By Herp News

Hackers naming themselves “Lizard Squad” have attacked Blizzard, Sony and other video game networks over the weekend.

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“Lizard Squad” takes down PSN, then targets plane carrying Sony Online CEO.

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Hackers reportedly forced an American Airlines plane to make an emergency landing over a threat linked to a top Sony executive onboard.

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AMAGON — A two-headed snapping turtle has been born in Northeast Arkansas.

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An American Airlines flight carrying Sony Online Entertainment president John Smedley was diverted on Sunday after a hacker group dubbed the Lizard…

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Sony has confirmed that a massive DDoS attack took down its popular online gaming network this past weekend, leaving millions of gamers out in the cold as they tried to connect to the service. Two different entities, a hacker group called “Lizard Squad” and a lone hacker named “Fame,” both claimed responsibility for the PlayStation Network attack, but an investigation is ongoing. Sony says that …

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By Herp News

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — A group of hackers calling themselves “Lizard Squad” has taken down several popular online video game networks and possibly diverted an American Airlines jet carrying a Sony executive. Over the weekend, Blizzard Entertainment, CCP Games, Riot Games and Sony have done maintenance to bring their networks back online. The hackers, speaking […]

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By Herp News

As if cutting off from their games millions of users wasn't enough for the day, Forbes reports that [the] hacker collective (or individual) known as the “Lizard Squad” succeeded in taking offline many gaming services including Blizzard’s Battle.net and Sony PSN. But things took a turn from irritating DDoS attacks to another level of harassment earlier this afternoon when the group took to …

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A critically endangered tree frog has just been discovered in Madagascar.

From Newsweek:

Boophis ankarafensis, as the scientists have dubbed the amphibian, is bright green with red speckles red on its head and back. It was found on the Sahamalaza Peninsula in the Ankarafa forest, from whence its name comes.

The frog’s call—a series of high-pitched trills, followed by three clicks—differs slightly from related frog species, which stop at a pair of clicks. Its body size and coloration are also slightly different; genetic analysis proved that it is indeed a separate species, according to a study describing the animal published today in the journal ZooKeys.

Although the Sahamalaza-Iles Radama National Park, where the frog is found, remains protected in name, deforestation is rampant in the surrounding forests, the researchers wrote.

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By Herp News

Hackers naming themselves “Lizard Squad” have attacked Blizzard, Sony and other video game networks over the weekend.

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Scientists have discovered a new snail species near a cement quarry in Malaysia, which as far as they know lives nowhere else in the world. It lives on a limestone hill called Kanthan given as a concession to an international company Lafarge. The cement producer quarries the hill for raw materials. As a result, the scientists have named the species after the company that will decide if it goes extinct.

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Quito (AFP) – “Pepe the Missionary,” a giant tortoise who rose to fame as one of the most photographed animals on Ecuador's Galapagos Islands, has died at age 60, officials said Friday. Pepe, who lived in a corral at the Galapagos National Park's Interpretation Center, died of natural causes, said the park's ecosystems director, Victor Carrion. Park director Arturo Izurieta paid tribute to the …

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Check out this video “Bubblegum the Talking Snake,” submitted by kingsnake.com user snakewz.
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By Herp News

They discovered the genetic “recipe” for lizard tail regeneration, which may come down to using genetic ingredients in just the right mixture and amounts. By following the genetic recipe for regeneration that is found in lizards, and then harnessing those same genes in human cells, it may be possible to regrow new cartilage, muscle or even spinal cord in the future. “Lizards basically share the …

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NASA is planning to send rats to the International Space Station so they can study the effects of microgravity on animals.

From Fox News:

While rodents have flown on space shuttle flights in the past, those missions have only lasted a week or two. This new rats in space mission, however, could range between 30 and 90 days, depending on the availability of spacecraft like SpaceX’s Dragon capsule to ferry them on the roundtrip.

This means there will need to be changes to animal husbandry to keep the rats happy and healthy, said Julie Robinson, NASA’s chief scientist for the space station, in a recent press conference. [Animal Pioneers of the Space Age (Photos)]

“This will allow animals to be studied for longer period of time on space station missions,” she said, adding that of the 35 or so studies where rats have gone into space, few of them have gone for more than two weeks.

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By Herp News

Fitch Ratings has affirmed the following ratings assigned to the senior unsecured notes and mandatory redeemable preferred shares issued by Tortoise Pipeline & Energy Fu

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Scientists hope a new discovey about the origin of snake venom can lead to more effective treatments of snake bites.

From Laboratory Equipment:

The genes encoding these proteins have been duplicated at some point in the past and one of the resulting copies has been restricted to the venom gland, where natural selection has acted to develop or increase toxicity. This differs from the long-standing hypothesis that venom proteins are “recruited” from body tissues, in the sense that these proteins are already expressed in the venom or salivary gland prior to becoming toxic.

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By Herp News

Lizard tails have fascinated humans from ancient times, falling off and growing back just like new. Now, scientists have solved the mystery of how lizards can regenerate their tails.

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By Herp News

The green anole lizard is master of a well-known trick: it can disconnect its tail in a jam and grow a new one. It's not only impressive, but enviable: regrowing broken or missing body parts has long been the dream of regenerative medicine. Now scientists have unlocked the secret to the lizard’s regenerative abilities, and it lies, in large part, within genes that humans share with the reptiles …

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A GENETIC program that triggers new tissue growth when a lizard loses its tail could hold the key to muscle and nerve regeneration in humans, a study says.

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Selective logging in India’s Western Ghats forests continues to affect frogs decades after harvesting ended, finds a new study published in Biotropica. The research assessed frog communities in logged and unlogged forests in Kalakad Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve and found that unlogged forests had twice the density of frogs as areas logged in the 1970s.

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By Herp News

A loggerhead turtle from the Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Hospital got to head home Wednesday.

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M-M Properties seeks tenants for the high-rise to be built at Turtle Creek and Cedar Springs, across from the Perot Group’s new headquarters.

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By Herp News

Sometimes all it takes is fewer clicks. Scientists have discovered a new species of frog from Madagascar that stuck out because it “clicked” less during calls than similar species. Unfortunately the scientists believe the new species—dubbed the Ankarafa skeleton frog—is regulated to a single patch of forest, which, despite protected status, remains hugely threatened.

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By Herp News

By understanding the secret of how lizards regenerate their tails, researchers may be able to develop ways to stimulate the regeneration of limbs in humans. Now, a team of researchers is one step closer to solving that mystery. The scientists have discovered the genetic “recipe” for lizard tail regeneration, which may come down to using genetic ingredients in just the right mixture and amounts.

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By Herp News

Scientists from Arizona State University used gene sequencing technology to study the process in the green anole lizard, Anolis carolinensis.

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By Herp News

Understanding how lizards shed and regrow their tails could lead to muscle and nerve regeneration in humans, say scientists.

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By Herp News

Snakes, turtles, and lizards will be among partygoers at North Plains Public Library's end-of-summer reading party, as the Reptile Man leads the library's weekly Wacky Wednesday event at Jessie Mays Community Hall. Other events today include the Portland Open and free vision screening at Hillsboro Main Library.

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A woman saved her great-grandson’s pet bearded dragon by performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

From the Daily Mail:

‘I really couldn’t remember how many chest compressions should be given before a rescue breath, but he was blue so I just did it. I was really amazed it worked.’

Working for what she said felt like a half hour, she held the motionless Del and rubbed his belly, then hung him upside down to clear water from his mouth and breathed air past his teeth.

Before long, he opened his eyes and started to move.

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By Herp News

Here’s a challenge: take a conservationist out for a drink and ask them about their work. Nine times out of ten—or possibly more—you’ll walk away feeling frustrated, despondent, and utterly hopeless. Yet a few conservation scientist are not just trying to save species from extinction, but also working to save their field—their life’s work—from slipping into total despair.

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By Herp News

Around 100,000 elephants were killed by poachers for their ivory on the African continent in just three years, according to a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Between 2010 and 2012 an average of 6.8 percent of the elephant population was killed annually, equaling just over 20 percent of the continent’s population in that time.

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Check out what Slash says for Turtle Conservancy.

Turtle Conservancy – Slash from Turtle Conservancy on Vimeo.

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By Herp News

August 19 is World Orangutan Day, a designation intended to raise awareness about the great red ape, which is threatened by habitat loss, the pet trade, and hunting. Once distributed across much of southeast Asia, today orangutans are only found on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra. Both species of orangutan — the Sumatran and the Bornean — are considered endangered.

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By Herp News

Amazon river turtles communicate with their hatchlings and with one another using vocalizations, recordings reveal.

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By Herp News

Building photo via Architectural Digest, turtle photo via Change.org Aspen's brand new $45 million art museum may have the Pritzker Prize winning architect Shigeru Ban on its side, but that doesn't mean it's immune from criticism. And while originally…

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By Herp News

In a recent update of the IUCN Red List, scientists have identified 13 new bird species that have gone extinct since 1500. In total the list now finds that at least 140 bird species gone extinct in the past five hundred years, representing 1.3 percent of the world’s total known birds.

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The Coast Guard is known for saving endangered sailors, but one crew can say they saved an endangered turtle.

From MYFOXNY:

The United States Coast Guard has released video showing a crew saving a huge sea turtle from a dangerous, tangled situation off the New Jersey coast.

The video shows Coast Guard members from Station Cape May, New Jersey, and an official from the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigatine untangling the leatherback turtle from fishing gear on Saturday, August 9, 2014. The Coast Guard estimates the turtle weighed about 800 pounds.

As soon as the turtle was free of the gear, it swam away, appearing unharmed.

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By Herp News

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Mike Daley hits the beach on Canaveral National Seashore before dawn most mornings, climbing into an all-terrain vehicle to survey 12 miles of beach, looking for unique trails in the sand that tell him a sea turtle plodded ashore to lay her eggs. Daley is among a small group of paid employees and volunteers who monitor beaches along the coast of Volusia and Flagler …

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By Herp News

Ashland, Ore. — A lizard heat lamp is being blamed for starting a small fire inside of an Ashland home. Ashland Fire and Rescue responded to a report of a fire on the 300 block of Idaho street around 7 Sunday morning. Firefighters say the heat lamp was sitting on the wood floor of the home, and started burning downwards into the ground. The fire did an estimated $5,000-$10,000 worth of damage …

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By Herp News

Google Earth has spurred the discovery of another new species. In this case, the creature is a pygmy chameleon, one of four previously unknown Rhampholeon chameleon species described from the remote ‘sky islands’ in Mozambique. The Mount Mabu pygmy chameleon was discovered after Google Earth images of a tract of forest led Julian Bayliss to launch a scientific expedition to the region.

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