Gizmodo: Dolphins

Dolphin Gets Prosthetic Tail

Wilson Rothman — Mon, 05 May 2008 10:20:00 EDT

Winter was just two months old when she got her tail caught in a crab trap—and rendered a useless stump—off the coast of Florida. After a long recuperation and a year and a half of hard labor by one of the veterinary world's top prosthetics wizards, Winter became the first dolphin to receive a functional but fake tail, qualifying her, according to the Daily Mail, as the "world's first bionic sea creature." Here's the story:

When they found Winter injured and flopping around in the ocean, rescuers took her to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, where she recovered, but couldn't get her swimmin' skillz back. Worse, her doctors thought she might throw out her back trying to swim with her stump.

Enter prosthetics master Kevin Carroll who, says the Daily Mail, "has designed prosthetics for dogs, an ostrich, and even [one lucky] duck." Carroll checked out the situation and thought coming up with the prosthetic would be easy. In the end, though, it took a year and a half to construct the 30" silicone and plastic tail, due to the fact that inside the prosthesis' slip, the spine of the dolphin has to have the freedom to move any which way. (By contrast, a leg bone typically stays put when a prosthesis is slipped over it.)

Check out more pics of the happy-looking Winter at the Daily Mail. [Daily Mail]

Super Bowl Dolphins Stadium Site Hacked, Spreading Malware

Jason Chen — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 19:15:47 EST

Super Bowl fans who are looking up info on the Dolphin Stadium site from a Windows machine may want to make sure they're using Firefox instead of IE. Apparently the site's been hacked and is hosting two known Windows Security flaws.

If you're running an unpatched Windows machine, your computer will connect to some server in China to download a trojan, which gives some very nerdy dudes complete access to your machine. So those of you who want to fetch info from dolphinstadium.com, make sure you've got the latest patches or are running a Mac/Linux machine. Either that or your wife's going to be pretty peeved when she finds some actual dolphin porn on your computer. Poor Flipper. – Jason Chen

Super Bowl stadium site hacked, seeded with exploits [ZDNet]

Two-Seater Robo-Dolphin

johnb — Wed, 24 May 2006 12:01:34 EDT

As if the dolphins didn't have enough trouble, now you're going to try mating with this 175-horsepower robotic dolphin that seats two. At 16-feet long, the 2-Seater Dolphin contains a marine engine and a Hurth transmission for underwater and surface travel.

Apparently the creaters, Rob Innes and Dan Piazza, have made a few of these things already but this is the first passenger-ready model. Their first dolphin, the Sweet Virgin Angel (it's actually hard to tell if a dolphin, even a robo-dolphin, is a virgin or not, but these guys pulled it off), can travel at up to 30mph on the surface and 20mph under water. [Thanks, Spungle]

Product Page [Innespace]

Ricky Williams Off Dope AND Biggest HD LED Video Screen

tgrumet — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 12:48:58 EDT

Miami gets everything. Great cuban sandwiches, South Beach, Diddy giving away expensive watches, and now they they'll be the recipients of the world's largest high definition LED display for Dolphins Stadium. Measuring about 15.2 metres by 41.8 metres, it'll make the screen that holds the "largest" record at Turner Field (in Atlanta) look downright, well, smaller. But don't think Miami will have the last laugh. Looks like the Tokyo Racecourse will have its even bigger HD LED screen open by September of 2006. So enjoy it while you can suckers.

World's Largest High Definition LED Video Display [Gizmag]

Katrina Unleashes Terminator Fish

coinop — Mon, 26 Sep 2005 11:42:32 EDT

Ever really wonder how all your US income tax money is spent? Apparently the Navy is training dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico to shoot terrorists and hunt for underwater spies. Armed with toxic dart guns, these dolphins are taught to obliterate enemies that might be attacking military vessels. During the wrath of hurricane Katrina, their containment compound was destroyed, releasing the brainwashed fish out to sea. Now all we can do is wait until some innocent tourist is found face down in the water after attending their first scuba diving class. We just wonder how the dolphin will plead to the imminent homicide charges.

Armed and dangerous - Flipper the firing dolphin let loose by Katrina [Guardian]