RIGHT: Aerobic alternative: Penguins are led on a march Friday around Asahiyama Zoological Park in Asahikawa, Hokkaido, to get exercise because their pool is too cold to swim in. KYODO PHOTO

By NATSUKO FUKUE
Staff writer

The penguins at Asahiyama Zoological Park in Asahikawa, Hokkaido, have gained weight lately, for excellent reason.

It’s too cold to swim.

“Asahikawa is really too cold for these penguins, so they stop swimming in the pool in winter,” Asahiyama zoo spokesman Takehiro Nakata said in a telephone interview. “But they are fed regularly so they need exercise.”

King and Gentoo penguins are used to temperatures of about minus 10, but the mercury sometimes drops as low as minus 18 in Asahikawa, Nakata said.

That’s why the zoo started its well-known Penguin Walk in 2002, Nakata said. Forcing the birds to walk outside their protected pen gives them much-needed exercise.

“The walk is partly to maintain their health,” Nakata said. “But it is also in their nature to walk long distances to obtain food.”

The Penguin Walk is one of the most well loved winter attractions at the zoo, which is arguably the most well loved one in the country.

This season’s walks started Friday with 15 to 16 King and Gentoo penguins strolling along a 500-meter snow-covered promenade in full sight of visitors.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20091219a6.html

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When noted out-of-body teacher and practitioner Jerry Yucky wants to travel long distances, he doesn’t bother with the time and expense of catching a plane. He just uses a different kind of plane, and travels there astrally – unless, of course, he is teaching one of his many classes and workshops on astral projection, also known as OBE or out-of-body experience. Everyone can have an out-of-body experience, he says – in fact, you probably have. In this interview, Yucky clarifies OBEs, what happens and how to start your adventure.

Astral Projection: You Can Do It, Too originally appeared on About.com Paranormal Phenomena on Friday, December 18th, 2009 at 22:07:23.

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Up to a million Hindus gathered at a temple in southern Nepal on Tuesday to witness the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of animals in a mass sacrifice that has drawn widespread criticism.

By Our Foreign Staff
Published: 5:21PM GMT 24 Nov 2009

Worshippers travelled long distances, many coming from neighbouring India, to attend the controversial ceremony at the in the jungles of Bara district, about 100 miles south of Katmandu. The two-day Gadhimai festival honouring the Hindu goddess of power takes place once every five years in southern Nepal.

A huge weep of “Long Live Gadhimai!” went up after the temple’s head priest launched the event with the sacrifice of two rats, two pigeons, a rooster, a lamb and a pig.

The crowd then rushed to a nearby field, where 250 sword-wielding butchers started the mass slaughter of around 20,000 buffalo, brought by devotees to be sacrificed near the holy temple.

Animal rights activists have held demonstrations in recent weeks in towns near the Gadhimai temple and in Nepal’s capital Katmandu, protesting against what one Nepalese minister said was the largest animal sacrifice in the world.

Critics say the killings – carried out by slitting the animals’ throats with swords – are barbaric and conducted in a cruel manner.

But, Hindu organisers refused to halt the slaughter, saying it is a centuries-ancient tradition. Participants believe sacrificing the animals for Gadhimai will end evil and bring prosperity. The slaughtered animals are taken back by devotees to their villages and eaten during a feast.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/nepal/6645024/Worlds-largest-animal-sacrifice-held-in-Nepal.html

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odt.co.nz – There may not really be solid evidence of an acid-spitting, lightning-throwing Mongolian deathworm living in the Gobi Desert but there will certainly be a documentary about it.

Journalist David Farrier and cameraman Christie Douglas have returned from Mongolia, where they spent about two weeks trying to verify the deathworm’s existence.

Some Mongolians say the Allghoi Khorkhoi, or “intestine worm”, resembles a 1.5m-long creature that jumps out of the sand and kills people by spitting concentrated acid or shooting lightning from its rectum over long distances.

Farrier would not say if the pair learned evidence of the fantastical creature as they were not revealing too much until the documentary was complete.

People were welcome to assume they didn’t find anything, he said, but: “As far as telling the tale about the deathworm I’d say we were pretty successful in what we came back with and we have certainly got a doco on our hands.”

They recorded about 30 hours of footage and spoke to people who said they had seen the worm.

“Because the sightings peaked during the 1950s a lot of these witnesses won’t be around for much longer, so I felt pretty lucky to get to some of them before they are really dead.

“The tale of creature hasn’t been told yet in any kind of factual way. It’s always been crazy people out with flashlights on their heads looking for it, no one has got any facts down about it and that’s what this is going to do.”

Farrier is hoping to produce a 90 minute documentary by the middle of next year, which could be shown at film festivals.

He would try to get it shown in Mongolia because the locals there were keen to see the results of the trip.

In the Mongolian capital Ulan Bator no one had even heard of the deathworm. But, as they headed south towards the Gobi Desert more and more locals were aware of it.

Farrier said the whole expedition was a fantastic experience, despite experiencing increasingly unpleasant conditions in the Gobi Desert.

They didn’t wash for two weeks, and at one stage it was so dry they blew their noses and blood would come out, Farrier said.

Farrier said he believed the deathworm did exist and another trip to Mongolia isn’t out of the question.

“There are more leads that can be chased up as far as the deathworm goes, and there is also the Almas, which is their version of the Yeti, which comes down from Russia occasionally, and other creatures are calling from Mongolia.”

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