Q: Can you tell us more about the ferret research? Q: Are you really going to Europe? Is that why you have started to post again? A: Hey, Bill doesn t let me make jokes about posts. Well, I have been very busy lately and so I have a rather large backlog of quest ions, so I am trying to get as many of them done as possible before leaving. My primary reason for going to Europe is to speak at the ferret symposium in the Netherlands. I highly recommend attendance for ALL ferret owners in Europe. Please attend and introduce yourself. Mainly, it is important to attend and build a brotherhood and network of cooperation that will help all. Plus, it will be fun, and you don t want all us North Ameri cans getting all the credit! Put EU ferret people on the map! I ll have phrase books and dictio naries in six different European languages, including English, so come and laugh about how I m assacre your language. I ll have some new cattle punchin on ferrets postcards with me, so just ask for one. Basically, the research will ultimately be used to show feral New Zealand ferret s are no longer domesticated. To do that, I will be identifying the skeletal characteristics th at define the two groups. That has never been done before, but thanks to the generous donations o f friends, I now know what to look for. That is about all I can say at the moment, but if you go to the ferret symposium at Amsterdam, I ll fill you in with the analysis of my findings, tenta tive though it may be. I won t leave the rest of the ferret community in the dark; when I return, I ll share my findings with everyone. I am hoping to prowl museums and universities in Britain, Scotland, France, and Germany. I am trying to add museums in Spain and Poland to the list. I may, might, hopefully add a trip to measure some specimens in Morocco, which are claimed to be ferrets, but I suspec t they are not. Unfortunately, I found out this week that one of the science grants I was expect ing to pay for the costs of the research was withdrawn, so I am scrambling for funding (no, not my fault; funding was granted, then withdrawn from a whole class of researchers). Nonetheless, I am c onfident things will work out. Any ladies want to donate scientific research funds in trade f or lap dances? I didn t think so. I guess I ll have to stand at the off-ramp with my sign, Will Do Science for Cash, next to the astronomers. Who cares about stars when you have skeletons! Bob C [log in to unmask] [Posted in FML issue 4649]