[ozswede]

Indigenous artist Archie Moore first Australian to win top prize at Venice Biennale

Indigenous artist Archie Moore hand-chalked his vast family history for the 60th Venice Biennale, only to make history himself and become the first Australian to snare a coveted Golden Lion award.

The biggest event in the world arts calendar, the biennale is held over seven months and comprises a curated main exhibition and a cluster of shows hosted by 87 countries in dedicated pavilions. Two Golden Lion awards are presented at each event.


The full scale of Moore’s “kith and kin” on the ceiling and interior walls of the Australian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale

Moore inscribed in chalk 65,000 years of his genealogical history on the dark walls and ceiling of the Australian Pavilion for his installation kith and kin, which judges said stood out for its “strong aesthetic, its lyricism and its invocation of a shared loss of an occluded past”.

“With his inventory of thousands of names, Moore also offers a glimmer of the possibility of recovery,” the jury said.

Moore won his Golden Lion for best national participation. The four Maori women artists of Mataaho Collective took out a second Lion for best main exhibition.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Australia had been participating in the biennale since 1954 and it was the first time the country had won.

“What an incredible tribute to the oldest living culture in the world, at the oldest art exhibition in the world,” he posted on Instagram.

Moore is only the second solo First Nations artist to stage a work at the biennale, regarded by some as the Olympics of international art. The 60th iteration runs until November 24.

“As the water flows through the canals of Venice to the lagoon, then to the Adriatic Sea, it then travels to the oceans and to the rest of the world – enveloping the continent of Australia – connecting us all here on Earth,” Moore said in accepting the prestigious award overnight in Venice.

“Aboriginal kinship systems include all living things from the environment in a larger network of interrelatedness. The land itself can be a mentor or a parent or a child. We are all one and share a responsibility of care to all living things now and into the future.


The artwork includes hundreds of stacks of documents suspended over a reflection pool

“I’m very grateful for this accolade: it makes me feel honoured to be rewarded for the hard work one does. I’m grateful to everyone who has always been part of my journey from my kith to my kin to my Creative Australia team and everyone else back home and those of the Venice Lagoon.”

Moore’s reimagined genealogical chart, sprawling over 60 metres, was intensively researched for the biennale.

A reflection pool has been built in the pavilion’s centre, over which more than 500 document stacks have been suspended.

These contain mainly the findings of coronial inquests into the deaths of Indigenous Australians in police custody dated in Moore’s lifetime.

Arts Minister Tony Burke congratulated the artist on his “well-deserved recognition” and said it justified the building of Australia’s new pavilion in 2013 to mark the country’s cultural ambitions.

“Archie’s work kith and kin shows the power of Australian art and storytelling going right back to the first sunrise,” Burke said.

“Australian stories help us understand ourselves, know more about each other, and let the world get to know us. That’s exactly what this artwork does.”

The biennale opened as the Israeli artist Ruth Patir and curators of the Israeli pavilion kept their doors shut, saying they would only open their exhibition when a ceasefire and hostage release agreement had been reached.

Moore’s origin story, commissioned by Creative Australia and curated by Ellie Buttrose, contrasts strongly with Australia’s 2022 entry by Melbourne musician and noise-making artist Marco Fusinato, who performed live daily with stacked amps, discordant guitar riffs and a large LED screen.

[Alessa9]

‘Rare’ statue sat hidden in dried-up pond at 800-year-old temple — until now.


Archaeologists unearthed a “rare” sandstone turtle statue under a dried-up pond near 800-year-old Bayon temple in Cambodia, officials said and photos show.

A dried-up pond sat in the shadow of an imposing 800-year-old temple in Cambodia. The temple may have attracted the most attention, but, as archaeologists recently discovered, the pond held its own secrets too.

The Bayon is an elaborate Buddhist temple built in the 12th century at the same complex that includes the iconic Angkor Wat temple, according to Cambodia’s APSARA National Authority, the department who manages the complex.

As part of their ongoing work, archaeologists excavated a dried-up pond near the Bayon temple — and found a “rare” turtle statue, the Phnom Penh Post, a Cambodian news outlet, reported.

The sandstone turtle was buried in the middle of the long-gone pond at a depth of about 5 feet, Cambodia’s Heritage Protection Police Department said in an April 22 Facebook post.


Archaeologists move the turtle statue found under a dried-up pond. 

A photo shows the dusty stone creature. The turtle’s head is poking out of its shell and looking upward.

Police said the statue measured about 22 inches in length, 17 inches in width and 8 inches in height. The statue required three people to lift and move, photos show, but its weight was not provided.

The figure “is believed to be the symbol of happiness, prosperity, and development,” Long Kosal, a spokesperson for APSARA National Authority, told Khmer Times, a Cambodian news outlet.


The turle statue before being fully excavated. 

Archaeologists did not provide an exact age of the statue, but Kosal told Khmer Times that the dried-up pond was also built in the 12th century as part of Bayon temple.

“While many believed there was nothing left to find, our archaeological research has uncovered evidence that Bayon temple actually boasted two ponds on its eastern side,” Kosal told the Phnom Penh Post.

Excavations of the dry pond also uncovered “thousands of pieces of ancient stone, some of which are recognised to be part of some big statues,” Kosal told Khmer Times. The project is ongoing.


The stone turtle found near an 800-year-old temple. 

The turtle was moved to the Preah Norodom Sihanouk-Angkor Museum in Siem Reap, police said.

The Bayon and Angkor Wat are both part of the Angkor Thom complex in Siem Reap. Cambodia is in southeast Asia, bordering Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.

[DaveLDaveL]

Boy, 13, finds 'holy grail' Lego octopus piece from sea spillage in 1997

Five million Lego pieces were lost during an infamous storm in 1997, with only 4,200 octopus pieces among them - nearly three decades on, a boy's hunt for one has finally paid off.


A rare Lego piece that fell into the sea in 1997 has been found by a 13-year-old boy in Cornwall.

Liutauras Cemolonskas had been hoping to find a "holy grail" plastic octopus for two years in his hunt for pieces of Lego that famously fell into the sea in 1997 when a cargo ship encountered a storm.

Among the Lego pieces that fell into the sea were 352,000 pairs of flippers, 97,500 scuba tanks, and 92,400 swords - but octopuses are the most prized objects as only 4,200 were onboard.

Liutauras, who found it on a beach in Marazion, regularly goes down to the local beaches with his parents and has amassed 789 Lego pieces over the course of two years, as well as numerous fossils.


Liutauras Cemolonskas with his discovery.


"We've been looking for that octopus for two years, it's not easy to find," his father Vytautas Cemolonskas, 36, said. "We were not expecting to find it at all because it's very rare."

Beachcomber Tracey Williams is behind the Lego Lost At Sea project, which has spent years finding the plastic pieces since they spilled into the ocean. She said she found one octopus in 1997 and didn't recover another one for 18 years. "I think there's something quite magical about the octopuses," she said. "They're often seen as the holy grail of finds from that shipping container."


In what Ms Williams calls a "quite exciting" development, a second Lego octopus was found just two days after Liutauras's discovery, this time in Porthleven.

"I think that's because we had a very high spring tide coupled with strong onshore winds and when the two collide, the waves eat into the dunes that then release a lot of the plastic that has washed up," she explained.
Ms Williams has been working on research related to the cargo spill and wrote a book, called Adrift: The Curious Tale of The Lego Lost At Sea.

"I'm recording where it all washes up so we're working on a map that will form part of a scientific paper to show how far plastic from a cargo spill drifts and what happens to it over time," she said.

"What we'd like to find out is whether those containers still exist or whether they've long since rusted away."
She added: "I mean, it's intriguing to know what's happened to all the rest of the Lego that we've never seen.
"There are so many cargoes spilled every year, but you very rarely hear what happens to the goods inside and what we know from the Lego story is that 27-year-old plastic that was inside that shipping container is still being found."

[Fatima99]

Analysis Strongly Supports Turmeric Supplementation to Improve Arthritis and Osteopenia



In a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials, curcumin, the active ingredient in turmeric, was found to improve mobility and stiffness in those suffering from osteopenia and osteoarthritis.

Curcumin is simply one of the most incredible natural therapeutic compounds known in foods and has been investigated for its effects on everything from cancer to autoimmune disorders.

As strange as it might seem, this tuber may also be beneficial for preventing age-related degeneration in bone tissue and joints through the stimulation of osteoblast formation and activity, and the inhibition of osteoclasts.

Osteoblasts and osteoclasts are both bone tissue cells, but if the former outpace the latter, bone degeneration can occur. Curcumin also has other effects on bone tissue.

While some studies have shown robust effects of curcumin supplementation on bone health, others have been far less conclusive. A team of Iranian scientists led by Mohammed Bideshki at Tabriz University of Medical Sciences ran an umbrella analysis of meta-analyses of randomized-controlled studies on the topic to hopefully provide a clearer picture.

Over one-half of older women have osteopenia and nearly 37% of U.S. adults have osteoarthritis, making easy-to-take, natural compounds urgently needed to address the phenomenon.

“The results strongly support curcuminoid supplementation in relieving pain, improving joint mobility and stiffness, and shortening medication usage of [osteoarthritis] patients,” the authors conclude.

Curcumin is actually poorly absorbed into the body when consumed through food.

Chris Kresser, MD, from the California Institute of Functional Medicine, wrote recently on the topic that supplement companies have been trying to develop a form of curcumin that is more readily taken up in the GI tract for years.

One formula called NovaSol has been shown to be 185 times more absorbable than curcumin in food, and it is the formula he recommends to his patients as a practicing clinician.

While it’s important to seek proper medical advice before taking anything in high doses, some studies have shown that humans can tolerate as many as 8 grams (8,000 mg) of curcumin per day without issue, which is far above the levels commonly seen in commercial supplements.

While it’s no guarantee that curcumin supplementation will improve outcomes in osteopenia and osteoarthritis, it has powerful anti-inflammatory effects that may alleviate the pain associated with these conditions.

[lush]

Chinese Scientists Create World’s First ‘AI Child’
020724*

A group of Chinese scientists claims to have created the world’s first ‘AI child’, an entity displaying behavior and capabilities similar to those of a three- or four-year-old human child.

Named Tong Tong or ‘Little Girl’, the world’s first AI child is considered a massive step in the direction of AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). Unveiled at the Frontiers of General Artificial Intelligence Technology Exhibition, the innovative AI model is reportedly capable of autonomous learning and may display a level of emotional engagement that has not been seen in AI development until now. According to her creators at the Beijing Institute for General Artificial Intelligence (BIGAI), Tong Tong continually improves her skills and knowledge through interaction with humans and exploration.



“Tong Tong possesses a mind and strives to understand the common sense taught by humans,” a promotional video shown during the exhibition stated. “She discerns right from wrong, expresses her attitudes in various situations, and has the power to shape the future.”

During last month’s Beijing Exhibition, visitors could interact with Little Girl and observe her behavior based on her programming. For example, when programmed to prefer her surroundings tidy, the virtual avatar would fix a crooked photo on the wall, and even bring a stool to climb on to reach the frame if it was too high. If someone spilled milk during the simulation, she would bring a rag to clean it up.

However, one of the main things that set Tong Tong apart from other AI creations is that he has the power to independently assign tasks to herself based on her own values and ideals. Her creators claim that she is capable of autonomous learning and “has her own joy, anger, and sorrow”.

Little Girl can interact with people through facial expressions, gestures, and conversation. She is capable of identifying and communicating a variety of feelings like happiness, anger, and sadness, as well as reacting appropriately to others’ emotional states. Although she currently has the abilities and behavior of a three or four-year-old child, Tong Tong is evolving and improving continually.

“To advance towards general artificial intelligence, we must create entities that can comprehend the real world and possess a wide range of skills,” BIGAI director Zhu Songchun said.

[PennySerenade]

The Baby-Sitters Club books are wildly popular — again — and adults are loving the nostalgia



Nostalgia for the 1990s is having a moment right now, if wide-legged jeans, Lisa Frank's Crocs collaboration and the original Gap fragrances selling for hundreds of dollars on eBay are any indication.

But when the graphic novel remake of Ann M. Martin's book Claudia and the Bad Joke was the best-selling kids book in Canada earlier this month, it was time for bookworm elder millennials and gen-Xers to feel their hearts flutter with nostalgia. The original, part of the wildly popular The Baby-Sitters Club series, was published in 1988.

It's not a one-off. As Scholastic points out, all of the graphic novel adaptations of the original books have been on best-seller lists.

The novels have taken off with a new generation of readers, which experts have noted steers the popular comic-style genre to a more female audience. Meanwhile, fans of the original series, which first started publishing in 1986 and chronicled the lives of a fictional group of 12-year-old babysitters, get to experience the books all over again.

Superfans like 41-year-old Erika Dole of Ottawa never stopped.



Dole told CBC News she read the books as a kid and then starting collecting them again when she graduated university in 2005.

"I was feeling that kind of nostalgia for being young, and needed something that was comforting. So I thought, 'You know what? I'm going to complete my collection,'" she said.

The books follow the adventures of a group of middle-school girls living in fictional Stoneybrook, Conn., who start a baby-sitting club. Each book typically follows one of the characters at a time, who each have their own backstories (and inspire fan favourites — creative Claudia Kishi is often a front-runner).

Amid baby-sitting adventures, the characters face typical teen issues ranging from crushes and bullies to divorced parents, but the books also tackle more serious topics like eating disorders, death and racism.

Dole has spent the last few decades collecting 231 of the original books (including the entire original series), scouring second-hand shops, garage sales and used book stores in and around Ottawa to add to the 30 or so titles she'd kept from her childhood. She just added the final missing piece two months ago — from a spin-off called The California Diaries — after snagging a copy from Value Village.

Now, Dole says she hopes that someday her four-year-old daughter might be interested in reading them. But she's happy to turn to her collection of books herself for a "quick comfort" when needed.

"I'm going to keep them forever," she said with a laugh.

It's difficult to describe the hold Martin's books had on a generation of young readers in the 1980s and '90s. It's considered one of the most successful children's book series in publishing history, according to Scholastic, the publisher, and was the first children's book series to appear on the USA Today bestseller list.

"Just about every 8- to 13-year-old American girl alive are rabid fans," the New York Times wrote in 1989.

At the time, the newspaper noted the books were "the most successful paperback juvenile series in the country." There were more than 11 million copies of the 21 titles published so far in print, the paper noted. In just one week, nine titles were among the top 20 list put out by B. Dalton, a subsidiary of Barnes & Noble.

''I would never tire of them,'' Nicole Zajack, age 13, said in the 1989 article. ''Never. Never. Never.''



In all, there were about 250 titles published in the entire series, which also included super-specials, mysteries, super-mysteries and a few other spin-offs. There was also the Baby-Sitters Little Sister companion series for younger readers, which had 122 books.

There was a fan club. There was merch (and you can bid on some of it on eBay, like a $430 original Jessi doll from 1993). There was a 1990 television adaption, a 1995 movie, and later, a 2020 Netflix series. Bookseller Indigo sells "retro sets" of the original books, a term *cough* some original readers might find offensive.



Much like the Goosebumps series, The Baby-Sitters Club was one of the first to target girls aged nine to 12, Julie Rak, a professor in the English and Film Studies department and the University of Alberta who researches literature and publishing, told CBC News.

Some of its success likely lies in the fact that the heroines had agency — they started their own business and relied on each other to solve problems, Rak said. And then there was the format of the books themselves, which were plentiful and formulaic.

"You knew what you were getting, but that has its own comforts," she said.

In 2006, a year after Scholastic launched its graphic novel imprint Graphix, founder David Saylor took a gamble and published the first Baby-Sitters Club graphic novel. At the time, there was some pushback from teachers and parents about graphic novels not really being considered books, Saylor told Publishers Weekly in March.

So, he selected a book parents and teachers grew up reading themselves, he said, and the gamble paid off. There are currently 15 of the graphic novels in print and, as Scholastic points out, all of them have been on best-seller lists. There are also graphic adaptations of seven of the Little Sister books.



The graphic adaptations were a very smart move, Rak said, noting that even though graphic novels are hugely popular, they are more often steered to male readers.

"Graphic novels don't have to do that, and so they can appeal to female readers, as well as boys who don't want to read about super heroes, of course."

Ellie Berger, the president of Scholastic Trade, told CBC News in an email statement that the books are classics that still resonate with kids and adults around the world thanks to universal themes of friendship, family, empowerment and entrepreneurialism.

"Today the popularity of the series is as strong as ever, with kids devouring the bestselling Baby-sitters Club graphic novel adaptations," Berger said in the statement, adding that more graphic novels are "coming soon."


Claudia and the Bad Joke is a Baby-Sitters Club graphic novel based on the book by Ann M. Martin. It was adapted and illustrated by Arley Nopra, left.

Ariella Borsuk, 39, of Ottawa, told CBC News she started reading the books when she was in Grade 3, and probably read them all at least 30 times — sneaking in books at recess, in the bath, and before bed. Now, she reads the graphic novels with her children, who are ages seven and nine.

"It's so fun to share these books with my kids, and honestly, these books had a huge impact on me," Borsuk said.

"I became fascinated with ASL because of Jessi's Secret Language and studied it in university. Medicine and the human body have been special interests of mine that started with Stacey and learning about diabetes. I took art history classes because of Claudia."



There's a "built-in echo audience" with a younger generation of fans now, said Duncan Stewart, a consumer-forecasting analyst for Deloitte who lives in Toronto and specializes in media and technology, including book publishing.

Assume someone born between 1980 and 1990 had their first kids sometime in between 2010 and 2015 or so, he explained. They probably have fond memories of the series.

"Now they're sitting with with their daughters and reading them? Makes sense to me," Stewart said.

As for Dole, the collector in Ottawa, her next goal is to nab one of the sought-after original covers. Artist Hodges Soileau was commissioned to create oil paintings for the covers in the 1980s, and most of them have already been sold to avid fans.

On his Instagram account, Soileau recently posted that he just sold another and only has a few left. The comments are full of fans clamouring for the remaining few.

"I have tried," Dole said with a sigh.


An Instagram post by artist Hodges Soileau, who painted the original covers to the Baby-Sitters Club series.

[midgemental]

Hand holding...
I’m a hand model in NYC — I’m earning $30K a year just holding things on camera

She’s top of her field, hands down.

New York beauty Alexandra Berrocal is as hardworking as any other model in the Big Apple — except that a day on the job doesn’t require much heavy lifting for the Brooklyn resident, who earns $30,000 a year simply by showing off her hands.



“It’s a very niche industry,” the 37-year-old told The Post. “There’s not that many people that know it’s even a real thing.”

“A lot of times, I’ll tell my friends like what I did for a gig and they’re, like, ‘What? You got paid to pour coffee into a cup or, like, squeeze product into your hands and rub it around like that?'” she added.

Berrocal started modeling around 2019, meting out her mitts to brands like YSL, Microsoft, Brandon Blackwood, Macy’s, Zales, Shake Shack, Kiss Nails and Serena Williams Jewelry, landing these gigs by finding “parts modeling agencies” to represent her.

“I submitted [my portfolio], and then my agent got back to me in, like, 10 minutes, and I was, like, wow, that’s only the favor of the Lord right there,” Berrocal said.

Although she earns $30,000 a year, Berrocal has a full-time job, too — ironically enough, in the footwear design industry.

“A lot of times, I’ll tell my friends, like, what I did for a gig and they’re, like, ‘What? You got paid to pour coffee into a cup or, like, squeeze product into your hands and rub it around like that?'” Berrocal said.

Berrocal’s gigs aren’t consistent, but she doesn’t bite the hand that feeds her: She’s made anywhere from $750 for a five-hour shoot to $1,200 for a 40-minute shoot.

“One month can be two to three times, and then another month could be, like, 10 times,” she added. “You never know.”

In the four years she’s been passing her palms around, Berrocal said she learned that brands prefer even skin complexions, slender fingers, nice nail beds and clear skin without tattoos or scars — unless the company is willing to cover it with makeup.

https://nypost.com/2024/04/26/lifestyle ... on-camera/

[goldie0608]

Young Cop Reunites with Retired Officer Who Found Him Abandoned as a Baby Nearly 25 Years Ago

“Thank you for everything you did for me,” Officer Hegedus-Stewart told now-retired Indiana police officer Gene Eyster



A young Indiana police officer has recently reunited with a retired cop who came to his rescue nearly 25 years ago.

Gene Eyster, who retired in 2019, was working as a lieutenant for the South Bend Police Department when he and other officers were called to the Park Jefferson Apartments on Dec. 22, 2000.

The SBPD said a man living in the building called police after hearing the sound of a baby crying and stumbling upon a box with an infant inside “wrapped in blankets and a flannel shirt.”

The child, who was just two days old, was transported to a local hospital, where he was cared for by labor and delivery nurses.

Eyster helped spread the word about the child, whom he dubbed “Baby Jesus” since he was found “so close to Christmas” — and even bought him a teddy bear for comfort.

Eventually, the child’s parents were found, and the boy’s mother “faced a neglect charge. Meanwhile, the baby was adopted by a new family and started life anew.

Coincidentally, the once-abandoned baby eventually became a police officer himself — and worked for the same police department that came to his rescue nearly 25 years prior.

And in March 2024, Eyster got a chance to meet that man: Officer Matthew Hegedus-Stewart.

“You’re a little bit bigger now,” Eyster joked during the meeting.

The following week, Eyster and Hegedus-Stewart met face-to-face for the first time since Hegedus-Stewart was a baby. They spent time reconnecting and looking at old documents and photos from the day Baby Jesus was found.

“Thank you for everything you did for me,” Hegedus-Stewart told Eyster.

Now, Eyster and Hegedus-Stewart are sharing their story with Today, CBS Evening News, Fox News and more.

Hegedus-Stewart is also a father to 14-month-old Aspen, whom he shares with his wife Jillian. Adding another sweet layer to the story, the family said Aspen was born on the same day Hegedus-Stewart was adopted, perToday.

“There are so many coincidences,” Eyster told the outlet. “I mean, Matt completes his field training and randomly gets assigned to the same beat of the apartment complex where he was found. What are the odds?”

[rflash8]

Woman says finding 50,000 bees behind walls in toddler's bedroom was 'right out of Stranger Things'

Ashley Class, from North Carolina, said her daughter, three, had told her of "monsters" in her bedroom - little did she know a bee colony had been growing right next to her for eight months.


Ashley Class said her daughter heard 'monsters' - little did she know her walls were being invaded by 50,000 bees. Pic: @classashley/TikTok


When her daughter first started complaining about "monsters" in her bedroom, Ashley Class didn't give it too much thought, thinking her three-year-old had perhaps been imaging things after watching Pixar's Monsters, Inc.

The toddler was even given a water bottle which she was told was "monster spray", Ms Class, a home designer from Charlotte, North Carolina, told the BBC.

But months later and upon seeing swarms of bees circling around the chimney, Ms Class called in pest control and found "what nightmares are made of" - a hive home to 50,000 honeybees.

Ms Class documented her ordeal on TikTok, posting updates on her astonishing situation which have gathered millions of views.

"When your daughter has been hearing 'monsters' in the walls," Ms Class described in her first clip. "Turns out it was 50,000 bees buzzing."

The clip showed a thermal camera lighting up "like Christmas" as it pointed towards the wall where the beehive was growing.

Ms Class said the beehive had taken eight months, with the honeycomb and honey produced by the industrious "colony" weighing 100 pounds (45.3kg).

It is believed the bees got in through the chimney and a hole in a clay pipe which used to warm the rooms of the house.

But that wasn't it. Several extractions later, a whole new hive was discovered, bringing the total amount of bees in Ms Class's farmhouse to 60,000, she said on TikTok.

Beekeeper Curtis Collins, who has been removing hives from homes for six years, told Good Morning America: "I believe that may be actually the first one that I've done that was floor to ceiling."



One of the clips posted by Ms Class was captioned saying the inside wall of her 100-year home "looks right out of Stranger Things".

Replying to one of the comments, the designer said: "The whole situation haunts me."

Ms Class said home insurance won't cover the costs of the damage and she told the BBC she believes the bees have resulted in her being around $20,000 (£16,000) out of pocket.

[Misstee]

Everyone Knows That: internet music mystery solved via 1986 adult movie

The search for song that has consumed thousands of Reddit users is over, with discovery that it was written for pornographic film



The boombox that appears on the artwork for Everyone Knows That. Illustration: Guardian Design; Getty Images/the Guardian



It’s a musical mystery that has been confounding the internet for years. But an ultra-catchy 80s-sounding song that seemingly no one could identify has finally been tracked down – in a 1986 adult movie.

A snippet of the song, known as Everyone Knows That – a low-quality, warped recording that nevertheless showed off the song’s huge pop appeal – was uploaded to YouTube in 2021 and shared on Reddit, where it sparked a hunt for the creator. Some 47,000 people became dedicated to the quest in a subreddit community. Theories abounded that the song was a lost demo by artists including Roxette and Savage Garden, or had been written for a forgotten advertisement. The Guardian, Rolling Stone and Radio 4’s Today programme were among those reporting on the search.

Reddit users began combing song publishing databases for Everyone Knows That and its other guessed-at title, Ulterior Motives, narrowing it down to a series of rights holders from the mid-1980s.

One user, south_pole_ball, found that one of the listed songwriters, Christopher Booth, had written work for pornographic films – and duly watched his oeuvre until he heard the song. “I went through each video and watched them, until I found Angels of Passion (1986),” they wrote. “To which I got to 1:07:31 and I found EKT [Everyone Knows That]”.

Booth seemed to corroborate the discovery, posting a picture of the original YouTube upload to Instagram and writing: “Well today, my mind has officially been blown:) WOW! #ulteriormotives #ekt”.

The full version of the song, credited to Booth and his brother Philip, can only be heard alongside the movie in question, accompanied by carnal sound effects, leading to hundreds of requests for an original version to be released. A re-edited, non-pornographic version without the sound effects – but still in low fidelity – has been created by admirers in the meantime.



Everyone Knows That: internet music mystery solved via 1986 adult movie

The search for song that has consumed thousands of Reddit users is over, with discovery that it was written for pornographic film
Ben Beaumont-Thomas
Mon 29 Apr 2024 06.55 EDT
Last modified on Mon 29 Apr 2024 06.56 EDT
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It’s a musical mystery that has been confounding the internet for years. But an ultra-catchy 80s-sounding song that seemingly no one could identify has finally been tracked down – in a 1986 adult movie.

A snippet of the song, known as Everyone Knows That – a low-quality, warped recording that nevertheless showed off the song’s huge pop appeal – was uploaded to YouTube in 2021 and shared on Reddit, where it sparked a hunt for the creator. Some 47,000 people became dedicated to the quest in a subreddit community. Theories abounded that the song was a lost demo by artists including Roxette and Savage Garden, or had been written for a forgotten advertisement. The Guardian, Rolling Stone and Radio 4’s Today programme were among those reporting on the search.

Reddit users began combing song publishing databases for Everyone Knows That and its other guessed-at title, Ulterior Motives, narrowing it down to a series of rights holders from the mid-1980s.

One user, south_pole_ball, found that one of the listed songwriters, Christopher Booth, had written work for pornographic films – and duly watched his oeuvre until he heard the song. “I went through each video and watched them, until I found Angels of Passion (1986),” they wrote. “To which I got to 1:07:31 and I found EKT [Everyone Knows That]”.

Booth seemed to corroborate the discovery, posting a picture of the original YouTube upload to Instagram and writing: “Well today, my mind has officially been blown:) WOW! #ulteriormotives #ekt”.

The full version of the song, credited to Booth and his brother Philip, can only be heard alongside the movie in question, accompanied by carnal sound effects, leading to hundreds of requests for an original version to be released. A re-edited, non-pornographic version without the sound effects – but still in low fidelity – has been created by admirers in the meantime.

The Booth brothers have gone on to form a successful partnership in low-budget horror films and documentaries, with Christopher continuing to deploy his musical skills as a composer on their projects.

The song was part of a wider community known as “lostwave”, with members dedicated to identifying forgotten pieces of popular culture.

“We live in a time when knowledge is freely available to us and we can consume music without much restriction,” one of the moderators of the Everyone Knows That subreddit, Bas, told the Guardian of the appeal of lostwave. “Music that is lost in pre-internet times is likely very interesting to younger people, because it’s such a foreign thing to them, to not be able to simply look up the song.”

Swimming and spinning aquatic spiders use slick survival strategies

Some make nests inside seashells, others tote bubbles of air on their backs.


Of all the aquatic spiders, the diving bell spider is the only one known to survive almost entirely underwater, using bubbles of air it brings down from the surface.

Shrubbery, toolsheds, basements—these are places one might expect to find spiders. But what about the beach? Or in a stream? Some spiders make their homes near or, more rarely, in water: tucking into the base of kelp stalks, spinning watertight cocoons in ponds or lakes, hiding under pebbles at the seaside or creek bank.

“Spiders are surprisingly adaptable, which is one of the reasons they can inhabit this environment,” says Ximena Nelson, a behavioral biologist at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Finding aquatic or semiaquatic spiders is difficult work, Nelson says: She and a student have spent four years chasing a jumping spider known as Marpissa marina around the pebbly seaside beaches it likes, but too often, as soon as they manage to find one it disappears again under rocks. And sadly, some aquatic spiders may disappear altogether before they come to scientists’ attention, as their watery habitats shrivel due to climate change and other human activities.

What scientists do know is that dozens of described spider species spend at least some of their time in or near the water, and more are almost surely awaiting discovery, says Sarah Crews, an arachnologist at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. It also appears that spiders evolved aquatic preferences on several distinct occasions during the history of this arthropod order. Crews and colleagues surveyed spiders and reported in 2019 that 21 taxonomic families include semiaquatic species, suggesting that the evolutionary event occurred multiple independent times. Only a swashbuckling few—not even 0.3 percent of described spider species—are seashore spiders; many more have been found near fresh water, says Nelson.

It’s not clear what would induce successful land-dwelling critters to move to watery habitats. Spiders, as a group, probably evolved about 400 million years ago from chunkier creatures that had recently left the water. These arthropods lacked the skinny waist sported by modern spiders. Presumably, the spiders that later returned to a life aquatic were strongly drawn by something to eat there, or driven by unsafe conditions on land, says Geerat Vermeij, a paleobiologist and professor emeritus at the University of California, Davis — because water would have presented major survival challenges.

“Since they depend on air so much, they are severely limited in whether they can do anything at all when they are submerged, other than just toughing it out,” says Vermeij. Newly aquatic spiders would have had to compete with predators better adapted to watery conditions, such as crustaceans, with competition particularly fierce in the oceans, Vermeij says. And if water floods a spider’s air circulation system, it will die, so adaptations were obviously needed.

But spiders as a group already possess several water-friendly features, suggests Crews. They have waxy, water-repellent exteriors, often covered in hairs that conveniently trap air bubbles. Even having eight legs is helpful, says Nelson: Spiders can distribute their weight nicely while they skitter across a water surface or use their octet of appendages to row along.

Some spiders take their aquatic adaptations to the next level, though. Consider the diving bell spider, Argyroneta aquatica, an overachieving arachnid that is the only one known to do it all underwater: breathe, hunt, dine on insects and their larvae, and make spiderlings. Found in fresh water in Europe and parts of Asia, it spins a silken underwater canopy and brings air bubbles from the surface to its submerged home via its body hairs. When it goes out, it carries a smaller air bubble, like a little scuba tank, on its back.

Seashore spiders face particularly daunting conditions, says Nelson, who co-authored an article about adaptations of marine spiders for the 2024 Annual Review of Entomology. “There’s a splash zone,” she says. “It’s kind of a wild environment.” A spider might be baking in the hot sun one minute, drenched in chilly saltwater the next. Some spiders migrate up and down their beaches with the tides; Nelson speculates that they might monitor lunar cycles to anticipate when to move.

Other seashore spiders spin watertight nests where they hide out for hours while the tide is in. M. marina, for example, seeks seashells with nice, concave spaces in which to spin safe tents. Another spider, Desis marina, hides in holdfasts where bull kelp attaches to rocks, lining the holdfast’s interior with silk to create an air-filled pocket and staying submerged for as long as 19 days. D. marina emerges only when the tide is going out, to hunt for invertebrates like shrimp.


Spiders already possess some adaptations that help in the water, such as hairs that repel water and trap air around them (a). The diving bell spider Argyroneta aquatica uses these hairs to transport a large volume of air to its underwater canopy (b). Other spiders burrow under the sand and surround their nests with waterproof silken barriers to stay safe when the tide is high (c). Desis marina builds its own watertight silk nest in the holdfast where bull kelp attaches to rocks (d). Other spiders, such as Marpissa marina, build their waterproof nests inside old seashells (e).


A spider that’s even occasionally submerged in saltwater or eating briny seafood will also have to maintain proper internal salt levels. “Presumably, they will be able to concentrate the salt somehow and then poo it out,” Nelson says. Scientists don’t know how marine spiders pull this off. And at least one intertidal-zone spider, Desis formidabilis of South Africa’s cape, comfortably maintains an interior salt concentration much like the crustaceans it eats, according to a 1984 study. (Freshwater species also probably require adaptations because their insides must stay saltier than their surroundings or food, Vermeij speculates.)

When a spider hides out with a limited air supply for days or weeks at a time, oxygen levels also may become a critical issue. Intriguingly, researchers have identified gene variants within the oxygen-guzzling, energy-making mitochondria of aquatic spiders that may help them cope with low-oxygen environments. These changes mirror beneficial changes to mitochondrial genes in birds that live in high-altitude, low-oxygen environments.

In another study, researchers investigated the genes used in the silk glands of aquatic and land spiders. They found that water-spider silk seems to have a high proportion of the water-repelling amino acid pair glycine and valine—which might also be an adaptation, they suggest.

Creeping extinction

But all the adaptations in the world might not be enough to save some water spiders. Nelson’s M. marina, for example, seems to be very particular about the beaches it occupies. The pebbles must be just right, not too big or small. If sea level rise inundates M. marina’s beaches, it’s possible the spiders will have nowhere else to go, Nelson says. “So those spiders will be lost.”

Marco Isaia, an arachnologist at the University of Turin, Italy, investigated the wetland habitats of the diving bell spider and the fen raft spider, Dolomedes plantarius. As wetlands continue to disappear, the habitats available to each species will contract by more than 25 percent over a decade, and their ideal ranges will move northward, Isaia and colleagues predicted in a 2022 study. It would be difficult for the spiders to cross dry land for new wetlands, and north European winters might prove too cold anyway. “The loss and degradation of wetland habitats is expected to have serious impacts on their survival,” says Isaia, “and an increase in their extinction risk.”

Given these risks, some aquatic spiders might go the way of the dodo before science gets a handle on them. “I suspect in every rocky bed of beach or river, there are probably spiders that we just don’t know exist there,” says Nelson. “Because they’re hiding.”

Conservation Almost Always Provides Incredible Results, First-of-its-Kind Report Shows


CC Ecuador Megadiverso

In the only study of its kind ever attempted, one which poured over hundreds of papers examining the impact of conservation efforts, scientists from England have determined that conservation as a whole can and does work.

Looking at data from as far back as 1890, the researchers say they have produced the first-ever evidence that whatever declines are affecting nature globally, conservation work can reverse them.

For the study, the authors ran a meta-analysis including 186 different papers reporting on 665 different conservation trials that measured biodiversity over time and compared outcomes under conservation action with a suitable counterfactual of no action.

“We find that in two-thirds of cases, conservation either improved the state of biodiversity or at least slowed declines,” the authors write. “Specifically, we find that interventions targeted at species and ecosystems, such as invasive species control, habitat loss reduction and restoration, protected areas, and sustainable management, are highly effective and have large effect sizes.”

“This study provides the strongest evidence to date that not only does conservation improve the state of biodiversity and slow its decline, but when it works, it really works,” said Dr. Penny Langhammer, executive vice-president of environment charity Re:wild.

Speaking with the BBC, Dr. Langhammer critiques world news headlines regarding extinction rates, saying that they miss the forest for the trees, and can easily lead to people believing that humanity is failing nature.

Data was determined to either provide an absolute positive benefit, relative positive benefit, absolute negative impact, or a relative negative impact, and in all but 20% of the cases, some benefit was observed for whatever the targeted effort was attempting to prevent.

In the cases where a relative negative impact was measured, wherein a targeted conservation measure was worse than doing nothing, some still produced improvements, just less than was seen from doing nothing.

Even within the trials that showed absolute negative impact, such as the case with the Australian seahorse, there was a positive effect to be observed. The seahorse’s numbers declined after the creation of a marine protected area to ensure their habitat was safe, but this was because the populations of their natural predators grew larger owing to the protection, and thus ate more of the seahorses.

Many different kinds of trials were examined, such as pollution or invasive species control, habitat protection or restoration, the establishment of protected areas, and the sustainable management or use of these areas.

BBC reports that some of the exceptional successes included reducing deforestation in the Congo Rainforest by 74%.

In 2022, nearly the entire UN signed onto the Global Biodiversity Convention which aims to reverse the decline of natural ecosystems and wildlife globally. The convention estimated that a hefty sum of $200 billion would be needed every year to fund it, which the paper says is not being met.

The authors surmise that their examination of conservation literature shows that conservation should be funded to the maximum extent as it has an exceptional track record of success.

“Conservation actions are investments rather than payments—and, as our study demonstrates, they are typically investments that yield genuine, high-magnitude positive impacts,” they conclude.

Basingstoke Hospital Radio volunteers recognised at awards
Source: Basingstoke Gazette


Roger Scott and Paul Turner from HRB
Image: Basingstoke Hospital Radio

VOLUNTEERS at a radio station which broadcasts at Basingstoke hospital have been recognised at a national awards ceremony.

Roger Scott and Paul Turner, from Hospital Radio Basingstoke (HRB), received recognition for volunteering at the station for 10 and 20 years, respectively, at the National Hospital Radio Awards, which were held on Saturday, April 13.

HRB were also nominated in four categories at the event, including Best Station Promotion (Random Vinyl), Best Newcomer (Lena C.), Best Special Event (NHS74 Day), and Station of the Year.

The radio station walked away empty-handed, however, they were responsible for nominating the winner of the John Whitney Award, Richard Smith, for his outstanding contribution to hospital radio.

Scott Rawlings, chairman of HRB, said: "It was a great night and honour to be nominated for four awards."

"My biggest smile came from seeing two of our volunteers, Roger Scott and Paul Turner, be recognised for 10 and 20 years of volunteering at Hospital Radio Basingstoke. Thank you gents for the awesome work you do."


The HRB team at the awards ceremony
Image: Basingstoke Hospital Radio

HRB is a registered charity, broadcasting 24 hours a day to patients and staff at Basingstoke and North Hampshire Hospital through a free radio service installed at almost all beds within the hospital.

Scott added: "If anyone out there would like to find out about the volunteering opportunities at HRB then please get in touch by emailing pr@hrbasingstoke.co.uk."

"Or why not come along to our open day as part of volunteers week and Big Help Out Day on May 8, at our studios at Basingstoke hospital."

[Zbignieww]

Predator prowls through California town for a week — then ends up trapped inside shed



A normally very elusive predator was spotted prowling through a Southern California town for a week until it struck gold in the form of a makeshift turkey coop behind a private home, officials said.

Homeowners were shocked to find a mountain lion in the shed behind their house on Saturday, April 27, the city of Hesperia said on Facebook.

The city is about a 35-mile drive north from San Bernardino, a suburb of Los Angeles. It’s just north of both the Angeles and San Bernardino national forests.

A photo shows the mountain lion looking directly at the camera from inside the coop with nothing but a seemingly empty bag of scratch feed between them.

“Such a beautiful cat,” someone said in comments on the Facebook post. “(Although) had to be terrifying to see him up close.”

Police arrived first and locked the mountain lion in the shed until a wildlife biologist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife showed up, Kevin Howells told McClatchy News. Howells is a human-wildlife conflict biologist for the department’s inland deserts region south.

“In predator habitat you have to have your livestock secured,” he said. “It happens every day in the state of California ... if there is an attractant and it’s unsecured within that animal’s habitat range, they can and will exploit it. The mountain lion wouldn’t have gotten in if the door was locked. Securing livestock greatly reduces the chance of human-wildlife conflict.”

Howells initially determined it would be best to release the mountain lion and haze it away from the home so it could find its way back to its habitat under the safe cover of darkness. But the mountain lion was so afraid, officials couldn’t coax it from the coop, he said.

Because of a report that the mountain lion might be injured, Howells and his team decided to return in the morning to tranquilize it and have the department’s veterinarians assess it.

The 110- to 120-pound adult male was healthy, so officials tagged its ear, outfitted it with a GPS collar and released it in a nearby suitable habitat, Howells said.

Officials believe it’s likely the same mountain lion spotted prowling through town earlier in the week.

Hesperia officials warned residents about the mountain lion sightings in the southwest area of the city on April 22.

“While there is no cause for alarm, we urge everyone to exercise caution when outdoors, especially during dawn and dusk, when mountain lions are most active,” the city said on Facebook.

What to do if you see a mountain lion
Mountain lions are typically “calm, quiet and elusive,” according to the National Park Service. While attacks involving mountain lions are rare, they are possible.

“Even so, the potential for being killed or injured by a mountain lion is quite low compared to many other natural hazards,” the National Park Service said on its website. “There is a far greater risk, for example, of being killed in an automobile accident with a deer than of being attacked by a mountain lion.”

Officials said there are some things you can do to prevent a mountain lion encounter from becoming an attack.

Stay calm and back away slowly.

Face the lion and stand up straight.

Don’t approach a mountain lion, especially if it’s with kittens.

Don’t run. It could stimulate a mountain lion’s chase instincts.

Pick up small children so they don’t panic or run away.

Don’t bend over or crouch down.

Throw things at the mountain lion if it continues to move toward you.

If the mountain lion attacks, fight back using anything around you.

Report all sightings, encounters or attacks to local park rangers or law enforcement.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/predator-prowls-california-town-week-231917622.html

[johngriffen]

I sometimes get REALLY DEPRESSED reviewing the news these days.
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