Strange stories from around the world, some of which might be true...
- Humpback whales have been added to the list of animals that make and use tools after researchers off Alaska realised that the "bubble nets" the whales
create to constrain krill to a vertical column that the whale then rises through to eat are varied according to conditions. The whales change the number of rings blown,
the size of the bubbles and the spacing between them, and the depth at which they start creating the bubbles. ● A dead oarfish has been found in La Jolla Cove, off
the coast of California. The oarfish is a deep-sea creature that can grow up to 36' (11m) in length and this was just the 20th known specimen to be found
in the state since 1901. ● A Somali wild ass foal has been born at Knowsley Safari Park. There are thought to be only around 200 of the species left in the wild -
in the Ethiopian desert and the mountains of northeast Eritrea, so the birth is being considered a "huge boost" to conservation efforts. ● Prognosticating
Punxsutawney Phil might be Pennsylvania's most famous groundhog but another, dubbed Colonel Custard, has made a strong bid for fame. Two weeks ago he was discovered inside
a 'claw' arcade machine at the Meadows frozen custard shop in Hollidaysburg, an hour's drive from Phil's home, when someone using the claw to try to grab a prize realised
that they were being watched from inside the glass cabinet. It is unknown how the Colonel got into the building but he must have climbed up the prize chute to get into the
cabinet. Game wardens opened the cabinet to safely capture the Colonel before releasing him into a nearby field. Staff at the store are selling "Respect the
Groundhog" T-shirts and considering naming one of their frozen treats after him.
- Scientists analysing minerals in the layer of rocks separating the Cretaceous and Paleogene Periods, the K/Pg boundary, have discovered that the immense asteroid which
impacted Earth, creating the Chicxulub crater and wiping out the dinosaurs, originated in the outer part of the Solar System, due to its high ruthenium isotope levels.
They also confirmed that it was a carbonaceous chondrite meteor rather than a comet, and that the extinction was caused by the effects of the impact, and not by the
eruption of the Deccan Traps volcanoes in ancient India, as some had proposed. It is speculated that the asteroid may have originally been in a stable orbit until
perturbed by the outward movement of Jupiter in the early Solar System, which set it on an orbit through the inner Solar System and its eventual collision with the Earth.
● The European Space Agency's Juice probe has successfully completed the first of four slingshot manoeuvres on its way to Jupiter. The probe flew past the Moon and
the Earth, coming withing 435 miles (700km) of the lunar surface. It is now heading towards a slingshot around Venus in August 2025 then a further two around the Earth
before entering orbit around Jupiter then the gas giant's moon Ganymede.
- The AOC Archaeology Group has announced that work ahead of the construction of HMP Highland, a new prison in Inverness, Scotland, revealed evidence of a 2000-year-old
prehistoric settlement at the site, including 16 roundhouses with hearths, cooking pits and middens, enclosure ditches and shelters, as well as evidence of iron-working,
whetstones, pottery, flints and querns (hand mills). ● Restoration work in July, after earthquakes hit Turkey, uncovered a small clay tablet inscribed in cuneiform
script at the Tell Atchana site, formerly the gate of the ancient city of Alalakh. The tablet appears to be an invoice for a large amount of furniture, shedding light on
the economic structure of the Late Bronze Age society. ● Archaeologists who have used artificial intelligence (AI) to assist in the decoding of several 4,000-year-old
Babylonian cuneiform tablets have revealed that they contain predictions of lunar eclipses and impending disasters which the ancient Babylonians associated with them.
● Gustav Bruunsgaard, a 22-year-old archaeology student at Aarhus University in Denmark, has discovered a hoard of seven silver bracelets from the Viking Age while
using a metal detector in a field near Elsted. The bracelets together weigh over one pound (0.5kg). One has a design thought to have originated in Russia, three of the others in
Ireland. ● Repton in Derbyshire is a quiet idyllic English village, but new archaeological evidence suggests that it was the site of a significant massacre carried
out by the Viking Great Heathen Army under Ivar the Boneless, in 873 CE. ● The British government has placed an export ban on a single gold coin. The coin is notable
because it bears the name of Esunertos, a previously unknown King of Wessex contemporary with Julius Caesar. It is hoped that a British museum will buy it to exhibit.
● Divers off the Scottish coast, have found what is thought to be the wreck of HMS Hawke, sunk by a torpedo from a German U-boat in October 1914. The wreck
is said to be in "remarkable" condition. ● A 10-year-old schoolgirl called Tegan is being praised for having discovered dinosaur footprints while walking
on a south Welsh beach. The prints, which are up to 30" (75cm) apart are thought to have been left by a camelotia, a late Triassic period herbivore. ● As if the
mystery of how Stonehenge's bluestones were transported all the way from southwest Wales was not enough, new evidence suggests that the Altar Stone in the centre of
the ring originated in the far north of Scotland, some 430 miles (700km) away. ● Switzerland is offering 50,000 Swiss francs (£45,000; $58,700) for the best
idea of how to safely retrieve thousands of tonnes of munitions dumped in its lakes by the Swiss military last century, ranging from just 23' (7m) below the surface in Lake Neuchatel
to 720' (220m) in other lakes, including Lucerne, Brienz and Thun. Removal schemes will have to allow for the fact that much of the explosive is live because fuses were
often not removed, as well as the risk of soil and water contamination. ● A brown felt fedora hat worn by Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
has sold at auction for $630,000 (£487,000).
- Detroit District Court Judge Kenneth King has been temporarily removed from the bench after he ordered a 15-year-old girl to wear handcuffs and a prison uniform
because she fell asleep during a field trip to his court, telling her that he did not like her "attitude" and wanted to show her "how you are to conduct
yourself in a courtroom". [We can think of a much older man who repeatedly fell asleep during his own trial in NYC recently but was not sanctioned... -Ed]. ●
Lisa Jean Findley, 53, from Missouri, has been arrested and charged with mail fraud and aggravated identity theft for allegedly using several aliases to pose as different
staff at a fictitious private lender called Naussany Investments & Private Lending LLC (Naussany Investments), claiming that the late Lisa Marie Presley had borrowed
$3.8m (£3m) from them, pledging the late Elvis Presley's home Graceland as collateral, and that, as she had not repaid the loan, Naussany Investments demanded the
sale of Graceland to repay them. As part of her scheme she is accused of placing a fraudulent foreclosure notice in a Memphis newspaper, faking Lisa Marie's signature and
submitting false documents to a court after the Presley family sued Naussany Investments.
- One of the acknowledged big risks to the environment is the growth of datacentres, essentially superwarehouses full of computers that provide remote storage and
processing for cloud computing, where files are stored and processed remotely rather than on local desktop PCs, and artificial intelligence (AI) model training. In
Northern Virginia alone there are around 300 datacentres where, as well as the electricity to run the computers, water is used to cool them. Water usage in Fairfax,
Prince William, Loudon and Fauquier counties of Northern Virginia rose from 1.13 billion US gallons in 2019 to more than 1.85 billion gallons in 2023. Last year Microsoft
admitted that its datacentres across the US were using a third more water per year largely due to generative AI. In the UK Thames Water are considering charging datacentre
operators more during peak hours unless they find a way of cutting usage such as installing flow restrictors. ● A team of scientists, engineers and firefighters in
Cornwall are researching using a swarm of up to 30 autonomous drones to identify and extinguish wildfires before they spread. Smaller drones would be used
to identify fires and larger ones with a wingspan of 31' (9.5m) used to drop water on the flames.
IN BRIEF: One side of a pre-Hispanic pyramid near Lake Pátzcuaro in Mexico has collapsed after heavy rain following a heatwave. ● A nine-page
treatment for a proposed sequel to E.T. the Extraterrestrial written by the film's screenwriter Melissa Mathison shortly after the original release has revealed
that E.T.'s name was... 'Zrek'. It is thought that Steven Spielberg nixed the sequel. ● Stephen Cuddy, 59, who bought a 35'- (10m)-long vintage barge on eBay, has
had 30-40 tonnes of soil excavated from the grounds of a hotel he owns to recreate a Victorian canal lock in which to float it. The lock is functional, with pumps to raise
and lower the water level, but only 24" (61cm) longer than the barge, inside which he has installed a 29'- (8m)-long and presumably rather narrow swimming pool... ●
Scientists from the University of Bristol and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT UNiversity) in Australia are researching how kestrels seemingly hover in
oncoming winds to develop methods to help aircraft deal with turbulence and drones function in built-up cities. The birds were fitted with reflective stickers while being
fed then filmed in a wind tunnel.
CREAM TEAS: Scientists research some of the most important problems and questions facing humanity. A team from the Centre for Industrial Rheology which analyses,
among other things, the viscosity of materials, has carefully researched one of the most controversial questions, at least in the southwest of England. When making a cream
tea, do you put the cream on the scone first, then the jam on top of the cream (the 'Devon' method), or the jam first then the cream (the 'Cornish' method)? The team
found that cream is more viscous than jam, so it provides a "good rigid base" onto which the jam should be added. [Having grown up in Devon I fully concur... -Ed]
UPDATES: After at least two of the recent Banksy artworks that appeared across London, the rhinoceros and the elephants, were defaced and one, of a wolf, stolen,
London Zoo has removed the shutters onto which he painted a gorilla lifting a sheet to release a seal and birds, to keep the art safe while they decide how to
"properly preserve this moment in our history."
The class had been learning about the weather and given homework to make their own weather stations. Little Simon had made a rain guage and
Little Mary had made a small wind vane. "Now, let's see your weather station, Little Jennifer," the teacher said.
Little Jennifer held up a stone tied to the end of a string.
"That doesn't look like a weather station."
Little Jennifer smiled as only she could. "Oh yes it is, Miss! You hang it up outside and if it's moving, it's windy. If you can see its
shadow, it's sunny. If it's wet, it's raining. If you can't see it, it's foggy and if it's missing there's a hurricane!"
