Anyone who had the chance of meeting Clarence Purvis can attest to one fact: He was madly and deeply in love with his wife, Carolyn. Over the course of decades, they were happily married, raising children. They loved to spend every moment they could together, including for meals. One of their most beloved traditions had them eating at the same local restaurant six times a week. It’s no wonder, then, that when Clarence became an elderly widower, he found a way to keep their routine going. Clarence did this by continuing to eat at that same restaurant, alone… well, almost alone, anyway. Without fail, he’d always bring photos of his late wife. That way, he could place them across the table, making it feel as though she were still with him. Needless to say, this new routine was heartbreakingly beautiful to anyone who had the chance of seeing it. Best of all, the story of Clarence’s love for his wife grew far beyond their home of Glennville, Georgia. YouTube “He became world-known just to show his love for his wife, how much she meant to him,” their daughter, Dianne Knight, says, prompting her brother, Dale, to add, “And that was the environment we grew up in all our life.” Elderly Widow Finds Heartwarming Way to Continue Tradition With His Late Wife In addition to eating at “their” restaurant, Clarence was known for frequently visiting Carolyn’s grave — five or six times a day, in fact, until he was no longer able to drive. Even their restaurant closing didn’t stop him — he found a new place to be theirs. YouTube Since their love story blew up in 2017, Clarence also passed away at 97 years old in 2021. Although their children are sad that he is no longer with them, they cherish the time they had together. Plus, they couldn’t be more proud of the way their parents’ love story has brought so much joy and hope to others. Clarence and Carolyn’s Love Store Lives On “That’s what this world needs today,” Dianne says. “The kind of love that they had for one another.” YouTube And, as much as they miss their dad, they’re happy with the idea that Clarence is back together with Carolyn, happier than ever to be reunited once more. “The pictures of him after momma passed, you hardly saw him smile. As opposed to when we had pictures of him before. But now he’ll be smiling all the time,” Dale says, with Dianne adding, “He’s smiling talking to momma. Momma talking to him.” You can find the source of this story’s featured image here! The post Elderly Widower Kept His Wife’s Memory Alive In The Most Beautiful Way appeared first on InspireMore.

Hypothetical questions are always really fun in science because they make us think about what we know in a different light, which can make us better understand the huge scale of our planet. So let's stop the Earth from spinning and see what happens. First of all, let’s imagine the rotation stops in one second. At the equator, it's like being in a car that was moving at 1,670 kilometers (1,038 miles) per hour and hitting the brakes. If you are in a building you’ll be thrown into the closest eastward wall and experience 47 times the gravitational acceleration of our planet. The good news is that this might not kill you. But everything else will.The Earth might be still but everything else will continue to move at exactly the same speed the Earth was spinning before. This includes the atmosphere and all of the oceans. The winds alone would be four times faster and stronger than the fastest wind ever recorded (408 km/h 253 mph). And then you’ll experience a huge tsunami wave, which will destroy anything the winds didn’t (which may not be much).The extent of the damage will obviously be more devastating the closer you are to the equator but in the long run, being near the poles won't save you either. Due to its rotation, the Earth bulges in the middle, so the poles are about 21 kilometers (13 miles) closer to the center of the Earth than the equator. Without the rotation, the oceans will migrate towards the poles – where the gravity is strongest – creating, respectively, devastating Earthquakes, one very large megacontinent across the equator, and two separate oceans.According to Witold Fraczek from the mapping and analytic company Esri, the North Ocean will host most of Europe and Russia underwater. Greenland and all of Canada will be submerged as well as Chicago, Seattle, and Boston. New York will still be near the ocean, just in a different direction. In the Southern Hemisphere, the ocean will have covered huge chunks of Argentina, Chile, and New Zealand, as well as the whole Antarctic continent.So if your supervillain plan is to slow down the rotation of the Earth, the best place to be is at the North Pole on a well-equipped floating mobile base. The location would certainly be an advantage. The Earth would experience a "day" every year, so by going around it would be possible to simulate a regular day/night cycle. But things won't be too rosy in the long run. A non-rotating Earth will not have a magnetic field, as the liquid core of our planet would also be stationary. Without the magnetic field, the few living creatures that could have survived such cataclysmic changes would eventually succumb to the radiation. If you had more time you wouldn’t have to worry about actually slowing down the planet, the Earth is already slowing down on its own. In the last century, the length of the average day has increased of 1.7 milliseconds. The long-term trend is due to tidal effects between the Earth and the Moon but the length of the day also fluctuates due to other effects. At this rate, it would take 18.5 billion years for the Earth to have a day as long as a year.An earlier version of this article was published in January 2018.

A new COVID-19 strain may be contributing to more infection this winter in Australia. The KP.3, otherwise known as “FLuQE”, is a subvariant of the FLiRT strain but contains a mutation that has made it easier to spread.FLiRT is just one strain of the infection responsible for the global Pandemic in 2020, it’s a family of subvariants that quickly became dominant because they were highly transmissible. Within the group were several similar variants that start with the KP, with KP.2 being the most prevalent of the bunch and responsible for recent waves of COVID across the world.Now, not long after its predecessor emerged, a new subvariant – KP.3 – has appeared on the world stage, and is spreading across Australia, the US, and elsewhere.What’s new?KP.3 has been so successful, from the virus’s perspective, that it has gained its own designation – FluQE. This is because it has an additional spike protein mutation that seems to make it better at binding to our cellular receptors. This may be why it appears to be spreading quicker. It is also believed that this subvariant is better at avoiding our immune system, which means our existing vaccines and treatment options may be less effective at preventing their spread.As with other FLiRT variants, KP.3 is a descendant of the JN.1 variant, which caused infections across the world around six months ago.Paul Griffin, an infectious diseases physician and clinical microbiologist at the University of Queensland, says this is an example of how quickly the virus can evolve.  "What this virus has done many times, and continues to do, is that it's changed significantly," Griffin told ABC News. Certainly in our country, FLuQE, or KP.3, has passed FLiRT, or KP.2."While the FLiRT and FluQE variants have been spreading far quicker, this does not mean they are more lethal. Nor does it mean that vaccinations are unnecessary. However, the virus’s quick mutation rate does mean that every new variant emerges, it causes our protections to fall behind slightly.So even if you were recently vaccinated against FLiRT, you are still at risk of reinfection from FLuQE. At the same time, the world has become more complacent over the threat of COVID since we all left lockdown. As such, less is being done to curb its transmission.This means people should continue to get their COVID booster shots when they can as they are still valuable for reducing severe symptoms. In the meantime, the World Health Organization (WHO) is recommending the development of vaccines that target JN.1 so that we are better prepared for its variants. These will likely be available towards the end of 2024.

One of the world’s greatest examples of sexual selection is the elaborate performances put on by birds-of-paradise, and it’s possible the female’s choosiness may be a way of avoiding mating with males of the wrong species. However, new research has revealed that this isn’t always enough to prevent mating between species, as it has identified some rare birds-of-paradise hybrids.A hybrid is the offspring of two plants or animals that are different species, and we’ve seen remarkable examples in nature in the form of grolar bears, coywolves, and sturddlefish. The resulting animal borrows phenotypic traits from both species, which was the first clue for scientists in establishing if such hybrids existed among birds-of-paradise.There had been reports of “odd-looking males” entering museum collections that were notable for having the breast feathers of one species, while also having the tail feathers of another. To look into the evolutionary consequences of such hybridization events between these animals, researchers led by Dr. Mozes Blom from Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, and Dr Martin Irestedt from the Swedish Museum of Natural History decided to compare the genomes of different specimens.Their focus was the birds-of-paradise family Paradiseaidae, found in Australasia. The ornately plumaged males in this group put on the performance of a lifetime to win favor with picky females, which got the team wondering: what happens when a male of the wrong species slips past her quality assurance checks?The results of their investigations have been published in two papers, revealing that rare hybrids do exist among birds-of-paradise with wildly different parents. In fact, not only are there hybrids, but some of them are the result of multiple rounds of hybridization, which is significant because it indicates that the hybrid offspring aren’t necessarily infertile – something that’s not uncommon among hybrids. The recurring process means that the genetic material of one species is repeatedly found in the genome of the other, suggesting the hybrids have been reproducing and exchanging their DNA.One of the Paradisaea raggiana museum collection specimens. Hybrids were detected of these birds with Paradisaea guilielmi and Paradisornis rudolphi.Image credit: © Carola Radke"Our two studies shed new light on the evolutionary consequences of hybridization in organismal groups with strong forms of sexual selection," said Blom in a statement sent to IFLScience. "Our findings not only confirm that it is indeed still possible to produce fertile offspring between species, where the males differ so radically in traits that are a key indicator for female preference, it has actually also resulted in the sharing of genes between species.”“There is a growing body of work which indicates that hybridization may lead to phenotypic diversification and our findings surprisingly suggest that this may still hold true for species with extreme forms of sexual selection. However, many questions remain, in particular regarding the functional significance of genes that have been shared between species and why females occasionally make 'mistakes' in the first place and mate with a male that is very obviously not of her own species". The studies are published in Evolution Letters and iScience.

Researchers have discovered exceptionally preserved “Pompeii” trilobite fossils in Morocco, providing new insights into the anatomy and preservation of these ancient creatures through advanced imaging...

There are plenty of harmful chemicals, but the devil is in the details when determining which is the most dangerous.

“O Lord, thou art my God; I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name; for thou hast done wonderful things; thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth. For thou hast made of a city an heap; of a defenced city a ruin: a palace of strangers to be no city; it shall never be built. Therefore shall the strong people glorify thee, the city of the terrible nations shall fear thee. For thou hast been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat, … The post The Editors’ Quote of the Day: appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.

To be prepared for a crisis, every Prepper must establish goals and make both long-term and short-term plans. In this column, the SurvivalBlog editors review their week’s prep activities and planned prep activities for the coming week. These range from healthcare and gear purchases to gardening, ranch improvements, bug-out bag fine-tuning, and food storage. This is something akin to our Retreat Owner Profiles, but written incrementally and in detail, throughout the year.  We always welcome you to share your own successes and wisdom in your e-mailed letters. We post many of those — or excerpts thereof — in the Odds … The post Editors’ Prepping Progress appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.

Editor’s Introductory Note:  This article was first published by WorldNet Daily (WND), and is reposted with permission. — WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange made known the immoral, illegal and unconstitutional actions of the U.S. government so that we now know that it is lying to the people on a grand scale. For this he should be heralded as a watchdog for accountable government, not denounced as a “commie who hates America,” says leading political economist Dr. Paul Craig Roberts. When the government abuses its powers, it becomes the enemy of its people. History is filled with horrifying examples of how nations … The post Julian Assange Case Marks the End of Critical Journalism, by Hanne N. Herland appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.

Today is the 30th anniversary of the 1994 Storm King Mountain wildfire that took the lives of 14 firefighters. Weather changes, resulting in 45 mph wind gusts, caused a modest wildfire to erupt into a blazing inferno, which threatened homes in and around the town of Glenwood Springs, Colorado. Firefighters from around the country were called to assist in fighting this wildfire. We will never forget the young men and women who lost their lives battling this fire: Prineville, Oregon Hotshots: Kathi Beck, Tamera Bickett, Scott Blecha, Levi Brinkley, Douglas Dunbar, Terri Hagen, Bonnie Holtby, Rob Johnson, Jon Kelso Missoula … The post Preparedness Notes for Saturday — July 6, 2024 appeared first on SurvivalBlog.com.