Kate Lunz didn’t know what to expect as she piloted her white Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission truck to the Port of Tampa in July 2010. The day before, customs authorities had called the 32-year-old, PhD-toting marine biologist and asked her to inspect the contents of two 40-foot shipping containers…
Last week, we told you about how seven species of coral found in Florida’s waters are “extremely likely” to go extinct by the end of the century. But coral reefs around the world, not just Florida, are increasingly imperiled.This week’s New Times cover story looks at how local shell shops and…
For bicycle geeks, a well-executed manual is a thing of beauty. While a typical wheelie involves yanking up the front wheel and pedaling like a madman, a manual demands a thrust of the hips and flick of the wrists to get the bike coasting — no pedaling once the front…
Man’s struggle to find the G spot has been the subject of many a punch line, but a new study shows that it’s quite small and not exactly easy to get to. This week, Adam Ostrzenski, a St. Petersburg doctor, published a paper that confirms the “anatomic existence of the G-spot”…
Care about the health of local waters? Got a beef with how the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary is being managed? Don’t want to see the Atlantic turned into a barren, polluted wasteland?If so, then pay attention to what the Nature Conservancy and the Surfrider Foundation are doing this week. …
Florida’s coral reefs have been on the decline for decades, and it looks like things could get a whole lot worse. Seven species of coral found in Florida and Caribbean waters “are extremely likely to go extinct” before the year 2100, and five of those species are the most “imperiled overall,” according to…
The heyday of pill mills and opiate overdoses in South Florida may be over, but the ill effects of the craze will likely linger for years. One giant bummer of a new study shows that those who opted for opiates as their preferred choice for getting high are 5.71 times more likely to…
Academics do a lot of weird studies to get published. The most recent example involves a professor named Nicolas Guéguen hanging around some bars in France to figure out if people with tattoos and piercings are more inclined to get shitfaced than people without tattoos or piercings. How does one go about getting…
Weed, it’s the healing of the nation. At least, according to dozens of reggae songs. From tuberculosis to epilepsy, ganja has been touted as a cure-all by toasters and DJs for decades. And since Friday is that day of the year when undergrads and other smelly demographics with nothing to do in the…
The Broward County Health Department on Friday afternoon announced that it has confirmed four cases of pertussis, three among school-aged children and one case in an adult. More commonly known as whooping cough, pertussis is a “highly contagious respiratory disease” that can cause “permanent disability in infants and even death.”While all of that…
Last week, Sea World took in an approximately 1,700-pound manatee that had been bashed up by a speeding boat. It’s the seventh sea cow taken in by the facility this year alone, and regulations to stop boats from hitting the sweet morons have been debated, sort of.A new study suggests,…
There’s a website to rate and rank everything these days. You can rate professors, fecal mater, boobs, dicks, ex-girlfriends, piles of vomit, funny pictures, mullets, Mustangs, and pretty much anything else you would be compelled to sit in judgment of. Now there’s a new website, PeekYou, that ranks how important people are…
Florida lawmakers tackled lots of pressing issues this past legislative sessions. They debated whether the barking tree frog should be the Sunshine State’s official amphibian. They clashed over making it a crime to pick up pecans that have fallen from privately owned trees. The even considered making trees painted purple a symbol for no trespassing. There…
Earlier this year, Spanish oil giant Repsol YPF announced that a massive drilling rig had started operating in “ultra-deep water” in the Straits of Florida, somewhere between Cuba and the Keys. One of the more problematic aspects of the operation is the dearth of information about where the rig is…
An eight-foot-long Burmese python captured in Miami-Dade last year either watched Cool Hand Luke far too many times or was just very stupid and very hungry.According to a new study, the snake puked up ten intact bird eggs soon after the Miami-Dade Venom Response Program captured it. Meanwhile, the remains of…
The Florida Sexual Offenders and Predators Registry is a mess. In August 2011, there were 2,129 sex offenders who were either dead or had been deported still listed in the statewide database as living in Florida communities, according to a new study led by the University of Washington Tacoma. Of the nearly 58,000 total people…
Most people eat cake and slack off on their last day of work. Not Jean Bernard Tarrete. The former forest ranger wrapped up his career with the Florida Forest Service at the end of March by hunting down a 15-foot Burmese python, wrestling with the beast while a coworker beat it…
Watch out, Burmese pythons. A more disgusting invasive critter is looking to steal your thunder. About 20 Gambian pouched rats have been trapped in the past year out on Grassy Key. Wildlife authorities say the huge rodents, which can weigh up to nine pounds, have been in the area since 1999…
The Florida Bar on Thursday issued a news statement detailing various punishments handed down to lawyers for doing things like driving drunk and filing frivolous suits merely to harass opponents. All said, the Florida State Supreme Court reprimanded 22 attorneys. Five were disbarred as a result, and four were simply, and embarrassingly, “publicly reprimanded.” The attorneys can still challenge the…
Coral reefs have taken a beating in recent decades. Ask someone who dove off the Florida coast in the ’70s and he’ll tell you the reefs today are a shadow of what they once were.Overfishing, reckless coastal development, pollution, careless boaters, and human plundering have all had a perilous effect on the increasingly…
Despite the string of national headlines, television specials, a federal ban, and grotesque photographs, it’s becoming increasingly unclear whether Burmese pythons are permanently wrecking the Everglades or if they’re just an overhyped nuisance. Earlier this year, scientists released a major study suggesting that huge drops of mammal sightings in the Everglades were likely because…
The Department of Justice on Friday filed its latest — and most likely last — argument as to why a Tampa judge was wrong to throw out gun charges in the case of Buju Banton, an iconic and controversial reggae star who won a Grammy just hours before standing retrial on…
