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[MIKA27]

What It Takes to Kill a Grizzly Bear

Yellowstone grizzly bears face the two greatest threats to their survival in our lifetime: global warming and the U.S. government. Between them they could wipe the bears out.

One cold October day in 1968, I climbed out of a warm creek on the Yellowstone Plateau and came face to face with a huge grizzly. I froze, not knowing what to do. Since I was naked, my options were limited. I slowly turned my head and looked off to the side. The giant bear flicked his ears and, with unmistakable restraint, swung away and disappeared into the trees. Standing in the chill breeze of autumn, I knew something had passed between us.

That peaceful standoff with the grizzly was the first of hundreds of such bear encounters whose force would shape my journey for decades to come, significantly changing the declination of my life’s compass. I was lost, fresh back from Vietnam, searching, maybe, for a peril the equivalent of war but aimed in the direction of life. That bear and his clan literally saved me. The notion of “payback” (as coined by grunts in Vietnam) means that when you receive a gift from the bear, you find a way to pay it back. It took me a while to figure that out.

Today, the Yellowstone grizzly bear faces the two greatest threats to its survival in our lifetime. The first deadly threat is global warming, which has already decimated the grizzly’s most important food source. The second potentially fatal threat comes from agents of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) who want to remove the federal protections of the Endangered Species Act from Yellowstone’s grizzlies (called delisting) and turn bear management over to the states of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho.

“Management” for these three states means hunting licenses. So a combination of trophy grizzly bear permits and a lack of deterrents for just shooting any old bear on sight could lead to the killing of 100-200 additional grizzlies per year. There are as many as 600 or 700 grizzlies in the greater Yellowstone area. This bear population is an island ecosystem, isolated physically and genetically from other grizzlies living in northern Montana or Idaho. The grizzly has one of the lowest reproductive rates of any land mammal in North America; once you start killing off more bears than are born into this marooned population, you’re headed down the road to extinction for the Yellowstone grizzly.

The government claims the Yellowstone grizzly bear population is large, healthy, has steadily grown in number and is ready to be delisted. Independent scientists say these claims are bogus, that a clear pattern of political bias runs throughout the feds' arguments, and that this bias exhibited by government servants is nothing less than a betrayal of public trust. Why the government is so vehemently eager to delist the grizzly remains a troublesome question.

FWS’s effort to strip these bears of federal protections will be challenged in court by pro-grizzly advocates. This fight looks like it will emerge as the major American wildlife campaign of the decade. Conservationists and Native tribes are already picking sides.

Yellowstone National Park serves as a microcosm, a model for modern people living with wild nature, a guide for humans coexisting with wild animals and with the wilderness that was once their home. Like most other national parks and monuments, Yellowstone is isolated—an island ecosystem afloat in a sea of human dominated landscapes. Unlike other parks in the lower states, Yellowstone is still home to all the larger mammals that were here when the first European explorers arrived—the wolf, bison, wolverine, lynx and, especially, the grizzly bear. This great bear is Yellowstone’s most iconic animal, both famous and exceedingly notorious, as legendary creatures have always been.

Until recently, our human experience with the extinction of large animals has been restricted to the late Pleistocene when, 13,000 years ago, a lethal combination of global warming and human hunting knocked off the mammoth, mastodons, sabertooth cats, giant sloths, short-faced bears, camels and horses that roamed North America. These, and almost 30 other genera of large animals, bit the dust in record time—within a tiny span of 200-500 years—a heartbeat of geologic time. The one unmistakable lesson of Late Pleistocene extinction is that human activity combined with climate change is an ageless, fatal blueprint for ecological disaster.

This deadly duo has arrived on the doorstep of America’s oldest national park. Climate change or, more accurately, global warming has precipitated the catastrophic collapse of whitebark pine forests, the source of the Yellowstone grizzly bear’s most important food— nuts from whitebark pine cones. Grizzly advocates think Yellowstone’s isolated bear population is in deep trouble.

Although the most important element of this heated dispute remains the recent loss of the whitebark pine due to global warming, this battle has a longer history. The government, represented by FWS’s Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee, has been pushing for delisting for more than two decades. FWS submitted a formal rule and delisted the grizzly in 2007, but was sued by wildlife groups. The government lost; a federal judge vacated the rule in 2009. The legal ground for the reinstatement of endangered species protection was FWS’s failure to consider the impact of losing whitebark pine as a food source on the Yellowstone grizzly bear; the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld this decision in 2011. But the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team, the group responsible for agency science, released the government’s answer to those charges last December and, again, provided information for FWS to use in order to delist Yellowstone’s grizzlies.

The polarity between Yellowstone grizzly advocates and the government’s position reveals the heart of the flawed relationship between American environmentalists and the Obama administration: First, the Eastern, urban-based Obama White House remains largely unresponsive when it comes to the rights and welfare of iconic animals like grizzly bears, bison, wolverines, or wolves—why the president has turned his political back on efforts to protect wilderness animals continues to baffle supporters, especially in the West. Second, the federal agency that advises on grizzlies, the FWS, has failed to confront the considerable and urgent threats presented by global warming.

The battle between conservation groups and FWS over the fate of the Yellowstone grizzly is about to repeat. But this time the environmental movement is itself divided and the debate—between those conservationists who want federal protections for the grizzly extended and those who think the government might have a case or who are exhausted by the decades-long fight—has grown snarly.

There’s a reason for the uncivil barbs: The advocates most concerned with removing Endangered Species Act protections from Yellowstone’s grizzlies believe delisting could lead directly and rapidly to the bear’s extinction—that it would mean the end of the legend.

But how could the most famous animal of our most beloved national park simply wink out? It's a scenario that’s possible only with excessive mortality—killing far more grizzlies than are born into this rare, isolated population. Current human-caused grizzly mortality is at a near record high: 56 killed in 2012. Experts generally consider known mortality to represent about half of actual grizzly bear deaths for the ecosystem. Stripping federal protection from Yellowstone’s grizzlies will turn grizzly management over to the states of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, which will immediately issue hunting permits. They’ve said so. Nobody knows how many, but it was reported that Wyoming plans to put out as many as 60 permits the first season. Add Montana and Idaho’s hunting quotas to that number and you have a formula for the final, rapid decline of Yellowstone’s slow-reproducing grizzlies. This isolated population of bears cannot survive such hunting pressure (legal grizzly hunting around Yellowstone was stopped more than 40 years ago).

The Government’s Argument

The December 2, 2013 Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team’s “Final Report to the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee” contains the science that will be argued when and if FWS decides to call for delisting. The paper is important because its final form will contain “the best available science,” as called for by law, and because it attempts to address the 2011 concerns raised by the 9th Circuit Court.

The study team's argument for removing Endangered Species Act protections for Yellowstone’s grizzlies covers four main topics: the persistence of whitebark pine trees, the use by bears of alternative foods to pine nuts, the large size of the grizzly bear population, and the body condition (fat) of the bears.

The final report holds out hope for the survival of the whitebark pine and tells us that the collapse of those whitebark forests may not be as bad as scientists have reported. And, even if pine nuts have indeed disappeared from the grizzly’s diet, the report claims, it doesn’t matter much because the bear’s omnivorous habits have allowed it to find other things to eat. These bears, they say, have compensated for loss of whitebark pine by eating more meat, false truffles and, as flexible foraging omnivores, more than 200 other kinds of foods. The grizzly population is healthy and large in numbers. In fact, the team reports, there are so many bears that the grizzlies have started to kill each other’s cubs, causing a slowing of population growth. This is, they say, because the habitat is full, at a maximum carrying capacity for grizzlies (the report refers to these claims as “density-dependent effects”). Overall, the study team thinks the bears are doing peachy and voted unanimously to delist them.

Whitebark Pine

The report states repeatedly that the pine beetle epidemic is waning, and regeneration (of seedling whitebark pine trees) and cone production is good. Cone production—the number of pinecones on an individual tree—is mentioned 33 times in a 35-page report, as if cone production in a ghost forest of dying trees is still relevant. (If you have 100 mature trees and 98 of them are dead, it doesn’t matter, in terms of bear food, if those two live trees double their cone production or not.) In whipping this dead horse, the government is still trying to deny the conclusions of independent scientists who say whitebark pine nuts are flat gone—not to return in our lifetime—as a functional food for grizzly bears.

Whitebark pine is a western, five-needle, high altitude stone-pine whose cones produces the high-energy nuts (60 percent fat by weight) bears prefer. Red squirrels cache the pinecones (saving the bears a ton of work). Female grizzlies eat more pine nuts than males do, and the more pine nuts they eat, the more cubs they give birth to, according to David Mattson, a senior research scientist at Yale who studied Yellowstone grizzlies for 15 years while working for the National Park Service. Besides documenting the importance of whitebark nutrition to grizzly mothers, Mattson points out that the females were killed at a lower rate because the high, remote location of whitebark tree-stands keeps the bears from wandering down out of the park into areas frequented by hunters and livestock.

Whitebark pine trees have died off in massive numbers in recent decades, victims of an infestation by the mountain pine beetle, an infestation made possible by global warming: higher winter temperatures allow pine beetle larva to survive freezing to death (a few nights of 30-35 degrees Fahrenheit below zero, depending on the insulating thickness the bark, kills the bugs). When summer comes, adult beetles attack and larva feed in the cambium layer, girdling the trees and sealing their doom. Young whitebark pine trees don’t get infected; these small trees (less that around 5 in. diameter) will simply not sustain outbreak populations. But they also don't greow cones: Whitebark pines can wait 80 years or more to begin cone production.

By 2002, global warming had raised winter temperatures in Yellowstone to the degree that pine beetle larva could overwinter in mature whitebark pine trees. Beetles devastated these forests in three or four years and are still killing whitebark pine wherever the few surviving cone-bearing trees survive.

In 2007, FWS reported that the beetle outbreak had affected only 16 percent of the whitebark pines. But two years later, Jesse Logan, the retired head of the U.S. Forest Service's bark beetle research unit and the leading expert on the Yellowstone whitebark outbreak, teamed up with pilot Bruce Gordon and geographer Wally Macfarlane to photograph and map the devastation in the Yellowstone ecosystem. Their research showed that rather than 16 percent, the beetles had chewed their way through 95 percent of Yellowstone’s whitebark pine tree population. The government subsequently revised its estimate, saying that 74 percent of the trees had been affected. For his part, Logan now believes that more than 95 percent of cone bearing trees are infected.

The government report states the “outbreak [of beetles] is waning.” This is true: you can’t kill a dead tree. When you infect more than 95 percent of the whitebark pines, the few adult trees left can’t sustain an outbreak. Also, the report claims the greater Yellowstone’s colder regions--the Wind River Range and the Beartooth Plateau--showed “low levels of [beetle-killed trees] mortality” and identified these areas as “refugia” from the beetle outbreak. That data (collected in 2012 and 2013) is obsolete: Jesse Logan confirms both areas are “now showing significant mortality.”

What ties together this discussion of whitebark, global warming, mountain pine beetles, and grizzlies is the tree’s ability to produce edible nut-bearing cones. This high-altitude pine needs to be 50-80 years old before it even begins to produce cones. But by the time the tree is that old, its bark is also thick enough to allow the beetles to move in, overwinter, and kill the tree. All those whitebark seedlings in Yellowstone aren’t going to make it to cone-bearing age. As soon as the little whitebark grows big enough (about 5-6 inches in diameter) to produce pinecones, beetles kill it; it’s almost that simple. When I ran this scenario by Logan, he sadly agreed.

Finally, the government believes “restorative planting of blister rust-resistant seedlings … indicate(s) whitebark pine shows promise for being maintained in the subalpine forest.” Briefly, blister rust is an Asian fungus introduced from Europe to America around 1900. It does kill whitebark seedlings and younger trees. But set beside the mountain pine beetle, which has been here for millenia, blister rust is a minor factor in mature whitebark tree mortality. Blister rust is like having the flu; the pine beetle is like fast acting leukemia. Moreover, genetic engineering of blister rust is impossibly expensive and doomed to failure; genetic engineering won’t bail us out in heat-blasted, grizzly-roamed forests or anywhere else in our warming world.

By any measure, independent forest entomologists believe that beetles have made the whitebark pine functionally extinct in the Yellowstone ecosystem, a state of affairs made possible in turn by warming subalpine temperatures. Pine nuts are gone and won’t be back in our lifetime—because global warming will not allow them to recover. The feds can’t quite seem to wrap their minds around this one.

Yet, the interagency report, even when grudgingly conceding its disappearance, concludes that the loss of whitebarked pines “has had no profound negative effects on grizzly bears at the individual or population level.”

“The interagency committee,” Logan says, and Mattson agrees, “has a history of first denying what was occurring in whitebark and then underestimating, or in fact, misleading, the impact of the loss.”

Alternative Foods

Other key Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team arguments for delisting the Yellowstone grizzly center on the alternative foods grizzlies are eating, which the team thinks compensate nutritionally for the loss of pine nuts. This claim is one of the team’s most controversial arguments. Other foods, such as cutthroat trout, have also been lost to bears and most remaining major food groups for grizzlies are in jeopardy.

The Yellowstone grizzly is one of the more carnivorous interior bear populations in North America. These animals eat meat and it is increasing amounts of meat in the grizzly diet, the government report says, that will make up for the loss of whitebark pine nuts. Yellowstone’s grizzlies eat winterkilled elk and bison in the spring. Occasionally, bears run down and kill weak elk in early spring; they prey upon elk calves in early June and nail a few cow-struck bull elk who are easier prey during the fall rut. Some bison die during the violence of the rut in August; there is intense competition by bears for these rare summer carcasses. During these encounters, bigger, more dominant grizzlies sometimes kill younger bears (and unwary humans). Bears may appropriate wolf-kills, mostly elk, and again, this creates a dangerous environment for grizzly cubs who, as noted in the report, are sometimes killed by bigger bears or wolves. Carcasses and wolf-kills are a dangerous food source for young bears and their mothers.

A far more dangerous meat-eating scenario is found outside Yellowstone when grizzlies get into conflicts with livestock or are drawn to the carcasses, gut-piles, and other leavings of armed big-game hunters. As Yellowstone bears increasingly wander outside the sanctuary of the park, they run an ever-greater risk of getting shot. It really doesn’t matter whether the bears wander because they can’t find nutritious foods like whitebark pine nuts or because, as the government claims, the carrying capacity of the habitat has been reached—they get killed either way. This borderland—the interface of human activity and wild habitat—is the most dangerous region of all for bears. Records from the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team show mortality (grizzlies killed) from livestock conflicts and bear-deaths inflicted by big-game hunters have risen dramatically since 2008, immediately following the most devastating loss of whitebark pine, which occurred from 2003 to 2007. The loss of whitebark and the rapid increase in human-killed grizzlies are synchronous. Meat, especially outside the park, is a nutritious but deadly alternative to pine nuts.

Army cutworm moths, another major grizzly food source, summer in high elevation talus fields. These agricultural pests migrate in mid-summer to the Rocky Mountains from Kansas and Nebraska to beat the heat. The moths are abundant in July and August. Grizzlies lick them up by the thousands, and the media has made a big deal out of Yellowstone bears eating these bugs. Though the seasonality is different, some authorities see these insects as a substitute food for pine nuts—moths are highly caloric and found on high, remote mountains away from humans. But the moths are a fickle food for bears; their occurrence and abundance are correlated with pesticide spraying in the Plain states and Canadian provinces. And, always, global warming could push the cutworm moths north, out of the park, by heating up the region. Because this food source could abruptly disappear at any time, cutworm moths cannot be counted on to replace pine nuts.

Global warming is the hot wind driving all species of plant and animal, not just whitebark pine, like skittered leaves across the Yellowstone ecosystem. Because climate change has already decimated the most important bear food, the pine seeds, the Yellowstone grizzly will become a poster child for global warming. And it’ll get worse: We can expect the weather to get hotter and drier, stressing the vegetative base animals depend on.

This means a decline in habitat quality for grazers like bison and elk, whose winter-killed carcasses grizzlies feed upon. Buffalo pose a special problem: in a much-criticized removal program aimed at controlling brucellosis (a European cattle disease given to bison by cows but never transmitted back from bison to cattle in the wild), Yellowstone National Park plans to capture and remove 900 bison from the park herd and ship them to slaughter this winter. Some of those 900 bison might have perished naturally during the killing cold of winter and provided spring food for grizzlies.

Yellowstone elk have also declined. And, from the south, chronic wasting disease is poised to decimate the elk herds. Its arrival, experts say, is not just inevitable but imminent.

Besides a few rodents and insects, Yellowstone’s grizzlies will have a hard time finding adequate meat that is also a safe food source.

Of course, grizzly bears are omnivores and, as the government tells us, may adjust to the loss of foods like pine nuts by eating something else, like plants and fungus. The government identifies false truffles and more than 200 other kinds of foods grizzlies may have eaten. That’s all well and good, but while I share a gluttonous interest in underground mushrooms, I don’t expect to get fat off them. They are an undressed salad compared to a Pacific wild salmon. And pine nuts are 30 times more caloric than false truffles.

Likewise, the claim of 200 foods is disingenuous. A single grizzly, indifferent to human taxonomies, grazing on spring vegetation, may consume dandelions, spring beauty leaves, clover, horsetail, and a couple dozen species of grass and sedge on a single morning’s feeding. The “kinds” of such foods don’t matter as much as the bulk of green vegetation eaten, and none of them approach the dietetic value of pine nuts. Green plants in pre-flowering stages may contain significant protein but not fat. And, if these alternative foods were indeed similar in food value to pine nuts, why are the bears not already wolfing them down?

In Alaska, biologists have found that Katmai’s salmon-rich Alaska Peninsula supports 157 more grizzlies per unit of habitat than does the North Slope of the Brooks Range, where grizzlies eat more kinds of food. It’s the quality and quantity of the food that limits grizzly nutrition and drives population decline or growth, not the number of species eaten.

As Mattson puts it, “There’s not a single positive trend afoot in Yellowstone grizzly bear habitat,” adding, “a far better approach (than federal delisting) scientifically, would be to take a precautionary stance in the face of uncertainty and controversy.”

Counting Bears

Wild bears are notoriously hard to count. A common question about Yellowstone’s grizzlies is, “How many of them are out there?” The answer is that no one knows with anything resembling scientific certainty. When the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee tells you there were 136 grizzlies around Yellowstone in 1975, that’s a horse you don’t want to bet on—none of us had a clue in 1975. Before 1992, total population estimates were pretty much wild-ass guesses; the estimates from 1992 on are based on observed numbers of unduplicated females with cubs and some kind of multiplier for other classes of bears. There are many assumptions, including that these mother grizzlies are indeed “unduplicated.” Respected University of Colorado and California biologists, reporting in Conservation Letters, severely criticized the government’s methods of counting bears, and concluded that Yellowstone’s grizzly population has increased far less than generally believed. Past analyses, they said, have been too inaccurate to allow any firm conclusions about the current and future status of the bear. There have been rebuttals by both sides.

A universal complaint from independent scientists is that the government study team has not released their raw data, making outside peer review impossible. Most blame is heaped at the feet of the Interagency Committee coordinator Chris Servheen, who these independent investigations believe has a career political agenda. Logan complains that his requests for information remain unanswered. Mattson says the government bogarts this stuff, gathered at taxpayer expense, and maintains “a monopoly on the data.” Barrie Gilbert, a retired grizzly biologist from Utah State University, who studied the grizzlies of Yellowstone during the ’70s, questions all such government bear counts: “Population data on post-whitebark pine collapse is suspect and not made available to independent scientists.”

Regional newspapers variously report 500 or 741 grizzlies live in and around Yellowstone. A Wyoming game manager said there were 1,000. Mattson reminds us that the government population estimates added 100 additional bears at the very moment they changed their statistical method and adds that “population size and trends … tell us nothing about the unfolding present and impending future.” They are, he says, “a snapshot of the past.”

In the long run, the bear counts may not matter. Yellowstone’s grizzlies live in an island ecosystem, isolated physically from other breeding grizzly populations. Linkages and corridors connecing the Yellowstone grizzly to other bear populations are currently nonexistent, but they are essential. Delisting the Yellowstone grizzly will render this achievable goal of connectivity impossible. Theoretical biologists inform us that we need a minimum of a couple thousand grizzlies to maintain a stable isolated Yellowstone population. Given our human intolerance, that’s not going to happen. What Yellowstone’s grizzlies need most is what they have now—continued protection under the Endangered Species Act.

Fat Bears

What about the government’s claim that Yellowstone’s grizzlies are as fat (as an index of general health) as they were in the past? This turns out to be only half true: a 2013 report documented a decline in body fat in adult female grizzlies, primarily after 2006. This is exactly what you would expect from the catastrophic loss of pine seeds; female bears were more dependent on pine nuts for nutrition than male grizzlies. Incidentally, the government’s final report presents this evidence of deteriorating body condition among female grizzlies, and then proceeds to dismiss the results due to “small sample size.” More dominant male grizzlies maintain their body fat by competing successfully for the more nutritious, and far more dangerous, meat sources. But, even by this scanty data, it’s clear that female grizzlies are the losers in the scramble to find nutritious food to replace pine nuts. And it’s females who are the reproductive engines of a grizzly population.

Grizzly Bear Mortality

The government reports “a slowing of population growth” and claims that the growth of Yellowstone’s grizzly population has slowed because the habitat is full up with grizzlies. Sometimes called “carrying capacity,” it means all the bears the country can support. The final report says, “The primary cause of the slower (grizzly population) growth during 2002-2011 was lower annual survival rates among cubs and yearlings.” The question is whether the slower growth and lower survival rates for little bears is due to some “density-dependent” effect or simply the loss of whitebark pine as a food source.

Biologist Mattson is alarmed by the abrupt 2008 rise in grizzly mortality from conflicts both with livestock and hunters. Using the government study team’s data, Mattson has graphed grizzly mortality from livestock conflicts and also from hunters who shoot grizzlies they mistook for black bears or just because they didn’t like the way the grizzly was looking at them (yes, it’s that easy to get away with illegally killing a grizzly; states almost never prosecute these crimes). The two graphs of dead grizzlies are remarkably similar: both spike up starting in 2007 or 2008, at the same time of maximum whitebark pine loss. And this is just the known grizzly bear mortality. Unreported kills by ranchers or hunters are always significant in a culture where “shoot, shovel, and shut up” are common barroom conversations. A seldom-mentioned but critical grizzly bear habitat requirement, along with sufficient quantity and quality of food, is security from the kinds of human beings who are inclined to kill them.

Trophy Hunting

If the federal government succeeds in removing the Yellowstone grizzly from Endangered Species-listing, bear management will be transferred to the states of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. “Management” in this situation means issuing permits for trophy grizzly hunts. As Gilbert says: “Delisting … will resurrect a so-called 'trophy' grizzly bear hunt, a historical tradition out of touch with current principles of wildlife management.”

How many permits will the three states put out there? If Wyoming indeed wants to issue 60 permits, Montana and Idaho won’t be far behind. Back in the ’60s, when hunting grizzlies was legal, biologists found that 47 percent of all bear mortality was caused by big game hunters.

One can quibble about how many legal hunting permits will be issued by Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho and how successful that grizzly hunt will be, but what is certain is that a climate will be created where it will be very easy for anyone to kill a Yellowstone grizzly, for any reason. If you doubt that, look at the history of these Northern Rocky Mountain states with the recently delisted wolf.

On Sept. 30, 2012, FWS delisted the gray wolf and transferred wildlife management to the states. In Wyoming, protected wolves became legal vermin overnight—subject to being shot on sight in approximately 90 percent of the state as of October 1. In the other 10 percent of Wyoming, wolf-hunting season opened that same day. The state of Idaho paid a bounty hunter to kill wolves in the Salmon River country. My own state of Montana’s wolf record is no better. These hostile attitudes towards top predators will create a virtual “open season” on grizzlies once the Yellowstone bear is delisted.

In 2008, the first year after the collapse of whitebark pine nuts as food, the government estimated that 79 grizzlies died in the Yellowstone ecosystem. Fifty-six grizzlies were known to die in 2012—rough numbers that probably represent about half of actual mortality. With delisting, relaxed regulations, and hunting quotas, you might add in another one or two hundred dead grizzlies. During bad drought years, which global warming models predict for Yellowstone, you could end up with 300 dead grizzlies in this island ecosystem during a single year. At that point, it wouldn’t matter how many hundreds of bears are in Yellowstone: In a species with a very low reproductive rate, this is a blueprint for turning the grizzly bear of Yellowstone into nothing more than a legend, fading with memory into the hot sagebrush.

Resistance

Yellowstone’s grizzlies have many friends and an international constituency that reaches far beyond the region. As citizens, we could mobilize and petition President Obama to order the Secretary of the Interior to withdraw the proposed order to delist the bear.

But why do the feds continue to cling so fiercely to their need to delist Yellowstone’s grizzlies? I put this bedrock question to Louisa Willcox, who has unfalteringly defended the grizzly for three decades, variously representing the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, National Resources Defense Council, and the Center for Biological Diversity. The answer, she says, is “about power and ego.” Willcox blames Chris Servheen, “the longest running recovery coordinator (of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee) in the history of the Endangered Species Act,” for whom “delisting Yellowstone grizzly bears would be the capstone in his career. In accomplishing delisting, Servheen is taking personal revenge against those who have worked assiduously for years to stop delisting and secure more protections for grizzly bears: for him, this agenda is personal.” For the feds, she says, “delisting is, at bottom, about appeasing the states; FWS believes, despite lack of evidence, that such moves will save the Endangered Species Act. The shrill demands of states like Wyoming only amplifies the imperative for the Fish and Wildlife Service to delist bears.”

The tribes are already preparing for battle. The Northern Cheyenne Tribal Council is in the process of passing a resolution opposing FWS’s drive to delist the Yellowstone grizzly bear, which is the strongest political statement the tribal government can make. The Oklahoma Kiowa have joined this warpath; the Yellowstone is their ancestral homeland. On November 4, the Fort Hall Shoshone-Bannock tribes announced their opposition to Yellowstone delisting. They will also oppose any attempts to hunt grizzlies in their recognized ancestral homelands. According to the Goal Tribal Coalition [www.goaltribal.org), the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho of the Wind River Reservation are especially concerned about delisting because the State of Wyoming has identified the Wind River Range as one area from which they intend to extinguish the grizzly. The explicit intent of Wyoming Game and Fish is to see the extinction of the grizzly bear in the Wind River Mountains, including the territory of the Shoshone and Arapaho. The Reservation is sovereign Indian land, and the grizzly is a sacred animal to these tribes.

The most practical way to stop delisting might be to do what citizens did last time, in 2007: Get the word out to the American public, find willing plaintiffs among wildlife advocacy groups or individuals with the courage to stand up to FWS and ask the environmental law firm Earthjustice to file a lawsuit. Last time, an Earthjustice lawyer, representing more than a half dozen national and regional organizations, successfully argued the case against delisting in U.S. district court.

This time, many of those same wildlife advocacy groups have been reluctant to officially oppose delisting and sign on to a lawsuit. Perhaps they think the government is right about the high number of bears or are just tired of this 22-year-old battle; I’ve heard complaints that they fear this potentially acrimonious debate could drive away their funders. There’s time for all undecided conservation organizations to reexamine their priorities and change their minds.

The perfect group to oppose the delisting of the Yellowstone grizzly is the Sierra Club, which was a plaintiff in the 2007 lawsuit. This is exactly the kind of broad based, democratic support the Yellowstone grizzly deserves. If you are a Sierra Club member, as I am, please write your leaders and ask them to take a look at the precarious plight of their furry brothers living on the Yellowstone Plateau.

In 1968, when I crawled out of that warm creek and came nose to nose with the huge grizzly, I discovered I wasn’t top dog. I lived somewhere in the middle of the food chain—an involuntary humility, which remains the emotional posture behind reason. It’s my hope that grizzlies like the one I encountered on that creek bank will live on beyond the legend, roaming the Yellowstone and inspiring in all who need it the weapon of humility to confront our own dangerous, rapidly changing world.

And where better to find that weapon than sharing the wild woods with our largest carnivore?

Doug Peacock has been writing and lecturing about Yellowstone's bears for 40 years. The author of two books and dozens of articles about grizzlies, he is a grequent visitor in high school and college classrooms. Peacock served as an expert witness on grizzlies in federal court for Glacier National Park. He lives near Emigrant, Montana.

[MIKA27]

RARE BOURBONS NOT NAMED PAPPY: A BUDDING COLLECTOR’S GUIDE

Call it the Pappy effect if you want, or just plain business savvy, but most distilleries saw an opportunity in limited, premium bourbons in the early 2000s. They’ve done wonders to help to fuel the boom and raise the profile of the entire industry.

We took a pilgrimage to one of Lexington’s best bourbon bars, the Blue Grass Tavern, to pay our respects and lay eyes (and a camera lenses) on one of the most impressive gatherings of bourbon in the world. The bottles below represent a portion of the supposed crème de la crème in the marketplace today, at least from a perception standpoint. Like with Pappy, you’ve got better shot at colonizing Mars than finding a bottle at your local shop without some careful planning and perhaps a kickback or two. Most are allocated in the fall each year and spoken for before ever leaving the box. Thieves aren’t heisting these cases just yet though. Stay sharp at your town’s best bourbon bar and you might just spy a few of these holding court on a top shelf, or even on the drink menu.

ELIJAH CRAIG 18 YEAR OLD SINGLE BARREL BOURBON

Heaven Hill’s Elijah Craig brand has always held the respect of enthusiasts. At the time of its release, the company claimed this super-premium bourbon was the oldest single barrel bourbon in the world, though other releases (20-, 21- and 23-year) have subsequently taken that crown. It was awarded “Best Bourbon” and a “Double Gold Medal” at San Francisco World Spirits Competition in 2010. Elijah Craig announced that it was being replaced by a 20-year-old offering in 2012 because of supply constraints. Rumor is the 18-year-old offering will return at some point.

THE BUFFALO TRACE ANTIQUE COLLECTION

This limited-edition series is released annually and is probably the second most recognized line of super-premium bourbons beyond Pappy. Today it consists of five bottles including Sazerac Rye 18 Year Old, Thomas H. Handy Sazerac Rye, Eagle Rare 17 Year Old Bourbon, George T. Stagg Bourbon and William Larue Weller Wheated Bourbon. All of the offerings in the “BTAC”, as its known by fans, have won various medals and awards for their quality, though some are more sought after than others. Each bottle is supposed to retail for somewhere around $80. On the secondary market, most fetch upwards of $300.

FOUR ROSES LIMITED EDITION SINGLE BARREL

The now-annual release from Four Roses may not have the same name-brand recognition as other bottles on this list, but it’s prized by bourbon lovers. It shares the same bottle shape as Four Roses’ excellent regular single barrel offering, making it harder to identify without focusing on the label design. Master Distiller Jim Rutledge uses the opportunity to hand select a set of barrels from one of the company’s 10 bourbon recipes to bottle each year.

WILLETT FAMILY ESTATE SINGLE BARREL BOURBON

We’ve already talked about Willett’s story in depth. Like a few other collectable bourbons out there — including Pappy Van Winkle — the juice inside these bottles isn’t actually made by Willett. Who makes the whiskey is part of the mystery surrounding the Family Estate label. As each of bottles in the Willett Family Estate line of bourbon is single barrel, the age and proof varies wildly. (We’ve come across 7-, 9-, 10-, 13-, 20- and 21-year bottles in the past, and there are surely plenty more.) While the Willett family may not produce the bourbon, they certainly know how to identify exceptional barrels, which is a skill unto itself. Almost anything under the label is good, and most of it’s great.

JEFFERSON’S PRESIDENTIAL SELECT 18 YEAR OLD

This wheated bourbon is one of the most controversial rare bottles among fans. Some love it. Others see it as a piss-poor attempt to ride the coattails of Pappy Van Winkle at least, and an outright sham at most. Like Willett (and again, Pappy Van Winkle), the Jefferson’s brand doesn’t actually make its own bourbon. This particular bottle gained notoriety because its contents were potentially sourced from the now-defunct Stitzel-Weller distillery, which is the same distillery that produced bourbon for the Van Winkle family for years. It’s unclear; the label simply says “aged in Stitzel-Weller Barrels”. If you’re paying attention, “aging in” isn’t exactly the same as “produced by”. To add to the sketchiness, the former brand manager and owner of the Jefferson’s Reserve name has stated that older batches of the 18-year were mixed with rye to top them off, violating the “distilled from wheat” phrase found on the label. Still, early batches of this bottle in particular received wide amounts of praise from the review community. Its background is a mystery, but the whiskey is still good.

ANGEL’S ENVY CASK STRENGTH

The Angel’s Envy brand is a relatively new startup of Wesley Henderson and his father, Lincoln Henderson. Lincoln Henderson was the former master distiller for Brown-Forman Corp who helped develop Woodford Reserve and is part of the Kentucky Distillers’ Association Hall of Fame. Lincoln soon joined his son in business and oversaw the early distilling efforts of Angel’s Envy until he passed away in late 2013. Since bourbon must be aged for a minimum of two years, early bottles of Angel’s Envy have been sourced from other distilleries. What makes Angel’s Envy relatively unique is that it’s finished in port casks before bottling. The company’s limited-edition Cask Strength offering, originally launched in 2012, raised a few eyebrows. It was limited to only 600 bottles and sold in three different states. Its content were hand selected by Lincoln Henderson and bottled at a bold cask-strength proof, but it still came from only four- to six-year-old stock (and no age statement is listed on the label). Respected spirits reviewer Paul Pacult still named it his number one spirit of the year. A larger number of bottles were released in both 2013 and 2014, though they were still quite limited.

A.H. HIRSCH RESERVE 16 YEAR OLD STRAIGHT BOURBON WHISKEY

There are some who believe this is the best bourbon ever created. Whiskey expert Chuck Cowdery even wrote a book about it, aptly titled The Best Bourbon You’ll Never Taste, outlining the bottle’s tumultuous history. If you’re really curious about the details, consult Cowdrey — but the quick and dirty history is that this whiskey was produced in a distillery in Pennsylvania that shut down in the mid ‘70s. A set of 400 of the remaining whiskey barrels were acquired and moved to Cincinnati to be aged and bottled as A.H. Hirsch Bourbon. The stock was sold slowly over time, with the very last bottles hitting shelves in 2009 in boxed sets for $1,500 a pop. Despite what owners and sellers of Pappy Van Winkle 23 might say, A.H. Hirsch Reserve is one of the true white whales of bourbon.

OLD FORESTER BIRTHDAY BOURBON

Not every collector’s bourbon has to cost as much as a kidney. Old Forester Birthday Bourbon is a prime example. Now in its 13 annual limited release, the series was created to celebrate founder George Garvin’s birthday (September 2nd). Each year, a small batch of whiskey produced on the same day is singled out for inclusion in the series. The reason for its selection varies, making each year’s offering distinct from the next. As Master Distiller Chris Morris explained to Southern Living: “One selection came from a day when the distillery lost power because a squirrel shorted out the electrical system, and we lost our cooling power, and we had to drop the fermentation early.” Bottles usually sell for upwards of $55, which is well below other retail prices on this list. Somewhere between 9,000 and 10,000 are sold each year.

[MIKA27]

This Is Now The Longest Train Journey In The World

21 days. That’s the time it will take to complete the largest train journey in the world. 9977 kilometres that go from Yiwu, China, to Madrid, Spain. It’s also part of the New Silk Road, a Chinese project to gain control over transcontinental cargo transportation between Asia and Europe.

The route is much longer than the Trans-Siberian Railway, which at 9289 km was the previous record holder. The Washington Post writes:

On Nov. 18, an 82-container freight train left the eastern Chinese industrial city of Yiwu. It was embarking on a landmark journey that is supposed to end 21 days later, in December, in Madrid.

The Yiwu-Madrid train route is part of the New Silk Road, a project that the Chinese government wants to revitalise intercontinental trade. They are spending $US40 billion in this bid to gain control of land-based transportation through Asia and Europe — and that’s just the beginning.

According to The Economist, the train carries consumer products from China to Europe and will bring back expensive products, like luxury cars and other high-priced goods.

Here’s video of the gigantic train:

[MIKA27]

What Great Gadgets Died Way Before Their Time?

We’ve talked about tech’s biggest blunders and some of the gadgets we miss the most, but these are the wonderful pieces of hardware that have the most tragic stories — the technology that was simply ahead of its time.

These are gadgets and pieces of tech fashioned into greatness after their extinction where consumers, experts, and bloggers can see more clearly with the added benefit of hindsight. Whenever I think about a gadget that died before its prime, my thoughts inevitably turned toward the Sega Dreamcast. When I bought this quirky little guy back in 1999, I was enchanted by the idea of having a display in my controller. Crazy Taxi‘s graphics looked amazingly stellar (for the time.) Not to mention that the Dreamcast was the first console ever to come with a built-in modem so you could play online. By far my favourite title was Aerowings, a brilliant flight sim technically and graphically.

The Dreamcast’s forward-thinking hardware really wasn’t the problem though. It was the third-party desert in which it resided. Although it had a few good titles, it never acquired the expansive catalogue needed to beat back the upcoming challenger, Sony’s PlayStation 2.

Do you know some other sad stories of tech simply being to awesome for the general public? Are there examples of tech before its time in the here and now? Will we all someday be looking back at Google Glass and regretting the error of our ways (probably not)? Let’s give these wonderful innovation some of the praise they deserve, even if it is too little too late.

[MIKA27]

Parrot Bebop Hands-On: A Versatile Drone That's Just Shy Of Pro

Earlier this year, we got a peek at Parrot’s svelte new Bebop drone.

When I showed up at Parrot’s Bebop demo, my piloting skills were pretty rusty. It had been many months since I’d flown the AR.Drone 2.0, so when I picked up the tablet and started my flight — inside a SoHo loft, I might add — I smashed the Bebop into a pole within 30 seconds. That’s noteworthy, not only because the drone was entirely unscathed, but also because I didn’t crash it again.

That’s because the Bebop is agile enough that you can easily fly it around a large room full of obstacles, and the Freeflight 3.0 app controls are intuitive enough that you can pick them up almost immediately. Within one crash, at least.

And since the on-board 160-degree camera and four shock absorbers keep the image level at all times, there’s no need to worry about keeping the aircraft level just to see straight.

The Skycontroller is where things get really awesome. This pleasant but hulking remote control improves upon the drone’s RC ancestors by giving you nimble joysticks for steering the Bebop, mounted right on the tablet or smartphone you’re still using as the main control screen. On the front is a huge Wi-Fi antenna that boosts the drone’s range, in addition to the Playstation-like joysticks in the corners that offer more control over the camera. It’s all powered by Android and the same battery that you’d use for the drone.

Flying the Bebop with the Skycontroller is definitely better than flying with just a tablet or smartphone, but that’s definitely a bonus, not a necessity. It also comes with an HDMI port so that you can plug in first-person-view glasses like Oculus Rift. While the tactile feedback of the physical controller will thrill RC enthusiasts with a little extra money to spend, the Bebop flies fine without it.

The real test for the Bebop is whether it can bridge the divide between being a toy and being a tool. As a toy, it’s expensive at $US500 (still waiting on an Australian price, here), but undeniably fun. As a prosumer device, it’s almost there. The FPV feature is awesome, but some beta testers say they noticed an annoying lag. I got to see out of the Bebop’s eyes with the Zeiss Cinemizer, however they didn’t let me fly the drone at the same time so I can’t speak to the lag. With the bulky HDMI cables and possible lag, though, it seems like the FPV feature isn’t quite there yet.

The Bebop drone will be available at Apple Stores and Best Buy for $US500, starting in December. The compact little aircraft comes in primary colours — red, blue, and yellow — and features removable bumpers for safe flying both indoors and out. It also comes with two batteries, which is nice considering each one only affords 11 minutes of flight time. For another $US400, you can also get a very fancy-feeling Parrot Skycontroller, which extends the drone’s Wi-Fi range by about a mile and a half. Without the Skycontroller you’re limited to a little over 800 feet.

I plan on spending more time flying — and possibly crashing — the Bebop, so stay tuned for a full review. At first touch, however, flying this handsome little guy is a fantastic experience. Like the AR.Drone before it, the Bebop feels like it’s bridging a gap very gracefully.

[MIKA27]

Robotic Submarine Finds Antarctic Ice Is Thicker Than We Thought

The size and thickness of the Antarctic ice sheet acts as a barometer for global health but figuring out exactly how much frozen water is sitting atop the southern pole is difficult. Satellite results are often obscured by layers of snow and ice core boring requires people to brave the extreme cold to collect them. But with this self-guided sonar sub, researchers can collect accurate ice information without ever getting off the boat.

The sub, dubbed the SeaBED, is the brainchild of researchers at Massachusetts’ Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). Its twin-hull design measures about 2m long and weighs about 200kg. Operating at a depth of 20m to 30m, the SeaBED blasts its upward facing sonar into the ice’s underside as it slowly trawls along underneath.

“Putting an AUV together to map the underside of sea ice is challenging from a software, navigation and acoustic communications standpoint,” Hanumant Singh, an engineering scientist at the WHOI said in a press statement.

“SeaBED’s manoeuvrability and stability made it ideal for this application where we were doing detailed floe-scale mapping and deploying, as well as recovering in close-packed ice conditions. It would have been tough to do many of the missions we did, especially under the conditions we encountered, with some of the larger vehicles.”

The data that SeaBED collects is extremely accurate as its readings are not confounded by layers of snow — in some spots during its most recent survey, the SeaBED found ice sheets up to 17m thicker than previously believed. But its findings are very limited in scope, having been compared to the view through a microscope. As such SeaBED’s data is being used to supplement existing airborne, satellite and core data to help provide researchers a more complete understanding of Antarctica’s ice.

“The AUV missions have given us a real insight into the nature of Antarctic sea ice — like looking through a microscope. We can now measure ice in far greater detail and were excited to measure ice up to 17m thick,” co-author Jeremy Wilkinson, from the British Antarctic Survey, said in a press statement. The WHOI research team hopes to follow the SeaBED’s initial success with a large-scale survey effort in the coming months and years that can be compared against existing aircraft and satellite observations.

[MIKA27]

Chef Sean Brock Shows How To Make The Perfect Cheeseburguer

Sean Brock is one of the hosts of the TV show The Mind of a Chef and the executive chef at Husk, in Charleston, South Carolina. His cheeseburgers are legendary, they have a ground meat and bacon double patty and, of course, cheese. This is how he makes them.

[MIKA27]

Japanese Underwater City Could Fit 5000 People And Draw Energy From The Seabed

Japanese construction firm Shimizu Corp just revealed its new project: An underwater city capable of fitting 5000 people and draw its energy from the seabed. Shimizu says the project would take five years to build and the technology required would be ready in 15 years.

The structure is divided in three sections: A sphere — just behind the surface of the sea — with a diameter of 500m will house residential zones, business and hotels. A pod connected to a 15km long spiral that descends to the earth factory, located on the seabed.

Shimizu hopes this eco-friendly underwater city would attract funds from the Japanese government and private investors. The Guardian writes:

The factory will use micro-organisms to turn carbon dioxide into methane, while power generators located along the ocean spiral will use differences in seawater temperatures to create additional energy — a process known as ocean thermal energy conversion. Desalinated water produced using hydraulic pressure will be pumped into the residential pod.

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Jurassic World Gets Its First Official Trailer, And It's Awesome

And here we thought we’d have to wait until tomorrow to get our teeth around the new trailer for Jurassic World. But lo, it’s here today! Get in here and look at dinosaurs tearing up the theme park of the future.

Jurassic World is set almost 20 years after the events of the first Jurassic Park film, where a company called the Masrani Corporation is taking up the work that INGEN and John Hammond did with resurrecting living, breathing dinosaurs to make a theme park. The theme park, Jurassic World, is open and accepting visitors, which means it got further as an idea than any of Hammond’s old plans.

After a bit of genetic mucking around in the lab on Isla Nublar, the Jurassic World team manage to create a new super-dinosaur. Which is always a good idea when talking about some of the most stupidly deadly creatures on Earth.

It all, predictably, seems to go wrong for those on the island, and it’s up to Raptor-specialist Owen — played by Chris Pratt — and his team of super-Raptors must hunt down the rogue dinosaur.

Jurassic World hits theatres in June next year.

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Underwater Monster Captured On Video For The First Time Ever

This sea creature may look like some scary 3D animation of an underwater monster, but it’s not. It’s completely real. What you’re looking at is a deep sea anglerfish known as the Black Seadevil. This sea monster’s existence shows that sometimes reality is crazier and more twisted than our scariest nightmares.

I mean, damn, this thing is beyond terrifying. Mother Nature and Evolution team up to do some really crazy things. MBARI writes more about the Black Seadevil:

Deep-sea anglerfish are strange and elusive creatures that are very rarely observed in their natural habitat. Fewer than half a dozen have ever been captured on film or video by deep diving research vehicles. This little angler, about 9 cm long, is named Melanocetus. It is also known as the Black Seadevil and it lives in the deep dark waters of the Monterey Canyon. MBARI’s ROV Doc Ricketts observed this anglerfish for the first time at 600 m on a midwater research expedition in November 2014. We believe that this is the first video footage ever made of this species alive and at depth.

It’s the first time this particular species has been captured on video. Watch it below. Makes you wonder what else is down there.

[MIKA27]

How A Typo May Have Turned A Drum Of Radioactive Waste Into A Bomb

In February, a drum of radioactive waste exploded at the only underground nuclear waste repository in the US. The Santa Fe New Mexican has released a bombshell report on the comedy of errors, which seems to have all started with a typo specifying the wrong type of kitty litter. Yup.

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in Carlsbad, New Mexico is now shut down, awaiting a $US500 million recovery plan that could take years. WIPP is made of up salt caverns, which are supposed to safely entomb barrels of radioactive waste for thousands of years. The barrels contain gloves, equipment, and other waste products contaminated by nuclear weapons research, and they’re often packed with kitty litter to absorb extra liquids before being sealed, hopefully for eons.

Waste Drum 68660, the one that burst, was packed at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), the Manhattan Project site that is 300 miles north in New Mexico. According to the New Mexican, the LANL and its contractors made a number of missteps, including using an organic wheat-based kitty litter instead of a clay-base inorganic kitty litter. Thanks to that switcheroo, the drum ultimately contained the ingredients of a bomb. On February, the drum blasted open. Temperatures rose to 1600 F in WIPP’s underground cavern, and 20 workers were exposed to low levels of radiation.

Officials tell the New Mexican the exact conditions of the explosion have not been recreated in a lab. But the organic kitty litter has been under suspicion because it can release heat as it decomposes. Waste Drum 68660 also contained nitrate salts, trace metals from a glove, and acid neutralizer to deal with its high acidity, which altogether provided the other components needed for an explosion.

LANL has never explained why it switched to organic kitty litter, though emails obtained by the New Mexican suggest it originated with a dumb typo in a LANL policy manual that had gone unnoticed by higher ups for over a year:

The revision, approved by LANL, took effect Aug. 1, 2012….explicitly directed waste packagers at the lab to “ENSURE an organic absorbent (kitty litter) is added to the waste” when packaging drums of nitrate salt.

“Does it seem strange that the procedure was revised to specifically require organic kitty litter to process nitrate salt drums?” [David] Freeman, Nuclear Waste Partnership’s chief nuclear engineer at WIPP, asked a colleague in a May 28 email.

Freeman went on to echo some of the possible reasons for the change bandied about in earlier emails, such as the off-putting dust or perfumed scents characteristic of clay litter. But his colleague, Mark Pearcy, a member of the team that reviews waste to ensure it is acceptable to be stored at WIPP, offered a surprising explanation.

“General consensus is that the ‘organic’ designation was a typo that wasn’t caught,” he wrote, implying that the directions should have called for inorganic litter.

Since September 2012, in fact, the LANL packed up to 5,565 barrels of radioactive waste with organic kitty litter but mislabeled it as inorganic kitty litter — 16 of these barrels are also highly acidic and contain nitrate salts like the one that burst. It took an explosion before anyone noticed the mistake.

In addition to being horrifying on its own, the February explosion raises serious question about the safety of nuclear waste storage, especially when you consider how “comically simplistic,” to use the New Mexican‘s words, the explosion’s origins seems to be. There are many more worrying details in the New Mexican story, including how LANL took other shortcuts in packing the drum and failed to inform WIPP. It certainly doesn’t inspire confidence in our nation’s handling of radioactive waste.

[MIKA27]

A 250kg Bomb From World War II Caused A Mass Evacuation In France

A weapon from seven decades ago created a crisis in France this week. A team digging out a new metro line in Rennes, France, found an enormous 250kg bomb from World War II lodged in the ground near City Hall. Over 3000 people had to evacuate their homes.

According to mayor Nathalie Appere, a bomb squad successfully defused the device, which had 70kg of explosives still inside. The people ordered to evacuate a perimeter of nearly 300m are now able to go home, safe from this particular munition but now aware of one of the scariest legacies of WWII: An untold number of bombs lie dormant and scattered throughout the continent.

Germany is basically a terrifying graveyard for Allied bombs; just last August Frankfurt Airport had to delay flights after someone discovered an undetonated explosive. And in 2011, over 45,000 people had to evacuate after a 1.6-tonne bomb was found in the Rhine River. All in all, over 1800 tonnes of old bombs are discovered in Germany every year.

To make matters worse, the bombs get harder to defuse as they degrade with age. While deaths from these relics of warfare are rare, they’re not unheard of-an excavator died in Germany earlier this year. If nothing else, it’s a grim reminder that violence can linger in unintended ways.

[MIKA27]

Spectacular Video Of A Missile Blowing Up A Norwegian Navy Frigate

Whoa. Check out this impressive video of a new Norwegian Naval Strike Missile tested off the coat of Andøya, in northern Norway: The 180kg, four-metre-long, 150-kilometre range weapon hit and blew up the frigate KNM Trondheim.

It absolutely decimates the frigate.

[MIKA27]

For ‘Many Worlds’ Theories, New Concepts Offer Insights on Old Ideas

Albert Einstein’s concepts about the nature of our universe were almost visionary. Since his revolutionary theories of relativity were presented to the scientific world, many have pondered how such a profound unification of ideas could stem from a single mind. As much as there was a unified concept of the physical universe in Einstein’s mind, there were problems he saw, too.

For instance, an emerging field that became known as quantum mechanics had begun to appear by the early 1900s, and within the first two decades of the century, theorists from numerous areas of study that included Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger, and Wolfgang Pauli were all making contributions to the study of the quantum world from within their various branches of physics.

Physical phenomena, dealt with at nanoscopic scales where the subtle relationship between energy and frequency fall within what is known as the Planck constant, is the essence of quantum theory. Despite his own contributions to understanding this energetic relationship amidst the vastness of our cosmic minutia, the indefinite locality of particles, as suggested by quantum theory, seemed unlikely to Einstein. “God does not play dice with the universe,” he retorted, expressing that even on the quantum level, the fundamental elements that bring materiality together into unity on the macro-scale must remain.

Physicists have long sought to dissect this breakdown in the apparent relationship between Newtonian physics and the “weirdness”, to put it frankly, that seems to exist in the quantum world. However, a new theory of parallel worlds seeks to refine the “many universes” hypothesis that has become popular amidst notions of string theory and m-brane theory that have emerged in more recent years.

A concept first introduced years ago by Lubbock-based Bill Poirier, a professor of physics at Texas Tech University. Poirier does believe in a multiverse, of sorts, but not in the same sense that many modern physicists have suggested. Over the last few years, his idea has been gaining some momentum, which includes demonstrable mathematical feasibility by his peers in the field. Following new research that was published in late October in the physics journal Physical Review X, Live Science reports:

In the new study, which builds on Poirier’s idea, physicists from Griffith University in Australia and the University of California, Davis, demonstrate that it only takes two interacting parallel worlds — not an infinite number — to produce the weird quantum behavior that physicists have observed. Neighboring worlds repulse one another, the researchers wrote in the paper. This force of repulsion could explain bizarre quantum effects, such as particles that can tunnel through barriers.

The concept of a multiverse, and perhaps one more closely related to Poirier’s recent research, actually stems back to the 1950s, with the issuance of Hugh Everett’s “Many Worlds” theory. The scientific establishment was generally resistant to the idea at the time, which received little warm attention. However, the idea would see a renaissance in the late 1960s and into the 70s, as theoretical physicist Bryce Seligman DeWitt modified the idea and popularized it, now referring to it as simply “many-worlds” theory.

As experimental evidence has mounted over the years that suggests, at very least, the possibility that there may be a multiverse after all, Poirier has become one of many others to seek to refine Everette’s initial offerings, calling his own reworking of the concept the “Many Interacting Worlds”, or MIW theory.

Not only would a workable many worlds theory resolve some of Einstein’s quandaries with the quantum world, it could also negate the concern over paradoxes that exist in relation to concepts like time travel, negating such things as the need for the Novikov self-consistency principle, proposed in the 1980s by physicist Igor Dmitriyevich Novikov as a way to explain the unlikely probability of events that could create time paradoxes (but not ruling out entirely the possibility that time travel could, in theory, actually still works in accordance with many interpretations of general relativity).

The sheer fact that so much fanfare can be afforded the discussion of quantum physics as it relates to the possible existence of a multiverse cannot, by itself, justify the theories. Ideas that there may be multiple realities, and even separate dimensions of existence that, some day, might even become accessible to us, captures the imagination in ways that exceed our understanding.

But in the world of science, the nearly emotional need for such things, while inspirational for new modes of thought about how our universe may work, also requires evidence. “So far, Many Interacting Worlds makes the same predictions as standard quantum theory,” Poirier says. “All we can say for sure at present is that it might be correct.” Might be, in other words, means we’re still in the guessing stages… but with time, the educated guesswork employed here may carry us on toward fascinating new realities that could exist just next door.

[MIKA27]

CONNOR WOOD BICYCLES

Connor Wood Bicycles from Denver Colorado, are specialists in creating rideable works of art, they hand sculpt, individually crafted, beautiful wood bicycles, using sustainable American hardwoods. The bikes really standout from the crowd, they are hand-sculpted in ash and walnut woods, and are protected with with durable marine spar varnish. The distinct bikes are unbelievably smooth to ride and are available in three styles, Woody cruiser, Woody Scorcher, and Woody Mountain.

MIKA: Amazing craftsmanship!! Would love one of these!!

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BOURBON COUNTY VANILLA RYE BEER

When Goose Island released a Vanilla variant of their wildly successful Bourbon County line back in 2010, it was instantly one of the most sought after beers on the market. This winter, vanilla is back in the form of Bourbon County Vanilla Rye. At 13.8% ABV, this huge stout was aged in Rye Whiskey Barrels with a mix of Mexican and Madagascar vanilla beans and will be one of the most desired beers of 2014.

[MIKA27]

The Coldest Ground-Level Temp Ever Recorded On Earth Was -89.2C

1899, the departure of the ‘Southern Cross’ on the French Antarctic expedition from Tasmania

It looks like winter has already arrived for much of the US, but at least it’s not -89.2C. That’s the coldest temperature ever recorded by humans at ground level on this planet.

Yes, it dipped to -89.2C in Antarctica on July 21, 1983. The measurements were taken at the Vostok Station, run by Soviet scientists. But what about that time it dipped even lower a few years back?

Satellite data showed that an area of East Antarctica may have gotten even colder in 2010, dropping to -94.7C, but that temperature wasn’t confirmed by ground reports. Only temperatures measured from the ground are recognised by the Guinness Book of World Records and the World Meteorological Organisation, so the 2010 record stands as an “unofficial” measurement.

[MIKA27]

Russia: Passengers 'get out and push' frozen plane

Passengers due to take a flight in Siberia had to get out and push the aircraft after its brake pads froze solid, it's reported.

The plane was trying to take off from the Russian town of Igarka, but was unable to move after the temperature fell to -52C, the RIA Novosti news agency reports. Passengers on board the flight, many of them shift workers, apparently offered to lend a hand, fearing that otherwise their journey home would be delayed, The Siberian Times reports. The Katekavia airline flight later took off and landed safely in the city of Krasnoyarsk. "According to the initial account, the air temperature dropped to -52C, and the braking system in the plane's landing gear froze in the parking position," Oxana Gorbunova, a senior aide at the Western Siberia state transport prosecutor's office, tells RIA Novosti. "The pushback tractor was unable to budge the aircraft onto the taxiway, and the passengers decided to help give it a push, which is not permitted, as this can damage the aircraft skin." Prosecutors are now checking whether the airport, the airline, the crew or the passengers broke any air safety laws.

Igarka lies 100 miles (160km) north of the Arctic Circle, so chilly winter temperatures are not unusual. But -52C is significantly colder than normal; the average low temperature is closer to -30C. Igarka's airport is a regional airline hub used by 100,000 passengers a year, many of them working in Russia's Arctic oil and gas fields.

MIKA: Ahmmmm.... how about other systems being frozen? If landing gear is frozen surely ailerons would be also, and it seems they didn't de-ice either so I wouldn't be sitting in that plane or any at those temperatures.

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How I drank urine and bat blood to survive

Mauro Prosperi was 39 years old when he took part in the 1994 Marathon des Sables - a six-day, 250km (155-mile) race through the Sahara described as the toughest race of its kind. Following a sandstorm, the former Olympic pentathlete was lost in the desert for 10 days. Here he tells his story.

What I like most about running extreme marathons is the fact that you come into close contact with nature - the races take place in beautiful settings such as mountains, deserts, glaciers. As a professional athlete I hadn't been able to enjoy these surroundings because I was so focused on winning medals.

I found out about the Marathon des Sables by chance. I had already retired from the pentathlon when a good friend said to me: "There's this amazing marathon in the desert - but it's very tough." I love a challenge so I started training immediately, running 40km (25 miles) a day, reducing the amount of water I was drinking to get used to dehydration. I was never home.

My wife, Cinzia, thought I was insane - the race is so risky that you have to sign a form to say where you want your body to be sent in case you die. We had three children under the age of eight, so she was worried. I tried to reassure her. "The worst that can happen is that I get a bit sunburned," I said.

When I arrived in Morocco, I discovered a marvellous thing - the desert. I was bewitched.

Prosperi runs with fellow Italian Mario Malerba in the 1994 Marathon des Sables

These days the Marathon des Sables is a very different experience, with up to 1,300 participants it's like a giant snake - you couldn't get lost if you tried. But back in 1994 there were only 80 of us, and very few who were actually running, so most of the time I was on my own.

I was always the first Italian to reach the next stage and I'd put up a flag on my tent so that we could all get together in the evenings. It was fun.

Things went wrong on the fourth day, during the longest and most difficult stage of the race.

When we set out that morning there was already quite a bit of wind. I had passed through four checkpoints when I entered an area of sand dunes. I was alone - the pacemakers had gone ahead.

The camaraderie of desert running

Suddenly a very violent sandstorm began. The wind kicked in with a terrifying fury. I was swallowed by a yellow wall of sand. I was blinded, I couldn't breathe. The sand whipped my face - it was like a storm of needles. I understood for the first time how powerful a sandstorm could be. I turned my back on the wind and wrapped a scarf around my face to stop the sand from wounding me. I wasn't disoriented, but I had to keep moving to keep from getting buried. Eventually I crouched down in a sheltered spot, waiting for the storm to end.

It lasted eight hours. When the wind died down it was dark, so I slept out on the dunes. I was upset about the race because, until then, I had been in fourth place. I thought: "Oh well, I can't win now but I can still make good time. Tomorrow morning I'll get up really early and try to reach the finish." You have 36 hours to run that stage of the race - any longer and you are disqualified - so there was still a chance. What I couldn't have imagined was how dramatically that storm would change everything around me.

Marathon des Sables competitors battle a sandstorm in 2006

I woke up very early to a transformed landscape. I didn't know I was lost. I had a compass and a map so I thought I could navigate perfectly well, but without points of reference it's a lot more complicated.

I wasn't worried because I was sure that sooner or later I'd meet someone. "Who knows how many others are in the same situation?" I thought. "As soon as I see someone we can team up and get to the finish together." That was my plan, but unfortunately it didn't work out.

Marathon des Sables runners snake across the sands in 2009 - it attracts more than 1000 people a year

After running for about four hours I climbed up a dune and still couldn't see anything. That's when I knew I had a big problem. I started to walk - what was the point of running? Running where?

When I realised I was lost, the first thing I did was to urinate in my spare water bottle, because when you're still well-hydrated your urine is the clearest and the most drinkable. I remembered my grandfather telling me how, during the war, he and his fellow soldiers had drunk their own urine when their water ran out. I did it as a precaution, but I wasn't desperate. I was sure the organisers would find me soon.

When running the Marathon des Sables you have to be self-sufficient, and I was well-prepared: I had a knife, a compass, sleeping bag and plenty of dehydrated food in my backpack. The problem was water. We were given fresh water at the checkpoints, but when the storm hit I only had half a bottle of water left. I drank it as slowly as I could.

I'm very resistant to heat and I was very careful. I would only walk when it was cool, early in the morning and then again in the evening. During the day, when I wasn't walking, I'd try to find shelter and shade. I was wearing two hats - a baseball cap with a red woollen hat on top - to keep the temperature as constant as possible. Luckily my skin is quite dark so I didn't really suffer from sunburn.

Prosperi's map of the 1994 Marathon des Sables

On the second day, at sunset, I heard the sound of a helicopter coming towards me. I assumed it was looking for me so I took out my flare and shot it in the air, but he didn't see it. It was flying so low that I could see the pilot's helmet, but he didn't see me - he flew right past.

The helicopter, on loan from the Moroccan police, was returning to base to refuel. Since 1995, because of my experience, runners have been equipped with the kind of flares they use at sea - which they're not happy about, because they weigh 500g - but at the time the flares we had were really small, no bigger than a pen.

Nevertheless I remained calm, because I was convinced the organisers would have the resources to find anyone lost in the desert. I still thought I would be rescued sooner or later.

The holy man's tomb that almost became Prosperi's tomb

After a couple of days I came across a marabout - a Muslim shrine - where Bedouins stop when they are crossing the desert. I was hoping it was inhabited, but unfortunately there was nobody there - only a holy man in a coffin. But at least I had a roof over my head, it was like being home. I assessed my situation: it wasn't rosy, but I was feeling all right physically. I ate some of my rations, which I cooked with fresh urine, not the bottled urine that I was saving to drink - I started to drink that on the fourth day.

The marabout had filled up with sand from all the sandstorms, so the ceiling was very low. I went up to the roof to plant my Italian flag, in the hope that anybody looking for me could see it. While I was up there I saw some bats, huddled together in the tower. I decided to drink their blood. I grabbed a handful of bats, cut their heads and mushed up their insides with a knife, then sucked them out. I ate at least 20 of them, raw - I only did what they do to their prey.

I stayed in the marabout for a couple of days, waiting to be found.

I gave in to despair only twice. Once was when I saw the helicopter and it didn't see me. The other time was when I saw the aeroplane.

I had been in the marabout for three days when I heard the sound of a motor - an aeroplane. I don't know if it was looking for me, but I immediately started a fire with whatever I had - my rucksack, everything - in the hope the plane would see the smoke. But just then another sandstorm hit. It lasted for 12 hours. The aeroplane didn't spot me.

I felt it was my very last chance to be found. I was very depressed. I was convinced I was going to die and that it was going to be a long agonising death, so I wanted to accelerate it. I thought if I died out in the desert no-one would find me, and my wife wouldn't get the police pension - in Italy, if someone goes missing you have to wait 10 years before they can be declared dead. At least if I died in this Muslim shrine they would find my body, and my wife would have an income.

Prosperi worked for the mounted police in Sicily

I wasn't afraid of dying and my decision to take my own life came out of logical reasoning rather than despair. I wrote a note to my wife with a piece of charcoal and then cut my wrists. I lay down and waited to die, but my blood had thickened and wouldn't drain.

The following morning I woke up. I hadn't managed to kill myself. Death didn't want me yet.

I took it as a sign. I regained confidence and I decided to see it as a new competition against myself. I became determined and focused again. I was thinking of my children. I put myself in order - Mauro the athlete was back. I needed to have a plan. I still had quite a lot of energy left, I wasn't tired. As a former pentathlete I was used to training 12 hours a day and I had trained well for the Marathon des Sables so I didn't feel too weak. I still had some energy tablets, too.

Prosperi started in Zagora and was found in Tindouf 300km from the finishing line

I regained my strength and mental lucidity. I decided to get out of the shrine and start walking again, but where to? I followed the advice the Tuareg had given us all before we started the race: "If you're lost, head for the clouds that you can see on the horizon at dawn, that's where you will find life. During the day they will disappear but set your compass and carry on in that direction." So I decided to head for those mythical clouds on the horizon.

I walked in the desert for days, killing snakes and lizards and eating them raw - that way I drank, too. I think there are some instincts, a kind of deja vu, that kick in in an emergency situation: my inner caveman emerged.

I was aware that I was losing an incredible amount of weight - the more I walked, the looser my watch felt on my wrist. I was so dehydrated I couldn't urinate anymore. Luckily I had some anti-diarrhoea medicine which I kept taking.

I wanted to see my family and friends again and I concentrated on that. I wasn't afraid. At the same time, I started to view the desert as a place where people can live. I could see the beauty of the desert. I paid careful attention to every trace - even dried excrement gave me clues about what direction to go in.

I learned that there is food all around you, if you learn to look. As I was walking through the desert I recognised dried riverbeds where succulents grew, so I squeezed their juice out and drank that.

I started to think of myself as a man of the desert. Later, a Tuareg prince dedicated a poem to me - according to him I was a "chosen one" because I survived for so long in the desert.

Meanwhile, the organisers were out looking for me. My brother and brother-in-law had flown in from Italy to join the search. They found some of the traces I had left behind, like my shoelaces. They got to the Marabout and found signs of me. But they were sure they were looking for a body.

On the eighth day I came across a little oasis. I lay down and drank, sipping slowly, for about six or seven hours. I saw a footprint in the sand, so I knew people couldn't be far.

The next day, I saw some goats in the distance - it gave me hope.

Then I saw a young shepherd girl. She saw me too and ran away, scared. After nine days in the desert I must have looked quite a sight, I was black with dirt. The girl ran towards a large Berber tent to warn the women I was coming. There were no men in the camp - they had gone to market - but the women took care of me. They were so kind. An older woman came out of the tent and immediately gave me some goat's milk to drink. She tried to give me some food as well, but I threw it up. They wouldn't allow me into the tent because I was a man, but they put me on a carpet in the shade of their veranda. Then they sent someone to call the police - they like to camp close to military bases for protection.

A visibly thin Prosperi returns to a hero's welcome in Italy

The police came and carried me to their Jeep. They took me to their military base, blindfolded, because they didn't know who I was. They thought I might be dangerous. They had guns and I thought at times that they were going to kill me. When they found out I was the marathon runner who had got lost in Morocco they took off my blindfold and celebrated. I discovered that I had crossed the border into Algeria. I was 291km (181 miles) off course.

Prosperi has run the Marathon des Sables seven times: in 2001 he came 12th

They took me to hospital in Tindouf, where finally, after 10 days, I was able to call my wife. The first thing I said to her was: "Have you already had my funeral?" Because after 10 days lost in the desert you would expect someone to be dead.

When they weighed me in the hospital I had lost 16kg (35lb) - I weighed just 45kg (99lb). My eyes had suffered and my liver was damaged, but my kidneys were fine. I couldn't eat anything other than soup or liquids for months. It took me almost two years to recover.

Prosperi plans to run a 7000km race across the Sahara next year

Four years later I was back at the Marathon des Sables. People ask me why I went back, but when I start something I want to finish it. The other reason was that I can't live without the desert. Desert fever does exist, and it's a disease that I've absolutely caught. I'm drawn back to the desert every year to greet it, to experience it.

I ran eight more desert marathons and am now preparing for my biggest yet. Next year I'm planning to run 7,000km (4,350 miles) coast-to-coast across the Sahara from Agadir (Morocco) on the Atlantic Ocean to Hurghada (Egypt) on the Red Sea. Sport and nature are part of my life, and these races allow me to experience them first-hand.

My wife was a saint. She coped with me for many years but at a certain point, because of my lifestyle, we decided to split up. We are still best friends, maybe more so now than when we were married. I have a new partner but she knows I am a man on a mission. I can't change.

[MIKA27]

A Delta Force Operative’s Take on the POW/MIA Coverup

Following the Vietnam War, the issue of whether American servicemen had been left behind in prison camps was an often raised–and hotly debated–subject in political circles. Inspiring everything from popular action films, to books suggesting conspiracy theories and coverups, the issue came to a head in the 1990s with the formation of a Senate Select Committee, headed by John Kerry, which sought to put to rest the question of whether there had been prisoners of war left missing in action.

Upon review of the available data, Kerry, a veteran himself, had stated that there simply was no credible evidence to support the idea that Americans had been left behind following the conflict. However, U.S. Senator John McCain, having actually been a POW himself and kept at the famous “Hanoi Hilton” in Northern Vietnam, was also on the committee, and underwent heavy criticism at times for what appeared to be an effort to prevent the release of information about captives held overseas. Having been held prisoner himself, many could not fathom why McCain would show such resistance to the public release of POW/MIA information, suggesting the possibility, according to some, that questions remained about his own time held prisoner there.

It is true that in various POW/MIA circles, it has long been maintained that McCain may have actually been more forthcoming with facts during his period as a captive than has been popularly reported. Critics have compared this to willing collaboration with the enemy, similar to allegations made in the controversial story of Bobby Garwood, who was purportedly seen fighting with Vietcong forces.

Despite the stonewalling alleged against McCain, Kerry, and the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, there have been other members of Congress who have remained vocal on the issue, such as former New York Congressman John Leboutillier, who has gone on record stating that he, along with others, had been briefed on the issue, and that there was no doubt that American servicemen had remained behind.

Operation Hue City – 1967

This brings us to the compelling testimony offered by Eric Haney in his book, Inside Delta Force: The Story of America’s Elite Counterterrorist Unit. Described as the U.S. Army’s most elite top-secret strike force, 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-D is an elite counterterrorism group within the U.S. Military, of which Haney, author of the book, is considered one of the founding members. In the book, Haney briefly describes the POW/MIA issue, and reveals that there had, in fact, been a plan underway for Delta Force to rescue any exiting POWs still being held in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, or other regions nearby.

It should be noted here that, if there was indeed a plan to carry out this mission, it would presumably have been based on intelligence that supported the notion that there were, in fact, still POWs being held somewhere. This is in agreement with the testimony provided by LeBoutillier and others who have maintained that intelligence agencies had information that supported this, at least up until as recently as the 1980s.

In Haney’s book, he describes the rescue operation, and it’s two failed attempts, as a result of unwanted press attention the operations indirectly received. One might ask here, if such an operation were being carried out secretly by the U.S. Military, how then would it receive unwanted press? Haney tells that immediately in coincidence with Delta Force’s own plans for operation, Bo Gritz, a former Special Forces operative himself, had been positioned in the region, and had held televised press conferences announcing his own private operations intended to rescue the POWs, which thus compromised Delta Force’s operations. This happened not once, but on two separate occasions. Had Gritz merely exhibited terribly good luck at inadvertently thwarting a military operation that coincided with his own hobby of publicizing his attempts to rescue POWs, or was there something more to the equation?

Haney has a slightly different take on the story, which takes us all the way back to the end of the Vietnam War, and the subsequent Watergate scandal, which may have precipitated silence and miscommunication on the POW/MIA issue:

This is what I came to believe happened: In it’s hurried desire to conclude the treaty ending the war with Vietnam, the Nixon administration took the best, most expedient deal they could get and came back from Paris in 1973 declaring we had achieved”peace with honor.”

The enemies knew that we knew they were still holding prisoners, and they regarded this is the trump card to be used in later negotiations over the payment of reparations. (Why not? They had use the same ploy successfully on the French two decades before.)… But then came Watergate. And when the Nixon administration imploded, there were no players left the Vietnamese could use the POW card on.

Furthermore, by that time the American public was so sick of the war they didn’t want to hear about anything having to do with Vietnam. The country desperately wanted to forget it. And the politicos who had condemned American prisoners for a living death were equally desperate to forget the foul, dishonorable thing they had done.

So if it had come to light just eight years after we left Vietnam that American prisoners had been left behind for the sake of political expediency—well, the effect would have been devastating to a number of careers and reputations. And at the highest levels of power, nothing is more important than those two things: careers and reputations.

So the effort to rescue those prisoners had to be squashed at all costs. It was imperative.

It is my personal and professional opinion that the CIA was the lead agency in wielding its power to thwart any recovery operations. Among other considerations, it is the only entity with sufficient contacts to do so. The first pressure to kill the operation was brought to bear against senior military commanders who knew about it, so the military intelligence collection effort was called off—but the cat was already out of the bag.

Loc Ninh – 1967

This is both interesting, and tragic, as Haney suggests that Gritz was perhaps manipulated in such a way as to inadvertently thwart Delta Force’s operations to rescue the POWs… and in doing so, prevent the public from knowing (by virtue of their rescue) that remaining POWs had ever really been kept prisoner at all.

For some, the issue over whether POWs were kept is far from merely hypothetical, and while politically it as remained a divided topic, what are we to make of a former Special Forced operative who says he and his team had intended to go in for the rescue, only to be kept from being able to do so… and further implying he thought the CIA was behind it all? It seems that there may indeed be more to this story than many have considered, and certainly more than the U.S. Government has been willing to disclose and be held accountable for.

[MIKA27]

The Renegade: Robert Downey Sr. on His Classic Films, Son’s Battle with Drugs, and Bill Cosby

The gonzo director responsible for cult classics like Putney Swope sat down to discuss his filmmaking legacy, his son’s wild journey to the top, and the Bill Cosby allegations.

Poll a bunch of random youths today, and nine out of ten will say they know the name Robert Downey Jr. He is Iron Man, after all, and one of the biggest movie stars in the world. But precious few kids these days understand that Tony Stark’s father, Robert Downey Sr., is worthy of similar praise.

Back in the ‘60s and ‘70s, Robert Downey Sr. was a celebrated underground filmmaker responsible for cult classics like Putney Swope, a scathing (and hilarious) satire on Madison Avenue’s advertising world in which a black man takes charge of an ad firm, transforms it into “Truth and Soul, Inc.,” and completely upends the white power structure; and Greaser’s Palace, a bizarre acid-western about the life of Christ—albeit set on the frontier and featuring a fella in a zoot-suit trying to break his way into the entertainment biz. They were countercultural gems made on mostly shoestring budgets that skewered the institutions of the day.

“I don’t look at it as a career,” says Downey, with a smile and a shrug. “I’ve just made a few films, and I want to make a few more.”

From Friday, December 5th to Monday, December 8th, Cinefamily is hosting Truth and Soul Inc.: A Celebration of the Films of Robert Downey Sr. The event will feature screenings of Downey’s films, as well as appearances by filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson, a Downey fan and friend who cast him in bit parts in Boogie Nights and Magnolia, and comedian Louis C.K., who is a huge admirer of Putney Swope. It will also include an intimate conversation with Downey and his superstar son, Robert Downey Jr.

Downey Sr. will be taking the train across the country to the event from his home in Manhattan, since he doesn’t fly. When I enter his Gramercy apartment, I’m greeted by a tall, 79-year-old man with a kind face. The walls of his high-rise are lined with photos of his wife, Rosemary, her family, and his—including many of his grandsons, Indio and Exton (sons of Jr.). There are also several of the two Robert Downeys. After Rosemary offers me some tea, I sit down on the couch with Downey Sr. to discuss his astonishing life, and career.

I first wanted to ask you about Bill Cosby, because it’s in the news and you two ran in some similar circles. There are now up to 19 women accusing him of sexual assault. Did you know him?

Yeah. He was a great softball player in the Broadway Show League. There was nobody as good as him. You know, he’s an athlete. He went to Temple.

What do you make of the allegations? Had you heard any stories about this sort of behavior back in the day?

He really is in big trouble, because these girls have had enough. There’s 19—and growing. You heard things back then about somebody being date raped, but you didn’t know what you were listening to. People would say, “Date rape? What? What’s wrong with that?” That kind of s**t.

It’s truly awful. OK, let’s start at the beginning. I read that you were born with the surname “Elias” but changed it to your stepfather’s last name, “Downey,” to get into the Army underage?

That’s right. To get me in to the Army underage, my mother signed me in saying that my birth certificate was lost in a fire in Nashville, so I got in underage. I was 16. She did because I begged her to do it. It was Korea, and I served three years—half of it in the stockade. It was horrible, and great in equal measure. I just drank too much.

How long did you last in the Army?

About three years, so until ’56 or ’57. When you get the kind of discharge I had, they give you a suit and fifty dollars. As I was walking out of the gate in San Francisco, the MP on duty said, “You lucky son of a *****!” I was a drunk and a f**k-up. When I got in underage, I was desperate to get out, and the guy in charge said, “F**k you, you’re old enough now!” It was just a long list of things, a drunk and a f**k-up, so we came to a mutual agreement that I should leave—like Chuck Hagel. So, I’d saved up a bit of money too, and headed out to San Francisco to some jazz joints, which I really enjoyed. After that, I headed back to New York.

How did filmmaking enter your life?

The sergeant in the stockade who was in charge of the barracks one day said, “Downey, here’s a notebook—amuse yourself.” So, I had a pen and a pencil and started scribbling and drawing, and I felt good about it. Also, when I was in the 9th grade, a teacher enjoyed something I wrote, which I found interesting. When I got out of the Army, I started writing the usual Catcher in the Rye imitations, and then I wrote something that was done Off-Off Broadway in a theater. It was called What Else Is There? and it was four or five people playing missiles in a silo waiting to take off. One doesn’t want to go, and the other had f****d up parts. It got a nice review in The Village Voice and had a little run, and I thought, “Jesus… maybe I’m a writer!”

So that was an anti-war satire. Was it informed by your experience in the Army?

A little bit. I’m still terrified of war. Have you seen the recent 60 Minutes? Whoa. But it was fun to not write people as people, but missiles and machines as people—with feelings, and arguments, and romance. It was just a one-act play. Then, while working as a waiter at The Village Gate, one of the guys I worked with said, “Hey, you’re a writer and I’ve got a camera… let’s make a film!” I said, “How do you do that?” And he said, “I don’t know.” And I said, “I don’t either.” So, I served as the director. Our first film was all visual with no sound, and it turned into No More Excuses—which is five shorts in one intercut. After that, I was hooked.

Let’s talk about Putney Swope, which is a classic. What was the inspiration for that film?

I made experimental commercials in the experimental division of a production house, Film X, that made commercials for ad agencies. One day, a guy I was working with—a black guy—came up to me and said, “We’re doing the same job, but I know you make more money than I do.” So I said, “Let’s go up to the boss and talk about this.” So we went and I said, “Listen, we do the same thing and he’s making less than me.” Then, he said, “Well, if I give him a raise then I have to give you a raise, and we’re right back where we started.” So then I thought, “What if a black guy ran an ad agency?” And that’s how it started. I saw some of that in the Army, too—black guys not getting promoted as much.

How did you come up with the idea to dub your own voice over Arnold Johnson’s, who played Putney Swope?

The guy who was playing the lead couldn’t remember one word. He’d say, “I got it, Bob… I’ll get it later,” and I thought, “Oh my God, we’re in f****n’ trouble,” because we were on a low budget and couldn’t do a lot of takes. Then, the cameraman says one night, “Don’t worry about it, come here.” And I looked into the camera and he zoomed in and you couldn’t really see what his lips were saying, because of his beard. So he said, “You can put anything in his mouth, including what you wrote.” And that’s what I did. I dubbed him. You know, nobody wanted that film when it was done. The theater owners said, “Ah, it’s in bad taste.” And the last guy who owned about ten theaters in New York but was also a distributor, we screened it for him alone and he said, “I don’t get it, but I like it.” Then, Jane Fonda, who I don’t know, was on Carson talking about Easy Rider and then she said, “Another film I like is Putney Swope.” After that, the box office was up and it got played in more theaters.

And your follow-up film was 1970’s Pound, which was actually your son’s first acting role—playing a dog.

That was actually a play first, too. My second play. It played Off-Off Broadway in a little 40-person theatre on 3rd Avenue run by Kent Bateman, who’s Jason Bateman’s father. But we couldn’t afford a babysitter so we dragged him to the set, and threw him in the film. He was fabulous as a puppy. I knew he was great, and we were amazed. Then, I did another film later on, Greaser’s Palace, where he was in a wagon and then the next thing you know, he’s dead—his throat’s been slit overnight, along with his mother. He did one take and I had the lighting wrong and said, “We’ve gotta do it again.” He said, “I’m not doing it again.” So I said, “Come here,” and took him behind the tree and gave him a light whack on the ass, and he went back to the set and turned to me and said, “One more… you’re only getting one more.” And he nailed it.

And Greaser’s Palace was your highest budgeted film at the time.

It was about $800,000-plus. This woman, Cyma Ruben, had produced a hit Broadway play with her husband’s money, so she backed it. It was great going to New Mexico and shooting this strange western. Half the critics hated it and half didn’t, and it even made some critics’ Top 10 lists. The woman who financed it hated the movie, and one day she told me of her husband, “Sam’s not going to play it in theaters anymore,” and I joked, “Why don’t you give him a blowjob?” And she said, “How do you think I raised the money?” That, to me, was worth doing the whole f****n’ movie.

You raised the family in Greenwich Village. It was pretty different back then, I imagine.

I used to see Bob Dylan around all the time. But anything was possible then.

You did use your fair share of drugs in the day. How do you think it influenced your filmmaking?

I started fooling around with cocaine at the end of shooting Greaser’s, around ’71, and I just thought it was great—until I realized it wasn’t. I ended up looking in the mirror one night with my kids in one room, and me in the bathroom looking in the mirror, and there was no one in the mirror for about five seconds. I went in and told my family, “That’s it… I’m not doing that s**t anymore.” That was in 1983. Cocaine was everywhere. It caused people to drive around all night in a circle, and not eat. But it was everywhere. I did acid once. Someone slipped me something while I was making Pound, and I had two choices—go to the hospital, or keep working. So, there’s one scene in Pound I shot high of a bunch of people dancing around in a dream sequence.

I also read that you introduced your son, Robert Downey Jr., to drugs at a very young age—when he was 6.

Yeah. I handed him a joint and said, “Take a puff.” It was stupid. But look, the way it’s turned out, I’m very happy and lucky that he’s still here.

At his trial, he also said he was hooked on coke from the age of 8.

He might have had a little coke, yeah. But we didn’t think anything about that. Everyone could have everything. It was the ‘70s. But then, we found it how dangerous it was later. How about Richard Pryor. Wow.

When it got bad for your son in the ‘90s, did you try to intervene?

Oh, there were many interventions. Mainly, what I said to him was, “Don’t leave the planet,” and he always said, “I promise I won’t.” It seems ridiculous, but he kept his word. I just thought that every night when the phone rang after 9, it was the end. So it’s that much greater now. This is a guy who was knocked down with a count of 100, and got up.

Did you know your son had the talent on Greaser’s when he knocked out that scene?

I must’ve known something. We were out in California with his girlfriend, and she says, “You’ve got to go see your son, he’s performing in Oklahoma! tonight.” And I said, “He’s singing and dancing?” So I was a total mess, but I went. He was in the 9th grade and was so great, and when I left, I was so happy because he’d found his thing. I got a call once from his principal in junior high who said, “You’ve got to talk to him. He’s just hanging out in the theatre all day and doesn’t go to one class.” And I said, “That’s good! He’s going to be OK.” But he’s really great in Less Than Zero, and Chaplin. The [Chaplin] script isn’t that good, but he’s great in it.

He’s like Daniel Day-Lewis, in a way. I feel the scripts of the films they’re in rarely match their ability, but then they elevate the entire film with their talent.

That’s right. I asked Paul Anderson what it was like to direct Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood, and before every scene he’d go up to Paul and say, “Hat on, or hat off?” And that’s it. He was so well-prepared. I met Paul because there was a girl we both knew at the time who said, “I’ve got a script you should read,” and I said, “I don’t want to read any more f****n’ Hollywood scripts,” and she said, “I promise you, you’ll love it.” It was Sydney, which became Hard Eight. So we met, I told him how much I loved the script, and we became good friends. He’s our only hope, Paul. From Hollywood, he’s the only guy I see. [Paul] still can’t get over the [Philip Seymour] Hoffman thing. He says he sees him coming around the corner every day.

That’s so sad. I loved Hoffman’s performances in Anderson’s movies. Your son, by the way, needs to work with Anderson.

Well, that’s my fantasy. I finally got them together for a dinner and I just sat back and watched those two get to know each other. He had offered Robert something in this new film [inherent Vice], but it didn’t work out. But they need to do something together. It would be great.

Hugo Pool was one of your last big films.

Cameron Diaz was actually supposed to star in that one. She agreed to it, but then one day she came to me and said, “I got a call and they’re offering me a lot of money to be in this wedding movie [My Best Friend’s Wedding], but I’ll still do your movie if you wait for me,” but I couldn’t wait because we were all ready. So we got Alyssa [Milano], and she’s great in it.

It was dedicated to your second wife, Laura Ernst, who died from ALS.

We wrote the film together, but it was about a guy pool cleaner. I used to take her to Chuck Barris’ pool, who’s a friend of mine, and she couldn’t move around, because she had ALS. So this pool cleaner would always come around and talk to her, and I figured it would be a good idea for a movie. I decided after she died to not have a woman play her, but have a woman play the pool cleaner, and Patrick [Dempsey] play the guy with ALS.

So, what are you working on now? A film?

I am, but I can’t talk about it. I’m almost done. I know that when I get off this train ride I’m taking, I should be done with it—finally. I’ve been working on it too long and couldn’t figure it out, and finally it just happened. I hope I can make a few more!

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MERCEDES-BENZ CLA45 AMG SHOOTING BRAKE

Once again our friends overseas are blessed with another gem from Benz. Giving the popular CLA sedan the wagon treatment, meet the Europe exclusive Mercedes-Benz CLA Shooting Brake.

While there are several CLA Shooting Brakes hitting the scene, the CLA45 AMG is far and wide our favorite pick of the crop. Packed with a 360-horsepower 2.0-liter turbocharged engine, 7-speed transmission for buttery smooth shifts and 4-Matic all-wheel drive, the AMG-infused version of this thing is far from your average station wagon. Of course there are also other, less performance oriented options being offered as well. This includes two different diesel powered wagons alongside a CLA 250 equipped with the same 4Matic all-wheel drive found on the more powerful AMG version. As we previously mentioned, there are no plans to bring this vehicle here to the states this year, but we’re hoping that will change in the coming years.

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THE WORLD’S FIRST SMART HEADPHONES

If you thought your next smart device would be slapped on your wrist, Muzik would like to suggest otherwise. The Muzik On-Ear Headphones are the world’s first smart pair of cans and they allow you to not only change tracks, adjust the volume, and play and pause your music with a swipe or touch, but also activate Siri and share what you’re listening to on social media or via email. From a performance and build standpoint, the aluminum HD audio headphones seem to stack up nicely against similarly priced competition. They feature memory foam cushions, integrated phone controls, and 40mm custom dual diaphragm drivers. Plus, with customizable hot keys and motion sensors, you can tailor your headphones to do just what you want. It’s a smarter listening experience. [BUY]

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FEW CASK STRENGTH BOURBON

It might sound harsh, but cask strength bourbon is actually some of the most flavorful stuff you can get your hands on. Few Spirits know that, and have recently released a Cask Strength expression of their high-rye mashbill bourbon, clocking in at 117 proof. It's a complex dram with loads of taste and is surprisingly smooth considering the weight. Packaged in another beautiful Few bottle, it should rise to the top of your whiskey shopping list.

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China's Answer To Google Is Building This Stealthy Smart Bike

While Google busies itself with building cars that can drive themselves, China’s equivalent — the monstrous Baidu — is building this super-cool smart bike. Not as complex perhaps, but a damn sight more realisable.

The new bicycle — called Dubike — isn’t motorised, but it is packed with tech that powers itself through your pedalling. Loaded with sensors, it detects heart rate, cadence (that’s the rate at which you pedal), crank torque and more. The data is then beamed via Bluetooth to a smartphone app, allowing you to monitor your performance.

The handlebars also feature a navigation systems which pairs up with your phone to supply directions, and it also allows you to chart your progress and against pre-set fitness programs before beaming them off to your social networks to brag. All of that’s powered by a “self-generation hub that converts kinetic into electrical energy.” So, that will be a dynamo, then.

Designed by the Institute of Deep Learning along with Baidu, it will launch in China by the end of the year, though price remains a mystery. It’s unlikely it will ever make it to the West — so maybe we’ll just have to wait for those cars?