Organizers most blamed for Love Parade stampede tragedy

State authorities’ preliminary investigation showed on Wednesday that the organizers of the music festival Love Parade in the German city Duisburg should bear the most blame for the fatal stampede which killed 21 people and injured more than 500 others last Saturday.

The interior minister of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Ralf Jaeger, presented an interim report on the investigation on Wednesday afternoon, saying the organizers had failed to adhere to their prescribed safety concept and must therefore shoulder most of the blame.

Jaeger said the organizing company, Rainer Schaller’s Lopavent, had failed to prevent the flow of people from entering the tunnel when the situation was already tense at the entrance to the festival grounds.

“Security did not fulfill its duty,” said the state’s chief police controller, Dieter Wehe, who doubted whether the company had placed 150 staff at the entrance area as it had planned, as the current security detail was “insufficient.”

Before the release of the interim report, Schaller had denied allegations against him on security defects. “Without the official stamp of approval we would never let the Love Parade take place,” he was quoted as saying by the Bild daily on Wednesday.From the latest MacBook Pro to any 15.4 laptop bag notebook.

Jaeger said the following investigation will focus on finding out the reasons why organizers did not implement their own crowd control plans and why the city had approved the Love Parade event.

Wehe also pointed out some wrongdoings by the Duisburg municipality, which approved the event and thus bore the overseeing responsibility.

He said the police did not Booq’s Taipan Lift-L is a stylish belkin laptop bags/briefcase that is checkpoint-friendly yet designed for everyday use. The case opens 30 degrees for get the final authorization providing all organizational details until Saturday, the same day of the Love Parade, after requesting for many times.

The authorization only allows a maximum of 250,000 people in the area, while the real number of people who went there reached about 1.4 million.

The police had warned the city beforehand about the possible troubles within the entrance area, said Wehe, as consultant” for the upmarket family stationery firm, Smythson. She will work two days a week.the emergency exits and escape routes allowed by the authorization were not long and wide enough as required by German laws.

Over the past few days, the mayor of the host city Duisburg, Adolf Sauerland, has taken much blame from the public and media.

Sauerland was asked to resign, but he refused, saying that resignation means admitting the responsibility.

On Saturday, a memorial service for the victims of the incident will be held in Duisburg. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Christian Wulff are expected to attend, but Sauerland will not, in order to avoid upsetting the family and friends of the victims.

152 perish in Pakistan’s worst-ever plane crash

A PASSENGER jet crashed into the hills surrounding Pakistan’s capital amid poor weather yesterday, killing all 152 people on board and blazing a path of devastation strewn with body parts and twisted metal wreckage.

Initial Interior Ministry reports that five people survived the Airblue crash were wrong, said Imtiaz Elahi, chairman of the Capital Development Authority, which deals with emergencies.

“The situation at the site of the crash is heartbreaking,” Elahi told The Associated Press. “It is a great tragedy, and I confirm it with pain that there are no survivors.”

The dead included two US citizens, the spokesman for the US Embassy From the latest MacBook Pro to any 15.4 laptop bag notebook.in Islamabad, Richard Snelsire, said without providing further details.

Local TV footage showed twisted metal wreckage hanging from trees and scattered across the ground on a bed of broken branches. Fire was visible and smoke rose from the scene as a helicopter hovered above.

“I’m seeing only body parts,” Dawar Adnan, a rescue worker with the Pakistan Red Crescent, told the AP by telephone from the crash site. “This is a very horrible scene. We have scanned almost all the area, but there is no chance of any survivors.”

The search effort was hampered by muddy conditions and smoldering wreckage that authorities were having trouble extinguishing by helicopter, Adnan said.

The cause of the crash was not immediately clear, but Defense Minister Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar said the government does not suspect terrorism.

The plane left the southern city of Karachi at 7:45am for a two-hour scheduled flight to Islamabad and was trying to land during cloudy and rainy weather, said Pervez George, a civil aviation official.

Airblue is a private service based in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, and yesterday’s flight was believed to be carrying mostly Pakistanis.

Rescue workers scouring the heavily forested Discovery Kids got its start when childrens stationery librarian Karen Hathaway made a few discoveries of her own. First, she found that much of the nonfihills recovered 50 bodies from the wreckage, said Ramzan Sajid, spokesman for the Capital Development Authority.

“The plane was about to land at the Islamabad airport when it lost contact with the control tower, and later we learned that the plane had crashed,” said George, adding the model was an Airbus 321 and the flight number was ED202.

The crash site covered a large area on both sides of the hills, including a section behind Faisal Mosque, one of Islamabad’s most prominent landmarks, and not far from the Daman-e-Koh resort.

At the Islamabad airport, hundreds of friends and relatives of those on board the flight swarmed ticket counters desperately seeking information.

Saqlain Altaf told Pakistan’s ARY news channel he was on a family outing in the hills when he saw the plane looking unsteady in the air. “The plane had lost balance, and then we saw it going down,” he said, adding he heard the crash.

Officials at first thought it was a small plane, but later revised that. George said 146 passengers were on the flight along with six crew members.

The Pakistan Airline Pilot Association said the plane appeared to have strayed off course, possibly because of the poor weather.

Raheel Ahmed, an airline spokesman, said an investigation will be launched. The plane had no known technical issues, and the pilots did not send any emergency signals,Festival staff members have also examined expenditures and have taken action, from not hiring staff children stationery to not reordering Ahmed said.

Airbus said it would provide technical assistance to Pakistani authorities responsible for the investigation. The aircraft was initially delivered in 2000 and was leased to Airblue in January 2006. It accumulated about 34,000 flight hours during some 13,500 flights, it said.

The last major plane crash in Pakistan was in July 2006 when a Fokker F-27 twin-engine aircraft operated by Pakistan International Airlines slammed into a wheat field on the outskirts of the central Pakistani city of Multan, killing all 45 people on board.

Flourishing of Film Industry

Every year there are dozens of films produced in Hollywood. In the films we can find courageous heroes like Iron Man and the hot heroines in sexy formal dresses.. Besides this, disastrous films also bring thrilling shock to our deep mind. Many men in metal shoes and women in magic charming evening dresses fight with the evil. In addition, there are many more horrific ones full of vampires or zombies.

Under the influence of the various films and cartoon animations, the cosplay costumes industry has also thrived amazingly. Mentioning this business, I think we have to speak of Japan and the works by the imaginative Japanese. They continuously bring their inspirations into reality and produce a steady flow of heroes. The direct result of these successes is the rapid development of relevant industries.

Many more boutique shops are founded up all over the world, selling costumes, cosplay wigs and cosplay accessories from most popular anime, Comic, Manga and Video Game, like Naruto, Bleach, Final Fantasy, Chobits, Kingdom Hearts, Sailor Moon, One Piece, Street Fighter, King of Fighter, etc.

A lot of universities are also enrolling more students who are interested in design and artistic work. The film industry and the relevant economic entities now are seen to move forward side by side.

Embarrassment of riches

Australia is set to make one alteration to the XI that won the opening encounter in Wellington by 10 wickets.
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After missing the first Test with a hip complaint, Shane Watson has declared himself fit to return to the top of the order.

The reigning Allan Border medalist will squeeze out Phillip Hughes, despite the New South Wales youngster scoring 20 and 86 not out at Basin Reserve.

Hughes, who was omitted from the XI after the second Test of last year’s ill-fated Ashes campaign, elevated his career average to 51.2 from his seven Tests following his performance in Wellington.

The Black Caps would give anything to have someone of Hughes’ pedigree and ability available for selection.

The top three batsmen who turned out for the Black Caps in the opening Test had mixed results - Tim McIntosh (9 and 83), BJ Watling (0 and 33) and Peter Ingram (5 and 1).special occasion dresses

While the New Zealand selectors will keep faith with both McIntosh and Watling, Ingram’s position is a lot more tenuous.

He appears almost certain to lose his spot to the Northern Territory-born Mathew Sinclair, who at the age of 34 will return to the side after a two-year absence.

Remarkably, Sinclair is the only surviving player from either side who played in the first Test between the two teams at Seddon Park 10 years ago this month.

He burst onto the international scene in sensational style, scoring 214 on debut in 1999 against West Indies in Wellington.

Over the next 15 months he added scores of 150 against South Africa and 204 not out against Pakistan to give him a career average of 52.6 after his first dozen Tests.

But, sadly from that point on his performances at the crease took a sharp downturn.

His next 20 Tests produced a highest score of 76 and an average of just 20.9.

By the time he was last discarded from the Black Caps team after the series against England in March 2008, his career average had dropped to 32.5.

Yet now, after a two-year hiatus he seems certain to return to the pivotal number three spot for the final Test.

New Zealand had also included 19-year-old Kane Williamson in the preliminary squad on the back of his 588 runs at 53.4 this season in the domestic first-class competition, but in the end the selectors feared exposing him to the Australian pace attack and took the soft option of recalling Sinclair.

The broken hand suffered by Daryl Tuffey whilst batting in Wellington has seen off-spinner Jeetan Patel recalled.

Despite the fact that the Black Caps will field two specialist spinners they seem certain to send Australia in to bat should Daniel Vettori win the toss.

Such a move further highlights the lack of confidence that the team has in its brittle top order batting.

The pitch is reasonably well grassed and is expected to provide assistance to the seam bowlers in the opening session before - as usual at Seddon Park - it settles down and over time slows in pace, lowers in bounce and aids the spinners.

But should Australia’s top order survive the opening 40 overs in reasonable shape they could well bat themselves into a position of dominance after the first innings of the match just as they did in Wellington.

If the weather holds in Hamilton it is difficult to see anything other than an Australian victory inside four days.

A Wise Woman with Her Evening Dress

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Most people think women are soft and kind-heated in their nature. However, this well-accepted conception may prove nothing but a mere supposition. Sometimes women are more evil than they think. An outstanding man can enjoy the pleasure of possessing a great many good friends, with whom he can share weal and woe. By contrast, women are more liable to be in a state of loneliness, for an accomplished woman is more easily envied and hated by their competitors, especially those female opponents. Women like to compete against each other in every aspect, such as their income, pump shoes, accessories, boyfriends, and so on and so forth. They even can not tolerate someone wearing the same clothes, for example a Strapless Floor-length Sleeveless Evening Dress
This Strapless Floor-length Sleeveless Evening Dress was worn by Catherine and Judy at the same time on a formal party. Both of them felt embarrassed when they saw each other’s Strapless Floor-length Sleeveless Evening Dress, especially Catherine. Judy had been her boss for five years and sometimes appeared to be a little bit jealous of any female employees who were more charming than her. Catherine could not imagine her future in her company…
Am I making a fuss over this evening dress? Absolutely not, an evening dress can help you succeed in a business; in turn it can also influence your career on some occasion. Keep your eyes wide open and find out what kind of evening dress your counterpart likes most, only in this way can you be a wise woman in your company.

Fresh Crater Found in Egypt; Changes Impact Risk

The Italian-Egyptian team that found the crater in pictures recently visited and studied the 147-foot-wide (45-meter-wide), 52-foot-deep (16-meter-deep) hole. The team also collected thousands of pieces of the space rock that littered the surrounding desert.
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Based on their calculations, the team thinks that a 4.2-foot-wide (1.3-meter-wide) solid iron meteor weighing 11,023 to 22,046 pounds (5,000 to 10,000 kilograms) smashed into the desert—nearly intact—at speeds exceeding 2.1 miles (3.5 kilometers) a second.

There are no hard numbers for how many meteors this size might currently be on a collision course with Earth, but scientists think the potential threats could be in the tens of thousands.

Current impact models state that iron meteors around this size and mass should break into smaller chunks before impact. (Related: “Comet ‘Shower’ Killed Ice Age Mammals?”)
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Instead, the existence of the newfound crater implies that up to 35 percent of these iron giants may actually survive whole—and thus have greater destructive power.

Aztec, Maya Were Rubber-Making Masters

The Aztec, Olmec, and Maya of Mesoamerica are known to have made rubber using natural latex—a milky, sap-like fluid found in some plants. Mesoamerica extends roughly from central Mexico to Honduras and Nicaragua (regional map).

Ancient rubber makers harvested latex from rubber trees and mixed it with juice from morning glory vines, which contains a chemical that makes the solidified latex less brittle.

(Take a quiz about the ancient Maya.)

By mixing up rubber using different proportions of the two ingredients, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that tweaking the formula led to rubber products with different properties.

Some of the rubber came out more bouncy, suggesting it may have been used to make balls for the legendary Mesoamerican ball games.

As described in ancient Maya texts, ball games often had religious meaning—pitting good against evil. It’s thought the ball games sometimes ended in human sacrifice, most famously in ritual decapitation.

(Read about a panel from a royal ball court in Guatemala that’s been dubbed a Maya “masterpiece.”)

Other latex-to-morning glory proportions created more durable rubber, such as what might have been used in Aztec rubber sandals, which were described by Spanish conquistadors but have never been found by archaeologists.

A 50-50 blend of morning glory juice and latex created rubber with maximum bounciness, while a 75-25 mix of latex and morning glory made the most durable material.

Latex a “Funky White Liquid”

The initial discovery of rubber from latex and morning glory isn’t so far-fetched, noted study co-author Michael Tarkanian, a researcher with MIT’s Center for Materials Research in Archaeology and Ethnology.

Morning glory plants tend to grow near rubber trees, and both plants were considered sacred in several Mesoamerican cultures. Morning glory, for example, was also used in religious ceremonies for its hallucinogenic properties.

(Related pictures: “Mesoamerican Pyramid Tomb With Human Sacrifices Found.”)

To make their re-creations as accurate as possible, Tarkanian and colleague Dorothy Hosler harvested latex from rubber trees and juice from morning glory vines growing in Mexico.

The first challenge was getting the ingredients back to the lab. Latex isn’t regulated by U.S. Customs, and so there are no official papers for carrying it into the country, Tarkanian explained, “which is a problem when you’re bringing this funky white liquid across the border in Nalgene bottles.”

Once safely back in the U.S., the researchers met a new hurdle: The latex needed to be warm.

“The process always worked in Mexico, but not in the air-conditioned labs at MIT,” Tarkanian said. When the mixture was too cold, the molecules simply didn’t bond.

Today most rubber is treated through a process called vulcanization, which cooks liquid latex with sulfur to increase strength and elasticity.

Aztec Captains of Industry?

According to Tarkanian, it’s no surprise cultures such as the Aztec were making advanced versions of rubber. Despite their common depiction as primitive, violent people, the Aztec had a spirit of scientific inquiry, as shown by their experiments in metallurgy and other industries, he said.

(Related: “Aztec Math Decoded, Reveals Woes of Ancient Tax Time.”)

“Their science, engineering, and development skills would have led them to try different combinations” of substances when making rubber, Tarkanian said.

Once the raw ingredients had been mixed, he added, the rubber took about ten minutes to form and another five minutes to harden, giving rubber workers just a few minutes to shape the final product.

Tarkanian and Hosler mostly created sheets of rubber in the lab, but they did make a few rubber balls during one session.

“At the end of the semester, we played the Mesoamerican ball game. The losing team was beheaded,” Tarkanian quipped.

New Gulf Oil Seeps Tied to Another Well

Although the recently detected seeps apparently aren’t natural, they highlight the difficulties in separating the effects of the spill from the background flow of oil that has existed in the Gulf since before the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and sank in April.

In the oil-rich Gulf (map), there’s “nothing unusual” about natural seeps, said Tad Patzek, chair of the department of petroleum and geosystems engineering at the University of Texas, Austin. Natural seeps occur when oil—which is lighter than water—escapes into the water column from highly pressurized seafloor rock, Patzek said.Washington Redskins jerseys

In fact, more than 1,300 barrels of oil a day seep naturally into the Gulf of Mexico, according to a 2002 report by the U.S. National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences.

What makes the BP spill exceptional is that it accounts for a volume of oil that’s unprecedented in the Gulf—even with natural seeps, noted Christopher Reddy, a marine chemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.

Imagine “thousands of little leaky faucets compared to a fire hydrant that is flying out,” he said. “You need to put that in context.”

3-D Surveys Reveal Gulf Oil Leaks

On July 15 the joint industry-federal response team announced that a new cap had fully sealed the oil gushing from the mile-deep (1.6 kilometer-deep) wellhead, the first time the flow had stopped since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig sank in late April. (See pictures: “New Cap Stops Gulf Oil Spill, BP Says.”)

But a few days later the response-team leader, U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, reported the discovery of a seep “a distance from the well.” At a Wednesday press briefing Allen added that bubbles had been discovered near the damaged Deepwater Horizon blowout preventer.

The blowout preventer has “been down there a long time under a lot of stress. And just like any other piece of equipment, we’re starting to see some small leaks around it,” Allen said of the bubbles.

Figuring out the nature of the roughly mile-deep (1.6-kilometer-deep) seep, meanwhile, presented a unique set of challenges.

For one, UT Austin’s Patzek noted, there’s a “somewhat confusing” phenomenon in the Gulf that occurs when warm water underneath the surface rises up and decomposes methane hydrates, gases usually trapped in ice in the seafloor. This creates gas bubbles that look just like oil seeps.

Gulf seeps are also difficult to monitor, due to their remote and deep locations.

“The only way to tell whether the seeps are natural or not is to run a 3-D seismic survey over an area surrounding the failed well,” Patzek said.

The survey involves laying out an imaginary grid on the water’s surface and towing a series of air guns and microphones to collect seismic data, which can reveal changes in acoustic signals caused by oil seepages, he said.

“In our science, nothing is clear-cut and on the table,” Patzek added. “You can’t go to something that is … miles deep, take it in your hands, and disassemble it.”

After the cap had been put in place, Allen’s team sent a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration vessel to the site to do such  surveys—revealing that the seep was occurring near another well.

Though the team’s attention is focused on the Deepwater Horizon wellhead, that seep could also spell problems for the separate well, which is still unidentified.

“We do not like to have any seeps from a properly completed well, just like you do not want to have oil dripping from your engine and oil pan,” Patzek said. “Any seep is bad and may be a harbinger of more serious problems to come.”

Gulf Wellhead Oil Leaks Not Yet Cause for Concern

Based on the most recent review, officials don’t think the leaks around the capped BP wellhead are cause for concern—yet.

The pressure at the wellhead as of Tuesday was a relatively stable 6,834 pounds per square inch (psi) (47 million pascals), but it continues to slide very slowly by about one to two pounds (6,900 to 13,800 pascals) an hour, according to the Coast Guard’s Allen.

If the pressure drops to around 6,000 psi (41 million pascals), that may mean too much pressure has built up inside the well, forcing oil to leak through the surrounding sea floor, where the rock is very loose and unconsolidated.

“I would say the biggest indicator is the pressure,” said David Rensink, incoming president of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. “If the well is maintaining pressure and stable, whatever leaks [there are] appear to be small.”

The Coast Guard’s Allen said Wednesday that the wellhead is currently “following a chart or a pattern that would indicate that the well has integrity. But the low-pressure readings have created the dilemma whether or not we have a well-depletion issue or there is a leak down there.”

The NOAA vessel will continue to send back seismic data, Allen said Tuesday.

If the seismic data later reveal a big leak near the wellhead, “that is a serious concern,” UT Austin’s Patzek said.

Bigger leaks may impact the response team’s “static kill” plan to flood the well with mud and cap it with cement—a temporary plug until a relief well stanches the oil flow, hopefully for good.

That’s because instead of going into the well, the mud would spread into the leaking open rock layer, Patzek said. A leak would also make it more difficult, but not impossible, to push mud all the way to the bottom of the well.

Trucks Could Be Next Electric Power Frontier

Don’t expect to see electric-powered 18-wheelers roaring down the interstate any time soon. What you are more likely to see are smaller highly fuel-efficient utility trucks and buses on neighborhood streets, and lots of them.  Analysts project that hundreds of thousands of them will be on our roads within the next five years.Wholesale NFL jerseys

A new report by Pike Research, a research marketing firm that focuses on clean technologies, predicts that the global market for hybrid medium and heavy-duty trucks and buses will increase from 9,000 vehicles in 2010 to more than 100,000 vehicles in 2015. This year and next year, mainstream truck brands Navistar and Freightliner will even start to offer  medium-duty trucks that run on electric power alone, joining several smaller, new brands that are already on the market.
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During the five-year period, Pike predicts that more than 300,000 hybrid trucks will be sold worldwide. This would represent a 63 percent year-over-year increase in hybrid truck and bus demand, said report author Dave Hurst.

In comparison, the demand for consumer hybrid passenger vehicles such as the Toyota Prius is expected to increase by only about 13 percent year-over-year for the next five years. In the United States, in fact, as the recession hit the car industry overall hard sales of passenger hybrids fell from their 2007 peak of 350,000 sold to just under 300,000 sold last year.

(Related, Green Guide: Car Buying Guide)

The cost of fuel will be the driving factor that will boost hybrid truck sales, Hurst expects. Currently, diesel fuel makes up anywhere from 17 to 50 percent of a trucking company’s total operating costs. Hybrid systems could reduce those costs significantly.

Fleet managers who switch to hybrid trucks “could see anywhere from 5 to 50 percent fuel economy gains, depending on how the hybrid system is integrated and what type of truck you’re attaching it to,” Hurst said.

(Related, Even Modest Increases in MPG Can Equal Big Gas Savings)

Bill Van Amburg is the senior vice president of CALSTART and the program executive of the Hybrid Truck Users Forum (HTUF), which has advocated for hybrid trucks for the past decade.

Van Amburg said Pike Research’s forecast for hybrid adoption among the trucking industry is in line with what his group and others have predicted.

“This is tremendous validation of the work we’ve done with our partners. We’re very proud of that,” he said.

Insulation Against Rising Fuel Costs

Van Amburg said the shift to hybrid technologies would be driven largely by a desire among fleet managers to insulate themselves from rising and wildly fluctuating fuel costs.

“Whether it happens tomorrow or in five years, we know [fuel] prices are going to go up, and it’s going to go up pretty significantly,” Van Amburg said. “If fleets can reduce their dependency on fuel, at least they’re less at risk as it goes up and down.”

(Related, Tapped Out: World Oil Demand is Surging as Supplies Approach Their Limits)

Hybrid adoption could also help the environment by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

“It’s a one-to-one ratio between [carbon dioxide] emission and fuel use,” Van Amburg said. “If you cut your fuel use by 10 percent, you’re cutting your carbon by 10 percent.”

Robert Brasswell, technical director of the American Trucking Associations, thinks the greatest benefit will come from using hybrid technology to fuel medium-sized trucks,  such as those used by utility companies.

“In addition to moving around, these trucks do work. Once they get to where they need to be, they fix things or run tools,” Brasswell said. “With a hybrid vehicle, you have a ready-made source of electrical power onboard so you don’t have to tote a generator behind you.”

Trucks used for hauling freight long distances will show the least savings, Braswell said.

Harnessing a Truck’s Braking Power

That’s because modern hybrid trucks require frequent braking to recharge the batteries, a technique called regenerative braking. Long haul trucks don’t brake as often as trucks involved in so-called pickup-and-go operations.

“Think of an over-the-road operation from New York to Los Angeles. Once you’re out of towns and get on the highway system, you may touch the brakes only once an hour,” Brasswell said.

Regenerative braking is why transit buses and trucks that make frequent stops—such as trash pickup vehicles or UPS delivery trucks—will show the most cost savings when they switch to hybrid.

By far the biggest barrier to hybrid truck adoption right now is cost, Hurst said.

A hybrid truck or bus can cost anywhere from 40 to 70 percent more than a fuel-only model. For example, a heavy-duty transit bus chassis costs about $300,000, but adding a hybrid battery system can run an additional $190,000, Hurst said.

“Batteries right now cost roughly $800 to $1,000 per kilowatt-hour,” he said. “To be able to move something as large as a bus, you need a 100- or 150-kilowatt battery pack, so the costs can add up pretty quickly.”

In the United States, there are currently federal tax incentives and state vouchers to help fleet managers offset the cost of switching. California, for example, offers a $35,000 hybrid voucher incentive program to help cover the cost of a hybrid truck if it operates within the state, Hurst said.

Jungle Cat Mimics Monkey to Lure Prey—A First

Scientists in the Amazon rain forest’s Reserva Florestal Adolpho Ducke, near Manaus, Brazil, heard a margay imitating the call of a baby pied tamarin monkey in 2005.NFL Jerseys China

It was the first—and so far, only—scientifically documented case of a cat imitating a prey species in the Americas, team member Fabio Rohe, a researcher for the New York-based nonprofit WCS, said in an email. Rohe added that he’s unaware of any other predators in the world using vocal mimicry as a hunting tool.

(See “Atlantic Octopus Mimics Flounders—A First.”)

Though the high-pitched squeal was a “poor imitation” of a baby, it was similar enough to attract curious adult tamarins feeding nearby, Rohe said.

But when the monkeys crept closer, they spotted the margay and escaped before the cat could attack.

(Download a margay kitten picture as wallpaper.)

Listed as near threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)—meaning it’s likely to face a high risk of extinction in the near future—the margay is a spotted cat that grows to about 7 pounds (3.3 kilograms) and typically feeds on small mammals, birds, and reptiles.

The cat’s chief threats are habitat destruction, the market for exotic pets and pelts, and angry farmers, known to shoot margays who raid poultry stocks, according to IUCN.

Monkey Mimicry Passed From Cat to Cat?

Despite the margay’s lack of success that day, the observation suggests the cats use surprising “psychological cunning” to nab their dinner, Rohe said.

And the margay probably isn’t the only sneaky cat in the jungle. Rohe and colleagues interviewed people living in the central Amazon who reported hearing other cat species—such as cougars and jaguars—tricking their prey through mimicry. (See big-cat pictures.)

Many of the South America’s prey species, such as macuco birds and agouti rodents make very sharp sounds that may be in the “potential repertoires” of cats, the researchers say.

What’s more, those repertoires may run in the family. Margay moms, Rohe said, likely pass the imitation strategy on to their young. In “wild cats, this learning with [the] mother seems to be essential for its survival.”