Prehistoric cave dwellers living in Europe purposefully starved themselves of oxygen to hallucinate while creating their decorative wall paintings, a groundbreaking new study has found.
Researchers have been questioning for years why so many of the world’s oldest paintings were located in often pitch-black tunnel systems, far away from cave entrances.
But a recent study by Tel Aviv University now reveals that the location was deliberate because it induced oxygen deprivation and caused cavemen to experience a state called hypoxia.
Hypoxia can bring about symptoms including shortness of breath, headaches, confusion, and rapid heartbeat, which can lead to feelings of euphoria, near-death experiences, and out-of-body sensations. The team of researchers believes it would have been “very similar to when you are taking drugs”, the Times reported.
“It appears that Upper Paleolithic people barely used the interior of deep caves for daily, domestic activities. Such activities were mostly performed at open-air sites, rock shelters, or cave entrances,” the study says, according to CNN.
“While depictions were not created solely in the deep and dark parts of the caves, images at such locations are a very impressive aspect of cave depictions and are thus the focus of this study,” it adds.
According to Ran Barkai, the co-author of the study, the cavemen used fire to light up the caves, which would simultaneously also reduce oxygen levels. Painting in these conditions was done deliberately and as a means of connecting to the cosmos, the researcher says.
“It was used to get connected with things,” Barkai told CNN, adding that cave painters often thought of the rock face as a portal connecting their world with the underworld, which was associated with prosperity and growth. The researcher also suggested that cave paintings could have been used as part of a kind of initiation rite.
The fascinating cave paintings, which date from around 40,000 to 14,000 years ago, depict animals such as mammoths, bison, and ibex.
“It was not the decoration that rendered the caves significant but the opposite: The significance of the chosen caves was the reason for their decoration,” the study reads, according to CNN.
The study focused on decorated caves in Europe, mostly in Spain and France. It was published last week in the scientific journal “Time and Mind: The Journal of Archaeology, Consciousness, and Culture.”
On Thursday, NASA released a stunning photo of a sea of dunes on Mars.
It also shows wind-sculpted lines surrounding Mars’ frosty northern polar cap.
The section captured in the shot represents an area that is 19 miles wide, NASA said. The sea of dunes, however, actually covers an area as large as Texas.
The photo is a false color image, meaning that the colors are representative of temperatures. Blue represents cooler climes, and the shades of yellow mark out “sun-warmed dunes,” the US space agency wrote.
It’s the latest sign that the former president is growing increasingly frustrated that he isn’t receiving credit for the development or rollout of the coronavirus shot.
In early March, Trump released a statement falsely asserting that he was primarily responsible for the shot’s rapid development.
“I hope everyone remembers when they’re getting the COVID-19 (often referred to as the China Virus) Vaccine, that if I wasn’t President, you wouldn’t be getting that beautiful ‘shot’ for 5 years, at best, and probably wouldn’t be getting it at all,” the statement said.
There is no evidence to suggest that Trump’s efforts would have shaved four or five years off from a COVID-19 vaccine being developed, Insider’s Tyler Sonnemaker previously wrote.
In November, Insider’s Mia Jankowicz reported that Trump was furious that President Joe Biden may get credit for the vaccines. He was reportedly upset that Biden would “steal” the plaudits from him, Jankowicz said.
Trump made the latest plea for credit at a speech to his most dedicated supporters during a Republican National Committee retreat.
While the giant Even Given container ship might have been freed from the banks of the Suez Canal, it still finds itself stuck, embroiled in a row of who should pay for dislodging it from the waterway.
“The vessel will remain here until investigations are complete and compensation is paid,” Lt. Gen. Osama Rabie, who leads the Suez Canal Authority, told a local news station on Thursday, according to the Wall Street Journal.
“We hope for a speedy agreement,” he said, adding that the “minute they agree to compensation, the vessel will be allowed to move.”
It will also refund the costs from the blocking of the canal, which ended up causing an epic traffic jam of more than 400 ships on either side of the channel.
Rabie did not say how exactly he arrived at that figure.
An aerial view of the Suez Canal in Egypt, taken from a commercial flight on March 27, 2021.
Mahmoud Khaled/AFP via Getty Images
It is also still unclear who will pay for Egypt’s demand for compensation. Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd., the Japanese owner of the Ever Given, told the Wall Street Journal that it hadn’t officially heard from the Egyptian authorities.
Eric Hsieh, the president of Evergreen Marine Corp, the charterer of Ever Given, said that the company is “free of responsibility from cargo delays” because “it will be covered by insurance,” Bloomberg reported.
The 1,300-foot Ever Given made headlines on March 23 when an unexpected wind storm caused it to steer off course and get lodged in the sandbanks of the Suez Canal, disrupting global trade. It was freed six days later.
The ship, its cargo, and the 25-person Indian crew of sailors will remain at anchor in Egypt’s Great Bitter Lake until the investigation is over. Earlier this month, authorities told Insider that the crew of the ship is safe and will continue getting paid.
Rabie said that he would prefer to settle the matter of compensation outside of court, although he didn’t rule out a lawsuit.
“We could agree on a certain compensation, or it goes to court,” he said, according to CNBC. “If they decide to go to court, then the ship should be held.”
Former state Rep. Tom Goodson, who was the main sponsor of the legislation at the time, told the Orlando Sentinel this week that when he met with Gaetz to discuss his opposition, it was clear that “Matt was absolutely against it.”
“He thought the picture was his to do with what he wanted,” Goodson said, according to the Sentinel. “He thought that any picture was his to use as he wanted to, as an expression of his rights.”
Gaetz’s supposed outlook has become even more problematic now that the lawmaker is under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for allegedly showing several colleagues in Congress nude videos and images of women he’d slept with. This is on top of an already existing sex trafficking probe.
What is most striking about Goodson’s claims this week is Gaetz’s supposed assumption that the recipient of a private photo can do what they want with it. This is not only wrong, but also dangerous for victims of image-based abuse.
According to the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, the very definition of nonconsensual pornography, otherwise known as revenge porn, is “the distribution of private, sexually explicit images of individuals without their consent.”
Amy Hasinoff, an associate professor at the University of Colorado Denver who recently co-authored a study on image-based abuse, told Insider: “Just because someone consented to send a photo doesn’t mean the receiver has consent to distribute it. That’s a completely separate act.”
“If somebody wants to distribute your sexual images, they have to get your permission first,” she added.
For Hasinoff, this should be a no-brainer. It should be obvious that certain pieces of information – whether it’s health, financial, or sexual information – are meant to be private. It should be obvious that, like any other sex act, consent should be sought before sharing private images.
But unfortunately, nonconsensual pornography is still far too prevalent. A nationwide study in 2017 found that 1 in 8 Americans who have social media have been targets of image-based abuse. Women were significantly more likely to have been targets compared to men.
“We need to dispel the myth that the victim has done anything wrong”
Many victims of image-based abuse suffer from bad mental health because they end up becoming the subject of slut-shaming and victim-blaming. The very name “revenge porn” is misleading because it implies that the perpetrators are motivated by revenge.
Former Rep. Katie Hill, who was forced to resign from Congress in 2019 after nude images of her were leaked, told Fortune last year: “We need to dispel the myth that the victim has done anything wrong. When you hear…’She should never have taken those photos’ we’re talking about photos in many cases that were not even taken consensually, let alone distributed consensually.”
Hill is still struggling from the fall-out of what happened: She recently lost a lawsuit against the Daily Mail for publishing the photos of her (her team plans on appealing the case.)
Former Rep. Katie Hill (D-CA) answers questions from reporters at the Capitol following her final speech on the floor of the House of Representatives on October 31, 2019 in Washington, DC.
Win McNamee/Getty Images
Like many victims, her mental health has also suffered. “One of the most overwhelming feelings is knowing that the vast majority of people who know who I am if I encounter them on the street and they recognize me. I have to hold it within my mind that there’s a very good chance they’ve seen my naked pictures,” she told Fortune.
“That’s a really shitty thing to think about,” she added.
“I have to wonder about what his motives were when he defended me back then,” Hill said in an interview with CNN on Friday. “Knowing now that that could’ve been just because he was trying to kind of cover-up for whatever his own indiscretions were or be able to use my name and invoke that defense later on. It’s just gross.”
For Hill and other campaigners, the fight is still far from over.
At the time of writing, 46 states, the District of Columbia, and one territory have revenge porn laws. However, they’re still relatively new, contain many loopholes, and change drastically within each state. Conviction rates also remain very low.
Masinoff told Insider that one way to solve this problem is to make it clear to people that behavior like this is unacceptable – and even deadly. And it starts with not assuming you can share a private image as you wish.
“Most of the response to this problem has been to create sort of new criminal laws to try to punish people for doing it,” Masinoff said. “I understand that that’s sort of the tool that we have right now, but it’s wrong that this is one of the only ways we can tell people that their behavior is bad.”
Former President Donald Trump took aim at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell for not supporting him enough during his February impeachment trial, Politico reported.
Getty Images
Former President Donald Trump insulted Mitch McConnell during a speech to donors at Mar-a-Lago.
Trump referred to the Senate Minority Leader as a “dumb son of a b—h,” Politico reported.
He spent several minutes ridiculing both McConnell and his wife, The Washington Post said.
Trump also attacked McConnell’s wife, former Transportation Secretary, The Washington Post reported. “I hired his wife. Did he ever say thank you?” Trump said, according to The Post.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his wife, former Trump Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, arrive for Joe Biden’s inauguration.
The former president also falsely claimed that he had won the Senate election for McConnell in Kentucky, The Post added.
The Kentucky senator was not the only Republican to be derided. Trump also claimed that former Vice President Mike Pence lacked the “courage” to send the Electoral College certification back to state legislatures, MailOnline said.
The former president was speaking to hundreds of GOP donors as part of a Republican National Committee retreat in South Florida, according to CNN.
Donors were shuttled from the retreat’s main venue, about 10 minutes away, to this closed-door audience with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, CNN reported.
Grady Douglas Owens, 21, from Winter Park, Florida, was arrested on April 1 after being caught on bodycam video using his skateboard, which bore the phrase “White Fang,” to hit a police officer over the head.
The officer, who has not been named, was left with a concussion and an injury to his finger, according to an affidavit released earlier this month.
The 21-year-old, who is a student at Full Sail University, has been charged with assaulting a law enforcement officer with a deadly weapon, and violent entry of the Capitol building, among other things. He faces 36 years in prison if convicted.
Federal investigators were able to track him down with the help of social media. His Instagram account, which described him as a “mix and mastering engineer,” according to the New York Post, has since been taken down.
An employee of Full Sail University later positively identified him.
More than 400 people have been charged in the Capitol insurrection, which resulted in the deaths of five people, including a police officer.
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell said Friday he’s hired private investigators to find out why Fox News isn’t letting him go on the network as a guest to talk about his baseless claims of election fraud.
Dominion Voting Systems sued Fox News and Lindell for defamation last month, seeking $1.6 billion and $1.3 billion, respectively. The conservative news network is also facing a $2.7 billion lawsuit by Smartmatic allegedly spreading election misinformation earlier this year.
Lindell, who has continued to push voter-fraud conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, appeared on Steve Bannon’s “War Room: Pandemic” podcast to talk about the lawsuit and Fox News.
The CEO said he believes that Fox News and their reluctance to speak about the election fraud seem suspicious to him, adding that it is allegedly among several entities involved in a conspiracy against former President Donald Trump.
In a video of the interview, posted to social media, Bannon says to Lindell: “I don’t remember seeing you on Fox recently…Why are the Murdochs afraid of Dominion? Why is Mike Lindell not on Fox and why do they seem to say, hey, when Dominion says something, we’re just gonna shut up about it and talk about Biden’s tax bill?”
“You know, I’m gonna have those answers soon, ’cause I’ve hired private investigators and I’ve spent a lot of money on them to investigate everything,” Lindell responds.
“The bots and trolls, who’s behind them? Why is Facebook involved, Wikipedia involved? And then the big question: why isn’t Fox having people on? Why isn’t Fox on there talking about Dominion and Smartmatic and the election fraud?” he added.
Last month, the CEO complained to the “Eric Metaxas Radio Show” that he’s unable to go on Fox News to talk about the “absolute proof” he claims to have found about election fraud, adding that he believes the conservative TV network is “in on it.”
“I want to say one thing here – here’s things that don’t make sense,” Lindell said. “Let’s just talk about Fox. You’re already sued! It’s too late to close the gate. The cows are already out of the barn!”
Even though Lindell hasn’t appeared as a guest on Fox News for months, his company is still the leading advertiser of the network’s most-viewed show, “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
A US Army lieutenant is suing two Virginia police officers for holding him at gunpoint, pepper-spraying him, and throwing him to the ground during an illegal traffic stop that took place last year.
Caron Nazario, a Black and Latino man who is a second lieutenant in the US Army Medical Corps, was driving home from his duty station on December 5, 2020, when police pulled him over, attorney Jonathan Arthur told The Associated Press on Friday.
The officers, identified as Joe Gutierrez and Daniel Crocker, later claimed they pulled Nazario over because he had tinted windows and was missing a rear license plate.
According to a report included in the lawsuit, Crocker radioed in that the driver was “eluding police” and that it was considered a “high-risk traffic stop,” the Washington Post reported.
Nazario had attempted to explain at the time that he wasn’t trying to elude the officer but wanted to stop in a well-lit area “for officer safety and out of respect for the officers,” Arthur said, according to AP.
The lawsuit says by the time the two officers reached his SUV, the license plate was visible.
Body camera footage of the incident shows the officers shouting at Nazario to get out of the car. The Army lieutenant, who is seen holding his hands in the air, says: “I’m honestly afraid to get out.”
One of the officers, holding a gun to Nazario’s face, responds: “Yeah, you should be!”
At one point, Gutierrez threatened the Virginia university graduate that he was “fixin’ to ride the lightning.” AP reported that this is a reference to the electric chair which was also a line from the movie “The Green Mile,” a film about a Black man facing execution.
“I don’t even want to reach for my seatbelt, can you please?” Nazario says, his hands shaking. “My hands are out, can you please – look, this is really messed up.”
In the lawsuit, filed earlier this month, the police officers were said to have “approached with guns pointed at the car, gave opposing instructions to a uniformed soldier behind the wheel, and then pepper-sprayed him – all while threatening him with different charges and levels of violence for non-compliance,” Complex reported.
Watch the moment below:
Nazario has sued Gutierrez and Crocker, claiming violations of his constitutional rights under the Fourth and First Amendments. Asked about Nazario’s condition after the incident, Arthur told AP: “He’s definitely not doing too well.”
The lawsuit says: “These cameras captured footage of behavior consistent with a disgusting nationwide trend of law enforcement officers, who, believing they can operate with complete impunity, engage in unprofessional, discourteous, racially-biased, dangerous and sometimes deadly abuses of authority …”
Both Gutierrez and Crocker filed reports with “near-identical” misstatements, the lawsuit said according to the Washington Post.
Their reports of the incident claimed that Nazario refused to show his hands and slapped theirs away when they tried to get him out.
Crocker and Gutierrez still work for the department, according to AP.
A new video shows the moment sailors aboard a ship in the Straits of Gibraltar fought off a pod of killer whales with poles and flare lights after the giant sea creatures broke off part of the vessel’s rudder.
The incident happened on April 3 off Morocco’s coast of Cape Spartel, when the pod approached the Serena IV sailboat and started ramming its rudder.
The captain of the boat, Antonio Busse, told Real Press that he had been on watch duty that evening when he heard an unfamiliar noise and rushed to the back of the ship, witnessing what he counted to be four orcas.
In the dramatic video footage published by the DailyMail, Busse can be seen using a long pole to hit the side of the boat as well as the water in an attempt to scare the orcas away.
Meanwhile, other crew members are seen desperately throwing items into the water and shouting at the whales, telling them to “get off the boat.”
At one point, the sailor filming the video can be heard shouting: “Look, they hit the wheel a bit! They don’t like the wheel, they always go for the wheel.” The orcas eventually broke off part of the vessel’s rudder.
One crew member eventually lights a red flare and throws it in the water, prompting the whales to swim away.
Despite a partially broken rudder, the boat managed to continue on its journey and anchor in the Spanish port of Tarifa.
Watch the video below:
Busse, who has sailed across the world, said that the incident had been very scary, adding that “something like this had never happened before” in his lifetime, according to the DailyMail.
“I have been in Antarctica and I have never seen something like this,” he said.
Researchers told the Observer that it was not unusual for orcas, which are highly social and curious animals, to follow boats or even playfully interact with them and that ramming the rudder is not unheard of.
However, many were still left scratching their heads as to why some of the incidents were aggressive in nature.
Ruth Esteban, the head of international relations for the Orca Atlantica Working Group, who studies these orcas, told Insider that since last year the interactions have still been happening, but they’ve “not been as intense.” This is partly also because of the season, she added.
The last interaction was on April 1, Esteban said, adding that there has been a lot of activity in the Strait of Gibraltar area.
“We don’t like to call them attacks because it comes across as more playful. We still don’t fully know why they do this but from watching videos of the different interactions, it is obvious they behave differently depending on the speed of the boat or the type of boat,” said Esteban. “When we watch these videos, for us, it doesn’t look like they’re ‘attacks.'”
Esteban also added that although the orcas had scared crew members on ships, they had not yet posed a significant danger to humans.
Wild killer whales have never fatally attacked humans in the ocean. However, there have been cases of captive orcas killing or injuring handlers at marine theme parks.
