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

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Status BT One On-Ear Wireless Bluetooth Headphones

Status Audio has a simple business model: to create beautiful tools for everyday listening at an affordable price. They achieve this by reducing costs on distribution, large marketing campaigns, and celebrity endorsements to deliver high-quality headphones at a low price. Their good-looking BT One On-Ear Wireless Bluetooth Headphones are shockingly affordable and shockingly high-quality, offering sound quality that rival headphones twice as much. The BT One has 40 mm drivers and a frequency response of 20 Hz-20k Hz, for depth, punch, and accuracy, bringing your favorite songs to life with remarkable clarity. Other details include quick pairing, and a bulletproof low-latency connection with bleeding-edge Bluetooth 5.0 technology. Available in a choice of brown or black. $120.00

 

 

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1916 BABE RUTH ROOKIE CARD

Long overshadowed by the legendary T206 Honus Wagner and 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle rookie, Babe Ruth's 1916 M101-4 Sporting News rookie card is finally receiving the attention it deserves. This particular one is a fine example, rated a Good-Very Good 2.5 by Beckett Grading Services. Recently discovered inside an antique piano as it was moved, it has a blank back, shows the Bambino as a lefty pitcher for the Red Sox, and is ready for display as the crown jewel of any memorabilia collection. $100,000.00+

 

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’21 Bridges’ Trailer Sees Chadwick Boseman as a Cop On a Manhunt in Russos-Produced Thriller

STXfilms has released the first trailer for 21 Bridges, the crime-thriller starring Black Panther leading man Chadwick Boseman as a police officer in the middle of a city-wide manhunt for a pair of cop killers. Directed by Brian Kirk (Game of Thrones) from a script by Matthew Michael Carnahan (Deepwater Horizon) and Adam Mervis (The Philly Kid), the film re-teams Boseman with Avengers: Infinity War directors Joe and Anthony Russo, who are both producers on the project. Boseman himself also served as producer for the first time.

Set in New York City, 21 Bridges takes place in the wake of a robbery gone wrong that left eight NYPD officers dead. To catch the two fleeing suspects, Boseman’s disgraced detective suggests shutting down all exits and entrances to Manhattan in order to “flood the city with blue.”

The film is the latest in Boseman’s growing non-MCU slate. The actor also has Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods coming down the pipeline, as well as Lionsgate’s samurai action-drama Blood of Yasuke. As a producer, Boseman is also working alongside Logan Coles to adapt the memoir The Stars in My Soul.

21 Bridges hits theaters on July 12.

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Bowers & Wilkins New Alien-Looking Wi-Fi Speakers Aim To Take On Sonos With High-Resolution Ambitions

Bowers & Wilkins got a new Silicon Valley-based parent company three years ago, and now, the classic British audio brand has a new line of premium wireless speakers. The new Formation Suite starts at $US900 ($1,261) for a very alien-looking thing called the Wedge and tops out at $US4,000 ($5,603) with the even more alien-looking Duo. Based on the sales pitch, these new wireless speakers can do anything a Sonos system can do and cost three times as much.

The Formation Suite represents the first new products by Bowers & Wilkins since the company was acquired by Eva Automation in 2016. Eva is the brainchild of Gideon Yu, co-owner of the San Francisco 49ers and former chief financial officer of Facebook. The acquisition makes a lot more sense now that Bowers & Wilkins is surging headlong into the wireless speaker world, especially since Eva’s original mission was to make “products that will change how people interact and think about the home.” These new audio products are certainly different.

Aside from the price tag—which is at the lower range of the Bowers & Wilkins product lineup, by the way—the company claims the new speakers set themselves apart with mesh networking technology. Each component of the system effectively becomes a node in a mesh network that, according to the company, “dynamically chooses the optimal path to route audio-data between products.” This enables the speakers to stream 96 kHz/24-bit high-resolution audio. A few years ago, Gizmodo’s own Mario Aguilar called this standard “impractical overkill that nobody can afford.” It’s more bandwidth than you need for Spotify playlists, but Bowers & Wilkins is aiming at audiophiles looking to modernise their hi-fi systems.

The company is offering plenty of ways to do that, too. The flagship of the new Formation Suite is the aforementioned Duo speaker pair. These speakers feature the same Continuum cone driver that’s in the famous Bowers & Wilkins 800 Series Diamond series. They look like a bite-sized version of those speakers, too, with the characteristic Carbon dome tweeter perched above the main driver array. The Formation Duo also comes with AirPlay 2.0, Spotify Connect, and Bluetooth, although you probably want to stick to the mesh network to make the most of these bad boys.

Flanking the Formation Duo is the more affordable Formation Wedge. Featuring the same mesh networking technology and 96 kHz/24-bit high-resolution audio capabilities as the Duo, the Wedge is more of an all-in-one solution that you could stick on your kitchen counter. The drivers, tweeters, and sub are all inside of an elliptical enclosure that curves at 120-degrees to spread the sound around the room. The whole situation looks like a space ship on the wrong side of a wormhole or just a squished up version of the Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin speaker.

Pulling up the rear is the $US1,000 ($1,401) Formation Bass, the $US1,200 ($1,681) Formation Bar, and the $US700 ($980) Formation Audio. The Bass, as the name implies, is a subwoofer with opposing drivers that pairs with the other Formation speakers. The Bar, true to its name too, is a sound bar with nine drivers. The Formation Audio is a little box that lets you connect a traditional hi-fi system to Formation speakers. Bowers & Wilkins also says it’s perfected speaker synchronisation so when all of these fancy toys are hooked up, everything is perfectly timed.

The whole proposition seems intriguing, if only because the idea of mesh networked speakers sounds very forward-thinking. After all, mesh networks are becoming the best way to distribute large bandwidth connections in homes. And if the dream of high-resolution audio and its buzzworthy cousin 3D audio comes true, wireless-hopeful audiophiles will need a better way to connect their speaker systems.

Then again, the Formation Suite also seems like a very niche series of products for a very niche sort of listener. To make the most of the system, this listener will need source audio that’s very high quality as well as ears that can tell the difference. Let’s be honest, though. Some very rich people are going to listen to highly compressed Spotify tracks on these things and feel thrilled about the money they spent.

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Meet The Botanists Who Climb The World's Tallest Trees

A decent level of physical fitness, a fondness for climbing, an intimate knowledge of giant old-growth tree species, and being handy with a crossbow: If you possess this most unusual of skill sets, then tree-climbing botanist may be the job you never realised you were born to do.

Wendy Baxter and her partner and colleague Anthony Ambrose have said skill set and more. The scientists, based out of the University of California in Berkeley, have spent years accessing and exploring the crowns and canopies of some of the biggest, oldest, and tallest trees on the planet: California’s coastal redwoods and giant sequoias. Their research over the last six years has revealed insights into previously unknown aspects of both species, such as how they combat drought and exactly how much water they need to survive.

Baxter’s journey to a career ascending to heights of over 91.44m to study some of the most impressive organisms on Earth began when she saw an unusual job advertisement, shortly after completing a masters degree studying butterflies in the Netherlands.

“I have been involved in science for many years and was looking for job and saw something at UC Berkeley and it said must be interested in climbing very tall trees and I thought ‘wow that sounds amazing’,” she told Earther.

Baxter was hired by Ambrose in 2010, who helped her develop her extant rock-climbing skills into tree-scaling skills. He himself had spent time living among and studying redwoods before he decided to take it to the next level, quite literally, by doing a course in forest canopy biology back in 1997.

Nine years down the line the duo spend as much time as they can up in the branches. If it’s not for work, then they climb for leisure in one of the state’s national forests. “It’s pretty addictive really,” Baxter said.

Coastal redwoods and sequoias have are endemic to narrow pockets of California and Oregon and protected within the national parks. So revered are they that many have their own names, like 2,200-year-old General Sherman, the biggest living sequoia. (The General’s trunk is nearly 30.48m in circumference. If he needed a hug, it would take about 20 people with their arms outstretched to give him one).

Baxter and Ambrose believe working in the crowns of such giants provides scientific and ecological insights that cannot be obtained any other way. “Being able to get an idea of how much they’re growing depends on how big the branches are and how many branches they have and how much leaf area they have,” Ambrose told Earther. “You can’t really do that in intact trees from the ground.”

In order to reach the crown, a budding tree climber firstly must use a crossbow to shoot a blunt-tipped arrow over the highest reachable branch trailing a fishing line. That is used to run over a nylon cord which is strong enough to run a rope over. One end of the rope is then tied to a nearby tree, while the other hangs free and can be clipped onto and climbed up. The climber uses grips that slide up but not down, one attached to a climbing harness, another to a pair of foot slings. Then you’re ready to go.

As the lowest branches of the taller trees are often 30.48m or so off the ground, the initial ascent is often the toughest. It’s not for the acrophobic, nor for novice climbers. “It probably selects for people who are interested in climbing and aren’t afraid of heights,” Baxter confirmed. “We have colleagues who we trained to climb but they never got to the point where they felt comfortable doing it themselves.”

Baxter and Ambrose’s studies of the redwoods and sequoias coincided with unprecedented drought in California between 2011 and 2016. For Baxter and Ambrose it has provided an opportunity to look more into how exactly such water-dependent species respond. In 2015, they initiated a long-term study called “Leaf to Landscape” to look at any long-term effects the drought had on the giant trees.

This involved the installation of weather stations in the canopy, the use of drones, remote sensing, and overflights as well as scores of trips up trees to take core and foliage samples and measurements. By looking at the foliage for signs of drought stress, scientists can determine how the tree’s water supply as a whole is faring. The cores allow them to study the tree’s growth rings and as Ambrose put it that reveals “thousands of years of history right here,” offering insights into their response to past droughts.

This work is still ongoing. While today, Baxter and Ambrose have support from eager volunteers and institutions including Stanford and the U.S. Geological Survey, the early days of the project saw a lot of hard work and long days beginning at two thirty in the morning and involving numerous treks to and from their vehicle and many escalations up and down trees to install their instruments.

“It was intense and a great weight loss program!” Baxter said.

The hard labour has borne scientific fruit. Ambrose and other colleagues noticed in 2015 that trees stressed by prolonged drought will sometimes deliberately drop their foliage, which helps them reduce them amount of water they’re losing to the atmosphere. “They have all sorts of different adaptations and adjustments they make under conditions of water limitation, or drought, that allows them to persist under those conditions,” Ambrose said.

While these giant species have had to endure prolonged drought before in their climatic history, there are reasons to be concerned about their future, say Ambrose and Baxter. Both coastal redwoods and giant sequoias are resistant to wildfires, but the scientists say human fire suppression activities have allowed many smaller trees, that would be cleared out naturally by fire, to grow into the understory of the giant ones, rendering it easier for flames to carry up into their canopy.

And because both species have small and specific ranges, a changing climate could have impacts. The giant sequoias are confined to about 75 groves in the Sierra Nevada, and Ambrose says as they chug through an estimated two to four thousand litres of water, per day, per tree, they are entirely dependent on the snow in the area—which is diminishing.

For coastal redwoods it is the coastal fogs that are key. If a drier future climate means the fog moves or disappears (a possibility that some research supports), that combined with snowfall declines could cause the trees to start to dying off.

“We don’t know when that might happen or on what time scale but there is definitely cause for concern,” Ambrose said. Still, he feels, there’s little risk of the ancient trees completely disappearing, and the two species are planted worldwide in such numbers that there is no risk of extinction.

For now, there is still much to learn about these fascinating organisms, including what’s going on beneath the ground, giving the researchers plenty of reasons to keep climbing.

“We just know so very little and these trees are so complex and not only the individual trees but the whole ecosystem they are a part of,” said Ambrose. “There is so much more than we can learn about them and that is so cool from a scientific perspective. We have a lifetime of questions to ask.”

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Dennis Quaid Is Terrifying As The Worst Former Occupant Ever In The Intruder

Dennis Quaid has had a long, storied career. He’s done some great movies in his time, and he’s also done some stranger ones. The Intruder is probably in that latter category.

The Intruder is another in the recent trend of movies about how scary neighbours are, starring Quaid as a dude who sells his house and just… doesn’t leave. And then he maybe gets a little axe-murdery. You know how these things go.

This trailer is great just for the chance to see the generally fatherly, genial Dennis Quaid go completely out of his mind with slasher film glee. This truly, is the Boomer revenge we were warned about.

The Intruder comes out May 3rd.

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Dig Deep Into Game Of Thrones' 'Long Night' With This 40-Minute Behind The Scenes Video

Leading up to this final season of Game of Thrones, we heard so much about one huge battle—a battle that was going to be the biggest ever shown on TV, featuring practically every character you love from the show, filmed over multiple months.

That battle finally arrived last night, in an episode called “The Long Night.” It featured many armies on the side of humanity taking a stand against the Night King and his White Walkers. The whole thing was an epic, slightly dark affair that still has everyone buzzing.

Now, you may be wondering, what was making that insanity like? HBO has been kind enough to answer that question with a 40-minute documentary focused entirely on this one episode; it goes beat by beat through all the huge moments in terms of visual effects, character motivations, and so much more. It’s really good but super spoilery, so only watch this if you’ve seen the episode.

Frankly, despite all the incredible visual effects and gruelling hours the actors put into this epic episode, one of the best parts of this video is simply seeing everything in a different light, literally. Much of the footage is so much clearer than it was on TV because it’s from the set and not colour corrected or anything yet.

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The Dalmore Taps A Legendary Chef For This Unique 49-Year Scotch

Ask even the most cynical of whisky experts and they’ll tell you that a 49-year-old spirit is a very special thing. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be made more special — which is exactly the case with this one-of-a-kind L’Anima scotch whiskey from The Dalmore and legendary chef Massimo Bottura.

Alongside The Dalmore’s renowned master distiller, Richard Patterson, Bottura’s first foray into the whisky world is a remarkable single malt created from three unique assemblages — boasting aromas of chocolate and raisins, a palate with hints of coffee and savory pastries, and a refreshing fruit-forward finish. And while this inebriant is exceptional on its own, it’s headed to Sotheby’s auction block alongside a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: a dinner for two at Massimo Bottura’s restaurant. Furthermore, 100% of the proceeds from the auction will go toward Bottura’s non-profit organization, Food for Soul. At the time of writing, the current bid sits at $77,586.

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Le Train Bleu: The Luxury Train That Ended Up a Secret in Bloomingdale’s

Agatha Christie wrote a book inspired by Le Train Bleu, a luxury locomotive that transported the famous in the Jazz Age. Later, the train lived again as a secret NYC lunch spot.

During the Jazz Age, the French Riviera was the place to be for anyone who claimed membership in or aspirations to the haut monde. From Saint Tropez to Nice and beyond, the smart and monied planned their vacations to the Côte d’Azur. If you were Coco Chanel or Cole Porter or Winston Churchill in the early 20th century following WWI, you would secure a coveted ticket to the French Riviera on Le Train Bleu.

Luxurious, exclusive, and an instant sensation, the overnight locomotive ferried the fashionable elite from Calais to the southern coast of France and, in the process, became an iconic fixture on the rails and in the imagination.

It inspired books, ballets, and gourmands, including a semi-hidden restaurant tucked away in a Gilded Age train car transplanted to the sixth floor of Bloomingdale’s. But all good things must come to an end and Le Train Bleu eventually blew its whistle for the last time. In 2016, the secret eatery atop Bloomingdale’s followed suit.

Bronislava Nijinska & Anton Dolin as the tennis champion and the swimming champion in Le Train Bleu.

The British were the first to popularize the French Riviera, and they did so in the late 1700s on doctors’ orders. If your health was ailing in the mists of of England, a wellness retreat to the healing warmth and waters to the south was the perfect medicine. Flocks of ailing Brits began to descend on the French coast from November to April and soon became a nuisance for locals.

On The Land of Desire podcast, host Diana Stegall notes that, by the time Napoleon came to power, “the French were already sick of the sick Britons, writing that British doctors were ‘sending to our shores a colony of pale and listless English women and listless sons of nobility near death.’”

The flood of visitors never slowed, but in the 1830s they began coming for a new reason: pure pleasure. During this decade, the British began to embrace the coast as a leisure destination and the healthy well-to-do made regular trips along with their sickly brethren. But there was just one problem—it was really hard to get to the French Riviera.

That began to change in the late 1800s, when the Calais-Mediterranée Express made its debut on the rails courtesy of the company behind the famed Orient Express. Not only was the service more reliable between Calais and the towns on the French Riviera, but travelers could now make the journey in the comfort of sleeping cars.

It was a huge improvement for British travelers, who could board the train in Calais, on the northern French coast, around 1 p.m. in the afternoon, enjoy some socializing and a meal with their fellow passengers, repair to their berths for the evening, and then wake up the next morning to find themselves at their sunny destination.

It was in the years following the end of World War I that the French Riviera really took off. As Americans joined the British on the French coast, the fashionable vacation season was extended and the idea of a summer jaunt came into fashion.

“They tell me there is a woman living in a small frame house in a Montana village who expressed no intention whatever of going to Antibes this summer,” Alexander Woollcott wrote in Vanity Fair in 1929. “I have heard no explanation of this bizarre uniqueness of hers, have received, as yet, no details to account for what does seem at first blush a somewhat too studied effort to be conspicuous.”

The Calais-Mediterranée Express took full advantage of the destination’s popularity. On December 9, 1922, the train company debuted a new look for one of their most popular routes.

The Calais-Mediterranée Express transformed into pure luxury on wheels. It consisted of 10 exclusively first-class sleeping cars that were decked out in a midnight blue velvet upholstery with mahogany trim, and one upscale dining car that served five-course meals. The exterior of what essentially was a five-star hotel was painted “a shimmering dark blue with gold accents,” according to Stegall, earning it a new name: Le Train Bleu.

Le Train Bleu's French route

The dazzling Le Train Bleu was almost instantly a hard-to-get ticket. It was also the only way for the social set to fashionably arrive at their vacation destinations on the coast. Coco Chanel, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Charlie Chaplin, and Edward VIII were among the most famous passengers.

Agatha Christie took a trip on Le Train Bleu and then published The Mystery of the Blue Train in 1928. Hercule Poirot solved the case of a dead American heiress and her missing ruby five years before Murder on the Orient Express was published.

In 1930, Woolf Barnato, the race car driver and chairman of Bentley staged a race to the Riviera against Le Train Bleu as something of a publicity stunt. He won by a matter of a few minutes and the Bentley Speed Six became known as the “Blue Train Bentley.”

In 1924 the famed Ballets Russes premiered a new ballet, Le Train Bleu, that explored the “shallowness of modern love” of the vacationing set on the coast. It was quite the one-act production. Chanel created the costumes, Picasso the curtain, Henri Laurens did the sets, and Jean Cocteau was the performance’s librettist.

The glamor of night trains began to dim following WWII as the convenience and popularity of air travel began to rise. While Le Train Bleu would not lose its name until 2003, it quickly ceased to be the status symbol and spectacle on the rails that it once had been. But its reputation remained.

Bar of restaurant 'Le Train bleu'. Paris, Gare de Lyon.

In 1963, a grand restaurant in the Gare de Lyon was renamed Le Train Bleu after the famous train, and it continues to be a sought-after dinner reservation today. Its decor is an ode to the Belle Epoque, complete with sculptures and frescoes, crystal chandeliers and gilded touches. According to NPR's Sylvia Poggioli, it “is considered one of Paris' best preserved examples of that lavish fin de siecle architectural design.”

The restaurant made such an impression on Bloomingdale’s impresario Marvin S. Traub, that he decided to pay homage to the Parisian eatery and its forefather on wheels by opening a restaurant of his own.

Starting in 1979, in-the-know fashionistas would take their new acquisitions to the kitchen department in Bloomingdale’s, where they would find a nondescript, narrow staircase. After ascending to a platform, they would encounter an unusual site—an opulent train car sitting in a hidden nook on the sixth floor of the Manhattan building.

The semi-secret restaurant Le Train Bleu at Bloomingdale’s did justice to its forbears. The walls were lined with a dark-green velvet and mahogany panelling, the tables were covered in fancy linens and individual lamps, and the menus paid homage to the original locomotive. Luggage racks lined the walls giving the train car both a touch of nostalgia and a practical place to stash diners’ shopping bags.

As recently as 2014, Gawker named Le Train Bleu “The Best Restaurant in New York,” though the review poked fun at the somewhat tarnished clientele it catered to (“very old New Yorkers reliving the luxury travel accommodations of their youth”) and its somewhat dated space.

Only two years later, this iteration of Le Train Bleu also reached the end of its line. In 2016, Bloomingdale’s announced it would be shuttering the secret restaurant that many casual shoppers had never known existed.

While the era of luxurious train travel may have sadly come to an end, the spectacle of Le Train Bleu remains fixed in the lore of the French Riviera and of that magical, golden time when the globe was just beginning to open up to travel by all. Or, at least, by those who could afford a berth on Le Train Bleu.

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MASH TT40 CAFE RACER CUSTOM BY XTR PEPO

The Mash TT40 Cafe Racer is equal parts French, Chinese, and Japanese – in a manner of speaking. The design is French (with some very obvious British cafe racer influences), the bike is built in Mainland China, and the engine/transmission is (very closely) based on the Japanese Honda XBR500 power unit from the 1980s.

The significantly customized version of the TT40 Cafe Racer you see here is the work of XTR Pepo, a world-renowned Spanish custom motorcycle garage run by the ever-friendly Pepo Rosell. Pepo’s work is typically characterized by its intense focus on engineering, and unwavering attention given to ensuring that each motorcycle he builds is considerably faster than it was in stock form.

Pepo’s motorcycles always acquire their aesthetics from the form-follows-function school of thought, with no parts used just to make the bike look pretty, everything is designed to get you around the track quicker, or to make you unbeatable on the B roads.

This build was commissioned by Heroes 66, a Spanish Mash Motorcycles importer. The brief was kept simple, just take the stock bike and distill its cafe racer DNA without any concern about daily practicality or passing increasingly stringent emissions restrictions.

The donor bike was stripped back to basics and the original half fairing and seat/rear cowling were tossed on the recycling pile. A full fairing was sourced from an OSSA Grand Prix bike, with a series of brackets fabricated to make it fit the new frame correctly.

A new low-profile seat was made and upholstered in-house, with a matching seat/cowling. The rear subframe was cropped to match, the original rear fender was removed, and all lights and blinkers were removed – they’re no longer needed as the bike is designed to be track-only.

In order to ensure the engine could breathe freely, and produce more power, the original exhaust and airbox was removed.

The side covers were added to the recycling pile and a new DNA air filter replaced the original air box/filter assembly. A Wolfman exhaust system was added, with a black XTR megaphone muffler. This system did away with the catalytic converter and made a considerable difference to power output. Weight was further reduced with the addition of a LiPo battery.

A new Perspex windscreen was shaped in-house by Pepo and his team, and the original clip-on handlebars were moved slightly further down the forks to give a lower riding position. The completed bike looks for all the world like a race bike from the 1960s, and I’m willing to bet it fools a lot of people when it’s displayed.

Visit XTR Pepo here.

MASH TT40 CAFE RACER

The original Mash TT40 Cafe Racer enjoyed generally favourable reviews when it was first released in 2015. Its primary rival is the Royal Enfield Continental GT, a similarly styled retro cafe racer offered at a similar price point.

Mash is a French company that sells a very significant number of motorcycles, in fact they topped the geared 125cc motorcycle sales charts in France for three years running. There’s still a significant amount of trepidation in the market when it comes to motorcycles from Mainland China, early examples suffered from appalling build quality with hand grenade engines and parts that would begin rusting in a matter of weeks.

Things have improved markedly over the past 5 to 7 years however, and Chinese motorcycles are now giving South Korean, Indian, and some Japanese bikes a run for their money. The team at Mash design their motorcycles in France, using Chinese engines and frames that are often based on earlier Japanese units – which goes a long way to ensuring confidence in the engineering.

The Mash TT40 Cafe Racer is powered by a an air-cooled, SOHC single-cylinder 399cc engine with a 5-speed gearbox, tubular steel cradle frame, traditional forks up front with twin shocks in the rear, single disc brakes front and back (with ABS), and a dry weight of 151 kilograms (332 lbs).

Power is a manageable 27.6 bhp at 7000 rpm, with 22 ft lbs of torque at 5500 rpm. While these numbers won’t set the world alight they’re reasonable for this market sector, they only have to propel a relatively light weight motorcycle, and the rider is more likely to be new to the activity.

If you’d like to read more about Mash Motorcycles you can click here.

 

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THE MOST DANGEROUS HIKE IN THE WORLD? KOREA OPENS ITS DMZ TO TRAVELLERS

Korea’s demilitarized zone (DMZ) is known for barbed wire fences, guard posts and minefields; not tourism. However, in the 66 years since it was erected, this buffer between rival countries (North and South Korea) has unintentionally become a photogenic, 240km long safe haven for animals.

Only problem is, two heavily armed militaries sit 4.5km in either direction, and it’s off-limits to visitors. That is, it was, until last week.

As Vice Asia yesterday reported, “For the first time since it was established in 1953, that DMZ is being opened up to the public for a series of picturesque hiking trails along the volatile frontline.”

Their information comes from the Korea Herald, which reported last Tuesday on the United Nations Command (UNC)’s decision to approve the opening of the DMZ for ‘peace trails’ in Goseong (a town on the east coast border), Cheorwon (a county in the Gangwon Province) and Pajut (a city in the Gyeonggi Province).

Gen. Robert Abrams, who leads the UNC, said in a press release that the Korean military has worked hard “to ensure the success (of this project)… while assuring visitors their safety remains paramount.”

The hike also has symbolic significance, with the April 27th opening coinciding with the first anniversary of the Panmunjom Treaty signed by President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in 2018.

As reported by UPI, the first hikers—a group of 20 South Korean civilians—set off over the weekend to experience the “long-forbidden” zone, reportedly experiencing “mixed emotions” while walking along the barbed-wire fences and “marvelling at the wonderful scenery.”

While only Koreans have been so far, the Seoul government hopes to give visitors of all nationalities the chance to learn from Korea’s “pain of division” as well as enjoy the world’s most unlikely wildlife sanctuary, which now stands heads and shoulders above anything in North or South Korea.

As The Guardian reports, the DMZ is replete with “red-crowned cranes… white-naped cranes…100 species of fish, perhaps 45 types of amphibians and reptiles and over 1,000 different insect species,” as well as “over 1,600 types of vascular plants and  more than 300 species of mushrooms, fungi and lichen.”

And that’s not to mention the rare mammals like Asiatic black bear, musk deer, spotted seals and even tigers (believed extinct on the peninsula since before Japanese occupation), which are rumoured to have made a resurgence as well.

If this strikes your fancy, “The tour will take place twice a day, six days a week, with the maximum number of people allowed for the walking route being set at 20 at one time and the vehicle tour at 80,” The Korea Herald reports.

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Finally, a Denisovan specimen from somewhere beyond Denisova Cave - The 160,000-year-old jawbone is the first Denisovan fossil found outside Siberia.

Denisovans, an extinct group of hominins that once walked alongside Neanderthals and modern humans, are an enigmatic branch of our family tree. They left fragments of their DNA behind in modern human genomes across Asia, Australia, and Melanesia. But their only physical remains seem have been left in Denisova Cave in Siberia: just a finger, a few molars, a fragment of arm or leg bone, and a small chunk of skull.

But we’re starting to piece together a little more of our mysterious cousins’ story. A team of paleoanthropologists recently identified a new Denisovan fossil—half of an entire jaw. And it comes from the high altitude of the Tibetan Plateau in northern China, nearly 2,000km (1,200 miles) from Denisova Cave.

An accidental find

Half a lower jaw and a few teeth may not sound like much, but it’s one of the largest pieces of a Denisovan skeleton that we know of so far. Its owner died at least 160,000 years ago, according to uranium-series dating of a thin crust of carbonate on the fossil, so the Denisovan from Tibet is about the same age as the oldest Denisovan unearthed so far at Denisova Cave.

Archaeologists weren’t able to recover any DNA from the Tibetan fossil, but they did find ancient proteins preserved in the dentin (the layers below the hard outer enamel) of a tooth. DNA’s code spells out instructions for making proteins, so the archaeologists compared the proteins from the jawbone with the proteomes (all the proteins a particular organism’s DNA codes form) of modern humans, Neanderthals, and Denisovans. It most closely matched the Denisovan genome sequenced from a fossil at Denisova Cave. They also created a virtual model of the fossil with micro-CT scans in order to digitally “excavate” away the carbonate crust and get a better look at the jawbone’s features.

A monk stumbled across the fossil in 1980, but it took several years to find its way to archaeologists. "We were all too busy to start the work on this mandible until 2010," anthropologist Dongju Zhang of Lanzhou University told Ars. No one was sure exactly where the specimen had come from, and without that information, it became a low priority. When Zhang and his colleagues started surveying the region in 2010 and eventually traced the mandible back to Baishya Karst Cave in 2016, they finally started work on the fossil.

Pleistocene encounters

The find means Denisovans had been living on the Tibetan Plateau at least 120,000 years before Homo sapiens arrived in the neighborhood. Surviving on the Tibetan Plateau, typically about 3,280m (10,000 feet) above sea level, meant adapting to scarce resources, a chilly climate, and the thin air of higher altitudes. Those challenges selected for genetic traits that would help, and some of those traits got shared with the strange new species that moved into the area sometime between 30,000 and 40,000 years ago.

One of those alleles codes for a specific protein in the cells lining blood vessels, which helps a person function in hypoxic conditions at high altitude. The Denisovan version of that gene is still found in the genomes of modern Tibetans, Sherpas, and neighboring peoples. It's been a bit of a puzzle, given the low altitude of Denisova Cave (about 800m above sea level) and the fact that modern humans didn't arrive on the Tibetan Plateau until well after the latest fossil evidence we have of Denisovans.

But this find, and its date, suggest that modern humans had plenty of time to commingle with Denisovans in Tibet and that natural selection would have favored keeping that chunk of the Denisovan genome even when most of the rest of the genome got discarded.

The Xiahe mandible is also concrete evidence of how widespread Denisovan populations once were. The presence of fragments of Denisovan DNA in modern human genomes suggests that the species once had an extensive range, but the only physical traces we've found so far have come from a single site in Siberia, so we don't know much about their actual range. A 2018 study suggested that those traces actually came from at least two populations of Denisovans who had been separated for long enough to have genetic differences. That means humans encountered and mingled with Denisovans at least twice—and at a large enough scale to leave genetic traces behind 30,000 years later.

A comparison between the Denisovan genome recovered from a fossil fragment at Denisova Cave and fragments of Denisovan DNA in modern human genomes suggests that both populations were recognizably Denisovan, but they'd split apart around 300,000 years ago. That find raises questions about how genetically diverse the Denisovans were and how many groups they branched into (and when) as they spread through their slice of the world.

"These two groups split more than 300,000 years ago and therefore could be almost as different, one from the other, as Neanderthals from Denisovans," anthropologist Jean-Jacques Hublin of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology told Ars. (Analysis of Neanderthal and Denisovan genomes suggest that the two sister species diverged between 445,000 and 473,000 years ago.)

More Denisovans out there?

As usual, we still need more data to answer some burning questions about our past; the question of Denisovan diversity is just one among many. Paleoanthropologists also need more fossils from other areas to fully understand how much of the world the Denisovans once called home. At the moment, all we can definitely say about Denisovans' geographic reach is that they lived in Siberia and Tibet. "We need more fossil material outside of China, in particular in southeast Asia," Hublin told Ars.

But it's possible that some of those fossils have already been found and, like the Xiahe jawbone, are just waiting to be identified. For example, the molars in the lower jaw from Xiahe have some important features in common with molars from hominin lower jaws from Taiwan and north China. That's not enough to prove those hominins are Denisovans, of course, but ancient DNA or ancient protein analysis could test the idea if they've been preserved well enough. University of Copenhagen anthropologist Fredo Welker is optimistic. "I would have to say that although the Tibetan Plateau is colder, the proteome recovered from the Xiahe mandible is not particularly rich (in other words, there are not many proteins preserved in the mandible)," he told Ars. Yet the team still managed to identify the fossil's species based on those few preserved proteins.

"I therefore think it is reasonable to expect that other fossils can be identified as Denisovans or Denisovan-related hominins based on ancient protein analysis in the future," said Welker.

Meanwhile, the search for new sites and new fossils continues. Zhang and his colleagues started excavations in Baishiya Karst Cave in 2018, and they plan to spend the next few years continuing that excavation and analyzing fossils and artifacts from the site. "And at the same time, we plan to do archaeological surveys in a much wider region on the Tibetan Plateau, hoping that we could find more good Paleolithic sites," Zhang told Ars Technica.

[tsuh]

 

1.  

Historical Perspectives American Watches Gifted To Soviet Troops During The Dark Days Of WWII

 

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

COLE PENNINGTON

MAY 2, 2019

•  
•  
•  
•  
•  
•  
•  

15

 

Watches have long served as gifts given to mark important occasions. In the past it was standard practice to inscribe the caseback with a name or even a short note. From parents to children, wives to husbands, watches made a great gift because they were both personal and essential. Folks needed a watch to stay on time, and what better way to remember an occasion than to actually use the object tied to it?  But in the early days of WWII, a batch of American watches were given as gifts to Soviet soldiers for a different sort of occasion: to help win a war.

On December 14, 1941 former ambassador to the Soviet Union Joseph E. Davies proclaimed to a crowded Boston Arena, “We must never forget that we have been the beneficiaries of their agonies. When they fight for their homes they fight for ours.” Mr. Davies was referring to the immense suffering Soviet troops faced as they fought off an encroaching Nazi army. For some context, this was just seven days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which marked the entry of the United States into World War II. 

A letter to NYC governor Herbert H. Lehman from Allen Wardwell of the Russian War Relief. 

Roughly six months earlier, three million German troops marched into the Soviet Union with the support of 3,000 tanks on the ground and the Luftwaffe in the air. The front spanned nearly 2,000 miles from the North Cape all the way to the Black Sea. The Soviet Invasion is widely accepted as Hitler’s most significant blunder, as its failure caused Germany to fight a two-front war. While the Germans grossly underestimated Soviet forces, Operation Barbarossa inflicted incredible damage to the Soviet Union. Perhaps the greatest ally to the Soviet Forces was the extremely harsh Russian winter, as the German troops found it absolutely debilitating.

But it wasn’t just the cold that came to the Soviet Union’s aid. In the United States, a New York-based foundation bolstered the efforts of the unflinching Soviets. Known as the Russian War Relief, the organization was set up in July 1941 (before the U.S. entered the war) and officially incorporated in September. Their mission was to supply Soviet troops with every bit of equipment possible in order to help them in the fight against the Nazis. They raised funding from New York’s business elite, they recruited new members from Ivy League campuses, and they ran a sizable PR campaign to drum up support. 

 

And the Russian War Relief even custom-ordered watches to keep Soviet forces on time from a crop of America’s prominent watchmakers, Waltham, Elgin, and Hamilton. These special-purpose watches were built to the U.S. Army Ordnance Department’s general specifications, meaning they were rated to be used for basic timekeeping in military functions, although not necessarily combat. Watches carrying the A-11 specification are a cut above the Russian War Relief–ordered watches.

The watches are inscribed with an encouraging note to Soviet soldiers: "To the Heroic People of the USSR – Russian War Relief USA,” with the latter half of the inscription being a transliteration into Cyrillic characters from English. 

There was a healthy amount of skepticism from the Western Allies towards the Stalin-led Soviet Union at the time, but the need to work together became obvious as Hitler’s Germany grew more powerful. American policymakers handled Soviet cooperation with a sort of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" approach. It wasn’t necessarily an alliance formed from shared values, brotherhood, or kinship, but rather it was an alliance born out of sheer necessity. The only way to stop Germany was to band together. Winston Churchill shared the sentiment with typical English wit: "If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favorable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons." 

The Lend-Lease act, passed in March 1941, was purportedly the legislative vehicle that allowed the Russian War Relief organization to deliver these watches to the Soviet troops. It was a legislative instrument that allowed the United States to remain distant from the combat side of war while still taking a stance through supplying fighting forces with equipment. Of course there was a fair amount of opposition to the bill, with some senators noting that it would allow the President to carry out proxy wars all over the world without ever putting men in the trenches. 

It’s possible that the Russian War Relief simply organized the delivery of the watches to troops outside the lend-lease act. While a production order for the watches does exist, there is no mention of the lend-lease act. After the war was over, it was actively discouraged in Russia to discuss the aid the U.S. had given to the Soviet forces, so there's no documentation on that side to help. 

With that in mind, it begs the question of whether or not the Soviet forces were allowed to keep these watches or if it was considered taboo to own a watch honoring a partnership that was forbidden to discuss. The particular example you see here is incredibly weathered, and the inscription on the caseback has been significantly worn down, potentially hinting at a lifetime of use. After all, it may have gone through the war strapped to the wrist of a soldier on the Eastern front.

The war ended with the defeat of the Nazis, and the Russian War Relief dissolved as America entered peacetime. Pins, posters, and records at the New York Public Library are all that's left of the organization, but every now and then a confusing watch pops up from an American watchmaker with Cyrillic writing on the back. The relationship that developed between Russia and America in the post-war years is another chapter in history entirely, but the watch serves as a reminder of the time our nations came together to fight a greater evil. 

The Russian War Relief gave the Soviet soldiers a vital timekeeping tool for warfare; the Soviet soldiers gave all they could in the fight against the Nazis.

[MIKA27]

5 hours ago, tsuh said:

 

1.  

Historical Perspectives American Watches Gifted To Soviet Troops During The Dark Days Of WWII

 

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

COLE PENNINGTON

MAY 2, 2019

•  
•  
•  
•  
•  
•  
•  

15

 

Watches have long served as gifts given to mark important occasions. In the past it was standard practice to inscribe the caseback with a name or even a short note. From parents to children, wives to husbands, watches made a great gift because they were both personal and essential. Folks needed a watch to stay on time, and what better way to remember an occasion than to actually use the object tied to it?  But in the early days of WWII, a batch of American watches were given as gifts to Soviet soldiers for a different sort of occasion: to help win a war.

On December 14, 1941 former ambassador to the Soviet Union Joseph E. Davies proclaimed to a crowded Boston Arena, “We must never forget that we have been the beneficiaries of their agonies. When they fight for their homes they fight for ours.” Mr. Davies was referring to the immense suffering Soviet troops faced as they fought off an encroaching Nazi army. For some context, this was just seven days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which marked the entry of the United States into World War II. 

A letter to NYC governor Herbert H. Lehman from Allen Wardwell of the Russian War Relief. 

Roughly six months earlier, three million German troops marched into the Soviet Union with the support of 3,000 tanks on the ground and the Luftwaffe in the air. The front spanned nearly 2,000 miles from the North Cape all the way to the Black Sea. The Soviet Invasion is widely accepted as Hitler’s most significant blunder, as its failure caused Germany to fight a two-front war. While the Germans grossly underestimated Soviet forces, Operation Barbarossa inflicted incredible damage to the Soviet Union. Perhaps the greatest ally to the Soviet Forces was the extremely harsh Russian winter, as the German troops found it absolutely debilitating.

But it wasn’t just the cold that came to the Soviet Union’s aid. In the United States, a New York-based foundation bolstered the efforts of the unflinching Soviets. Known as the Russian War Relief, the organization was set up in July 1941 (before the U.S. entered the war) and officially incorporated in September. Their mission was to supply Soviet troops with every bit of equipment possible in order to help them in the fight against the Nazis. They raised funding from New York’s business elite, they recruited new members from Ivy League campuses, and they ran a sizable PR campaign to drum up support. 

 

And the Russian War Relief even custom-ordered watches to keep Soviet forces on time from a crop of America’s prominent watchmakers, Waltham, Elgin, and Hamilton. These special-purpose watches were built to the U.S. Army Ordnance Department’s general specifications, meaning they were rated to be used for basic timekeeping in military functions, although not necessarily combat. Watches carrying the A-11 specification are a cut above the Russian War Relief–ordered watches.

The watches are inscribed with an encouraging note to Soviet soldiers: "To the Heroic People of the USSR – Russian War Relief USA,” with the latter half of the inscription being a transliteration into Cyrillic characters from English. 

There was a healthy amount of skepticism from the Western Allies towards the Stalin-led Soviet Union at the time, but the need to work together became obvious as Hitler’s Germany grew more powerful. American policymakers handled Soviet cooperation with a sort of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" approach. It wasn’t necessarily an alliance formed from shared values, brotherhood, or kinship, but rather it was an alliance born out of sheer necessity. The only way to stop Germany was to band together. Winston Churchill shared the sentiment with typical English wit: "If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favorable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons." 

The Lend-Lease act, passed in March 1941, was purportedly the legislative vehicle that allowed the Russian War Relief organization to deliver these watches to the Soviet troops. It was a legislative instrument that allowed the United States to remain distant from the combat side of war while still taking a stance through supplying fighting forces with equipment. Of course there was a fair amount of opposition to the bill, with some senators noting that it would allow the President to carry out proxy wars all over the world without ever putting men in the trenches. 

It’s possible that the Russian War Relief simply organized the delivery of the watches to troops outside the lend-lease act. While a production order for the watches does exist, there is no mention of the lend-lease act. After the war was over, it was actively discouraged in Russia to discuss the aid the U.S. had given to the Soviet forces, so there's no documentation on that side to help. 

With that in mind, it begs the question of whether or not the Soviet forces were allowed to keep these watches or if it was considered taboo to own a watch honoring a partnership that was forbidden to discuss. The particular example you see here is incredibly weathered, and the inscription on the caseback has been significantly worn down, potentially hinting at a lifetime of use. After all, it may have gone through the war strapped to the wrist of a soldier on the Eastern front.

The war ended with the defeat of the Nazis, and the Russian War Relief dissolved as America entered peacetime. Pins, posters, and records at the New York Public Library are all that's left of the organization, but every now and then a confusing watch pops up from an American watchmaker with Cyrillic writing on the back. The relationship that developed between Russia and America in the post-war years is another chapter in history entirely, but the watch serves as a reminder of the time our nations came together to fight a greater evil. 

The Russian War Relief gave the Soviet soldiers a vital timekeeping tool for warfare; the Soviet soldiers gave all they could in the fight against the Nazis.

Very good read @tsuh thank's for posting and reading the thread. Oh, and welcome to FOH  

[tsuh]

Thanks!  This community is so great!

[MIKA27]

Sam Raimi Produced A Killer Crocodile Movie And Its Awesome First Trailer Is Here

So there’s a hurricane. Your whole town is flooding and is being evacuated, but your dad is missing. He’s stuck under your house. So you go to rescue him, but the water is rising and you both are in danger of drowning. Then you notice all the vicious, hungry crocodiles.

That’s the basic set up for Crawl, the new film by Alexandre Aja which is produced by Sam Raimi. Kaya Scodelario (The Maze Runner) is the daughter and Barry Pepper (The Green Mile) plays her father. 

Now, come on. That’s a movie right there. And the team of Aja, who did High Tension and Horns, as well as the legendary Raimi, who has produced some great films in the past few years during a feature directorial drought, are a great combination to bring something like this to the big screen. It’s got the potential to be a sleeper hit when it hits theatres July 12 in the U.S. As for the release in Australia, no word has been released on when this croc flick will head down under.

[MIKA27]

HBO’s ‘Chernobyl’ Exposes the Horrifying Scope of Soviet Deception

The new five-part miniseries, premiering May 6, examines the Chernobyl nuclear disaster—and the brave people who sacrificed their lives to reveal the shocking truth.

The Chernobyl nuclear disaster was the screw-up to end all screw-ups, playing a part in more than 93,000 deaths and turning the northern Ukrainian region uninhabitable. Yet as HBO’s Chernobyl reveals, even more deadly than the radiation released by the accident were the lies that caused it in the first place—and, afterwards, stymied efforts to contain and combat it.

Director Johan Renck and writer Craig Mazin’s five-part miniseries—a coproduction with Sky, debuting on May 6—is a dramatized look at the catastrophe and its equally harrowing fallout. “What is the cost of lies?” intones nuclear physicist Valery Legasov (Jared Harris) in a 1988-set introduction. “If we hear enough lies, then we can no longer recognize the truth at all. What can we do then?” It’s a question he’ll answer at story’s conclusion, but not now, because after completing his confessional audio recordings in his drab kitchen and hiding his collection of tape cassettes in a nearby alley, Legasov returns home, feeds his cat, enjoys a few last puffs of his cigarette, and hangs himself.

No matter that a KGB chief climactically argues that this tale has no villains, there’s plenty of blame to go around, and following its prologue, Chernobyl—whose raft of British-accented Russians take a bit of getting used to—cuts straight to April 26, 1986, and the cataclysm itself. In the control room of nuclear reactor number four, Anatoly Dyatlov (Paul Ritter) roundly criticizes underlings as morons while wholly refusing to believe that anything serious has occurred. Rather than grapple with the facts at hand, he assumes the facility’s alarms and alarming console readouts are signs of a minor issue—and certainly nothing as grave as a nuclear core explosion, which he, and many men and women who subsequently appear, deems impossible.

There was no apparent reason for the core’s detonation, especially since those at the reactor’s helm hit the manual shut-down button. Still, Dyatlov’s unwillingness to see things as they are turns out to be a mistake with horrifying consequences. Men are sent into radioactive areas to investigate and handle the situation, returning with corrosive burns—if they return at all. Firefighters, including Vasily (Adam Nagaitis), who bids farewell to wife Lyudmilla (Jessie Buckley) in the wee hours of the morning, are sent to the scene to quell the raging fire, where they come into contact with toxic elements. And locals in nearby Pripyat gather on a railway bridge to watch the column of light shooting upwards from the site, as flakes of radioactive debris fall around them like snow. That overpass would, in later years, come to be known as “The Bridge of Death,” because all who visited it during that fateful period would perish.

As Chernobyl recounts, Anatoly wasn’t the only one who turned a willfully blind eye to reality. Chernobyl bigwigs gather in a bunker to comfort themselves with Anatoly’s heartening reports, clinging to this misinformation rather than reacting accordingly. In that conference, an elder statesman goes so far as to proudly, and excitedly, proclaim: “We will all be rewarded for what we do here tonight. This is our moment to shine.” There’s a chilling pun buried in that comment, which is quickly proven to be literally false thanks to the outspoken analysis of Legasov (Harris), a dismayed professor who’s summoned by lifelong Party member Boris Shcherbina (a white-haired Stellan Skarsgård) to a committee meeting headed by Mikhail Gorbachev (David Dencik).

Legasov and Shcherbina’s rapport forms the crux of Chernobyl’s early installments, as the former delivers warnings that Shcherbina—like his all-news-must-be-good-news Party brethren—is averse to hear. That changes once both visit Chernobyl itself, where the building rooftops are littered with lethal graphite (which could have only come from the core), radiation levels are shockingly high, and men are emerging from the wreckage resembling charred corpses. Chernobyl infuses this material with funereal terror, drenching its drama in blacks and grays, and employing slow-motion images of soil, water and air to suggest that nature itself has been poisoned (much of it set to ominous repetitive tones). The show casts the incident as akin to the apocalypse, and those populating the immediate and surrounding areas—whether exhibiting radiation-sickness symptoms or not—as the walking dead.

Harris’s rational scientist and Skarsgard’s rigid Soviet official prove to be initially dissimilar, but Chernobyl superbly elucidates their dawning understanding that some actualities—including their own cancer-riddled future—are indisputable, and thus must be faced. The esteemed actors bring nuanced, complicated baggage to their protagonists, who are navigating a bureaucracy uninterested in failure, and so too does Emily Watson as Ulana Khomyuk, a nuclear authority (and composite character) who aids Harris in his quest to contain the Chernobyl tragedy as well as deduce its underlying cause. Together, the show’s headliners lend the action gravity and humanity, and they’re aided in their work by Jessie Buckley as Vasily’s distraught spouse, and Barry Keoghan as one of the 600,000 conscripts sent to clean up the Chernobyl “Exclusion Zone,” which in his case involves murderous animal-control duty.

Stellan Skarsgard and Jared Harris star in 'Chernobyl'

Chernobyl often plays as a real-time nightmare, detailing the logistics of the meltdown—including the deployment of miners (who toil in the nude, due to the heat) to bolster the plant’s concrete foundation. At the same time, via Legasov’s explanations to Shcherbina, it delivers a lucid primer on nuclear fission and reactor operation. That balance remains assured throughout, although its focus soon becomes not just the specific measures devised to prevent further mind-boggling ruin (at one point, Gorbachev is informed that Ukraine and Belarus, home to 60 million, is in danger of becoming a century-long hot zone), but the arduous struggle to ensure that the underlying failures responsible for this event are acknowledged and fixed.

By its finale, Chernobyl has transformed from a story about plant-operator faults to one about systematic deception on the part of the stubborn, arrogant, blind and foolish Soviets, whose communist culture—demanding absolute loyalty to the Party, which is always perfect and infallible, even when facts say otherwise—compelled everyone to cover up the truth lest they be vilified as nation-besmirching traitors. It’s that environment which Renck and Mazin’s haunting miniseries damns as the ultimate culprit for Chernobyl, which averted a worse tragedy only thanks to a precious few, like Legasov and Shcherbina, who embraced the truth—no matter how ugly—and then heroically sacrificed themselves for the greater good.

[MIKA27]

Is Rum Finally Ready to Seriously Challenge Whiskey?

This episode of the award-winning podcast ‘Life Behind Bars’ looks at the recent rise of sipping rum and whether the category is finally poised to attract whiskey drinkers.

After years of being lost in a sea of Coke and other mixers, rum is finally emerging as a sipping spirit. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? And can rum actually attract whiskey drinkers and collectors?

On this episode of the award-winning podcast Life Behind Bars, co-hosts David Wondrich and Noah Rothbaum discuss these developments, including the rise of collectible pot still rums and the associated snobbery, as well as the recent fiery debates on social media between rum aficionados.

If you enjoy rum or whiskey, listen to this episode of Life Behind Bars right away. Cheers!

Download and listen on Apple podcasts.

Listen on SoundCloud:

 

[MIKA27]

New ‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’ Clip Explains the Multiverse, Introduces Earth-833

A full clip from Spider-Man: Far From Home was shown before Jake Gyllenhaal‘s appearance on The Ellen Show, and it contains a few interesting insights into the first MCU film of the post-Avengers: Endgame era. The footage sees Tom Holland‘s Peter Parker meeting Gyllenhaal’s Quentin Beck, a.k.a. Mysterio, who goes on to explain to Peter the concept of a multiverse.

For one, Peter already seems to know Beck under his alter-ego persona, which probably just means the shots of Spider-Man fighting alongside the fish-bowl-headed Mysterio from the trailer take place relatively early in the film. But the real intriguing stuff starts with the explanation of the multiverse, especially Beck’s revelation that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is set on Earth-616, which is Marvel’s “main” universe. (Basically its version of this Earth, the one we’re sitting on right now.) This seems to contradict what Marvel itself established, which is that the MCU is set on Earth-199999.

Beck himself claims to be from Earth-833—saying it shares “identical physical constants” with 616—which introduces some very juicy possibilities. In the comics, Earth-833 is home to William Braddock, a member of the Captain Britain Corps and, more importantly, an alt-universe Spider-Man operating under the name Spider-UK. We already knew Spider-Man: Far From Home was a trip across the pond, but could it also be a trip across reality itself to meet a few other Spider-People? Either way, this isn’t even the first time a “Braddock” has popped up as a possibility in the MCU this week; eagle-eared viewers also noticed the name mentioned by Agent Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) in Avengers: Endgame.

Spider-Man: Far From Home—which also stars Zendaya, Jacob Batalon, Jon Favreau, Cobie Smulders, and Tony Revolori—hits theaters on July 2.

[MIKA27]

Official Trailer for ‘The Lodge’ Reveals a Bone-Chilling Horror Film Starring Riley Keough

The first official trailer for The Lodge is here, and it’s for horror fans. With elements of The Shining and early marketing that’s reminiscent of those campaigns that worked exceptionally well for Hereditary and Midsommar, The Lodge might just be 2019’s indie horror hit that’s talked about for months and years after its release.

There’s the obvious award family drama at the core of this thing, along with the father figure’s departure from the lodge for unexplained reasons, but something sinister lurks either in the lodge itself or just outside of it. The very Shining nature of the place itself and its effect on Grace, perhaps awakening her childhood memories, perhaps literally bringing her past back to haunt her in some way, should be enough of a hook to get folks in theaters. Here’s hoping something original comes of all that setup though.

Look for it in theaters this fall.

[MIKA27]

It’s Summer Camp Kids vs. Aliens In Rim Of The World Trailer

The Netflix original movie entitled Rim of the World feels like a cross between Stranger Things and Attack the Block. We have four misfits at summer camp who have to deal with a daunting alien invasion. They’re endowed with a magical key to stop the chaos, but without any adults or electronics, can they manage to save the world?

Directed by McG, who took the reins for Terminator Salvation and Charlie’s Angels, this will definitely be a popcorn flick with comedic vibes and outlandish action. The film is written by Zach Stentz who is known for penning the scripts for Thor and X-Men: First Class. Although it doesn’t have any big names attached, it does star a cast of charismatic young actors looking to break into the spotlight, including Jack Gore, Benjamin Flores Jr., Miya Cech, and Andrew Bachelor. If you’re looking for a film to help hold you over until Stranger Things Season 3 drops in July, this flick should do the trick.

[MIKA27]

Coca-Cola Unveils Four Bartender-Designed Signature Mixers

Soda, especially the mass-marketed and mass-produced kind, was never really intended to be used in cocktails — least of all in the realm of high-end mixology — despite how classic the pairing might seem. But, after 133 years in business, Coca-Cola is looking to change that with a lineup of Signature Mixers.

Announced by the soda giant’s U.K. branch, this quartet of specially-designed cocktail additives was created by some of the world’s top mixologists — including Max Venning, Adriana Chía and Pippa Guy, Antonio Naranjo, and Alex Lawrence. Each is an evolution of Coca-Cola’s original recipe made specifically for use in dark cocktails. Respectively, the varieties are as follows: Smoky Notes (an aromatic blend perfect for use with whiskey or spiced rum), Spicy Notes (warm and fiery for pairing with rum, tequila, and sweeter whiskeys), Herbal Notes (crisp and tart for use with most rums and amber-colored whiskeys), and Woody Notes (subtle and earthy to pair with golden rums and woody whiskeys). They’re interesting and bold releases for the soda brand — ones that we’ll be excited to try if they ever come stateside.

[MIKA27]

Oris Partners With A Swiss Swim Legend On A New Dive Watch

The thing about dive watches is that you need to keep Earth’s oceans healthy in order to properly utilize them to their fullest potential. It is this conservationist mindset that drove Oris to pair up with famed Swiss swim legend Ernst Bromeis and introduce their new awareness-raising Aquis Date Relief dive watch to the masses.

As we’ve come to expect from Oris, this waterborne precision timepiece is exceptionally well-built — boasting an automatic 26-jewel winding movement with a 38-hour power reserve, a 43.5mm stainless steel case with a screw-down crown, and an anti-reflective sapphire crystal. Of course, while the construction is exceedingly important, it’s the combination of a gray dial with a date window and matching minimalist dive timer bezel — meant to mimic the appearance of stormy seas — that first catches the eye. If you want to get your hands on the watch to be worn by Bromeis during his ‘Blue Miracle’ campaign swim across Lake Baikal, the Oris Aquis Date Relief dive watch can be yours now starting at $1,800.

 

[MIKA27]

Motorola Revives A Classic Design With The Razr 2019 Foldable Smartphone

When the original Razr came out in the summer of 2004, it was arguably the most popular flip phone in the United States. Well, over a decade later, the retro model is getting a modern upgrade and returning as the Motorola Razr 2019 Smartphone.

An official release of the smartphone is still to come, but renderings by designer Sarang Sheth, which are based on patents filed with the WIPO, are here to give us a solid idea of what it will look like. The new model will keep the flip-phone silhouette, but it will be enhanced with a folding OLED display. And based on the renderings, the smartphone will feature a large camera placed just below the exterior screen. The Motorola smartphone will be contending with the Samsun Galaxy Fold and the Huawei Mate X. According to a Wall Street Journal report, the 2019 Razr will cost about $1,500 and will have a limited run of 200,000 examples.

[MIKA27]

Triumph Rocket 3 TFC

Triumph Motorcycles have announced the spectacular new 2019 Rocket 3 TFC, an ultra-limited edition powered by the largest production motorcycle engine in the world. The impressive beast packs a crazy 2,500cc three-cylinder engine with 168 horsepower and 163 lb-ft of torque! (the world’s highest for a production motorbike). The new aluminum frame weighs an astonishing 88 pounds less than the original Rocket 3 (launched way back in 2004) sleekening the silhouette for a lighter visual load. The burly beast also features a new aluminum single-sided swingarm, lighter engine components, carbon-fiber bodywork, up-spec technology, and an impressive level of premium specification equipment such as Brembo Monoblock brakes, 20-spoke cast aluminum wheels, twin LED headlights, a radial master cylinder, MCS span, a fully adjustable Showa monoshock, a ratio-adjustable brake lever, cruise control, optimized cornering ABS and traction control, and full-color TFT instruments. Only 750 of these big bruisers will be built, so talk to your dealer now to own this new motorcycle legend.