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Watch a Sea Snail Swallow a Fish Whole

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We fear things that we don't understand, but occasionally we come across things that we do understand that are still terrifying. The Conus is one of these things. 

The Conus is a genus of carnivorous sea snails that prey on everything from marine worms to small bottom-dwelling fish. All Conus snails are venomous, and therefore capable of stinging human beings. Smaller snails can deliver stings no worse than a bee sting, but larger snails have stings that are incredibly toxic and can be fatal to humans. 

The video above shows you how a larger Conus species feeds. That elongated tongue-like organ which it extends from itself in an effort to grab the fish is actually a tooth. If you skip to around the 1:40 mark, you'll see the snail swallow the fish whole. Happy Monday!

 Every day we track down a Video Wonder: an audiovisual offering that delights, inspires, and entertains. Have you encountered a video we should feature? Email ella@atlasobscura.com.


Identify Any Tree in New York City With this Map

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A map identifying each and every one of the trees in New York City, using the latest tree census data. (All photos courtesy of Jill Hubley)

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Though we may like to think that we know the secrets of the blocks we live on, we may be missing far more information than we realize. Can you name, for example, the number of trees that line your block? What about each kind of tree that grows on your block?

Sure, you may know what the tree outside your window looks like, but what kind of tree is it? What kind of trees are on either side of it? If you live within the bounds of New York City, this tree map has all your answers. 

Using the last tree census data (yes, there's a tree census) from 2005, Brooklyn-based web developer Jill Hubley created an incredibly detailed map of all of the street trees in New York City. In theory, each tree on every street in the five boroughs is represented.

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Each dot on Hubley's map is roughly proportional to the diameter of the tree trunk.

"Initially my thought was to make a map of the trees in [Brooklyn's] Prospect Park because I walk there everyday with my dog, and I like to know what's around me," explains Hubley. "After doing some research, though, [I found that] a census of the trees in Prospect Park hadn't been done, but one existed for the city's street trees." 

Mapping the tree data came with its fair share of challenges, however. "The parks department uses a four-letter code to identify the trees, but they don't include a data dictionary," says Hubley. After deciphering the code, Hubley had to find an approach that would let her map more than 600,000 data points without crashing the browser. 

The data itself is fascinating, and lets you identify both the species of trees you see every day, or find where certain trees, like Japanese pagoda trees, grow across the city. The map is interactive, and allows you to zoom in and out, or toggle to see the distribution of specific trees. You can also opt to remove the base map of the streets for more abstract viewing. 

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The map is interactive: you can choose to see the distribution of only one kind of tree, and opt to remove the base map. The above images shows the distribution of honeylocusts in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens.

It turns out that there is a precise methodology that goes into the decision of where to plant different trees in the city. If there are wires overhead, the department chooses to plant trees that will not grow to be very tall, Hubley explains.

There are many factors to consider. The Parks Department has identified 18 habitats, called biotypes, around New York City. Different types of trees flourish in different biotypes, so the species that best fit the surrounding environment are the ones that are planted there. "The biotopes include things such as soil compaction, tree bed size, and height available," says Hubley. 

A new tree census was conducted last year, and its data will available later in 2016. Hubley intends to update her map, which relied on the last 2005 census, once the new data is unveiled, so that we can continue to look at spaces that are familiar to us, and learn something new about the trees we see every day. 

Map Monday highlights interesting and unusual cartographic pursuits from around the world and through time. Read more Map Monday posts.

Vintage Photos of Tree Worship at Western College for Women

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The freshmen class gives a Pierrot and Pierrette dance in homemade costumes, 1915. (All Photos: Courtesy Miami University Libraries) 

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On May 13, 1891 in Oxford, Ohio, a group of spade-wielding young women in long, black robes encircled a poplar sapling and sang to it in unison.

They were not, as it may sound, engaged in some act of witchcraft. Rather, the women were celebrating “Tree Day,” an annual springtime pageant at Western Female Seminary in Ohio (renamed Western College for Women in 1904).

Western began celebrating Tree Day in 1890 and continued to do so every May until 1956, when the festivities merged with a fall celebration called College Day. Modeled after a carnival held at Wellesley, a women's liberal arts college in Massachusetts, Tree Day quickly became an elaborate arbor day ceremony that culminated in the planting of a senior class tree. In a program replete with rhymes and songs, students celebrated springtime, the beautification of their campus, and the ascent of the underclassmen.

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Two Western College students celebrate Tree Day, 1910.

While both Western College and Tree Day are no longer—Western merged with nearby Miami University in 1974—an impressive photographic record remains of the strange, ethereal beauty of bygone Tree Days. These images, from the Miami University archives, are the work of Frank R. Snyder, a prolific photographer who captured Oxford, Ohio life in the early 20th century. 

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An unknown Western student, 1916. That year, Tree Day was “exceedingly windy and cold,” according to record kept in the library.

The local paper, The Oxford News, printed extensive coverage of the 1891 festivities. “Gray was the sky and anxious were the eyes that looked up into it,” the article began, but by noon the clouds had cleared and “the day was declared perfect” for the processions, songs, and speeches that followed. 

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Western College seniors performing The House of Rimmon by Henry van Dyke, 1915.

Tree Day took place just weeks before graduation, as seniors prepared to step out into a wide and unfamiliar world. Western, a seminary, sent many of its graduates overseas on extended Christian mission trips. According to archivist Jacqueline Johnson at Miami University Libraries, “they went to Syria, Iraq, Iran, China, Mexico—all over the world. Some went with their husbands, but many went alone.” 

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A Midsummer Night's Dream scene at Tree Day in 1933.

The sheltered midwestern seminarians who graduated from Western College in the late 19th and early 20th century went on to participate in a massive “civilizing” project that would reshape values and belief systems around the world. But at Tree Day, the fresh-faced young women of Western were absorbed in matters closer to home. They concluded with a performance of “Tree Song,” which was printed in full in The Oxford News.

Hail, king of the forest!
Though sturdy young oak,
Which we bring as our tribute
With hearts full of hope,
That you may long flourish
As a type of our class,
Be strong, brave famous,
Excelling all past.

Be strong in your trials,
Be brave in defeat.
Endure winter’s chillings,
Ignore summer’s heat,
Rear up your head proudly,
And let the world see,
Thou art lord of the forest,
A noble oak tree.

Steeped in the metaphor of rootedness on the eve of their departure, the robed students flung spadefuls of dirt onto the tree. The Oxford News called it “a red letter day.”

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A Tree Day procession, 1912. That year, the students performed As You Like It as part of the festivities.

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An al fresco production of Twelfth Night in 1906.

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An outdoor performance on Tree Day 1914.

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 Dancers around the May pole at Western College on Tree Day, 1916.

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Two Tree Day enthusiasts in 1913. 

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Students with parasols in 1907.

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 Performers at the 1902 Tree Day. 

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Getting in formation at Tree Day, 1914. 

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Spirited frolics in 1933. 

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A dramatic performance in 1933. 

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Promenading with hoops, 1934.

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Characters conspiring at the 1933 Tree Day. 

A New Form of Light Has Been Discovered

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(Photo: Ibrahim Iujaz/CC BY 2.0)

Scientists announced recently that they have discovered a new form of light, one that breaks a fundamental understanding of physics, and could lead to faster fiber-optic cables. 

Let's first start, though, with the physics concept of momentum, which is what you get when you multiply an object's mass and velocity. Momentum can go in many different directions, of course. Angular momentum, specifically, describes the movement of objects, like the Earth, that move in circles, both figuratively and literally. 

Light photons, which tend to spin as they travel through the universe, also have a particular angular momentum, and, until recently, scientists thought that the value of that momentum would always be a whole integer multiple of Planck's constant. A whole number, in other words, not a fraction. 

But a team of Irish scientists—who were actually trying to improve optical communications—recently stumbled upon a form of light that had angular momentum that wasn't a whole number. This was new! And startling, in part because light and its photons are among the things scientists study the most. 

"What I think is so exciting about this result is that even this fundamental property of light, that physicists have always thought was fixed, can be changed," said Paul Eastham, a scientist who was part of the discovery. 

What could it be used for? Better fiber-optic connections, for one thing, according to Science Alert. Welcome, new light. 

Truman, Trump, and Why Presidential Candidates Get Top Secret Intelligence Briefings

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They were originally Harry Truman's idea. Here's Truman with Josef Stalin, left, and Winston Churchill in July 1945. (Photo: Unknown/CC BY-SA 3.0)

For weeks, across social media and, presumably, in actual conversation, liberal types have fretted over a thought: Soon, Donald Trump will begin getting intelligence briefings on issues of national security.

A man known to call reporters pretending to be his own press agent will be privy to America's military secrets. The Donald, only with nuclear launch codes.

If that's been a concern, you can exhale. The truth is more a mundane, but still fascinating glimpse into how a current government deals with the uncertainty of the electoral process. Like every other part of a presidential election, who gets to know what is a highly contested, intensely personal and ever-changing tradition.

The current protocol for intelligence briefings is this: In July, after each party's convention, the presumed presidential nominees—Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton—will get an intelligence presentation. It's a very long one, featuring several hours of top secret information, though maybe not as much as one might think. The real briefings don't begin until after the general election in November, when there is a president-elect. 

The nominee's first, and only, briefing is less about tactical operations and more about seeing the world as it really is, officials have said. Candidates won't be hearing about that night's secret operation to assassinate a key ISIS leader. Think, rather, of an advanced social-studies seminar. 

“You are not trying to give them a tactical update on the issues of the day, but to lay out the full panoply of issues that they are going to face; the good, the bad, and the ugly of what the world looks like and what implications there may be going forward,” a former intelligence official recently told the New York Times

After the general election, though, the winning candidate does get daily briefings, if they so choose. Those include the President's Daily Brief, which the sitting president gets every morning, a document that has been called the world's smallest circulation, yet best-informed daily newspaper. 

The briefings began under Harry Truman, who established the practice for the first time in 1952. It was a reaction to his own experience as president: when Truman took over following Franklin D. Roosevelt's death in 1945, he knew next to nothing about the U.S.'s intelligence apparatus, including the fact that we were making an atomic bomb, according to John Helgerson's CIA Briefings of Presidential Candidates.

Truman offered weekly briefings to Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower and his Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson after they were each nominated, though tensions between Eisenhower and Truman—who at one point referred to Eisenhower's men as "screwballs"—meant they were nearly scuttled. But the briefings eventually took place, and each candidate got three or four before Eisenhower prevailed in November. By that point the briefings—which, in those days, were more infrequent—were mainly focused on the ongoing Korean War. 

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Nixon with Mao. (Photo: White House Photo Office/Public Domain)

In 1960, it was John F. Kennedy versus Richard Nixon, and, late in the campaign, the Kennedy camp released a statement urging U.S. support for Cuban freedom fighters. The only problem was that there was an ongoing top-secret CIA program going on doing just that. Did Kennedy know? Probably not, but it was the first time intelligence officials had to consider the implications of disclosing covert actions to candidates. (They never had, even to Presidents-elect.) After Kennedy's election in 1960, he was given a full knowledge of the Bay of Pigs operation (which turned out to be a disaster.)

Since the inception of the program, the outgoing president has decided what information candidates get, and who gets it, which has traditionally been each nominee from the two major parties. (Ross Perot might have been the first non-Republican or non-Democrat to get briefings, but he dropped his independent campaign for president in July 1992 after polling well early in the campaign. No such other third-party candidate has come close.)

The briefings have also evolved over the years, from a helter-skelter system of scattershot information to the more focused thing it is today: one briefing as nominee, then daily briefings as president-elect. But history has also shown that, for all the information the general public assumes is in these top-secret briefings, we may not be missing all that much. Jimmy Carter, for example, complained that his briefings were sometimes too much like reading the New York Times

Sometimes, the candidates themselves have not even received the briefings personally. In 1968, Richard Nixon's key advisors also got it, including Henry Kissinger, who soon forced the briefings to go through him exclusively, excluding Nixon. Kissinger would then brief the president-elect personally, according to Helgerson. 

Other candidates have been more hands on, like Jimmy Carter, who proved himself a voracious consumer of the briefings, which he was given a broad range of, since, in 1976, his opponent was President Gerald Ford. (Among Carter's briefers was George H.W. Bush, then the Director of Central Intelligence, who asked Carter to stay on as director after Carter's election. Carter declined, but joked later that had he said yes, Bush likely never would've become president.)

In contrast to Carter, Ronald Reagan, in 1980, was sometimes openly hostile to the briefings, complaining that he was given information that he could do nothing with, according to Helgerson. After his inauguration, Reagan closed off direct communication with CIA officers altogether, communicating solely with his handpicked CIA chief William Casey. 

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Clinton at his first inauguration. (Photo: White House Press Office/Public Domain)

The tradition of candidate briefings continued through the years, however, with a range of losers all getting a window into the U.S.'s intelligence operations. Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Bob Dole, John Kerry, John McCain, and Mitt Romney all got some intelligence. It is, in other words, just another part of the job. Or, for some candidates, a chore. Or an afterthought. Or, occasionally, deeply fascinating. 

"On one memorable day," Helgerson, who was among those who personally briefed Bill Clinton, wrote of the then-candidate in 1992, "the hurried Governor was busy putting on his necktie and drinking a Diet Coke when we met for our session. He said he would not have time to read the book and asked that I simply tell him what was important. I gave him two-sentence summaries of a half-dozen items and one longer article in the [President's Daily Brief.] When I finished this staccato account I expected the Governor to depart, but he said, 'Well, that sounds interesting,' seized the book, and sat down and read the whole thing. He had tied his necktie."

Might Trump do something similar? We'll know in November. 

Over Half of Fish Caught Off New Zealand Are Not in Official Records

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(Photo: 昶廷 林/CC BY-SA 2.0)

Fishing is a long-standing tradition in New Zealand. It's big business, too: According to official tallies in the island nation, over 15 million tons of fish were caught from 1950 to 2010.

But a new report suggests this number far, far underestimates the real catch, which researchers say is actually in the realm of 42 million tons. 

The reason for the discrepancy? In part, a quota system, which gave many fishers huge incentives to lie about how much they caught. The study also traces back decades, to a more unruly time before modern fishing laws were in place. 

For their part, New Zealand officials have denied that the discrepancy is so large, but do not deny that one exists. 

"Yes, from time to time there is misreporting, and yes from time to time there is dumping," Nathan Guy, New Zealand's Minister for Primary Industries, told Radio New Zealand. "With evidence, we take a hard line, we get the evidence together and we prosecute." 

The Ben Franklin Statue In Boston Just Took a Bad Fall

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The life-size Ben Franklin statue on Boston's Freedom Trail is getting old, it's true.

It's 160 years old, to be exact, so let's just say its youth is a distant memory. His skin isn't what it used to be, and his mobility, well, let's just say he has trouble. He mostly doesn't move, in fact, perched atop a base downtown in front of Old City Hall.

On Monday, the statue suffered another unfortunate side effect of old age: an unexpected fall. Ben was felled by a tent, which had been shoved into the statue by the wind. He could not get up, and situation was so dire, the Boston Globe reports, that officials were seen at the scene carrying Ben off in a "body bag." 

But Ben isn't dead; he's just in for some convalescence, officials said. He'll be back, and, with some repairs, better than ever. For now, though, say a prayer for one of our Founding Fathers. It's already been a rough week. 

Take a Look at America's Least Convincing Cell Phone Tower Trees

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This cell tower tree in Los Angeles lacks artificial foliage to cover up all the antennae. (Photo: Lord Jim/CC BY 2.0)

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All over the world, there are trees that quietly carry our phone messages. They come in variety of species: palm, cypress, fir, elm, pine, cacti. Perhaps you have passed by one of these alien trees before, or spotted them sticking high above the natural treeline. From top to bottom, nothing about these trees is natural.

Despite telecommunications and utility companies' best efforts, cell phone tower trees are notoriously unattractive. The architecture of these fake trees is also not the least bit convincing. For example, the pine cell towers have metal “trunks” that lack the pliability of natural trees, and support a small tuft of branches and fake foliage that attempts to cover up the hardware underneath.

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A pine cell tower tree built by one of the leading companies in the cell tower concealment business in Tuscon, Arizona. (Photo: Bill Morrow/CC BY 2.0)

Averaging between 50 to 200 feet, they awkwardly stand above other structures in order to provide good cell phone coverage. Instead of the roots, xylem, and phloem that give real trees life, cell tower trees have amplifiers, transceivers, and antennae that support our mobile devices’ wireless communications.

Most of the trees are built with artificial products such as fiberglass, plastic, and acrylic that are designed to feel like real bark. T-Mobile used 18,000 pounds of artificial branches to create the 155-foot-tall pine cell tower in Muskegon, Michigan, reports Tedium.

“It tends to be when there’s some sensitive landscape or it you’re building it in an area where there’s a beautiful view and you want something to blend in,” a Verizon spokesperson told the Muskegon Chronicleback in 2011 when the cell tower tree was erected.    

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A cell tower disguised as a palm tree in Tucson, Arizona. (Photo: Gary Minnaert/Wikicommons/Public Domain)

Companies started disguising cell towers as trees in the 1980s to blend the large, obstructive metal structures into the natural environment and make them look more appealing. According to Rhizome, telecommunication companies may have also started camouflaging the technology because of public scrutiny. Some protesters believe that cell towers spew out dangerous radiation, while others have theories that they are used to spy on people. 

There are an estimated 1,000 to 2,000 cell phone tower trees in the United States, Voxreports. Larson Camouflage, which built one of the first pine cell towers in 1992, has over 3,000 concealment projects (although the company disguises other objects in addition to cell towers). The fake trees are pretty expensive, too. Cell phone towers already cost a pretty penny (average cost is about $150,000), but dressing the tower up in tree garb adds an extra $100,000.

Take a look at some the most bizarre cell tower trees, below. 

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A cell tower hidden in a fake cactus. (Photo: FolsomNatural/CC BY 2.0)

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Cell phone tower disguised as an evergreen tree to blend into the natural environment of New Hampshire. (Photo: Wikicommons/Public Domain)

 

What an odd tree #celltowertree

A photo posted by @ericthomason on

 

Great reception decorated with faux-liage. #celltowertree

A photo posted by Jeff Daly (@dalydosephoto) on

 

#maintenance #fake #trimming the fake #tree #celltowertree

A photo posted by galharpaz (@galharpaz) on

 

Listen, cell tower…you're not fooling anyone.

A photo posted by Devin (@deebo.von.neckbeard) on

 

#cellTowerTree #oregonSky #OregonGreen #treetops

A photo posted by KoriEugene Kuhn (@yardengnome) on

 

Really big Montana tree

A photo posted by Audrey Hagen (@audreyhagen) on

 

#celltowerTree #barnabepeak #samuelptaylorstatepark

A photo posted by @foodiesfbayarea2009 on

 

Now they are growing cell towers. #celltowertree

A photo posted by Omar (@oms5) on

 

Palm tree cell towers!

A photo posted by Stephanie D (@strph) on

 

#another#celltower#tree

A photo posted by Lori Devlin (@loribdevlin) on


Get Out of the Office and Into the Trees as an Urban Arborist

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The city trees need love, too. Can you give it to them? (Photo: Helen Alfvegren/CC BY 2.0)

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In the annals of childhood pleasures that can be turned into actual careers, being a professional tree climber is probably near the top. Who wouldn’t want to spend their days scaling mighty trunks? And now you can do so amid the fast-paced pleasures of the big city, as the field of urban forestry becomes increasingly large and diverse.

Arborist jobs—known as tree surgeon or tree doctor jobs in the U.K.—come in many different varieties, but almost all of them start with climbing trees and going to school. According to Nick Crawford, a San Francisco arborist working for the Davey Tree Expert Company, jobs like his are perfect for anyone who likes working outside and isn’t afraid of working high off the ground.

“What kind of person goes to work each day swinging from the trees?” he says.“It’s just so far removed from a regular desk job. It requires someone who just has a fearless attitude.” Crawford has been working as an arborist for most of his life, beginning with a job at his father’s landscaping business as a teenager. He continued to focus on his love of arborculture up through college, earning a degree in urban forestry.

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An arborist in Seattle deals with a cedar tree. (Photo: Wonderlane/CC BY 2.0)

One of the biggest differences between urban forestry and the duties of a general arborist have to do with scope. As Crawford told us, in addition to working to care for specific trees and their issues, someone looking to get into urban forestry will need to consider more macro issues. An arborist may need to convince state and municipal governments to spend money on tree care, and learn how to maintain and improve general canopy coverage.

There are also the issues caused by the limited space available in city environments. “In a place like San Francisco, people have a million dollars riding on whether they can see the Golden Gate Bridge outside their window,” says Crawford.  “Maintaining that branch-by-branch specificity is pretty important to them, and that’s where I come in.”

Two of the central tasks for an urban arborist are pruning out branches from the canopy—either to allow more light in or to thin out large branches that become dangerously heavy—and removing entire trees by chopping them down from top to bottom. While trimming branches from a tree might seem like an easy task, it takes a great deal of training and schooling to do properly. “It’s kind of like cutting hair, probably,” says Crawford. “It looks simple when you watch somebody do it, then you try cutting hair you’ve scarred your child’s head for life.”

Climbing trees to prune out branches or remove the entire structure is dangerous even to trained arborists. Whether they are dealing with huge chunks of a tree that is being taken down, or working with power tools, dozens of feet off the ground, safety is a primary concern. Crawford says that before his crews head out for each day, they hold a safety meeting to reinforce and discuss the best safety practices surrounding a wide range of possible hazards. “Everything from electrical hazards to wildfires,” says Crawford. “A friend of mine had a safety meeting at his shop where they were talking about sports nutrition, because we’re essentially industrial athletes.”

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A treacherous operation on a pine tree. (Photo: TS Eriksson/CC BY 3.0)

Not every tree is created equal, either. Crawford says his favorite tree to work on is the gingko tree, which has become a common urban sight over the last century or so. “It has this very cool, upright structure with great natural branching,” he says. “It doesn’t take a lot of work.” In contrast, the sycamore is widely considered one of the most difficult trees to deal with due to the fine dust it produces, which has a tendency to irritate arborists’ eyes and sinuses. Then of course, there are the more obvious culprits. “In terms of climbing, it’s the stuff with the thorns and spines that are a massive pain,” says Crawford.

But even with all of the dangers and training involved in the job, being an urban arborist inspires a great sense of community among those that work in the field. “There’s something about the risks and working up in the air with power tools that just makes people come together to share information and figure out how to do things better and safer,” Crawford says.

As urbanization increases, the need for urban arborists is growing with it. Crawford says that there is an increasing lack of qualified arborists to meet the growing number of unique challenges that urban forestry presents. Professional tree climbers are more in demand than ever.

There are urban forestry jobs over all over the country, but if you’re interested in starting a career caring for city trees you could try contacting a national company like Davey Tree Experts through their recruiters, or keeping an eye on the Society of Municipal Arborists’ job board. You, too, can get out of the office and into the trees.

Thanks for reading AO Jobs, the weekly column where we spotlight jobs and career opportunities that you can apply for right now, to bring some wonder and adventure into your working life. See any listings? Get in touch!

For Sale: A Handwritten Bob Dylan Letter from His Christian Phase

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Bob Dylan plays Toronto's Massey Hall during his Gospel Tour. (Photo: Jean-Luc Ourlin/CC BY-SA 2.0)

A decades-old letter from Bob Dylan to a friend has recently gone on auction, providing a rare glimpse into the devout beliefs the famed singer preached during his brief, but intense Christian phase of the late 1970s - early 1980s.

Put up for sale by RR Auctions, a Boston seller of rare historical manuscripts and artifacts, the letter was written by Dylan in April of 1980 to someone simply identified on the envelope as “Steve,” a friend who had seemingly just joined the army. Written on stationery from Toronto’s Park Plaza Hotel, the letter is in part an update on the “Bob Dylan Gospel Tour” that the singer was undertaking at the time, and also a peek into Dylan’s own bible study.

The letter begins by talking about Toronto, calling it a “clean and beautiful city,” but remarking that the majority of the people would rather go to see “Apocalypse Now than to be baptized and filled with the Holy Ghost.” From there, Dylan talks about a bible he’d been given, remarking on the number of passages that had helped him understand and preach his faith. The rest of the letter sees Dylan praising the unknown Steve’s strength for joining the military, sounding every bit the apoplectic preacher. “You will be strong in the Lord and seeing that looks are deceiving, you will work miracles that way,” the letter reads. “He has called you to be a saint and your responsibility is to him and him alone.” The letter ends with the similarly devout sign-off, “Always in the name of Jesus Christ Son of God, Manifest in the flesh.” A far cry from the image of the tramp who wrote Blood On The Tracks.

Dylan would release three explicitly Christian albums before moving on to other subjects in his music, but such direct peeks into his thinking at the time are few and far between. RR Auctions predicts that the letter will fetch upwards of $20,000 by the time bidding ends on May 19th. Pray this unique glimpse into Dylan’s personal life ends up good hands. 

The WWI Plan To Turn America's Trees Into Telephones

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A step-by-step guide to floraphoning your tree. (Image: Smithsonian Libraries/July 1919 "Electrical Experimenter"/Public Domain)

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Every late-night park walker has been through it. You're lost in thought, passing beneath a line of trees, when you hear a distinct rustle. It's no ordinary rustle—it seems to have tone, diction, syntax. You pause: did that maple just say something? Then you shake your head and move on. 

In the early 1900s, though, you might have been right. For a brief period at the beginning of the 20th century, America's trees didn't just talk—they intercepted enemy intelligence, beamed political speeches to the far-flung populace, and tuned into baseball games. Someday, it was thought, they'd transform everything from military strategy to media broadcasting. In a growing country that wanted nothing more than to be connected, the great green hope of instant contact lay with Major General George O. Squier's unassuming, super-economical floraphone.

Squier was a short, redheaded Duluth, Minnesota native who somehow transformed a distaste for authority into an astoundingly successful military career. He was also the early 20th century's go-to guy for ideas so crazy, they just might work. The first American West Point graduate to also hold a Ph.D. (from Johns Hopkins University, in electrical engineering), he dedicated his entire adulthood to zapping life into otherwise straitlaced institutions. He developed remote-control cannons, and convinced the army to add an aviation unit. Late in his life, he invented Muzak. As a 1922 Boy's Life profile put it, "When people say that 'it can't be done,' General Squier is inspired to do his best."

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George O. Squier's floraphone, illustrated on the cover of July 1919's "Electrical Experimenter." (Image: Smithsonian Libraries/Public Domain)

In 1904, Squier was stationed at Camp Atascadero in California. It was a particularly hot, dry summer, and the soldiers' Army-issued buzzer telegraph and telephone kits, which relied on moisture to receive and transmit signals, were pretty much useless. Squier quickly grew tired of being stranded out in the field, cut off from everyone, so he mixed his engineering skills with his military instincts and started tinkering with the resources he had available.

Soon, he hit on a simple fix: wire the kits to a nearby eucalyptus tree, and the messages come through fine. Further experimentation revealed the best configuration: a long, insulated wire, nailed two-thirds of the way up the trunk, attached to a receiver and grounded by a few more wires buried in a radial configuration around the roots. "[Squier] has found that trees may serve the purpose of Marconi's metal feelers or antennae, as they are called," reported The Search-Light in August 1905, adding that Squier had successfully used his innovation to send messages "between Goat and Alcatraz Islands, a distance of three miles and a half."

Squier obtained a patent for "Tree Telephony and Telegraphy" in 1905, noting that the use of trees would drastically cut down on aerial costs. (He would later come up with a catchier brand name—the "floraphone.") But he was a busy man, and it took another decade before he would revisit the arboreal antenna.

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Major General George O. Squier, and the portable house he experimented out of (note the hooked-up oak). (Image: Smithsonian Libraries/Public Domain)

By this time, World War I was in full swing, and the U.S. military was looking for a large-scale backup communication system in case its submarine cables failed. Squier, now the Chief Officer of the US Army Signal Corps, decided to put the country's trees to the test.

He set up an experimental station in the woods outside of Washington, D.C.—a small portable house manned by a few soldiers at a time, equipped with amplifiers and receivers and surrounded by acres upon acres of potential antennae. In July of 1919, Scientific American sent a writer to check it out. The soldier on duty hooked up a nearby oak, twiddled the knobs, and handed over the headphones. There was static—and then, suddenly, German. Messages were streaming from the giant antennae of Nauen Transmitter Station in Brandenburg, pulsing through the air for over 4,000 miles, and getting pulled back down to earth by this humble D.C. oak.

The soldier went outside, switched to a pine, and began surfing channels: dispatches from Lyon, from Cornwall's Poldhu station, from mid-Atlantic ships, and from the incoming NC-4 transatlantic plane all came through cleanly. "It is not a joke nor a scientific curiosity," the reporterconcluded, breathlessly, "Trees—all trees, of all kinds and all heights, growing anywhere—are nature's own wireless towers and antenna combined."

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An illustration from Squier's 1919 Floraphone patent. (Image: George O. Squier/Public Domain)

Devotees let their imaginations branch wildly. Scientific American's correspondent described soldiers armed to the teeth with nature's communicative potential, a carrier pigeon in one hand and a tree wireless set in the other. In such a world, he extrapolated, whole forests posed a Macbethian military threat: "The armies of the future (if there be such) will in action consider all trees as dangerous enemy aerial stations," he wrote.

Others were more interested in peacetime applications. A Popular Science reporter predicted a new era of connectivity, in which floraphone stations could be used to keep up with international news and sports scores, and everyone from rural farmers to lost pilots could make quick human contact, provided they were "in the neighborhood of a good-sized tree." In August of 1919, in an attempt to broadcast a Vice Presidential address to as many nearby homes as possible, "several large trees [were] equipped with Gen. Squir's florophone," the Washington Post reported.

Despite such triumphs, the floraphone's heyday was short-lived. Quickly outpaced by more portable and effective antennae, it now lives alongside bat bombs, iceberg airbases, and artichoke ink in the annals of war technology made goofy with time. The technology remains solid, and the idea is occasionally resurrected by jungle platoons, ham radio enthusiasts, and eco-art collectives. Something of its aesthetic echo can be found in the laughable camouflage of those gargantuan cell phone towers certain companies try to pass off as trees.

These days, though—as we grapple with the fact that our ability to transmit words, thoughts and information at near-instantaneous speeds doesn't necessarily make us feel any less lonely—it might be a good time to revisit the floraphone, whose appeal, as Squier knew, was not merely technological. "All through the ages there is shown in literature a feeling of reverence, sympathy and human intimacy with trees," he wrote in 1919. "It is significant that this practical thing possessing utility and natural strength, architectural beauty of design, and endurance far superior to artificial structures prepared by man, should be able yet further to minister to his needs." Next time you want to call in a takeout order or catch the Mets, you may want to consider looping in a tree.

A Map of the World's Most Superlative Trees

Found: Secret Rooms in a Very Old Theater

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On the main shopping street in Perth, a Scottish city of about 47,000 people, one of Scotland’s oldest theaters is giving up its secrets. The theater’s being restored, and the construction has revealed hidden rooms long walled up and forgotten.

“There was one room which had a single chair in the middle of it, which looked particularly spooky,” one theatre executive told the Courier, a local paper.

There’s been a Perth Theatre since the 16th century; the current building was first opened at the beginning of the 20th century and could hold an audience of 800. It’s a “B-listed” building, which means it’s of regional importance and cannot be altered without permission.

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The exterior of the theater. (Photo: Lis Burke/CC BY-SA 2.0)

The current renovation is reopening the “Gods seating circle,” which was shut up decades ago and has been used for storage and lighting. An ‘80s addition to the building has been demolished. Most exciting, though are the “old cupboards and small rooms” that have been discovered. They were walled over during the 1920s. So far, no ghosts or phantoms have been discovered, but there’s still time.

Bonus finds: Glass beads created by an ancient asteroid

Every day, we highlight one newly found object, curiosity or wonder. Discover something amazing? Tell us about it! Send your finds to sarah.laskow@atlasobscura.com. 

There’s a Hotline for People With Knotty Wood Questions

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Forest Products Laboratory develops codes and standards for large wood structures, such as this one. (Photo: USDA Forest Service/CC BY 2.0)

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Who would you call if you had a wood-related question? The Forest Products Laboratory, of course. But, did you even know of its existence?

The Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) was created in 1910, and was moved to its current building atop a knoll overlooking the University of Wisconsin Madison Campus in 1932.

The headquarters of the FPL conducts research on all things wood-related. Today the laboratory has 144 employees, but had over 700 at its peak. Their xylarium, or research wood collection, is the largest in the world, with over 103,000 samples. Their herbarium contains one of the largest collections of wood-decay fungi in existence.

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U.S. Forest Service Shield in the front lobby of the Forest Products Laboratory. (Photo: David Jester)

FPL, the only federally funded wood utilization research laboratory in the United States, answers to the public as a government resource. Operating under the Forest Service, the laboratory dispenses timely advice on wood through its hotline (number: 608-231-9200).

No question is too difficult or odd for the employees manning the FPL hotline, as long as it can somehow be tied to wood products. While compiling a science fair exhibit on the use of cotton fibers in U.S. Currency, a middle school student contacted FPL looking for such information. She was not just given the standard text-book answer.

Serendipitously for her, researchers there had just completed experiments testing the durability of paper money after multiple washings–essentially, the staff had washed dollars until they degraded. They told the student about their new findings, and she mentioned the new research in her science fair project.   

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Small section of the largest xylarium in the world, with over 103,000 samples. (Photo: David Jester)

Infestation of mold is a more frequent question, with calls and emails requesting advice on elimination and safety of such spores and fungi. Other callers inquire on the type of lumber that would serve their construction needs. Some even ask advice on the best paint to be used.

Besides answering the public’s questions, FPL is a repository of oddities. In their xylarium they have a piece of Leadwood, which is the heaviest and hardest wood in existence, weighing 85 pounds per cubic foot. Another sample, a piece of African Crossfire Mahogany, was the veneer used on the interior of Pontiac automobiles in 1973. It’s a beautiful specimen with brown waves rippling through its golden grain, like caramel cascading down a candied apple. Not all artifacts in the library are simply wood samples, and some highlight FPL’s contribution to society.

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FPL developed, designed, and engineered wooden aircraft parts, such as this propeller. (Photo: David Jester)

In 2008, Major League Baseball was plagued with a significant problem. Bats seemed to have a propensity to break, leaving a potential for wooden projectiles with every crack of the bat. David Kretschmann, a scientist at FPL, was called upon to solve this problem. Examining the broken bats, footage from games, and the wood used, he deduced that the grain in the maple bats, which producers recently began using, weakened the structure of the bat.

After giving his recommendations, the MLB and producers of the bats were able to remedy this situation. In the wood library, tucked away in a corner, leans the shards of a bat that was part of this important investigation.

During WWII, one of FPLs contributions was the development and creation of shipping crates for the war effort. (Photo: David Jester)

The collection also contains a recreation of the ladder used in the infamous Lindbergh baby kidnapping, which the FPL’s Chief Wood Technologist, Arthur Koehler, was asked to analyze during the 1932 manhunt.

When Koehler matched the wood from the ladder with wood shards found in the apartment of the prime suspect, this helped conclusively link the 20-month-old's kidnapper and killer to his crimes.

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An FPL researcher loads scraps into a tank for recycling. (Photo: US Forest Service/CC BY 2.0)

Today the FPL continues to be on the cutting edge of technologies involving wood products. One process that stands out is the nondestructive evaluation of wood.

When the sarcophagus of Meretites, a noblewoman of Egypt, needed to be examined for rot, FPL took on the job. By sending sound waves through the 2,500-year-old artifact, scientists at FPL were able to identify rotted sections of wood, and advise museum specialists on the best way to preserve these damaged areas.

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The CARWASh weather simulation, which can create any recorded weather condition in North America. (Photo: David Jester)

Weather is naturally an important part of FPL’s research. The CARWASh—Chamber for Analytic Research on Wall Assemblies Exposed to Simulated Weather—tests building materials against inclement weather within a steel container.

This chamber is able to perform tests that recreate any weather condition recorded in North America, evaluating new wall assembly designs and the level of moisture within those structures, and aiding in the development of new building construction methods.

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Testing strength of structural building supports, by increasing the weight load until catastrophic failure occurs. (Photo: David Jester)

FPL also conducts structural tests on wood beams, trusses, and engineered lumber to evaluate their strengths and breaking points. A company from Hollywood, with FPL’s assistance, creates compostable television sets made from 50 percent cow manure and wood fiber. These boards are strong enough for a car to drive over, yet when filming is complete, studio hands can pour water over them, and watch them dissolve into a compostable slurry.

Within the walls of FPL, innovative research is conducted on a daily basis for society’s benefit. Both their xylarium and herbarium are resources which scientists use to continue their understanding of wood anatomy. And resting in cabinets sit artifacts accrued over a century, waiting to tell a story about our past and the potential future of wood technology.  

You Can Again Dine at the KGB's Favorite Restaurant

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In Soviet Moscow, if you wanted to eat chicken, drink wine—and, possibly, recruit a fellow KGB member, —Aragvi, a Georgian restaurant in the heart of the city, was the place to go. Today, if you want to do two of those three things, you might also consider it. After fifteen years, the dining room's doors recently opened once again, to a slightly less flavorful clientele, Agence France-Presse reports,

Aragvi first opened in 1938, at the request of Stalin's right-hand man, Lavrentiy Beria. Beria had recently been appointed the new head of the NKVD (the predecessor to the KGB), and wanted a place to plan and hold meetings. Beria and Stalin both grew up Georgian, and their childhood cuisine wasn't available anywhere in Moscow—and so Aragvi put together a high-class menu of khinkali (dumplings), khachapuri (cheesy bread), and satsivi (cold chicken in nut sauce).

In the decades after it opened, the restaurant was a hotbed of local bohemians, foreign luminaries, and government spies. The dining rooms were wired with hidden microphones, and recruiters vetted prospective new members over wine and dumplings. "The front-of-house staff there were mainly retired KGB officers," Mikhail Lyubimov, once one of those officers, told AFP.

Spy or star, everyone who dined there was rich. In the restaurant's heyday, "dropping a mention of the famous Aragvi chicken—which was grilled with nuts and garlic—gained you entry into the creme de la creme of society," former patron Nelli Maximova told AFP. Ingredients for that dish were delivered from Georgia via special train carriage. 

When the Soviet Union fell, it took Aragvi's fortunes with it. The restaurant was privatized, but it struggled to make ends meet, and closed down in 2003. It reopened last month and, according to The Moscow Times, modern-day diners can expect a unique sense of history, tasteful throwback decor, and, of course, dumplings—still delicious, but slightly less spiced with intrigue.

Every day, we track down a fleeting wonder—something amazing that's only happening right now. Have a tip for us? Tell us about it! Send your temporary miracles to cara@atlasobscura.com.


Watch a Fast and Furious Bout of Competitive Tree Felling

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For regulars at the annual Royal Easter Show in Sydney, Australia, scenes like the one above, in which men simultaneously climb and chop wooden poles in a crowded arena, are routine. But for the rest of us—whoa.

Competitive tree felling involves sharp axes, thin planks, and serious clambering. Contestants must first chop notches along one side of their thick wooden pole, slip the planks into the notches in order to climb to the top, and then hack away ruthlessly at the highest segment of the pole. But since that alone won't do the trick, they've got to quickly climb back down and repeat the process on the other side, until they've finally lopped off that top hunk of wood, to wild cheers from the crowd.

Competitive tree felling gets so competitive, in fact, that many contestants must be given handicaps. During some rounds, start times are staggered, with the top dogs joining 10 or 20 seconds into the chopping. Yet these human beavers are so good with a hatchet that they're often able to come blazing in from behind.

Sydney's tree-felling contest, which has been taking place since 1987, is hardly the only of its ilk. You'll also find competitive tree-chopping in other areas of the globe (mostly Canada). Check out the Lumberjack Championship.

Other variations include the two-man standing block relay, a logging competition obstacle course, as well as the U.S. TIMBERSPORTS Series and World Championship—which includes events such as "single saw," "stock saw," "underhand," and "hot saw." The German manufacturer STIHL sponsors both men's and women's competitions.

We should probably remind you not to try any of this at home, no matter how robust and beefy you think you might be. Unless you're Canadian—in which case, you were probably stacking wood straight out of the womb.

Every day we track down a Video Wonder: an audiovisual offering that delights, inspires, and entertains. Have you encountered a video we should feature? Email ella@atlasobscura.com.

The International Space Station Has Completed Its 100,000th Orbit of Earth

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(Photo: NASA/Public Domain)

The International Space Station has been circling the Earth for a very long time. Over 17 years, in fact, enough to travel over 2.6 billion miles, or about the distance from here to Neptune, according to NASA. 

So it was hardly surprising when, on Monday, the space agency said that the ISS had completed another milestone: 100,000 orbits around the Earth. 

In that time, NASA said, nearly 2,000 experiments have been performed, and 222 astronauts, cosmonauts, and other space denizens have visited the station. 

The station might be the most expensive single thing in Earth's history, costing nearly $150 billion in its life, but officials have said that they will keep the mission going until at least 2024. 

Aside from the milestone, however, Monday was just another day.

"The crew is measuring the grip strength of mice today for the Rodent Research experiment," NASA reported

Business as usual, then. 

The Facial Recognition App That Could End Public Anonymity in Russia

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Moscow's famous Red Square. (Photo: Christophe Meneboeuf/CC BY-SA 3.0)

A new app that has already amassed over half a million users in Russia claims to be able to identify strangers on the street using just their photo, according to the Guardian

The app, called Findface, is 70 percent reliable, its makers say. FindFace scours the Russian social network Vkontakte to match up faces, before presenting users with the most likely hit, in addition to 10 that are the most similar. Vkontakte has over 200 million users, and Findface's founders say that they have developed a unique algorithm that makes it quickly searchable and matchable. 

“With this algorithm, you can search through a billion photographs in less than a second from a normal computer,” Alexander Kabakov, a co-founder, told the Guardian

But that's also where things get a little weird. It's not hard to imagine the (potentially bad) law enforcement uses for such a technology, but Kabakov also says it could change how people date. 

If you saw someone you were attracted to, he says, you could snap a picture, learn their identity, and maybe send them a message. 

“It also looks for similar people. So you could just upload a photo of a movie star you like, or your ex, and then find 10 girls who look similar to her and send them messages," Kabakov tells the Guardian.

Those are definitely all things you could do. 

See it in action here: 

The True Story of the Rainforest Cafe is Even Wilder Than You Thought

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A Rainforest Cafe mascot, Cha Cha the red-eyed tree frog. (Photo: Miranda 72/CC BY 2.0)

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It can be hard to hear the daily specials over the storm, a loud and distracting production that happens every 17 minutes or so in a Rainforest Cafe. Lights flicker on and off to mimic lightning, an animatronic gorilla beats its chest and the sounds of elephants trumpeting overpower whatever your safari guide (that’s what the Rainforest Cafe calls waiters and waitresses) might be saying. While the exact rainstorm can differ from restaurant to restaurant—there are currently 27 Rainforest Cafes worldwide—the experience is designed to remain the same: casual mall dining in the middle of the rainforest.

Except, the experience has changed since Rainforest Cafe’s began in the mid-1990s, when they had fewer locations, but actual live animals on hand. It seemed like such a staple of the ‘90s, hitting culture at a moment when both malls and the rainforest cause reigned, that it’s easy to forget how bonkers it all was—parrot wranglers, erupting “volcanos”, the wishing well with the animatronic crocodile paired with themed dishes like “Rasta Pasta”.

Even celebrities embraced it. Jen Bertsch, a member of the original team who worked as an assistant manager at Mall of America’s Rainforest Cafe for five years, remembers when Michael Jackson paid the cafe a visit for a special charity lunch with kids from a local cancer center.  

“He was mesmerized,” she says. “I remember him standing in front of the talking tree for like, 10 minutes, just standing there, staring at it, watching it.”

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Decor at Rainforest Cafe in Orlando, Florida. (Photo: Don Richards/CC BY 2.0)

It took a very determined man to create a dining chain, “eatertainment” unlike any other.

The original location, still standing although it recently changed floors, is located in Minnesota’s Mall of America. But the first Rainforest Cafe, at least its original concept, was born in founder Steven Schussler’s Minneapolis home. After selling basically everything he owned, the former advertising salesman covered his house in his restaurant pitch. “Artificial waterfalls tumbled down custom-made rock formations, animatronic crocodiles bobbed their heads, and speakers piped in the roar of a tropical thunderstorm,” wrote Fortune magazine in 1996. Schussler used used 3,700 extension cords to power the 20 different sound systems, lights and fog pumps for this prototype.

Also, animals. “Forty tropical birds, two 150-pound tortoises, a baboon, an iguana and a bevy of tropical fish housed in ten 300-gallon fish tanks,” Schussler writes in his memoir, It’s a Jungle In There, about his menagerie. A greenhouse laboratory he had installed on the roof not only housed a full bar and tables, but also real butterflies bred “to determine how long they would survive and whether they would fall in the food.” 

His neighbors guessed he was running either “a temple for devil worship or a bordello,” wrote Orange Coast magazine in 1998. And his local power company decided he was growing marijuana, thanks to an exorbitant power bill: Schussler told Fortune his $2,000 electricity bill in October 1994 was the highest for any residence in Minnesota. It wasn’t long before the Drug Enforcement Agency showed up at his doorstep.

“Overall, it took me three years and almost $400,000 to get the house developed to the point where I felt comfortable showing it to potential investors,” Schussler writes in his memoir. Even then, it wasn’t easy: “I figured it would be like Field of Dreams: if I built it, people would come,” he said to Orange Coast Magazine. “But it certainly was not an overnight success. [Investors] couldn't see the forest for the trees. They weren't visionaries.”  

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Outside the Rainforest Cafe in San Francisco. (Photo: Douglas Neiner/CC BY 2.0)

But Schussler was. Eventually, as Schussler teetered on financial collapse, a gambling magnate named Lyle Berman, made rich by founding Minneapolis’ Grand Casinos, came by Schussler’s homemade jungle. After a few visits, the idea grew on him and he took a chance on the concept—investing $1.2 million dollars and becoming Rainforest Cafe’s first chairman and CEO.

Lucky for Schussler and Berman, their home state already had the perfect place to open a rainforest-themed restaurant experience—live animals and all. Bloomington’s Mall of America, which had launched just a few years earlier, in 1992, was the largest shopping mall in the United States. The Rainforest Cafe would open its doors on February 3, 1994, and within a week the wait for a table was as much as three hours.

Jen Bertsch, who now works as a career coach, helped Schussler open that first Rainforest Cafe. She protested, but after a former co-worker told her to "just come out and see it," she showed up and was blown away by the experience: “When I was walked through it, I felt like I was, all of a sudden, through the hole in Alice in Wonderland or something. [Diners] were shocked. They would stand there and go, ‘What in the heck is this place? What has happened here?’ People would wait in line to eat for 2 hours.”

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Inside the Rainforest Cafe, complete with mechanical elephants, in San Francisco. (Photo: ChameleonsEye/shutterstock.com)

Each Cafe didn’t just have Safari Guides (waiters and waitress), Tour Guides (hosts and hostesses), Pathfinders (retail sales associates), Navigators (bartenders) and Safari Assistants (bussers), but they also needed curators—who took care of the location’s array of live animals – and facility operators—who took care of the location’s array of not-so-live animals.

Rick Peters, the director of operations for San Francisco’s 33,000-square-foot Rainforest Cafe in 2000, told SFGate that there was “an entire control room set up just to monitor the computers necessary to keep all the action in motion.”

"It's not like if a sink is backed up, you can just call a plumber," he said. "If a gorilla's arm stops working, we need someone right here who can fix it immediately."

Debbie Goodrich, who also goes by The Parrot Lady, an educational alter ego, was one of the Rainforest Cafe’s early curators, working at the chain’s second location outside Chicago. She helped to not only take care of the restaurant’s in-house animals, but also to develop off-site school programming for the Rainforest Cafe. Goodrich and her team would bring along coupons: One free kid’s meal if you showed back up at the Rainforest Cafe. Education and marketing, in one fell swoop.

“It finally gave people in the animal world a good salary position,” she says. “We started having curator conferences. It became a very big deal.”

In the next few years, quite a few Rainforest Cafes would pop up across the United States, as its stock, which started at $6 a share at its initial public offering in April of 1995, went from $22 a share in October of the same year to about $50 in June of 1996, bringing in millions more in capital for further expansion. In that same year, a new Cafe opened at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida, a second opened at the Animal Kingdom in Epcot Center in 1998. By 1999, each location was making over $8 million a year—the most revenue per spot of any restaurant in the country. Finally in 2000, despite Schussler’s pleas (and “at a fire sale price,” as he writes in his book), Rainforest Cafe was sold to Landry’s Restaurants Inc., a company that also owns over 500 restaurant, hotel, casino and entertainment destinations, including Bubba Gump Shrimp Company and McCormick & Schmick's. (They would also eventually buy Schussler’s follow-up theme restaurant concept, T-Rex Cafe. Yes, it’s Rainforest Cafe, but with dinosaurs.)

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Inside the "hands-on prehistoric experience" of the T-Rex Cafe. (Photo: Serena/CC BY 2.0)

After the Landry sale, things changed: menu items, decor but most importantly, Schussler’s live birds, which cost each location $100,00 a year, were scrapped. His original vision had been killed—along with the jobs of many of the animal care specialist and curators. “Of course, I didn't agree with Landry's decision,” he writes. “I felt the marketing value of the birds alone justified their cost, but I was overruled.”

Goodrich also remembers when the birds left the Rainforest Cafe: “To me, it's dead [now]. It's no longer Rainforest Cafe the way Steve saw it. Landry's is great as far as their restaurant management and streamlining, [but] when they approached Rainforest Café with their animal element, they absolutely obliterated it in a very bad way. [The animals] were really what set Rainforest Café apart from [being] ‘just a theme restaurant’.”

(The only remaining Rainforest Cafe with live parrots is located in Downtown Disney in Anaheim, CA thanks to a contractual requirement in place before the Landry’s sale.)

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A walkway in the Rainforest Cafe Las Vegas. (Photo: Rob Young/CC BY 2.0)

Rainforest Cafes now pepper the globe—from Atlantic City to Dubai—and a new location just opened in Jakarta. They all feature the “The Wild Bunch”, Rainforest-themed mascots including Cha! Cha! the red eye tree frog and Bamba the Gorilla. They will all feature an Earth-shattering thunderstorm every 17 minutes or so. They will all serve the signature Rainforest-themed dishes including “Rasta Pasta” (sautéed chicken, cavatappi pasta, walnut pesto, broccoli, red peppers, spinach, garlic Alfredo sauce) and the “Sparkling Volcano” (three wedge-shaped brownies propped up by vanilla ice cream and whipped topping on top, drizzled with chocolate and caramel sauce).

While the infamous Sparkling Volcano used to come with a lit sparkler on top, these days the sparkler has been replaced by a wooden rod with an attached shiny ornament. Much like the robotic animals standing in for the real thing, it’s just not quite the same.

 

We Now Have Evidence of a Mega-Asteroid Strike from 3.5 Billion Years ago

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(Photo: NASA/Public Domain)

Some 3.5 billion years ago a massive asteroid slammed into the Earth. This wasn't just any asteroid. Scientists estimate that it was over 12 miles wide, and hit our planet with a force that would've triggered a number of deadly events, from earthquakes to tsunamis. 

Up until recently, this asteroid strike was only theorized about. But on Monday, scientists in Australia said they had made a major breakthrough. They had found surviving particles from the strike, known as spherules, that were left over after parts of the earth were vaporized. 

"Material from the impact would have spread worldwide," Andrew Glikson, one of the researchers announcing the find, said. "These spherules were found in sea floor sediments that date from 3.46 billion years ago."

That also amounts to the first direct evidence we've found confirming the strike, according to Live Science.

Glikson said that it's not known where the asteroid struck, though it was one of potentially hundreds to have hit the young planet.

"Asteroid strikes this big result in major tectonic shifts and extensive magma flows," Glikson said. "They could have significantly affected the way the Earth evolved."

How big was the asteroid, really? The asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs 66 million years ago and created the Chicxulub crater is estimated to be less than half its size

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