I had a BLAST!

It was the most delightful experience. I am *definitely* going back next year.

There were some interesting similarities between Anthrocon and FERAL!

ANTHROCON: Climbing stairs to get to rooms
FERAL!: Climbing steep hills to get to cabins

ANTHROCON: Long wait in registration
FERAL!: Long ride on bus

ANTHROCON: Philadelphia tap water
FERAL!: Lake Nestea

ANTHROCON: Lack of towels made showering difficult
FERAL!: Lack of hot water made showering difficult.

ANTHROCON: Muggers.
FERAL!: Mosquitos.

The camaraderie was unequalled. Just about everyone got to know everybody else, starting with the Great Communal Bus Ride and continuing through the many gatherings they had, through the communal meals (which could have offered a tiny bit more fare, but that's a minor nitpick), to the Cabin Games and Cabin Skits.

I took part in a game of "Predator and Prey" which was so much fun I almost missed the call to return at its end. This year a little twist got thrown in, in that Rogue (the megawolf) showed up and ate everyone who came near him, including the human antagonists in the game. :)

There were workshops for just about everyone, water sports (in the lake, of course), canoes to paddle around in...I had brought things to read and writing to work on but never picked any of it up.

My hat is off to the FERAL! staff for a job well done. I don't think that wild horses could keep me from returning in 2002.

Due to last minute planning, I'll be attending Mephit FurMeet this coming weekend. This will be my fourth year at the Meet, though I didn't attend last year. As far as relaxacons go, this one is pretty good. Who else is going, what's your favorite Memphis restaurant, and are you bringing money to pre-register for Midwest FurFest? (blatant plug alert). Look for me hanging around behind the FurFest table, and introduce yourself!

Ananova is running a story about a mother Great Dane who has adopted baby tigers in Germany.

The original article with a picture of the cubs and mother (auf Deutsch!) is currently here (look for Kleine Tiger bei der Doggenmutter), and the sites for the zoo are here and here.

I've never given Internet Top N lists much credence as a way of rating/ranking websites, and as such lists go, The Furry Top 50 is less impressive than most. This list, currently consisting mostly of artist and comic sites, looks like it never gained the critical mass of voters needed to make such a list really useful, and appears to have degraded into little more than a contest to see who can get the most visitors to click on the voting button. Nevertheless, it might be worth a look just to see if there are any interesting sites you might not have heard about among those listed.

A recent Salon article relates how biological researchers are using radio transmitters and satellites to track the exact movements of animals like caribou and bald eagles.

I heard about a Dog Chapel/Church off of CNN, and it turns out to be off of Stephen Huneck's website. Located in Vermont, it is open to any breed of canine, any belief or faith of person.

Fans of horses will be interested in a film being made by Dreamworks (who made "Shrek"), which will probably appear in 2002, "Spirit: Stallion of Cimarron". You can read more about it at http://www.dreamworksfansite.com/spirit/, which also has a link to a more detailed review at AintItCool.

According to this article in the Washington Post, most stem cell lines have been nurtured with embryonic mouse cells. Therefore, they're likely to be transgenic: cells with mixtures of human and animal DNA. Any transplanting of them into humans would be considered xenotransplanting: bringing animal cells into patients.

Okay, a bit of a stretch for news, but this story on the Boston Globe's Boston.com site tells the strange tale of a wallet, a cow, a bunch of hay, and how they're all linked together somewhere in Japan...

The Cartoon Network is screening 10 animated pilots this weekend and inviting viewers to vote for the one that will join the network's line-up. The network's second annual Big Pick, runs Aug. 24-26.

Millennium Philcon, the 2001 World S-f Convention, is at the Philadelphia downtown Convention Center from Thursday, Aug. 30 through Monday, Sept. 3. Paul Kidd will be there; so will I (Fred Patten). How many other Furfen will be there? Are there any plans yet for a gettogether or party? The Worldcon is very expensive to join at the door, but memberships are not needed for hotel parties at night.

CNN has the following report on a new elephant species:

Researchers analyzing genes of African elephants found that the forest and
grassland groups are different enough to be considered separate species, which
means that three distinct species of elephants exist in the world. Science has
long recognized the clear differences between the African and Asian elephants.

For the full article, see A new elephant species?

The Seattle P-I reports that an 8-year-old girl in Irwin, Pennsylvania, was critically injured yesterday by the family's 10-foot long Burmese python. The snake, one of five large constrictors the family owns, had gotten out of its pen. The girl's mother found her dauther unconscious with the snake wrapped around her neck. Paramedics reported no heart beat when they arrived. Breathing and heart beat were restored in the ambulance, but the child remains unconscious at Children's Hospital in Pittsburgh.

Lycos hosts a useful site for people concerned about the environment: ENS, the Environment News Service. Here you can catch up on daily news about the environment, everything from information on the antarctic winds being harnessed for power to possible oil drilling near the Great Barrier Reef. The only annoying thing about this site is that right-clicking on the links will get you an amazing pop-up box about the article being copyrighted. Some of us aren't trying to steal, you know, just trying to avoid evil-nasty frames.

The sea harbors strange creatures, among them the brittlestar. According to this New Scientist article, brittlestars can 'see' through their arms because of microscopic lens in their skeletons. Since I had no idea what a brittlestar looked like, I went hunting and found this photo of an orange-red brittlestar and a second, striking photograph of a spiny brittlestar. Since this is the Internet, my search also brought up a site where you can buy fossils of echinoderms online, including (naturally) brittlestars.