ORLEANS, France: Not content with housing a pair of celebrity pandas that attract hordes of avid onlookers, a zoo in France has decided to put their droppings to good use by recycling them into gas and electricity. Yuan Zi and Huan Huan — Chubby and Happy in Chinese — arrived at Beauval zoo in central France last year, on loan from China for 10 years at a cost of around a million dollars a year.
The zoo announced Friday it would build a facility that would process the dung of the two pandas and of other animals, as well as plant matter, to produce biogas that will then be turned into heat and electricity.
The plant, which will cost 2.3 million euros ($ 3 million), is expected to be operative in the spring of 2014. Some of the energy produced will be used to keep gorillas and manatees — also known as sea cows — warm in their pens, and to heat the building that houses elephants in the winter, allowing a 40 percent saving on the gas bill.
The rest will be transformed into electricity and sold to A French power company.
French zoo to recycle dung of celebrity pandas
French zoo to recycle dung of celebrity pandas
Vince Zampella, video game pioneer behind ‘Call of Duty,’ dies at 55
Vince Zampella, one of the creators behind such best-selling video games as “Call of Duty,” has died. He was 55.
Video game company Electronic Arts said Zampella died Sunday. The company did not disclose a cause of death.
In 2010, Zampella founded Respawn Entertainment, a subsidiary of EA, and he also was the former chief executive of video game developer Infinity Ward, the studio behind the successful “Call of Duty” franchise.
A spokesperson for Electronic Arts said in a statement on Monday that Zampella’s influence on the video game industry was “profound and far-reaching.”
“A friend, colleague, leader and visionary creator, his work helped shape modern interactive entertainment and inspired millions of players and developers around the world. His legacy will continue to shape how games are made and how players connect for generations to come,” a company spokesperson wrote.
One of Zampella’s crowning achievements was the creation of the Call of Duty franchise, which has sold more than half a billion games worldwide,
The first person shooter game debuted in 2003 as a World War II simulation and has sold over 500 million copies globally. Subsequent versions have delved into modern warfare and there is a live-action movie based on the game in production with Paramount Pictures.
In recent years, Zampella has been at the helm of the creation of the action adventure video games Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Star Wars Jedi: Survivor.
