I Don't Know Where To Put This, But...

[Kung Wu]

Whoa. That's actually super cool.

[SubGod22]

Frozen in Time: 32,000-year-old Wooly Rhino Found with Skin, Fur, and Organs Intact

Four years ago, someone came across an extraordinary find—a juvenile rhino from the Pleistocene ‘mummified’ in the Siberian permafrost.

Alerting the relevant authorities, the discovery turned out to be a 4-year-old woolly rhino (Coelodonta antiquitatis) with its fur, skin, and organs intact, offering paleontologists a rare glimpse into the biology of this Ice Age behemoth.

The specimen was found in August 2020 on the banks of the Tirekhtyakh River in Russia’s Sakha Republic. Researchers from institutes in Yakutsk and Moscow just released a paper on their investigations into the animal.

None of them were able to speak with Western news outlets, but the general consensus from scientists in the field not involved with the research is that the most notable discovery is the presence of a fatty hump around the shoulders very similar to the one seen in modern camels.

“We knew from skeletons and cave art that woolly rhinos had large shoulder humps,” Adrian Lister, a paleobiologist at the Natural History Museum in London told Ars Technica, adding that “maybe this is the first time fat has actually been discovered there, which for sure is a great discovery if so.”

Indeed it has been hypothesized that perhaps these woolly rhinos had reservoirs of calories stored in a camel-like hump for long, bleak winters. Other species of Ice Age mammals had this same trick, but other researchers assumed it was part of the animal’s display equipment.

While the authors of the examination didn’t explain how it was found, leading to the suspicion it was unearthed by mammoth ivory hunters, the animal’s left half was so badly damaged they could only conclude it was eaten by predators, perhaps suggesting it was found after defrosting naturally from the permafrost.

The specimen bore a light brown coat of fur, suggesting that rhinos were born with something like a blonde coloration that gradually darkened as hairs in preparation for adulthood.

[SubGod22]

We often hear about unreleased recordings and such of some of our favorite artists, sometimes they may come out after their death and other times they do not. But who saw this one coming?

Previously Unknown Mozart Song Discovered in German Library After 200 Years

Imagine if you were flipping through records at a store and discovered an unreleased single from Jimi Hendrix or Freddie Mercury.

That’s what archivists must have felt when they held up 200-year-old sheet music for a composition about 12 minutes long.

They realized that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was about to drop a new track, more than 200 years after his death.

Researchers at Leipzig Municipal Library were revising the Köchel catalogue, a physical, chronology of his compositions when they pulled out one from the 1760s—when the child prodigy was a pre-teen.

Entitled Serenate ex C. and given the shorthand name “Ganz kleine Nachtmusik,” the piece was composed for a string trio and contains 7 separate movements. The name on the music sheets is Wolfgang Mozart. He didn’t start including his middle name until he was 19.

“We are convinced that we can now present a completely unknown, charming piece by the young Mozart,” Ulrich Leisinger, head of research at the Mozarteum Foundation, told the German Press Agency in advance of the opening night.

[WstateU]

Original US Constitution Found in a Cabinet While Family Was Moving After 7 Generations - Now at Auction



Pretty crazy to be sitting on this kind of history and be completely oblivious to it.

Wow! Unbelievable find!

[SubGod22]

Original US Constitution Found in a Cabinet While Family Was Moving After 7 Generations - Now at Auction

An incredible piece of US history has been found, and is expected to bring $20 million at auction.

In the lead-up to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, 100 copies of the US Constitution were printed, but only 8 of them were signed by Charles Thomson, the secretary of the Continental Congress, for the official purpose of being brought to each state for the delegates therein to deliberate on.

One of those 8 copies was just discovered inside a house in North Carolina, making it the only privately owned signed copy or the Constitution in the country. It’s now going up for auction at Brunk Auctioneers, and the opening bid of $1 million has already been met.

The family that found the historic document had been stewards of the Hayes Plantation in Edenton, on a property formerly owned by Samuel Johnston, who was North Carolina’s Governor from 1787 to 1789, and was the individual who ratified the document in the state.

They had kept the plantation for 7 generations, but in the process of passing it into the hands of the state to become a historic property, a massive cleanout of generations of items had to be undertaken. It was during this process that the signed copy was found.

“It wouldn’t surprise us for it to go for $20 million dollars, could be less could be more; another copy of the Constitution sold at Sotheby’s for $42.3 million,” said Andrew Brunk, the auction house’s CEO, in an interview with CBS News.

The document was preserved pre-cut, so the 8 pages remain on two sheets, with the famous preamble starting with “We The People” located in the top right. Also attached is a resolution from the (Articles of the) Confederation Congress to send the document to the states to ratify, explaining what it is, what’s to be done with it, and what the drafters think the state governors and congresses should do.

Pretty crazy to be sitting on this kind of history and be completely oblivious to it.

[SubGod22]

Scientifically speaking, Vincent Van Gogh was a freaking genius!

Van Gogh's Painting Starry Night Is Scientifically Accurate, Says New Study

It’s probably fair to say that Starry Night is the second most famous painting ever made behind the Mona Lisa, but what its many admirers likely do not know is that its famous swelling skies are “alive with real-world physics.”

Van Gogh’s brush strokes create an illusion of sky movement so convincing it led atmospheric scientists specializing in marine and fluid dynamics in China and France to wonder how closely it aligns with the physics of real skies.

They explained that while the atmospheric motion in the painting cannot be measured, the brushstrokes can act as a stand-in.

And, after measuring the relative scale and spacing of the whirling strokes, the researchers say van Gogh “accurately captures” cascading energy.

They discovered what they described as “hidden turbulence” in the painter’s depiction of the sky.

“The scale of the paint strokes played a crucial role,” in this discovery, said study author Dr. Huang Yongxiang. “With a high-resolution digital picture, we were able to measure precisely the typical size of the brushstrokes and compare these to the scales expected from turbulence theories.”

To reveal hidden turbulence, the research team used brush strokes in the painting like leaves swirling in a funnel of wind to examine the shape, energy, and scaling of atmospheric characteristics of the otherwise invisible atmosphere.

They then used the relative brightness, or luminance of the varying paint colors as a stand-in for the kinetic energy of physical movement.

“It reveals a deep and intuitive understanding of natural phenomena,” said Dr. Huang. “Van Gogh’s precise representation of turbulence might be from studying the movement of clouds and the atmosphere or an innate sense of how to capture the dynamism of the sky.”

I'm not going to pretend to fully understand any of this, but it's no secret that I'm a huge fan of Van Gogh and have been since I was a kid. Learning his backstory and what he was challenged with just made me respect his art even more. A tormented mind that saw such beauty in the world and regardless of this study, I do believe that he was more aware of a number of things than a lot of people at the time.

But I just found this kind of cool that my favorite painter apparently captured something so remarkable in his greatest creation.

[WstateU]

[Kung Wu]

There was some weird happening at 135th and Maple. Wife and I pulled up to red light heading east bound on Maple, and a Sherrif and WPD car come whipping in and closed down north bound 135th. We get a green light so we head east, and then a BUNCH of cops pull into the intersection behind us. Then another cop comes blaring down Maple west bound followed by fire trucks. We were at 119th for about 10 to 15 minutes before we went back west and this time there was a car upside down on Maple where we were 10 minutes prior.

High speed car chase or something?

[Kung Wu]

Time to go back to the cob... those were the days my friends.

Alicia Silverstone says toilet paper carries 'risk of cancer.' What's the truth about PFAS? (msn.com)

Actually I get allergies a couple times a year and I use toilet paper to blow my nose instead of tissue paper, and the TP sheds like crazy. When I blow my nose I inhale and if the toilet paper is close I know I am breathing that crap in. I have wondered if I am breathing in nasty chemicals. So this article is helpful - I should be a lot more careful.

[SubGod22]

She's lucky she's pretty

[WstateU]

Time to go back to the cob... those were the days my friends.

Alicia Silverstone says toilet paper carries 'risk of cancer.' What's the truth about PFAS? (msn.com)

[WstateU]

This is just a cool little story that has what may be a sweet family film now attached to it and it co-stars the one and only Jean Reno.

True Story of Penguin's Annual Return to See the Man Who Saved it From Oil Spill is Now a Feature Film (See Trailer)



The trailer is in the link.

[SubGod22]

This is just a cool little story that has what may be a sweet family film now attached to it and it co-stars the one and only Jean Reno.

True Story of Penguin's Annual Return to See the Man Who Saved it From Oil Spill is Now a Feature Film (See Trailer)

Released to a delighted movie audience, My Pengiun Friend tells the story of a man and his long-lasting friendship with a Megallanic penguin.

But before the silver screen bore witness to the tale, it arose first on the news—in Brazil, where a retired stonemason named João Pereira de Souza discovered a penguin covered in oil from a recent spill on Proveta Beach in Rio de Janeiro state.

Taking the penguin home, João found the bird exhausted and depleted from his bout swimming through the oil spill. He nursed the penguin back to health, with plenty of soapy scrubbing and fish treats, naming it ‘Dindim’ after the toddler-speak of his son trying to say the Portuguese word for penguin (pinguim) when he was growing up.

After Dindim recovered his pomp, João released him on an island near Proveta Beach and went home; only to find that Dindim had followed him back, and remained on his lawn waiting to be let inside.

He finally left of his own accord in February of 2012. What happened then, and continued happening for years, is an annual visit following the fishing season where penguins remain at sea for months slurping squadrons of fish. Dindim would always come back to Proveta to see João, rather than travel off to a lovely summer island with his kin.

Every February he would leave, only to return in June—again and again for eight years.

Brazilian director David Schurmann embellished the story for My Pengiun Friend, at times going beyond the facts of the original story. (See the trailer below…)

“It’s lovely, lively, and guaranteed to get kids interested in the wild world around them,” writes Kate Erbland at the Indie Wire. “All the better if that also includes some outside research into what really happened with João and Dindim.”

The trailer is in the link.

[SubGod22]

Elon Musk's Starlink to Provide Free Emergency Phone Coverage in Wilderness Areas Worldwide

The satellite internet service Starlink is seeking approval to facilitate 911 calls from wilderness areas to help improve search and rescue efforts and reduce deaths.

Elon Musk’s satellite constellation has served a variety of publicized uses, like giving Ukraine the ability to communicate during wartime. The most recent is a Starlink and T-Mobile partnership seeking FCC regulatory approval for a direct-to-cellular service that would allow those deep in the mountains and forests to reach emergency services.

“SpaceX Starlink will provide emergency services access for mobile phones for people in distress for free,” Musk wrote on his social media platform X, formerly Twitter.

“This applies worldwide, subject to approval by country governments. Can’t have a situation where someone dies because they forgot, or were unable to pay for it.”

Direct-to-cellular functions would have a greater scope than just emergencies. Speaking about their application to the FCC, the chairwoman of the regulatory agency referred to it as the beginning of the “Single-network future” which she described as one in which the user “won’t need to think about what network, where, and what services are available; connections will just work everywhere, all the time.”

According to Newsweek, Musk’s proposed service aims to close mobile “dead zones” by providing extra coverage from space using T-Mobile’s PCS G Block spectrum. Wilderness areas, correctly, don’t contain terrestrial towers, but Musk’s satellites could offer service to these vast spaces if a lost hiker, explorer, or sportsman needed them.

[SubGod22]

Interesting way to enjoy Alaska

Plan a Trip to Alaska and Stay in These Classic Airplanes Converted into Luxury Accommodations (LOOK)

A flying instructor in Alaska, has taken on a second gig as manager of an “airplane amusement park” complete with luxury accommodations built out of old, decommissioned aircraft.

John Kotwicki says there’s little red tape interfering with getting old airplanes up to his flight school and converting them into Airbnbs to use as a base to explore southern Alaska’s incredible natural scenery.

He’s in the process of converting a third aircraft, while also building a cabin into the top of a runway control tower for unparalleled stargazing, a frisbee golf course, volleyball court, and authentic aircraft hanger to display the parts ripped out of the old airplanes.

Kotwicki runs the pilot school FLY8MA, but never wanted to go into commercial aviation because of how “boring” it was, remarking that driving for Uber is more exciting because you can talk to the passengers.

It was after a trip to the south-central area of Alaska that he fell in love with the state’s wilderness and wanted to move that way. His plan was to develop his own runway and facilities for flying, but it quickly became so much more, as he had to add cottages for the students, and then cottages for the tourists who came via word of mouth from the students to experience the remote southern Alaska terrain.

“And then, like, let’s one up that,” Kotwicki told CNN. “It would be cool if we got an old airplane to turn into a house. Let’s make it really nice and put a Jacuzzi on the wing and a barbecue grill. Let’s get two more and have three of them.”

He's put in a lot of work and I'm sure it's beautiful country. There are some pretty nice pics of the interiors and they look very good.