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Science

Orcas engage in human-like fads, including weird fashion trends and teen hooliganism

Orca behavior is wild.

orca
Photo by Mike Doherty on Unsplash

Some teen orcas are causing headaches for boaters off the coast of Europe.

Orcas are among the smartest animals in the world and their combo of intelligence and social behavior can make for some interesting surprises.

Adolescent orcas have been causing headaches for boaters off the coasts of Europe with some seemingly aggressive behavior toward boat rudders, repeatedly ramming into and biting them, causing major damage. Most of these rudder encounters, which have reportedly been happening for just over two years, have taken place near Portugal and Spain.

However, as NPR reports, the same kind of boat attack recently took place off the coast of France. Ester Kristine Storkson shared that she was violently awakened on her father's 37-foot sailboat by several orcas ramming into the vessel. "They [hit] us repeatedly ... giving us the impression that it was a coordinated attack," she told NPR. After about 15 minutes, they swam away, leaving the boat's rudder destroyed.

The location of this particular encounter has surprised orca experts, as it's nowhere near where the other rudder incidents have occurred. Renaud de Stephanis, president and coordinator at cetacean research group CIRCE Conservación Information and Research, told NPR that the Spain and Portugal encounters are thought to have been from a small group of adolescent male orcas from the same pod, but the coast of France isn't in their home range.

"I really don't understand what happened there," he said. "It's too far away. I mean, I don't think that [the orcas] would go up there for a couple of days and then come back."

The reason for the rudder destruction is unknown, but scientists have a few theories. One is that the young orcas like the way the water feels when a boat's propeller is on and ramming the rudder is a way of saying, "Hey, turn it on, man!" It could just be curiosity about the moving parts of a boat or frustration with the propellers not moving. It's also possible that it's simply a fun game for them, according to de Stephanis. "When they ... have their own adult life, it will probably stop," he told NPR.

In other words, typical teenage hooliganism.

According to Live Science, orca societies actually have fads that come and go and this rudder-ramming behavior might be one. A 2004 paper published in Biological Conservation described how one female orca in the Puget Sound off of Washington state had started a trend of wearing dead salmon like a hat. Others followed her lead and the "fashion" trend even spread to two other pods. The "dead-salmon-wearing" fad lasted about six weeks. A few orcas apparently tried to bring it back the following summer, but it didn't catch on again.

Jared Towers, the director of Bay Cetology in British Columbia, studies a population of orcas in the Pacific and says "games" like the rudder ramming come and go in orca societies. We have juvenile males who ... often interact with prawn and crab traps," he says. "That's just been a fad for a few years."

While we wait for the rudder ramming fad to fade, it's good to remember that orcas are not aggressive towards humans. There is no recorded death from an orca attack in the wild, and very few reports of any kind of attacks on humans at all. Though these boat encounters are certainly frightening and potentially dangerous—at least one boat has sunk from the rudder destruction—they do not appear to be aggressive attacks directed at people.

Maybe there's a deeper message we can't understand in these shenanigans? Or maybe these youngsters just need an after-school program to productively channel their youthful energy.

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Wonder how volunteering can change your life? Ask a Peace Corps Volunteer.

Those who give back get so much in return.

True

Larissa Gummy was first introduced to the work of the Peace Corps in high school. All it took was seeing a few photos shared by her ninth-grade teacher, a returned Peace Corps Volunteer, to know that one day, she would follow in those footsteps.

This inspiration eventually led Larissa away from her home in Minnesota to Rwanda in East Africa, to give back to her family’s country of origin and pursue her passion for international development. Though her decision confused her parents at first, they’re now proud and excited to see what their daughter has accomplished through her volunteer work.

And just what was that work? Well, it changed from day to day, but it all had to do with health.

Mostly, Larissa worked for Rwanda’s First 1,000 Days Health project, which aims to improve the conditions that affect the mortality rate of kids within the first 1,000 days of being born (or almost three years old). These conditions include hygiene, nutrition, and prevention of childhood diseases like malaria and acute respiratory infections (ARI). Addressing malnutrition was a particular focus, as it continues to cause stunted growth in 33% of Rwandan children under the age of five.

In partnership with the local health center, Larissa helped with vaccination education, led nutrition classes, offered prenatal care to expecting mothers, and helped support health education in surrounding communities. Needless to say—she stayed busy with a variety of tasks.

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13 side-by-side portraits of people over 100 with their younger selves

These powerful before-and-after photos reveal just how beautiful aging can be.


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In the series, Langer juxtaposes his portraits with another portrait of the subject from decades earlier. He recreates the original pose and lighting as closely as he can — he wants us to see them not just as they are now, but how they have and haven't changed over time. That is the key to the series.

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Woman goes viral walking the streets of New York holding a sign looking for a husband

"You know what... This might just work."

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There's the old cliché, desperate times call for desperate measures and one woman decided it was time to pull out all the stops. Well, sort of. Karolina Geits was annoyed with dating sites when she and her friends came up with the joke of walking around New York City with a sign that reads, "looking for a husband."

The sign isn't something fancy that they printed up at Office Depot or something. It's just a piece of cardboard with black sharpie writing. Geits, who is a model, debuted the sign in July, racking up more than 6.4 million views on TikTok. Since striking virility, she's taken to filming herself with some pretty eyebrow raising signs.

People walking along the streets seem to be a mixture of confused and amused by these silly signs, which sometimes actually result in money. One of her signs, "need money for a Birkin" had onlookers giggling and some folks forgetting they were in New York traffic while craning their necks to...read her sign. I'm sure.

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Mom notices the boy she adopted looks a lot like her biological son, so she gets a DNA test

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A woman, 35, and her husband, 38, had been married for 10 years and during that time became good friends with a neighbor in her 20s. Two years after they met the neighbor she had a son. She said the father wasn’t in the son’s life because he was a one-night fling.

The woman had health issues, so the couple happily took care of the child when she was in the hospital. Sadly, the woman died when the child was young, so the couple became his foster parents and legally adopted him at the age of 7.

Years later, when their adopted son was 10, and their biological child was 5, the mother noticed that both children looked a lot alike. “Now that they are 10 and 5 years old and they looked so much like each other that I begin to have suspicions,” the woman wrote on the Reddit Relationship Advice subforum.

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People are applauding the way Matthew McConaughey refused to be reduced down to the partisan label of “anti-gun” during a recent guest appearance on “The View.”

McConaughey had initially been brought on the show to discuss his new children’s book, “Just Because,” but host Sunny Hostin later praised the actor for being “so outspoken against violence, and gun violence in particular,” referencing his previous impassioned speech in the aftermath of the Robb Elementary School shooting.

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To celebrate Fiona Apple's birthday, here's her epic 1997 takedown of celebrity culture

Her "career suicide" moment was brilliantly ahead of its time.

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Fiona Apple speaking at the 1997 MTV Video Music awards.

In 1997, singer-songwriter 19-year-old Fiona Apple was a massive breakthrough artist on MTV, having recently scored big hits with “Shadowboxer,” “Criminal” and “Sleep to Dream” from her debut album, “Tidal.”

However, even though she was still a teenager, she was already suspicious of celebrity culture.

When accepting the award for the single "Sleep to Dream" at the MTV Video Music Awards, she gave an impromptu speech taking dead aim at the music industry. She asked the young people watching to stop emulating the stars they see in music videos and to be themselves.

Her speech was a bold move by a young woman in a room full of celebrities, rock stars and industry people. At the time, it looked like she was committing career suicide in front of the world. Twenty-six years later, it seems even more audacious in a world where the notion of being sellout is a Gen X relic and the entire culture is dominated by influencers.

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