The 2025 MacArthur Fellows (the genius grant recipients)

 

For the end of November, I thought I'd perform a public service and post the link to the official website listing the 2025 MacArthur Fellows.  The MacArthur fellowship awards are the so-called "genius grants".

2025 MacArthur Fellows

(In a year, this link may list the 2026 fellows, because the link doesn't specify the year.)

I don't know any of them personally -- not that I expected to -- but one of them is at Johns Hopkins U in Baltimore. 

William Tarpeh's work is particularly useful, in my view.

"Nitrogen-, sulfur-, and phosphorus-containing compounds are ubiquitous in municipal, agricultural, and industrial wastewater. In wastewater, these elements are harmful to the environment and human health, but they are also the basis of essential chemical products including fertilizer and household cleaners. Conventional methods of ammonia stripping, which removes nitrogen from wastewater, require significant energy and chemical inputs. Tarpeh has developed electrochemical-based processes to isolate nitrogen from wastewater using electricity and ion-selective membranes. His electrochemical reactors convert nitrogen in urine waste streams into ammonia-based products, and they can be tuned to produce ammonium sulfate, which is used in fertilizer, or ammonium hydroxide, which is used in household cleaners and industrial chemical production. Unrefined and mixed-source waste streams present additional challenges for resource recovery. The relatively low concentration of nitrogen amidst many other impurities makes it more difficult to efficiently extract and convert it. Tarpeh and colleagues have demonstrated an electrocatalyst-in-a-box (ECaB) that recovers ammonia directly from municipal wastewater. The two-stage reactor assembly first separates nitrogen compounds from wastewater. Electrocatalysis applied in a separate reactor compartment converts the concentrated nitrogen into ammonium sulfate. This technology offers the potential for a closed-loop system that allows local sanitation systems to manufacture needed chemicals. Tarpeh is also developing other technologies, like ligand-exchange adsorbents (materials that bind molecules to their surface) and polymer membranes, to recover resources with industrial applications, such as lithium and phosphorus."

Diagram and citation of a preprint from the Tarpeh Laboratory:

 

Orisa Z. Coombs, Taigyu Joo, Amilton Barbosa Botelho Junior, Divya Chalise, William A. Tarpeh. Prototyping and modelling a photovoltaic-thermal electrochemical stripping system for distributed urine nitrogen recovery. Nature Water. 2025.

Just what we need -- discount weapons of war

 

To reflect on my subject line, one of the things I don't think the world needs is a lower-cost cruise missile.  The only place that I think this might be useful would be for the defense of Ukraine.

Kratos unveils Ragnarök low-cost cruise missile designed for mass production

"The Ragnarök features a carbon-composite fuselage, a wing-folding mechanism for compact storage, and compatibility with multiple carriage options, including internal bays, external pylons, and palletized configurations. The design also aligns with NATO standard 14-inch rack systems."

They only cost $150K each when ordered in packs of 100. 

I also don't think it's a good idea to name these weapons after the name of the battle at the end of the world in Norse mythology.

In the picture below, the Ragnarok missile is under the jet.

Look, up in the sky (on that building), it's superwood!

 

I think this is a pretty important article about a potentially important product, if a) they can speed up the process to make enough of it, and b) they can make it with a feedstock that doesn't cause environmental damage.

Also, the technology was developed in Maryland and it's manufactured in Frederick, so it's a "home state" product.

Scientists create ‘Superwood’ that’s stronger than steel

"The breakthrough came in 2017, when [Liangbing] Hu first strengthened regular wood by chemically treating it to enhance its natural cellulose, making it a better construction material.

The wood was first boiled in a bath of water and selected chemicals, then hot-pressed to collapse it at the cellular level, making it significantly denser. At the end of the weeklong process, the resulting wood had a strength-to-weight ratio “higher than that of most structural metals and alloys,” according to the study published in the journal Nature.

Now, after years of Hu perfecting the process and filing over 140 patents, Superwood has launched commercially".

The actual study (Hu listed himself as the final author, not the first author):

Song, J., Chen, C., Zhu, S. et al. Processing bulk natural wood into a high-performance structural material. Nature 554, 224–228 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature25476

OK, now let's agree not to make any jokes about this.

Vanessa has two

 

Actress/singer/entertainer Vanessa Hudgens and husband/baseball pitcher Cole Tucker have announced they now have a second offspring.

Vanessa Hudgens gives birth! High School Musical star welcomes second child with Cole Tucker

The date of the birth is uncertain; she may have had it a couple of weeks ago.  From her appearance in October, that seems quite possible.

Volcán de Fuego entertains

 

While Hawaii's Kilauea is semi-regularly putting on a show with lava fountains; and there was a big explosion in the Afar of Ethiopia downrange and downwind from Erta Ale; and Mount Semeru went larger than usual with a long pyroclastic flow; meanwhile, volcano (volcán) Fuego in Guatemala continues to put on a commonly spectacular show.

The summit explosion on November 30 (2025) is a good demonstration of its entertainment value.

Lighthouse of the Week, November 23-29, 2025: Race Rock, New York, USA

 

In years past, I have provided picture and text descriptions of several lighthouses on New York's Long Island coast, both near New York City and further away.  This week's lighthouse isn't on the Long Island coast; as the name indicates, it is on it's own little island, Race Rock, which is very close to the town of New London on the Connecticut coast. But the borderline puts it in New York. 

The name of the lighthouse is Race Rock, similar to the Race Rocks lighthouse in British Columbia. So don't add the "s".   This week's lighthouse can be found here.

There's quite a bit of information provided from the Lighthouse Directory below:

"1879 (Francis H. Smith and Thomas A. Scott). Active; focal plane 67 ft (20.5 m); red flash every 10 s. 45 ft (14 m) octagonal cylindrical granite tower with lantern and gallery, rising from one side of a 1-1/2 story granite Gothic revival keeper's house; all mounted on a granite caisson and protected by rip rap; rotating DCB-24 aerobeacon (1979). Lantern painted white, granite unpainted. Fog horn (two 2 s blasts every 30 s). ... This lighthouse is on a difficult and dangerous site; construction took 6 years. In 2005 the lighthouse was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2009 the lighthouse became available for transfer under NHLPA, and in June 2013 ownership was transferred to the New London (Connecticut) Maritime Society. The Society has a web page for the lighthouse. The Society has made minor repairs, secured the lighthouse, and removed lead paint and bird droppings. In July 2022 the Society launched a drive to raise $2.284 million, the cost engineers estimate for a complete restoration. Located on a reef 3/4 mile (1.2 km) west southwest of Race Point, the western tip of Fisher's Island."

Lighthouse Friends has a page about this one, too.

The New London Maritime Society includes this page.

And now, a few pictures:

All I want for Christmas

 

This lovely young model discovered at SilkSilky.com would sure be a nice present to unwrap under the Christmas tree, in front of a warm fire in the fireplace.

It would be nice to know her name, too.

She's real, as well; no AI involved here.  A bit of a Dakota Johnson flavor to her face, which of course isn't bad. 

Even if you never wondered

 

Finally looked up the name of the actress that plays "Jan" on the Toyota commercials. I found out some things about her I wasn't aware of.

The name of the actress is Laurel Coppock. As might be suspected, she's an actress first and a spokeswoman second, with experience in several comedy troupes, including the Groundlings and Second City.  She's been the Toyota spokeswoman since (amazingly!) 2012.  She has also done a couple of TV show guest spots.  You can read all about it in Wikipedia's entry.

What I truly don't remember was her Toyota commercials when she was actually pregnant. I looked around and while I couldn't find a video of the one of those, I did find an article about it.

Toyota And Saatchi Write Ad Star's Pregnancy Into Popular 'Jan' Campaign

Hannah Godwin lights up Victoria's Secret fashion show

 

I'm going to return to the subject of this post, which is Hannah Godwin, former Bachelor love candidate, then someone who truly found love with Dylan Barbour on Bachelor in Paradise, resulting in a marriage a few years later. While it currently appears that Dylan is doting on her, as he should, I hope he keeps that up, because ladies like Hannah are not commonplace.

She has done what many other Bachelor graduates have done, which is to become an influencer, offering fashion and glamour advice, providing pictures of home life, traveling, and personal appearances. In addition, lovely Hannah continues to be a working model, showing up in both shows and media campaigns.

Part of the reason for that is that, to put it simply, other than being pretty rising to the level of gorgeous, she's also svelte, stunning, and girl-next-door sexy.

The subject of this particular post was when Hannah recently put an exclamation point, or two, on the sexiness factor, showing up and showing herself off in a very, as the Daily Mail might say, risqué ensemble at the Victoria's Secret fashion show. Despite her appearances in a few basic bikinis and other swimwear in previous months and years, this light purple dress went to a new level, quite appropriate for Victoria's Secret, except for the fact that VS frequently features lingerie for tops and bottoms, and this eye-snatching dress didn't need all of those lacy underthings. 

Which is fine by me.

So, enough of the introduction, let's get to the demonstration.

Not just one, but two new ichthyosaurs

 

I saw an article about a new ichthyosaur (prehistoric marine reptile related to dinosaurs) and made a note, and when I looked it up to write an article about it, it turns that two new ichthyosaurs have been recently identified.  One of them is from the famous fossil-rich area of the Dorset coast of England, and the other was found in Germany.

So, let's go with the new British ichthyosaur first. I'm going to provide both the media article and the scientific reference for both (conveniently, the article about the Deutschland denizen already had the reference in it).

Fossil found on Dorset coast is unique 'sword dragon' species

(The article has an artist's idea of what it looked like.)

"The "sword dragon" is thought to have been about 3m long and has several features that have not been seen in other species of ichthyosaur. Scientists say the strangest detail is a prong-like bone near its nostril. The skull has an enormous eye socket and a long sword-like snout that it used to eat fish and squid."

Lomax, Dean R., Judy A. Massare, and Erin E. Maxwell. "A new long and narrow‐snouted ichthyosaur illuminates a complex faunal turnover during an undersampled Early Jurassic (Pliensbachian) interval." Papers in Palaeontology 11, no. 5 (2025): e70038.

Heads walk, but don't roll

 

If you've seen pictures of Easter Island, you've seen pictures of the moai, the big stone heads that are all around the island.  If you don't know what they were used for, this article explains them. 

One of the big moai questions was how the islanders, using stone and rope, moved the heads from the quarry to the platform they were mounted on. That's the recent subject of the article and video below.

Moai in the quarry

How Easter Island's famed heads 'walked'

What I don't know, and would like to know, is who paid the people to move them, whether in food or some kind of currency. It's hard to me to imagine getting a group together voluntarily for the sole purpose of moving giant head statues. But religion causes people to do some very unusual things occasionally. 

Potatoes aren't just for breakfast anymore

 

Well, potatoes are a pretty common breakfast item -- roasted or hash browns, with or without onions and cheese.

I originally saw this recipe in the Washington Post, which is here, and they provide a few free articles a month if you don't subscribe to the paper, which is rapidly becoming obnoxiously conservative, but they still have to point out the massive transgressions of the current resident of the White House, until he decides to cover it with gold leaf or something.  After suggesting (threatening) to paint the Eisenhower Office Building white, which is a bad idea for several reasons, I wouldn't put a golden White House past him. 

Below is a freely-accessible different version of the recipe, but not much different.

Breakfast Twice-Baked Potato

I doubt my first effort will look this good.

Crystal Palace is where in the Premier League?

 

It's late November, almost time for the holiday fixtures (well, actually, that's about a month away), but still, if one were to look at the Premier League standings -- aka, the "table" -- today, one would see Crystal Palace in ...

fourth place!!

So last year's FA Cup champions are proving that wasn't entirely fluky, and they are doing it without Eberechi Eze, either. 

Now, there are three teams playing tomorrow that could go ahead of CP's 20 points with a win tomorrow (or Monday):  Tottenham Hotspur, Aston Villa, and Manchester United.  The Spurs are playing the current league leaders, Arsenal, and the Gunners don't want to lose that one. Aston Villa is playing Leeds United, currently in the relegation zone, so Leeds might have slightly more motivation than Villa, but they don't seem to be as good as Villa, either. Still, things can happen.  Man U is playing Everton, actually only three points below them in the table, so that might not be an automatic win for Man U, but they've been starting to look better.

So, Palace might not be in fourth place for long.  But it's something to enjoy while it's happening.

Below is the match highlights from today's (November 22, 2025) thrashing of the hapless Wolverhampton Wolves.

Lighthouse of the Week, November 16-22, 2025: Petoskey Bayfront Light Beacon Station, Michigan, USA

 

This week's lighthouse goes by several different names, and might not even be a lighthouse, literally, so I went with the name on Google Maps.  Petoskey is way up north in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, on the Lake Michigan coast (i.e., the western side).  This Google Map satellite view shows where it is; I used the satellite view because it's much easier to see the breakwater than on the regular map. Zoom out to locate it geographically, satellite-wise or map-wise.

I've extracted a considerable amount of text from the Lighthouse Directory:

"Date unknown (station established 1899). Active; focal plane 44 ft (13.5 m); red flash every 2.5 s. 33 ft (10 m) round "D9" round cylindrical steel tower, painted white with one red horizontal band, on a square 1-story concrete base. ... This is one of many modern pierhead lights of similar design throughout the Great Lakes, but it is highly visible and is regarded locally as a lighthouse. In the winter of 2006 a violent storm damaged the breakwater but the light was not affected. The original light was on a post. The second light, built in 1912, was a hexagonal "pagoda" style cast iron tower; it was swept away by a storm in 1924. It was replaced by a steel skeletal tower in 1930. ... Located at the end of the breakwater at the entrance to the harbor."

Other sites about this one:

 Petoskey Harbor Breakwater and Bayfront Lighthouse

Petoskey Pierhead Light  (like I said, it has a few different names)

Pictures below, including the old one. The first one demonstrates it still gets cold up there.

Actress with a busy career

 

I recently spotted actress Daniela Melchior in the remade Road House.  She's building a pretty good career, with appearances in that, Suicide Squad, Fast X, and Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3. 

Doesn't hurt that she's exotically good-looking.

But it's still dark and cold

 

Recent analysis of data collected by the Cassini probe to Saturn indicated that the stuff spewing out of the Enceladian geysers has got the brew that might give rise to, or nurture, life of some kind.

However, I'm not sure if there's enough tidal squeezing energy input to power the ecosystem, however primitive it might be. 

Still, it's a start. Life has to start somewhere, and then find a way.

Seems like I've heard that somewhere before.

Saturn’s Moon Enceladus Has Complex, Life-Friendly Chemistry

A fresh analysis of old data has found rich organic chemistry within the hidden ocean of Saturn’s moon Enceladus

"Now scientists revisiting data from Cassini, which ended its mission to Saturn in 2017, have spied even more tantalizing ingredients in the plumes: suites of complex organic molecules that, on Earth, are involved in the chemistry associated with even bigger compounds considered essential for biology. The discovery, published in Nature Astronomy, bolsters the case for follow-up missions to search for signs of life within this enigmatic moon.

Its remoteness from Earth isn’t the only thing that has let Enceladus keep so many secrets for so long. The Cassini orbiter wasn’t really designed for deep scrutiny of a single, specific object in Saturn’s system, says Nozair Khawaja, a planetary scientist at the Free University of Berlin, who led the Nature Astronomy study. Cassini launched nearly 30 years ago, back when Enceladus’s subsurface ocean and south polar plumes were unknown. Repurposing its vintage kit for in-depth astrobiology was difficult—not least because of how hard the resulting data were to work with."

Read the whole thing. It's a fascinating story about how they were able to use instrumentation not designed to do what they needed it to do along with some clever mission planning to get what they needed to get.

Nice lake, big name

 

Maine has a few lakes with very long Indian names.  This is one of them: Mooselookmeguntic Lake.

Located here:

And it looks great:

If you're interested, read more about it in this article:

Discover A Pristine Paradise When You Visit Maine’s Mooselookmeguntic Lake

"With an average depth of 60 feet with a maximum depth of 132 feet and covering an area of 25.5-square miles, it is one of the largest lakes in Maine."

Be careful what you ask for

 

Great video with some important space-time continuum implications.

That darned Google Maps

 

Thanks to Google Maps, I keep finding places I never heard of, but which I wish I'd seen (or I might still wish to see).

Most recent of these discoveries is Mesa Falls in Idaho.  It's located west of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, only about ~20 km from the Idaho/Wyoming border, but it's a lot longer drive (but you can drive there, with only a short hike to the falls).  By car, it's about an 80 mile drive from the elk antler arch in Jackson Hole.

There are actually both an Upper and Lower Mesa Falls.  And they're both beautiful.  Lower Mesa Falls looks rougher, but it can be run (dropped) in a kayak.  Not sure about Upper Mesa Falls.

Upper Mesa Falls

Lower Mesa Falls

Lighthouse of the Week, November 9-15, 2025: Santa Cruz Breakwater Light, California, USA

 

I decided to return to the domestic shores of the United States this week, and in particular, the shores of the Golden State, California.  Specifically, this shore is actually the harbor of Surf City USA, aka Santa Cruz. Which, weirdly enough, doesn't have much surf, but it does have banana slugs, the official mascot of the University of Californa - Santa Cruz.  (Actually, they live in the nearby mountains, but still, you have to give them something.)

This lighthouse also has another name, the Walton Lighthouse, and you'll learn why in a moment. First, find out where it is by clicking in this location. You can see where it is in relation to UC-Santa Cruz. Zoom out to see where Santa Cruz is, if you're not familiar with the region. It's on the northern coast of Monterey Bay.

Now that we've established where it is, let's learn about how it is and why it's named the Walton Lighthouse. (Information from the Lighthouse Directory, as is usually the case.)

"2001 (station established 1964). Active; focal plane 36 ft (11 m); green light occulting every 4 s. 42 ft (13 m) round reinforced concrete tower with a copper-roofed lantern and a small gallery. Tower painted white with a green band. Fog horn (blast every 30 s). ... Built with private donations and Coast Guard approval, this lighthouse replaced a series of minor aids to navigation. Charles Walton, a local businessman, contributed a significant part of the cost in memory of his late brother Derek Walton, a merchant seaman. The lighthouse originally had a red band, but the daymark was changed in March 2003 after boaters protested that a green beacon should not have a red daymark."

So, with the information garnered, the pictures are next.

See? Surf!

MAGA doesn't want to be like Jesus

 

This is from a Washington Post op-ed by Shadi Hamid, referencing the memorial to the assassinated young far-right wing activist and antagonist Charlie Kirk, has some interesting things to say.

I'm not going to talk about Kirk. I have my own ideas about him, but talking about him can invoke strong reactions on either side of the political spectrum, as well as either side of the religious spectrum. That's what the extracted comment below is about.

Two versions of Christianity battle for America’s soul

"Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared, “This is not a political war, it’s not even a cultural war. It’s a spiritual war.” These are not careless remarks or mere metaphor. They represent the intentional framing of politics as religious combat, in which political opponents are seen as demonic forces requiring defeat rather than conversion.

The theological gulf between Erika Kirk’s message of forgiveness and Hegseth’s fantasies of forever war runs deeper than most realize. Russell Moore, a former top official in the Southern Baptist Convention and a fierce Trump critic, told NPR that when pastors quote Jesus’ words about turning the other cheek, congregants increasingly ask, “Where did you get those liberal talking points?” When pastors respond that they’re “literally quoting Jesus Christ,” the answer comes back: “Yes, but that doesn’t work anymore. That’s weak.”

Can you simultaneously bless your enemies while viewing them as evil forces who require nothing short of total defeat?

The secular hope has been that declining religiosity would produce more rational, less intense politics. But as American church attendance hovers around all-time lows, including among young Republicans, the Kirk memorial suggests the opposite: American faith is becoming more politically charged, not less. As Christian institutions decline in influence, conservatives find inspiration in the MAGA movement, whose undisputed leader is Trump, a man often portrayed as a kind of new American savior."

They'll need very good aim

 

This news about the final asteroidal target that will be visited by Japan's Hayabusa2 satellite sounds, well, challenging.

Hayabusa2’s Final Target is 3 Times Smaller Than We Thought

It also spins twice as fast as previous estimates suggested. A spacecraft touchdown will be challenging, but not impossible.

"They calculated that the asteroid completes one spin every 5 minutes and 21 seconds, less time than it takes to listen to Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody.” The team then combined those new observations with the 1998 radar data to recalculate the asteroid’s size. They found that instead of being roughly 30 meters in diameter, 1998 KY26 is just 11 meters, or about the length of a telephone pole. The team published these results in Nature Communications on 18 September."

It's certainly not big

 

Before they get to this little tiny asteroid, Hayabusa2  is also going to fly by an asteroid in July 2026.  Stay tuned for more info.

 

Do you know who Lando Norris is?

 

If you don't know who Lando Norris is, I'll tell you.  Lando is a Formula 1 Grand Prix race car driver, and last year he was the runner-up for the World Drivers' Championship. He drives for MacLaren. 

So now that you know, this post isn't about him. It's about his girlfriend, Margarida Corceiro.

Recent news (August 2025) from that article:

"But those hoping that they may be F1’s latest WAG, had their dreams of grandeur crushed this weekend at the Hungarian Grand Prix when the worst was confirmed: Lando Norris and Margarida Corceiro’s relationship was official. The pair arrived at the last qualifier in the F1 calendar, ahead of the summer break, together. Norris led his Portuguese girlfriend into McLaren's paddock ahead of qualifying for Formula One's Hungarian Grand Prix. And when he subsequently drove to victory at Sunday’s race, it was Margarida he kissed to celebrate. She wore his McLaren orange hoodie and smiled from the front row as he was crowned – and 1.6 million people rewatched the moment when it was shared to social media."

So now you'd really like to know more about her, right?  Well, you could read the article, or look at the pictures.

She models swimwear (bikinis) a lot, and there are obviously good reasons for that. But she can wear clothes, too.  And she's really cute.

Science of physics meets science fiction, again

 

I think, perhaps, in the menagerie of particles and quarks and sub-atomic particles and mesons and bosons and baryons that make up the known material of the Universe, that the strangest (not talking quarks) is the neutrino.

Let's review:  a neutrino is this (from a site associated with the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, named All Things Neutrino) --

"A neutrino is a particle! It’s one of the so-called fundamental particles, which means it isn’t made of any smaller pieces, at least that we know of. Neutrinos are members of the same group as the most famous fundamental particle, the electron (which is powering the device you’re reading this on right now). But while electrons have a negative charge, neutrinos have no charge at all.

Neutrinos are also incredibly small and light. They have some mass, but not much. They are the lightest of all the subatomic particles that have mass. They’re also extremely common—in fact, they’re the most abundant massive particle in the universe. Neutrinos come from all kinds of different sources and are often the product of heavy particles turning into lighter ones, a process called “decay.”

To put it simply, they are very weird. But they are definitely real. 

Now, getting to the subject of this post, scientists have conceived the idea of a laser composed of neutrinos. 

My first question is:  What good is it?  If neutrinos barely interact with anything, what is a neutrino laser going to be used for?  Will anyone even notice that it's "ON"? 

Let's start with the article:

Physicists Devise An Idea For Lasers That Shoot Beams Of Neutrinos

"In a paper appearing in Physical Review Letters, the physicists introduce the concept for a “neutrino laser” — a burst of neutrinos that could be produced by laser-cooling a gas of radioactive atoms down to temperatures colder than interstellar space. At such frigid temps, the team predicts the atoms should behave as one quantum entity, and radioactively decay in sync.

The decay of radioactive atoms naturally releases neutrinos, and the physicists say that in a coherent, quantum state this decay should accelerate, along with the production of neutrinos. This quantum effect should produce an amplified beam of neutrinos, broadly similar to how photons are amplified to produce conventional laser light.

“In our concept for a neutrino laser, the neutrinos would be emitted at a much faster rate than they normally would, sort of like a laser emits photons very fast,” says study co-author Ben Jones PhD ’15, an associate professor of physics at the University of Texas at Arlington."

OK, sure.  Now for the "what could it be used for?" part.

"The team hopes to build a small tabletop demonstration to test their idea. If it works, they envision a neutrino laser could be used as a new form of communication, by which the particles could be sent directly through the Earth to underground stations and habitats."

Well, maybe, but what's going to detect it?  I don't think they've thought that out.

You can read the rest of the article -- but there is this note.  "The pair" refers to the researchers who have come up with this idea.

"The pair acknowledge that such an experiment will require a number of precautions and careful manipulation."

I'm not sure why, except possibly that if they aren't careful they'll destroy the underlying fabric of the Universe. But that's research for ya.

This diagram is from the article linked underneath it, which is also about this zany, but in the realm of possibility, idea.

Envisioning a neutrino laser

Not a mythical place

 

Finding a fascinating place in this amazing world we live in happens to me with some regularity, partly because I'm a curious person.  I don't remember where I discovered that this place exists, but I'm glad I did.

The place is St. Nectan's Waterfall, located in the peninsula of Cornwall, and very adjacent to Tintagel, which has a legendary connection to King Arthur's Camelot.  It's also close to Merlin's Cave, right near Tintagel.  (I have to note the interesting place names down the coast from Tintagel;  Tregatta, Treknow, Trebarwith, and Treligga.)  

Like I do with lighthouses, here's a locator map. 

It's powerfully photogenic;  the waterfall descends a slope behind a small natural bridge (actually, more like a natural window).   I'm providing a couple of pictures and a video.

What to eat to keep your brain young

 

A research article describes a modified "green" Mediterranean diet that will assist in slowing down the rate of brain aging.  

Green–Mediterranean Diet May Slow Brain Aging

According to the article:

"To evaluate the impact of diet on brain age, researchers analyzed data from around 300 participants in the DIRECT PLUS trial, one of the longest-running studies on the link between brain and diet. Over the course of 18 months, the participants consumed one of three diets: a standard healthy diet; a traditional calorie-restricted Mediterranean diet, which was low in simple carbohydrates, rich in vegetables, and replaced red meat with poultry and fish; and the green-Mediterranean diet, which additionally included green tea and Mankai.

When the researchers measured protein levels in the participants’ blood, they found that higher levels of certain proteins were associated with accelerated brain aging. Further, they found that those protein levels decreased in participants who followed the green-Mediterranean diet. The researchers hypothesized that the protective effect of the diet could be a result of the anti-inflammatory molecules contained in green tea and Mankai."

I'll provide more information on Mankai after the reference:

Reference: Pachter D, Yaskolka Meir A, Kaplan A, et al. Serum Galectin-9 and Decorin in relation to brain aging and the green-Mediterranean diet: A secondary analysis of the DIRECT PLUS randomized trial. Clinical Nutrition. 2025;53:99-108. doi:10.1016/j.clnu.2025.08.021.

EatMankai.com

Meet Mankai Duckweed: The Protein-Packed, Aquatic Supergreen That Has Researchers Buzzing

It appears to be a variety of duckweed.  More research is needed.

Anatomical accuracy

 

Anya Areva is a gorgeous Russian (I think) model who has been living in California (I think) with her husband (I'm sure of that) for many years, and I've been following her on Instagram for many years. I've provided a couple of nice pictures here, too (such as this one).  She has evolved from gorgeous model into gorgeous pregnant woman once, and now twice, and she's about to deliver that second baby. 

She and the family recently went out for Halloween to a party, and they all wore matching skeleton costumes, including the soon-to-be-born second child.  See below.

Lighthouse of the Week, November 2-8, 2025: Zonguldak Lighthouse, Turkey

 

I was looking at a map of a different country, and I wondered to myself if I had ever featured a lighthouse in Turkey in the Lighthouse of the Week feature. To my astonishment, even after all these years, I had not. So I'm going to start with a couple, this week and next week, and then revisit occasionally. 

Turkey should have a good number of lighthouses; it has coastlines on three different major seas -- the Black, Aegean, and Mediterranean -- as well as a smaller one, the Sea of Marmara. I haven't checked to see if it actually has lighthouses on the coast of the Sea of Marmara, but I suspect it does.

This is a Black Sea lighthouse, west of Istanbul, and located in Zonguldak.  I zoomed the map fairly far out so you can see where it is in relation to Istanbul. 

Here we have what the Lighthouse Directory provides:

"1908. Active; focal plane 53 m (174 ft); white flash every 5 s. 9 m (30 ft) round masonry tower with lantern and gallery, attached to the seaward side of a 1-story keeper's house. The Fener Café restaurant.has been built around the seaward side of the light tower. Lighthouse painted white. ... The original lighthouse was a wood tower. ... Located on a high promontory at the northeast entrance to Zonguldak harbor. Site open, restaurant open daily, tower closed."

I'm providing three pictures. 

 

What might we lose if health research funding is cut?

 

There is idiocy and stupidity everywhere in the Trump administration, but probably the worst of it is cuts to health research.  They cut mRna vaccine research, perhaps thinking that bird flu isn't a problem.  

Guess what?  It is.  All the seal bodies in this picture are deaths due to bird flu. Imagine if bird flu changes just a little bit (and viruses do that, we know) and learns how to infect humans. That would be BAD. Especially if a vaccine can't be manufactured quickly, as was done for COVID-19.  Which was an mRNA vaccine, of course.

And then there's cancer. Right when a universal cancer cure might be possible -- I mean that, because you can read the article -- research funds are being drastically cut.

Did I say that's stupid?  I'm not sure. So ...

IT'S STUPID !!!  

So read this:

Surprising finding could pave way for universal cancer vaccine

"An experimental mRNA vaccine boosted the tumor-fighting effects of immunotherapy in a mouse-model study, bringing researchers one step closer to their goal of developing a universal vaccine to “wake up” the immune system against cancer."

Yes, indeed. An experimental mRNA vaccine. And research on that front is being cut.

STUPID.

And here's more proof of that.

"  “This paper describes a very unexpected and exciting observation: that even a vaccine not specific to any particular tumor or virus — so long as it is an mRNA vaccine — could lead to tumor-specific effects,” said Sayour, principal investigator at the RNA Engineering Laboratory within UF’s Preston A. Wells Jr. Center for Brain Tumor Therapy.

“This finding is a proof of concept that these vaccines potentially could be commercialized as universal cancer vaccines to sensitize the immune system against a patient’s individual tumor,” said Sayour, a McKnight Brain Institute investigator and co-leader of a program in immuno-oncology and microbiome research."

Co-author Dr. Duane Mitchell seconds the statement.

" “It could potentially be a universal way of waking up a patient’s own immune response to cancer,” Mitchell said. “And that would be profound if generalizable to human studies.”

So, there it is. The possibility of a vaccine that can treat all cancers -- the proverbial "cure for cancer".  And the dumb-f--ks in charge of the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Health and Human Services are canceling research grants into this breakthrough technology.