6A
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2009
NATIONAL
Horses may have been poisoned
BY BRIAN SKOLOFF
Associated Press
Flowers lie at a makeshift memorial outside of Lechua Caracas Inc. in Wellington, Fla. The horses from the Venezuelan-owned team Lechua Caracas got sick just before a tournament Sunday, collapsing and dying on the scene or while being treated or transported, officials said.
WELLINGTON. Fla. — The sudden death of 21 polo horses at a championship event in Florida may have been caused by a toxin in the animals' feed, vitamins or supplements, veterinarians said Monday.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The horses from the Venezuelan-owned team Lechuza Caracas became ill just before a tournament match Sunday, collapsing and dying on the scene or while being treated at vet clinics or transported, officials said.
The deaths shocked this affluent equestrian and golfing community in central Palm Beach County, where the International Polo Club Palm Beach hosts the U.S. Open Polo Championship every year
"This was devastating. It was heartbreaking, to see that many horses get sick all at once," said John Wash, president of club operations.
Dr. Scott Swerdlin, a veterinarian at Palm Beach Equine Clinic near the polo grounds, treated one of
the sick horses. He said it appeared the animals died of heart failure caused by some kind of toxin that could have been in tainted food, vitamins or supplements, or by some combination of all three that caused a toxic reaction.
"A combination of something with an error in something that was given to these horses caused this toxic reaction," Swerdlin told reporters.
Toxicology tests were pending Monday.
The 60-horse team is owned by Venezuelan banker Victor Vargas but most of the horses and players are Argentine, Swerdlin said. The team travels most of the year.
Swerdlin said the 21 horses together were worth up to $2 million.
"It would take 10 years to build that string back up," he said.
The International Polo Club said in a statement that polo horses were thoroughbreds who often get used in play into their mid-teens and were frequently rotated during a match.
Swerdlin also said the Lechuza team was considered among the best of the eight teams entered in the 105th U.S. Open, which started April 3 and is slated to end with a final match Sunday.
"They were the team to beat," he said. "They have some of the greatest polo players in the world."
The Lechuza Caracas horses
were being unloaded from their trailers Sunday afternoon when two collapsed and others acted dizzy and disoriented, according to the International Polo Club Palm Beach. Seven horses died at the scene and the rest while being treated elsewhere or en route to medical care. All the horses that fell ill have died.
SCIENCE
Hawking hospitalized following bad infection
BY ROBERT BARR Associated Press
LONDON—StephenHawking, the British mathematician and physicist famed for his work on black holes, was rushed to a hospital Monday and was seriously ill, Cambridge University said.
Hawking has been fighting a chest infection for several weeks and was being treated at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, the university city northeast of London, the university said.
"Professor Hawking is very ill," said Gregory Hayman, the university's head of communications. "He is undergoing tests. He has been unwell for a couple of weeks."
Later in the afternoon, Hayman said Hawking was "now comfortable but will be kept in the whos府 overnight."
The illness had caused Hawking to cancel an appearance at Arizona State University on April 6.
Hawking, 67, gained renown for his work on black holes, and has remained active despite being diagnosed at 21 with ALS, (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), an incurable degenerative disorder also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.
For some years, Hawking has been almost entirely paralyzed, and he communicates through an electronic voice synthesizer activated by his fingers.
Hawking was involved in the search for the great goal of physics — a "unified theory" — which would resolve contradictions between Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, which describes the laws of gravity that govern the motion of large objects like planets, and the Theory of Quantum Mechanics, which deals with the world of subatomic particles.
Why use this
When you could use these
Every MONDAY & WEDNESDAY
"A complete, consistent unified theory is only the first step: our goal is a complete understanding of the events around us, and of our own existence," he wrote in his best-selling book, "A Brief History of Time," published in 1988.
In a more accessible sequel "The Universe in a Nutzshell," published in 2001, Hawking ventured into concepts like supergravity, naked singularities and the possibility of a universe with 11 dimensions.
He announced last year that he would step down from his post as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, a title once held by the great 18th-century physicist Isaac Newton. However, the university said Hawking intended to continue working as Emeritus Lucasian Professor of Mathematics.
"Professor Hawking is a remarkable colleague. We all hope he will be amongst us again soon," said Peter Haynes, head of the university's Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics.