CaaC (John)

Elaphrosaur: Rare dinosaur identified in Australia A fossil unearthed in Australia by a volunteer digger has been identified as a rare, toothless dinosaur that roamed the country 110 million years ago. The elaphrosaur, whose name means "light-footed lizard", was related to the Tyrannosaurus Rex and Velociraptor. The five-centimetre (two-inch) vertebrae fossil was discovered during a dig near Cape Otway in Victoria in 2015. It is the first elaphrosaur bone ever to be found in Australia. The fossil was discovered by volunteer Jessica Parker, who was taking part in an annual dig led by Melbourne Museum. At the time, it was thought to be from a flying reptile called a pterosaur. But when palaeontologists at Swinburne University in Melbourne studied the fossil further, they realised it was a delicately-built dinosaur. 'Crazy beast' lived among last of dinosaurs Boy, 10, spots museum dinosaur error "Elaphrosaurs had long necks, stumpy arms with small hands, and relatively lightly-built bodies," Dr Stephen Poropat said. The fossil indicated the animal was about two metres (6.5ft) long. However, other fossils previously found in Tanzania, China and Argentina show that they could reach up to six metres in length. Adult elaphrosaurs probably didn't eat much meat, Dr Poropat said. "As dinosaurs go, they were rather bizarre. The few known skulls of elaphrosaurs show that the youngsters had teeth, but that the adults lost their teeth and replaced them with a horny beak. We don't know if this is true for the [Australian] elaphrosaur yet - but we might find out if we ever discover a skull," he said. Cape Otway, where the fossil was located, is a rich area for discoveries. About a dozen animals and five dinosaur species have been identified there, according to ABC News. Those discovered include a plant-eating dinosaur found in 2018. You may also be interested in https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-52712005

Juventus could sell a host of players, including Bosnia midfielder Miralem Pjanic, 30, and Argentine striker Gonzalo Higuain, 32, this summer as part of a new policy of cutbacks designed to help the club cope with the financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic. (Daily Mail)

Devil-Dick Willie

Mars: Mudflows on Red Planet behave like 'boiling toothpaste' Scientists have made a surprising discovery about Mars by playing with muck in the laboratory. An international team of researchers wondered how volcanoes that spew mud instead of molten rock might look on the Red Planet compared with their counterparts here on Earth. In chamber experiments, simulated Martian mudflows were seen to behave a bit like boiling toothpaste. Under certain conditions, the fluid even began to bounce. The mucky gunge resembled a certain type of lava referred to as "pahoehoe", which is observed at Hawaii's famous Kīlauea volcano. The research results could now complicate some investigations at the Red Planet, believes study lead Dr Petr Brož from the Czech Academy of Sciences' Institute of Geophysics. "You'll look at some features [from space] and you won't know for sure whether they are the result of lava flows or mudflows. "Without a geologist on the ground to hit them with a hammer, it will be hard to tell," he told BBC News. For a long time, Dr Brož had a sceptical view about mud volcanoes on Mars. The phenomena are well known here on Earth, but he'd actually spent several years trying to disprove an interpretation that large numbers of conical forms on the Red Planet might also be the same thing. Eventually, he came around to the idea, and that led him to wonder how mud - if it really does spew from the ground on Mars - would behave in the extreme cold and low-pressure conditions that persist there. This took him to Dr Manish Patel and his team at the UK's Open University. They have a special chamber that can recreate the Martian environment. It's the kind of set-up in which equipment destined to go on a space agency rover would be tested. And although ordinarily every effort would be made to keep the chamber spotlessly clean, the researchers soon found themselves tipping experimental muddy fluids down a sandy slope. Under "Earth conditions", these muddy mixes behave as you would expect: they're smooth like gravy poured on to a dinner plate. But under "Martian conditions", the mud progresses via a series of ropy and jagged lobes. It all comes down to how the low pressure - 150 times less than the pressure of Earth's atmosphere - makes water rapidly evaporate, boil and ultimately freeze. "The skin on the fluid freezes, but this flow is thick enough that the inside remains fluid," explained Dr Patel. "So the skin will stop the flow for a bit, but then the momentum from the fluid inside breaks through at weak points in the skin, and the flow propagates forward. It's just like pahoehoe, except that's molten rock. But again, it's a cooling skin that forms before hot material bursts through." And although ordinarily every effort would be made to keep the chamber spotlessly clean, the researchers soon found themselves tipping experimental muddy fluids down a sandy slope. Under "Earth conditions", these muddy mixes behave as you would expect: they're smooth like gravy poured on to a dinner plate. But under "Martian conditions", the mud progresses via a series of ropy and jagged lobes. It all comes down to how the low pressure - 150 times less than the pressure of Earth's atmosphere - makes water rapidly evaporate, boil and ultimately freeze. "The skin on the fluid freezes, but this flow is thick enough that the inside remains fluid," explained Dr Patel. "So the skin will stop the flow for a bit, but then the momentum from the fluid inside breaks through at weak points in the skin, and the flow propagates forward. It's just like pahoehoe, except that's molten rock. But again, it's a cooling skin that forms before hot material bursts through." The team reports its initial experiments in a paper in the journal Nature Geoscience. Not captured in this publication are subsequent experiments in which the flows were repeated for a "hot day" on Mars. There are places where it can get as high as 20C for short periods. In this scenario, the mud boiled vigorously in the low pressure; "it was jumping over the surface as if levitating," said Dr Brož. The team's work should be a reminder to scientists that when they look at planetary bodies, physical processes can sometimes produce unexpected outcomes, he added. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52713131

Science & Environment The project seeks the 4D view of Earth's mantle Some of the most sophisticated models of the Earth's interior ever constructed will be produced in a new project led from Cardiff University. Researchers want to simulate the behaviour of the mantle. This solid rock layer, which resides between the planet's core and crust, moves very slowly over time - roughly at the speed that a fingernail grows. The scientists will investigate its complex pattern of upwellings and downwellings. The team hopes its new circulation models will provide fresh insights into how the mantle has influenced the Earth's surface over hundreds of millions of years. "In the same way that the study of DNA has given us a whole new framework to understand biology, evolution and even this coronavirus we now face - so I want to look to the interior of the Earth to better understand how our planet, our single and sole 'spaceship', really works," project leader Prof Huw Davies told BBC News. How Greenland scorched its underside When we discovered how the Earth really works Space view of Earth's magnetic rocks Everyone is now familiar with plate tectonics - the description of how the rigid outer shell of our planet (its lithosphere) moves and is recycled. Great strides have been made in developing this theory in the 50 years since it came to prominence. For example, early ideas suggested the plates simply rode convection cells in the mantle like groceries on a supermarket check-out belt. But we can now see that it's actually the weight of the ocean plates where they underthrust the continents that play the major role in driving this remarkable system. Cold, dense rock at plate margins pulls on everything behind as it sinks into the mantle. And like the slinky dog that's started its journey downstairs, it needs little encouragement to maintain the momentum. Nonetheless, what goes down is coming back up because the heat of the interior has to be managed and redistributed. The new project will focus on the where and how of the upwellings, mapping the different regions of temperature, density, and velocity. Its supercomputer simulations will be constrained by the state of the art knowledge in rock physics, chemistry and magnetism. Thanks to seismology, the study of how waves of energy from quakes move through the Earth, we have a very good picture of what the planet's interior looks like today. And the team's models, when they're run forwards and backwards, will have to reproduce this anchoring snapshot. The goal, says Prof Davies, is to get an accurate representation of behaviour back to about one billion years into the past. A key target is to understand the upwellings that ultimately result in "hotspots" at the Earth's surface - the places where there have been colossal outpourings of lava and gas through geologic history. "These are what we call the Large Igneous Provinces or LIPs," explained Prof Davies. "There hasn't been anything like this since the Columbia River flood basalts in North America just over 10 million years ago. So, they're rare. And thank goodness, because they can be absolutely catastrophic. "The Siberian Traps which cover a large part of West Siberia match up with the largest extinction on Earth. A lot of the great extinction events are linked to these LIPs." The £3m project is funded by the Natural Environment Research Council and will run for four years. Prof Davies' team has members from the universities of Bristol, Cambridge, Oxford, Leeds, Liverpool, Imperial College London, Royal Holloway University of London, and University College London - in addition to Cardiff. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52701935

Poor lad, the player must have heard the bang turned around but the young lad recovered quickly as if to say "What?

First wild white stork chick 'in centuries' hatches in the UK A wild white stork chick has hatched in the UK for the first time in what is believed to be hundreds of years. Three nests containing eggs were being monitored at the Knepp Estate in West Sussex. In one nest, five eggs were laid and the parents were seen incubating them before removing eggshell from the nest. The parents, which were thought to have attempted to breed last year, have been seen regurgitating food for their offspring. The project to breed wild white storks in the UK is a partnership of private landowners and conservation organisations. It aims to restore a population of at least 50 breeding pairs across the south of England by 2030. About 250 birds are being released in Sussex after a successful breeding programme at the Cotswold Wildlife Park near Burford, Oxfordshire. Sounds of the Middle Ages Lucy Groves, project officer for the White Stork Project, said: "After waiting 33 days for these eggs to hatch, it was extremely exciting to see signs that the first egg had hatched on 6 May. "The parents have been working hard and are doing a fantastic job, especially after their failed attempt last year." She said the nest would be inspected more closely over the next few days to determine how many of the five eggs had hatched successfully. Isabella Tree, the owner of the Knepp Estate, said she was looking forward to the storks "bill-clattering" on their nests. "It feels like a sound from the Middle Ages has come back to life." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-52675922

These creatures are masters of disguise — see if you can spot them camouflaged in these photos SLIDES - 1/33

Space Plane: Mysterious US military aircraft launches The US Air Force has successfully launched its Atlas V rocket, carrying an X-37B space plane for a secretive mission. The rocket launched on Sunday from Cape Canaveral, a day after bad weather halted plans for a Saturday launch. The aircraft, also known as an Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV), will deploy a satellite into orbit and also test power-beaming technology. It is the plane's sixth mission in space. The launch was dedicated to front line workers and those affected by the pandemic. A message including the words "America Strong" was written on the rocket's payload fairing. Mysterious US space plane returns US spaceplane 'spying on China' X-37B is a classified programme and very little is known about it. The Pentagon has revealed very few details about the drone's missions and capabilities in the past. "This X-37B mission will host more experiments than any other prior missions," Secretary of the Air Force Barbara Barrett said earlier this month. One of the experiments will test the effect of radiation on seeds and other materials. The X-37B programme started in 1999. The aircraft resembles a smaller version of the manned space shuttles that were retired by the US space programme in 2011. It can glide back down through the atmosphere to land on a runway, just as the shuttle did. Built by Boeing, the plane uses solar panels for power in orbit, measures over 29ft (9m) long, has a wingspan of nearly 15ft and a weight of 11,000lbs (4,989 kg). The first plane flew in April 2010 and returned after an eight-month mission. The most recent mission ended in October 2019, after 780 days in orbit, bringing the aircraft's time in space to more than seven years. The length of this mission is currently unclear. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52698133

Earth's Magnetic North Is Moving From Canada to Russia, And We May Finally Know Why Our planet wears its magnetic field like an oversized coat that just won't sit comfortably. All that sliding means the north magnetic pole is destined to move ever closer to Siberia's coastline over the coming decade. There's no conspiracy behind it - but the geological forces responsible have been something of a mystery. Now, we might be a little closer to understanding what's going on. Researchers from the University of Leeds in the UK and the Technical University of Denmark have analysed 20 years of satellite data, finding that a monolithic competition between two lobes of differing magnetic force near the core is likely to be behind the pole's wanderlust. When the precise position of Earth's magnetic north was located for the first time back in 1831, it was squarely in Canada's corner of the Arctic, on the Boothia Peninsula in the territory of Nunavut. Ever since fresh sets of measurements have recorded this spot drift north by an average of around 15 kilometres (about 9 miles) every year. Advanced technology means we can now keep a careful watch on the pole's location with unprecedented accuracy. Prior to the 1970s, the north magnetic pole's position was like a drunken stagger. Since then, it's had a mission, marching in a straight line, building speed. Since the 1990s, its movement has quadrupled in speed, to a current rate of between 50 and 60 kilometres (about 30 and 37 miles) a year. In late 2017, the pole's sprint brought it within 390 kilometres (240 miles) of the geographical north pole. On its current trajectory, we can expect it to be anywhere between 390 and 660 kilometres (240 and 410 miles) further along its journey in ten years, bringing it within a whisker of the northern limits of the East Siberian Sea. The rapid displacement is a concern for navigation systems that rely on pinpoint calculations of the pole's location, forcing the US National Geophysical Data Center to fast track its usual updates to the World Magnetic Model last year. What the world really needs is a solid idea of the physical mechanisms behind this displacement, allowing for accurate predictions on the planet's magnetic movements. So Earth scientists Philip Livermore and Matthew Bayliff from the University of Leeds in the UK and Christopher Finlay from the Technical University of Denmark reviewed 20 years of geomagnetic data from the ESA's Swarm mission. The pole's heading lines up neatly with two anomalies called negative magnetic fluxes, one deep beneath Canada, and the other below Siberia. "The importance of these two patches in determining the structure of the field close to the north magnetic pole has been well known for several centuries," the researchers note in their recently published report. These large lobes of magnetism grow and shrink with time, having a profound effect on the magnetic field we perceive on the surface. Between 1970 and 1999, changes to interactions between the flowing mantle and the planet's dense, spinning core caused the patch beneath Canada to elongate, reducing the corresponding magnetic field's strength to drop up top. "Now historically, the Canadian patch has been winning the war and that's why the pole has been centred over Canada," Livermore told BBC Radio 4's Today programme in a recent interview. "But in the last few decades, the Canadian patch has weakened and the Siberian patch has strengthened slightly, and that explains why the pole has suddenly accelerated away from its historical position." While this means we can expect the pole to continue racing for a little longer, it doesn't tell us precisely where it will stop, how long it will stop for, or when it might return. There is an incredible amount we don't know about the engine whirring away inside our planet's guts. Given that extensive geological records hint at significant fluctuations in its protective magnetic field, we really ought to know a lot more than we do. We're going to need more models like this if we're to have a hope of predicting just where our planet's poles will end up in the future. This research was published in Nature Geoscience. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/techandscience/earths-magnetic-north-is-moving-from-canada-to-russia-and-we-may-finally-know-why/ar-BB148dbk

Meet the baby orangutans learning to climb trees While much of the world is in lockdown, youngsters in one very unusual classroom are still having lessons. At a forest school in Borneo, baby orangutans learn tree-climbing skills from their human surrogate parents. The orphans spend 12 hours a day in the forest, preparing for a new life in the wild. The orangutans were filmed and photographed before coronavirus struck, for the TV series Primates, on BBC One. With human contact routinely kept to a minimum, life goes on much as before for the animals, says Dr Signe Preuschoft, leader of ape programmes for the charity Four Paws, which runs the rehabilitation centre in East Kalimantan. As a precaution, the staff now have temperature checks, wear facemasks and change into uniforms on site. The pandemic has disrupted many conservation programmes around the world but Dr Preuschoft says it also offers an opportunity to bring positive change. "There are great opportunities here to protect wildlife better from illegal wildlife trade and from (consumption of) bushmeat," she says. "It's very much about education." The young orphaned apes climb high into the treetops with their caregivers to help them acquire the skills they would have learned from their mothers in the wild. They would otherwise spend more time on the ground than is natural for a species that feeds, lives and sleeps in the canopies of trees. Baby orangutans have a huge advantage when it comes to climbing, as they can hold on "like an octopus", says Dr Preuschoft. "I think the orangutans were really completely thrilled when they realised that they could actually be in a canopy together with one of their moms," she adds. As soon as the rescued orangutans have moved out of quarantine, they spend long hours in the forest in as natural an environment as possible. They are taught essential forest survival skills in a large forested area between the cities of Balikpapan and Samarinda. The aim is to provide sanctuary to illegally captured or directly threatened orangutans, as well as to rehabilitate orphaned orangutans, with the goal of releasing them back into the wild. Only about 50,000 Bornean orangutans are left in the world, with numbers plummeting over the last 70 years. Loss of rainforest to oil palm plantations or coal mining leads orangutans into conflict with humans. Orphans are snatched from their dead mothers and are sold or held illegally as pets. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-52565566

@Stan @Dan

For the First Time Ever, You Can Watch the Summer Solstice at Stonehenge via Livestream Tourists can't experience next month's summer solstice at Stonehenge in person, but in 2020, more people will be able to view the event than ever before. As Matador Network reports, the English Heritage organization will live stream the spectacle for the first time in the ancient landmark's history. The first day of summer is a very important occasion at Stonehenge. When the Sun appears over the horizon on the solstice, it appears to line up perfectly with the massive stone structure. This has led some to believe that Stonehenge played an important role in druid solstice celebrations when it was erected between 3500 and 5000 years ago. Under normal circumstances, thousands of people make a pilgrimage to the site at the end of June to witness the event. This year, English Heritage, which manages the landmark, is asking people to stay home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The organization hopes to make up for this by streaming the solstice at Stonehenge live on social media. To watch the special sunrise live from home, head to English Heritage's Facebook page the morning of June 21 (or, if you're tuning in from the U.S., the evening of June 20). The sun rises at Stonehenge at approximately 4:52 a.m. local time, so check to see when that is in your area to watch the event live. The page will also stream sunset on Saturday, June 20, at 9:26 p.m. local time. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/for-the-first-time-ever-you-can-watch-the-summer-solstice-at-stonehenge-via-livestream/ar-BB14bdPu

The Sun, yuk.

Televised Darts & Golf might have changed a lot nowadays where you don't see players with a cigarette stuck in their gobs or a pint of lager in their hands but years ago that was the norm with the likes of Bristow downing a pint and puffing away on a cigarette. I had an argument with my brother-in-law years ago on how could he class darts as a sport on tv when they are smoking their lungs out and getting pissed drinking, I said you imagine a footballer in a penalty shootout, all sitting on chairs, smoking and drinking booze waiting for their turn for the penalty, then you could not class football as a sport.

And a load of people trying to get filmed so they can rush home at night, record the match then sit there watching the replays looking for themselves and then have orgasms thinking they are Holywood movie stars.

Scientists Have Discovered Huge Sabre-Tooth Anchovies From Prehistoric Times Anchovies. You know 'em. Real piscine pipsqueaks. People put 'em on pizza. Before they were a polarising flavour bomb, though, anchovies used to be a terror of the seas. As fossil records newly reveal, millions of years ago anchovies up to a metre long (3.3 feet) hunted the oceans with gnashing fangs and one single long, curving, sabre-like incisor in their top jaws. © Joschua Knüppe Fossils of two different species of predatory fish from the Eocene Epoch 55 million years ago have been identified as closely related to modern anchovies, which forage-feed rather than actively hunt for their prey. It's certainly a peculiar relationship - but the appearance of both of these long-extinct species, palaeontologists believe, can be linked to the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event that wiped out the non-avian dinosaurs 66 million years ago. The two fossils were found near Belgium and Pakistan. The former, named Clupeopsis straeleni, was first described in 1946 and came in at just under half a metre long. The latter was excavated more recently, in 1977, but had been tucked away in a museum collection. Clupeopsis straeleni. It wasn't until the team made a closer study that they realised it was a previously unknown species. It measured around one metre in length, and its wicked fangs inspired its new name - Monosmilus chureloides, after the Churel, the Urdu word for a shapeshifting, vampire-like demon with big fangs. Although the two ancient fish differ in size and several minor physical features, they were remarkably similar - not least because of that single giant tooth. The team, led by palaeontologists from the University of Michigan, made careful comparisons between the two and several modern fish and determined that the fossil finds belonged to a previously unknown clade of clupeiform fishes. That's the order of ray-finned fish that includes herrings and anchovies. And they could even be stem engraulidae - the anchovy family. But most clupeiformes, including anchovies, are planktivores. They don't have vicious teeth, or snapping jaws of the kind found on C. straeleni and M. chureloides. These indicate a predatory hunting style, with the single large tooth perhaps used to impale or trap their fishy prey. So what does this mean? Well, after the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction, many ecological niches ertr left empty. The life that remained went through a diversification boom, including a massive expansion of ray-finned fishes. During the Cretaceous, shark remains dominate the fish fossil record. In the early Paleogene, ray-finned fishes rose to the fore. But this would have been a highly competitive time, too; not every species was successful. Exactly how and why C. straeleni and M. chureloides then faded away is impossible to know, but it's likely they were out-competed by rival predators. It just goes to show that survival of the fittest doesn't always mean the most aggressive with the scariest teeth. Turns out your pizza topping had the best survival strategy all along. The research has been published in Royal Society Open Science. https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/scientists-have-discovered-huge-sabre-tooth-anchovies-from-prehistoric-times/ar-BB149yBC

Meet the güiña—a six-pound 'mystery cat' vulnerable to extinction Tiptoeing through scrubby woodlands and fern-rich rainforests in Chile and a sliver of Argentina is a tiny feline called the güiña. Half the size of a house cat, with a bottlebrush tail and a cartoon-cute face striped with black, the güiña holds the record for the smallest wildcat in the Americas. Its petite stature—just under six pounds—combined with its extreme shyness and scientific obscurity means most people don’t even know it exists. Until now. The güiña, named Pikumche, marks the 10,000th animal in National Geographic’s Photo Ark, a quest by photographer Joel Sartore to document every species living in zoos and wildlife sanctuaries around the world. Pikumche is a male northern güiña who was orphaned and raised by people. He was a sweetheart during his photoshoot, photographer Joel Sartore says, even rubbing against his legs. As with most of the planet's 33 small wildcat species, the güiña, whose spotted fur ranges in hue from silver to russet, is “very much a mystery cat. They live in the shadows,” Sartore says. (Read more about little-known small wildcats.) For Photo Ark, Sartore has immortalized all creatures great and small—from mussels and beetles to ostriches and elephants—in more than 50 countries. He won’t stop, he says, until he photographs every one of the 15,000 captive species. “Ten thousand is a big number—it represents a little bit of light in the tunnel of us finishing the project within 10 to 15 years,” says Sartore, who hopes his photographs will motivate the public to care about the extinction crisis before it’s too late. “I feel like people are paying attention now.” As with many members of the Photo Ark, the güiña, which comes in two subspecies, is considered vulnerable to extinction. That’s mostly because of the degradation of their 115,000 square-mile range, the smallest of any Latin American cat. The southern leopardus güiña, güiña, inhabits the dense, mossy forests of southern Chile and is smaller and darker than Leopardus guigna tigrillo, the northern güiña of central Chile’s matorral shrubland. For his milestone photo, Sartore travelled to what’s likely the only place on Earth that has captive güiñas: Fauna Andina, a licensed wildlife reserve and rehabilitation centre in south-central Chile. Here, founder Fernando Vidal Mugica looks after güiñas that were injured in the wild, sometimes releasing them back into the forest. Pikumche, a male northern güiña and the subject of Sartore’s portrait is a special case. Orphaned at 10 days old when a predator killed his mother, he was hand-reared at the centre. Now two-and-a-half years old, he’s so habituated to people that he can’t be reintroduced to the wild. After having such a difficult start in life, “he is a very confident cat,” Vidal Mugica said in a text message. His name honours the Pikumche, a pre-Columbian native culture in what is now northern Chile, he says. Sartore also filmed a video of Pikumche vocalizing, possibly the first güiña sounds ever recorded. The low repetitive noises are likely expressions of pleasure or excitement, according to Vidal Mugica’s observations, while the meow announces Pikumche’s presence to the seven other güiñas at Fauna Andina. “This cat is serving as the Rosetta Stone for the species,” Sartore says of Pikumche. That’s because the cat’s vocalizations add to scientists’ limited understanding of the animal; even its population numbers and basic biologies, such as mating and reproduction, remain enigmatic. (Learn about Sartore’s most memorable Photo Ark assignment.) Versatile hunters Güiñas is one of eight species of Latin American small wildcat and are most closely related to ocelots, a better-known species with a much bigger range—including parts of the southern United States. As generalists, güiñas eat pretty much anything they can get their claws on—from marsupials to insects to frogs to birds. They especially like rodents, which are abundant in the thick understory. Agile climbers, the cats readily scramble up tree trunks to pluck small mammals and birds from their cavities. (A recent study showed they also prey on baby birds inside nest boxes.) Güiñas also kill poultry if given a chance, and their reputation as henhouse raiders provokes farmers to kill them sometimes, says Jim Sanderson, who did his PhD research on güiñas in Chile in 1997. At the time, the species was “virtually unknown” to modern science, says Sanderson, now a program manager at Global Wildlife Conservation, a Texas-based nonprofit that works to protect rare wildlife. “We had a single photograph of one cat and specimens from 1919—the sum total of our knowledge,” he says. During his research in Chiloe, an island off the Chilean coast, Sanderson found that simply patching up holes in henhouse chicken wire prevented the cats from getting in—an example, he says, of how working closely with local people can help a threatened species. (See more Photo Ark species in peril.) Farmers should welcome güiñas, which are “incredibly harmless” to people, says Luke Hunter, executive director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Big Cats Program and author of the book Wild Cats of the World. One güiña can likely kill thousands of crop-raiding rodents a year. “They’re providing this undocumented benefit to anyone who has ever had a problem with rodents,” he says. Losing their land Retribution killings are less frequent these days, but güiñas still die as a result of attacks by free-ranging dogs, rodenticide poisoning, and car collisions. But the biggest threat by far, Sanderson says, is habitat loss and deforestation, particularly in central Chile. Widespread cutting of forests to make way for commercial tree plantations, vineyards, and livestock rangelands has marooned the cats—which are too shy around humans to venture into the open and move between forest patches—in isolated groups. “They depend on the native forest to exist,” says Vidal Mugica. “Protecting [it] is the main goal.” To that end, Constanza Napolitano, a National Geographic Explorer and ecologist at the University of Chile, in Santiago, is working to make the biodiverse Valdivian rainforest in central Chile safer for güiñas. In partnership with the government, she’s designing wildlife corridors so the animals can move between forest patches and are engaging with local companies to develop cat-friendly land-use policies. Napolitano is also conducting environmental education programs for local children to learn about their native cat. ‘Little emblem of the wild’ Both Hunter and Sanderson agree that the güiña’s addition to the Photo Ark will boost the cat’s image. Sanderson praised Sartore’s dedication to photographing so many small rare wildcats—from Iberian lynx to African golden cats. “He loves his cats,” Sanderson chuckles. “He waited for 10,000 to put the güiña on top.” Says Hunter, “it’s great that this [Photo Ark] project has brought such a significant profile to these little-appreciated species.” It’s ironic and sad, he adds, that so many people cherish their house cats yet know next to nothing about their untamed kin on every continent but Antarctica. “If you were fortunate enough to see this beautiful creature in the wild, you’d be thinking immediately of the parallels with your own pet cat,” he says. “It’s this little emblem of the wild.” https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/meet-the-güiña—a-six-pound-mystery-cat-vulnerable-to-extinction/ar-BB149qzn

I remember trying to hit a golf ball with a club years ago but like @Bluewolf I kept hitting turf or the ball and it moved about an inch, I gave up after about 5 minutes and just gave the club back to my mate, I am afraid it's one of the sports I don't like watching but would love to play it like tennis, lawn green bowling and a few other sports I can't think of. It's my brother-in-law that put me off watching golf and darts, go around for a visit and he would have the tv on watching them both, switching channels back and forward and kept talking about both non-stop during the visit, it did my head in.

I don't like watching golf on tv but I would love to play it, them pics look great.

Sorry to hear that @Spike, it does hit you for six when someone you know passes away, it's 2 years this May since the old dear downstairs passed away with cancer and we had known her for over 14 years, it's strange because a young couple have bought her flat below us and you see them in the back garden and they have changed things around, when we would see old Evelyne in the back garden she would be filling the birds hanging feeder baskets and water bowls and pottering around, watering her bushes and flowers and the wife would natter away to her with her head stuck out our kitchen window above. The young couple have rearranged the garden and the bird feeders and bowls are gone and the lawn has been replaced by gravel stoning and only a few bushes instead of flowers, looks kind of eerie when you see them in the back garden instead of old Evelyne.

Science & Environment Ozone layer: Concern grows over the threat from replacement chemicals Substances used for air conditioning in almost all new cars are building up in the environment and may pose a threat to human health, researchers say. These "ozone-friendly" chemicals have been introduced to replace products that were damaging the ozone layer. Now widely used across the industry, these alternatives do not break down in the environment. Scientists have now found increasing levels of these chemicals in Arctic ice samples dating back to the 1990s. 'Ozone hole vigilance still required' China confirmed as the source of the rise in CFCs 'Fastest growing' warming gases face a ban FULL REPORT

Sinkhole opens near the Pantheon, revealing 2,000-year-old Roman paving stones © Provided by Live Science Archaeological investigations following the opening of a sinkhole in Piazza della Rotonda in front of the Pantheon in Rome have unearthed the ancient pavement of the imperial era. A sinkhole unexpectedly opened up in front of the Pantheon in Rome last month, revealing imperial paving stones that were laid over a millennia ago, news sources report. The sinkhole, located in the Piazza della Rotonda, is almost 10 square feet (1 square meter) wide and just over 8 feet (2.5 m) deep. Inside the hole, archaeologists found seven ancient slabs made of travertine, a type of sedimentary rock. Luckily, no one was hurt when the sinkhole collapsed on the afternoon of April 27, because the normally crowded piazza was empty due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Sinkholes like this one, however, are becoming an increasingly common problem in Rome. The stones uncovered by the sinkhole were created around the same time that the Pantheon was built, from 27 B.C. to 25 B.C., according to Daniela Porro, Rome special superintendent. They were designed by Marcus Agrippa, a friend of Emperor Augustus, Porro told Italian news agency ANSA. However, the Pantheon and the piazza were completely rebuilt sometime between A.D. 118 and 128 by the emperor Hadrian, and the area was further modified at the beginning of the third century by the emperors Septimius Severus and Caracalla, according to Encyclopedia Britannica. This find is actually a rediscovery: The slabs were first found in the 1990s, when service lines were being laid in the piazza, according to ANSA. The new sinkhole swallowed about 40 sanpietrini, or cobblestones, which fell into a service tunnel holding cables and pipelines, according to Roma Today. Sinkholes, called "voragine" in Italian, are now fairly common in Rome. For most of the past 100 years or so, Rome typically experienced 30 voragini or other collapses every year; but that number began tripling starting in 2009, according to The Local, an Italian news outlet. For example, in 2018 the city counted a record-breaking 175 sinkholes, and 2019 brought 100 of these voragini, The Local reported. By comparison, Naples had 20 reported sinkholes in 2019. What causes these sinkholes? Ancient human-made cavities, including those from quarrying, tunnelling and constructing catacombs, have made the ground unstable, especially after heavy rainfall. "The most sensitive area is eastern Rome, where materials were quarried in ancient times," geologist Stefania Nisio, who is working on a project to map Rome's sinkholes, told Adnkronos. "The main cause of a sinkhole in the city is the presence of an underground cavity." In addition, much of Rome sits on soft, sandy soil that is easily eroded by water and shaken by the vibrations of cars and scooters, The Local reported. The city's leaders announced a multi-million-euro plan to fix its streets in 2018, but progress has been slow, according to The Local. Until these upgrades are made, sinkholes may continue to reveal ancient architecture and artefacts, such as these paving stones. "This is further evidence of Rome's inestimable archaeological riches," Porro told ANSA https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/offbeat/sinkhole-opens-near-the-pantheon-revealing-2000-year-old-roman-paving-stones/ar-BB143j8V