From the #EasyFire in Simi Valley - this thoroughbred goes back into the blaze to get his family. Not all heroes wear capes... pic.twitter.com/BsU6PlBq8R
There are multiple wildfires ravaging California. The one called the Easy Fire struck Simi Valley Wednesday and burned more than 1,300 acres. There are many horse farms in that area, and local residents banded together to take the animals to safety or at least free them from corrals. Above you see the dramatic moment when one horse turned back to lead two others away from the danger. More than a hundred horses were taken to the Ventura County Fairgrounds to wait out the fire. See the extended news video sequence here. -via Nag on the Lake
Check out this encounter between a trio of divers and a drifting gelatinous blob that is as big as an adult human. The divers found this blob, which is really a squid’s egg sac, off the western coast of Norway. Inside the blob are numerous eggs holding baby squids, which are estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands.
A video captured and shared on YouTube on Oct. 6 by Ronald Raasch, a diver with the Norwegian research vessel REV Ocean, shows a diver slowly circling a spherical blob surrounded by a transparent membrane, with a dark mass suspended inside.
People assume that once they are buried in a cemetery, they will remain buried there. That's not always so. When a piece of land that holds a graveyard is sold, the human remains must be moved before any new building is started. Sometimes a family -or community- wants to repatriate remains to their ancestral home, church, or even a new memorial. Sometimes there are questions about the identity or the circumstances of death. There are plans right now to exhume the bodies of John Dillinger and James Joyce, for different reasons, and Generalissimo Francisco Franco was exhumed just recently. In fact, disinterment happens more often than you might think.
The very idea of disturbing the dead has been a source of angst and spooky entertainment for much of recorded history. True believers say the “curse of the pharaohs” is responsible for the premature deaths of several members of the team that cracked open King Tut’s tomb. In Mary Shelley’s classic horror novel Frankenstein, Dr. Frankenstein’s troubles begin when he imbues an assortment of stolen body parts with life. And zombies serve as metaphors for infection, racism, and climate change in books, movies, and TV. Dillinger’s relatives wanted to film the exhumation as part of a macabre History Channel documentary, which has since been scrapped. (The exhumation, however, is plowing ahead; it’s slated for New Year’s Eve.)
But digging up bones remains taboo, in part because many religions forbid the practice lest it disturb the afterlife. Certain Native American tribes believe moving a person’s remains can unsettle their spirit. Rabbis rarely approve the disinterment of Jews, with rare exceptions for things like reburial in Israel. Islam discourages opening, handling, or reusing graves until there are no traces of the original corpse left. And many Christians believe if someone’s body is disturbed or destroyed, they cannot be resurrected. (Even so, the Catholic Church announced it would “not oppose the exhumation of Franco.”)
Exhumations, however, continue across the globe. While no one knows how many are carried out globally each year, forensic experts extract DNA from human remains for criminal investigations, genealogical research, and identification of victims of war; and government agencies can relocate entire cemeteries to make space for a new skyscraper, bigger airports, or hydroelectric dams. And, as in the case of Jimi Hendrix, whose family members moved his remains from a humble grave to a grand memorial in 2002, the living move their dead to new plots, new cemeteries, even new cities.
But what do you find inside?
Vox explains how exhumation works, which varies depending on how long the body has been buried and on other factors that cannot be foreseen. While the article is not illustrated except for one title image, it may be disturbing. -via Damn Interesting
You might think that the controversy over the disclosure that a house is haunted is a non-issue, since you don't believe in ghosts. But it's a real conundrum in the real estate business, because there are just enough believers to affect the resale value of such a home. It's not always about the lack of interested buyers. Strangely, the perceived value of a home may go up if it is thought to be haunted. Randall Bell is a real estate appraiser. In addition to judging the physical aspects of a house, he also has to account for its reputation, which can be affected if a murder has taken place on the property, or if previous residents have encountered ghosts.
It seems likely that living in a house where someone was killed is not much of a draw for the vast majority of potential homebuyers. But a haunted house disclosure is not necessarily a dealbreaker. “For some people, that’s what they want,” says Bell. Sure, sometimes a haunting can be a turn-off, but it all depends on the market and, well, the ghosts. In the case of the Nyack home, the house’s famous paranormal and legal status has probably boosted its price. In the past, it’s sold for significantly more than comparable houses in the area; in 2019 it’s listed for substantially more, per square foot, than other houses in Nyack, though it’s also a very nice house that’s literally on the Hudson River.
In New Orleans, a city absolutely saturated with ghosts, some real estate brokers add an additional little sign to their “For Sale” placards. In other cities, this kind of sign might read “Newly Renovated” or “Price Drop,” but in New Orleans and a few other places, some say “Haunted” or “Not Haunted.” In a city with such a rich history of the supernatural, these haunted houses can sometimes demand a premium. Magnolia Mansion, among the most famous haunted houses in the city, was listed for nearly $5 million in 2016.
Shannon Downey is an embroiderer who checks estate sales in order to complete projects that others have started. Recently she found a massive unfinished project in the form of an embroidered patchwork quilt of all the United States. The center square was to be a map of the nation, and squares surrounding it were to be those of each state outline with the state's bird and flower. The quilt belonged to Rita Smith, who died at age 99 and left the plans and the quilt patches behind. Only two of the state patches had been completed, plus an embroidered map of the US in a frame- presumably a smaller prototype of the quilt. While Downey was glad to get the map and squares for $6, she is not a quilter, and the whole thing seemed to be too much. But when she posted it on Instagram, over a thousand people volunteered to help finish the quilt! The volunteers wanted to know more about Rita Smith.
Downey got insights into her life after making contact with Smith's son on Thursday.
"He lives in the area and told me his mother was born in Michigan and worked as a school nurse all her life. He said she loved to undertake big craft projects, some which would last for years.
"He was really excited to learn about the joy people were finding in completing his mother's work."
Downey mailed out the quilt squares, and when they're finished, a group of Chicago quilters will stitch them together. The plan is to donate the completed quilt to a quilting museum. Downey tells the whole story so far in a Twitter thread, and you can follow the quilt's progress through its own Instagram account. -via Metafilter
Codie Clark, a math tutor, spotted two raccoons inside the library of the Arkansas State University. Employees trapped the raccoons, then animal rescue workers released them into the wild that night.
Associate Vice Chancellor for Marketing and Communications Bill Smith says that recent flooding near the campus has driven wildlife out of their usual habitats. "They weren't just looking for higher ground; they were looking for higher learning, as well."
You can watch a video of the library raccoons at Arkansas Online.
In Southeast Asia and West Africa, rice crops are always attacked by bacterial blight. This crop disease is very well studied, and it is often used as a model system to analyze how microbes and host plants interact with each other. Called Xoo, for Xanthomonas oryzae pathovar oryzae, the pathogen, in order to survive, hijacks a number of rice genes that export sugars.
Xoo secretes TALes (transcription activator-like effector molecules) that bind to the DNA near the rice's SWEET genes, activating them. These SWEET genes (Sugars Will Eventually Be Exported Transporters) are ubiquitous in plants. As their name indicates, the SWEET proteins transport sucrose across the cell membrane. Their expression is required for susceptibility to Xoo.
To help the plants combat these pathogens, scientists used CRISPR to edit the rice DNA.
Compared to tweens and teens from families that have incomes over $100,000 annually, kids from families that have an income of less than $35,000 yearly spent nearly two hours more with screen media each day, according to media nonprofit Common Sense.
Lower-income teens (13- to 18-year-olds) spent more than 8.5 hours each day on smartphones, tablets, video games, and other screen media, compared with six hours and 49 minutes for their higher-income peers. Lower-income tweens (8- to 12-year-olds) used screen media for nearly six hours a day, compared with four hours for higher-income tweens.
That’s despite higher-income kids having universally greater ownership of all matter of screens, from smartphones to computers to TVs, according to the study.
Why is this the case? Find out over at Vox Recode.
Recently, YouTube Jimmy Donaldson, better known as “MrBeast”, has started a campaign that aims to plant 20 million trees. A donation of $1 would be equal to 1 tree.
Enter Elon Musk, who announced on Tuesday that he would donate $1 million worth of trees. Now if that isn’t awesome, I don’t know what is.
According to an update by Donaldson, Musk is now in the number one spot with the most trees. Second spot goes to Donaldson himself with only 100,002 trees — a tenth as many as Musk.
Facebook has recently launched a new preventive health tool that lets its US users opt in for reminders to get health examinations, vaccines, and cancer screenings. The initial focus is on the two leading causes of death in the US (namely, heart disease and cancer) and the flu, as well.
Facebook plans to expand the range of illnesses, and countries, covered. It has partnered with several US health organizations for the launch.
On the downside, this would also involve the most private data being collected by the social network company.
If you want to party on Halloween, but are too shy to dress up in an ostentatious costume, you might be ready for jimi halloween (地味ハロウィン), or “mundane Halloween.” It's a concept that took off in Japan in 2014 and has become an annual tradition. The idea is to come up with a clever yet everyday persona that won't cause people to stare at you on the way to the party. Yeah, they need a caption, which is why they are wearing name tags. At the top is "Camera assistant for children's photo studio." Below see "A man who is about to win Old Maid."
Find out more about jimi Halloween at Spoon and Tamago, and see the growing number of pictures at Twitter. See if you can guess what the costume is supposed to be before you hit the "Translate Tweet" button. -via Boing Boing
“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom,” says ancient philosopher Aristotle. But it seems that most of us are not wise because we don’t know ourselves — our capabilities, and our personalities — fully. In other words, we are not self-aware. This is much true when it comes to the financial aspect of our lives.
Numerous statistics from social science studies attest to the poor financial knowledge of American consumers, and the significant downsides that occur from the lack of knowledge.
But what exactly does it mean to be financially knowledgable? When considering financial knowledge, many psychologists and public policymakers focus on financial literacy, defined as an understanding of basic economic principles and financial concepts such as how interest rates work, the effects of inflation on savings, the differences between individual stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, and so on.
But more than being financially knowledgeable, there is also another type of financial knowledge, and that is financial self-awareness (FSA).
Head over to Psychology Today to learn the benefits of having financial self-awareness.
Want to watch TV like it was way back when? MyDecadeTV is a data-stuffed project that can emulate the experience of cable television in its earlier days. First, select a decade: My 70s TV or My 80s TV or My 90s TV. Then you can select the kind of content you want (music, game shows, soap operas, movies etc). You can even select the exact year. And then flip through the channels with the on-screen remote control. I was flipping around and found myself watching a St. Elsewhere-Cheers crossover episode from 1985. And a comedian on The Oprah Winfrey Show thirty years ago. And music videos so old I'd never seen them. If you ever get bored with watching vintage TV, there's a help page that tells you how to explore further. Just be aware that you could lose a day or two. -via Metafilter
CGP Grey is back to lay some knowledge down. So which planet is closest to earth? Whatever you guess, you are wrong. The difference is in how we learned the planets in their order from the sun. They don't line up that way in reality. Here we get an amazing visualization of the planets in orbit around the sun, in their own speeds and paths, that might just blow your mind. You might also want to see a companion video that explores how the question is asked. -via reddit
Remember that time when we just dreamed that there will be flying cars in the future? That future is nearer than ever now, as the Japanese tech company NEC tests this flying car prototype, which looks like a humongous drone.
The prototype flying car measures in at 3.9 m (12.8 ft) L x 3.7 m (12.1 ft) W x 1.3 m (4.26 ft) H, which makes it one of the biggest quadrotors I’ve ever seen. In addition to testing out the hardware for the car drone, NEC is working on autonomous flight technology for the aircraft.
The prototype currently hovers only about 10 feet above the ground, and is being tested on a tether for safety purposes. The video below shows off a test of the vehicle, which is at once impressive and terrifying:
It would be awful, however, if any part of your body touches the giant rotors. But hey, this is just a prototype, and the design would probably improve.
