Bigfoot the Sasquatch

Bigfoot (also known as Sasquatch) is a cryptid which supposedly is a simian-like creature of American folklore that is said to inhabit forests, especially in the Pacific Northwest. Bigfoot is usually described as a large, hairy, bipedal humanoid. The term sasquatch is an Anglicized derivative of the Halkomelem word sásq'ets.

                                                               Bigfoot in 1967 film

Scientists discount the existence of Bigfoot and consider it to be a combination of folklore, misidentification, and hoax, rather than a living animal. They note the lack of physical evidence after centuries of investigation, despite the fact that numerous creatures would have to exist in order to maintain a breeding population.  A small group of investigators are sustained in their interest by occasional new reports of sightings.  Such reports are attributed to persons seeing various animals, particularly black bears.

Description

Individuals claiming to have seen Bigfoot describe it as a large, hairy, muscular, bipedal ape-like creature, roughly 2–3 metres (6 ft 7 in–9 ft 10 in), covered in hair described as black, dark brown, or dark reddish. Some descriptions include details such as large eyes, a pronounced brow ridge, and a large, low-set forehead. The top of the head has been described as rounded and crested, similar to the sagittal crest of the male gorilla. The creature has been reported as having a strong, unpleasant smell.

The enormous footprints for which the creature is named are claimed to be as large as 24 inches (60 cm) long and 8 inches (20 cm) wide. Some footprint casts have also contained claw marks, making it likely that they came from known animals, such as bears, which have five toes and claws.

Proponents of Bigfoot's existence claim that the creature is omnivorous and mainly nocturnal.

History

Wild men stories are found among the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast. Anthropologist and cryptozoologist Grover Krantz has written that stories of the indigenous population which can be confidently related to the Sasquatch, correspond to the areas where white Americans have reported similar sightings. According to David Daegling, the legends existed before there was a single name for the creature. They differed in their details both regionally and between families in the same community. Similar accounts and legends of wild men are found on every continent except Antarctica.

Ecologist Robert Pyle argues that most cultures have accounts of human-like giants in their folk history, expressing a need for "some larger-than-life creature." Each language had its own name for the creature featured in the local version of such legends. Many names meant something along the lines of "wild man" or "hairy man", although other names described common actions it was said to perform, such as eating clams or shaking trees. Chief Mischelle of the Nlaka'pamux at Lytton, British Columbia told such a story to Charles Hill-Tout in 1898; he named the creature by a Salishan variant meaning "the benign-faced-one".

Members of the Lummi tell tales about Ts'emekwes, the local version of Bigfoot. The stories are similar to each other in the general descriptions of Ts'emekwes, but details about the creature's diet and activities differed among various family accounts.

Some regional versions tell of more threatening creatures. The stiyaha or kwi-kwiyai were a nocturnal race. Children were warned against saying the names, lest the monsters hear and come to carry off a person—sometimes to be killed. In 1847, Paul Kane reported stories by the native people about skoocooms: a race of cannibalistic wildmen living on the peak of Mount St. Helens in what is now southern Washington state.

Less-menacing versions have also been recorded, such as one by Reverend Elkanah Walker. In 1840, Walker, a Protestant missionary, recorded stories of giants among the Native Americans living near present-day Spokane, Washington. The Indians said that these giants lived on and around the peaks of nearby mountains and stole salmon from the fishermen's nets.

In the 1920s Indian Agent J. W. Burns compiled local stories and published them in a series of Canadian newspaper articles: they were accounts told to him by the Sts'Ailes people of Chehalis, and others. The Sts'Ailes maintained, as did other indigenous peoples of the region, that the Sasquatch were real. They were offended by whites telling them that the figures were legendary. According to Sts'Ailes eyewitness accounts, the Sasquatch preferred to avoid white men, and spoke the Lillooet language of the people at Port Dougla, British Columbia at the head of Harrison Lake. These accounts were published again in 1940.

Burns borrowed the term Sasquatch from the Halkomelem sásq'ets and used it in his articles to describe a hypothetical single type of creature portrayed in the local stories.

Scientific View

The evidence that does exist supporting the survival of such a large, prehistoric ape-like creature has been attributed to hoaxes or delusion rather than to sightings of a genuine creature. In a 1996 USA Today article, Washington State zoologist John Crane said, "There is no such thing as Bigfoot. No data other than material that's clearly been fabricated has ever been presented." In addition, scientists cite the fact that Bigfoot is alleged to live in regions unusual for a large, nonhuman primate, i.e., temperate latitudes in the northern hemisphere; all recognized apes are found in the tropics of Africa and Asia.

Mainstream scientists do not consider the subject of Bigfoot an area of credible science and there have been a limited number of formal scientific studies of Bigfoot.

Evidence such as the 1967 Patterson–Gimlin film has provided "no supportive data of any scientific value".

As with other similar beings, climate and food supply issues would make such a creature's survival in reported habitats unlikely. Great apes have not been found in the fossil record in the Americas, and no Bigfoot remains are known to have been found. Phillips Stevens, a cultural anthropologist at the University at Buffalo, summarized the scientific consensus as follows:

It defies all logic that there is a population of these things sufficient to keep them going. What it takes to maintain any species, especially a long-lived species, is you gotta have a breeding population. That requires a substantial number, spread out over a fairly wide area where they can find sufficient food and shelter to keep hidden from all the investigators.

In the 1970s, when Bigfoot experts were frequently given high-profile media coverage, Mcleod writes that the scientific community generally avoided lending credence to the theories by debating them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigfoot

Rules for Success and Motivation

Jordan B. Peterson’s Ten Rules for Success

1. Stop Doing the Things That You Know Are Wrong
2. Make a schedule and stick to it
3. Clarify your thoughts
4. Take a meaningful path -- avoid deceit especially in language, avoid wasting time dawdling and not pursuing a worthwhile path; use your time as a network node
5. Specify your goals
6. Stop saying things that make you weak
7. Adopt the mode of authentic being -- refuse to ally with lies; support truth
8. Learn from your errors -- become the friend of the person who dislikes your plan
9. Have a conversation with yourself to plan a life you would like to have
10. Aim high – at the highest possible good

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jN1ckK2YBA

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Joe Rogan on Motivation

1. Don’t limit yourself
2. Work toward something
3. Always keep improving
4. Be real – we owe each other that
5. Explore difficult tasks – earn comfort rather than making it a goal
6. Don’t get stuck in life by loans, over-obligations or habits rather than life as a journey.  Watch out for the honey pots and retirement incentives
7. Find true happiness by making others happy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUaP-vatxFY

History of the Telegraph

An electrical telegraph is a telegraph that uses electrical signals, usually conveyed via dedicated telecommunication lines or radio.

The electrical telegraph, or more commonly just telegraph, superseded optical semaphore telegraph systems, thus becoming the first form of electrical telecommunications. In a matter of decades after their creation in the 1830s, electrical telegraph networks permitted people and commerce to transmit messages across both continents and oceans almost instantly, with widespread social and economic impacts.

Commercial Telegraphy

The first commercial electrical telegraph, the Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph, was co-developed by William Fothergill Cooke and Charles Wheatstone. In May 1837 they patented a telegraph system which used a number of needles on a board that could be moved to point to letters of the alphabet. The patent recommended a five-needle system, but any number of needles could be used depending on the number of characters it was required to code. A four-needle system was installed between Euston and Camden Town in London on a rail line being constructed by Robert Stephenson between London and Birmingham. It was successfully demonstrated on 25 July 1837. Euston needed to signal to an engine house at Camden Town to start hauling the locomotive up the incline. As at Liverpool, the electric telegraph was in the end rejected in favour of a pneumatic system with whistles.

Cooke and Wheatstone had their first commercial success with a system installed on the Great Western Railway over the 13 miles (21 km) from Paddington station to West Drayton in 1838, the first commercial telegraph in the world. This was a five-needle, six-wire system. The cables were originally installed underground in a steel conduit. However, the cables soon began to fail as a result of deteriorating insulation and were replaced with uninsulated wires on poles. As an interim measure, a two-needle system was used with three of the remaining working underground wires, which despite using only two needles had a greater number of codes. But when the line was extended to Slough in 1843, a one-needle, two-wire system was installed.

From this point the use of the electric telegraph started to grow on the new railways being built from London. The London and Blackwall Railway (another rope-hauled application) was equipped with the Cooke and Wheatstone telegraph when it opened in 1840, and many others followed. The one-needle telegraph proved highly successful on British railways, and 15,000 sets were still in use at the end of the nineteenth century. Some remained in service in the 1930s. In September 1845 the financier John Lewis Ricardo and Cooke formed the Electric Telegraph Company, the first public telegraphy company in the world. This company bought out the Cooke and Wheatstone patents and solidly established the telegraph business.

Morse System

In the United States, the Morse/Vail telegraph was quickly deployed in the two decades following the first demonstration. The overland telegraph connected the west coast of the continent to the east coast by 24 October 1861, bringing an end to the Pony Express.

As well as the rapid expansion of the use of the telegraphs along the railways, they soon spread into the field of mass communication with the instruments being installed in post offices. The era of mass personal communication had begun.

Teleprinters

An early successful teleprinter was invented by Frederick G. Creed. In Glasgow he created his first keyboard perforator, which used compressed air to punch the holes. He also created a reperforator (receiving perforator) and a printer. The reperforator punched incoming Morse signals on to paper tape and the printer decoded this tape to produce alphanumeric characters on plain paper. This was the origin of the Creed High Speed Automatic Printing System, which could run at an unprecedented 200 words per minute. His system was adopted by the Daily Mail for daily transmission of the newspaper contents.

By the 1930s teleprinters were being produced by Teletype in the US, Creed in Britain and Siemens in Germany.

With the invention of the teletypewriter, telegraphic encoding became fully automated. Early teletypewriters used the ITA-1 Baudot code, a five-bit code. This yielded only thirty-two codes, so it was over-defined into two "shifts", "letters" and "figures". An explicit, unshared shift code prefaced each set of letters and figures.

By 1935, message routing was the last great barrier to full automation. Large telegraphy providers began to develop systems that used telephone-like rotary dialling to connect teletypewriters. These machines were called "Telex" (TELegraph EXchange). Telex machines first performed rotary-telephone-style pulse dialling for circuit switching, and then sent data by ITA2. This "type A" Telex routing functionally automated message routing.

The first wide-coverage Telex network was implemented in Germany during the 1930s as a network used to communicate within the government.

At the rate of 45.45 (±0.5%) baud — considered speedy at the time — up to 25 telex channels could share a single long-distance telephone channel by using voice frequency telegraphy multiplexing, making telex the least expensive method of reliable long-distance communication.

Automatic teleprinter exchange service was introduced into Canada by CPR Telegraphs and CN Telegraph in July 1957 and in 1958, Western Union started to build a Telex network in the United States.

End of the Telegraph Era

In the United States, Western Union discontinued all telegram and commercial messaging services on 27 January 2006, although it still offered its electronic money transfer services.

India's state-owned telecom company, BSNL, ended its telegraph service on 14 July 2013. It was reportedly the world's last existing true electric telegraph system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_telegraph

Basics of CRISPR Research

Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) are segments of prokaryotic DNA containing short, repetitive base sequences. These play a key role in a bacterial defence system, and form the basis of a genome editing technology known as CRISPR/Cas9 that allows permanent modification of genes within organisms. In a palindromic repeat, the sequence of nucleotides is the same in both directions. Each repetition is followed by short segments of spacer DNA from previous exposures to foreign DNA (e.g., a virus or plasmid). Small clusters of cas (CRISPR-associated system) genes are located next to CRISPR sequences.

The CRISPR/Cas system is a prokaryotic immune system that confers resistance to foreign genetic elements such as those present within plasmids and phages that provides a form of acquired immunity. RNA harboring the spacer sequence helps Cas proteins recognize and cut exogenous DNA. Other RNA-guided Cas proteins cut foreign RNA. CRISPRs are found in approximately 40% of sequenced bacterial genomes and 90% of sequenced archaea.

A simple version of the CRISPR/Cas system, CRISPR/Cas9, has been modified to edit genomes. By delivering the Cas9 nuclease complexed with a synthetic guide RNA (gRNA) into a cell, the cell's genome can be cut at a desired location, allowing existing genes to be removed and/or new ones added. The Cas9-gRNA complex corresponds with the CAS III crRNA complex in the above diagram.

CRISPR/Cas genome editing techniques have many potential applications, including medicine and crop seed enhancement. The use of CRISPR/Cas9-gRNA complex for genome editing was the AAAS's choice for breakthrough of the year in 2015. Bioethical concerns have been raised about the prospect of using CRISPR for germline editing.

Applications

By the end of 2014 some 600 research papers had been published that mentioned CRISPR. The technology had been used to functionally inactivate genes in human cell lines and cells, to study Candida albicans, to modify yeasts used to make biofuels and to genetically modify crop strains. CRISPR can also be used to change mosquitos so they cannot transmit diseases such as malaria.

CRISPR-based re-evaluations of claims for gene-disease relationships have led to the discovery of potentially important anomalies.

Policy Barriers to Genetic Engineering

Policy regulations for the CRISPR/cas9 system vary around the globe. In February 2016, British scientists were given permission by regulators to genetically modify human embryos by using CRISPR-Cas9 and related techniques. However, researchers were forbidden from implanting the embryos and the embryos were to be destroyed after seven days.

The US has an elaborate, interdepartmental regulatory system to evaluate new genetically modified foods and crops. For example, the Agriculture Risk Protection Act of 2000 gives the USDA the authority to oversee the detection, control, eradication, suppression, prevention, or retardation of the spread of plant pests or noxious weeds to protect the agriculture, environment and economy of the US. The act regulates any genetically modified organism that utilizes the genome of a predefined 'plant pest' or any plant not previously categorized. In 2015, Yang successfully deactivated 16 specific genes in the white button mushroom. Since he had not added any foreign DNA to his organism, the mushroom could not be regulated under by the USDA under Section 340.2. Yang's white button mushroom was the first organism genetically modified with the Crispr/cas9 protein system to pass US regulation. In 2016, the USDA sponsored a committee to consider future regulatory policy for upcoming genetic modification techniques. With the help of the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, special interests groups met on April 15 to contemplate the possible advancements in genetic engineering within the next 5 years and potential policy regulations that would need to come into play. With the emergence of rogue genetic engineers employing the technology, the FDA has begun issuing new regulations

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRISPR

Recreational Use of Fentanyl

Fentanyl, also known as fentanil, is an opioid pain medication with a rapid onset and short duration of action. It is a potent agonist of μ-opioid receptors in the brain. Fentanyl is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, but some fentanyl analogues, which are designed to mimic the pharmacological effects of the original drug, may be as much as 10,000 times more potent than morphine.

It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines, the most effective and safe medicines needed in a health system. Fentanyl was first made by Paul Janssen in 1960, following the medical inception of pethidine (also known as meperidine, marketed as Demerol) several years earlier. Janssen developed fentanyl by assaying analogues of the structurally related drug pethidine for opioid activity. The widespread use of fentanyl triggered the production of fentanyl citrate (the salt formed by combining fentanyl and citric acid in a 1:1 stoichiometric ratio), which entered medical use as a general anaesthetic under the trade name Sublimaze in the 1960s.

In the mid-1990s, fentanyl was introduced for palliative use with the fentanyl patch, followed in the next decade by the introduction of the fentanyl lollipop, dissolving tablets, and sublingual spray which are absorbed through the tissues inside the mouth. As of 2012, fentanyl was the most widely used synthetic opioid in medicine. In 2013, 1,700 kilograms (3,750 lbs) were used globally.

Fentanyl is also used as a recreational drug, leading to thousands of overdose deaths from 2000 to 2017. Deaths have also resulted from improper medical use. Fentanyl has a relatively wide therapeutic index (270) which makes it a very safe surgical anesthetic when monitored carefully; however, its potency requires careful measurements of highly diluted fentanyl in solution.

Recreational Use

Illicit use of pharmaceutical fentanyl and its analogues first appeared in the mid-1970s in the medical community and continues in the present. United States authorities classify fentanyl as a narcotic and an opioid. To date, more than 12 different analogues of fentanyl have been produced clandestinely and identified in the U.S. drug traffic. The biological effects of the fentanyl analogues are similar to those of heroin, with the exception that many users report a noticeably less euphoric high associated with the drug and stronger sedative and analgesic effects.

Fentanyl analogues may be hundreds of times more potent than street heroin, and tend to produce significantly more respiratory depression, making it much more dangerous than heroin to users. Fentanyl is used orally, smoked, snorted, or injected. Fentanyl is sometimes sold as heroin, often leading to overdoses. Many fentanyl overdoses are initially classified as heroin overdoses. Estonia has the highest rate of 3-methylfentanyl overdose deaths in the EU, due to its high rate of recreational use.

Fentanyl is sometimes sold on the black market in the form of transdermal fentanyl patches such as Duragesic, diverted from legitimate medical supplies. The gel from inside the patches may be ingested or injected.

Another form of fentanyl that has appeared on the streets is the Actiq lollipop formulation. The pharmacy retail price ranges from $15 to $50 per unit based on the strength of the lozenge, with the black market cost ranging from $5 to $25, depending on the dose. The attorneys general of Connecticut and Pennsylvania have launched investigations into its diversion from the legitimate pharmaceutical market, including Cephalon's "sales and promotional practices for Provigil, Actiq and Gabitril".

Non-medical use of fentanyl by individuals without opiate tolerance can be very dangerous and has resulted in numerous deaths. Even those with opiate tolerances are at high risk for overdoses. Once the fentanyl is in the user's system, it is extremely difficult to stop its course because of the nature of absorption. Illicitly synthesized fentanyl powder has also appeared on the United States market. Because of the extremely high strength of pure fentanyl powder, it is very difficult to dilute appropriately, and often the resulting mixture may be far too strong and, therefore, very dangerous.

Some heroin dealers mix fentanyl powder with heroin to increase potency or compensate for low-quality heroin. In 2006, illegally manufactured, non-pharmaceutical fentanyl often mixed with cocaine or heroin caused an outbreak of overdose deaths in the United States and Canada, heavily concentrated in the cities of Dayton, Ohio; Chicago; Detroit; and Philadelphia.

Several large quantities of illicitly produced fentanyl have been seized by U.S. law enforcement agencies. In June 2006, 945 grams (2.08 lbs) of 83 %-pure fentanyl powder was seized by Border Patrol agents in California from a vehicle that had entered from Mexico. Mexico is the source of much of the illicit fentanyl for sale in the U.S. However, in April 2006, there was one domestic fentanyl lab discovered by law enforcement in Azusa, California. The lab was a source of counterfeit 80 mg OxyContin tablets containing fentanyl instead of oxycodone, as well as bulk fentanyl and other drugs. In November 2016, the DEA uncovered an operation making counterfeit oxycodone and Xanax from a home in Cottonwood Heights, Utah. They found about 70,000 pills in the appearance of oxycodone and more than 25,000 in the appearance of Xanax. The DEA reported that millions of pills could have been distributed from this location over the course of time. The accused owned a pill press and ordered fentanyl in powder form from China.

The "China White" form of fentanyl refers to any of a number of clandestinely produced analogues, especially α-methylfentanyl (AMF). This Department of Justice document lists "China White" as a synonym for a number of fentanyl analogues, including 3-methylfentanyl and α-methylfentanyl, which today are classified as Schedule I drugs in the United States. Part of the motivation for AMF is that, despite the extra difficulty from a synthetic standpoint, the resultant drug is relatively more resistant to metabolic degradation. This results in a drug with an increased duration.

In June 2013, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a health advisory to emergency departments alerting to 14 overdose deaths among intravenous drug users in Rhode Island associated with acetylfentanyl, a synthetic opioid analog of fentanyl that has never been licensed for medical use. In a separate study conducted by the CDC, 82% of fentanyl overdose deaths involved illegally manufactured fentanyl, while only 4% were suspected to originate from a prescription.

Beginning in 2015, Canada has seen a widespread number of fentanyl overdoses. Authorities suspect that the drug is being imported from Asia to the western coast by organized crime groups in powder form and being pressed into pseudo-OxyContin tablets. Traces of the drug have also been found in other recreational drugs including cocaine, MDMA, and heroin. The drug has been implicated in multiple deaths from the homeless to young professionals, including multiple teens and young parents. Because of the rising deaths across the country, Health Canada is putting a rush on a review of the prescription-only status of Naloxone in an effort to combat overdoses of the drug.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fentanyl

The Adventures of Pinocchio

The Adventures of Pinocchio is a novel for children by Italian author Carlo Collodi, written in Pescia. The first half was originally a serial in 1881 and 1882, published as La storia di un burattino (literally "The tale of a puppet"), and then later completed as a book for children in February 1883. It is about the mischievous adventures of an animated marionette named Pinocchio and his father, a poor woodcarver named Geppetto.

It is considered a canonical piece of children's literature and has inspired hundreds of new editions, stage plays, merchandising and movies, such as Walt Disney's iconic animated version and commonplace ideas such as a liar's long nose. According to extensive research done by the Fondazione Nazionale Carlo Collodi in late 1990s and based on UNESCO sources, it has been adapted in over 260 languages worldwide. That makes it the most translated non-religious book in the world, and one of the best-selling books ever published. According to Francelia Butler, it remains "the most widely read book in the world after the Bible".

History

The Adventures of Pinocchio is a story about an animated puppet, boys who turn into donkeys and other fairy tale devices. The setting of the story is the Tuscan area of Italy. It was a unique literary marriage of genres for its time. The story's Italian language is peppered with Florentine dialect features, such as the protagonist's Florentine name.

In the 1850s, Collodi began to have a variety of both fiction and non-fiction books published. Once, he translated some French fairy-tales so well that he was asked whether he would like to write some of his own. In 1881, he sent a short episode in the life of a wooden puppet to a friend who edited a newspaper in Rome, wondering whether the editor would be interested in publishing this "bit of foolishness" in his children's section. The editor did, and the children loved it. The Adventures of Pinocchio were serialized in the paper in 1881–2, and then published in 1883 with huge success.

In the original, serialized version, Pinocchio dies a gruesome death: hanged for his innumerable faults, at the end of Chapter 15. At the request of his editor, Collodi added chapters 16–36, in which the Fairy with Turquoise Hair (or "Blue Fairy", as the Disney version names her) rescues Pinocchio and eventually transforms him into a real boy, when he acquires a deeper understanding of himself, making the story more suitable for children. In the second half of the book, the maternal figure of the Blue-haired Fairy is the dominant character, versus the paternal figure of Geppetto in the first part.

Children's literature was a new idea in Collodi's time, an innovation in the 19th century. Thus in content and style it was new and modern, opening the way to many writers of the following century.

International Popularity

Collodi, who died in 1890, was respected during his lifetime as a talented writer and social commentator, and his fame continued to grow when Pinocchio was first translated into English by Mary Alice Murray in 1892, whose translation was added to the widely read Everyman's Library in 1911. Other well regarded English translations include the 1926 translation by Carol Della Chiesa, and the 1986 bilingual edition by Nicolas J. Perella. Creator Carlo Lorenzini was supposedly inspired from his obsession with the human nose.

The popularity of the story was bolstered by the powerful philosopher-critic Benedetto Croce, who greatly admired the tale.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Pinocchio

Shockingly Unique Animal

There is a long article in Aeon about a jellyfish-like animal called the ctenophore.  It has a nervous system entirely different from that of any other animal on earth.  The DNA is different and the nervous system does not work based on the chemical triggers of all other earthly animals.  It could have arrived here as an alien, or it could be a survivor from a different example of original life-on-earth, indicating that life occurred here in two or more separate, original forms.

Here’s the link:

https://aeon.co/essays/what-the-ctenophore-says-about-the-evolution-of-intelligence