After less than an hour and a half of bidding, the remains of a Stegosaurus dubbed “Apex” sold for a whopping $44.6 million at Sotheby’s on Wednesday, making it the most expensive fossil ever to have been sold at auction.The successful bidder was American hedge fund manager and multi-billionaire Kenneth Griffin, who doesn’t seem to mind splashing the cash on pricey historical items, having nabbed a first-edition copy of the US Constitution for $43.2 million back in 2021.It’s not exactly unusual for a lot of money to be thrown about at a Sotheby’s auction, but the sale of Apex certainly surpassed expectations. The previous title holder for the most valuable fossil sold at auction was Stan the Tyrannosaurus rex, who went for $31.8 million. Seemingly not expecting history to repeat itself, let alone go far beyond it, auctioneers set a relatively conservative estimate of $4 to 6 million for Apex.  IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.Some may not be surprised that the Stegosaurus beat out the T. rex (at least in monetary terms, you wouldn’t see them in an actual fight because they didn’t live at the same time), because Apex is quite the specimen.Uncovered, quite amusingly, near the town of Dinosaur in Colorado, Apex is believed to be one of the most intact Stegosaurus specimens of its size, at over 3 meters (11 feet) tall and around 8 meters (nearly 27 feet) long.The question many people are asking, however, is whether or not fossils with such potential scientific value should be allowed to be sold off to the highest bidder.“I don't think fossils should be allowed to be auctioned,” palaeontologist Dr Cary Woodruff, the Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology at Frost Science, told NPR. “And these auctions really continue to deepen the divide between what we would consider academic and commercial paleontology.”That concern seems to have been picked up on by those who sold Apex, with the listing for the dinosaur noting that whoever ended up buying the specimen would also get all of its 3D scan data, to “allow primary information about the dinosaur to remain with the specimen and promote collaboration in future research and education,” as reported by Smithsonian Magazine.There’s also the matter of cost – lots of scientific institutions and museums simply don’t have the funding to drop nearly $45 million on a single specimen.“We have no chance,” Diego C. García-Bellido, a senior researcher of palaeontology at the South Australian Museum, told The Washington Post in May. “Science cannot compete with private companies [or wealthy buyers] in terms of getting their hands on a specimen. I know how strapped for cash, in general, museums are. … Five or 6 million dollars is the sort of money that almost no museum in the world can afford to pay,” García-Bellido, who’s also a professor at the University of Adelaide, continued.But that doesn’t always mean that scientifically valuable specimens stay in the hands of those who purchase them."Losing scientifically important fossils to a private collection is a concern often mentioned, but in our experience, we have yet to see it materialize," Sotheby's Senior Vice President and Global Head of Science and Pop Culture Cassandra Hatton told NPR. "We find that clients overwhelmingly purchase specimens either for museums or donate them."Stan, for example, is due to be put on display in Abu Dhabi’s new natural history museum and Apex looks set to end up in a similar home, albeit one closer to where the dino was found. After Wednesday’s auction, the Wall Street Journal reported that Griffin aimed to lend his new dinosaur to a US museum.“Apex was born in America and is going to stay in America,” said the billionaire.We suppose Apex is a bit too old (and dead) for a gap-year adventure anyway.

Observing the wonders of the natural world is a pretty incredible experience, from beluga whale migration live streams to visiting your zoo of choice. But what about the wonder of long-dead species that roamed planet Earth millions of years ago? IFLScience took a trip down to the Natural History Museum, London to learn all about their shiny, new bronze Diplodocus, Fern, and just what goes into making dinosaur specimens for display. Standing in front of a giant bronze Diplodocus that greets visitors in the museum's brand-new Jurassic Gardens, Professor Susie Maidment, a palaeontologist at the museum, explains just what goes into creating a dinosaur specimen on display. Fern is a marvel, 22 meters long and 4 meters high, but is also a replica of the world-famous Dippy the Diplodocus that greeted visitors in the museum's main entrance hall for nearly 40 years. However, Fern has been made even more scientifically accurate and improved thanks to new techniques and knowledge that didn't exist when Dippy first arrived in London in 1905. The original Dippy was discovered in Wyoming, America in 1899, when millionaire businessman Andrew Carnegie set his sights on acquiring the bones for display in the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. However, are the remains of long-dead creatures even bones anymore? When a paleontologist or an amateur fossil hunter finds a dinosaur skeleton in the wilderness what are they actually finding and what then goes on display? “We find fossilized bone, these will be a combination between actual bone tissue and minerals that have infiltrated the bone over the millions of years that it's been buried and have precipitated out and replaced some of the bone,” Prof Maidment told IFLScience. Inside a museum, what you witness can be a combination of those fossilized bones and replicas for a variety of reasons. Not all skeletons can go on display, some are of more scientific value to study, so museums around the world make replicas to showcase the skeletons to the public. Legally some bones must also remain in the country they were found in, so creating replicas is a great way to showcase species to a wider audience.                             Sophie the Stegosaurus, which greets visitors at the Museum's second entrance, is the most complete Stegosaurus in the world, and most of what you see there is real bone, Maidment told IFLScience. The real skull is kept behind the scenes, however, as it is in pieces and instead of sticking it together for display, the scientific value is greater for researchers who can study it in detail, so the head on display is a 3D printed replica. Dippy – and now Fern – is a complete replica of Carnegie's Diplodocus with the main body made of around three separate skeletons and the skull from many more. In fact, originally Dippy’s back legs were also used as the front legs because scientists didn’t know what their front feet looked like, but don’t worry they have since been replaced. To make a replica of the specimens, older casts like Dippy would be made using plaster-of-Paris to cover each bone which would be used to create a detailed mold. This would then be filled with resin or plastic to replicate each piece. “In the old days you’d take the bones and cover it in Latex or rubbery type liquid that would solidify, you’d then peel it off the bone and put a plaster-of-Paris inside it, to make an exact replica,” Maidment explained. However, times have moved on and new technology like 3D printing allowed all of Dippy’s 292 bones to be scanned and molds created to cast Fern in more weather-resistant bronze for its place in the museum gardens. While creating a bronze dinosaur like Fern was a technical challenge, 3D printing also gives scientists more flexible materials that can be more accessible when working with a lifesize model of a 30-ton animal. 

The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE showered the Roman town of Pompeii in volcanic ash and pumice before blanketing it in a rapid stream of piping-hot gas and volcanic matter. While the red-hot wrath of the volcano may seem like the prime killer, new evidence has shown another deadly force was at play: furious earthquakes.In his eyewitness account of Pompeii’s destruction, Pliny the Younger notes that the eruption was accompanied by “a trembling of the earth.” His letters explain: “It was so particularly violent that night that it not only shook but actually overturned, as it would seem, everything about us.”Until now, there was no solid evidence to support his historical account of tremors. However, recent excavations in the Insula dei Casti Amanti in the heart of Pompeii’s ruins reveal that concurring earthquakes also played a significant role in the town’s destruction.The team of archeologists and volcanologists noticed that many of the victims did not die of inhaling ash or extreme heat, but were crushed by collapsing buildings."We found peculiar characteristics that were inconsistent with the effects of volcanic phenomena described in the volcanological literature devoted to Pompeii. There had to be a different explanation," Dr. Mauro Di Vito, study co-author and a volcanologist and director of INGV-Osservatorio Vesuviano, said in a statement. Poor dudes: Two skeletons in the ruins of a Pompeii building that were killed by wall collapses triggered by earthquakes.Image Credit: Pompeii Archaeological ParkThey were particularly interested in two male skeletons, both around 50 years of age. The position of the first individual suggests he was suddenly crushed by a collapsing wall, suffering severe injuries that caused instant death. In contrast, the second individual seems to have been aware of the danger and attempted to shield himself with a round wooden object, parts of which were found by researchers in the volcanic deposits.“The people who did not flee their shelters were possibly overwhelmed by earthquake-induced collapses of already overburdened buildings. This was the fate of the two individuals we recovered,” said co-author Dr Valeria Amoretti, an anthropologist who heads the Applied Research Laboratory of Pompeii Archaeological Park.Importantly, both bodies were found on top of the blanket of volcanic pumice, rather than under it. This suggests they survived the first phase of the eruption when volcanic rocks rained down on the town for 18 hours, causing many inhabitants to seek shelter.While hiding for their lives, they were rocked by earthquakes and squished beneath the falling structure. The researchers concluded the building's collapse was unlikely to be caused by falling debris and appeared more consistent with the shimmying of a seismic earthquake. After their deaths, the settlement was then swamped by the pyroclastic currents of searing hot gas and ashy debris, which killed the remaining survivors. Now that it's evident that earthquakes were also a factor in Pompeii's demise, it's not hard to see why the ancient catastrophe killed an estimated 2,000 people in town. "New insight into the destruction of Pompeii gets us very close to the experience of the people who lived here 2,000 years ago. The choices they made as well as the dynamics of the events, which remain a focus of our research, decided over life and death in the last hours of the city's existence," concluded co-author Dr. Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the Pompeii Archaeological Park.The new study is published in the journal Frontiers in Earth Science. 

Tripping on magic mushrooms causes brain activity to become less organized and more random, with these effects lasting for several weeks. Having observed this phenomenon in action, the authors of a new brain-imaging study suggest that this scrambling of connectivity patterns may lead to more flexible cognition, which could explain how psychedelics help to alleviate depression and other mental health conditions.The researchers recruited seven people to take a high dose of either psilocybin - the psychoactive compound in shrooms - or methylphenidate, the generic form of Ritalin. Participants had an average of 18 MRI brain scans in the weeks before and after their trip, as well as during the experience, in order to reveal the acute and persistent effects of the drug.Initially, the study authors found that each person had a highly defined and completely unique pattern of network connectivity, like a kind of neural fingerprint that could be used to identify any given individual. Immediately after taking psilocybin, however, connectivity patterns became more chaotic, to the point that participants could no longer be distinguished from one another based on their brain activity.“The brains of people on psilocybin look more similar to each other than to their untripping selves,” explained study author Nico Dosenbach in a statement. “Their individuality is temporarily wiped out. This verifies, at a neuroscientific level, what people say about losing their sense of self during a trip.”Such a finding is not new, and numerous previous studies have suggested that psychedelics work by triggering an “entropic” brain state whereby the rigid patterns of communication between brain networks breaks down. This effect has predominantly been observed in relation to the default mode network (DMN), which controls our everyday cognition and coordinates activities such as daydreaming, introspection, and autobiographical recall.Analyzing their scans, the study authors found that the DMN becomes radically desynchronized under the acute effects of psilocybin, before largely re-establishing itself once the drug wears off. However, in comparison to its pre-psilocybin state, connectivity within this fundamental network remained looser for three weeks after the psychedelic trip had finished. “The idea is that you’re taking this system that’s fundamental to the brain’s ability to think about the self in relation to the world, and you’re totally desynchronizing it temporarily,” explains study author Joshua Siegel. “In the short term, this creates a psychedelic experience. The longer-term consequence is that it makes the brain more flexible and potentially more able to come into a healthier state.”The persistent weakening of connectivity patterns within the DMN has previously been linked to the so-called psychedelic afterglow effect, whereby people often notice a reduction in their habitual mental chatter and an increased capacity to reshape their thought patterns after taking psilocybin, LSD, or other similar drugs. According to the study authors, this subtle yet lasting desynchronization of brain networks may underlie the reported therapeutic effects of psychedelics. “That’s exactly what you’d want to see for a potential medicine,” says Dosenbach. “You wouldn’t want people’s brain networks to be obliterated for days, but you also wouldn’t want everything to snap back to the way it was immediately. You want an effect that lasts long enough to make a difference.”The study is published in the journal Nature.

The authors of the scientific article believe that there are very few extraterrestrial civilizations in the Universe. The greatest mystery of our time is the question of the existence of intelligent aliens, that is, developed extraterrestrial civilizations. Some scientists continue to insist that they exist and just need to be found. Others believe that we are alone in the Universe. The authors of a new article published in the International Journal of Astrobiology believe that the answer to the question of whether extraterrestrial intelligent life exists in space may be an either/or proposition, writes Forbes. Life either has to appear or it doesn’t In their article, scientists argue that on planets like ours, life should either arise over a long period of time or not arise at all. That is, space can be either empty or overcrowded, while values ​​in between seem far-fetched. In ecological systems, be it a planet or a galaxy, populations develop from some initial value to a stable state of equilibrium, when the average number of births and deaths per unit time is the same, researchers say. This equilibrium point is a function of the birth and death rates, and the basis for the existence of the ecological system. According to the authors, they took a classic statistical result and applied it to the question of life in the universe. If you conduct a series of experiments for which the answer is binary (yes/no), and if there is no information about the experiments, then you can expect that almost all of the experiments will give a positive result, or almost all will give a negative result. It is unlikely that intermediate, mixed results will be obtained, they say. This idea was first proposed by Edwin Jaynes, the originator of probability theory, which was based on the work of biochemist John Haldane. The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy around 13.6 billion years old with large pivoting arms stretching out across the cosmos. Our home galaxy’s disk is about 100,000 light-years in diameter and just 1000 light-years thick, according to Las Cumbres Observatory. The chance of finding aliens is zero Despite this, many searchers for extraterrestrial intelligence insist that life in space is common. But Haldane believed that identical results should be expected under identical conditions, the authors say. That is, one would expect that if life probably exists, then it will be everywhere, and if it is very rare, then it will not be anywhere. According to scientists, it would be strange if half of all planetary systems had technologically advanced civilizations. This would mean that small changes in the properties of these planetary systems would greatly alter the prospects for the emergence of technological civilizations. Researchers have come to the conclusion that if there is only one extraterrestrial intelligent civilization, then the chance of detecting it is zero. If advanced extraterrestrial civilizations arose, they would likely be visible in the infrared spectrum of light, thanks to structures such as Dyson spheres. But nothing of the kind was found, scientists say. Aliens are very far away Even if we assume that extraterrestrial intelligence is very rare, then there are approximately a trillion galaxies in the Universe, and therefore it is almost impossible to find aliens. The authors of the article believe that developed extraterrestrial civilizations, if they exist, are most likely very, very few and they are very far from each other. Thus, scientists admit the possibility that aliens may live in another galaxy, but they simply do not exist in our galaxy. That is, Earth may be the only inhabited world in the Milky Way. The post Where Are the Intelligent Aliens? Scientists Have a New Answer appeared first on Anomalien.com.

Microsoft was revealed to have quietly laid off a diversity, equity, and inclusion team after insiders leaked an email detailing the change at the company for the new fiscal year.While it is unclear how many employees Microsoft decided to let go, the move was reportedly made due to "changing business needs," starting on July 1, 2024."True systems-change work associated with DEI programs everywhere are no longer business critical or smart as they were in 2020," the email said, according to Business Insider.'D&I commitments remain unchanged.'Microsoft spokesperson Jeff Jones told the outlet in response that the company still has a deep commitment to DEI but failed to specifically confirm or deny the report."Our focus on diversity and inclusion is unwavering and we are holding firm on our expectations, prioritizing accountability, and continuing to focus on this work."He added that Microsoft's "D&I commitments remain unchanged."The cuts came at the typical time for Microsoft, which is nearing the end of its fiscal year. In 2023, the company's layoffs totaled around 10,000 as leaders cited economic uncertainty and inflation as the primary reason for letting employees go.It was only a few months prior to the DEI layoffs when Microsoft was accused of celebrating race- and sex-based discrimination in its annual "Diversity and Inclusion Report."In February 2024, Microsoft proudly declared in the document that its black, Asian, and Hispanic employees earned more than their white counterparts. It also noted that female employees earned more than male coworkers operating at the same level and in the same roles.As the Daily Wire reported, Microsoft began making significant investments into its DEI programs after the death of George Floyd, pledging to spend $150 million in DEI programs and double "the number of Black and African American people managers, senior individual contributors, and senior leaders in the United States by 2025."However, trends are moving in the other direction with companies like Zoom liquifying DEI departments. A competitor to Microsoft's Skype application, Zoom said in February 2024 that the company wanted to focus on working with external consultants instead of an internal team and fired a DEI team.The consultants will work to engage "all of our employees" with a focus on "inclusion," CEO Aparna Bawa told Bloomberg at the time.Zoom also launched its DEI programs after the death of George Floyd.The name of the person who leaked the internal Microsoft email was not released.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle refused to answer questions at the Republican National Convention about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump.Uproar over the failed assassination attempt is growing as more details slowly leak about what the Secret Service knew and what they did — or did not do — with that information in the hours leading up to a lone gunman opening fire on Trump at a campaign rally last Saturday.'She can run, but she cannot hide.'On Wednesday, it was revealed that law enforcement had identified the gunman as a suspicious person an hour before he opened fire. And despite the fact that a Secret Service counter-sniper team spotted the gunman 20 minutes before shots rang out, the Secret Service still allowed Trump to take the stage.It remains unclear how the 20-year-old gunman seemingly duped the Secret Service.But at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Republican senators tried on Wednesday to extract answers from the woman ultimately responsible for Secret Service operations.Video shows a group of Republican senators — including Sens. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), the No. 3 Senate Republican, and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) — dress down Cheatle. There was apparent frustration among the lawmakers after Cheatle reportedly allowed only four questions at a Senate briefing earlier in the day."Resignation or full explanation to us right now!" Barrasso told Cheatle."Why would anyone allow [Trump] to go on stage when you know you've got a potential threat?" Blackburn grilled. — (@) Cheatle, however, refused to answer the questions."I don't think this is the forum for this conversation," she told the lawmakers.The director claimed she is "happy" to answer their questions, but she answered none of them. She then tried to walk away, which angered the lawmakers. They quickly followed her and continued to grill her."This is exactly what you were doing today!" Barrasso screamed. "It's called stonewalling!""This was an assassination attempt! You owe the people answers! You owe President Trump answers!" Blackburn said. — (@) Cheatle has admitted the Secret Service "failed" its "no-fail mission" of protecting Trump, but she has thus far remained defiant.In a statement released after the tense confrontation with the senators, the Secret Service reaffirmed that Cheatle "has no intentions to step down."But that's not good enough, according to Blackburn."It is appalling that the Secret Service director refused to answer our questions. This is one of the greatest security failures in the history of the agency. She can run, but she cannot hide," the Tennessee Republican said in a statement shared with Blaze News."She is a failed leader, and she needs to immediately step down from her position," Blackburn added.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

In Episode 355 Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger explore the Narrow Gauge Volunteer Trail in Randolph, Maine, searching for the ghost of missing transient locals called Bicycle Larry. He went missing in October of 2004. In December of that year, a local man told his sister where they could find Larry’s body. Larry’s body was never found, but his bike-riding ghost has been seen on the old trail and around town. BECOME A LEGENDARY PATRON: https://www.patreon.com/NewEnglandLegends CREDITS: Produced and hosted by: Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger Edited by: Ray Auger Theme Music by: John Judd SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST FOR FREE: Apple Podcasts/iTunes | Spotify | Pandora | Amazon Podcasts | TuneIn | iHeartRadio JOIN OUR SUPER-SECRET: New England Legends Facebook Group

HEY-OHHHH! Trump Campaign's Response As to WHY They Can't Lock in VP Debate Dates Is Straight-FIRE

George Conway Hilariously MOCKED for Being too Dumb to See the Irony of His Brand NEW Grift/PAC's Name