Daily Archives: August 30, 2022

What is Creation? | What is Creation? – Patheos

Posted: August 30, 2022 at 10:51 pm

What is Creation?NGC332. Southern Nebula Ring. Bright star in middle James Webb Telescope 2022.

What is creation? Is it the equivalent of the cosmos? Does the very word, creation, imply a transcendent Creator?

Our ecotheologians and ecoethicists tell us we should care for creation. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America once issued a Social Statement: Caring for Creation. Why should we care? What is creation, anyway?

In anotherPatheosseries of posts on economics and the common good, I give voice to the underlying anxiety that the global economic system is destroying our planets fecundity. Should we be worried? How might understanding the natural world as Gods creation affect the way we think?

If nature is a cold word, then creation is a warm word. When we study the physical world scientifically, it is nature that we study. But, nature points beyond itself. This is a major theme of Christian theologythat the natural world, while wonderful in itself, offers a way to begin to discern the glory of God, says theologian Alister McGrath at Oxford(McGrath 1998, 208).

Our term, creation, implies a Creator. More. That Creator abides with us. Loves us. Redeems us. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, says Pope Francis, the word creation has a broader meaning than nature, for it has to do with Gods loving plan in which every creature has its own value and significance.(Pope 2015).

Can Bible-based creation and science-based creation find concord? Yes, says Lorence G. Collins, when synthesizing the Bibles three tier universe with Big Bang. Collins appeals to the Two Books model just as did Galileo: nature tells us about God the creator and the Bible tells us about God the redeemer.

Still we ask: how do we put together these components: nature? Creation? Creativity? God? Not-God? Redemption? Time and Space? Eco-ethics? Well, lets look at some alternative conceptual models that we find in science, Buddhism, mythology, Big History, Hinduism, panentheism, feminism, and orthodox Christianity. Then, Ill tell you what I think.

Cosmos with No Creator: Science

For our scientists, nature is the product of the Big Bang.

When the Big Bang banged 13.82 billion years ago, both nature and history had their beginning. At the very beginning, everything in physical reality was packed densely. It was hot. Then, like a bomb, it exploded. It inflated. Then, it expanded very rapidly and became massive. Gradually, as it cooled, the universe began to differentiate into particles and eventually galaxies and star systems. The cosmos evolved. Its still expanding and still evolving and will continue to do so for another 65 or 100 billion years before it cools into a frozen equilibrium.

No divine creator belongs to this creation story.

A variant of this creation story is the multiverse theory. Deterministic cosmologists believe that every potential becomes actualized. At the point of actualization, a new universe is created. This means that we now have more universes than Florida has mosquitoes.

No divine creator belongs to this creation story either.

Creation with No Beginning: Buddhism

For the Buddhist, the key term is, co-dependent co-creation. There is no beginning. Or end. Rather, creativity is an ongoing creative co-arising of finite things in relentless process. Its called: prattyasamutpda. Individual creatures come into existence and pass out of existence. But, prattyasamutpda continues. Here are Matthieu Ricard and Trinh Xuan Thuan.

All religions and philosophies have come unstuck on the problem of creation. Science has gotten rid of it by removing God the Creator, who had become unnecessary. Buddhism has done so by eliminating the very idea of a beginning(Ricard 2001, 31).

No Creator God. No beginning. Just ongoing creativity.

Creation and Kingship: Mythology

Our pre-scientific ancestors told myths about creator gods. Here is my definition of myth: a myth is a story of how the gods created the world, or a part of it, in the beginning, in illo tempore [the time before there was any time], that explains why things are the way they are today. This definition summarizes the extensive research on myths in archaic cultures pursued by Mircea Eliade(Eliade 1957). Such a myth is clearly archonicthat is, todays reality is determined by its origin.

Conveniently, myths such as the story of the creation of Egypt by the gods Osiris and Isis concluded with justification for the Pharaohs rule on the throne. The teller of the myth typically comes out to be the crown of the creation story.

Creativity in Evolution: Big History

Proponents of the new field of Big History are willing to turn Big Bang science into a modern creation myth that explains everything of meaning to the human race. The idea of creation here is not connected to a divine creator. Rather, creation is an expression of natures creativity and, especially, human creativity.

Big History is in the myth business. The Big Bang and the history of evolution constitute Big Historys myth. Curiously, the truth of the myth is allegedly found in its belief, not in its empirical evidence. This is what big historian David Christian says. So, the strongest claim we can make about the truth of a modern creation myth is that it offers a unified account of origins from the perspective of the early twenty-first century (Christian, 2004, p.6).

There is no divine creator in this scientized myth.

Creation as Brahmans Self-Differentiation: Hinduism

The ancient Upanishadic sages asserted that all things are only one thing. That one thing is Brahman. Actually, Brahman is not a thing. To be a thing, a thing has to be distinguishable from other things. But Brahman is not distinguishable from anything. Rather, it is the underlying reality that makes thinghood possible. Brahman is fullness, the unity underlying all plurality. What we experience as the multiplicity of created things is the self-differentiation of Brahman(Peters, God in Cosmic History: Where Science and Big History Meet Religion 2017).

A Hindu can be both a pantheistbelieving all things manifest the one divine realityand also a polytheistaffirming many gods. The many gods, accordingly, are each a manifestation of the one Brahman. Hindu theologian, Rita Sherma, observes that supreme divinity is most importantly manifested in three divine figures: Shiva (iva), Vishnu (Viu), and Mahadevi (Mahdev)(Sherma 2017).

Hindus are finally mystics. Your and my spiritual task is to wake up and realize that each created thingincluding our own self or atmanis actually Brahman.

The World as Gods Body: Panentheism

The panentheist holds that the world is Gods body. In the case of process philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead, creation is like the body and God is like the mind. They are interdependent yet distinct.

On the one hand, for all panentheists the being of the world is dependent on God while the being of God is dependent on the world. Yet, there is more to God than the world alone. The world does not exhaust the being of God. Many feminist theologians like the analogy: the world is Gods body.

There is no beginning of creation in panentheism. Only creativity within an everlasting world process.

Creation as God/ess Body: Feminism

Gayle Berry

The metaphorthe world is Gods bodyappeals to feminist theologians. Feminists typically de-gender the divine. More importantly, the image of the divine becomes a prompt for ethical responsibility, especially ecological responsibility. Moral action is both creative and redemptive. Here is the late Rosemary Radford Ruether.

The God/ess who underlies creation and redemption is One. We cannot split a spiritual, antisocial redemption from the human self as a social being, embedded in sociopolitical and ecological systems. We must recognize sin precisely in this splitting and deformation of our true relationships to creation and to our neighbor and find liberation in an authentic harmony with all that is incarnate in our social, historical being. Socioeconomic humanization is indeed the outward manifestation of redemption(Ruether 1983, 215-216).

Creatio ex nihilo: Orthodox Christianity

God by the power of his Word and Spirit created heaven and earth out of nothing, exclaims the Reformer, John Calvin (Calvin 1960, I,xiv,20, 179-180). The orthodox Christian traditionboth orthodox and Orthodoxis that Gods original creation was out of nothing,creatio ex nihilo.

This means time and space came into existence at the beginning, at the moment when God spoke, and things began to happen. Heres Orthodox theologian Andrew Louth.

Creation out of nothing does indeed mean that the created order does not flow from within Gods being, as it were, as some kind of extension or emanation of his being, but it does not mean that creation is remote from the divine. On the contrary, God is intimately present to all his creatures(Louth 2013, 40).

This means, among other things, that no aspect of created reality can be fully explained without reference to its Creator God, according to Roy Clouser at the College of New Jersey.

All the entities found in the universe, along with all the kinds of properties they possess, all the laws that hold among properties of each kind, as well as causal laws, and all the precondition-relations that hold between properties of different kinds, depend not only ultimately, but directly, on God(Clouser 2006, 12).

Both deists and theists are likely to embracecreatio ex nihilo.What the deist says is that God created the world in the beginning and then went on vacation to Acapulco. The deistic deity no longer intervenes in cosmic processes. The laws of nature govern without divine intervention.

According to the theist, in contrast to the deist, God does not abandon the creation. God is not on vacation. Rather God supplements creatio ex nihilo at the beginning with an ongoing providential presence. This providential activity many theologians call, continuing creation or creatio continua.

Creation and Creationism: Answers in Genesis

Dont confuse creation with creationism. The latter adds a ism to our word, creation. Todays creationists reaffirm creatio ex nihilo, to be sure. Then they add a specific interpretation of Genesis 1:1-2:4a. Here is Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis.

God created the heavens and the earth fully formed and functioning in six days, 6,000 years ago, around 4004 BC. The context of Genesis 1, as well as other places in Scripture, makes it clear these days were ordinary, 24-hour days. Gods original creation was perfect, with no death or suffering.

How big is Gods creation? Eco-ethicists have been striving to persuade us to become geocentric rather than anthropocentric. I laud Whitney Baumans planetary thinking, for example. Our moral maxim: treat Planet Earth as our only home! There is no Planet B. So, we had better care for Planet A.

But, I ask: what about cosmic consciousness? What if we have space neighbors? What if we share our solar system with microbial life on Mars or Titan? What if we share the Milky Way Galaxy with an intelligent civilizationon an exoplanet? And, what about the cosmos beyond our galaxy? Can we transcend geocentrism? Yes, affirms theologian and ethicist John Hart. We should orient our ethics around a cosmic commons, Hart claims.

Here at the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences in Berkeley, weve been developing a new accent in the field of astrotheology. Try this for a definition ofastrotheology,namely, Gods creative and redemptive work is cosmic in scope.

Christian Astrotheology is that branch of theology which provides a critical analysis of the contemporary space sciences combined with an explication of classic doctrines such as creation and Christology for the purpose of constructing a comprehensive and meaningful understanding of our human situation within an astonishingly immense cosmos.

At the gracious invitation of the editors of HTS (Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies), an open access journal, Ive just published a manifesto of sorts on the doctrine of creation. The title? Can We Locate Our Origin in the Future? Archonic versus Epigenetic Creation Accounts.

Ive been refining the concept of proleptic creationaccording to which neither the cosmos nor you or I will be fully created until we are redeemedsince my very first work on the topic, FuturesHuman and Divine, in 1978(Peters, FuturesHuman and Divine 1978). The pivotal thesis is that God creates from the future, not the past. This thesis is refined and reiterated in the most recent edition of my systematic theology, GodThe Worlds Future(Peters, GodThe Worlds Future: Systematic Theology for a New Era 2015).

If at this moment youve become intrigued with this topic, I recommend you click over to the more detailed article, Can We Locate Our Origin in the Future? Archonic versus Epigenetic Creation Accounts. If youre lazy or partially bored, then read the summary in the next few paragraphs.

We will not be created until we have been redeemed

To be human means to be in the world, to have a history, and to share the physical life of the cosmos, contends Kristin Johnston Largen(Largen 2021, 191). There is a problem, however. The problem with this sharing the history of the cosmos is the problem of sin, evil, and suffering. This is the problem of the free human self. The problem of selfishness. The problem of emphasizing the fragmented part at the cost of harmony to the whole.

With sin and its accompanying estrangement in mind, we can view the epigenetic understanding of Gods creative process as one of complementarity, synthesis, and renewal. As Augustine makes clear, our deepest personal aim is to center our lives on God and, in turn, center ourselves in the whole. Such is the fulfillment of human destiny. To assert oneself in resistance against this destiny constitutes sin and produces evil. Evil arises, writes Reinhold Niebuhr, when the fragment seeks by its own wisdom to comprehend the whole or attempts by its own power to realise it(Niebuhr 1941, 1:168). Will evil last forever?

The creation as we know it today groans in travail, awaiting the birth of a healed cosmos and a healed soul. The end is eternal life.For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:22-23). The end is both finis as conclusion and telos as goal to be fulfilled.

This double connotation of end as both finis and telos expresses, in a sense, the whole character of human history and reveals the fundamental problem of human existence. All things in history move towards both fulfillment and dissolution, towards the fuller embodiment of their essential character and towards death. The problem is that the end as finis is a threat to the end as telos.The Christian faith understands this aspect of the human situation.it is not within mans power to solve this vexing problem(Niebuhr 1941, 2:287).

God alone saves. God saves by absorbing the estranged parts into a healing whole, a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

South African systematic theologian Klaus Nrnberger illuminates eschatological redemption by shining the light of emergent holism. The scientific theory of emergence has taught us thatany whole is something more than, and something different from, the sum total of its components. The reason is that the whole is constituted by relationships between components, rather than the characteristics of the individual components(Nrnberger 2016, 1:19). Gods promised eschatological redemption is best understood as overcoming sin through holistic healing. Christian eschatology is a protest of what ought to become against what has become and seemingly will becomeand that in the name of a powerful and loving God(Nrnberger 2016, 2:501).

Only when the whole of reality has harmoniously integrated all the self-oriented parts will we be able to say that God has finally created the world. Only when each of us individually has been freely integrated into the kingdom of God can God look at the creation and declare, Behold! It is very good (Genesis 1:1-2:4a).

As you can see, there are many conceptual models for understanding nature as creation. Both Big Bang and the Bible depict creation as having a beginning followed by a history with a future. The beginning looks pretty much the same in the two models. They are consonant.

But, this does not apply to the future. Whereas the Big Bang model forecasts a future in which all hot things will freeze into an equilibrium and die, the biblical vision anticipates an eschatological renewal of creation wrought by God. When it comes to the future, Big Bang and the Bible are dissonant.

Heres what I think. Because nature is epigenetic and historical, the present moment is ontologically open to the future. Nature and history are together open even to the future of God.

I would like to say more. I would like our systematic theologians to construct a retroactive ontology with greater explanatory power than competing archonic ontologies. The initial axiom for retroactive ontology is this: to be is to have a future. It is God who calls us into being by graciously offering us and our cosmos a future.

Gods future-giving comes in two forms. Negatively, God is releasing creatures such as you and me from the chains of our origin and from recent efficient causes each moment. Each moment God lays before us a finite set of potentials, possibilities that prompt us to deliberate, decide and take action. By taking action, we liberated free creatures play a creative role. We become one efficient cause among many in the history of creation.

Positively, God makes promises. By raising Jesus from the dead on the first Easter, God promises to raise you and me as well into the new creation. Actually, more can be said here. By raising Jesus from the dead on the first Easter, God has actually begun his eschatological work of redemption. The final advent of the kingdom of God in which all estranged parts will be taken up into a transfiguring whole defines the very quiddity of what happened at Easter. Our past Easter takes its essence from its future in Gods kingdom. The Big Bang genesis of creation gains its essence from the new creation proleptically anticipated in Jesus Easter.

Omega retroactively defines Alpha. Omega invites each of us into the everlasting future of Gods new creation.

Ted Peters directs traffic at the intersection of science, religion, and ethics. Peters is an emeritus professor at the Graduate Theological Union, where he co-edits the journal, Theology and Science, on behalf of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, in Berkeley, California, USA. His book, God in Cosmic History, traces the rise of the Axial religions 2500 years ago. He previously authored Playing God? Genetic Determinism and Human Freedom? (Routledge, 2nd ed., 2002) as well as Science, Theology, and Ethics (Ashgate 2003). He is editor of AI and IA: Utopia or Extinction? (ATF 2019). Along with Arvin Gouw and Brian Patrick Green, he co-edited the new book, Religious Transhumanism and Its Critics hot off the press (Roman and Littlefield/Lexington, 2022). Soon he will publish The Voice of Christian Public Theology (ATF 2022). See his website: TedsTimelyTake.com.

Teds fictional spy thriller, Cyrus Twelve, follows the twists and turns of a transhumanist plot.

Notes

Calvin, John. 1960. Institutes of the Christian Religion, 2 Volumes. Louisville KY: Westminster John Knox.

Clouser, Roy, 2006. Prospects for Theistic Science.Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith,58:1 (March 2006) 2-15.

Eliade, Mircea. 1957. The Sacred and the Profane. New York: Harcourt Brace and World.

Keller, Catherine. 2003. The Face of the Deep: A Theology of Becoming. London: Routledge.

Largen, Kristin. 2021. Plurality and Salvation: Possibilities in Pannenbergs Soteriology for Comparative Theology. In The Enduring Promise of Wolfhart Pannenberg, by ed Andrew Hollingsworth, 183-200. Lanham MA: Lexington.

Louth, Andrew. 2013. Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology. Downers Grove IL: IVP Academic.

McGrath, Alister. 1998. The Foundations of Dialogue in Science and Religion. Oxford: Blackwell.

Niebuhr, Reinhold. 1941. The Nature and Destiny of Man, 2 Volumes. New York: Scribners.

Nrnberger, Klaus. 2016. Faith in Christ Today: Invitation to Systematic Theology, 2 Volumes. Minneapolis: Fortress.

Peters, Ted. 1978. FuturesHuman and Divine. Louisville KY: Westminster John Knox.

. 2017. God in Cosmic History: Where Science and Big History Meet Religion. Winona MN: Anselm Academic ISBN 978-1-59982-813-8.

. 2015. GodThe Worlds Future: Systematic Theology for a New Era. 3rd. Minneapolis MN: Fortress Press.

Pope, Francis. 2015. Laudato Si. http://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html, Vatican: Vatican City State.

Rahner, Karl. 1978. Foundations of the Christian Faith. New York: Seabury Crossroad.

Ricard, Matthieu and Trinh Xuan Thuan. 2001. The Quantum and the Lotus. New York: Random House, Crown Books.

Ruether, Rosemary. 1983. Sexism and God-Talk. Boston: Beacon.

Sherma, Rita. 2017. Hinduism and the Divine: An Introduction to Hindu Theology. London: IB Tauris.

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Orcas at play keep residents watching waters off Oak Bay – vancouverislandfreedaily.com

Posted: at 10:49 pm

A handful of orcas frolicked and fished along the coast, and were spotted near Oak Bay Marina through to McNeill Bay over a handful of hours Sunday evening.

Many captured videos in the latest trend of land-based whale watching. Several boats were also in the area.

Reports are frequent from both ship and shore this time of year. By noon Monday (Aug. 29), the Pacific Whale Watch Association operators had already spotted six different groups of Biggs killer whales throughout the Salish Sea.

READ ALSO: Watch 14 clips of a grey whale at play near Victoria

The area has been home to injured and captive orca in the past.

In 1977, the saltwater pool at the original Oak Bay Beach Hotel was briefly home to an injured young orca from Nanaimo. Dubbed Miracle, it stayed six months before being relocated to nearby Sealand of the Pacific at what is now Oak Bay Marina.

Sealand was most famous for its killer whales and the controversy of whales in captivity, including the 1991 death of trainer Keltie Byrne in the whale tank.

Miracle died in captivity in the early 1980s and the Oak Bay attraction closed in 1992.

Now, the wild whales keep active through the Salish Sea. Earlier this year, Greater Victoria scored a new record with 72 whales spotted in one day.

Those at sea in B.C. are reminded to stay at least 100 metres from humpbacks, gray whales, and minke whales and 200 metres from whales if they appear to be resting or have a calf. Boaters must remain 400 metres from all killer whales between Campbell River and Ucluelet.

Do you have a story tip? Email: vnc.editorial@blackpress.ca.

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oak bayOrca

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Nearly two months after conviction, possible juror misconduct still hangs over P.G. Sittenfeld trial – WCPO 9 Cincinnati

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CINCINNATI Nearly two months after a jury convicted former Cincinnati City Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld of public corruption, attorneys are still fighting over potential juror misconduct, raising the specter of a possible mistrial.

At issue is a female juror, who is known as Juror X, who made multiple posts on Facebook during the high-profile trial, including during jury selection and on the night before the verdict was announced.

Sittenfelds legal team has been pushing for a forensic exam of her electronic devices, to see what else she may have posted. That issue is now before the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The investigation into juror misconduct has been shrouded from public view. Most court filings that mention specifics of what jurors are accused of doing or saying, are either heavily redacted or under seal. And U.S. District Court Judge Douglas Cole has apparently held three hearings on the matter behind closed doors including two on the day the verdict was announced, July 8, and another on Aug. 17.

It gives a perception of unfairness, said Darren Ford, an attorney for WCPO. It gives a perception that proceedings of such grave importance as this are taking place behind closed doors, without affording the press and the public an opportunity to monitor whats going on.

Sketch by: Marlene Steele

On Monday attorneys for WCPO and The Cincinnati Enquirer sent a joint letter to Cole asking for more access. The media outlets want all future hearings in the Sittenfeld case to be placed on the courts public docket, allowing them a chance to object if a hearing is expected to be closed.

Defense attorneys filed a motion on July 22 demanding an inquiryinto Juror Xs electronic devices.

Unbeknowst to the media, Cole denied that motion for a forensic exam on Aug. 3. The judge kept the order under seal until last week, allowing time for Sittenfelds attorneys to conduct a closed-door hearing to further question two jurors, according to court filings.

If the juror examination did occur, our clients were deprived of the opportunity to be heard on the issue of their exclusion from that hearing, as they had no advance knowledge that it was to occur, and when, Ford wrote.

After a three-week trial, jurors convicted Sittenfeld of bribery and attempted extortion. He accepted $40,000 in campaign donations from FBI agents who were posing as developers and wanted his help on their Convention Place Mall project downtown.

Sittenfeld was the third council member the FBI arrested in 2020 on public corruption charges as a result of a massive sting at City Hall involving at least three undercover FBI agents and multiple informants who secretly recorded numerous elected leaders.

Marlene Steele

The Sittenfeld case has been, and continues to be, of great interest to the greater Cincinnati public the role of the press in bringing information on the post-trial proceedings into alleged juror misconduct to the public is no less important than the role it played during the conduct of the trial itself, Ford wrote.

Media outlets are also petitioning the appeals court to release transcripts of the secret hearings about juror misconduct and juror questionnaires. WCPO asked the appeals court to unseal Coles order on the forensic exam, but he has since unsealed it.

The court will allow Sittenfeld to designate two other jurors for further questioning to be conducted in an in camera (closed) hearing, Cole wrote in an Aug. 3 order. The court will seal this opinion pending completion of the juror testimony the courts concern is that making this decision public in advance of the contemplated juror testimony may result in tainting that testimony in some manner.

Secret ruling made in PG Sittenfeld efforts for new trial

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Scientists reveal new features of the elusive leopard seal – Earth.com

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Although leopard seals are some of Antarcticas apex predators, their solitary habits and lethal reputation, combined with their habitats extreme climate, make them one of the most difficult top predators to study on Earth. However, a research team led by Baylor University has now attempted to shed more light on these fascinating creatures activities and behavioral patterns by studying 22 leopard seals off the Western Antarctica Peninsula, a region rapidly warming.

By weighing and measuring each seal and tracking their activities and diving patterns using satellite data and GPS tags, the scientists managed to document the flexible behaviors and traits which may offer leopard seals the necessary resilience to cope to Antarcticas warming climate and environmental stresses.

This study greatly increases our understanding of leopard seals life history, spatial patterns, and diving behavior, said study lead author Sarah Kienle, an assistant professor of Biology at Baylor. We show that these leopard seals have high variability (or, flexibility) in these different traits. Across the animal kingdom, variability is vital for animals adapting and responding to changes in their environment, so were excited to see high variability in this Antarctic predator.

The analyses revealed that adult female leopard seals are 1.5 larger and longer than their male counterparts, an unusual phenomenon among marine mammals. According to the researchers, larger females may be better at defending feeding areas, and stealing prey from smaller seals. Moreover, they consume bigger, energy-rich prey, such as fur seals or penguins, while smaller females and males frequently eat smaller prey, like krill or fish.

Females also spend more time hauled-out on ice than males. For instance, two females spent two weeks hauled-out on ice in the middle of the ocean, without getting into the water or eating. The scientists argue that this two-week period is when female seals give birth and nurse their pups. Soon after, they wean their offspring and return to their usual activities.

Another interesting finding is that female and male leopard seals are capable of swimming both short and long distances in coastal, as well as open-ocean habitats. For example, one seal travelled only 46 kilometers from where the research team was located, while another one travelled 1,700 kilometers during the same period.

Finally, leopard seals of both sexes appear to be short, shallow divers, reaching an average of 30 meters deep during three-minute-long dives. However, there are exceptions too, with a male diving to 1,256 meters for 25 minutes.

Its interesting to see such variation [in movements and dive behavior] in a relatively small number of animals. To me, this means that leopard seals are highly flexible in their movement patterns, and thats a really good thing in terms of adapting to changes in your environment, Professor Kienle said.

In future research, the scientists aim to compare these leopard seals with other population across the Southern Ocean. I have so many more questions, and Im excited to continue learning about leopard seals for years to come. Theres so much more to discover about this incredible Antarctic predator, Kienle concluded.

The study is published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Research.

By Andrei Ionescu, Earth.com Staff Writer

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BYD Could Launch A Luxury EV In The US – carandbike

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By some metrics, Chinese major BYD has already usurped Tesla as the worlds largest seller of electric cars. That of course comes with the caveat of including plug-in hybrid vehicles that BYD sells. It already has a big portfolio of electric cars but now this year it could be launching a premium EV in the US that could cost as much as $145,000.

The plan for BYD is to increase the cost of its high-end electric cars by over 1 million yuan which is around $145,000. Already the starting point for its premium EVs is $116,000. As per only EV sales are concerned, BYD was only beaten by SAIC in China as it sold 320,000 battery electric vehicles.

Already BYD has sold more than half a million cars in China despite lockdowns and a re-emergence of COVID, it continues to expand aggressively. It will be launching in the Japanese market with models like the Dolphin, Seal, and ATTO 3. It has already closed a partnership with European auto dealer Hedin Mobility - fuelling growth in the European market with deliveries starting in Germany and Sweden later in the year.

Currently, the only model that BYD has is the Denza D9 which has been developed thanks to a co-development deal with Mercedes Benz. That car costs $96,000, so this could be something new.

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How to dry dishes faster – Better Homes and Gardens

Posted: at 10:49 pm

Luckily, there's a solution for that.

A mum has taken to her Instagram page, @brunchwithbabs, to share a tip that will dry your dishes in five minutes.

"Has this ever happened to you? You're ready to unload the dishwasher, and guess what!? Everything is still wet," says Babs.

"Don't hand dry - do this instead."

She explains, "Take a terry cloth dish towel, open the door, lay it right over. Just close the door. Wait five minutes. You'll have dry dishes."

Watch the video here.

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Many people thanked Babs for the great tip and confirmed that it really does work.

Have been doing it since I first saw it here, said one commenter.

Another added: "Such a great tip! Mine are never dry at the end of the cycle. I'm definitely going to try this.

Others cautioned Babs viewers with a warning.

"It can/will compromise dishwasher seal and locking mechanism, causing costly repairs or early replacement," someone warned.

Getty

Turn the heat up:if you run run out of dishwasher tablets or detergent, turning the temperature up and running a cycle with plain water may work.

Don't rinse: dishwashers are perfectly capable of cleaning your dishes without you pre-rinsing them. That said, you should take the time to scrape as much food off your dishes as possible before popping them in your dishwasher. Otherwise, the food will accumulate in your dishwasher.

Clean your dishwasher once a month: remove soap build-up and odours using vinegar. Pour around 1 cup (250ml) of vinegar into the bottom of the unit or into a bowl on the top or bottom rack, then run the machine through a complete cycle with no dishes or detergents. Make sure you check your manual first, though. Some manufacturers warn against using vinegar in dishwashers.

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Expert washing machine and dishwasher tips

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Thousands of potholes filled in Port Stephens – 2hd

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The drive through Port Stephens should be a little less bumpy with thousands of potholes having been filled since July.

More than 8,000 potholes have been filled thanks to a run of sunshine and dry weather after the flood events last month. Theres still around 900 left on the list for Council workers to fill and that list is usually only around 50.

Mayor Ryan Palmer said the repair and maintenance of the roads is one of the communitys biggest priorities.

The most recent damage to our roads has impacted residents, business and visitors alike, Mayor Palmer said.

Council has a road network that covers more than 800kms. Our teams are out fixing potholes as quickly as they can but its been a huge task, he added.

Many of our roads were designed decades ago, on old infrastructure in low lying locations where water takes a long time to dry out. Water gets under the road pavement or through cracks in the surface and without very much effort at all, the road opens up and creates potholes.

Mayor Ryan Palmer said Council is excited to launch a series of educational videos,answering some key FAQs to help thecommunity understand how we build and maintain roads and manage our potholes in Port Stephens.

The information outlines what roads Council is responsible for, how we determine which road we repair next and our process for pothole repairs,

The videos found on Councils website explain the difference between a wet seal and dry seal, why we often have to repair the same pothole more than once and why we rehabilitate roads that look like they dont need it, he added.

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Thousands of potholes filled in Port Stephens - 2hd

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