When visitors to Poole Museum reach its second floor, they are greeted with displays that showcase the stories and lives of famous and influential Poolers who have shaped the coastal Dorset town.
In one cabinet on this floor sits a small rock. One might think that this is a local paleontological find, considering Poole’s proximity to the home of 19th-century fossil hunter Mary Anning, one of England’s earliest and most famous paleontologists. This is not the case, however, as this rock’s discovery is more recent, but is still a highly treasured find.
In the summer of 2019, a young girl by the name of Bethan was visiting Poole Museum with her mom. While exploring all the site had to offer, she and her mother began to discuss what museums do and why. Inspired by her visit, Bethan felt eager to support the museum’s collection. She decided to donate her most precious treasure, something that she felt was appropriately significant and valuable: her favorite rock. Curators placed Bethan’s Rock in a glass cabinet, just like many of the museum’s other valuable artifacts, where visitors are able to appreciate the piece as much as Bethan once did. It is now the museum’s most famous object.
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“the greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.”
-Benjamin D’Israeli
*Benjamin D’Israeli (1804– 1881), was a British statesman, politician and writer who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
How pigeons are helping catch cancer cases in humans
It sounds a bit bizarre, but it’s tue. Among pigeons’ many talents is providing an extra set of eyes for doctors looking for signs of cancer in medical scans. In 2015, researchers enlisted the unlikely medical assistants to identify breast cancer in mammograms to help prevent imaging misses. Now, another team of scientists has recruited the birds yet again to train AI to help do the same.
In a study published earlier this year, researchers trained six pigeons to watch CT scan videos and spot lung nodules, a type of growth that could be a sign of cancer. After the birds learned to spot the lung nodules, they also started recognizing emphysema and ground-glass nodules — both problems they hadn’t even been trained on.
Here’s where AI comes in: The researchers are now trying to channel the pigeon’s keen visual system, which works similarly to the human’s unconscious visual system, to develop medical AI tools that can double, triple, and quadruple check scans. They noted that the pigeon-inspired method will by no means replace radiologists, but rather help ensure scans are understood as thoroughly as possible. Thanks in advance, pigeons!
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“I bet your mom would let me.” -Pigeon, Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the B” -Mo Willems, author, ‘Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!’
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Photo credit: Eastside Autobon Society
Source credits: Nice News, New Scientist, Joshua Howego, Popular Science, Clarissa Brincat
Authors and Affiliations
Department of Psychology, College of the Holy Cross, 1 College Street, 01610, Worcester, MA, USA
Muhammad A. J. Qadri, Reuben R. R. Reyes & Gregory J. DiGirolamo
Department of Radiology, University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, Worcester, USA
Daria Kifjak, Bilal Elkaddouri, Alexander A. Bankier, Max P. Rosen & Gregory J. DiGirolamo
‘Tis almost the season for voting, here are just a couple of winning candidates
Akeetna, a small town of around 1,000 people, is a base for exploring Denali, North America’s highest peak, and may have been the inspiration for the fictional town Cicely in the 1990s television show Northern Exposure. It is best known, though, for electing a cat as mayor.
On the main street in Talkeetna is Nagley’s, a general store whose history stretches back to Alaska’s gold rush era. Open since 1921, it started as a log cabin serving miners and trappers, and also previously served as a post office and a district territorial headquarters. Since the 1970s, it has always had a resident cat.
In 1997, when Nagley’s needed a new store cat, manager Laurie Stec found and adopted a Manx mix with a short tail whom she dubbed Stubbs. Stubbs became a local celebrity, greeting shoppers at Nagley’s and making his way every afternoon to the adjoining West Rib Pub & Grill, where he drank catnip-infused water out of a wine or margarita glass.
Talkeetna’s residents were unimpressed by the human candidates for Mayor and conspired to elect Stubbs as a write-in candidate. As fun as the story is, it’s apocryphal. Talkeetna is unincorporated, so it has no mayor. But that didn’t stop Talkeetna’s residents from naming Stubbs their honorary mayor, an office he held from 1997 until his death in 2017.
During his time in office, Mayor Stubbs seemed determined to use up his nine lives. He fell into a restaurant fryer, which was thankfully turned off and cool at the time. He was shot by teenagers with a BB gun and recovered. He jumped onto a garbage truck and accidentally hitched a ride to the outskirts of town before he was discovered and returned. In 2013, Stubbs survived an assassination attempt when he was mauled by a dog. He was rushed to a veterinarian in nearby Wasilla where he was sedated and treated for a punctured lung, a fractured sternum, and a gash in his side that required 12 stitches. Supporters donated money above and beyond his medical bills, and the excess was donated to local animal charities.
Stubbs recovered and returned to his post at the general store, but he passed away in 2017 at the age of 20. He was mourned by all of his constituents. The town carried on the tradition by naming Nagley’s younger store cats, twins Aurora and Denali, as the new honorary mayors. Denali passed away in 2022, but Aurora continues to serve from her office at Nagley’s.
BOSTON CURTIS THE MULE (Committeeman, in Milton, Washington)
In 1938, Democratic Mayor Kenneth Simmons nominated a “Mr. Boston Curtis” for Republican precinct committeeman in the town of Milton, Washington. With no opponents and also no additional information provided to the voters, Curtis was elected with 51 votes — and then subsequently revealed to be a mule. The mayor, a Democrat, had sponsored Boston’s candidacy as a prank, which apparently had a message – he went on to say that voters “have no idea whom they support.”
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‘when you turn an election into a three-ring circus,
there’s always a chance that the dancing bear will win.” -nancy isenberg, author
when i was a little girl, i finally had a chance to meet my favorite superhero, spiderman. he happened to be at the montgomery wards store at our local mall at the same time as i was. i saw this as fate. i could not have been more excited, as he’d been one of my idols for as long as i could remember.
waiting in line, anxious, hopping with joy, i finally made my way up to the front to meet him. i was shy, but i was motivated, and i asked him to ‘shoot the webs’ for me. it was one of my favorite superpowers and i’d seen him do it on tv many times, enabling him to fly from building to building, saving people, and meting out justice to the bad guys. i pictured him climbing up the super strong silk to get to the top of the store.
i remember his reaction to my quiet but earnest request. he just looked at me for a moment, smiled, held up his wrists, the place where the webs originated from, and then – nothing happened. it was my turn to stare at him then, put my head down and felt bad for him, and for me, said thank you, and walked away, back to my family, lost in the mall crowd once again.
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‘wisdom comes by disillusionment.’
-george santayana
THEN YESTERDAY, WHEN I WALKED INTO AN OFFICE SUPPLY STORE
( not gracie, but a cute giraffe modeling being in a similar situation)
A 3-year-old giraffe named Gracie escaped from her enclosure at a Texas Hill Country ranch nearly two weeks ago and remains missing despite helicopter searches, reported sightings, and a $5,000 reward. Ranch owner Vic Jones believes she wandered through rugged terrain and exited through the wrong side of a gate. Authorities say Gracie poses little danger to people because she is in a remote, heavily wooded area with abundant vegetation and will have no problem finding food. Local officials and residents continue searching, though leads have often arrived days after she moved on, making recovery difficult.
how do you lose a giraffe?
can you not see her?
she’s on the lam
she’s very tall
she’s clever
she’s quick
i’m on team gracie
hope she finds a great place to live and be free
go, gracie, go!
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‘sometimes the best hiding place is one that’s in plain sight.’
I didn't have my glasses on.... 