Miscellaneous
Research confirms alligators are eating sharks A new study confirms that alligators on the Atlantic and Gulf coast of the United States are eating small sharks. The scientific documentation is the first study to establish the extensive interaction between the two species. To conduct the study the researchers captured hundreds of living alligators, pumped their stomachs to learn what they’ve been eating, and then returned the gators to their natural environment. Our next National Park may be in Indiana A 15,000-acre park stretching along the Lake Michigan Shoreline cleared its first hurdle to become a National Park. The House Committee on Natural Resources approved legislation to designate the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore as a National Park. If passed, the designation would create the first National Park in Indiana and the 60th in the United States. Momma bear and cubs break into pizza shop, feast on salami A Colorado man has a video of three bears breaking into his pizzeria to eat salami and dough. “It was really fun to come into that one,” Tony Francher, the co-owner of Antonio’s Real New York Pizza in Estes Park told CBS news. The black bears reportedly broke through the front window of the Estes Park pizzeria, but in a string of comments on Facebook, the owner isn’t blaming the bears. He’s blaming bear-proof Dumpsters installed throughout the city. NASA offers program to send your name to Mars Next spring NASA plans to launch its InSight mission to study the interior of Mars and now your name can travel to the Red Planet with the spacecraft. NASA will upload the registered names to a dime-size chip and secure it to the InSight lander deck. The InSight was originally scheduled to launch in March of 2017, but NASA suspended launch preparations in December due to a vacuum leak in its prime science instrument. The InSight is currently scheduled for a May 2018 launch and will then have a six-month journey to Mars. InSight will be carrying science instruments and hundreds of thousands of names. The rules are changing for lodging at Grand Canyon’s Phantom Ranch Effective with stays of January 2019 and beyond, Phantom Ranch will utilize a lottery system for random selection of bed space. Lottery entries will be required between the 1st and 25th of the 15th month prior to the desired stay month. Lottery submissions will be processed, lottery winners notified and reservations guaranteed within the 14th month prior. Any unsold/unclaimed inventory will be released to general availability for reservations following the current 13-month reservation window. Translation Want to stay in Janary 2019? You enter the lottery (online) between November 1-25, 2017 The lottery will be processed and you’ll be notified in December 2017 Unsold inventory will be avilable January 2, 2018 (normally on the 1st of the month, January is on the 2nd due to the New Year’s Day holiday)