WHAT LIES BENEATH US Navy officer claims he saw underwater ‘Tic Tac’ UFO ‘collapse on itself and disappear’ off coast of Haiti

A US navy officer has revealed that he once spotted a famous ‘Tic Tac UFO’ underwater while he was operating off the coast of Haiti.

John Baughman, then operating on the USS Carl Vinson in January 2010, was left stunned when the object appeared to “collapse in on itself and disappear.”




Similar to other accounts., he described it shape like a white tic tac

According to reports in Medium, the gunner recollected the eerie encounter amid a string of fresh claims made about the unidentified flying objects.

He said: “I was staring into the water from above when a large, fat, white ’Tic Tac’ object, approximately twenty feet in length, suddenly appeared in my view below me, moving right and darted into the depths as fast as it appeared.

"I couldn’t really comprehend what I saw. It was definitely a solid object, but when it descended, its forward end rapidly collapsed in on itself and disappeared.”

The ship is the US Navy's third Nimitz-class supercarrier and the ship off – the same crusier that has witnessed UFO sightings in the past.

The officer initially batted off any suggestions that the object could be from another world suggesting it could be animal.

But, following the footage of the 2004 USS Nimitz tic tac UFO that was released in 2017, he decided to come forward with his story/

He said: “It’s hard to come to grips with something like this, and I still feel somewhat insecure about it because it doesn’t make sense.

“But at the same time, more data points, even as basic as my story, could help solve the mystery of whether they’re foreign adversaries playing mind games, non-human entities, or the myriad of other possibilities.”




It prompted the release of 144 report by the Pentagon as spokesman John Kirby took questions earlier this month

UFOs have recently stepped from a fringe conspiracy theory to a genuine national security debate, as in June the USA admitted hundreds of mysterious encounters in the skies.

The UAP report relased by the Penatagon – which studied 144 reports of unidentified aerial phenomena, has promoted more and more people to come forward with the UFO stories from across the world.

This month, a US Navy Polit, who was present at the now govern,ent ratified 2004 sigting, revealed how his weapons system was disabled during the eerie encounter.

The incident unfolded during a USS Nimitz carrier group exercises off the coast of Mexico.

Crew aboard the Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruiser USS Princeton, had been spending the past two weeks tracking mysterious aircraft on and off with an advanced AN/SPY-1B passive radar.

He said: "Once I got the target of interest on my radar I took a lock and that’s when all the kinda funky things started happening.

"The erratic nature of the tic-tac. The air speed was very telling to me.

"Then we started seeing what we call jam strobe lines.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/15592087/ ... c-tac-ufo/

Man Hid Cherry Pies Under Women’s Car Tires To See Them Bend Over




A man has been arrested he placed various items underneath women's car tires, to see them bend over and pick them up

On Tuesday, August 7th, 43-year-old Kurt Michael Fulton was arrested after he allegedly hid cherry pies, VHS tapes, and other various items underneath the parked cars of women drivers so he could see them bend over and pick them up whilst he watched from a distance with binoculars.

Saginaw County Sheriff William Federspiel reported in a press conferenceFulton was involved in an incident on Sunday in the parking lot of the Target store on 2772 Tittabawassee Rd, Kochville Township, Saginaw, Michigan.

Fulton would wait in his car whilst an unsuspecting female victim parked their car in the Target car park, the victim would exit their vehicle and enter the store. Fulton would run over and place various items in front or behind the tires of the car, these items included Laptops, VHS tapes, and McDonald's cherry pies. Fulton would run back to his car to gain a better vantage point an would stalk his victims with the use of binoculars. The women would then be forced to bend over to see what they've driven over after hearing a crunching or squishing sound.

The Sheriff commented on Fulton's behavior, "It's very creepy, unacceptable behavior. That's the best way to describe it. It's just creepy."

A 25-year-old woman called the police after she discovered a laptop had been placed underneath her vehicle.

Kurt Michael Fulton was arrested and charged with, aggravated stalking with a habitual offender second offense enhancement as it was discovered that Fulton had arrested for the same crime in 2007. He is being held in Saginaw County Jail with a bond of $80,000.

IN A BARBIE WORLD: LIFE’S 100% RECYCLABLE PLASTIC, IT’S FANTASTIC!



A New Barbie, A New World. Barbie is changing her look; she’s evolving to adapt to our world. Removing the plastic out of our ocean, our environment, and most importantly—out of our children’s toy box. The Barbie doll has been a childhood fantasy for many girls everywhere. After inspiring girls for decades, this iconic brand has set out to send a message of empowerment and courage, without losing its iconic essence.
The Barbie Collection has been repositioned as “Barbie Loves the Ocean”, made from 90% recycled plastic; to inspire the next generation of young individuals to embrace her environmental role and help shape a sustainable future for generations to come.

By 2030, Mattel’s goal is to create a sustainable, 100% recycled material for Barbie and its packaging. With the “Mattel Playback” program, customers can return Barbie for reusable future products. Plus, partnering up with 4ocean, they have created an initiative to clean a pound of trash from the ocean for every Barbie Bracelet x 4ocean sold. Creating a stronger, and safer Barbie, than ever before. Committed to raising the standards and inclusivity for Barbie and our world, Barbie is inspired from real girls, and modernized to reflect a new kind of beauty that doesn’t rely on outdated ideals. With sustainability in mind, a new generation of Barbie is here. Barbie is back, and she’s better, literally!

[lush]

‘Cleaning Fairy’ Accidentally Breaks into Home and Cleans It Up
Posted on July 14, 2021 *

• If anyone’s ever going to break into your home, hope it’s this guy.

One of the worst surprises you can get is to come home and realize someone has broken in. At worst, you might’ve lost thousands of dollars’ worth of stuff – or run into an armed burglar.

Even if you lost nothing, you’ll probably never trust a lock again. Unless the person who broke in is Louis Angelino III.

Angelino – from Barrington, NJ – work as a clerk at a liquor store. However, to make ends meet, he also runs private cleaning gigs on the side.

One day in June, Angelino was on his way to clean a new client’s apartment. However, he ended up at a wrong address and unknowingly broke into somebody else’s home.

Of course, the residents of the home were shocked that someone broke in. But they were also incredibly confused when they realized the place was now impeccably spotless.

Let’s find out how this bizarre chain of events unfolded.


“I’m gonna clean this place up real good…”

A Series of Unfortunate Events

As mentioned, Angelino cleans his friends’ houses for a bit of extra cash. In June, he managed to get a new client through word-of-mouth – a friend’s coworker hired him to clean his place.

The client gave Angelino an address in Cherry Hill and said he’d left a key under the doormat. However, by mistake, Angelino wrote down the wrong house number.

He arrived at the house he thought he was supposed to work on with his cleaning gear. He checked under the doormat, and what do you know – there was a key.

Really, you can’t really blame the guy. Everything matched with the client’s description, so naturally he assumed he was at the right place.

Angelino entered the townhome and dutifully got to work. He spent the next two and half hours cleaning the place, scrubbing the stove and mopping the floors.

After he was done, Angelino thought he’d spend a moment playing with the two cats that were running around. That’s when he got a phone call from the original client.

The man on the phone asked if Angelino ever got around to cleaning his place, since it looked like no one had touched it.

“I said: ‘I’m literally in your living room right now playing with your cats and waiting for you to walk in,’” Angelino recalled.

“He was like: ‘Louis, I don’t have any cats.’”

“In that moment, I froze. My heart dropped. I was just like: ‘Where am I right now? What is going on?’”

Angelino friend came over and wrote a quick apology note to the home’s real residents, before the two took off.

Coming Clean

Those real residents are Beth Motzel and her husband. Motzel said that she received a panicked phone call from her husband on the day when he got home.

It’s easy to see why Motzel’s husband might’ve been confused. The couple has been renovating their home, so they expected it to be a mess – but everything inside was suddenly squeaky clean.

“[He] called me in a panic and he said that someone was here and they cleaned the whole place,” Motzel recalled.

Her husband also told her that the person had left them a strange note. It said that the mysterious cleaner had accidentally entered the wrong house, and included a name and phone number.

Motzel contacted Angelino’s friend, who put her in touch with Angelino. The two exchanged text messages to clarify the situation.

“Hi, my name is Louis. … I am the guy that accidentally cleaned your apartment. I just wanted to say I’m so sorry!” Angelino texted Motzel.

She was understanding, though, and said she felt bad for him since she knew the place had been a total mess. Motzel even said she’d keep Angelino’s number on file in case they ever needed a cleaner in the future.

Do I Smell a Business Opportunity?

The accidental break-in might just have turned into a business opportunity for Angelino. He shared his story on his TikTok account and it blew up.

He’s now considering starting up an actual full-time cleaning business. Angelino’s hoping that the viral video could help bring in new clients for him.

The secret cleaner man has also received a catchy nickname that would make for a perfect business name, too. The commenters on his video have dubbed him the Cleaning Fairy.

“That’s 100% the best name for me. I mean, the Tooth Fairy leaves you money under your pillow after she takes your teeth away,” said Angelino.

“Well, I break into your apartment and I clean [it],” he laughed.

Some of the comments wondered why Motzel didn’t pay Angelino for his cleaning service. But the man himself said he’d feel wrong accepting money for the job.

“At the end of the day, I am okay with not getting paid for accidentally breaking into someone’s apartment and cleaning it, because things could have been far worse.

“The cops could have been called, there could have been a lawsuit,” he said.

Luckily, everybody involved were able to just laugh the whole thing off. And really, you couldn’t really get much better publicity for a fledgling cleaning company.

Souped-up supernovas may produce much of the universe’s heavy elements
Analysis of a rare, ancient star suggests a new birthplace for elements like uranium and silver


Violent explosions of massive, magnetized stars may forge most of the universe’s heavy elements, such as silver and uranium.

These r-process elements, which include half of all elements heavier than iron, are also produced when neutron stars merge. But collisions of those dead stars alone can’t form all of the r-process elements seen in the universe. Now, scientists have pinpointed a type of energetic supernova called a magnetorotational hypernova as another potential birthplace of these elements.

The results, described July 7 in Nature, stem from the discovery of an elderly red giant star — possibly 13 billion years old — in the Milky Way’s halo. By analyzing the star’s elemental makeup, which is like a star’s genetic instruction book, astronomers peered back into the star’s family history. Forty-four different elements seen in the star suggest that it was formed from material left over “by a special explosion of one massive star soon after the Big Bang,” says astronomer David Yong of the Australian National University in Canberra.

The ancient star’s elements aren’t from the remnants of a neutron star merger, Yong and his colleagues say. Its abundances of certain heavy elements such as thorium and uranium were higher than would be expected from a neutron star merger. Additionally, the star also contains lighter elements such as zinc and nitrogen, which can’t be produced by those mergers. And since the star is extremely deficient in iron — an element that builds up over many stellar births and deaths — the scientists think that the red giant is a second-generation star whose heavy elements all came from one predecessor supernova-type event.

Simulations suggest that the event was a magnetorotational hypernova, created in the death of a rapidly spinning, highly magnetized star at least 25 times the mass of the sun. When these stars explode at the end of their lives as a souped-up type of supernova, they may have the energetic, neutron-rich environments needed to forge heavy elements.

Magnetorotational hypernovas might be similar to collapsars — massive, spinning stars that collapse into black holes instead of exploding. Collapsars have previously been proposed as birthplaces of r-process elements, too

The researchers think that magnetorotational hypernovas are rare, composing only 1 in 1,000 supernovas. Even so, such explosions would be 10 times as common as neutron star mergers today, and would produce similar amounts of heavy elements per event. Along with their less energetic counterparts, called magnetorotational supernovas, these hypernovas could be responsible for creating 90 percent of all r-process elements, coauthor Chiaki Kobayashi, an astrophysicist at the University of Hertfordshire in Hatfield, England, had previously calculated. In the early universe, when massive, rapidly rotating stars were more common, such explosions could have been even more influential.

The observations are impressive, says Stan Woosley, an astrophysicist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who was not involved in the new study. But “there is no proof that the [elemental] abundances in this metal-deficient star were made in a single event. It could have been one. It could have been 10.” One of those events might even have been a neutron star merger, he says.

The scientists hope to find more stars like the elderly red giant, which could reveal how frequent magnetorotational hypernovas are. For now, the newly analyzed star remains “incredibly rare and demonstrates the need for … large surveys to find such objects,” Yong says.

[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 JULY 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 -5)
2:00 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]

Fight over ‘Pooseum’ sign in Tasmania finally comes to an end

A museum in a small Australian village has won a two-year battle to keep its poo-inspired sign, declaring that the ‘nightmare’ is now over.

A quirky Tasmanian museum “dedicated to all things poo” has won a long battle to keep its unique signs up.

The Pooseum has been a tourist drawcard in the historical village of Richmond, northeast of Hobart, for its unique education on animal defecation.

But a battle with the local council over signage threatened to overshadow the delivery of science in all its scatological splendour.

On Monday, a two-year fight over the signs — which include an image of a penguin sporting a long string of poo — finally came to an end.

A council officer had recommended an application for retrospective approval of the signage be rejected, after it was erected without a required planning permit in 2019.

However, a majority of City of Clarence councillors rejected the recommendation on Monday night.


Karin Koch says she is glad the battle is over.

Pooseum director Karin Koch was happy at the decision, declaring “the nightmare is over”.

“I am very relieved, as you can imagine,” she said.

The council report argued the signage was at odds with the heritage of the area and increased “visual clutter”.


The sign at the centre of the battle.

It also said it was not the subject matter of the sign, but its size, angle and location that required approval.


A Pooby Doo statue at the museum.

But for Ms Koch, the issues over the signs never made sense.

Now the issue has resolved, she can get back to her work at the Pooseum — understood to be the only one of its kind in the world — where “talking about poo is not taboo”.

“I want to say a big and heartfelt thank you to the many people who encouraged me to keep fighting,” she said.

Source

[prokroustis]

How the One-Piece Swimsuit Played a Role in ‘Freeing’ Greek Women

It is hard to imagine that just over 100 years ago, a woman would find herself being arrested for simply wearing a one-piece swimsuit at the beach, like what happened to Annette Kellerman, a pioneer in women’s rights and fashion.



In Greece, locals practically live at the beach for four months out of the year, and women take for granted that they can dress up and accessorize themselves however they please.

The woman who to thank for modern-day acceptance of swimsuits and for freeing Greek women of itchy, woolly swimsuits has an intriguing story.

The role and rights of women worldwide have completely changed since a fateful day in 1907 when a 20-year-old Australian diver, Annette Kellerman, wore the world’s first one-piece bathing suit designed for a woman to a Boston beach in the U.S., where she was promptly arrested on charges of indecency.

When Kellerman was released from custody, the judge overseeing her case placed the condition that the athlete could only train, not swim for leisure, in the one-piece bathing suit, and that she had to wear black stockings – something that thankfully didn’t stick with the bathing suit trend!

Kellerman refused, and started designing her own suits, and then she went on to star in the first silent pictures with nude scenes.

Kellerman was born a fighter – her use of her legs was seriously debilitated by some unknown cause when she was a child — either by rickets or un-diagnosed polio.

The diver was given braces to straighten her legs, and her doctor recommended swimming as therapy. Some might say it was kismet, or destiny, as she recovered quickly and became a world-class athlete.

One-piece swimsuit gained popularity around the world

Luckily, Kellerman wasn’t the only woman who was ready to take to plunge into the 20th century and free herself from the woolly and itchy swimsuits of the times.

The swimsuits she designed started trending throughout the Western world — especially in Greece!

At the turn of the 20th century, women in Greece, like women around the world, sported a two-piece “swimsuit” consisting of a dress made of wool, which was worn over long bloomers, and stockings to the beach.

Can you imagine trying to swim in the sea in the hot Greek summer wearing multiple layers of wool?

When we think about the evolution of swimwear in Greece alone, its interesting to note that some of the sexiest and most provocative women’s swimsuits today are designed by Greek designers and are trending around the world. But, this was not always the case.

So, give a passing thought to the wool swimsuit/dress and then give a little thanks to Annette Kellerman the next time you go bikini shopping!

The evolution of freedoms for women ensued within a few decades after the world’s first one-piece swimsuit debuted, as beaches became “mixed” and women were allowed to swim with men throughout most of the Western world.

Soon after, the police stopped patrolling U.S. beaches with a measuring tape to be sure women’s suits were long enough to be considered “decent.”

As for Annette? The young athlete-turned designer spent her entire life as an advocate of health, fitness, and the promotion natural beauty.

She saw the swimsuit evolve into many forms throughout her lifetime from 1887 until her death in 1975.

Rarest stamp in the world - dubbed 'Mona Lisa of stamps' - returns to UK after 143 years

Thursday 15 July 2021 11:19, UK
The British Guiana 1c Magenta (1856), dubbed the "Mona Lisa of the stamp world", is believed to be the most valuable man-made item.

Gram for gram, it is worth around 2.5 million times more than 24-carat gold, said leading dealer Stanley Gibbons - which purchased the stamp for $8.3m (£6.2m) at auction in June.

The "one of a kind" octagonal stamp will be displayed at the Stanley Gibbons central London store after being housed in collections in the US for 143 years.

The highly-prized item will be protected by stringent security and greeted by an armoured truck when it is flown into Heathrow.
Advertisement

It will then be locked in a vault before being displayed in a specially commissioned, zero-oxygen frame.

Graham Shircore, chief executive of Stanley Gibbons, said: "The British Guiana 1c Magenta really is the Holy Grail of philately.

Measuring 29mm by 26mm, the stamp is printed in black on magenta paper and features a ship with three masts and the motto: "Damus Petimus Que Vicissim" which translates to "we give and expect in return".

Olympic athletes to put on own medals at Tokyo ceremonies



TOKYO (AP) — Athletes at the Tokyo Olympics will put their medals around their own necks to protect against spreading the coronavirus.

The “very significant change” to traditional medal ceremonies in the 339 events was revealed Wednesday by International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach.

“The medals will not be given around the neck,” Bach told international media on a conference call from Tokyo. “They will be presented to the athlete on a tray and then the athlete will take the medal him or herself.

“It will be made sure that the person who will put the medal on the tray will do so only with disinfected gloves, so that the athlete can be sure that nobody touched them before.”

The Olympic approach is different to soccer in Europe where UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin has personally hung medals around the necks of players at competition finals in recent weeks.

Ceferin also shook hands with Italy goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma at the Euro 2020 medal and trophy presentation in London on Sunday. His save in a penalty shootout clinched the title for Italy against England.

Bach confirmed Wednesday that in Tokyo “there will be no handshakes and there will be no hugs during the ceremony.”

Olympic medals are typically presented by an IOC member or a leading official in a sport’s governing body.

The IOC had previously said medalists and ceremony officials would have to wear masks.

With no paying spectators allowed to attend most Olympic events, what Bach described as an “immersive sound system” will try to create atmosphere for the athletes in the stadiums and venues.

Crowd noise recorded from each event at previous Olympics will be fed into the arena as one of several ways to support the athletes, he said.

Some athletes will be connected after their event via screens to their families, friends and fan clubs at home, while fans will be able to send video clips of up to six seconds that can be displayed next to the field of play.

The Tokyo Olympics open July 23 in a state of emergency and rising numbers of COVID-19 cases in the city.

___

More AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2020-tokyo-olympics and https://twitter.com

Have you heard about the BASEBALL-SIZED CELLS living in the deep sea? Or the rocks that GROW? Or how these cells & rocks are home to hundreds of animals? Have you heard how we're trying to mine these things to make electronics work? No? I wrote a thing:

The Largest Cells on Earth
Deep in the ocean abyss, xenophyophores are worlds unto themselves.

magine you’re a scientist, sitting in the cold dark belly of a ship above an ocean abyss. Your eyes are fixed on a panel of screens as a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) descends miles below your feet. First the ROV travels through the productive sunlit waters, rich with fish and jellies, but as it sinks the light fades, and all that’s left of the sunlit zone are sinking bodies and waste of the creatures above, raining down so softly, and so densely, scientists call it “marine snow.” Then as the snow fades, you are left with black, in pressures so extreme a Styrofoam coffee cup is crushed to the size of a thimble, and the water is so cold it burns. The seafloor comes into view, and there they are. A garden made of giant cells.

These single-celled organisms, called xenophyophores, can grow as large as basketballs. Xenophyophores growing on the sediment can resemble carnations, roses, or lattices, and like corals in shallow water, their bodies create a unique habitat in the deep sea. Though surveys are difficult to conduct at the depths where they live and much of the abyssal plains have not been explored, we do know that xenophyophore meadows may cover large areas and that they inhabit the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Xenophyophores “represent a little known element of marine biodiversity,” said Lisa Levin, a marine ecologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. They are also, she added, “very fragile—so vulnerable to human disturbance.” And disturbance is on the horizon.

Gardens Of the Deep

Imagine these cells so densely packed together they are like dandelions in a lawn. Each massive cell forms a house made from the sediment around it; some extend long searching filaments, like hairs, to find and grab the best particles for construction, and eschew those that are too large or small. Despite being only a single cell, each will assemble these materials into elaborate masonry.

With their houses in order, many xenophyophores feed on the marine snow that sinks from the world above, digesting these old remains in their viscous interior before exuding waste that resembles animal feces, though a single cell isn’t supposed to merit that term. When scientists led by ecologist Andrew Gooday of the University of Southampton used CT-scanning to peer into xenophyophore shells and visualize bodies within, they found that each cell spreads within its casing like the branches of a tree, reaching into every corner but with room to spare.



With the elaborate structure of these shells, and the waste they produce, each cell creates a miniature world. In the late 1980s, when Levin first studied xenophyophores as a hobby and few other scientists paid much attention to them at all, she found that more than 15 major animal groups, including sponges, mollusks, crustaceans, and polychaete worms, inhabit these single-cell castles, with some cells hosting more than 100 individual animals. Some are nourished by their host’s waste. “They function like apartment houses for animals,” said Levin. In 2019, she and fellow Scripps biologist Greg Rouse discovered a whole new group of animals that may rely on xenophyophores: fish.

When they looked inside xenophyophores gathered from mile-deep seabeds off the coast of Costa Rica, Levin and Rouse found eggs and embryos belonging to Paraliparis, a genus of snailfish who somewhat resemble giant tadpoles. Snailfish use syringe-like ovipositors to deposit their eggs. Some species sneak their eggs into sponges, others on the gills of crabs, some (bravely!) inside living clams. But some species of snailfish may lay their eggs in xenophyophores, creating new relationships between animals and these massive cells.

Xenophyophores provide structure to an otherwise-flat habitat.

The extent to which snailfish use xenophyophores, and whether other fish species do as well, remains unknown, but the findings underscored just how important these extraordinary cells are to deep-seafloor life. For snailfish and other animals living in these meadows, xenophyophores may provide structure to an otherwise-flat habitat. These meadows are now recognized as biodiversity hotspots. When a fishing net dragged along an ocean bottom catches xenophyophores, it’s a signal that the operation has entered fragile habitat that is richer than the surrounding seabed.

In fact, xenophyophores are so important to deep sea biodiversity that they’re among the organisms designated by the United Nations as indicators of Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems where communities are particularly sensitive to disturbance. When those indicators were evaluated according to their uniqueness, function, and fragility, xenophyophores ranked beside deep-sea corals. “Most are very fragile and turn into a pile of sediments if not handled carefully,” Levin said. They are especially vulnerable to disruption.

Mining the Deep Sea

Some of the richest xenophyophore meadows occur in the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone, a 1.7-million-square-mile region of abyssal plains and mountains between Hawaii and Mexico. Biologists surveying the region’s seabeds discovered areas with as many as 12 xenophyophores per square meter, creating a kind of single-celled reef system. Another seabed survey conducted in 2016 also found 14 xenophyophore species and 12 species of cnidarians, echinoderms, and sponges. Seven of those animals were completely new to science.

It’s not xenophyophores, though, that have drawn international attention to the Clarion-Clipperton. Instead it’s the fist-sized rocks called polymetallic nodules that rest, like sprinkles on a cake, across the region’s vast stretches of soft seabed.

Each nodule contains at its core a small piece of shell or fossil, which is surrounded by minerals growing like crystals on its surface. The process is shockingly slow, with the average nodule estimated to grow at a rate of a few centimeters every million years, and the slowest at only a few millimeters in that time. The largest nodules can be tens of millions of years old. And while nodules may form on a geologic timescale, the rush to collect them is speeding up.

Among the minerals they contain are manganese, nickel, copper, and cobalt—elements that are critical components for batteries used in solar panels and electric cars, elements needed for the emerging ‘renewable’ energy economy.

Cobalt alone fetches more than $50 per kilogram. Together with the other metals they contain, these polymetallic nodule fields are worth many billions of dollars. Companies and countries are lining up for the chance to mine them. Despite being thousands of miles from land, areas of the Clarion-Clipperton are now claimed by China, France, Japan, Germany, South Korea, and others, and the International Seabed Authority has issued 16 permits for polymetallic nodule mining exploration there.

Xenophyophores live in a world unlike any other humanity has encountered.

Mining involves tractor-sized vacuums attached by tubes to a ship above that suck nodules to the surface. Xenophyophores and their ecosystems will be extracted with them. Biologists are still unclear if or how underwater mine sites will recover.

One study of xenophyophores in the Atlantic found them to be quick-growing, increasing in volume severalfold over a period of eight months, but it may not be reasonable to extrapolate from those species to xenophyophores in the Clarion-Clipperton. Just as plants like bamboo and oak grow at different rates, the same may be true for these giant cells. Scientists also know very little about xenophyophore reproduction, their ability to disperse, or how long it may take them to repopulate a mined area. That, of course, only applies to xenophyophores who don’t live on the nodules themselves, which will take tens of millions of years to form anew.

Early in April 2021, Greenpeace confronted a ship contracted by the mining company Deep Green, and companies like Volvo and Google have now pledged not to use minerals mined from the deep sea until the environmental impacts are better understood. Meanwhile the International Seabed Authority may soon transition from its current survey-only phase and allow the first generation of deep-sea mining.

Conducting environmental impact assessments is a challenge where the environment is almost completely unknown. But we do know that xenophyophores live in a world unlike any other humanity has encountered. These are cells as large as human fists, that create habitat for other species that compare to corals in their importance to their ecosystems. “I want people to learn to care about the deep sea, and how wonderful and weird it is, and phenomenally unusual,” said Levin. Xenophyophores, she said, are iconic. We do not know what the consequences of deep sea mining may be—but if the fragility of these remarkable lifeforms is any indication, we must tread carefully.


Rebecca R. Helm ( Facebook / Twitter / Instagram) is an assistant professor of biology at the University of North Carolina Asheville, where she studies the ecology and evolution of life in the open ocean.

Research by Lisa Levin was funded by Schmidt Ocean Institute, a partner in Nautilus Oceans.

Lead image: A xenophyophore with a brittle star resting on top. Credit: NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research

This article was originally published on our Oceans Channel in April 2021.

https://nautil.us/issue/99/universality/the-largest-cells-on-earth

[PennySerenade]

Few things say summer quite like sunflowers, and though we may already be a few weeks into the season the opening of sunflower farms around Toronto are a sure sign that summer truly has arrived.

The Sunflower Farm announced on Instagram that they will officially be opening on July 30, with tickets available as early as July 15. Entry tickets and those for professional photoshoots amongst the Instagram-worthy flowers will both be available for purchase.



A number of other flower farms around the city have also announced various levels of return including Davis Family Farm and Campbell's Cross Farm which will be offering up a Summer Detox Lunch and Learn on July 21.

Then there's Laveanne Lavender, who has already begun booking visits for the upcoming July Lavender bloom.



During a summer filled with plenty of heat, and some heavy showers, it shouldn't come as any surprise that the plant life around the city has been soaking in the rays and drinking up the rain, growing to some stunning sizes.

When you need an escape from Toronto, a trip out to a flower farm or two could add some much needed colour and nature to your life.

[Fatima99]

Teacher left in stitches after asking kids to share one thing she should know about them

A primary school teacher was left cracking up after asking her new class to write down one thing she should know about them before she starts teaching them and one child did not hold back



If there's one thing we really love about kids, it's that they aren't afraid to say what they think.

And while sometimes their words can be brutally honest, most of the time they're just downright hilarious.

One teacher recently found herself on the receiving end of one of these sorts of comments after she asked the children in her new class to each write down one thing they thought she should know about them before teaching them.

Most of the responses were pretty unassuming, but one kid really did not hold anything back with their answer.

The primary school teacher from Wales, known only as Miss McCarthy, found the answer so amusing she shared a look at it on social media.



In a post on Twitter, she wrote: "I asked my new class to write one thing they would like me to know before I start teaching them..."

Alongside this was a photo of the child's reply which read: "I take a long time to do a poo. My record is 2hrs 15mins."

The tweet quickly went viral online, garnering over 26,000 likes and more than 2,000 retweets.

Many people also took the time to reply to the post and share their thoughts.

One person said: "When my son was six the Teacher asked them to say something about their parents. My lad said 'When my dad gets out the bath he jumps about and makes his willy dance'."

[mrvictor]

Venom From Extremely Poisonous Caterpillar May Hold Healing Tonic That Saves Lives



The venom of one Australian caterpillar shows promise for use in medicines and pest control, researchers say.

The Doratifera vulnerans is common to large parts of Queensland’s south-east and is routinely found in Toohey Forest Park on Brisbane’s southside.

Dr Andrew Walker at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience has been researching the striking looking caterpillar since 2017.

Venomous caterpillar has strange biology

“We found one while collecting assassin bugs near Toowoomba and its strange biology and pain-causing venom fascinated me,” Dr Walker said.

Unlike The Very Hungry Caterpillar that charmed generations of children around the world, this caterpillar is far from harmless.

“Its binomial name means ‘bearer of gifts of wounds’,” Dr Walker said.

Caterpillar venom similar to spiders

Dr Walker’s research found the caterpillar has venom toxins with a molecular structure similar to those produced by spiders, wasps, bees, and ants.

The research also unlocked a source of bioactive peptides that may have uses in medicine, biotechnology or as scientific tools.

“Many caterpillars produce pain-inducing venoms and have evolved biological defences such as irritative hairs, toxins that render them poisonous to eat, spots that mimic snake eyes or spines that inject liquid venoms,” Dr Walker said.

“Previously researchers had no idea what was in the venom or how they induce pain.”

Venom with stunning complexity

“We found that the venom is mostly peptides and shows stunning complexity, containing 151 different protein-based toxins from 59 different families.”

The researcher team synthesized 13 of the peptide toxins and used them to show the unique evolutionary trajectory the caterpillar followed to produce pain-inducing venom.

“We now know the amino acid sequences, or the blueprints, of each protein-based toxin,” Dr Walker said.

“This will enable us to make the toxins and test them in diverse ways.”

Venom which can kill bacteria

Some peptides already produced in the laboratory as part of Dr Walker’s research showed very high potency, with potential to efficiently kill nematode parasites that are harmful to livestock, as well as disease-causing pathogens.

The research is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, and “unlocks a new source of bioactive peptides that may have use in medicine, through an ability to influence biological processes and promote good health,” he said.

https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/caterpillar-venom-medical-cure-queensland/

[goldie0608]

Therapy Dogs Deployed to Ease Sadness, Stress at Site of Surfside Condo Collapse

Nine golden retrievers from the Lutheran Church Charities K-9 Comfort Dog Ministry arrived at the site of the Florida tragedy earlier in July, NPR reports



A little hug goes a long way.

According to NPR, nine therapy dogs arrived at the site of the Surfside condo collapse in Florida this week, offering comfort to emergency personnel and the grieving families of victims. The dogs — all golden retrievers — came through the Lutheran Church Charities K-9 Comfort Dog Ministry, from five states as far as Illinois.

"We're very concerned about their mental health," Bonnie Fear, the organization's crisis response coordinator, told NPR of first responders. "Our prayer is that they make it through, they find what they need to mentally process and to know, in their minds, that they found someone's loved one, they made a difference for the families. And I hope they hang on to that."

On June 24, the Champlain Towers South Condo in Surfside, Florida, partially collapsed, and since, emergency workers have been scouring the ruins through dangerous conditions — including frightening weather due to last week's Tropical Storm Elsa — first looking for survivors, and for the past two weeks, remains. According to a July 15 report in the Miami Herald, the death toll is at 97, possibly the final number.

"The numbers line up but that doesn't necessarily mean we're done. We don't know. That's why we can't claim victory yet. On an incident like this it is very rare to get 100 percent," said Alvaro Zabaleta, a spokesperson for Miami-Dade Police. "Until we pick up every piece of rubble and clear it, we can't say we're done."

As rescue work has continued, the therapy dogs have spent time near a memorial site by the fallen tower, as well as at a Red Cross family assistance center, according to NPR. The dogs don blue vests that read "Please Pet Me," and, NPR reports, have been met by thankful individuals sporting both smiles and tears.

"They're just real sweet and pleasant when someone comes up to them," Fear told the outlet.

The Lutheran Church Charities K-9 Comfort Dog Ministry formed in 2008, and since, dogs from the organization have traveled to sites of tragedies like New York and New Jersey's Superstorm Sandy and the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut, according to lutheranchurchcharities.org. The organization doesn't charge those it helps, instead running on donations.