How many planes does Embraer make?

 

Embraer, an aerospace company based in Brazil (with HQ in Sao Paulo), makes a lot of jets. I've flown on at least one of their commercial varieties, perhaps more than one.  They make planes that dust crops, fancy executive jets, and military aircraft, too.

I read this article recently:

Avelo Airlines places $4 billion order for up to 100 Embraer E195-E2 jets

100 jets is a lot of jets.  But they make a lot more than just those, of course. 

I mentioned above that I'd flown on at least one Embraer jet. In fact, I think it was this model; it was definitely this airline.

What can't perovskite do?

 

You may have read the title of this post and asked yourself, "What is perovskite?"

Good question!  Here's an answer:

Everything you ever wanted to know about perovskite, Earth's most abundant type of mineral—that we almost never see  (YouTube video)

This is from "Perovskites for Clean Energy":

"A perovskite is a material that has the same crystal structure as the mineral calcium titanium oxide, the first-discovered perovskite crystal. Generally, perovskite compounds have a chemical formula ABX3, where ‘A’ and ‘B’ represent cations and X is an anion that bonds to both. A large number of different elements can be combined together to form perovskite structures. Using this compositional flexibility, scientists can design perovskite crystals to have a wide variety of physical, optical, and electrical characteristics. Perovskite crystals are found today in ultrasound machines, memory chips, and now – solar cells."

The aforementioned crystal structure:

Now, you are invited to do all of the research you want on perovskites, and all that they can do. This post is about this article:

First “Perovskite Camera” Can See Inside the Human Body
A new detector promises to lower the cost and increase the quality of nuclear medicine.

(I'll give you the introduction.)

"Physicians rely on nuclear medicine scans, like SPECT scans, to watch the heart pump, track blood flow and detect diseases hidden deep inside the body. But today’s scanners depend on expensive detectors that are difficult to make.

Now, scientists led by Northwestern University and Soochow University in China have built the first perovskite-based detector that can capture individual gamma rays for SPECT imaging with record-breaking precision. The new tool could make common types of nuclear medicine imaging sharper, faster, cheaper and safer.

For patients, that could mean shorter scan times, clearer results and lower doses of radiation."

Enjoy the rest.

Reference: Shen N, He X, Gao T, et al. Single photon γ-ray imaging with high energy and spatial resolution perovskite semiconductor for nuclear medicine. Nature Communications 2025;16(1):8113. doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-63400-7.

And the winner is ...

 

Rachel Pizzolato, who I mentioned for the first time earlier this year, just won the Miss Swimsuit USA contest.

You can read a little about it here. I can't find an official announcement, but I'll keep looking. There is this reel on Instagram. 

I'll have more on this, and on Rachel, soon. I've been waiting for the right moment, and she's involved in some of my thoughts on beauty.

Meanwhile, here's a shots of Rachel modeling in a swimsuit, which is one thing among many she's good at doing.

Prager U is ridiculous

 

Prager University, PragerU for short, is a conservative propaganda outlet that seeks to affect American thought from a Christian nationalist perspective. They want to put Christianity (their brand) everywhere, rewrite and whitewash history, teach kids their version of history, and spread their word in any nook and cranny of society they can.  I monitor their information.

A recent offering was a ranking of Presidents based on a survey of conservatives (which included Pete Hegseth, so we know the level of intellect that was involved). Let their words introduce it.

"For decades, most presidential rankings have come from a narrow, left-leaning perspective. Our Presidential Rankings Survey sets out to broaden the conversation by inviting voices and viewpoints that are often ignored. We want to give Americans a fuller, more balanced picture of our nation’s leaders—one that looks beyond long-held assumptions and encourages deeper thinking about what truly makes a great president."

I'll give you a hint right now; if you're liberal, you won't do well. If the right-wing wants to demonize you, and blame you for everything bad that they can, you're really not going to do well.  

PragerU's Presidential Rankings

They didn't rank Trump, because he's just getting started on wrecking the country and ending American democracy.  They didn't rank Harrison or Garfield either, because they didn't last long enough.

Hence, Joe Biden ranks last.  

So, ridiculously, we have Biden ranked well behind Nixon, Fillmore, Pierce, Harding, and Grant, to name five who usually don't rank very high on anybody's legitimate list. Obama and Carter are just ahead of impeached Andrew Johnson at the bottom of the list. FDR?  Who led the U.S. through the Great Depression and World War II?  Middle of the pack at 20th. 

Ronald Reagan is THIRD.  Behind Lincoln and Washington. The guy who probably would have been impeached if his underlings hadn't fallen on their swords over Iran-Contra.  And fourth is Calvin Coolidge, ahead of some guy named Jefferson.  

Hey, how about Teddy R., the other face on Mount Rushmore?  Tenth.

Give me a break. PragerU is not fit to teach history. What they are doing is preaching their brand and twists on history.  

Lighthouse of the Week, October 26 - November 1, 2025: Newburyport Harbor Range Rear, Massachusetts, USA

 

As I mentioned in last week's Lighthouse of the Week post, I'm featuring two lighthouses that are very close to each other, in Newburyport, Massachusetts.

So this week it's the Newburyport Harbor Range Rear light, which doubles as a lighthouse and a place to eat. Seriously!

Back to the map, as a reminder: this is where it is.

The Lighthouse Directory gives us this information about it:

"1873. Inactive since 1961. 53 ft (16 m) square tapered red brick tower with lantern and gallery, attached to a 2-story wood keeper's house. The tower is unpainted on three sides; the side facing the river is painted white. Lantern and gallery painted black. The keeper's house is used for offices. ... The Lighthouse Preservation Society reached an agreement with the owner, developer David Hall, to have the structure restored and interpreted. LPS is offering the tower for dinners for two with a reservation fee $350, half going to the preservation fund."

Learn more about that here:  Lighthouse Preservation Society  (good animations)

Another page at Lighthouse Friends: Newburyport Harbor Range Rear, MA

And now a few pictures, with StreetView first:

This is INDEED a brave new world

 

Just read the headline, and see if you agree.

Scientists Take First Step to Creating Human Eggs and Sperm in Lab

Really?   The end of this road could be somewhat ... dehumanizing.

" “Healthy eggs and sperm are the product of an extremely complex and error-prone process. Our study pushes the envelope in replicating one of its quintessential features in the culture dish,” said senior author and Wyss Core Faculty member George Church, Ph.D. “We are in an excellent position now to also find the means to steer cells all the way through the remaining steps of meiosis, which would provide a basis for modeling a number of defects, and creating healthy gametes for individuals who can’t efficiently get there by themselves.” Church is also Professor of Genetics at HMS and Professor of Health Sciences and Technology at Harvard and MIT. He also leads the Wyss Institute’s Synthetic Biology Platform."

The article is somewhat long, and fairly technical, but the results are quite intriguing. Are fully test-tube babies on the way?

Get the details:

Reference: Smela MP, Adams J, Ma C, et al. Initiation of meiosis from human iPSCs under defined conditions through identification of regulatory factors. Science Advances 11(33):eadu0384. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adu0384

A sad passing in the classical music world

 

I haven't noted this death of a noteworthy conductor of classical music before, but it is worth doing.  He was truly a maestro.

Christoph von Dohnányi, maestro who elevated Cleveland Orchestra, dies at 95

Here he is in action at rehearsal.

The changing (not the Chang-ying) river

 

During this government shutdown, the NASA Earth Observatory is not providing an Image of the Day, and that's very unfortunate, because their images of the day are frequently both striking and informative.

Such is the case with this one that I'm recommending.

Braided River in Tibet Redraws Its Channels

Go to the article to see a somewhat incredible animation.  This is a still image acquired on February 8, 2025.

"The channels of braided rivers shift substantially from year to year due to high sediment discharge from nearby steep mountains, according to Zoltán Sylvester, a research professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Flooding events frequently remobilize the steady accumulation of loose, coarse sediment, preventing vegetation from becoming established on the sandbars."

Octopus date rape

 

As the article notes, sexual reproduction can be a real pain if the male doesn't get a chance to survive the act.

No, I'm not talking about the movie Species.  This is actually about the species of octopus that featured in the James Bond movie Octopussy.  It turns out that the males have to use a clever strategy to mate with the much larger females.  Unlike Roger Moore, who used his great good looks, charm, wit, and perseverance, the octopus males simply bite the females and inject them with a neurotoxin.

So, I have a popular description of the article and also the actual research article.

First, the popular description:

Sex Can Be Deadly for Many Male Species. Octopuses Have a Unique Strategy to Survive: Injecting Venom Into Their Partner

"Due to the significant size difference, males can’t use tactics found in other octopuses. Some species have developed a longer reproductive arm to inseminate from a safe distance, while others have a detachable reproductive arm that allows them to escape. As such, the only option left for male blue-lined octopuses is to bite the female and inject her with neurotoxin directly."

(The article has a video, which is mildly disturbing, but hey, a guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do if he doesn't want to be the midnight snack.)

The actual research paper (but to read it, you have to pay for it):

Blue-lined octopus Hapalochlaena fasciata males envenomate females to facilitate copulation

"A variety of phylogenetically distant taxa, including flatworms, mollusks, amphibians, and fishes, use the deadly neurotoxin tetrodotoxin (TTX) for predation and defense1. A well-known example is the blue-lined octopus, Hapalochlaena fasciata (Hoyle, 1886), which uses symbiotic bacteria to sequester TTX in its posterior salivary glands (PSG)2. When it bites, the TTX-laden saliva immobilizes large prey and has caused lethal envenomation in a few incidents involving humans3. Female blue-lined octopuses are about twice the size of males, which bears the risk of males being cannibalized during reproduction4. Surprisingly, we found that the PSG of males is roughly three times heavier than that of females. Using laboratory mating experiments, we show that males use a high-precision bite that targets the female’s aorta to inject TTX at the start of copulation. Envenomating the females renders them immobile, enabling the males to mate successfully."

 

Mitch McConnell picks and chooses

 

Mitch McConnell, former Senate majority leader and full-time political villain, did an interview with the Lexington Herald-Leader that was discussed in The Guardian.  

It was interesting.  Not good interesting, but insightfully interesting.

Trump is president in ‘most dangerous period’ since second world war, Mitch McConnell says: Former Senate leader likens administration’s fixation with tariffs to isolationist policies of the US in the 1930s

This part was particularly interesting, in the not-in-a-good-way way.

"But while decrying the lack of US preparedness to confront authoritarian regimes abroad, the 83-year-old McConnell – a senator since 1985 and leader of Republicans in the chamber for a record 18 years until he stood down earlier this year, then announced his upcoming retirement – did not discuss the Trump administration’s own moves towards authoritarianism.

He also glossed over his own responsibility for handing Trump so much power. As majority leader, McConnell maneuvered to deny Barack Obama a rightful supreme court pick, and rushed to give Trump another in the final weeks of his first term in 2020. It made McConnell the architect of the current ultraconservative 6-3 majority on a panel that critics say has been overly loyal to Trump, not least last year’s astonishing ruling giving him immunity for criminal acts."

I seem to remember that McConnell said that one of the nefarious (my word) acts that he was most proud of was using all of his villainous machinations (my description) to seat that conservative bloc of justices, who are rapidly unraveling our democratic norms.  Great job, Mitch. Glad to see you're gone.

This book has more. 

The Betrayal: How Mitch McConnell and the Senate Republicans Abandoned America

Ekaterina Zueva shows her quality

 

I have celebrated the beauty and sensuality of Russian glamour model / influencer / fashion model / OnlyFans model (though I don't do OF) -- Ekaterina Zueva several times on this blog.  She is lithe, lissome, curvy, elegant, sexy, alluring, sometimes cute, sometimes smoldering hot, sometimes gloriously au naturel. 

In this case, in red lingerie on the white walls of Santorini, she shows her fashion model beauty and her sensuality. And she also demonstrates a delectable derriere.  

Lighthouse of the Week, October 19-25, 2025: Newburyport Harbor Range Front, Massachusetts, USA

 

I'm featuring a pair of lighthouses this week and next, both in the same location. Why?  Because they're there.  

Where they are is Newburyport, Massachusetts.  The lighthouse I'm featuring next week has a designated location on the map, but this week's lighthouse doesn't.  So I'll show you where next week's lighthouse is and tell you where this week's lighthouse is.

Here's where next week's lighthouse is.  Now, to get to this week's lighthouse, go here, and you can see it using satellite high-resolution imagery. See that little tower on the right?  That is this week's lighthouse.

And here's what the Lighthouse Directory tells us is true about it.

"1873. Inactive since 1961. 15 ft (4.5 m) round cast iron tower with lantern and gallery, painted white; lantern roof is red. The lantern is a restoration (1990). ... In 1901 the original lantern was removed and the tower was extended with an octagonal wood tower, later raised to a total tower height of 35 ft (11 m). The lighthouse was relocated in 1964 from Bayley's Wharf to the grounds of the Merrimack River Coast Guard Station. Sometime in the 1990s the wood tower was damaged by fire; the Coast Guard then removed the wooden extension and added the replica of the original lantern. In 1999 the Coast Guard agreed to lease the tower to the Lighthouse Preservation Society for full restoration and interpretation. Campbell Construction Group performed some renovation in late 2001. Located on the waterfront between Federal Street and Independent Street, about 350 ft (100 m) east of the rear light."

Given its diminutive size, it has several pages about it.

Newburyport Harbor Range Front, MA  (Lighthouse Friends)

Newburyport Harbor Range Lights, Massachusetts (The Lighthouse Guy; this includes pictures of next week's lighthouse)

Pictures below, and maybe a surprise.

Here's the surprise: a live webcam showing the little lighthouse.

Preview of a real attraction

 

Eniko Mihalik.

More about her soon, and there's a lot to say.

If they make it that far

 

Rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations also means decreasing ocean pH.  Climate (and Earth system) change deniers say that calling that "ocean acidification" is misleading, because the ocean pH is alkaline, and so decreasing pH doesn't mean the oceans are acidifying, it just means they're become less alkaline.

Seriously.

Decreasing ocean pH changes the balance of carbonate and bicarbonate ions in seawater, with the equilibrium shifting toward bicarbonate (HCO3 -) from carbonate (CO3 2-).  If you're a chemist you know that the 3 should be subscripted and the minus or 2- should be superscripted.  More bicarbonate and less carbonate changes the saturation state of seawater with respect to calcium carbonate, CaCO3, making CaCO3 more soluble.  In other words, more of it can dissolve.

The subject now is sharks. Sharks may have cartilaginous skeletons, but they have teeth similar to ours -- made of fluoroapatite (calcium phosphate with fluorine). Sharks and other fish have teeth made of enameloid, similar to human enamel.  These substances are subject to dissolution, and the lower the pH, the more subject they are to dissolving.

That's what the study was about. Making use of a naturally occurring raw material (lost shark teeth at the bottom of an aquarium tank), the researchers compared dissolution at pH of 8.1 to dissolution at pH of 7.3, which the oceans are predicted to reach in 2300.  (By the way, that would be incredibly bad.)  The shark's teeth in 7.3 pH seawater were "significantly more damaged".  No surprise there.

Now, as I note, if Earth still has sharks in 2300, I will be both surprised and spectacularly happy, even though I will have been deceased for much more than a century. Even if their teeth are in bad shape.

Sharks May Be Losing Their Teeth to Ocean Acidity
A leading cause of a rising pH value in the world’s oceans is human CO2 emission.

"Blacktip reef sharks must swim with their mouths permanently open to be able to breathe, so teeth are constantly exposed to water. If the water is too acidic, the teeth automatically take damage, especially if acidification intensifies, the researchers said. “Even moderate drops in pH could affect more sensitive species with slow tooth replication circles or have cumulative impacts over time,” Baum pointed out. “Maintaining ocean pH near the current average of 8.1 could be critical for the physical integrity of predators’ tools.”

Reference: Maximilian Baum M, Haussecker T, Walenciak O, et al. Simulated ocean acidification affects shark tooth morphology. Frontiers in Marine Science, 2025. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2025.1597592

This is absolutely vital research

 

Can't pass this article up;  researchers worked for years to figure out why the head (foam) on top of beers lasts longer for some kinds of beers -- particularly higher alcohol content Belgian Tripel beers.

OK, that sounds frivolous, maybe. But a good beer is much appreciated by discerning beer drinkers, and the foam is part of both the entertainment and the enjoyment. And underlying the seeming frivolity is some really fascinating chemistry and physics, which could be useful for other, perhaps more important, processes and phenomena.

So let's dive into the glass or mug, as the case may be.

Why Belgian Beers Lasts So Long
The Belgian researcher and his team put seven years of work into the subject.  (And I hope they enjoyed it, too.)

"In this study, the materials scientists showed that when it comes to the Belgian ales studied, “Tripel” beers have the most stable foam, followed by “Dubbel” beers. The head is least stable in beers without intense fermentation and with the lowest alcohol content (“Singel”)."

But WHY? you are certainly asking.

"In lager beers, surface viscoelasticity is the decisive factor. This is influenced by the proteins present in the beer, as well as their denaturation: the more proteins the beer contains, the more rigid the film around the bubbles becomes and the more stable the foam will be.

The situation is different with “Tripel”-style beers, where surface viscoelasticity is actually minimal. Stability is achieved through so-called Marangoni stresses – forces that arise from differences in surface tension."

(Really cool video demonstrating Marangoni effects)

So you can read the article or the paper (reference below).

Reference: Chatzigiannakis E, Alicke A, Le Bars L, et al. The hidden subtlety of beer foam stability: A blueprint for advanced foam formulations. Phys Fluids. 2025. doi: 10.1063/5.0274943.

I'll finish with Nicola Cavanis and beer.

Nicola:

Beer (a Belgian Tripel):

Save Earth's ozone. Cause more global warming. Sheesh.

OK, so it's important to save the ozone layer from the damaging chemistry caused by chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs, of course) and hydrofluorocarbons (HCFCs, of course). And it's also important to phase out the use of CFCs and HCFCs because they too are greenhouse gases.

So if you do that -- phase out the CFCs and HCFCs -- then that's a good thing for global warming, right? Because there are less GHGs in the atmosphere, and per molecule, these species cause more warming than CO2.

However, more ozone means, and this seems quite unfair, more global warming.

What's an environmentalist to do?

Still, the ozone layer has to be preserved and protected. Not having one, or having a much less effective one, would be real bad.'

So, ultimately, it becomes even more urgent to reduce CO2 emissions as much as possible.

Sorry, fossil fuel interests, that's the way it is.

Ozone Will Warm Planet More Than First Thought

The findings show that stopping CFC and HCFC production provides less climate benefit than previously calculated.

"The findings show that stopping CFC and HCFC production - done mainly to protect the ozone layer - provides less climate benefit than previously calculated. CFCs and HCFCs are greenhouse gases that warm the planet. Countries banned them to save the ozone layer, expecting this would also help fight climate change. But as the ozone layer heals, it creates more warming that cancels out most of the climate benefits from removing CFCs and HCFCs."

Reference: Collins WJ, O'Connor FM, Byrom RE, et al. Climate forcing due to future ozone changes: an intercomparison of metrics and methods. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, 2025. doi: 10.5194/acp-25-9031-2025.

Monitor the mental workload in your brain

 

This particular paper has echoes of a whole lot of science fiction stories and novels, ranging from the utopian to the dystopian (but a lot more of the latter).  

Essentially, it's about an electronic sticker (which they call an e-tattoo) that can be placed right on the forehead to make it possible to monitor the brain's electrical activity, via the techniques of electroencephalography (EEG) and electrooculography (EOG).  If you're wondering about the latter, it's monitoring the eye's activity, including blinks and tracking movements (technically called saccades).

By doing this, they can monitor the brain activity of the subject(s) wearing the e-tattoo and estimate their mental workload.  At the most basic level, it's very cool that they can do this without having a really big machine or machines to do it. 

At the level of practical implementation, if this is determined to be reliable, this could be really good for people working tasks or jobs that are high stress, which would intuitively be expected to cause a high mental workload.  If the mental workload is high over an extended period of time, this can result in fatigue, errors of judgment/mistakes, and loss of productivity.  So knowing that's happening could allow intervention -- giving someone a break, changing shifts, or rotating between high- and lower-stress tasks. So it could be good.

On the other hand, using such technology routinely could be very intrusive. Employers could monitor employees to make sure their mental workload is high enough, so that they are being efficient and productive.  If the system shows too many low mental workload periods, that could mean that they aren't engaged and paying attention.  Maybe they should be, or maybe they just work better that way. But it would also cause stress if a worker thinks (ha) that their monitor is observing that they aren't mentally working hard enough.  And given the burgeoning potential of AI, monitoring brain activity and what tasks correspond to patterns of activity might even indicate what people are thinking about, not only how hard they're thinking.

So yeah, it's very cool that it can be done, but is it altogether a good thing that it can be?

Reference: A wireless forehead e-tattoo for mental workload estimation
Huh, Heeyong et al. Device, Volume 3, Issue 8, August 15, 2025, DOI:10.1016/j.device.2025.100781

What it looks like:

Who was the Dragon Man?

 

The "Dragon Man" here refers not to a character from "Game of Thrones", but to a skull.  After some detailed anthropological work, it has been determined that the Dragon Man skull belongs to a Denisovan, a lesser-celebrated (compared to the Neanderthals) hominid ancestor/cousin of Homo sapiens, in the form of the Cro-Magnon forebears. 

‘Dragon Man’ skull belongs to mysterious human relative

At long last, scientists have a nearly complete cranium from hominins known as Denisovans

The skull itself:

See the reconstruction here:  Discovery of 'Dragon Man' skull in China prompts rethink of human evolution

For more on this (it helps if you have a subscription to Science which I don't):

Stunning ‘Dragon Man' skull may be an elusive Denisovan—or a new species of human

Now you (and I) know its name

 

I have several posts on the blog about the Faroe Islands, most of which are about lighthouses, but one of them mentions a world-class swimmer from the islands, which despite being surrounded by COLD water, isn't common for a low-population region such as this.

Now, if you happened to see the live+CGI remake of How to Train Your Dragon (which was quite good), there were great aerial views of the Faroe Islands in some of the flying scenes.  But one I think they skipped, because of the proximity of human habitation, was an iconic (perhaps THE iconic) shot of the islands:  the Múlafossur (Mule Falls). 

Why is it iconic? Because this slender strand of whitewater drops straight off the island over a rocky cliff into the ocean. And sometimes, when the wind is strong, the waterfall reverses and a lot of the water never makes it to the ocean, it gets blown back onto the land. 

There are hundreds of pictures and videos of this feature. Just search and see.  If you want to get there and see it in person, this is a good read: 

Múlafossur Waterfall: A Guide to Visiting Vágar’s Majestic Gem

So happy searching; I've provide one picture and one video below this line.

Lighthouse of the Week, October 12-18, 2025: Cleveland East Ledge, Massachusetts, USA

 

That's right, there's a Cleveland in Massachusetts. In this case, it's a lighthouse in Buzzard's Bay, the body of water generally southeast of the main state and west of Cape Cod.  And it's all by itself out in the bay, as you can see here. Note:  Google Maps shows two locations for the same lighthouse, and I don't think it's drifting. According to Lighthouse Friends, it is situated at Latitude: 41.63097, Longitude: -70.69424, which means it's actually at the southern location of the two choices Google Maps offers.

Now that we've figured that out, here's the good information from the Lighthouse Directory:

"1943. Active; focal plane 74 ft (22.5 m); white flash every 10 s, day and night. 70 ft (21 m) round cylindrical reinforced concrete tower with lantern and gallery, atop a 2-story octagonal reinforced concrete keeper's quarters, all mounted on a concrete caisson. 190 mm lens (1978). Fog horn (blast every 15 s) on demand. Building painted white, lantern black, caisson red. ... This Art Moderne building is one of the last more-or-less traditional lighthouses built in the U.S. It was renovated by the Coast Guard in 1990. In 2007 the lighthouse became available for transfer under NHLPA. No suitable recipients came forward and in December 2010 the lighthouse was sold at auction for $190,000 to Sandy D. Boyd of Emeryville, California, the owner of a chain of coffeehouses. Boyd is researching the history of the station and plans to restore the lighthouse as a vacation residence. Located on a reef on the east side of the main Buzzard's Bay channel, off West Falmouth."

Regarding the restoration, I hope Sandy Byrd has some money, because taking everything necessary for a full restoration out to the lighthouse by boat is likely the opposite of inexpensive.

The pictures below show what it looks like, including a night shot.

Luchshaya devushka diktatora

 

That translates as "the dictator's best girlfriend".

I thought I had posted more than once about Vladimir Putin's girlfriend/mistress/likely mother to at least one of his progeny, Alina Kabaeva, but a quick search only found one post on the blog. I might try a deeper search later, as it's possible I've used more than one spelling.

Anyway, this is a throwback to when the Olympic artistic gymnast (one of the best ever) posed in the Russian version of Maxim magazine in 2004.  I did not remember seeing these pictures before. It's not difficult to see why Vladdy wanted to be her baby daddy.

I really like the third one here. Warm and inviting.

The missing colony mystery solved -- maybe

 

I haven't seen any "legit" science magazines or journals discussing and presenting this story; I first saw it in the Daily Mail.  

It sounds legitimate and it sounds like this could be the key to the mystery. But it has to pass scientific scrutiny, so stay tuned.

There are actually two stories; one is about the map, and one is about the hammerscale. See below.

1. The map:  Secret in 400-year-old map may have finally solved the mystery of Roanoke

"Those remained mere conjectures for 422 years until British Museum curator Kim Sloan and colleague Alice Rugheimer shed literal light on the mystery: They put John White’s map on a lightbox to see what was behind the blank coverup, whereupon the duo discovered a symbol for a fort.

“I said to Alice, ‘I think we just discovered the intended site for the Cittie of Raleigh, the colony that John White was sent to Virginia to found,'” Sloan told Popular Mechanics. “And then I think I swore.”

2. The hammerscale: (hammerscale is bits of iron that come off a piece being forged) ‘The Lost Colony Isn’t Lost Anymore’: New Artifacts Could Finally Prove What Happened To The ‘Lost Colony Of Roanoke’

"Dawson and Horton have been digging near the former Roanoke and Croatoan settlements for more than a decade, during which they uncovered numerous weapons and European artifacts on Hatteras Island. Those discoveries provided some good support for Dawson’s theory, but the artifacts could just as easily have supported some of the more macabre theories about the colonists’ fates. 

As the researchers said, “coins and sword hilts could have got to Hatteras through trade or a passing settler.” 

Their most recent discovery, however, is a clear sign that European settlers were indeed living on the island. “The hammerscale shows that English settlers lived among the Croatoans on Hatteras and were ultimately absorbed into their community,” Horton told the Daily Mail. 

“Once and for all, this smoking gun evidence answers any questions about the supposed mystery of the lost colony.” Horton asserted that the Croatoan would not have been conducting the sort of blacksmithing that would produce hammerscale — but English settlers would have."

Hammerscale looks like this:

Coffee, happiness, and the bee buzz

 

Coffee apparently makes someone happier (especially the grumpy not-morning people types).

Plus, there's something interesting at the end.

Your Coffee in the Morning May Be Linked to Greater Happiness

Morning caffeine boosts happiness and enthusiasm in regular consumers, with smaller effects on reducing sadness.

"Regular caffeine consumers report feeling happier and more enthusiastic after drinking coffee or other caffeinated beverages, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Warwick and Bielefeld University. The effect was most evident in the morning, when caffeine consumption led to a marked increase in positive mood compared with mornings when participants had not yet consumed caffeine.

The study, published in Scientific Reports, followed 236 young adults in Germany over a period of up to 4 weeks. Participants completed brief mood assessments on their smartphones 7 times a day and noted whether they had consumed a caffeinated drink in the previous 90 minutes."

And here's the fun and interesting part:

"Caffeine is the most widely used psychoactive substance globally, with around 80% of adults regularly consuming it. The researchers note that caffeine use extends beyond humans – for example, bees and bumblebees have been shown to prefer nectar from caffeine-containing plants."

So possibly the next time you hear a buzz, it might be a buzzed bee (however, I don't know what plants in the United States or North America are caffeinated).    [The reference is below the picture.]

Reference: Hachenberger J, Li YM, Realo A, Lemola S. The association of caffeine consumption with positive affect but not with negative affect changes across the day. Scientific Reports, 2025, 15(1):28536. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-14317-0

Lighthouse of the Week, October 5-11, 2025: Kingston Buci, Shoreham, UK

I went with the short name of this lighthouse, as the long name is the Shoreham Middle Pier Range Rear Light.  This one is in southern England, in Shoreham (of course), roughly midway between Portsmouth to the west and Eastbourne to the east (naturally), also east of the Isle of Wight.

It's gray, but with a gold ball and windvane on top, so it's slightly fancy.

The Lighthouse Directory information is short -- not a great deal of history or heritage associated with this one, apparently.

"1846. Active; focal plane 13 m (43 ft); white flash every 10 s. 12 m (39 ft) round limestone tower with lantern and gallery. Lighthouse is unpainted gray stone; lantern is black. ... The lantern was reconstructed in 1985. The Shoreham Harbour Lifeboat Station is adjacent to the lighthouse. Located on Brighton Road (A259) near the base of the middle pier in Shoreham-by-Sea, about 8 km (5 mi) west of Brighton."

There are quite a few pictures of this one, so I've got four to see.

The JWST isn't just for distant galaxies at the edge of time

 

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was built to look into the depths of the universe, hundreds and thousands and millions of light years distant and into the past, and it has done that with amazing excellence.

(Of course, the Trump administration would love to shut it down, but it's too big to fire. But they can disable it by reducing NASA's science budget so much you need a telescope to see it.)

Enough of politics. The JWST can also find small little moons. (So can I. More on that later.)

JWST recently found a new moon of Uranus, and that's a planet, of course.

New Moon Discovered Orbiting Uranus Using NASA’s Webb Telescope  

(caption below the picture)

Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope discovered a new moon orbiting Uranus in images taken by Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera). This image shows the moon, designated S/2025 U1, as well as 13 of the 28 other known moons orbiting the planet. (The small moon Cordelia orbits just inside the outermost ring, but is not visible in these views due to glare from the rings.) Due to the drastic differences in brightness levels, the image is a composite of three different treatments of the data, allowing the viewer to see details in the planetary atmosphere, the surrounding rings, and the orbiting moons. The data was taken with NIRCam’s wide band F150W2 filter that transmits infrared wavelengths from about 1.0 to 2.4 microns.

Walking in mid-air in Italy

 

I cannot imagine walking on these bridges. I've been near Cortina di Ampezzo, but there is no way I could ever get close to bridge Number 3.

Walking into the void, the thrill of crossing a Tibetan bridge

Oh, it's not really that bad. Right? It's as wide as a sidewalk. 

This is the Ponte nel Cielo, and this map link shows where it is relative to Lake Como.

Sleepy? It might be your food (or your hormones)

 

Hormones can affect a lot of things. In this case, they might be affecting one's ability to stay awake during the daytime hours.  (Of course, not getting enough sleep at night might have something to do with that too.)

Diet and Hormone Levels Linked to Excessive Daytime Sleepiness

Analysis of blood metabolites indicates that the risk of excessive daytime sleepiness is influenced by diet and hormones.

"They [the researchers, of course] identified seven metabolites associated with EDS. An additional three metabolites were identified that varied by sex. The team found that omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, which are commonly found in foods that make up Mediterranean-like diets, were associated with lower risk of EDS [Excessive Daytime Sleepiness]. Other metabolites, such as tyramine, which is found in fermented and overripe foods, were associated with increased daytime sleepiness, particularly in men.

Researchers note that the results suggest potential treatment targets for EDS and that dietary changes or medications may lead to better treatment. They also note some limitations to the study, including difficulty in interpreting exact values of metabolites and using a sleep questionnaire instead of bringing participants into a sleep lab for tests."

Reference: Faquih T, Potts KS, Nagarajan P, et al. Steroid hormone biosynthesis and dietary related metabolites associated with excessive daytime sleepiness. eBioMedicine. 2025. doi: 10.1016/j.ebiom.2025.105881

And now it's time for bed.

Something in the air tonight

 

Ever wonder how it's possible for women to get pregnant without knowing tracking when to make themselves available and open to the prospect? 

It appears that the nose knows, provided the nose is that of the prospective pregnancy partner, aka baby daddy. 

Female Body Odor During Ovulation Alters Male Behavior

Ovulation-linked body odors may boost male attraction ratings and reduce stress.

" “We identified three body odor components that increased during women’s ovulatory periods. When men sniffed a mix of those compounds and a model armpit odor, they reported those samples as less unpleasant, and accompanying images of women as more attractive and more feminine,” said Professor Kazushige Touhara. “Furthermore, those compounds were found to relax the male subjects, compared to a control, and even suppressed the increase in the amount of amylase (a stress biomarker) in their saliva. These results suggest that body odor may in some way contribute to communication between men and women.”

So, if you're feeling relaxed, the lady you're with seems really hot, and she's amorous, if you aren't ready to procreate for progeny, use protection.

And this picture would be rated more attractive by almost anybody.  Technically, she's nice and clean and her armpits are providing stimulative attractants. But I don't think it matters in this case.

Wow, I was so distracted and relaxed that I almost forgot the reference.

Reference: Ohgi N, Shirasu M, Ogura Y, et al. Human ovulatory phase-increasing odors cause positive emotions and stress-suppressive effects in males. iScience. 2025:113087. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2025.113087

Who's Joanna Bajena?

 

I accidentally encountered Joanna Bajena while in totally different search mode. Her uniqueness stood out, so I found out a bit.

She's a model and a guitar player, with considerable skill in the latter and a very unique look (very pale, almost albino) as a model.  Here's a bit about the guitar playing:

About Joanna Bajena

In her Instagram, there are numerous pictures of her with her guitar, and there are many, many pictures of her unique look as a model.  I've got examples of both below.

Many of the pictures also feature her with the same guy, and in at least one she's kissing him, so I think she's unavailable, if her uniqueness intrigues you.

Caught on the fly-by

 

It may just look like a fuzzy blob, but it's quite a bit more than that. 

I just noticed this in one of my blog roll posts (yes, I have them, over there on the right).  This one is from Space.com, and it was noteworthy for a couple of reasons.  One, the comet is unusual. Two, the manner in which the comet was imaged is unusual (by a European Mars probe).  Three, the comet happened to be passing by Mars.

European Mars orbiter spies interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS zooming past Red Planet

"On Oct. 3, 3I/ATLAS zoomed within 19 million miles (30 million kilometers) of Mars. The European Space Agency's (ESA) ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) was ready for the closeup, snapping imagery of the interloper using its Colour and Stereo Surface Imaging System (CaSSIS).

"This was a very challenging observation for the instrument," CaSSIS Principal Investigator Nick Thomas said in a statement released by ESA on Tuesday (Oct. 7). "The comet is around 10,000 to 100,000 times fainter than our usual target."

About the comet:

"But interstellar comets are true outsiders, carrying clues about the formation of worlds far beyond our own."

In 3I/ATLAS' case [the I is for "interstellar"], those clues suggest an origin that's ancient as well as exotic: Astronomers think it's the oldest comet ever observed, with a birth that predates that of our own solar system by perhaps three billion years."

OK, that's pretty old.

Lighthouse of the Week, September 28 - October 4, 2025: St. Nikola Lighthouse, Montenegro

 

So, we've all heard of lighthouses -- but how about a house with a light?  That's what this one looks like. 

I've featured one other lighthouse from Montenegro, and I also posted about a statue that stands (actually poses) in the harbor at Budva. 

So I decided to see if there are lighthouses near the harbor of Budva.  And there is one. And as I said, the light stands on a small tower next to the lighthouse keeper's house, which is much larger.  I could only find one picture (extracted from a video) that shows what the light looks like, relatively close-up.

This is the location of this unusual lighthouse.

Here is what the estimable Lighthouse Directory provides about it:

"Date unknown (station established 1882). Active; focal plane 23 m (75 ft); three white flashes every 10 s. 4 m (13 ft) hexagonal unpainted stone tower attached to a 1-1/2 story stone keeper's house. ... Otočić Sveti Nikola is an island rising dramatically from the bay of Budva. Located at the southeastern point of the island, about 3 km (1.8 mi) southeast of Budva."

Most of the pictures of this one are from Google Maps.