NEW YORK: An ailing alligator was seized from an upstate New York home where it was being kept illegally, state officials said.
Environmental conservation police officers seized the 750-pound (340-kilogram), 11-foot-long (3.4-meter-long) alligator on Wednesday from a home in Hamburg, south of Buffalo.
The home’s owner built an addition and installed an in-ground swimming pool for the 30-year-old alligator and allowed people, including children, to get into the water with the reptile, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
The alligator has “blindness in both eyes” and spinal complications, among other health issues. The reptile was sent to a licensed caretaker until a place is found where it can receive permanent care, according to a release from the agency.
The owner’s state license to keep the alligator expired in 2021. The state determined at that time the alligator’s holding area failed to meet safety standards. Officers took action this week after learning the “extent at which the owner was seriously endangering the public,” according to a statement from the agency.
State environmental officials haven’t decided whether to bring charges.
Officials believe a lethargic 4-foot (1.2-meter) alligator found in Prospect Park Lake in Brooklyn in February 2023 was likely an abandoned pet.
Authorities seize ailing alligator kept illegally in New York home’s swimming pool
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Authorities seize ailing alligator kept illegally in New York home’s swimming pool
- The home’s owner built an addition and installed an in-ground swimming pool for the 30-year-old alligator
- The alligator has “blindness in both eyes” and spinal complications
Scientists observe ‘negative time’ in quantum experiments
- The researchers emphasize that these perplexing results highlight a peculiar quirk of quantum mechanics rather than a radical shift in our understanding of time
TORONTO, Canada: Scientists have long known that light can sometimes appear to exit a material before entering it — an effect dismissed as an illusion caused by how waves are distorted by matter.
Now, researchers at the University of Toronto, through innovative quantum experiments, say they have demonstrated that “negative time” isn’t just a theoretical idea — it exists in a tangible, physical sense, deserving closer scrutiny.
The findings, yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, have attracted both global attention and skepticism.
The researchers emphasize that these perplexing results highlight a peculiar quirk of quantum mechanics rather than a radical shift in our understanding of time.
“This is tough stuff, even for us to talk about with other physicists. We get misunderstood all the time,” said Aephraim Steinberg, a University of Toronto professor specializing in experimental quantum physics.
While the term “negative time” might sound like a concept lifted from science fiction, Steinberg defends its use, hoping it will spark deeper discussions about the mysteries of quantum physics.
Years ago, the team began exploring interactions between light and matter.
When light particles, or photons, pass through atoms, some are absorbed by the atoms and later re-emitted. This interaction changes the atoms, temporarily putting them in a higher-energy or “excited” state before they return to normal.
In research led by Daniela Angulo, the team set out to measure how long these atoms stayed in their excited state. “That time turned out to be negative,” Steinberg explained — meaning a duration less than zero.
To visualize this concept, imagine cars entering a tunnel: before the experiment, physicists recognized that while the average entry time for a thousand cars might be, for example, noon, the first cars could exit a little sooner, say 11:59 am. This result was previously dismissed as meaningless.
What Angulo and colleagues demonstrated was akin to measuring carbon monoxide levels in the tunnel after the first few cars emerged and finding that the readings had a minus sign in front of them.
The experiments, conducted in a cluttered basement laboratory bristling with wires and aluminum-wrapped devices, took over two years to optimize. The lasers used had to be carefully calibrated to avoid distorting the results.
Still, Steinberg and Angulo are quick to clarify: no one is claiming time travel is a possibility. “We don’t want to say anything traveled backward in time,” Steinberg said. “That’s a misinterpretation.”
The explanation lies in quantum mechanics, where particles like photons behave in fuzzy, probabilistic ways rather than following strict rules.
Instead of adhering to a fixed timeline for absorption and re-emission, these interactions occur across a spectrum of possible durations — some of which defy everyday intuition.
Critically, the researchers say, this doesn’t violate Einstein’s theory of special relativity, which dictates that nothing can travel faster than light. These photons carried no information, sidestepping any cosmic speed limits.
The concept of “negative time” has drawn both fascination and skepticism, particularly from prominent voices in the scientific community.
German theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder, for one, criticized the work in a YouTube video viewed by over 250,000 people, noting, “The negative time in this experiment has nothing to do with the passage of time — it’s just a way to describe how photons travel through a medium and how their phases shift.”
Angulo and Steinberg pushed back, arguing that their research addresses crucial gaps in understanding why light doesn’t always travel at a constant speed.
Steinberg acknowledged the controversy surrounding their paper’s provocative headline but pointed out that no serious scientist has challenged the experimental results.
“We’ve made our choice about what we think is a fruitful way to describe the results,” he said, adding that while practical applications remain elusive, the findings open new avenues for exploring quantum phenomena.
“I’ll be honest, I don’t currently have a path from what we’ve been looking at toward applications,” he admitted. “We’re going to keep thinking about it, but I don’t want to get people’s hopes up.”
‘Don’t hit him too hard!’: Zelensky tells Usyk not to endanger British arms deal
- Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky jokes for Oleksandr Usyk to be gentle with British rival Tyson Fury to not harm UK weapon supplies
PARIS: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky pleaded with boxing star Oleksandr Usyk to be gentle with British rival Tyson Fury in their world heavyweight clash in case a battering delivers a knockout blow to a crucial arms deal.
Usyk defeated Fury in May to become the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world and the two men meet again in Riyadh on Saturday.
“All Ukrainians are on your side. Of course, Britain is helping Ukraine in a fight against Russia,” Zelensky told Usyk on Friday in a video on Zelensky’s Telegram account.
“We respect our partners. That’s why when you beat Fury, don’t hit him too hard, because we don’t want them to ban Storm Shadow.”
British media reported last month that Ukraine had fired Storm Shadow missiles into Russia for the first time after London gave Kyiv the green light for such strikes.
The UK government refused to confirm or deny the reports.
Britain’s Stonehenge is yet again a source of fascination ahead of the winter solstice
LONDON: It’s that time of year when crowds of pagans, druids, hippies and tourists head to Stonehenge in Britain to celebrate the winter solstice, with the shortest day and the longest night in the Northern Hemisphere.
Thousands are expected on Saturday at the megalithic circle on a plain in southern England as the first rays of sun break through the giant stones that make up one of world’s most famous prehistoric monuments.
Rain has been forecast but there is no doubt it won’t be able to drown out the drumming, chanting and cheering.
Beyond the fascination of the ritual, the eternal question may still linger in the back of the minds of many visitors: What was the real meaning and purpose of Stonehenge?
The site has been the subject of vigorous debate, with some theories seemingly more outlandish, if not alien, than others.
This year, those gathering will have something new to discuss.
In a paper published in the journal Archaeology International, researchers from University College London and Aberystwyth University say that the site on Salisbury Plain, about 128 kilometers (80 miles) southwest of London, may have had some unifying purpose in ancient times.
They base that on a recent discovery that one of Stonehenge’s stones — the unique stone lying flat at the center of the monument, dubbed the “altar stone” — originated in Scotland, hundreds of miles north of the site.
What was surprising was that it came from so far away. It was long known that the other stones come from all over Britain — including the so-called bluestones, the smaller stones at the site that came from Preseli Hills in southwest Wales, nearly 240 kilometers (150 miles) away.
That varied geology is what makes Stonehenge unique among over 900 stone circles in Britain.
“The fact that all of its stones originated from distant regions ... suggests that the stone circle may have had a political as well as a religious purpose,” said lead author Professor Mike Parker Pearson from UCL’s Institute of Archaeology.
It may have served as a “monument of unification for the peoples of Britain, celebrating their eternal links with their ancestors and the cosmos,” Parker Pearson said.
Whatever its original purpose, Stonehenge today retains an important place in Britain’s culture and history and remains one of the country’s biggest tourist draws — despite the seemingly permanent traffic jams on the nearby A303 highway, a popular route for motorists traveling to and from the southwest of England.
Stonehenge was built on the flat lands of Salisbury Plain in stages, starting 5,000 years ago, with the unique stone circle erected in the late Neolithic period, about 2,500 B.C.
English Heritage, a charity that manages hundreds of historic sites, including Stonehenge, has noted several explanations — from the circle being a coronation place for Danish kings, a druid temple, a cult center for healing, or an astronomical computer for predicting eclipses and solar events.
So as far as symbolism and unification go — maybe Stonehenge really was a Mount Rushmore of its day?
Starbucks workers’ union to strike in LA, Chicago, Seattle before Christmas
The workers’ union representing more than 10,000 Starbucks baristas said its members will strike at stores in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Seattle on Friday morning during the busy holiday season.
Workers United, representing employees at 525 Starbucks stores across the United States, said that walkouts are expected to escalate daily, potentially reaching hundreds of stores nationwide by Christmas Eve, unless Starbucks and the union finalize a collective bargaining agreement.
The union and Starbucks created a “framework” in February to guide organizing and collective bargaining. Negotiations between the company and Workers United began in April, based on the framework, that could also help resolve numerous pending legal disputes.
“Since the February commitment, the company repeatedly pledged publicly that it intended to reach contracts by the end of the year, but it has yet to present workers with a serious economic proposal,” the union said in a statement late on Thursday.
Starbucks did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The coffee chain is undergoing a turnaround under its newly appointed top boss Brian Niccol, who aims to restore “coffee house culture” by overhauling cafes, adding more comfortable seating, reducing customer wait-time to less than four minutes, and simplifying its menu.
Invasive ‘murder hornets’ are wiped out in the US, officials say
- There had been no detections of the northern giant hornet in Washington since 2021
- Northern giant hornets pose significant threats to pollinators and native insects
SEATTLE: The world’s largest hornet, an invasive breed dubbed the “murder hornet” for its dangerous sting and ability to slaughter a honeybee hive in a matter of hours, has been declared eradicated in the US, five years after being spotted for the first time in Washington state near the Canadian border.
The Washington and US Departments of Agriculture announced the eradication Wednesday, saying there had been no detections of the northern giant hornet in Washington since 2021.
The news represented an enormous success that included residents agreeing to place traps on their properties and reporting sightings, as well as researchers capturing a live hornet, attaching a tiny radio tracking tag to it with dental floss, and following it through a forest to a nest in an alder tree. Scientists destroyed the nest just as a number of queens were just beginning to emerge, officials said.
“I’ve gotta tell you, as an entomologist — I’ve been doing this for over 25 years now, and it is a rare day when the humans actually get to win one against the insects,” Sven Spichiger, pest program manager of the Washington State Department of Agriculture, told a virtual news conference.
The hornets, which can be 5 centimeters long and were formerly called Asian giant hornets, gained attention in 2013, when they killed 42 people in China and seriously injured 1,675. In the US, around 72 people a year die from bee and hornet stings each year, according to data from the National Institutes of Health.
The hornets were first detected in North America in British Columbia, Canada, in August 2019 and confirmed in Washington state in December 2019, when a Whatcom County resident reported a specimen. A beekeeper also reported hives being attacked and turned over specimens in the summer of 2020. The hornets could have traveled to North America in plant pots or shipping containers, experts said.
DNA evidence suggested the populations found in British Columbia and Washington were not related and appeared to originate from different countries. There also have been no confirmed reports in British Columbia since 2021, and the nonprofit Invasive Species Center in Canada has said the hornet is also considered eradicated there.
Northern giant hornets pose significant threats to pollinators and native insects. They can wipe out a honeybee hive in as little as 90 minutes, decapitating the bees and then defending the hive as their own, taking the brood to feed their own young.
The hornet can sting through most beekeeper suits, deliver nearly seven times the amount of venom as a honeybee, and sting multiple times. At one point the Washington agriculture department ordered special reinforced suits from China.
Washington is the only state that has had confirmed reports of northern giant hornets. Trappers found four nests in 2020 and 2021.
Spichiger said Washington will remain on the lookout, despite reporting the eradication. He noted that entomologists will continue to monitor traps in Kitsap County, where a resident reported an unconfirmed sighting in October but where trapping efforts and public outreach have come up empty.
He noted that other invasive hornets can also pose problems: Officials in Georgia and South Carolina are fighting yellow-legged hornets, and southern giant hornets were recently detected in Spain.
“We will continue to be vigilant,” Spichiger said.
