Penguin Takes the Plunge in a Wetsuit

'Mama bear doesn't look 2 anyone else 2 hand her anything'

(NEWSER) - Sarah Palin Tweeted her immense respect for—or perhaps envy of—the adult female grizzly bear yesterday after meeting Alaskan biologists, Politico reports. The soon-to-be ex-governor praised “mama bears’ gutteral raw instinct to protect & provide for her young” and described the animal in action. “She sees danger? She brazenly rises up on strong hind legs, growls Don’t Touch My Cubs & the species survives & mama bear doesn’t look 2 anyone else 2 hand her anything.” More»

On land, at sea, and in sky, planet's woes threaten inhabitants

(NEWSER) - Biologists have mounting evidence that human activity is causing real damage to the natural world. LiveScience lists overlooked indications that things are seriously out of whack.

1. Earlier migration: Several bird species are getting their timing wrong.
2. Jellyfish rule: The creatures are hitching rides on ships.

Spearfishing birds waddled the earth 36 million years ago

(NEWSER) - Penguins haven't always lived on ice, scientists have concluded after unearthing fossils of giant penguins in Peru's Atacama desert. The penguins, nearly human-sized at 4.5 feet tall, had extraordinarily long beaks apparently used for spearfishing, and waddled the earth some 36 million years ago, the National Geographic News reports. More»

Transmitter probably fell off, trackers hope

(NEWSER) - The story of "Happy Feet," the wayward emperor penguin that turned up in New Zealand, has captivated the world, but we may never know how it ends. The young penguin was returned to the wild last week and a transmitter that was attached to him has stopped relaying information to scientists, reports the BBC . He may have been eaten. But the penguin-trackers believe it's much more likely that the transmitter simply fell off. More»

Only injury was to frogman's pride

(NEWSER) - After feeling a huge tug on his line, English angler John Goldfinch fought long and hard to reel in a very rare catch—a scuba diver. The hapless diver, hooked through the crotch of his suit, surfaced some 50 feet offshore. "His girlfriend then surfaced, helped him remove my tackle from his tackle and nonchalantly handed the hook back to me and apologized," the 61-year-old angler tells the Telegraph . More»