A few months ago, The Cincinnati Zoo challenged Cheetah Outreach to a little race. At stake? The future of a species...and bragging rights as the world's fastest mammal.

Sarah, an eight-year-old cheetah from Cincinnati, made the first runs in this race. She set a record of 6.13 second over 100 meters. This shaved about 1/20 of a second off the old record (6.19 seconds). By way of comparison, Usain Bolt covers this distance in a leisurely 9.58 seconds.

South Africa's Cheetah Outreach's competitor, Zaza, will make her runs later this month or early next.
posted by MrGuilt on Sep 9, 2009 - 24 comments

Cheetah poops thru sun roof.
posted by bigmusic on Oct 24, 2007 - 42 comments

Polar bears of Churchill, Manitoba. Wildlife photographer Ken Bereskin has a nice collection of polar bears frolicking in the snow. This itchy bear is so frustrated, he's using the rippled ice of a frozen lake to scratch himself. If you need a change of temperature, he also has over 500 images of wildlife from Uganda and Kenya, including big cats (a mother cuddling with her cubs, a cheetah chomping down on a gazelle, and a young lioness shredding a skeleton to pieces), great apes, and other wildlife (the lowly hyena eating the cheetah's leftovers, a black-headed heron eating a venomous boomslang snake, and a scary-looking vulture taking it all in from above). He also has a smaller collection of desert wildlife from the dunes of Etoshia National Park in Namibia. (His real job is working for Apple, and he has a Panther blog that hasn't been updated in eons, but evidently that's not as much fun as chasing after hungry carnivorous animals in the sweltering heat, or risking frostbite in the snow).
posted by invisible ink on May 6, 2004 - 5 comments

But what about the kitties? Feline Immunodeficiency Virus. FIV has been recognized as a syndrome since 1986, and as with AIDS, has been found in stored blood samples dating back to the 60s. Unlike HIV, however, for FIV there's a vaccine. Not that everyone is excited about it.

Originally, this was to be a post intended to provide something lighter until this appeared:

In addition, over 25 large cat species including, cheetahs, lions, and panthers have their own strain of the virus. Despite similarity among these viruses, transmission among species has never been documented. Scientists think that FIV is an old virus and may be the grandfather of all immunodeficiency viruses. Comparison of its' genetic code point to a virus that is millions of years old.

Googling led to several topics.
posted by y2karl on Dec 1, 2002 - 3 comments

Lord, thank you for this. Mac users our prayers are being answered. No longer will the plagues of type 11 errors and system freezes rule over the people. The writings is on the wall and it is time for us to reign.
posted by Brilliantcrank on Sep 18, 2000 - 12 comments