Men Busted For Fake 'Whiz' Male probationers who provide drug tests in the Bexar County Probation Department will now be required to keep one hand on the wall...and drop their pants. That's because officials busted two men this week who were using an artificial plastic penis called a 'whizzinator' to dispense drug free artificial urine into the cup to pass a court ordered drug test. "We've caught two of these people with a 'whizzinator,' it's strapped on much like a jock strap," Bexar County Adult Probation chief Cesar Garcia says. He says the device comes in five skin colors, ranging from Anglo to Hispanic to African American, and allows the wearer to appear to be urinating when in reality the material is a sophisticated artifical urine which is dispensed through a tube inside the device by pressing a button. Garcia says it's good enough to fool probation officers, who currently are required to watch the probationer fill the cup to insure that the urine actually comes from the man's body. "It resembles, certainly, a penis, and it is very realistic," he says. Garcia says the device, which can be purchased for about $150, even includes a small battery powered heater, to make sure the 'urine' it dispenses is body temperature. Garcia says from now on, all men who provide court ordered urine samples will be required to keep one hand on the wall so he can't push the button that activates the 'whizzinator,' and will be required to drop his drawers to insure that the penis he displays is the real thing. The men who were caught using the device were referred back to the sentencing judge so their probation can be revoked. ************************************************************** Cops say lawyer brought pot to jail PITTSBURGH - Allegheny County Jail inmate Germaine Cook's legal representation has gone to pot, police say. Cook's lawyer, Richard McCague, was arrested Sunday for allegedly bringing four ounces of marijuana into the jail when he visited his client. "I've been here 31 years and this is only the second time I remember an attorney bringing in narcotics. The last one was 25 years ago," said Deputy Warden Ed Urban. "I can't make sense of it." McCague, a parttime public defender, set off the facility's metal detector at the jail Sunday afternoon. McCague's client, Cook, allegedly kidnapped a college student and locked him in a truck while he used his bank cards. While asking McCague what might have triggered the machine, the guards noticed what looked like a pack of cigarettes in his front pocket. Because the facility doesn't allow tobacco, they told him to put the cigarettes in a storage locker and return. But McCague set the detector off again, and the guards said they would have to search him. At that point, McCague became "visibly shaken," Urban said. The guards found a packet of Kite tobacco behind McCague's belt buckle, and asked him if he had other contraband. "He reached into his right sock and pulled out another packet, and reached into his left sock and pulled out another," Urban said. Inside the first bag, police say they found four ounces of marijuana. McCague was charged with manufacturing, possession, or delivery of a controlled substance. *********************************************************************** 80-Year-Old Vows to End Her Rampaging Ways A L T A D E N A, Calif. - After trying to run down her neighbors and spray bug killer on them, the little old lady from near Pasadena is getting a chance to hit the straight and narrow. Dixie Carlene Granat, 80, was freed last week after two months in jail, after pleading no contest to spraying Raid insect killer on a neighbor she considered a pest. Granat lives in Altadena, a Los Angeles-area suburb near Pasadena. Granat also was convicted last year of trying to run down a neighborhood teenager in her pink Suzuki Samurai, while shouting racial epithets. She was released on her own recognizance after agreeing to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings three times a week and avoid trouble. Her car was also impounded. "I will behave like an old lady should," Granat said, according to The Associated Press. "I will sit in my rocking chair . I'll only drink lemonade." She will be back in court on July 9, and will be subject to a hearing to decide if she should live in an assisted-care facility. Granat admitted she had some psychological problems. "I'm bipolar, bicoastal and bi- a few other things," she told the court. ***************************************************************** Race to Escape Jail P A I N E S V I L L E, Ohio - Michael Logar will be running from police again next month - this time on a judge's orders. Painesville Municipal Judge Michael Cicconetti imposed an unusual sentence on Logar after he was convicted of fleeing police following a traffic stop. Logar was sentenced to 180 days in jail, but if he participates in a five-mile race next month, he can cut his sentence almost to nothing. Cicconetti suspended 170 days of the sentence on the condition that Logar run. His additional time spent under house arrest will depend on how he does compared to the police officers running in the annual competition, which typically draws 1,500 participants. "If he finishes first, he'll be out in one day. If he finishes 20th, he'll serve 20 days," Cicconetti explained. The judge said he expected 20 to 30 law enforcement personal to run. Logar will be coached and allowed to train regularly for the race, which takes place July 28. Cicconetti said he wanted to give Logar - a trained carpenter with three children and an admitted alcoholic - a chance to turn his life around and devote his energies to something besides getting in trouble. "What I'd like to do is funnel his compulsive behavior into something more productive," he said. Logar was arrested after officers said they found a beer can hidden in the glove box of the car he was in, during a routine traffic stop. Logar, who was not driving the car, tried to run from the scene and was arrested after a 1/3-mile chase. "There's a possibility that the arresting officer will be in the race, so he can run from him again," Cicconetti noted. ********************************************************* Study: Spiders Use Color to Lure Lunch While studying animal behavior in the rain forest of northern Australia, Mark Hauber couldn't help but notice spiders with brightly colored stripes on their bodies that stood out like neon warning lights. How, he wondered, could they catch lunch? It was intriguing to the Cornell University researcher because normally spiders need to blend into the background as they lay in wait for some unsuspecting insect. "They were really conspicuous," Hauber says. These spiders went to all the trouble of building an inconspicuous web, and then they stand out in the middle of the web as a "really bright spot," he said. "It just doesn't make any sense." Hauber, a researcher in Cornell's Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, set up a simple experiment to figure out what the spiny spiders ( Gasteracantha fornicata ) were up to. Although other research and even common sense indicated that members of the animal kingdom use color to attract a mate, or blend in with the background, these critters were using color for an altogether different purpose. Color, says Hauber, was part of the trap. They use color to lure in their lunch, and that's believed to be very rare in the animal world. Looking Pretty for Lunch It's not clear yet just why it works, but Hauber suspects that to the unwary insect, the spider looks like a flower, not a bloodsucking carnivore. But bright colors would also alert other predators, like birds and spider-eating mammals, to the presence of the spider. Having a bright stripe running down your back is not exactly a good thing if you're trying to hide from something else. But it apparently works for the spiny spider, Hauber argues in a report in an upcoming issue of the Royal Entomological Society's journal, Ecological Entomology , because birds and other predators have learned that it's not worth the effort to try and eat one of the little beasts. The spiders have a hard crust with spines on both sides, "so it's hard to chew and not really easy to eat by a predator," he says. "So it can be conspicuous, and once it's conspicuous, it can use that color to attract the insects." Hauber, who was interviewed while driving to his new post at the University of California, Berkeley, carried out a simple but cleaver bit of research to reach his conclusions. He used a felt-tipped pen to blacken the color on some spiders, and left others in their natural cloaks of yellow and black stripes. Then, he kept tabs on just how successful the two groups of spiders were at capturing insects. "The prey-catching rate was calculated on an hourly basis," he says. It turns out that the spiders that had been robbed of their color had a heck of a time catching insects. "Their catching rate decreased to about zero," Hauber says. But the other spiders, the ones with the bright colors, caught all the insects they could eat. So, presto, color is the key, he says. Spider of Many Stripes Hauber admits his findings are not all that popular with other animal behaviorists. Some argue that anything other than inconspicuousness would work against the spider's interest, because in time the insects would learn to avoid flowers that could actually be spiders. But Hauber argues that it would be too "costly" for the insects to do that because they depend on similar flowers for survival, and most of the time what looks like a flower would indeed be a flower, not a spider. And besides that, the spiny spider is a very tricky chap indeed. Although they are found all over the world, they differ in colors and patterns, so the yellow-striped spiders Hauber studied in Australia are very different in appearance from other spiny spiders. "They come in such variations that the insects can't learn what the spiders look like," he says. "From the same mother you could have different looking progeny coming out, so there isn't a clear phenotype where you could say this is what a spiny spider looks like, so avoid it." That gives the spiny spider a leg up on most other spiders. Most spiders build their webs near lights, and use the lights to attract prey. It's sort of a passive-aggressive system. But the spiny spider of northern Australia, and possibly elsewhere, doesn't have to do that. "It's got it's own attracting device," Hauber says. It's a jungle out there. ********************************************************************* New 'superbug' found at hospital The ESBL bacterium can break down antibiotics A new "superbug" which can neutralise antibiotics and cause fatal blood poisoning has been found at a Lanarkshire hospital. The extended spectrum beta-lactamases (ESBL) superbug is reported to have claimed the life of one patient at Hairmyres in East Kilbride, one of Scotland's most modern hospitals. A study by consultant microbiologist at Hairmyres, Dr Dugald Baird, said 41 patients were found with the bacterium - which produce enzymes that break down common antibiotics - between July 2001 and April this year. Lanarkshire Acute hospitals NHS Trust said ESBL was a "contributory" factor in the death of one patient. The report, published by the Scottish Centre for Infection and Environmental Health, claims the ESBL bacterium could become the new MRSA (methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus). MRSA is a new generation of bacterial infection which has been described as a superbug because it is particularly resistant to antibiotics. Last month, cardiac surgery at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary was halted after it emerged that 13 patients had contracted the superbug. Dr Baird: "Initially a lot of the MRSA bacteria were not thought to be very harmful and it may be that we are seeing a similar sort of thing with ESBL producers. Resistant organisms "You have to be concerned when you see bacteria mutate into resistant strains before your eyes." He said the ESBL infection had definitely "contributed" to the death of an Hairmyres patient. A spokesman for Lanarkshire Acute hospitals NHS Trust said: "The trust welcomes the report by Dr Baird, which has clearly identified areas for further research that in the long term will bring benefits to patients being treated in hospitals throughout the country. "The data gathered on ESBL isolates in Hairmyres Hospital, has highlighted the problem faced by hospitals all over the world regarding antibiotic resistant organisms." **************************************************************************** ** xponent More To Come Maru rob
