I'm so proud of my brother Doug! If you live in Quincy, Mass. or know anyone who does- please have them watch this and vote for Doug.
Short Video: Meet Doug Gutro: Quincy School Committee Member, seeking re-election.
In this 4 1/2 minute video learn about Doug, a QPS graduate who has 1 son in NQHS and 1 that just graduated this year. Hear how he's qualified, what he's already done for QPS, and his plans going forward! Thank you for your support!
https://youtu.be/iCEMzttsu8U
Recently I was contacted by Dr. Leslie Brooks DVM, MPH, a Vet Advisor Betterpet.com. She asked if I would share Betterpets.com latest posting about 11 facts you NEED to know about being a dog parent. As a dog dad, dog rescuer, and Pet medium, I thought this article was well done and covered a lot of important things, so I'm sharing it here with you. (Check out my Award-winning book "Pets and the Afterlife 3: Messages from Spirit Dogs" on Amazon).
MY NOTE BEFORE CONSIDERING ADOPTING
Please remember- A Dog or Cat is NOT and OBJECT. They are living, breathing animals with intelligence, memories and personality. They feel love, they feel hurt, they feel loneliness and they need to be loved unconditionally as they love us.
A Dog or Cat is not something you adopt because you're home alone in a pandemic, then dump at an animal rescue. You wouldn't do that to human children, would you? There's no difference (and it has been happening). If you're not ready to adopt for the pet's life, don't adopt. There are more responsible people that are willing to do that.
BETTER PETS.COM 11 little-known facts about owning a dog
A Kingston man responsible for a baby gender reveal explosion that used 80 pounds of Tannerite and shook homes in numerous towns has been charged with disorderly conduct, police said Monday.
Anthony Spinelli, no age available, was charged for allegedly causing public alarm during last month’s incident in a quarry at Torromeo Industries that made international headlines and alarmed homeowners who were startled by the blast.
The explosion resembled the shaking of a small earthquake, was felt in several communities, and could be heard more than 25 miles away.
Police began their investigation after responding to Torromeo Industries at 18 Dorre Road for a report of a large explosion just after 7 p.m. on April 20.
Officers quickly determined that the explosion was related to a gender reveal party to announce a baby boy and that blue chalk was used along with approximately 80 pounds of Tannerite, which is an explosive for targets used for firearms practice and sold in kit form.
According to police, a Kingston detective met with people at the party who cooperated with the investigation. Police were told that they picked the quarry because they thought it would be a safe location for the big reveal.
VIDEO REPORT from Maine News Center: https://youtu.be/jJppY_SqtBA
Police received some reports of possible property damage related to the blast. However, they said, the investigation found no additional damage caused by the explosion.
Spinelli was charged under New Hampshire’s disorderly conduct law, which states, in part, that a person is guilty of a violation if he “purposely causes a breach of the peace, public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm, or recklessly creates a risk thereof, by making loud or unreasonable noises in a public place, or making loud or unreasonable noises in a private place which can be heard in a public place or other private places, which noises would disturb a person of average sensibilities.”
Spinelli could not immediately be reached for comment Monday afternoon.
RockinghamNews@unionleader.com
A sweatshirt with a distinct, easily identifiable logo helped lead police to a North Attleborough man who has now been charged in connection with breaking into a jewelry store in Franklin on July 31.
Patrick Maranda, 32, has been charged with breaking and entering nighttime for a felony, larceny from a building, and vandalizing property, according to Franklin police.
A warrant went out for Maranda’s arrest on Tuesday, and in conjunction with North Attleborough police, he was taken into custody around 3 p.m. that day. Maranda was arraigned on Wednesday.
(A Hero's Banner: Reilly Tree and Landscape for All of Your Landscape in Plainville, MA. Contact them at 508-643-2200 http://reillytreeandlandscape.com/)
Police had released surveillance footage of the alleged break-in on Facebook. In the video, the suspect appears to pound on the front door and makes his way in.
The suspect appears to be wearing a hooded sweatshirt with a logo on it. Reilly Tree and Landscape, the company the logo belongs to, helped with the investigation, according to police.
“The Franklin Police Department is aware that much attention was drawn to the clothing the suspect was wearing in the video,” police said. “The company, who self-identified publicly as Reilly Tree and Landscape of Plainville came forward early in the investigation and worked with our investigators to identify the individual. Their cooperation assisted this investigation tremendously.”
Over the last week, I highlighted the new report from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that presented alarming findings about how we humans, have exacerbated the warming of the Earth and seriously affecting climate change. Here's a great article from the VERGE that interviewed a scientist at NASA. The article puts everything in easy-to-understand terms, and is a MUST-READ..
WHY THE WEATHER IS BECOMING MORE EXTREME
By Justine Calma@justcalma The Verge Aug 10, 2021, 10:30am EDT
Across China and Western Europe in July, the amount of rain that might typically fall over several months to a year came down within a matter of days, triggering floods that swept entire homes off their foundations. In June, the usually mild regions of Southwest Canada and the US’s Pacific Northwest saw temperatures that rivaled highs in California’s Death Valley desert. The severe heat was enough to buckle roads and melt power cables.
HUMANS ARE FUELING MORE DANGEROUS WEATHER
This month, a landmark United Nations report helped put those kinds of extreme events into context. By burning fossil fuels and releasing planet-heating greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, humans are fueling more dangerous weather. Researchers have been able to connect the dots between greenhouse gas emissions and climate change for decades. But the new report showcases a big leap forward in climate science: being able to tie the climate crisis directly to extreme weather events like the June heatwave, which would have been “virtually impossible” without climate change according to recent studies.
The Verge spoke with Alex Ruane, one of the authors of the new report and a research physical scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. He walks us through the phenomena that’s supercharging extreme weather events. And he explains why scientists have gotten so much better at seeing the “human footprint” in each weather disaster.
The new United Nations report ties many changes in extreme weather to a more intense water cycle.
What is the water cycle and how does it affect the weather?
The water cycle is basically the way that we track moisture moving through the climate system. So it includes everything from the oceans to the atmosphere, the clouds, ice, rivers, lakes, the groundwater, and the way that those things move and transfer moisture and water from place to place.
(Image: Forest fires in Turkey. Credit: NASA)
So when we’re talking about the intensification of the water cycle, we’re basically saying things are moving faster. Air is pulling the moisture out of the oceans and out of the land faster. It’s moving more moisture from place to place on the planet. And when it rains, it can come down hard.
The fundamental difference is that there is more energy in the system. There’s more heat. And as the temperature goes up, there is an overall increase in the amount of moisture that the air is trying to hold. So that means when a storm happens, there’s more moisture in the air to tap into for a big, heavy downpour. It also means that when air moves over a region, it has the potential to suck more moisture out of the ground more rapidly. So the same phenomenon is leading both to more intensive rainfalls and floods and precipitation, and also to more stark drought conditions when they do occur.
How are people affected by those changes?
So, I personally live in New York City. We are affected by the water cycle, for example, when there’s a heavy downpour it can flood subway stations. It can lead to surface flooding in rivers and streets that can affect transportation.
Other parts of the world have different engagements with the water cycle. They may be concerned about the snow fall or river floods that affect broad areas. And then of course huge parts of the world are concerned about drought. When we look at something like drought, it doesn’t just affect agriculture. It also affects ecosystems and urban parks. It affects water resources and infrastructure like power plants and roads and buildings.
So in all of these climate factors, we see that more than one sector is affected by these changes. We also see that if you take any specific thing that we care about, like agricultural fields, they are affected by more than just one type of climate change.
A specific set of climate conditions can lead to two extremes at the same time. So for example, heat and drought often go together because as conditions become drier, all of that sunshine, all of that energy, all of that heat goes into warming the air. That is a reinforcing cycle that can make hot and dry conditions even more extreme.
The big picture, as we’re seeing it, is that climate change is affecting all of the regions on Earth, with multiple types of climate changes already observed. And as the climate changes further, these shifts become more pronounced and widespread.
I’ve read that “weather whiplash” is becoming more common because of climate change — what is “weather whiplash”?
This idea that you can go from extreme to extreme very rapidly is giving society this sensation of a whiplash. This is part of the idea of an intensified water cycle. The water is moving faster, so when a wet condition comes it can be extremely wet. And then behind it could be a dry condition that can quickly get extremely dry. That type of shift from wet to dry conditions is something that we explore and understand in our climate models, but the lived experience of it can be quite jarring — and not just uncomfortable, but a direct challenge for ecosystems and other things that we care about in society. They really are connected in many cases to the same types of phenomenon, and this new report connects the dots between this phenomenon and our human footprint.
REST OF THE ARTICLE: https://www.theverge.com/22617371/extreme-weather-science-attribution-un-report-climate-change
We've been to Scotland but had not heard of Burryman's Day until this year. BBC News reported about the special and odd day in mid-August. He looks like a kind of Scottish version of the DC Comics weird hero, The Swamp Thing! In today's blog, you'll learn who he is, the celebration, and the possible origins of the day. Then the BBC News story from Scotland:
WHAT IS BURRYMAN'S DAY ? The Burryman or Burry Man is the central figure in an annual ceremony or ritual, the Burryman's Parade. The custom is associated with, but separate from, the town's Ferry Fair. It takes place in the South Queensferry area of Edinburgh, Scotland on the south bank of the Firth of Forth in Scotland, on the second Friday of August.
WHERE IS THE "FIRTH OF FORTH"? The Firth of Forth is the estuary of several Scottish rivers including the River Forth. It meets the North Sea with Fife on the north coast and Lothian on the south
WHAT IS BURRYMAN COVERED WITH? On the Friday morning of the fair, a local man is covered from head to ankles in burrs (the sticky flowerheads or seedheads of two species of burdock, that grow locally, and walked through the town for over nine hours. The meaning of this ceremony has long been forgotten, but it has been the cause of much speculation. The right to hold the Ferry Fair was first granted in 1687.
WHAT ARE THE POSSIBLE ORIGINS? There are many theories about the origin of the custom, what the ceremony means, and why it continues. One idea is that the parade was intended to ward off evil spirits - it can certainly ward off children, some of whom are terrified at the very sight of the Burryman, and avoid looking him in the eye.[ It has been suggested that he carries on a pagan tradition thousands of years old; that he is a symbol of rebirth, regeneration and fertility (similar to the Green Man) that pre-dates almost all contemporary religions; that he is a "scapegoat" and may even originally have been a sacrificial victim.
'Hip hip hooray, it's the Burryman's Day'
Burryman Andrew Taylor undergoes final preparations for the parade Residents of a town near Edinburgh have gathered for a quirky tradition which features a man covered in thousands of seeds to bring them good luck.
Andrew Taylor was hidden under hundreds of seedheads from burdock plants that grow locally for the Burryman's Day celebration through South Queensferry.
Residents and curious onlookers guide him along the streets for nine hours or more. And they greet him with the cry: "Hip hip hooray, it's the Burryman's Day".
The exact meaning of the Burryman parade has been lost through the years, although it is believed to have been first recorded in the 17th Century.
But there was no need for a bubble around Mr Taylor this year as he was once again led from the Stag Head Hotel, where the Burryman traditionally gets ready.
PEOPLE GET INVOLVED - Locals pick burrs in the week leading up to the parade and on Friday one woman had to keep replacing the seeds as they fell from the suit.
GOOD LUCK BURRS - Crowds from the town followed behind Mr Taylor as part of the celebration with many taking the fallen burrs as good luck.
GETTING TIPSY ON HIS MARCH - Kathleen Hamblin was among those who gave him a nip of whisky - which he had to drink through a straw to get it through the Burryman suit. Mr Taylor will make more than 20 ports of call before 18:00 - and have a dram on each occasion.
This past Sunday, August 22, I participated in an in-person fundraising lecture series for the Humane Society of Calvert County, Maryland. Thanks to Tanya Gott, who manages the rescue (which is not government funded and rescues "death row dogs," so they need your donations). As part of my quest to do fundraisers for all animal rescues, I gave my lecture (in fact TWO of them, at 12pm and 3pm) based on my three best-selling books "Pets and the Afterlife: How pets communicate from spirit." That's what today's blog is about.
Both sessions were well-attended, and restricted due to COVID concerns. The event was held at a local Holiday Inn in Solomons, Maryland (on a Peninsula).
My good friend, Dr. Bill came along for the long ride (it was 90 minutes each way).
(Photo right: Bill and Rob)
He also wrote one of the chapters about how to cope with grief, in my latest book, "Pets and the Afterlife 3: Messages from Spirit Dogs." That book just won an international Book award by the BookAuthority as one of the 16 Best eBooks on Grief (and interestingly enough, the other 15 were about grief from loss of people. Mine was the only one about grief from pet loss).
The events were great, and there were some good questions. Tanya provided great introductions to the rescue operations, and shared that I did a pet spirit reading for her. Both she and I got emotional at times when we were talking about our pets in spirit, but it was healing. Hopefully everyone attending got something good out of the event. A tremendous thanks to Tanya and her helpers.
PLEASE Donate the the Humane Society of Calvert County- they are strictly donation based. Here's their facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/humanesocietyofcalvertcounty
Ancient mammals and dinosaurs have always fascinated me, and there was a HUGE discovery recently, where a 30,000 year old extinct cave lion was found, frozen and intact! Here's the story:
About 30,000 years ago, when enormous mammoths and woolly rhinos roamed the Northern Hemisphere, a tiny cave lion cub with golden-brown fur took her final stroll through the Siberian tundra.
Disaster struck suddenly — perhaps a mudslide, or a crack splitting open the permafrost underfoot — and the cub fell. Buried in ice, she was quickly mummified; today, her fur, skin, organs and teeth remain almost exactly as they appeared on the day of her death, thousands of years ago.
Scientists named this ill-fated cub Sparta, after mammoth tusk hunters discovered her fossilized remains poking out of the melting permafrost of Yakutia, Siberia, in 2017. Along with Boris — a male cave lion cub discovered just 50 feet (15 meters) away in 2018 — Sparta is the subject of an extensive new study published Aug. 4, 2021 in the journal Quaternary, in which scientists examined the anatomy of the extinct cats in unprecedented detail.
"Sparta is probably the best-preserved ice age animal ever found, and is more or less undamaged apart from the fur being a bit ruffled," study co-author Love Dalén, a genetics professor at the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm, Sweden, told CNN.com. "She even had the whiskers preserved."
Cave lions (Panthera spelaea) are close relatives of modern African lions. They lived widely across the Northern Hemisphere during the last ice age (the chilly epoch that spanned from approximately 2.1 million to 11,600 years ago). Unlike their modern cousins, these large cats adapted to extremely harsh conditions, including freezing winds and long, cold winters marked by continuous nights.
According to the new study, Boris and Sparta didn't get much of a chance to test their mettle against the perils of the ice age. Through a variety of methods including radiocarbon dating, X-ray imaging and partial DNA sequencing, the researchers learned that the two cubs were approximately 1 to 2 months old when they died, with their sharp frontal teeth just beginning to emerge.
Although the cubs' remains were discovered a stone's throw away from each other, their deaths were separated by tens of thousands of years. A radiocarbon analysis of the cubs' skin, hair and muscle showed that Sparta died approximately 28,000 years ago, while Boris met his end more than 43,000 years ago. This finding suggests that the area was probably "attractive to cave lions for making dens, but it was probably also susceptible to them collapsing," the researchers wrote in the study.
As a meteorologist who has been working with scientists studying climate change for the last 21 years, it's frustrating when people (especially those with ZERO science background) say they don't believe it. For decades, NASA and NOAA and scientists around the world have been saying the world is warming . Now a very damning global report goes into detail about the weather extremes such as extreme heat, extreme flooding, more powerful storms - all caused by a warmer planet. Here's the story
Hundreds of scientists reviewed more than 14,000 studies tracking climate change evidence worldwide.
Record-setting wildfires, historic floods, baking droughts and punishing heat waves have dominated headlines in recent months, and if you're wondering if these extreme events are linked to climate change — and if humans are responsible — a new report by hundreds of climate experts confirms that this is indeed the case.
In fact, it's "unequivocal" that human activity is driving climate change, and it's affecting Earth's oceans, atmosphere, ice and biosphere in ways that are "widespread and rapid," according to the report.
On Monday (Aug. 9), the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN body for evaluating climate science, released the first installment of the IPCC's Sixth Assessment Report in a virtual press event. In the report, the authors reviewed more than 14,000 studies that: document evidence of climate change; record the influence of human activities on global warming; and model predictions of our future should we fail to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gas emissions that are driving climate change today.
"The fact that the IPCC has agreed — with the agreement of all 195 member countries — that it is unequivocal that human activity is causing climate change, is the strongest statement that the IPCC has ever made," Ko Barrett, IPCC Vice Chair and Senior Advisor for Climate at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), said at a briefing on Aug. 8. Produced by the IPCC's Working Group I, this report addresses the scientific evidence of how Earth's climate is changing and how human activity is driving that change, summarizing the findings for global leaders and policy makers.
More than 200 scientists authored and edited the new report, and they found that human activity, primarily the production of atmospheric CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels, has driven global warming at a rate that is unprecedented in the last 2,000 years. Due to climate change, human communities everywhere on Earth are affected by extreme weather events that are longer, more intense and more frequent.
If current warming continues, Earth will exceed 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (1.5 degrees Celsius) of warming and reach 3.6 F (2 C) by 2050, which will further intensify the severity of extreme weather.
Under all the future emissions scenarios that were considered in the report, "surface temperatures will continue to increase until at least the mid-century," the authors wrote.
Powerful hurricanes are also forming more frequently — and deposit more rainfall — than they did decades ago; and most land areas are seeing precipitation events that are more frequent and intense, according to the report.
FOR MORE ABOUT THE REPORT https://www.livescience.com/ipcc-climate-report-2021.html?utm_source=SmartBrief&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=368B3745-DDE0-4A69-A2E8-62503D85375D&utm_content=E515AD0D-D741-4D89-BF21-5692FAEAF946&utm_term=cb486bd9-5e56-49fc-869b-ea0dd0662c29
A driver escaped with minor injuries after their car plunged into a water-filled sinkhole created by a water main break in Clinton, Maryland, on Wednesday morning.
Prince George’s County police are advising drivers to avoid South Osborne Road and Crain Highway as repair crews work to fix the damage.
The road has been closed since Wednesday morning.
The Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission (WSSC) said it was alerted to the break in the 30-inch water main around 4 a.m.
Early Wednesday, a driver went through the perimeter established around the hole and drove into the sinkhole. Their car was completely submerged in water.
Prince George’s Fire and Rescue said the driver — an adult male — was taken to the hospital with minor injuries around 6:15 a.m.
Video: https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/car-submerged-in-maryland-sinkhole/2769900/
I grew up in the Boston area and used to take the subway to work and into the city. One of my biggest fears was falling on the subway tracks or seeing someone else fall in. That happened in New York City on August 19th, and this week's Heroes are the NYC Transit Officer Lupen Lopez and the good Samaritan who jumped on the tracks to drag out a man who had a seizure and fell onto the tracks! Two other officers signaled the approaching train to slow down, giving them time to make the rescue. Here's the story and a video.
BRONX (WABC) -- When a sick straphanger lost consciousness and fell onto the subway tracks in the Bronx, NYPD transit officers didn't hesitate to jump into action.
Four officers on patrol heard the commotion on the platform and saw a man had fallen onto the tracks. The train was just one minute away.
"Without even thinking we all responded the way we were trained to," said Officer Lupen Lopez.
Lopez jumped onto the tracks while two other officers ran down the platform to signal the train operator.
"Anytime you want to get the attention of a conductor, you wave your flashlight left to right and they know that means to slow the train down and to stop," said Officer Richardo Peguero.
The 60-year-old victim, Jessey Branch, had a seizure while waiting on the southbound 2/5 platform Wednesday just before noon at the 149th street station.
"I know I was standing against the wall, that was that," Branch said. "I know I wasn't like leaning against the wall nothing like that."
In an exclusive interview with Eyewitness News, Branch said the only thing he remembers was that he was heading to meet a friend. The next thing he knew he woke up on the way to the hospital.
The quick action of the officers saved his life. "What they do exemplifies what New York City officers do on a daily basis, they help their communities and they genuinely love to create a bond between police and the public, in this case saving a life," said Capt. Gregory Mackie. Lopez was able to get Branch up once he regained consciousness and a good Samaritan jumped down to help.
They lifted him back up while a fourth officer helped Lopez back in to the platform just as the train was pulling into the station and to the applause of riders waiting on the platform and watching in suspense. "It's a good feeling because when community works with us and we have their support, and they see we're there to help them, great things can happen," Lopez said.
When he was asked how much pain he is in on a scale from 1-10, Branch said a 9. "I'm sore. I broke a couple ribs and I broke a bone in my left arm," Branch said. "I feel very grateful that they were there to help me." Branch isn't quite sure when he'll get to leave the hospital, but he says he already has plans: the first thing he will do when he leaves, he said, is "sit my behind down."
"I thank that police officer," his daughter Nikita Branch said. "That was the nicest thing that somebody did for an elderly sickly man and if I was there I would've shook his hand."
Don't you hate it when someone does something that you did, and you get called on it, and they get away with it? Well, that's exactly what's been happening in politics. Today's blog is about that. Last week, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) resigned because of allegations of sexual misconduct. Before that, Democrat Al Franken resigned from Congress on January 2, 2018, after several allegations of sexual misconduct were made against him. If they did it, then they SHOULD RESIGN. Vanity Fair did a Big article about this and you can find it here; LINK to Vanity Fair story
However, it seems men in the Republican Party don't resign. In fact, they ignore it, and go on.
Case #1 Donald Trump - 26 women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct / Here's the story from Business Insider (Non-Partisan): https://www.businessinsider.com/women-accused-trump-sexual-misconduct-list-2017-12
Case #2 - Matt Gaetz scandal deepens as associate admits paying 17-year-old for sex https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/14/matt-gaetz-scandal-joel-greenberg-sex-trafficking
Case #3 - Supreme Court Justice Brett Cavanaugh - The central charge against Kavanaugh — that he sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford while intoxicated during a party. two other women have also emerged with similar allegations against Kavanaugh, also in the context of heavy drinking. - https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/09/27/brett-kavanaugh-allegations-sexual-misconduct-complete-list/
.@mehdirhasan: “There are only consequences— there is only accountability for Democrats in our system. Not for Republicans.”pic.twitter.com/VDrJLk6SRG
— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen) August 11, 2021
Dance of the Bones also incorporates some Native American lore (but it took away from the story) and it was really a fantastic mystery with a great villain. When you get halfway through, you'll want to read immediately to the end to see how it resolves. J.A. Jance has never disappointed, and this novel that came out in paperback in 2015 was so well done.
The only thing I found distracting were the short 1-2 page folklore stories in the beginning of each chapter. I confess that by the middle of the book, I skipped over them and read the story. I understood what the author was doing, building one of the main characters and giving the reader a feel for her background, but it was distracting to me.
Even more, I Loved, loved, loved the novella in the back of the book which just featured J. P. Beaumont, the retired Seattle detective and his wife Mel Soames, chief of Police. The main novel references the events that happen in the novella, and it would help to read the Novella FIRST. 4 of 5 stars
I'm fascinated by dinosaurs and have been since I was a kid. This new discovery of a dinosaur with jaws more powerful than a T.Rex was really surprising, and it's a type of crocodile! Here's the story
The giant caiman known as Purussaurus was the apex predator of the Miocene epoch as it stalked the wetlands of South America, equipped with the strongest bite of any creature to ever live. Since the dawn of humankind, our species has pondered its purpose. While that debate is likely to continue until we’re extinct, one thing is clear: Creatures beyond our wildest imagination riddled this planet long before we ever arrived. Among them roamed the purussaurus — a prehistoric crocodile longer than a school bus — and mightier than even the T.rex.
Formally known as Purussaurus brasiliensis, the mammoth crocodylian species could reach up to 41 feet in adulthood and weigh as much as 18,100 pounds. And the mighty purussaurus regularly consumed 88 pounds of flesh with abandon.
The Amazonian creature prowled the South American wetlands, rising from its waters to pounce on prey. Its jaws clamped down with a bite force of 5.3 metric tons — twice as strong as that of a Tyrannosaurus rex. Remarkably, we would’ve never even known the purussaurus existed — were it not for the fossils of 1892.
Discovering The Purussaurus Purussaurus
brasiliensis was named after its discovery in the Brazilian rainforest. Although similar-looking to alligators, its heavily armored belly places the beast in the caiman family — commonly referred to as a crocodylians. The first fossilized purussaurus remains were found in the late 1800s by Brazilian researcher Joao Barbosa Rodrigues. While the species had finally been discovered, named, and entered into the historical record, there was a lot of guesswork as to its size and habits. Luckily, purussaurus skulls began to rear their colossal heads.
Those ancient bony remains illuminated more about the species than ever before, and were dug from the soil of Peru, Colombia, Panama, and Venezuela. They proved, once and for all, that the purussaurus was the largest crocodilian species that ever lived — confirming its 41-foot length and 8.4-ton weight.
Until a recently, it was thought the caiman came into existence about eight million years ago. A 2020 study on large bite marks on a 13-million-year-old sloth, however, concluded that they must have been made by a purussaurus. None of the other six prehistoric crocodilian species in the region had teeth as large.
Ultimately, the data gathered on this creature was rather sparse until recently. It was clear that the Late Miocene animal lived in another era than the Tyrannosaurus rex, was the largest of its kind, and plunged about the waters of South America. How it killed, and how efficiently, however, was only revealed later.
The Life And Prey Of Purussaurus Brasiliensis
In 2015, Tito Aureliano and his team revealed their findings regarding the bite force, paleobiology, and morphology of the purussaurus. The Brazilian paleontologist, of the University of Campinas, determined that this particular species had the strongest bite of any four-limbed animal ever discovered.
As published in the Public Library of Sciences journal, the study confirmed this unprecedented bite force among all tetrapods with detailed figures. When it clamped down, it did so with 69,000 newtons, or 15,512 pounds of pressure. As the 2020 study suggested, that skill often took the purussaurus to shore.
Armed with 20 times the strength of a great white shark’s bite, the crocodilian was more than capable of sneaking to shallow waters and wrenching its prey into the depths. The study suggested that the enormous size of this creature was an evolutionary response to its competition — and made the purussaurus a king among predators.
“The extreme size and strength reached by this animal seems to have allowed it to include a wide range of prey in its diet, making it a top predator in its ecosystem,” the study said. “As an adult, it would have preyed upon large to very large vertebrates, and, being unmatched by any other carnivore, it avoided competition.” Aureliano focused his research on the creature’s robust skull and teeth, quickly learning that purussaurus easily snatched up prey weighing more than a ton. While the two weren’t contemporaries, it was also clear that not even the T. Rex would’ve survived its massive bite force and fearsome teeth. “The Purussaurus and the Tyrannosaurus lived in different ages, but there is no doubt that the Purussaurus would have won a fight between the two of them,” said co-author Aline Ghilardi.
Why Did The Purussaurus Go Extinct?
Andes Mountain Range Flickr/Mariano Mantel It was the tectonic shifts spurring the rise of the Andes mountains that led to the demise of the purussaurus. However, purussaurus wasn’t terribly long for this world.
Also according to Ghilardi, the region’s geological movements spurred the tectonic growth of the Andes mountains and eventually led to the creature’s demise. “The rise of the Andes changes changed everything for the purussaurus, which previously thrived on the presence of huge mammals in the region,” she said. “The swamplands were radically changed and led to the demise of several species.”
With the massive caiman needing equally massive amounts of meat just to survive, when smaller mammals other beasts that it had called prey began to disappear with the changing landscape, purussaurus simply didn’t have the food it needed to survive. Ultimately, it’s unlikely that we’ll ever see a species this colossal tear through the rainforests ever again. And for that, we’re likely lucky,
There is no celebration in the death of anyone, no matter how much they try and hurt others or purposely feed them wrong information that leads to their demise. A life is a life. During the weekend of August 7, an Anti- Vaccination right-wing radio host died a horrible death of COVID 19.
He laughed in the face of science and encouraged his listeners NOT to get the COVID vaccine and risk their own deaths. He mocked Dr. Anthony Fauci and called him a "Power tripping lying freak," that encouraged his listeners to threaten the doctor.
Now, he's dead. Before he died, though, he changed his mind about the vaccine. It was far too late. I post this as a LESSON to those people who still refuse to get vaccinated for the greater good of society and themselves and their family and friends. This man was foolish and realized it on his deathbed. Don't do the same. Here's the story:
Farrel was vocal about his opposition to vaccination and general skepticism about the severity of the pandemic. On July 1, he made a Facebook post claiming to personally know two people in critical condition with COVID-19 despite being vaccinated. On July 7, he called Dr. Anthony Fauci a “power tripping lying freak.” These posts were among several others of the same sentiment, including at least one removed by Facebook for including misinformation, according to The Hill.
But once Farrel contracted the virus himself, his opinion changed. WPTV reported that Amy Leigh Hair, Farrel’s close friend, decided to get the vaccine because of him. “COVID took one of my best friends! RIP Dick Farrel. He is the reason I took the shot,” she posted on Facebook. “He texted me and told me to ‘Get it!’ He told me this virus is no joke and he said, ‘I wish I had gotten it!’ I was one of one the people like him who didn’t trust the vaccine. I trusted my immune system. I just became more afraid of getting COVID-19 than I was of any possible side effects of the vaccine. I’m glad I got vaccinated.”
“He fought like a tiger. Please don’t put off getting attention for this illness,” Farrel’s longtime partner Kit Farley wrote on Facebook. “Yes, for some it has minimal effects, but others it is deadly.”
According to another post by Farrel’s friend Mick McCabe, Farrel struggled with COVID-19 for three weeks before he died. He was 65.
Farrel’s death comes as Florida battles a new surge in COVID-19 cases, having reported on Friday its highest number of daily reported cases since the start of the pandemic.
