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From today's featured article

Oceanic whitetip shark swimming near a diver

The oceanic whitetip shark is a large requiem shark inhabiting tropical and warm temperate seas. It has a stocky body with long, white-tipped, rounded fins. The species is typically solitary but can congregate around food concentrations. It is found worldwide between 45°N and 43°S latitudes in deep, open oceans. Bony fish and cephalopods are the main components of its diet. Females give live birth after a gestation period of nine to twelve months. Though slow-moving, it is opportunistic, aggressive, and reputed to be dangerous to shipwreck survivors. The shark was once extremely common and widely distributed; up to the 16th century, mariners noted that this species was the most common ship-following shark. The species has now been listed as critically endangered, and recent studies show steeply declining populations worldwide as the sharks are harvested for their fins and meat, like many other shark species. (Full article...)

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In the news

Keir Starmer

The New Popular Front wins the most seats in the National Assembly in the French legislative election but does not achieve a majority.
The Labour Party wins the United Kingdom general election and Keir Starmer (pictured) becomes prime minister.
Hurricane Beryl, the earliest-recorded Category 5 Atlantic hurricane in a calendar year, leaves at least 15 people dead in the Caribbean, Venezuela, and the United States.
In the Netherlands, a new cabinet is sworn in, with Dick Schoof serving as the prime minister.

Did you know

Dreamtime

... that Dreamtime (pictured) is one of the world's most famous bouldering routes?
... that Jopie and Teun Roosenburg led an art colony at Oost Castle that helped Jewish refugees escape the Nazi-occupied Netherlands to Belgium?
... that Flyover, a 2023 science fiction novel by an American author, portraying a dystopian future where part of the US becomes a theocracy, was published in French but not in English?
... that Anna Russell Cole, a significant benefactor of Vanderbilt University, donated $10,000 in 1926 to endow the office of dean of women?
... that in The Servile State, Hilaire Belloc criticized socialism for being too similar to capitalism?
... that the 2024 Doctor Who episode "Dot and Bubble" was first conceptualized in 2009?
... that rapper Gmac Cash attempted to gift a pair of Cartier glasses to Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan?
... that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers players wore white uniforms during a snowy NFL game, which made them extremely difficult for their quarterback to see?
... that barbarians would have bought cake, not pie, at Barbara's Rhubarb Bar?

On this day

July 9

Wolfgang and Maria Anna Mozart

1763 – The Mozart family grand tour began, presenting child prodigies Maria Anna and Wolfgang (both pictured) in Western Europe.
1877 – The inaugural Wimbledon Championship, the world's oldest tennis tournament, began in London.
1896 – Politician William Jennings Bryan made his Cross of Gold speech advocating bimetallism, considered one of the greatest political speeches in American history.
1958 – An earthquake struck Lituya Bay, Alaska; the subsequent megatsunami, the largest in modern times, reached an elevation of 1,720 ft (524 m).
1962 – In a seminal moment for pop art, Andy Warhol's Campbell's Soup Cans exhibition opened at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles.

Ann Radcliffe (b. 1764)
Anna Morandi Manzolini (d. 1774)
Courtney Love (b. 1964)
Fernando de la Rúa (d. 2019)

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Today's featured picture

Dictyophorus spumans, the koppie foam grasshopper, is a species of grasshopper in the family Pyrgomorphidae, indigenous to southern Africa. The name "foam grasshopper" derives from the insect's ability to produce a toxic foam from its thoracic glands, using a combination of hemolymph with air from the grasshopper's spiracles. Adult males are typically 4.5 to 5 centimetres (1.8 to 2.0 inches) long, and females typically 5 to 7 centimetres (2.0 to 2.8 inches), but individual grasshoppers can grow up to a length of 8 centimetres (3.1 inches). This grasshopper of the subspecies D. s. spumans was photographed in the Walter Sisulu National Botanical Garden in Roodepoort, South Africa.

Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp