Underwater footage of a mother blue whale nursing its calf has been caught on camera for the first time, providing a rare glimpse into the private life of Earth’s largest animal.The video was recently filmed off the coast of Timor-Leste in Southeast Asia by a research and citizen science program led by the Australian National University (ANU) that has been studying blue whales in these waters since 2006. It shows a young calf suckling milk from its mother as the pair embark on their annual 5,000-kilometer (3,100-mile) migration between southern Australia and the Banda Sea near eastern Indonesia.  This part of the sea is known as a cetacean hotspot that regularly sees the passage of blue whales, beaked whales, short-finned pilot whales, melon-headed whales, and six dolphin species. It also has its fair share of sharks and turtles. The region’s deep ocean channels, which plunge to depths of over 3,000 meters (9,800 feet), serve as a major migratory highway for marine wildlife traveling between the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean.“Timor-Leste’s deep, nearshore waters, particularly in the narrow Ombai-Wetar Strait along thenorth coast of the country, provide one of the most accessible and best locations for blue whale research in the world,” Associate Professor Karen Edyvane at ANU, who is also an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at Charles Darwin University, said in a statement.            “From newborn calves and nursing mothers to amorous adults in courtship, the waters of Timor-Leste really are providing blue whale scientists with some of our first glimpses into the private lives of one of the world’s largest but most elusive animals,” she added. The appearance of a blue whale calf near Timor-Leste is especially poignant as it shows the region plays a role in the reproduction and early life of these magnificent creatures. “This evidence suggests that these waters are not only important foraging areas for blue whales, but also are critical for reproduction. Until now, it has been a mystery when, where and how blue whales reproduce,” added Dr Elanor Bell, a researcher at the Australian Antarctic Division.Blue whales can grow up to 33 meters (108 feet) in length, making them the largest animal to ever exist on planet Earth. Despite what you might have heard, it’s also the heaviest animal to ever live, weighing 270 metric tons.It’s estimated that over 350,000 blue whales lived in the ocean centuries ago, but prolific whaling in the 19th and early 20th centuries decimated their population numbers. Today, no more than 25,000 individuals are alive.Although still considered an endangered species, there’s evidence to suggest blue whales are making a strong recovery and their global population is increasing.

In 1901, RRS Discovery helped launch the “Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration” when it took exploration luminaries like Robert Falcon Scott (who led the expedition) and Ernest Shackleton on their first trip into the ice-packed waters of the distant south. Now, 123 years later, researchers have created a “digital twin” of the pioneering vessel that offers new insights into the lives of Antarctic explorers.A first of its kindThe Royal Research Ship (RRS) Discovery was built in Dundee, Scotland. It was the first ship in the world to be specifically designed to carry out scientific research in the harsh Antarctic environment and provided its crew with an ideal home while they carried out the first official British expedition to the region since 1839.This famous voyage also represented the starting point for some of the most influential figures in the history of Antarctic exploration, including the careers of Robert Falcon Scott (who led the expedition), Ernest Shackleton, Edward Wilson, Frank Wild, Tom Crean, and William Lashly.During the expedition, the team carried out scientific and geographical research into what was essentially an untouched and unknown continent. Its success was not only a landmark in the history of British Antarctic exploration, but also inspired subsequent voyages in the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, in the years between the end of the 19th century and the Shackleton–Rowett Expedition of 1921–1922.In 1901, RRS Discovery and her crew set sail on the first official British expedition to the Antarctic since James Clark Ross's journey in 1839.Image credit: Dundee Heritage TrustThe exploration’s discoveries included the Cape Crozier emperor penguin colony and many marine species, snow-free dry valleys in the western mountains, the Antarctic plateau – where the South Pole is located – and evidence that the Ice Barrier was a floating ice shelf.After this voyage, RRS Discovery had subsequent Antarctic expeditions in 1925 and 1929, but then became a training ship based in London in the years between 1931 and 1979. Then, in 1986, it returned to Dundee where it has become a multi-award-winning visitor attraction operated by Dundee Heritage Trust. Every year, the old Antarctic explorer attracts over 80,000 visitors who want to know more about its career.The "digital twin" comes to lifeUsing state-of-the-art technology, a team led by researchers at the University of Southampton have now created a highly accurate 3D representation of RRS Discovery. The new “digital twin” provides new insights into how the ship was built and used while also informing ongoing restoration work on the original vessel.“This digital twin provides an amazing opportunity for more people to explore this fascinating ship and learn about its history in a completely new way – including areas of the ship that cannot be accessed by the public,” Dr Michael Grant, from Coastal and Offshore Archaeological Research Services at the University of Southampton, explained in a statement.“Through this we can obtain even greater insights into the lives of the people who explored the Antarctic over a century ago, providing the foundation for much of the ocean and climate science being undertaken today.”  The team created the representation by making digital recordings of the vessel using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and laser scanners. The latter enabled the team to capture the ship’s precise shape, dimensions, and details. This was supplemented with LiDAR – a technique for remote sensing that uses light in the form of a pulsed laser – and photogrammetry surveys, which created the highly accurate 3D representation of the whole ship, including its interior and exterior. “With the rise of new technologies, such as laser scanners and UAVs”, Dr Felix Pedrotti, from the Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute at the University of Southampton, explained, “we can now create highly accurate digital twins. These digital replicas offer invaluable insights into the RRS Discovery, including its structures and layouts."The production of the digital representation coincides with a major centenary celebration for the ship. In 2023, RRS Discovery celebrated 100 years since she was purchased by the British Government and started to be refit for the Discovery Oceanographic Expeditions as the first ever Royal Research Ship.In 2025, it will be the centenary of this expedition, which lasted until 1927 and offered valuable scientific insights, including a greater understanding of whaling and the ecosystem of the great whales, which started conservation thinking.“This digital model marks the beginning of an exciting project to bring together the stories of the RRS Discovery, which will ensure all the artefacts and findings of those early expeditions are available to all, enhancing our understanding of the work undertaken by the ship then and how this research continues today”, Dr Tammy Horton, Senior Research Scientist and manager of the Discovery Collections at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, concluded.

A new UFO film “the Cosmic Joker” investigates the ‘trickster’ element of UFO and Alien encounters and how the intelligence behind it somehow adapts its appearance to what we expect to see. The film is inspired by late author and US Ufologist John Keel (famous for his Mothman Prophecies book and film starring Richard Gere). Keel was as journalist by trade and he used his Investigative skills to look at the UFO phenomena. As well as going through thousands of archive newspaper reports he also looked at strange aerial sightings throughout history. He concluded that there was a weird almost paranormal element to them and somehow they were adapting to the culture of our times. He called it the Cosmic Joker or trickster as it always seemed to be playing with humanity…teasing us…we get close think we know the truth and then….bam,..something else comes along to confuse us. For instance in biblical times we saw angels in the sky, the ancient Hindu Texts talked of Vimanas, which they thought were flying temples, then this evolved into fairies, sprites and now in the technological age we see them (or perceive them) as spaceships. Award winning film-maker and UFO researcher Mark Christopher Lee states: “I wanted to make this film to look in detail at the sheer weirdness of the UFO experience. We investigate the Robert Taylor incident in Scotland of a Forest worker who claimed he was attacked by an alien that looked like a sea mine with strange metallic sharp appendages, then we also compare this to the Pascagoula event in the US where 2 men out fishing were taken on board a spaceship by beings with weird crab like pincers….why…what does this mean? Is Keel right that there is a Cosmic Joker out there – some intelligence that is playing with us?” Did Robert Taylor who was a World War veteran see the entity as looking like a sea mine as that was an image he had from his time serving in the army….or did the intelligence take that appearance because of his experience? Did the 2 fishermen Calvin Parker and Charles Hickson see the Aliens with crab like appendages because that’s an image that they were familiar with or did this intelligence create that appearance on purpose? Lee adds: “There’s definitely enough evidence of this trickster being behind UFOs, maybe it’s an intelligence from a different realm or dimension of reality. I do think that the US government knows this and this is why they will never release the truth to the public…as it’s far weirder and more to it than just aliens from another planet!” The film is streaming now on Tubi worldwide. New UFO film – the Cosmic Joker – out now on TUBI worldwide. The post New film states that US gov knows that alien tricksters are playing with humanity appeared first on Anomalien.com.

A week after Joe Biden seemed lost and confused during CNN’s presidential debate, liberal journalists continue to freak out about the President’s poor performance. Yet just four months earlier, many of those same journalists vilified then-Special Counsel Robert Hur for honestly reporting that the decision not to pursue charges against Biden for willfully mishandling classified documents was because a jury would likely find Biden a “sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.” Rather than push the White House for an independent evaluation of Biden’s capacity, journalists closed their eyes to reality and blindly echoed Democratic efforts to deflect and deny. The evening of the report’s release (February 8), ABC’s Mary Bruce highlighted Team Biden’s claim that everything was fine: “Biden’s legal team in a letter saying, quote, ‘We do not believe that the report’s treatment of President Biden’s memory is accurate or appropriate. The report uses highly prejudicial language to describe a commonplace occurrence among witnesses: a lack of recall of years-old events. Such comments have no place in a Department of Justice report.” “This report reads like more than a recitation of facts,” PBS NewsHour co-anchor Geoff Bennett asked a pro-Biden legal expert that same evening. “Does it cross the line into excess?” After the evening newscasts, Biden appeared at a hastily-arranged press conference to personally denounce Hur. During MSNBC’s live coverage that night, the network’s liberal partisans dutifully fell in line. The Beat host Ari Melber blasted the “cheap shot, derogatory attacks” in Hur’s report, adding: “Maybe Mr. Hur would be better suited going for a job as White House physician...” During the same hour of coverage, the network’s 10pm host Lawrence O’Donnell grumbled that Hur had shown himself to be “kind of a wiseguy, partisan Republican,” while Joy Reid dismissed the report as “nasty and snarky for no reason.” On the February 9 Morning Joe, co-host Joe Scarborough was beside himself. “[It’s] so bizarre, and there’s so many people that immediately heard this, these random, random conclusions, irrelevant conclusions, politically charged, Trump-like, Trump-like ramblings who, first of all, wondered why in the world he would put that in the report, his neurological assessment of Joe Biden, and secondly, why Merrick Garland would release garbage like that,” Scarborough growled. A few minutes later, he slammed Hur again: “It’s gratuitous, and he knows it was gratuitous, and it was bad faith, bad faith that he did it, and it was even, it was even worse judgment that the Justice Department allowed that garbage to be release.” That same morning on CNN, legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin called the references to Biden’s poor memory “an outrage, was a disgrace. I mean, the idea that they, that he would make such a big point of Biden being elderly is not something a prosecutor needed to do.” And, even if Biden was mentally failing, “how is that worse than the alternative: another senior citizen who also has serious memory and confusion problems but who is also facing 91 criminal counts?” MSNBC afternoon host Katy Tur wondered. That evening on NewsHour, commentator Jonathan Capehart maintained the party line, calling the report “gratuitous,” fuming: “We have spent way too much time talking about this President’s age. And I will say it again. When Ronald Reagan was the oldest person to ever be in the White House and to run for reelection, I don’t recall a lot of people within his own party talking about the fact that we need to get another person, he’s too old.” “I found some of the language in the report a little bit gratuitous,” The Economist’s James Bennett echoed on PBS’s political roundtable program Washington Week an hour later. “I mean, it seemed to me to go unnecessarily far and a little bit that they were trying to smuggle some of the details in.” “That was almost written for the tweet,” quipped host Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic. Ever helpful, the New York Times tracked down “experts” who claimed it was impossible for a layman like Hur to evaluate the President’s memory. Reporter Gina Kolata wrote that “while the report disparaged Mr. Biden’s mental health, medical experts on Friday noted that its judgments were not based on science and that its methods bore no resemblance to those that doctors use to assess possible cognitive impairment.” On ABC’s This Week that Sunday (February 11), former Democratic U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara scolded Hur’s “gratuitous, superfluous statements about his [Biden’s] memory....That had no place in this document.” Later on the same show, ABC commentator Donna Brazille sneered: “The Special Counsel was more interested in scoring, what appears to be scoring, political points than making legal arguments....You know what else is an issue? The wisdom and the experience.” Over on NBC’s Meet the Press, MSNBC host (and former Biden press secretary) Jen Psaki explicitly requested the media bash Trump instead of Biden: “If you’re sitting in the White House and on the campaign right now you are absolutely banging your head against the wall at the way that the Thursday report has been covered, given all of the things that have happened this week....The fact that Donald Trump yesterday suggested that Vladimir Putin should have free reign in attacking NATO allies and what do we see is wall-to-wall coverage of whether a guy who is four years older than his opponent is too old to be president.” In his February 9 column, liberal New York Times columnist Paul Krugman condemned Hur’s report as a “hit job,” and castigated Hur’s “snide, unwarranted, obviously politically motivated slurs about President Biden’s memory.” Yet after watching the President’s debate disaster last week, Krugman changed his tune: “Given where we are, I must very reluctantly join the chorus asking Biden to voluntarily step aside, with emphasis on the ‘voluntary’ aspect.” Krugman had no apology for Hur, of course. Looking back at the coverage from just four short months ago, it’s clear partisan elements of the press had no interest (then) in an honest evaluation of the President’s capabilities. Maybe they thought they were helping a “well-meaning, elderly” Democratic President sneak through one last election without voters noticing how significantly diminished he had become. But it turns out that denying the truth about the President wasn’t a favor to Biden, to Democrats, or to the country. The media’s nasty rejection of Hur back in February merely delayed the inevitable until Joe Biden’s problems became too obvious to ignore. For more examples from our flashback series, which we call the NewsBusters Time Machine, go here.                          

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iOS 18 adds important features to the iPhone. Besides revamping the Home Screen, Lock Screen, and Control Center, Apple is about to bring its Intelligence platform to iPhone 15 Pro users. However, one of the top changes available on iOS 18 could probably pass unnoticed by many users: The iPhone Contacts app makeover. While it might look the same from the outside, Apple has added important security layers to your Contacts app with iOS 18. First and foremost, Cupertino has applied the same level of protection it did for users before they allowed third-party apps to access their iPhone's gallery. Now, every time you download a new app and it requests access to your contacts, Apple lets you choose which connections can be viewed by the app. This extra layer of security prevents third-party apps from gaining access to your entire agenda with just a tap. Ultimately, this feature helps protect your and your contacts' data. Since the Contacts app contains sensitive information (addresses, birthdays, relatives, emails, etc.), you can now limit a social media app from checking all of that data when you only want to share a small portion with it. Image source: Apple Inc. Apple says it allows users to decide "which contacts to share with an app, rather than giving it access to all your contacts." The company even suggests you might want to share the data "only to those you message and call most." Besides that, another privacy feature that makes your contacts safer is the ability to lock and hide apps. One of my favorite iOS 18 features is protecting apps with Face ID, and Phone, Contacts, and FaceTime are among the software I'm locking behind biometric authentication. With that in mind, if someone unauthorized gets access to my iPhone (or if I get robbed), I can rest assured that no one will get my contacts' information, as they will be locked with Face ID authentication. Wrap up While these might look like small changes, they are actually huge deals, especially now that our entire lives are stored in our phones. That said, Apple's help in ensuring we are calling the shots with our data is more important than ever. Below, you can learn more about iOS 18. Don't Miss: iOS 18: Features, release date, beta, download, Apple Intelligence The post iOS 18 gives the iPhone Contacts app the redesign and security it always needed appeared first on BGR. Today's Top Deals Today’s deals: $120 off Ryzen 9 mini PC, $89 Apple AirPods, $25 portable neck fan, $79 23andMe DNA test, more Best July 4th deals: Apple sale, $30 mosquito repellent, $50 Waterpik, $70 SodaStream, 36% off eero, more July 4th deal roundup: $16 wireless charger, $50 Ninja blender, DJI Mini 3, KitchenAid Stand Mixers, more Today’s deals: Early Prime Day sales, $50 Ring Doorbell, $80 Keurig coffee maker, $470 Dyson V11, more