Anthrax alert at Pentagon
Mail for the Pentagon tested positive for anthrax bacteria on Monday, leading to the evacuation of around 175 employees from a mail-handling facility. Further tests proved negative, according to a statement from the US Department of Defense, suggesting the alert may have been a false alarm. People who could have been exposed to the bacteria are being given antibiotics as a precaution.
鈥nd in Virginia
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Just hours later, an anthrax detection system was triggered at the Skyline office complex in Falls Church, Virginia, which houses several Department of Defense agencies. Further tests are being carried out to confirm or rule out an anthrax attack.
Lynx in danger
Without drastic action the Iberian lynx, found only in Spain and Portugal, will be the first big cat to become extinct since the sabre-toothed tiger, according to WWF. Only around 100 individuals remain, out of a population of 400 five years ago. The lynx is threatened by roads and dam projects.
Fat of the land
Rural teens in the US are more likely than their city cousins to develop obesity, concludes a study of 25,000 teenagers at the Center for Rural Pennsylvania in Harrisburg. Some 20 per cent of the rural teenagers were obese, against 16 per cent of townies. And from 1999 to 2001, obesity increased in rural areas by 5 per cent, twice the urban increase.
Constant commended
Mathematicians on Monday celebrated pi. Not the pastry-topped kind, but 
, the irrational number that relates a circle鈥檚 circumference to its diameter.
A -fest is held each year on 3/14 to match the first three digits of the never-ending number, which begins 3.14159鈥� As 2005 is Einstein year, they were able to celebrate the 126th anniversary of Einstein鈥檚 birth on the same day.