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The gamitana fish, a close relative of the flesh-eating piranha, mostly eats fruit and can carry seeds down the Amazon River as far as 3 miles (5 kilometers), reports a new Cornell study, making it one of the longest seed dispersals ever reported. The researchers report that these fish (Colossoma macropomum, known as gamitana in Peru, and tambaqui in Brazil) may play an important role in the structure of the Amazon forest as fruit seeds remain viable in their gut for many days and are widely spread.

Chinese hackers temporarily brought down the world's fastest-growing social action platform after more than 90,000 people in 175 countries endorsed an online call for the release of internationally acclaimed Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. Weiwei, best known for his role in the construction of the Beijing Olympic stadium and his recent Sunflower Seeds exhibition at the Tate Modern, has become an increasingly outspoken critic of the Chinese government in recent years, in particular over the handling of the 2008 earthquake in the country's Sichuan province.