Dog swallows 80 pebbles and is saved

Cute but...silly!

Meet Star, a little dog from Blackpool who seems to have a taste for stones.

The Jack Russell terrier's owners became worried about her after she stopped eating and could hardly move.

When they took her to the vets an X-ray showed she had swallowed 80 stones!

Star's tiny belly and her intestines were packed full of stones making her dehydrated and unable to eat.

The stones were making her really poorly and the vet had to give her emergency surgery to save her life.

Star's owners have now removed all the stones from their garden!

Life on Earth may have started on Mars, say scientists

Could we all be Martians?! Because new research suggests life on Earth might have actually begun on Mars.

Scientists in the US have found evidence to show that some compounds found in human DNA might have originally come from Mars.

They think they were transported to Earth by meteorites billions of years ago.

The research also suggests that back then Mars was actually a better place to kick-start life than Earth was.

"The evidence seems to be building that we are actually all Martians; that life started on Mars and came to Earth on a rock," says Professor Steven Benner who explained the research.

"It's lucky that we ended up here, nevertheless - as certainly Earth has been the better of the two planets for sustaining life" he added, "if our hypothetical Martian ancestors had remained on Mars, there may not have been a story to tell."

This new evidence has emerged to support the long-debated theory that life on Earth may have come from Mars. According to this research paper presented at the 23rd Goldschmidt conference in Florence, an oxidised mineral form of the element molybdenum which may have been crucial to the origin of life, could only have been  available on the surface of Mars and not on Earth.

“It’s only when molybdenum becomes highly oxidised that it is able to influence how early life formed,” said Professor Steven Benner, from The Westheimer Institute for Science and Technology in the US.

“This form of molybdenum couldn’t have been available on Earth at the time life first began, because three billion years ago the surface of the Earth had very little oxygen, but Mars did. It’s yet another piece of evidence which makes it more likely life came to Earth on a Martian meteorite, rather than starting on this planet,” Benner said.

In the research presented at the conference, Benner tackled two of the paradoxes which make it difficult for scientists to understand how life could have started on Earth.

The first is dubbed by Benner as the ‘tar paradox’.

All living things are made of organic matter, but if you add energy such as heat or light to organic molecules and leave them to themselves, they don’t create life. Instead, they turn into something more like tar, oil or asphalt.

Read more on this topic

From CBBC newsround / Hindustantimes- World

Edinburgh zoo prepares for possible panda birth

It's the big question that nobody knows the answer to: is Tian Tian the panda pregnant?

Staff at Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland are preparing for what could be the first panda cub to be born in Britain.

They still can't say for certain whether their female panda - on loan from China - is pregnant but say she is showing all the right signs.

If Tian Tian is carrying a cub, the birth is expected to be in the next two weeks - so the wait goes on.

One of the reasons why there is so much excitement around the potential pregnancy is that giant pandas are very rare.

There are only between 1,000 and 2,000 thought to remain in the wild.

Tian Tian and Yang Guang are the first to live in the UK for 17 years.

Tian Tian and Yang Guang they seemed to be very much in love not long ago

Panda cubs are born blind, hairless and unable to move, making them very dependent on their mums for the first few months.

After six to eight weeks, cubs open their eyes for the first time. They feed on their mother's milk for the first year and start eating bamboo at around six months.

From CBBC newsround

Rare albino hedgehogs named after Prince George

Three rare albino hedgehogs in Russia have been named after Prince George of Cambridge.

The triplets have been given the names George, Alexander and Louis as they were born on the same day as the future UK king.

The exhibition centre where they live in Moscow has even made them their own royal residence to live in!

The miniature castle is made of wood and has dark velvet curtains and a luxurious bed.

On Thursday, the tiny triplets were introduced to their new home at the All-Russia Exhibition Center.

The wooden castle is painted purple, with curtained windows and a plush bed inside.

A red carpet was rolled out to welcome the babies and their parents, the Associated Press reported.

The zoo is hoping that Prince George himself will visit the hedgehogs one day, spokeswoman Yevgeniya Polonskaya told AP.

An albino African hedgehog gave birth to the babies, Polonskaya told Russia's RIA-Novosti news agency in July.

"Albino hedgehogs don’t usually breed in captivity," she was quoted as saying. "If people keep a standard hedgehog at home, it might give birth, but to no more than two babies. But we saw the arrival of triplets on July 23."

From CBBC Newsround/ / Los Angeles Times Worldhttp://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-royal-baby-albino-hedgehogs-20130822,0,1833840.story

Batman through the ages

Lewis Wilson and Robert Lowery were the first actors to play Batman on the big screen, in two 15-part serials. Lewis came first, in 1943, in a series that invented what was then called The Bat's Cave. Produced during World War II, its anti-Japanese sentiments make uncomfortable viewing today. 1949's Batman and Robin was a low-budget affair, in which the Batmobile was simply a Mercury convertible.Camp and goofy, Adam West's depiction of Batman is as familiar as his theme tune (der-ner der-ner der-ner der-ner BAT-MAN!). West also played the character on film in 1966, but he never enjoyed driving the Batmobile. "It was out of balance and it was rather dangerous," he recalled. "You never knew when the brakes would fail. I tried to keep it under 35 miles an hour".After collaborating with Tim Burton on Beetlejuice, Michael Keaton was the director's first choice for his gothic take on the caped crusader. He quit in 1992 over studio interference, saying, "I knew we were in trouble when certain people started the conversation with 'Why does it have to be so dark?'"Val Kilmer squeezed himself into the Batsuit in 1995 for Batman Forever. As Keaton had foreseen, the movie was bigger and brighter than its predecessors, but still featured a menacing turn from Tommy Lee Jones as Two Face. Kilmer's tenure was short-lived, though, after falling out with director Joel Schumacher, who called him "childish and impossible".George Clooney hams up his reputation as the man who killed the Batman franchise but, in truth, his sincere performance was one of the few good things about 1997's Batman and Robin - derided by critics as "bloated, frantic and mindless". Clooney later conceded his turn in the Batsuit, complete with anatomically-correct nipples, was "the biggest break I ever had".Tough, gruff and buff, Christian Bale's Batman was meaner than his predecessors. He was also more profitable, both The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises topped a billion dollars. But the chief innovation of his Bat-trilogy came in the costume department: "Our Batman was able to turn his head, which had never been done before," Bale told the BBC. He hung up his cape and cowl in 2012.

And the next one will be...

 

BEN AFFLECK and he will be acting side by side with Supreman Henry Cavill.

After Daredevil flopped in 2003, Ben Affleck swore he'd never make another superhero movie. But, like a Batarang, those words came back to haunt him. Fresh from the Oscar-winning success of Argo, the 41-year-old is stepping into the spandex for next year's Man Of Steel sequel.

Batman's costumes through the years

And... here is the trailer! Watch it!

How Chimps and Orangutans can Swim and Dive like humans

They may be no match for Olympian Michael Phelps, but a chimp and orangutan have proved to scientists that apes can swim just like us!

So funny!

The two captive animals were separately filmed ploughing through water using a form of breaststroke although most land mammals swim using doggy-paddle.

Scientists believe the peculiar swimming style of humans and apes might be the result of life in the trees.

Great apes are not known for their swimming ability, and there have been cases of them drowning in zoos that use water moats to confine them.

The chimpanzee, called Cooper, showed off his skills in a swimming pool in Missouri.

Not only could he swim, but he enjoyed diving to the bottom of the six-foot deep pool to pick up objects.

"It was very surprising behaviour for an animal that is thought to be very afraid of water," said researcher Renato Bender, from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.

The orangutan, named Suryia, was filmed at a private zoo in South Carolina swimming freely over a distance of 12 metres.

Both animals used a leg movement similar to the breaststroke "frog kick", according to a report in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

Obamas get new puppy called Sunny and it's so cute!

President Obama and his family have a new addition to the family, a puppy called Sunny.

Watch the video: It looks they get on very well!

Bo is no longer the only First Pup of the United States. Sunny, a 14-month-old Portuguese water dog, became the newest member of the Obama family on Monday, and the internet erupted in cuteness. The President had said in his 2012 victory speech that “for now one dog’s probably enough.” He has changed his mind.

Sunny has a lot to look forward to as the White House’s newest celebrity. Bo, now almost 5, has enjoyed a full life starring on the White House Instagram feed and hanging out in the Oval Office. Bo also got to join the Obamas in Martha’s Vineyard last week for the First Family’s vacation. He visits soldiers at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and patients at the Children’s National Medical Center.

The pup is a black Portuguese Water Dog, just like the family's first dog Bo.

Sunny was born last year and arrived at the White House yesterday, where she'll join Bo on evening walks.

The family adopted Bo in April 2009, after President Obama made a promise to daughters Sasha and Malia, when he was elected in 2008.

Bo joined the family in 2009 to fulfill a promise Obama had made to Sasha and Malia in the 2008 campaign. He was a gift from the late Sen. Ted Kennedy and family, and the Obamas disclosed his worth to be $1600 in their 2009 financial disclosure form.

The Obamas are making a donation in honor of Sunny to the Washington Humane Society.

From CBBC Newsround / TIME Newsfeedhttp://newsfeed.time.com/2013/08/20/sunny-the-new-obama-puppy/

The lawn mower with a difference at Chicago O'Hare airport

No doubt it's an unusual idea that seems to save money, noise and is very echological too.

Cute!

Chicago's bustling O'Hare airport has hired new crew to keep the grass cut: a herd of 25 goats, sheep, donkeys and llamas. Yes, llamas.

The rocky and hilly areas around the runways were tough to mow and was damaging the city's expensive equipment.

But apart from trimming the grass they have another important function - keeping wildlife, like birds, from interfering with flights.

Long grass isn't just messy, airport officials explained as they unveiled the new crew, It's also a breeding ground for the small rodents that attract hawks and other birds of prey.

It sounds like a match made in heaven.

From CBBC Newsround

Boy finds diamond and is allowed to keep it!

A 12-year-old picked up a five-carat diamond at an American park.

Michael Dettlaff found the diamond thought to be worth around £9,700, while visiting the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas.

It's the only diamond producing site in the world, according to its website, which allows people to look for diamonds.

Anyone who finds a diamond then gets to keep it.

Finders keepers - Michael got to keep this diamond

Michael spotted the gem just after entering the park. "We were probably there about 10 minutes and I was looking around on the ground and found it on top," he told America's ABC news. "It was very glassy. Very smooth."

"When I brought this rock out of the bag the guy who's there, he just went bug-eyed and he said, 'Hang on a second. I need to take this to the back room,'" "So then people start coming from everywhere and they're like, 'Oh yeah. It's a big diamond.'"

Twelve large diamonds have been found at the site this year.

Michael now hopes to get his find valued. "If it can get cut and it's valuable, I think I'd probably want to have it cut and sell it," he said.

From CBBC Newsround

Norway PM Jens Stoltenberg works as secret taxi driver

Norwegian PM Jens Stoltenberg spent an afternoon working incognito as a taxi driver in Oslo, he has revealed.

Mr Stoltenberg said it was the first time he had driven for eight years

Mr Stoltenberg said he had wanted to hear from real Norwegian voters and that taxis were one of the few places where people shared their true views.

He wore sunglasses and an Oslo taxi driver's uniform for the shift in June, only revealing his identity once he was recognised by his passengers.

His exchanges with his passengers were captured on a hidden camera.

The footage - made in collaboration with an advertising company - has been posted on the prime minister's Facebook page and made into a film which will be used as part of his campaign for re-election in September.

"It is important for me to hear what people really think," he told Norwegian media.

"And if there is one place people really say what they think about most things, it's in the taxi."

Driving errors

Some of the passengers who appear in the film had been told to wait for the taxi - without being told who would be driving - while others were picked up randomly and from taxi ranks.

Most of them appear to realise very quickly that there is something different about their driver, with one saying: "From this angle you really look like Stoltenberg."

Another says she was lucky to meet him as she "wanted to send a letter".

The conversation turns to politics in most cases.

Mr Stoltenberg engages one passenger on education, saying: "The main point is to make sure good students have something to stretch for, and to give those who struggle extra help."

None of the passengers was charged for the ride.

Mr Stoltenberg told the VG newspaper: "I'm pretty well known in Oslo, but I tend to sit in the back seat."

Most of the passengers realise quickly there is more to the driver than meets the eye

The Labour prime minister came in for criticism for his driving, at one point jolting the car abruptly when, he said, he mistakenly applied the brake pedal on the automatic car, thinking it was the clutch.

He said he had not driven in eight years.

Mr Stoltenberg is popular in Norway, but opinion polls suggest he is lagging behind the opposition ahead of the election.

But asked by VG whether he would consider becoming a taxi driver full time if he lost the election, Mr Stoltenberg replied: "I think the country and the Norwegian taxi passengers are best served if I'm the prime minister and not a taxi driver."

From BBC News

David Cameron says ‘bully’ websites should be boycotted

Prime Minister David Cameron has called for people to stop using websites where bullying takes place.

Boycott 'bully' says PM David Cameron

He said social networking sites should have tighter controls to help stop online bullying.

Mr Cameron said: "It's not the case that there's nothing we can do just because it's online.

"First of all, the people that run these websites have got to step up to the plate, clean up their act and show some responsibility."

He added: "Just because something is done online doesn't mean that it's legal.

"If you incite hatred, if you incite violence, that's a crime whether you do it in a television studio, on a soapbox or online and so these people can be chased.

"If websites don't clean up their act and don't sort themselves out then we as members of the general public have got to stop using these particular sites and boycott [stop using] them."

Cyber bullying has been in the news a lot recently because of the damaging effect it has had on some victims.

Famous people like singers Cheryl Cole and Cher Lloyd have spoken out about how they have been bullied online.

Newsround's got a guide to online bullying if you want to find out more or talk to somebody about it.

From CBBC Newsround

Click for less

Longest animal memory 'in dolphins'

Forget about elephants !

Scientists say they believe it's dolphins that have the longest memories of non-human species.

Researchers in the US say that even after 20 years of separation, dolphins can recall the whistles of former companions.

They believe this could be because dolphins have complex social lives, often leaving a group and joining it again much later.

The dolphins were able to remember family members as well as strangers.

Researchers in the US say that even after 20 years of separation, dolphins could recall the whistles of former companions.

The authors believe that these long-term memories are a product of the complex social connections that dolphins have evolved.

The research is published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Kai was one of the dolphins in the study, he was 16 years old when this picture was taken

In the study, the scientists used information on the relationships between 56 captive bottlenose dolphins that have been moved for breeding purposes between six different zoos and aquariums in the US and Bermuda.

Total recall

The researchers then played recordings to the dolphins on underwater speakers of the signature whistles of animals they had once lived with, and measured their responses.

"When they are familiar with the call, the dolphins are more likely to approach the speakers for longer periods of time," said Dr Jason Bruck from the University of Chicago who carried out the study.

"They will maintain contact with the speaker - if they are unfamiliar with the call they are more likely to ignore what I am playing. It's unprecedented in the study of animal behaviour to find memories this long."

Dr Bruck highlighted the case of two female dolphins called Allie and Bailey. They had once lived together in the Florida keys when they were very young.

The scientists say that the complicated nature of their social groupings impact their ability to recall whistles

Bailey now lives in Bermuda but when a recording of Allie was played, she instantly responded in even though it was was 20 years and six months since they had been in contact.

Dr Bruck says this type of response was typical. Compared to unfamiliar calls, there was a clear pattern in the data where dolphins responded significantly more to whistles from animals they had once known, even if they hadn't seen or heard them in decades.

To check that the dolphin's response was due to recognition of a former companion, Dr Bruck would also play a test recording of an unfamiliar bottlenose that was the same age and gender as the familiar animal.

Nuclear family

The researchers believe that the complex nature of dolphin social systems is behind the long term memory effect.

In the ocean, dolphins have a fluid social arrangement that scientists term a "fission-fusion" model. They may leave one group and join others many times in their lifetimes.

Continue reading the main story

Intelligent cetacean behaviour

• Dolphins taking part in an experiment had to press one of two levers to distinguish between sounds, some of which were very similar. By pressing a third lever, they were able to tell the researchers they wanted to "pass" on a particular test because it was too hard. "When you place dolphins in a situation like that they respond in exactly the same way humans do," said Dr Lori Marino. "They are accessing their own minds and thinking their own thoughts."
• A number of captive dolphins were rewarded with fish in return for tidying up their tank. One of them ripped up a large paper bag, hid away the pieces, and presented them one at a time to get multiple rewards.

"It is important for them to recall the calls of dolphins they have had previous encounters with, to decide whether or not that's someone they want to approach when they hear that whistle about a mile out, or whether they want to avoid that individual," said Dr Bruck.

"Having a long term social recognition for that ecological reason can be the difference between an animal having a very negative social interaction and a positive one."

According to the researchers, a dolphin's abilities to recall events indicate that the cetaceans have a level of cognitive sophistication comparable to humans, chimpanzees and elephants.

While elephants are also reputed to have extremely long memories of up to 20 years, there is little scientific evidence of their abilities outside of family relationships.

In this research paper, the dolphins were able to remember family members as well as strangers.

In recent weeks, another study has shown that dolphins have their own signature whistles that appear to have the same function as names do for humans.

From CBBC/BBC News

Dog years: The calculator

Working out your dog's true age used to be a case of simply multiplying it by seven. But it's more complicated than that, and here's a handy calculator to do it for you.

A recent Magazine feature explained that:

• Different breeds of dog age at varying speeds
• Dogs age at varying speeds at different stages of their lives

With that in mind, we've built a calculator for you to work out your dog's true age - its age in "dog years".

Alternatively, you can find out how old you would be if you were a dog. You can choose to be a labrador, a spaniel, a whippet, or any one of 20 breeds.

Continue reading the main story

Dog age calculator

• My dog
• My life as a dog

My dog's age...

Choose a breed of dog

  Select your breed...  Beagle  Border Terrier  Boxer  Bulldog  Chihuahua  Cocker Spaniel  French Bulldog  German Shepherd  Golden Retriever  King Charles Spaniel  Labrador  Lhasa Apso  Miniature Dachshund  Miniature Schnauzer  Pug  Shih Tzu  Springer Spaniel  Staffordshire Bull Terrier  West Highland Terrier  Whippet 

Calculate

Unfortunately this calculator doesn't work here so, go to

                 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22479412

Source: BBC calculations on data from UK Kennel Club and US Veterinary Medical Database

Credits to BBC News

Piglets on the loose in China causing traffic chaos

Some cheeky piglets held up drivers for nearly an hour after they escaped from a van and ran into the road.

Traffic police found them pretty tricky to catch as they ran off grunting and hid under vehicles.

Eventually they were rounded up and put back into the van but it took a lot of work.

See how they avoided getting caught for so long.

From CBBC Newsround