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Entertainment

Nikon competition reveals ant’s horrifying face up close

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It’s not a good look.

A startling photograph of an ant’s face magnified five times under a microscope is swarming social media — though it barely merited a mention in the Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition.

Lithuanian wildlife photographer Dr. Eugenijus Kavaliauskas submitted “Ant (Camponotus),” which gives a nightmarish perspective of the beady-eyed everyday pest with a ferocious snarl and flame-like whiskers.

Previously a noted photographer of birds of prey, Kavaliauskas recently switched his focus to insects, according to his portfolio.

This year marked the 48th iteration of the annual Nikon competition, which zeroes in on microscope photography that reveals details otherwise invisible to the human eye. Kavaliauskas’ photo didn’t make it to the Top 20 and Honorable Mentions categories, but was included as one of 57 “Images of Distinction.”

Eugenijus Kavaliauskas submtited “Ant (Camponotus)” to the Nikon competition.
Eugenijus Kavaliauskas/Nikon Sma

Speaking to Insider this week, Kavaliauskas said he appreciated how microphotography allows him to find newer and more interesting aspects to his subjects.

“I’m always looking for details, shadows, and unseen corners. The main goal of photography is to be a discoverer,” he said. “I am fascinated by the Creator’s masterpieces and the opportunity to see God’s designs.”

When asked about the ant’s startling visage, Kavaliauskas replied“there are no horrors in nature.”

Not everyone agrees.

USC film professor Rebekah McKendry ignited a small firestorm when she shared Kavaliauskas’ image on Twitter Monday.

“Image from a horror movie?” McKendry captioned the photograph. “Nope. That’s the very real face of an ant.”

“Now you have to think about that all night,” she joked.

Commenters quickly chimed in with their own reactions.

“Why would you do this to me,” one demanded.

“And now I have 12-15 hours to get that image out of my head,” another replied.

Some were able to make light of their terror, with one person writing “Just wait till Disney’s photorealistic remake of A Bug’s Life.”

The top prize went to “Embryonic hand of a Madagascar giant day gecko (Phelsuma grandis).”
Grigorii Timin and Michel Milink

Even Kavaliauskas admitted he was once spooked by all he saw under the microscope.

“When I first started with microphotography, I, too, thought all beetles looked a little like monsters,” he told Insider. “But now, I’ve gotten used to it, and am surprised that there are so many interesting, beautiful, and unknown miracles under our feet.” 

In addition to some viral clout, Kavaliauskas walked away from the competition with one Nikon item with a $35 retail value. Out of 1,300 submissions, the top prize– including a $3,000 cash reward– went to “Embryonic hand of a Madagascar giant day gecko (Phelsuma grandis)” by Grigorii Timin and Michel Milinkovitch.

Affiliates of the University of Geneva’s Department of Genetics and Evolution. Timin and Milinkovitch captured the giant day gecko’s front paw in fluorescent detail at 6X magnification.

“This particular image is beautiful and informative, as an overview and also when you magnify it in a certain region, shedding light on how the structures are organized on a cellular level,” Timin said in a Nikon press statement.

The 2023 Small World Photomicrography Competition is already open for submissions, which are welcomed from anyone interested in photography and microscopy. There is also a video portion, titled the Small World In Motion.

Kavaliauskas did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for a comment.



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Sports

NFL replaces Pro Bowl with ‘The Pro Bowl Games’ featuring weeklong skills competitions, flag football game

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The NFL is replacing the Pro Bowl with weeklong skills competitions and a flag football game, The Associated Press has learned.

The new event will replace the full-contact showcase started in 1951. It will be renamed “The Pro Bowl Games” and will feature AFC and NFC players showcasing their football and non-football skills in challenges over several days. The 2023 Games will be held in Las Vegas, and the flag football game at Allegiant Stadium is Feb. 5.

Peyton Manning and his Omaha Productions company will help shape programming and promote the event’s content throughout the week. Manning, a 14-time Pro Bowl pick during his Hall of Fame career, will provide his perspective and will also be a part of the coaching staff for flag game.

“The Pro Bowl is something that we’ve been looking at for a while, really continuing to evolve,” NFL executive Peter O’Reilly told The Associated Press. “Coming out of last year’s game, we really made the decision based on a lot of internal conversations, getting feedback from GMs and coaches, getting a lot of feedback from players. We think there’s a real opportunity to do something wholly different here and move away from the traditional tackle football game. We decided the goal is to celebrate 88 of the biggest stars in the NFL in a really positive, fun, yet competitive way.

“The feedback very directly from guys who had been in the Pro Bowl recently was to keep the construct of the week, make sure you’re having that multiday element. It was overwhelmingly positive both from players as well as from clubs.”

The Pro Bowl debuted in January 1951 in Los Angeles and stayed there for 21 seasons before the game moved to different cities from 1972 to 1980. Hawaii hosted from 1980 to 2009, and the game has had several homes in the years since, including Miami, Phoenix, Orlando and Las Vegas.

Quality of play in the Pro Bowl has often been criticized. Players, understandably concerned about getting hurt, treat it as an exhibition more than competition. A flag football game could increase competition while avoiding potential injuries resulting from tackling, blocking and hitting.

The NFL has a major interest in flag football. The league partnered with the International Federation of American Football to bring flag football to The World Games in July with an eye on the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.

“You tap into all the stuff that feels great about Pro Bowl week, the skills, the helmets off, the engagement and then culminate that, keeping the AFC-NFC construct, in something that’s really important, which is flag football and that opportunity to have the best athletes in the NFL out there playing this game that is so much about the future of our sport,” said O’Reilly, the league’s executive vice president, club business and league events. “It’s been an evolution, but coming out of Las Vegas last year, we really focused on how do we reinvent and celebrate our all-stars even better.”

The league plans to announce the new format Monday.

“The Pro Bowl has always been a time to step back and celebrate the game of football with teammates, fans and family,” Manning told the AP. “I’m thankful I can continue to be part of the week as all of us at Omaha Productions work with the NFL to reimagine The Pro Bowl Games. Making Sunday’s game a flag football game is great to see. Youth football has been extremely important to me, and knowing NFL FLAG will help grow this sport, I hope boys and girls can see themselves playing the same game as the best players in the world.”

Fan voting will still help determine the AFC and NFC team rosters. Tom Brady has the most invitations to the Pro Bowl with 15. Four players got 14 invites, including Manning. The East-West Shrine Bowl will be held at Allegiant Stadium on Feb. 2.

In 1999, Patriots rookie running back Robert Edwards suffered knee ligament damage and sliced an artery in his left leg playing an NFL-sanctioned beach flag football game during the week of the Pro Bowl. He missed the entire 1999 and 2000 seasons while rehabilitating the knee.

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Sports

Tom Hardy speaks out after surprise Jiu-Jitsu win, reveals why he entered

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Just days after he secretly entered — and won — a Jiu-Jitsu competition over the weekend, Tom Hardy has revealed what made him participate in the first place.

The Oscar-nominated actor, 45, shocked a group of martial artists in England after he showed up at the competition on Saturday as an accomplished blue belt in the self-defense discipline.

Taking to Instagram on Wednesday following his win, “The Revenant” star revealed he participated in the championship as a part of the global nonprofit organization REORG.

“Addiction is difficult and complex stuff to navigate; as is mental health,” Hardy wrote. “Subjects which are both deeply personal for me and extremely close to my heart.”

He added, “It is an honor to be able to represent the charity and my team REORG and the great work they do supporting the mental health and well-being of veterans of service, military, and first responders through the therapeutic benefits of Jiu Jitsu and fitness training.”

The “Venom” actor said the sport helped him develop “a deeper sense of inner resilience.”

Tom Hardy poses with his first place medal following the competition.
Sean Rosborough / SWNS

“Simple training, for me (as a hobby and a private love) has been fundamentally key to further develop a deeper sense of inner resilience, calm, and well-being,” he explained. “I can’t stress the importance it has had and the impact on my life and my fellow teammates.”

According to The Guardian, Hardy entered the competition under his real name “Edward,” straying away from his stage name, which is also his middle name.

Tom Hardy’s opponent told local media the actor’s appearance over the weekend left him “shell-shocked.”
Sean Rosborough / SWNS

Hardy has been open about his past struggle with substance abuse, including a tough time in his life when he was addicted to alcohol and drugs back in 2002.

Last month, Hardy won two medals at a fundraiser jiu-jitsu competition for REORG.

Hardy took up a grueling training program with the organization in a bid to prepare for his 2011 film “Warrior.”



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Sports

FINA votes to restrict transgender athletes from competing in elite women’s aquatics competitions

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Swimming’s world governing body approved the new “gender inclusion” policy on Sunday, after 71.5% of FINA’s member federations voted in support at the FINA Extraordinary General Congress 2022.

The new gender inclusion policy, which is set to go into effect on June 20, 2022, says that male-to-female transgender athletes will only be eligible to compete in the women’s categories in FINA competitions if they transition before the age of 12 or before they reach stage two on the puberty Tanner Scale.

The policy also says athletes who have previously used testosterone as part of female-to-male gender-affirming hormone treatment will only be eligible to compete in women’s competitions if the testosterone was used for less than a year in total, the treatment didn’t take place during puberty and testosterone levels in serum are back to pre-treatment levels.

As a result of the vote, FINA said it will establish a new working group in order to develop open category events for athletes that do not meet the governing body’s eligibility criteria for men’s or women’s categories.

FINA oversees aquatic competitions in swimming, water polo, diving, artistic swimming and open water swimming and high diving.

“We have to protect the rights of our athletes to compete, but we also have to protect competitive fairness at our events, especially the women’s category at FINA competitions,” FINA President Husain Al-Musallam said. “FINA will always welcome every athlete. The creation of an open category will mean that everybody has the opportunity to compete at an elite level. This has not been done before, so FINA will need to lead the way. I want all athletes to feel included in being able to develop ideas during this process.”

In November 2021, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued its Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Non-Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sex Variations, saying no athlete should be excluded from competition on the assumption of an advantage due to their gender and rejected the notion that a testosterone proxy was enough to be excluded from the women’s category.

Several months later, in January 2022, the International Federation of Sports Medicine and the European Federation of Sports Medicine Associations issued a joint position statement disputing parts of the IOC’s position.

FINA says it responded by forming a working group to “consider the best available statistical, scientific, and medical evidence concerning sex differences in sports performance, and any associated male sex-based advantage,” and use the information to establish eligibility criteria for transgender athletes.

The working group was comprised of an athlete group, which FINA says included transgender athletes and coaches, a science and medicine group as well as a legal and human rights group.

The debate on transgender women in swimming came under a spotlight when University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas, who started on the school’s men’s swimming team in 2017, eventually joined the UPenn women’s team in 2020.

At the time of her transition in 2019, the NCAA required that transgender athletes have one year of hormone replacement therapy to be cleared to compete.

In February, 16 members of the University of Pennsylvania’s swim team sent a letter to the university and the Ivy League asking them to not challenge the NCAA’s new transgender athlete participation policies that would prevent Thomas and other transgender athletes to compete. In the letter, they argued Thomas had an “unfair advantage,” and said they supported her gender transition out of the pool but not necessarily in it.

Despite the backlash, Penn Athletics and the Ivy League maintained their support for the transgender swimmer, and over 300 current and former swimmers signed their names to an open letter defending her ability to compete.

As a swimmer on the women’s team, Thomas became the first transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division I title after winning the women’s 500-yard freestyle event in March.

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Sports

Russia suspended from all Fifa and Uefa competitions until further notice | Fifa

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Fifa and Uefa have acted in unison to suspend Russian teams from international football competition on Monday as global sport closed the door on Russia following the invasion of Ukraine.

The most powerful bodies in football joined the International Olympic Committee in acting after days of growing protest. The suspension means Russia will not be able to face Poland in a World Cup play-off semi-final next month, while its women’s team will also be barred from this summer’s European Championship in England and its remaining club side in European competition, Spartak Moscow, will no longer compete in the Europa League.

In a joint statement the two organisations said: “Fifa and Uefa have today decided together that all Russian teams, whether national representative teams or club teams, shall be suspended from participation in both Fifa and Uefa competitions until further notice.

“These decisions were adopted today by the Bureau of the Fifa Council and the Executive Committee of Uefa, respectively the highest decision-making bodies of both institutions on such urgent matters. Football is fully united here and in full solidarity with all the people affected in Ukraine. Both Presidents hope that the situation in Ukraine will improve significantly and rapidly so that football can again be a vector for unity and peace amongst people.”

Uefa also announced a second highly significant move, confirming that it had cancelled a long-standing and highly lucrative sponsorship deal with Gazprom. The Russian gas company had been a sponsor of the Champions League for a decade and the final of this year’s competition was to have been played in the Gazprom Arena in St Petersburg.

Last week Uefa moved the match to Paris, however, and has now severed the relationship entirely. “Uefa has today decided to end its partnership with Gazprom across all competitions,” a statement said. “The decision is effective immediately and covers all existing agreements including the Uefa Champions League, Uefa national team competitions and Uefa Euro 2024.”

Daniil Medvedev became men’s world No 1 on Monday. It is unclear what sporting sanctions will mean in non-team sports. Photograph: Eduardo Verdugo/AP

On Sunday, Fifa had said that Russia could continue to compete in World Cup qualifying if they changed their name and played matches on neutral grounds. An action described by Fifa as taking “initial measures”, it was resisted fiercely by Poland, Russia’s opponents in World Cup qualification. The Polish stance was supported by a number of other European nations, too, including the football associations of England, Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland.

As pressure grew on Fifa on Monday a change in direction was signalled by an intervention from the IOC. Citing the mission of the “Olympic Movement” to “contribute to peace through sport and to unite the world in peaceful competition beyond all political disputes”, the IOC issued a lengthy resolution calling on all sporting organisations to act.

“In order to protect the integrity of global sports competitions and for the safety of all the participants,” the resolution read, “the IOC Executive Board recommends that International Sports Federations and sports event organisers not invite or allow the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes and officials in international competitions”.

The IOC added a condition, however, which could yet mean Russia competes in the Winter Paralympics which start in Beijing this weekend. In situations where short notice “for organisational or legal reasons” meant Russia and its ally in the invasion of Ukraine, Belarus, could not be excluded, they “should be accepted only as neutral athletes or neutral teams”, the IOC said. This would be a similar sanction to that applied to Russia at last year’s Tokyo Olympics, where “no national symbols, colours, flags or anthems should be displayed”.

The Ukrainian delegation for the Winter Paralympics is yet to arrive in Beijing due to the invasion and on Monday evening the British Olympic Association called for Russian athletes to be banned immediately from competition.

“Together with the National Olympic Committee of Germany, [we demand] the immediate exclusion of Russia and Belarus from the international sports family until further notice,” the BOA said. “We call on the international sports federations to ban athletes representing Russia and Belarus from competitions for the time being and to suspend Russian and Belarusian officials from their positions.”

There are further questions now likely to be asked over the involvement of Russian athletes in non-Russian teams, and also in individual sports. One of the most prominent examples is Daniil Medvedev who took over the mantle of the men’s world No 1 tennis player from Novak Djokovic on Monday and over the weekend made a statement calling for peace.

The Ukrainian Tennis Federation board member Seva Kevlych told Reuters that Medvedev should not be allowed to compete in grand slam matches. “Let [Medvedev] play on the ATP Tour but grand slams are ITF events and if you lose the possibility to play in grand slams he could never be world No 1,” Kevlych said. “He shouldn’t play in the French Open, US Open and Wimbledon.”

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    Kevlych’s words echoed a broader, sweeping agenda for action against Russia issued by Ukraine’s ministry of sport. Arguing that “Russian authorities use sport achievements for propaganda of their own ideology” and as “a tool for popularizing ideas of bullying, murder and destruction”, the ministry called not only for athletes to be excluded from competition but for Russian representatives to also be removed from governing bodies and Russian companies from being allowed to act as sponsors.

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