In June 2010, federal wildlife officials with the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team snared, tranquilized, collared, and released a male grizzly bear near Yellowstone National Park. Hours later, 70-year-old Erwin Evert hiked through the area, was mauled by the bear, and died. His widow sued, saying the feds should have given better warning, but this week U.S. District Judge Nancy Freudenthal in Cheyenne sided with the government: Under Wyoming’s Recreational Use Act, she said, landowners have no obligation to warn non-paying recreationalists about possible hazards. Via The Missoulian.

EIGHT DEAD IN ATTACK AT GORILLA REFUGE

Eight people are dead in a clash between rebels and Virunga National Park rangers in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the worst such battle since the country’s civil war began in May. The rangers are there to safeguard the 200 endangered mountain gorillas who live in Virunga as well as eastern lowland gorillas, but since the DRC military pulled out of the area in May they’ve been increasingly vulnerable to the armed militias lurking near the park. The dead included two rangers, a government soldier, and five Mai Mai PARECO rebels. “The civil war has brought an influx of militias into the park, intent on poaching and attacking the local population. This is bringing overwhelming pressures on our small team of rangers whose duty it is to protect the wildlife and the people living in and around the park,” said Virunga National Park Chief Warden Emmanuel de Merode. Via Environmental News Service.

LACK OF SLEEP CAN MAKE YOU FAT

Maybe those extra pounds are getting stuffed into the bags under your eyes. New research shows that after just a couple nights without enough sleep, your body’s metabolism goes wacky (scientific term). In one test, after two consecutive nights of four hours’ sleep, subjects’ bodies produced significantly more of the hormone that makes you hungry (ghrelin) and less of the hormone that makes you feel full (leptin) — 28 and 18 percent. That has a real-world effect: Hunger in the subjects increased by 24 percent. The only problem? The benchmark was people who got 10 hours’ sleep a night. Who gets 10 hours of sleep? Via Scientific American.