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The studied Psittacosaurus under natural (upper half) and UV light (lower half). (Zixiao Yang, Author provided) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Strong but light, beautiful and precisely structured, feathers are the most complex skin appendage that ever evolved in vertebrates. Despite the fact humans have been playing with feathers since prehistory, there's still a lot we don't understand about them. Our new study found that some of the first animals with feathers also had scaly skin like reptiles. Following the debut of the first feathered dinosaur, Sinosauropteryx prima, in 1996, a surge of discoveries has painted an ever more interesting picture of feather evolution....

Sorry, no link as it was just announced on Human Events Jack Posobiec that the Ohio SOS has instructed the Democrat party to announce their candidate by Aug 5th. If they don't, then whoever that candidate is will not be on the ballot

It’s no secret crime in California has gone out of control in many areas. One of the worst is Oakland where the city has been struggling with abandoned, stripped, stolen cars dumped on city streets, among other pervasive criminal activity. But the latest sign of this trend is the elimination of some traffic lights. According to a report from KPIX, residents near one street intersection which now has stop signs instead of traffic lights blames the whole thing on a nearby homeless encampment. They claim the city’s refusal to do something about the criminal activity centered in that encampment has...

Who the heck made this bad decision? And how does it differ from something an embedded Cuban operative in the U.S. might do? After the arrest of Ambassador Manuel Rochas on espionage charges for Cuba, a logical question was whether there were one, two, many, Manuel Rochases (and Kendall Myerses) over at the State Department? What else can one conclude with whoever it was at State who made a decision like this? According to the Washington Times: Homeland Security gave a delegation from Cuba a look behind the curtain at airport operations at Miami International Airport, in a move critics...

Souo's first motorcycle has a 4-valve, DOHC, 8-cylinder, 2000cc engine - that's two 1000cc four-cylinder engines joined together. All the liter sports bikes now produce more than 200 horsepower, so we expect that 400 hp would be relatively easily achievable should Souo desire to make a further splash when the horsepower figures are announced.Souo ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We love an adventurous startup, but GWM's new "clean sheet" motorcycle company announced last Friday really does look ominous in its potential to disrupt the established motorcycle industry order. The privately-owned Chinese "Great Wall Motor Company" (GWM) started making cars in 1984, yet it has...

House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik filed an ethics complaint against Judge Juan Merchan for an alleged conflict of interest pertaining to his daughter’s role at a firm known for representing Democratic politicians. Merchan, an acting Supreme Court justice in New York, is presiding over the unprecedented criminal trial against former President Trump stemming from charges brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Stefanik, R-N.Y., filed the complaint with the New York State Commission on Judiciary Conduct, warning that Trump, who pleaded not guilty to all 34 counts of falsifying business records, faces "a maximum of 136 years’ imprisonment" if...

Millions of people in the U.S. report using marijuana daily or nearly every day, according to an analysis of national survey data, and those people now outnumber those who say they are daily or nearly-daily drinkers of alcohol. Alcohol is still more widely used, but 2022 was the first time this intensive level of marijuana use overtook daily and near-daily drinking, said the study’s author, Jonathan Caulkins, a cannabis policy researcher at Carnegie Mellon University. “A good 40% of current cannabis users are using it daily or near daily, a pattern that is more associated with tobacco use than typical...

(May 22, 2024 / JNS) The Hostages and Missing Families Forum on Wednesday evening released a video of Hamas terrorists abducting female Israel Defense Forces spotters on Oct. 7. Footage taken by body cameras of the terrorists reveals the violence and trauma experienced by five of the seven spotters captured alive from the Nahal Oz base. Another 15 field observers serving there were murdered during the attack. The video running time is three minutes and 10 seconds. It was edited and censored to exclude the most disturbing scenes, including the corpses of those murdered at Nahal Oz and inside the...

A stunt to shift blame to the GOP for the border...Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) plans to bring a border bill...negotiated in secret by Sens. James Lankford (R-Okla.), Krysten Sinema (I-Ariz.), and Chris Murphy (D-Conn.)...to the floor for a vote...It would expand parole...Worse, it would codify the administration's mass release...

For those who are looking to slim down and achieve an all-around healthier lifestyle, Ozempic and other popular weight-loss drugs are currently all the rage. But as with any weight-loss method, it's essential to make some serious life changes to support the journey and healthily maintain your new goal weight. This includes implementing necessary diet tweaks. Get excited, because Nestlé is making the entire task a whole lot simpler with their new food line, "Vital Pursuit," for Ozempic users, which will launch in the latter part of 2024.

Fast food is no longer healthy for your wallet. Common fast food favorites increased in price under President Joe Biden’s so-called Bidenomics. Fast food inflation has a disparate impact across racial and ethnic groups due to different levels of fast food consumption. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 42.4 percent of non-Hispanic black adults consume fast food, compared with 37.6 percent of non-Hispanic white adults, 35.5 percent of Hispanic adults, and 30.6 percent of Asian adults. The higher price tag of popular foods may be creating political problems for Biden. Thirty percent of black men and...

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is very upset that former President Donald Trump will be campaigning on her turf. When speaking to the press on Tuesday, the House Representative for New York’s 14th Congressional district accidentally admitted that the trial is de facto election interference by hobbling one candidate’s presidential campaign. She actually compared it to wearing an ankle bracelet. Watch: VIDEO AT LINK................... “…the legal version of an ankle bracelet…” @AOC is so astonishingly stupid, she probably does not appreciate the ramifications of what she just admitted out loud. Congratulations, Alexandria. You just admitted to strategic and deliberate election interference....

Vistisen exclusively tells Euronews there is “no more political divide” between Meloni and Le Pen’s political factions than there is within other mainstream political groups. The man who has been fronting the far-right Identity and Democracy’s European elections campaign is confident that the European Parliament's two most right-wing factions will join to form a united bloc during the upcoming legislature. In an interview on Tuesday, Anders Vistisen told Euronews he believes there is no substantial political rift between his Identity and Democracy (ID) party - which harbours Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National, Italy’s Lega and Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD)...

Artificial intelligence scientist Geoffrey Hinton, known as the “Godfather of AI,” is urging the British government to enforce a universal basic income (UBI) to cope with the impact of AI technology. Universal basic income is a social welfare system in which the government provides every citizen with a standard minimum income. These payments are unconditional and transferred to citizens on a regular basis without any pre-qualification. The concept is in keeping with the Marxist ideal of wealth redistribution and has been proposed by socialist figures such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Hinton told BBC Newsnight that a universal basic income...

On the one hand, William McGuire, an Emeritus Professor of Geophysical & Climate Hazards at University College London, says "the only realistic way I see emissions falling as fast as they need to, to avoid catastrophic climate breakdown, is the culling of the human population by a pandemic with a very high fatality rate. It looked like the coronavirus pandemic might do the trick, but its lethality was way over hyped by the World Health Organization. Maybe a breakthrough in ongoing gain-of-function bioweapons research can boost the death toll from the next pandemic to the 90% fatality rate that is...

I asked this question about Joe Biden's visit to New Hampshire on Tuesday: why is Biden going there right in the middle of the campaign when New Hampshire should be a state that he shouldn't even be worrying about? It hasn't gone red since Al Gore ran in 2000. But as I noted, recent polling from the NH Journal/Praecones Analytica Poll had them basically even with Trump slightly up 36.6 to 36.5. Robert F. Kennedy Jr is at 14. 6 percent and undecided is at 12.4 percent. Prior polling from January had Biden up by 6.5 in the RCP average....

Though this ruling can feel deeply unserious, it has major consequences for one small business.What, exactly, defines a sandwich? It's a question people have been arguing over since the dawn of time. But, at least according to one Indiana judge, tacos fall into whatever that definition may be. In May, Allen County Superior Court Judge Craig Bobay ruled that "tacos and burritos are Mexican-style sandwiches." Though this ruling can feel deeply unserious, it has major consequences for one small business that was hoping to open a restaurant in the city of Fort Wayne. As the Associated Press reported, the legal...

A campaign visit by President Biden to New Hampshire and Boston was punctuated by pro-Palestinian protesters. The demonstration organized by the Boston Chapter of the Socialism and Liberation Party set up outside of South Station and booed the presidential motorcade as it drove by. Then, dozens of protesters followed the motorcade and walked into the Seaport amid a large police presence. The protesters briefly blocked traffic on Congress Street. The trip comes as President Biden tries to shore up swing state support and donations as recent polls have him trailing former President Donald Trump in several key states. The president...

The world is getting more and more dangerous by the day. With NATO, the EU and Russia entangled in an European conflict that keeps escalating, it is very bad news that nuclear weapons are now the talk of the day. The Russian Federation forces have begun the ‘first stage’ of exercises to simulate preparation for the launch of tactical nuclear weapons. Ordered by recently reelected President Vladimir Putin, the exercises are reportedly linked to what Moscow calls ‘militant statements’ by Western officials that ‘create security threats for Russia’. Reuters reported: “Nuclear analysts say the exercises are designed as a warning...

TOPLINE Billions of Brood X cicadas have emerged in the United States after over a decade underground, causing gourmands to draw up recipes and prepare for a once-every-17-years culinary opportunity — but the Food and Drug Administration says people who are allergic to seafood should cut cicadas out of their diets because they’re too similar to shellfish. (Snip...) Cicadas pose a risk because they’re closely related to crustaceans like shrimp and lobster: Insects and crustaceans are both arthropods, and researchers say they probably shared a common ocean-dwelling ancestor millions of years ago.