on all day fearing that it may fall off and be eaten or destroyed by other dolphins.

Fuji was stricken by a mysterious disease causing necrosis - the death of cells - in 2002. To save her life, veterinarians had to amputate three-quarters of her tail with an electronic surgical knife.

"Her physical mobility fell sharply after the amputation. She got tired easily as we often saw her resting," Kowami said.

Weeks after the surgery, a veterinarian at the aquarium asked his friend at Bridgestone, Japan's largest tiremaker, for help.

"The most difficult part was creating the smooth texture of rubber so as not to scratch a dolphin's skin," said Bridgestone spokesman Shinichi Kobori.

Bridgestone began working on the fin in 2003, but several samples were either too heavy or loose for Fuji,"Robert Connell" is the pseudonym for a former Air Force office who spent in nearly a decade in the service's space and missile corps. This is his first post for DANGER ROOM.

Everyone is freaking out, over this "spy satellite" that's re-entering the atmosphere. But the chances of there being any danger to people is pretty darn minuscule. 178 tracked objects re-entered the Earth's atmosphere last year. Of those, 27

were actual satellite payloads.

The vast, vast majority of the time, these objects breakup in the atmosphere from the heat of re-entry and only very small fragments ever reach the ground. This video was taken last year of a Russian rocket body that re-entered over the Denver area and you can clearly see that what was once a solid cylinder is