Woman adopts 1,500 stray dogs

A Chinese woman has given up her job, her home and her car to adopt more than 1,500 stray dogs.

Ha Wenjin gave up her business career and sold her house, car and jewellery to set up her unofficial dog rescue centre in Tangquan County, Nanjing.

"At first I did this in my spare time, but as I gathered more and more abandoned pets, I had to work full time for them," she said.

She has taken on 10 workers to help her look after the dogs - and another two to help care for 200 adopted cats at a second centre she has set up nearby.

But her project was put at risk when local government officials, who don't recognise her work, reclaimed the land for redevelopment.

"I had to find a new place which was deserted and not close to any human habitat, as 1,500 dogs are not quiet," she said.

"And the place had to be very cheap to rent, as most of our income comes from donations."

Finances are so tight that she partly relies on volunteer days when people bring hundreds of 'pork buns' to feed the dogs.

Ha eventually found a site, in Houyu village, Pukou County, but desperately needs funds to get the new animal rescue centre up and running.

And she is hoping more volunteers will turn out help her move the dogs on four buses on 4 December - and to clean the vehicles afterwards.

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World's hottest chilli - from Grantham

A chilli grown in Lincolnshire has won the title of the hottest grown anywhere in the world.

A novice who eats it can require hospital treatment for mouth blisters and burns, reports The Sun.

The new variety is named Infinity for its 'never-ending' burn, which cannot be quelled by even the best antidote, milk.

It put the notorious Bhut Jolokia, which is so hot it's used in mob-control grenades in India, into second place.

Grower Woody Woods, 37, of Fire Foods in Grantham, said: "It is like eating red-hot coal. To grow such a burning hot chilli in our climate is unbelievable."

He and pal Matt Simpson, 38, bred the Infinity in a greenhouse by crossing existing varieties. They hope to market the seeds this year.

Tests by Warwick University rate Infinity at 1,067,286 on the Scoville Scale which is used to measure the heat of peppers.

The former record-holder, the Indian Bhut Jolokia, is 1,041,427. A jalapeno measures just 2,500 to 5,000. Weapons-grade pepper spray is 2,000,000.

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Dog joins troops on parachute jump in Norway

A four-legged recruit to the special forces joined troops on a parachute jump into one of Europe's biggest military training exercises in Narvik, Norway.

The explosives sniffing pooch - a member of Austria's version of the SAS - took part in Operation Cold Response in Norway along with British special forces and Royal Marines assault teams.

Securely strapped to his handler and with a muzzle to stop him damaging his mouth on landing he plunged 10,000ft from a transporter plane.

"It's something he does a lot and he's very comfortable with. He has a much cooler head then most recruits," said one operation trooper.

Far from panicking at the experience of hurling themselves out of a plane at 10,000ft, the Austrians' Belgian Shepherd dogs appear to be perfectly calm both before and during the jump.

One handler explained: "They don't perceive height difference the same way humans do, so that doesn't worry them. They're more likely to be bothered by the roar of the engines, but once we're on the way down, that doesn't matter and they just enjoy the view."

He was also eager to point out that the dogs, like their human colleagues, are regarded as valued team members and aren't put into situations that could prove unnecessarily dangerous.

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Mammoth Could Be Brought Back To Life In 4 Years

Researchers will attempt resurrecting the mammoth, a species believed extinct for over 5,000 years, after finally obtaining tissue last summer from a carcass preserved in a Russian mammoth research laboratory.

The team will be led by Professor Akira Iritani, professor emeritus at Kyoto University, notes Physorg.com.

Though the study began in 1997, the researchers were unable to determine how to safely extract DNA until a 2008 experiment by Dr. Teruhiko Wakayama, during which he cloned a mouse that had been in deep freeze for 16 years. 

They plan on taking nuclei from the mammoth cells and inserting them into an elephant's egg cells from which the nuclei have been removed. This will create an embryo that contains the mammoth's genes. The embryo will then be inserted into the elephant's womb, and the animal will, hopefully, give birth to a mammoth. According to The Daily Tech, Iritani said:

"The success rate in the cloning of cattle was poor until recently, but now stands at about 30 percent. I think we have a reasonable chance of success and a healthy mammoth could be born in four or five years."

According to PCmag.com, the team will need a working sample of tissue of at least three square centimeters. The team has had trouble in the past because they had only been able to obtain tissue samples from mammoths found in Siberia, which were rendered unusable because of the frost. 

The effort has now become a joint one, bringing together the United States (two African elephant researchers), Russia (the head of the Russian mammoth research lab), and Japan (Professors Minoru Miyashita and Akira Iritani). 

If everything goes as planned, a mammoth will be born in 4 to 6 years. It will take so long because it will most likely be at least two years before they can impregnate an elephant, and then there will be a 600 day gestation period.

Iritani realizes the potential ramifications of this procedure. He notes, "If a cloned embryo can be created, we need to discuss, before transplanting it into the womb, how to breed it and whether to display it to the public. After the mammoth is born, we'll examine its ecology and genes to study why the species became extinct and other factors." 

Mammoths were between 10 to 12 feet tall and weighed from 6 to 8 tons. They are estimated to have gone extinct more than 5,000 years ago, probably due to a combination of the change in climate, hunting, and disease, and remain a symbol of the last ice age.

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