PAREDES (ANP) - De Ronde van Portugal gaat een dag na het incident dat aan de Britse wielrenner Finlay Tarling (19) het leven kostte verder. Dat heeft de organisatie van de wedstrijd zaterdag bekendgemaakt. Tarling overleed vrijdag na een frontale aanrijding met een voertuig dat niet verbonden was aan de wedstrijd. Hij was de jongere broer van wielrenner Joshua Tarling.
"De wedstrijd gaat door", schrijft de organisatie. "Er zal een sportwedstrijd zijn, maar geen feest."
De laatste twee etappes van de rittenkoers, die in totaal elf dagen duurt, worden in versoberde vorm verreden. Zo is er voorafgaand aan de etappe van zaterdag een eerbetoon aan Tarling. Ook zijn evenementen rond de koers in overleg met de sponsoren afgelast en rijdt de reclamekaravaan niet.
NSN Development Team
De ploeg van Tarling, NSN Development Team, heeft zaterdag bekendgemaakt niet meer van start te zullen gaan. De ploeg geeft aan met de "volledige steun" van de familie van Tarling wel door te gaan in de Ronde van Tsjechië en de Arctic Race of Norway.
"We willen iedereen in de wielergemeenschap en daarbuiten bedanken voor de ongelofelijke steun in deze moeilijke tijd", schrijft de ploeg in een korte verklaring.
Onder meer wereldkampioen Tadej Pogačar heeft gereageerd op de dood van Tarling. "Een jong lid van de fietsfamilie is verloren gegaan", schreef de Sloveen op sociale media. Ook de Nederlander Thymen Arensman, ploeggenoot van Finlay Tarlings broer Joshua, deelde een steunbetuiging.
DEN HAAG (ANP) - Politievakbond ACP wil dat er met het lokale gezag wordt gereflecteerd over de handhaving rond de boerenacties op snelwegen richting Den Bosch en het dodelijke ongeluk dat vrijdag plaatsvond op de A59 bij Heesch. Dat ongeluk gebeurde in de staart van een file die was ontstaan door trekkers op de snelweg.
De vakbond noemt het "diep en diep triest" dat er twee doden zijn gevallen. De bond wil dat er wordt gereflecteerd "over hoe dit heeft kunnen gebeuren".
De ACP zegt te snappen dat kritiek zich focust op de politie, omdat zij niet zouden hebben gehandhaafd. Maar volgens de politiebond stelt het lokale gezag, en dus de burgemeester, het handhavingsplan op. "De politie geeft slechts advies en beslist er zelf niet over", aldus de woordvoerder. Als het aan de ACP zelf ligt, vindt er bij toekomstige boerenacties meer handhaving plaats.
Eigen verantwoordelijkheid
Actievoerders die met tractoren de snelweg op gaan, dragen hier uiteindelijk zelf verantwoordelijkheid voor, zegt de woordvoerder. "De actievoerders kunnen zelf ook het risico inschatten en zich afvragen of dat slim is", stelt hij.
Een woordvoerster van de politie laat zaterdag weten dat het onderzoek naar de toedracht van het ongeluk nog loopt. Het is nog niet duidelijk wanneer er meer informatie kan worden gedeeld. "Onze collega's gaan heel secuur te werk", aldus de woordvoerster. Bij het ongeluk raakten ook zes mensen gewond. Ook over de ernst van hun verwondingen wil de politie zaterdag nog niets zeggen.
Eind juli werd de Spaanse exclave Ceuta bestormd door Afrikaanse asielzoekers, uw nieuwe buren, waarbij de Marokkaanse politie toch uitermate weinig moeite leek te doen de Miele-krapte op het Europese vasteland een halt toe te roepen. Het waren er zo veel dat een flink deel nog in zelfgebouwde hutten op het strand van Ceuta (een Spaans strand) bivakkeert (zie foto boven). Op sociale media werd een nieuwe bestorming van Ceuta aangekondigd: vandaag. Omdat de Marokkaanse grenswachten nu wél lijken te willen voorkomen dat mensen klimmend, zwemmend, spartelend, knokkend en klauterend naar het Avondland vertrekken zijn er hedenochtend, aan de zuidkant bij Fnideq (Spaanse naam: Castillejos), 'honderden' mensen tegengehouden. Dat melden Spaanse media. Het zou voornamelijk gaan om mensen uit zuidelijkere Afrikaanse landen, en dus niet uit Marokko zelf. Aan Spaanse kant is het 'rustig', maar melden media wel een 'ongekende politie-inzet'. Wat een chaos.
The photographer was on an early-morning hike by a lake in Michigan when he spotted the unusually large amphibian, so he dipped his lens below the waterline to get the shot
Steven Scott Grogin describes his mornings in Michigan as a ritual. He wakes up at 6am on the dot to get ready for a hike. His favourite lake, once a quarry pit, is a 30-minute walk away, so he tends to arrive by around 7am. “It’s serene and private, and I feel very peaceful there,” Grogin says. “The terrain changes from flat areas to very hilly sections, and there is a lot of biodiversity.”
As he circled the lake’s perimeter, he saw this American bullfrog in the water. “It was the largest one I’ve ever seen, around six to eight inches long and very hefty,” he says. “Bullfrogs are predators, but they’re also very skittish, so getting close is difficult.”
Recent comments by AOC have reignited a fiery debate about ‘wokeism’. But what are we really talking about?
Full confession: I am one of those who have come to think that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez can essentially do no wrong. At times when I most fear for the future of our country, I watch her videos and am consoled and cheered by her clarity, her honesty, her intelligence, her simple common sense. So I was a little surprised to hear that on a recent interview on ABC This Week, she quoted a political ally as having remarked: “Woke 1.0 was crazy.”
What surprised me was not that she called for some moderation of the radical positions – the call to defund the police and the military, for example – that have, at times, been an aspect of progressive politics. But I was frankly a little unnerved to hear her use the word “woke”.
Francine Prose is a former president of PEN American Center and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her latest book is Five Weeks in the Country
Welcome back to the Abstract! We’re back to our regularly-scheduled programming this week, so here are the studies that flooded the zone, joined the chorus, reminisced about the past, and gave live birth.
First, scientists reconstruct a devastating series of floods that swept across Europe in the 1340s, offering lessons for our present-day climate crisis. Then: the affairs of amorous amphibians, the mystery of memory, and the case of the Triassic mommy.
In the summer of 1342, central Europe was devastated by the Magdalena Flood, one of the worst natural disasters of the medieval period. This brutal deluge killed thousands of people, wiped out whole villages, and spread economic turmoil and disease. Its frightening depths are recorded by high watermarks on some buildings in Germany, which are often over 20 feet above ground, a sobering reminder of the horrible event.
Now, scientists have discovered that this catastrophe was part of a series of 16 major floods that swept over Europe from 1342 to 1343, many of which have been overlooked or forgotten. By poring over contemporary sources from the time such as chronicles, annals, administrative records, and correspondence, the team reconstructed the timing and intensity of this period.
“It is…surprising that, out of the 16 events described here, only the Magdalena Flood survived in public memory,” said researchers led by Andrea Kiss of the Vienna University of Technology.
“This may be because it was the first time in the German areas when numerous flood marks and memorial plaques were mounted by local authorities and as a community effort and warning on the walls of iconic buildings whereas, for example, no flood marks were set for the Candlemas Flood in Prague,” they continued. “The establishment of such material markers has been shown to play a crucial role in shaping long-term risk awareness and collective memory.”
The high water mark at the "Packhof" in Hannoversch Münden memorializing the St. Mary Magdalene's flood in 1342. Image: Axel Hindemith
Extreme weather events, including floods, are becoming more frequent and intense due to climate change. Hopefully, these historic watermarks will not be surpassed by future floods, but the team warned that “sequences of very large floods, more extreme than those in recent decades, are possible and may occur again” and that current flood management is “not necessarily prepared for such sequences.”
As I’ve noted before, any study based on historical documents is likely to have a banger supplementary materials section, and this one is no exception. The authors pulled together dozens of accounts from people who endured these challenging times with entries that bear witness to submerged castles and towns, and expose the search for meaning in the aftermath. Some blame the stars, or unbalanced elements, or “the sins/ungratefulness of people” (always a classic).
“People barely escaped in the uppest parts of houses; but many people and animals died, as they could not – had no time – run to the hills,” reads one eerie fragment, translated from Latin and written in Magdeburg in 1342.
At least the survivors had time to recover and rebuild, because we all know nothing else bad happened in Europe in the 1340s. Oh wait.
Thanks to the surge of interest in Homer’s Odyssey, we all know what a problem it can be when too many suitors occupy too small a space. It turns out that this is also a real-world issue for female frogs, who can experience “choice overload” when confronted with a cacophony of different male mating calls at once, according to a new study.
“During a breeding season, males gather in dense choruses, sometimes numbering in the hundreds and often including multiple species, where males call to attract females and deter rivals,” said researchers led by Claire Hemingway of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. “These advertising calls can be remarkably loud, reaching a peak sound pressure level (SPL) of up to 108 dB at 50 centimeters.”
Cope’s gray treefrogs mate in “amplexus” position. Image: Jessie Tanner
That’s quite an earful. How’s a frogette supposed to find her prince in the noise? To answer that question, the researchers placed a series of female Cope's gray treefrogs (Hyla chrysoscelis) in a small enclosure and serenaded them with recorded male calls from speakers in different locations. Females prefer longer calls, and hoped toward those sounds when fewer calls were played at once. But they became unable to identify the extended songs as more voices were added to the choir.
“We found that as the number of calling males increased, receivers became less likely to choose the preferred target signal, took longer to decide, and became more likely to defer their decision,” the team said. “Together, these findings provide support that choice overload exerted a strong influence on female decision-making.”
Time to tap into the frog dating market. An app called Ribbit? I’m spitballing here.
The ephemeral nature of memories is a touchstone of human experience—and a major mystery in neuroscience. How can we recall memories from long ago, even though the brain is constantly replacing its circuits?
To shed light on this question, researchers studied the brains of mice placed in artificial hibernation. This state was of interest because memories are related to neural connectivity in the hippocampus, a brain region that effectively flatlines during hibernation, with activity dropping by 70 percent.
Mice lose half their synapses in this deep sleep, making it a natural test of memory retention after a significant disruption of brain connectivity. Yet when the mice in this test awoke from their slumber, they were able to remember the location of treats in a maze that they had explored before the experiment.
The results revealed that despite this “profound reduction in neuronal activity… mice retained previously acquired memories and preserved neuronal representations of experience,” said researchers co-led by Y. J. Lin of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology.
“Rather than relying solely on the strength of individual synapses, the brain may store memories through higher-order structural architecture embedded within the neuronal network,” the team concluded.
The team has a lot more smart scientific stuff to say, but my basic takeaway is: Memories are brain ghosts.
Almost all mammals give birth to live young—a reproductive strategy called viviparity—with the exception of platypuses and echidnas, which insist on laying eggs. Now, scientists have discovered that the origins of mammalian viviparity are far older than previously known, thanks to newly identified features in a fossilized “cynodont,” a mammal ancestor that lived 236 million years ago in the late Triassic period.
The team examined adult fossils of the cynodont species Chiniquodon theotonicus and identified a preserved “neonatal line,” which is a growth ring associated with viviparity. The discovery pushes the timeline of birth in mammal ancestors back by a whopping 90 million years.
Concept art of Chiniquodon theotonicus nursing young. Image: María de los Ángeles Miceli Baro
“Our results provide evidence of viviparity in Chiniquodon theotonicus, which ties in with recent findings showing that other remarkable features of present-day mammals” originated with these early Triassic ancestors, said researchers led by Leandro Carlos Gaetano of the National Scientific and Technical Research Council in Argentina.
“If Chiniquodon theotonicus was viviparous, as our results suggest, this invites a revisiting of the evolutionary history of this reproductive mode,” they concluded.
In het feuilleton spannende dierenverhalen van het Franse platteland de aflevering waarin ik heldhaftig een vleermuis de batkamer (sic) uit weet te werken. Dat arme beest was flink in paniek toen ik het licht aandeed en zijn ingang, het venster, dicht zag. Ik moest langs die vliegende paniekzaaier om het raam weer open te zetten. We leven beide nog.
