Ripley Entertainment Inc.'s Blog, page 253
September 2, 2019
September 1, 2019
August 31, 2019
August 30, 2019
Kilonova Creates Galactic Gold Explosion In Space
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
This Week
[August 25-31st, 2019] An explosion of gold in space, a man boxes a bear, and the rest of the week’s weird news from Ripley’s Believe It or Not!
Gold Explosion
While a supernova is the powerful explosion of a star, a kilonova is the result of two neutron stars colliding. These massive explosions rock the universe, ejecting huge amounts of gold and platinum into the cosmos. Scientists have confirmed that a kilonova has occurred in a nearby galaxy, but warn there’s not much point in trying to recover the precious metals. Not only are they far away, but the remnants are also believed to have collapsed into a black hole.
Elderly Couple Fights Off Bears
In a reverse Goldilocks scenario, an elderly couple in Pine, Colorado, had their home invaded by a mother bear and her cub. 71-year-old Jon Johnson encountered the mother bear eating a loaf of bread in his kitchen when the bear took a swipe at him. The two began a back and forth hitting each other, leaving Johnson with cuts on his stomach and face. George Field—his wife—rushed downstairs, clocking the bear with a baseball bat, sending the bears fleeing.
Colorado couple use fists, baseball bat to fight off mother bear, cubs https://t.co/XHuS4iISX9 pic.twitter.com/A9Jntvrhob
— Eyewitness News (@ABC7NY) August 28, 2019
Paddleboarding From San Francisco To Hawaii
Antonio de la Rosa just spent two months adrift in the Pacific Ocean, paddling his way to Hawaii. The 50-year-old endurance athlete left San Francisco on June 9, 2019, on a paddleboard. Using the wind, currents, and his arms, he crossed 2,500 miles of open ocean. His board was equipped with solar panels and a small cabin. During the journey, he lost 10 pounds and only complained that he didn’t get enough sleep.
Hard Hat Service
The priests of Notre-Dame donned new helmets for the first mass conducted in the cathedral since a fire broke out and destroyed much of the centuries-old Gothic structure in April. With scaffolding dotting its walls, parishioners were finally able to attend service, though they—and the priests—were all required to wear hard hats for safety.
Michel Christian Alain Aupetit, Archbishop of Paris, celebrating Mass in Notre Dame in a hard hat. pic.twitter.com/Z9iqXQ1EST
— Angela Pancella (@apancella) June 16, 2019
Slide With Jesus
While churchgoers flocked to the limited reopening of Notre-Dame, the officials at Norwich Cathedral have a different plan for attracting attendees. They’ve installed a 55-foot spiraling slide in the 900-year-old building. Church leaders and the choir got the first rides down the lighted, brightly painted tower. Services remain the same, but the church hopes that people will get a new perspective on the cathedral’s many ornate architectural features.
Courtesy Norwich Cathedral / Bill Smith
Kilnova Creates Galactic Gold Explosion In Space
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
This Week
[August 25-31st, 2019] An explosion of gold in space, a man boxes a bear, and the rest of the week’s weird news from Ripley’s Believe It or Not!
Gold Explosion
While a supernova is the powerful explosion of a star, a kilnova is the result of two neutron stars colliding. These massive explosions rock the universe, ejecting huge amounts of gold and platinum into the cosmos. Scientists have confirmed that a kilnova has occurred in a nearby galaxy, but warn there’s not much point in trying to recover the precious metals. Not only are they far away, but the remnants are also believed to have collapsed into a black hole.
Elderly Couple Fights Off Bears
In a reverse Goldilocks scenario, an elderly couple in Pine, Colorado, had their home invaded by a mother bear and her cub. 71-year-old Jon Johnson encountered the mother bear eating a loaf of bread in his kitchen when the bear took a swipe at him. The two began a back and forth hitting each other, leaving Johnson with cuts on his stomach and face. George Field—his wife—rushed downstairs, clocking the bear with a baseball bat, sending the bears fleeing.
Colorado couple use fists, baseball bat to fight off mother bear, cubs https://t.co/XHuS4iISX9 pic.twitter.com/A9Jntvrhob
— Eyewitness News (@ABC7NY) August 28, 2019
Paddleboarding From San Francisco To Hawaii
Antonio de la Rosa just spent two months adrift in the Pacific Ocean, paddling his way to Hawaii. The 50-year-old endurance athlete left San Francisco on June 9, 2019, on a paddleboard. Using the wind, currents, and his arms, he crossed 2,500 miles of open ocean. His board was equipped with solar panels and a small cabin. During the journey, he lost 10 pounds and only complained that he didn’t get enough sleep.
Hard Hat Service
The priests of Notre-Dame donned new helmets for the first mass conducted in the cathedral since a fire broke out and destroyed much of the centuries-old Gothic structure in April. With scaffolding dotting its walls, parishioners were finally able to attend service, though they—and the priests—were all required to wear hard hats for safety.
Michel Christian Alain Aupetit, Archbishop of Paris, celebrating Mass in Notre Dame in a hard hat. pic.twitter.com/Z9iqXQ1EST
— Angela Pancella (@apancella) June 16, 2019
Slide With Jesus
While churchgoers flocked to the limited reopening of Notre-Dame, the officials at Norwich Cathedral have a different plan for attracting attendees. They’ve installed a 55-foot spiraling slide in the 900-year-old building. Church leaders and the choir got the first rides down the lighted, brightly painted tower. Services remain the same, but the church hopes that people will get a new perspective on the cathedral’s many ornate architectural features.
Courtesy Norwich Cathedral / Bill Smith
August 29, 2019
Creating A Pearl Takes Much More Than Just A Grain Of Sand
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Throughout history, the notion of an oyster’s pearl being born from a grain of sand has produced a sense of romanticism and magic appeal. The making of a pearl stems from a process that has been quickly popularized and to some, may seem like common knowledge. It would be quite a challenge to find someone who has not heard of the legendary transformation from a mere grain of sand to a valuable gem. But in reality, this is far from the truth. So how exactly does a pearl come to be?
It Doesn’t Add Up
It is true that when an irritant works its way into an oyster—or any mollusk for that matter—it is gradually coated in layer after layer of richly lustrous nacre. This is the mollusk’s defense mechanism to protect its body from intruders. The process will eventually form a pearl after several years as the layers surrounding the irritant get thicker. But, is the grain of sand the common irritant?
Mollusks live at the bottom of the ocean floor—a habitat covered in endless miles of sand. Through the movement of waves and other sea creatures, not only does sand coat the ocean floor, but it floats amongst water as well. If sand were the common ingredient behind every shimmering pearl, the ocean would be filled with these prized and precious gems. It’s also quite an uncommon occurrence when debris, or any other irritant, does make its way into the mollusk’s shell, proving the pearl to be a true rarity.
The Real Culprit
Now that we know the main ingredient of a pearl is more than a measly grain of sand, we must ask, what irritant is responsible for the pearl’s beauty? The answer is a biological intruder: a parasitic organism. When an aggressive parasite manages to bore through a mollusk’s shell, it wedges itself deep within the organs and soft tissues. The mollusk is triggered to defend itself using its mantle to form a barrier between the parasite.
The mantle is a very unique secretory organ that covers the inside of the mollusk’s shell and is in charge of producing the mesmerizing pearly substance known as mother-of-pearl, or nacre. Coating the intruders with nacre, the mantle adds many layers of protection and eventually turns the grimy parasites into shimmering pearls. A mollusk can typically secrete 3 or 4 concentric layers of nacre each day, which would measure to be around one, one-thousandth of a millimeter—or one micron—making the layers very thin. It takes at least two years for a mollusk to produce a natural pearl of any substantial size—3-5mm. In addition to this lengthy process, the odds for the production of a natural pearl are about one in 10,000 mollusks, at best. This explains why pearls are extremely rare and can fetch very high price points.
From this interloping irritant and years of work, a precious gem from the bottom of the ocean is born. Some would wish for the simplicity of a grain of sand but, like many things in life, the process behind a pearl is far more intricate and astounding.
The world is your oyster, so grab it by the pearl!
Source: Creating A Pearl Takes Much More Than Just A Grain Of Sand
August 28, 2019
August 27, 2019
Clepsydrae: Liquid-Stealing Water Clocks
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Water clocks are some of the oldest devices on the planet used for measuring the passage of time. Earliest records have them popping up in the 16th-century B.C. in both ancient Egypt and Babylonia. These devices showed up in India and China in ancient times as well, with some researchers even suggesting these clocks appeared in China 6,000 years ago.
Early versions of these clocks didn’t use gears, valves, or metal, but instead were made using simple bowls and pots. All water clocks work on either an inflow or outflow model. Inflow clocks receive a constant, steady flow of water. As they fill up, various markings indicate the time. Outflow clocks work just the opposite. As water flows out, markings indicate the time.
By the time the Greeks and Romans set about making their own water clocks, they learned to incorporate gears and other mechanics. This allowed them to make their own versions of water-powered cuckoo clocks, using their own fanciful automation that triggered alarms and the movement of dolls. These water clocks were referred to as clepsydrae—meaning water thieves. These engineers realized that as a vessel reached the end of its reserves, the flow would be reduced—with less water pushing down.
Clocks were important at this time for allotting speaking time to politicians and lawyers. For important cases a clepsydra would be filled to the brim, but, for trivial matters, the clock would be set more modestly. As time went on, the clepsydra became more common, even serving as a timer for brothels.
Before the common era, scientists would find uses for water clocks in measuring heart rate and making astronomical models.
Mechanical clocks using weights and then springs eventually took over in the ensuing millennium, but water clocks remained a popular curiosity into the 19th and early 20th centuries.
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