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Daily Mirror
13 hours ago
- Daily Mirror
‘I stayed up until 2am to see iconic attraction but it was still horribly busy'
Polya Palazova, 21, went to the Italian capital to see the new Pope and take in the sights - but she was left stunned by how busy it was compared to her last trip in 2018 A woman visited Rome and went to desperate measures to escape the throngs of tourists, but still found the city to be"too crowded" and "horrible". Polya Palazova, 21, travelled to the Italian capital in early June to see the new Pope and explore the sights. Having been once before in 2018, Polya never doubted whether she'd manage to see all the landmarks - but this time she was shocked by how packed the Eternal City was. The University of Vienna media and communications student spent four days in the city and branded it as "far too hectic". Polya and her mates managed to visit many of the headline tourist hotspots including Piazza Navona, the Colosseum, Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountain. However, she said it was "too packed" to even attempt visiting the Vatican - meaning she couldn't tick that off her bucket list. Yet even the places she did manage to see were rammed with people - and there were still hordes when she visited Trevi Fountain at 2am. Polya said: "I'm from the crowded city of Burgas, Bulgaria - which is right near the busy Sunny Beach resort. So I'm OK with crowds - but Rome was too much. We had a really good plan and managed to see most of the sights but the Vatican was too hard. "There were so many people and it was more than 35 degrees, we couldn't do it. It was just too busy. I wanted to see the new Pope but I couldn't. It was so hot, and there were so many people that you couldn't enjoy it." Polya revealed she had watched TikTok videos suggesting people visit Trevi Fountain at night for a more peaceful experience and better photos in the darkness. She stayed awake until 2am to make the trip, but discovered it remained heaving with tourists. She explained: "Because of the TikToks, it wasn't really quiet. But it was still good to go at night. We went to bed at 3am but we didn't mind." Whilst she relished the getaway, she believes destinations like Italy and Spain have become particularly "trendy" to visit this year. Several pals from her Austrian hometown are also making similar journeys over the coming months. Polya remarked: "I went in 2018 and it was for sure more busy now." The fact Trevi remains busy and, according to some people, overcrowded, may be of some concern to the authorities in Rome. Last year, the fountain was closed for a three-month restoration, during which time the masterpiece of 18th-century Italian architect Nicola Salvi was spruced up. When it reopened at the end of 2024, a new queueing system was introduced in an attempt to control the large crowds that built up around it. At its peak last summer, 12,000 tourists would visit it each day. When the new system was introduced, Mayor of Rome Roberto Gualtieri said imposing the limit will "allow everyone to better enjoy the fountain, without crowds or confusion". Gualtieri also said city authorities were considering charging a modest entry price to finance the fountain's upkeep, although that is yet to be introduced.
Daily Mirror
4 days ago
- Health
- Daily Mirror
Terrifying mystery illness leaves patients 'like statues' - with brains still working
A bizarre epidemic swept across countries and claimed the lives of an estimated half a million people, leaving many survivors forever changed - and it remains one of the biggest medical mysteries in history For 11 years, a mysterious illness swept across the globe, sending sufferers into what seemed like a deep sleep - sometimes for months. The illness is estimated to have killed about a third of those who were affected, with another third suffering debilitating neurological symptoms if they survived - and some even becoming frozen, like statues, while their minds were totally active as normal. But many unanswered questions still surround encephalitis lethargica - which is also called epidemic encephalitis. The medical community has never reached a consensus about what definitely caused the illness, or why it seemed to suddenly disappear overnight, going from an epidemic that raged across borders to only a handful of cases ever appearing globally over decades. Urgent probe as 10 Brits die after agonising reaction to weight loss jabs 'I am a loo historian – you'll never guess what Tudors used to wipe their bums' Encephalitis lethargica (EL) was called the 'sleepy sickness', and from 1916 to 1927, the disease is estimated to have claimed 500,000 lives, and infected more than a million people. No group of people was safe from this disease: it could infect anyone, no matter their age, class, or gender. Patients often initially presented with flu-like symptoms - a cough, sore throat, or a fever - before rapidly becoming seriously ill. They would become extremely sleepy, start to experience double vision. This extreme lethargy sometimes saw people essentially comatose for weeks or months, but disturbingly, they were not actually asleep, though they seemed to be. Inside their minds, they were often awake and completely aware of what was going on around them, but unable to move or react. The disease also had the ability to cause profound changes in patients' personalities and behaviours - the variety of symptoms that came along with EL made it hard for doctors to understand what they were treating. It was only in 1917 that EL was officially described as a new disease, with doctors across Europe initially baffled at the range of neurological symptoms that patients were presenting. Dr. Constantin von Economo from the Psychiatric-Neurological Clinic of the University of Vienna was the one to give EL its name, but the medical community, whilst recognising the epidemic's existence, was no closer to learning what was causing it, or how to stop it. In 1918, the Spanish Flu pandemic was underway, and doctors speculated that EL, which often came on after flu-like symptoms, could be some kind of post-viral issue or that the conditions were linked. One third of EL sufferers would, after the acute face of extended 'sleep', recover, but another third died during this stage because of respiratory complications. Autopsies conducted on some patients who lost their lives in this phase of the illness showed that a small part of the base of the brain was inflamed. The final third of EL sufferers faced a lifetime of terrifying symptoms, that ranged from criminal levels of impulsivity to becoming like statues. This again, like the seeming sleep endured in the first phase of the illness, saw their minds remain completely active, but trapped with a frozen body. After initially recovering from the acute phase, patients would find themselves enduring personality changes - with their loved ones beginning to find them markedly different from who they were before the illness took hold. They would become disinterested in the world around them and struggle to concentrate, but things would be poised to rapidly get worse. Little did the victims of this haunting disease know, their brains were rapidly degenerating - in what is called post-encephalitic parkinsonism (PEP), and the damage could never be undone. This particularly impacted young people, who would find themselves becoming more unpredictable over the following decades of their lives. Children who caught the disease would become inconsiderate, exceptionally clingy, have poor concentration, and be restless. Initially, this could be manageable, albeit still a big job for parents to deal with, but as they grew up, they would become nigh on impossible to handle. "As they grew in strength, their incorrigible impulsiveness escalated in violence and they posed a danger to themselves and others," explains The Conversation."Errant behaviours included cruelty to anyone who crossed them; destructiveness; lying; and self-mutilation including, in one example, removal of eyes. "When they reached adolescence, these patients manifested inappropriate and excessive sexuality, including sexual assault without regard for age or gender." Strangely, the sufferers of EL would be remorseful when they did wrong, and understand that they should not have behaved that way, but they simply had no impulse control whatsoever, and tragically, the only thing that stopped their often violent or criminal behaviour would be the PEP - which slowly but surely took away their ability to move. Those cases who did not see their Parkinson's symptoms worsen would, however, often become hardened criminals: stealing, raping, and murdering with impunity - but perhaps without the mental ability to be truly responsible for their actions. But for those who saw the Parkinson's worsen, a tragic path awaited: the essential parts of human life would drift away from them. Sufferers would lose all willpower, though their minds would be active, they would have no ability to take action. Beauty became unrecognisable to them - though they could still acknowledge the technical ability of a great artist, they could no longer connect. They could recognise other people's pain and suffering, but could no longer feel sympathy for those around them. Their faces would be totally blank, like a mask. Their muscles became increasingly rigid, stopping them from moving, and they could no longer properly take part in the world - though all along their minds still were in working order in many ways. Trapped inside their bodies, and the ability to connect stripped from them, they would spend decades living inside institutions, with no treatment ever found that had long-term success. But then, in 1927, the disease practically vanished overnight. The number of those diagnosed or presenting with these complex symptoms rapidly decreased, and in the last 85 years, there have only been 80 recorded cases. However, researchers are still looking into encephalitis and this type of swelling of the brain, which can be an autoimmune response or occur after a virus. Many mysteries still surround EL itself - but until answers are found to why this terrifying illness took hold so quickly, and went away out of nowhere, its threat remains.
National Geographic
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- National Geographic
The science behind why Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne's music sounded ‘satanic'
Black Sabbath performs during their Heaven and Hell tour in 1980. The band helped revive the long-feared 'Devil's interval'—a dissonant sound once shunned by medieval choirs—as the backbone of heavy metal. PhotographThe idea that two simple notes—not a song, just tones—could be 'banned' may seem ludicrous. But that's the legend behind the crushing opening riff of Black Sabbath's 1970 debut. With just three ominous notes, guitarist Tony Iommi, alongside the anguished vocals of the late Ozzy Osbourne, unleashed a sound so unsettling it was said to have been forbidden for centuries.'Those notes were banned many years ago,' Iommi told the BBC in 2014. 'It's supposed to have been a satanic thing.' While rock legend has never been the most reliable (see: Ozzy and the bat), this one does have a whisper of truth. Black Sabbath recruited what music theorists refer to as the 'tritone,' —a dissonant interval once avoided by medieval choirs and now known in music lore as the 'devil's interval.' Also referred to as the augmented fourth, diminished fifth, or sharp eleven, the tritone spans three whole tones on a scale, creating a clashing, unstable sound that has long made listeners squirm. But what is it about this ancient musical interval that has unnerved audiences for centuries—and why does it still strike such a primal chord? A history of the 'clang' Despite its sinister nickname, the tritone was never officially banned in the Middle Ages, though it may as well have been. In the stew of compositional standards of the time, this dissonant tonal interval was merely an unpalatable ingredient, but served in a supremely important dish. 'In medieval and Renaissance music theory, which was often characterised by mathematical and philosophical principles of harmony, the tritone did not fit well into the system of 'perfect' intervals due to its complex frequency ratios,' says Christoph Reuter, professor of systematic musicology at the University of Vienna. Guido d'Arezzo, an 11th-century Benedictine monk and music theorist, developed the hexachord system to help singers navigate early notation and to avoid the dissonant tritone. Photograph by VTR, Alamy Stock Photo Named for medieval theorist Guido d'Arezzo, the Guidonian Hand was a mnemonic device for teaching musical intervals. This version appears in Scienta Artis Musicae, a 1274 treatise by Helia Solomon. Photograph by Giancarlo Costa, Bridgeman Images One reason for this concerns the relationship between 'scales' and 'modes', the latter of which gives music much of its character. Major scales such as C, for instance, begin on their namesake note. But play the same scale from a different starting point, and it suddenly takes on a very different, but still musical, flavour. These flavors are called modes. Begin a C Major scale on a D, for instance, and you're using the jazzy-sounding 'Dorian' mode. Start it a note up, on an E, and you're in the exotic ambience of the 'Phrygian' mode. The Aeolian mode, starting on A, creates a somber, minor key atmosphere. But one mode stood out for all the wrong reasons. Things got thorny with the Locrian mode. Built on the seventh note of a major scale—in this case, starting on B in a C major scale—it places unusual emphasis on the interval between B and F. The result is a scale that feels unstable, unresolved, and, to many ears, vaguely threatening. This was more than a matter of taste. In the Middle Ages, modes were the backbone of choral compositions, used to pitch a choir in harmony. As Reuter explains, not only did the tritone contravene the ideal of musical beauty, but it was also hard. 'It was simply difficult to sing purely—especially in a cappella choral works, which were widely used in the church.' Limited Time: Bonus Issue Offer Subscribe now and gift up to 4 bonus issues—starting at $34/year. (The hellish history of the devil.) That difficulty likely gave rise to one of music theory's most ominous warnings: mi contra fa diabolus est in musica, or 'mi against fa is the devil in music.' Referring to the Medieval system of music developed by Guido of Arezzo in the 11th century, 'mi against fa' refers to the dissonance between two tritone notes in overlapping compositions, with the 'devil' likely referencing its tendency to cause mistakes or generally meddle with choral delicacy. At a time when music was meant to reflect divine order, such instability struck a deeply discordant note. But uncomfortable tonal combinations weren't isolated to Western music. Many cultural styles—from the Middle East to Japan—had their own 'forbidden' tonal conventions, and different reasons for shunning them. Similarly to Western modes, certain Indian ragas omit certain combinations of notes—the varjya svaras—in their compositions, as certain notes are prone to unbalancing this intensely mood-driven music. Traditional Japanese music, such as gagaku, is often played in formal settings, employing tonal combinations that were sympathetic to the conventions of ma (negative space) and wa (unity), thereby avoiding discordant tones. By contrast, the Arabian maqam system embraces tonal combinations that Western ears might label dissonant. Its use of microtones and quarter-steps creates melodic tension and release through an entirely different framework of rules. So is the discomfort we feel from dissonance—like the tritone—truly universal? Maybe not. A 2016 study found that members of the Tsimane', an Indigenous community in Bolivia with limited exposure to Western culture, didn't find dissonant chords any less pleasant to listen to than their more pleasing counterparts. Isabella Czedik-Eysenberg of the University of Vienna believes this shows that 'while dissonant intervals such as the tritone have distinct psychoacoustic properties, the emotional and symbolic meanings attached to those–such as being associated with 'evil'–are likely culturally learned.' This 1970 publicity photo shows Black Sabbath early in their career, shortly before their sound helped shape the heavy metal genre. Photograph by MichaelBlack Sabbath's self-titled debut album, released in 1970, opens with the ominous tritone riff that helped define heavy metal's dark, dissonant sound. Photograph by MichaelWhy does the tritone sound so unsettling? One reason is auditory roughness—the jagged, irregular quality of a sound that our brains often associate with danger, says Czedik-Eysenberg 'Roughness is a particularly interesting audio quality—research indicates it can play a role in communicating danger [and is] a key feature in biologically salient alarm signals, such as human screams,' she notes. 'But auditory roughness also plays a very important part in the perception of extreme vocal techniques used in metal genres. Guttural and harsh vocal styles, for example, are often described by listeners as brutal, monstrous, or demonic.' But how we respond to sound isn't just biological—it's shaped by experience. 'Our responses to sound arise from the nervous system that broadly speaking we all have in common—but context is everything,' says Victoria Williamson, a music psychologist and co-founder of the sound wellness app Audicin. 'Some frequencies and sound textures are more difficult for the human inner ear and brain to process, a physiological clash that can trigger reactions from overstimulation to stress, disgust and even pain.' 'However,' Williamson adds, 'our psychological reaction to sound is predicated on what we have been exposed to during our lifetime and the associations we have created. That is 100 percent unique to each of us.' Back in 17th-century Europe, that exposure was changing. While medieval music prized harmony and order, the Baroque period embraced contrast and emotion. By the Classical era, it had appeared in works by Bach, Beethoven, and Wagner, among others, often to evoke drama or darkness. In Camille Saint-Saëns's Danse Macabre, the tritone famously opens the piece with a musical scythe swing. (Here's how Beethoven went from Napoleon's biggest fan to his worst critic.' Since then, the 'devil's interval' has appeared everywhere—from the theme of The Simpsons to the sirens that jolt us into high alert. And in 1970, Black Sabbath picked it up again, building the haunting foundation of heavy metal on its dissonant tension. 'Black Sabbath music will trigger the deep emotion centers of the brain like the amygdala, but rather than experience fear or discomfort the listener is drawn in. In theory it makes no sense,' says Victoria Williamson. 'The more this music drives the release of emotion and stress, the more it will trigger the reward and motivation centres of the brain like the ventral tegmental area, nucleus accumbens and the prefrontal cortex. Over the years the brain will get used to the dopamine rush it gets in the presence of this music. This can help explain why Black Sabbath fans have been so intensely loyal over the decades.'
New York Times
09-07-2025
- Science
- New York Times
How Elephants Say They Like Them Apples
If you give an elephant an apple, she's going to want some more. But how can she get through to the nearby humans who are keeping those luscious treats away from her? After working with elephants in Zimbabwe, researchers reported that the animals are capable of making very deliberate gestures to communicate that desire for more. Their study was published Wednesday in the journal Royal Society Open Science. In the study of the evolution of language and other forms of communication, researchers have long been interested in whether nonhuman animals use gestures. That's because gestures can reveal to what extent individuals are aware of the attention and inner state of others. Identifying creatures that use movement to elicit behavior from others can help reveal how and when, in the family tree of life, complex communication evolved. Many studies about gestures focus on primates. But elephants are another natural subject for this research because they live in groups and have elaborate social lives. Perhaps they, too, use movement to communicate. To understand the research, think of how humans get others to do what they want. Vesta Eleuteri, a researcher at the University of Vienna and the study's lead author, explained how she might signal to a friend non-verbally to pass her a bottle of water. 'I first check if you are looking at me,' she said. 'If you are looking at me, I might point at the bottle.' After that signal, 'I wait for you to react. If you don't react, I persist. I might reach toward the bottle, I might wave toward the bottle. Once you give me the bottle, I stop gesturing.' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
03-07-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Scientists May Have Found the Blueprint of the Human Body at the Bottom of the Ocean
Here's what you'll learn when you read this story: One major division of the kingdom Animalia is Cnidarians (animals built around a central point) and bilaterians (animals with bilateral symmetry), which includes us humans. A new study found that the sea anemone, a member of the Cnidarian phylum, uses bilaterian-like techniques to form its body. This suggests that these techniques likely evolved before these two phyla separated evolutionarily some 600 to 700 million years ago, though it can't be ruled out that these techniques evolved independently. Make a list of complex animals as distantly related to humans as possible, and sea anemones would likely be near the top of the list. Of course, one lives in the water and the other doesn't, but the differences are more biologically fundamental than that—sea anemones don't even have brains. So it's surprising that this species in the phylum Cnidarians (along with jellyfish, corals, and other sea creatures) contains an ancient blueprint for bilaterians, of which Homo sapiens are a card-carrying member. A new study by a team of scientists at the University of Vienne discovered that sea anemones, whose Cnidarian status means they grow radially around a central point (after all, what is the 'face' of a jellyfish), use a technique commonly associated with bilaterians, known as bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) shuttling, to build their bodies. This complicates the picture of exactly when this technique evolved or if it possibly evolved independently of bilaterians. The results of the study were published last month in the journal Science Advances.'Not all Bilateria use Chordin-mediated BMP shuttling, for example, frogs do, but fish don't, however, shuttling seems to pop up over and over again in very distantly related animals making it a good candidate for an ancestral patterning mechanism,' University of Vienna's David Mörsdorf, a lead author of the study, said in a press statement. 'The fact that not only bilaterians but also sea anemones use shuttling to shape their body axes, tells us that this mechanism is incredibly ancient.' To put it simply, BMPs are a kind of molecular messenger that signals to embryonic cells where they are in the body and what kind of tissue they should form. Local inhibition from an inhibitor named Chordin (which can also act as a shuttle) along with BMP shuttling creates gradients of BMP in the body. When these levels are their lowest, for example, the body knows to form the central nervous system. Moderate levels signal kidney development, and maximum levels signal the formation of the skin of the belly. This is how bilaterians form the body's layout from back to body. Mörsdorf and his colleagues found that Chordin also acts as a BMP shuttle—just as displayed in bilaterians like flies and frogs. Thi signals that this particular evolutionary trait likely developed before Cnidarians and bilaterians diverged. Seeing as these two phylums of the animal kingdom have vastly different biological structures, that divergence occurred long ago, likely 600 to 700 million years ago. 'We might never be able to exclude the possibility that bilaterians and bilaterally symmetric cnidarians evolved their bilateral body plans independently,' University of Vienna's Grigory Genikhovich, a senior author of the study, said in a press statement. 'However, if the last common ancestor of Cnidaria and Bilateria was a bilaterally symmetric animal, chances are that it used Chordin to shuttle BMPs to make its back-to-belly axis.' You Might Also Like The Do's and Don'ts of Using Painter's Tape The Best Portable BBQ Grills for Cooking Anywhere Can a Smart Watch Prolong Your Life?
