The storm was no longer expected to make landfall on the island of Hispaniola shared by the two nations and Dominican officials suspended a tropical storm warning for that country. But forecasters said Chantal could still bring heavy rain to flood-prone areas where people live in flimsy homes of plywood and corrugated steel.

In both countries, people fortified houses with tarps and wood and gathered supplies, largely ignoring warnings to leave their neighborhoods.

"We're going to wait until it's over. We're already used to this," said 36-year-old Sergio Guzman, who along the banks of a river near Santo Domingo.

Dominican state meteorologist Bolivar Ledesma said as much as 8 inches (20 centimeters) of rain could soak that country's southern coast.

As showers began falling along Haiti's southern coast Wednesday afternoon, officials took to the radio airwaves to urge people to move away from ravines, secure important records and stock up on food and water.

"There's not much I can do," Stevenson Etienne, a 40-year-old welder, said from his garage in downtown Port-au-Prince. "Still, I will try to protect myself and my children."

Chantal was about 145 miles (235 kilometers) south of the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince Wednesday afternoon, moving west at 29 mph (46 kph), with maximum sustained winds of 45 mph (75 kph), according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami. It was on track to head north across Cuba and toward the Bahamas and Florida, but forecasters said the storm would likely weaken to a tropical depression by Thursday.

A tropical storm warning was in effect Wednesday for Haiti, Turks and Caicos and the southeastern Bahamas. A tropical storm watch was in effect for Jamaica and the central Bahamas.

Even a weaker Chantal could create problems for the rural southern peninsula of Haiti and southwestern Dominican Republic.

Storms often trigger flooding and landslides on Hispaniola, and severe deforestation and makeshift housing make Haiti especially vulnerable.

Port-au-Prince is a hilly city on the ocean that's surrounded by vast concrete shanties that collapse in mudslides, sometimes killing people. Also, about 279,000 Haitians still live in ramshackle settlements established after a devastating 2010 earthquake.

Last year, a hurricane and a tropical storm separately caused widespread flooding after merely brushing Haiti.

Marie Alta Jean-Baptiste, general director for Haiti's Civil Protection Department, said the government had prepared 400 emergency shelters nationwide. She urged people to tie up livestock, monitor the radio for updates and avoid crossing rivers.

American Airlines canceled flights to Haiti and elsewhere in the Caribbean.

Chantal raced through the eastern Caribbean early Tuesday, with officials in Dominica reporting that heavy winds ripped the roofs off several homes. No injuries were reported there or anywhere else in the region.

Overnight, the storm passed south of Puerto Rico, leaving about 7,000 people without power and more than 2,500 people without water. Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla ordered public employees in the U.S. territory to return to work on Wednesday.

The U.S. Coast Guard said all Puerto Rican ports had reopened except those on the southern and western coasts.

___

Associated Press writers Daniel and Evens Sanon reported from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and Lopez from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico contributed to this report.

The Lions, who lost the second test 16-15, have decamped to Noosa, the balmy, sun-bathed resort north of Brisbane for a three-day retreat and training camp before they face the Wallabies in Sydney on Saturday.

Pictures of the players frolicking in Noosa's sub-tropical waters on Sunday were posted on their official website and Woodward said he felt it was not the proper way to prepare.

"Players are hardly capable of walking up stairs properly on the morning after a game, so to sit on a coach, then in cramped economy seats, then back on a coach would only worsen the stiffness and swelling," Woodward huffed in his column in Britain's Daily Mail newspaper.

"These guys are battered and bruised but you do not need to fly to Noosa to get some rest and rehabilitation. It is the last place I would take the team.

"You have to lick your wounds and feel sorry for yourself for 24 hours and then get to Sydney to prepare for the biggest match of your lives."

Lions captain Sam Warburton was left behind in Melbourne to have scans on a hamstring injury and Woodward said the rest of the team should have done the same and made just one flight to Sydney on Monday.

"The Lions needed a lie-in and a full day in the team hotel with the world-class recovery facilities that were on their doorstep in Melbourne," he added.

The Lions had a scheduled day off on Monday, though it did not stop their head of communications welcoming the possibility of further sunshine.

"DAY OFF!!!! Lions sleeping Sun threatening to come out in Noosa," the tweet from Greg Thomas read.

Australia coach Robbie Deans, however, took his side directly to Sydney where the team were to have a recovery session in the markedly chillier waters off Coogee beach on Monday, some 1,100 kilometres (680 miles) to the south.

The Wallabies decision to head straight to Sydney would help them gel their combinations, Woodward added, and boost confidence after what he regarded an unimpressive performance at Melbourne's Docklands Stadium.

"If you take away the emotion it was a very poor match," the 2003 World Cup-winning coach added. "I have never seen an Australian team lose the ball so often in contact.

"The ambition was there but the execution was not and the reason for that was the defence and breakdown commitment from Sam Warburton and his pack.

"When Warburton limped off and the Wallabies strung more than three phases together they scored the winning try.

"This means that if the Lions are going to win the series then they have to return to their strength and that is power."

The Lions won the first game in Brisbane 23-21 and need to win the final match at Sydney's Olympic Stadium on Saturday to clinch their first series victory since they beat South Africa in 1997.

(Writing by Greg Stutchbury in Wellington; Editing by Ian Ransom)

LONDON (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc's main German unit paid income tax of just 3 million euros in 2012 after the group channeled sales to German clients of $8.7 billion via Luxembourg units, prompting one lawmaker to call for an investigation of the company.

Accounts for Amazon.de GmbH filed with Germany's companies register show that the company reported profit of just 10 million euros for 2012, which was taxed at the headline German rate of 30 percent.

Germany is Amazon's largest non-U.S. market and represents a third of its overseas sales, but the vast bulk of that German cash ends up ultimately in Luxembourg-registered Amazon Europe Holding Technologies, which reported profits of 118 million euros but, as a tax-exempt partnership, paid no income tax.

Amazon declined requests to comment but has previously said it follows the tax rules in all the countries where it operates.

All companies seek to reduce their tax bills and have a duty to steward their assets effectively, tax lawyers say.

"Managers have a fiduciary duty to get the best return for their shareholders, and tax is a part of that," said Laurence Field, tax partner at Crowe Clark Whitehill LLP.

Even so, the lengths to which some go to avoid tax has put the issue at the top of the political agenda in the past year.

Citizens bearing the brunt of the financial crisis through high unemployment, falling real wages and government spending cuts have been angered at revelations that some companies have created elaborate networks of subsidiaries whose chief purpose is to siphon profits out of countries where their economic activity occurs and into tax havens where they have little or no physical presence.

At a meeting of the G20 group of leading economies in November last year German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble teamed up with his British counterpart, George Osborne, to push for changes in international rules that allow companies to shift profits.

Amazon is not alone in facing criticism for its tax arrangements. Others including web search leader Google and iPhone maker Apple have come under fire for similar methods to move profits to jurisdictions where they will pay less tax. Both say they follow tax rules wherever they operate.

Sven Giegold, member of the European Parliament with Germany's Green Party, said the low profits declared and taxes paid by Amazon in Germany showed the need for a tougher approach on the part of the German authorities.

"I am outraged," he said. "We have to use much stronger means to ensure the profit cannot be moved out of the country," he added.

Giegold said he planned to write to Schaeuble to ask him to investigate the matter to see if any rules had been broken.

"It's not enough to make a speech at the G20 and then be inactive on extreme cases (of avoidance)," he said.

Amazon minimizes its tax bills across Europe by having customers transact with a Luxembourg company Amazon EU SARL when they click the purchase button on European websites.

French, German and other European units are designated as providers of non-business-critical services to Amazon EU SARL.

This means that Amazon.de GmbH does not receive revenue from sales to users of the Amazon.de website but instead receives enough money from Amazon EU SARL to cover its costs and generate a small profit.

Amazon says it operates a single European business with all strategic functions conducted from its Luxembourg headquarters. This employs around 300 people, while the units in its main European markets employ tens of thousands.

A Reuters examination of job advertisements and employee profiles on website LinkedIn earlier this year showed staff in the UK, German and French units managed all aspects of the supply chain from identifying new products to sell, negotiating with suppliers, deciding pricing policies and website design.

While Amazon EU SARL receives all the cash from European sales - 12 billion euros in 2012 - it made a profit of under 30 million and paid tax of just 8 million euros.

This is because it pays large sums to its parent, Amazon Europe Holding Technologies, to use Amazon group technology, company filings and evidence presented in the U.S. tax court shows.

The difference between what Amazon Europe Holding Technologies charges for these rights and the amount it pays to the U.S. affiliates that develop the technology is significant and has allowed the tax-exempt partnership to build up a cash pile of $2 billion over the past decade.

Amazon has also been criticized in other countries for its low tax bills.

(Reporting by Tom Bergin; Editing by Will Waterman)

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Teenagers are more likely to have hearing loss if their mothers smoked during pregnancy, according to a new study that included audio tests of close to 1,000 youth.

Researchers said that although the link was "relatively modest," even limited hearing loss can have implications for kids' learning and social skills - so it's important to reach out to those who might need help, and to prevent as much exposure as possible.

The findings "should be part of all our efforts to get people not to smoke, and especially not to smoke when they're pregnant," said Dr. Michael Weitzman, a child health researcher from the New York University School of Medicine, who led the study.

Past research has tied smoking during pregnancy to a range of childhood problems, including asthma and learning disabilities.

In another study, Weitzman and his colleagues found exposure to secondhand smoke during adolescence was linked to hearing loss, based on blood tests for nicotine-related products (see Reuters Health story of July 18, 2011 here: http://reut.rs/ns1p0b).

This time, they analyzed data on a group of 12- to 15-year-olds who underwent hearing tests in 2005-2006 as part of a national health survey, and whose parents were asked about smoking in pregnancy. The hearing exams were done in both ears to see if kids had any trouble picking up on sounds at different pitches.

Just over 16 percent of youth had moms who smoked while pregnant, the study team reported in JAMA Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery.

Those kids were especially at risk for hearing loss at the lower frequencies of human speech: one in six had hearing problems in one ear, compared to one in 14 whose moms didn't smoke.

Weitzman said many teens with mild hearing loss don't realize they have a problem, but that it can lead to irritability and trouble in school.

What's more, he told Reuters Health, it's possible the mild hearing loss measured in some adolescents will only get worse in adulthood.

Hearing researcher Abbey Berg from Pace University in New York said the findings "make sense" given what is known about risks to the baby when a woman smokes during pregnancy, including reduced oxygen flow.

"There are also toxins in the cigarettes as well that we don't even know necessarily what those are and what the effects of those are," said Dr. Josef Shargorodsky, from Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

"There are so many other risks of smoking in pregnancy," Shargorodsky, who wasn't involved in the research, told Reuters Health. "Preventing exposures is the most important thing."

Berg, who also didn't participate in the new study, said children who have been exposed can be counseled growing up about how to prevent further damage to their hearing.

"These kids could be monitored and hearing conservation and hearing education could be started at a very young age," she told Reuters Health.

Weitzman agreed that it's important to spot young people with hearing trouble early.

"Parents might really want to consider having their 12- to 15-year-olds have hearing tests if they smoked during pregnancy," he said.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/122kUjJ JAMA Otolaryngology - Head & Neck Surgery, online June 20, 2013.

The Canucks will become the first NHL team to host a game in a retractable-roof facility and just the third Canadian NHL team to stage a regular-season game outdoors, following the Edmonton Oilers in 2003 and Calgary Flames in 2011.

The site, BC Place, was also the venue used for the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, marking the first time the opening of a Winter Games had been staged indoors.

"With one of the world's great facilities as the setting, and one of the world's most scenic cities as the backdrop, the 2014 NHL Heritage Classic at BC Place in Vancouver will honor hockey's Canadian heritage," NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said in a statement. "With the excitement, the entertainment, the competitiveness and the fun of this game, the Canucks and Senators will create special memories for hockey fans everywhere."

Following a bitter lockout that cut the NHL to just 48 games last season the league is betting on the outdoor series to help bring back fans and attract new ones.

The Vancouver game is the latest addition to the NHL's outdoor extravaganza, which will kick off on New Year's Day with the Winter Classic between the Detroit Red Wings and Toronto Maple Leafs.

The game, played at Michigan Stadium known as the 'Big House', is expected to attract a record NHL crowd of close to 110,000.

The Winter Classic, which was scrapped last year due to of the lockout, will be followed by what is being promoted as a four-game Stadium Series that kicks off on January 25 in sunny Los Angeles with the Kings hosting the Anaheim Ducks at Dodger Stadium, home of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The series will also include two games at Yankee Stadium with the New York Rangers facing off against the New Jersey Devils on January 26 and the New York Islanders on January 29 in the first hockey games to be played at the iconic Major League Baseball stadium.

The series concludes March 1 when the Chicago Blackhawks host the Pittsburgh Penguins at Soldier Field, home of the National Football League's Chicago Bears, followed by the Canucks and Senators on March 2.

The NHL has marketed the outdoor games with great success trading on the romanticism of the sport's outdoor roots.

The 2014 matchup between Vancouver and Ottawa recalls and celebrates some of the earliest history of the Stanley Cup.

In 1915, the Vancouver Millionaires, the first professional hockey team on the West Coast, were crowned champions of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association.

At the same time, in the rival league from the East, the National Hockey Association, which two years later became the National Hockey League, the Ottawa Senators were skating to a league title.

The two leagues had agreed to play a series between the champions of each league with the Stanley Cup, which was established in 1893, awarded to the victor.

The Millionaires swept a best-of-five series to claim the 1915 Stanley Cup championship.

(Reporting by Steve Keating in Toronto)

Moore won his 13th game this season, Luke Scott and Evan Longoria hit back-to-back homers, and the surging Tampa Bay Rays completed a four-game sweep by beating the Minnesota Twins 4-3 on Thursday.

"Truly an All-Star performance," Rays manager Joe Maddon said. "This is like wrapping it all into a nice little package."

Moore (13-3), who was added to the AL All-Star team Thursday after initially being left off, gave up three runs, three hits, two walks and had 10 strikeouts over 7 1-3 innings in winning his fifth straight start and setting a team record for victories before the All-Star break.

"It means a lot," Moore said. "I'm ecstatic about being part of the festivities and being at the game with the best players in the game."

Moore said the best part came after talking about his All-Star addition in Maddon's office.

"Opened up the door and everybody was waiting there with waters and beers to celebrate," Moore said.

Moore is taking the spot of Texas right-hander Yu Darvish, who went on the disabled list this week due to a strained trapezius muscle.

Two of the runs charged to Moore scored when reliever Alex Torres gave up a two-run single in the eighth to Joe Mauer that cut the Twins' deficit to 4-3. Jake McGee got his first save pitching a scoreless ninth.

Scott and Longoria hit solo shots in a span of three pitches off Mike Pelfrey (4-7) as the Rays took a 3-1 lead in the sixth. Longoria, bothered recently by plantar fasciitis, stopped a career-high stretch of 14 games without an extra base hit.

Rookie Wil Myers had three hits and two RBIs for Tampa Bay, which climbed to a season-best 13 games over .500 with its eighth straight victory. The second-place Rays also improved to 10-1 during a stretch of 14 consecutive games against the Twins, Chicago White Sox and Houston Astros teams with the three worst records in the American League.

"It's been pretty special," Maddon said. "It's simple, age-tested formula. We pitched well, we caught it and got some clutch hits. There's a lot of belief within the group."

Pelfrey allowed three runs and eight hits in six innings. The Twins have has lost 11 of 12, including five straight.

Brian Dozier got the Twins' first hit off Moore when he lined a double with two outs in the sixth down the left-field line that just got past the reach of Longoria at third base. Dozier then scored to tie it at 1 on Jamey Carroll's run-scoring single.

The run ended Moore's scoreless streak at 22 1-3 innings.

The Twins struck out six times and had only one well hit ball, a third-inning fly near the warning track in center by Aaron Hicks through five innings. The lone baserunner during the stretch came when Mauer drew a two-out walk in the fourth.

"That's a heck of a pitching staff over there," Minnesota manager Ron Gardenhire said. "Moore was really good with filthy stuff and all the guys they brought out threw the ball really well, but we've still got to put the ball in play better than we did the last couple of days, and that really affected the outcomes of games."

The Twins struck out 19 times in Wednesday night's 4-3, 13-inning loss.

Tampa Bay took a 1-0 lead on Myers' broken-bat RBI single in the third.

Myers extended the lead to 4-1 with a seventh-inning run-scoring single.

The teams started the series finale just over 12 hours after Wednesday night's 4-hour, 47-minute marathon.

A number of regulars, including Tampa Bay's Ben Zobrist, Desmond Jennings and Yunel Escobar, along with Minnesota's Justin Morneau and Ryan Doumit were not in the starting lineups.

Gardenhire said Morneau was sore after playing in Wednesday night's game, but was available off the bench.

NOTES: Rays RHP Alex Cobb, struck in the right ear by a liner hit by Kansas City's Eric Hosmer on June 15, underwent a concussion test Wednesday and feels the results will be positive. He could throw batting practice for the first since getting hurt Sunday. ... The Twins placed LHP Caleb Thielbar on the bereavement list and recalled RHP Michael Tonkin from Triple-A Rochester. It was annouced Tuesday that Thielbar would be leaving the team following the death of his grandmother.

Tyson, who recently toured his one-man autobiographical stage show, "Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth," will give voice to his cartoon character on the "Mike Tyson Mysteries" crime-solving series.

Tyson, 46, will be aided by a magical tattoo on his character's face and a foul-mouthed pigeon as a partner on the 15-minute show, Adult Swim said. Tyson in real life owns racing pigeons.

The network, which is known for its zany youth-oriented programs, did not say when the show would premiere.

Some plot lines include attempting to defeat a super computer at chess and why an author/werewolf cannot finish a novel, Adult Swim said.

Tyson, who became better known for his erratic behavior and 1992 rape conviction than for his skill in the ring, has seen his reputation rise following a cameo in the 2009 hit comedy "The Hangover."

Tyson retired from boxing in 2006 and began a second career in entertainment, including a 2011 television documentary series about his flock of racing pigeons.

Adult Swim is owned by Turner Broadcasting System Inc, a subsidiary of Time Warner Inc.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Philip Barbara)

(Reuters) - Music producer Pharrell Williams filed a lawsuit Monday asking a U.S. court to rule he has not violated any trademark that Black Eyed Peas rapper will.i.am owns for the phrase "I AM."

The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan federal court, said that will.i.am, whose real name is William Adams, has repeatedly sent letters to Williams demanding he stop using versions of the phrase "I AM" on a website founded by Williams, iamother.com.

The website, according to the lawsuit, focuses on "encouraging individuality through different forms of expression."

Trademarks owned by Williams's company, I Am Other Entertainment, do not have periods between the "i" and the "am," while those owned by will.i.am do, the lawsuit said.

Further, the lawsuit claimed, will.i.am's trademark for "I AM" covers clothing and is "relatively weak" because similar trademarks already exist.

An attorney for will.i.am was not immediately available for comment.

The lawsuit asked the court to declare that the phrase "I Am Other" does not "infringe, dilute or unfairly compete" with will.i.am, said Brad Rose, counsel for Williams.

Williams is part of the musical duo The Neptunes and has collaborated with artists including Justin Timberlake, Kanye West and Jay-Z.

The Black Eyed Peas have sold more than 31 million albums, according to will.i.am's website.

The case is I Am Other Entertainment, LLC v. William Adams, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, No. 13-4547.

(The story was corrected to change spelling of Black Eyed Peas in the first paragraph)

(Editing by Ted Botha)

The German magazine Der Spiegel, citing secret documents, reported last Saturday that the United States had bugged European Union offices in Brussels and gained access to EU internal computer networks.

Der Spiegel quoted from a September 2010 "top secret" U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) document that it said fugitive former NSA contractor Edward Snowden had taken with him.

The magazine mentioned a NATO link, reporting that more than five years ago security officers at the EU had noticed several missed calls and traced them to NSA offices within the NATO compound in Brussels.

Questioned about the Spiegel report at a news conference, Rasmussen said he had no information about possible NSA facilities within the U.S. representation at NATO.

"NATO is not involved in this. I don't consider it a NATO problem. I have no reason to believe that NATO security has been compromised in any way," he said.

The United States and other NATO members have offices at the sprawling NATO headquarters complex in Brussels.

Rasmussen said he had not asked the U.S. government about the spying reports. "I am very much focused on strengthening the transatlantic relationship," he said.

(Reporting by Adrian Croft; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

"We just took off a little piece and ate it raw," said Girguis, a professor at Harvard University. "It had the texture of hot dogs with match heads ground in," he said. Living next tothat spew toxic water rich in heavy metals and sulfuric acid gives the worms an odd flavor. "If it weren't for the sulfur, who knows, they might even be tasty," Girguis told LiveScience.

Why would Girguis even try a ? A long-standing marine biology mantra holds that scholars should taste their species of study ... or at least waste not, want not. "It's been a tradition to eat animals that we study," Girguis said. "I figured that if we're going to drag the poor creatures up, I might as well leave no tissue to spare."

Marine biologist Win Watson recalls annual "Make a Dish from Your Animal" dinners at the Woods Hole Oceanic Institution in Woods Hole, Mass., during the 1970s and 1980s.

And though it wasn't intentional, Watson even shared his species with his dog. Watson brought home some bioluminescent ctenophores (comb jellies) to show his wife, then left them on the lawn. His dog ate them. "The most amazing barf I have ever seen," said Watson, a professor at the University of New Hampshire.

But tasting your research goes far beyond the field of marine biology. Scientists' natural curiosity has led them to put some strange things in their mouths. In the 1800s, scientists in Europe tried to eat every animal and bird they could import.dined on all the species he described, including more than 40 tortoises. Technological advances mean today's scientists can sample Antarctic ice cores, ancient water, invasive species and toxic plants. []

Party ice

At camps on sea ice, scientists drink their study subject, because there's no other source of freshwater, said Axel Schweiger, head of the Polar Science Center at the University of Washington. Terrie Williams, a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, recalls a gin and tonic made with Antarctic glacier ice.

Climate scientists who pull upstretching back 100,000 years regularly plunk broken core pieces into their drinks. The cubes fizz like soda as they melt, because of compressed gas bubbles trapped in the buried ice. "I actually made drinking glasses out of 40,000-year-old ice by hollowing out the inside of a waste core, a byproduct of the sampling we did," said Ed Brook, a professor of geosciences at Oregon State University.

As long as researchers are careful to avoid sections of ice laid down during years of nuclear testing, the oldest ice on Earth is pretty fresh and pure; it has lost its impurities through pressure squeezing. But thetastes terrible, Barbara Sherwood Lollarin an interview. Lollar and her colleagues discovered the 2.6-billion-year-old water in a mine in Ontario, Canada. The water had leached salt and iron from the surrounding rock and was more viscous than tap water, Lollar said.

Not so-good eats

Lollar is hunting for even older water, and old water is often very salty. A quick taste test is an easy way to check salt level. But geologists like Lollar also lick rocks. Tiny sediment grains (too small for the eye to see) can be sorted by your sensitive tongue into silt, clay or mud. A sample of that saliva can also help geologists get a good look at a rock with their hand lens, a portable magnifying glass.

Also in the nonedible category are . Denise Dearing, a biologist at the University of Utah, studies how herbivores deal with toxins from plants such as creosote, juniper and alpine avens, a wildflower. "I usually taste all the toxic plants that my wood rats and pikas eat. They are usually unworthy of a second tasting," Dearing said.

Mammoth straddles the line between digestible and disgusting. The stories of people eating mammoth go back more than 100 years, but are more legend than truth. That's because the animals emerge from their icy tombs looking like furry, freezer-burned jerky, thanks to decomposition and multiple freeze-thaw cycles. At least one apocryphal but unconfirmed tale ofeating comes from the National Geographic Explorer's Club annual dinner, and there are many unconfirmed reports from Russia. []

However, one true tale of a Pleistocene repast comes from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Paleontologist Dale Guthrie and colleagues, who excavated a 36,000-year-old steppe bison carcass called Blue Babe, stewed and ate extra neck tissue while prepping the bison for display. The meat was tough and had a strong aroma, Guthrie wrote in the book "Frozen Fauna of the Mammoth Steppe: The Story of Blue Babe" (University Of Chicago Press, 1989).

Edible bugs

Eating insects might also fall into the "not good" category for many Western scientists. Of course,are neither new nor unusual outside of modern Western cultures. Thus, many researchers make an effort to overcome their fear of eating bugs when they travel.

"I felt both repulsed and attracted by the opportunity to chow down on our study organisms," said Nalini Nadkarni, an ecologist at the University of Utah. Nadkarni worked as a field assistant in Papua New Guinea during the 1970s, studying long-horned beetles (Cerambycids). The group's local assistants would collect beetle larvae during the day and roast them at night.

"They weren't terribly tasty, being gristly and fatty at the same time. But it did provide a good connection with our helpers. Sometimes, as a real treat, we ate the occasional fruit bats they caught. They would singe the fur off in the fire and then skin out the meat. Tasted like chicken," Nadkarni said.

On the brighter side, honeypot ants make an "out and out delicious" snack, according to Joe Sapp, an ecology graduate student at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "They are full of nectar and taste like candy," he said.

But pop into any in U.S. entomology department and one will find plenty of advocates for bug eating. "As a corn entomologist, one of my suggestions to corn growers who were plagued by insects was to eat them. Needless to say, that didn't go over well," said Tom Turpin, an entomologist at Purdue University in Indiana. So Turpin concocted corn fritters laced with European corn borers for an insect-cooking demonstration. []

Turpin also enthusiastically eats raw insects. He recalls biting down on a raw grub for a TV show on eating insects the cameraman fainted when juice squirted out. "After we revived him we did a second take, this time without incident," Turpin said. "This was before YouTube, but I'm sure that the first cut would have been a hit. I'm still disappointed the station did not air it," he said.

Also technically a bug eater is Barry Marshall, . Marshall drank a culture containing the microbe H. pylori to prove the bacteria cause . About three days later, Marshall developed a , a step toward proving the link. His theory had been ridiculed by the scientific establishment. Marshal and collaborator Robin Warren won the 2005 Nobel Prize in medicine for discovering the link between H. pylori and peptic ulcer disease.

Safety first

In case you feel the urge to emulate these scientists, remember, even self-experimenters like Marshall take care to practice common sense about what's safe. And no one is eating endangered or rare species.

"I'm actually not one to enforce the 'eat what you study' rule, mostly because we're usually working far out at sea, away from medical facilities, and we have no idea what sort of toxins or allergens might be present in poorly studied deep-living species," said Brad Seibel, a marine biologist at the University of Rhode Island.

Seibel's tried "tastes like little more than slimy salt water" and jumbo squid, debating at first whether their photophores (light-producing organs) were safe to eat.

He also studies, but has never nibbled, an Antarctic pteropod called the naked sea butterfly (Clione limacina), which makes a chemical "antifeedant" compound.

The reason why? "I've kept them in small glass chambers for experiments and have found that, if I don't clean the chambers very thoroughly after use, that the next animal I put in that chamber will die," Seibel said.

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