The Daily Drift

Welcome to the Expanded Friday Edition of  Carolina Naturally.

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~Mark Wahl

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Today in History

1457		The first book ever printed is published by a German astrologer named Faust. He is thrown in jail while trying to sell books in Paris. Authorities concluded that all the identical books meant Faust had dealt with the devil.
1559		Spanish explorer de Luna enters Pensacola Bay, Florida.
1605		The Popham expedition reaches the Sagadahoc River in present-day Maine and settles there.
1756		French commander Louis Montcalm takes Fort Oswego, New England, from the British.
1793		Republican troops in France lay siege to the city of Lyons.
1900		The European allies enter Beijing, relieving their besieged legations from the Chinese Boxers.
1917		The Chinese Parliament declares war on the Central Powers.
1942		Dwight D. Eisenhower is named the Anglo-American commander for Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa.
1945		Japan announces its unconditional surrender in World War II.
1947		Pakistan becomes an independent country.
1969		British troops arrived Northern Ireland in response to sectarian violence between Protestants and Roman catholics.
1973		The United States ends the "secret" bombing of Cambodia.
1987		Mark McGwire hits his 49th home run of the season, setting the major league home run record for a rookie.
1995		Shannon Faulker becomes the first female cadet in the long history of South Carolina’s state military college, The Citadel. Her presence was met with intense resistance, reportedly including death threats, and she left the school a week later.
2007		Four co-ordinated suicide bomb attacks in Yazidi towns near Mosul, Iraq, kill more than 400 people.
2010		First-ever Summer Youth Olympic Games open, in Singapore. Athletes must be 14–18 years old.

A Luxury Hair Salon inside a Restored Airstream Trailer

It’s a combination of elite hair styling and classic Americana. HairStream NYC is a hair and nail salon run by internationally famous stylists Ric Pipino and Gil Haziza. Together they and their colleagues serve discerning clients in a classic Airstream trailer converted into a top-end salon. This summer, they’re touring the Hamptons, offering haircuts and styling services ranging from $70 to $450.

Wind energy cost in US at an all-time low, averaging under 2.5¢/kWh

Wind energy cost in US at an all-time low, averaging under 2.5¢/kWh

Wind energy pricing is at an all-time low, according to a new report released by the U.S. Department of Energy and prepared by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab). The […]

Desmond Doss, The Pacifist Who Was Awarded the Medal of Honor

Desmond Doss was drafted into the US Army in 1942. He was a pacifist and so wouldn’t take up arms. He was also a Seventh-Day Adventist and so wouldn’t work on Saturdays. So he took up work as a combat medic, concluding that he could work on Saturdays because “christ healed on the Sabbath.”
PFC Doss served with the 77^th Infantry Division during the Battle of Okinawa in 1945. During that long battle, he repeatedly exposed himself to enemy fire to tend to fallen comrades and retrieve them from the battlefield. For this, he would be awarded the Medal of Honor. The citation for that commendation is remarkably long due to staggering scale of his badassery. This is merely a selection:

On 2 May, he exposed himself to heavy rifle and mortar fire in rescuing a wounded man 200 yards forward of the lines on the same escarpment; and 2 days later he treated 4 men who had been cut down while assaulting a strongly defended cave, advancing through a shower of grenades to within 8 yards of enemy forces in a cave's mouth, where he dressed his comrades' wounds before making 4 separate trips under fire to evacuate them to safety. On 5 May, he unhesitatingly braved enemy shelling and small arms fire to assist an artillery officer. He applied bandages, moved his patient to a spot that offered protection from small arms fire and, while artillery and mortar shells fell close by, painstakingly administered plasma. Later that day, when an American was severely wounded by fire from a cave, Pfc. Doss crawled to him where he had fallen 25 feet from the enemy position, rendered aid, and carried him 100 yards to safety while continually exposed to enemy fire. On 21 May, in a night attack on high ground near Shuri, he remained in exposed territory while the rest of his company took cover, fearlessly risking the chance that he would be mistaken for an infiltrating Japanese and giving aid to the injured until he was himself seriously wounded in the legs by the explosion of a grenade. Rather than call another aid man from cover, he cared for his own injuries and waited 5 hours before litter bearers reached him and started carrying him to cover. The trio was caught in an enemy tank attack and Pfc. Doss, seeing a more critically wounded man nearby, crawled off the litter; and directed the bearers to give their first attention to the other man. Awaiting the litter bearers' return, he was again struck, this time suffering a compound fracture of 1 arm.

A precise number remains unknown, but it’s estimated that Doss personally rescued 50 to 100 of his fellow soldiers from death.
Doss never fully recovered from the wounds he received on Okinawa. He went home, married, had children, and devoted the rest of his life to religious work. He died in 2006 at the age of 87. You can find his obituary here.

103-Year Old World War II Vet Still Works 5 Days a Week

Loren Wade of Winfield, Kansas retired when he was in his 60s. But he got bored, so he went to work at his local Walmart. That was in 1983. He's still there. Now at the age of 103, Wade works as a store greeter, as well as waters the plants and works a cash register. He has no plans to retire because he likes to stay busy. 

How ISIL Uses Children as Soldiers

How ISIL Uses Children as Soldiers

At this moment, there are more than 250,000 child soldiers fighting in wars around the world. ISIS is no stranger to using children directly in combat, as propaganda subjects, or as suicide bombers.

Elderly Alabama mayor attacked by former TV show co-host over extramarital tryst

Elderly Alabama mayor allegedly attacked by former TV show co-host over extramarital tryst

“Ain’t no doubt about it,” 75-year-old Talladega Mayor Larry Barton said. “If I hadn’t kicked him twice in the balls I’d be dead."

Intoxicated gentleman kicked door in after returning ‘home’ to wrong apartment

A "very drunk" man has kicked his way into the apartment next to his own in Darwin in Australia's Northern Territory, only to be confronted by the occupant who subdued him until police arrived, who found the intruder snoring happily.

NT Police Duty Superintendent Louise Jorgensen said the 28-year-old "very drunk" man had been out on the town in Darwin and had called it a night at about 3:15am on Sunday. He made his way to what he believed was his apartment in a large complex in the CBD area.
The man however had arrived at the apartment next to his own. "He tried to get inside and couldn't, so he knocked on the door. He got no response to that, so he kicked the door in," Superintendent Jorgensen said. She said the "startled resident" of that apartment managed to put on some clothes before confronting the intruder.
"A fight started ... and the occupant managed to subdue the man and pin him down," she said. "By the time the police arrived the intruder had fallen asleep and he was snoring." The man was taken into custody and spent the night at the police headquarters. He was later charged with criminal damage and has been bailed to appear in court on Tuesday.

Woman drowns in Dubai after father blocks rescue to save ‘honor’

Woman drowns in Dubai after father blocks rescue to save ‘honor’

"He told them that he prefers his daughter being dead than being touched by a strange man," said Lieutenant Colonel Ahmed Burqibah, deputy director of Dubai police's search and rescue department.

American Prisons Are So Horrible That Ireland Won’t Even Let A Terrorist Go There

Those of us on the left (and some on the libertarian right) in America spend a lot of time talking about the drug war and the prison industrial complex,...

American Prisons Are So Horrible That Ireland Won’t Even Let A Terrorist Go There

California cops say video of them insulting disabled woman during raid violated their privacy

by Jackie Salo

Three police officers in Santa Ana, California, have taken legal action in an attempt to block the use of surveillance video reportedly showing them snacking on marijuana-laced edibles and making derogatory comments about a disabled woman during a raid on a marijuana dispensary, the Orange County Register reported. The unidentified officers, along with their union, the Santa Ana Police Officers Association, filed a lawsuit last week to prevent the department's internal affairs investigators from using the video in their investigation of the May 26 raid of the Sky High Collective dispensary.
The footage reportedly shows the officers trying to disable all of the cameras in the Sky High Collective facility, after which some played darts and ate what was believed to be edible products containing marijuana. Another officer was captured in the video insulting a customer. "I was going to punch her in the f---ing nub," she said, the Huffington Post reported.
The woman referred to in the video by the female officer spoke to OC Weekly about her reaction to the video. "When I saw the video it almost made me cry," said Marla James, an amputee who uses a wheelchair. “She doesn’t know what it’s like to not have a leg. I still have phantom pains."
The police department has vowed to conduct a thorough investigation, the site reported.
A lawyer for Sky High Collective, Matthew Pappas, raised concerns about the implications of the officers' attempt to block having the video used as evidence in court. “It’s pretty pathetic for police to say if we don’t like something that it can’t be used as evidence,” Pappas told the Orange County Register.
But the officers argue the video violated their privacy. They also believe that Pappas and others have altered the footage.
“The attorney representing the drug dispensary intentionally has misrepresented what happened,” said Corey W. Glave, a Hermosa Beach, California, attorney representing the Santa Ana Police Officers Association and the officers.
Pappas said he has released two versions of the video to Santa Ana police -- a "highlight reel" and a version that he said is the full, unedited footage.

More

Police hunt man who exposed himself to women and tried to have sex with one of their dog's

Police in Sydney, Australia, are hunting a man who tried to have sex with a dog after exposing himself to two women. The women, aged 20 and 23, were walking two dogs at about 1pm on Sunday when the man approached them on a bicycle.

He started speaking to them before assaulting one of the dogs, exposing himself to the women and then trying to commit bestiality on one of the animals, police said. The women ran from the scene and contacted police.
On Monday morning, officers from the Holroyd Local Area Command were patrolling the area when they spotted a man that matched the description given. The man fled and police chased him on foot, with helicopters and the dog squad joining the search, but the man could not be found.

Police have released images of a man they believe can assist them with their inquiries. He is described as of Indian or sub-continental appearance, unshaven and 180-190cm tall with a dark complexion and short, black hair. Anyone with information or who may recognise the man in the images or the bicycle is urged to contact police.

What a Sample of Your Hair Can Reveal About You

What a Sample of Your Hair Can Reveal About You

Forget all of those Hollywood hair-sample crime-busting tales and join Julian for a real-world look at what your locks can say about you. 

Traitors in our midst

Bacteria use toxins to turn our own bodies against us

Researchers who have revealed a highly efficient way that bacteria use toxins to interrupt the immune response say that until now, the trickery of these toxins has been underappreciated in […]

Man goes to hospital for leg pain ...

  ... finds out he only has half a brain

A perfectly healthy 44-year-old man complaining of minor leg weakness baffled doctors in France when a medical exam revealed that most of his brain was missing.

Did Shakespeare Inhale?

Did Shakespeare Inhale? Pipes from Garden Held Cannabis

Researchers examine 24 clay pipes recovered from the garden of Shakespeare's home in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, and from surrounding houses.

Doomed Mayan King Honored

Doomed Mayan King Honored in 1,600-Year-Old Tablet

A stone tablet with Mayan hieroglyphic inscription may shed light on the political upheavals that went along with the overthrow of the Tikal king.

After California wildfires, southern plants shift north

After California wildfires, southern plants shift north

As California wildfires burn tree canopies and forest floors, the plants that are replacing the burned understory are increasingly those found in more southern areas of the West, according to […]

Wild Underground Spaces

Must-See Planet Pics: Wild Underground Spaces

Some of the oddest sites on our planet are below the surface.

Dying Star's Final Farewell

Ghostly Orb is Dying Star's Final Farewell

A dying star has left behind a beautiful, if temporary, parting gift -- an expanding planetary nebula.

The Universe Is Dying

Universe Is Dying, Galactic Survey Shows

A study of more than 200,000 galaxies shows that the universe is producing half as much energy as it did 2 billion years ago and continues to fade.

The Truth and Myth Behind Animal Trials in the Middle Ages

You’ve heard of villagers in Europe putting pigs or goats on trial in the Middle Ages. It turns out that a lot of those stories were made up out of whole cloth for one reason or another. Yet some are true, although the details are few. What were they thinking? Did people back then really think that livestock were capable of guilt or understood the proceedings of a trial? Ah, no. Beasts accused of murder were sometimes sentenced to death after a fact-finding trial. Others were prosecuted as a species, but that was often in ecclesiastical court.

Most complaints against smaller animals leveled for infestation or destruction of crops ended up in some sort of excommunication from the church, or official ecclesiastical denouncement. Evans explains that this was largely done as an effort to make people feel better about exterminating them. Since even weevils, slugs, rats, and such were considered God’s creatures, the devastation they inflicted was likely part of his plan, so to just destroy them would be to act against God’s will and creatures. Of course if they were tried in a church court, and excommunicated (or condemned in the case of animals and insects), that could mitigate guilt.

Atlas Obscura gets down to the details of animal trials, and why they were a thing in the Middle Ages.  

What Warming Means for 4 of Summer’s Worst Pests

What Warming Means for 4 of Summer’s Worst Pests

Climate change could mean more summer pests like mosquitoes and ticks across more parts of the country.

Council changed street lights because old lamps were interfering with glow worms having sex

Council bosses in Wales turned off traditional street lights because they were interfering with glow worms’ mating habits. The sodium illuminations were tempting away the male insects, which meant they were failing to copulate with the females. But since the lamps have been changed to LED ones, the males are no longer being lured away to the lights, and the population around Llandudno’s Great Orme has boomed.

The realisation that the sodium lamps were interrupting the mating patterns was made by amateur naturalist Jenni Cox, who noticed the problem on Marine Drive. She said: “I first discovered them in 2011 when I was just walking down Marine Drive. I reported my findings to the national glow worm survey and came back out to count them. I counted 300 females, although there didn’t seem to be many males finding them. Then eventually I noticed up to 50 males were congregating under the street lights and I wondered whether that was stopping them finding the females, so I reported it to the council’s biodiversity officer, Anne Butler.”
Many experts believe numbers of glow worms (lampyris noctiluca) are on the decline due to pesticides, loss of habitat and light pollution. Yet Jenni’s painstaking study, in which she counted males and females on the Orme every night through the mating season, is helping inform the bigger picture about their numbers and habits. She has counted as many as 700 females in a single night, 800 including males. Glow worm larvae live for around two years, which is the only time they feed. They eat insects, slugs and snails, injecting them with poison which decomposes the prey, then suck up the resulting broth, which helps to maintain the eco-system.

The light emitted by the females (bioluminescence) is caused by a chemical reaction within its tail. Females lay between 25-100 eggs and die soon after. Jenni added: “I just hope all this work I have put in does help glow worms on a bigger scale in the future. I’m happy that I have helped these here but if it helps on a bigger scale I would be really happy.” The council's Anne Butler said: "Jenni brought it to everyone's attention a few years ago. We did a few trials with different street lights and we had really good co-operation from the street lighting team."

Crowds flocked to cheer on sheep with knitted woolen jockeys race down high street

Crowds lined the pavement to watch the fourth annual Moffat Sheep Races on Sunday afternoon.
The sheep, with knitted woolen jockeys on their backs, raced down Moffat High Street in Dumfriesshire, Scotland.
The sheep were first inspected by official race starter Donald Gillespie before proceeding down the street.

YouTube link.

The sheep races celebrate Moffat’s sheep farming and centuries old woolen industry. All of the ewes were supplied by local farmers.

Dog that fell 650ft down cliff while chasing rock escaped with just a broken tail

A nine-year-old spaniel was rescued by volunteers after falling 650 feet (200m) down a cliff chasing a rock. The Brecon Mountain Rescue Team were called by Dyfed-Powys Police after Woody fell from the summit of Pen Y Fan in Wales on Saturday.

A small party of eight rescuers were tasked to the scene, allowing members of the public who had been trying to rescue Woody to retreat to safer ground. The crew treated the dog for suspected spinal and internal injuries and stretchered him off the hill.
He was then taken to Honddu Veterinary Centre in Brecon and discovered to have only a broken tail and some minor cuts and bruises. The incident happened when a member of the public threw a stone off the northeast face of the mountain and Woody jumped straight over the cliff edge and plummeted 200 or so metres down the steep face, to the horror of his owner from Abertillery.
Rescue leader David Grant said: “Woody was one of the best behaved casualties we have bought off the mountain. He was very well behaved, grateful, light to carry and didn’t complain once.” Mountain rescuers have asked people to be aware that throwing rocks from summits is very dangerous, not only for eager spaniels, but for humans walking or working below.

Bear climbed into truck before stealing window cleaner's lunch and drinking all his grape juice

A Georgia business owner was surprised when a black bear climbed into the window of his company truck recently.

Gilbert Simpson watched as the bear then drank all the grape juice stored in the vehicle.
She then proceeded to enter and exit the vehicle several times, Simpson said, delivering food to her cubs.
Unfortunately for Mr Simpson this was originally his lunch. Simpson said that no damage was done during the surprise foraging and that the bear left when the food and drink was gone.

Woman Loses Vision After Mosquito Bites

Woman Loses Vision After Mosquito Bites

A woman who caught chikungunya fever while vacationing in the Caribbean wound up losing some of the vision in her right eye permanently.

Animal Pictures