STUFF: News, Technology, the cool and the plain weird

[MIKA27]

15 hours ago, polarbear said:

I think the biggest issue will be: even if Universal finds a director that has genuine love and affection for the source material, as well as a new and unique vision (and manages to stay out of their way during production/editing) I doubt a Frankenstein or Wolfman movie actually interest audiences. These days, being a good film doesn't seem to be enough to get people through the doors when there is so much media competing for their attention.
Why would a group of 20 somethings line up to go and a see a Frankenstein movie when they could go and see a Marvel movie instead? 

If Blade Runner 2049 taught us anything this year its that its not enough to be a connected to a well loved classic, have star power, be unique, be well made, have a well executed vision and actually be entertaining if you want to make some money at the box office

I must say, the remake of The Wolfman in 2010 starring Benicio Del Toro was pretty good. Nothing else has come close to the originals IMO

 

[MIKA27]

16 hours ago, JohnS said:

Of course, I agree.

The reboots perhaps might be more successful if they actually cast more actors that are unknowns versus current flavour of the time(s).

For me, thats what killed THE MUMMY remake and so many other reboots. I say, cast decent not so known actors.

[polarbear]

1 hour ago, MIKA27 said:

I must say, the remake of The Wolfman in 2010 starring Benicio Del Toro was pretty good. Nothing else has come close to the originals IMO

 

That's actually a great example of what I was saying
Great cast, great director, good film
Still Bombed

[MIKA27]

3 minutes ago, polarbear said:

That's actually a great example of what I was saying
Great cast, great director, good film
Still Bombed

I see your point perfectly mate and agree.

Saying this, it's a shame because surely there are many fans of Horror movies like myself? Perhaps people are becoming desensitised and as such, Horror flicks just don't do the same thing to people as they once did? 

For myself, the recent I.T movie was pretty sweet and the only recent horror flick to give me the jumps (Perhaps because of the awesome sound) was the Conjuring 1 and 2.

[polarbear]

3 minutes ago, MIKA27 said:

I see your point perfectly mate and agree.

Saying this, it's a shame because surely there are many fans of Horror movies like myself?

I was hoping this Dark Universe would lead to an Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein reboot, personally

[MIKA27]

Rian Johnson Is Developing A New Trilogy Of Star Wars Movies 

When Colin Trevorrow left Star Wars: Episode IX, fans wondered if Last Jedi director Rian Johnson would be taking his place. He didn't, but that's apparently because instead he's working on three new Star Wars movies that are wilder than anyone could have possibly imagined.

The news was announced by Disney CEO Bob Iger during an conference call discussing Disney's financial year of 2017. Johnson will develop the trio of films in an undisclosed time period, but presumably for some time after the current trilogy of movies concludes in 2019. An official statement was then quickly posted confirming the news, and that Johnson's trilogy - being produced with Ram Bergman - will be separate from the Skywalker Saga of the prequel, original and sequel trilogies, and will "introduce new characters from a corner of the galaxy that Star Wars lore has never before explored". Here's the official statement from Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy:

Quote

We all loved working with Rian on The Last Jedi. He's a creative force, and watching him craft The Last Jedi from start to finish was one of the great joys of my career. Rian will do amazing things with the blank canvas of this new trilogy.

Johnson himself followed up with a quick comment on Twitter acknowledging the news:

Quote

Obviously I hope you like The Last Jedi. But man now I REALLY hope you like The Last Jedi.

Alongside the trilogy of movies, Iger also confirmed that a live action Star Wars TV series was currently being developed by Disney, and will exclusively premiere through Disney's planned streaming service, set to launch in 2019. It was previously confirmed that the Star Wars movies would be leaving Netflix and other streaming services to find a new home on Disney's in-development platform, but now they will be joined by an exclusive live-action venture. The service is set to launch in 2019, but a date for the Star Wars TV series was not revealed.

[MIKA27]

Gene Therapy Restores Seven-Year-Old Boy's Skin In 'Major Biomedical Triumph'

Junctional epidermolysis bullosa is the sort of rare disease you are probably lucky to have never heard of. An often lethal genetic condition, from infancy it plagues its victim with painful blisters all over the body that causes the skin to become extremely fragile.

In a major medical breakthrough, on Wednesday Italian researchers announced that they were able to almost entirely reconstruct the skin of a seven-year-old boy afflicted with JED - and they used gene therapy to do it.

It is a breakthrough that not only signals a potential curative treatment for a painful, heartbreaking disease, but demonstrates the great power that new technologies such as gene therapy and stem cells may hold to address genetic conditions previously written off as hopeless.

Typically, the way JEB is treated is to manage wounds and infections as they crop up, taking care to treat the body's extremely fragile skin delicately. In the new research published Wednesday in the journal Nature, researchers from Italy's University of Modena and Reggio Emilia describe using gene therapy to regenerate a fully functional epidermis covering approximately 80 per cent of the body in a young boy with a life-threatening case of the disease.

Illustration showing how gene therapy was used to treat a skin disease.

JEB is caused by mutations in the genes LAMA3, LAMB3 and LAMC2 which affect the production of a protein called laminin-332. This protein is essential to developing a healthy epidermis, and without it the skin is fragile and prone to infection and skin cancer.

The young patient at the centre of the new study had a mutation to the gene LAMB3. To fix this, researchers took skin cells from a part of the patient's body that was not blistering. They then cultured those cells and genetically modified them to contain a corrected copy of the LAMB3 gene. They then grafted these new skin cells onto the patient's body. Over the course 21 months, four-fifths of the boy's epidermis regenerated, creating a new layer of healthy skin. Testing showed that the grafted skin cells were regenerating within the patient's body effectively.

"This report is a major biomedical triumph, combining gene therapy and stem cells," said Eric Topol, a geneticist at Scripps Research Institute who was not affiliated with the study. "While only a case report, the seven-year-old boy was in a life-threatening condition and this intervention can be credited to saving his life."

In previous studies, researchers had successfully reconstructed small areas of patients' skin, but with this new approach, the researchers were the first to almost entirely reconstruct a patient's skin.

"Skin diseases are well suited for gene therapy since the tissue is directly accessible," Topol told Gizmodo.

Topol said the only downside was that in the long term, it's possible that the condition could reoccur or cause troubling side effects such as cancer. More extensive studies will be needed to see how the treatment works over the long haul and in other patients.

Recently, gene therapy has made many impressive strides. Just last month, an FDA panel approved gene therapy to cure a rare eye disease.

 

[MIKA27]

US Air Force Wants To Put Lasers On Fighter Jets By 2021, Bringing Us One Step Closer To Star Wars

The US Air Force's scientific research wing is giving Lockheed Martin $US26.3 million ($34.3 million) "for the design, development, and production of a high power fibre laser" which it expects to start testing on a tactical fighter jet in four years. Sounds cool and certainly futuristic, but the jury's still out on whether these weapons have any real tactical value.

It sounds like science fiction, but lasers - formally known as "directed-energy weapons" - have been used by the US Army's ground forces for years. But now, the Pentagon's Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) wants to take the next step and give these seemingly futuristic weapons a set of wings. As announced earlier this week, Lockheed Martin was awarded the contract as part of AFRL's Self-protect High Energy Laser Demonstrator (SHiELD) program.

"Lockheed Martin continues to rapidly advance laser weapon systems and the technologies that make them possible," said Rob Afzal, a Lockheed laser weapons expert, in a statement. "We have demonstrated our ability to use directed energy to counter threats from the ground, and look forward to future tests from the air as part of the SHiELD system."

Earlier this year, Lockheed unveiled a 60 kilowatt-class laser that can be installed on trucks, such as the Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck - the US Army's largest ground vehicle. But now Lockheed has to make a laser that can be installed onto a fighter jet - no small task given that laser systems tend to be big and heavy. They're also energy hogs that need to cooled both during and after use. The new laser will need to work in a tight, compact environment, and be immune to the effects of vibrations, temperatures and tremendous G forces. At the same time, the system cannot impair aeronautic performance.

"It's a completely new and different challenge to get a laser system into a smaller, airborne test platform. It's exciting to see this technology mature enough to embed in an aircraft," said Afzal. "The development of high power laser systems like SHiELD show laser weapon system technologies are becoming real. The technologies are ready to be produced, tested and deployed on aircraft, ground vehicles and ships."

The SHiELD program itself consists of three different components, all of which are being designed and developed by different manufacturers. Northrop Grumman is currently at work on the beam control system, called STRAFE, which will be used to direct the laser to the target. Boeing is current developing a pod that will be mounted on the fighter jet to power and cool the laser, and Lockheed Martin is working on LANCE - the high energy laser itself. Once all these components are brought together, and as part of the SHiELD program, AFRL will test the capabilities of a laser-equipped fighter jet to defend itself from the air or ground.

Lockheed did not disclose the power of the pending laser weapon, but did say it will be in the "tens of kilowatts" range. And as reported in Defence News, it also isn't known which fighter jet will carry the laser or how the Air Force will test the weapon during the 2021 demos.

At an initial $US26.3 million ($34.3 million) price tag, it's reasonable to ask if an extravagant weapon such as this is even worth it. Fighter jets already have an assortment of air-launched weapons, including conventional bombs, missiles (including ground-to-air missiles), and even torpedoes. Lasers (as already noted) require a tremendous amount of energy, they have a short range, and they suck in settings where there's haze, smoke and dust.

"Lasers are no substitute for guns and missiles," according to an analysis put out earlier this year by the Strategic Culture Foundation. "They can add to the defensive capabilities but cannot be used as primary strike weapons."

But the US War Machine is a hungry beast, and futuristic-sounding weapons are an easy sell - even if they are redundant, limited in scope, and often ineffective.

[MIKA27]

The Most Amazing Train Game To Hit Japanese Arcades This Year

Japan makes amazing train simulators. Densha de Go!, released in Japanese arcades this week, is no exception.

The game was announced last year, and it's packaged in a train-like cabinet. Inside, there are realistic controls, a touch screen and multiple monitors. It's a simulator, so the point is to conduct the train from one station to the next.

Here is a quick walkthrough, which shows off gameplay.

And a look at the whole cabinet and inside.

The first Densha de Go! was released in 1995. Since then, it's spawned a slew of realistic simulators, cool peripherals, and impressive arcade releases. All aboard!

[MIKA27]

Wolfcop Sequel ‘Another Wolfcop’ Gets A Fun New Trailer

Wolfcop was one of the more campy and fun films to come out in recent memory. The comic was pretty fun, as well. It was inevitable that it would get a sequel, and the fact that the title is Another Wolfcop is amazing. Releasing on December 1st, we have a new trailer for the film you can see below (also: NSFW):

After being shown at a bunch of festivals and such since last year including Fantastic Fest, we finally get the theatrical release. Leo Fafard is back as the Wolfcop, and we even get a cameo from Kevin Smith as “Zumba Guy”. So there’s that to look forward to, as well. You know what? Now that I think about it: why haven’t we gotten a Wolfcop Funko Pop yet? You would think that would sell itself. I also love that the poster is a takeoff of the Stallone ’80s classic Cobra. That’s a favorite of mine.

[MIKA27]

Get to Know Sotol, the Dangerously Delicious Cousin of Tequila and Mezcal

Over the central plaza of Chihuahua City, the capital of the Mexican border state of Chihuahua, someone has painted a brightly colored mural of—what else?—a chihuahua. The diminutive, skittish canine is somewhat the antithesis of the state it's named after; Chihuahua, you see, is a dry and rugged place, where cowboy culture developed amidst canyons, deserts, and the sierra. And perhaps nothing better represents this than the local spirit, sotol—the dangerously delicious cousin of tequila and mezcal.

"Understanding sotol is a way to understand the magical essence of Chihuahua," says Juan Pablo Carvajal, a young sotol entrepreneur whose brand’s name—Los Magos, or "The Magicians"—encapsulates this idea. Carvajal is part of a young generation of sotol enthusiasts who are trying to bring the spirit from the rural Chihuahuan countryside to the rest of Mexico, and eventually, to the world.

The desert sotol plant.

Just blocks from the mural, the city's hippest bar, La Sotoleria, is leading the charge.

"I didn’t want to open a normal American- or European-style bar, nor a typical Mexican cantina, the kind you see in the movies with cowboys and donkeys," says owner Armando Marin. "I wanted do something contemporary that also touched into Chihuahua's northern tradition."

When the conquistadors crossed the Atlantic to Mexico, they brought the process of distillation along with them, leading to the development of sotol. The spirit is named for the desert sotol plant from which it is made, unlike agave-based mezcal and tequila.

At La Sotoleria, Marin houses cured blends whose tastes range from sweet like liqueur to smooth, high-percentage distillations with no after-bite. He is especially proud of one exotic flavor that he sourced from the nearby distillery Oro de Coyame. Named Elixer, the sotol is made with 27 local herbs—two of which are marijuana and peyote.

"The marijuana is for relaxing the nerves, and the peyote, well, it's something wonderful. It's a medicine for everything," says Gerardo Ruelas, the owner of Oro de Coyame and its resident maestro sotolero. This distillery's blends are now one of the few sotols available internationally, sold under the name Fabriquero. Ruelas, who learned the craft here, takes a great deal of pride in being a modern-day sotolero.

"They never thought it would get further than the cantinas in Chihuahua," says Ruelas, whose grandfather (pictured below) once sold the spirit to Al Capone's men. Although sotol boomed during Prohibition, in the decades that followed, the Mexican government nearly ended the industry when they emphasized the importation of foreign liquors and the consumption of national beers.

Eduardo Arrieta, also a maestro sotolero and the second cousin of Gerardo Ruelas, calls it the "sotol persecution."

"Back then, if you had a problem with the government, they’d just kill you," says Arrieta, who at 64 claims he is the oldest sotolero left standing in the state. As a child in the '60s, he says he lived through some of the worst times of the persecution. "It was very sad when they tried to get us to stop producing sotol; we couldn’t afford food, we'd go days without eating sometimes. My family had to keep the tradition alive clandestinely."

Arrieta says he enjoys drinking Ruelas' sotol, but then laughingly adds that he thinks his own is the most chingón—a Mexican profanity that in this context can best be translated as "badass."

"I don’t have the market, but I have a very good product," he says as we are joined in the Chihuahuan countryside by Jorge Caldera and Ricardo Pico, two sotol entrepreneurs who are trying to change that.

Caldera and Pico's brand, Clande, is widely available in Mexico, and they expect to send their first batch to the United States and Europe before the end of the year. In their tasting room in Chihuahua City, they keep a wide range of sotols curated from around the state—even varieties infused with beef and goat.

Caldera says each blend of sotol tells two stories.

"First, the plant's story, that grew wildly in the middle of nowhere. How much have you changed in 15 to 20 years? How much of the change was caused by the places you’ve lived, the people who were your friends? The plant will grab some of the characteristics of the little flower nearby, or perhaps a chile plant, so it will be a little spicy," he says. "The second is the story of the maestro sotolero, who, like the plant, has had a tough life, who's learned the craft from his parents, grandparents, who taught him to distill the products correctly. Sotol invites you into the heart of the plant and the person who made it."

The two young entrepreneurs give off a hipster-cowboy vibe, repeatedly stressing their goal of making Clande an environmentally conscious brand where a majority of the profits go back to the rural communities that produce the sotol. But their modern sensibilities are balanced by the spirit's rugged roots.

"We call it Clande to represent the people that persisted through the persecution," says Pico. "Sotol isn't for everyone. It's rough sometimes, it's for the outlaws, it's for the ones that live free, the ones who travel to unknown places."

It is, he says, "the Chihuahuan tradition."

[MIKA27]

‘Hostiles’ Trailer Has Christian Bale Looking for Redemption in Scott Cooper’s Western

Entertainment Studios Motion Pictures has released the Hostiles trailer. The new film from director Scott Cooper (Black Mass) takes place in 1982 and follows an Army captain (Christian Bale) who is forced to escort a dying Cheyenne war chief (Wes Studi) and his family back home to their tribal lands across hostile territory.

The movie is trying to position itself as a story about white brutality against Native Americans, but because the lens of the story is the redemption arc of Bale’s character, the Native Americans are largely reduced to props rather than characters with their own motives and beliefs. It’s a movie that’s pretty brutal, but the brutality serves facile themes.

The film opens in limited release on December 22nd before expanding in January 2018.

[MIKA27]

‘Game Night’ Trailer: Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams Team Up for Action Comedy

Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema have released the first trailer for the upcoming action-comedy Game Night. Directed by Vacation helmers and Spider-Man: Homecoming co-writers John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, the film stars Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams as a couple whose weekly game night gets kicked up a couple thousand notches when Bateman’s brother (played by Kyle Chandler) arranges a murder mystery party that quickly gets out of hand.

The film looks to be something of a comedic spin on David Fincher‘s The Game, and it kind of works. There’s a great roster of talent onboard, and the story taps into a pretty big trend at the moment as board games have had something of a resurgence lately. Visually the film also looks quite dynamic, which is refreshing for an action comedy. So yeah, I’ll definitely watch this.

Game Night opens in theaters on March 2, 2018.

[MIKA27]

The Fungus That Turns Ants Into Zombies Is More Diabolical Than We Realised

Carpenter ants of the Brazilian rain forest have it rough. When one of these insects gets infected by a certain fungus, it turns into a so-called "zombie ant" and is no longer in control of its actions. Manipulated by the parasite, an infected ant will leave the cosy confines of its arboreal home and head to the forest floor - an area more suitable for fungal growth. After parking itself on the underside of a leaf, the zombified ant anchors itself into place by chomping down onto the leaf. This marks the ant's final act. From here, the fungus continues to grow and fester inside the ant, eventually thrusting a stalk through the ant's head that releases fungal spores. This entire process, from start to finish, can take upwards of ten agonizing days.

We've known about zombie ants for quite some time, but scientists have struggled to understand how the parasitic fungus, O. unilateralis (pronounced yu-ni-lat-er-al-iss), performs its puppeteering duties. This fungus is often referred to as a "brain parasite," but new research published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that the brains of these zombie ants are left intact by the parasite, and that O. unilateralis is able to control the actions of its host by infiltrating and surrounding muscle fibres throughout the ant's body. In effect, it's converting an infected ant into an externalized version of itself. Zombie ants thus become part insect, part fungus. Awful, right?

To make this discovery, the scientist who first uncovered the zombie ant fungus, David Hughes from Penn State, launched a multidisciplinary effort that involved an international team of entomologists, geneticists, computer scientists, and microbiologists. The point of the study was to look at the cellular interactions between O. unilateralis and the carpenter ant host Camponotus castaneus during a critical stage of the parasite's life cycle -- that phase when the ant anchors itself onto the bottom of leaf with its powerful mandibles.

Ants infected with late stage O. unilateralis infection

"The fungus is known to secrete tissue-specific metabolites and cause changes in host gene expression as well as atrophy in the mandible muscles of its ant host," said lead author Maridel Fredericksen, a doctoral candidate at the University of Basel Zoological Institute, Switzerland, in a statement. "The altered host behaviour is an extended phenotype of the microbial parasite's genes being expressed through the body of its host. But it's unknown how the fungus coordinates these effects to manipulate the host's behaviour."

By referring to the parasite's "extended phenotype," Fredericksen is referring to the way that O. unilateralis is able to hijack an external entity, in this case the carpenter ant, and make it a literal extension of its physical self.

For the study, the researchers infected carpenter ants with either O. unilateralis or a less threatening, non-zombifying fungal pathogen known as Beauveria bassiana, which served as the control. By comparing the two different fungi, the researchers were able to discern the specific physiological effects of O. unilateralis on the ants.

Using electron microscopes, the researchers created 3D visualisations to determine location, abundance, and activity of the fungi inside the bodies of the ants. Slices of tissue were taken at a resolution of 50 nanometres, which were captured using a machine that could repeat the slicing and imaging process at a rate of 2,000 times over a 24-hour period. To parse this hideous amount of data, the researchers turned to artificial intelligence, whereby a machine-learning algorithm was taught to differentiate between fungal and ant cells. This allowed the researchers to determine how much of the insect was still ant, and how much of it was converted into the externalized fungus.

3D reconstruction of an ant mandible adductor muscle (red) surrounded by a network of fungal cells (yellow). 

The results were truly disturbing. Cells of O. unilateralis had proliferated throughout the entire ant's body, from the head and thorax right down to the abdomen and legs. What's more, these fungal cells were all interconnected, creating a kind of Borg-like, collective biological network that controlled the ants' behaviour.

"We found that a high percentage of the cells in a host were fungal cells," said Hughes in a statement. "In essence, these manipulated animals were a fungus in ants' clothing."

But most surprising of all, the fungus hadn't infiltrated the carpenter ants' brains.

"Normally in animals, behaviour is controlled by the brain sending signals to the muscles, but our results suggest that the parasite is controlling host behaviour peripherally," explained Hughes. "Almost like a puppeteer pulls the strings to make a marionette move, the fungus controls the ant's muscles to manipulate the host's legs and mandibles."

As to how the fungus is able to navigate the ant towards the leaf, however, is still largely unknown. And in fact, that the fungus leaves the brain alone may provide a clue. Previous work showed that the fungus may be chemically altering the ants' brains, leading Hughes' team to speculate that the fungus needs to the ant to survive long enough to perform its final leaf-biting behaviour. It's also possible, however, that the fungus needs to leverage some of that existing ant brain power (and attendant sensorial capabilities) to "steer" the ant around the forest floor. Future research will be required to turn these theories into something more substantial.

"This is an excellent example of how interdisciplinary research can drive our knowledge forward," Charissa de Bekker, an entomologist at the University of Central Florida not affiliated with the new study, told Gizmodo. "The researchers used cutting-edge techniques to finally confirm something that we thought to be true but weren't sure about: that the fungus O. unilateralis does not invade or damage the brain."

de Bekker says this work confirms that something much more intricate is going on, and that the fungus might be controlling the ant by secreting compounds that can work as neuromodulators. And importantly, data gleaned from the fungal genome points to this conclusion as well.

"This means the fungus might produce a wealth of bioactive compounds that could be of interest in terms of novel drug discovery," said de Bekker. "I am, thus, very excited about this work!"

An authority on the zombie ant fungus herself, de Bekker also released new research this week. Her new study, published in PLOS One and co-authored with David Hughes and others, looked into the molecular clock of the Ophiocordyceps kimflemingiae fungus (a recently named species of the O. unilateralis complex) to see if the daily rhythms, and thus biological clocks, are an important aspect of the parasite-host interactions studied by biologists.

"In addition to confirming that the fungus indeed has a molecular clock, we found that this results in the daily oscillation of certain genes," de Bekker told Gizmodo. "While some of them are active during the day-time, others are active during the night-time. Interestingly, we found that the fungus especially activates genes encoding for secreted proteins during the night-time. These are the compounds that possibly interact with the host's brain! The fungus, therefore, does not just release bioactive compounds to manipulate behaviour, but there seems to be a precise timing to it as well."

There's clearly still lots to learn about this insidious parasite and how it hijacks its insectoid hosts, but as these recent studies attest, we're getting steadier closer to the answer -- one that's clearly disturbing in nature.

MIKA: I wonder how long until this is weaponised....? 

[MIKA27]

Guillermo del Toro takes on the Cold War in the final trailer for The Shape of Water

Guillermo del Toro went on Facebook earlier today to answer questions about his upcoming film The Shape of Water, and then surprised audiences by unveiling the film’s final trailer.

The Shape of Water is a film set in the 1950s that follows a mute woman named Elisa (Sally Hawkins) who mops up floors at a facility that’s housing a strange aquatic creature. Michael Shannon plays Strickland, a man tasked with keeping an eye on the beast, who believes it is dangerous and not to be trusted. Elisa soon bonds with the creature, however, leading to a surprising relationship between the two. The film premiered earlier this year at the Toronto International Film Festival, where we found it to be a beautiful film, filled with del Toro’s own unique sentimentality.

We’ve seen a few trailers for The Shape of Water so far, but this latest spot highlights the Cold War setting, and how government agents in charge of the mysterious facility are desperate to keep the aquatic creature away from the Russians. Not only do they have to contend with studying their prisoner, they have to keep an eye out for Russian spies and double agents.

The Shape of Water is coming to theatres on December 8th.

[MIKA27]

Undraining the Swamp

Florida is trying to undo decades of damage to the Everglades.

From some vantage points Lake Okeechobee, all 730 square miles of it, looks like an ocean. The third largest natural freshwater lake in the country irrigates farmland and sustains wildlife across six counties in south Florida. People boat and fish, bringing fresh catch home for dinner.

But for the 13,000 residents of Glades County, the lake can loom large and menacing, bursting against aging levees and control gates managed by the US Army Corps of Engineers. The specter of the 1926 and 1928 hurricanes, both of which burst the dike open and together killed thousands of people, still hangs over communities here. People go about their lives fearing they're one storm away from another devastating breach, as was the case during Hurricane Irma in August.

"The more rainwater that increases in Lake Okeechobee, the more pressure is on the lake, and that pressure can continue to build up and build up and build up and one day the levee can go," said Tammy Jackson-Moore, a Belle Glade resident who co-founded Guardians of the Glades, a nonprofit focused on community advocacy. "And we're talking about wiping out entire communities here."

Florida is defined by its water—the water flowing around it, through it, increasingly over it. But throughout the twentieth century, its major arteries of fresh water, which flowed from the Kissimmee River south of Orlando to Lake Okeechobee and down to the swampy Everglades, were permanently rerouted by the federal government and landowners to stop flooding, and make room for agriculture and housing in the southern part of the state.

Draining the water flow has allowed for bursts of economic growth. Today, Florida's agriculture industry, some of which sits on former swamp land, is worth $104 billion and employs two million people, and a big part of that is the politically influential sugar industry. But tampering with nature has its consequences. The Everglades, the largest swath of subtropical wilderness in the country, is now half of its size circa 1920, and the ecosystem has deteriorated, losing wildlife and native flora. Without a natural place to flow, stagnant water pushes toxic algae blooms into the rivers, and turns pristine ocean into sludgy waste.

Now the state is working with the Army Corps of Engineers—the government agency partly responsible for rerouting and draining water to begin with—and the South Florida Water Management District to attempt the largest hydraulic restoration project in the world. And while some say the effort has turned Florida into a battleground, pitting sugar farmers against legislators and environmentalists, others are hoping this will finally right certain man-made wrongs and restore some balance to the state.

If the government is able to fully fund the plan, and should dozens of contractors and state forces successfully carry it out, it could permanently change Florida. And set a precedent for inevitable restoration projects around the world, which are becoming increasingly crucial as climate change manifests in stronger storms and sea level rise.

I followed the historic flow, from Lake Okeechobee down to the Everglades National Park, to find out how these government promises are playing out.

In mid-October, Lake Okeechobee was full because of Hurricane Irma and seasonal rains.

THE PLAN

I'm a few miles east of Lake Okeechobee, stomping through a muddy construction site with a pair of US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) staffers. They're surveying the 3,400 acres that will eventually become the Indian River Lagoon-South reservoir to store and treat water from the nearby St. Lucie Estuary, which is often polluted by agricultural runoff. We find the land soaked by seasonal rains and Irma, which had made landfall a month before, and left behind a wake of flooding and debris. Workers pump water off the property to clear the way for more construction.

The reservoir sits on land that used to be owned by Tropicana, the citrus and juice processing company, and is wedged between roads named after companies like Coca-Cola and Minute Maid, revealing the different stakeholders that have held land across south Florida. Fields of sugarcane, one of Florida's biggest cash crops, line the road to the 741-acre site.

ACE's Kimberly Taplin and Jim Bonnano.

This project is one of many under the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP), the massive, $10.5 billion initiative authorized in 2000 by the federal government, and launched a decade later. This reservoir is one more spot where water can be held and treated, directed to land when necessary, and stored during storm seasons to prevent flooding.

"The goal is, overall, to get the water right," Kimberley Taplin, program manager of USACE's Ecosystem Restoration Branch, tells me. "How do we get it more natural, to the extent we can?"

With 68 components, the plan is multifaceted: slowing down the flow of the Kissimmee River in the north, storing water in reservoirs around the lake, shooting water from the lake toward the east and west, and building bridges to allow the Everglades to flow under them and thrive in the south. It will take more than 35 years to complete.

From the South Florida Ecosystem Restoration Program Overview.

CERP has become an accepted, and usually welcome, part of the dialogue around Florida's water issues. But other parts of the legislation are more contentious. The latest debate, for example, has been over a Senate bill dubbed SB 10, a proposal approved by Florida Governor Rick Scott back in May.

This proposed law calls for a new reservoir below Lake Okeechobee, which would be able to contain overflow and store water that would be used for agriculture, to replenish the ecosystem during low tides, and drinking water in aquifers. But SB 10 also has asked for a lot of land. In the original proposal, drafted by Florida Senator Joe Negron, the state was to spend $2.4 billion to buy 60,000 acres of privately held farmland to build the reservoir.

Farmers across the state balked at this idea, particularly those in the sugar industry, one of the more powerful agricultural lobbies in the state. Dozens of companies, like heavyweights Florida Crystals Corporation and US Sugar, wrote letters or protested Negron's bill, citing loss of jobs and land, and hired lobbyists to oppose the deal. The bill was stalled for months.

Some environmentalists, in turn, complained that the sugar industry's political might was getting in the way of a necessary project. "We've been doing this and watching this for years," Kimberly Mitchell, president of the Everglades Trust environmental advocacy group, told the Miami New Times. "Sugar could have pushed the deadline to start back. To give you an idea of how long this had been delayed already, this was the number two priority authorized in the year 2000."

Eventually, Negron was able to push the legislation through by paring the law down in both cost and size—cutting the budget in half, and promising to use already public land being leased to farmers, instead of asking for private land. Now it is awaiting federal approval.

THE LAND

It's easy to delineate the battle for water in south Florida—to look at Big Sugar as the corporate lobbyists fighting environmentalists for every last penny. The sugar industry has, indeed, given millions of dollars to politicians in the state, and was documented as a major source of pollution in the Everglades.

But J.P. Sasser, a former mayor of Pahokee, a 6,000-person city in the Glades, told me everyone, especially environmentalists, are getting it wrong. "They want us to be portrayed as a giant plantation, where sugar is the overseer, and everyone else is just working for them," he said.

J.P. Sasser, former mayor of Pahokee, at his auto shop.

At Cavinee's Paint & Body Shop, where he works, Sasser held court at his desk in the front office, surrounded by photos and old car paraphernalia. He was fired up about SB 10—just the night before, he had gone to a meeting with USACE officials and grilled them on the timeline for the reservoir project. He doubts that it will be funded by the federal government, or that it will be done on time.

The people of Pahokee, a city built around sugar fields, rice paddies, and mills, have seen plenty of change in the last decades. The government, without warning, Sasser said, shut down a jail in 2011 that employed hundreds of people here. In the past decade, farmers have sold off their land and moved to coastal cities looking for work.

Sasser drove me to one of the sugar mills, this one run by the Sugarcane Growers Cooperative of Florida, an organization of 45 small and medium-sized farms. The mill, which would have been sold off in the original SB 10 plan, smelled both burnt and sweet, and spewing smokestacks where sugarcane is processed. Behind the mill were some new warehouses, where an initiative to turn bagasse, the pulpy sugar refuse left over from sugarcane, into paper is now underway.

"It's not a line etched in stone"

Despite the economic uncertainty here, Pahokee has still managed to grow in many ways, adding chain restaurants and new hospitals and a college in recent years. Agriculture, including sugar, still keeps many of the families here alive—from Sasser's nephew to Tammy Moore-Jackson's husband, everyone knows someone employed by sugar farms or mills, if they themselves aren't.

"Our community has given up more than 100,000 acres of farmland," Moore-Jackson told me. "No one in the Glades was against a southern reservoir. But we were against purchasing additional land."

To lose more land to the government could be something like a death sentence for the Glades too, not just the sugar industry. But to lose this land to either flooding or drought would be equally damaging, potentially catastrophic, for the communities here. A spokesperson for the Sugarcane Growers co-op told me that their main concern was not SB 10, but the high levels of water flowing into Lake Okeechobee.

Meanwhile, as the government attempts to gather more land from farmers for bills like SB 10, housing developments are cropping up alongside the Everglades, threatening the swamp and any space that water has to flow alongside of it.

Most people in south Florida are familiar with what's known as the "urban development boundary," essentially a line that defines how close housing and development can be built to the Everglades and other natural resources. But for years, real estate developers have been testing this boundary.

Back in 1991, an archival news article ponders whether the suburb of Weston, north of Miami, should have been built on drained Everglades land. In 2013, Miami-Dade commissioners moved the line to allow for more warehouses and housing. And as recently as this year, a task force was appointed to consider moving the boundary again.

"It's not a line etched in stone," said Dawn Shirreffs, a senior policy advisor at the Everglades Foundation, a nonprofit environmental group. "Every couple of years we see applications from different interests. But from my understanding, the Miami Dade County Commission has been steady."

THE SWAMP

Then there are the people who have lived among the Everglades before these land grabs began.

I met Randee Solis, a 21-year-old airboat driver, on Miccosukee Reservation land, where he's spent most of his life and summers with his grandfather in the murky swamp waters.

The four reservation areas—about 50 miles south of Lake Okeechobee—are built on and around the Everglades, and the Miccosukee tribe, once part of the Seminole Indians, settled here in the early twentieth century. Now the four reservation areas are home to a cluster of museums and tribal administration offices that uphold tradition and laws.

Solis said many of his family members work here, some as airboat operators, to take tourists through the Everglades. He has been doing boat tours since he was nine years old—state laws don't apply on reservations—and knows the ebb and flow and sludge of the waterways.

He also knows when something is off. He said the runoff from agriculture industries, including sugar, has impacted area wildlife. And he's been noticing that the water in the dry season is so low that the boats can't make their way through the swamp.

"You don't see a lot of the bird life, the fish are starting to disappear," Solis said, citing the lower levels of water. "Plant life is another thing. Little by little it's been starting to slowly decrease."

A statue of a man taming an alligator outside the Miccosukee Indian Village. 

The Miccosukee, with a population of about 550, depend on a healthy water flow to sustain their economy—a large part of which is made up of tourist attractions like airboat rides, casinos, and food stalls serving alligator bites. But the tribe's location has made it particularly vulnerable to any changes in water management regulations. In 2003, the tribe teamed up with environmental group Friends of the Everglades to sue the South Florida Water Management District for pumping polluted water into their conservation area.

Then in 2010, the tribe sued USACE over a plan to build a bridge along the Tamiami Trail, a road that cuts through the Everglades in south Florida. This plan, part of the Everglades restoration project, was engineered to allow water and wildlife to flow underneath the road, instead of getting cleaved by the asphalt. But the plan would also inevitably flood and claim some of the reservation land.

The Miccosukee lost this case—the court ruled that the plan didn't violate the Everglades National Park Protection and Expansion Act, which protects the size of the park. During a recent visit, the construction on the Tamiami Trail was underway.

"That's to remove the barriers to flow," said Taplin, the Army Corps program manager, who grew up close to the park. "As you know we starved water to the Everglades National Park, so how much can we restore flowing south?"

Construction on the Tamiami Trail, a major part of the restoration plan

THE WATER

Down here in the Glades, the lake can give life or take it away. Nobody can escape some level of understanding of the water and how it's being managed. Everybody has a story about flooding or drought. Everybody knows about some part of the bills and legislation.

Amid a yard of yachts and speedboats, Jim Dragseth sat at a desk, surrounded by photos and maps of the St. Lucie River and its nearby creeks. The president of Whiticar Boat Works, a yacht dealer and repair company that his family started, Dragseth has kept a close watch on the water quality around him in Stuart, Florida. He's someone who keeps the University of Florida Water Report, a comprehensive report of the water conditions that holds an almost Bible-like status in these parts, in his bookshelf.

"I'm not a big fan of the senator's lake plan," he said of Negron's SB 10, though he applauded the effort to use public land. "Personally, I'm disappointed they haven't been able to slow the flow into the lake."

The St. Lucie River, and the nearby estuary, is usually flush with wildlife and biodiversity. In the early twentieth century it was one of the waterways connected to Lake Okeechobee by a man-made canal in an attempt to allow for barges and boats and discharge excess water from the lake when the water levels are too high. That means the lake water that originally flowed south to the Everglades now enters the river.

In more recent years, this system has proven dangerous. In 2013, 2016, and this year, USACE discharged billions of gallons of water from Lake Okeechobee into the rivers to avoid flooding. And with it, freshwater algae and bacteria that started to destroy the ecology of the St. Lucie River and Estuary.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott called a state of emergency last year, blaming the federal government. "If the Obama administration had properly budgeted the necessary funding to maintain the dike to operate at its higher potential capacity of 18 feet, the Corps would not have been required to discharge approximately 30 billion gallons of flood waters," read Scott's executive order.

Dragseth said inshore boating and fisheries suffered from the increasing lake discharges. And septic tanks and agricultural runoff were polluting the waterways alongside algae and bacteria. But at his business, alongside Willoughby Creek, off the river, he said there's another problem.

"What impacts our business more is water depth," he said, since the creeks are getting shallower. "But it's still pretty, still nice, still warm."

Nearby marinas were reluctant to talk to me about the algae issue, since it had impacted their businesses in the past year—the boating and fishing industries stand to lose significant profit to pollution. And water quality reports from the Florida Oceanographic Society, a nonprofit, showed C, D, and F ratings across the board for the nearby rivers and estuaries.

Following the rivers farther across to the coast, it seems that the diverted waters from Lake Okeechobee only get messier. "We're still getting a ton of outflow out from the lake," said Josh Davis, a lifeguard working on Jupiter Beach on the eastern coast of the state. "It looks like gasoline in water."

Davis, who grew up on West Palm Beach, and who has been a lifeguard for almost a decade, said he now watches the lake water discharges slowly inch across the ocean in front of him, turning blue water into brown sludge. During the week I visited, the combination of lake overflow post-Irma and the King Tides that usually come in the fall meant the beach was down to a thin strip of sand.

Both Davis and Dragseth said the Everglades Restoration Project, with its mandate to restore at least some of the natural water flow, could be beneficial to what they see everyday in their backyards. They're just not sure at what cost, or on what timeline.

As Davis said, "I don't see an end in sight to it."

To the untrained eye, Lake Okeechobee seems calm, peaceful on this warm October afternoon. Palm trees arch over the placid face of the lake; birds and fish scuttle on the banks. You wouldn't know that the dike's barriers are too low, that communities have to pump water back into the lake, and that the threat of bacteria and algae live here, under this glassy facade.

If the lake, and south Florida, have been an experiment in man versus nature, then it would seem that both have lost. The water haunts the people who live near it, or downstream. The government is pumping billions of dollars to restore a waterflow it once tried to divert. Meanwhile, the Everglades struggles to rebound from both shallow, dry seasons, and from flooding, depending on the time of year.

Tammy Jackson-Moore, sitting on a dock on top of the lake, spends her days thinking about the Herbert Hoover Dike. She publishes the water levels of the dike on the Guardians of the Glades Facebook page—letting people know when the levels get close to flooding. If the Everglades restoration project manages to undo the past, then there's a chance her community and others like it can continue coexisting with the water in the future. If the government stalls though, the levees are still a storm away from giving away.

"We've had people contact us saying when is the time for us to leave our community, when is that trigger point that we need to be packing up and leaving," she said. "That is an incredible amount of stress."

[MIKA27]

BANG & OLUFSEN BEOPLAY M3 SPEAKER

New to the Bang & Olufsen connected-home lineup and designed by Copenhagen-based Cecilie Manz, the Beoplay M3 Speaker is the most compact in the company's wireless collection. Its exchangeable covers let it fit any interior style, either with Kvadrat-sourced wool blend fabric or anodized aluminum. The main rigid polymer body holds a 3.5-inch driver and high-quality soft dome tweeter, tuned by B&O engineers and adjustable further via a three-position switch. The M3 is future-ready as it will support Apple AirPlay 2 which rolls out next year, allowing it to pair with any speaker that's AirPlay 2 enabled. Other listening options include Bluetooth or Wi-Fi playback using Chromecast, Beolink Multiroom, or QPlay. Available in Natural with fabric cover or Black with anodized aluminum cover.

[MIKA27]

Sony's Next Spider-Man Spinoff Film Is About Morbius, The Living Vampire

Spider-Man has one of the largest, weirdest rogues galleries in comics history. This means Sony's in a particularly interesting position when it comes to using its film rights in clever ways to build a comic-book movie universe to rival the MCU. Venom, Black Cat and Silver Sable are all on their way to the big screen, and according to a new report, they will soon be joined by Morbius, the living vampire.

Today, The Hollywood Reporter broke the news that Sony's working on a Morbius film to be written by Burk Sharpless and Matt Sazama, the writing duo behind this year's Power Rangers film. No other details about the movie have yet been confirmed other than that - like Sony's other non-Marvel films - Morbius will not feature Tom Holland as Spider-Man.

Morbius was first introduced in The Amazing Spider-Man #101 in 1971, the same year that the Comics Code Authority finally lifted its ridiculous ban on supernatural characters such as vampires. Once a famed biochemist, Dr Michael Morbius is transformed into a vampire-like creature after undergoing a failed experimental treatment to cure himself of a rare blood disorder. The accident leaves Morbius with a number of vampiric traits, such as needing to drink the blood of others, super strength, and increased speed, without most of the religion-based weaknesses vampires traditionally have.

Though he started off as a Spidey-foe, Morbius came into his own as an antihero over the years, and the idea of a crime-fighting vampire patrolling the streets of [insert city here] does have a certain appeal. At the same time, though, Morbius isn't exactly known for being the most fascinating of Marvel's characters - and Sony still hasn't really convinced anyone that these Peter Parker-less movies are actually going to work on their own.

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LOTUS SHOWCASES ITS LATEST LITTLE TRACK MONSTER

Lotus used to be the British car company that was heralded for its simplicity in providing thrills behind the wheel.

In recent years their cars have diverged slightly from founder Colin Chapman’s purist vision that, “Adding power makes you faster on the straights, subtracting weight makes you faster everywhere”.

Today that all changes for the better with Lotus welcoming their wildest track beast yet. The Exige Cup 430 borrows a supercharged 3.5-litre V6 engine from its bigger Evora GT430 sibling and stuffs it into a smaller and lighter chassis in the Exige.

The result is a 316kW/440Nm race-ready road car which weighs in at a very healthy 1,056kg. The only transmission available for the Exige Cup 430? A close-ratio six-speed manual sending power to.

Whilst its no quarter mile star like its more common DSG competition, Lotus claims that the car can still manage to hit the 100km/h mark in just 3.2 seconds before topping out at 290km/h.

To enhance the overall driving dynamics the car’s aero has also been reworked to provide up to 220kg of downforce at higher speeds.

Inside the car it’s all business with a very sparse layout with Alcantara, carbon fibre and aluminium dominating the aesthetics alongside some snuggly bucket seats.

The Exige Cup 430 is priced from an eye-watering £99,800 (AU$170,000) and it is only available in the UK, Italy, Germany and France.

It’s not yet known if the fastest-ever Exige Cup 430 is destined for Australia – yet.

 

[MIKA27]

KEANU REEVES HAS BEEN HIDING AWAY IN A GARAGE & THIS IS THE $78,000 RESULT

Keanu Reeves has seen it all. From excellent adventures to bombs on buses and being the world’s most feared assassin, there’s nothing the 53-year-old actor hasn’t dabbled his talent in.

Today that extensive portfolio branches out even further into the production of bespoke luxury motorcycles. Since teaming up with his business partner and friend Gard Hollinger in 2007, Arch Motorcycles has grown in profile as a provider of some of the world’s most unique performance bikes which draw inspiration from cafe racers, cruisers and Harleys.

Reeves recently opened the garage rollers to WIRED to showcase what he’s been working on during the past three years ahead of Esposizione Internazionale Ciclo Motociclo e Accessori – that’s fancy speak for the Milan motorcycle show.

In the cool video audiences are shown three brand new models from Arch which Reeves helped design and build. They’re not your usual runabout two-wheelers either with the first model, the KRGT-1, being upgraded to 2018 spec that is only built to order with a price tag of US$78,000.

From there the bikes move into sportier territory with the Arch 1s designed for more of the twisty stuff. The range is finally topped off with a limited run model in the Arch Method 143, a concept production bike that will only see 23 examples made.

Check out the bikes above and the run through of the latest line up with Keanu below.

 

[MIKA27]

Sam Adams Seasonal Cigars

As temps dip, our taste in beer changes. Light, refreshing Pilsners and hoppy IPAs give way to darker, heartier brews, the kind that actually pair with a good cigar. The folks at Sam Adams took things a step further, teaming with Ted’s Cigars to make a special winter pack of stogies, each of which is seasoned with notes from a different Sam Adams beer. The Winter Lager Seasoned Cigar boasts the same cinnamon, orange peel, and ginger as found in the Samuel Adams beer of the same name. The White Christmas Seasoned Cigar is spicy and bright. The Chocolate Bock Seasoned Cigar is accented with notes of cocoa. The cigars are handcrafted in the Dominican Republic and sold in sets of three from Ted’s Cigars. Perfect for a cold night with a stiff drink.

[MIKA27]

The Ember Ceramic Mug Keeps Your Coffee at the Perfect Temperature

Earlier this year, Ember released a travel mug designed to keep your beverage exactly how you like it. Prefer 133° to 132°? That’s a little weird but the mug can make that happen. Now Ember is back with a version for your desk. The Ember Ceramic Mug works with an app so you can keep your coffee or tea at the right temp for you. You can save your settings and make sure every cup you pour is perfect. The clever charging station doubles as a coaster and you can set the LED to the color of your choice. The days of lukewarm coffee are over. Keep the Ember Ceramic Mug at your workstation and enjoy the ideal cup every time you need a pick-me-up.

[MIKA27]

ADAMUS DRY GIN

This unique spirit is housed in an even more unique bottle. Adamus Dry Gin is distilled in Portugal and is made using a berry variety from the local Bairrada region. A go-to for your next gin mixed drink, the limited release is bottled at a precise 88.8 proof in these square glass vessels with oversized cork stoppers.

[MIKA27]

The Greatest Showman: Trailer for Hugh Jackman Musical

Up until 2016, the idea of pushing a completely original live-action movie musical with new songs on the public seemed like a brazen bet. It hadn’t been done in earnest in decades! But then a little movie called La La Land made it instant box office and award gold.

This became serendipitous for Hugh Jackman who, fresh off his Logan swan song, also just wrapped The Greatest Showman—a completely original movie musical with new songs, no less. Embodying the historical spinner of circus spectacles himself, P.T. Barnum, Jackman in seen here as a visionary underdog with a monumental destiny, going on to take advantage of the idea that, as he famously put it, "There's a sucker born every minute." Undoubtedly, the producers and their star are humming a pretty happy tune right now.

This certainly has a heightened and more grandiose look than last year’s toe-tapper, even as the songs are all written by Benji Pasek and Justin Paul, who provided the lyrics to La La Land’s numbers (the music for those was written by Justin Hurwitz). Additionally, Jackman and first-time features director Michael Gracey chatted with EW, indicating their wish for it to be bursting with modernity. While they didn’t speak it, one might infer a certain Baz Luhrmann influence on the picture as his Moulin Rouge! was also set in the 1800s but basked in modern pop songs, albeit previously successful ones.

“We were clear from the beginning that this wouldn’t feel like a period movie or a historical piece,” Jackman told Entertainment Weekly. “What would Barnum do now? I have an almost-12-year-old daughter. I wanted [the movie] to be as exciting for her as listening to Katy Perry’s new song.”

Here is the first trailer, which arrived back in late June.

The musical will open on December 25, 2017.

[MIKA27]

Australian Scientists Just Found A 3.7 Billion Year Old Living Fossil In Tasmania

Researchers were checking out an unusual peaty-limestone freshwater swamp in the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area recently, when they discovered something pretty special.

Living stromatolites - the 3.7 Billion year old, oldest evidence for life on Earth. Previously only found in extremely rare, highly specific salt water environments, this is also the first time they've been found in Tasmania.

Stromatolites are laminated structures of micro-organisms, which have created layers of minerals using elements dissolved in the water in which they live.

"The discovery reveals a unique and unexpected ecosystem in a remote valley in the state's south west," says Dr Bernadette Proemse, from the University of Tasmania's School of Biological Sciences.

Dr Proemse said the ecosystem has developed around spring mounds, where mineral-rich groundwater is forced to the surface by geological structures in underlying limestone rocks.

"The find has proved doubly interesting, because closer examination revealed that these spring mounds were partly built of living stromatolites," Dr Proemse explained.

Roland Eberhard from DPIPWE's Natural and Cultural Heritage Division said stromatolites are rare, because more advanced life forms such as aquatic snails feed on the micro-organisms required to form them.

"The discovery of living stromatolites in Tasmania is highly significant because stromatolites are rare globally and not previously known from Tasmania except as ancient fossils," Mr Eberhard said.

"DNA analysis indicates that the Tasmanian stromatolites are micro-organism communities which differ from all other known stromatolites."

The discovery provides clues why stromatolites thrived for millions of years but then virtually disappeared from all but a few exceptional places on earth. The researchers believe that the highly mineralised water flowing from spring mounds is a critical factor in the ability of the stromatolites to survive in the Tasmanian wilderness, because it challenges other forms of life.

This became obvious when the researchers noticed that the mounds were littered with the shells of dead freshwater snails.

"This is good for stromatolites because it means there are very few living snails to eat them. Fortuitously, these Tasmanian 'living fossils' are protected by the World Heritage Area and the sheer remoteness of the spring mounds," Dr Proemse said.

Further surveys are planned to find out whether spring mounds and stromatolites might be found at other sites in the World Heritage Area.