[prokroustis]

The Lost Plant Ancient Greeks Used for Medicine, Food and Contraception



Silphium, a now-extinct plant once used by the ancient Greeks and Romans for perfume, seasoning, medicine, and even contraception, was one of the most sought-after goods in the ancient world.

The plant was so useful that Julius Caesar himself was said to have a large stash of silphium on hand at all times.

Silphium only grew in a narrow strip of land near the North African city of Cyrene in modern-day Libya and was essential to the city’s economy. The cultivation and trade of the plant transformed Cyrene into the richest region of Africa at the time.

Its widespread use in the ancient world allowed Cyrene’s economy to flourish, which in turn transformed the city into a center of art, culture, and medicine in the ancient Greek world.

In fact, it was home to a famous medical school and even a philosophical movement based around happiness whose members were called the Cyrenaics. Eratosthenes, the famous Greek mathematician, was a native of the city.

Although now extinct, researchers have determined, through studying ancient drawings and descriptions of the plant’s taste and appearance, that silphium likely belonged to the genus Ferula, which includes existing plants like giant fennel and asafoetida.

This theory is bolstered by the fact that asafoetida, which is still widely used today in Indian and central Asian cooking, was used as a cheaper substitute for silphium in antiquity, meaning that it was either related to the plant or had a very similar flavor.

Extinct plant silphium had many uses for ancient Greeks
Plants of the genus tend to resemble ancient depictions of the plant, which was widely found on coins from Cyrene due to its economic importance to the city.

It seems to have been a tall, flowering plant with a heart-shaped seedpod on the top. In fact, some theories about the origins of the modern symbol for love point to the shape of silphium’s seedpod, as the plant was widely used as an aphrodisiac.

Silphium was long used throughout the ancient Mediterranean. Both the Minoans and ancient Egyptians had specific glyphs to represent the plant, and it was widely lauded in songs and poems across ancient cultures.

According to myth, silphium came from the god Apollo himself. It had a wide variety of medicinal properties and was used to treat cough, pain, warts, fever, and indigestion. Although considered an aphrodisiac, it was also used as a contraception and even as an abortifacient.

The father of medicine Hippocrates himself even prescribed the plant for a protruding gut.

Silphium was likewise found in Greek and Roman cuisine and featured prominently in recipes by Apicius, who compiled one of the most well-preserved collections of ancient recipes in existence today.

Its earthy scent and medicinal properties also made it an important ingredient in perfume, as well as in ancient lotions and creams.

Why did silphium go extinct?
Due to its varied uses, silphium was in very high demand. Yet, by the time of the Roman emperor Nero, who lived from 37 to 68 AD, the plant was virtually extinct. According to Pliny, when the last remaining silphium plant was found, it was given to Nero.

Scholars theorize the plant was over-harvested and over-farmed due to its popularity, causing the soil in the limited area where the plant grew to become devoid of nutrients.

Additionally, shepherds used to feed silphium to their flocks, as the plant would transform the meat, making it tender and delicious. Scholars theorize that overgrazing of the plant likely contributed to its demise.

Others claim that regional climatic changes, which caused once green fields to turn into an arid desert, resulted in the plant’s extinction.

Ancient writers, such as Theophrastus, noted that silphium was very sensitive to changes in soil and therefore could not be cultivated in large numbers nor in areas outside of Cyrene.

[Fatima99]

Sloth Is Friends With Zookeeper and Won’t Get Out of Bed Until They’ve Had Morning Cuddles



A sloth has formed an adorable relationship with its keeper and refuses to get out of bed until they’ve had their morning cuddles—and a zoo tour.

Gordon the sloth, from Drusillas Park in Sussex, took a particular liking to Amelia Jones when the pair first met two years ago.

The unlikely friends started their companionship, when Gordon began behaving differently around Amelia than he did with all the other keepers.

Amelia’s nerves around working with sloths are what she believes encouraged Gordon to show affection towards her in an attempt to make her feel at ease.

From there, their relationship blossomed and now Gordon won’t even get out of bed until he’s ‘been cradled like a baby’ by his favorite zoo keeper.

Their routine doesn’t stop there, as Gordon then expects Amelia to take him on a spin around the zoo so they can maximize their time together.



Amelia said, “When I first started working with our sloths, I was actually a little bit intimidated by sloths, they are powerful animals and I used to keep my distance.

RELATED: Students Write Adorable Letters on Behalf of Shelter Animals to Boost Adoptions – And it Worked

“Gordon lives with our hand-reared sloth, Flash, and Flash is very confident around humans and often acted like the boss with me.

“However, Gordon took a very gentle approach with me, like he knew I was nervous, and would slowly come to where I was, peer at me sweetly, and patiently watch me work.”

Gordon is now at the point where he’ll pick up a bucket and sponge as if helping Amelia clean his cage.

Although it is not without expectation, and he gets very grumpy if she doesn’t have time for their special routine.

“The day I realized I had accidentally created a routine with him, was one morning when I was in a rush and only had time to walk him quickly to his enclosure,” Amelia said.

“When I put him down, he started pawing at me and pulling my t-shirt and acting really grumpy. And he stayed in a grumpy mood with me the rest of the day. That’s when I clocked that he’d expected his normal tour and was very unhappy it didn’t happen!”

Gordon and Amelia’s special bond continues to grow, and their morning cuddle and zoo tour are now a firm fixture on the daily to-do list.

Amelia said, “Gordon is a really special, sweet boy and it’s a great privilege to work with sloths, so to experience the unique relationship we have developed is a real honor.”

Coast Guard crew rescues 'Bambi' in South Carolina



A U.S. Coast Guard crew engaged in a training exercise in South Carolina came to the rescue of a baby deer struggling to swim.

The Coast Guard said in a Facebook post that a boat crew stationed in Charleston was conducting a training exercise in the Charleston Harbor when they overheard a report of a baby deer in the water nearby.

The crew "leaped into action" and plucked the fawn, which they dubbed Bambi, out of the harbor.

Bambi was turned over to the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources for care.

The zodiac sign most likely to hold a grudge, according to an astrologer



Let’s talk grudges, what inspires them and who maintains them. As a Taurus I keep a large garden of grievances, watered routinely with fresh spit and lingering spite.

As Sighard Neckel notes in his article “Grudge: the emotional side of resentment,” grudge is a word whose very sound conjures its sentiments. “Its tonality reminds us of natural phenomena like rolling thunder and heat lightning. It is a warning,” says Neckel. “Plasma physics recognizes the roar of thunder as a harbinger of a sudden rise in temperature that charges matter and changes it into a different state of aggregation. The rumbling that gives the rising thunder its dark, dull, sinister sound is an internally smoldering state that bodes ill.”

In a surprise to no one, Neckel is himself a Scorpio.

All signs are capable of holding a grudge, of conjuring the charge and change of thunder and occupying that smoldering state of ill will but one among us takes the cake, or axe as it were, for holding hard and tight to residual resentment.

In terms of modality, fixed signs are inclined towards the art of the grudge; looking at you Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius. As signs who fall in the middle of a season they are tasked with digging in and stabilizing the energy of it. This quality makes fixed signs consistent, dedicated and loyal. It also makes them absolutely obstinate and prone to holding tight; to people, beliefs, hates, habits, possessions, pride etc.

Scorpios are the type to seduce your parents and compromise your credit.

Watch your back and smell the wrath because Scorpio is a fixed water sign. Deeply emotional, it holds tight to what it feels and if that feeling is bitter resentment, heaven help you. Examples of grudge holding luminaries with Scorpio placements include Bette Davis (Scorpio rising), Taylor ‘Bad Blood’ Swift (Scorpio Mars) and Kris Jenner (Scorpio sun) and Dennis ‘ban you from my funeral’ Hopper (Scorpio rising).

Scorpios despise dishonesty, smell inauthenticity and are naturally suspicious of everyone they meet. On the rare occasion a small door of vulnerability cracks open and they place faith in another person they do so despite the violent protest of every single cell in their being. If said friend/lover/business partner/hair stylist betrays, offends or disappoints them, their ire is amplified as the act confirms their deep belief that they can’t trust anyone, ever.

Scorpions are masters of the long game who are willing to harm themselves if it means getting even with an enemy. Apropos of this, they are represented by an animal that would rather sting itself to death than accept defeat. Spiteful to the last, Malachy McCourt’s famous words of caution, “Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die,” will not dissuade a Scorpion.

As the grudge holding champion of the zodiac, Scorpio will never forgive or let you forget.

Scorpio rules the eighth house of sex, secrets, death, other people’s money and transformation through trauma. They experience betrayal as a matter of life and death, and thusly, their grudges go deep and revenge means burying the other person alive in a shallow grave, literally or metaphorically. Consequently, Scorpio takes top billing for most vengeful zodiac sign.

To return to our Scorpio scholar Sighard Neckel, “In German the word for grudge is Grollen...Groll stands for secret, entrenched animosity or concealed hatred, and a suppressed displeasure that is prevented from turning outward by internal or external resistance. It corresponds to the English ‘grudge’ or ‘rancor’.” As a feminine AKA internally directed sign with a hard on for secrets, Scorpionic grudges are characterized by their cloak and dagger approach.

It may manifest as a systematic severance or a subtle campaign to destroy the other person. When wronged, Scorpios are the type to seduce your parents and compromise your credit. As the grudge holding champion of the zodiac, Scorpio will never forgive or let you forget. As the most powerful sign in the zodiac their grudge can be felt on a psychic level, your ears will burn, your palms will sweat and you will rue the mothertrucking day.

https://nypost.com/article/zodiac-sign-most-likely-to-hold-a-grudge/

[HogwartsExpress]

Taichung man parks vans on house roof to avoid parking fines



TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The owner of two vans parked on the roof of a Taichung building has dismissed neighbors’ concerns by assuring them the building is made of concrete and steel bars.

One of the vans appears to fit nicely onto the multi-leveled roof space, while the other appears to be resting on the building’s parapet, and is partially over the edge.

“It’s not going to affect the building, don’t make a fuss,” the owner told the China Times on Friday (June 9), after city officials and police asked him to take the vehicles down.

The owner, who CNA reported is a contractor, repeatedly received fines for parking his vans on the street, so he decided to hire a crane to hoist them onto his roof. Local borough chief Lin Kuan-jen (林寬仁) said that the vans had been there for two years.

Despite not breaking any laws, the owner said he would comply with the request to take the vans down. When asked what will come next for the vehicles, the owner said they will be parked in the Taoyuan mountains sometime around October.

source: https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4914622

[lush]

Anti-Climbing Paint – A Non-Drying Coating That Could Land Users in Hot Water
04182023*

As the name suggests, anti-climbing paint is a special type of security paint designed to deter criminals from trying to access a property. However, one can’t simply smear a fence with this stuff without legal consequences.

Anti-climbing paint is a non-drying coating that, once applied onto a surface, makes it virtually impossible for someone to climb that said surface. Once coated in anti-climbing paint, a surface remains slippery for a minimum of three years, retaining its protective properties in both hot and cold weather conditions. Anti-climbing paint is usually applied in thick 3mm layers and develops a glossy skin similar to that of regular paint, only beneath this skin, the paint is still wet, so once an intruder tries to climb a surface covered in it, the skin is breached and the wet coating makes scaling virtually any surface impossible.


Photo: Strom Carlson/Wikimedia Commons

Developed by Camrex Paints in the early 1960s, anti-climbing paint is still available from hardware and home supply stores around the world and advertised as an effective anti-intruder solution. And while it’s true that the paint works as intended in burglary or trespassing cases, it’s important to point out that it can also cause unintended material damage and serious injuries.

Because of the slippery nature of anti-climbing paint, whoever coats their property with this stuff is required to install signs warning of the use of the paint to absolve themselves of responsibility. In some jurisdictions, without these signs, a person could be liable for injuries from someone that gets hurt on their property, even if they were trespassing.



One of the advantages of anti-climbing paint, the fact that it sticks to anything it comes in contact with, making intruders easier to identify, can also be considered a drawback. If anyone accidentally comes in contact with anti-climbing paint, they can sue for damages, as this stuff is extremely difficult to remove from human skin, let alone most fabrics.

It is recommended that anti-climbing paint be used at heights above 1.8 meters, where the chances of passers-by coming in contact with it are very low. Typically, it is applied at 2.4 meters above the ground. However, this does nothing to prevent the paint from coming into contact with cats and various birds.



Special solvents are available to remove the paint, but otherwise, it is highly resistant to most chemicals used to remove conventional paints. Although paint companies advertise it as an effective anti-trespassing solution, the truth is that it is advisable to think carefully before applying anti-climbing paint, because it can land you in lawsuits.

[PennySerenade]

Couple Finds Stash of 1 Million Pennies While Cleaning Out L.A. Home



A California realtor and his wife got the surprise of a lifetime when they were cleaning out her father’s former home in Los Angeles.

John and Elizabeth Reyes uncovered a hidden stash of more than 1 million pennies in the crawlspace deep in the basement last year, according to CW station KTLA. Elizabeth’s father and uncle lived in the home, which was built in the early 1900s and is believed to have once been used as a bed and breakfast, for decades until her dad died and his brother moved away.

One day while clearing out the house last year — "they kept everything," said John — the couple stumbled on some loose pennies in the damp crawlspace, according to the outlet. Eventually, they discovered an immense pile of bank bags filled with pennies, which they later determined were copper, and not zinc, which the United States switched to in the 1980s.

But their excitement over the find quickly turned to frustration when they realized it wouldn’t be an easy task lugging the heavy bags out of the tight crawlspace. And once that task was accomplished, what to do with so many pennies?

Reyes recalled thinking at the time, "We’ve got to take these to Coinstar,” but the group quickly nixed that idea when they remembered they’d have to pay a fee," per KTLA.

Instead, they decided to work the phones and called around to several L.A.-area banks, but that proved to be a no-go, with once branch manager telling them they didn't have enough vault space.

Counting on their local bank in San Bernardino County to be willing to help, they began the tedious process of hauling the pennies out of the basement, which "took a whole day,” Reyes told KTLA.

But their plans were dashed once again when their local bank declined to take the pennies.

Reyes and his family are impatient and don't feel up to another time-consuming project, so he has listed the coins on the resale app and website OfferUp, asking for $25,000, per the outlet.

They've had several offers so far, but Reyes said he plans to hold out for somebody to match their full asking price. “The value is in the uniqueness,” he insisted.

Mumbai’s ‘Museum on Wheels’ Travels to Rural Villages to Benefit Children


By Andy Corbley

Jun 13, 2023


Museum on Wheels-credit: MOW

Since 2015, a mobile museum has been traveling around the most rural parts of India, introducing disadvantaged schoolchildren to the rich tapestry of Indian history—from the dinosaurs to the Mughals.

The innovative education idea has so far traveled over 50,000 miles and visited 700 cities in the states of Karnataka, Maharashtra, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, and Delhi NCR.

The “Museum on Wheels” was dreamed up by the staff at a famous Mumbai Museum called Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, who received support for the idea of a pair of large coach buses carrying museum-like exhibitions to rural communities from both parents and the government.

“Even in today’s day and time, people from rural backgrounds, especially children, do not see museums as a place that can aid learning. With this initiative, we want to change the narrative and say, ‘If you can’t visit a museum, we can bring it to you’,” says Krutika Mhatre, who spearheads the MOW project.

She told The Better India that the subject matter rotates every 6 months based on feedback from schoolteachers in the towns and cities visited.



The overwhelming success of the MOW initiative led to the museum getting a government grant for the purchase and outfitting of a second bus in 2019.

“We wanted to start with a topic that everyone was familiar with. So we based it on Harappan civilization, and it was a great success,” said Krutika.

It makes sense—the Harappan, or Indus Valley Civilization, was the first great civilization of the Indian subcontinent, dating back to 3,300 BCE. The Harappans built the Great Baths, an archaeological find today recognized as a World Heritage Site.



But the MOW has also featured exhibitions on the dinosaurs of Cretaceous India, traditional Indian games, Indian coinage through the ages, and other past civilizations.

Krutika remembers that not only did many of the schools they visited not have a museum in town to go to, but many of the classrooms didn’t even know what a museum was.

It’s especially important in a nation like India that is so big, where human history stretches back so far, and which is also rapidly modernizing.

[goldie0608]

12 Women Working at Virginia Hospital NICU Pregnant at Same Time: 'We Have Each Other’s Backs'

“This is the most we have had historically in one year on our unit," said a hospital spokesperson



Good news comes in twelves for Riverside Regional Medical Center!

A total of 12 members of the NICU team at the Virginia hospital were pregnant at the same time this year, with most still eagerly awaiting the arrivals of their bundles of joy.

“This is the most we have had historically in one year on our unit. Five are first-time moms,” a hospital spokesperson said in a statement about the group, which includes 10 registered nurses, one nurse practitioner and a unit secretary.

With two of the women having already given birth — one staffer welcomed a baby girl on March 15 and another's daughter arrived on May 16 — the remaining 10 hospital staffers have yet to enjoy their big days. Fortunately, they have one giant support system.

"We all feel extremely supported and we don't have to worry about much if anyone needs anything," Haley Bradshaw, who is 35 weeks pregnant with her second child, told Today. "We’re all here to step in and help if someone takes a break or has a doctor’s appointment. We have each other's backs."

Besides Bradshaw, three other women are expecting babies next month, while three more are set to give birth in August, per the hospital. The remaining three hospital staffers have due dates in September, October and November.

NICU staffers being pregnant at the same time in the same hospital is not as unusual as it seems.

Last year, Saint Luke’s East Hospital in Missouri shared the exciting news that 14 neonatal nurses were all expecting babies.

In the same city in 2019, 36 nurses who worked in the neonatal intensive care unit at Children’s Mercy Hospital had babies within the same year.

And on Long Island that same year, 15 neonatal nurses were pregnant at the same time. Last month, they even held a special pre-Mother’s Day reunion to celebrate their forever bond.

[Misstee]

Indian teenager dances for 127 hours to break world record

By Ben Hooper



Srushti Sudhir Jagtap, 16, broke a world record by dancing for 127 hours. Photo courtesy of Guinness World Records




June 14 (UPI) -- A 16-year-old girl in India broke a Guinness World Record by dancing for 127 hours with only brief breaks.

Srushti Sudhir Jagtap took to the auditorium of her school on the morning of May 29 and kept dancing until the afternoon of June 3, after 127 hours of moving to the music.

Jagtap was allotted one five minute break each hour, which she was allowed to accumulate for longer breaks, which she mostly took late at night.

The teenager chose to dance in the Kathak style, one of the eight major forms of Indian classical dance.

"I wanted to promote our Indian culture," she told Guinness World Records.

The previous record for longest dance marathon by an individual was set at 126 hours by Nepalese dancer Bandana Nepal in 2018.

Can We Bring Back Dinosaurs, And Is Anyone Trying To?
We spoke to two experts to find out.



Is it possible to clone a dinosaur? Or could we bring back dinosaurs some other way? We ask because it’s the 30th anniversary of Jurassic Park, and we’ve got dinosaurs on the brain.

In the lead-up, we decided to dive into the world of animal cloning and dinosaur husbandry by speaking to researcher Dr Susie Maidment of London’s Natural History Museum and Ben Lamm, founder and CEO at Colossal Biosciences, who are trying to "de-extinct" the dodo and woolly mammoth among other creatures. Recorded as part of The Big Questions, IFLScience’s podcast, we cover how far cloning technology has come, some flaws in the logic of Jurassic Park, and why dino dentistry is going to have to become a thing if we bring back the dinosaurs.

What do we know so far about the possibility of bringing dinosaurs back?

Dr Susie Maidement: Well, people have had some ideas about how we might be able to bring dinosaurs back. The first one in Jurassic Park was the idea that we could maybe extract some blood from a mosquito and then take the DNA from that to fill in the gaps in “dino DNA”, and then clone a dinosaur. Well, we still can’t do that 30 years on from the film, and that’s because we haven’t found any DNA from dinosaurs.

In fact, the oldest DNA in the fossil record is probably only around a million years old, maybe a bit more. The dinosaurs died out 66 million years ago, so definitely we don’t have any DNA for dinosaurs at this point. We do, however, now have some blood, so we have some red blood cells that are preserved from dinosaurs and some other soft tissue features. So maybe in the future we might be able to get some DNA.

There are a couple of other different techniques that are going on though. One of those is reverse engineering, which is this idea that you could take birds, which are the direct descendants of the dinosaurs, fiddle around with their genetics, and produce something like a dinosaur.

When you’re talking about the precious dino DNA there, in Jurassic Park they use a mosquito trapped in amber. Could that be a source?

SM: When we look at insects in amber, what we tend to find is the outside of the insect, the chitinous husk – or the crunchy bit, if you like – of the insect, but the inside stuff isn’t preserved. So, there isn’t any blood found within those. But there has been a beautiful specimen of a mosquito found preserved in lake sediment. So, these are very finely laminated, finely layered sediments, and this specimen had a dark stain around its abdomen.

When they tested that, they actually found the breakdown products of haemoglobin. So, it was blood in a mosquito’s abdomen, however, that specimen was only 60 million years old, so not old enough to be around at the same time as the dinosaurs.

A massive gap, then, between where we’re at now and where we need to get to. In the movie, when they extract the DNA from the amber specimen, they get this genome but it’s not quite complete, so their idea is “Well, we’ll just get a bit of a frog, and we’ll plug in the gaps.” Could that work?

SM: There are some fairly major flaws with this whole concept. Firstly, in order to know where the gaps in the DNA are, you need to have the whole genome to start off with, otherwise you don’t know which bits are missing.

The second problem is that frogs are the least likely organism you would choose. The organism that you would choose would be birds, because birds are the direct descendants of dinosaurs. When Jurassic Park came out, I don’t think that was 100 percent accepted. There were some ideas that it might be the case, but it wasn’t as widely accepted as it is now.

Now that’s just fact, but they still wouldn’t have used frog. Humans are more closely related to dinosaurs than frogs are. So it was totally a bizarre choice, but it was needed for the narrative of the film. They needed the dinosaurs to be able to change sex randomly and then produce offspring and this is something that some frogs can do.

[Interestingly, since our interview with Maidment research has come out saying that the discovery of parthenogenesis in a crocodile makes it “very likely” that pterosaurs and dinosaurs were also capable of reproducing without sexual reproduction. So, it could be that Jurassic Park would’ve been a total disaster even without that pesky amphibian DNA genome plug.]

Elsewhere in the field of animal cloning, co-founder and CEO of Colossal Biosciences Ben Lamm has been working towards the “de-extinction” of several extinct species. We asked him what exactly that means.

Ben Lamm: Colossal Bioscience is, to our knowledge at least, the world’s first de-extinction and species preservation company. What that means to us is looking at and understanding which genes are associated with the core phenotypes, or physical attributes, that existed in an extinct animal.

For example, for the woolly mammoth, it’s the dome cranium, the curved tusk, and whatever is making it cold-tolerant, as well as a lot of things under the hood. Things like how nerve endings respond to freezing temperatures, how the body produces haemoglobin, and the shaggy wool coat.

What we’re asking is how can we at Colossal understand the core genes that made elephants cold tolerant. Those genes are now extinct, so how do we de-extinct those genes and put them into the architecture, if you will, of an existing living animal? At the moment, that’s the Asian Elephant which is 99.6 percent the same genetically as a woolly mammoth. If we can de-extinct those genes, then you have the mammoth 2.0.

What other species have Colossal got their sights set on for de-extinction?

BL: We’re working on the woolly mammoth, the thylacine, also known as the Tasmanian tiger, and then the iconic dodo from Mauritius.

When you’re working with these different species, what’s the bare minimum you need in terms of biological material to work with?

BL: First you need to look at, what is the closest phylogenetic relative? What is the animal that is still existing on the planet that’s the closest on the family tree? For example, for the woolly mammoth, that’s the Asian Elephant. As I mentioned, it's 99.6 percent the same, genetically. Most people don’t realize this, but an Asian Elephant is closer genetically on the family tree to the woolly mammoth than it even is an African elephant. You need to find the closes phylogenetic relative because you’ve got to find and build a reference genome, and you need tissue samples to do that.

Then, you’ve got to get tissue samples containing the ancient DNA of those extinct species. Ancient DNA is different from existing living DNA, because it’s massively fragmented. It’s not all exogenous, meaning that there are other microbes and living things that have contaminated it over time. So you get snippets of ancient DNA and then you basically piece them together. With the mammoth, we actually used 54 different mammoth genomes to build our reference genome.

https://www.iflscience.com/can-we-bring ... g-to-69382

[johngriffen]

I sometimes get REALLY DEPRESSED reviewing the news these days.
It's always about a global pandemic threatening life as we know it,
protests around the world, stupid politicians, natural disasters,
or some other really bad story.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

Welcome to The mobi weekly news magazine
IN OTHER NEWS
THURSDAY JUNE 15
What is it?
Here is your chance to become an "ACE REPORTER" for our weekly news magazine.
It is your job to fine weird, funny or "good feel" stories from around the world and share them with our readers in our weekly magazine

How do you play?
Just post a story that you have come across that made you smile, laugh, feel good...
BUT NOTHING DEPRESSING

EXAMPLE POST

​Naked sunbather chases wild boar through park after it steals his laptop bag

A naked sunbather was seen chasing wild boar through a park after it stole his laptop bag.
Amusing photographs from Germany show the man running after the animal to try and claim the plastic bag back.
But the cheeky boar and its two piglets appear to be too quick for the sunbather, who can't keep up with their speedy little trotters.
As the incident unfolds, groups of friends and family sat on the grass watch on and laugh.
Heads are seen turning in surprise and amusement in the hilarious photographs.
The incident happened at Teufelssee Lake - a bathing spot in the Grunwell Forest in Berlin, Germany.

Rules:
Each Edition of IN OTHER NEWS will be open for 7 days...
You can post as many stories as you like, but you will only get paid for One Story in any 24 hour period
So in other words, you can only earn WRZ$ once a day.
Each news day will start when I post announcing it
OR at:
9:00 AM CHICAGO TIME (UTC -6)
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on those days I space out and forget to post or can't due to Real Life
Stories may be accompanied with images - but No big images, please! 800x800 pixels wide maximum
Videos are allowed, but please keep them short, and post a short summary for those that don't like to click on videos
No Duplicate stories - Where a post has been edited resulting in duplicates, then the last one in time gets disallowed.
And please limit this to reasonably family friendly stories

Reward:
Each news story posted that I feel is acceptable (must be a real story, too few words or simply a headline are not considered acceptable) will earn you 50 WRZ$
If you post multiple stories on any given day, you will only earn 50 WRZ$ for the first story of the Day
All payments will be made at THE END of the weekly news cycle.
Special Bonus - Each week I will award "The Pulitzer Prize" for the best story of the week
The weekly winner of the "The Pulitzer Prize" will receive a 100 WRZ$ bonus
It's just my personal opinion, so my judgement is final

So help bring GOOD news to the members of mobi, and join our reporting team...

IN OTHER NEWS

[ozswede]

The double-decker airplane seat is back.

Would you sit directly below another airplane passenger?

It might not sound particularly appealing on paper, but 23-year-old airplane seat designer Alejandro Núñez Vicente believes double-level seating is the future of economy flying.

You may have seen a photo of Núñez Vicente’s Chaise Longue Airplane Seat prototype floating around the internet. Following an article last year, Núñez Vicente’s concept went viral – igniting furious debate and prompting a flurry of reactions from would-be passengers – some outraged, some bemused, some intrigued, some all of the above.

“To be honest, there’s no such thing as bad publicity,” Núñez Vicente said today. Proving this sentiment, he’s back at the Aircraft Interiors Expo (AIX) in Hamburg, Germany – showcasing a new iteration of his controversial Chaise Longue.

“People can talk and they always hate innovation in some ways,” he says. “Most of the times when they show you something new, everyone hates it at first, they’re scared of change. But the more you show it, and the more you develop it, and the more they see it, the more they get used to it.”


Alejandro Núñez Vicente, left, designed the Chaise Longue double level airplane seat concept.

Núñez Vicente’s concept started small – as a college project back in 2021. A nomination for the 2021 Crystal Cabin Awards – a top prize in the aviation industry – catapulted the concept into the public consciousness. Núñez Vicente paused his master’s degree and put all his time, money and efforts into making his vision a reality.

Fast forward to today and Núñez Vicente has sponsors, partnership deals and is in regular conversation with “the biggest players in the industry.” He believes his double-level airplane seat is the future of economy flying and is working around the clock to make it a reality.

Comfort and cabin capacity

When would-be passengers wince at the potential claustrophobia and critics suggest the design is all about airlines cramming more seats on planes, Núñez Vicente insists they’ve misunderstood his intentions.

For one, he’s not trying to eradicate regular airplane seating altogether. Núñez Vicente envisages an airplane cabin in which the Chaise Longue is in the center, flanked by two rows of regular airplane seating. He’s conscious the seat wouldn’t be suitable or appealing for everyone, even if he thinks it could be more comfortable for some passengers.

At 6 feet 2 inches (1.88 meters), Núñez Vicente has spent many a cramped flight struggling for legroom and failing to sleep. He says he designed the Chaise Longue to solve the airplane seat conundrum – not make it worse.


The lower level allows travellers to stretch out their legs on a footstall in front of them.

Still, the designer admits that for airlines, the appeal of the Chaise Longue is the increased passenger headcount.

“Many airlines and many big players of the industry are trying to push us to put more passengers into the aircraft,“ he says. “It’s not our main priority and our main goal, but with this kind of design it’s also possible.”

At this year’s Aircraft Interiors Expo, Núñez Vicente’s latest prototype will be tested out by a slew of airline bigwigs. He says he’s always excited to get feedback from the industry, but is also keen for other would-be travelers to give their two cents.

When the Chaise Longue hit the headlines in 2022, Núñez Vicente says he received multiple requests from people looking to travel to his home city of Madrid, Spain, to test the prototype themselves.

“We have had people coming to try it, famous people that saw the article, and they were like, ‘I want to go and try it,’” says Núñez Vicente.

Now Núñez Vicente’s launched the Chaise Longue in the Metaverse, thanks to a collaboration with a company called 3DSeatMap VR, to illustrate what the seat would look like in situ in a cabin. Virtual users can wander around the design and inspect it for themselves.

But Núñez Vicente is also still open to anyone – famous or otherwise – reaching out to experience the Chaise Longue prototype in person and to offer an honest take.

“We do try to adapt to every single constructive feedback that we get,” he says. “That’s how we move forward.”

(I notice that nobody has mentioned the very obvious flatulence issue...)

[prokroustis]

HUNTER GATHERERS USED BONE FLUTES TO IMITATE RAPTORS



Bone flutes discovered at Eynan-Mallaha in Israel may have been used to imitate the call of raptors.
Eynan-Mallaha was an Epipalaeolithic settlement belonging to the Natufian culture, built and settled around 10,000–8,000 BC. The settlement is an example of hunter-gatherer sedentism, a crucial step in the transition from foraging to farming.

Excavations at Eynan-Mallaha have yielded over 1112 bird bones, including seven aerophones made from the wing long-bones (one humerus, five ulnae, one radius), whose diaphysis have been perforated one to four times to form finger-holes.

According to a study published in the journal scientific reports, the flutes were manufactured more than 12,000 years ago to produce a range of sounds similar to raptor calls, for communication, attracting hunting prey, and music-making.

Although subsequent archaeological cultures have documented aerophones, the presence of artificial bird sounds in a Palaeolithic context has not been reported until now.

According to the study: “In the three cases where the epiphysis is still present, it has also been perforated to form the mouthpiece or the distal end of the object. To these finger-holes are added markings on three bones, either notches or a series of small parallel incisions located near the finger-holes which are potentially linked to the placements of the fingers on the instrument.”

The aerophones are mainly carved from the Eurasian teal (Anas crecca) and the Eurasian coot (Fulica atra). Based on a study of the frequency the aerophones produce, the researchers believe that they were made to reproduce the calls of the valued Common kestrel and the Sparrowhawk.

The study concludes: “It is now clear that the evolution of music at the transition to agriculture, which articulated the intensification of socio-cultural complexity, was more branched than we supposed before. Thus, the exploration of Natufian acoustics gives a new perspective on this crucial period in human history.”

[HogwartsExpress]

Man wanted by police found… in prison



A man who was wanted by the police in connection with an ongoing court case has been found – and, according to a former MP, he is in prison.

On Thursday afternoon, the police issued a request for information about Marziq Abdelaziz, a man who was wanted in connection with an ongoing court case.

The police later said that the man in question “is no longer being sought”.

Former Nationalist MP and lawyer, Jason Azzopardi wrote on Facebook that the man was already in prison.

source: https://www.independent.com.mt/articles ... 6736252515