Aside May 15, 2022May 15, 2022 Markozen.com Science Fiction

THE RULES OF TIME TRAVEL

SCIENTISTS RANK THE 8 BEST MOVIE TIME MACHINES OF ALL TIME

We quizzed physicists and engineers about the best movie and TV time machines.

WE ALL KNOW THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS A TIME MACHINE, BUT THAT’S NEVER STOPPED HOLLYWOOD FROM BUILDING THEM.

These time-defying contraptions fill us with wonder because, while we’re innately curious with a desire to explore, we also love fawning over shiny screens and elaborate gadgetry. Humans are hardwired to push any button we see. No matter the ramifications.

H.G. Wells invented one of fiction’s first time machines in his 1895 novel — later visualized in two movies. Since then, we’ve seen time-traveling cars, boxes, phone booths, and more. Each has a unique build and hand-wavy explanation of how it “works.”

To understand the fictional mechanics of time-travel tech, Inverse spoke to astrophysicists, engineers, and philosophers about movie time machines. We discovered which films they love and loathe, from those cloaked as the mundane to the realistic and even the fantastic.

8. BILL & TED’S PHONE BOOTH

WHAT IT DOES: It takes you to another realm that enables you to move through time (the circuits of time).

The phone booth from the 2020 film Bill & Ted Face the Music. — The phone booth was featured in the *Bill & Ted* franchise from 1989 to 2020.Orion Pictures

Yes, it might seem silly, but the phone booth in the Bill & Ted movies is a much-loved time machine.

Stuart Davie, a computational physicist and the vice president of data science at AI startup Peak, thinks the design makes this contraption so appealing.

“It really sits at the intersection of technical authenticity and the human-machine experience, grounding the whole movie series,” Davie tells Inverse. “It reminds the viewer that this is humanity’s story of self-salvation, not that of a benevolent alien overlord.”

Roberto Casula, the lead technologist at a software developer, is interested in how the phone booth is steered to its destination by The Circuits of Time Directory, in which numbers punched into the keypad are 14 digits long and must specify time and space — otherwise the booth would never leave San Dimas.

“We assume time travel is restricted to only a few tens of thousands of years into the past rather than billions,” Casula says. “Even then only to a few key locations in space.”

“Perhaps the time machine is anchored in a 24-hour endless cycle, allowing travel backward and forward but only in increments of one day,” he adds. “But it’s probably best not to analyze too hard.”

7. TENET’S TURNSTILE

The “Protagonist” (John David Washington) and Neil (Robert Pattinson) inside of the turnstile in Ten... — The “Protagonist” (John David Washington) and Neil (Robert Pattinson) inside of the turnstile in 2020’s *Tenet*.Warner Bros. Pictures

Tenet’s time machine is a huge turnstile — which turns one way or another, inverting and reverting the way you (or objects and even cars) travel through time.

But what about the science?

According to Dr. Nikk Effingham, a philosopher at the University of Birmingham specializing in metaphysics and the philosophy of time travel, Tenet’s time machine is based on the idea thermodynamics is reversible

“This is great for film but a terrible interpretation of physics,” Effingham says. “It makes it sound like which way you’re traveling through time is some fundamental physical property we can dick around with in the same way that we can dick around with whether you’re magnetically charged or not, but that’s not what thermodynamics says.”

The time-travel mechanics in Tenet are grounded in the idea that the arrow of time (the direction we’re going in) isn’t a fundamental property. That’s why we see objects moving “forward” in Tenet and others – bullets, guns, and the time-reversed people – moving “backward.”

“That there might be bits of space-time where entropy is increasing for some objects and decreasing for others is possible given thermodynamics, but super unlikely,” Effingham says.

6. DOCTOR WHO’S TARDIS

Jodie Whittaker’s Time Lord exits the TARDIS in Doctor Who. The series first premiered back in 1963 ... — Jodie Whittaker’s Time Lord exits the TARDIS in *Doctor Who*. The series first premiered back in 1963 and is still airing new episodes in 2022.BBC

Everyone we spoke to mentioned this iconic machine, which looks like an old, blue, British police box.

“What other time machine gets a decorating job every few years, keeps updating its canon, and has an Olympic-sized swimming pool? Or even a personality?” Šiljak says. “The way the TARDIS operates and interacts with the Doctor is also a great suspension of disbelief catalyst that allows me to enjoy a plot that has holes.”

Its properties are bizarre, but its time-travel abilities are appealing to real scientists.

“The core of the TARDIS is a tesseract, which is a four-dimensional cube,” says Dr. Erin Macdonald, an astrophysicist, writer, producer, and Star Trek science advisor. “The reason this is great scientifically is our universe is four-dimensional, but we can only control three of those dimensions (space, not time). It logically makes sense that if we had an object that had four dimensions, that extra dimension could be time and could have more control than just space.”

Jan J. Eldridge, a theoretical astrophysicist and associate professor in the physics department at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, adds that the TARDIS’ ability to travel freely through both space and time also helps explain another of its key features: the interior doesn’t match the exterior.

“Any technology that allows you to bend space-time to travel through time would also leave you with the ability to stretch and square space-time itself,” she says.

5. BACK TO THE FUTURE’S DELOREAN

Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd alongside the DeLorean in the Back to the Future franchise, whi... — Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd alongside the DeLorean in the *Back to the Future* franchise, which released movies from 1985 to 1990. Universal

What about the mechanics of Doc’s invention?

Casula says that the idea of a “flux capacitor” technically makes sense since a capacitor is just an electronic device that stores energy while flux refers to anything that flows. Combined, the two words suggest a machine that can store and then release the flow of time. “But really, it’s just techno-babble… and we don’t care!”

That’s because regardless of the techno-babble, Back to the Future’s time travel is cohesive.

“It’s a classic because it establishes clear rules for how the time-travel mechanism works,” Star Trek advisor Macdonald says. “You have to be going at a specific speed, at a specific moment, with a specific amount of energy. It also establishes the impact of changing anything in the past, and what ripple effect it has in the future.”

“IT’S A CLASSIC.”

4. H.G. WELLS’TIME MACHINE

The time machine in George Pal’s 1960 adaptation of H.G. Wells' famous story. The 2002 movie remake ... — The time machine in George Pal’s 1960 adaptation of H.G. Wells’ famous story. The 2002 movie remake also features another version of the elaborate invention.MGM

Although Wells didn’t describe his time machine in much detail in the book, the version imagined in the 1960 movie looks perfect for the era.

“H.G. Wells’ time machine from the 1960 movie is stylistically my favorite,” Laurence Maroney, lead artificial intelligence advocate at Google, tells Inverse. “Its cyberpunk awesomeness is mindblowing. I love the spinny wheel at the back with a compass rose. They just don’t make them like that anymore!”

“ITS CYBERPUNK AWESOMENESS IS MINDBLOWING.”

The way it works and moves through time is also different from most present-day depictions of time travel. The most memorable scenes in the movie take place when it remains static and the world flashes by — buildings and cities rise and fall in seconds from the perspective of the time traveler (a visual trick borrowed decades later in Futurama).

“Back in the day, time machines always went through time backwards in the same way they went through it forwards,” Effingham says. “Occupying regions of space-time in between rather than simply ‘teleporting’ there. It becomes less popular later on.”

3. PRIMER’S BOX

Primer, a 2004 indie sci-fi film, featured a box that allowed its characters to travel 6 hours into ... — *Primer*, a 2004 indie sci-fi film, features a box that allowed its characters to travel 6 hours into the past.IFC Films

Everyone expert we interviewed mentioned Primer (some even showed us diagrams of its labyrinthine time loops).

“It’s the most deliciously confusing time-travel film,” says Dr. Darian Raad, a research and development data scientist at AI company Peak. “It features a single looping, overlapping timeline that allows the characters to interact with continually multiplying copies of themselves.”

Primer, for those who haven’t seen it, features two, person-sized time machine boxes. Main characters Aaron and Abe use them to travel six hours into the past. But as tensions rise, timelines get messy, and they eventually rely on additional “failsafe” boxes to travel further through time to try to resolve the issues the shorter trips create.

“The beauty of a film like Primer is it makes perfect sense to you while you’re watching it,” Macdonald says.

“…REMINDS ME OF A SMALL-SCALE MANHATTAN PROJECT.”

Effingham says Primer is actually a plausible example of time travel.

“By ‘plausible,’ I don’t mean ‘this could happen,” he clarifies. “It just runs less roughshod over the laws of physics than many other ideas.”

This hint of plausibility seems to make Primer’s time machines a firm favorite.

“The concept in Primer has a structure I like in hard science fiction: some legit maths wrapping around a speck of made-up science,” Šiljak says. “The particular flavor of ‘a garage project’ that’s reminiscent of early personal computer development and a fundamental natural concept, which reminds me of a small-scale Manhattan project, was appealing.”

2. PLANET OF THE APES’ ICARUS

The Icarus/Liberty 1 spacecraft crashed into the Planet of the Apes in the 1968 film. 20th Century Studios

The Icarus/Liberty 1 spacecraft isn’t technically a time machine but it inadvertently becomes one. Several experts tell us it’s one of the most realistic depictions of time travel in film.

Dr. Ronald L. Mallett, professor emeritus of physics at the University of Connecticut and author of Time Traveler: A Scientist’s Personal Mission to Make Time Travel a Reality, says the original Planet of the Apes movie features his favorite time machine because it’s the only one that seems possible.

To understand how the spacecraft in Planet of the Apes can travel through time, we need to look to Einstein’s special theory of relativity and a complicated idea called time dilation — basically, that time passes differently for someone who is moving extremely fast compared to someone who is staying still.

”If you were on a rocket traveling close to the speed of light when you returned to Earth, only a few years might have passed for you, but decades could have passed on Earth,” Mallett says. “Since time is running at a normal rate for everyone else.”

That’s what happens in Planet of the Apes, causing the ship’s crew to arrive on Earth in an unrecognizable distant future.

1. TERMINATOR’S TIME DISPLACEMENT EQUIPMENT

The time displacement equipment in 2015’s Terminator Genisys. The Terminator’s first movie premiered... — The time displacement equipment in 2015’s *Terminator Genisys.* The Terminator’s first movie premiered in 1984, and its latest installment, Dark Fate, hit theaters in 2019. Paramount Pictures

The Terminator movies are all about time travel, but we don’t get a good look at the Time Displacement Equipment that sends both cybernetic assassins and human soldiers to the past until Terminator Genisys in 2015. Until then, we only know there is a time machine because naked dudes keep dropping in from the future.

But when we do see it, boy does it bring the futuristic drama. Huge rotating rings! Lightning!

It’s also responsible for one of the most confusing and memorable time-travel loops in cinema history. In the original movie, John Connor sends Kyle Reese back in time to save Sarah Connor so Reese can… become John Connor’s father.

Effingham describes this as self-consistent: “The actions of the time travelers bring about the effects that cause the time traveler to go back in time.”

However, he sees the way the machine is used is bafflingly inconsistent.

“Skynet doesn’t seem to realize you can’t change the past and that whatever you do brings about the future that you’re in,” Effingham says. “Some rudimentary testing would be a dead giveaway that you couldn’t go back in time and change the past, no matter how hard you tried.”

It’s this conundrum that underpins the whole series. Without Reese and the first Terminator, there would be no John Connor and no Skynet, and the future never exactly gets rosier, though the people in the new futures don’t seemingly realize what has changed.

Of course, this is all scrapped in Terminator: Dark Fate. This movie rejects that time travel can only happen in a closed loop and instead introduces the idea that new, different timelines are created with each decision. For this to make sense you have to forget everything that happened after Terminator 2: Judgment Day — but that’s probably a good idea anyway.

Inverse.com

River of Mist over the Grand Canyon

Aside May 15, 2022 Markozen.com Geography

A rare weather phenomenon that affects the area only about once a decade, filled the Grand Canyon in the U.S. with a dense, white fog at the end of November. The phenomenon, known as “temperature inversion,” happens when the temperature profile of the atmosphere is inverted from its usual state, and cooler air is trapped at the earth’s surface by warmer air above.

Typically, the temperature of air in the atmosphere falls the higher up in altitude you go. This is because most of the suns energy is converted into heat at the ground, which in turn warms the air at the surface. The warm air rises in the atmosphere, where it expands and cools. When temperature inversion occurs, the temperature of air actually increases with height. The warm air above cooler air acts like a lid, trapping the cooler air and fog at the surface and preventing it from rising.

Temperature inversions happen once or twice a year, typically in the winter months. However, these inversions are partial and cover only few parts of the Grand Canyon. The most recent inversion happens only once every 10 years, because the fog filled up the entire canyon and it happened on a cloudless day.

AccuWeather.com Meteorologist Andy Mussoline explained the factors that contributed to the event.

“First, there was higher-than-normal moisture in the canyon,” he said. “There was 0.75 of an inch of liquid precipitation that fell between Nov. 20 and Nov. 24 at the Grand Canyon National Park Airport [both snow and rain]. Normal precipitation during that time is only 0.19 of an inch, which converts to nearly 400 percent of normal precipitation within about a week of the event.”

“Additionally, the average high temperature for this time of year is about 48 degrees Fahrenheit, which means there would be less evaporation of that precipitation than there would be in the summer months. This allowed more moisture to stay in the air inside the canyon.”

“A high pressure system settled into the region late last week and allowed for clear skies and calm winds, two important weather conditions that allow the air near the ground to cool rapidly,” Mussoline said. “The rapid cooling of the ground allowed a temperature inversion to form.”

The canyon from space

Eurovision win brings ‘incredible happiness’ to Ukraine

Aside May 14, 2022 Markozen.com Music

Kalush Orchestra celebrating their win in Turin IMAGE SOURCE,EPAImage caption,

Ukrainians are celebrating winning this year’s Eurovision amid the Russian invasion

“When they said that we had won, I shouted at the whole apartment,” said Ivanna Khvalyboga, who was forced to flee Ukraine following the invasion.

Speaking from Poland, she told the BBC the win meant “incredible happiness for Ukraine and Ukrainian people”.

Kalush Orchestra won the competition, beating the UK and Spain to clinch to the top spot.

The group had been predicted to take the title as support rose following Russia’s invasion.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky congratulated Kalush Orchestra and said Ukraine’s courage “impresses the world”.

In a post on Instagram, he vowed one day to host Eurovision in a “free, peaceful and rebuilt” Mariupol, referencing the port city that is mostly under Russian control.

Kalush Orchestra talked about Mariupol and the Azovstal steelworks at the end of their performance, a move praised by people online.

“I’m sure many people will search the internet for information about Mariupol and Azovstal and it’s great,” one person wrote on the messaging service Telegram. “We need attention, a lot of attention.”

Military workers watch Eurovision in Ukraine — Ukrainians had been on tenterhooks throughout the ceremony

Yura Solodzhuk, the administrator of a Ukrainian Eurovision fan page, who was forced to flee his country, told the BBC he was shocked at the win but said it would “help attract the world’s attention again”.

“It’s important to remind the world about us again and again, that Ukrainian music and culture exists,” he said.

The group’s song Stefania was written as a tribute to lead singer Oleh Psiuk’s mother, but its emotive lyrics have been interpreted as a rallying cry and tribute to the nation.

“Stepfania is heard every day on the front line of our fighters as a call for freedom,” Ann Fedirko told the BBC from Ukraine. “Every soldier remembers his mother, who prays for him at night and he has to win a free life for her.”

“This song is like our blood, which is now on the lips of every Ukrainian,” she added.

Celebrations are mainly muted with people unable to celebrate in public places due to curfews in place across the country. Many people watched the contest from home.

Not long after Ukraine’s win was announced, a number of locations across the country were under an air raid warning.

Now Ukraine have won, there will need to be a discussion about where next year’s Eurovision event could be hosted.

The winner usually hosts the show the following year, but depending on the situation in Ukraine, the European Broadcasting Union will have to come to a decision as to where it could be held.

But for now, Ukrainians are focused on what it feels like to be victorious and what it could symbolise in the future.

“We have won Eurovision, we will win the war with Russia!,” Ms Khvalyboga said.

THE ODD BEAUTY OF EELS

Aside May 14, 2022 Markozen.com Animals, Nature

By Marie-Amélie Carpio

Capturing underwater beauty is routine for David Doubilet and Jennifer Hayes, who have explored some of the most spectacular reefs on the planet. Yet a colony of garden eels they encountered off the Philippines coast brought back memories. “I began my career at National Geographic in 1971 with a story on garden eels in the Red Sea,” said Doubilet, a Nat Geo Explorer. Taking these images, he said, “was like coming home.”

Garden eels are both social and shy. They live in individual burrows yet form colonies and rise together out of their burrows to feed on plankton carried by the current. (Pictured above, a two-spot wrasse and a cornerfish, unthreatening to the eels, swim through a colony.)

“It’s mesmerizing to watch hundreds of eels waving and undulating in an ancient exotic dance,” says Doubilet. Yet “that ends abruptly when the eels detect the slightest movement of an unwelcome intruder. The vast colony vanishes back into the sand as if it never existed.”

To capture the scene above, the photographers had to—quite literally—disappear.

“Jennifer settled on the Trojan Horse strategy,” Doubilet explains. Hayes placed a rock the same size and color of their camera housing near the edge of the colony and left it for a day. The eels apparently accepted the rock—and rose from their burrows. The next morning, she put the camera housing there, left—and then filmed.

Dinner interrupted: A hawksbill turtle stops eating sponges to confront its reflection in the lens. The turtle finds the sponges tucked under coral.

The vibrant coral: A pink soft coral and a bone-colored chalice coral are surrounded by anthias off Pescador Island, near Cebu. The photographers say the healthiest reefs in the Philippines are as vibrant with life as any they have seen.

Trying to save the young: A titan triggerfish, exhausted after battling to defend the eggs in its nest, lies down in a last attempt to save its young from moon wrasses. The robust corals on this reef attract a stunning array of sea life.

National Geographic

Forgot their thinking caps

Aside May 14, 2022May 14, 2022 Markozen.com Funny

If you ever feel a little bit stupid, just dig this up and read it again; you’ll begin to think you’re a genius..

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(On September 17, 1994, Alabama’s Heather Whitestone was selected as Miss America 1995.)

Question: If you could live forever, would you and why?

Answer: “I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever,”

–Miss Alabama in the 1994 Miss USA contest.

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“Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can’t help but cry. I mean I’d love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff.”

–Mariah Carey

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“Smoking kills. If you’re killed, you’ve lost a very important part of your life,”

— Brooke Shields, during an interview to become spokesperson for federal anti-smoking campaign

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“I’ve never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body,”

–Winston Bennett, University of Kentucky basketball forward.

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“Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country,”

–Mayor Marion Barry, Washington , DC . ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

“That lowdown scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a jackass, and I’m just the one to do it,”

–A congressional candidate in Texas ..

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“Half this game is ninety percent mental.”

–Philadelphia Phillies manager, Danny Ozark

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“It isn’t pollution that’s harming the environment. It’s the impurities in our air and water that are doing it..”

–Al Gore, Vice President

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“I love California . I practically grew up in Phoenix ..”

— Dan Quayle

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“We’ve got to pause and ask ourselves: How much clean air do we need?”

–Lee Iacocca

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“The word “genius” isn’t applicable in football. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein.”

–Joe Theisman, NFL football quarterback & sports analyst.

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“We don’t necessarily discriminate. We simply exclude certain types of people.”

— Colonel Gerald Wellman, ROTC Instructor.

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“Your food stamps will be stopped effective March 2020 because we received notice that you passed away. May God bless you. You may reapply if there is a change in your circumstances.”

–Department of Social Services, Greenville , South Carolina

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“Traditionally, most of Australia ‘s imports come from overseas.”

–Keppel Enderbery

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“If somebody has a bad heart, they can plug this jack in at night as they go to bed and it will monitor their heart throughout the night. And the next morning, when they wake up dead, there’ll be a record.”

— Mark S. Fowler, FCC Chairman

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Trump Tweets”

Into Death Valley

Aside May 14, 2022 Markozen.com Geography

Death Valley is a desert valley in Eastern California, in the northern Mojave Desert, bordering the Great Basin Desert. During summer, it is one of the hottest places on Earth, along with deserts in the Middle East and the Sahara.

Death Valley’s Badwater Basin is the point of lowest elevation in North America, at 282 feet (86 m) below sea level. It is 84.6 miles (136.2 km) east-southeast of Mount Whitney, the highest point in the contiguous United States, with an elevation of 14,505 feet (4,421 m). On the afternoon of July 10, 1913, the United States Weather Bureau recorded a high temperature of 134 °F (56.7 °C) at Furnace Creek in Death Valley, which stands as the highest ambient air temperature ever recorded on the surface of the Earth. This reading, however, and several others taken in that period, a century ago, are disputed by some modern-day experts.

The Pink Lake of Australia

Aside May 14, 2022 Markozen.com Geography

Lake Hillier is a saline lake on the edge of Middle Island, the largest of the islands and islets that make up the Recherche Archipelago in the Goldfields-Esperance region, off the south coast of Western Australia. It is particularly notable for its pink colour. A long and thin shore divides the Southern Ocean from the lake.

Lake Hillier is about 600 metres (2,000 ft) in length by about 250 m (820 ft) in width. The lake is surrounded by a rim of sand and a dense woodland of paperbark and eucalyptus trees with a narrow strip of sand dunes covered by vegetation separating its northern edge from the northern coast of Middle Island. The most notable feature of the lake is its pink colour. The vibrant colour is permanent, and does not alter when the water is taken in a container. The pink colour is considered to be due to the presence of the organism Dunaliella salina. Air is the best mode of transportation for viewing the lake. At one point in its history the lake was used to collect salt.

Lake Hillier was visited by the Matthew Flinders’ expedition on 15 January 1802. Flinders’ journal entries are considered to be the first written records of the lake. Flinders observed the pink lake after ascending the island’s highest peak (now called Flinders Peak), describing the lake as follows:

In the north-eastern part was a small lake of a rose colour, the water of which, as I was informed by Mr. Thistle who visited it, was so saturated with salt that sufficient quantities were crystallised near the shores to load a ship. The specimen he brought on board was of a good quality, and required no other process than drying to be fit for use.

Flinders visited Middle Island again in May 1803; he intended “to stop a day or two in Goose-Island Bay, for the purposes of procuring geese for our sick people, seal oil for our lamps, and a few casks of salt from the lake on Middle Island”. It is reported that Flinders subsequently named the lake after William Hillier, a crew member of Investigator who died of dysentery on 20 May 1803 prior to the expedition’s departure from Middle Island.

In 1889, Edward Andrews investigated the commercial possibilities of producing salt from Lake Hillier, and briefly moved onto the island with both of his sons. They left after working the salt deposits for about one year.

The lake was subject to salt mining during the late 19th century. The salt mining enterprise is reported as failing for a number of reasons including “the toxicity of the salt collected for consumption”.

The only living organisms in Lake Hillier are microorganisms including Dunaliella salina, which causes the salt content in the lake to create a red dye which helps produce the colour, as well as red halophilic bacteria present in the salt crusts. Despite the unusual hue, the lake exhibits no known adverse effects upon humans. From above, the lake appears a solid bubble gum pink, but from the shoreline it appears more of a clear pink hue. The shoreline is also covered in salt crust deposits.

Despite the high salt content levels (comparable to those of the Dead Sea), Lake Hillier is safe to swim in. However, there are very few ways to reach Lake Hillier. Aeroplane scenic flights are the most common method, with 6 flights a day departing Esperance Airport, flying over Lake Hillier via the nearby Cape Le Grand National Park. Cruises are also an option for passengers wanting to visit the isolated lake, and surrounding forest area.

The Parkade

Aside May 13, 2022 Markozen.com Buildings

A parkade in Winnipeg.

Giant sinkhole with a forest inside found in China

Aside May 12, 2022 Markozen.com Nature

A team of Chinese scientists has discovered a giant new sinkhole with a forest at its bottom.

The sinkhole is 630 feet (192 meters) deep, according to the Xinhua news agency, deep enough to just swallow St. Louis’ Gateway Arch. A team of speleologists and spelunkers rappelled into the sinkhole on Friday (May 6), discovering that there are three cave entrances in the chasm, as well as ancient trees 131 feet (40 m) tall, stretching their branches toward the sunlight that filters through the sinkhole entrance.

“This is cool news,” said George Veni, the executive director of the National Cave and Karst Research Institute (NCKRI) in the U.S., and an international expert on caves. Veni was not involved in the exploration of the cave, but the organization that was, the Institute of Karst Geology of the China Geological Survey, is NCKRI’s sister institute.

A site for sinkholes

This image shows a typical karst sinkhole called a tiankeng in Chongqing, China. (Image credit: Eastimages/Getty Images)
The discovery is no surprise, Veni told Live Science, because southern China is home to karst topography, a landscape prone to dramatic sinkholes and otherworldly caves. Karst landscapes are formed primarily by the dissolution of bedrock, Veni said. Rainwater, which is slightly acidic, picks up carbon dioxide as it runs through the soil, becoming more acidic. It then trickles, rushes and flows through cracks in the bedrock, slowly widening them into tunnels and voids. Over time, if a cave chamber gets large enough, the ceiling can gradually collapse, opening up huge sinkholes.

“Because of local differences in geology, climate and other factors, the way karst appears at the surface can be dramatically different,” he said. “So in China you have this incredibly visually spectacular karst with enormous sinkholes and giant cave entrances and so forth. In other parts of the world you walk out on the karst and you really don’t notice anything. Sinkholes might be quite subdued, only a meter or two in diameter. Cave entrances might be very small, so you have to squeeze your way into them.”

In fact, 25% of the United States is karst or pseudokarst, which features caves carved by factors other than dissolution, such as volcanics or wind, Veni said. About 20% of the world’s landmass is made of one of these two cave-rich landscapes.

The new discovery took place in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, near Ping’e village in the county of Leye, according to Xinhua. Guangxi is known for its fabulous karst formations, which range from sinkholes to rock pillars to natural bridges and have earned the region UNESCO world heritage site designation.

Why sinkholes matter

The sinkhole’s interior is 1,004 feet (306 m) long and 492 feet (150 m) wide, Zhang Yuanhai, a senior engineer with the Institute of Karst Geology, told Xinhua. The Mandarin word for such enormous sinkholes is “tiankeng,” or “heavenly pit,” and the bottom of the sinkhole did indeed seem like another world. Chen Lixin, who led the cave expedition team, told Xinhua that the dense undergrowth on the sinkhole floor was as high as a person’s shoulders. Karst caves and sinkholes can provide an oasis for life, Veni said.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to know that there are species found in these caves that have never been reported or described by science until now,” Lixin said.

In one West Texas cave, Veni said, tropical ferns grow abundantly; the spores of the ferns were apparently carried to the sheltered spot by bats that migrate to South and Central America.

Not only do sinkholes and caves offer refuge for life, they are also a conduit to aquifers, or deep stores of underground water. Karst aquifers provide the sole or primary water source for 700 million people worldwide, Veni said. But they’re easily accessed and drained — or polluted.

“Karst aquifers are the only types of aquifers that you can pollute with solid waste,” Veni said. “I’ve pulled car batteries and car bodies and barrels of God-knows-what and bottles of God-knows-what out of the active cave stream.”

The new discovery brings the number of sinkholes in Leye County to 30, according to Xinhua. The same researchers have previously discovered dozens of sinkholes in Northwest China’s Shaanxi province and a cluster of interconnected sinkholes in Guangxi, China Daily reported.