Author: palmbeachocean.com

Move over, blue whales. There could be a new heavyweight champ in town. Fossilized vertebrae and ribs from a newly discovered ancient whale suggest that it could have outweighed modern blue whales, researchers report August 2 in Nature. If so, the extinct whale would be the heaviest animal ever known to exist. The roughly 39-million-year-old behemoth, Perucetus colossus, is a type of cetacean, a group that includes modern whales, dolphins and porpoises. And its bones were massive. P. colossus’ skeleton alone could have weighed about 5 to 7 metric tons, two to three times as much as a 25-meter-long blue…

Hollywood actors have now been on strike for nearly three weeks. They have walked picket lines in broiling heat, orchestrated noisy rallies and flooded social media with cris de coeur. Harrison Ford’s stunt double lit himself on fire (safely) at a protest in Georgia. The president of the actors’ union, Fran Drescher, spoke on Tuesday about “greed-driven” studios at a New York City Council meeting.But some people have been puzzled about one missing element. As Variety, the entertainment trade magazine, put it in a July 24 headline, “Why Haven’t A-List Stars Joined the SAG-AFTRA Picket Line?”As it turns out, some…

I flinched when Seniesa Estrada took a shot. When she twisted to evade a jab, I found myself twisting, too. When she plowed a left hook into the jaw of her Argentine challenger, Leonela Yúdica, I hoped such aggression would lead to a knockout.As Estrada defended her World Boxing Association and World Boxing Council mini flyweight titles on Friday in front of nearly 2,500 fans at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas, I watched her fight from the stands for the first time in 18 years.In the early 2000s, when I was a city reporter for The Los Angeles…

Missed the GamesBeat Summit excitement? Don’t worry! Tune in now to catch all of the live and virtual sessions here. Nintendo saw a big boost in revenue and operating profit in the first fiscal quarter ended June 30 thanks to the success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie and the popularity of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Tears of the Kingdom sold more than 18 million units after its launch in May through June 30, a tremendous result for the highly rated game on the Nintendo Switch. Tears of the Kingdom debuted on May 12 and it…

For many, the idea of swimming in open water is unnerving. The waves, tides and deep waters often prevent people from venturing out. But for those who do, it’s a fun and exhilarating challenge that’s good for your body and mind.Open-water swimming provides a long list of benefits. Because you do it in nature, it can be therapeutic: A 2020 study of novice outdoor swimmers found that after 10 weekly sessions, they experienced fewer bad moods and an increase in well-being. Like with many endurance sports, it helps strengthen your cardiovascular system, keeping your heart healthy and reducing the risk…

It’s easy to spot VanMoof electric bikes on Amsterdam’s streets. The riders are often young professionals who are barely pedaling as they whiz past fellow cyclists.But those riding the sleek bikes these days aren’t sitting so comfortably.VanMoof, the Dutch e-bike maker that gained a zealous following, tripled its sales in the pandemic and raised more than $180 million in funding, declared bankruptcy last month, leaving riders in limbo. That’s because the eye-catching e-bikes, which start around $2,000, are built from proprietary parts that only the company makes, available mostly at company-run service centers. And many of the bikes’ functions are…

The New York baseball teams spent more than $600 million, combined, on their payrolls this season. They ranked first (Mets) and second (Yankees) in the majors in spending, yet arrived at the trading deadline on Tuesday with more collective losses than wins.Take a moment to absorb that, or maybe to appreciate it. Spending so much for so little is spectacularly hard to do, especially because it came without warning: A year ago at this time, both teams held first place in their divisions. Now a two-line summer breakdown has derailed all dreams of a Subway Series this fall.The last-place Yankees…

Facepalm: Live television has been a great source of bloopers for decades. It only takes one mistake to send the planned banter off the rails. So producers, actors, hosts, and everyone involved in a live production must be ready for the occasional mishap. With the rise of live streaming, this has never been more true. On Tuesday, the Twitch channel Corner2Corner apologized for a major faux pas during a recent Street Fighter tournament it hosted. According to Corner2Corner, the host announcing one of the matches inadvertently left a “graphical mod” on, leaving Chun-Li naked for several seconds. “Corner2Corner wish to…

From my CT scan, I expected a brush with mortality — the opportunity to see the forbidden land of my own guts, to contemplate their eventual decomposition. By that point I had already had an organ removed (my gallbladder), and I suppose I expected to register its absence somehow. What I saw instead was just shades of gray and blobs of darkness. Nothing was recognizable as an organ. At one point, I remember, the doctor directed me to pay attention to something that, in his own words, did not look like anything at all. That, he wanted me to know,…

Marietje Schaake’s résumé is full of notable roles: Dutch politician who served for a decade in the European Parliament, international policy director at Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center, adviser to several nonprofits and governments.Last year, artificial intelligence gave her another distinction: terrorist. The problem? It isn’t true.While trying BlenderBot 3, a “state-of-the-art conversational agent” developed as a research project by Meta, a colleague of Ms. Schaake’s at Stanford posed the question “Who is a terrorist?” The false response: “Well, that depends on who you ask. According to some governments and two international organizations, Maria Renske Schaake is a terrorist.” The…