Yep...they're everywhere alright.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1335830388267308

Same thing three years ago. Get accustomed to it.
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Ghostly Nazi Germany fleet emerges from Danube due to Europe's heatwave
https://www.forcesnews.com/heritage/nava...g-heatwave

INTRO: The skeletal, rusty and sand-covered remains of several Nazi warship wrecks, laden with tonnes of unexploded ammunition and weapons, have resurfaced in the Danube River near the Serbian port town of Prahovo.

This phenomenon is occurring because the Danube is experiencing its lowest water levels in more than 50 years in certain areas of Serbia, largely due to a heatwave affecting Europe – the highest temperature recorded in Prahovo so far this summer has reached 40.0°C.

The heatwave has triggered a drought, disrupting shipping and energy production due to reduced water levels and has led to the discovery of historical artifacts, such as Nazi warships and what historians believe to be the remains of an ancient mammoth in Bulgaria.

About 200 Kriegsmarine, Nazi Germany's naval branch of the Wehrmacht, ships are resting on the Danube's riverbed because, in September 1944, Rear Admiral Paul-Willy Zieb ordered their deliberate sinking in a zigzag pattern to slow down the advancing Soviet Red Army.

The Danube, Europe's second-longest river, flows through four capital cities, links 10 countries and is considered by the European Commission as the "single most important non-oceanic body of water in Europe" and a "future central axis for the European Union".

However, the Nazi warships, which appear whenever the water levels of the Danube go down this low, have nearly halved the navigable width of the Prahovo channel – a narrow shipping route on the river... (MORE - details)

https://youtu.be/EgsRyXDuI38

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1138896

EXCERPTS: The most important people in a clinical trial may be the ones who never join it. Every "no" in a clinical trial is usually treated as the end of a conversation, but a new MUSC study suggests it might be the beginning of an important one.

While recruiting for a parent study, researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) were surprised to discover that patients with college experience were three times more likely to decline participation in an overdose prevention research study than those without a high school diploma. This finding prompted a closer look at who declines to participate in clinical trials.

[...] Rather than treating those 46 refusals as lost opportunities, the researchers saw the chance to learn more about them and why they said no. “The people who declined to participate are a really interesting group that we don’t ask enough questions about,” said McClure. She and her team were driven by one big question: “What are the reasons why people would decline to participate?”

The findings challenged several assumptions about who is most likely to participate in research. Those with any college experience were three times more likely to decline than those without a high school diploma. People without health insurance were also three times more likely to say no than those with insurance. Lastly, the younger the patient, the greater the likelihood of their opting out.

“That’s not what we expected to find,” said McClure. Heretofore, researchers could only speculate about the reasons behind these patterns. Possible explanations have included stigma, misconceptions about research participation or differing attitudes toward treatment among younger adults.

However, through patient self-reporting, researchers learned that the most common reasons for declining participation were wanting to leave the ED as quickly as possible, feeling unwell, disinterest in research and feeling that the intervention wouldn’t be helpful. Notably, many people who declined the study still wanted help. While 56.5% were not in treatment for their substance use, nearly two-thirds said they wanted treatment services. This finding indicates that declining research is not the same as declining care.

“This suggests to me that it’s not something about the peer support itself that is not appealing to them. It’s about being in a research study,” said McClure. Timing and the ED setting both could be additional contributing factors in these cases.

“The desire is there,” explained McClure. “They want peer support, but maybe just not right now.”

They also explored the potential that researchers don’t present opportunities in ways that resonate with participants.

“We expect a lot from people, and research studies can be highly burdensome for participants,” explained McClure. “I see this as a call to action for the research community to improve our methods and improve the ways in which we engage people in research.”

They determined that promising strategies include incorporating technology in a way that makes participation less taxing, like offering telehealth visits and delivering medication by mail. The researchers also cited the importance of connecting with participants when they are ready.... (MORE - missing details, no ads)

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1138139

INTRO: Living amongst large predatory carnivores could actually make you safer. A study publishing in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on August 5 found that pumas—wild cats also known as mountain lions, cougars, or panthers—change deer behavior, leading to fewer collisions with cars on roadways. In areas where puma occupancy is high, the authors report a significant reduction in the total expected number of collisions over a 5-year period.

“We found that large carnivores can make roadways safer through their effects on prey behavior and space use,” says lead author Justin Suraci of Conservation Science Partners in Truckee, California.

“Deer alter their use of both space and time where pumas are present, overlapping less with roads and reducing activity at night, when some of the most dangerous collisions occur," says Suraci. "Increased road safety thus represents an ecosystem service that large predators like pumas can provide to human communities."

The researchers were interested in quantifying these ecosystem services. While it has been suggested that predators of deer and other ungulates might cut down on car accidents, those dynamics had not been clearly shown or quantified in places where large carnivore populations are well established. Suraci and his colleagues studied a large camera trap dataset and spatial data on collisions between vehicles and wildlife to explore pumas’ effects on their prey’s behavior and the implications for human drivers across the Olympic Peninsula of Washington, USA.

“It’s important to remember that large carnivores, like many wildlife species, can only persist if they’re able to share landscapes with people, which in many cases may require us to change our behaviors and attitudes to make coexistence possible,” Suraci says.

The researchers found that, where pumas are present, deer are more active during the day. They were also 15% less likely to be in areas with lots of roads, choosing instead to spend more time in remote habitat areas.

As a result of those changes in deer activity, the researchers calculated a 67% reduction in the likelihood of a deer-vehicle collision. They also estimated a 76% reduction in the expected number of collisions between vehicles and deer over 5 years. Tracking collar data showed an increase in car accidents with deer during the day instead of at night, when those accidents tend to have worse outcomes.

“Deer try to avoid risk from pumas and, in doing so, spend less time near roads and are involved in fewer collisions,” says Suraci. “Carnivores may well be providing a similar road safety service elsewhere around the globe where populations have persisted and this valuable ecosystem service has just gone unnoticed to date.”

By shedding light on these dynamics, the researchers hope that more people may begin to realize the benefits of living among large carnivores. “This may be especially true for the eastern US and Canada, where pumas are slowly, naturally recolonizing, and there are ongoing discussions about a potential reintroduction program,” says Mark Elbroch of Panthera in New York City. (MORE - no ads)

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-57049-5

PRESS RELEASE: A research team led by Professor Hitoshi Yamamoto of Rissho University analyzed five years of longitudinal panel survey data collected between 2020 and 2024 and examined how vaccine-related conspiracy beliefs were associated with media skepticism during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study's results appeared in Scientific Reports on August 8, 2026.

Researchers analyzed annual survey data collected from the same participants over five consecutive years to examine how media use, media skepticism, and subjective media literacy were related to later vaccine conspiracy beliefs.

The analyses suggested that vaccine conspiracy beliefs may involve at least two distinct aspects. One reflects distrust of institutions, including beliefs that governments or pharmaceutical companies conceal information. The other involves highly implausible claims, such as the belief that vaccines contain microchips. These two aspects differed in both their prevalence and the factors associated with them.

In particular, conspiracy beliefs rooted in distrust of institutions were more strongly associated with persistent skepticism toward mainstream media and with increasing skepticism over the course of the pandemic.

By contrast, only a relatively small minority of respondents endorsed highly implausible conspiracy beliefs, such as claims that vaccines contain microchips. The researchers note that these extreme claims may nevertheless appear more prominent in online environments, including social media.

The study is also notable because it examined conspiracy beliefs in Japan, where the media environment is generally considered less politically polarized than in many Western countries. The findings suggest that conspiracy-related beliefs can emerge even in informational environments characterized by relatively broad social consensus.

Professor Yamamoto commented:

“When people think about conspiracy beliefs, attention often focuses on highly extreme claims. However, our findings suggest that more common forms of conspiracy-related thinking are associated with persistent distrust of social institutions and the mainstream media. Addressing misinformation may therefore require not only correcting factual inaccuracies, but also understanding how distrust develops and persists within contemporary information environments.”

A new reason to use the whole watermelon: USDA adds official nutrition profile for watermelon rind
https://www.watermelon.org/watermelon-10...atermelon/

PRESS RELEASE: Watermelon's often-overlooked rind is getting its due. The fruit's outer layer now has an official nutrition profile in USDA FoodData Central, giving registered dietitians, researchers, recipe developers and other food professionals access to standardized nutrition data for a part of the fruit that has long been underutilized. The new listing makes it easier to evaluate watermelon rind in recipes, nutrition education and meal planning while encouraging greater use of the whole watermelon.

According to the new USDA nutrient profile, a 1/3-cup serving (50 grams) of diced raw watermelon rind contains just 10 calories and provides 1 gram of dietary fiber, along with 140 mg of potassium and 4 mg of vitamin C. While the rind isn't intended to replace the nutrient-rich flesh, the new data demonstrates how it can complement watermelon's nutritional value while providing another delicious way to enjoy more of the whole fruit. Whether blended into smoothies and juices, shredded into slaws, quick-pickled or added to stir-fries and relishes, watermelon rind offers a simple way to reduce food waste while making the most of every watermelon.

Watermelon flesh is an excellent source of vitamin C (25% DV), a good source of vitamin B5 (10% DV), and also provides vitamin A (8% DV), vitamin B6 (8% DV) and potassium (6% DV), along with naturally occurring lycopene. At about 92% water and just 80 calories per two-cup serving, watermelon is a refreshing, nutrient-dense fruit that supports healthy eating patterns.

"We've long encouraged consumers to use the whole watermelon, from the sweet flesh to the versatile rind," said Megan McKenna, Sr. Director of Marketing & Foodservice at the National Watermelon Promotion Board. "The new USDA nutrient profile gives registered dietitians and other health professionals the standardized data they need to confidently incorporate watermelon rind into recipes and nutrition guidance, helping consumers get even more value from every watermelon they bring home."

The new USDA listing builds on a growing body of research highlighting watermelon's role in a healthy diet. An analysis of NHANES data published in Nutrients found that children and adults who consume watermelon have higher overall diet quality and greater intakes of dietary fiber, magnesium, potassium, vitamins A and C, lycopene and other carotenoids than non-consumers, while also consuming less added sugar and saturated fat. Although these results are promising, further research is needed, and the findings cannot be translated across all populations.

To learn more about watermelon nutrition, recipes and research, visit www.watermelon.org.

We can’t just lie about sex differences
https://www.skeptic.com/article/is-evolu...fferences/

INTRO: In this conversation with Timur Sevincer and Nikil Mukerji, Steve Stewart-Williams, author of the new book A Billion Years of Sex Differences, discusses what evolutionary psychology actually claims, how the field can deepen our understanding of human nature, where the field has gone wrong, why the charge of pseudoscience misses the target, and how skeptics should respond when real science becomes politically unwelcome.

EXCERPT... Nikil Mukerji: Some findings in evolutionary psychology are bound to annoy people, especially in certain political milieus. Are you concerned that this kind of science might play into the wrong hands? How do you deal with the ethics of communicating sex differences?

Steve Stewart-Williams: Claims about sex differences can certainly be misused if people exaggerate the size of the differences, or if people infer that, because a difference has an evolutionary basis, it’s therefore good or should be preserved. That can do harm. If we exaggerate differences, we may lower our expectations for one sex in certain domains.

To this issue I have two responses. First, the sexes do differ on average, and I think there’s an evolutionary contribution to some of those differences. We can’t just lie about that. The right response is to tell the truth carefully and responsibly.

That means emphasizing that most human sex differences aren’t huge. There’s a lot of overlap between the sexes. Everyone should get a fair chance. And the fact that something is natural, genetic, or partly shaped by evolution has no direct moral implications.

Second, denial can also do harm. It’s not the case that exaggerating sex differences is dangerous while minimizing them is harmless. We can get this wrong in both directions... (MORE - details)

Insightful analysis of Tarkovsky's masterpiece and how he used symbols to unveil the presence of a transcendental unknown...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlPmi9NLNm4&t=66s