[lush]

Artist Ordered to Repay Museum $76,000 After Turning In Blank Canvases as Artworks
091923*

Danish artist Jens Haaning has been ordered to repay the Kunsten Museum in Aalborg 532,000 kroner ($76,000) after handing in two blank canvases as artworks in a project he named ‘Take the Money and Run’.

In 2021, Jens Haaning, a Danish conceptual artist whose work focuses on power and inequality, was commissioned by the Kunsten Museum of Modern Art in Aalborg to recreate two of his earlier artworks for which he had used a bunch of banknotes to represent the average income in Denmark and Austria. The artist agreed and the museum provided about 532,000 kroner ($76,000) for him to recreate the art pieces, including a fee of 40,000 kroner. Only when the museum staff unpacked the two artworks from Haaning, they found two blank canvases titled ‘Take the Money and Run’.


Photo: Planet Volumes/Unsplash+

“The work is that I have taken their money,” Mr Haaning told dr.dk. “It’s not theft. It is a breach of contract, and breach of contract is part of the work.”

The museum put the new artworks on display, but it still asked the artist to return the hundreds of krone he was supposed to use to recreate his previous pieces, and when he refused, it launched a legal action against him. The legal documents stated that Haaning was only loaned the 532,000 kroner to use as a medium for the artworks.

“We are not a wealthy museum. … We have to think carefully about how we spend our funds, and we don’t spend more than we can afford,” Lasse Andersson, the director of the Kunsten Museum, told The Guardian at the time.

Now, after a long legal battle, a Copenhagen court has ordered Jens Haaning to refund the museum 492,549 kroner, which represents the sum the museum had given him minus the artist’s fee. He now has 14 days to comply, but he can also appeal the ruling.

Speaking after the Court’s verdict, Haaning admitted that the controversy around his ‘Take the Money and Run’ project had been “good for my work,” but added that it also ” puts me in an unmanageable situation where I don’t really know what to do.”. He also said that the Kunsten Museum also made “much, much more money” from the publicity this case brought it.

Lasse Andersson admitted to laughing out loud when he first saw the blank canvases in 2021, describing Haaning’s idea as ‘humoristic,’ but added that the museum will not comment on the court ruling as long as it can be appealed, something that the artist has expressed no interest in doing.



Piggybacking on a similar post, but now with video! Shame on this scam "artist"

Thorold man’s attempt for longest zucchini makes headlines on “Late Night with Stephen Colbert”


Garden wonder grown by Henry D’Angela source of laughs on U.S. late-night television and has garnered him a big response.

Thorold’s Henry D’Angela with his now world-famous zucchini.
Bob Tymczyszyn / Torstar

A Thorold resident’s world record attempt for the largest zucchini received attention south of the border Thursday when “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” poked fun at the attention the giant squash has garnered.

Colbert spent over three minutes on the segment where he highlighted the zucchini grown by Thorold city councillor and hobby gardener, Henry D’Angela whose eight-foot-plus zucchini is suspected of being the largest one ever recorded.

[Misstee]

Scientists say they’ve finally found remnants of Theia, an ancient planet that collided with Earth to form the moon
Jackie Wattles
By Jackie Wattles, CNN
5 minute read
Updated 8:37 PM EDT, Fri November 3,


Scientists widely agree that an ancient planet likely smashed into Earth as it was forming billions of years ago, spewing debris that coalesced into the moon that decorates our night sky today.

The theory, called the giant-impact hypothesis, explains many fundamental features of the moon and Earth.

But one glaring mystery at the center of this hypothesis has endured: What ever happened to Theia? Direct evidence of its existence has remained elusive. No leftover fragments from the planet have been found in the solar system. And many scientists assumed any debris Theia left behind on Earth was blended in the fiery cauldron of our planet’s interior.

A new theory, however, suggests that remnants of the ancient planet remain partially intact, buried beneath our feet.

Molten slabs of Theia could have embedded themselves within Earth’s mantle after impact before solidifying, leaving portions of the ancient planet’s material resting above Earth’s core some 1,800 miles (about 2,900 kilometers) below the surface, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

A bold new idea

If the theory is correct, it would not only provide additional details to fill out the giant-impact hypothesis but also answer a lingering question for geophysicists.

They were already aware that there are two massive, distinct blobs that are embedded deep within the Earth. The masses — called large low-velocity provinces, or LLVPs — were first detected in the 1980s. One lies beneath Africa and another below the Pacific Ocean.

These blobs are thousands of kilometers wide and likely more dense with iron compared with the surrounding mantle, making them stand out when measured by seismic waves. But the origins of the blobs — each of which are larger than the moon — remain a mystery to scientists.

But for Dr. Qian Yuan, a geophysicist and postdoctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology and the new study’s lead author, his understanding of LLVPs forever changed when he attended a 2019 seminar at Arizona State University, his alma mater, that outlined the giant-impact hypothesis.

That’s when he learned new details about Theia, the mysterious projectile that presumably struck Earth billions of years ago.

And, as a trained geophysicist, he knew of those mysterious blobs hidden in Earth’s mantle.

Yuan had a eureka moment, he said.

Immediately, he began perusing scientific studies, searching to see whether someone else had proposed that LLVPs might be fragments of Theia. But no one had.

Initially, Yuan said, he only told his adviser about his theory.

“I was afraid of turning to other people because I (was) afraid others would think I’m too crazy,” Yuan said.
Interdisciplinary research

Yuan first proposed his idea in a paper he submitted in 2021. It was rejected three times. Peer reviewers said it lacked sufficient modeling from the giant impact.

Then he came across scientists who did just the type of research Yuan needed.

Their work, which assigned a certain size to Theia and speed of impact in the modeling, suggested that the ancient planet’s collision likely did not entirely melt Earth’s mantle, allowing the remnants of Theia to cool and form solid structures instead of blending together in Earth’s inner stew.


“Earth’s mantle is rocky, but it isn’t like solid rock,” said Dr. Steve Desch, a study coauthor and professor of astrophysics at Arizona State’s School of Earth and Space Exploration. “It’s this high-pressure magma that’s kind of gooey and has the viscosity of peanut butter, and it’s basically sitting on a very hot stove.”

In that environment, if the material that makes up the LLVPs was too dense, it wouldn’t be able to pile up in the jagged formations that it appears in, Desch said. And if it were low enough in density, it would simply mix in with the churning mantle.

The question was this: What would be the density of the material left behind by Theia? And could it match up with the density of the LLVPs?

(Desch had authored his own paper in 2019 that sought to describe the density of the material that Theia would have left behind.)

The researchers sought higher-definition modeling with 100 to 1,000 times more resolution than their previous attempts, Yuan said. And still, the calculations lined up: If Theia were a certain size and consistency, and struck the Earth at a specific speed, the models showed it could, in fact, leave behind massive hunks of its guts within Earth’s mantle and also spawn the debris that would go on to create our moon.

“That was very, very, so very exciting,” Yuan said. “That (modeling) hadn’t been done before.”
Building a theory

The study Yuan published this week includes coauthors from a variety of disciplines across a range of institutions, including Arizona State, Caltech, the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory and NASA’s Ames Research Center.

When asked whether he expects to encounter pushback or controversy over such a novel concept — that slabs of material from an ancient extraterrestrial planet are hidden deep within the Earth — Yuan replied: “I also want to stress this is an idea; this is a hypothesis.

“There’s no way to prove this must be the case,” he added. “I welcome other people to do this (research).”

Desch added that, in his view, “this work is compelling. It makes a very strong case.” It even seems “sort of obvious in hindsight.”

Dr. Seth Jacobson, an assistant professor of planetary science at Michigan State University, acknowledged that the theory may not, however, soon reach broad acceptance.

“These (LLVPs) — they’re an area themselves of very active research,” said Jacobson, who was not involved in the study. And the tools used to study them are constantly evolving.

The idea that Theia created the LLVPs is no doubt an exciting and eye-catching hypothesis, he added, but it’s not the only one out there.

One other theory, for example, posits that LLVPs are actually heaps of oceanic crust that have sunk to the depths of the mantle over billions of years.

“I doubt the advocates for other hypotheses (about LLVP formation) are going to abandon them just because this one has appeared,” Jacobson added. “I think we’ll be debating this for quite some time.”

The World's Largest Waterfall Is Actually Underwater
Angel Falls who?



Did you know the world’s largest waterfall is underwater? Us neither – every day’s a school day as they say. The tallest waterfall on Earth stands at a massive 3.5 kilometers (2.2 miles), next to which Angel Falls, the tallest uninterrupted waterfall over land, pales in comparison. So, where is this underwater behemoth?

Where is the world’s largest waterfall?
The tallest waterfall is called the Denmark Strait cataract and can be found beneath the Denmark Strait between Greenland and Iceland.

Here, water falls from the Greenland Sea into the Irminger Sea for over 3 kilometers, a drop that is more than three times the height of Venzuela’s iconic Angel Falls.

The waterfall is also incredibly wide, spanning 160 kilometers (100 miles) and it plunges around 5 million cubic meters (175 million cubic feet) of water every second – that’s almost 2,000 Niagaras at peak flow.

Nestled deep below the ocean’s surface, the cataract was discovered in 1989.

But… how?
We know you’re probably wondering how an underwater waterfall comes to be – after all, how does water “fall” underwater?

According to the National Ocean Service, it’s all to do with the water’s temperature. Cold water is denser than warm water, and so when the frosty, southward-flowing water from the Nordic Seas meets the more balmy water of the Irminger Sea, it sinks. The colder, denser water is forced below the warmer water, flowing over a colossal drop in the sea floor to create a beast of a waterfall.

Unfortunately, global warming is no friend of an underwater waterfall. As climate change continues to ramp up, the oceans are getting warmer and there’s a greater influx of freshwater, as well as less sea-ice formation, all of which results in a reduction in the volume of cold, dense water flowing downwards.

“A good example is on the Catalan coast, where the decrease in the number of tramontane days in winter in the Gulf of Lion and north of the Catalan coast is causing a weakening of this oceanographic process, which is decisive in regulating the climate and has a great impact on deep ecosystems,” Professor Anna Sanchez-Vidal, who is leading an expedition to investigate the Denmark Strait cataract, said in a statement.

Here’s hoping the world’s largest waterfall fares better.

Fancy ogling some more underwater marvels? Look no further than Thor’s Well, the drainpipe of the Pacific”.

https://www.iflscience.com/the-worlds-l ... ater-71422

[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
SUNDAY NOVEMBER 5
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)
3:00 PM GMT (UTC -0)
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]

Britain's loneliest sheep stranded on a rocky beach for two years is finally rescued and taken to a Scottish farm park

Britain's 'loneliest sheep' has finally been rescued by a team of volunteers after being left stranded on a rocky beach for two years.

The ewe, which has been named Fiona, is now 'safe and well' and has been taken to a Scottish farm park.

The Scottish Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SSPCA) previously said that attempts to save the sheep amid the rocky conditions would be 'incredibly complex'.

A hovercraft company had even offered to help lift the animal to dry land due to concerns that the rocky terrain would make it impossible to use a dinghy or boat. In the end, a group of five farmers- led by sheep shearer Cammy Wilson - were able to haul Fiona up a steep slope to safety using 'heavy equipment'.

Rescuers used a winch mounted on a truck parked at the top of the cliff, 200m of rope and a feed bag fashioned into a makeshift sling in what was described as an 'epic' mission. Two of the men stayed at the top to operate the winch while three others were lowered 250m down the steep descent where they found Fiona in a cave and guided her up the rock face.


Two of the rescuers Cammy Wilson (L) and Als Couzens are pictured with Fiona

Posting on Facebook, The Sheep Game said: 'We've named her Fiona and she's now safe and well and heading to a well known Scottish Farm park.'

It added: 'The rescue was epic!'

Fiona, who spent the last two years stuck off the north east coast of Scotland, has been looked over by health inspectors, the Sun reported.

She is now being cared for at Dalscone Farm in Dumfries.



The animal was first spotted by kayaker Jillian Turner back in 2021, who returned to the same place this year to find the ewe still there.

She said she was astonished that Fiona had 'made it through all weathers' and seemed 'desperate to make contact with us' when she passed.

Her fleece had grown so long that it could hardly stand up.

The rescue was led by Ayrshire farmer Cammy Wilson who was moved by pictures of the sheep standing forlornly beside the sea.

Ms Turner, of Brora, Sutherland, said she assumed it would manage to make its way up the rocky cliff. But when she returned to the remote area last month she was horrified to see the animal was still trapped and, after taking pictures to highlight its plight, she appealed for help.

Mr Wilson and his team – Graeme Parker, James Parker, Als Couzens and Ally Williamson – responded and despite the perilous terrain they were determined to free the sheep.

The rescue party decided to name the sheep after a character from the animated film Shrek who marries a princess called Fiona.

Mr Wilson explained: 'There was a sheep called Shrek in Australia that was living in caves for years so this is the Scottish version.'


Fiona was first discovered in 2021 by kayaker Jillian Turner, who returned to the spot near Balinore this year to find the animal still there, with her fleece overgrown

How Fiona came to be on the beach is a mystery, as local farmers do not own any sheep of the same breed. One farmer was able to provide vital drone footage of the cliffs to allow the men to plot their rescue. Fiona also played her part in the rescue. Mr Wilson explained:

'She was so chill, it was unbelievable. I was amazed by how relaxed this sheep was; no panting or panic. It was almost as though she thought 'Get me out of here.' It's rare a sheep acts like that.'

He described the most nerve-wracking part as a 15m near-vertical section where they worried the bag carrying Fiona would tear.

Mr Wilson said: 'If we lost the bag we were in a spot. We'd have been there most of the day trying to get another one or another plan. Thankfully it held and we got her past the worst bit. Then it was a steady climb while being careful. 'In hindsight, luck was the key factor of the day. It was great to come out with no mistakes and the sheep being happy and healthy... because the stress could have killed her. Thankfully she was totally relaxed.'



The team had contacted the Scottish SPCA to monitor the rescue and check the sheep's condition. Fiona was last night being transported to her new home some 270 miles south at Dalscone Farm animal park in Dumfries.

Mr Wilson said: 'I'm friendly with farmer Ben Best at Dalscone and he was happy to re-home her and make her part of his unique, incredible flock of animals.'

A Scottish SPCA spokesman said: 'A group with climbing expertise were attempting the rescue by descending down to where the sheep was trapped. This is not something our inspectorate have the equipment to do, so we were not involved in the rescue itself.

'The team brought the ewe up and our inspector examined her. 'Thankfully the sheep is in good condition, aside from needing to be sheared. We are delighted the sheep is safe and well, ready to start her new life.'

A Change.org petition, set up by Londoner Edoardo L'Astorina, calling for Fiona's rescue amassed over 55,000 signatures.

[Alessa9]

Rockefeller Center reveals its 2023 Christmas tree. Here are all the details

This year's tree hails from Vestal, New York, a town 186 miles northwest of Midtown, Manhattan.



Rockefeller Center has its 2023 Christmas tree!

A tree has towered over the legendary New York City plaza almost every year since 1931, and this year's has been selected.

"Meet the 2023 Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree," Rockefeller Center tweeted on Wednesday.

This year's tree is from Vestal, New York, the tweet said. It weighs about 12 tons and is 80-feet tall.



The tree is slated to arrive in the Big Apple on Nov. 11. Crews will decorate — or should we say spruce up — the three ahead of the annual tree lighting ceremony on Nov. 28.

Daytime talkshow host and pop star Kelly Clarkson will host a two-hour live show to light the tree, complete with performances and celebrity cameos. TODAY's Savannah Guthrie, Hoda Kotb, Al Roker and Craig Melvin will also join her.

The “Christmas in Rockefeller Center” tree lighting ceremony will air on both NBC and Peacock Nov. 29 at 8 p.m. E.T./P.T. (Peacock is owned by TODAY.com’s parent company, NBCUniversal.)



What is the history of the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center?
Rockefeller Center has put up a giant Christmas tree nearly every year since 1931. Current head gardener for Rockefeller Center Erik Pauze sources a new Norway spruce to take the place of honor above the ice skating rink.

“What I look for is a tree you would want in your living room, but on a grander scale. It’s got that nice, perfect shape all around,” he said in an interview shared on RockefellerCenter.com. “And most of all, it’s gotta look good for those kids who turn the corner at 30 Rock; it needs to instantly put a huge smile on their faces. It needs to evoke that feeling of happiness.”

https://www.today.com/news/good-news/ro ... rcna123272

[Fatima99]

First Ever Florida Man Games To Feature Beer Belly Wrestling, ‘Evading Arrest’ Obstacle Course

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. (AP) — It ain’t the Olympics, but a group of Floridians plan to host competitions themed according to the collective antics of the beer-loving, gator-possessing, rap-sheet heavy, mullet-wearing social media phenomenon known as “Florida Man.”



Organizers of the “Florida Man Games” describe the competition as “the most insane athletic showdown on Earth.” The games will poke fun at Florida’s reputation for producing strange news stories involving guns, drugs, booze and reptiles — or some combination of the four.

Among the contests planned for next February in St. Augustine, Florida, according to organizers, are the Evading Arrest Obstacle Course in which contestants jump over fences and through yards while being chased by real police officers; the Category 5 Cash Grab in which participants try to grab as much money in a wind-blowing booth; and the self-explanatory beer-belly wrestling.

“This isn’t just a competition; it’s a one-of-a-kind Floridian spectacle!” organizers said on the games’ website.

The “Florida Man” concept crept into the nation’s consciousness a decade ago with the @_FloridaMan Twitter account. The account, with the tagline “Real-life stories of the world’s worst superhero,” has been home to headlines such as “Florida Man Fire Bombs Garage That Impounded His Car, Hits His Own Vehicle” and “Florida Man Tried to Pay for McDonald’s With Weed.”

General admission tickets to the event are going for $45. Two former stars of the 1990s television show “American Gladiators” have agreed to serve as referees.

A St. Augustine resident is behind the games: Pete Melfi, owner of The 904 Now, a media outlet covering St. Johns County.

“We thought, ‘How can we really play on these Florida Man headlines that we hear so much about?’ Someone gave me the idea to make it into an athletic competition,” Melfi told the Orlando Sentinel. “It’s going to be a wild day of mud games and Florida-style obstacle courses. It’s going to really be an opportunity to live that Florida Man life for a day.”

[rflash8]

Winner of Bat Beauty Contest revealed


A female Townsend's big-eared bat from Oregon named William ShakespEAR won a nationwide beauty contest.

They went batty for this beauty.

A bat from Oregon named William ShakespEAR won a nationwide beauty contest for the winged mammels.

The female Townsend’s big-eared bat won the annual contest organized by the federal Bureau of Land Management, part of the Interior Department, which oversees one in every 10 acres of land in the U.S., including vast sections of Western states, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported.

The prizeworthy creature, which hails from Butte Falls in Jackson County, was chosen as the winner by social media users, who voted on photos of different species of bats taken in public lands throughout the country.

She was photographed by BLM wildlife technician Emma Busk in Jackson County, which is the home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Townsend’s big-eared bats are known for their large ears, which measure about half the length of its body, making the animal’s surname “ShakespEAR” fitting.



The contest, which began on Oct. 24 and ended, appropriately, on Halloween, runs during the same time as International Bat Week, in an effort to raise awareness for bat conservation.

[lush]

Chinese Women Are Using Fake Belly Button Stickers to Make Their Legs Look Longer
092023*

Belly button stickers are apparently all the rage in China these days, as a growing number of women are reportedly using them as a way of making their legs appear longer.

There is a curious beauty trend going on in China right now. Young women are paying 5-10 RMB ($0.70 to $1.40) for sheets of temporary tattoos designed to look like belly buttons. The stickers are usually placed a few centimeters above the real navel, which is then concealed with skirts or pants, in order to make the torso seem shorter and the legs, longer. It sounds pretty dumb, but belly button sticker manufacturers are struggling to keep up with demand, and social media platforms like Xiaohongshu are being flooded with video tutorials on how to use the temporary tattoos and clips showing their effects on the wearer.


https://images.mobilism.org/

“The result is pretty natural, and I think it looks better than my own belly button,” one user commented. “It gave me long legs, just like that.”

The fact that these fake navels are considered more visually pleasing than natural ones is another explanation for their popularity. Some people consider belly buttons that are round, fat, or protruding outwards are not pretty enough, so they prefer to conceal them and keep the stickers on display.



Some Chinese news outlets credited the unexpected popularity of belly button stickers to Chinese traditional medicine, which states that the lower abdomen must be kept warm to preserve the overall health of the body. By keeping the fake navel exposed, users can wear high-waisted pants that cover much of the stomach, while still rocking garments like crop-tops.

While some on social media have criticized these belly button stickers for propagating unrealistically high beauty standards in Chinese society, everyday users seem to love them.



“These stickers are not easy to drop off; they’re non-reflective and even waterproof,” one person wrote on Weibo. “I’m willing to call them the most successful invention of 2023!”

“This isn’t just a fake belly button sticker; it’s a ‘cheating tool’ for bidding farewell to my 50-50 body proportion,” someone else wrote on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok.

While not the craziest beauty trend we’ve ever covered here on Oddity Central, fake belly buttons are definitely one of the weirdest.

[goldie0608]

Cats Have Nearly 300 Different Facial Expressions, New Study Finds

The study centered around male and female adult domestic shorthairs that had each been neutered or spayed



Cats are apparently creatures with many different faces.

Last month, a study was published in the journal Behavioural Processes, which detailed that domestic cats have 276 different facial expressions that they can — and do — channel.

Data for the study — which was co-authored by Brittany Florkiewicz, an evolutionary psychologist at Lyon College in Arkansas, and Lauren Scott, a medical student from the University of Kansas Medical Center — was collected by filming 53 cats at the CatCafé Lounge in Los Angeles while both authors were attending UCLA between August 2021 and the following June.

All of the felines studied were male and female adult domestic shorthairs that had each been neutered or spayed, the study said.

After 194 minutes of video footage was captured, which included 186 cat interactions, the authors compared the expressions with the Facial Action Coding System, which is designed specifically for cats, the study said.

The co-authors noted that muscle movements including breathing and yawning were not included in the study's findings.

And while the study authors were not able to identify what each expression they recorded meant, they found that 51.45% of the expressions were friendly, while the other 48.55% were aggressive.

Per the study, friendly expressions were marked by the cats' ears and whiskers moving forward with their eyes closed, as aggressive cats instead had constricted pupils and ears flattened against their heads.

"The literature is so sparse, and many studies only focus on the connection between cats and humans over the course of 10,000 years of domestication," study co-author Florkiewicz told Live Science in a statement.

"At the cat cafe, we were able to document spontaneous interactions between the cats and record their facial expressions," she added.

Kilonova space explosion could end life on Earth for 1,000 years

Kilonova? More like killer-nova.



Violent star collisions, called a kilonova, could devastate our planet due to a lethal spew of radiation — namely gamma rays, cosmic rays and x-rays — that are emitted from the celestial event, scientists have discovered.

“We found that if a neutron star merger were to occur within around 36 light-years of Earth, the resulting radiation could cause an extinction-level event,” University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researcher Haille Perkins told Space.com.

The powerful collision of ultra-dense neutron stars — a teaspoon of which would weigh approximately one billion tons — creates a particle blast that would decimate our planet’s ozone layer and make it vulnerable to ultraviolet radiation for the next 1,000 years: an extinction-level event.

“The specific distance of safety and component that is most dangerous is uncertain as many of the effects depend on properties like viewing angle to the event, the energy of the blast, the mass of material ejected, and more,” Perkins reassured.

Of all the lethal particles tested, researchers determined that cosmic rays pose the most viable concern. The interstellar smash would precipitate an expanding bubble of cosmic rays that would envelop all in its path, and rain highly energetic charged particles on Earth.

“We found that if a neutron star merger were to occur within around 36 light-years of Earth, the resulting radiation could cause an extinction-level event,” said Perkins.

Equally as frightening are the gamma rays. These emit as two narrow jets from either side of the merger that would, in theory, torch any celestial planet or object in its direct path for an estimated 297 lightyears. Yet even an indirect pass of gamma radiation could be enough to significantly dissolve our ozone and require about four years to repair.

Even worse, gamma ray collisions with surrounding star dust — or, “interstellar medium” — can result in X-ray emissions that have the same ionizing effect on our planet’s ozone layer, according to Perkins’ team.

Because those effects last longer than that of gamma rays, it could be more lethal, according to Space.com — although, the Earth would need to be close, about 16 light years away, to feel it.

Perkins’ team studied a neutron star merger that occurred in 2017, about 130 million lightyears away, which resulted in a violent spew of particles that were about 1,300 times the mass of Earth, according to past reports.

At the time, researchers believed the kilonova could give clues as to how certain heavy elements — like platinum, uranium and gold — came to fruition.

KilonovaIf the Earth happened to fall within the path of destruction, the effects of the kilonova would eradicate the planet.

But Perkins also assured panic is not necessary — kilonovas are “rare.”

“There are several other more common events like solar flares, asteroid impacts, and supernova explosions that have a better chance of being harmful,” Perkins said.

In another study published last month, a team of scientists observed the aftermath of a suspected kilonova that occurred in March, marking the first time researchers have used the James Webb Space Telescope to study such events, lead author Andrew Levan told CNN.

https://nypost.com/2023/11/02/lifestyle ... -on-earth/

[PennySerenade]

OPP charge driver caught with 326 cases of beer from Quebec



Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) have charged the driver of a rental van with unlawfully possessing 326 cases of beer purchased in Quebec and brought into Ontario.

Officers with the OPP's Lennox and Addington detachment seized the beer after responding to reports of a disabled vehicle on Highway 401 near Belleville, Ont., shortly after 2 p.m. Wednesday.

According to OPP, the officers followed rim marks left along the westbound shoulder of the highway until they located the van. The vehicle's left rear wheel had been shorn down to its hub and was beginning to smoke from the heat, police said.

The driver, a 30-year-old Toronto man, pulled over without incident, OPP said.



That's when officers noticed four cases of beer in the front passenger seat. The packaging was in French only, OPP said.

"When questioned about the beer the driver was evasive. When confronted about the transportation of the beer from Quebec the driver again became evasive," OPP wrote in a news release Thursday.

A further search of the van found the rest of the beer — 326 cases in all, both cans and bottles of various brands.

According to OPP, the driver admitted the beer hadn't been purchased in Ontario, and said it was for a wedding rather than his personal use.

The driver was charged with unlawfully possessing liquor, unlawfully purchasing liquor and operating an unsafe vehicle. OPP seized the beer and had the van towed.

"Liquor purchased from Quebec and transported to another province must be for personal use only. [The] driver admitted it was not for his personal use," an OPP spokesperson clarified in an email.



In 2018, the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously ruled that Canadians do not have a constitutional right to buy and transport alcohol across provincial borders, ending a New Brunswick man's five-year legal fight for the right to stock up on cheaper beer from Quebec.

The nine-justice panel said provinces have the right to restrict the import of goods from another province, as long as the primary aim of the restriction is not to impede trade.

While Ontario removed limits the following year on the quantity of liquor, beer or wine individuals can bring into the province, it must be for personal consumption and not for resale or commercial use.

NASA to equip International Space Station with frikkin lasers (for comms)

Why, what did you think they were for?

US space agency NASA plans to run a technology demonstration for space lasers using the International Space Station next month, to test how this could be used to transmit terabytes of data back from science and exploration missions.

According to NASA, this demonstration will form the agency's first bi-directional, end-to-end laser communications relay by working with an existing laser-based satellite to communicate with a research laboratory back on Earth.

The ultimate goal of this and other laser demonstrations is to integrate laser communications as a capability within NASA's space communications networks, the Near Space Network and Deep Space Network, the agency said.

This current project involves fitting the space station with a module known as ILLUMA-T, which in the grand tradition of unworkable acronyms is claimed to stand for Integrated Laser Communications Relay Demonstration Low Earth Orbit User Modem and Amplifier Terminal.

The business end of ILLUMA-T is comprised of a telescope and two-axis gimbal which allows it to track the LCRD satellite in geosynchronous orbit. This optical module is described as being the size of a microwave, while the entire unit is comparable to a standard refrigerator.

LCRD, or Laser Communications Relay Demonstration, was launched in December 2021 and is currently being used to test laser communications from geosynchronous orbit by transmitting data between two ground stations on Earth in a series of experiments, NASA said.

The idea of the demonstration is for ILLUMA-T to beam data from the space station to LCRD at 1.2 Gbps, and LCRD will then relay the data down to optical ground stations in either California or Hawaii. From there, the data is transmitted to the LCRD Mission Operations Center in New Mexico, before finally being forwarded to the ILLUMA-T ground operations team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Engineers at Goddard are set to "determine if the data sent through this end-to-end relay process is accurate and of high-quality," which presumably means checking whether the signal-to-noise ratio is good enough to make this a viable communications link for receiving data from space-borne experiments.

If all goes well, ILLUMA-T could become an operational part of the space station and substantially increase the volume of data that can be transmitted to and from the orbiting laboratory, NASA claimed.

Communications with the space station are typically via the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) network, which use radio signals to send data back, with the most recent generation of satellites offering ground reception rates of 6 Mbps in the S-band and 800 Mbps in the Ku- and Ka-bands.

According to Space.com, ILLUMA-T is set to be lofted to orbit aboard a Cargo Dragon spacecraft as a part of SpaceX's CRS-29 resupply mission, currently scheduled for November 5.

Earlier this year, the space agency announced another laser trial, the Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) experiment, which it was hoped might one day be used for high-speed communications with missions on Mars.

NASA is not the only organization using lasers for space communications. SpaceX's Starlink satellite broadband service uses lasers for mesh network links between satellites that are claimed to be able to transfer data at up to 100 Gbps.

Northumbria University in the UK is also working on a laser communication system for small satellites designed with hardware the size of miniature CubeSats in mind, and is hoping to test this with a pair of prototype satellites in 2025.

Growing Up With Asthma, Woman Now Accelerates Our Transition to EVs to Reduce Air Pollution in Cities



Kate Hudson with her 2012 Nissan Leaf EV

During the crucial first two years of life, the brain undergoes significant development, with a staggering one million neural connections formed every second, yet air pollution around cities has emerged as a significant barrier to that healthy brain development, so Kate Harrison decided to devote her life to promoting a solution.

In 2014, almost half of Americans lived in areas that fell short of federal air quality standards.

Since 1958, scientists have shown automobile exhaust to be the main driver of that urban air pollution. Further, transportation emissions are the largest share of greenhouse gas emissions, which contribute to climate change in the U.S.

Today, cities already have the solution: engines powered by electricity, not gasoline, eliminate tailpipe emissions altogether.

“I suffered from childhood asthma growing up in New Haven, Connecticut where almost 15% of kids have asthma—almost double the national average,” Ms. Hudson told GNN.

“The need for cities to reduce pollution is a moral imperative with clearly defined consequences for their most vulnerable residents,” she says. “Especially in many minority communities which are jammed up against highways and major traffic corridors.”

Hudson became a co-founder of MoveEV, which is an EV transition company that helps organizations convert fleet and employee-owned gas vehicles to electric—with reimbursements for charging at home.

If all new cars, pickup trucks, and SUVs sold in the next decade were zero-emission, there would be up to 89,300 fewer premature deaths, two million fewer asthma attacks, 10 million fewer lost workdays, and a savings of $978 billion in public health benefits across the U.S. by 2050, according to the American Lung Association.

Norway is often cited as a real-world example of how EV adoption can reduce air pollution.

About 80% of new cars sold there now are fully electric, and another 10% are plug-in hybrids—and the country is powered by an electricity grid that is already very green (91.8% hydropower and 6.4% wind).

As a result, emissions of dangerous particles plunged by a whopping three-quarters from 2000 to 2020.

“EVs are an incredible technology that can move the needle on climate pollution, help families—and cities—save money, and improve our health.”

alifornia’s ambitious EV adoption goals in recent years have yielded measurable results, too.

According to a study in California from 2013-19, increasing the number of electric vehicles per 1,000 people by just 20 in a given zip code was associated with a 3.2% drop in the rate of emergency room visits due to asthma—a common side effect of inhaling combustion byproducts from cars.

Hudson believes cities should set an example for residents by ditching gasoline-powered fleet vehicles, like trucks and buses, in favor of EVs—and there is a growing number of such conversions. Even businesses are transitioning; Amazon has more than 100,000 EV delivery vans on the road today.

New York City already operates more than 4,000 government-owned EVs, including an electrified garbage truck fleet. The federal government’s Clean School Bus Program is providing more than $5 billion to help cities prioritize vehicles moving children and idling near schools.


Asthma sufferer by Kathryn Doran, CC license

Helping individuals make their own transition to EVs, Kate wrote a blog on the MoveEV website about buying a 2012 Nissan Leaf, demonstrating how it was “an insanely affordable electric vehicle.”

Making it easier for drivers of these electric cars, Los Angeles, which is ground zero for harmful tailpipe emissions, provides residents with over 1,100 public charging stations, free parking, and charging for EVs at some locations—and rebates for residents who install home chargers.

In some cities, such as San Francisco, EV drivers receive reduced bridge tolls.

“Every parent deserves the assurance that their child’s environment isn’t silently eroding their potential,” said Hudson. “Data from places like Norway and California present not just a vision but a tangible reality of what is achievable.”

“It’s no longer a question of whether cities can afford to embrace electric vehicles but whether they can afford not to. With advances in EV technology, cities and counties have no excuse not to meet the imperative of embracing EV adoption”—and MoveEV can help them do it.