Can I travel with my toddler into the jungles of Costa Rica?

Travel

Open this photo in gallery:Writer Jennifer Malloy travelled to Costa Rica with her two-year-old son.Jennifer Malloy/The Globe and Mail“Are you ready to go to the end of the world?”My husband, son and I have just arrived in the tiny town of Sierpe – the gateway to the Osa Peninsula – and are about to board a boat to the headwaters of the Pacific Ocean when our guide, Alonso Morales, poses the question. Even though we haven’t left yet, the Sierpe River (meaning snake) hints at wild adventure, which immediately holds true as we spot a cantankerous crocodile thrashing on the bank after setting off.The boat slithers through the sinuous waterway, weaving through lush, verdant mangroves to the yawning mouth of the ocean, where brackish breakers are roiling in a surging sea. A heavy rain has descended – it’s a La Niña year – and the wind is whipping my poncho away from my body as I attempt to keep it tucked around my now crying two-year-old son.“Today is easy,” shouts Alonso over the white noise. “We’ve had much higher waves than these during rainy season.”Open this photo in gallery:The Mistico Arenal Hanging Bridges in La Fortuna.Jennifer Malloy/The Globe and MailThe boat banks as our captain cuts the engine and rides a swell of seawater through two barren sea stacks that protrude, jagged and lethal, from the ocean. Just as I’m thinking that if this is easy, I don’t want to experience hard, we shoot out of the rocks and the waves and rain ease. My son, now mollified after munching through a mound of cookies, promptly falls asleep.My family and I have spent the past week exploring Costa Rica’s well-trodden tourist trail, seeking out sustainable and accessible family-friendly hotels and activities before heading to a place where roads are swallowed up by the rainforest and the sky seeps seamlessly into an endless ocean horizon. A place where accommodation after accommodation attempted to dissuade me from visiting with my young son.We eased into our time in Costa Rica before seeking out an area of the country I’m told is “too remote” and “too difficult to access” for a toddler. It’s been a year since we last travelled internationally with our son, and we are unsure about how he will handle several flights with long layovers and hours in the car on the country’s infamous narrow and winding roads made treacherous in rainy season. We’re coasting on an endless supply of kid-friendly snacks and the faint hope that he will take to travel again like he has in the past.It turns out that we needn’t have worried.In La Fortuna, he squeals with glee while wobbling over the Mistico Arenal Hanging Bridges, and in between the time we spend suspended above the jungle canopy on the nine different contraptions, we spot blue jeans poison frogs, orange-headed, black masked motmots, swinging spider monkeys and several eyelash pitvipers rendered miniature in their vast rainforest surroundings.Open this photo in gallery:Senda Monteverde resort blends seamlessly into a meticulously planted native garden.SuppliedWe relax in the sumptuous and soothing hot spring river of Tabacon Resort and Spa before indulging in the hotel’s six-course Ephemeral Table, where we feast on fresh yellowfin tuna, smoked trout and Pacific octopus, slathered with sauces so addictive I can barely resist the urge to lick my plate clean. Our son got his own kid-friendly menu, which included a dry ice chocolate ice cream dish when the staff learned that was his favourite flavour.After jolting our way on rough roads to Senda Monteverde, a resort that blends seamlessly into a meticulously planted native garden, we watch a light mist steal stealthily into the cloud forest that backs on to our bungalow. We hike through the Aguti Reserve, spotting the burnished coat of the common squirrel-like creature – after which the reserve is named – skittering away into the bush before our vision is obscured by heavier fog and rain. A family of Pizotes, replete with several infants, much to the delight of our son, clambers up the banana trees outside our bungalow, while rescued sloths sleepily stretch and smirk at us in the Natuwa Wildlife Sanctuary, Monteverde’s newest animal reserve, where six two-toed sloths are being rehabilitated for eventual release back into the wild.Open this photo in gallery:Hiking at Senda Monteverde.SuppliedWe then wind our way down the mountain to the periphery of Manuel Antonio National Park. At the gorgeous Arenas Del Mar Beachfront and Rainforest Resort, we learn that Pura Vida is not just a phrase but a way of life. The pure life is embodied in the way the staff greet my son by name every time they see him and in turn tell me about their own children. It’s in the way we salivate over the locally sourced seafood we enjoy on the beach, while our server scouts scuttling hermit crabs of all sizes for our curious toddler to inspect.But it’s here, en route to the Corcovado Wilderness Lodge, to what feels like the edge of the Earth, we find true sanctuary. Cut off from the modern trappings and busy streets of Costa Rica’s seaside towns, we find a deep and authentic connection to nature in one of the most biodiverse regions of the country.Open this photo in gallery:Wildlife at Arenas Del Mar Beachfront and Rainforest Resort.ARENAS DEL MAR IMAGESAnd the lodge lives up to the promise of its name: no road access with 30 all-inclusive rainforest and sea view villas – located on a private reserve – that blend luxury with sustainability while bordering one of Costa Rica’s most protected national parks. No crowds, just jungle. No technological distractions, just the sound of rustling macaws in the trees.We dive into the experience on a tour with Innoceana – an organization that has partnered with the lodge and is working to preserve Costa Rica’s marine ecosystem in and around Corcovado National Park and Cano Island – glimpsing half a dozen spouting humpback whales, several pods of spotted dolphins and two lounging sea turtles sunning themselves on the ocean’s surface. We snorkel around coral reefs where my son dons miniature flippers and surprises us by jumping off the boat, staying buoyant just long enough to observe a sea urchin alongside a swarming school of king angelfish.On Cano Island, while our son frolics in gentle waves on a sandy beach, we marvel at the history of the Indigenous Diquis people and the mystery of more than 350 pre-Columbian stone spheres that were found buried underground by the United Fruit Company in the 1930s. While most of the perfectly shaped stone spheres (ranging from 10 centimetres to over two metres in diameter) now have a home in a museum on the mainland, there is a single protected sphere in the centre of the island, located in an ancient graveyard. What the sphere was created for, or how it was transported to the island on a bamboo canoe, remains unknown.Back at the lodge, I spend happy hour sipping a frosty beer 30 metres high in the canopy of an Alfaroa tree that I “climbed” thanks to ropes, a harness and a device that had me zipping up to the roof of rainforest. I relax in a bouncy net with a vibrant sunset ocean view that is obscured only by the occasional appearance of yellow-throated toucans and swinging spider monkeys, before rappelling back down at dusk under the guidance of experienced staff.Open this photo in gallery:Sunset tree climbing at Corcovado Wilderness Lodge.Jennifer Malloy/The Globe and MailOn a more family-friendly expedition, waves lick our rubber boots at the entrance to the Bat Cave, accessible only from the lodge’s black sand beach during low tide. We spot what is known as the Basilisk Jesús Cristo lizard – named for its ability to run on water to avoid predators – on a nature walk down to the beach. And even though we can’t swim here because of rip tides and crocodiles, we savour the salty sea air and the wild beauty of the landscape while my son plays soccer with a fallen coconut.We depart the lodge on a calmer ocean, feeling like more tranquil versions of ourselves too. My son once again falls asleep with a light rain pattering on his peaceful face as we head back toward civilization, with the feeling of never having left home.If you goOpen this photo in gallery:Hiking in Monteverde.Jennifer Malloy/The Globe and MailWhen travelling to multiple locations in one country I rent a car. Vamos-Rent-a-Car is a family-run operation and an excellent option if flying in and out of Liberia or San Jose. A 4×4 is recommended for Costa Rica, especially if heading to Sierpe or down the Caribbean coast. Perks include a cellphone with data for navigation and car seats are provided.If the thought of driving to multiple locations is too daunting, Kontiki Wayra Costa Rica cruises are an excellent choice for families looking for a package holiday. They have specially tailored itineraries for up to 18 people during the summer months and major holidays and it’s an enjoyable and convenient way to see harder-to-access points along Costa Rica’s Pacific coast.The writer was a guest of the resorts named in the article. None reviewed or approved the story before publication.

Smile 2 Review: One of the year’s best horror movies

Arts & Culture, Film & TV

Parker Finn’s Smile 2 is one of the rare sequels that improves upon the original, and ranks as one of the better horror movies of the year.

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PLOT: Skye Riley (Naomi Scott), one of the world’s biggest pop stars, becomes haunted by a familiar curse on the eve of her new world tour, sending her life spiralling out of control.
REVIEW: 2022’s Smile was quietly one of the most profitable studio movies of the last few years. Originally designed as a low-budget movie for Paramount Plus, a round of excellent test screenings resulted in Paramount Pictures opting to give it a theatrical release. The result was a movie that grossed over $217 million worldwide on a $17 million budget. It immediately established writer/director Parker Finn, who adapted the movie from his own short (Laura Hasn’t Slept) as a horror phenom, and the release of his ambitious sequel is one of the bigger horror events of the year.
So, how does Smile 2 stack up to its sleeper-hit predecessor? Amazingly well, it turns out. Boasting a bigger budget, Parker Finn’s taken what could have been a run-of-the-mill sequel and elevated it to truly dazzling heights. I liked the first movie well enough, but I wasn’t prepared for how much fun the sequel was right off the bat.
Smile 2 begins with a full-on action sequence. Kyle Gallner’s Joel, who ended the first film cursed, tries to pass on his affliction in the most altruistic way, which ends up climaxing in a surprisingly potent shoot-out. Things don’t go as planned, with him unwittingly passing the curse on to someone who doesn’t deserve it. From there, Finn can use his bigger platform in a way that truly pushes the envelope from what we expect from a movie like this. It’s the rare A-level studio horror film, and Finn uses the pop aspect to stage some bravura quasi-musical sequences. This is perhaps the only movie you’ll see that feels equally inspired by Hideo Nakata and Bob Fosse.

He also has an amazing lead in Naomi Scott, who gives the performance of her life as Riley. Riley was already badly unmoored before even being cursed following drug addiction and a nearly life-ending accident. Scott embraces the camp aspect, playing Riley to the hilt as she becomes increasingly demented as the film goes on. It’s the kind of performance you’d expect from someone like Nicolas Cage, in that it’s unapologetically maximalist… and delicious.
She’s ably supported by Rosemarie DeWitt, who grounds things a bit as her opportunistic mother, and Dylan Gelula as her ride-or-die BFF. Lukas Gage also pops up and has a knockout sequence early on in the film, where he gets to chew some scenery. Jack Nicholson’s lookalike son, Ray Nicholson, also shows up as a character in Riley’s orbit and purposely channels his father in his big moment.
My only question about Smile 2 is what its reception by horror fans will be like- the film is so unapologetically camp that I wonder if some fans of the lower-key original might be put off. For me, it was the opposite, as Smile 2 dwarfed its predecessor, but it could rub people the wrong way with its heavy doses of pitch-black comedy. However, Finn also doesn’t skimp on the gore, with it being more gruesome than the original and having a big payoff, which is an all-timer for me as far as these things go. Indeed, I was shocked at how much I loved Smile 2. For me, it’s one of the more entertaining films I’ve seen this year, with the two-hour-plus running time racing by. It’s an all-out gore-soaked blast. 

F. William Studier receives the 2024 Merkin Prize in ceremony at the Broad Institute for developing technology used to produce millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccines

Technology

The 2024 Richard N. Merkin Prize in Biomedical Technology was awarded to F. William Studier of Brookhaven National Laboratory in a ceremony and symposium at the Broad Institute on September 17, 2024. The prize, created by the Merkin Family Foundation and administered by the Broad, recognizes novel technologies that have significantly improved human health and carries a $400,000 award. Studier was announced as the winner in May for his development, in 1986, of an efficient, scalable method of producing RNA and proteins in the laboratory. His T7 expression technology can be used to make large quantities of nearly any RNA or protein. The approach has been — and continues to be — a mainstay of biomedical research and the workhorse for producing the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, which have extended millions of lives, and numerous other therapeutics and diagnostics.
In remarks at the symposium, Richard N. Merkin, MD praised Studier for his innovative spirit. “I asked Bill what stimulated him, and he said, ‘I made sure I did not embrace the status quo, that I did not embrace incrementalism. I’m a pattern breaker. I wanted to break the patterns that others had used, and depart from current habits, challenging conventional wisdom.’ That’s what this award is about.”
Turning to Studier, Dr. Merkin added, “There are many people in the audience that have a crazy idea, that don’t want to change things five percent, but want to change things tenfold. Those are the people that will change the world. Bill, you’re the epitome of that. You have helped millions of people. Biomedicine has changed because of you, and humanity needs to acknowledge people like you.”
Nobel laureate Harold Varmus, the Lewis Thomas University Professor at Weill Cornell Medicine and chair of the Merkin Prize selection committee, gave an overview of the prize, applauding its emphasis on technologies that have made a significant impact on biomedicine. “Discovery does not occur without the invention of technologies. It’s tools and technologies that allow us to see further than others have seen, and to make those discoveries that are all too often the meat and potatoes of recognition.”
Todd Golub, director and founding core institute member of the Broad Institute, thanked Merkin, whose philanthropic partnership with the Broad has spanned more than 15 years. “Dick Merkin is the most uncommon of philanthropists. He has a humble, self-effacing demeanor, and yet he is great at pushing people to make bold bets and to try to make the impossible possible.” 
Venki Ramakrishnan, group leader at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, who won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and served on the Merkin Prize selection committee, introduced the scientific talks and also praised Studier’s professionalism, humility, and generosity, “Bill has always been what we think of as a scientist’s scientist. Anything he did, he shared with the entire scientific community. And now, there’s probably not a single lab in this building that has not used the T7 system.”
Studier, his wife Susan, his family, former colleagues and guests attended the ceremony that included a symposium, reception, and private dinner. Attending the Merkin Prize honors at the Broad for the first time this year were Gerun Riley, President of The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, and Edythe Broad, Co-Founder of The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation. 
“It is so important to recognize groundbreaking science and the remarkable individuals who have made a difference so more people are aware of these achievements,” said Edythe Broad. “If Eli were here, he would be incredibly proud of what Dick has accomplished,” she continued. “It’s changing the world.”
At the symposium, John Shanklin, chair of biology at Brookhaven National Laboratory, who considered Studier a mentor for many years, described the world-changing impact of the T7 expression technology. Pardis Sabeti, a core institute member at the Broad and a professor at Harvard University and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, lauded Studier for how the technology has enabled strategies for infectious disease control. In a video message, Melissa J. Moore, chief scientific officer emerita of Moderna Therapeutics emphasized how T7 has enabled scientists to generate RNA at an industrial scale, proving to be the workhorse for making mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. Fei Chen, core institute member at the Broad, an assistant professor at Harvard University, and a 2021 Merkin Institute Fellow, discussed his lab’s use of T7 polymerase to build a new set of programmable tools.
Dr. Merkin’s partnership with the Broad includes the Merkin Institute Fellows, established in 2012 as the Broad’s first endowed fellowship; the Merkin Institute for Transformative Technologies in Healthcare, launched in 2017 to support paradigm-shifting projects from researchers at the Broad, Harvard, MIT, and the Harvard-affiliated hospitals; the Richard Merkin Professorship (also established in 2017), an endowed professorship held by David Liu, who leads the Merkin Institute for Transformative Technologies in Healthcare; and a generous new commitment in 2021 that advanced the aforementioned programs and launched the Merkin Prize. It was also in 2021 that, in recognition of Merkin’s partnership, the Broad named its building at 415 Main Street the Richard N. Merkin Building. 
Nominations for the 2025 Merkin Prize are now open and will close on December 6, 2024, at 11:59 p.m. ET.
For further information on how to nominate for the 2025 Merkin Prize, please visit the prize website. Eligibility extends to all investigators who have developed relevant health innovations, regardless of their place of employment, including academia, the commercial sector, or government. Both teams and individuals who have made a profound impact on medicine by pioneering a transformative technology are eligible.

About the Merkin Family FoundationThe Merkin Family Foundation was founded by visionary health care executive Richard Merkin, MD.
Richard Merkin, MD is the founder and CEO of Heritage Provider Network, Inc. (HPN). HPN is one of the largest physician founded and physician owned managed care organizations in the country dedicated to value-based healthcare delivery improvements. HPN develops and manages coordinated, patient-doctor centric, integrated health care systems that offer some of the strongest solutions for the future of health, care, and cost in the United States. HPN and its affiliates operate in New York, California, and Arizona, providing high-quality, cost-effective healthcare with over one million patient members. HPN is dedicated to quality, affordable health care, and putting patients’ wellness first.

Kuwaiti Students Win Silver Medals At Gulf Science Olympiad

Science and Health

Kuwaiti Students Shine at 10th Gulf Science Olympiad, Winning Silver Medals in Chemistry and Mathematics

Introduction
Kuwaiti students showcased their exceptional talent at the 10th Gulf Science Olympiad, held in Madinah, where Ali Behbehani earned a silver medal in chemistry, and Fajr Al-Sahli secured a silver medal in mathematics.
Outstanding Achievements
The Kuwaiti student team made a remarkable impact, bringing home a total of two silver medals and six bronze medals. In the field of physics, students Najat Al-Rifai, Jassim Mohammed, and Ali Al-Basri achieved bronze medals. Meanwhile, the mathematics category saw Hussein Al-Wazzan, Marwa Al-Azmi, and Sarah Al-Humaidi also earn bronze medals.
Olympiad Overview
The Gulf Science Olympiad commenced last Saturday, featuring a diverse group of 14 male and female students from Kuwait, supported by a dedicated team of technical supervisors. The event was organized by the Arab Bureau of Education for the Gulf States in collaboration with the Saudi Ministry of Education.
Kuwaiti Representatives
Physics Olympiad Participants:

Ahmed Bader (Jaber Al-Ali Al-Sabah Secondary School)
Jassim Mohammed (Al-Shujaa Bin Al-Aslam Secondary School)
Najat Al-Rifai (Creativity and Talent Academy)
Ali Al-Basri (Creativity and Talent Academy Secondary School)

Chemistry Olympiad Participants:

Ali Behbehani (Creativity and Talent Academy Secondary School)
Khaled Al-Mudarris (Creativity and Talent Academy Secondary School)
Dana Al-Ayyoubi (Al-Rawda Talent Classes Secondary School)
Jana Al-Jadi (Al-Rawda Talent Classes Secondary School)

Mathematics Olympiad Participants:

Marwa Al-Azmi (Al-Rawdatain Secondary School)
Fajr Al-Sahli (Maria Al-Qabtiya Secondary School)
Mubarak Al-Maie (Creativity and Talent Academy)
Hussein Al-Wazzan (Creativity and Talent Academy)
Abdulrahman Adel (Palestine Secondary School)
Sarah Al-Humaidi (Cordoba Secondary School)

Delegation Leadership
The chemistry delegation was led by Chemistry Technical Supervisor Dr. Faiza Al-Anzi and Fatima Al-Aryan. The physics team was headed by Physics Technical Supervisor Abrar Al-Sari’i and Hessa Al-Majbil. Meanwhile, Senior Mathematics Supervisor Dr. Maha Al-Anzi and Aida Al-Shammari guided the mathematics participants.
Conclusion
The achievements of Kuwaiti students at the Gulf Science Olympiad not only highlight their academic excellence but also represent the country’s commitment to fostering talent in the fields of science and mathematics.

Baffling Scientists: Stanford Study Uncovers Mysterious Geologic Gap From 34 Million Years Ago

Science and Health

Stanford’s study reveals unexpected gaps in ocean floor sediments during the Eocene-Oligocene cooling, challenging past assumptions and providing new insights into sedimentary processes and today’s climate change impacts.
A Stanford study challenges the expectation of large sediment deposits from a 34-million-year-old climate shift, finding instead a global erosion pattern. This discovery offers insights into the effects of climate change on sedimentary systems.
According to highly cited conventional models, cooling and a major drop in sea levels about 34 million years ago should have led to widespread continental erosion and deposited gargantuan amounts of sandy material onto the ocean floor. This was, after all, one of the most drastic climate transitions on Earth since the demise of the dinosaurs.
Yet a new Stanford review of hundreds of studies going back decades contrastingly reports that across the margins of all seven continents, little to no sediment has ever been found dating back to this transition. The discovery of this globally extensive gap in the geologic record was recently published in Earth-Science Reviews.
“The results have left us wondering, ‘where did all the sediment go?’” said study senior author Stephan Graham, the Welton Joseph and Maud L’Anphere Crook Professor in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. “Answering that question will help us get a better fundamental understanding about the functioning of sedimentary systems and how climatic changes imprint on the deep marine sedimentary record.”
The geological gap offers fresh insights into sediment deposition and erosion processes, as well as the broader environmental signals from dramatic climate change, which could help researchers better grasp the enormity of today’s changing climate.
“For the first time, we’ve taken a global look at an understudied response of the planet’s largest sediment mass-movement systems during the extreme transition of the Eocene-Oligocene,” said study lead author Zack Burton, PhD ’20, who is now an assistant professor of Earth sciences at Montana State University.
Tim McHargue, an adjunct professor of Earth and planetary sciences at Stanford, is also a co-author on the study.
From hothouse to icehouse
During the Eocene-Oligocene period, Earth underwent profound planetary cooling. Giant ice sheets appeared in Antarctica, which was previously ice-free, the global sea level plunged, and land and marine life suffered severe die-offs.
Prior to that, in the early part of the Eocene that lasted from about 56 million to 34 million years ago, Earth had the warmest temperatures and highest sea levels since dinosaurs walked the Earth more than 66 million years ago, according to climate-proxy records.
Burton and colleagues initially focused on exploring the effects of early Eocene conditions on deep-sea depositional systems. The resulting study – published in Nature Scientific Reports in 2023 – found abundant sand-rich deposits in the ocean basins along Earth’s continental margins. The research team attributed this deposition increase mainly to intensified climatic and weather conditions boosting erosion from land. Their curiosity piqued, Burton and colleagues then extended the investigation to the late Eocene and early Oligocene, when Earth suddenly went from “hothouse” and “greenhouse” climates to the opposite, an “icehouse” climate.
For the new study, the researchers painstakingly pored over scientific and technical literature documenting ancient sediment up to several kilometers beneath the sea floor, surveying studies published in the past decade to over a century ago. The literature included offshore oil and gas drilling studies, onshore rock outcrop studies, and even interpretations of seismic data to infer Eocene-Oligocene sediment characteristics. In total, just over a hundred geographical sites worldwide were included, outlining every continental landmass.
While the study’s method of literature analysis is not new on its own, the scale of such an approach made possible by vast online databases could prove highly illuminating, Graham said. “There could be other similar events in the geologic past that would bear a closer investigation,” said Graham, “and the way to start that is by doing exactly what we did – a really thorough canvassing of the global geologic literature for certain suspect periods in time.”
“The actual process of reappraising, reinvestigating, and reanalyzing literature that has in some cases been out for decades is challenging, but can be very fruitful,” Burton said. “The method can lead to exciting and unexpected findings, like we were able to make here.”
Wholly unanticipated
As Burton and his colleagues made their way through the compiled data inventory, they grew increasingly perplexed by the apparent sedimentary no-show.
“We didn’t see abundant sand-rich deposition, as in our study of warm climates of the early Eocene,” said Burton. “Instead, we saw that prominent, widespread erosional unconformities – in other words, gaps in the rock record – had developed during the extreme climatic cooling and oceanographic change of the Eocene-Oligocene.”
The researchers offer a few theories about why this lack of deposition occurred. Vigorous ocean bottom currents, driven by the temperature and salinity of the waters, may have been triggered or magnified by the major climate shift, potentially eroding the ocean floor and sweeping away sediment that flowed off the continents. Meanwhile, mechanisms from continental shelves exposed by sea-level fall could have allowed sediments to entirely bypass the closer-in sedimentary basins, sending deposits much farther out onto the abyssal plain of the ocean floor. More regionally restricted processes, like glacial erosion around Antarctica, likely played a part, too.
Whatever mechanisms may have been in play, they collectively created similar scenes of erosion in oceanic basins around every continent. That ubiquity points to what the researchers referred to as global controls – meaning that profound climatic change was felt everywhere, from the tallest landmasses down into the deepest waters.
In this way, the abrupt climatic event at the Eocene-Oligocene boundary and its newly observed, substantial effects along continental margins could help researchers better grasp the global enormity of today’s unfolding climate change. Although the human-caused climate change of the past couple centuries is currently much smaller in overall magnitude compared to the Eocene-Oligocene transition, it is happening at an alarmingly faster pace, the Stanford researchers said.
“Our findings can help inform us of the kinds of radical changes that can happen on the Earth’s surface in the face of rapid climate change,” said Graham. “The geologic past informs the present, and particularly the future.”
Reference: “Global Eocene-Oligocene unconformity in clastic sedimentary basins” by Zachary F.M. Burton, Tim R. McHargue and Stephan A. Graham, 7 October 2024, Earth-Science Reviews.DOI: 10.1016/j.earscirev.2024.104912
The research was supported by the Stanford Project on Deepwater Depositional Systems and Basin Processes and Subsurface Modeling industrial affiliates programs. Stanford industrial affiliates programs are funded by membership fees from companies.

‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice’ Dethroned In Amazon Prime Video’s Top 10 List By A New Movie

Arts & Culture, Film & TV

Well, that didn’t last too long. After taking the top spot in Amazon Prime Video’s Top 10 movie list, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is back down to #2, replaced by the movie it originally unseated, Deadpool and Wolverine.

Deadpool and Wolverine, despite its R-rating, has massive appeal after its $1.3 billion box office haul. Not that Beetlejuice also didn’t perform excellently, and it seems more than likely that we will see a third film in the series, no doubt called…Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. I’m not going to lie I am already tired of typing Beetlejuice in this article.

The rest of the list features more popular films that have now dropped down to a low rental price. Despicable Me 4 is now $6 to rent, Twisters is now $10. Meanwhile, Deadpool and Wolverine is still $25 just to rent, or $30 to buy. Probably should just buy, at that price.

Top 10Amazon
Alien Romulus is at #5, the well-received installment of the series and the best-reviewed since the original two films. I am somewhat surprised to see The Wild Robot debuting down at #9 given how massively well-received it was as the best kids movie of the year, but I expect that will climb over time as people realize it’s out. It only came out on streaming for rental or purchase yesterday, I believe.

I am fully of the opinion that everyone should watch Trap (#10), an almost entirely bloodless horror movie that did not get a fair shake from critics, but M. Night Shyamalan’s latest is actually very good, and Josh Hartnett legitimately deserves an Oscar nomination. That will never happen, of course, but I’m serious. He’s so great in this movie.

I would expect Deadpool and Wolverine to hover around the top 3 on the list for a very long time, and even longer if they end up dropping the rental price. It is the second highest-grossing movie of the entire year, behind only Inside Out 2 from Pixar which made $1.69 billion. Below it is Despicable Me 4 with $961 million. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, its current competition on the list, grossed $422 million and is inside the top 10, a very good performance. I was curious where this landed, and Joker: Folie a Deux, the sequel to the $1 billion-earning original, is down at #20 with $165 million, an utterly spectacular failure on every level.

We’ll check in soon to see how the list shifts from here.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.

Greek Tourism Ministry Aims to Enhance Tourism Education on Crete

Travel

.essb_links.essb_size_m .essb_link_svg_icon svg{height:18px;width:auto}.essb_links.essb_size_m .essb_icon{width:36px !important;height:36px !important}.essb_links.essb_size_m .essb_icon:before{font-size:18px !important;top:9px !important;left:9px !important}.essb_links.essb_size_m li a .essb_network_name{font-size:13px !important;font-weight:400 !important;line-height:12px !important}Agios Nikolaos Mayor Manolis Menegakis, Tourism Ministry’s Secretary General Vassia Koutsoukou, Tourism Minister Olga Kefalogianni, Greek Parliament Vice President Ioannis Plakiotakis. Photo source: Tourism MinistryThe Greek Tourism Ministry is working to establish facilities on Crete to enhance tourism training and education on the island.
In pursuit of this goal, Greek Tourism Minister Olga Kefalogianni met in Athens with Ioannis Plakiotakis, the first vice president of the Greek Parliament, and Manolis Menegakis, the mayor of Agios Nikolaos, the capital of Lasithi.
With discussions focused on the development of tourism education in Crete, participants during the meeting explored proposals for improving tourism infrastructure and education within the Municipality of Agios Nikolaos.
According to the ministry, the meeting aimed to serve as a cornerstone for the broader development of sustainable tourism in the area and the region as a whole.
Photo source: Tourism Ministry
It should be noted that the initiative to advance tourism education on Crete took a realistic step forward following recent legislation from the Tourism Ministry, which allows graduates from Higher Schools of Tourism Education to enter the 7th semester of study in a related University Department without needing qualifying exams.
Minister Kefalogianni emphasized that strengthening and enhancing tourism education is a central objective of the ministry.
“It is crucial for implementing the ministry’s strategy for the qualitative development of Greek tourism,” she said.
The meeting was also attended by the general secretary of the Ministry, responsible for Tourist Policy and Development, Vasia Koutsoukou.