Only three days after being told their hamburgers may in fact be donkey or water buffalo, South African meat lovers have been dealt another blow: biltong, the fabled dried-meat snack, may not be as "wild" as many packets suggest.
Acting on a hunch - and four years before Europe's horse meat scandal broke - researchers at the University of the Western Cape tested 146 biltong samples from major retailers and small butchers from across South Africa.
All packets labeled 'beef' were found to be correct but 90 percent of biltong sticks supposedly made of kudu - a large, curly-horned antelope - were actually horse, pork, beef, giraffe or even kangaroo.
"It started with curiosity and suspicion because one piece of dried meat looks like another," researcher Maria Eugenia D'Amato from the university's DNA Forensics Lab told Reuters.
"We initially tested a few samples and the results were shocking so we decided to formalize the research."
Furthermore, zebra biltong was found to contain meat from the mountain zebra, a species threatened with extinction.
Biltong, air-dried strips of meat made from wild game or animals reared on the country's 10,000-plus wildlife farms, is staple fare for South Africans, who regard it as a healthy, low-fat snack.
Research released this week found that donkey, water buffalo and other unconventional ingredients had been found in almost two-thirds of hamburgers and sausages tested in Africa's largest economy.
Saturday, March 2, 2013
Man and woman, preferably married, wanted for expedition to Mars
A nonprofit foundation wants to recruit a man and a woman - possibly a married couple - for a bare-bones, 501-day journey to Mars and back that would start in less than five years, project organizers said on Wednesday.
The mission, expected to cost upwards of $1 billion, would be privately financed by donations and sponsorships.
Project founder Dennis Tito, a multimillionaire who in 2001 paid $20 million for a trip to the International Space Station, said he will pay start-up costs for two years to begin development of life-support systems and other critical technologies.
Currently, there are no U.S. human spaceships in operation, but several are under development and expected to be flying by 2017.
That leaves little time to take advantage of a rare planetary alignment that would allow a craft to loop around Mars, coming as close as about 150 miles to the planet's surface, before returning to Earth.
The launch window for the mission opens on January 5, 2018. The next opportunity is not until 2031.
"If we don't make 2018, we're going to have some competition in 2031," Tito told Reuters.
"By that time, there will be many others that will be reaching for this low-hanging fruit, and it really is low-hanging fruit," said Tito, who set up the nonprofit Inspiration Mars Foundation to organize the mission.
Project chief technical officer Taber MacCallum said U.S. industry is up for the challenge.
"That's the kind of bold thing we used to be able to do," said MacCallum, who also oversees privately owned Paragon Space Development Corp.
"We've shirked away from risk. I think just seriously contemplating this mission recalibrates what we believe is a risk worth taking for America," he said.
TIGHT QUARTERS
The spacecraft will be bare-bones, with about 600 cubic feet (17 cubic meters) of living space available for a two-person crew. Mission planners would like to fly a man and a woman, preferably a married couple who would be compatible during a long period of isolation.
The capsule would be outfitted with a life-support system similar to the one NASA uses on the space station, which recycles air, water, urine and perspiration.
"This is going to be a very austere mission. You don't necessarily have to follow all of NASA's guidelines for air quality and water quality. This is going to be a Lewis and Clark trip to Mars," MacCallum said, referring to the explorers who set out across the uncharted American Northwest in 1803.
If launch occurs on January 5, 2018, the capsule would reach Mars 228 days later, loop around its far side and slingshot back toward Earth.
The return trip takes 273 days and ends with an unprecedented 31,764-mph (51,119-kph) slam into Earth's atmosphere.
Once the spaceship is on its way, there is no turning back.
"If something goes wrong, they're not coming back," MacCallum said.
The crew would spend much of their time maintaining their habitat, conducting science experiments and keeping in touch with people on Earth.
Tito said he expects the cost to be similar to a robotic mission to Mars. NASA's ongoing Curiosity rover mission cost $2.5 billion. A follow-on mission scheduled to launch in 2020 is expected to run $1.5 billion.
"You're really flying this mission without a propulsion system on the spacecraft. It's in the most simple form," Tito said.
NASA is working on its own heavy-lift rocket and Orion space capsule that could carry crews of four to an asteroid and eventually to Mars.
"We can just barely, every 15 years, fly by Mars with the systems we have right now," MacCallum said. "We're trying to be a stepping-stone."
The mission, expected to cost upwards of $1 billion, would be privately financed by donations and sponsorships.
Project founder Dennis Tito, a multimillionaire who in 2001 paid $20 million for a trip to the International Space Station, said he will pay start-up costs for two years to begin development of life-support systems and other critical technologies.
Currently, there are no U.S. human spaceships in operation, but several are under development and expected to be flying by 2017.
That leaves little time to take advantage of a rare planetary alignment that would allow a craft to loop around Mars, coming as close as about 150 miles to the planet's surface, before returning to Earth.
The launch window for the mission opens on January 5, 2018. The next opportunity is not until 2031.
"If we don't make 2018, we're going to have some competition in 2031," Tito told Reuters.
"By that time, there will be many others that will be reaching for this low-hanging fruit, and it really is low-hanging fruit," said Tito, who set up the nonprofit Inspiration Mars Foundation to organize the mission.
Project chief technical officer Taber MacCallum said U.S. industry is up for the challenge.
"That's the kind of bold thing we used to be able to do," said MacCallum, who also oversees privately owned Paragon Space Development Corp.
"We've shirked away from risk. I think just seriously contemplating this mission recalibrates what we believe is a risk worth taking for America," he said.
TIGHT QUARTERS
The spacecraft will be bare-bones, with about 600 cubic feet (17 cubic meters) of living space available for a two-person crew. Mission planners would like to fly a man and a woman, preferably a married couple who would be compatible during a long period of isolation.
The capsule would be outfitted with a life-support system similar to the one NASA uses on the space station, which recycles air, water, urine and perspiration.
"This is going to be a very austere mission. You don't necessarily have to follow all of NASA's guidelines for air quality and water quality. This is going to be a Lewis and Clark trip to Mars," MacCallum said, referring to the explorers who set out across the uncharted American Northwest in 1803.
If launch occurs on January 5, 2018, the capsule would reach Mars 228 days later, loop around its far side and slingshot back toward Earth.
The return trip takes 273 days and ends with an unprecedented 31,764-mph (51,119-kph) slam into Earth's atmosphere.
Once the spaceship is on its way, there is no turning back.
"If something goes wrong, they're not coming back," MacCallum said.
The crew would spend much of their time maintaining their habitat, conducting science experiments and keeping in touch with people on Earth.
Tito said he expects the cost to be similar to a robotic mission to Mars. NASA's ongoing Curiosity rover mission cost $2.5 billion. A follow-on mission scheduled to launch in 2020 is expected to run $1.5 billion.
"You're really flying this mission without a propulsion system on the spacecraft. It's in the most simple form," Tito said.
NASA is working on its own heavy-lift rocket and Orion space capsule that could carry crews of four to an asteroid and eventually to Mars.
"We can just barely, every 15 years, fly by Mars with the systems we have right now," MacCallum said. "We're trying to be a stepping-stone."
U.S. college fraternity raises money for member's partial sex change
A college fraternity in Massachusetts has launched a campaign to raise money for one of its members to undergo partial sex-change surgery, a college official said on Wednesday.
Donnie Collins, 20, a sophomore at Emerson College in Boston, was born female but has been living as a male since he was 17, said Jason Meier, the college's director of student activities.
When Collins, a visual media arts major, pledged the Phi Alpha Tau fraternity earlier this year, he told fraternity brothers his insurance would not cover the cost of surgery to remove his breasts, Meier said.
"The men rallied behind him," Meier said, launching an online campaign to raise about $8,000 to pay for the so-called upper body procedure.
Collins was born with, and still has, female genitalia but identifies as a man, according to Meier. He has not had other sex change-related surgeries, he said.
The campaign has raised more than $17,000, and the fraternity plans to donate additional funds to the Jim Collins Foundation, a group that provides financial assistance for transgender surgeries. There is no relation between Donnie and Jim Collins.
In an interview with WBZ-TV in Boston, Collins said the operation would consist of a double mastectomy.
"I guess I don't think of it as a sex change," he said. "I think of it more as just making my body congruent with how I think of myself."
Collins could not be immediately reached by Reuters.
Donnie Collins, 20, a sophomore at Emerson College in Boston, was born female but has been living as a male since he was 17, said Jason Meier, the college's director of student activities.
When Collins, a visual media arts major, pledged the Phi Alpha Tau fraternity earlier this year, he told fraternity brothers his insurance would not cover the cost of surgery to remove his breasts, Meier said.
"The men rallied behind him," Meier said, launching an online campaign to raise about $8,000 to pay for the so-called upper body procedure.
Collins was born with, and still has, female genitalia but identifies as a man, according to Meier. He has not had other sex change-related surgeries, he said.
The campaign has raised more than $17,000, and the fraternity plans to donate additional funds to the Jim Collins Foundation, a group that provides financial assistance for transgender surgeries. There is no relation between Donnie and Jim Collins.
In an interview with WBZ-TV in Boston, Collins said the operation would consist of a double mastectomy.
"I guess I don't think of it as a sex change," he said. "I think of it more as just making my body congruent with how I think of myself."
Collins could not be immediately reached by Reuters.
Dog shoots man in Florida - maybe
Police added a dose of skepticism on Wednesday to a report about a man who says he was shot by his dog while driving down a Florida highway.
Commander Steve Carr, a police spokesman in the central town of Sebring, where the shooting occurred on Saturday, said there were "some indications" the shooting victim may have made up his "dog shoots man" story.
Gregory Lane Lanier, 35, told police he thought the 9mm Beretta semi-automatic handgun on the floor of his pickup truck was unloaded when the black and tan English bulldog kicked it and caused it to fire.
Lanier was hit in his left leg and the bullet wound, patched up at a local hospital, was not serious.
"It's what he claims," Carr said of Lanier's account. "We didn't spend a lot of time investigating it. There doesn't appear to be any criminal act involved. You don't have to be licensed in Florida to carry a handgun."
Lanier could not be reached for comment on Wednesday. Calls to a phone number listed for him in a Sebring Police Department report on the highway shooting went unanswered.
Commander Steve Carr, a police spokesman in the central town of Sebring, where the shooting occurred on Saturday, said there were "some indications" the shooting victim may have made up his "dog shoots man" story.
Gregory Lane Lanier, 35, told police he thought the 9mm Beretta semi-automatic handgun on the floor of his pickup truck was unloaded when the black and tan English bulldog kicked it and caused it to fire.
Lanier was hit in his left leg and the bullet wound, patched up at a local hospital, was not serious.
"It's what he claims," Carr said of Lanier's account. "We didn't spend a lot of time investigating it. There doesn't appear to be any criminal act involved. You don't have to be licensed in Florida to carry a handgun."
Lanier could not be reached for comment on Wednesday. Calls to a phone number listed for him in a Sebring Police Department report on the highway shooting went unanswered.
New Zealand man fatally attacked by shark, police open fire
A New Zealand man was attacked and killed by a great white shark on Wednesday in a rare fatal shark incident in the country, prompting police to open fire.
Police said they fired shots at the shark after a man was fatally bitten at Muriwai beach located around 40 kilometers (25 miles) northwest of Auckland, one of many beaches dotted along the North Island's west coast that are known for their wild surf.
Rescue crews were quoted by local media as saying the shark was a "white pointer", commonly known as a great white, measuring roughly 4 meters (13 feet) long. Witnesses said a rescue helicopter also fired shots at the shark.
"We saw the shark fin, and the next minute, boom, the attack came. There was blood everywhere on the water," eye witness Pio Mosie was quoted by local news website Stuff.co.nz as saying.
"They fired six or seven shots to the shark, three from the police helicopter and a few shots from the lifeguard. I don't know if they killed the shark or not," he added.
The head of the local volunteer lifeguard service was quoted as saying they had confirmed that "one or two" sharks were spotted, but none had been seen since the man's body was removed from the water.
Shark attacks are rare in New Zealand, where water sports and beach holidays are a rite of summer. More than 60 shark species are known to swim in the country's waters.
Fourteen fatal attacks have been reported since records began around 1837, according to the country's Department of Conservation, which added that non-fatal shark attacks average roughly two each year.
The last attack linked with a death was in 2009, when a kayaker was mauled by a great white in the nearby Coromandel Peninsula, although whether the victim drowned before the attack has been disputed.
According to the International Shark Attack File, 11 shark fatalities were reported last year, including three in Australia and South Africa, nearly tripling the average annual number of fatalities for 2001 to 2010.
Police said they fired shots at the shark after a man was fatally bitten at Muriwai beach located around 40 kilometers (25 miles) northwest of Auckland, one of many beaches dotted along the North Island's west coast that are known for their wild surf.
Rescue crews were quoted by local media as saying the shark was a "white pointer", commonly known as a great white, measuring roughly 4 meters (13 feet) long. Witnesses said a rescue helicopter also fired shots at the shark.
"We saw the shark fin, and the next minute, boom, the attack came. There was blood everywhere on the water," eye witness Pio Mosie was quoted by local news website Stuff.co.nz as saying.
"They fired six or seven shots to the shark, three from the police helicopter and a few shots from the lifeguard. I don't know if they killed the shark or not," he added.
The head of the local volunteer lifeguard service was quoted as saying they had confirmed that "one or two" sharks were spotted, but none had been seen since the man's body was removed from the water.
Shark attacks are rare in New Zealand, where water sports and beach holidays are a rite of summer. More than 60 shark species are known to swim in the country's waters.
Fourteen fatal attacks have been reported since records began around 1837, according to the country's Department of Conservation, which added that non-fatal shark attacks average roughly two each year.
The last attack linked with a death was in 2009, when a kayaker was mauled by a great white in the nearby Coromandel Peninsula, although whether the victim drowned before the attack has been disputed.
According to the International Shark Attack File, 11 shark fatalities were reported last year, including three in Australia and South Africa, nearly tripling the average annual number of fatalities for 2001 to 2010.
Japanese woman, 114, recognized as world's oldest
A 114-year-old Japanese woman born the same year that radium was discovered was recognized as the world's oldest woman by Guinness World Records on Wednesday.
Misao Ookawa, who was born to a clothing merchant in 1898 and now lives in the western city of Osaka, received a certificate acknowledging her status and said she was pleased.
"Given everything, it's pretty good," she told a gathering at the nursing home where she resides.
Ookawa, who according to Japanese media has never had a major illness in her life, married in 1919 and has three children, four grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
The award came as an early birthday present. She turns 115 next week on March 5.
Japan has more than 50,000 centenarians, according to government data released last year, reinforcing its reputation for longevity. The world's oldest man is also Japanese - Jiroemon Kimura, aged 115.
Misao Ookawa, who was born to a clothing merchant in 1898 and now lives in the western city of Osaka, received a certificate acknowledging her status and said she was pleased.
"Given everything, it's pretty good," she told a gathering at the nursing home where she resides.
Ookawa, who according to Japanese media has never had a major illness in her life, married in 1919 and has three children, four grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.
The award came as an early birthday present. She turns 115 next week on March 5.
Japan has more than 50,000 centenarians, according to government data released last year, reinforcing its reputation for longevity. The world's oldest man is also Japanese - Jiroemon Kimura, aged 115.
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