Bloke wearing dress steals school bus and ploughs it into home after wife flees
Police officers spotted Andrew Loudon driving the vehicle through a red light, and they gave chase after he refused to stop. He was eventually arrested the next day in Chelan County, the US



A man wearing a yellow dress was arrested after he allegedly smashed a construction vehicle into the house where he lives with his estranged wife.

Andrew Loudon – who had received psychiatric treatment – had previously stolen a school bus and his wife fled from their home before he ploughed a truck into it, according to police.

Cops were alerted and spotted him driving the stolen bus through a red light last Saturday, July 24, in Chelan County, Washington, the US.

The police officers flagged him down, and when he refused to stop they gave chase.

The next day, Loudon was detained after officers from another station found him wearing the same yellow frock.


The suspect crashed a truck into his own house, according to police

This time, they had nicked him for stealing a front-end loader construction vehicle and driving it through the home he shared with his estranged wife.

Fox News reports that deputies were first alerted to the man after employees of Osprey Rafting witnessed him driving off in the company’s yellow bus.

Authorities shared photos that show the heavy equipment sitting in front of his partially collapsed home. It appeared a car was also flipped into the structure.



Loudon was released on Saturday morning from Western State Hospital, a psychiatric facility.

He allegedly stole the school bus in Leavenworth and abandoned it near Moses Lake in Grant County before making his way to the cities of Spokane and then Chelewah.

Loudon was charged with theft of a motor vehicle, possession of a stolen vehicle, first-degree malicious mischief/domestic violence and attempting to elude a police vehicle.

Earlier this week, a fuming builder tore through an apartment block with his digger and wreaked havoc – claiming his boss hadn’t paid him.



The chaos unfolded in Blumberg, southern Germany, around 7.30pm on Wednesday, July 28.

The 47-year-old contractor tore down balconies from the building – which contains 30 residential units – and damaged the garages.

In shocking footage, the digger can be seen smashing through the windows and making its way around the site.

The police afterwards cordoned off the area and the man turned himself in, the Schwarzwuelder Bote reports.

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world- ... l-24658041

[prokroustis]

Greece Boasts One of the Oldest Oak Trees in Europe



An ancient oak tree in northern Greece is believed to be among the oldest surviving trees of its kind in Europe.

With a trunk diameter of 2.25 meters (7.38 feet) and a height of 23 meters (75 feet), botanists say that the giant oak, located just two kilometers from the main square of the town of Deskati, near Grevena, is approximately 1,300 years of age — give or take 30-50 years.

The residents of the town in northern Greece can now boast that they bask in the shadow of one of the oldest oak trees anywhere in Europe.

It is located at an altitude of 658 meters (2,158 feet).

The tree stirred the interest of the Municipality of Deskati both for the gigantic size of its trunk and from its obvious age.

“We decided to conduct a study with scientists, foresters and researchers to learn the age of the tree,” mayor Dimitris Karastergios told the Athens News Agency recently.

Botanist Ioannis Spanos, a researcher from the Elgo-Dimitra General Directorate of Agricultural Research, took samples from the tree with his team, making special measurements of the rings in its trunk, and after a study they concluded that the age of the oak tree is an astounding 1,300 years old.

All the necessary procedures were immediately initiated by the Deputy Secretary General of Decentralized Administration of Epirus-Western Macedonia, Vassilis Michelakis, to declare the oak tree a “preserved monument of nature.”

Such a distinction, which confers scientific, ecological, historical and cultural value, signifies that the tree can be valuable in the future for educational purposes while also verifying for future caretakers that the living treasure needs special care and protection.

“We should immediately begin its maintenance, such as removing dead branches, stuffing the hollow trunk with cork and disinfecting it,” Spanos said.

[lush]

This Sea Duck Has the World’s Most Expensive Feathers
July 30th, 2021*

Every summer, around 400 hunters scour a small, remote island in Iceland’s Breizafjörzur Bay in search of an unusual treasure – the world’s most expensive feathers

The hunt for the world’s most precious feathers has been held almost every year for over a millennia. People have known that Eiderdown, the feathers of the Eider polar duck, is one of the warmest natural fibers on the planet for a really long time, and nowadays they use it to make the best duvets and quilts money can buy. A kilogram of Eiderdown sells for thousands of dollars, as the feathers are only used to make luxury products. Eider ducks shed the precious down from their breast and uses to line their nests to insulate them during hatching. It’s these nests that the hunters are after during their annual Eiderdown hunt.


Photo: Georg_Wietschorke/Pixabay

When we have eggs, we take only part of the down, and when Eider is already out of the nest, we take everything,” Erla Fridriksdottir, head of King Eider, one of the country’s main exporters, told AFP.



Not only is eiderdown both light and highly insulating, but it’s also extremely scarce, with annual global yield at less than four tons, three quarters of which comes from Iceland. Eiderdown hunters have to find about 60 duck nests on average, to gather one kilogram of down. The down also has to pass rigorous quality checks in order to make the cut, which also impacts the price.



“You have to be able to pick up a 40-50 gram package between two fingers and if it remains intact and does not fall out, then the down is of good quality,” one eiderdown inspector said.

[click image to watch video]


Interestingly, Eiderdown is one of the few downs that is actively hunted and harvested, the others being a byproduct of the food industry. This makes it a favorite of nature and animal lovers, but few can actually afford Eiderdown products, as a duvet containing 800 grams of feathers costs over $5,000.

[click image to watch video]

Massive comet discovery dwarfs all others

Messengers from the past are all around us.



In our solar system, comets are the icy leftovers from when the sun and planets formed. They hold the mysteries of that primordial soup.
The murky beginning of life on Earth is thought to be trapped within the deepest, oldest rocks, but scientists wonder whether everything made it into the record.
New opportunities and research techniques are allowing us to peer into the past and answer questions originating from times so distant that they are difficult to fathom.
Here are some of the revelations made possible by science this week.

Astronomers have discovered the largest known comet, and it's coming to a sky near you in 2031. That gives you plenty of time to track down a good telescope -- you'll need it to spot this roaming celestial body.
Comet Bernardinelli-Bernstein, named for the astronomers who found it, is about a thousand times more massive than other comets and between 62 and 124 miles (100 and 200 kilometers) across.
The unusual comet has been making its way toward our sun for millions of years. It likely came from the Oort Cloud, the birthplace of icy, ancient comets and a place more distant from the sun than anything in our solar system. Just imagine what scientists will learn as they observe it for years to come.
And for skygazers wanting a more immediate thrill, look for Saturn shining brightly in the night sky on August 1 and 2.

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/31/worl ... index.html

The Gun That Killed Billy The Kid Is Going Up For Auction. Starting Bid: $2 Million


Pat Garrett's Colt single action army revolver was used to gun down Billy the Kid.

A revolver that killed one of the most famous wanted men in the Wild West 140 years ago is slated to be offered for millions of dollars next month.

Prior to his killing, a judge is said to have sentenced famed outlaw Billy the Kid to hang until "you are dead, dead, dead." Billy was rumored to respond, "And you can go to hell, hell, hell."

Legends like these — some facts and others fiction — chronicling the Kid's life have persisted more than 100 years after his death. And they've kept history buffs captivated by Billy the Kid's tale. They have also driven interest in pieces of Wild West history, for which collectors are prepared to pay hefty prices. In 2008, for instance, Bonham sold Billy's gun for $64,350.

Billy the Kid, a gunslinger often said to have killed eight men, had been on the run for three months when Sheriff Pat Garrett hid in a dark bedroom and shot him in the chest on July 14, 1881, in Fort Sumner, N.M., according to Garrett's account. The single action revolver Garrett used will be offered at Bonhams auction house, which estimates it could go for $2 million to $3 million. Garrett had taken the gun from another member of the Kid's gang, Billy Wilson, after he arrested him.

"It was in the hands of both the law man and the outlaw at various times," Bonhams senior specialist Catherine Williamson told NPR.


Pat Garrett signed a book contract in 1881 for publication of The Authentic Life of Billy, the Kid.

As one of the era's most notorious figures, the legend's life has frequently been dramatized in American popular culture. Williamson called his story "one of the greatest good versus evil stories of the Old West." A 21-year-old when he died, Henry McCarty, who became known as Billy the Kid, has been depicted as both villain and hero in countless songs, films and books.

The Authentic Life and Death of Billy the Kid, a biography and partly first-hand account written by Garrett, has been criticized for embellishing the truth but is generally acknowledged to be factual.

"[Billy is] sort of this charismatic and funny character that you kind of like to see — a trickster getting one over on the law," Williamson explained. "That kind of character is really compelling to people."

Most retold was his unexpected bond with Garrett — they were ranch hands that shared a friendship before the months-long pursuit, according to Williamson. Even now, the details surrounding Billy's death remain elusive. Some speculate that Garrett never actually killed Billy, but allowed him to escape. Decades later, at least two men were believed by some to be Billy.

On August 27, Bonhams will auction off the gun in Los Angeles, part of Texas couple Jim and Theresa Earle's collection of Western firearms amassed over 50 years.

Williamson predicts that the weapon will be sold to an avid collector for even more than $3 million.

[BigGlen]

One armed North Carolina man scores his second six-digit lottery jackpot

July 30 (UPI) -- A North Carolina man who tried his luck at the Carolina Keno lottery game won $100,000 -- his second-largest lottery prize in seven years.

Dewey Croom, of Marion, told North Carolina Education Lottery officials he bought his Carolina Keno ticket from the Sugar Hill Food Mart in Marion on Sunday, but he didn't check the results right away.

"I went in to check my ticket the next day," Croom said. "I didn't know until Monday that I had won on the Sunday draw!"

Croom is no stranger to big lottery prizes -- he previously collected a $121,790 jackpot from the Dec. 16, 2014, Cash 5 drawing.

The winner said his latest windfall will go toward paying off his pickup truck, and he will likely "put the rest of it in the bank and maybe take a vacation."

Norway hires Sherpas from Nepal to build paths in the Norwegian mountains. They have completed over 300 projects, and their pay for one summer, equals 30 years of work in Nepal.

Sherpas Blaze New Trails in Norway

A group of Sherpas from Nepal have spent the last 18 years reconstructing Norway’s mountain paths for locals and tourists to enjoy. They have built paths and stairways in more than 100 different locations throughout Norway.

Sherpas are from villages in the Himalayan mountain range near Mount Everest. They are known for their strength and capacity to work in high altitudes. Sherpas are very skilled in collecting stones from surrounding areas and using those stones to create walking paths. Typically, these stones weigh more than their own body weight, and they carry them for miles on their backs up rugged mountains. Sherpas are hired when there is a need for restoration in spots that machinery cannot access.

Norway has helped the Sherpa villages fight poverty by providing them work. One summer season of work in Norway pays more than 30 years’ worth of salaries in Nepal. Sherpas live in a social economy, which means they share their earnings with those in the village who need it. Norway has helped create a better future for these villages that were in danger of being extinguished.

So far, Sherpas have restored the following hiking paths in Norway:

Keiserstien in Bodø
Skåla in Nordfjord
Besseggen in Jotunheimen
Preikestolen in Kjerag
Gaustadtoppen in Telemark
Fanaråken in Jotunheimen
Stoltzekleiven in Bergen
Oppstemten in Bergen
Kongevegen in Lærdal
Breidablikk by Folgefonna

Sherpas are constantly breaking records and continue to build walking paths throughout the country. Today, more than 100,000 hikers of all ages climb the pathways of Norway.

[mrvictor]

Historian Believes the Holy Grail and Lost Ark of the Covenant May be Hidden Under This House in English Countryside



A real-life Indiana Jones believes he may have found the secret location of the Holy Grail and the Ark of the Covenant—under a house in Staffordshire.

Historian and anthropologist David Adkins is convinced that priceless treasures, which were taken from Jerusalem in 1307, were stashed beneath Sinai Park House in Burton-on-Trent.

He claims to have uncovered links between the property and the Knights Templar who concealed the mythical Ark and Grail centuries ago.

David is now hoping to search the labyrinth of tunnels beneath the 14th century house to prove the Holy Grail was hidden there.

“I’ve been researching it for 34 years, so I’ve really got a complete history of the place and looked into archives that no one had touched before,” said the 50-year-old.

“There are so many pointers that when Knights Templar left La Rochelle in 1307 we know they had a treasure. There are theories about Oak Island in Nova Scotia and Roslyn Chapel in Scotland but it has never been found.”

“Sinai House is the most obvious place once you get inside the mind of a medieval Templar,” he says. “The name Sinai really shouts at you from the pages of history because you have got no other ancient house with that name.”

The two key points for Adkins is the labyrinth of natural tunnels and caves and the timing of when Burton Abbey monks took possession of that house—at the same time as the Templars were trying to conceal that horde.

“A geologist once told me that there were caverns as big as Westminster Abbey beneath the house,” he told the Express.

In 1880, a dig took place in the Sinai House tunnels and archaeologists reached half-a-mile underground before being ‘forced back by fumes’. The cellar’s stone archway has remained bricked up since.

“We know there is really strong evidence they brought manuscripts and gold from the Temple of Solomon in 1307. I think they adapted the tunnels to conceal whatever they brought from Jerusalem.”

David said the family living in Sinai House at the time left in the early 1300s, and Burton Abbey then took over the property, which was hidden by Needham Forest atop a hill that drops into the Trent Valley.

Kate Murphy, the current owner has now given David permission to search the vast caverns under her home in a bid to solve the mystery. The researcher, who previously made headlines when he tracked down a 10,000-year-old skull known as ‘Greta’, wants to start his search with a geophysical scan.

Murphy, 56, bought the house in 1994 for £50,000. It is nationally designated as a Grade II historical building— which means it is of ‘special interest warranting every effort to preserve’ it.

“It’s a hugely important site and I first saw it with my late husband David in 1990 because we liked timber framed houses.

“I’m totally wedded to the idea that there is something there,” she told SWNS. “I think the theory is very good, well researched and I’m very impressed by David’s work.”

“I’m very excited about it and it’s not cynicism about the story that I think it is unlikely something will be found – that is because of the inaccessibility of the tunnels.

“There is plenty more evidence in the house like the wall paintings of the tabernacle that there is something going on.

https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/sinai-house-knights-templar-treasure/

[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 AUGUST 1
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]

Moose That Was Becoming a Regular at a Colorado Parking Garage Is Moved to the Wild

A moose who was becoming a regular at a Colorado parking garage is being relocated to the wilderness for safety reasons. The animal appeared to just like lounging in the garage, but at 750 pounds, wildlife experts were worried. The animal had been going to a Vail parking garage “pretty regularly” and was found licking the parking garage walls on a few occasions, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife.

"He was pretty regularly coming into the parking structure first thing in the morning and then would kind of clear out before it got too busy," Devin Duval, an officer with Colorado Parks and Wildlife, said in a statement. "This is the primary parking place for the folks accessing Lionshead Village as well as the Vail Health hospital.”

Experts believe the 750-pound animal, who is between two and three years old, liked the taste of the de-icing agents used on the structure’s upper floors. His presence, however, wasn’t exactly fitting for the area, so he was tranquilized and safely removed on Tuesday morning.

The relocation “went smoothly” and now the parking lot-loving moose will be placed in a remote area more than 110 miles away.

"We were definitely within that human health and safety realm where there could potentially be an injury to a human or the animal," Duval said. "That is the reason we decided to move it."

Source

[Fatima99]

‘Recycle Your Electricals’ Campaign Diverts 1,000 Computers to Those in Need, So Far

In a drive to soak up some of the 527 million small electrical items owned by UK homes, many of which would be thrown in the trash, a new campaign to repair, recycle, or ethically scrap electricals is underway in Glasgow.

The Recycle your Electricals campaign is utilizing local resources like mend and repair stores, conscious consumers, and state campaigns to get devices into the hands of those that need them, and valuable materials out of the machines that don’t.

Run by the non-profit Material Focus, and relying on support from the Glasgow city council and the Remade Network, The Recycle your Electricals campaign is already seeing a huge response.

With a focus on repairing, donating, recycling, and reselling, it’s essentially a massive reshuffle of the distribution of electrical goods.

“For too long, consumers have been blamed for not reusing and repairing enough when the facilities don’t exist for people to make better choices,” said Sophie Unwin, Director of Remade Network, who are contributing their Tech Drop service which allows people to bring anything with a battery or plug that will fit into a carrier bag to one of their locations, giving residents the option of “ethical binning,” with Remade sort out the details.

This has allowed them to donate 1,000 desktop PCs, sourced from government offices, to households that have no access to the internet through 50 local charity groups. The social enterprise has so far diverted 250 tons of CO2.
No wee problem

Material Focus estimates that the cost of the materials contained within unwanted electricals amounts to around £17 billion ($24 billion). A lot of these have to be dug out of the earth at extreme costs to companies—and to the climate in the form of CO2.

“This project is vital to ensuring that we make good use of our old electricals,” said Scott Butler, Executive Director of Material Focus. “Whether they are re-used or recycled—these items contain valuable materials that will otherwise be lost forever. Our research has shown that in the UK we are hoarding over 527 million small electrical items, an average of 20 per household.”

Along with funding from Glasgow City Council, Remade Network and Material Focus receive money through a UK scheme called WEEE (Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment) which sets parameters to which manufacturers can design products in order to ensure they can be recycled.

Any non-compliance is punished with a tax that goes to a fund which groups like Remade and Material Focus draw from.

Material Focus’ recycling locator has over 2,500 points where people can take their old e-waste, a service which 127,000 people have already used.

E-waste is a growing problem worldwide, but that’s perhaps because there’s been no large-scale solution for it.

Receiving old electronics, harvesting them for components, and selling them to manufacturers for cheap is a great way to keep rare minerals in the ground, and prices down at the shops.

[BigGlen]

Mysterious Bug Bites Plague Virginians

Our conclusion is that the eastern U.S. is infested with microscopic vampires.
Bug bites are nasty enough on their own. But it’s a lot worse when you have no idea what’s bitten you.

Residents of Arlington county, Virginia, are struggling with a mysterious infestation. Dozens, potentially even hundreds of people have suddenly found large, blistering bug bites on their bodies — with no idea what has bitten them.


This is what happened to Morgan Dailey. One day, she realized she had an itchy bug bite, which she initially though was a mosquito sting.

As it turns out, it really wasn’t.

“It started to grow and it swelled, and then I was at work one day and I noticed that it was blistering,” Dailey told NBC Washington.

Concerned, Dailey decided to go show the bug bite to her mother, Betsy Withycombe. Having brought up a large family, there was no kind of bite or sting she hadn’t seen on her kids — until now.

“We have five children. I’ve seen a lot of different types of bites,” Withycombe said.

“This looks unlike anything I had ever seen before.”

Big Lump’

Looking for more information, Withycombe turned to that most reliable of all sources — the internet. She made a Facebook post asking whether anyone else had seen the weird bug bites.

A lot of people had. Withycombe’s post has to date received more than 150 responses.

One of the responders was Michele Donner, who also had been bitten by the mysterious bug. Her bite was surrounded by reddish blotches.

“It was really itchy the first day, then it stopped. Then every day since it’s spread more and more and more,” she said.

“And it was really hard underneath, too. It was like this big lump,” Donner added.

They Came with the Cicadas

So, what is it that keeps chewing on unsuspecting Virginians? Unfortunately, we just don’t know.

The Arlington County Health Department has thrown its hands in the air and straight up said that they have no idea what bug they’re dealing with. Private health clinics aren’t fairing any better, either.

“We don’t really know what type of bites they are. Patients come in for a bug bite, but they’re not sure if it’s a tick, mosquito, or spider bite,” the Urgent Care Center of Arlington told ARLNow.

The only thing that is certain is that people have been reporting bug bites much more often than usual this summer. That fact, however, could give us a vital clue into the culprit.

As we’ve reported before, the Brood X cicadas hatched in eastern U.S. this summer. They may have brought with them a pest that’s now also attacking humans.

“The leading suspect at this point is something called a pyemote, which is a type of mite that likes to feed on cicada eggs, so they must be very happy with their food supply at the moment,” Kurt Larrick of the Arlington County Department of Human Services told 7News.

Pyemotes are tiny little insects that are difficult to spot with a bare eye. Their coloring also sort of blends in with human skin, so that could explain why no one has seen the bugs.

Pyemotes are opportunistic feeders that will take a bite out of anything they can. Historically, that has included humans.

Protect Yourself

Whatever it is that’s biting people, it’s most likely a bug. If you live on the East Coast, you may want to take some extra steps to protect yourself from insects.

Larrick recommends that people wear long sleeves, pants, and socks whenever they’re outside. It might be uncomfortable in the summer heat, but it’s a small price to pay for not having to deal with bug bites.

He also suggests using an effective insect repellent, such as DEET, picaridin, or lemon eucalyptus oil. It might also be a good idea to avoid being outside at dusk and dawn when insects are most active.

You can also protect your home by properly sealing any doors and windows. You should also drain any standing water on your property to keep mosquitoes and other biting pests from breeding in it.

“If, despite prevention, you are bitten and have concerns, we encourage you to see your healthcare provider,” Larrick concluded.

[prokroustis]

Astronaut Shows Bizarre Way Honey Moves In Space



An astronaut has shared a video showing the bizarre way honey behaves in space. Now, I bet you that's not a sentence you thought you'd read today - but you can check out the clip for yourself here:

https://www.ladbible.com/news/interesti ... e-20210801

David Saint-Jacques an astronaut from Canadian Space Agency (CSA) posted a clip in which he shows the impact of microgravity on honey.

In the clip David says: "I'll show you the strange behaviour of honey in zero-g."

He then slowly unscrews the lid before gently pulling it away, as he does so the honey stretches and stretches without breaking.

He then starts to wriggle the long stand of honey around before spinning the lid and letting it go, creating a sort of honey twist.

He ends the clip by saying: "Strange things happen when you remove gravity."

Although the clip has been around since 2019, it's recently resurfaced on TikTok where it's attracting plenty of attention.

TikTok users have been impressed by the clip with one person posting: "Urgh space is so cool. I love stuff like this so much."

Someone else said: "I'd be playing with honey all day long, forgetting about the work I'm supposed to do."

Another joked: "It was worth spending a few million dollars for this experiment."

Polar bears sometimes bludgeon walruses to death with stones or ice
It’s long been said that a piece of ice is the perfect murder weapon


In this illustration, which appears in an 1865 book by adventurer Charles Francis Hall, a polar bear uses a rock as a tool to kill a walrus. Some have thought that Inuit reports of this behavior were just stories, but new research suggests not.

Walruses, weighing as much as 1,300 kilograms with huge tusks and nearly impenetrable skulls, are almost impossible for a hungry polar bear to kill. But new research suggests that some polar bears have invented a work-around — bashing walruses on the head with a block of stone or ice.

For more than 200 years, Inuit in Greenland and the eastern Canadian Arctic have told stories of polar bears (Ursus maritimus) using such tools to aid in killing walruses. Yet explorers, naturalists and writers often dismissed such accounts, relegating them to myth along with tales about shape-shifting bears.

The persistence of these reports, including one report from an Inuk hunter in the late 1990s, coupled with photos of a male polar bear named GoGo at a Japanese zoo using tools to obtain suspended meat compelled Ian Stirling and colleagues to investigate further.

“It’s been my general observation that if an experienced Inuit hunter tells you that he’s seen something, it’s worth listening to and very likely to be correct,” says Stirling, one of the world’s leading polar bear biologists.

The researchers reviewed historical, secondhand observations of tool use in polar bears reported by Inuit hunters to explorers and naturalists as well as recent observations by Inuit hunters and non-Inuit researchers and documented observations of GoGo and brown bears — polar bears’ closest relatives — using tools in captivity to access food. This review suggests that tool use in wild polar bears, though infrequent, does occur in the case of hunting walruses because of their large size, the researchers report in the June Arctic.

“Really, the only species you would want to bonk on the head with a piece of ice would be a walrus,” says Andrew Derocher, director of the Polar Bear Science Lab at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, who wasn’t involved with the new study. He suspects that it might just be a few polar bears that do this behavior. For example, if a mother bear figured out how to use ice or stone in this way, “it’s something her offspring would pick up on,” but not necessarily a skill polar bears across the Arctic would acquire, he says.

Among animals, using tools to solve problems has long been regarded as a marker of a higher level of what humans consider intelligence. Notoriously smart chimpanzees, for example, craft spears to hunt smaller mammals (SN: 2/28/07). Dolphins carry marine sponges in their mouths to stir sand and uncover prey (SN: 6/8/05). And elephants have been known to drop logs or large rocks onto electric fences to cut off the power supply.

Studies on the cognitive abilities of polar bears are lacking. “We don’t know anything experimental or objective at all,” Stirling says. “However, we have a great deal of observational information that tends to suggest polar bears are really smart.”

Members of the bear family, Ursidae, are typically assumed to have strong cognitive skills as a result of their large brains and evidenced by their sophisticated hunting strategies. Studies on captive American black bears have even revealed some mental capabilities that appear to exceed those of primates.


This sculpture in the Itsanitaq Museum in Churchill, Canada shows a polar bear lifting a block of ice above the head of a sleeping walrus.

Gabriel Nirlungayuk, an Inuk hunter of Rankin Inlet in Nunavut, Canada, says he has heard such stories of polar bears using tools to hunt walruses. “I’ve seen polar bears since I was probably 7 years old. I’ve been around them, I’ve hunted alongside them, and I have seen their behaviors. The smartest hunters are usually the female bears.” Sometimes, he says, polar bears will trick young seals to come closer by pretending to be asleep in open water. Other times he’s observed that a polar bear can sniff out a seal’s breathing hole in ice, even if it’s obscured by snow.

“I have worked with the Inuit on traditional knowledge for a very long time and one of my favorite subjects is polar bears, because science often suggests one thing and the Inuit say another thing,” he notes.

There are around 26,000 wild polar bears living in 19 subpopulations across the Arctic and sub-Arctic. The bears primarily eat seals, hunting the marine mammals by staking out above their breathing holes. Because of climate change, Arctic sea ice is fast disappearing, and scientists predict that many polar bear populations will be extinct by the century’s end. Desperate polar bears may increasingly attack walruses, but “there are limitations to how many walruses an adult bear can take down,” says coauthor Kristin Laidre, an Arctic ecologist at the University of Washington in Seattle. It takes a lot of energy.

Following publication of the new study, Stirling received a video from U.S. Geological Survey scientist Anthony Pagano, based in Anchorage, Alaska, who had previously attached a GoPro camera to a wild polar bear for a separate project. That footage, Stirling says, shows a female polar bear sliding a large block of ice around before throwing it into the water at a seal.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/pol ... -ice-inuit

Tokyo Olympics: The medal winners' flowers that pay tribute to 2011 disaster



Winning an Olympic medal is a huge moment for any athlete, but there is special significance to the bouquet of flowers they are being handed at Tokyo 2020.

More than 5,000 bouquets are being handed to athletes at the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The ceremonial blooms were mainly grown in three districts of north-east Japan that were devastated by a 2011 earthquake and tsunami, and the subsequent meltdown of three reactors at the Fukushima nuclear plant.

Almost 20,000 people died in the catastrophe that hit the prefectures of Iwate, Fukushima and Miyagi.

And the bouquets of yellow, green and blue flowers being presented to medallists at both the Olympics and Paralympics were grown almost entirely in those three districts.

Bright yellow sunflowers, which dominate the bouquets, were grown in Miyagi, having been planted by parents whose children died in the disaster. The parents chose a hillside where their children had sought refuge from the effects of the tsunami.

Delicate white and purple eustomas and Solomon's seals were grown in Fukushima - under a non-profit initiative set up to try to revive the local economy in the wake of the disaster, which had severely damaged agriculture production.

The gentians, a small bright blue flower, are grown in Iwate, a coastal area that was devastated by giant waves in the 2011 disaster.

To complete the bouquet, there are strong green aspidistras, grown in Tokyo, and chosen to represent the host city.

https://www.bbc.com/sport/olympics/58038026