Hollywood gets lit! Cannabis lovers Snoop Dogg, Chelsea Handler, and Wiz Khalifa celebrate 420
Marijuana appreciators Snoop Dogg, Chelsea Handler, and more took to social media to mark '420', cannabis' unofficial holiday.
Terrifying discovery in the back of minivan after Colorado cops pulled over two Mexican men
Fremont County Sheriff's Office (FSCO) detectives made the deadly discovery after noticing a white Chevrolet van driving by them without dimming its headlights in Canon City, Colorado on March 26.
Around 100 firefighters called to fire at block of luxury flats in central London where apartments go for more than £1m
The blaze broke out at the Goodman's Fields luxury apartment complex on Leman Street in Aldgate in central London on Sunday evening.
Female hockey fan turns heads after being caught on live TV wearing a NSFW T-shirt behind team bench
A female hockey fan sitting behind the Dallas Stars bench was caught on live television wearing a NSFW t-shirt, with NHL fans keeping their eyes glued to her any time she appeared.
Molly-Mae Hague and Tommy Fury jet off on second family holiday with daughter Bambi after rekindling romance as they enjoy Easter visit to Budapest
The former PLT creative director, 25, gushed the tot, two, was already 'as big as her' in the caption of her latest Instagram post.
Astronomers Confirm First 'Lone' Black Hole Discovery - and It's in the Milky Way
For the first time, astronomers have confirmed the existence of a lone black hole," reports Science News — "one with no star orbiting it."
It's "the only one so far," says Kailash Sahu, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. In 2022, Sahu and his colleagues discovered the dark object coursing through the constellation Sagittarius. A second team disputed the claim, saying the body might instead be a neutron star. New observations from the Hubble Space Telescope now confirm that the object's mass is so large that it must be a black hole, Sahu's team reports in the April 20 Astrophysical Journal.... [And that second team has revised its assessment and now agrees: the object is a black hole.]
While solitary black holes should be common, they are hard to find. The one in Sagittarius revealed itself when it passed in front of a dim background star, magnifying the star's light and slowly shifting its position due to the black hole's gravity. This passage occurred in July 2011, but the star's position is still changing. "It takes a long time to do the observations," Sahu says. "Everything is improved if you have a longer baseline and more observations." The original discovery relied on precise Hubble measurements of star positions from 2011 to 2017. The new work incorporates Hubble observations from 2021 and 2022 as well as data from the Gaia spacecraft.
The upshot: The black hole is about seven times as massive as the sun, give or take 0.8 solar masses.... Located 5,000 light-years from Earth, this black hole is much closer than the supermassive one at the Milky Way's center, which also lies in Sagittarius but about 27,000 light-years from us. The star-rich region around the galactic center provides an ideal hunting ground for solitary black holes passing in front of stars. Sahu hopes to find additional lone black holes by using the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, slated for launch in 2027.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Meghan Markle berated a Windsor gardener so badly that the late Queen intervened, royal insider claims
The shocking allegation is one of number of complaints lodged against the Duke and Duchess of Sussex which claims they are difficult to work with and often bully members of staff.
ANDREW PIERCE: Davey's stamp of approval is sheer hypocrisy
Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey has long made sanctimony an art form. But increasingly he's excelling at hypocrisy, too.
INNA BONDARENKO: Putin's ceasefire was as fake as his grotesque Easter charade in church
Dressed in a dark suit and holding a candle, Putin crossed himself at a church service when the celebrant announced: 'Christ is risen.' But the Easter ceasefire was over before it had even begun.
ESTHER KRAKUE: Starmer's silence on gender ruling is an appalling betrayal of all women
As two frontbenchers are plotting to defy the Supreme Court's gender ruling, intervention by the the Prime Minister is more necessary than ever. But his silence shows he is as weak as water.
No plans to extend Easter ceasefire in Ukraine, Putin says - as Zelensky accuses Russia of breaching the temporary truce more than 2,000 TIMES
Russian despot Vladimir Putin has not issued an order to extend the Easter ceasefire in Ukraine, the Kremlin said today.
Police arrest 56-year-old man on suspicion of murder after woman, 48, is found dead at house
Officers were called just after 9.15pm on Friday following reports of concern for the welfare of two people in Bryn Terrace, Cefn Cribwr, near Bridgend.
Coronation Street bosses 'take new action to drum up funds' following rumours ITV soap is suffering from cash crisis
Soaring TV production costs and a collapse in advertising revenue are said to have put the future of the long-running soap in jeopardy and sparked a number of budget cuts.
Ex-Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns says she feels 'alive' after defecting to Reform UK - as she waits to hear whether she can stand to be Lincolnshire mayor amid claims she lied about her address
Despite the heartfelt comments, the Mail revealed on Friday that Dame Andrea Jenkyns is currently facing disqualification over claims she lied about her address.
Joey Essex left 'apprehensive' as his Baby Reindeer-style stalker 'avoids standing trial' despite sending him 100,000 messages including 'death threats' to Love Island ex Jessy Potts
Last year it was revealed the obsessed online fan had bombarded the reality star, 34, with 100,000 messages, including some which contained apparent death threats towards his then girlfriend Jessy Potts.
Princess Eugenie shares sweet snap of son to celebrate Easter Sunday
Princess Eugenie, a member of the British royal family, has shared a sweet photograph featuring her youngest son to mark Easter Sunday.
Conservationists Say 'De-Extinction' Not the Answer to Saving Extinct Species
There was excitement when biotech company Collosal announced genetically modified grey wolves (first hailed as a "de-extinction" of the Dire wolf species after several millennia). "But bioethicists and conservationists are expressing unease with the kind of scientific research," writes the Chicago Tribune. [Alternate URL here.]
"Unfortunately, as clever as this science is ... it's can-do science and not should-do science," said Lindsay Marshall, director of science in animal research at Humane World for Animals, formerly the Humane Society of the U.S.... Ed Heist, a professor at Southern Illinois University and a conservation geneticist, said the news bothered him. "This is not conservation, but people conflate it," he said. "The point is entertainment...."
Naomi Louchouarn [program director of wildlife partnerships at Humane World for Animals], has dedicated her studies and research to the relationship between humans and animals, specifically carnivores like gray wolves. "The reason our current endangered species are becoming extinct is because we don't know how to coexist with them," she said. "And this doesn't solve that problem at all." Humans can treat the symptoms of wildlife conflict with "big, flashy silver bullets" and "in this case, advanced, inefficient science," she said, but the real solution is behavioral change. "Assuming that we could actually bring back a full population of animals," Louchouarn said, "which is so difficult and so crazy — that's a big if — I don't understand the point of trying to bring back a woolly mammoth when we already can't coexist with elephants."
The article notes that even Colossal's chief science officer says their technology is at best one of several tools for fighting biodiversity loss, calling it a battle which humans are 'not close to winning'... We as a global community need to continue to invest in traditional approaches to conservation and habitat preservation, as well as in the protection of living endangered species."
But the article adds that the Trump administration "is citing the case of the dire wolf as it moves to reduce federal protections under the Endangered Species Act of 1973." (Wednesday U.S. interior secretary Doug Burgum has even posted on X "The concept of 'de-extinction' can serve as a bedrock for modern species conservation.")
And the article adds that "During a livestreamed town hall with Interior Department employees on April 9, Burgum said: "If we're going to be in anguish about losing a species, now we have an opportunity to bring them back. Pick your favorite species and call up Colossal.
Ken Angielczyk, curator of mammal fossils at the Field Museum who researches extinct species that lived 200 to 300 million years ago, said it's a misguided approach. "If that's the basis ... for changing regulations related to the endangered species list, that is very, very premature," he said. "Because we can't resurrect things.... If the purpose is to restore the damage to the shared ecosystem, we have that opportunity right now," she said. "And that's the necessity immediately...."
"This whole idea that extinction is reversible is so dangerous," Marshall said, "because then it stops us caring."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader walterbyrd for sharing the news.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Horrific moment man is stabbed in brutal attack outside flats in Bethnal Green - as police launch investigation and make arrest
The shocking footage caught three men savagely beating a 28-year-old with a knife and hammer, as residents ran out to stop the bleeding when the attackers fled.
Surprising reason why two teen girls were jailed and deported while visiting Hawaii
A pair of young German travelers were left stunned after they arrived in Hawaii only to be detained and deported due to a shocking reason.
Kate Beckinsale shares emotional tribute to her late stepfather Roy Battersby as she marks his birthday one year after his death
Kate Beckinsale shared a sweet tribute to her stepfather Roy Battersby on what would have been his birthday on Easter Sunday.