Author: Shaunacy Ferro

The real tragedy of the love story in James Cameron’s 1997 film Titanic is that it feels like both of the main characters should have survived. Both Rose and Jack could have fit on that floating door that saved Rose’s life, surely. Mythbusters proved it. Cameron, however, maintains that Jack had to die, according to a new interview with The Daily Beast (and highlighted on Today).

For one thing, the script demands it. “Look, it’s very, very simple: You read page 147 of the script and it says, ‘Jack gets off the board and gives his place to her so that she can survive,'” Cameron told The Daily Beast. But it also just makes sense in the context of the story.

To think that it could have played out as suggested by the Mythbusters hosts—who he calls “fun guys…but they’re full of shit”—is a bit of a stretch, Cameron says.

OK, so let’s really play that out: you’re Jack, you’re in water that’s 28 degrees, your brain is starting to get hypothermia. Mythbusters asks you to now go take off your life vest, take hers off, swim underneath this thing, attach it in some way that it won’t just wash out two minutes later—which means you’re underwater tying this thing on in 28-degree water, and that’s going to take you five to ten minutes, so by the time you come back up you’re already dead. So that wouldn’t work. His best choice was to keep his upper body out of the water and hope to get pulled out by a boat or something before he died.

It’s a convincing argument, but our hearts will go on believing Jack could have made it through.

[h/t Today]

In 1983, only 22 California condors—the largest land bird in North America—were left in the wild. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spent years capturing and breeding the surviving scavenger birds to save them from extinction, slowly trying to reintroduce some into the wild.

The work is paying off. About 200 condors currently live in the wild, in Southern California and Arizona, but northern California will soon have its own condor population. Fifteen U.S. agencies and the Yurok tribe have collaborated on a 2-year plan to reintroduce them to the Redwood National and State Parks. They held the first of five public meetings about the program in northern California last week, according to the San Francisco Chronicle and SFist.

The plan for how to restart northern California’s wild condor population isn’t yet solidified, and the agencies will still have to prepare an environmental impact report. And it’s likely that not everyone will be psyched about the birds’ reintroduction. According to the Chronicle:

So far, no significant opposition has come forward, though timber companies have voiced concern that the introduction of an endangered species could interrupt operations. In response, federal officials are considering designating condors an experimental nonessential population, which would allow regulators to relax protections when appropriate.

The upcoming public meetings will be a chance for those opposition groups to bring their concerns forward.

The condor has mythological significance to many Native American tribes in California, but it’s a particularly sacred animal for the Yurok. The idea is to release the birds on the tribe’s ancestral land.

The birds historically covered territory not just in California, but along the Pacific Northwest, so the released condors might migrate to Oregon, where they haven’t been seen in the wild for a century. The Oregon Zoo’s condor breeding program has hatched 60 chicks since it started in 2003. However, California has banned the lead ammunition that poisons condors that eat the remains of animals killed by hunters, while Oregon has not, making it risky to reintroduce them to the wild there.

[h/t SFist]

Don’t worry about spending $5 on an iced coffee or a bottle of water when you get past security at the airport. There’s a trick that allows you to bring your own drinks, bypassing the TSA’s annoying 3.4-ounce maximum. Just freeze it, says The Points Guy.

According to the TSA, you can, in fact, freeze liquids to get them past the security checkpoint. Here’s what the agency says:

Frozen liquid items are allowed through the checkpoint as long as they are frozen solid when presented for screening. If frozen liquid items are partially melted, slushy, or have any liquid at the bottom of the container, they must meet 3-1-1 liquids requirements.

The problem, of course, is that once you go through security, you have a frozen-solid bottle of water or iced coffee or whatever. If you just let it melt, you’re going to have a very drippy bottle on your hands. If there’s a microwave or other thawing method in your terminal, you could use that, but the technique might be more useful for a liquid that isn’t water—something more delicious than the airport could offer you. The freezing move might also be useful if your flight is particularly long. If your beauty products have enough water in them to freeze, you could also be taking huge bottles of facial toner through security, presumably.

[h/t The Points Guy]

Restoration experts working on a diorama from Pittburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Natural History recently uncovered a major surprise, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. The famous “Arab Courier Attacked by Lions” diorama contains human remains.

The diorama first debuted in Paris in 1867, and has been on display since Andrew Carnegie bought it in 1899. Conservators recently took it out from under protective glass to clean it, x-raying it during the restoration process. They found that not only do some of the taxidermied animals in the scene contain occasional bones, including skulls, leg bones, and some vertebrae, but the human figure is made with a real skull.

The figure riding a dromedary camel in the diorama was created by the Verreaux brothers, who already had a penchant for using human remains in their work. They controversially taxidermied the corpse of a man from a southern African tribe in the 1830s. Researchers already knew that the Carnegie-housed diorama contained human teeth, but the recent CT scan of the body showed that “Arab” rider’s head contains an entire human skull. Museum researchers have not been able to trace the origins of the skull yet, so they can’t return it anywhere for reburial.

Because the rider mannequin isn’t an accurate reflection of what an Arab from North Africa would have looked like at the time, the museum has given the diorama a new name. “Lion Attacking a Dromedary” will be unveiled once again at the museum in a new location on January 28. 

[h/t Pittsburgh Tribune-Review]

Rural drivers have more to watch out for on the road than stray cats. A run-in with a moose or deer could be deadly. Volvo, the Swedish car maker, has a high-tech answer, according to WIRED. The Volvo Large Animal Detection, available in some 2017 models, can detect animals approaching the road—even if the driver can’t.

The radar-based system works during the day and at night, unlike previous night-vision systems that can only work when it’s dark. The radar detects animal-like shapes and movements around the car, and cameras can identify them with certainty. If it senses an animal moving slowly from the side of the road toward the car, it will warn the driver; if the driver doesn’t respond immediately, it will automatically put on the brakes. The intensity of the braking is based on where the animal is, how big it is, and where it’s headed, which means it won’t slam on the brakes if it spots a deer that’s already running away from the road.

Hitting a big animal like a moose—or even just a deer—isn’t something to take lightly. In the U.S., the Department of Transportation estimates that between 1 and 2 million cars collide with large animals each year, and up to 10 percent (26,000) of those collisions result in an injury to the driver—about 200 of which are fatal. Moose and elk are particularly dangerous to drivers. Even if you don’t get hurt, it can cost thousands of dollars to repair the vehicle damage from slamming into a big animal on the road—up to $4000 for a collision with a moose.

The technology is programmed specifically for the country where the car is sold, so Swedish cars are designed to detect moose and elk, while U.S.-bound cars are set up to locate deer. But it’s not perfect. It can’t help you avoid hitting Fido, and if the animal is hidden or if it’s out of range of the headlights at night, it won’t be able to detect it. A particularly speedy deer could get past it without detection, too.

Automated safety technology such as Volvo’s can make a significant difference when it comes to car crashes. Tesla’s automated steering and braking technology has resulted in a 40 percent reduction in Tesla crashes. Self-driving cars might one day eliminate human error on the road completely, but until then, having an extra set of technological eyes on the road can make even traditional cars a little safer.

[h/t WIRED]

All images courtesy of Volvo.

When a new president takes office, the White House press corps gets a new face behind the briefing podium. The White House press secretary is the key to controlling the flow of information between the presidential administration and journalists—putting together press releases, holding briefings for the press corps, and facilitating access to top officials in the administration. But the idea of an official White House press secretary is more recent than you might think.

Back in the 19th century, the press didn’t even have a regular presence at the White House—partly because the president just wasn’t as powerful as Congress, so journalists didn’t see a need. William W. Price, a reporter for the Washington Evening Star, was perhaps the first White House beat reporter, stationing himself outside the White House to interview people on their way out of the building starting in 1895, and inspiring other reporters to follow suit. In 1896, some newspaper correspondents decided to take over a table outside the president’s secretary’s office (the 19th century equivalent of the chief of staff). They never really left, but it would be decades before the press got a dedicated presidential liaison.

During Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency, one of his aides, George Cortelyou—the president’s “confidential stenographer“—began issuing presidential press releases and disseminating copies of the president’s speeches for the first time. Roosevelt finally gave the press dedicated space in the White House, meeting with reporters regularly.

Still, the first person to officially hold the White House Press Secretary title was George Akerson, who was appointed to the post in 1929 by Herbert Hoover. Akerson, like many subsequent press secretaries, had once been a journalist, serving as a Washington correspondent for the Minneapolis Tribune. He later became Hoover’s assistant when Hoover was Commerce Secretary and served as his right-hand man during the presidential election campaign. Just how well Akerson did the press secretary job, though, is debated. Some call him “incompetent,” while other historians say the loyal aide merely took the blame for his boss’s clear distaste for the press. He wouldn’t be the last press secretary to have his legacy tied up in his boss’s shortcomings, however.

TO QUOTE A PRESIDENT

Nowadays, we may hear the president’s words (and tweets) verbatim all the time, but the populace didn’t always have access to presidential sound bites. Before Hoover, reporters weren’t even allowed to quote their interviews with the president directly in the press. (When Woodrow Wilson became the first president to hold a formal press conference in 1913, the whole thing was off the record—no quotes allowed.)

But although Hoover would change this policy and promise a more open relationship with the media, his standing with the press fell rapidly over his term. Despite his promise to answer questions from journalists, for instance, he required reporters to submit all questions beforehand to Akerson, who met with the press twice a day. He would only answer the questions he liked, and sometimes, he wouldn’t answer any at all. In fact, the press wasn’t truly free to quote the president until Eisenhower’s administration, two decades later.

A MODERNIZING PRESS

When Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office after Hoover in 1933, the press secretary’s job had changed drastically. Stephen T. Early was the first press secretary to deal with a media landscape that wasn’t just newspapers but included radio and newsreels, too.

Early, a respected reporter who had broken the news of President Warren G. Harding’s 1923 death while at the Associated Press, had a key role in FDR’s media strategy. At his urging, the president held twice-weekly press conferences for the first time. Early also helped Roosevelt create his famous fireside chats—comforting, conversational radio broadcasts that appeared throughout the 1930s and early 1940s. Early left his post shortly before the president’s death, returning to the White House for a brief two weeks later to work with Truman after the sudden death of press secretary Charles Ross [PDF].

New press secretaries have had to grapple with new challenges of the job each year. Mike McCurry (one of Bill Clinton’s press secretaries), for instance, was the first to televise press briefings in their entirety. First, he allowed a few minutes of the briefing to be filmed, slowly allowing the cameras to film more and more. He came to regret this when TV stations began broadcasting his briefings live during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, later calling it “the dumbest thing I ever did.”

And the position of press secretary is (slowly) evolving, too. The post has historically been filled by men, and there have only been two women in history to take on the role. Dee Dee Meyers, Bill Clinton’s first press secretary, was the first, taking the podium in 1993. Meyers later became a consultant for The West Wing, and the character of the press secretary in the show, C.J. Cregg, was inspired by her. (Played by Allison Janney, Cregg is also the only fictional character to ever conduct a real White House press briefing.) George W. Bush hired Dana Perino in 2007, making her the second woman press secretary in history.

INSIDE THE PRESSURE-COOKER

It’s rare for one press secretary to stay in the job for more than a few years because it’s so stressful. Only five press secretaries have stayed for the full term of the president who hired them. One of the longest-serving press secretaries, Marlin Fitzwater, told Editor & Publisher in 1996 that he thought his six years in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations were too much for him. “I think it’s too high-pressure. You get along OK, but you don’t realize how your effectiveness becomes diminished by just the daily battles,” he said. “I don’t think a press secretary can survive in that kind of a pressure cooker for more than four or five years.”

Of course, the pressures of the job differ based on the relationship the press secretary has with the president. Dwight Eisenhower’s press secretary James Hagerty, for example, was one of Ike’s most trusted advisors, traveling to be by his side when the president was recovering from a heart attack and when he had surgery. Sometimes, in the middle of a press conference, Eisenhower would stop to consult with Hagerty. And Hagerty was the first one to allow journalists to quote the president’s words at press conferences in full, verbatim—giving him another boost in the eyes of the reporters he worked with.

Presidential administrations aren’t always so trusting. Scott McClellan, press secretary for George W. Bush, had difficulty squeezing accurate information out of senior White House officials, and as a result, his credibility with the press tanked. “He got pounded day after day because the president didn’t allow him to do much more than repeat the talking points,” Slate political columnist and CBS journalist John Dickerson wrote in 2006. Dickerson described the resignation of “dutiful, gracious, and somewhat piñatalike McClellan” as “one last symbolic mission” of self-sacrifice. Like Hoover’s press secretary George Akerson, McClellan was caught between reporters demanding more—and more accurate—information and White House bosses who didn’t want to reveal anything.

SERVING AS A GO-BETWEEN

But according to Ron Nessen, press secretary under Gerald Ford, the basic requirements of the job are the same regardless of the president. “I think most press secretaries, no matter what their background is, come to understand that the same set of rules apply year after year, administration after administration: Tell the truth, don’t lie, don’t cover up, put out the bad news yourself, put it out as soon as possible, put your own explanation on it, all those things,” he explained in an article for eJournal USA.

And while each president has a unique—occasionally combative—relationship with the press, McCurry says that the press secretary shouldn’t be the enemy of members of the media. “The press office has to be an advocate for the press and the public’s right to know inside the White House,” he told the White House Historical Association. “Sometimes you will lose out to other priorities, but at least the press will sense that someone is looking out for its interests. That is the way to best serve the president. The modern presidency cannot work effectively if it is constantly at war with the media.”

Even professional writers will let slip the occasional typo or misspelling. And your spell-checker won’t catch the difference between very and vary, or tell you that you have a stray comma stuck in that paragraph. Grammarly, a web and desktop app, can.

It checks spelling and usage, highlighting your grammar mistakes. When you click on one of those red underlines, a pop-up will tell you exactly what the app thinks is wrong, whether it’s unnecessary punctuation, the wrong “its,” or a verb-noun agreement issue. It will help you find a synonym, too. It’s like your elementary school teacher, automated.

You can either upload your text to the Grammarly website, download the desktop app, or use the in-browser extension, which will check your emails, Facebook posts, and anything else you’re writing on the web. Banish your writing mistakes for good and get the Chrome extension here or the desktop app (for Mac only) here. If you use Windows, there’s a Microsoft Office version, too.

Moaning Myrtle’s affinity for hanging out in a Hogwarts bathroom may have led you to believe that wizards deal with their poop in the same way that us Muggles do. But J.K. Rowling has revealed that this wasn’t always the case in the world of magic. BuzzFeed spotted a tidbit on Pottermore that illuminates how some wizards heeded the call of nature. It’s, uh, kind of weird.

Buried in a mid-sentence aside about the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets, Rowling tells us this:

Hogwarts’ plumbing became more elaborate in the eighteenth century (this was a rare instance of wizards copying Muggles, because hitherto they simply relieved themselves wherever they stood, and vanished the evidence)…

This really raises more questions than it answers. Did they also make themselves invisible while they did their business? And where did it vanish to? Please, please let Rowling create an entire page devoted to wizard plumbing soon.

[h/t BuzzFeed]

Venice may be the world’s most famous canal city, but it’s not the only one. Giethoorn, a town of 2600 people in the Netherlands, has almost no roads. Holland’s “Little Venice” only has canals, according to Travel + Leisure.

Amsterdam may boast dozens of miles of canals, too, but most of the quaint village of Giethoorn, by contrast, is almost only accessible by boat. The town was built by harvesters of peat, a fertile mixture of decaying vegetation found in bogs, and as they dug out the peat, lakes and ponds formed. Thatch houses were built up on the islands between them, and residents could only traverse the town by narrow boats called punters.

You can get around by walking across the 170-plus bridges between the islands, but the best way to see the town is still by punter. You can rent boats and canoes for as little as $8 an hour.

Giethoorn is now a major tourist destination for travelers from Asia—it receives around 200,000 Chinese tourists a year. And now that Giethoorn has a spot on the new international edition of Monopoly, it might be poised for an even bigger tourism boom.

[h/t Travel + Leisure]

Soon, artificial intelligence could help you spot skin cancer. A new algorithm can now classify some of the most common and fatal skin cancers by images alone, according to a new study.

Researchers from Stanford University trained a machine learning network on more than 129,000 images of skin lesions representing more than 2000 skin diseases, resulting in a system that is about as accurate as human doctors in figuring out whether an off-looking stretch of skin might be cancerous. The system is described in a paper in the journal Nature.

Not all moles and other skin abnormalities look alike, making it difficult to diagnose skin cancer. As of now, doctors visually assess the appearance of the skin, then do a biopsy to confirm whether or not the lesion is malignant. Until now, it has been hard to automate this process, especially considering how different light, angles, and lenses can affect photos.

The researchers trained their algorithm on images of skin lesions that had already been confirmed as malignant by biopsies. In two different validation tests on its ability to recognize examples of the malignant carcinoma and melanoma—both deadly and common—the algorithm performed as well as, if not a little better than, 21 board-certified dermatologists.

It still hasn’t been tested in real-world clinical settings, though, and will have to be validated outside the lab before it can be used in practice. However, considering how deadly skin cancer can be if left untreated—melanoma’s five-year survival rate is 99 percent if it’s caught in its early stages, but only 14 percent if doctors don’t find it until its late stages—any system that can help catch it earlier could save lives.