Tag: Secret

A rare glimpse inside Britain’s secret vault of whale skeletons

[ad_1]
Behind a 10-foot tall door, in a secret location, lies a treasure trove of bones. Some of the biggest bones are laid out on storage units made of scaffolding, others are stacked against each other on racks – rows and rows of specimens. The smallest are tucked into drawers of faded-yellow metal cabinets. A selection of skulls lies on a low table; crudely stuffed animals hang from the painted breezeblock walls. Everything is carefully labelled.
This vast room houses the Natural History Museum’s cetacean collection – a globally unique hoard of 6,000 whales, dolphins and porpoises. The artefacts are so enormous and irreplaceable, they’re housed at a secret location away from the main museum building.
It is the most complete collection of these creatures in the world, containing specimens of 90% of the world’s 90 cetacean species, including 24 from UK waters.
“It’s visually stunning, yes, but also incredibly scientifically and culturally significant,” says Richard Sabin, the Natural History Museum’s principal curator of mammals. “You’re looking at one of the best research collections of its kind in the world – what makes it unique is the species representation.”
The room’s cool temperature and low humidity have been designed to preserve its precious contents, from bones to baleen. As well as specialist biology and evolutionary history, the collection enables scientists to look at how everything from DNA to hormones vary across time and space.
Crucially, collections such as this (one of only five of its kind in the world), may provide clues about how whales, dolphins and porpoises might respond to future stresses such as the climate crisis. “These institutions are like reservoirs of scientific information,” Sabin says. “[Not only can we] look back in time and see how things have changed, we can plan for the future. That’s one of the greatest uses for this collection.”
The Natural History Museum has been officially recording whale and dolphin strandings since 1913, and many remains end up here after postmortem. In addition to 800 strandings, there are remnants from whaling expeditions and archaeological finds, some stretching as far back as 500 years.
One of the largest occupies a big glass cabinet, which dominates the main gangway. Here, the Thames whale lies in state: the northern bottlenose whale that became something of a celebrity in 2006 when it swam upriver, stranded on the sand in front of crowds of Londoners, and despite efforts to save it, died.

Another was uncovered in 2010 as builders dug new jetty foundations at Greenwich, in London. Huge bones sticking up out of the muddy Thames foreshore were identified by Sabin as a headless North Atlantic right whale. “The skeleton was at right angles to the flow of the river, with the tail facing up the slope of the beach … that’s not a natural stranding position,” he says. It had likely been pulled up by the tail, then beheaded for its precious baleen, once used to make corsetry and other garments.
Carbon dating pinpointed the Greenwich whale’s death to between 1580 and 1660, while cut marks on the bone surfaces indicated “defleshing”. “Everyone took what they could from it before the skeleton collapsed under its own weight,” says Sabin. “This animal is now the largest, oldest dated specimen of this species anywhere in the world – this skeleton can tell us a lot.” For example, its DNA could reveal whether limited genetic diversity, climate or competition contributed to right whales’ vulnerability before commercial whaling.
Elsewhere, dozens of jaw bones are stacked up. One lower jaw of a male sperm whale is abnormally twisted into a corkscrew shape: this unusual specimen came from an Antarctic whaling ship in 1959. At first glance, the jaw seems to make feeding an impossibility. But the back teeth, worn down to “stumpy pegs”, indicate that this whale was successfully eating giant squid, thanks to its highly specialised echolocation and efficient suction feeding.
Sabin, still fascinated by each revelation after 30 years as curator, is particularly proud of the insight garnered from crates containing 800 baleen plates from a blue whale stranded in 1891. Nicknamed Hope, the young female died on a sandbank near Wexford, Ireland. Now, her 25m-long skeleton is on display in the museum’s Hintze Hall.
By analysing her baleen – layers of keratin that are used to trap krill – scientists at Southampton University learned, using a technique known as stable isotope analysis, that in summer she fed near Norway, Iceland and Greenland to accumulate her fatty blubber layer, then in winter migrated south to the Azores and west Africa for the breeding season.
What’s more, visible ridges on this hard, black baleen represent the annual peaks and troughs of her feeding cycle, and scientists found that about 18 months before she died she remained in the south for 10 months – probably to have a calf. In the Wexford archives, Sabin found that violent storms were recorded in the days before she beached, storms that could have steered her off course.
In addition, researchers at Baylor University in Texas analysed her earwax and found her pregnancy hormone progesterone levels were elevated during the last 18 months of her life for 10 months – the blue whale gestation period. “Suddenly we have this rich information about the life of an individual whale that was living in 1890,” Sabin says.
With Sabin’s help, the same Texas team studied persistent chemical pollutants and the stress hormone cortisol in plugs of whale earwax to reveal how, between 1870 and 2016, human activities from commercial whaling, war, industrial pollution and shipping noise, have caused physical stress responses in whales.
“This information is written into the tissues of these animals,” Sabin says. “Suddenly, in the past 20 years, we’ve developed technologies that mean we can liberate information from this kind of material. We can take single hairs and do genome DNA testing or stable isotope analysis, which gives info about diet, distribution, movement, indicators.”
The museum is entering an era of digitisation, uploading 3D surface scans or CT scans of specimens to a free online database. It allows researchers anywhere in the world to collaborate. “This collection gives these specimens a life after death,” says Sabin. “What are we going to learn in the future?”
[ad_2]
#rare #glimpse #Britains #secret #vault #whale #skeletons
( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

January 21, 2023
Tim Dowling: I found a secret loft in our house. Foolishly, I also told my wife about it …

[ad_1]
Our house contains a secret mystery room I didn’t even know was there until almost a year after we moved in. One day I was sitting alone in the garden looking up at the little round window near the peak of the back roof, when it occurred to me that I had never seen the view out of that window.
I went into the house and up the stairs, only to discover that the window didn’t exist from the inside. I made the trip to the garden and back a few times, the final time leading my wife outside by the wrist.
“What room does that window look out from?” I said, pointing up.
“Huh,” she said. “I’ve never noticed that window.”
After a while it became clear – sort of – that the window belonged to a little loft above the oldest one’s bedroom, although there was no access to it: the ceiling of the bedroom below is completely plastered over.
Sometimes I reflect on what might be up there – some gold bars perhaps, or a colony of protected bats. But I mostly don’t think about it because it gives me the creeps. The mystery of the secret room hadn’t crossed my mind in at least a year, until my wife started making plans.
“I’m going to have a big cupboard here,” she says, spreading her arms along a section of kitchen wall.

I reflect on what might be up there – some gold bars perhaps, or a colony of protected bats
“There’s already a cupboard there,” I say. “Aren’t we looking right at it?”
“That’s freestanding,” she says. “I want built-in, and all the way along.”
“Won’t it block the door?” I say.
“Halfway then,” she says.
“Won’t that look weird?” I say.
“I knew you’d be like this,” she says.
“I’m just worried it will make the space seem smaller,” I say.
“We have no storage!” she shouts. “No place to put anything! What do you suggest?”
“I suggest we throw away half our stuff,” I say.
“Or we could just throw away all your stuff,” she says.
“If it prevents this cupboard, I will consider it,” I say.
A lot of my wife’s improvement proposals are predicated on the fond hope that our children will finally leave home in 2023. This is why the sudden need for extra kitchen storage perplexes me.
“Seriously,” I say. “When they’re gone we’ll only need, like, a frying pan and two forks. We can share a mug.”
“You understand nothing,” she says.
My wife’s plans also include moving us into the oldest one’s former bedroom, which was instantly colonised by the middle one when the oldest one moved out, and will probably be commandeered by the youngest one eventually.
“But if they both go this year, we should probably be in there,” my wife says. “It’s the biggest room.”
“It could be even bigger,” I say. “Don’t forget about the mystery room above it.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” my wife says. Little lights go on behind her eyes, and I realise I have inadvertently rekindled her lust for additional storage space once more.
I am sitting in my office shed when I suddenly notice something: our neighbour’s rear extension has an identical round window in the same spot.
Two days later my wife returns from next door with a load of pictures on her phone, of a dimly lit space filled with junk.
“She’s got folding stairs going up there, and you can just about stand up in the middle,” she says.
“Does it have a floor?” I say. My wife stops scrolling through the photos to stare at me.
“Of course it has a fucking floor,” she says.
“I mean, did she have to put a floor in, or was there already one?”
“Oh,” my wife says. “I didn’t ask.”
“Because we don’t really know what we’ll find until we get up there,” I say, thinking about the possibilities: a mummified cat; a skeleton in an Edwardian wedding dress.
“She said the folding stairs were expensive, but you shouldn’t skimp.”
The next day I find myself browsing through high-end folding loft ladders, wondering how much we’re going to end up spending, or how many evil spirits we’re going to unleash, in order to have somewhere to keep our Christmas lights.
Then I think: this is all your fault, because you saw that little round window, and you couldn’t leave well enough alone.
[ad_2]
#Tim #Dowling #secret #loft #house #Foolishly #told #wife
( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

January 21, 2023
Family of Toronto man allegedly killed by teen girls criticizes law keeping identities secret

[ad_1]
The family of the Toronto man allegedly killed by teen girls in a “swarming” attack have denounced “flaws” in the criminal justice system, criticizing the opacity surrounding youth cases involving serious crimes.
Eight teenage girls have been charged with murder over the death of Ken Lee, who was repeatedly stabbed at a plaza near the main rail station in Canada’s largest city in the early hours of 18 December. Three of the girls are 13, three are 14 and two are 16.
Because of their age, none of the suspects can be identified under Canada’s Youth Criminal Justice Act and few details can be printed by media outlets because of publication bans.
“How is the Act protecting the public if we don’t know who these perpetrators are and why they are released on bail?” Lee’s family said in a statement.
One of the suspects was granted bail in late December and is permitted to return to school. The teen cannot contact her co-accused, possess any weapons or use a mobile phone. She must also remain within the province of Ontario. The remaining suspects are pleading their cases for bail this week and next week.
Toronto police have also linked the group of teens to a series of assaults at downtown subways stations that same evening.
“For serious crimes, these perpetrators should not have any privacy rights or bail,” the family said. “The public should be aware of who these individuals are to protect themselves. The perpetrators must be named in order to bring forth more victims, witness(es) and evidence.”
The family also criticized the court’s decision to permit at least one of the accused to return to school.

“As a parent, my question to the lawmakers who wrote the Youth Criminal Justice Act is how are you protecting my child if the perpetrator cannot be named and she could be in my child’s school or class?”
Following the murder of a police officer last month, Canada’s bail system has come under scrutiny, with political leaders and police chiefs calling for tighter conditions, especially on firearms offences, despite evidence that a majority of those out on bail – who are legally innocent – rarely commit new crimes.
Lee, who had spent years in the city’s shelter system, is believed to have been attacked after he tried to stop the group of teens from stealing a bottle of alcohol from a friend.
“Just note that Ken was a kind soul with a heart of gold … He was not in the system due to alcohol or drug abuse,” his family said. “He was a man with pride who had fallen and wanted to learn to stand up on his own knowing that he always had his family behind him.”
[ad_2]
#Family #Toronto #man #allegedly #killed #teen #girls #criticizes #law #keeping #identities #secret
( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

January 20, 2023
‘Pure terror in musical form’: Dead Space’s composer shares its unsettling secret

[ad_1]
What does “horror” sound like to you? Is it the slow thump of a heartbeat, gradually speeding up as adrenaline and cortisol start to flood the nervous system? Is it the wet thwack of meat on metal as something, somewhere, gets rent asunder? Or is it more understated – a soft whisper in the ear when you weren’t expecting it, half-heard shuffling footsteps, the suggestion of a breeze when the air is supposed to be perfectly still?
Dead Space, the horror game from EA and Visceral that launched for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC back in 2008, managed to get into your head, and under your skin. Complementing the game’s extra-terrestrial, Cronenberg-esque body horror was the mental deterioration of protagonist Isaac Clarke; an engineer stranded aboard the USG Ishimura. He’s not a warrior. He’s not a soldier. He’s just some guy, on a ship teeming with hostile alien lifeforms, whose poor little brain is starting to unravel. For the entire game, you never leave his heavy, blood-soaked boots.
“There’s a very simple technique I came up with that, to me, musically illustrated Isaac’s emotional state,” explains Dead Space composer, Jason Graves. “You can hear it in the very beginning of track four on the soundtrack, Fly Me To The Aegis Seven Moon, and it’s used throughout the entire score. It’s a slowly wavering, single note. Very anxious-sounding. That note builds and expands as the rest of the orchestra slowly dominates and overpowers it.”
Graves’ technique for getting you to empathise with Isaac mimicked what the audio engineers were doing with the rest of the game’s sound. Dead Space employed breathing sound effects and a dull heartbeat in the background to keep you physically in-step with Isaac. The lower your health, the more ragged your breathing became. The closer to death you were, the quicker your heart would beat. You might not have noticed these things consciously … but chances are your body did.
Dead Space’s aim was to expand the boundaries of a horror experience in gaming, taking on all the action beats of Resident Evil and Silent Hill and complementing them with the psychological thriller aspects of cinema. “Kubrick is famous for implementing classical recordings in his films,” reflects Graves. “His use of Penderecki’s music in The Shining was my lightbulb moment for Dead Space. I stumbled across the ‘all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’ typewriter scene one evening on television and thought ‘that’s what the score needs to sound like!’”
‘The closer to death you were, the quicker your heart would beat … Dead Space. Photograph: EA
Graves explains the appeal of the scene; it was a natural, acoustic sound – a normal orchestra performing their instruments – but the techniques they were using made the instruments sound otherworldly. “Like musical necromorphs,” he laughs. “The key to this sound was musical chance, or aleatoric techniques.”
“The point of aleatoric music is giving the player the freedom to decide what to play within a given set of instructions. It might be ‘play the highest note as loud as possible,’ ‘play random open string harmonics very quietly’, or ‘play these five notes as quickly and loudly as you can. These kinds of directions are incredibly fun for the musicians. They act like they are back in school. I had several takes ruined by laughing at the end.”
As unlistenable as aleatoric music sounds, it made perfect sense to commit the technique to a horror game. Especially a horror game with the goal of featuring the scariest soundtrack the world has ever heard. “I spent many, many months poring over scores from the mid-20th century and studying their techniques, convinced that this aleatoric sound of cacophony and confusion was the key to unlocking pure terror in musical form.” says Graves. “After all, what is normal-sounding music but comforting repetition, proper form, tonal balance and tuned, enjoyable sounds? If you take away all those things, you are robbing the listener of every core value that makes music comforting and pleasurable.”

Graves was intent on making you, the player, as uncomfortable as you could be. This wasn’t going to be your traditional score; the original brief he received, which asked for “modern, Hollywood action music with some horror thrown in”, had been jettisoned. This was a cold, new frontier now: “nothing repeats, there is no tonal centre – it’s literally every man and woman (in the orchestra) for themselves.”
Sign up to Pushing Buttons
Keza MacDonald’s weekly look at the world of gaming
Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
‘Nothing repeats, there is no tonal centre – it’s literally every man and woman (in the orchestra) for themselves’ … Dead Space. Photograph: EA
Dead Space was a passion project for Graves. He devoted more than two years of his life to it, and he came away with “over nine hours of recorded technique from each individual section of the orchestra”. Control over each element was essential for how the final product would sound, and how the music would be fed into the game engine. “This kind of music implementation hadn’t been done in games before,” he recalls. “EA was using its own proprietary music engine and really pushing the limits.”
Was it easy? No. Was it effective? Absolutely. Dead Space remains one of the most essential horror games – influential enough to justify a remake, which will be out next week.
“All creative people have their ‘trial by fire’ moments,” says Graves. “Projects that transform how they creatively process and work from that point forward. That’s what Dead Space did for me. Literally, every decision about the score – conception, recording techniques, musicians, recording studios and implementation – were, for better or worse, up to me … Constantly trying new things and pushing boundaries, that’s how you grow as an artist.”
The end result is an unsettling triumph, a curated, player-driven exercise in tension and technique designed to get in your head and stay there, long after you’ve finished playing.
[ad_2]
#Pure #terror #musical #form #Dead #Spaces #composer #shares #unsettling #secret
( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )

January 20, 2023
Open Secret Cookies |24 Assorted Chocolate & Dryfruit Nutty Cookies |2 Gift Boxes (12 Assorted Cookies) | Immunity Boosting Nuts|Healthy Food Hamper|Gift for Mom/Grandmother/Family

Price: [price_with_discount]
(as of [price_update_date] – Details)

[ad_1]

SPECIAL GIFT PACK: This gift pack guarantees love and joy for your special one, so this Valentine week, surprise your husband or wife with this combo box, brought to you by Open Secret’s exclusive gifting range!
PERFECT FOR EVERY OCCASION: This sinfully healthy combination of chocolates & nuts forms for a perfect for gifting on any occasion -Birthday, Anniversary, Valentine’s day/week, Wedding
INGREDIENTS : With 40-50% Nuts (Almonds, Cashew, Peanuts) | No Added Maida | Protein Packed | Full of Fibre | Trans Fat Free | Vegetarian | Allergen Advice – Contains Peanut
IMMUNITY BOOSTER : Nuts & dried fruits have immunity boosting properties and are great source of Vitamin E and Manganese
WHAT DO YOU GET : Pack of 2 Open Secret Gift Boxes. Each Gift Box has 12 Cookies – 4 Choco Almond Nutty Cookies + 4 White Choco Cashew Nutty Cookies + 4 Peanut Butter Nutty Cookies. Each cookie is packed in a pouch to keep them fresh. (Total 24 Cookies)

[ad_2]
#Open #Secret #Cookies #Assorted #Chocolate #Dryfruit #Nutty #Cookies #Gift #Boxes #Assorted #Cookies #Immunity #Boosting #NutsHealthy #Food #HamperGift #MomGrandmotherFamily

November 13, 2022