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☆ Fossils Where They Don’t Belong? Maybe We Just Didn’t Look Hard Enough.
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-16 | by ( Anthony Ham | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Among dinosaur bones and sandy sediment there emerged a 167-million-year-old tiny jaw fragment with three teeth. It belonged to Ambondro mahabo, a species that was 25 million years older than any mammal of its kind ever found. At the time, what was known of the fossil record pointed overwhelmingly to the conclusion that modern mammals’ forerunners arose in the Northern Hemisphere. But a review of existing fossil holdings published last year in the journal Alcheringa sought to turn decades of paleontological wisdom on its head. After an exhaustive study of skulls, jaws and teeth, a team of Australian paleontologists presented their conclusion that modern mammals originated in the Southern Hemisphere.

Persons: Ambondro, ”, John Flynn, Frick Organizations: Northern, Southern Hemisphere, American Museum of Locations: Madagascar, New York

☆ Ancient shrimplike predator was misunderstood, according to new research
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-04 | by ( Katie Hunt | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. CNN —With appendages growing out of its head and an armored mouth, an ancient shrimplike creature was thought to be the quintessential apex predator of its time. The 2-foot-long (0.6-meter-long) Anomalocaris canadensis was one of the largest marine animals to live 508 million years ago. The model was based on a well-preserved but flattened fossil found in the Burgess Shale formation in the Canadian Rockies. The marine animal was one of the largest of its time.

Persons: ”, Russell Bicknell, Anomalocaris canadensis Bicknell, Bicknell, ” Bicknell Organizations: CNN, American Museum, Natural, University of New, Canadian Rockies, Royal Society Locations: University of New England, Australia, Germany, China, Switzerland, United Kingdom

☆ In Charleston, a Museum Honors a Journey of Grief and Grace
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-23 | by ( Holland Cotter | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In Charleston Harbor, where the initiating shots of the Civil War were fired — Fort Sumter is distantly visible — I’m on the site of a former shipping pier known as Gadsden’s Wharf. On this spot now, looking a bit like a ship itself, stands the eagerly awaited and long-delayed new International African American Museum. After an almost quarter-century journey hampered by political squalls, economic doldrums, sometimes mutinous crews, and last-minute fogs, this cultural vessel has securely, and handsomely, come to berth here, opening to the public on Tuesday. The new museum is very much what this place is about: the original forced infusion of Black cultural energy into America, and the consequences of that for the present. It’s the first major new museum of African American history in the country to bring the whole Afro-Atlantic world, including Africa itself, fully into the picture.

Organizations: International African American Museum Locations: Charleston Harbor, Fort Sumter, America, Africa

☆ For Black Debutantes in Detroit, Cotillion Is More Than a Ball
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-15 | by ( Miranda Barnes | Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In a heady swirl of bright white silk and lace, the young ladies of the Cotillion Society of Detroit Educational Foundation are presented as debutantes. The Society’s annual ball is the culmination of eight months of etiquette lessons, leadership workshops, community service projects and cultural events. As the girls take to the dance floor, they become part of a legacy of Black debutantes in the city and beyond. Debutante balls, which traditionally helped girls from high society find suitable husbands, emerged from Europe in the 18th century. “Signing up for debutantes, I thought it was just one big ball.

Persons: Jim Crow, Taylor Bythewood, Porter, ”, Sage Johnson Organizations: Cotillion Society of Detroit Educational, California African American Museum, Organizers Locations: Europe, Detroit

☆ Inside CNN's epic PR fail that made a mockery of CEO Chris Licht
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-04 | by ( Nicholas Carlson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

The Atlantic published a really tough article about CNN CEO Chris Licht. The disaster I'm referring to is Tim Alberta's devastating profile of CNN chair and CEO Chris Licht published Friday. And maybe, the story suggests, that's because that big idea is not really Licht's plan at all but one foisted on him by his boss, Warner Bros. Through the summer, Alberta and Licht and CNN comms people talked about what the story might look like. A handful of sources tell me Kelly was skeptical of whether this was a good idea, Dornic was happy to do whatever, and Licht really, really wanted to do it.

Persons: Chris Licht, CNN's goof, Tim Alberta's, Licht, Licht hasn't, Warner, David Zaslav, Zucker, Jeff Zucker, I've, I'm, Kris Coratti Kelly, Kelly, Matt Dornic, Dornic, Hugo, Evan Agostini, isn't, Michael Eisner, James B, Stewart, Eisner, Stewart's, Tim Alberta, Nikki Haley, Don Lemon, he'd, it's, that's, It's, wasn't, Zaslav Organizations: CNN, Trump Town Hall, Warner Bros, Discovery, Journalism, Licht, Global Communications, American Museum of, Disney, Alberta, Trump, Atlantic Locations: Alberta, Manhattan

☆ Manhattanhenge is coming to New York City tonight. Here's where to see it best.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-29 | by ( Tim Levin | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Manhattanhenge is happening in New York City on Monday. It's the phenomenon where the setting sun perfectly aligns with the city's street grid. The astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson coined the term. The term Manhattanhenge was coined by the popular astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, a native New Yorker. The Tudor City Overpass in Manhattan and Hunter's Point South Park in Queens are two more scenic spots, he says.

☆ Dragonflies, Beetles, Cicadas — What’s Not to Love?
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Alina Tugend | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Jessica Ware, an associate curator for the American Museum of Natural History, waxes rhapsodic about beetles. Cicadas, well, they’re just beautiful and she’s proud the ones that come every 17 years are unique to North America. But — even though maybe an entomologist shouldn’t play favorites — it is the dragonfly that really makes her heart sing. They’re remarkable predators.”Dr. Ware, 45, who works in the Division of Invertebrate Zoology, is the perfect ambassador for insects. She makes people who have never thought about them — except as an annoyance — understand why they’re both fascinating and important.

One of the really interesting questions here – this will be fascinating – the core of linear TV is sports rights. When you look at the size and scope of the linear TV business, it's huge. Patrick T. Fallon | Afp | Getty ImagesByron Allen, Entertainment Studios founder and CEO: I think linear TV will exist for a very, very long time. Simmons: I believe Apple, out of nowhere, will start making their own awesome televisions that have Apple TV embedded in them. We are witnessing early stages of this dynamic with deals like "NFL Sunday Ticket" on YouTube and the MLS deal with Apple TV.

☆ ‘Murf the Surf: Jewels, Jesus and Mayhem in the USA’ Review: A Dashing Thief’s Darker Side
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( John Anderson | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Up until his death in 2020, Jack “Murf the Surf” Murphy remained most famous for the 1964 burglary of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, which netted its perpetrators a bagful of precious gems, including the 563-carat Star of India sapphire. It was the kind of story people like to tell. And retell. “I’d kept reading story after story about Murf where there’d be 15 paragraphs about this heist,” says journalist Nate Scott . “And in the 16th paragraph it would be like ‘Oh, and then he was convicted for murder.’”The prominence of the burglary on Murphy’s résumé wasn’t entirely an accident, not according to “Murf the Surf,” the four-part documentary series directed by R.J. Cutler (“A Perfect Candidate”) and available on MGM+ (formerly EPIX).

☆ Glass act: Scientists reveal secrets of frog transparency
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-22 | by ( Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

Their delicate, greenish transparent forms don’t cast shadows, rendering them almost invisible to birds and other predators passing overhead or underneath. But when northern glass frogs wake up and hop around in search of insects and mates, they take on an opaque reddish-brown color. “When they’re transparent, it’s for their safety,” said Junjie Yao, a Duke University biomedical engineer and study co-author. A male glass frog photographed from below using a flash, showing its transparency. “Transparency is super rare in nature, and in land animals, it’s essentially unheard of outside of the glass frog,” White said.

☆ California invested an enormous amount of money into getting EVs on the road, but practically nothing when it comes to dealing with the waste: 'It's totally like the Wild West.'
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-11 | by ( Hanna Kang | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +13 min

"It's totally like the Wild West," said Zora Chung, co-founder of ReJoule, Inc., a startup project based in Signal Hill that is exploring repurposing used batteries from EVs. However, there are no EV battery recycling plants that exist in California, nor tried-and-true recycling programs in place to deal with the fallout. Currently, the company has used batteries deployed at the American Museum of Ceramic Art in Pomona, where solar panels feed electricity into the used battery storage units. Charging station for electric and hybrid cars using solar panels to generate electricity to charge car batteries. "Imagine if it just took you one full work week to qualify one used battery," Chung said.

☆ A 1930s eugenics experiment is the reason women's clothing sizes are so damn frustrating
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Isabella Zavarise | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

A 1930s eugenics experiment is the reason women's clothing sizes are inconsistent, as per Radke. In an email to Insider, Radke said the discovery about women's clothing sizes was one of the biggest surprises to her when researching "Butts, a Backstory." Andrew SemansThe life-sized plaster casts made by Dickinson and Belskie were dubbed Normman and Norma and helped create standardized clothing sizes. During the 1950s, standardized clothing sizes were adopted by clothing brands. "It's just too expensive for garment manufacturers to make enough clothing sizes to accommodate the wide variation of human bodies.

☆ Extraordinary close-up images show insects as you’ve never seen them before
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-29 | by ( Nell Lewis | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

Released on 22 November, “Extinct & Endangered: Insects in Peril” is a collaboration between Biss and the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). Biss spent two years photographing the insects, capturing every extraordinary detail from strands of hair to the reflection in a wing. "Extinct & Endangered: Insects in Peril" is out now in hardcover. The insect specimens were couriered to the UK, where Levon Biss photographed them in his studio. He has photographed seeds and fruits in extraordinary detail, insect eggs, the human eye and even mold growing on tea bags.

Persons: Levon Biss, Biss, –, Abrams, ”, “, Elli Biss “, Lauri Halderman Organizations: CNN, American Museum of, of Locations: British, Biss, New York City

☆ The Architect Behind New York’s Most Exciting New Building
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-26 | by ( Sarah Medford | Photography Martien Mulder For Wsj. Magazine | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The dioramas at the American Museum of Natural History in New York are some of its most popular attractions, a marriage of art and science transmuted into lifelike encounters with snarling jaguars, rapt penguins and blasé zebras standing rump-first to the glass. Even in the CGI age, their realism is startling. The earliest dioramas owe a debt to Carl Akeley, a sculptor, taxidermist, inventor and big-game hunter who worked at the museum from about 1909 to 1926. Akeley pioneered a method of scooping plaster and papier-mâché over wire armatures to create lifelike creatures and their habitats. Playing around with a hose, a hill of dry concrete and some forced air, he also invented sprayable concrete, a material that could bond to metal-mesh walls and ceilings, enacting a supersized version of sculpting that would later revolutionize the swimming pool industry, among others.

☆ ‘Van Gogh in America’ Review: Tracking an Acquired Taste
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-13 | by ( Judith H. Dobrzynski | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

DetroitVincent van Gogh (1853-1890) had been dead for 32 years before any American museum bought a painting by him. While he was famously (if exaggeratedly) unsuccessful in life, by then Europe had long since embraced him. Yet at the landmark 1913 Armory Show in New York— Van Gogh ’s public debut here, with at least 21 paintings on view—nothing of his sold, and one critic wrote that Van Gogh had “little if any sense of beauty and spoiled a lot of canvas with crude, quite unimportant pictures.” In 1920, when New York’s Montross Gallery gave him a retrospective, only three of 67 pictures sold, all to one collector. And when in 1921 the Metropolitan Museum of Art presented “A Loan Exhibition of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings,” including seven Van Gogh loans, it was condemned by many as degenerate art.

☆ Biden aims to rally world leaders behind Ukraine in U.N. remarks
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-21 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Shannon-Pettypiece-Circle-Byline-Template.Jpg | Shannon Pettypiece | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +5 min

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will use his remarks at the United Nations General Assembly Wednesday to rally the world in support of Ukraine as part of a broader call for countries to protect the established international order. Russia’s war in Ukraine has upended global food supplies and threatens to tip Europe into a recession this winter as the continent braces for a surge in energy costs. Biden is also facing heightened tensions with China, which has shown signs of increasing aggression towards Taiwan. Biden will reaffirm the U.S. commitment to help Ukraine defend itself for as long as necessary and call on others to do the same, Sullivan said. While in New York, Biden will meet Wednesday with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss.

☆ Scientists shot tardigrades out of a gun at more than 2,000 mph to see if the critters could survive
▼ + stars: | 2021-05-22 | by ( Aylin Woodward | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Tardigrades can survive in extreme environments, but a new study shows they're not indestructible. Scientists found these creatures couldn't survive speeds above 2,000 mph when shot out of a gun. The researchers shot canisters full of tardigrades out of a high-speed gun at various speeds to see whether the creatures could survive the pressure of each resulting impact. After being shot out at speeds under 900 meters per second (about 2,000 mph) — that's faster than your average bullet — the tardigrades could be revived. But if tardigrades can't survive the pressures of a collision with our moon, it's unlikely they could survive a meteorite impact with another planet, the study authors wrote.

Persons: Alejandra Traspas, Traspas, Megumu Tsujimoto, tardigrades Organizations: Service, Queen Mary University, of, NASA Locations: Wall, Silicon, London, Israeli

☆ В Арктике впервые замечены светящиеся рыбы
▼ + stars: | 2021-03-26 | by ( Mld Media Srl | ) noi.md time to read: +1 min

Ученые впервые обнаружили в арктических водах рыб, использующих биофлюоресценцию. Американские биологи задались вопросом: могут ли обитатели арктических вод проявлять биофлюоресценцию? Однако ученые предположили, что в летние месяцы некоторые виды способны проявлять биофлюоресценцию. Экспедиция в прибрежные воды Восточной Гренландии в 2019 году позволила установить, что как минимум один обитатель Арктики способен светиться. Еще один представитель рода липарисов, Liparis tunicatus, также оказался способен к биофлюоресценции.

Persons: Liparis tunicatus Locations: Восточная Гренландия, Арктика, Берингов пролив

☆ Trump's most important 2016 donor is sitting out 2020
▼ + stars: | 2020-07-24 | by ( Dave Levinthal | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +20 min

Robert and Rebekah Mercer ranked among President Donald Trump's most influential backers in 2016. A representative for Priorities USA Action, a leading pro-Biden super PAC, said the organization wasn't underestimating Trump's reelection forces, Mercers or no Mercers. (Bossie, like former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and many others, has recently found himself back in Trump's favor.) The Cambridge Analytica data that the Trump campaign paid for was "so stupidly wrong" and a "complete joke," Spicer added. But sources familiar with the Mercers' political spending said they have no evidence that the Mercers are doing so.

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