Investigators found 11 children working ‘dangerous’ overnight shift in meat processing plant
The children used “corrosive cleaners to clean head splitters, jaw pullers, bandsaws, neck clippers and other equipment” the Labor Department said.
Do not lose all hope yet. The case is not decided, just argued. Hugs
Supreme Court skeptical of challenge to Tennessee ban on transgender youth treatments
The court is considering a challenge to a Tennessee law that bars the use of puberty blockers and hormone therapy.
This year’s humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) season in Australia has almost come to an end. The beloved mammals are on their way to Antarctica for a summer of feeding. Next year from April onwards, millions of people will again witness their movements and acrobatic displays – either from the coast or by joining one of the hundreds of whale-watch boat operators.
But as much as we like to watch humpback whales, we still know very little about them. They are notoriously difficult to study in the field. While they are known for their surface activities, they spend most of their time underwater and outside the range of direct observations.
One of the biggest mysteries of all is how these animals make decisions to determine what they do and where they go.
This is where our new research, published in Marine Mammal Science, comes in. We developed a model which effectively captures key humpback whale behaviours and their resulting southward migratory movements in east Australia. It can help anticipate challenges whales may face in the future. In turn, it may aid efforts to better conserve these majestic animals.
A humpback whale comeback
Following the end of commercial whaling, the worldwide recovery of humpback whale populations has been very successful. In Australia, the species was removed from the threatened species list in 2022.
However, scientists fear the effects of climate change may now be the biggest threat to their survival.
Our previous research examined which environmental factors matter in humpback whale ecology. For instance, while water temperature may have little impact in the cold Antarctic waters, breeding grounds further north that are too warm could drive humpback whales to seek better conditions elsewhere.
Currently we rely on satellite tags to inform us of their large-scale whereabouts. But unfortunately, this provides little information on humpback whale activities on a smaller scale, such as how they socialise, hunt, or react to specific conditions.
Humpback whales migrate throughout the year between Antarctica and northern Australia. NPWS/DPIE
Movements through space and time
To address this, we turned to computer models, as these can deal with scarce or inconsistently collected data. In particular, “agent-based” models are designed to capture the behavioural response of an agent (in this case, a pod consisting of a humpback whale mother and one calf) to the environmental conditions they encounter. Based on this information, the models then project movements through space and time.
We developed the first such model to simulate migratory movements of humpback whale mother and calf pods between the Great Barrier Reef and the Gold Coast bay. Along this route is Hervey Bay, an important resting area due to its calm and sheltered waters, where the pairs may stay for up to a few weeks before continuing migration.
As humpback whales are almost always sighted in waters between 15 and 200 metres deep and below 28°C, we took a simple yet reasonable approach where we assumed they avoided waters too shallow, deep, or warm as they swam southwards.
This “avoidance” response would be similar to us going indoors when it is too hot outside or raining heavily: a simple decision to move away from somewhere we are not comfortable.
A combo of current and swimming speed
To estimate how fast whales were moving, we combined the speed of the current with an estimate of real-world swimming speeds by migrating mother and calf pairs along the Gold Coast.
Our simulations accurately predict the routes taken by migrating mother and calf pairs but point to a change in direction after Hervey Bay so whales remain close to the coastline.
Other research has shown that this “distance to shore” is an important variable to consider when studying humpback whales.
Results also highlight the importance of water depth when entering Hervey Bay and ensuring the whales avoid getting too close to shore or into the deep ocean.
A tool for conservation
What the model does less well is accurately predict travel time between the Great Barrier Reef and the Gold Coast bay.
There are a few reasons why this may be the case. For example, the aforementioned underwater movements and associated behaviours are difficult to capture and convert into meaningful components of our model. Research has started to reveal detailed dive profiles but is time consuming and expensive.
We also assume that swimming speed remains more or less constant over time regardless of whether it is day or night. However, research into daily activity patterns has, so far, focused primarily on feeding and mating behaviours rather than variations in swimming speed.
Nevertheless, the current version of our model provides a suitable framework for simulating humpback whale migration and can be expanded to investigate a response of this species to future changes in ocean conditions. In theory, it can be applied to other marine species too, as long as relevant behavioural response data is available.
The development of such predictive models is increasingly important to aid conservation efforts and guide effective strategies for protecting vulnerable species affected by climate change.
This morning I woke up to read that President Joe Biden pardoned his son, Hunter Biden, for any crimes, etc., he committed. And the republican right lost their shit.
You, who sought to humiliate and hound the only living son of a sitting president, are offended? You who put naked pictures of the his son up in open congress are aghast at his temerity? You who have excused attempted extortions, sexual assaults, tax evasions, theft from children’s charity, stated intentions of pardoning the people who assaulted the Capital, stated intentions of pardoning himself!, theft of State secrets… do I need to go on?… by your cult leader – you now beat your chest because the sitting president finally had enough? Wow. Yeah, cry me a damn river.
The Christian Case for Happy Holidays
Well wishes should be addressed in the broadest possible terms. December 02, 2024 Toward the end of his second campaign for president, Donald Trump promised a weary nation one thing: “Merry Christmas” is coming back. “We’re going to have ‘Merry Christmas,’ just like we got for everybody seven years ago, [when] we brought it back,” Trump declared in a Facebook video. “It was in deep trouble, [but] we brought it back.” “Merry Christmas” was never in real danger, of course, but the complaint comes
Transgender teen implores Supreme Court to strike Tennessee gender-affirming care ban
“I feel normal now,” plaintiff says of the treatments she’s fighting to protect.
Geraldo Rivera Slaps Trump Supporters With A Reality Check After Biden’s Pardon
The former Fox News host and one-time Trump pal pointed out a double standard.
I am sorry but how does this protect any student or adult … it also includes higher education. Notice this part … About 3% of high school students identify as transgender, according to recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That is in a country of 337 million people.
This is only a hate bill based on the absurd idea that trans women want to assault girls. Notice it is always trans girls / women they talk about never trans boys or trans men. It is a made up problem that never happened so they have to destroy a small minority of people’s lives to prove a point of their bigotry. I am so sick of this posturing on the part of republicans trying to do to trans what they couldn’t do to the gays 30 years ago. It is the same tactics and hate they promote. If you want to know the real cost listen to the trans students who quit school because they had nowhere to go to the bathroom, or the trans students who were given approved bathrooms so far from their classes that they missed some and got bad marks for simply needing to pee before the class started. These bills have real world consequences for young people in every state. It is not just the bathroom issue but it makes a trans person a target even if there is a “trans bathroom” assigned. It means any student using it is outing themselves to the ones that want to target them for abuse.
Again this solves no problem but does promote hate and bigotry … and it is driven by religious bigotry because of the fundamentalist belief that their god created them male and female only. They are demanding we run our society, or 2024 understands on the book written by religious leaders 2,500 years ago. Think about it, these people had no idea of everything we take for granted today, yet the fundamentalist who demand we ;deny rights to trans people do it based on that book of people who did not even understand germs! These bills are designed to promote a religion and a religious view of life / morality in the public life. I am an old gay man, this still affects me. Because bigotry against one group’s rights is bigotry against all people’s rights! If these people get the right to exclude trans people from bathrooms what is next? Gay people on the same idea that we are a threat? Or hell watch about the old segregation idea that blacks are a threat to whites in bathrooms? See this is the same playbook. This is not different from black people shouldn’t be in white people’s bathrooms. Hugs
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has signed a bill into law banning transgender students from using school bathrooms and locker rooms that match up with their gender identity.
The law requires people at Ohio K-12 schools and universities use the restroom that aligns with their gender assigned at birth. It also bans students from sharing overnight accommodations with people of the opposite sex from their assigned sex at birth at K-12 schools.
This does not prevent a school from having single-occupancy facilities and does not apply to someone helping a person with a disability or a child younger than 10 years old being assisted by a parent, guardian or family member.
The law will take effect 90 days after DeWine signed the bill.
Several transgender Ohioans, allies and educators called on DeWine to veto the bill. The Ohio Capital Journal recently talked to a family who plans on moving out of Ohio because of anti-transgender legislation at the Statehouse.
The bathroom ban (House Bill 183) was added to a bill that revises College Credit Plus (Senate Bill 104) in the eleventh hour of a House Session at the end of June before the lawmakers went on an extended break.
The American Medical Association officially opposes policies preventing transgender individuals from accessing basic human services and public facilities consistent with gender identity.
Slightly more than half of transgender and nonbinary youth in Ohio considered suicide in 2022, according to the Trevor Project.
About a third of LGBTQ+ students were prevented from using the bathroom that aligned with their gender and slightly more than a quarter were stopped from using the locker room that aligned with their gender, according to Ohio’s 2021 state snapshot by GLSEN, which examines the school experiences of LGBTQ middle and high school students.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine gives his 2024 State of the State address in the Ohio House chambers at the Ohio Statehouse on Wednesday afternoon. (Pool photo by Barbara J. Perenic, Columbus Dispatch.)
Forty-two percent of transgender and nonbinary students were unable to use the bathroom that aligned with their gender and 36% couldn’t use the locker room that aligned with their gender, according to the Ohio GLSEN report.
Transgender youth who can’t use the bathroom that aligns with their gender are at a greater risk of sexual violence, according to a 2019 study published in the journal Pediatrics.
Florida, Oklahoma, Idaho, and Tennessee’s laws have all been challenged. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit blocked Idaho’s law last year.
North Carolina made history in 2016 by becoming the first state to ban bathroom access to transgender people. The law was quickly appealed in 2017 and settled in federal court in 2019, but the state ended up losing hundreds of millions of dollars as the NBA All-Star Game and NCAA events were moved out of state.
Green lacewings have babies that are prized as pest control. But before they can mate, they have to vibrate their bodies and sing to each other, making noises like purring cats or growling stomachs.
Mexican President’s Harsh Takedown of Trump Exposes an Ugly MAGA Scam
Claudia Sheinbaum’s response to Trump’s threat of tariffs revealed truths that the president-elect doesn’t want Americans to know.
Scottie's Playtime 