The Lucknow Zoo, in northern India, has decided to use an old human method of keeping the spirits up and the body warm during winter, by providing shots of brandy to the 35 primates of the zoo each day of the next few months of winter.

The brandy will be mixed with warm water, and dosed out based on the size, age and weight of each primate. The primates have had treats of alchohol before, but not every day. The other zoo animals, however, will have to survive on fat building, heat burning high protein and calorie diets instead of spirits this winter.

The Further Confusion Masquerade is looking for a small group of experienced fursuiters and furry costumers who will be attending the convention this January and would like to serve on a panel of expert judges to help judge the costume presentation portion of the Masquerade.

Just when you thought literature awards were too pretencious for words, comes the naming of the winner of the annual "Bad sex in literature"award. Unlike some bad writting awards, where people purposefully pen purple prose, this takes unintentionally bad works and gives them their do.

Though I don't dare repeat the winning passage, excerpts can be found in the above articles, and a discussion of previous year's winners can be found here, with such romantic phrases as "Liz squeaked like wet rubber" and "Their jaws ground in feverish mutual mastication."

From CNN.com -- In a desperate bid to get numbers of an endangered species of tiger up, Chinese animal keepers have called on the services of Viagra

A grizzly-bear-proof suit of armor will be put to the test
on December 9, according to an article in New Scientist. (includes links to things mentioned below)

The Washington Post today has a nice article entitled Why American loves to hate the mouse -- a commentary about what's Walt's vision is doing now, since his death 45 years ago. And no, he's not cryogenically frozen...

From the latest "Computer Gaming World":


"We didn't want humans dressed up in animal suits", Quicksilver's Bill Fisher says, explaining the "no furries" decision that led to cutting the Bulrathi bears and Mrrshan cats.


There's a scan of the article available in this link at Pressed Fur. (Sorry for the indirect link, but the site doesn't seem to like direct links to images.)

My new website is finally up at its new home of Cottontail Studios located on CatBox.com. Please check it out :)

Further Confusion will be holding its annual charity auction. We're proud of our two charities, Tiger Touch and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. All proceeds from the auction will be split evenly between the two charities.

Attention all fursuiters! Do you have a new costume that you're dying to show off to the world? Are you planning on attending Further Confusion this January? Then we've got just the place for you to do it.

On Saturday, November 3rd, Conifur Northwest presented a check for $1550 to the
Washington State Ferret Rescue and Shelter. $1374 of that was raised at the
Conifur Northwest 2001 Charity Auction, and the remainder came from direct donations from members and the convention.
Thanks to everyone who donated via the Charity Auction, directly, or the donation jar on the WSFRS's table (which is in addition to the $1550), a number of ferrets will be living longer, happier, healthier lives after undergoing much-needed but expensive veterinary procedures.

The WSFRS will be returning for Conifur Northwest 2002, and we hope to be able to support them even more next year!

The web site of artist James Donaldson, Angry Raccoon Studios, has been rebuilt and is now up once again for browsing after a short hiatus. Visit at...

http://www.catbox.com/donaldson

In other news, IT has been unveiled. The item said to be "more important than the internet" is indeed a motorized scooter. Traveling up to 12 mph, it's supposed to be the wave of the future, but is really just the newest of a series of 'minimotor' personal transportation devices that have been proposed in the last few decades, such as one person electric microcars and three wheeled sit in scooters.

The new gecko is just 16 millimeters in adult length (That's about 3/4th of a inch). Found in the Dominican Republic, the Jaragua Sphaero, Sphaerodactylus ariasae or dwarf gecko, is already considered endangered, and shows the importance of research into new species all over the earth.

This article on Slashdot reports that Japan will be allowing human-nonhuman mixed cloning. The English language version of the original story is available. Some links from the story include:

• Ananova
• PBS Frontline report on Xenotransplantation