Tiger Makes Early Exit in AZ Comeback

After more than eight months away from the game, golf’s top player chose Arizona to make his return to the sport!

Tiger Woods felt his surgically repaired left knee was finally strong enough that he could play at the top of his game again. Golf fans and the press went crazy when he picked Arizona’s WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship for his comeback a couple weeks ago.

Ticket sales for the golf tournament skyrocketed when the news hit that Tiger was returning to defend his match play win from last year. The tournament brings the world’s top 64 golfers to Arizona. Tiger actually was behind the tournament’s move in 2007 from California to our state.

Despite his long break from golf, Tiger said he was ready for the head-to-head competition. “Every time I enter, it’s to win,” he said in a press conference. After playing a practice round a day before the tourney, Tiger was really happy with how his knee felt. “It’s great to be back. I feel a lot stronger in my left leg,” Tiger shared with hundreds of reporters. For the past few years, Tiger forced himself to play (and win) on a wobbly and painful left knee. Now, the wobble is gone, as is the pain. “Stability is something I haven’t had in years. It’s nice to make a swing and not have my bones move.”

But Tiger wasn’t able to repeat as the match play champion. South African Tim Clark played flawlessly on the second day of the event to send Tiger packing back to his home in Florida.

Despite the loss, Tiger remained upbeat. “I played as (well) as I can play,” he said afterward. “I was very pleased. I have no soreness. Now it’s just a matter of getting back and…playing more rounds (of golf).”

South African Geoff Ogilvy ended up winning the tournament March 1, taking $1.4 million back to his home in Scottsdale.

Warmer Climate = Monster Snakes?

As temperatures heat up, desert dwellers need to be wary of snakes. Luckily, you won’t run into this fellow—the largest snake ever found—since it lived in the Amazon region around 60 million years ago!

Fossil vertebrae from Titanoboa, an ancient BIG brother to the boa constrictor, were discovered in a Columbian mine by an international team led by paleontologist Jonathan Bloch and paleobotanist Carlos Jaramillo. The discovery was published last month in the journal “Nature.”

This super-sized slitherer was as long as a T. rex, but lived in the period after dinosaurs disappeared. At about 2,500 pounds, this snake was bigger than many experts believed a snake could grow—between 42 and 45 feet long.

“There’s nothing on land that’s this long today,” says Bloch, who teaches vertebrate paleontology at the University of Florida. He compares Titanoboa’s length to that of a whale. “It’s much longer than a killer whale,” Bloch explains, “but slightly shorter than a humpback whale.”

Paleontologists are excited because before this find, they didn’t have vertebrate fossils from this region and time period. The wet conditions and lack of exposed rock in the rainforest make fossil hunting difficult. The surrounding rocks show that this giant snake lived in a very large river system and “probably spent a lot of time in the water,” says Bloch. Titanoboa ate big fish, maybe some turtles and crocodiles, he says. Those animals were also found, along with the fossils of “at least 28 Titanoboas.”

The size of the snake gives clues about the Earth’s climate at the time. Large snakes live near the equator because these cold-blooded reptiles need heat to thrive. For a snake to grow to such a titanic size, experts believe that the average temperature at the equator would have been 6° F–10° F warmer than it is now.

Is Shaq Sinking Suns?

There's a new big man in town; the Phoenix Suns are betting he's the spark they need to win the playoffs.

One of the biggest stars in the NBA universe, Shaquille O'Neal, is now wearing purple and orange. And both Shaq and the Suns have a lot to prove. Shaq, who just turned 36 and has endured knee and hip injuries, wants to show he's still a big force in the NBA. His critics say that the Diesel is too old and too slow for a high-octane, blazingly fast team like the Suns.

During the regular season, the Suns are one of the toughest teams in the West. And while fans love the Suns' exciting and high-scoring brand of basketball, led by two-time League MVP point guard Steve Nash, the team has never won the NBA Finals.

The Suns believe that Shaq is the piece that's been missing. At 7 feet 1 inch tall and 325 pounds, Shaq gives the Suns a true center who grabs rebounds, plays tough defense and passes the ball well. Up till now, Amare Stoudamire has been stuck playing center for the Suns, even though he's really one of the best power forwards in the game. With Shaq in at center, Stoudamire is freed up to do what he does best!

"Psychologically it really helps us out. Guys are much more willing to go to the boards and fight around the basket with Shaq in there," explains Head Coach Mike D'Antoni.

Fans love Shaq's superstar qualities. The big guy has won four NBA Finals and was MVP for three of them! But the Suns have lost their winning ways since Shaq started playing on Feb. 20. In the trade for Shaq, the Suns gave up All-Star forward Shawn Marion, who said he wanted to be traded at the beginning of the season. For years, Marion had been a clutch scorer. As of press time, the Suns have won just two of their last six games and have fallen to fifth place in the Western Conference. Fans wonder whether it's growing pains with the big guy or could it be a bad fit?

'Doomsday Vault' Opens for Business!

SVALBARD ARCHIPELAGO, Norway-Imagine a bank that's so far north that polar bears outnumber the people living there! The bank is located on Norway's Svalbard archipelago just 620 miles from the North Pole. As you may have guessed, it's cold there. During winter's around-the-clock darkness, temperatures can fall to -22° Fahrenheit.

The bank was blasted into the side of an arctic mountain and has reinforced concrete walls to help protect its valuable deposits from natural disasters, global warming and even a nuclear explosion. Welcome to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault-also called the "Doomsday Vault" by the press!

You can find seedbanks all over the world. Native Seeds/SEARCH is a seedbank here in Arizona. Its mission is to protect the diversity of local seed used in farming and their wild relatives. "We have nearly 2,000 varieties in our seedbank, mainly corn, beans and squash," explains Carolyn Owens, who works on grants for the seedbank. "Just like the seedbank in Norway, the seeds need to be kept cold, so they're stored in a freezer," she says. Seeds for the bank come from southwestern states and northern Mexico.

Seedbanks help protect our food supply from the "what ifs" in life-like what if there's drought; what if a disease attacks a certain kind of wheat, or what if global warming changes what can grow around here?

Modern farming has led to fewer and fewer varieties of crops. This has brought about many varieties of food crops being lost forever, and Owens says it's alarming. "It's just more cost effective to grow a single variety...but you don't know what disease is going to come along down the road," she says. A disease could wipe out an entire variety of a crop, leading to food shortages. But if there are enough other seed varieties, like wheat for instance, one of those types of wheat may turn out to be resistant to the disease.

Owens points out that a lot of seedbanks are in politically unstable areas like Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq, and have been looted or destroyed. In the Phillipines, a flood wiped out the country's seedbank.

That's why the Svalbard Global Seedbank was created-to protect the diversity of seeds no matter what happens in the world. Countries can "deposit" different varieties of seeds. If a disaster jeopardizes crops, the country can make a "withdrawal" of seeds.

The vault was built by Norway at a cost of about $3 million. Because seeds are so small, the "Doomsday Vault" can hold up to 2 billion seeds!