[ozswede]

Scientists on the cusp of decoding orangutans' secret language - after finding 1,033 distinct sounds apes make to communicate

A three year hunt for patterns hidden in the roars, sighs, and other noises made by Indonesia's orangutans has discovered 'a full spectrum' of complex vocalizations.

The breakthrough comes hot on the heels of other recent discoveries further revealing the depth of the great ape's intelligence — including one orangutan's practice of healing its own injuries with a self-prepared medicinal herb.

The research team reinforced their analysis by testing artificial intelligence (AI) detection methods against the painstaking work of biologists and bioacoustics scientists, employing only their trained ears, intellects and measurement tools.

The Cornell University-led team pooled together a dataset of 117 recorded 'long calls' made by 13 males of one particular species, the Bornean orangutan, employing 46 acoustic measurements on 1,033 distinct pulses detected within those calls.

'These features would seem to greatly boost the potential complexity of this signal,' they wrote, suggesting humanity might soon know what the great apes are saying.


A Cornell-led team pooled together a dataset of 117 recorded 'long calls' made by 13 male orangutans

As reported in the new study, published Tuesday in the journal PeerJ Life & Environment, the researchers found 'a continuous gradation of sounds across phases and pulses,' suggesting orangutans can modulate their voices very precisely.

All these distinct phases and pulses, the team wrote, can be 'combined into variable sequences within a single long call vocalization,' meaning that the male apes' 'long calls' very likely communicate complex messages to their distant ape peers.

'Our research aimed to unravel the complexities of orangutan long calls, which play a crucial role in their communication across vast distances in the dense rainforests of Indonesia,' the study's lead author Dr. Wendy Erb said in a statement.

'We are fairly confident there is much complexity still to unpack in this great ape's vocal system,' Dr. Erb opined.

A primatologist at Cornell's K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics, Dr. Erb told Salon that the bioacoustics experts who study the meaning behind animal sounds still lack 'a unifying framework for quantifying complexity.'

As part of their effort to detect and classify the orangutans' noises with AI, the team took parallel 'supervised' and 'unsupervised' machine learning approaches.


The wave forms of the ape's various, distinct vocal pulses as published by the team in PeerJ Life & Environment

The team used a state-of-the-art unsupervised machine learning algorithm, Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection (UMAP), that had shown success decoding 'animal vocal repertoires' for the University of California, San Diego back in 2020.

The UMAP algorithm was further assisted by additional statistical algorithms developed in the coding language R.

For their supervised machine learning, R-based code was also used — but in all cases the apes' 1,033 unique vocal phases and pulses were divided at random into a 60/40 split, where 60 percent was used to train the AI, while the remaining 40 percent was used for testing the accuracy of its freshly trained sorting ability.

'Through a combination of supervised and unsupervised analytical methods,' as Dr. Erb summed it up, 'we identified three distinct pulse types that were well differentiated by both humans and machines.'


An endangered orangutan stares knowingly into the camera while scaling a tree in Tanjung Puting National Park, Borneo

The names of those three pulse types, as given by the researchers to help steer future study, were: 'Roar' to define high-frequency pulses, 'Sigh' meaning low-frequency pulses, and 'Intermediate' to catch any and all pulses that fell between those two previous categories.

Dr. Erb and her colleagues took pains to emphasize that these were only the limits of their current research, not the limits of what we may one day learn about apes' vocal communication skills.

'Although many pulse types were not well differentiated by humans or machines in this study,' they noted, 'we do not intend to suggest that other workers were unable to make those distinctions or that orangutans cannot perceive them.'

This ability to distinguish and differentiate between the apparently myriad unique sounds that these large primates make, ultimately, will be the next project for those hoping to one day understand and perhaps speak with humanity's primate cousins.

'While our study represents a significant step forward in understanding orangutan communication, there is still much to uncover,' Dr. Erb admited.

'Orangutans may possess a far greater repertoire of sound types than we have described, highlighting the complexity of their vocal system.'

[HogwartsExpress]

In Michigan, 'Ghostly Figure' Captured Staring At Sleeping Child A Month After Death In Family

It is said that the human soul spends a few days wandering around its home after death, but there isn’t any scientific proof of this. However, a Michigan resident has created a stir on social media by sharing a CCTV image that appears to show a ghostly figure staring at his sleeping child.

The eerie photo, captured by a security camera in the 100-year-old farmhouse of John Kipke, has sparked fear and debate among viewers. According to a report by the Daily Star, this scary picture is of a person living in Michigan, US. The incident occurred about a month after the death of the child’s grandfather.

The unsettling image shows a ghostly figure hovering over John Kipke’s youngest son as he slept on the floor. The figure was only captured by one of the five cameras installed in the house, which only takes snapshots instead of recording video.

Kipke shared the image on Facebook, noting his uncertainty about the spirit. He explained that, despite never experiencing anything paranormal after his father’s death, this incident involving his child has left him puzzled.

Along with the photo, John wrote, “I’m not sure what this is but one of my inside cameras picked this up. Unfortunately, the inside system does not go in video mode, just snapshots of movement and sound. To my knowledge, I have never been contacted from the other side or had any strange things happen to me in my house. But I live in a 100-year-old farmhouse. Also, that is my youngest son sleeping on the floor. I just thought this was interesting.”

He further revealed that there are five cameras installed inside his house, but this incident was captured only by one camera. Many social media users reacted to the post, with some suggesting the family should leave the house immediately. Comments ranged from identifying the figure as an elderly woman to speculating it might be a gentleman wearing a cap.

One of the users wrote that he looks like a gentleman as he is wearing a cap, and it seems like he is looking at your son. Another one said that because of the kind of coat she is wearing, it seems that she is an elderly woman who is looking at the child. Another one wrote that the face is so blurred and nothing is clear.

src: https://www.news18.com/viral/in-michiga ... 89845.html

[Alessa9]

Radiation storm 'to hit Earth' this week - everything you need to know including when it will strike


NOAA says there's a 60% chance a radiation storm could hit today

Just days after the geomagnetic storm that led to thousands of people being able to see the Northern Lights in the UK, a different storm is about to hit the Earth.

A radiation storm is 60 per cent likely to hit the planet this week according to experts. There there is no risk to humans, but we might see effects on satellites we rely on for communications. A solar radiation storm (also known as a Solar Proton Event or SPE) occurs after major eruptions on the Sun when protons get launched at incredibly high speeds and this time those protons are heading towards Earth.


Satellite have detected a surge in subatomic particles

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) says there is a 60 per cent chance of the storm arriving today, with a lower chance on Wednesday too. NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center also noted that the past weekend's geomagnetic storms - which saw the UK treated to the colourful light display in the sky - would persist until Monday.

Space Weather Live reports: "Solar radiation storms are not dangerous for people on Earth. We are protected from these storms by Earth’s magnetic field and Earth’s atmosphere. One effect that we can experience on Earth during strong solar radiation storms is an increased risk of people on transpolar flights receiving a higher dose of radiation than normal.


People visit St Mary's lighthouse in Whitley Bay to see the aurora borealis, commonly known as the northern lights, on May 10

"Transpolar flights sometimes have to be rerouted or cancelled because of these radiation storms. Another effect is that it can cause some communication problems over the polar areas. These protons are also a radiation threat to astronauts, in particular during their extra-vehicular activities (space walks).

"Satellites out in space are also vulnerable: these protons degrade solar panel efficiency, onboard electronic circuitry can malfunction and the protons will create noise in star-tracking systems."

Some places in America are already reporting fallout from the radiation storm. Farmers in Minnesota, Nebraska, and other parts of the American Midwest experienced satellite disruptions to the 'global positioning system' (GPS) equipment that they depend on for operating their equipment. Farmer Kevin Kenney told 404 Media: "All the tractors are sitting at the ends of the field right now shut down because of the solar storm. No GPS. We're right in the middle of corn planting."

The maker of John Deere farming equipment sent an unprecedented text message warning customers across the area, advising them to turn off their equipment during the storm.

[Fatima99]

‘Old age’ Starts Later Than Ever in the Eye of the Beholder and Beholden, Study Reveals



Middle-aged and older adults believe that old age begins later in life than their peers did decades ago according to a new study.

It’s enough to put a bit of spring chicken back into the feet of a silver fox, and the study found that people tended to view being old as occurring later and later as they advanced through life, showing age is even less than a number—it’s just a mindset.

“Life expectancy has increased, which might contribute to a later perceived onset of old age,” said study author Markus Wettstein, PhD, of Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. “Also, some aspects of health have improved over time, so that people of a certain age who were regarded as old in the past may no longer be considered old nowadays.”

However, the study, which was published in the journal Psychology and Aging, also found evidence that the trend of later perceived old age has slowed in the past two decades.

Wettstein, along with colleagues at Stanford University, the Univ. of Luxembourg, and the Univ. of Greifswald, examined data from 14,056 participants in the German Ageing Survey, a longitudinal study that includes people living in Germany born between 1911 and 1974.

Participants responded to survey questions up to eight times over 25 years (1996–2021), when they were between 40 and 100 years old. Additional participants (40 to 85 years old) were recruited throughout the study period as later generations entered midlife and old age. Among the many questions survey participants answered was, “At what age would you describe someone as old?”

The researchers found that compared with the earliest-born participants, later-born participants perceived a later onset of old age. For example, when participants born in 1911 were 65 years old, they set the beginning of old age at age 71. In contrast, participants born in 1956 said old age begins at age 74, on average, when they were 65.

However, the researchers also found that the trend toward a later perceived onset of old age has slowed in recent years.

“The trend toward postponing old age is not linear and might not necessarily continue in the future,” Wettstein said.

The researchers also looked at how individual participants’ perceptions of old age changed as they got older. They found that as individuals aged, their perception of the onset of old age was pushed further out.

At age 64, the average participant said old age started at 74.7. At age 74, they said old age started at 76.8. On average, the perceived onset of old age increased by about one year for every four to five years of actual aging.

Finally, the researchers examined how individual characteristics such as gender and health status contributed to the answers to the questions. They found that women, on average, said that old age started two years later than men—and that the difference between men and women had increased over time.

The results may have implications for when and how people prepare for their own aging, as well as how people think about older adults in general, Wettstein said.

“It is unclear to what extent the trend towards postponing old age reflects a trend towards more positive views on older people and aging, or rather the opposite—perhaps the onset of old age is postponed because people consider being old to be an undesirable state,” Wettstein said.

Future research should examine whether the trend toward a “postponement” of old age continues and investigate more diverse populations in other countries, including non-Western countries, to understand how perceptions of aging vary by country and culture, according to the researchers.

[rflash8]

Coin collection of Danish butter magnate going on sale after being sealed for 100 years

Lars Emil Bruun said in his will that a 20,000-piece collection he built throughout his life must be safeguarded for 100 years. A century later, some of the stashed coins could fetch up to £800,000 alone.



A Danish butter magnate's collection of coins could fetch close to £60m on auction, a hundred years after he passed away.

Lars Emil Bruun, who was born in 1852, said in his will that a 20,000-piece collection he built throughout his life must be safeguarded for 100 years before it could be sold.

More than a century on, New York-based coin auctioneer Stack's Bowers will sell off the collection this autumn.

Several sales of what the auction house calls the "most valuable collection of world coins to ever come to market" are planned to be held over the coming years.

In the 1800s, Mr Bruun's dairy enterprise made him rich and allowed him to hoard coins, medals, tokens and banknotes from Denmark, Norway and Sweden.





After the First World War, he insisted in his will that the collection must "serve as a reserve for the royal Coin and medal collection in Copenhagen" if they were destroyed.

Since his death, the collection was held at former Danish royal residence Frederiksborg Castle, before it later made its way to Denmark's National Bank.

Vicken Yegparian, vice president of numismatics at Stack's Bowers Galleries, called the collection "the best open secret ever".

"When I first heard about the collection, I was in disbelief," he added. "We've had collections that have been off the market for 100 years-plus."

Some pieces in the collection are valued at £40, but others could go for more than £800,000. All told, the coin collection could fetch up to £57.4m.

Denmark's National Museum, which had the right of first refusal on part of the collection, purchased seven of the rare coins before they went to auction.

The seven coins - six gold, one silver - were all minted between the 15th and 17th centuries by Danish or Norwegian monarchs, and cost more than £877,000

Senior researcher Helle Horsnaes, a coin expert at the National Museum, said: "They are described in literature as the only existing specimen of this kind.

"The pure fact that this collection has been closed for a hundred years makes it a legend. It's like a fairytale."

[goldie0608]

Mom Designs Stunning Dress Made of 210 Fresh Flowers Combining Her Love of Art and Gardening



A mom created a fairytale dress made of more than 200 fresh flowers she grew herself, as part of her university studies in art and design.

Anita Lee-Archer created the dress on her daughter, Bella, spending around two hours arranging multi-colored dahlias, hand-picked from her garden in Australia.

The mother-of-five is pursuing a fine arts degree at the University of Tasmania at age 48. She decided to go back to college four years ago to pursue her dreams of a career in art.

Now she’s combining another passion—her love of gardening—to create impressive art installations.

To attach the flowers to the dress, she wrapped bird netting tightly around her daughter, Bella, who wore a black slip underneath (see the video at the bottom). She threaded the flowers through the holes, choosing colors from seven buckets of pre-cut blooms.

“It turned out how I wanted it,” said Anita, from Launceston, Tasmania. “It was really fun.”

Anita says she was discouraged from choosing a career in art as a teenager, so instead worked as a nurse and midwife.

“I have always been a creative. But, people always said, ‘you won’t earn any money doing art’.”



But Anita never forgot her love and when they moved to Tasmania she asked her husband, a neurologist, if she could enroll in university. She eagerly started classes in 2020 to finally fulfill her dreams.

“I really want to paint flowers. I breed different varieties and have always been a gardener.

“It’s nice to combine my loves. One lecturer told me ‘it’s your work, you need to do what you love’.”

She admitted the dress turned out to be “really heavy” and it was hard to walk in it.

“Initially it was going to be a strapless dress, but I had to fashion straps.”

Anita graduates from her course at the end of this year and wants to continue creating flower-themed art.

“My garden has been my solace.”

11 Acres of Plant-infused Green Roofs Go ‘Blue’–Capturing Rainwater in Flood-Prone Amsterdam



Resilio has covered 9,000 sq meters of Amsterdam’s roofs with plants that suck up rainwater – Credit: Resilio

Amsterdam’s roofs have just been converted into a giant sponge that will make the city more climate resilient.

The Dutch have always been famous for their ability to control water, born out of the necessity of their homeland, much of which is below sea level.

Now, their expert water management skills are transforming the city skyline in the capital city of Amsterdam from one of terracotta tile, concrete, and shingles into green grass and brown earth.

It’s part of a new climate-resiliency trend in architecture and civic planning known as the ‘sponge city concept,’ in which a garden of water-loving plants, mosses, and soil absorbs excess rainwater before feeding it into the building for use in flushing toilets or watering plants on the ground.

If heavy rains are predicted, a smart valve system empties the stored rainwater into the municipal storm drains and sewers in advance of the weather, allowing the roof to soak up water and reduce flooding in the city.

In this way, the rooftops of buildings can be wrung out and filled up just like a sponge.

In Amsterdam, 45,000 square meters, or 11 acres of flat metropolitan rooftops have already been fitted with these systems, and the contracting firms behind the technology say they make sense in dry climates like Spain just as much as in wet climates like Amsterdam.


Blue-green roof functions like a flat rain barrel – Credit: Resilio (Amsterdam)


Rains, some scientists believe, will become heavier and more erratic in their delivery as the climate changes. Flooding costs billions in damages in countries like the UK, Netherlands, and Italy which just last year experienced terrible flooding in the plains of Emiglia Romagna.

A 4-year project of different firms and organizations called Resilio, the resilient network for smart climate adaptive rooftops, rolled out thousands of square meters of sponge city technology into new buildings. As with many climate technologies, the costs are high upfront but tend to result in savings from several expenditures like water utilities and water damage, over a long-enough time horizon.

Companies like Waternet, MetroPolder Company, Rooftop Revolution, HvA, VU, Stadgenoot, de Alliantie, and De Key all participated in the transformative effort that has left many buildings capped with green bonnets of ferns, mosses, small shrubs, and sedum, a genus that is particularly suited to turf rooftops.

All together, Amsterdam’s sponge capacity is over 120,000 gallons.

“We think the concept is applicable to many urban areas around the world,” Kasper Spaan from Waternet, Amsterdam’s public water management organization, told Wired Magazine. “In the south of Europe–Italy and Spain–where there are really drought-stressed areas, there’s new attention for rainwater catchment.”

Indeed the sponge city concept comes into a different shade when installed in drought-prone regions. Waters absorbed by rooftops during heavy rains can be used for municipal purposes to reduce pressure on underground aquifers or rivers, or be sweated out under the Sun’s rays which cools the interior of the building naturally.

Additionally, if solar panels were added on top of the rooftop garden, the evaporation would keep the panels cooler, which has been shown in other projects to improve their energy generation.

“Our philosophy in the end is not that on every roof, everything is possible,” says Spaan, “but that on every roof, something is possible.”

Matt Simon, reporting on the Resilio project for Wired, said succinctly that perhaps science fiction authors have missed the mark when it came to envisioning the city of the future, and that rather than being a glittering metropolis of glass, metal, and marble as smooth as a pannacotta, it will look an awful lot more like an enormous sculpture garden.

[PennySerenade]

Swarm of 20,000 bees gather around woman’s car west of Toronto



A swarm of roughly 20,000 bees gathered around a woman’s car in the parking lot of a shopping mall in Burlington on Thursday.

Beekeeper Dave Stotesbury said he came to the rescue after he was called to the shopping mall on Wednesday to help gather the bees.

“A swarm of roughly 20,000 bees from a local bee hive ended up gathering on the back and bottom of a woman’s car in the parking lot,” he said. “It was an exciting afternoon.”

“As we work with [Burlington Centre] to increase biodiversity and pollinators in the area we were given a call and came and collected the swarm. It was a fairly easy capture.”

Stotesbury, who is a beekeeper with Backed by Bees, said he “brushed” the bees into specialized equipment that smelt like “home.”

“They are happy to call it their own,” he said. “The swarm is a natural occurrence and its how bees reproduce at the colony level.”

He said the bees were brought back to Backed by Bees’ main location in North Burlington for observation.

“They will find a happy home outside once strong enough.”



There have been previous reports of large swarms of bees loose in Burlington. Last year, police recaptured millions of bees that were accidentally set free in Burlington after crates of bees slid onto the roadway on Guelph Line.

[lush]

German Student Creates the World’s Fastest Toy Car
030624*

A German engineering student spent 10 months modifying a toy car and turning it into an extremely fast vehicle capable of reaching speeds of up to 92.24 mph (148 km/h).

31-year-old Marcel Paul has always been fascinated by Bobby Cars, a type of toy car that was invented to help children learn to walk but that gained a cult following among downhill racing competitors during the 1990s. With 14 World Championships and 9 European Championships under his belt, Paul is one of the most successful riders in the history of this wacky sport, but to really cement his legacy, he decided to do something even more ambitious – create the world’s fastest rideable toy car. It took him 10 months to research, design and build the tiny speed demon, but he was able to smash through the old record of 88 mph on his first try.



Marcel started out by buying a Baby Porsche 911 from the company BIG to use as the base of his ambitious project. Next, he built an aluminum chassis for it, lowered the suspension, and replaced the stock steering wheel with a racing-worthy one. But, most importantly, commissioned a company to create an electric motor and battery according to his specifications, to ensure they fit in the tiny frame, as maintaining the appearance of a toy car was crucial.

Finding someone to sponsor his crazy idea was another big challenge, as the whole thing cost him just shy of $10,000, but he got it done in the end and managed to get his toy car to the Hockenheimring racetrack in Germany to test it out. To maximize his chances of setting a new Guinness Record, Marcel drove the car down the track’s longest straight, the “Parabolika”, and also made a last-minute adjustment that could have resulted in a disaster – he removed the limits on the controller.



“This change was not tested and could have led to overvoltage during the record attempt,” the young daredevil told Guinness. “This would have caused the vehicle to simply shut down during the attempt. Fortunately, this did not happen.”

Marcel Paul managed to smash through the planned 88 mph goal on his first try, clocking in at a whopping 92.24 mph (148 km/h) and setting a new Guinness record for the world’s fastest rideable toy car.

[Misstee]

"Portal" Between Dublin and NYC Shut Down After OnlyFans Model Flashes It
Victor Tangermann
Tue, May 14, 2024 at 12:30 PM PDT





Them Big Apples

A company placed portal-shaped "sculptures" in the cities of Dublin and New York, allowing residents across the pond to essentially have a public, non-stop Zoom meeting with each other.

The marketing stunt went about as well as practically anybody could've expected. While residents initially waved innocent signs around in an apparent attempt to connect across the Atlantic, the situation quickly descended into chaos, as The Independent reports, with an OnlyFans model flashing the so-called portal. Another "very drunk" woman was filmed rubbing her behind against the screen, while a different video shows a man exposing his own derrière.

One person on the Irish side went as far as to show the New Yorkers images of 9/11 on his phone, according to The Guardian.

Less than a week after the installation was unveiled, officials decided to shut it down temporarily in light of the chaos.

In short, it's ironically the perfect "window" into the kind of mayhem such a stunt can trigger. Who could've possibly predicted this would happen?
Drunk Dial

OnlyFans model Ava Louise later took credit for the portal shutting down.

"I thought the people of Dublin deserved to see my two New York homegrown potatoes," she said in a tongue-in-cheek video shared by TMZ.

A spokesman for Dublin City Council admitted to The Independent that while "the overwhelming majority of interactions are positive," they have also "been witnessing a very small minority of people engaged in inappropriate behavior, which has been amplified through social media."

The council later announced that it would implement "some technical solutions to address this," without specifying what those solutions might be.

Curious bystanders were amused by the chaos the portal had wrought.

"It’s a bit wild," a 23-year-old student told The Guardian. "It shows the good and bad of Dublin."

Natural biosurfactants: The future of eco-friendly meat preservation


Schematic antibacterial mechanism of surfactant micelles against E. coli. Credit: AIMS Agriculture and Food (2024).

A recent study has unveiled the potential of biosurfactants—natural compounds produced by microbes—to dramatically improve the preservation of meat products. This innovative approach could replace synthetic chemicals, enhancing food safety and quality.

Meat and meat products, crucial for human nutrition, are packed with high-quality proteins, essential amino acids, and vitamins. However, they are highly perishable and vulnerable to microbial contamination and oxidative damage that compromise their quality and shelf life.

Traditional preservation methods include refrigeration, advanced packaging, and chemical preservatives. However, due to growing health and environmental concerns, there is a shift toward natural preservatives that safely extend shelf life and ensure consumer satisfaction.

A review published in AIMS Agriculture and Food reveals that biosurfactants, naturally derived agents known for their surface-active properties, offer significant benefits in meat preservation. These agents improve shelf life and reduce contamination risks without relying on synthetic preservatives.

The study highlights the vulnerability of muscle foods, like meat and meat products, to microbial contamination and chemical changes that degrade quality. Biosurfactants, with their antimicrobial, antioxidant, and emulsifying properties, have emerged as effective natural alternatives to traditional preservatives, extending the shelf life of these products by inhibiting pathogen growth and preventing oxidation.

Extensive research demonstrates that biosurfactants significantly reduce spoilage and improve meat quality. Additionally, these compounds are eco-friendly, aligning with consumer demand for sustainable, clean-label food products. They offer a safer preservation method that enhances texture and sensory qualities in emulsion-based meat products, positioning biosurfactants as a sustainable solution in food safety and industry practices.

Dr. Mohammed Gagaoua, a lead researcher in the study from INRAE, Institut Agro, comments, "Biosurfactants not only extend the shelf life of meat products but also enhance their safety and quality by inhibiting harmful microbes and preventing oxidation. This research opens new avenues for the food industry to adopt greener and more consumer-friendly preservation methods."

The application of biosurfactants in meat preservation can drastically reduce reliance on chemical preservatives, aligning with the growing consumer demand for natural and safe food products. Moreover, the adoption of biosurfactants can lead to enhanced food safety standards, potentially reducing foodborne illnesses and spoilage-related losses.

More information: Cerine Yasmine Boulahlib et al, Potential applications of biosurfactants in animal production and meat research, AIMS Agriculture and Food (2024). DOI: 10.3934/agrfood.2024014 (open access)

This prom-otion has nursing home residents looking like royalty and feeling the part
Source: McKnights Long-Term Care News



For one special late-April night, nursing home residents were the center of attention at 17 buildings across New England.

Residents of Marquis Health Consulting Services' Massachusetts and Rhode Island facilities were treated to a senior prom night April 26 — though with a different definition of "senior" than is typically used.

The annual event is in its third year, said Seana Hall, vice president of life enrichment at Marquis Health Consulting Services.

"We really look for ideas on how to enhance our residents' experience and quality of life," she told McKnight's Long-Term Care News. "We like to do big events like spring flings and dances in general, but really wanted to bring it home with a big senior prom across all 17 of our centers."

Around 70 to 100 residents attended the prom night at each of Marquis' 17 facilities — conservatively estimated at 1,200 total — according to Hall. They attended in their best prom night attire, often arriving with a family member or another resident as their date for the evening.

Residents of each facility also selected a prom king and queen by vote in the days leading up to each event.


Senior prom queen crowned at one Marquis facility by Miss Massachusetts.
Image: Marquis Health Consulting Services

Marquis rolled out the red carpet for its residents, collaborating with more than 90 local partners that contributed to helping the ambitious event go off without a hitch.

"Post-COVID, we wanted to put a focus on getting our community back in our buildings for our residents," Hall said. "We have worked hard the past couple of years to have more community involvement, as well as intergenerational involvement."

Local partners donated prom night clothes, decorations, food, cake and even volunteered as singers at the events. Beauty queens — including Miss Massachusetts and Rhode Island as well as Miss Massachusetts and Rhode Island Teen — also showed up to dance with residents at facilities in both states and police officers handed out roses to residents at Westerly Rehabilitation and Health Care Center in Westerly, RI.

High school classes also spent time with the seniors in partnered programs with their schools — working on senior projects in subjects like cosmetology and photography by helping residents with hair, makeup and event photography.

The best part of the night, though, was the sense of purpose and joy that was palpable among the residents, Hall said.

"We make it about the residents from the start to the end," she said. "The residents are a part of picking the theme for the prom, helping with the decorations and the whole planning process. It really gives them a sense of purpose, and that's the main goal."

Residents even worked with their facilities' therapy departments for weeks or months in advance to get them prepared to get onto the dance floor as best as they were able.

"Bigger events like this where the residents are truly so involved and given that sense of purpose of making it happen and seeing their hard work come to life — there's nothing like it," Hall said. "If someone has the chance to do an event like this, it's absolutely worth it."

[Zbignieww]

Flies Can Dig For Corpses 2 Meters Deep And Enter Coffins To Lay Eggs
It’s the equivalent of a human digging down 2 miles for dinner.



Dying is a cloud that looms over us all, but it’s safe to say that the insects have found its silver lining. Necrophages subsist on the tissues of dead animals, and some of them will even dig down to find their prize.

You might think that a body buried underground would be safe from something flapping about in the air, but not so when it comes to coffin flies. Known to science as Conicera tibialis, the female of this spooky species is among the hardest workers when it comes to tracking down dead dinner.

They can burrow through the soil as deep as 2 meters (6.5 feet) to reach buried corpses and deposit their eggs. Corpses that have been buried for as long as 18 years before being exhumed have shown signs of coffin fly occupation, and their preserved remains have even been found in Roman burials, demonstrating just how precious a habitat the dead body is for these flies.

If a body is left out in the open, there’s a predictable sequence of events that will take it from soft corpse to hardened skeleton, and it all begins with the decomposition ecosystem. There are a few familiar faces in the death squad, and they’ll arrive as if on cue from incredible distances if you pop your clogs out in the open.

“So, flies are the first turn up the scene,” said Senior Curator of Diptera for London's Natural History Museum Dr Erica McAlister to IFLScience. “On a really good day, with really good wind going in the right direction, a fly can sniff out a dead body from up to seven kilometres [4.3 miles] or so. Also, if you bury them, flies can smell that as well, they can bury down. So, flies are going to be there first as they're the most sensitive, and [you’ll get] different types of flies.”

McAlister is joining IFLScience with co-author of Metamorphosis Adrian Washbourne to discuss all things forensic entomology at CURIOUS Live, IFLScience’s festival of science (register today if you'd care to join the conversation). As she explained, the process really does begin and end with flies.

“The first ones to turn up will be the blowflies, Calliphoridae, and then you gradually get different types of flies; you might get some house flies, you might get some flesh flies, you'll get beetles start turning up, some moths will be there, maybe a bug, and then the final bit of the party is some more flies who like the bones and the skin and things like that. So, you have a whole succession of these different insects.”

So depending on your take on death, the decomposition ecosystem can be quite horrible, or quite amazing. I, for one, figure that if I’ve already left the picnic, I might as well become one.

https://www.iflscience.com/flies-can-di ... eggs-74233

[johngriffen]

I sometimes get REALLY DEPRESSED reviewing the news these days.
It's always about a global pandemic threatening life as we know it,
protests around the world, stupid politicians, natural disasters,
or some other really bad story.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

Welcome to The mobi weekly news magazine
IN OTHER NEWS
THURSDAY MAY 16
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​Naked sunbather chases wild boar through park after it steals his laptop bag

A naked sunbather was seen chasing wild boar through a park after it stole his laptop bag.
Amusing photographs from Germany show the man running after the animal to try and claim the plastic bag back.
But the cheeky boar and its two piglets appear to be too quick for the sunbather, who can't keep up with their speedy little trotters.
As the incident unfolds, groups of friends and family sat on the grass watch on and laugh.
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IN OTHER NEWS

[ozswede]

Hairy, scary and extraordinary: a playful, brutal show for art made from – and about – hair

Sometimes the most ordinary objects hold the richest meaning. Human hair – that most primal extension of our bodies, both revered and reviled – has long fascinated artists, and a new exhibition at Heide museum, Hair Pieces, brings together 38 artists from eight countries who feature hair as their medium and their central theme, exploring its peculiarity and power through sculpture, photography, conceptual and performance art. It’s weird. It’s even a little creepy. It’s also utterly engrossing.


Hair Pieces installation view, Heide Museum of Modern Art

Curator Melissa Keys first had the idea for the show a decade ago – she had friends “who ran a commercial gallery that was located in an old hair studio” – and ideally would like to program more exhibitions involving hair.

“It’s a massive topic,” she says as we walk around the space. “So many artists work with this material, so there’s an opportunity for a number of shows. I wanted this one to be open and suggestive, rather than exhaustive.”

While Hair Pieces initially seems like an oddity, a kooky cabinet of curiosities, it quickly becomes clear that hair has a lot to say about human history, race and gender. Hairstyles, JD Okhai Ojeikere’s series of photographs depicting Nigerian women’s intricate and elaborate hair, captures the years of triumph after the country won its independence from the British empire. Grandly sculptural hairstyles are refracted through the history of colonialism and act as a potent symbol of reclamation and pride.


On the television is Kemang Wa Lehulere’s 2012 video installation Pencil Test 2.

Johannesburg-based artist Kemang Wa Lehulere’s 2012 video installation Pencil Test 2 interrogates taxonomy and racial classification, in a video loop of the artist sliding pencils through his hair that seems lighthearted but for its context. In South Africa in 1950, authorities used “the pencil test” to enforce racial hierarchies – if a pencil inserted into a person’s hair fell out easily they were classified as white, but if it remained in place they would be categorised as either “black”, “Indian” or “coloured” and denied basic human rights.

Gender and feminism figure strongly in much of the artwork, perhaps inevitably with a material so contested and objectified. Wiradjuri artist Karla Dickens has crafted a collection of codpieces and aluminium underpants she titles Warrior Woman, one with a massive phallus of human hair protruding from the crotch. They brilliantly subvert gender expectations. Julie Rrap’s Horse’s Tale, from her 1999 series Porous Bodies, cleverly evokes Lee Miller. And Louise Weaver and Peter Ellis fold Kim Novak’s hairstyle from Hitchcock’s Vertigo into a potent sculptural installation titled Leonardo’s Dream. Given that film’s obsessive fetishisation of hair, a receptacle of male control and desire, it is highly charged.


Hair Pieces installation view, Heide Museum of Modern Art.

There is a fascinating tension in many works between hair as an expression of individuality and a kind of disembodied anonymity. Rosslynd Piggott’s Unknown Woman – From China to Brixton and Elsewhere is a brooch made of a strand of a woman’s hair bought by the artist in London’s Brixton Market. Jim Dine’s Braid is a detailed drawing of a plait cut from an unknown woman’s head. Charlie Sofo and Debris Facility have created a gorgeously coloured collection of found and discarded combs, some with strands of hair still stuck to them, in a macabre but poignant ode to self-care.

The surrealists, and the symbolists before them, understood and embraced the eerie, freakish quality of using human hair. Works by Man Ray and Dorothea Tanning depicted hair as uncontrollable and wilful, almost sentient. Hair Pieces taps into this surrealist vein, with many artists leaning deliberately into the uncanny: Hypnagogia, the show’s opening work by Melbourne artist Christina May Carey, is a series of screens and monitors showing hair braiding mixed with footage of rats’ tails, linked by black cables resembling strands of hair, as a large photograph of the artist’s eye looks over the scene. It draws from Carey’s own struggles with sleep paralysis, and clearly evokes André Breton’s “savage eye”, the disembodied pupil that haunts surrealists from Dalí to Magritte.


Janine Antoni’s 1993 performance of Loving Care, using Loving Care Natural Black hair dye at Anthony d’Offay gallery in London.

Perth-based artist Tarryn Gill’s Guardian depicts a small figure covered in thick layers of blond hair from which a set of teeth emerges, simultaneously endearing and repulsive. This piece has a kind of inverted twin in John Meade’s Self-portrait as Mary Magdalene; thick black hair covers a diminutive figure, its hands and feet moulded from the artist’s own in a material called Reducit, which shrinks as it dries. Both bring to mind Cousin It.

Hair Pieces wades into some dark territory: Wes Placek’s Hair of Murdered Women, one of a series of photographs taken in Auschwitz in 1975, and Edith Dekyndt’s Indigenous Shadow, depicting a flag of human hair solemnising the slave ships in Martinique, are particularly brutal.


Edith Dekyndt’s Indigenous Shadow.

But it’s also playful. Taiwanese artist Shih Yung-Chun’s Braid Cabinet is a vintage dresser filled with detached animal and human heads, thick woollen hair cascading out the back as they stare unblinking out at the viewer. And Lou Hubbard’s hilarious absurdist art books obsessively cut and paste the coifs of disgraced Japanese prime minister Ryutaro Hashimoto and Monica Lewinsky.

There are also works by major artists such as Patricia Piccinini and Marina Abramović, but it’s the odd affiliations between works in Hair Pieces that feel most successful. It’s an exhibition that unravels and braids our most fundamental and unconscious memories of hair – its psychological, mythical and even spiritual dimensions. It’ll make you think twice before booking that next haircut.