The Distract me from 2020s P&CE Thread Part Deux

Bowhead whales must be insufferable

A study undertaken east of Greenland found that bowheads had a new set of songs each season, which led to them being described as 'jazz singers of the deep'. Unlike humpback whale song (which is likened to classical music)

https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/marine-animals/bowhead-whale-guide

 

Some just perform on stage!

 

The pupfish hole got sloshed around by the earthquake, but they'll probably be OK

https://www.sfgate.com/california-p...nia-earthquake-death-valley-fish-19967889.php

 

Sharks older than trees. So surfers & swimmers - if one grabs your ankle, remember they got millions of years on you and are very good at this

Sharks Are 50 Million Years Older Than Trees—A Biologist Explains

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottt...-years-older-than-trees-a-biologist-explains/

 

Did a Soviet sub commander prevent WWIII?

 

They gotta figure out how to live longer than three years first.

CP's been bingeing the Discovery Channel.

 

Algo knows what I like.

Transporting a gemsbok

 

Behold the rare spade tooth whale washed ashore in NZ. It didn't make it.



https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2024/12/10/science/spade-toothed-whale-new-zealand-intl-hnk

 

Just being a "grammar nazi" here correcting two things in the article, given I used to live near where it was found:

1. The pic caption says: "after its was found washed ashore on a beach near Otago, New Zealand". It was actually found in Otago, not near Otago. If it were found near Otago, then it would have been found in Southland or Canterbury, given Otago is a province in New Zealand. In reality, it was found near Dunedin, the biggest city in Otago (and my former home).

2. The article reads: "When a spade-toothed whale washed up at the mouth of New Zealand’s Taiari River in July". It's the Taieri River, not Taiari River, which is in Otago, near Dunedin.

 

Cork kicks ass

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/how-c...d-to-seal-wine-bottles-could-save-the-planet/

 

As was the norm BITD, the brilliance of women was suppressed in a "man's world" In this case astronomer Cecilia Payne. 100 yrs ago she determined that the composition of stars is nearly all hydrogen & helium while the dudes of the time thought that the earth & sun were basically comprised of the same elements.

What are the stars made of?

The answer to this fundamental question of astrophysics was discovered in 1925 by Cecilia Payne and explained in her Ph.D. thesis. Payne showed how to decode the complicated spectra of starlight in order to learn the relative amounts of the chemical elements in the stars. In 1960 the distinguished astronomer Otto Struve referred to this work as “the most brilliant Ph.D. thesis ever written in astronomy.”

https://www.amnh.org/learn-teach/curriculum-collections/cosmic-horizons-book/cecilia-payne-profile

 

So many examples of this kind of thing.

 

Highlanders territory.

 

I've attended both Highlanders games and also Otago NPC games (back when they played at famed Carisbrook. In fact, I could see the Carisbrook scoreboard from my home at the last place I lived there).

 

I am so jealous. Forsythe-Barr is great technology wise but Carisbrook is like the candlestick park of NZ Rugby. Very quirky, gets cold easily but with loads of memoriboral events.

 

Such as the spinning beer cans of piss tossed in the air in the student section

- I remember a Sunday morning church service where the worship leader (a Fijian friend of mine) was praising God that she didn't get drenched by piss at the game on Saturday. She should have made a song out of it.

 

Come on! Don't make me hurl.

 

Rob Lowe on boxing Tom Cruise and the story behind The Outsiders photo

 

Womyns should be in the kitchen while her man does the real work.

“You have to be kidding”
The Scripps National Spelling Bee’s annual list of study words for third graders drew the ire of conservatives fuming over its embrace of the feminist variation for “women.”

The 2024-25 study list posted on school district websites includes the term “womyn” as an approved option for spelling “women” that third graders who want to compete in the national spelling competition can use, Fox News Digital reported.

 

I pity my brothers and sisters children and now grandchildren never to have seen the majestic sight of a night sky littered with stars as I did as a kid and teenager. Due to "light pollution" you nowadays only can see the few brightest of that once tapestry of stars.