Fascinating Stories: Invisible Children

Invisible Children

In the spring of 2003, three young Americans traveled to Africa in search of such as story. What they found was a tragedy that disgusted and inspired them. A story where children are weapons and children are the victims. The “Invisible Children: rough cut” film exposes the effects of a 20-year-long war on the children of Northern Uganda. These children live in fear of abduction by rebel soldiers, and are being forced to fight as a part of violent army. This wonderfully reckless documentary is fast paced, with an MTV beat, and is something truly unique. To see Africa through young eyes is humorous and heart breaking, quick and informative—all in the very same breath. See this film, you will be forever changed. [Length: 55:08]

Visit www.invisiblechildren.com for more info.

A Life Saver Called “Plumpynut”

Anderson Cooper Reports On A Nutritional Breakthrough.

(CBS) You’ve probably never heard a good news story about malnutrition, but you’re about to. Every year, malnutrition kills five million children—that’s one child every six seconds. But now, the Nobel Prize-winning relief group “Doctors Without Borders” says it finally has something that can save millions of these children. Read the entire story and watch the “60 Minutes” segment.

Photo of the Day

This is a young Zorse, a cross between a Zebra and a Horse. Dad is in the background, Bally Vaughn Game Park, Zimbabwe, Africa.

From Wikipedia:

A zorse or zebrula is the offspring of a zebra stallion and a horse mare; the rarer reverse pairing is sometimes called a hebra. It is a zebroid: this term refers to any hybrid equine with zebra ancestry.

The zorse is shaped more like a horse than a zebra, but has boldly striped legs and, often, stripes on the body or neck. Like most other interspecies hybrids, it is infertile.

Cossar Ewart, Professor of Natural History at Edinburgh (1882-1927) and a keen geneticist, crossed a zebra stallion with horse and pony mares in order to investigate the theory of telegony, or paternal impression. Cossar Ewart used Arabian mares. Similar experiments were carried out by the US Government and reported in "Genetics in Relation to Agriculture" by E.B. Babcock and R.E. Clausen and in "The Science of Life" by H.G. Wells, J. Huxley and G.P. Wells (c.1929).

Zebras, donkeys and horses are both members of the family equus -- equines. Equines can be crossbred to produce hybrids. They are all slightly different in genetic makeup, but still all equines. That is, horses have 64 chromosomes, zebra have between 44 and 62 (depending on species). Zorses can be male or female, but are sterile since their chromosome count is 63.