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Today in History

1502   Christopher Columbus leaves Spain on his final trip to New World.  
1754   The first newspaper cartoon in America appears.  
1813   U.S. troops under William Henry Harrison take Fort Meigs from British and Canadian troops.
1864   Union General John Sedgwick is shot and killed by a Confederate sharpshooter during fighting at Spotsylvania. His last words are: "They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist–"  
1859   Threatened by the advancing French army, the Austrian army retreats across the River Sesia in Italy.  
1915   German and French forces fight the Battle of Artois.  
1926   Explorer Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett make the first flight over the North Pole.  
1936   Fascist Italy captures the city of Addis Abba, Ethiopia and annexes the country.  
1941   The German submarine U-110 is captured at sea along with its Enigma machine by the Royal Navy.  
1946   King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy abdicates his throne and is replaced by Umberto.  
1962   A laser beam is successfully bounced off the moon for the first time.  
1974   The House Judiciary Committee begins formal hearings on Nixon impeachment.

The One Percent’s Greed Is Literally Killing Our Children

As pundits express shock and dismay over unrest in cities across the U.S., a shocking new report sheds a whole new light on income inequality and its effects...

Shocking Report

Los Angeles Sues Major Bank For Fraudulent And Unlawful Behavior

It’s about time someone holds one of these banks accountable after all the harm they’ve already caused…

Read more 

Teen Girl Suspended For Hilariously Realistic Answers On Sex-Ed Quiz

The moronic adults who are responsible for so many failed “abstinence-only” sex education policies could do with a lesson from this girl.

Read more 

Texas High Schools See Spike In STDs

An outbreak of chlamydia, a sexually transmitted disease, has been reported at a small West Texas high school.

The Crane Independent School District sent a letter to parents of Crane High School students informing them that 20 cases of chlamydia had been confirmed at the school. The school has an enrollment of about 300 students.
But the spike in transmitted diseases is not isolated to the Crane Independent School District. According to the Dallas County Health and Human Services, in 2013,  numbers of primary and secondary syphilis diagnoses in Dallas County increased by 31% from 2012. In El Paso, a report done by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Wisconsin Population Health Institute shows that there are 600 new cases of chlamydia for every 100,000 people. Earlier this year, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 8 of the 11 states with the highest rates of chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis were in the South.
State health officials had notified the district of a significant number of chlamydia cases reported in Crane County and adjacent Upton County. Crane District officials plan meet with the school’s advisory committee of teachers, parents and school officials to discuss the situation Monday.
Chlamydia is curable, but if left untreated can cause permanent damage to women’s reproductive systems.

Fed Facing 10 Years For Embezzling $150k From VA Store For Strippers And Gambling Addiction

“Glenn Alan Bates stated he became addicted to the sexual encounters and he stole cash from the canteen to pay for this addiction.”

Read full story

Man suspected of sex crime on child steals plane, declares 'I'm a pedophile' over radio

Man suspected of sex crime on child steals plane, declares 'I'm a pedophile' over radio

Judge orders competency hearing for Ohio woman who accused employer of rape

“It’s insulting, it’s invasive, it’s upsetting, and I feel like I’m on trial.”

This Judge Is An Idiot

Greenlandic seal fur g-string

The indigenous people of East Greenland made this sort of underwear, known as naatsit, by sewing strips of seal pelt together using a thread of reindeer or whale sinew. The naatsit above, decorated with glass beads tied onto seal-skin fringe, was made for women and worn under seal-skin trousers. Explorer Captain C. Ryder acquired the item in the southeast Greenland settlement of Ammassalik during an expedition in 1892.
According to Peter Toft, the National Museum of Denmark's Greenlandic fur clothing expert, this beaded, furry thong was intended to be displayed not just during intimate moments, but in polite company. Inside the warm homes of the Greenlandic Inuit, a naatsit "was the only thing worn even when having guests or visiting the houses of other families," says Toft. "This shocked the Danish missionaries of the 18th and 19th century, who tried to convince the Inuit to wear European linen (longer) underwear indoors. This attempt was not very successful."

The Magician Who Astounded the World By Conjuring Spirits And Talking With Mummies

A century ago, Howard Thurston (1869-1936) introduced audiences to magic tricks that seem cliché today: He became famous by sawing women in half, making cards rise unassisted from their decks, pulling rabbits from audience member's coats, and levitating assistants far above the stage.
Before big names like David Blaine, or even Harry Houdini, Howard Thurston was the world's greatest magician. A new exhibit at the Morbid Anatomy Museum in Brooklyn sets the story straight with a look at Thurston's pioneering legacy and the otherworldly allure of his magic shows.

Take a look at the very first images of thunder

We all know the belly-shaking sound of lightning, but now scientists have visually captured its sound waves for the very first time.

by Michelle Starr

Everyone knows what lightning sounds like, but now for the first time, scientists at the Southwest Research Institute in Antonio, Texas have turned the accompanying thunderclap into an image.For many centuries, humanity believed that lightning was caused by the collision of clouds in the sky. In a way that's sort of true -- if you think of it as the collision of the elements inside clouds. When clouds are at a certain altitude, some of the water particles inside freeze. This leads to a mix of frozen ice crystals and a heavier mix of water and slushy ice called graupel.
These elements rub against each other in the wind, and the ice develops a positive charge while the graupel develops a negative charge. The lighter ice will then rise to the top of the cloud, and the heavier graupel will sink to the bottom, separating the positive and negative charges. When both positive and negative charges accumulate in sufficient amounts, they spark, causing lightning.
It is this lightning that causes the sound of thunder, a sort of sonic boom caused by the thermal expansion of plasma in the lightning channel. The increase in pressure and temperature causes the air around the lightning to expand at a rate faster than the speed of sound, causing a shockwave which extends about 10 metres (30 feet) around the lightning.
After that distance, it slows enough to become ordinary sound. In close proximity, thunder is as loud as standing in front of speakers at a rock concert, or standing within 60 metres (200 feet) of a jet engine during takeoff -- 120 decibels, loud enough to cause permanent hearing loss, while the shockwave can cause property damage.

On the left, a long-exposure photograph of the triggered lightning event shows downstrokes in green and return strokes in a more purple color. 

Each of these return strokes recorded a similar audio signature. Image Courtesy of University of Florida, Florida Institute of Technology, and Southwest Research Institute It is this incredible sound that researchers at the Southwest Research Institute in Antonio, Texas, have captured visually."Lightning strikes the Earth more than 4 million times a day, yet the physics behind this violent process remain poorly understood," said Dr Maher A. Dayeh, a research scientist in the SwRI Space Science and Engineering Division.
"While we understand the general mechanics of thunder generation, it's not particularly clear which physical processes of the lightning discharge contribute to the thunder we hear. A listener perceives thunder largely based upon the distance from lightning. From nearby, thunder has a sharp, cracking sound. From farther away, it has a longer-lasting, rumbling nature."
Dr Dayeh's team built a custom rig to artificially induce lightning and record its sound.
A small rocket trailing a grounded copper wire is launched into thunderclouds, creating a conductive channel for lightning to travel down. This allows the researchers to focus their instruments and perform repeat experiments.

 

Two separate triggered lightning events (top), with acoustically imaged profiles of the discharge channels.. 

An array of 15 microphones, each spaced one metre (3.3 feet) apart, was then placed 95 metres (about 310 feet) from the rocket launch pad. Post-signal processing and directional amplification of the data captured by the microphone array was then used to create a visual representation of the sound produced by the lightning traveling down the copper wire.Initially, the team thought the experiment had failed.
"The initial constructed images looked like a colorful piece of modern art that you could hang over your fireplace. But you couldn't see the detailed sound signature of lightning in the acoustic data," Dr Dayeh said.
However, at higher frequencies, the sound cleaned up, revealing a distinct thunder signature. Data such as this could assist in learning more about how lightning produces thunder, as well as how lightning discharges energy.

Family held hostage by sex-crazed grouse

A family from Singö in Roslagen, Sweden, have been told they can do nothing about a lovesick, aggressive grouse patrolling their property

A lovelorn wood grouse, or capercaillie, behaved so aggressively on Saturday evening that a family in Singö, on the Stockholm archipelago, were unable to leave their house. But, after alerting the Swedish police, they were told they were not allowed to deal with the angry bird.
According to Stockholm police spokesman, Albin Näverberg, "It's mating season for capercaillie and capercaillie cocks want to be king of the hill and will gladly fight with people. But it's a crazy situation when you can not go out because of a crazy capercaillie. They can't leave their house as the rooster sees man as an opponent, a challenger of its territory.

The consequences of approaching a grumpy capercaillie.

YouTube link.

"However, we cannot kill a healthy bird", Näverberg continued. "The police do not shoot crazy birds. The bird will of course move on eventually. It's just that time of the year when they are mad. In the spring, they can be quite dangerous and they even often attack vehicles. They are pretty big and it's not fun to meet a grumpy capercaillie."

Traffic brought to a standstill when 8-foot alligator became stuck under stopped car

At about 7pm on Sunday, Alana Goodwin of Cape Coral, Florida, found herself in an uncomfortable position. The alligator under her car was in an even more uncomfortable position. Goodwin was driving on US 41 in Fort Myers when she saw the alligator walk out in front of her.

Goodwin said she noticed the alligator ambling toward traffic. Trying to protect it from oncoming cars, she inched her car forward to form a barrier between the gator and the roadway. That's when the gator decided to get under her car and became wedged tightly underneath it. Goodwin said, "As I started to pull out onto the main road, he started to walk in the traffic lane so I moved up a little further.
"People kept passing by so I just stayed there until help could arrive." Lee County Domestic Animal Services arrived shortly thereafter. Two trappers were able to get the still frisky gator out from under Goodwin's car. After wrestling him to a ditch along the side of the road, workers were able to tape the alligator's mouth shut. Then they began the slow process of pulling the uncooperative alligator back to their truck.

YouTube link.

After a quick measurement of 8 feet, 1 inch, the alligator's tail was notched as part of routine procedure and it was lifted into officials' vehicle. Goodwin wasn't the least bit fazed by her brush with the reptile. "It wasn't scary. I'm a Florida native. I worked for the Sheriff's Office for 20 years so I know this is a regular happenstance. We've had plenty of people with gators under their cars. I knew the officer's would respond and everyone would be fine."

200 Angus beef cattle reportedly stolen and replaced with cheaper cows

Nearly 200 prized Angus beef cattle, worth $371,000, were stolen from a North Carolina farm between March and mid-April.
Investigators with the State Bureau of Investigation say that 114 cows and 75 calves were stolen from K-Farms in Alamance County. Agent Gerald Thomas believes a farm employee may have stolen them.
He said the cows are top breed Angus beef cows valued at $2,800 each and the calves at $700 apiece. The owner of the farm, Ronald Kirkpatrick, is in hospital and is unable to talk about the theft, but is offering a $10,000 reward for information and arrest of the person responsible, agent Thomas said.
Kirkpatrick said he counted the herd in early January and all were accounted for, but a recount on April 12 showed a discrepancy. The owner told sheriff's investigators he discovered approximately 30-40 cheaper grade cows in the field and believed the suspect was taking the good cattle and replacing some of them with cheaper cows so no one would notice.

Dog invaded rugby pitch to catch a rabbit

A little dog made a grand entrance during the first half at the premier club rugby match between Coastal and Inglewood at the Okato Domain in New Zealand on Saturday. Having already been threatened with a pair of size 10 boots earlier in the game, the unnamed canine looked to have disappeared through the hedge and out of trouble as the match progressed.

He wasn't gone for long though. A few lineouts and a couple of scrums later the hound was back with a score of its own - a rabbit. Although his entrance caused much hilarity in the crowd, some of the players were less impressed, including Coastal midfielder Thomas Watt who took it upon himself to rid the rugby of the two pests.
The cunning canine was not having none of that, however, as it gripped the furry fella tight between his teeth in defiance. Watt won the battle, though, getting the dog off the pitch but leaving the distressed rabbit on it. Then from out of the crowd came Taranaki flanker Berny Hall, a rural man who knew exactly how to remedy the situation.
With a quick turn of his wrists the rabbit was no more as it was tossed behind the grandstand. The battle might have been lost but the dog won the war, emerging five minutes later with the rabbit in its mouth before racing under a parked truck for a good feed. Inglewood won the match 29-28.

Giant hungry pig trapped terrified woman in car

A hungry pig trapped a terrified motorist in her car near Dunedin, New Zealand, in an attempted food raid. The ''big pig'', a kunekune cross, climbed halfway into the vehicle of a parked motorist at an intersection near Aramoana on Sunday afternoon, Dunedin City Council animal control officer Alister Wilden said.

''He was hungry and a person has stopped and they had some food and he's tried climbing into the car and trapped the person,'' Mr Wilden said. The woman, parked at an intersection, was freed thanks to the quick thinking of a passer-by.
''A passer-by has grabbed the hind legs of the pig and dragged him out of the car,'' he said. The pig then returned to his paddock, accompanied by the passer-by and without incident. The pig weighed ''probably 150kg'', Mr Wilden said. ''He was pretty big. It would have been quite traumatic for the woman involved.''
The incident was initially reported as a ''wild boar attacking people'' but this pig's tale was not as curly as was first thought. That report ''wasn't quite true'', Mr Wilden said. The owners of the tame yet hungry pig were not home but Mr Wilden had left a note, asking them to contact him.
There's a news video here.

Koala went for a night time wander through hospital

Overnight staff at a hospital in western Victoria, Australia, got a shock when a koala marched into the emergency department. The animal was "very casual, very relaxed" according Western District Health's chief executive Rohan Fitzgerald.

"He seemed to know exactly what he was doing," Mr Fitzgerald said."After about three minutes, at about 3:30am, he investigated sufficiently and made sure everything was in order and then decided to exit the building." The animal, nicknamed Blinky Bill, was unable to go into clinical areas which were "secure".
At one point the koala approaches a door, which does not open so he wandered off into another room before trying to get out again. Hospital staff saw him walking around but just decided to leave him alone. "Normally we don't have people come into our emergency department that are less than a foot tall," Mr Fitzgerald said.

LiveLeak link Original Facebook video.

"He wasn't that obvious to begin with. He entered the doors and they've opened automatically for him and that's come into our waiting room. I've heard there have been koalas visiting local homes in the area for a number of years now. This is the first instance I've seen a koala come into our hospital. You never know who you're going to see when you come to Western District Health Service."

This bird has a Mohawk and is now the oldest known ancestor of modern birds

by Jacob Kastrenakes

Two detailed fossils are introducing researchers to a new bird, one that lived around 130 million years ago and is being called the oldest known example of the group containing modern birds. The new bird has been named Archaeornithura meemannae. Feathers cover almost the entirety of its body, including its head, neck, shoulders, and wings, though the bird's legs and feet are bare. The bare legs suggest that Archaeornithura — or its ancestors — came from a semi-aquatic environment where it was used to wading. The finding is being published today in Nature Communications.
"It gives us crucial new information on their origins and early evolution."
"The new fossil bird Archaeornithura is an important find," Matthew Lamanna, an assistant curator at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History who was not involved in the study, writes in an email to The Verge. If it’s been dated correctly, Lamanna says, Archaeornithura pushes back the fossil record of birds’ most recent ancestors by 5 million to 6 million years.
The group behind the study, which was led by a researcher from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, located the two fossils in the Sichakou basin in Hebei, a province in northeast China. This is part of the second-oldest formation in the world that's been found to carry bird fossils, but only a small number of distinct samples have actually been found there.
Discoveries like Archaeornithura help researchers to define the transition between dinosaurs, primitive ancestors of birds, and the birds that we see today. Some "extraordinary" fossils have made the transition between dinosaurs and primitive birds "fairly well understood," Lamanna says, "but the transition from these primitive birds to the species we see flying around us today is much less known."
As the oldest known member of the modern bird group, Archaeornithura is a key find toward allowing researchers to figure that out. "It gives us crucial new information on their origins and early evolution," Lamanna says.
There are likely older birds waiting to be found
Archaeornithura stands out for having advanced features that are similar to modern birds while still having primitive traits. Min Wang, the study's lead author, says that Archaeornithura can be considered to "have many morphological features of modern birds," at least when you compare it to other birds living around 130 million years ago. But it still has some major differences, he says, such as the claws on its hands.
Wang also suspects that future excavations will push the timeline for this modern bird group, Ornithuromorpha, back even further. Between the evolutionary timeline researchers are already seeing and the geological structure of the formation where Archaeornithura was found, there's an indication "that there are specimens older than the new specimen," Wang tells The Verge in an email. "Therefore, it is likely we can find specimen of Ornithuromorpha from older deposits."

Animal Pictures