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- Iconic San Francisco toy store that inspired ‘Toy Story’ films closing after 86 years over ‘perils and violence’ in city’s downtown New York Post
- San Francisco’s oldest toy store which inspired Toy Story blockbuster movies shuts down after 86 YEARS due to Daily Mail
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Tag Archives: oldest
Tori Spelling’s “Oldest Babies” Are All Grown Up in Homecoming Photo – E! NEWS
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I’m the world’s oldest practicing doctor who turned 101 last month – here’s my number one rule for keeping you – Daily Mail
- I’m the world’s oldest practicing doctor who turned 101 last month – here’s my number one rule for keeping you Daily Mail
- 101 years old, ‘world’s oldest practicing doctor’ shares 3 rules for keeping the brain sharp IndiaTimes
- 101-Year-Old Neuroscientist Reveals His Secrets To Long Life The Morning News
- A 101-year-old neurologist who still works full time shares what he eats in a day Yahoo Life
- At 101 years old, I’m the ‘world’s oldest practicing doctor’: My No. 1 rule for keeping your brain sharp CNBC
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Oldest Nearly Complete Hebrew Bible Sells for $38.1 Million – The New York Times
- Oldest Nearly Complete Hebrew Bible Sells for $38.1 Million The New York Times
- Hebrew Bible Sells for $38.1 Million – WSJ The Wall Street Journal
- The Codex Sassoon, one of the world’s oldest Hebrew Bibles, is up for auction WUSF Public Media
- The Codex Sassoon, an Ancient Hebrew Bible, Raked in $33.5 Million at Sotheby’s, Making It One of the Most Valuable Manuscripts Ever Sold artnet News
- From the world’s most expensive Bible to Andy Warhol’s portrait of O.J. Simpson: our pick of the highlights from May’s sales Art Newspaper
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‘The Masked Singer’ Reveals First Two Eliminations Of Season Nine – Including The Exit Of The Show’s Oldest Entertainer Ever – Deadline
- ‘The Masked Singer’ Reveals First Two Eliminations Of Season Nine – Including The Exit Of The Show’s Oldest Entertainer Ever Deadline
- ‘Masked Singer’ Season 9 premiere’s ‘greatest reveal ever’ is oldest, ‘most decorated and seasoned entertainer’ in show’s history Yahoo Entertainment
- The Reveal | Season 9 Ep. 1 | The Masked Singer The Masked Singer
- ‘The Masked Singer’ Launches Token-Gated Fan Experience CoinDesk
- ‘The Masked Singer’: Country star Sara Evans unmasked on Season 9 premiere AL.com
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A 319-million-year-old brain has been discovered. It could be the oldest of its kind
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A scan of the skull of a 319-million-year-old fossilized fish has led to the discovery of the oldest example of a well-preserved vertebrate brain, shining a new light on the early evolution of bony fish.
The fossil of the skull belonging to the extinct Coccocephalus wildi was found in a coal mine in England more than a century ago, according to researchers of the study published in the journal Nature on Wednesday.
The fossil is the only known specimen of the fish species so scientists from the University of Michigan in the US and the University of Birmingham in the UK used the nondestructive imaging technique of computed tomography (CT) scanning to look inside its skull and examine its internal bodily structure.
Upon doing so, came a surprise. The CT image showed an “unidentified blob,” a University of Michigan press release said.
The distinct, 3D object had a clearly defined structure with features found in vertebrate brains: It was bilaterally symmetrical, contained hollow spaces similar in appearance to ventricles and had extending filaments that resembled cranial nerves.
“This is such an exciting and unanticipated find,” study coauthor Sam Giles, a vertebrate paleontologist and senior research fellow at the University of Birmingham, told CNN Thursday, adding that they had “no idea” there was a brain inside when they decided to study the skull.
“It was so unexpected that it took us a while to be certain that it actually was a brain. Aside from being just a preservational curiosity, the anatomy of the brain in this fossil has big implications for our understanding of brain evolution in fishes,” she added.
C. wildi was an early ray-finned fish – possessing a backbone and fins supported by bony rods called “rays” – that is thought to have been 6 to 8 inches long, swum in an estuary, and ate small aquatic animals and aquatic insects, according to the researchers.
The brains of living ray-finned fish display structural features not seen in other vertebrates, most notably a forebrain consisting of neural tissue that folds outward, according to the study. In other vertebrates, this neural tissue folds inward.
C. wildi lacks this hallmark feature of ray-finned fish, with the configuration of a part of its forebrain called the “telencephalon” more closely resembling that of other vertebrates, such as amphibians, birds, reptiles and mammals, according to the study authors.
“This indicates that the telencephalon configuration seen in living ray-finned fishes must have emerged much later than previously thought,” lead study author Rodrigo Tinoco Figueroa, a doctoral student at the University of Michigan’s Museum of Paleontology, said.
He added that “our knowledge on the evolution of the vertebrate brain is mostly restricted to what we know from living species,” but “this fossil helps us fill important gaps in the knowledge, that could only be obtained from exceptional fossils like this.”
Unlike hard bones and teeth, scientists rarely find brain tissue – which is soft – preserved in vertebrate fossils, according to the researchers.
However, the study noted that C. wildi’s brain was “exceptionally” well preserved. While there are invertebrate brains up to 500 million years old that have been found, they are all flattened, said Giles, who added that this vertebrate brain is “the oldest three-dimensional fossil brain of anything we know.”
The skull was found in layers of soapstone. Low oxygen concentration, rapid burial by fine-grained sediment, and a very compact and protective braincase played key roles in preserving the brain of the fish, according to Figueroa.
The braincase created a chemical micro-environment around the enclosed brain that could have helped to replace its soft tissue with dense mineral that maintained the fine details of the brain’s 3D structures.
Giles said: “The next steps are to figure out exactly how such delicate features as the brain can be preserved for hundreds of millions of years, and look for more fossils that also preserve the brain.”
Scientist Accidentally Discovers The Oldest Brain of Any Vertebrate : ScienceAlert
Paleontologist Matt Friedman was surprised to discover a remarkably detailed 319-million-year-old fish brain fossil while testing out micro-CT scans for a broader project.
“It had all these features, and I said to myself, ‘Is this really a brain that I’m looking at?'” says Friedman from University of Michigan.
“So, I zoomed in on that region of the skull to make a second, higher-resolution scan, and it was very clear that that’s exactly what it had to be. And it was only because this was such an unambiguous example that we decided to take it further.”
Usually, the only remaining traces of such ancient life are from more easily preserved hard parts of animals, like their bones, since soft tissues degrade quickly.
But in this case, a dense mineral, possibly pyrite, seeped in and replaced tissue that had likely been preserved for longer in a low-oxygen environment. This allowed scans to pick up what look like cranial nerve and soft tissue details of the small fish, Coccocephalus wildi.
The ancient specimen is the only one of its kind, so despite having been in the hands of researchers since it was first described in 1925, this feature remained hidden as scientists would not risk invasive methods of investigation.
“Here we’ve found remarkable preservation in a fossil examined several times before by multiple people over the past century,” explains Friedman.
“But because we have these new tools for looking inside of fossils, it reveals another layer of information to us.”
This prehistoric estuary fish likely hunted insects, small crustaceans, and cephalopods, chasing them with fins supported by bony rods called rays.
Ray-finned fish, subclass Actinopterygii, make up over half of all living backboned animals alive today, including tuna and seahorses, and 96 percent of all fish.
This group split from lobe-finned fishes – some of which eventually became our own ancestors – about 450 million years ago. C. wildi then took its own evolutionary path from the groups of fishes still living today around tens of millions of years ago.
“Analyses place this taxon outside the group containing all living ray-finned fish species,” University of Michigan paleontologist Rodrigo Figueroa and colleagues write in their paper.
“Details of the brain structure in Coccocephalus therefore have implications for interpretations of neural morphology during the early evolutionary stages of a major vertebrate lineage.”
Some brain features would have been lost to decay and the preservation process, but the team could still make out specific morphological details. This allowed them to see that the way this prehistoric forebrain developed was more like ours than the rest of the living ray-finned fishes alive today.
“Unlike all living ray-finned fishes, the brain of Coccocephalus folds inward,” notes Friedman. “So, this fossil is capturing a time before that signature feature of ray-finned fish brains evolved. This provides us with some constraints on when this trait evolved – something that we did not have a good handle on before the new data on Coccocephalus.”
This inward fold is known as an evaginated forebrain – like in us, the two brain hemispheres end up embracing a hollow space like a ‘c’ and its mirror image joined together. By comparison, everted forebrains seen in still-living ray-finned fishes have two puffed-up lobes instead, with only a thin crevice between them.
The researchers are keen to scan other fish fossils in the museum’s collections to see what other signs of soft tissue may be hiding within.
“An important conclusion is that these kinds of soft parts can be preserved, and they may be preserved in fossils that we’ve had for a long time – this is a fossil that’s been known for over 100 years,” says Friedman.
“That’s why holding onto the physical specimens is so important. Because who knows, in 100 years, what people might be able to do with the fossils in our collections now.”
This research was published in Nature.
Future of America’s oldest steakhouse, Delmonico’s, closed for the last three years in doubt
The future of Delmonico’s, the oldest steakhouse in the country which had been in operation since 1837 until the pandemic, appears to be at stake.
The 186-year-old restaurant, set in the Financial District, also serves as the exterior shots for The Continental Hotel in the John Wick series of films and has been closed for nearly three years.
However, there’s currently a dispute with two parties now claiming to have the right to reopen the restaurant set in the Financial District.
The Continental is John Wick’s most iconic location: a hotel for assassins where they can drink scotch, and make eyes at other assassins while they take care of ‘business’ in the heart of the Financial District.
One of Manhattan’s oldest restaurants, Delmonico’s, is in the process of returning to the Financial District after being closed for nearly three years
When it was open the restaurant was famous for its innovative American dishes including eggs benedict, Manhattan clam chowder and the famous Delmonico steak, pictured above
When it was open the restaurant was famous for its innovative American dishes including eggs benedict, Manhattan clam chowder, and the famous Delmonico ribeye steak.
The dispute centers around who owns the rights to the Delmonico’s name and its use.
A press release sent out last week stated how the restaurant would return in the fall of 2023 but an Instagram post on Delmonico’s Instagram account alleged how the ‘recent reports that we will re-open at 56 Beaver Street are false.
‘It has come to our attention that former associates have been misrepresenting themselves to the media as owners of Delmonico’s,’ the post stated.
One family is stating they have the right to use the trademarked name while a second party claims announcing any kind of reopening is a violation of trademark rights.
An Instagram post on Delmonico’s Instagram account allege the ‘recent reports that we will re-open at 56 Beaver Street are false.’
The iconic New York restaurant at 56 Beaver Street has served as the ‘re-dressed’ exterior of The Continental Hotel in the John Wick movie series. Keanu Reeves is pictured, above
New York City’s 186-year-old restaurant, Delmonico’s closed as COVID struck in 2020
Delmonico’s shut their doors and ‘suspended all operations’ as part of the lockdown on March 18, 2020. This image shows cooks preparing food at Delmonico’s in 1902
The Grgurevs, who used to operate the restaurant and currently run the Delmonico’s Instagram account, claim that new leaseholders of the 56 Beaver Street location are using the Delmonico’s name in bad faith, without their involvement and are not involved in the restaurant’s relaunch.
The Grgurevs are also in the process of filing a lawsuit against the new operators.
The disagreement centers on a legal ruling in spring 2021 in which brothers Ferdo and Omer Grgurev managed to secure full ownership of the location, but were barred from operating a Delmonico’s restaurant or any other restaurant within one mile until March 2023.
Yet, the Grgurevs have stated that they also have still the right to still operate the restaurant under the Delmonico’s name.
In the meantime, Dennis Turcinovic and Joseph Licul, who are involved in another restaurant, are now claiming to be the new owners of the property as of January 1, 2023, and are not involved in any ongoing lawsuit with the previous owners.
Delmonico’s was among eateries and bars across the country that were forced to close during the coronavirus lockdown. They have never reopened
A representative for Turcinovic told Eater how he and Licul signed a new 15-year lease with Time Equities and deny any claims that might suggest they are not the legitimate owners.
They have announced plans to remove any website that suggests otherwise and are planning to launch new websites if the issue is not resolved.
But the Grgurev brothers state it is they who have the right to operate the restaurant under the Delmonico’s name with others barred from operating any Delmonico’s or another restaurant within one mile until March of this year.
In April 2022, the landlord, Time Equities, attempted to evict the restaurant, under the Grgurev family’s management, for alleged non-payment of almost $300,000 in rent and fees.
Some of Delmonico’s legendary steaks seen in the fridge when the venue was open pre-2020
The busy kitchen of Delmonico’s as seen in 1902 wen the restaurant was 65 years old
Mark Twain’s 70th birthday dinner at Delmonico’s held on December 5th, 1905
The Grgurev family denied the eviction claim and stated it was related to the landlord’s delay in repairing water damage in the building from Hurricane Ida in 2021.
By December 2022, the lease expired and the landlord did not renew it, Time Equities then signed the deal with Turcinovic and Licul, Grgurev’s former partners.
Michelle Grgurev, the daughter of Omer Grgurev, now says her family believes the landlord intentionally allowed the lease to expire so that it could be reissued to new tenants.
The iconic New York Restaurant features as the exterior of The Continental Hotel in the John Wick movie series
Dinner menu from Delmonico’s on April 18, 1899
Meteorite Made of Earth’s Oldest Material Found in Antarctica
Representational image
(IANS)
The cold continent of Antarctica holds relics of our planet’s past — from clues of major climate events to zombie viruses buried beneath its frozen exterior. Apart from being a repository of invaluable information about Earth, however, it also houses foreign visitors from the universe, including meteorites!
The home of the south pole is a perfect place for meteorite hunting, thanks to all the ice and snow! The white backdrop makes the dark-coloured meteorites easier to spot, and the dry, desert-ish climate keeps the weathering in check. And if those space rocks sink beneath the ice, they eventually get coughed out by glacial churning.
In spite of these positives, finding sizable chunks of space rocks in Antarctica is incredibly rare. Nevertheless, a study team that left for an Antarctic meteorite hunt in December 2022 has managed to return with some interesting finds.
During the month-long mission on meteorite exploration around the Belgian Princess Elisabeth Antarctica (PEA) Station, the team of scientists uncovered five new meteorites, one of which is a monster space rock weighing a whopping 7.6 kgs!
“At the moment, it looks like an ordinary chondrite. This type of meteorite came from the asteroid belt and ended its travel in the Antarctic blue ice, waiting several tens of thousands of years in the ice before discovery,” explains Professor Maria Schoenbaechler from the department of earth sciences at ETH-Zurich in Switzerland and a study team member.
Antarctica’s Blue Ice Field is an area with winds so strong, they can literally blow away layers of snow atop glaciers.
Around 45,000 meteorites have been retrieved from Antarctica over the past century, and this new find is easily among the top 100 meteorites (in terms of size) recovered from the continent, as per the Chicago Field Museum.
So, what does this exceptional find mean for research in Earth sciences?
According to Professor Maria Schoenbaechler, the meteorite belongs to the oldest material that can be found on Earth, which makes it similar to a building block of our planet. Therefore, it could play a vital role in helping humanity study the formation of its own world.
But this is not all. Before venturing out into Antarctica’s tricky terrain, the research team mapped the area using satellite imagery — covering aspects such as ice flow, temperature, and surface slope measurements — to pinpoint sites with a higher possibility of new meteorites with the help of artificial intelligence.
And this satellite map, thought to be around 80% accurate in giving directions, suggests more than 300,000 meteorites are still out there in Antarctica, just waiting to be found!
These predictions may well renew humanity’s aspirations of making more such discoveries, which could help us trace our solar system’s history and ultimately expand our understanding of the universe.
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World’s oldest known person, a French nun, dies at 118
PARIS — A French nun who was believed to be the world’s oldest person but had been reportedly growing weary of the burdens of age has died a few weeks before her 119th birthday, her nursing home in southern France said Wednesday.
Lucile Randon, known as Sister André, was born in the town of Ales, southern France, on Feb. 11, 1904, and lived through the two world wars. As a little girl she was astonished by her first contact with electric lighting at school and, more recently, survived COVID-19 without even realizing she’d been infected.
Spokesman David Tavella said she died at 2 a.m. on Tuesday at the Sainte-Catherine-Laboure nursing home in the southern port city of Toulon.
The Gerontology Research Group, which validates details of people thought to be 110 or older, listed her as the oldest known person in the world after the death of Japan’s Kane Tanaka, aged 119, last year.
The oldest living known person in the world listed by the Gerontology Research Group is now American-born Maria Branyas Morera, who is living in Spain, and is 115.
Sister André tested positive for the coronavirus in January 2021, shortly before her 117th birthday, but she had so few symptoms that she didn’t even realize she was infected. Her survival made headlines both in France and beyond.
In April last year, asked about her exceptional longevity through two world wars, she told French media that “working … makes you live. I worked until I was 108.”
But the local newspaper Midi Libre reported Sister Andre saying in 2020, after recovering from COVID-19, that “God has forgotten me.”
Her health was deteriorating and the paper reported that during a visit with her last May she was imprisoned by the infirmities of age, with loss of eyesight, poor hearing and her face contorted by joint pain.
In better days, Sister Andre was known to enjoy a daily glass of wine and some chocolate, and toasted her 117th birthday in 2021 with Champagne, red wine and port.
“It made me very, very, very, very happy,” she said in a telephone interview at the time with The Associated Press. “Because I met all those I love and I thank the heavens for giving them to me. I thank God for the trouble they went to.”
Sister Andre, who reportedly took her religious name in honor of a favorite brother, recalled the high points of her long life in the May interview with Midi Libre, saying: “The most beautiful day of my life was when the Armistice (ending World War I) was declared,” and the population of Ales gathered in the main square to sing the French national anthem.
Electricity, which she first encountered turning on a light in a classroom as a little girl, was a new word for her to learn and, she said, “a joy.”
Jeanne Calment, a French woman who also lived in southern France, died in 1997 at the age of 122, said to be the record of longevity.