Bruno Mars aparece com camiseta de Lady Gaga e intensifica rumores de parceria.
Rumores de que Bruno Mars e Lady Gaga lançarão uma parceria em breve inundaram as redes sociais nos últimos dias. Tudo começou no dia 9 de agosto, quando o site Hits Daily Double publicou que os dois uniram-se numa faixa chamada “Die With a Smile”.
Até então, tudo parecia apenas um rumor. Até que a cantora compartilhou um vídeo tocando piano enquanto usava uma blusa estampada com o rosto do colega de profissão. Assim, o astro publicou um emoji de “olhos” no registro, aumentando ainda mais as expectativas dos fãs.
Agora ele postou uma imagem também utilizando uma peça de roupa da estrela pop sem muitas explicações.
Vale lembrar que, em junho, Bruno Mars já havia dito querer cantar ao lado da popstar. Ao Las Vegas Journal, ele disse: “Falando sobre Gaga – eu adoraria fazer [uma música] com ela. Eu tenho que pelo menos cantar com ela, no programa dela.”
Antes disso, a artista já havia apoiado o colega ao marcar presença na estreia do chamado “The Pinky Ring”, um bar em Las Vegas do onde Mars é proprietário.
A colaboração pode integrar o chamado “LG7“, que representa o sétimo álbum de estúdio de Lady Gaga. A artista já afirmou estar trabalhando em seu próximo disco.
How does caffeine affect heart health? The latest research offers new insights. Dimitrije Tanaskovic/Stocksy
Studies on caffeine’s effects on heart health have gained interest in recent years. One crucial question remains: How much caffeine is too much?
In this roundup of the latest studies exploring the effects of caffeine on cardiovascular health, Medical News Today compiles the most recent evidence to highlight key findings and takeaways.
Some studies suggest that consuming caffeine may help boost vascular health and lower the risk of type 2 diabetes, while others indicate that consuming too much may increase the risk of stroke.
Millions of people are regular coffee drinkersTrusted Source. Some people prefer to consume the popular caffeinated beverage in the morning to increase alertnessTrusted Source and alleviate fatigue, while others consume it throughout the day for multiple other health benefitsTrusted Source.
Considering that around 1 in 7 deaths worldwide are caused by coronary heart disease, coffee’s potential cardioprotective benefits make it an exciting topic of research.
The most recent study on this topic, published inRheumatology on October 9, found that consuming more caffeine—found in sources such as coffee, tea, and cocoa—may help improve blood vessel health. What made this study particularly interesting was that it was conducted in patients with lupus, an autoimmune disease that has been tied to an increased riskTrusted Source of stroke, heart attack, and cardiovascular disease.
But what does all the evidence so far say? Can coffee improve heart health, or does too much cause harm?
Building upon Medical News Today‘s regular in-depth reporting on studies related to heart health, this overview aims to provide a snapshot of the key pieces of research on caffeine‘s effects on the heart and overall health with experts’ views on these findings.
In a nutshell:
According to a study published in September in the Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, consuming coffee and caffeine in moderation on a regular basis could help prevent conditions like type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, and stroke. The amount the researchers found that had the most protective effects was around 200–300 mg daily, or roughly 2-3 cups of coffee.
Key takeaways:
The researchers compared people who did not consume any caffeine or who drank less than 100 milligrams (mg) per day with people who drank about 200 to 300 mg of caffeine a day, or the equivalent of three coffee drinks.
The latter group, who consumed a moderate amount of caffeine, had a 48.1% or 40.7% reduced risk of developing cardiometabolic diseases.
The study used data from the UK Biobank with a large sample size of over 360,000 people ages 37–73.
Melanie Murphy Richter, MS, RDN, a registered dietitian nutritionist who was not involved in the research, explained that the mechanism through which caffeine may reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes is by enhancing insulin sensitivity, as well as boosting fat metabolism to support overall cardiometabolic health.
Experts such as Cheng-Han Chen, MD, a board certified interventional cardiologist who was not involved in the study, cautioned as to overestimating caffeine’s benefits and said:
“[B]oth coffee and tea are complex beverages that contain hundreds of bioactive compounds, and it is likely that their biological effects extend beyond those of the caffeine itself. Compounds such as flavonoids, alkaloids, and polyphenols, are thought to have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects, and might be involved in glucose and lipid metabolism as well.”
In a nutshell:
A study not yet published in a peer-reviewed journal but recently presented at ACC Asia 2024 in India in August found that people who chronically consume high amounts of caffeine at least five days per week may have an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. This was true even if the study participants were otherwise in good health.
Key takeaways:
For this study, the researchers defined chronic caffeine consumption as drinking any caffeinated beverage—including coffee, tea, soda, and energy drinks—five days a week for over a year.
This equaled about 400 milligrams (mg) of caffeine daily, or roughly four cups of coffee, two energy drinks, or 10 cans of soda.
The researchers discovered that people who consumed at least 400 mg had increased heart rates and blood pressure over time, and this was even more pronounced for people who consumed 600 mg of caffeine a day.
Commenting on their findings, Nency Kagathara, MBBS, lead author of this study and researcher in the Department of Internal Medicine at Zydus Medical College and Hospital in India, said: “Due to its effect on the autonomic nervous system, regular caffeine consumption could put otherwise healthy individuals at risk of hypertension and other cardiovascular events. Increasing awareness of these risks is vital to improve heart health for all.”
In a nutshell:
According to a study published in the Journal of StrokeTrusted Source on September 27, carbonated drinks, fruit juices and drinks, and too much coffee may increase the risk of experiencing stroke and intracerebral hemorrhage. However, the risks associated with these beverages varied depending on the population and where the participants were geographically located.
Key takeaways:
Drinking more than four cups of coffee daily raised the likelihood of a person having a stroke by 37%. However, drinking less than four cups of coffee daily or a moderate amount daily was not associated with an increased risk of stroke.
The data the researchers collected came from a large number of participants from 32 countries.
Among other caffeinated beverages, the researchers found that drinking three to four cups of black tea a day—such as Earl Grey or breakfast tea— lowered the risk of stroke by 29%. However, tea’s effects differed according to the region in which people lived.
While the caffeine in coffee can cause an increase in blood pressure and, therefore, increase stroke risk, Christopher Yi, MD, board certified vascular surgeon at Memorial Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, CA, who was not involved in the research, said: “Like most things being consumed, moderation is safer than excessiveness.”
You’ve read the Paper Magazine interview where pop sensation Chappell Roan says, “I’ll show you a clown, if you want to see a clown!” when describing her iconic makeup look. Maybe you even bought a harlequin print cardigan during the height of the clowncore aesthetic trend in 2022. And, post-election, clowns are also showing up as descriptors of our political moment.
If anything, the clown cultural moment is only getting bigger and bigger. And if clown is everywhere right now, its contemporary center is arguably right here in L.A. More specifically, the Elysian Theater in Frogtown, where clowns are teaching classes, workshopping shows, and looking for a change from the grind of Hollywood.
The marquee at The Elysian on Monday, Nov. 25, 2024, in Los Angeles, CA.
(Carlin Stiehl/LAist)
Let me break it down for you.
La La Land? More like Clown Town
First things first: clowns are a century-old theatrical symbol of foolishness and naiveté that can be used to question power and institutions. That makes the artistic practice sound incredibly highbrow, but I need you to picture Lucille Ball, Jim Carrey, or Beetlejuice. It’s a highly skilled form of comedy that really utilizes physicality—pure, honest, commitment to the bit.
So, it makes sense that here in Hollywood—an industry town currently ravaged by productions shutting down during the pandemic, the Screen Actors Guild and Writers Guild of America strikes last summer, ever-increasing usage of AI, more and more adaptations of existing IP and fewer original works, productions leaving California all together, and the seeming destruction of a working class in entertainment—writers and performers would turn to clown.
FLWLS performs at Stand Up and Clown at the Elysian on Monday, Nov. 25, 2024, in Los Angeles, CA.
(Carlin Stiehl/LAist)
It’s an art form that’s grounded in humanity and absurdity.
I myself turned to clown in 2022 after signing up for The Elysian’s mailing list. One upcoming class that winter was called “Clowns on Acid: Eating Your Panties.” I was sold. After finishing grad school with a degree in journalism in May of 2020, I was feeling a bit… dissuaded and lost. Years of academic rigor followed by navigating a rapidly changing field in a world that was not the one promised to me as a young adult? Tough! I wanted to embrace the absurdity, reconnect with my theater kid roots, and try something new.
So I let longtime clown and performance artist, the incredibly tall and beautiful Kira Nova, lead me and a small group of fellow wannabe clowns into the mountains as the start of a weekend clown intensive. I was particularly taken in by a (now deleted) ten-minute video she had posted on Instagram shortly prior to the workshop, wherein she described wanting to break Americans “out of the matrix” — a world dominated by capitalism, created by a dearth of arts education and funding.
That’s a sentiment echoed by Chad Damiani, a well-known clown teacher and performer in the scene.
From professional screenwriter to father of clowns
After teaching one of his incredibly popular workshops at The Elysian, the charismatic and almost professorial Damiani said, “Clown tends to exist at times when there are people with great power who need to be taken down a few notches or institutions that seem to be completely suffocating a culture.”
Chad Damiani does his warmup exercises before Stand Up and Clown at the Elysian on Monday, Nov. 25, 2024, in Los Angeles, CA.
(Carlin Stiehl/LAist)
ThinkCourt Jesters, or even Charlie Chaplin in The Great Dictator. Damiani says that “clowns can go in, and their job is to break all the rules and show you that the system, the institution, is actually a lie.”
Damiani’s career has ranged from editorial assistant to an announcer for World Championship wrestling. Eventually, he landed in L.A. as a working screenwriter, taking improv classes in the evenings. That is, until he and his writing partner JP Levin sold a movie pitch based on the popular mobile phone app, Fruit Ninja.
The film never got made.
“There’s no denying what we’ve become. We are so part of the system,” said Damiani, reflecting on the experience of writing and pitching the Fruit Ninja movie.
The failure of that film is what led him to be “all in on clown.”
“I had this fruitful, amazing life at night, performing these experimental shows… And it became harder and harder to ignore how much happier I was at the things that I was making no money doing,” Damiani said.
Chad Damiani performs an opening monologue at Stand Up and Clown at the Elysian on Monday, Nov. 25, 2024, in Los Angeles, CA.
(Carlin Stiehl/LAist)
This clown ethos also extends beyond live performance.
“The People’s Joker” rises
Filmmaker, writer, and comedy editor Vera Drew is the epitome of clown in her debut feature film, The People’s Joker.
Filmmaker Vera Drew inside her apartment on Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2024, in Pasadena, CA.
(Carlin Stiehl/LAist)
After years of working in comedy as an editor on everything from The Eric Andre Show to Who Is America, Drew was ready for a change. She says she was starting to feel “compartmentalized to being in this very straight cis guy-dominated comedy circle” and was ready to lean into sincerity rather than irony.
During the lockdowns in 2020, as Drew was experimenting with makeup and clown aesthetics, Todd Phillip’s Joker became a comfort film. She says it felt like watching her own story and jokes that she’s seen it “8,000 times.”
This led to the creation of a feature-length length Joker parody in Drew’s idiosyncratic, alt-comedy style and enlisted the help of hundreds of artists from around the world to provide animation ranging from CG to rotoscope. The result, The People’s Joker, is a kaleidoscopic queer coming-of-age story that reimagines the Joker as a trans woman and functions as a takedown of comedy institutions like Saturday Night Live and the improv school Upright Citizens Brigade.
A strongly worded letter from Warner Bros., the studio that owns the DC Comics intellectual property (and is infamously known for throwing finished films in the trash for tax write-offs), attempted to shut down distribution of Drew’s film.
But clowns beat the system: The People’s Joker was ultimately acquired by a small film distributor and has played in theaters, received a physical release, and is also streaming online. And Vera Drew just won Best Breakthrough Director at the Gotham Awards. You can’t keep a clown down.
Filmmaker Vera Drew inside her apartment on Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2024, in Pasadena, CA.
(Carlin Stiehl/LAist)
Filmmaker Vera Drew holding her film “The People’s Joker” inside her apartment on Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2024, in Pasadena, CA. (Carlin Stiehl/LAist)
All this to say, in a world where it’s becoming easier and easier to get swallowed up by machines, to remove human touch and connection from art and our day-to-day lives… Vera Drew and Chad Damiani’s work affirms the necessity of clowns in our moment: making crude jokes but also asking us to think outside the frameworks of our current systems.
The performance began with Justin Bieber making a grand entrance, dressed in a white, wings-attached angel costume, adding a dramatic flair to the already star-studded event. As the performance kicked off, Bieber, full of energy and caught in the momentum of the show, unexpectedly lost his footing.
In a comedic and unplanned moment, the pop sensation lost his balance mid-step and crashed directly onto Eminem, who was already performing his own set nearby. The fall was as sudden as it was awkward, with Bieber landing in Eminem’s arms, sending the crowd into fits of laughter.
Ever the professional, Eminem didn’t miss a beat. He quickly steadied Bieber and, with his signature dry humor, joked about the moment, showing his playful side. The two exchanged lighthearted banter before continuing the performance, much to the audience’s delight. The mix of Bieber’s angelic costume and the unexpected fall added an unexpected layer of humor to the performance, showing the genuine camaraderie between the two stars.
Elon Musk and Tesla have lost a legal battle after a judge ruled against the richest man in the world being given a massive $56 billion pay deal.
Delaware judge Kathleen McCormick shot down the historic reward for Musk, marking the second time the payout has been rejected by the courts.
Musk was set to receive the $56 billion in pay from Tesla under a historic compensation package struck in 2018. It was described in court documents as the largest ever seen in public markets.
Tesla moved to ratify the agreement via a shareholder vote, then asked the court to approve it afterwards.
Elon Musk was denied his hefty Tesla payout (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
Judge McCormick called Tesla’s legal argument ‘fatally flawed’ and at times ‘indefensible’ as she denied the motion in a 101-page opinion.
The judge wrote: “The large and talented group of defense firms got creative… but their unprecedented theories go against multiple strains of settled law.
“Novelty is not necessarily damning, but defendants’ novel request flies in the face of the policy bases for all relevant rules of procedure.
“Were the court to condone the practice of allowing defeated parties to create new facts for the purpose of revising judgments, lawsuits would become interminable.”
As a result of the decision, Tesla shares fell by as much as 1.4 percent in after-hours trading.
The judge also shot down a ‘bold ask’ from the plaintiff’s lawyer, who asked to receive their legal fees in the form of $5.6 billion in Tesla stock.
On December 2, Tesla released a statement vowing to appeal the verdict to a higher court, saying it was only intending to pay Musk ‘what he is worth’.
Musk took his complaints to Twitter after the move by the judge (Nora Tam/South China Morning Post via Getty Images)
The statement read: “A Delaware judge just overruled a supermajority of shareholders who own Tesla and who voted twice to pay Elon Musk what he’s worth.
“The court’s decision is wrong, and we’re going to appeal.
“This ruling, if not overturned, means that judges and plaintiffs’ lawyers run Delaware companies rather than their rightful owners—the shareholders.”
Musk agreed and shared the company’s statement on Twitter.
He also declared that’shareholders should control company votes, not judges’ while sharing a social media post by investor Cathie Wood, the CEO of Ark Invest, who took issue with McCormick’s decision.
In a tweet, she commented, “Based on her @TSLA ruling, DE Judge McCormick is an activist judge at its worst. No judge has the right to determine CEO compensation.
“Shareholders voted twice, overwhelmingly each time, to ratify Elon Musk’s 2018 performance-based pay package. She will lose this fight in the Supreme Court. I stand by my original response, supporting Tesla and Elon.”
His three children are only getting a small portion of his net worth.
Bill Gates may be one of the richest people on the planet, but he doesn’t plan on staying that wealthy forever.
The Microsoft co-founder has an estimated net worth of $153 billion (about £120 billion), which makes him the fifth-richest individual in the world.
In 2022, Bill Gates made a surprising statement when he explained he’d like to donate a large portion of his wealth to his philanthropic organisation, meaning his children would only inherit a small amount of his wealth and that he would move down and ‘eventually off’ the list of the most loaded people on the planet.
This is not to say that Gates hasn’t indulged in some lavish expense throughout the years. The billionaire purchased several dreamy properties around the US as well as sports cars, of which he’s an avid collector.
Bill Gates is among the disgustingly rich few with a net worth of more than $100 billion. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images) ))) )
With a fraction of his fortune, the businessman bought an estate on 12-parcel land worth $183.5 million. His estate, named Xanadu 2.0, is located in Medina, Washington, and reportedly took Gates seven years and $63 million to build.
Xanadu 2.0 consists of six kitchens, 24 bathrooms, and a home theatre for 20 guests, as well as a library and various garages that can house up to 23 cars (but more on automobiles later).
A 60-foot pool is housed in its own separate building and boasts an underwater sound system, while Gates is said to have imported sand straight from St Lucia in the Caribbean to populate the shore surrounding the house.
Unsurprisingly, the mansion of the tech billionaire includes some display screens on the walls that can show different paintings or photographs, but Xanadu 2.0 also features real artworks, like a $36 million Winslow Homer painting, and precious collectibles, namely a 16th-century Leonardo da Vinci manuscript that Gates secured at a 1994 auction for the eye-watering price of $30 million.
Alongside Xanadu 2.0, Gates also owns several other properties, being one of the largest private landowners in the country. Gates’ portfolio includes a $35 million 20-acre estate in Wellington, Florida; an $18 million 228-acre Rancho Paseana in California; a $43 million oceanfront home in Del Mar, California; and a 6-bedroom home built on the grounds of Indian Wells’ Vintage Club, to name a few.
The Microsoft co-founder bought a Porsche 911 when he first started making money in 1979. (Doug Wilson/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images )
He also owns 71.25 percent of the Four Seasons hotel chain, as well as having invested in the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco with some unnamed buyers for the sum of $161 million and in Bud Light’s parent company for $95 million.
However, Gates didn’t just splurge on personal luxuries, including holidays, several Porsches, and a private BMW BD-700 Global Express. The entrepreneur has invested in several philanthropic endeavours and healthcare with his ex-wife Melinda, with the couple donating $5 million to Alzheimer’s research, $2 billion to defeat malaria, and $50 million to fight Ebola, amongst other causes.
As for what will happen to his fortune in the future, Gates stated that he would leave his three children ‘just’ $10 million each, but ‘virtually’ all of his money would go to the philanthropic organisation he shares with his ex-wife, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Physicists have found a new way to use data from high-energy particle smashups to peer inside protons. Their approach uses quantum information science to map out how particle tracks streaming from electron-proton collisions are influenced by quantum entanglement inside the proton. The results reveal that quarks and gluons, the fundamental building blocks that make up a proton’s structure, are subject to so-called quantum entanglement.
Data from past proton-electron collisions provide strong evidence of entanglement among the proton’s sea of quarks (spheres) and gluons (squiggles), which may play an important role in their strong-force interactions. Image credit: Valerie Lentz/Brookhaven National Laboratory.
“Before we did this work, no one had looked at entanglement inside of a proton in experimental high-energy collision data,” said Brookhaven Lab physicist Zhoudunming (Kong) Tu.
“For decades, we’ve had a traditional view of the proton as a collection of quarks and gluons, and we’ve been focused on understanding so-called single-particle properties, including how quarks and gluons are distributed inside the proton.”
“Now, with evidence that quarks and gluons are entangled, this picture has changed. We have a much more complicated, dynamic system.”
“This latest paper refines our understanding of how entanglement impacts proton structure.”
“Mapping out the entanglement among quarks and gluons inside protons could offer insight into other complex questions in nuclear physics, including how being part of a larger nucleus affects proton properties.”
“This will be one focus of future experiments at the Electron-Ion Collider (EIC), a nuclear physics research facility expected to open at Brookhaven Lab in the 2030s.”
For the study, Dr. Tu and colleagues used the language and equations of quantum information science to predict how entanglement should impact particles streaming from electron-proton collisions.
Such collisions are a common approach for probing proton structure, most recently at the Hadron-Electron Ring Accelerator (HERA) particle collider in Hamburg, Germany, from 1992 to 2007, and are planned for future EIC experiments.
The equations predict that if the quarks and gluons are entangled, that can be revealed from the collision’s entropy, or disorder.
“Think of a kid’s messy bedroom, with laundry and other things all over the place. In that disorganized room, the entropy is very high,” Dr. Tu said.
According to the calculations, protons with maximally entangled quarks and gluons—a high degree of ‘entanglement entropy’—should produce a lot of particles with a’messy’ distribution—a high degree of entropy.
“For a maximally entangled state of quarks and gluons, there is a simple relation that allows us to predict the entropy of particles produced in a high-energy collision,” said Dr. Dmitri Kharzeev, a theorist affiliated with both Brookhaven Lab and Stony Brook University.
“In our paper, we tested this relation using experimental data.”
The scientists started by analyzing data from proton-proton collisions at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, but they also wanted to look at the ‘cleaner’ data produced by electron-proton collisions.
The physicists cataloged detailed information from data recorded in 2006-2007, including how particle production and distributions varied and a wide range of other information about the collisions that produced these distributions.
When they compared the HERA data with the entropy calculations, the results matched the predictions perfectly.
These analyses, including the latest results on how particle distributions change at various angles from the collision point, provide strong evidence that quarks and gluons inside protons are maximally entangled.
“The revelation of entanglement among quarks and gluons sheds light on the nature of their strong-force interactions,” Dr. Kharzeev said.
“It may offer additional insight into what keeps quarks and gluons confined within protons, which is one of the central questions in nuclear physics that will be explored at the EIC.”
“Maximal entanglement inside the proton emerges as a consequence of strong interactions that produce a large number of quark-antiquark pairs and gluons.”
The team’s work appears in the journal Reports on Progress in Physics.
The country star is currently in the midst of her Deeper Well tour
Kacey Musgraves didn’t hold back after a fan was allegedly disrespectful toward her.
On Saturday, Nov. 30, the country star, 36, called out a fan who appeared to grab her during her concert in Tampa, Fla., the night prior.
In fan-captured footage, Musgraves told the audience of her Hollywood, Fla., concert about how she thought she was going to have to get “real East Texas” on the fan.
“Last night, this Tampa bitch,” the “Space Cowboy” singer began. “She kind of ruined it. She kind of ruined it for everybody. I thought I was going to have to get real East Texas on her and take off my earrings. Florida goes hard.”
Kacey Musgraves in October 2024.
Per fan-captured video on Friday, a fan appeared to grab Musgraves as she was walking through the crowd.
The “Rainbow” musician then stopped singing and could be seen telling the fan, “What the f—?”
“Jesus f—ing Christ,” she then said into the mic, per fan-captured TikTok footage.
Reps for Musgraves have not yet responded to PEOPLE’s requests for comment.
Since last summer, artists have been met with troubling behavior from fans.
A slew of stars have spoken out about fans throwing things at them while they’re performing on stage. Bebe Rexha was seriously hurt in New York City when a fan chucked a cell phone at her face (he was arrested), and Harry Styles was hit by objects multiple times while touring Europe last summer.
As recently as last week, Zach Bryan had to pause his Tacoma Dome concert in Washington after an unidentified object was hurled at him and a guitarist onstage, per footage from Country Central.
After picking up the object, the “I Remember Everything” musician sent a glaring look in the direction where it came from as he addressed the crowd.
“Who threw this? Who was it?” Bryan, 28, asked while holding up an item. “Does anyone know?”
He gave it a few moments to see if anyone wouldcome forward, or if others would point the person out. Unable to figure out who threw it, Bryan delivered a stern warning instead.
“Don’t throw s— at concerts, huh?” he said.
Musgraves is currently in the midst of her Deeper Well tour, which is set to wrap for the year on Dec. 7 in Nashville before picking up again on Feb. 28 in Tempe, Ariz.
“Hold your horses and check your sources,” one historian wrote.
Image courtesy of Almeron Newman/Library of Congress
A sepia-toned photograph showing dozens of men standing in the formation of a horse’s head is said by some to have been created to pay tribute to all the horses, donkeys, and mules that were killed during WWI.Social media users have shared the image on numerous platforms for years, such as X, Reddit, Facebook, TikTok, Imgur and Instagram. However, those posts contained some inaccurate information, which is why we have rated the picture as misspelled.
Some claimed the photo was originally captured in 1916, while others said it was from 1918 and showed a “tribute to the 8 million horses, donkeys, and mules that lost their lives during World War I.”
An October 2015 article by British newspaper Daily Express was even headlined: “Never Forget: Incredible tribute to the 8 million hero horses killed in the First World War.”
In short, while the image itself is authentic, there is no record to suggest it was taken in memory of all the equine animals that were killed during WWI. Instead, the gesture was carried out in tribute to just one horse belonging to a WWI remount commander. It was also captured after the war, not during the conflict.
According to Library of Congress (LOC) records, photographer Almeron Newman captured the picture at Camp Cody, New Mexico, in 1919—after WWI. LOC describes the image as showing the “formation of soldiers into the shape of a horse’s head.”
The caption says 650 officers and enlisted men of Auxiliary Remount Depot No. 326 posed for the photo “in a symbolic head pose of ‘The Devil’ saddle horse ridden by Maj. Frank G. Brewer, remount commander.”
It does not mention the men posing for all of the equine animals that died during WWI.
Military historian Lucy Betteridge-Dyson addressed the image in a blog post titled “Hold your horses and check your sources,” published in May 2019:
Over the years the photo has been reused and watermarked multiple times with misleading information which has perpetuated the myths surrounding it [ … ] I have tried to find further information on Maj. Brewer without much luck. Interestingly the US National Archives has a copy of the photograph, recorded in 1921, where Brewer is referred to as Colonel Frank C Brewer, instead. In their version, there is also a photo of a horse. This was likely used by Newman to model the scene, perhaps it may even be ‘The Devil’ himself (or herself as the case may be!)
[…]
There is no evidence to suggest this photo was taken in tribute to the millions of horses who served in the Great War, but it is a stunning photograph and gives us an insight into one of the largest remount depots in America in the immediate post war period.
Newman also captured a panoramic photo showing Camp Cody officers of the 34th Division on June 23, 1918, according to Library of Congress records.
(Almeron Newman/Library of Congress)
Newman is credited with taking another similar picture, which is hosted by the Palace of the Governors Photo Archive at the New Mexico History Museum. Records show it was captured in 1918 and shows “16,000 men” in the form of an “animated crest of the 34th (Sandstorm) Division at Camp Cody.”
(Almeron Newman/Governors Photo Archive at the New Mexico History Museum)
Archives West Orbis is an online database that catalogs archival collections hosted by various institutions in the Western U.S. Its website describes Newman’s experience in the world of military photography.
It’s a nudibranch, but so distantly related that it gets its own phylogenetic family.
Credit: MBARI
Some of the most bizarre lifeforms on Earth lurk in the deeper realms of the ocean. There was so little known about one of these creatures that it took 20 years just to figure out what exactly it was. Things only got weirder from there.
The organism’s distinctive, glowing presence was observed by multiple deep-sea missions between 2000 and 2021 but was simply referred to as “mystery mollusk.” A team of Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) researchers has now reviewed extensive footage of past mystery mollusk sightings and used MBARI’s remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) to observe it and collect samples. They’ve given it a name and have finally confirmed that it is a nudibranch—the first and only nudibranch known to live at such depths.
Bathydevius caudactylus, as this nudibranch is now called, lives 1,000–4,000 meters (3,300–13,100 feet) deep in the ocean’s bathypelagic or midnight zone. It moves like a jellyfish, eats like a Venus flytrap, and is bioluminescent, and its genes are distinct enough for it to be classified as the first member of a new phylogenetic family.
“Anatomy, diet, behavior, bioluminescence, and habitat distinguish this surprising nudibranch from all previously described species, and genetic evidence supports its placement in a new family,” the MBARI research team said in a study recently published in Deep Sea Research.
Is that…
Nudibranchs are gastropods, which literally translates to “stomach foot,” since the “foot” they crawl around on when not swimming is right below their guts. They are part of a larger group that includes terrestrial and aquatic snails and slugs. B. caudactylus, however, seems to get around more like a jellyfish than a sea slug. It mostly swims using an oral hood that opens and closes to propel itself backward through the water in a manner similar to many jellyfish.
The hood of B. caudactylus can also act something like a Venus flytrap. While it is not a hinged structure like the leaves of the plant, it is used to trap prey. Typically small crustaceans, the prey are then pushed to the mouth at the back of the hood.
The mystery mollusk.
The nudibranch also seems to have a unique way of avoiding becoming food itself. Projections at the end of its tail, known as dactyls, can detach if needed, much like the tails of some lizard species. The MBARI team thinks that these dactyls are possibly a lure meant to trick predators while the nudibranch swims away. They later regenerate.
B. caudactylus is gelatinous and transparent, with a smooth heart, textured digestive gland, and whitish brain that can easily be seen from the outside. On its head are two antenna-like chemosensory organs known as rhinophores, which probably help it sense prey. A cylindrical foot helps with locomotion on the ocean floor. Like many other bioluminescent organisms in the deep sea, it glows blue since red light does not transmit far at those depths.
Almost alien
So how is B. caudactylus related to other nudibranchs? The researchers sequenced three of its genes and compared them to sequences from two prominent groups of nudibranchs (the dorids and cladobranchs) to find out. While the sequences of each B. caudactylus version of the gene had differences with those of the other groups, they still had enough in common for the mystery mollusk to be classified as a nudibranch.
“The three genes… supported that Bathydevius is a divergent genus of Nudibranchia,” the MBARI team said in the same study. “[It is a] sister to the rest of cladobranch and dorid nudibranchs [and a] sister to [the genus] Bathydoris.”
Even with its genetic relationship to other nudibranchs, there are many areas where B. caudactylus deviates. It is not the only nudibranch with a hood that traps prey and also not the only species to prey on crustaceans, which is rare for nudibranchs, which usually feed on cnidarians like jellyfish. It also lacks a radula, the tongue-like structure most nudibranchs eat with. Melibae leonina shares all these characteristics, but it is genetically distant. The researchers think that the similarities between the two species are a result of convergent evolution, when genetically unrelated organisms develop similar characteristics.
Bioluminescence is also uncommon in nudibranchs. B. caudactylus is only the third known bioluminescent nudibranch and seventh known bioluminescent gastropod. Again, it’s only distantly related to the other species.
The deep ocean is the closest thing to an alien environment, yet it’s right on our own planet. Much of it either remains unexplored or is still not well understood. This could mean that there are still many undiscovered species hiding in the darkness. Protecting their ecosystems could give us a chance to find more forms of life just as strange and fascinating as a glowing sea slug.
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(Almeron Newman/Library of Congress)
(Almeron Newman/Governors Photo Archive at the New Mexico History Museum)
