three dimensional effect is created by the fine detailing of the man and the illusion of distance with the background images. There’s even a vague similarity with Michael Jackson!

4. Hidden Face (Sculptured Leather)

Leather is a great medium for sculpture, which if used correctly can be used to produce a dramatic visual effect as is the case with this Peruvian leather sculpture.

This particular example of leather art is exceptionally well moulded, giving the impression of a face framed by folds of the leather. The careful positioning of the creases leads the eye to the central focus point, the face.

5. The Wilderness (Carved and Dyed Leather)

A number of tools including a swivel knife, veiner and pear shader are used in the art of leather carving. The intension with this type of leather art is to carve a design or image into the leather and thereby to create a three dimensional visual effect.

This scene of deer in a forest is just one example of what can be created when combining the technique of leather carving with dyeing. The artist has managed to capture a feeling of tranquility in the wilderness on this particular leather wallet purely by the placement and actions of the deer set against a natural backdrop of sky and ground.

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How many times have you wished for a freak storm to come so you could get the day off school? Well, some kid in Devon, England has been wishing hard! Not only did they manage to get the day off school but landed the rest of the town a day off, too. Only they probably weren’t so pleased about it.

Torrential storms saw an estimated 270 million cubic feet of hailstones fall in a five-mile square area within six hours yesterday in Ottery St Mary. That’s enough to fill the Millennium Dome twice over, and no doubt at least one football stadium.

Hail drifts up to 6ft-high buried cars and ensuing floodwaters overwhelmed flood defences. Freezing conditions made the situation worse.

Image: Auntie P

Some residents said a “river of ice” flowed through the main street, and by next morning the streets were described as looking like a “lunar landscape”, buried under a dirty-white blanket of hail and snow.

Resident Sarah Galliford said: “I was woken up by the sound of hail thundering down on the roof.

“I thought it was the end of the world.

“I looked outside at about 1am and there was a river of ice coming down the street – it was like Alaska.”

More than 100 people had to be evacuated from their homes and one poor woman went into labour after a car crash on one of the main roads out of the area. Mother and baby boy are doing fine. And one day he’ll be wishing for a day off school, too.

Check out BBC website to see Devon hailstorm video.

Source 1, 2, 3

Imagine getting a text message from an elephant. What would it say? Perhaps, “Stop calling me Dumbo, and, no, I can’t fly.”? Well, it appears that we might find out pretty soon.

In the last two years alone, the Kenyan Wildlife Service has killed five African elephants from the Ol Pejeta Conservancy because they were trampling through human settlements and cropland. It’s a problem that will only get worse as humans encroach on elephant’s territory.

To avoid the same fate happening to other elephants, like Kimani, pictured above, Save the Elephants has created an alternative solution, and Kimani is the guinea pig. This great drifter has a long history of destroying crops and irritating farmers, so to warn villagers Save the Elephants have inserted a mobile phone SIM card into the collar around Kimani’s neck, set up a virtual fence using GPS technology will track the elephant via Google Earth.

Now, when Kimani gets too close to the villages and farms he’s been reampaging, a text message is sent to the conservancy warning of impending danger. Armed staff members then set off to Kimani’s location and scare him away with bright lights and other methods – shooting is a last resort. Kimani’s crop raids used to be a nightly event but now he only appears every 3-4 months.

Image: Ol Pejeta Conservancy via teachandlearn

Although the project has the potential to reduce conflicts between elephants and humans, as well as the loss of life, it is not without its problems. The project is in its infancy and, so far, only two virtual fences have been created within Kenya. Also, humans can only keep elephants at bay for so long.

What this project shows us is that through innovative thinking and technology animals can live a life free from captivity and humans can be safe from the elephants.

Still, what would an elephant say in a text message, given the chance?

Source: 1, 2
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Resembling contestants from the cattle equivalent of Mr Universe, these absurdly built bovines certainly don’t cut a pretty picture. Affected by a genetic mutation, known medically as Muscular Hypertrophy, or double muscling, the freakishly-shaped cows are the result of cross breeding. About a century ago, a group of Belgian farmers thought it was a great idea to produce a breed of supercows, as you do. The eventual outcome of this breeding plan was the Belgian Blue breed, possibly the most intimidating looking herd in history.

Image: Built Report

Unbeknownst to the cattle ranchers, they had created an entire breed that selectively weeded out the very useful myostatin producing gene (MSTN). The role of myostatin in mammals is to tell the body to stop building muscle mass, so if there are no genes producing myostatin the muscles don’t get a message to stop growing, and the result is a cow that puts even the most ripped body builder to shame.

And it’s not just cows that need myostatin to curtail muscle growth, many mammals do. The non-functioning copy of the MSTN gene is unusually prevalent in a breed of dogs called Whippets. When two whippets with the mutant MSTN gene have puppies, there is a one-in-four chance those puppies will look like this:

Image via DogForum

Myostatin deficiency, though rare, can also affect humans. It’s estimated that between 1% and 4% of the human population are carriers of the gene, though the odds of any two reproducing, as well as each passing their broken copy of MSTN to their offspring, are considerably low. It does occasionally happen, though.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Not surprisingly, once the role of myostatin was understood, people immediately wanted to use it, or rather the lack of it, to artificially grow muscles. Doctors and scientists thought: if too little myostatin causes Muscular Hypertrophy, then there is a chance that too much myostatin may cause Muscular Dystrophy (MD). Various studies and clinical trials are being conducted in blocking myostatin in MD afflicted individuals. On the other side of the coin, guys with a desire to embody cartoonishly exaggerated male sex characteristics have been buying myostatin blockers ever since in the hope of looking as beefed up as a Belgian Blue.

Sources: 1,2, 3

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They say lightning never strikes twice, but for cows it just seems to keep on striking, as yet another herd of cattle was zapped by one of nature’s most volatile forces. A single bolt of lightning killed 52 cows in San Jose, Uruguay last Wednesday, 22 October, during a night storm. According to reports, the cows were trying to find protection by huddling against a fence, but the plan backfired, quite literally, as fence-protector became fence-conductor.

Image: three of clubs

It’s not the first time large numbers of cattle have had their lives cut short in a flash. In 2004 a lightning strike killed 31 cows seeking refuge under a tree in Denmark; in 2005, 68 were sizzled in the same way in New South Wales, Australia; while in September of this year another 53 of the unfortunate creatures met their maker in Katosi, Uganda, again underneath a tree. So what’s with the animal attraction for these bolts from the skies?

Image: Ruth Lyon-Bateman

It appears the run of bad luck for cows isn’t just down to their tendency to loiter in fields and innocently seek shelter in thunderstorms. Another reason for the greater risk they stand is their widely spaced legs. It’s known that lightning can ‘sideflash’ – jumping from one struck object to another object nearby – but it can also spread out in ‘ground currents’ when it hits the earth. And if the hind hooves are touching the ground at a spot with a different electrical potential to the front hooves, the current will travel through the cow’s body and kill it. Ouch.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7

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This beautiful photo was taken on the corner of Buci and Seine in St-Germain-des-Pres, Paris. The photographer Brent Townshend used multiple fisheye lenses and self-written software to stitch the panoramic series of shots together, composing the eye-catching final image.

He says that the emergent shape of a dove, formed by the outlines of the buildings, was planned at the time of photographing and is not the result of any ‘tweaking’ beyond the use of his software to convert an essentially spherical panorama into a flat image.

You can find more of Brent’s excellent spherical photos at his website or you can see see the actual geographical location of many of his shots referenced on google earth through his Panoramio profile.

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