A US military plane crashed in New Guinea, in a remote area called Hidden Valley populated by unknown natives. There were no roads in or out, no place to land a plane, and the elevation was too high for a helicopter. Besides, the Japanese were pretty close by. The crash survivors were injured and desperate for rescue. The History Guy tells the story of an audacious, or frankly insane, plan to bring them home. -via Nag on the Lake

Cheryl Rogowski’s parcel of land in Pine Island, New York is down a steep slope that opens up into a wide view of the valley. The crops of this season are lettuce, epazote, cabbage, squash, cucumber, tomato, peppers, sunflowers and gladiolas — all of them reflecting Rogowski’s love for color.

Rogowski is no stranger to Pine Island, a land known as the “Black Dirt Region” or “The Drowned Lands” because of its dark and damp soil, which locals call “muck”.

She’s always experimented with the land. In the 1980s, soon after her father gifted her five acres to farm for herself, she started planting jalapenos. “You can’t grow jalapenos in the north-east,” some were quick to warn. This was when it was rare to see a jalapeno in the local supermarkets. But it worked, and at one time her farm had more than 1,000 varieties of chillies. 

But her thousand varieties of chillies were not the ones that transformed the landscape. It was the onions. But what’s the difference between a regular onion and this one?

The high sulphur content of the soil from thousands of years of composted vegetation ups the pyruvic acid levels in the onions, which, in turn, increases the sugar content, resulting in a bold, pungent taste. This makes the Pine Island onion exceptional for cooking. When caramelised, they become uniquely sweet.

“The flavours are brighter, sharper, cleaner,” Rogowski said. She makes a smoked onion jam that she claims won’t taste the same with any other onions.

Know more about the land and its onions over at BBC.

(Image Credit: Matthijs Wetterauw/Alamy)

Miriam Pawel was not expecting to return to their tiny farm in Del Rey, California — at least, not every summer. Yet she found herself there once again, amidst the triple-degree heat in July for the ninth straight year of pilgrimage with her friends to an orchard just south of Fresno, near the geographic center of California.

We come to harvest peaches from a tree we “adopted” on the farm of 65-year-old David Mas Masumoto, a third-generation Japanese-American farmer who began his adoption program to connect people to their food and to find homes for old-fashioned fruit too delicate for commercial sale. He has succeeded in ways he could not have foreseen. We are drawn back each summer by the intense flavor of the heirloom fruit, but even more by the unexpected attachments that have deepened over the harvests: bonds among members of our multigenerational team, ties with the Masumoto family, and a connection to our decades-old Elberta peach tree.

This year, however, would perhaps be one of the moments Pawel would certainly remember.

Climate change has brought extremes in heat and precipitation that play havoc with the harvest season, now elongated and unpredictable. And farm labor, long one of the few factors growers could control, has become equally unpredictable, as immigration crackdowns cause shortages and fear suffuses the largely undocumented Mexican farmworker community in the state.

When we return next year, we will see one of the more tangible consequences: Our peach tree will be two-thirds its former height. All trees on the 80-acre farm will be pruned to make them easier to be cared for by women, who have become by necessity the preferred workers for this small farm during a labor shortage that shows no sign of abating. The Masumotos hope to turn the challenge into an opportunity by shaping the trees to produce fewer, larger peaches, which command a higher price.

More details of the story over at The New York Times.

What are your thoughts on this one?

(Image Credit: Gosia Wozniacka/Associated Press)

Building houses for the homeless takes a lot of time and money. It is a slow and expensive process, and it gets slower and more expensive as the years pass by. Six developers, however, through their response to a challenge from L.A Mayor Eric Garcetti, say that they can do it faster and cheaper.

Pre-fab construction, simplified financing, shared housing and small-scale projects were the strategies spread through the proposals recommended Friday to share a $120-million grant funded through the city’s $1.2-billion homeless housing bond.

The proposals promise to produce 975 new units of supportive housing at an average cost of $352,000 per unit, according to a report the mayor and housing officials presented to the citizen committee tasked with oversight of the bond, Proposition HHH. The committee, which had called on the mayor last fall to conduct the innovation challenge, voted with little comment to send Garcetti’s recommended proposals on for City Council consideration.

The proposals, however, fell short of the committee’s goal of building 1,000 units in two years or less (but hey, it’s just 25 units short).

More details about the proposals over at the Los Angeles Times.

(Image Credit: Al Seib/ Los Angeles Times)

Child film and TV stars are no longer new to us. Like their predecessors, child stars on social media platforms also attract and fascinate audiences far and wide. Instagram and YouTube are expected to grow to a $6.5 billion to $8 billion by the end of this year. The huge growth on influencer marketing on these platforms, however, raises a lot of questions and concerns about the lack of oversight and the possible long-term impact on children’s lives.

One of the examples of these kid influencers is the three-year-old twins Taytum and Oakley Fisher, who recently branched out from their family’s YouTube channel. Now, they have a channel of their own.

It's run by parents Madison and Kyler Fisher, whose "FishFam" home-video style vlogs have amassed more than 3.6 million subscribers on YouTube. The family also has 5 million Instagram followers, of which 3 million belong to Taytum and Oakley's unique account. At just 4 months old, the newest Fisher family member, baby Halston Blake, has more than half a million Instagram followers on her account.

"(Our) new channel for Taytum and Oakley, called Taytum and Oakley Play, it's going to be more geared towards just them," dad Kyler Fisher told CBSN Originals on a recent morning at the family's Los Angeles home. "Them playing with toys or just doing whatever they do, using their imaginations and stuff like that." 

Becoming a social media star is one of the most popular career aspirations named by kids in a recent survey. The influencer marketing industry is projected to grow to $15 billion by 2022. But experts warn that regulations need to be put in place as younger and younger influencers are sharing their lives on camera. Since 1939, Coogan's Law — named for child star Jackie Coogan, whose parents squandered his fortune — has protected the earnings of professional child performers. The law, however, doesn't apply to kid influencers online.

Asked about whether he's concerned about the lack of labor laws governing kids in this new social media entertainment space, Kyler Fisher said: "Who gets to say who does the work? My kids are in a picture, and that's work? I'm not so sure." 

The Fishers were among the forerunners of family vlogging and can earn upwards of $200,000 per month, with money coming in from brand deals and advertising revenue from Facebook and YouTube. 

There are also other parents of kid influencers who also have a different take on the subject. Check them out on CBS.

What are your thoughts on this one?

(Image Credit: CBS News)

A couple of years ago, Quinn at BlondiHacks thought it would make things easier for her if she got an automatic food dispenser for her cat Sprocket. While the amount of food Sprocket would get would be the same as she got from human-feeding, the cat knew there was more food stored inside. And she took that as a challenge.  

Sprocket’s first gambit was very simple- she would nudge the machine with her little eight pound body, and some food would fall out. There were always some loose pieces near the end of the conveyor, and jostling the machine would send a few out. The machine is under a table, so I answered this first challenge with some stiff wire to anchor it to the table leg.

Undeterred, Sprocket then learned she could climb on to the stringers of the table to get high ground above the machine, then grab the top edge with her little mouth. She could then lift it and drop it, causing pieces to fall out. To deter this, I grabbed a heavy piece of steel off the junk pile and placed it on the machine to make it hard to lift with tiny feline choppers.

That was only the beginning. No matter what restrictions Quinn added to the gadget, Sprocket would figure out a way around it, or another way to hack the machine herself. Quinn added brackets, pins, guards, weights, and walls. Before the story was over, she had the entire machine encased in a steel box. It would have been easier just to go back to hand-feeding the cat, but it was the principle of the thing, ya know?

The trick is to be smarter than the animal with a brain the size of a walnut

You can read the full saga with more pictures and videos, and craft specs, at Blondihacks.  -via reddit

The life of a musician is one fraught with challenges as they seek to hone their craft. Leo Driehuys had a promising career in Europe as an oboist and pianist. But he gave that up in exchange for leading the Charlotte Symphony and transforming it into a grand orchestra.

Bastiaan Driehuys was 9 when the family immigrated from the Netherlands to Davidson, and he recalls “that every conversation at dinner was how to take that orchestra to the next level.

“It’s a credit to my parents that the same spirit that led them to pick up and move from our comfortable existence in Europe led them to say, ‘Let’s go take this fledgling orchestra to the next level.’ They embraced every new challenge,” he said.

Transforming an orchestra came with challenges.

Charlotte Symphony violinist Martha Geissler, who joined the symphony in 1981, recalls that Driehuys was always pushing to attract and retain the highest caliber musicians he could, which sometimes meant he had to let weaker instrumentalists go.

In the 17 years he served as conductor for the orchestra, it grew and became renowned, going on a European tour and culminating in one of the grandest concerts they have ever performed in 1992 at the Belk Theater with other performances from Roberta Flack and Patti Lupone. He retired in 1994.

(Image credit: Bastiaan Driehuys)

There are eighteen songs in Taylor Swift's new album "Lover" which has just been released and for some people, that might be overwhelming. Not to mention, the themes and subject matter that her songs talk about may seem a bit lacking in depth to others but a lot of people relate to them on some level. 

The songs included in the album have been teased over the past several months and now, they have come out in their full glory. On that note, here's an analysis of every song in the album "Lover".

(Image credit: GabboT/Flickr; Wikimedia Commons)

When I first watched the original Matrix trilogy, it got me thinking about the nature of our consciousness and the way we perceive reality apart from ourselves, and whether we can even rely on the information we receive through our senses, that is, can I reliably say that I am real and that everything I perceive is real? Thinking of which brought me into a spiraling existential crisis. But that is beside the point. We're getting a new Matrix sequel.

Warner Bros. Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures will produce and globally distribute the film. Warner Bros. Picture Group chairman Toby Emmerich made the announcement on Tuesday.

“We could not be more excited to be re-entering ‘The Matrix’ with Lana,” said Emmerich. “Lana is a true visionary — a singular and original creative filmmaker — and we are thrilled that she is writing, directing and producing this new chapter in ‘The Matrix’ universe.”

In addition to Wachowski, the script was also written by Aleksandar Hemon and David Mitchell. Wachowski is also producing with Grant Hill. Sources say the film is eyed to begin production at the top of 2020.

It's been 20 years since the first movie came out and it has made an indelible mark on science fiction in the past decade. Also, several things have changed since then. The speculative elements within the film are no longer just visions or concepts of a distant future rather they are becoming reality. The groundwork has already been laid out for things like artificial intelligence and virtual reality. It might not be too long before we find ourselves living in the landscape imagined in the Matrix.

Red Pill Junkie gives his take on this new announcement and the surprising absence of Lilly Wachowski who co-directed with her sister, Lana, on the original trilogy. That and other things on the Daily Grail.

(Image credit: Warner Bros./IMDb)

NASA's human space flight program retired in 2011 as intended however, there haven't been any successors to the program since then. NASA has expressed their interest in renewing such programs and they have partnered with several private companies in order to launch crewed missions once again. At the moment, Boeing and SpaceX are on a race to be the first to revive human space flight.

In regards to this, Boeing will be sending a crew of veteran astronauts and aviators on a space mission aboard their new Starliner spacecraft which they say could also take tourists on a trip to space. This could be the start of commercial space flights and space tourism.

NASA is paying SpaceX and Boeing nearly $7 billion combined to build rocket-and-capsule launch systems for ferrying astronauts to the space station.

Reuters was given rare access at Houston’s Johnson Space Center to NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Mike Fincke, and Boeing astronaut and test pilot Christopher Ferguson, who will crew the ISS mission, along with other astronauts training for future missions.

The exercises included training underwater to simulate space walks, responding to emergencies aboard the space station, and practicing docking maneuvers on a flight simulator.

-via The Daily Grail

(Image credit: NASA/Wikimedia Commons)

What happens when a relatively unknown actor takes the villain's role in a movie that becomes a classic? It becomes hard for everyone from children up to casting directors to see you in any other kind of role. And that was the story for Margaret Hamilton, a serious actress who took on the role of the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz after another actress was afraid it would make her look unattractive.

Hamilton received hundreds of letters from other children all over the country, who would recall her notorious witch cackle and, in some cases, ask why she was so mean to Dorothy. Even during filming, Hamilton worried that her role would leave kids with the impression that she was scary — according to another Wizard of Oz expert, film critic Ryan Jay. Mild-mannered and sweet in real life, Hamilton would never have wanted anyone to be terrified of her.

“Everyone described her as so sweet and so approachable and so kind in her demeanor and personality,” Jay reported. “People of all ages wouldn’t believe it was really her until they asked her to do the cackle.”

But the role of the Wicked Witch of the West would take on a life of its own. Hamilton’s ability to scare became firmly rooted in the public’s mind. In the years that followed the film, she would take on a number of different roles, but it became nearly impossible for anyone to see her as anything other than the witch bent on destroying Dorothy and her dog Toto. Eventually, she started turning down opportunities to appear as the Wicked Witch.

The role that typecast Hamilton was not an easy one. She suffered both injuries and indignities to create the Wicked Witch of the West. Read Hamilton's story at Narratively.  -Thanks, hearsetrax!

PS! Sunday is the 80th anniversary of The Wizard of Oz, which was released on August 25, 1939. I did not realize that, but found strange things happening when I Googled The Wizard of Oz to find an image for this post. Try it yourself! Click on the ruby slippers in the search results. When your computer settles down, you can click on the cyclone to "return home."

Residents in Virginia woke up to a surprise gift at their front door - an old TV. The gift only gave birth to more questions and intrigue, as no one knew how the old TV ended up in their front door, nor who was responsible for it.  

Adrian Garner, however, managed to catch the culprit on a home security camera. He told Sky News about who he saw from the recording: 

"It was a guy dressed in a jumpsuit with a TV for a head. It's the weirdest thing. He squats down, puts the TV there and walks off. It's really weird.”

So far, 60 TVs were retrieved and collected by the police. The TV man and his reasons for the old TV gifting remained a mystery. 

image credit: Sky News

As researchers find out more about our genetic material and come up with ways to engineer our genes to enhance certain traits or prevent certain diseases from emerging, the less we should worry about genetic conditions or disorders arising from heredity. Right?

If you could use reproductive genetic technology to make sure that your child did not have a genetic disease, would you do it? That question is not science fiction anymore for many prospective parents.

If you have an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer because of a variant in your genes, there are now ways to make sure you don’t pass that pathogenic variant along to the next generation. 

If you and your partner each harbor a single gene for spinal muscular atrophy—and with it a 25 percent chance that each of your children will be born with a life-threatening degenerative disease—we can remake the odds, assuring that all your children will be born healthy.

However, the question is no longer whether it is possible but rather is it accessible? These procedures aren't cheap which means only those with the resources can afford them leaving out people in lower economic classes who would also benefit if they could only gain access to it.

Apart from accessibility, there are the moral implications. Others doubt the ethics of the practice. Now that we are able to manipulate our genes, there is always the risk that this will be misused and abused.

Americans approve of interventions to reduce a child’s lifetime risk of cancer, but don’t want parents choosing their child’s eye color or selecting for higher intelligence, says an AP-NORC poll from 2018. We are in favor of healthier babies, but not “designer babies.”

What are your thoughts on the matter?

(Image credit: Bill Oxford/Unsplash)

Humans would do anything to survive but we're not the only ones. Many animals have different strategies for survival and in this particular case, bobcats from southern Texas find an interesting place to live.

Bobcats facing pressure from hunting in southern Texas have found shelter in rural backyards as they continue to lose their habitats. Even though it's legal to hunt them, they found an area where they are relatively safe.

When conservation photographer Karine Aigner first started photographing bobcats on a friend’s ranch in south Texas in 2017, she knew most of the community’s human residents were more likely to see the cats as a nuisance — or a target — than as a species to be admired and protected.

In the beginning, her only goal was to see if the cats might allow her into their world. But the more time she spent watching a fiercely protective mother raise her always-curious-and-sometimes-precocious kittens, the more she began to hope that showcasing the lives of these animals might change the way they are perceived and treated.

Read more of the story on High Country News.

(Image credit: skeeze/Pixabay)

Known for creating Monopoly and GI Joe, toy and board game company Hasbro, for $4 billion, will buy Entertainment One Ltd., a British entertainment company that produced animated shows for preschoolers such as “Peppa Pig” and “PJ Masks.”

“Peppa Pig,” which stars a pink cartoon pig with a British accent, airs worldwide and is translated into over 40 languages.

Shares in Entertainment One jumped 30% in London on Friday.

Hasbro Inc., based in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, says the deal will help it turn more of its toy brands into shows or movies. Many of its brands, including My Little Pony and Transformers, already appear in TV shows and movies.

The deal is expected to close before the end of the year.

(Image Credit: fredrikwandem/ Pixabay)