A 90-Minute 'Cheap Fake'

In news that’s likely to be awkward for whoever decided that the nine-banded armadillo should be the state small animal of Texas, scientists have discovered that it’s actually four different species – and the only one that’s kept the name doesn’t even live in the state.At least until now, nine-banded armadillos were considered to be the most widespread of all the armadillo species, with a range that saw them all the way from Argentina up into the center of the US.That’s a pretty impressive range – but one that had doubt cast upon it when some scientists began to propose that the nine-banded armadillo was in fact a complex of species. One of those scientists was Frédéric Delsuc, a research director at the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France, who started to suspect a split within the nine-banded species back in the late 1990s, but didn’t have enough evidence from specimens across the armadillo’s range to back it up.Now, Delsuc is the senior author of a study that appears to confirm his earlier suspicions.The research involved a branch of science called museomics, a smooshing together of the terms “museum” and “genomics” because it involves sequencing the DNA of specimens from museum collections. Out of the 80 armadillo tissue samples used in the study, 38 were from museum specimens.One of the museum specimens used in the study.Image credit: Kate Golembiewski, Field MuseumThis allowed the team to expand the geographical range of armadillos sampled. By analyzing the animals’ DNA, as well as their physical characteristics, the researchers were able to determine how they changed across it.As a result, they concluded that what was thought to be the nine-banded armadillo was indeed a complex of four different species: the original name Dasypus novemcinctus, found only in South America (sorry Texas); Dasypus mexicanus, found in Mexico and the US; Dasypus fenestratus, found in the central part of the range; and Dasypus guianensis, found in the Guiana Shield region of South America.As D. mexicanus and D. fenestratus were formerly considered subspecies of the nine-banded, D. guianensis – dubbed the Guianan long-nosed armadillio – marks the first truly new species of armadillo identified in the last 30 years.DNA analysis definitely made the difference in reaching this conclusion – according to the study authors, they’re almost indistinguishable from one another by appearance alone.So what’s the point in splitting them up into different species? Again, it’s in part down to their genes – they’re different at a molecular level, and that means they may well have different needs.“Sometimes, biologists bring individuals from one area to another to repopulate,” said study co-author Anderson Feijó in a statement. “Since they're different species, with potentially different needs, they will not be able to integrate.”There’s also the matter of their conservation status – the nine-banded armadillo wasn’t considered endangered, but that might change now the species are separated. “[T]his discovery totally shifts the way we think about conservation for these species and the way we think about how threatened they are,” Feijó concluded.The study is published in the journal Systematic Biology.

Fifty years ago, scientists discovered a nearly complete fossilized skull and hundreds of pieces of bone of a 3.2-million-year-old female specimen of the genus Australopithecus afarensis, often described as “the mother of us all.” During a celebration following her discovery, she was named “Lucy,” after the Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”Though Lucy has solved some evolutionary riddles, her appearance remains an ancestral secret.Popular renderings dress her in thick, reddish-brown fur, with her face, hands, feet and breasts peeking out of denser thickets.This hairy picture of Lucy, it turns out, might be wrong.Technological advancements in genetic analysis suggest that Lucy may have been naked, or at least much more thinly veiled.According to the coevolutionary tale of humans and their lice, our immediate ancestors lost most of their body fur 3 to 4 million years ago and did not don clothing until 83,000 to 170,000 years ago.That means that for over 2.5 million years, early humans and their ancestors were simply naked.As a philosopher, I’m interested in how modern culture influences representations of the past. And the way Lucy has been depicted in newspapers, textbooks and museums may reveal more about us than it says about her.From nudity to shameThe loss of body hair in early humans was likely influenced by a combination of factors, including thermoregulation, delayed physiological development, attracting sexual partners and warding off parasites. Environmental, social and cultural factors may have encouraged the eventual adoption of clothing.Both areas of research – of when and why hominins shed their body hair and when and why they eventually got dressed – emphasize the sheer size of the brain, which takes years to nurture and requires a disproportionate amount of energy to sustain relative to other parts of the body.Because human babies require a long period of care before they can survive on their own, evolutionary interdisciplinary researchers have theorized that early humans adopted the strategy of pair bonding – a man and a woman partnering after forming a strong affinity for one another. By working together, the two can more easily manage years of parental care.Pair bonding, however, comes with risks.Because humans are social and live in large groups, they are bound to be tempted to break the pact of monogamy, which would make it harder to raise children.Some mechanism was needed to secure the social-sexual pact. That mechanism was likely shame.In the documentary “What’s the Problem with Nudity?” evolutionary anthropologist Daniel M.T. Fessler explains the evolution of shame: “The human body is a supreme sexual advertisement… Nudity is a threat to the basic social contract, because it is an invitation to defection… Shame encourages us to stay faithful to our partners and share the responsibility of bringing up our children.”Boundaries between body and worldHumans, aptly described as “naked apes,” are unique for their lack of fur and systematic adoption of clothing. Only by banning nudity did “nakedness” become a reality.As human civilization developed, measures must have been put in place to enforce the social contract – punitive penalties, laws, social dictates – especially with respect to women.That’s how shame’s relationship to human nudity was born. To be naked is to break social norms and regulations. Therefore, you’re prone to feeling ashamed.What counts as naked in one context, however, may not in another.Bare ankles in Victorian England, for example, excited scandal. Today, bare tops on a French Mediterranean beach are ordinary.When it comes to nudity, art doesn’t necessarily imitate life.In his critique of the European oil painting tradition, art critic John Berger distinguishes between nakedness – “being oneself” without clothes – and “the nude,” an art form that transforms the naked body of a woman into a pleasurable spectacle for men.Feminist critics such as Ruth Barcan complicated Berger’s distinction between nakedness and the nude, insisting that nakedness is already shaped by idealized representations.In “Nudity: A Cultural Anatomy,” Barcan demonstrates how nakedness is not a neutral state but is laden with meaning and expectations. She describes “feeling naked” as “the heightened perception of temperature and air movement, the loss of the familiar boundary between body and world, as well as the effects of the actual gaze of others” or “the internalized gaze of an imagined other.”Nakedness can elicit a spectrum of feelings – from eroticism and intimacy to vulnerability, fear and shame. But there is no such thing as nakedness outside of social norms and cultural practices.Lucy’s veilsRegardless of her fur’s density, then, Lucy was not naked.But just as the nude is a kind of dress, Lucy, since her discovery, has been presented in ways that reflect historical assumptions about motherhood and the nuclear family. For example, Lucy is depicted alone with a male companion or with a male companion and children. Her facial expressions are warm and content or protective, reflecting idealized images of motherhood.The modern quest to visualize our distant ancestors has been critiqued as a sort of “erotic fantasy science,” in which scientists attempt to fill in the blanks of the past based on their own assumptions about women, men and their relationships to one another.In their 2021 article “Visual Depictions of Our Evolutionary Past,” an interdisciplinary team of researchers tried a different approach. They detail their own reconstruction of the Lucy fossil, bringing into relief their methods, the relationship between art and science, and decisions made to supplement gaps in scientific knowledge.Their process is contrasted with other hominin reconstructions, which often lack strong empirical justifications and perpetuate misogynistic and racialized misconceptions about human evolution. Historically, illustrations of the stages of human evolution have tended to culminate in a white European male. And many reconstructions of female hominins exaggerate features offensively associated with Black women.One of the co-authors of “Visual Depictions,” sculptor Gabriel Vinas, offers a visual elucidation of Lucy’s reconstruction in “Santa Lucia” – a marble sculpture of Lucy as a nude figure draped in translucent cloth, representing the artist’s own uncertainties and Lucy’s mysterious appearance. IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.The veiled Lucy speaks to the complex relationships among nudity, covering, sex and shame. But it also casts Lucy as a veiled virgin, a figure revered for sexual “purity.”And yet I can’t help but imagine Lucy beyond the cloth, a Lucy neither in the sky with diamonds nor frozen in maternal idealization – a Lucy going “Apeshit” over the veils thrown over her, a Lucy who might find herself compelled to wear a Guerrilla Girls mask, if anything at all.Stacy Keltner, Professor of Philosophy, Kennesaw State UniversityThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Survivors in the throes of survival ordeals sometimes report the presence of a second, third or fourth person who appears and gives encouragement and direction in times of dire need. The post Third Man Syndrome appeared first on Survivopedia.

Many terrible things happened in 1917, and one man caused most of them: Woodrow Wilson. Wilson laid the groundwork for today's Big Tech surveillance. He did it through centralization and bureaucracy, a collectivism that America had never seen before. On April 2, 1917, Wilson urged Congress to declare war on Germany, saying, “The world must be made safe for democracy,” and, “We desire no conquest, no dominion.” Woodrow Wilson transformed 'intellectuals' into militants of the state.Wilson had a habit of manipulating people through fear. He won the 1916 election on a non-interventionist platform, insisting that Republicans would lead America to war if they won the election. However, within a year, he had changed his mind. It became clear to him that America would need to enter the war. But he couldn’t let the country know that he’d changed his mind — no, that would be too straightforward. Instead, he would have to convince them that going to war was his own brilliant idea. So, he did what any of us would have done (right?): He unleashed a vicious propaganda campaign. It began with the creation of the Committee on Public Information, which is as 1984-esque as it sounds. The Committee on Public Information was the first — and only — time that America had a ministry of propaganda, and it set the standard for modern-day propaganda. It had 47 divisions, including the Division of Pictorial Publicity, the Four Minute Men Division, the News Division, and the Censorship Board.To manage the CPI, he would need a sneaky ally. That man was George Creel. Guess what he did for a living. He was a journalist. Well, “journalist” is a bit of a stretch. Creel described the Committee on Public Information as a “vast enterprise in salesmanship.”Wilson’s manipulation of the media is part of what made this new propaganda so powerful. Control the media, and you can control public opinion. Control public opinion, and you can control the minds — and the actions — of the people. After all, anything the guard dogs and truth-tellers of society say must be true.An army of snitchesThis propaganda campaign was also very ... personal. It took place on the streets. Within a couple months, Creel had recruited 100,000 men. This squadron of bullies stormed movie theaters across the country, giving fiery speeches to captive moviegoers during the four minutes where projectionists changed the movie reel.Creel used prominent members within the communities to spread this propaganda to every corner of America. Specifically, they wanted to sway the opinion of Southerners, who saw no reason to enter a European war at the behest of a president they didn’t vote for.Soon, the four-minute men delivered their heated rants anywhere there was a gathering of people, including churches, lodges, fraternal organizations, labor unions, and even logging camps.Preachers, actors, lawyers, teachers, superintendents, athletes, magicians, aviators, titans of industry, and even a few KKK leaders, like DeForest Henry Perkins and the grand wizard — middle-aged men who were too old to fight — used their public speaking skills to spread fear and advertise war. They also used their public speaking skills to convince people to support progressive ideas, the draft, food rationing, and support for the Red Cross. They gave speeches in many different languages. And historians estimate that, in New York City, these speeches reached 500,000 weekly. The trick was to make the speeches look like patriotic outbursts from passionate members of the community. In reality, every message was scripted by the state.Creel once said that the speeches “were no haphazard talks by nondescripts, but the careful, studied, and rehearsed efforts of the best men in each community, each speech aimed as a rifle is aimed, and driving to its mark with the precision of a bullet.”Several hundred thousand Americans volunteered for neighborhood watch. Americans betraying their fellow Americans, the people they shared their community with. Hollywood played a crucial role, too. The most famous actors of the time, people like Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford, did the same thing the famous actors today do now: berate ordinary people into subservience to the elites. Before long, it was impossible for anyone to speak out against the war. His goal was to censor and crush anyone who tried to stop him by labeling them “seditious,” anti-American villains pushing for an insurrection. Hm, sounds a bit like a more recent “insurrection” campaign, doesn’t it? They claimed that Germany was engaged in "nothing less than war against the government and people of the United States." Wilson even offered “Fourteen Points” as a way to maintain his image as a peacemaker. But behind the scenes, he was just sneaking progressivism into a Trojan horse of foreign policy.He transformed “intellectuals” into militants of the state. In an editorial, Teddy Roosevelt wrote: "If the League of Nations is built on a document as high-sounding and as meaningless as the speech in which Mr. Wilson laid down his fourteen points, it will simply add one more scrap to the diplomatic waste paper basket. Most of these fourteen points ... would be interpreted ... to mean anything or nothing."The Germans, likewise, saw it for what it was: propaganda. Meanwhile, back home, the four-minute men continued this propaganda campaign until the war ended in 1918. By the end of the over year-and-a-half-long operation, the propaganda had reached every single American. It laid the groundwork for the Wilson war state, which marched four million Americans off to war, 116,708 of whom died in the fight.Wilson destroyed an America that we’ll never know. He transformed it from a small town, quaint and local, to a global war machine that could be controlled by an all-powerful executive. In June 1917, Wilson pushed the Espionage Act through Congress, and in May 1918, he pushed the Overman Act through, giving him total control. He even made it a crime to “willfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States.”A few years later, in 1924, the FBI became the first federal police force in America.

The U.S. Supreme Court may have mortally wounded the Constitution this week by seemingly forgetting or not caring that the First Amendment is kind of the whole ballgame. I mean, it was first, after all. Isn’t that important? You might even say that it — to borrow a legal phrase — indicates “standing.” Can you imagine the level of censorship you should prepare to see in the next 19 weeks ahead of the November election? Stick with me now, John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett. Because if “we the people” don't have permanent and unambiguous standing on behalf of the First Amendment to the Constitution, then explain to me what we can possibly have standing on without threat of it being taken away. And what is the ACLU’s standing to sue Oklahoma over speech? Or what's the Wisconsin-based Freedom from Religion Foundation’s standing to sue Louisiana over speech? Notice how this street only goes one way? So if you happen to think this latest Supreme Court perversion of justice in Murthy v. Missouri is just a procedural vote, let me first tell you that David French and his never-ending menagerie of blessings of liberty send their regards. Let me now put a finer point on it. Do any of you remember the 2013 marriage case known as Windsor v. United States? And do you remember on what grounds the Supreme Court ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act was unconstitutional? There were concurring majority opinions, but the main reason the court ruled against the marriage amendment in California was that — wait for it — the people of California lacked standing. More than 8 million Californians voted for Proposition 8, which defined marriage as a union between one man and one woman. That’s more than had ever voted for any Republican candidate for office, from governor to president, in the state’s history. Thus, when it comes to questions of “standing,” the game has been afoot for quite some time. This was not merely a simple procedural thing for the current court to rule on standing. This was a coward's way out for Roberts, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. They are now in the same class of justices who botched Plessy v. Ferguson, Dred Scott, and Roe v. Wade. This Supreme Court ruling has made clear it is fine for you to be sorted as an “other” if it suits the appropriate powers and principalities. Now who is doing that sorting, you might ask? In each of the three historic cases mentioned above, it was the government saying separate is equal, Dred Scott is property, and the unborn aren’t persons. So shall it be moving forward regarding vaccines, transgenderism, and whatever else the woke terrorists demand. Can you imagine the level of censorship you should prepare to see in the next 19 weeks ahead of the November election? It doesn’t matter that they got caught red-handed burying the Hunter Biden laptop story to win last time. They just got permission to top that every day. So don’t you dare try to tell me that I'm overreacting. I’ve written two best-selling books about the COVID scam that is the Orwellian impetus for the government and Big Tech cabal behind Murthy v. Missouri. Yet I’m now being told that we must vote Republican to get good judges so we can make censorship great again in the name of injecting a toxic genetic serum in our arms without any say whatsoever? In hindsight — and I can't believe I'm going to say this because I find it revolting — knowing what I know now after the pro-life movement has lost ground upon the rejection of Roe two year ago, I would honestly trade losing the Dobbs case in exchange for reversing Murthy. That's how vital I think this is. Social media is the modern-day town square, and you have been told to expect to get the hell out whenever it suits those who hate you for daring to get up in the morning and having an opinion that isn’t state-approved. I don't know how it’s even possible to overreact to this dreadful decision. America’s founders threw tea into the harbor simply for being taxed too much. For this, they wouldn’t have hesitated to set the entire boat on fire and send it to the bottom of the ocean. This is 2024, though. Today, I am compelled to vote for Donald Trump to throw a monkey wrench into this absurd and lawless status quo while fully realizing that he’s the guy who gave us two of the justices who just steamrolled the First Amendment. To think we fought like hell for a known mediocrity like Kavanaugh because of how deceitful we found the attacks against him during his confirmation only to have him just announce it’s open season on us. Isn’t that a kick in the pants? Tragically, we are probably not deserving of a better fate. Cultural gluttony and civic decadence can only go on for so long before the wheels come off and the destination becomes the bottom of a cliff. How’s that for “standing”? I’m sure our children will understand.

Boston Whaler Founder: Dick Fisher Founded: 1958 Location: Edgewater, Florida Representative products: “Unsinkable” boats like the 150 Montauk, 130 Super Sport, and the 220 Dauntless. At a glance: Offers fishing boats, cruising boats, and tender boats, as well as runabouts, cruisers, and center console boats. Trusted by navies around the world, including Navy SEALs and the U.S. Coast Guard. Has been building boats for more than 60 years. After graduating from Harvard, founder Dick Fisher revolutionized the hull-making process by using polyurethane foam injection. Boats range in size from 13 feet to 42 feet. Purchased by marine manufacturing giant Brunswick Corporation in 1996. Two Boston Whaler Conquest models won Innovation Awards at the 2024 Miami International Boat Show. Has also won best in Fiberglass Outboard Boats category at the NMMA Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI) Awards for 16 years in a row. In their own words: Ron Berman, VP of Product Development and Engineering We are very focused on what is important to the customer. There is a lot of information you learn from surveys, but you learn by actually spending time with boat owners. When you do, you find your answers. People want to feel like they are in something big and roomy. Maximize comfort. Every seat should have a good view and be comfortable. And you should feel secure. They want a boat that has very predictable performance and handling. They want a boat that allows you to maintain visibility, meaning when you get on plane you don’t lose visibility. They want a boat that doesn’t do anything erratic in rough water. Making people feel safer and more comfortable in their boats is something we’ve done through technology. Take, for instance, our Dynamic Running Surface — an automatic trim adjustment system that makes boating more predicable. Also, we have Quiet Ride, which does a great job of keeping noise down on the boat. And with any type of twin-engine boat, you can get joystick control — inboards, outboards, I/Os, you name it. We also just introduced something called the Command View camera system on our yachts, which gives you a view all around the boat so people feel more confident docking because they can see the side and stern in one image. These are all aimed at making people feel safer and more confident in their boats. I love to reinvent things. A new boat should not be a warmed-over version of the last boat you had. I like being able to take an idea and create something that has never been done or take an existing boat and find a way to reinvent it so it’s new and fresh and gets people really excited. I like to figure out what the boater wants and come up with a way to create it and use it on the boat.

At least eight carmakers in the U.S. have admitted they would backtrack on a voluntary privacy agreement and turn over personal customer data to government and police, prompting calls for an investigation. Automotive News reports 19 carmakers had voluntarily signed up for the Consumer Privacy Protection Principles in 2014 — standards that would require U.S government agencies (including police) to obtain a warrant or court order to access customer location data. However, eight automakers misled customers about giving driver data to police, and now U.S. lawmakers are raising questions about whether automakers can be held to account for departing from promises made about user privacy. So who is giving your information to others? Toyota, Nissan, Subaru, Volkswagen, BMW, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, and Kia would turn over the data if a subpoena was produced — in violation of the standards they signed up for. More smoke and mirrors when it comes to your privacy. These car companies are following the agreement they signed: General Motors, Honda, Ford, Stellantis, and Tesla require a warrant for location data, unless it is an emergency or customer consent was provided. Tesla is also the only brand to notify its customers of legal demands. This has not only raised concerns about what other privacy promises carmakers have made that they won’t keep but has led two U.S. senators to call for the companies to be investigated by the Federal Trade Commission. “Automakers have not only kept consumers in the dark regarding their actual practices, but multiple companies misled consumers for over a decade by failing to honor the industry’s own voluntary privacy principles,” said Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.) in a letter to the FTC. “Vehicle location data can be used to identify Americans who have travelled to seek an abortion in another state, attended protests, support groups for alcohol, drug, and other types of addiction, or identify those of particular faiths, as revealed through trips to places of worship.” Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, and Kia all defended their practices, while the Alliance for Automotive Innovation — a lobby group for the car industry — claimed government agencies only request location information when there is clear danger to an individual. “Vehicle location information is only provided to law enforcement under specific and limited circumstances, such as when the automaker is provided a warrant or court order or in situations where there is an imminent threat of serious bodily harm or death to an individual,” an AAI spokesperson told Automotive News. The calls for an investigation into the data-sharing habits of carmakers comes after General Motors ended its partnerships with two major data brokers, following accusations of sharing information on drivers without their consent. In March, the New York Times published an in-depth investigation about a Chevrolet Bolt owner who had been quoted a significantly higher insurance renewal premium, later discovering his driving data was being sold to insurance firms by data broker LexisNexis. This was followed by a second report, detailing a proposed class action lawsuit put forward by a Cadillac XT6 owner who claimed he was denied insurance by seven companies on account of his LexisNexis driving report provided to the firms without his knowledge. Both of the vehicles were equipped with OnStar, GM’s connected services brand, which gathered data used by LexisNexis. In the wake of the reports, General Motors subsequently ended its partnership with both LexisNexis and Verisk, a similar company that also sold driving data to insurance companies. According to the New York Times, an internal document circulated within General Motors showed more than 8 million vehicles were actively supplying data through OnStar’s Smart Driver program as of 2022. Here's how to find out what your car is revealing about you: See the data your car is capable of collecting with this tool. Check your connected car app, if you use one, to see if you are enrolled in one of these programs. Do an online search for “privacy request form” alongside the name of your vehicle’s manufacturer. There should be instructions on how to request information your car company has about you. Request your LexisNexis report. Request your Verisk report. Remember, you own your data, not these companies. Just because they make the software doesn’t mean they get to control what happens to your information. The problem is that you sign away your ownership when you use the systems. Keep an eye out for opt-out options and support government bills that protect your privacy.

Esteban, York and James Beckwourth charted the American frontier between the 16th and 19th centuries

We Need to Take a Closer Look at Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and His Presidential Fitness