We’re going to pause spooky season for a moment and jump ahead to the holiday season: Rockefeller Center has revealed its 2025 Christmas tree. The chosen tree, a 75-foot-tall Norway spruce, has been part of the Russ family’s property in East Greenbush, New York, for over 60 years. It will be cut next week and placed in Rockefeller Plaza on Nov. 8, where it will eventually be wrapped in 50,000 glittering lights to become “the world’s Christmas tree,” as Judy Russ put it. Check out the tree, which will be turned into lumber for Habitat for Humanity once its job in New York is done.
If your best idea of what dinosaurs looked like comes from the Jurassic Park movies, new research out of the University of Chicago is here to provide a clearer picture. Published in Science, the paper describes two duck-billed dinosaur “mummies” discovered in Wyoming that were preserved in such detail they’ve given scientists a newly comprehensive look at their external anatomy — including, for the first time, the presence of hoofed feet. “It’s the first time we’ve had a complete, fleshed-out view of a large dinosaur that we can really feel confident about,” senior author Paul Sereno said in a news release. “The badlands in Wyoming where the finds were made is a unique ‘mummy zone’ that has more surprises in store from fossils collected over years of visits by teams of university undergrads.” So what exactly are the newly excavated dinosaur mummies? They’re not quite the same type of mummy as what you’d find in an Egyptian tomb, as the specimens didn’t contain any organic material from the animals, which walked the Earth some 66 million years ago. Rather, in a process called clay templating, a thin layer of clay less than 1/100th of an inch thick coated the carcasses’ skin, leaving impressions that scientists used to create renderings of what the living dinos may have looked like.
Together With EnergyX
Meet the American Underdog Turned $1 Billion Unicorn
A US startup just hit a $1 billion valuation, joining billion-dollar private companies like SpaceX, OpenAI, and ByteDance. Unlike those other unicorns, you can invest. Over 35,000 people already have. So have industry giants like General Motors and POSCO. Why all the interest? EnergyX’s patented tech can recover 300% more lithium than traditional methods. That’s a big deal, as demand for lithium is expected to be 18 times current production levels by 2040. Now, they’re moving towards commercial production, tapping into over 100,000 acres of lithium deposits in Chile, a potential $1.1 billion annual revenue opportunity at projected market prices. Right now, you can invest at this pivotal growth stage. Don’t waste time, though. Invest in EnergyX at $10/share before tomorrow at midnight PT.
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Humanity
No Pet Left Behind: 180 Dogs and 1 Turtle Flown to Safety From Alaskan Flood Zones
Bethel Friends of Canines
Earlier this month, devastating floods hit several remote villages on Alaska’s western coast, and many residents who were airlifted out of the devastation faced every pet parent’s worst nightmare: having to leave their animals behind. Luckily, a convoy of good Samaritans has pulled out all the stops to rescue those pets — and now, 180 dogs and one turtle have been safely flown out of the villages, which have no road access. The all-hands-on-deck rescue operation, spearheaded by the local nonprofit Bethel Friends of Canines, or BFK9, involved coordinating with locals who stayed behind, as well as pilots and airlines. “The first dogs they sent in to us arrived in a plastic tote and a couple puppies in a Spiderman backpack,” Jenna Stewart, the nonprofit’s director of development, told CBS News. “They had nothing else to hold these dogs, but knew they had to get out of the village and to safety with BFK9.” As for the lone turtle, it was a classroom pet in one of the villages and is now in the care of a vet. The rescued dogs are receiving some TLC and awaiting reunion with their owners, but BFK9 says there’s still more work to be done. “We are doing great things, but we couldn’t do it without all the people helping us,” Stewart said.
Environment
NYC’s Communal Gardens Revive Forgotten Fruit, One Tree at a Time
Marina Denisenko/ iStock
You can now get a real taste of New York — and we’re not talking pizza, bagels, or street cart hot dogs. Community gardens are growing fruit that was once cultivated in the city’s orchards during the 1700s and 1800s, spaces that have since been lost to urbanization. So what’s on the menu from the good ol’ days? At Greenpoint’s Java Community Garden, you’ll find figs, beach plums, and pawpaws,a largely forgotten North American fruit described as a mix of mango, banana, and passion fruit. Over on Governor’s Island, the Open Orchard is home to 102 multi-grafted fruit trees bearing rare varieties of peaches, plums, apricots, cherries, and apples that are indigenous to, originated in, or have been historically grown in New York City. “The 1800s were kind of like the golden age for growing fruit in Brooklyn. They would barge it across the East River into Manhattan, into farmers markets,” Sam Van Aken, who created the orchard, told CBS News. Anyone who visits is invited to pick and taste the fruit (hence the name “open”). For New Yorkers who don’t go out of their way to see these communal gardens, Van Aken is on a mission to use old maps to reintroduce historic fruit varieties to their original neighborhoods, for one simple reason: “So that people are actually tasting the fruit from 200 years ago.”
In Other News
More than 12,000 acres in Minnesota are newly protected thanks to a landmark purchase by the Nature Conservancy (read more)
In a research milestone, a New Hampshire man lived a record 271 dayswith a pig kidney before needing dialysis (read more)
Just keep swimming: A fish named Arnie swam 530 miles in Australia’s Murray River, a species first (read more)
An Afghan women’s soccer team played their first international match since the Taliban banned women’s sports (read more)
A 2.71-carat white diamond was found by a tourist at Arkansas’ Crater of Diamonds State Park (read more)
Inspiring Story
Fresh cuts, fresh starts
VicBlends Academy operates like any classic barber school — teaching students to wash, cut, and style hair. But there’s a twist: It’s the first licensed barber school inside a California state prison. Opening its doors this past August, the academy aims to equip incarcerated individuals with the skills needed to build careers after release. “A couple of the guys came up to me while I was there and said, ‘We feel human for the first time in a long time,’” said Victor Fontanez, a celebrity barber who co-founded the school.
Photo of the Day
Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebrations are already underway in Mexico City’s Plaza de la Constitución, where communities are gathering to commemorate the 700th anniversary of the founding of Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec empire. The colorful event includes this “Mega Ofrenda” surrounded by marigold flowers, altars, skeletons, and mythic tributes.
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