€40 million project to replace San Luċjan Fuel Storage Facility announced

Mar 22 2022

The Minister for Energy and Sustainable Energy Miriam Dalli announced a €40 million project in order to regenerate the San Lucjan Fuel Storage Facility. This was used for the storage of oil but will now be transformed into a facility for recreation for families and an investment into new niches.

The project will be known as Siċċa and it will offer 18,000 square meters of recreational space to increase the amount of open areas in the South of Malta. The Siċċa project will serves a unique centre in the heart of the Mediterranean for research and innovation into industries such as aquaculture, blue economies and circular economies.

The project was designed in an innovative way by a renowned International company known as Pininfarina. It will not only be complimented by the natural environment surrounding the project but it will be equipped with natural measures to help in the fight against climate change.

70% of the project will operate on renewable energy and half of it will serve as recreational public space. Minister Miriam Dalli said that this project will be a catalyst to attract other sustainable projects such as this to our island.

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Photo Source: Miriam Dalli FB

Gray whales often engage in threesomes… and dolphins watch

Mar 22 2022

So, get this. Gray Whales apparently just love getting it on in groups of three and they do it quite regularly.

According to Christopher Fitzsimmons, who is an education specialist at the Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the huge mammal regularly mates in pods of three.

The threesome often involves two males and a female, with the whales rolling and rubbing to get themselves familiar with one another and to make sure the female is receptive to mating.

It turns out that the whales use their pectoral fins to coerce and align female whales into mating positions. Female whales are highly selective when choosing mates as they are pregnant for around 13 months and spend around a year nursing.

Females are observed avoiding the advances of males for days on end, but when they do engage in mating, the males act as ‘wing-men.’

The Gray whales engage in mating triads wherein one male props the other male up to mate and then they flip position. And it gets weirder… dolphins are often seen near large whale mating rituals for unclear reasons.

The whales often know that the dolphins are there and it appears that they sometimes have fun with them by swimming upside down. The whales are also suspected to mate just for the fun and not just for child rearing.

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Two new frogs discovered in Ecuador are see-through

Mar 22 2022

Just 10 miles away from Ecuador’s capital city Quito are the slopes the Andes shelter which is one of the most biologically diverse and threatened spots in the tropical area.

Here, two newly identified species of glass frogs were discovered in a river called the Guayllabamba. What is special about the frogs is that they are see-through!

This means that underneath, the frogs have a completely transparent belly which shows a red heart, textured white liver and digestive system. In females, the belly also shows a pouch of greenish eggs.

It turns out the two newly discovered frogs are of a different species, with both existing at roughly the same altitude in similar humidity and temperature conditions.

At just around 1.9 to 2.1 centimetres long, the bodies are nearly identical to the naked eye, with lime-green backs peppered by black dots arranged around yellow spots.

There are around 156 known species of glass frogs living throughout the neotropics. With researchers sequencing genes for about 90% of the 150 existing species for the past decade, this revealed that the two new discovered frogs diverge genetically by 5%.

Due to environmental differences between the habitats of the two species, the populations started to get an accumulation of different mutations, separating them genetically.

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28,000 people sign petition to get Kanye West off Coachella line-up

Mar 22 2022

Thousands are calling for Coachella to dump Kanye West after the alleged abusive threats the rapper hurled at Kim Kardashian and her boyfriend Pete Davidson.

The rapper, who is now legally named Ye, was set to perform at the 2022 Coachella festival next month alongside rappers such as Big Sean and Lil baby.

However, a Change.org petition surfaced which demanded that the rapper be banned from the event. It gained some traction, racking up almost 29,000 signatures as of time of writing.

With a goal of reaching 35,000 signatures, the petition states that ‘we have watched Kanye harass, manipulate and hurt Kim, Pete and others for over a year now.’

‘No one seems to want to stand up to him, and the ones that do, he puts under fire as well. Most recently, he has been threatening actual bodily harm on others’ said the petition.

‘This is ridiculous that he is allowed to freely do this. Coachella should be ashamed of themselves and should not be giving him any more of a platform.’ West was recently banned from Instagram after he violated the platform’s guidelines on hate speech and harassment.

The Daily Show host Trevor Noah, who was targeted by Ye for publicly calling him out, said that even though people may not feel sorry for Kim due to her being ‘rich and famous’, what she is going through is terrifying to watch.

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