Is your biological parent an identical twin? If so, you and your cousins might have a lot more in common than you realize. The children of identical twins are as genetically similar as a half-sibling would be.
Research on the children of identical twins
Like identical twins themselves, the children of identical twins provide researchers with great insight into how children develop. In fact, the University of Minnesota helps fun a “Children of Twins Study” to look at ” – like the twins themLike for their twin parents, there are many fascinating family relationships for the children of twins–when identical twins have children, their children are cousins but genetically as similar as half-siblings. The Children of Twins (CoT) study examines “psychopathology, psychosocial functioning, neurocognitive functioning, and brain structure and functioning in a sample of 176 substance-naïve children of twin parents…without a history of problematic substance use.”
According to their website, they are also “in the process of completing a neuroimaging assessment with the twin parents of children in the CoT study, which will yield the first (to our knowledge) comparable imaging assessment in twin parents and their children and will allow us to examine whether brain deviations associated with problematic substance use in adults are also observable in their young children prior to substance initiation.”
Twinning
Cousins whose parents are identical twins share will have 25% of their DNA in common (as opposed to 12.5%). (Full siblings share 50% of their DNA.)
In rare cases when sets of identical twins marry other sets of twins, their children are genetically full siblings. They’re called “quaternary twins” and are incredibly rare. Of course, a person’s environment and other causes of genetic mutation can change their phenotype (the expression of the genes). — WTF fun facts
In 1325, the Italian city-states of Bologna and Modena engaged in a short-lived war that allegedly started when Modenese soldiers stole a wooden bucket.
Wikimedia Commons/ZsergheiDid a war between Bologna and Modena really break out over a simple wooden bucket?
During the Medieval period, what we know today as Italy was not a unified country, and it wouldn’t be fully unified until 1871. Italy was once fragmented into various city-states, duchies, and kingdoms that were all governed independently and had their own traditions, languages, cultures, and politics. Given all these stark differences, it was not unusual for Italy’s provinces to come into conflict with each other — and one of the oddest conflicts of all was the War of the Bucket.
The groundwork for the War of the Oaken Bucket was actually set two centuries before the battle began. Per War History Online, in 1154, the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa of Germany decided he should be king of Italy, declaring himself God’s chosen earthly representative. This statement put him at significant odds with the Italians, who argued that the pope crowned Barbarossa as Holy Roman Emperor, which meant the pope was God’s anointed representative.
At this point in history, the pope was always the one who bestowed spiritual recognition on European Christian rulers. Barbarossa responded to these concerns from the Italians by conquering Milan, Tortona, Pavia, Bologna, and Tuscany.
After talks with Pope Alexander III failed, Barbarossa continued to lay siege to Italy until his defeat at the Battle of Legnano by the pro-papal Lombardy League in 1176. Barbarossa retreated back to Germany, but his parting gift to Italy was a major political rift that would keep the city-states feuding with each other for centuries. It was this rift that sparked the bizarre War of the Bucket in 1325.
What Started The War Of The Bucket?
Barbarossa’s siege may have been over, but conflict was alive and well in Italy. Two factions emerged from the war: the Ghibellines, who supported the Holy Roman Emperor, and the Guelphs, who favored the pope.
This political division led to resentment and rivalries among Italy’s city-states, which meant that skirmishes and disputes became regular occurrences in the centuries following Barbarossa’s reign.
Wikimedia Commons/Palazzo Ducale, Modena/Adeodato MalatestaThe Battle of Cassano in 1259 between the Guelph and Ghibelline armies.
Bologna and Modena were two such bordering city-states that were on opposite sides of the political spectrum. Bologna was more Guelph-dominant (pope-supporting), and Modena was mostly Ghibelline (emperor-supporting).
This caused a significant rivalry between the two that led to many raids over the years. But in 1325, according to HistoryNet, tensions finally boiled over.
The Outbreak Of The War Of The Oaken Bucket
One night in 1325, several Modenese soldiers infiltrated the city walls of Bologna. They spotted a bucket at a public well, seized it, and hightailed it out of the city, delighted with their victory.
Upon discovering the missing bucket, the Bolognese were infuriated and demanded its return. The Modenese were not amenable to this demand and refused. Incensed and humiliated, Bologna declared all-out war on Modena. With that, the War of the Bucket commenced.
Between Bologna and Modena, Modena was considered the underdog. Compared to Bologna, the city-state had significantly fewer resources and soldiers.
Per Amusing Planet, Bologna assembled over 32,000 troops and brought in forces from other northern Italian Guelph contingencies for backup. They even managed to get the pope actively on their side. Pope John XXII reportedly declared Modena’s chief magistrate a heretic and stepped up to lead an army of foot soldiers against Modena.
Wikimedia Commons/Le Croniche di Giovanni Sercambi luccheseA 14th-century depiction of the warring Guelphs and Ghibellines in Bologna.
Modena managed to gather only 7,000 soldiers. On the surface, they looked as if they were surely doomed to suffer a miserable defeat at the hands of Bologna’s army and their allies. However, Modena had the distinct advantage of having professionally-trained German soldiers in their army, due to the Modenese’s status as Ghibellines who supported a German Holy Roman Emperor. Bologna’s army was technically bigger, but their troops consisted of a mostly untrained militia.
With their more experienced soldiers, the Modenese confronted the Bolognese outside the town of Zappolino. Due to the chaos and disorganization of Bologna’s troops, Modena soon overwhelmed them, forcing the Bolognese to retreat. Between the two sides, it’s estimated there were approximately 2,000 casualties.
The Bolognese, overwhelmed and humiliated, had no choice but to call off the attack and remain within the safety of their city’s walls. The Modenese continued to taunt the Bolognese by staging a mock decathlon right outside the city — and they reportedly even stole a second bucket for good measure.
The Lasting Aftermath Of The Bizarre War
Of course, the War of the Bucket was about much more than an actual bucket. In fact, some historians say the pail itself wasn’t actually stolen until Modena had already defeated Bologna in battle. Centuries of discord led up to the conflict, and the bucket — if it did truly exist — was simply the straw that broke the camel’s back.
The war eventually fizzled out, and in January of 1326, an armistice was signed by the two rivals that temporarily settled matters. Conflict, however, would continue between the Guelphs and the Ghibellines for another two centuries until Italy was invaded by Charles I of Spain in 1529.
TwitterThis is reportedly the very bucket that Modenese soldiers swiped from a well in Bologna in 1325.
While Modena and Bologna grudgingly called a ceasefire, Bologna never had their bucket returned. The Modenese proudly displayed the bucket up in the bell tower of their cathedral, the Torre della Ghirlandina — just to continue to rub Bologna’s face in its defeat. Modena still has the bucket to this day. A replica now hangs in the bell tower, but what’s said to be the original bucket is on display in the Palazzo Comunale.
And even now, 700 years later, the bucket is still a source of playful dispute between the two cities.
After learning about the War of the Bucket, read about the shocking poison that 17th-century Italian wives used to kill off their unwanted husbands. Then, check out photos of life in fascist Italy under Mussolini.
New York City is advertising for a “somewhat bloodthirsty” person not opposed to “wholesale slaughter” to be its new rat czar.
Mayor Eric Adams’ administration wants someone with “a general aura of badassery” to lead the city’s battle against the rodents.
While the official job title is for a “director of rodent mitigation”, the role has been dubbed the rat czar. It comes with a salary range of $120,000 to $170,000 (£97,700 to £138,430).
“The ideal candidate is highly motivated and somewhat bloodthirsty, determined to look at all solutions from various angles, including improving operational efficiency, data collection, technology innovation, trash management, and wholesale slaughter,” the ad reads.
New York City has been trying to control its rodent population for generations, with sightings of rats in parks and on the streets recently increasing.
The vermin have survived a multimillion-dollar effort under former mayor Bill de Blasio which introduced more rubbish pickups and better housing inspections in targeted neighbourhoods.
The city also used dry ice to suffocate rats in their hiding spots.
Mayor Adams, when he was borough president of Brooklyn, once demonstrated a trap which used a bucket filled with a toxic soup to drown rats lured by the scent of food.
Now, his administration is looking for someone to become the public face of the city’s eradication and education efforts.
“Cunning, voracious, and prolific, New York City’s rats are legendary for their survival skills, but they don’t run this city – we do,” the posting adds.
Applicants are expected to have good communication skills, a keen sense of humour and “to lead from the front, using hands-on techniques to exterminate rodents with authority and efficiency”.
Digital nomads and tourists have one thing in common: They both enjoy going to new places!
But although they both love to travel, digital nomads take it up a notch because they work online and live in different countries for months!
This lifestyle is the epitome of “living life to the fullest,” and it has many benefits other than creating memories.
Now, you might be wondering…
How much money do digital nomads earn?
A digital nomad’s annual income can range from $25,000 to $250,000, which is enough for their monthly expenses, typically costing $1,000 to $2,000.
But of course, their income can go even higher, depending on what they do for a living.
The most common remote work for digital nomads is self-employed jobs like freelance writing, virtual assistance, and social media management.
But it’s worth noting that there are digital nomads who are employees or entrepreneurs.
Regardless of their profession, studies found that digital nomads worked for roughly 40 hours per week – working in co-working spaces, hotels, or coffee shops.
Do digital nomads pay taxes?
Digital nomads file and pay their taxes from their home country, as they’re considered citizens in that place.
But to avoid some of your tax obligations in your home country, you can declare yourself non-resident for tax reasons.
Countries that welcome digital nomads can also require them to pay taxes.
For example, digital nomads with a Thailand Digital Nomad Visa must pay 17% in taxes instead of a 35% tax rate.
Getting taxed twice can be a pain for digital nomads, but luckily, they can avoid it with the help of tax benefits, such as the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (FEIE) and the Foreign Tax Credit (FTC) for US citizens.
Can you be a nomad with a child?
You can still be a digital nomad despite having kids, but expect more challenges in traveling and parenting with this kind of setup.
And regarding their children’s education, digital nomads with families either enroll their kids in an online school or homeschool them.
Homeschoolers even have a term for this kind of learning.
It’s called “world schooling.” This educational movement aims to let children study and improve their education by traveling worldwide!
Where do most digital nomads choose to live?
Digital nomads prefer living in Southeast Asian countries since this region offers an affordable lifestyle.
A study from the UK even states that Bangkok, Thailand, is ranked as the best city in Asia and the second-best city in the world for digital nomads.
It’s reasonable, though, as most digital nomads are from countries like the US and the UK that have a high cost of living.
But affordability isn’t the only basis of digital nomads when choosing a city to live in; other factors they consider are the weather, internet speed, and safety.
Also, it doesn’t mean that all countries outside of Southeast Asia aren’t suitable for digital nomads.
In fact, Lisbon, Portugal, ranks number one as the best place for digital nomads.
How long do digital nomads stay in one place?
According to digital nomads themselves, they often live in one place for around one to six months.
But some digital nomads only stay a few weeks in a particular city or country, living in numerous countries in under a month or two!
They’re able to pull it off by strategically planning their thrilling journey.
Generally, a digital nomad’s multi-destination travel plan includes researching places for their itinerary, choosing airlines with better deals, and inviting other digital nomad friends to cut costs.
Are digital nomads minimalist?
Since digital nomads travel a lot, many also live a minimalist lifestyle.
After all, having and bringing a lot of possessions to different countries can be stressful – carrying dozens of books instead of just getting a Kindle is an example.
Most focus on only carrying their travel and work essentials, although others bring more, especially if they travel and live in a camper van.
Of course, this is limited to countries digital nomads can go to without needing an airplane or a boat.
Are digital nomads good for the economy?
Digital nomads are beneficial for a country’s economy for many reasons.
Higher demand for short-term rentals and small hotels is an ideal example.
There are also digital nomad vloggers that do travel vlogs, showing their audience where they go, which leads to attracting more tourists.
This fact makes digital nomads high-value customers for those in the real estate and tourism industry.
That’s why numerous countries are now offering digital nomad visas.
What’s a digital nomad visa?
A digital nomad visa is a type of visa that allows remote workers to keep on working while staying in a particular country.
Think of it as an upgraded version of a travel visa, allowing digital nomads to do their work legally and stay for more extended periods.
Processing and receiving a digital nomad visa can take a few weeks or months, depending on the country they’re applying for a visa.
For example, it can only take 15 to 30 days when you apply for an Estonia Digital Nomad Visa.
But besides Estonia, other countries are also offering visas ideal for digital nomads, such as Germany, Iceland, and Croatia.
Can being a digital nomad improve mental health?
Being a digital nomad is a double-edged sword; it can improve or worsen your mental health.
Recent studies show that digital nomads are more productive, creative, and engaged with their work – three factors that contribute to improving mental health.
But people traveling and working anywhere they want aren’t an exception to challenges and struggles.
An example would be digital nomads being pressured to succeed in their careers because people have high expectations for them.
Working anywhere and any time you want is often associated with “living the dream.” which makes it harder for some digital nomads to share their struggles (which everyone has).
Another struggle digital nomads have is called travel burnout.
Digital nomads who’ve experienced this struggle combat it with what they call “slow travel” – focusing on getting to know more about the country they’re visiting rather than trying to visit as many places in a short time frame.
How old are most digital nomads?
It’s a misconception that a digital nomad lifestyle is only for young people.
Digital nomads are mostly comprised of millennials or those in their mid-20s to early-40s; a study also shows that almost half of digital nomads worldwide are in their 30s.
This age group is the sweet spot for having a stable income that allows them to afford this adventurous lifestyle.
And out of all the generations, millennials were found to be the age group inclined to job-hop, which is perfect for people working remotely.
Many in their 40s to 50s, or Gen X and Baby Boomers, are also a large part of digital nomads, some even turning digital nomads after retirement!
Preventing loneliness was one of the biggest reasons they became digital nomads later in life.
How do digital nomads date?
Like their work, digital nomads also find partners online through dating apps like OkCupid, Bumble, and Tinder. Some dating apps are even dedicated to digital nomads!
They can also meet their future partners in Facebook groups and Slack channels created to meet digital nomads.
But digital nomads aren’t limited to dating online.
For example, some digital nomads can find their one true love because of co-working spaces, digital nomad events, and co-living spaces.
The biggest struggle for digital nomads is if their significant other isn’t a digital nomad, which means they have to make a long-distance relationship work.
When did the digital nomad lifestyle start?
Living a digital nomad lifestyle started in 1983 when the term “digital nomad” wasn’t even invented.
One of the first ones to enjoy this lifestyle was Steven Roberts.
He was a freelance writer and corporate consultant from Columbus, Ohio, that turned his recumbent bike into his workspace, which he calls Winnebago.
The term “digital nomad” was eventually created in 1997 because of a book published by Wiley called The Digital Nomad.
Tsugio Makimoto and David Manners wrote it, and their book clearly defines what digital nomads are doing now.
Living in another country while working without the need for an office feels surreal.
That’s why more and more people are shifting to the world of remote work to achieve this lifestyle.
And countries are more than willing to support this since it benefits their economy.
It also doesn’t matter whether you’re in your early 20s or late 50s. You can still become a digital nomad because the point of this lifestyle is to have freedom.
Have you ever looked at the way a specific food grows and been totally surprised? We’ve certainly felt that way – especially about asparagus and pineapples. Now the banana curve is blowing our minds (with how little we know about our food).
How the banana gets its curve
The reason bananas don’t grow straight and instead have a curve is so that they can retrieve sunlight. It makes sense, we just couldn’t quite picture it at first.
According to Chiquita, “Bananas go through a process called ‘negative geotropism’…What it means is that bananas grow away from the ground, instead of growing towards it, hence the ‘negative’ geotropism.”
Despite bananas being ubiquitous on grocery store shelves, they come from the rainforest (or at least places that can simulate that environment). In a place with so much foliage, bananas had to find a way to claim some sunlight for themselves since they hang downward.
Bananas evolved not to grow straight up but rather to curve in order to get around the foliage and soak up some rays.
More about banana growth
You might think that if it’s looking for the sun, a banana would evolve to grow upwards. But they’re simply too heavy to do that. Because gravity pulls them down, they develop a slight curve rather than a new growth pattern.
Not only is banana growth a fun new fact for us, but we also didn’t know they were considered a berry. Bananas may have actually been one of the first fruits. They date back about 10,000 years, although they taste much different now.
And it turns out the world loves them – we consume about 100 billion bananas globally every year. — WTF fun facts
I recommend these email newsletters: Look up the newsletters by: @Codie_Sanchez (side hustles), @TrungTPhan (insane biz stories), @SahilBloom (mindset), @polina_marinova (“The Profile”), but honestly I could recommend many more. These are the first that came to mind. (8/x)
When your messaging app starts suggesting high flatulent instead of highfalutin, or copulation instead of cooperation, autocorrect has gone too far. Though the feature is meant to make communication easier, some users say it creates more misunderstandings than it prevents. Fortunately, you don’t have to be at the mercy of an algorithm every time you send a text. Changing a few preferences in your iPhone settings is all you need to do to make autocorrect a help instead of a hindrance.
According to PCMag, iOS gives you the option to turn off autocorrect altogether. In the Settings app, go to General, and then Keyboards to toggle off the Auto-Correction feature. You can also block spell-check and auto-capitalization if you really feel like playing fast and loose with your correspondence. If you opt to keep spell-check on, you can use it as a less aggressive alternative to autocorrect. When a red squiggly line shows up beneath a word in your draft, tap it to see a list of spelling suggestions. You can choose a word to replace the potential typo with a second tap. Though it requires a few extra steps, the peace of mind may be worth it.
If you’re hesitant to get rid of autocorrect completely, but can’t stand it in its current form, there’s a second option. Under Keyboards, select Text Replacement to customize the list of words your phone will automatically change to something else. You may see some shortcuts in here already; the casual abbreviation omw might autocorrect to the jarringly enthusiastic On my way!, for example. You can change these by deleting the suggested shortcut and leaving the field blank. If your phone doesn’t recognize words you use regularly, like an uncommon name or a certain expletive that rhymes with ducking, you can add them to the Text Replacement list and keep the Shortcut field empty to prevent auto-correction.
iOS’s Text Replacement feature can also be used to tweak autocorrect to fit your needs. Instead of limiting the function to spelling mistakes, you can input a new list of shortcuts and abbreviations that will automatically change to the words of your choice. Here’s another iPhone keyboard hack you should be using.
John Dee is a figure whose life has become the stuff of legend, with unfounded claims about him being a sorcerer and a spy. Dee, born on July 13, 1527 in London, England, was a revered polymath, with particular expertise in mathematics and astronomy. But he was interested in the occult, too: He served as Queen Elizabeth I’s court astrologer and conducted séances in an attempt to speak to angels. Read on to learn the facts about Dee—the scholar, scientist, and seeker of the esoteric.
Dee was arrested for “conjuring or witchcrafte” in 1555 after casting a horoscope of Queen Mary I—but he was exonerated a few months later. Fortunately for him, during the Renaissance, astrology was often thought of as a science (albeit a suspicious one), rather than a supernatural dark art.
In 1556, Dee tried to convince Mary I to set up a library for the “whole realm” to use that would preserve the “excellent works of our forefathers from rot and worms.” When his request was refused, he set up a library at his home in Mortlake, which—although not technically public—was open to other scholars. It was one of the largest personal libraries in England, housing around 4000 texts (3000 books and 1000 manuscripts). Many of the tomes were stolen when Dee left the library under the care of his brother-in-law, Nicholas Fromond, while he traveled around Europe for a number of years in the 1580s.
John Dee performing an experiment before Elizabeth I. / Buyenlarge/GettyImages
Dee found royal favor when Elizabeth I, who was interested in astrology, took the throne. She asked him to choose an auspicious date for her coronation, which, according to his calculations, was January 15, 1559. Dee became Elizabeth’s court astrologer, and while she relied on him to interpret the stars for her, he was also a trusted authority on matters of mathematics, chemistry (including alchemy), astronomy, geography, and navigation.
In The General and Rare Memorials pertayning to the Perfect Arte of Navigation (1577), Dee recommended to Elizabeth that she use the force of the navy to expand Britain’s overseas territory—which he termed the “Brytish Impire.” This is the first recorded use of the phrase, but it’s possible that he was simply the first person to write it down.
The Julian calendar that had been established by the Roman Empire was still in use across much of Europe, but it was far from perfect, having overestimated the length of a solar year. To remedy this, Pope Gregory XIII introduced the Gregorian calendar in 1582, which axed 10 days from the year and changed the way that leap years worked thereafter. Dee, with his vast knowledge of astronomy and history, was asked to give his opinion on whether or not England should adopt this new calendar.
Dee concluded that England would be wise to make the change, but that 11 days should be cut and that it should be done more gradually to reduce disruption. However, the new calendar was rejected by the Anglican Church, likely because it originated from the Pope and England was a Protestant country at the time. England and its colonies did not switch to the Gregorian calendar until 1752.
John Dee. / Heritage Images/GettyImages
During the Renaissance, mathematics was not a popular subject; the school curriculum focused on the learning of rhetoric and moral philosophy through Latin and Greek texts. However, Dee was a proponent of math—despite its occasional association with witchcraft. He even helped to introduce English readers to the now-common mathematical symbols +, -, x , and ÷ by writing the preface to Sir Henry Billingsley’s 1570 English translation of Euclid’s The Elements of Geometrie. He used this introduction to defend the practicality of math and attempted to break its links to dark magic.
Although Dee was adamant that mathematics was not demonic, he did employ it for his own investigation into the occult. Dee practiced numerology and divination, using tools such as a crystal ball and a spirit mirror made of obsidian, in his attempts to speak to angels. The polymath thought the divine beings could share their esoteric knowledge with him, like how to make the fabled philosopher’s stone, an alchemical substance that could provide immortality and turn base metals into gold.
However, he found that he was unable to scry, which is the ability to perceive supernatural messages, and sought the aid of a medium—at one point even using his own son, Arthur Dee. Arthur also encrypted the apparently divinely received recipe for the philosopher’s stone, which, according to legend, was an “elixir of life” that could make a person immortal and also turn common metals into precious ones like gold and silver. The message Arthur recorded was cracked in 2021 by scholars Megan Piorko, Sarah Lang, and Richard Bean.
Edward Kelley. / Print Collector/GettyImages
Dee first met Edward Kelley (who these days is largely regarded as a charlatan) in 1582, and became convinced that he could communicate with angels. The pair held many séances together, with Dee keeping detailed records of the allegedly divine conversations. The angels supposedly talked to Kelley in an unknown language, which had to be deciphered by Dee. The pair referred to this language as Angelic or Adamic, but it is now commonly known as Enochian.
Dee and Kelley embarked on a tour of Europe in 1583 with their families in tow, seeking patronage for their research into alchemy and the occult. They met with mystically inclined royals, such as King Stephen of Poland and Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II. It’s thought Dee may have been the person who sold the still undeciphered Voynich Manuscript to Rudolf, the earliest known owner of the mysterious text.
During one séance in Bohemia in 1587, Kelley claimed the angel Madimi insisted the two men share everything they had—including their wives. According to Dee’s dairy, when his wife Jane was told of the “cross-matching” arrangement “she fell a weeping and trembling for a quarter of an hour.” However, both Jane and Kelley’s wife, Joanna, reluctantly submitted. Nine months later Jane gave birth to Theodore Dee, who may have been sired by Kelley, and whose name, which means “gift of god,” is possibly a reference to the circumstances of his conception.
When Elizabeth I died in 1603 and was succeeded by James VI and I, who detested all things related to witchcraft, Dee received a cold reception. James refused to clear Dee’s name when he was accused of being a “Conjurer, or Caller, or Invocator of Divels, or damned Spirites.” Dee died in poverty in either December 1608 or March 1609.
Some scholars believe that Prospero from William Shakespeare’s The Tempest (1610/11) was modeled after Dee: Both were wizardly figures who believed in the supernatural, both had large libraries, and both suffered misfortune. Dee was certainly well-known by the time Shakespeare was penning his magician character, but there is no direct evidence that Prospero was based on Dee. It has also been suggested that Dee and Kelley inspired the conmen Subtle and Face in Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist (1610).
A less likely character that may have been partly based on Dee is Ian Fleming’s James Bond. In John Dee: Scientist, Geographer, Astrologer and Secret Agent to Elizabeth I (1968), Richard Deacon describes Dee as “a roving James Bond of Tudor times.” While Elizabeth certainly had spies, there is no proof that Dee occupied such a role. It is often reported that Fleming took Bond’s code name—007—from Dee’s secret signature. But despite extensive research, Katie Birkwood, a rare books librarian at the Royal College of Physicians, London, has never found any letters from Dee signed 007. Fleming never commented on his inspiration for the iconic moniker, allowing rumors to flourish.
CNN — In the shimmering heat of the Saudi desert, it could be dismissed as a mirage — but photographer Khaled Al Enazi has the pictures to prove he really did spot a giant fish-shaped rock emerging from the sands.
Al Enazi captured images of the unusual formation using a drone while recording the archaeological treasures of Saudi Arabia’s Al-Ula county — an area known for ancient structures that rival Jordan’s Petra city.
“While I was documenting the area, a view of a mountain appeared in front of me, its shape suggesting a fish in the heart of the desert,” he told CNN via email.
Al Enazi says he’s probably not the first person to encounter the rock formation, but he believes his aerial perspective meant he was the first to note its curious shape.
“A photographer’s eye sees what people do not see,” he said.
The photographer fittingly named the rock Desert Fish.
In drone footage recorded by Al Enazi in June this year, the rock formation resembles an aquatic creature swimming through the golden sand, its dorsal fin-like structures also suggesting it could be a shark emerging from the depths to stalk its prey.
GSK PLC said Friday that a Phase 3 trial for its Jemperli treatment for advanced or recurrent endometrial cancer met its primary endpoint, showing meaningful improvement in progression-free survival. The pharmaceutical giant GSK, The trial showed a statistically significant and clinically…
The month of December claims three gems in different shades of blue as its birthstones: turquoise (the happy blue), tanzanite (the magical purplish blue) and zircon (the regal blue). While all are beautiful in their own right, turquoise is the gem that is a favorite among antique aficionados,…
From the DeLorean to New Coke, these retail products resulted in some of the biggest flops in history — and now they’re on display in the traveling Museum of Failure.
“Giving up on your goal because of one setback is like slashing your other three tires because you got a flat,” reads the anonymous quote that hangs on a brick wall in the Museum of Failure. It’s a poignant quote, and one that represents the whole point of the museum — to celebrate failure.
The concept may seem strange — after all, museums usually celebrate successes — but for curator Samuel West, the world-touring museum has as much to teach visitors as any other.
“To learn from failure we need to talk about it,” he said. “The museum is a good way of creating that discussion.”
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Colgate Beef Lasagna, a frozen entrée from the 1980s.
Although Colgate as a brand had been around since the early 1800s, the name became — and still is — ubiquitous with toothpaste.
It’s little wonder why shoppers didn’t latch onto the brand’s microwavable lasagna. ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images
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The Microsoft Zune, a portable digital music player released in November 2006 as a competitor to Apple’s widely popular iPod.
Despite a larger screen and built-in FM radio, however, the Zune never quite found the success Microsoft had hoped for.
In fact, for many years, the prospect of owning a Zune instead of an iPod was largely regarded as a joke. Scott Olson/Getty Images
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Steven Spielberg’s film E.T. the Extraterrestrial was a massive success, still held in high regard to this day.
Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for its 1982 video game adaptation.
The Atari 2600 game was so notoriously bad that unsold copies of it were buried in a landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico and left undiscovered until 2014. Wikimedia Commons
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Just the mention of Blockbuster recalls a time before streaming, when renting a movie involved driving to a brick and mortar store and hoping the film you wanted to watch was in stock.
Blockbuster’s decline, however, began when Netflix entered the scene. Renting DVDs online and getting them shipped to your home was, for many people, a far more convenient option — though Blockbuster certainly had its appeals still.
But when Netflix introduced the video streaming platform for which it is now known, it put the nail in Blockbuster’s coffin. Blockbuster did try and create its own streaming service, but it was too little too late. Jonathan Elderfield/Liaison/Getty Images
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In 2017, the Chinese company Taqu Ltd. decided to combine two of China’s largest moneymakers — the “share economy” and the adult entertainment industry.
The result was a service called Shared Girlfriend, which rented out sex dolls for $45 a day.
Yes, rented out.
The dolls were designed to be “for his pleasure,” and came in a variety of outfits, delivered to a renter’s door after being ordered through an app.
When the renter was finished with the doll, the doll was then disinfected, and any broken or damaged parts were replaced.
The service lasted four days before it was shutdown due to public outrage. The Museum of Failure
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LaserDisc was an optical storage medium from the 1980s that offered far better quality than that provided by VHS.
Unfortunately, LaserDisc had a few caveats. The discs themselves were fragile and, unlike VHS, couldn’t be recorded. The players were also incredibly expensive and loud.
In the end, convenience triumphed over quality. Jens Büttner/picture alliance via Getty Images
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Heinz Ketchup is the world’s most iconic ketchup brand, but that doesn’t mean it is invulnerable to mistakes. In the early 2000s, Heinz launched a slew of colorful ketchup called “EZ Squirt” that came in Blastin’ Green, Funky Purple, Stellar Blue, Passion Pink, Awesome Orange, and Totally Teal.
Unfortunately, the drastic color change from ketchup’s standard red meant that the product required an exorbitant amount of food coloring and food engineering to make it taste remotely like ketchup.
Unlike other products in the museum, though, Heinz EZ Squirt actually sold well and was fairly popular. Interest in it simply declined as time went on. Antony Dickson/South China Morning Post via Getty Images
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In 2006, the German Institute for Condom Consultancy aimed to make a condom that would fit every man, no matter his size.
All a man had to do was stick his penis into an apparatus that would coat it with melted latex. Three minutes later, the latex would dry, and he’d be ready to go.
Understandably, though, the men asked to test the product were hesitant to jam their more sensitive bits into a container that was going to spray them with melted latex.
The product died before it even went to market, but in 2015, an art student reimagined the product in a friendlier looking spray can. The Museum of Failure
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“Why take diet pills when you can enjoy Ayds?”
From 1937 to the late 1970s, Ayds diet candy was a popular and functional appetite-suppressant candy.
You can probably guess why the product stopped selling in the ’80s, as the AIDS epidemic began to peak.
The company did try to rebrand as Diet Ayds, but that really wasn’t much better. The Candy Encyclopedia Wiki
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Bic for Her pens were exactly what they sound like — pens made for women.
Because women couldn’t use regular pens, which were clearly made for men, right?
Sarcasm aside, Bic for Her pens were a disaster from the moment they launched and represent an object failure in marketing. ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images
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Another strange, failed idea to come out of the 1980s was IKEA a.i.r. — inflatable furniture that could be blown up with a hairdryer. IKEA
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The furniture was admittedly lightweight, affordable, and easy to set up.
Unfortunately, it also leaked constantly, meaning it regularly need to be reinflated, and it was perhaps a bit too lightweight, frequently moving around the room if the air blew too strongly. IKEA
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On May 23, 2005, former U.S. president Donald Trump made an announcement at Trump Towers in New York City: Soon enough, anyone could get a degree from Trump University.
Prospective students could pay to learn about real estate, asset management, entrepreneurship, and wealth creation in a series of lectures and seminars from the man himself. Carvalho/FilmMagic/Getty Images
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Of course, Trump University wasn’t an accredited college — nor did it have any partnerships with accredited colleges, despite claims to the contrary.
Seminars ranged from $1,499 to $35,000 for “elite” programs, and the university was subjected to multiple investigations and lawsuits for illegal business practices and defrauding students.
Trump ultimately had to pay a $25 million settlement as a result.
Ironically, one of his courses focused on taxes — a subject for which he is now facing a $250 million lawsuit from the New York Attorney General’s office. Biz Herman for The Washington Post via Getty Images
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In the 1990s, clear was the new black. For many brands, the lack of color represented a kind of purity or healthiness that color didn’t.
Enter Crystal Pepsi, a product that sold incredibly well until consumers realized that it wasn’t very tasty.
David Novak, the man behind the drink, later said, “It would have been nice if I’d made sure the product tasted good. Once you have a great idea, and you blow it, you don’t get a second chance to resurrect it.”Raudies/ullstein bild via Getty Images
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Crystal Pepsi was a misfire, but it paled in comparison to the backlash that Coca-Cola received when they launched New Coke, also known as Coke II.
After 99 years of using their original formula, consumers weren’t thrilled when the company switched.
In this photo, Coca-Cola Company President Donald R. Keough and Roberto Goizueta toast each other with cans of “New Coke.”Bettmann/Getty Images
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The love of New Coke clearly didn’t trickle down to consumers, and backlash against the product was so strong that it led to petitions all across the country.
Coca-Cola eventually changed back to their original formula. Roger Ressmeyer/CORBIS/VCG via Getty Images
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When it came out in 2014, the My Friend Cayla doll was lauded as one of the most innovative products of the year.
The internet-connected doll could recognize speech and speak back to children, which unfortunately became a major problem when hackers began exploiting its internet connection to control the doll remotely.
Even beyond malicious hacking, the doll was problematic for how it spied on children and used the information it gathered about them to advertise commercial products like Disney films.
Oh, and Disney paid for the advertising, because all of the data Cayla collected was sent back to a U.S.-based server and sold to advertisers. Rob Stothard/Getty Images
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Little Miss No Name wasn’t quite as invasive as Cayla, but she still wasn’t the kind of doll parents wanted to give to their children.
She was designed in 1965 by Hasbro to be an alternative to Barbie. The idea was to teach young girls empathy for those less fortunate.
Instead, she terrified children and was quickly pulled from shelves — which may have made the opposite point. The Museum of Failure
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On June 3, 2014, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled the company’s first flagship smartphone, the Amazon Fire Phone.
The phone’s biggest selling point was an app called Firefly, which allowed users to scan items they wanted in stores so they could buy them on Amazon instead.David Ryder/Getty Images
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The Amazon Fire Phone, however, was far too expensive for most consumers, and Amazon’s limited app ecosystem made it a hard sell when compared to Google’s Android or Apple’s iOS. David Ryder/Getty Images
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Nowadays, the DeLorean is most widely known as “the car from Back to the Future,” but it was once marketed as a luxury sports car.
First introduced by John DeLorean in 1976, the car suffered years of delays, and by the time it finally went to market, competitors greatly exceeded its performance.
Plus, the stainless steel finish required constant polishing. Roger Ressmeyer/CORBIS/VCG via Getty Images
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In 1989, Nintendo tried to take gaming to the next level by introducing a wearable controller known as the Power Glove.
While Nintendo has since made motion control a major selling point of its most successful consoles, the 1989 Power Glove failed in pretty much every way. It was difficult to set up, imprecise, and more of a hindrance than anything else. Marcin Wichary/Flickr
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Another addition in the ’90s trend of zero-calorie badness, Olestra was approved as an additive in 1996 and used in a number of zero-calorie products.
It quickly fell out of favor, though, when people started noticing the uncomfortable side effects — mainly gastric cramps and diarrhea.
The product came to be associated with “anal leakage.” James Leynse/Corbis via Getty Images
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Google co-founder Sergey Brin at the announcement of Project Glass in 2014, a wearable personal computer device later renamed Google Glass.
The product was greatly hyped, and enthusiasts were paying $1,500 to get their hands on one. It promised to be the next evolution in personal computing. Kim Kulish/Corbis via Getty Images
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However, most people didn’t realize that despite the high price tag, Google Glass was far from a finished product. If anything, it was an expensive prototype that raised privacy concerns and led to bans in certain businesses worldwide.
Also, users who bought them came to be known as “Glassholes.”
In this picture, King Charles tries out a Google Glass prototype. Chris Jackson/Getty Images
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Linda Evans promoted the Rejuvenique Facial Treatment System by Salton Maxim Promotion as a product that would make users feel good and tone facial muscles for a low price and only 45 minutes a week.
Instead, users said it felt like “a thousand ants are biting my face.”Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images
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In 1975, Sony launched Betamax, an innovative home video tape recorder, a year before VHS.
Like LaserDisc, Betamax was higher quality than VHS, but it was also more expensive. It could also only record for one hour, whereas VHS could record for far longer.
The failure of Betamax did, however, eventually lead Sony to develop the CD. SSPL/Getty Images
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Orbitoclast lobotomy tools were developed by American surgeon Walter Freeman as a way to simplify the lobotomy process.
Thanks to his tools, the process left no scars and took less than ten minutes to complete. Even better, it didn’t require a neurosurgeon or even an operating room.
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The problem was that lobotomies were a gruesome medical practice that worked only a portion of the time and were quickly replaced by the first wave of psychiatric drugs in the 1950s.
Orbitoclast tools allowed the procedure to be performed on an estimated 50,000 patients in the United States. Public Domain
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Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes told the world her product would make blood-testing easier, cheaper, and less painful. She quickly became the youngest self-made female billionaire in the world and garnered support from numerous wealthy investors.
As it turned out, the whole thing was a scam. Her product didn’t work. Investors pulled out, and Holmes was hit with many, many lawsuits. Gilbert Carrasquillo/Getty Images
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The Swedish warship Vasa, now at the Vasa Museum in Stockholm, spent 333 years on the seabed before it was brought out in 1961.
As one of the first warships with two gun decks, the ship was lavishly decorated with symbols of the country and of King Gustav II Adolf of Sweden. When it was finished, it was one of the most powerfully armed military vessels in the world.
It was also dangerously top-heavy, and it sank the first time it was ordered out to sea. JONATHAN NACKSTRAND/AFP via Getty Images
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Donald Trump was evidently full of bad ideas, as his second product inducted into the Museum of Failure shows.
Donald Trump: The Game was described as “a boring and complicated variation of Monopoly” despite Trump’s claims that it was “much more sophisticated than Monopoly.”
It first went on sale in 1989 and featured ten pages of complicated instructions. It was then rereleased in 2004 following the success of The Apprentice, with a simplified rulebook and many more pictures of Trump.
It was a commercial flop, described by one reviewer as “not a game you want to play again.”TOM LITTLE/AFP via Getty Images
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27 Products In The Museum Of Failure To Remind You That Not Every Idea Is A Good One
A Collection Of Failures That Spark Conversation
In 2017, Samuel West was a clinical psychologist and innovation researcher living in Sweden when he decided to open up a museum in Helsingborg that would house his collection of failed products.
He had spent a year searching for his collection on eBay, Craigslist, and anywhere else he could find these obscure, niche flops, Sifted reported.
“I nearly killed myself with work that year,” West said.
Naturally, the curator had trouble receiving funding or products from the companies whose products he wanted to feature — why would a brand want to flaunt their abject failures?
But West persevered and the museum became a massive success. After that, donations started making their way to him — and to visitors worldwide.
ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty ImagesDr. Samuel West, the curator of the Museum of Failure, during the museum’s Los Angeles tour in 2017.
Though the museum found initial success in Sweden, West began traveling to cities across the world, bringing his collection of 140 failures along with him.
The Museum of Failure includes some of the most famous and infamous snafus in history, ranging from a lobotomy kit to Donald Trump’s board game to Elizabeth Holmes’ company Theranos.
“It’s a fun and entertaining exhibit, definitely,” he told the Calgary Herald. “But there’s a serious message there that we need to be better at accepting and discussing our own failures, both in the workplace and even as individuals.”
And West is certainly a man of his word — he declared bankruptcy in 2019, an irony he was quick to point out.
“After years of advising organizations on accepting the risk of failure, I now get to apply that on myself in an unexpected way,” he told Quartz. “Once this legal hassle is over it will make a great addition to the exhibit and to my talks.”
The Museum Of Failure’s Collection
It’s hard to identify a throughline for why products fail. Failure, like success, is the result of numerous factors.
Some items in West’s collection are so brazenly terrible it’s a wonder how they made it to market in the first place. Some were beaten out by better alternatives. Others were simply ahead of their time.
Take, for example, the Unobrush, the now-defunct eponymous oral hygiene product that could allegedly clean your entire mouth in six seconds. The product earned over $1 million from Kickstarter backers — and it doesn’t work.
“It doesn’t clean your teeth, it mainly just irritates your gums,” West said of the product. “It’s easy to laugh; I’m holding it and I can’t believe they made it… But somebody has to be first, you know? Who knows?”
Unobrush/KickstarterThe Unobrush, funded in only four hours on Kickstarter.
Other notable products on display include the Hawaii Chair, an invention that wound up on TIME magazine’s “50 Worst Inventions” list in 2010.
“Imagine a chair where the seat rotates, so that to sit in it, you have to sort of make a hula hoop movement with your hips,” West said. “The idea was you could just sit on your ass and get fit because, you know, you have to move with the chair.”
Instead, the chair was just incredibly difficult to sit on.
Then, there are two different failed Coca-Cola products: New Coke, arguably the company’s biggest blunder, and Coca-Cola Blak, a coffee-flavored Coke which West described as “an absolutely vile drink.”
The museum also features a few different products peddled by former president Donald Trump, including Trump: The Game, a 1989 board game which, Newsweek reported, only sold 800,000 copies of an anticipated two million.
Featured alongside Trump: The Game is Trump University, a collection of seminars from Trump himself offering prospective students a chance to gain real estate skills and knowledge. Costs for the program went as high as $35,000.
It was also hit with several lawsuits for “deceptive practices” among other claims, resulting in Trump paying a $25 million settlement to anyone who attended Trump University between 2007 and 2010.
Other items in the museum had much less severe consequences, though, such as the Microsoft Zune, BOO.com, HD DVD, the Segway, Harley-Davidson perfume, and the Sony Minidisc, to name a few.
ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty ImagesSamuel West with some of the museum’s displays including a plastic bicycle, a DeLorean, and a Segway.
The one thing they all have in common, though, is that they all failed for one reason or another.
“Learning is the only process that turns failure into success,” West said. “So if you don’t learn from your f— ups, then you’ve really f—ed up.”
Film lovers can debate their favorite choices any day of the year, but it’s only once every decade that they can really get into it. Since 1952, British film magazine Sight & Sound has printed a list of the greatest movies of all time. The films come courtesy of a poll surveying more than 1600 respected critics and film historians. Citizen Kane reigned for decades, topping the list from 1962 to 2002 before Vertigo took over the top spot in 2012, bumping Orson Welles’s masterpiece to the number two slot.
The magazine has just released their most recent list, which makes films of the 2010s eligible and offers a new chart-topper: Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975), which isn’t just the first woman-directed film to top the list, but the first film directed by a woman to ever make it into the top 10. In the film, helmed by Chantal Akerman, a Belgian woman (Delphine Seyrig) struggles with identity and self-liberation as both a prostitute and a mother.
Contemporary movies new to the list include Jordan Peele’s Get Out(2017), Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite(2019), Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight (2016), and Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019). Seven Black directors are represented, up from one (Djibril Diop Mambéty’s Touki Bouki) in 2012. Another first? Two animated movies, both directed by Hayao Miyazaki, are included: Spirited Away (2001) and My Neighbor Totoro (1988).
You can check out the complete list below.
Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)
Sight &Sound also polls directors. This year, those respondents selected2001: A Space Odyssey as the top film of all time.
Looking for a new movie to watch, or at least a movie that’s new to you? Mental Floss’s new book, The Curious Movie Buff: A Miscellany of Fantastic Films from the Past 50 Years, offers behind-the-scenes details and amazing facts about some of the greatest movies of the past half-century. And it’s available now at your favorite place to buy books, or online right here.
A popular 15-year-old cheerleader from Morgan Hill, California, Sierra LaMar was kidnapped and killed in 2012 — and her body has still never been found.
LaMar FamilySierra LaMar was 15 when she vanished on her way to school in 2012.
One morning in 2012, a 15-year-old Morgan Hill, California, girl named Sierra Lamar walked to her school bus stop, then apparently disappeared off the face of the Earth.
When LaMar’s discarded cellphone was found the following day, the local sheriff’s department still considered her a missing person, dismissing any foul play. As more items of the teenager appeared the next day, concern spread of something more sinister throughout the affluent community on the southern end of the San Francisco Bay area.
Traces of LaMar emerged, but never the missing girl herself. With her family clinging to hope, and hundreds of persons searching for LaMar, the police finally arrested and convicted her abductor and murderer. As more time passed LaMar’s family were forced to face the horrific fact, that her body or remains would never be found.
Sierra LaMar Goes Missing
Public DomainA missing poster for Sierra LaMar.
Sierra Mae LaMar was born on Oct. 19, 1996, in Fremont California. LaMar had recently moved to nearby Morgan Hill, living with her mother and her boyfriend while her father remained in Fremont. Despite only enrolling that year, LaMar was a well-liked, friendly, and popular 15-year-old at Ann Sobrata High School in Morgan Hill, with a unique ability to make people laugh.
When Sierra LaMar never made it to her high school on the morning of March 16, 2012, the school’s automated attendance reporting system logged her as absent. It wasn’t until 6 p.m. that evening that her mother was notified of LaMar’s absence by automated email according to The Mercury News.
Unfortunately, crucial hours had already been lost when LaMar was reported missing. While the shocking news rippled throughout the school, LaMar’s English teacher kept her desk empty for the rest of the school year.
At this stage, the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office considered LaMar a standard missing person. “There is no evidence of foul play,” Sheriff’s spokesman Jose Cardoza said, according to NBC News. However, suspicious evidence to the contrary was found over the next the two days.
Property Belonging To Sierra LaMar Appears
On March 17, at an intersection in Morgan Hill around two miles from her home, LaMar’s cellphone was found intact near the roadway, as if thrown from a vehicle. The next day, two intersections away, a pink “Juicy” brand purse belonging to LaMar was found, stuffed with neatly folded clothing including a pair of jeans, and a shirt. The purse was once again found discarded on the side of the road.
In the days after LaMar’s disappearance and the initial police search, a huge voluntary search began organized by the Nonprofit Klaaskids Foundation. The rugged area around LaMar’s home and the bus stop she was heading toward, was secluded and challenging. It included fields, hills, reservoirs, woods, ravines, and thick brush. The search bar was raised with the focus shifted to searching for any evidence indicating a crime.
When searchers came upon used condoms near a small box labelled “stainless steel handcuffs” in a dead-end road, the Sheriff’s office attributed the find to local teenage behavior. The items were found where teens liked to park and hang out, SanBenito.com reported, but would be submitted to the crime lab for further testing.
With Lamar failing to turn up, her disappearance indicated a more alarming sign, and the investigation shifted to an “involuntary missing person” under the umbrella of a kidnapping or abduction. LaMar’s father, a registered sex offender, was ruled out as a person of interest at this stage according to Today.
Investigators saw nothing in LaMar’s home life to indicate she would voluntarily run away. Forensic examination of her phone and personal computer hadn’t revealed anything useful, still investigators set out to make every registered sex offender in the area account for their whereabouts at the time of LaMar’s disappearance. By March 28, 2012, a man driving a bright red Volkswagen Jetta appeared on investigators’ radar.
Investigators Nab A Suspect In Sierra LaMar’s Disappearance
Paul Chinn/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty ImagesAntolin Garcia-Torres makes a brief appearance in Santa Clara County Superior Court in San Jose, Calif. on Thursday, May 24, 2012.
Sierra LaMar’s discarded purse containing her clothes had provided breakthrough evidence in the search for her abductor and suspected murderer. The crime lab had extracted traces of DNA from LaMar’s jeans linking a 21-year-old man, Antolin Garcia-Torres. Garcia-Torres’s DNA was already in law enforcement databases for previous crimes that included felony battery resulting in serious bodily injury.
Garcia-Torres drove a red VW Jetta and worked at a Safeway grocery store, living in an RV park around 7 miles from LaMar’s home with his then pregnant girlfriend and his mother. He was placed under 24-hour surveillance by multiple agencies as they watched his every move.
In 2009, three different women suffered attempted assault and potential abduction, from the parking lots of Morgan Hill Safeway stores. A man had approached the women at night as they were entering their parked vehicles, or while they were sitting in their cars preparing to drive away. The suspect used a stun gun to subdue one of the women entering her vehicle through the rear passenger door.
In another, an 18-year-old woman grabbed a pocketknife to try to defend herself, when he entered her car. The man had grabbed her hand holding the knife and placed it close to her throat according to The Gilroy Dispatch. Fortunately, the suspect was frightened away on all three occassions by the victims screams or passersby.
LaMar’s disappearance was featured on an episode of America’s Most Wanted, and on May 21, after two months of round-the-clock surveillance, sheriffs’ deputies arrested Garcia-Torres for the kidnapping and murder of Sierra LaMar. His red VW Jetta was seen on surveillance cameras on the morning of LaMar’s disappearance, near to the area she was in, and had been seized by officer’s weeks before. LaMar’s DNA was present on an inside door handle, and a single strand of her hair was caught within a rope in the trunk. Despite the absence of her body, a crime scene, or murder weapon, prosecutors sought the death penalty.
Partial Justice For LaMar’s Family
Paul Chinn/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty ImagesA friend of the LaMar family holds up a photo of her at a gathering outside Santa Clara County Superior Court in 2012.
On Saturday, March 14, 2015, LaMar’s family made the extremely difficult decision to make that day the last of searching for her. Over the previous three years, volunteers had conducted weekly searches in the hopes of recovering LaMar’s body or remains, the longest open search center in the U.S. according to ABC News.
Garcia-Torres eventually went on trial on January 30, 2017, and four months later, the jury found Garcia-Torres guilty of all counts. The kidnapping and murder of Sierra LaMar, as well as the attempted assaults on the three women in Safeway parking lots. Although none of the women had picked him out of a police lineup, Garcia-Torres had dropped the stun gun in one assault, and a fingerprint on the battery matched to him. Despite LaMar’s mother’s stoic attempts to have Garcia-Torres reveal her daughter’s body, “You could end this and repent, and tell us where she is.” “What if she was your child?” Garcia-Torres remained silent.
The jury rejected the death penalty and sentenced Garcia-Torres to life without the possibility of parole. In December 2020 Garcia-Torres refused to divulge any information about the whereabouts of LaMar in response to a reporter’s handwritten letter. Sierra LaMar’s family have never held a funeral service for her. “It didn’t make sense without her body,” her father tragically said.
The proposal states that the robots would not be armed with guns and would only be used to “prevent further loss of innocent lives,” while opponents are arguing against such militarization of the police.
Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesThe vote to allow the SFPD to use lethal robots has caused waves in San Francisco and beyond.
Armed police robots may seem like something out of dystopian science fiction, but they could soon become a reality in San Francisco. There, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors has voted to allow police officers in the city to deploy armed robots in certain, extreme situations.
In an 8-3 vote, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors agreed to allow the San Francisco Police Department to deploy robots “when risk of loss of life to members of the public or officers is imminent and officers cannot subdue the threat after using alternative force options or de-escalation tactics,” according to the Washington Post.
The San Francisco Police Department further stated that it does not currently possess armed robots and has no plans to arm robots with guns, according to the Associated Press. Instead, it would potentially equip robots with explosives to assist police in certain situations.
These robots would be used “to contact, incapacitate, or disorient violent, armed, or dangerous suspects,” SFPD spokesperson Allison Maxie said in a statement reported by the Associated Press. Maxie added: “Robots equipped in this manner would only be used in extreme circumstances to save or prevent further loss of innocent lives.”
Michael Macor/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty ImagesThe SFPD already has a number of robots in its possession, like this bomb investigating robot.
The controversial kerfuffle about the police robots was born from a change in state law. The New York Timesreports that a law passed last year in California required police departments to seek approval from local governments in order to use military-type equipment.
In response, SFPD offered a tally of its equipment for approval. As The New York Times reports, the police department stated that it possessed a sound cannon, armored vehicles, a launcher that could deploy chemicals, and 17 robots, 12 of which are functional. These robots could climb stairs, defuse bombs, and transmit instantaneous video and audio.
The robots were not armed. But SFPD explained that the “robots could potentially be equipped with explosive charges to breach fortified structures containing violent, armed, or dangerous subjects,” per The New York Times.
Ethan Swope/Getty ImagesPolice near a SFPD van in San Francisco in 2021.
But this detail about arming robots has caused waves in San Francisco. According to the Washington Post, even the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office waded in the fray, writing in a letter to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors that such a policy would be “dehumanizing and militaristic.”
What’s more, many are concerned that armed robots would be deployed mostly against people of color.
“Most law enforcement weapons are used against people of color,” board president Shamann Walton said according to the Washington Post. “I’m really just stunned that we’re here talking about this.”
Walton insisted that his opposition to the measure was not anti-police, but pro-people of color. “We continuously are being asked to do things in the name of increasing weaponry and opportunities for negative interaction between the police department and people of color,” he said according to the Associated Press. “This is just one of those things.”
Hillary Ronen, a city supervisor who voted against the policy, agreed. Armed robots, she said according to The New York Times, create a “false distance that makes killing the individual easier. We don’t want it to be easy. We don’t want to create that distance and that removal from the emotional impact of killing, of taking an individual’s life.”
But others see things differently.
“If I was in charge, and I had that capability, it wouldn’t be the first on my menu,” Adam Bercovici, a law enforcement expert and former Los Angeles Police Department lieutenant, told the Washington Post. “But it would be an option if things were really bad.”
Advocates have argued that police have successfully used armed robots before. In 2016 in Dallas, Texas, a police robot armed with explosives killed a sniper who had killed five police officers. But opponents don’t believe that armed robots should become the norm.
In any case, the measure still has some hurdles to surmount before it becomes law. On Dec. 6 it must be approved by the board again, then signed by San Francisco Mayor London Breed.
After reading about the debate over armed police robots in San Francisco, learn about the robot wolves deployed in Japan. Then, read about the world’s most bizarre weapons.
Sharks have existed on Earth for over 400 million years. They live in every ocean on the planet, and in some rivers, and are essential to a balanced ocean ecosystem—sharks keep the food chain in check and encourage species diversity. Sharks even help preserve carbon-capturing sea meadows by preying on the sea turtles that eat seagrasses.
Some shark behaviors may look a little odd to us, but there are good reasons why they have evolved to perform them. Here are eight of the most unusual acts and how they help sharks thrive.
A female sand tiger shark has two uteruses and will produce multiple eggs. Research has shown that around 10 will be fertilized, while the rest serve as food for their stronger siblings. The growing embryos will begin hunting when they reach lengths of about 2 inches, using the unfertilized eggs as a means of subsistence. After that, they turn on their smaller and weaker siblings. This form of intrauterine cannibalism is known as embryophagy. Baby sharks will swim from one uterus to another in search of their prey until only the strongest two are born.
Embryophagy gives the pups several advantages. It sustains them over their nine to 12 months in the womb, making them bigger and healthier at birth, which gives them a better chance at survival.
It also clears the gene pool of the weaker sharks. The female sand tiger shark mates with several males, so her embryos have multiple fathers, but research has shown that in 60 percent of the litters the two pups came from the same father. The weaker fathers‘ genes go no further, while the two pups that are eventually born carry the stronger fathers‘ genes into the world. It also means that the baby sharks enter the world as a fully-fledged hunters.
Young lemon sharks are safer from predators among mangrove roots. / Ken Kiefer 2/Image Source via Getty Images
Many sharks engage in cannibalism, especially when one of them is injured. A 2016 study found that the extinct Orthocanthus, which lived 300 million years ago, ate their own young when other resources ran out. Today’s lemon sharksseem to choose the tangled roots of shallow mangrove forests as a nursery, not only to protect their young from larger predators, but also from other lemon sharks.
Cannibalism is an unusual behavior for an animal that wants to survive, but it’s a fundamental way to preserve their species. Not only is it a means to a meal, but it also allows the survival of the fittest individuals. Good thing sharks aren’t sentimental.
Pre-birth survival is no easier for those sharks born from eggs—and some species have developed ways of protecting themselves even before they are born, as a 2013 study of bamboo sharks found.
Egg-bearing sharks deposit their offspring in casings (sometimes called mermaid’s purses) that attach themselves to plants by long tendrils. These pouches allow the embryos to hide their movements and scent as they grow. In the final stages of the gestation period, the cases open just enough to introduce the embryos to the salt waters of the ocean. At the same time, the baby sharks’ electrosensory systems reach maturity and the animals begin to sense the world around them, which may include the electronic signals of their predators. Juvenile bamboo sharks are pre-programmed to read these signals and take action—namely, to hold their breath, screw themselves into balls, and freeze to avoid detection.
The study’s authors hint that this behavior could be used to develop electronic shark-repelling devices. Fishing nets accidentally kill millions of sharks (and other marine animals) every year, so equipping the nets with such devices might protect not just bamboo sharks, but all elasmobranchs.
Spy-hopping, a practice in which a sea creature raises its head out of the water, is most often associated with whales. While it’s rare in sharks, a few species are known to pop their head out of the water and take a look around.
Some sharks will lift their head vertically above the water, while others swim along the surface with just an eye clear of it. In both cases, spy-hopping is about gathering information, perhaps for the location of prey, but the action itself is non-aggressive. A shark comes up to the surface gently, and may do it several times without ever lashing out.
Great white sharks are masters of spy-hopping, particularly around boats that are using chum to entice them closer. Research on oceanic whitetip sharks concluded that the fish can use their renowned sense of smell above the waterline to detect food at a distance. It’s also possible that the sharks are just curious.
Breaching is another behavior that might seem illogical for an animal that needs water to survive, but several species, like great white, basking, and bull sharks, do leap out of the water at high speeds. It can be a spectacular sight, with some sharks able to completely clear the water for several seconds due to the power they generate as they swim. The record is held by a great white, affectionately known as Rocket, who jumped 15 feet above the sea.
Breaching usually derives from hunting. Capturing an agile seal is no easy task, and sharks have learned that they need to ambush their prey if they want to be successful. Using the darker waters below as cover, a great white is able to sneak up on a seal, launch itself upwards at burst speeds of around 36 feet per second, and reach the seal before it can escape. The breach is an explosive result of this upward trajectory.
But hunting isn’t the only reason sharks breach. Basking sharks have no need to launch themselves out of the water to catch their prey, but they still engage in breaching. It’s possible that they do it as part of their courtship or in an aggressive display by male sharks for dominance. The splash the breach makes may be used as a signal to other sharks either in warning or as a form of communication. Marine pollution, water temperature changes, increased salinity, and the need to rid themselves of parasites may also make sharks jump.
The epaulette shark has evolved a survival strategy that larger sharks can only imagine: calmly walking away from trouble.
The behavior was first observed in 1995 by researcher Peter Pridmore, but a 2015 BBC program filmed at the Great Barrier Reef drew the world’s attention. The epaulette shark lives and hunts on the seafloor around Australia and New Guinea, but as the tide goes out, many find themselves stranded on the reef in temperatures upward of 85°F. They have developed the ability to reduce their oxygen intake and to use their pectoral and pelvic fins to walk distances of 100 feet or more. Crawling across the sun-drenched coral, they can find small pools of water that allow them to replenish their oxygen until the sea returns.
Since 1995, eight more walking sharks have been identified, including the Halmahera epaulette shark—discovered in Indonesia in 2013—and four during a study of the genus Hemiscyllium in 2020. A 2022 study concluded that this ability is becoming even more useful amid climate change, suggesting “that this species has adaptations to tolerate some, but perhaps not all, of the challenging conditions predicted for the 21st century.”
Unfortunately, sharks have been found with their stomachs containing all sorts of non-edible objects, including tires, a chicken coop, and even an unexploded bomb. The problem is growing worse as the world’s oceans continue to fill with trash.
One way that a shark copes is through stomach eversion—basically, the ability to upchuck their stomachs, wash them out, and then swallow them again, all within a fraction of a second. A 2005 study of a Caribbean reef shark recorded two eversions lasting 0.28 and 0.40 seconds each with a gap of 1.52 seconds between them. The study concluded that “its function may be related to removal of indigestible food particles and mucus from the inner surface.”
A 1990 study of captive sharks showed that they can also evert their lower intestine through their cloaca, though this cleansing regime seems to last far longer than the stomach variety, with a recent paper in the Journal of Ethology reporting that a shark will swim for over two minutes with its gut hanging from its body (as seen on this recording of a captive tiger shark).
Eversion comes with risks in the wild. As part of the Journal of Ethology’s study, researchers witnessed an oceanic whitetip shark being chased by smaller predators both “exploiting ejected digested material” and trying to take bites out of the protruding organ.
Sharks can be discovered in nearly every environment on Earth, but one place that few people would expect to find them is in the middle of an active volcano.
The Kavachi volcano is located under the Pacific Ocean near the Solomon Islands. It regularly erupts, spewing sulfur, carbon dioxide, ash, and rock out into the water, turning it orange. The caldera is too toxic for humans to enter, and the water is superheated—yet two species of shark have made this hostile environment their home. During a non-shark-related study of the volcano in 2015, a robotic submersible discovered hammerhead and silky sharks swimming and hunting in the acidic waters.
Scientists are not exactly sure how they survive, but their evolutionary adaptations have allowed them to outlive the ”big five” mass extinction events that killed off a staggering number of other species. They have also developed early-warning systems that give them an innate ability to escape the area before an eruption.
Surprisingly, the live volcano offers the sharks considerable protection from larger predators—and is a far safer place to exist than in an ocean near humans.
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Many of the masks were discovered at digs in 2013 and 2018, and represent numerous underworld deities.
INAHA small sampling of the stucco masks found at the Toniná archaeological site.
The Toniná archaeological site in southern Mexico is proving to be a treasure trove of pre-Columbian Maya relics, as a team of archaeologists working in the region recently unveiled a large number of carved stone masks worn by the ancient population.
A new statement from the Mexican National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) says, “42 years of research work in the archaeological zone of Toniná … has found a diversity of archaeological materials, among which a large number of masks stand out, with various representations in stucco and sculptures, which give an idea of the ancient inhabitants of this city.”
Many of these stucco pieces, they say, were found in and around a structure known as the House of the Recreation of the Universe, near the Sunken Plaza of the Palacio de los Caracoles, both of which date back to around 650 C.E.
Archaeologist Yadeun Angulo said the masks symbolize elements of the underworld, the Earth, and the sky, and would have held significant spiritual meaning for the people of the time.
Many of the masks represent deities, particularly those of the underworld.
The buildings themselves were also adorned with architecture reminiscent of a human face — “the human body is part of the decoration of the buildings,” Angulo said.
As Heritage Daily reports, many of the masks were discovered back in 2013, but one notable example was found more recently, in 2018, in the Temple of the Sun and depicts a lord of the underworld.
Representations of underworld deities, Angulo explained, generally lacked a lower jaw, making it abundantly clear that they are dead.
“This gentleman has the upper jaw and a shark tooth, because they are solar deities and he really is a monstrous doll, it was part of a huge representation, where it was seen how the lords of Toniná have a relationship with fantastic beings from the interior of the Earth and of the starry sky,” the archaeologist said.
Several masks also represent deities from other cultures, including a representation of the Aztec rain god, Tláloc, a figure worshiped in the Teotihuacán culture of the Central Highlands between the third and eighth centuries C.E.
Wikimedia CommonsA Tláloc representation similar to one found at the Toniná site.
The representation of other cultural deities, Angulo believes, shows that the ancient Maya had a close relationship with the people of the Central Highlands.
Another figure found alongside the masks served as a mannequin and as a base for the creation of jade masks, as evidenced by mask fragments that are still attached to it.
Angulo said he hopes to be able to display the masks and figures in future temporary exhibitions — especially since the Toniná site has also supplied archaeologists with full-body sculptures of gods, recreations of scenes from the Popol Vuh, and entire pages featuring twin deities Hunahpú and Ixbalanqué of the underworld and the sky.
An ancient Maya temple at the Toniná archaeological site in southern Mexico.
At the time, Angulo explained that the ancient Maya likely wanted their rulers’ bodies to “be converted into a life force, something to stimulate their people. Just as Egyptians tried to preserve [bodies], we know here they were transformed in another way.”
The ballgame was not only a popular sport, but also a representation of mythological battles between the forces of life and the forces of death. The courts on which pelota was played were likewise seen as a connection to the underworld, and served as locations for ritual sacrifice.
In many instances, these sacrifices highlighted “the regenerative, nourishing power of sacrificial blood.”
Depictions of the underworld and the delicate balance between life and death were prominent themes in the art of the Maya people. This newly unveiled collection of stucco masks only further demonstrates the importance of these beliefs.
“These faces, these portraits, look at us from the past. Their gaze transports us to the royal court of the ancient and powerful Mayan kingdom of Po’o”, Angulo said.
While the pandemic was a catastrophe for humans, many wild animal populations flourished without us around. Of course, this wasn’t always ideal for their ecosystems, but scientists are still trying to understand that. Nearly all researchers who were in the middle of field research on animal populations (or even those displayed in zoos and aquariums) are in the process of studying the precise nature of pandemic influences on animals.
The “anthropause”
Scientists have suggested that the period at the height of the pandemic be called the “anthropause.” That’s because at the height of the pandemic, humans weren’t around in many places to disturb animal populations.
Researchers are interested in studying this moment in time to see how wildlife adapted to our absence. The COVID pandemic provided a unique opportunity to see how the absence of things like noise, pollution from traffic, and tourism affect animal populations.
What were some pandemic influences on animals?
We don’t yet know the full effects of the pandemic and its “anthropause” on animals, since the world is only recently revving up again. But researchers can look at data from tracking devices, cameras, and sensors to see how things were different in 2020 and 2021.
Accoring to Science Magazing (cited below): “The International Bio-Logging Society, for example, is coordinating a large effort to assess how reduced vehicle, ship, and aircraft traffic is affecting animal behavior. More than 300 researchers have indicated they have relevant animal tracking data from 180 species of birds, mammals, reptiles, fish, and sharks across almost 300 study populations from all continents and oceans.”
It’s data that one researcher called “a gold mine.”
But other scientists that had to halt their research during the pandemic need to completely rethink their approaches. The pandemic pause needs to be factored into any historical data that included the pandemic years.
What did wildlife do during the pandemic?
As for the data collected during the pandemic, scientists are seeing some interesting things. More animals wandered around in the daytime. Some are now less active than they were before the pandemic. Cities saw some rare animals wander into their limits.
It all leaves more questions than answers.
But some new studies have popped up in response to the lack of humans around wildlife. For example, animal experts are looking at the effects of a lack of tourism on the diet and health of animals that were once fed by human visitors.
In the end, it may help us figure out how to regulate tourism in order to best help vulnerable species. — WTF fun facts
