Latest news with #Paulette
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Climate
- Yahoo
How Hurricanes Hundreds Of Miles Away From The US Can Still Be A Danger For Beach Trips
A hurricane passing hundreds of miles offshore this summer means no big deal for your beach trip, right? Wrong. The ocean waters can still be a threat in the form of rip currents generated by distant hurricanes, as we've seen multiple times in recent years. -First, What Is A Rip Current? They are strong but narrow currents that flow away from the beach and pose a threat to all swimmers (even strong ones) by carrying them farther out to sea, possibly resulting in drowning or serious injury. Rip currents can develop at any beach with breaking waves. -How Distant Hurricanes Create A Rip Current Danger: Waves generated by strong winds near the center of a hurricane often propagate hundreds of miles away to the U.S. coastline in the form of swells. The example below shows the swells from a hurricane creating rough waters and a rip current danger along much of the East Coast as it passes offshore more than 500 miles away. -A Deceiving Beach Scenario: So while you might be enjoying a bright, sunny day at the beach in the scenario above, the hurricane-generated rip currents and high surf mean you should stay out of the ocean. -Lorenzo In 2019 A Radical Example: The hurricane passed nearly 2,000 miles away from the East Coast. High surf and rip currents from the hurricane's swells caused eight people to lose their lives from Rhode Island to Florida. -Other Recent Hurricanes: Lee in 2023, Larry in 2021 and Teddy and Paulette in 2020 are some other examples of hurricanes that passed near Bermuda, or even farther east, that still caused deadly rip currents on the East Coast. -Last Year, Too: Tropical Storm Alberto tracked into Mexico in June 2024, but contributed to a rip current death on the Texas Gulf Coast near Galveston. Hurricane Ernesto's track near Bermuda in August 2024 generated rip currents that claimed three lives along the Southeast coast, including Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, and Surf City, North Carolina. -Heed Warnings And Forecasts: Anytime you're headed to any beach, you should be aware of the rip current risk each day, no matter whether a distant offshore hurricane is present or not. If in doubt, just stay out of the ocean until you can get further informed. -Ways To Get Informed: There are color-coded flags placed on many beaches each day to communicate the current threat. A green flag (low risk) indicates that strong rip currents are not likely. A yellow flag (moderate risk) means that there is a good chance for strong rip currents and a red flag (high risk) signals that strong rip currents are expected. You can also get a daily rip current forecast from NOAA, and the National Hurricane Center will provide maps starting in 2025 to convey the threat posed by active tropical systems. -What To Do If Caught In A Rip Current: Remain calm to conserve energy and don't try to swim against the current. Think of it as a treadmill that can't be turned off, which you need to step to the side of. Swim out of the current in a direction parallel to the shoreline, or toward breaking waves. From there, swim at an angle toward the beach once out of the current. If you are unable to swim out of a rip current, float or calmly tread water. Once you are out of the current, swim toward shore. Draw attention to yourself by waving your arm and yelling for help if you feel you will be unable to reach the shore. Chris Dolce has been a senior digital meteorologist with for nearly 15 years after beginning his career with The Weather Channel in the early 2000s.
Yahoo
03-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
When was beer invented?
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Beer is one of the most popular beverages in the world, with nearly every country having its own local lager. In the U.S. alone, the overall beer market in 2023 totaled $116.9 billion, and breweries shipped out 192 million barrels of beer. But the ice-cold, bubbly beverage we know today didn't always exist. So when was beer invented? The answer traces back thousands of years. But there's still some mystery surrounding the exact origins of beer, and the beer of ancient times probably didn't taste anything like what you're used to today. "We don't actually know exactly how [beer] was discovered," Tate Paulette, an associate professor of history at North Carolina State University, told Live Science. "Partly because of the kind of evidence we have, it's unlikely that we're going to get that kind of answer." Because humans discovered fermentation so long ago, it's difficult to find evidence of exactly where beer-making began, Paulette explained. Much of the evidence comes from organic-residue analysis, he said. Using this technique, archaeologists can identify the chemical signatures of grain fermentation on ancient ceramic or stone vessels. Researchers have found strong evidence of beer brewing as far back as the Neolithic period (10,000 to 4,000 years ago), when agriculture took root, in sites all around the world. Kirk French, an assistant professor of anthropology at Penn State, pointed to 9,000-year-old sites in China as the best evidence for ancient beer brewing. At the Qiaotou archaeological site in southeastern China, archaeologists found residues of plants, yeast and mold on ancient pots near human skeletons, suggesting that they once contained a beer-like fermented beverage. Analyses suggest that the beverage those pots contained also included rice, tubers and fungi. Another site in China from the same time period, Jiahu, also contains bronze vessels with chemical signatures of grain fermentation, as well as residues of rice, honey and fruit. French said the Jiahu site contains the most foolproof evidence of ancient beer because the chemical residues were found in drinking vessels. There are even older potential instances of beer brewing, but the evidence isn't as strong. That's because analyses of the older sites rely on residues found on cookware, which also could have been used to make bread or porridge; both foods involve a small amount of fermentation and can leave the same chemical signatures as beer brewing. Related: Why is alcohol used to preserve things? One of these older sites is an 11,000-year-old cultic feasting location in Turkey. At the site, named Göbekli Tepe, researchers found large stone kilns with residues of ground grain. Although these kilns also could have been used to grind grain for bread, one of the researchers argues that the finish on the stone suggests the grain was ground coarsely, in a manner more appropriate for fermenting beer or making porridge than for baking bread. Some archaeologists have proposed that beer dates back even earlier, to a 13,000-year-old cave near Haifa, Israel. There, researchers found starch granules in pits taken out of the bedrock that could indicate fermentation. But again, it's possible these stone pits were used for making food rather than drinks. "It's totally possible (and maybe even likely) that they were making beer," French told Live Science in an email. But ultimately, he said the evidence is too ambiguous to make a conclusion. Paulette said we likely will never know the exact date that humans brewed their first batch of beer, though emerging evidence continues to push the potential date back further and further. Both experts agreed it's unlikely that beer was "invented" in one place and spread from there; rather, fermentation was probably independently discovered by different groups of people throughout the world. Though it's still a mystery exactly when and where the first beer was made, one thing is clear: Ancient beer would have tasted quite different from a modern lager. For one, it would have been sour — a flavor resulting from both yeast and lactic acid bacteria fermenting the grain, Paulette said. It also may have been thick and unfiltered. That's because the process of ancient beer brewing began with a mixture of ground grain and water, and the remaining sediment wasn't always filtered out after fermentation. Paulette said there is some written evidence of "strained" beer in Mesopotamia. But more often than not, imagery and artifacts from the period show that people drank beer through straws with filter tips, suggesting that the beer itself was unfiltered. In ancient times, beer was also likely drunk shortly after it fermented; otherwise, it could quickly go bad and develop harmful mold or bacteria. Because of this, ancient beer was likely relatively flat and not particularly high in alcohol, unlike our bubbly, boozy IPAs. And without refrigeration technologies, beer was definitely not ice-cold. RELATED MYSTERIES —How many bubbles are in a glass of beer? —Does wine help you live longer? —Is it safe to drink moonshine? French said the beers we know and love today are only about 500 years old. "They really start in the 1500s, with the Czech beers and German beers," he explained. This is when lagering — the process of cold-fermenting beers that creates a clear, crisp and bubbly beverage — was developed. As Germans migrated around the world in the coming centuries, they brought this brewing technique with them. "That's why, if you've traveled a lot, it doesn't matter where you go in the world — you can find your basic lager," French said.
Sky News
27-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Sky News
Upskirted, assaulted, accused of faking their music skills: Why female DJs need to be 'bulletproof'
To see Koven's Katie Boyle perform live is beyond impressive. Hailing from Luton, she is one of the most influential women in drum 'n' bass today, an artist who pioneered the art of singing live while DJing. Although she's now been doing it for 12 years, her vast knowledge doesn't silence the trolls online. "There is a real bad misogyny online against women," she says of the industry, with plenty of critics refusing to "believe they're doing what they say they're doing, and that's been quite a hard thing to combat". Koven is a duo. In the studio, Boyle collaborates with producer Max Rowat; live, she performs and mixes alone. They have just released their second album, Moments In Everglow. While both Boyle and Rowat are equally involved in making tracks, a minority of very vocal fans still refuse to accept she does anything other than sing. "I will always be accused of the male half doing more on anything to do with technology," says Boyle. "The amount of comments [I get] to say, 'she didn't make this'. No explanation as to why they think that it is, just purely because [I'm] a woman, which is just mad." While Boyle loves performing live, there are moments, she admits, where being one of the few women on the scene can feel unsafe. "I've had some awful incidences," she says. "I had someone run on stage and completely grab me, hand down my top, down my trousers, while I was on the stage, which is crazy because you think that's happening in front of an audience. I mean, this guy literally had to be plied off me. "That was when I did think, 'I need to bring someone with me to most places'. I didn't feel safe travelling around by myself." 'You get trolled for everything' Sadly, Boyle isn't alone. Over a 30-year career, DJ Paulette has scaled the heights of dance music fame, playing throughout Europe, with a residency back in the day at Manchester's Hacienda. "Let's just say I have two towels on my rider and it's not just because I sweat a lot," she jokes, miming a whack for those around her. "I've spent time in DJ booths where I've had a skirt on and people have been taking pictures up my skirt. People think upskirting is a joke... and I got fed up with it." Wearing shorts, she says, she still ended with "people with their hands all over me". Now, she sticks to trousers. "But we shouldn't have to alter the way we look for the environment that we work in." She admits, in order to stick it out, she's had to bulletproof herself. "You get trolled for everything, for the way you look - if you put on weight, if you've lost weight." Not only is the discourse towards female DJs different online, she says, she has also been repeatedly told by those working in the industry that because she's a woman, she has a sell-by date. "I went for dinner with three guys... one of them said to me, 'you know Paulette there is no promoter or organiser who is ever going to employ a black female DJ with grey hair', and they all laughed. "That was them saying to me that my career was over, and I was in my 40s. At the time, I felt crushed... I think it really does take women who have a real steel will to make their way through." 'I will not stop talking about it' As the great and the good of the dance world gather in Ibiza for the industry's annual International Music Summit, with dance music more popular than ever there is of course much to party about. But for BBC Radio 1 broadcaster and DJ Jaguar, one of this year's summit's cohosts, some serious conversations also need to be had. "You can get off the plane and look at the billboards around Ibiza and it's basically white men - David Guetta, Calvin Harris, and they are incredible artists in their own right - but the women headliners, there's barely any visibility of them, it's awful." She adds: "I will not stop talking about it because it is the reality." Trolling and safety are also big concerns. "You're in these green rooms, there's a lot of people there, drinking and doing other things... and I've walked into green rooms where I felt incredibly uncomfortable, especially when I was a bit younger. I was on my own, it's like 2am, and you have to watch yourself." Male DJs don't have the same stories She says she has female friends who have had drinks spiked when they were DJing. But her male friends? "They don't have the same stories to tell me." Creamfields, arguably the UK's biggest dance festival, is emblematic of the gender imbalance. It remains one of the least representative festivals in terms of female artists, with last year's line-up more than 80% male. Laila MacKenzie, founder of Lady Of The House, a community that supports and tries to encourage more women into dance music, says the talent pipeline problem isn't helped by the current discourse online. "There is a real damaging factor how people can be really nasty online and really nasty in the media and how that actually may discourage and demotivate women from stepping forward into their talent," she says. In reality, for so many women working within dance music, the trolling can be so unpleasant that it's drowning out the good. "There is so much positivity and so many lovely and supportive people," says Boyle. "But unfortunately it feels like the negative and the toxic energy is just louder sometimes."
Irish Times
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
The Best of Everything by Kit de Waal: Navigating the ups and downs of life
The Best of Everything Author : Kit de Waal ISBN-13 : 978-1035404797 Publisher : Tinder Press Guideline Price : £20 The epigraph to Kit de Waal's The Best of Everything is drawn from JM Barrie's Peter Pan: 'Try to be a little kinder than is necessary.' Good advice, surely, but difficult to follow at the best of times, let alone to apply towards those whom you hold responsible for personal tragedy. That de Waal's protagonist returns again and again to this philosophy – sometimes in spite of quite understandable resentment and despair – is a minor miracle of empathy. This character, Paulette, is a young St Kittitian working as an auxiliary nurse in 1970s England. She has a man whom she loves, as well as dreamy soft-focus expectations for her future – a wedding! A honeymoon! A house! – all of which come crashing down in the opening pages of this deceptively engaging and engrossing novel. Because Denton, Paulette's evasive boyfriend, will never be coming home. In his place, his best friend finds his way into a distraught Paulette's bed, and a baby soon follows. As does another child, a white boy from a neighbouring street who has an unexpected connection to Denton's fate (in a clever touch, Paulette's son ends up nicknamed Bird but in actuality it is this other boy, Nellie, who is very much the cuckoo in the nest). Yet any hint of soap opera which such a sketch might suggest is offset by de Waal's exceptionally controlled writing style. Indeed, her prose is practically invisible with little in the way of formal indulgences or flashy fireworks on display (something which mischievously undercuts Paulette's page one desire to see 'rockets and Catherine wheels'). One would be forgiven for interpreting this simplicity – which is actually very hard to achieve – as meaning the novel sits more towards the commercial rather than the literary end of the spectrum. However, this would be a mistake. The craft here is undeniable, clearly visible not just in the subtle evolution of characters such as Bird and Nellie, but in how de Waal manipulates the passage of time across scenes and decades alike (admittedly some of the flashbacks to St Kitts feel a little rough-edged, but her use of forward momentum is a masterclass in showing and telling as appropriate, one from which any author could learn). READ MORE The novel further possesses a steely thematic spine as domestic tableaux are interwoven with the author's characteristic concerns. Among the most recognisable of these are a mixture of Caribbean and Irish immigrant influences, an honest look at race relations in Britain, a commitment to working-class representation, and a knowledgeable perspective on how easily children can fall through the social safety net. De Waal writes authoritatively on all these issues, drawing on both her own upbringing and on her professional background in the Crown Prosecution Service (here one intuits why she was so drawn to the Peter Pan quotation). Nonetheless, her incorporation of such material into The Best of Everything is always through Paulette's eyes and, consequently, it all feels alive rather than merely didactic. Aiding this, and further grounding the novel in its historical moment, is de Waal's three-dimensional depiction of a Black woman's experience of '70s and later '80s England, with Paulette striving to maintain a fraying link to her heritage (symbolised by memories of her grandmother) while also keeping one eye on the tenuousness of her family's future. It is a delicate balance, one imperilled by the exhausting need to perform in non-threatening ways in order to navigate the racist landmines of white society ('Try to be a little kinder than is necessary' takes on additional and more defensive connotations in this light). [ The Celts: A Modern History by Ian Stewart - an extensive work overlooking several essential studies Opens in new window ] Yet while she carries more than her fair share of familial and social burdens, Paulette is neither a saint nor a saviour. She is too real for that. If anything, she possesses something of a self-destructive streak and makes bad decisions on more than one occasion, at times wallowing – often quite realistically – in despair and obsessive behaviour. That said, the character also rallies repeatedly against these slings and arrows in a manner which makes The Best of Everything a very satisfying read. Because de Waal is too astute a writer to deliver just misery fiction; no, this is realism in the truest sense, with both disappointments and promises alike reshaping Paulette's life in unexpected ways. The result is a carefully paced story of a woman facing a myriad of challenges in order to tenaciously carve out space for herself and her unexpected family. One is inclined to cheer her on throughout.
The Guardian
09-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The Best of Everything by Kit de Waal review – the power of kindness
Reflecting on his childhood in the autobiographical novel In the Castle of My Skin, George Lamming wrote that it was 'my mother who really fathered me'. Damningly, the Barbadian novelist asserted that his father 'had only fathered the idea of me'. That notion of children being left mainly, if not solely, the liability of mothers still widely resonates in Caribbean households. In Kit de Waal's tender novel, The Best of Everything, the protagonist Paulette, a single mother, embraces the role not just of mothering and largely fathering her son, but also selflessly acting as a proxy mother to a child who risks being abandoned. De Waal, who edited the 2019 anthology Common People, has long championed working-class lives, 'written in celebration and not apology'. In The Best of Everything Paulette is a migrant to Britain from St Kitts, an auxiliary nurse whose disdain for bedpans does not dampen the pleasure she takes from the thought that 'it's nice going home at night knowing you've helped people'. At the start of the novel in 1972, Paulette, aged 29, is fervently in love with Denton, a Jamaican building contractor whose ambition is evident in his leather-seated, cherry-red Toyota. Busy, allegedly, with work abroad, his irregular visits heighten his appeal. Denton sleeps with an arm wrapped around her shoulders 'like a fur stole'. Paulette scrutinises him, looking for possible faults, but all she finds are 'things that make her love him more'. Early on, though, Paulette's excited plans for their future are shattered when Denton is killed in a car crash. De Waal uses spare, unfussy prose to capture Paulette's grief, which receives scant recognition even from her friends. 'Them with their side-eye … The rough questions with the smooth sympathy … lacing their interrogation with wine.' The Best of Everything is a quiet, mournful book whose title speaks to everything that Paulette has lost: the chance to own a home, to start a family and give her child every scrap of love, to surrender to the man who was forever in her heart, to be 'coaxed, kissed and caught'. Fate mocks her and the miniature bottles of Appleton rum that she begins to secretly knock back only partially anaesthetise her pain. The fatal car crash is the animating incident powering the novel with a series of unexpected consequences. In the first instance, Paulette takes comfort from Denton's best friend, Garfield. Pretty soon Garfield upgrades from sympathetic companion to lover, one who gives Paulette what she has yearned for: a baby. The understated tone of the novel, perfectly judged through the elegant modesty of the writing, reflects the emotional veil that Paulette especially wears in public, with one notable exception. Walking through a park, with Garfield pushing their baby, Bird, in his pram, Paulette sees the elderly man whose dangerous driving led to Denton's death. To the horror of Garfield and passersby, she leaps on the man and wrestles him to the ground. The assault unsettles Paulette more than the target of her wrath; it's contrary to her sense of decorum and of self. In demonstrating Paulette's complexity, De Waal meets the difficult challenge of creating a kind-hearted protagonist who is caught in a conundrum of withholding emotion and surrendering to an internal migration while still being keenly attentive to others. Paulette's capacity for generosity is further tested later by another extraordinary encounter with the same old man from the park. Frank Bowen is a lost soul who 'poured more disappointment into one look than Paulette thought was possible'. Frank mourns his daughter, a passenger in his car during the crash, who suffered a brain injury and died three years later. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion In a theatrical plot twist, handled adeptly by the author, Frank corners Paulette and pleads with her to adopt his orphaned grandson Nellie. A disheveled Frank seems barely able to take care of himself, never mind a young boy. Nellie's pitiful look 'nearly splits her in two', and within a short time she's regularly inviting the boy into her home. Till this moment, Paulette's focus had been exclusively on Bird, but by the end of this beautifully rendered tale extolling unfashionably the virtues of kindness, Paulette acknowledges 'an extra chamber in [her] heart' where Nellie resides. The admission is emblematic of a quietly unforgettable character, a compassionate, nurturing mother who also fathers the two boys. It's her maternal Caribbean nature, 'and there's nothing she can do about it'. The Best of Everything by Kit de Waal is published by Tinder (£20). To support the Guardian and the Observer buy a copy at Delivery charges may apply.
