toucana

Not just the Herring Gulls (Larus Argentatus), - you also need to watch out for the Lesser Black Back (Larus Fuscus) and the Greater Black Back Gulls (Larus Marinus) - and never mind ‘Googly Eyes’, you’ll also need eyes in the back of your head to see them coming, as these birds have perfected a Stuka like dive-bomb attack from behind over your right shoulder. A few years ago my wife and I had just disembarked in Ullapool on the West Highland coast of Scotland after a multi-hour voyage from Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis. Feeling hungry we headed for the Fish & Chips delicatessen on the harbour front where they actually have prominent notices up warning customers about these predators. We walked out of the chippy and sat down on the steps near the ferry terminal to enjoy the scenic view up the sea loch. I raised my piece of battered cod ,and the next moment it was gone, as a Black Back whistled over my shoulder.

There is a story that back in the early days of WW2 when mathematicians, linguists, crossword solvers and academics of every type were being hurriedly recruited in great secrecy and sent off to Bletchley Park to become Enigma code-breakers under the leadership of Alan Turing - that one new recruit called Geoffrey Tandy turned out to be a marine biologist who specialised in the study of cyanobacteria, a family of which Prochlorococcus is a member. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Tandy Some Bletchley staff were were still uncertain why he had been recruited into the Enigma program until they rechecked his file card and found he was listed as an authority on ‘Cryptogams’ - (from Ancient Greek κρυπτός (kruptós) 'hidden' and γαμέω (gaméō) 'to marry') meaning "hidden reproduction”) - a more general scientific name for these photosynthetic organisms Fortunately he turned out to be quite good at solving cryptograms as well, and spent the rest of the war as a code-breaker. Other sources say that while Tandy did indeed work at Bletchley Park, he wasn’t actually recruited by mistake.

The US Navy Secretary John Phelan has been fired by Peter Hegseth. His departure will be “effective immediately” according to a social media post by Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell on Wednesday. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce9ml02g5k7o Phelan is the latest high-ranking military leader to leave the administration in recent months. His departure comes amid the US-Israel war with Iran and the continued US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz; and his departure also comes just weeks after US Defence secretary Pete Hegseth asked Army Chief of Staff Randy George to step down from his post along with General David Hodne and Major General William Green. Since entering the Pentagon, Hegseth has fired more than a dozen senior military officers, including the chief of naval operations and the Air Force's vice chief of staff. No reason was given for Phelan’s abrupt dismissal, but he appears to have fallen foul of Pete Hegseth’s deputy defence secretary Stephen Feinberg over future shipbuilding plans, following President Trump’s announcement last December that the US would commission a new series of heavily armed Navy "battleships" named after himself .

Figures vary according to whether you specify scientists or engineers in the query, but online sources suggest that JPL in Pasadena California alone employs between 4,500 and 5,000 personnel. A somewhat smaller number work on fusion research projects, though quite a few of these are employed by private fusion companies rather than by the US government, with estimates of around 1,000 personnel in the USA in 2024, with a rough breakdown of 25% scientists and 48% engineers. In the public sector, key labs like Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (NIF), Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), and others employ hundreds of physicists and engineers dedicated to inertial and magnetic confinement fusion. NASA employs some 18,000 people, with engineer as the largest job title. But they are also bolstered by tens of thousands of contractors from the private aerospace and defense sector with up to half a million working on defense, space projects and missile systems. So yes - An unexplained mortality of 10 scientists/engineers within the last three years is unlikely to be statistically significant.

In 1964 a British SciFi author Eric Frank Russell (1905-1978) wrote a novel “With A Strange Device” (aka “The Mind Warpers”) which now seems to have a certain prescient relevance to concerns raised recently in the highest circles of US government about an alarming number of American scientists working on classified projects who have inexplicably gone missing, or who have died in unexplained circumstances. https://edition.cnn.com/2026/04/21/us/deaths-disappearances-scientists-investigation A separate investigation by the Republican House Oversight Committee into the same questions was announced on Monday. In Eric Frank Russell’s novel “With A Strange Device” inexplicable numbers of US scientists working in highly classified government weapons research are abandoning their jobs and careers for completely irrational reasons, then disappearing and refusing to explain why when traced by the authorities The story is told from the perspective of a young metallurgist called Richard Bransome working in missile research. https://variety-sf.blogspot.com/2007/09/eric-frank-russells-with-strange-device.html One day a conversation overheard by chance in a lunch-diner discloses that the body of a young woman he strangled years earlier has been found hidden under the roots of a fallen tree. Filled with horror, he prepares to abandon his career and family and go on the run. But there is one problem - as he belatedly discovers no such murder ever took place. It’s a completely false memory implanted and triggered by post hypnotic suggestion - the chance conversation overheard in the diner. As an FBI agent later explains to him - “There are two ways of weakening the enemy. You can acquire his brains for your own use or, if that proves impossible, you can deprive him of the use of them." Eric Frank Russell explored a similar theme - i.e. the inexplicable disappearances or deaths of leading scientific researchers in an earlier novel called “Sinister Barrier” (1939). He was said to have spent WW2 working for British military intelligence on wartime deception operations like ‘Operation Mincemeat’ (‘The Man Who Never Was’) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Never_Was Russell later wrote another novel called “Wasp” (1957) about asymmetric terrorist warfare which was said to have become part of the CIA’s training manual on this subject.

There are number of leaked reports today that president Trump was effectively excluded from the situation room during a fraught military operation to rescue a downed airman inside Iran just over a week ago Top military advisers deliberately limited Trump's access to the live operation, choosing not to include him in minute‑by‑minute tactical monitoring. Instead, aides reportedly briefed the president only at what they considered 'meaningful moments', fearing that his 'erratic behaviour', which meant emotional reactions or impulsive directives, could disrupt a highly sensitive mission. https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/inside-situation-room-trump-exclusion-iran-rescue-1792499 That decision meant the Situation Room became a command post run primarily by national security and military leadership rather than the president himself. Officials reportedly coordinating or tracking the mission included US Vice President JD Vance, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Pentagon leaders, intelligence officials and National Security Council staff. While some monitored remotely, the Situation Room remained the operational hub where developments were assessed in real time. Both the WSJ and TDB suggest Trump was concerned that the two missing airmen could define his presidency. “If you look at what happened with Jimmy Carter…with the helicopters and the hostages, it cost them the election,” Trump said in March. “What a mess.”

It's a reference to a distinctive type of tail light found on a number of British automobiles of that period. It bears a resemblance to the three-pointed symbol of CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) aka the "Ban-the-Bomb" protest movement of the late 50s and early 60s in UK.

I think the explanation you are looking for can be found in this thread: https://www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=101567 The internal timing of a magneto ignition system on these early cars was controlled by a linkage that adjusted an internal cam ring with a bump which knocked the points open creating a spark. https://www.themagnetoguys.co.uk/magneto-internal-timing The strength of the spark depended on the spacing between the bump point and the flux points of the permanent magnets in the armature

Wrist and arm fractures caused by cranking over early automobile engines with the starting handle were once so common that doctors coined a new medical term for it - ‘Chauffeur’s Fracture’. https://forums.aaca.org/topic/120754-cranking-early-cars-broken-wrist-medical-term/ According to this account, inventor Charles F. Kettering (1876- 1958) formed Delco (Dayton Engineering Laboratory Company) and created the automatic starter motor after a close friend and fellow engineer called Byron Carter (founder of Cartercar) died in April 1908 from pneumonia after having his jaw broken by a starting handle while trying to hand crank a stalled car near Detroit.

Vacuum cleaners with cable drums that automatically rewind the mains lead back inside the housing are another good example.

TIL - It’s not a good idea to try repairing one of those spring-loaded retractable steel tape measures that carpenters use. I was helping a friend measure up some trees with a 5m tape that became over extended and detached from the retaining spring tab. No problem I thought - take it back home, open it up and fix. There are plenty of YouTube videos on this subject - some of the better ones are in Hindi and Arabic as it happens. But the one I decided to link here is a 28m long Australian video which captures the full magnitude of all the problems and stages of grief that can ensue with an 8m tape - (wear gauntlets and eye protection !) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYfnuO8SIqA It’s actually a lot simpler and safer to just bin it.

Presumably no one told him the Pope is a Catholic either ? https://ca.news.yahoo.com/morning-joe-hillary-clinton-calls-181002033.html

Modern Italian uses the word Magnete when referring to magnets in a scientific or engineering context.

The sculpture is called Calamita Cosmica (“Cosmic Magnet”) created by a reclusive Italian artist called Gino de Dominicis (1947-1998) who died in Rome of a heart attack aged 51 - not long after exhibiting this work for the first time. Apparently he was fascinated by Sumerian myths and immortality. The Italian word calamita meaning a "magnet" has an interesting etymology. It probably comes from the Latin word calamus (“reed”, “stalk’ or “straw”) because early versions of mariner compass needles were made of lodestone, and were inserted into a reed or straw to float upon a bowl of water.

The Go analogy came to mind while trying to find a precedent for a strategy as odd as answering one threatened naval blockade with another - which president Trump has now done. Japanese Go like Poker is a zero-sum game where one player’s gain is matched exactly by another player’s loss,with no draw/tied state outcomes possible - (with a couple of very rare exceptions in the case of Go). Real war on the other hand is regarded as a non zero-sum game by game theorists. It’s entirely possible for all of the antagonists to suffer significant or even catastrophic losses in a ‘lose-lose’ game with no winners. The MAD (mutual assured destruction) concept of thermonuclear deterrence depends on this concept. I came across a discussion of this topic in a recent article by the writer and evolutionary theorist Robert Wright called “The NonZero Newsletter” in which the author asks the question: It’s a good question which the article discusses at some length before suggesting that two levels of accounting can occur in the type of thinking that encourages leaders like President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu to pursue military “excursions” (to use Trump’s word) in the Middle East. One is a belief that in a final tabulation, a significant gain of territory, resources, and an enhanced level of border security may (in the mind of leaders at least) outweigh the loss of life, economic damage, and the international opprobium that you will suffer. The second level of calculation is entirely political. The fact that domestic political benefits can accrue for particular leaders who initiate wars. Prime minister of Israel Netenyahu skilfully exploited the appalling security lapses of 7 October 2023 which occurred on his watch, and turned them into a get-out-of-jail- free card by sustaining a war on Gaza well past the point where Hamas had been neutralized - and rose in domestic public esteem by doing so. He then started another conflict first in Iran, and then in Lebanon when public attention began wandering away from Gaza and back towards the fact that he should have been in gaol. In the case of President Trump, there was no remotely plausible national security threat that justified attacking Venezuela, and the same goes for his attack on Iran: That - and the fact that it provided an opportune distraction from the growing domestic discontent and the political fallout from the Epstein files and the ICE fiascos of the last few months - not to mention the fact that he (like Netanyahu) should have been either in gaol for fraud, or in a lunatic ayslum for the criminally insane.

President Trump’s threat to ‘blockade the straits of Hormuz’ following the collapse of the Islamabad peace talks between the US and Iran yesterday brings to mind something known as a ‘counter-pincer’ in the Japanese game of Go. https://senseis.xmp.net/?CounterPincer A ‘pincer’ or hasami 螯 in Go occurs in the opening phases of a game when one player attacks another player’s corner stone, and that player defends their corner by pincering the attacking stone with one of their own. A counter-pincer occurs when the pincered player doubles down by pincering the pincering stone This almost invariably leads to a highly complex and fluid contact fight in that area of the board. Suffice to say it’s a line of play that novices are strongly recommended to avoid, and one that even experienced Dan level players think twice about, because of the complexity of the territorial exchanges that can ensue. The Straits of Hormuz carry not only about one fifth of the oil shipped around the world, but also large amounts of key mineral resources such as aluminium that many Asian economies depend on. Shortages of oil caused by a naval blockade in the Straits of Hormuz don’t just affect the price of petrol at the pumps. They also affect the supply of many other items such as plastics and pharmaceutical products that depend on a petrochemical feedstock. Relatives living in France tell me that there are major concerns there about the future availability of quite common household medicines, as long-standing supply side problems in the French pharmaceutical industry are compounded by the current blockades in The Straits of Hormuz. Several days ago the Airports Council International (ACI) warned that European airline operators could start running out of jet fuel within three weeks because around 50% of Europe’s aviation fuel comes from Gulf sources. This could lead to wholescale flight cancelations and the shutdown of smaller airports right in the middle of the summer holiday season https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3w37ggp011o Yet another problem arising from the ongoing blockade of Gulf shipping will be a worldwide shortage of helium which has already doubled in price since the start of this crisis. https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2026/3/26/helium-hitch-why-us-israel-war-on-iran-could-cause-mri-scan-delays Around one third of the world’s supply of helium comes from Qatar, the world’s chief producer of this chemical which is of critical importance in the operation of medical MRI scanners which rely on superconducting electromagnets; and to the semiconductor sector which uses helium extensively for cooling purging and plasma control during chip manufacture.

Oddly enough I had completely forgotten about that A.C. Clarke story, from 1970, though I do vividly recall the Larry Niven story ‘Neutron Star’ which came out 4 years earlier in 1966 as part of the ‘Known Space’ series. Niven later said that he kept meeting people who had done full mathematical analyses of the tidal effects in his story, and they told him the hero could not possibly survive, as the ship comes out of hyperbolic orbit spinning.

Done ? - You have been !

More questions are being asked about the real nature of the SAR (search and rescue) mission conducted in Iran by US forces last weekend. According to a website called Defence Security Asia, US losses included: 1× F-15E Strike Eagle destroyed 2× HC-130J Combat King II destroyed 1× MH-6 Little Bird destroyed 1× A-10 Thunderbolt II destroyed 1–2× MQ-9 Reaper drones destroyed 2× HH-60 rescue helicopters damaged https://defencesecurityasia.com/en/us-2-billion-burned-iran-f15e-rescue-mission-hc130-helicopter-losses/#google_vignette Additional reports suggest that an F-16 Falcon and a KC-135 Stratotanker also declared emergencies over the same period, amounting to a jaw-dropping $2 billion worth of destroyed hardware. The Hercules HC-130J in particular is one of the very largest cargo aircraft flown by the US air-force, making this one of the most expensive SAR missions in US military history. The incident began on 3 April when an F-15E fighter belonging to the 494th Fighter Squadron of the 48th Fighter Wing based at RAF Lakenheath UK was shot down inside Iran by IRG air defences. Initial reports suggested that this happened within mountainous terrain inside Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Province in southwestern Iran. But the subsequent destruction of US aircraft took place several hundred miles further north at a disused airfield about 35 Kilometres from the city of Isfahan which happens to be one of the principal Iranian nuclear material storage sites believed to hold up to 400 kilograms of near weapons grade Uranium 235. On 1 April (two days before the F-15 was shot down) the BBC posted an article suggesting that president Trump was mulling the option of sending a special forces team into Iran to seize this stockpile of Uranium in what would have been a high-risk covert operation https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvglv5v4yvpo The BBC News website returned to this theme last night with a follow-up report suggesting that the SAR mission to rescue the missing F-15E was actually used as cover to conceal an operation of this type - an operation that went very badly wrong. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ0t7WBITyk Iranian defence sources are in no doubt that this is exactly what happened, and are already describing the weekend events as ’Tabas II’ - a reference to the ill-fated ‘Operation Eagle Claw’ in 1980 when US Delta forces were forced to abandon a covert operation to rescue US diplomat hostages after a Hercules C-130 and a helicopter collided at a staging area called Tabas during the early stages of the operation - a disaster which killed 8 US service personnel, and cost president Jimmy Carter the 1980 presidential election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Eagle_Claw

By pure chance I happened to be watching a YT video about the difference between gasoline and kerosene, and why jet aeroplane engines are designed to run on the latter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKl7Gva_ums At just over 1m elapsed you will find this handy illustration of a fractional distillation tower, and what all the different distillation products are used for.

Few actions can convey just how well a war is going as firing three of your top military leaders just four weeks into hostilities - yet this is exactly what has happened at the Pentagon earlier this week. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/3/hegseth-fires-us-army-chief-of-staff-in-reported-string-of-dismissals On Thursday April 2nd Pete Hegseth the so-say ‘Secretary of War’ stunned the military establishment by announcing the immediate ‘retirement’ of General Randy A. George the Army Chief of Staff since 2023, in tandem with General David Hodne, the head of the Army’s Transformation and Training Command, and Major-General William Green jnr - the Army’s Chief of Chaplains. This move which has been described by some military insiders as “completely insane” was reportedly provoked by a personal clash between General Randy A. George and Pete Hegseth over the latter’s decision to block the promotions of four officers - two black and two female - in a list of 29 otherwise white officers gazetted for promotion. According to the Baptist News, this marks the first occasion that an Army Chief of Chaplains has ever been dismissed from post within their four-year term of service - by a curious coincidence Major William Green jnr. also happens to be black. https://baptistnews.com/article/for-first-time-ever-army-chief-of-chaplains-fired-by-hegseth/ Meanwhile in other war news; The Sun has published a video of two US military aircraft that had to be blown up by their own special forces while searching for shot-down F-15 pilots after the rescue aircraft themselves became bogged down in sand behind enemy lines: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siqL6V70McU The Mirror has published video of a $700 million AWACS E-3 spy-plane reduced to rubble on the runway at Prince Sutan Air Base in Saudi Arabia by a $20,000 Iranian Shahed 136 drone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQn04k-eUD4 And The Times of India has published a detailed report claiming that an Iranian drone attack on the US Embassy in Riyadh KSA on 3 March last month caused far more damage than previously acknowledged:

Trump Says Intelligence Played No Role in His Decision to...“Intelligence is for losers.”

Ketamine and Ecstasy (MDMA) which are popular ‘party’ drugs among young nightclub attendees are both capable of causing some degree of hyperthermia - i.e. a rise in body temperature as well.

At least they didn't have to sit through another turgid and incomprehensible speech delivered in robotically inflected English...

Article 5 of the Constitution of Iran refers to the leadership of the Ummah (Islamic community) during the occultation of of the Twelfth Imam, and states that this post should be held by a just and pious faqih (Islamic jurist) who is knowledgeable about affairs of the day, in accordance with Article 107. Article 107 of the Constitution of Iran specifies the qualities and theological qualifications (further specified in Article 109) that such a candidate is expected to possess in order to be elected supreme leader by the 88-man ‘Council of Experts’. https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Iran_1989 If you are interested in a balanced discussion of the Constitution of Iran, then you might also wish to consider: Article 13 (Recognized religious minorities) - which states that: "Zoroastrian, Jewish, and Christian Iranians are the only recognized religious minorities, who, within the limits of the law, are free to perform their religious rites and ceremonies, and to act according to their own canon in matters of personal affairs and religious education." Article 14 (Non Muslims) - which states that : "In accordance with the sacred verse ("God does not forbid you to deal kindly and justly with those who have not fought against you because of your religion and who have not expelled you from your homes" [60:8]), The government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and all Muslims are duty-bound to treat non-Muslims" with "Islamic justice and equity", provided those non-Muslims "refrain from engaging in conspiracy or activity against Islam and the Islamic Republic of Iran". I have found nothing in the text of the Constitution of Iran so far to support your claim that: