Rio Lady is a whale shark (Rhincodon typus) and a swimming superstar. By following her movements with different trackers for almost two decades, including a record-breaking four-year streak, scientists have learned a lot about whale sharks and their habits.For such big fish – Rio Lady is nearly 8 meters (26 feet) long – there is actually still a great deal that we do not know about whale sharks. “There's a lot to learn about where whale sharks go to give birth” Daniel Daye, lead author of a recent study describing Rio Lady’s movements, told IFLScience. We also know little about their social and mating behaviors.One of the things we do know, however, is that once a year, between July and August, a large whale shark gathering occurs off the coast of Isla Mujeres, across from Cancùn in the Gulf of Mexico. Up to 400 individuals have been spotted there together, and they are there to feast. The waters at that time of year are full of the freshly spawned eggs of tunny fish, a banquet for our big fish. Whale sharks are filter feeders, swimming near the water surface with their mouths agape, letting plankton, eggs, and little fish flow in.  It was here, near Isla Mujeres, that Rio Lady was most recently GPS-tagged in 2018. From there, the researchers were able to follow her slow, far-ranging movements over the course of almost four years (with the first three years giving the most consistent recordings). Between 2018 and 2021, she covered at least 44,000 kilometers (27,340 miles) in the Gulf of Mexico. That’s more than the Earth’s circumference!Her movements revealed that she not only enjoys the yearly banquet of Isla Mujeres, but consistently divides her year between three different hunting areas in the Gulf of Mexico. The other two are the area across from Veracruz and the northern region of the gulf.Interestingly, the feeding ground gatherings seem to be somewhat age and sex-specific, with the Isla Mujeres being visited predominantly by young males (Rio Lady is an exception here). It is not known yet if the other feeding grounds that Rio Lady visits are dominated by other groups. “We are working on a follow-up paper to look more at the population-level movements for [a group of 20 male] whale sharks,” said Daye.Whale sharks are slow movers, but can still cover some impressive distances.Image credit: University of Rhode IslandRio Lady’s movements during the winter months were not recorded in the current study. The type of tracker that was used was programmed to only transmit when the tracker, attached to her dorsal fin, was outside the water. This suggests that she didn’t surface in the wintertime.In the winter of 2006, using a different type of tracker, she was recorded swimming 7,772 kilometers (4892 miles) in 150 days to the mid-Atlantic, near the Brazilian Saint Peter and Saint Paul Archipelago. She might have undertaken the long journey to give birth there.In the current dataset, “the timing of movement back into the Gulf of Mexico from somewhere southern suggests that there was some similar movement pattern during this time,” explained Daye. Whether this journey happens as regularly as her movements within the Gulf is still unknown.The whale shark population has been decreasing worldwide, with a roughly 63 percent decline over the last 75 years. The cause for the decline is in part fishing, either as direct targets or as bycatch. Because they feed near the surface, they are also at risk of being struck by boats and propellers, and as filter feeders, are at risk of ingesting microplastics. As a result, whale sharks are now an endangered species and research like the current study into their movements and habits is key for informing conservation efforts.“With respect to the sharks near Isla Mujeres, the Mexican government has established two nature reserves near the area to protect whale shark habitat. Regulations surrounding the tourism industry try to prevent tourists from overwhelming the sharks and adding unnecessary stress,” Daye told IFLScience."Other studies have compared shark movements to shipping corridors and identified areas that show potential for a higher risk of collision. Speed limits, like those enacted in some areas of the US to protect whales, could be implemented to reduce risk to whale sharks too,” Daye continued. “Since we identified three regions of habitat use that occur during different times of year, this could help to determine when/where some of these regulations get implemented, and to ensure that they are implemented effectively.”You can track the movements of Rio Lady and other whale sharks here. Some tags are still active!This study is published in Marine and Freshwater Research.

When one thinks of deadly chemicals, arsenic, cyanide, and strychnine often come top of the list – but what if we told you there are several chemicals at least a hundred times deadlier, and the one considered most lethal of all gets injected into nearly 3 million people every year?The toxicity of substances is assessed using the LD50 (Lethal Dose, 50 percent) which refers to the amount needed to kill 50 percent of the test population. Quoted per kilogram of body weight, when ingested sodium chloride (salt) has an LD50 of 3,000 milligrams per kilogram, meaning it would take roughly 210,000 milligrams of salt to kill a person weighing 70 kilograms (154 pounds). Caffeine has an LD50 of 192 milligrams per kilogram, and sodium cyanide is 6.4 milligrams per kilogram.Botulinum toxin, however, has an LD50 of 1 nanogram per kilogram, meaning it would take just 0.00007 milligrams to kill a 70-kilogram person. With a toxicity that high, it would take less than 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) of the substance (ingested) to kill every human on Earth.Botulinum toxinMost substances have different toxicity levels based on how they are absorbed into the body, and these levels can vary quite drastically. While 1 gram of botulinum toxin can potentially kill 14,000 people when ingested, if injected, that same dose would kill 8.3 million people.Taking just one molecule of the substance to stop one neuron from working, botulinum toxin is the most powerful known neurotoxin and it’s most commonly found in badly preserved food, flesh wounds, and cosmetic injections – although not in dangerous doses.Botulinum toxins are produced by Clostridium botulinum, bacteria that under low-oxygen conditions can produce a number of toxins. It’s these toxins specifically that affect the nervous system, rather than the bacteria themselves.First discovered in the 18th century, the name “botulism” is derived from the Latin botulus, meaning “sausage”, and referred to German medic Justinus Kerner’s description of the toxin as a sausage poison due to it predominantly being found in ill-preserved/prepared meats.Types of botulismC. botulinum spores are commonly found in soil and sea or river water, but when these spores gain access to a low-oxygen environment they start to grow and produce their dangerous toxins.The toxins most commonly occur in canned food where bacteria have been allowed to enter the low-oxygen environment. They can also be found on food that hasn’t been prepared or stored properly, but both the bacteria and the toxins can be destroyed by high temperatures – so make sure you heat your food all the way through!As neurotoxins, these toxins work by paralyzing nerve cells by disrupting their signals. Ingesting foodborne botulism can cause paralysis and respiratory failure, with fatigue, vertigo, weakness, and difficulty speaking being some of the early symptoms. With symptoms usually appearing within 12 to 36 hours after exposure, the mortality rate is high, with around 5 to 10 percent of cases proving fatal. Despite this, botulism cases are very rare and treatable if diagnosed early. Infants under the age of 6 months are also at risk of infant botulism from eating spore-contaminated food as their gastrointestinal defences aren’t yet strong enough to prevent the bacteria from growing and producing toxins. It is for this reason that parents and carers are recommended not to feed honey to children under the age of 1 year.Wound botulism can also occur when C. botulinum spores get into open wounds and able to grow due to the anaerobic environment. While rare, this form of botulism is predominantly associated with substance abuse cases, namely the injection of heroin. The symptoms are similar to foodborne botulism, but symptoms may take slightly longer to appear.Inhalation botulism is also a rare but deadly risk. Usually occurring as a result of the toxins being released from aerosols, inhaling the toxins is markedly more dangerous than ingesting them, taking a far lower dosage to cause serious damage.Due to its paralyzing properties, C. botulinum is used in cosmetic procedures under the name Botox. These treatments use a heavily diluted botulinum neurotoxin type A (onabotulinumtoxin A) and were first used in 1981 to treat people with strabismus (a condition in which the eyes point in different directions). Since then, this procedure has become the most common cosmetic procedure worldwide for its use in wrinkle prevention and anti-aging.But, after learning about the potency of botulinum toxins, maybe those pesky forehead wrinkles aren’t all that bad.

Somewhere in the savannah, a gazelle is born. A lick from mom and an uncertain wobble, and she is ready to run. Somewhere on a sandy beach, a little turtle hatches. It sits with its siblings under the sand, until, suddenly, they run as a group to the surface and straight into the sea. Have you ever wondered howanimals are capable of doing so much right from birth?For a brain to fully function, it needs to be wired correctly. A human brain has around 86 billion neurons, each connecting through thousands of synapses to other neurons. Some neurons are connected to their neighbors, others have to find their way over many centimeters (even up to a meter). How these connections are made has been debated for decades: How much of it is baked into the genome and how much of it arises from experience? Until now, the debate had landed somewhere in the middle, with a bit of both.A recent study, however, is taking a stand. Not only is experience (of the senses, of motor programs, etc.) not necessary, but as a whole, neural activity – the electrical signals in neurons that allow them to communicate – isn’t necessary either. The brain is wired and ready to go based on genetics alone. The study took a rather radical approach: To find out if neuronal activity was necessary for development, they got rid of all of it.“How much developmental activity is necessary for circuit assembly was just [...] not known. [...] The inspiration was to do it in a larval zebrafish, because that's currently the only vertebrate [...] where you can block all activity throughout development reversibly” senior author Dr. Florian Engert, Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University, told IFLScience. “It wasn't an experiment where we had an expectation for the outcome. We [were] just open for anything here.”Removing neural activity or experience had previously been shown to affect normal development, but the perturbations had been localized. This created imbalances in the brain leading to compensation from unaffected regions. The brain is perturbation sensitive and is always targeting balance, according to Dr Engert, explaining the effects seen in these experiments.Silencing the whole brain for several days is not an easy task. The researchers used a drug  called tricaine that blocks the electrical activity of neurons. They had to make sure the fish didn’t sensitize to the drugs. They also found out that the drug was breaking down into toxic compounds in light, so they had to rear the fish in darkness. But, after several rounds of testing, they succeeded in their experiment. In adult fish it can be lethal, but the larval fish lived! They were small enough that they could breathe through their skin, and eat from their yolk sac. Turns out, you don’t need a brain to grow up. To test if the silencing had an effect, they tested the fish for their optomotor response (OMR), where zebrafish turn to align themselves to the speed and direction of whole-field visual motion. This is thought to allow them to stay stationary in a moving stream. OMR and the neural circuitry underlying it are very well characterized in zebrafish, making it ideal for this study. “The [OMR] requires temporal integration, evidence accumulation and gain control, [...] which link to learning, memory and decision making” says Dr Engert “So [it] actually captures a lot of the other aspects of higher order, cognitive-like behaviors.” After three days living in tricaine-infused water, the larval zebrafish woke up from their drug-induced quiescence with intact neural circuitry ready to perform OMR. The lack of neural activity didn’t have an effect, the fish brain had everything it needed in the genome. “The connection and the initial assembly of a connectome is happening in three stages. The first is differentiation, and soma position. You put all the individual units in the right place and give them the right signature. The second one is axon growth, axon guidance along morphogenetic gradients, all under genetic control. And the final stage is cell-cell recognition, is finding your synaptic partners.”“In basically all animals most of the critical, if not all behaviors, are already there when the animal engages the world.” says Dr Engert “Knowledge, competency, and skill, expertise, cognitive power is all baked into the genome. In no animal, anything critical needs to be learned.” So is everything hard coded? It’s not fully deterministic, according to Dr Engert. In the vertebrate brain there is also a “stochastic element of wiring”.If we’re born ready to go, what happens after birth? At first, “You need to constantly recalibrate because things are still changing” because your body is still growing. “If you want to observe the calibration in action, you should watch a movie of a newborn horse when it's born. And for the first ten minutes they stumble around uncoordinated, but you can really see it in real time. You can see [...] how the system calibrates itself.” Maybe a young horse is able to run soon after birth, but have you seen a human baby? According to Dr Engert, humans, like monkeys and other animals, are essentially born prematurely. That doesn’t mean experience after birth is necessary for early development. On top of that, as humans we depend on a lot of acquired knowledge because language is so central to our social and cognitive behaviors. A fully functional human requires more experience to shape the brain than what is present at birth.The problem of how much our brains are wired without experience is interesting for neural networks as well. “Research in artificial intelligence and computational neuroscience have highlighted how weakly structured models can learn to perform complex tasks” say the authors. Unlike most neural networks, much of the brain’s functional wiring is established without learning.This study is published in the journal Nature communications

Somebody might want to run an AI analysis of Eugene Robinson's current Washington Post column: "No, really, Republicans are getting weirder."  It'd be interesting to see if it were written in the style of Kamala Harris speechwriters or some other member of her campaign. In both his column and his appearance on today's Morning Joe, Robinson repeatedly used the official Harris campaign attack word on the Trump-Vance ticket: "weird." Eight times in his column, and another six times in one shortish Morning Joe segment, Robinson deployed the w-word against the Republican ticket. Could a columnist possibly be a more faithful repeater of a favored candidate's propaganda? Why bother reading Robinson? Why not just go directly to the source: the Harris campaign website, or perhaps to YouTubes of her deep thoughts? Indeed, in his column, Robinson quoted a Harris campaign email, and a statement by a possible Harris VP pick, calling Trump and Vance "weird." He hit the liberal objection to Vance wanting parents to have more political power. ROBINSON: And just all this sort of really really weird stuff. And this is -- you know, this is who he is. And I think this is going to keep sort of cropping up. So now, we have in Vance and Trump, one of the like, weirdest tickets that I can recall. These are two really unusual people who say and do weird things. Trump is out talking about the, you know, the shark and the boat and the battery all the time. And the late, great, Hannibal Lecter, with all his eccentricities and weirdnesses. And now you have J.D. Vance. Gene, when you're reduced to cutting and pasting quotes from your favored candidate and her supporters, you're not a pundit. You're a stenographer.  Note:  Substitute host Jonathan Lemire is also aboard the "weird" train.  Responding to Robinson, the seventh word out of Lemire's mouth was  . . . you guessed it. Here's the transcript. MSNBC Morning Joe 7/30/24 6:24 am EDT JONATHAN LEMIRE: Eugene, your latest column for the Washington Post is titled, "No, really, Republicans are getting weirder." And J.D. Vance appears to be Exhibit A. EUGENE ROBINSON: Yeah, he's absolutely Exhibit A. I mean, come on! Okay, so he says this really kind of stupid, geeky, weird, dorm room, late at night kind of thing, right? He tosses off this insult about childless cat ladies, trying to be clever with Tucker Carlson. And it comes back to haunt him. And he can't just take it back. He can't just say, that gee, that was a really, really dumb thing to say. And, and, I, I really regret it.  No, he kind of doubles down and doubles down, because that's what he's expected to do if you're Donald Trump's running mate. You can never back down, right? So, he says, well, you know, you have to focus on the substance. Well, the substance of what he was talking about is, like, really crazy, about how if you have kids, you ought to be able to vote more times in an election than a single person. And just all this sort of really really weird stuff. And this is -- you know, this is who he is. And I think this is going to keep sort of cropping up. So now, we have in Vance and Trump,bone of the, like, weirdest tickets that I can recall. These are two really unusual people who say and do weird things. Trump is out talking about the, you know, the shark and the boat and the battery all the time. And the late, great, Hannibal Lecter, with all his eccentricities and weirdnesses. And now you have J.D. Vance.  And then you have this dynamic between the two of them, which is going to be fascinating. Because you can imagine how happy Donald Trump is to have to be explaining away the, the kind of odd words of his vice presidential candidate, of his running mate. And now, he is going to have to explain away what the Post reported J.D. Vance said in a fundraiser about how, well, gee, I don't know, running against Kamala Harris, when they changed candidates, that was, that was a sucker punch. And we have to regroup. And we just don't quite know how to run against her. Trump's not going to like that, either. So, this is going to be fascinating. But, it's weird! LEMIRE: So Sam, not only is it weird, but for the first time in a long time, certainly in months if not more during this campaign, Trump has had to be reactive. They're not setting the agenda. They are, actually, in that subordinate role, at least in terms of news cycles at the moment. And it's a place that's clearly makes him deeply uncomfortable. And, you know, there are certainly a lot of Republicans already pointing fingers, really second-guessing Vance's choice.

Tuesday’s CBS Mornings featured a truly remarkable segment that had the cajones to commiserate with Lebanon (run in large part by the Iran-backed terror group, Hezbollah) that Israel might unleash a fierce military response to last weekend’s missile attack by Hezbollah on a youth soccer field that left 12 children dead and strewn in pieces. Filling in on the weekday show, CBS Saturday Morning co-host Michelle Miller expressed concern of “growing” “fears of a wider war” not because of Hezbollah’s horrifying attack, but because “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised a severe response”.  She even seemed to case doubt on whether someone else carried out the attack: “Netanyahu blames the Lebanon-based Hezbollah.” Foreign correspondent Imtiaz Tyab — long an apologist for Hamas in this war since October 7 — became the Norm MacDonald joke about Islamic terrorism: This 'CBS Mornings' segment is remarkable. Just two minutes long, it FRETS Israel might retaliate against Hezbollah in Lebanon b/c they...let's see here....butchered 12 innocent kids in the Golan Heights over the weekend while playing soccer. But, but, think of BEIRUT! pic.twitter.com/oTenpENiZQ — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 30, 2024 “Beirut’s bustling streets are bustling as ever as diplomats from the U.S. and beyond frantically try to pressure Israel not to unleash its fury over Saturday’s deadly attack on the Lebanese capital, home to two and a half million people,” a crestfallen Tyab declared. Man, wouldn’t it be a shame if someone responded to innocents being mowed down despite having no ties to the wider war or hiding terrorists in their homes? Tyab continued his unapologetic nonsense: Israel has vowed to hit Hezbollah hard, forcing several major airlines to cancel flights here to Beirut with the U.S. State Department issuing an Urgent Travel Warning to Americans: get out of Lebanon while you still can. Fears of an all-out here have been looming for months as cross-border strikes between Israel and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah only intensified.  Of course, Tyab had room to run on this since the Biden-Harris administration isn’t keen on wanting Israel to avenge the murder babies either: “The Biden administration is concerned Israeli forces will not only target the densely populated southern suburbs of the city, seen as Hezbollah strongholds, but also key infrastructure like airports and bridges as it has in past conflicts.” After turning to an unidentified man on Beirut’s streets who told him he “know[s] what war is” and “in war, there is no winner”, Tyab concluded with an implicit warning to Israel supporters by holding up the new president of Iran: Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, has issued a blistering warning to Israel against attacking Lebanon, saying it would be a great mistake with heavy consequences. And the question now is when will Israel carry out strikes in Lebanon? Still, there are signs Israeli leaders may also be looking to avoid an all-out war with Hezbollah and only carry out limited strikes given its own military’s fatigue after nearly ten months of brutal warfare in Gaza[.] To see the relevant CBS transcript from July 30, click “expand.” CBS Mornings July 30, 2024 7:14 a.m. Eastern [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Israel-Hamas War; Middle East on Edge; Netanyahu Promises Severe Response to Rocket Attack That Left 12 Dead] MICHELLE MILLER: Now to the Middle East where fears of a wider war are growing after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised a severe response to the rocket strike that killed 12 children and teenagers in the Golan Heights. Netanyahu blames the Lebanon-based Hezbollah. Imtiaz Tyab is in the Lebanese capital of Beirut. IMTIAZ TYAB: Beirut’s bustling streets are bustling as ever as diplomats from the U.S. and beyond frantically try to pressure Israel not to unleash its fury over Saturday’s deadly attack on the Lebanese capital, home to two and a half million people. Israel has vowed to hit Hezbollah hard, forcing several major airlines to cancel flights here to Beirut with the U.S. State Department issuing an Urgent Travel Warning to Americans: get out of Lebanon while you still can. Fears of an all-out here have been looming for months as cross-border strikes between Israel and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah only intensified. The Biden administration is concerned Israeli forces will not only target the densely populated southern suburbs of the city, seen as Hezbollah strongholds, but also key infrastructure like airports and bridges as it has in past conflicts. BEIRUT MAN: I know what war is. In a war, there is no winner. TYAB: There is no winner. MAN: No. TYAB: Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, has issued a blistering warning to Israel against attacking Lebanon, saying it would be a great mistake with heavy consequences. And the question now is when will Israel carry out strikes in Lebanon? Still, there are signs Israeli leaders may also be looking to avoid an all-out war with Hezbollah and only carry out limited strikes given its own military’s fatigue after nearly ten months of brutal warfare in Gaza, Nate. NATE BURLESON: Imtiaz Tyab in Beirut. Thank you.

Vice President Kamala Harris has now endorsed a radical proposal from her boss, Joe Biden, that would overhaul the U.S. Supreme Court, signaling that she has not abandoned her far-left record even as she attempts to win over voters in swing states during the 2024 presidential campaign.On Monday, Biden proposed three major changes to the makeup and inner workings of SCOTUS, as Blaze News previously reported. Biden wants 18-year term limits as well as a "binding code of conduct" for all justices. Taking aim at the lawfare campaigns he has allegedly unleashed on former President Donald Trump as well as a recent SCOTUS decision regarding presidential immunity, Biden also wants a constitutional amendment proclaiming that "no one is above the law."Harris continues to champion leftist pipe dreams — such as radically altering one of the three branches of government — that likely appeal to idealogues in California but not to blue-collar workers in Rust Belt states like Pennsylvania and Michigan."I share our Founders’ belief that the president’s power is limited, not absolute. We are a nation of laws — not of kings or dictators," Biden apparently wrote.On Monday evening, Harris announced her support for Biden's SCOTUS "reform" proposal, calling it critical for shoring up public "confidence" in our nation's highest court."There is a clear crisis of confidence facing the U.S. Supreme Court. That is why President @JoeBiden and I are calling on Congress to pass important reforms — from imposing term limits to requiring compliance with binding ethics rules," Harris wrote on X."And in our democracy, no one should be above the law. So we must also ensure that no former President has immunity for crimes committed while in the White House." — (@) As several outlets, including left-wing sources like Vox and the Daily Beast, have noted, the proposal has almost no chance of becoming the law of the land, especially since at least some of the ideas contained within it would require changing the Constitution.Plus, Biden and Harris have made no effort to advance it along. According to the New York Post, Senate Democrats who would normally be tasked with drawing up legislation about such a proposal were not even briefed on its contents.Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) likewise stated that the Biden-Harris proposal has no chance of passing the House:This proposal is the logical conclusion to the Biden-Harris Administration and Congressional Democrats’ ongoing efforts to delegitimize the Supreme Court. Their calls to expand and pack the Court will soon resume. It is telling that Democrats want to change the system that has guided our nation since its founding simply because they disagree with some of the Court’s recent decisions. This dangerous gambit of the Biden-Harris Administration is dead on arrival in the House.But perhaps more importantly, Harris' support for the proposal reveals that she is not attempting to moderate some of her left-wing positions even amidst a tough presidential race. Though some in the media have attempted to obscure her record as the Biden administration border czar and her support for a group that bailed out violent rioters in 2020, Harris continues to champion leftist pipe dreams — such as radically altering one of the three branches of government — that likely appeal to idealogues in California but not to blue-collar workers in Rust Belt states like Pennsylvania and Michigan.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Amazon Prime’s “The Boys” has always been “woke,” but the latest season took the meaning of the word to an entirely new level. “‘The Boys’ has really always been ‘woke’ since its first season,” Lauren Chen explains. “It’s only now, in its later seasons, particularly seasons three and four, that I found the wokeness is becoming really just too much.” Chen points to one scene in particular that took it one step too far. “There was a scene that was so stupid, so poorly written,” Chen says. The scene featured Victoria Newman, a Latina politician with super powers, and the newest character Sage, a black woman, whose entire presence in the show “is so frustrating.” “Her entire premise is that she is the smartest person alive, but here’s the thing. That’s a problem because the writers for this show are not that smart. So, the question is, how do you portray the smartest person in the world when you are a certifiable midwit?” Chen asks. The writers came up with a solution to this midwit condition they have by telling “the audience that she is smart, that Sage is smart, many, many times.” In this particular scene, Newman and Sage are attending what appears to be a right-wing political gathering full of old white billionaires. The pair are scheming to get these billionaires on board with Newman as president, and Newman complains that she had “abortion mansplained” to her by a man who “refuses to be alone with any woman who’s not his wife.”Not only is Chen disturbed by the abortion comment, the entire scheme is childish and not reflective of the “smartest person in the world.”“Something that Sage in her infinite wisdom has concocted, but it’s like, well, obviously if you’re trying to seize political power, doesn’t it make sense to get other people who have power on board with your cause?” Chen says. “That’s not some grandmaster strategy, that’s just literally the bare minimum you would expect to do if you are trying to do a soft coup. This is not genius-level stuff. I’ve literally seen women’s book clubs with more intricate political backstabbing and intrigue than this show,” she adds.

Dawn Staley — coach of NCAA women's basketball champion South Carolina and a Team USA's Olympic selection committee member — said rookie WNBA star Caitlin Clark would be in "high consideration" for the U.S. Olympic women's basketball team if the roster was selected "all over again."Clark's exclusion from the Olympic roster was widely considered one of the biggest snubs in USA basketball history. NBC host Mike Tirico prompted Staley on the topic earlier this week, asking her to "give me your read on that now that there's been some time."Staley replied, "As a committee member, you're charged with putting together the best team of players, the best talent. Caitlin is just a rookie in the WNBA. [She] wasn't playing bad, but wasn't playing like she's playing now."Then Staley acknowledged that "if we had to do it all over again, the way that she's playing, she would be in really high consideration of making the team because she is playing head and shoulders above a lot of people, shooting the ball extremely well. She is an elite passer. She's just got a great basketball IQ, and she's a little more seasoned in the pro game."Clark has set the sports world on fire since her last year of college at Iowa — and since turning pro earlier this year, she has proven time and time again that she's the biggest draw in WNBA history. Not only is the young player showcasing talent unseen in the women's league, but she also has nearly tripled viewership and doubled attendance wherever she plays.Reports from June 2024 found that the least attended game for Clark's Indiana Fever was higher than every other team's average home attendance.For those reasons, many were baffled as to why the Olympic team would not capitalize on Clark's popularity."Hey, dummies, for the first time in the history of basketball you have arguably a player who is the most popular player in the world. You could argue right now Caitlin Clark is the most talked about, discussed, most popular, most puts asses in the seats, single basketball player in the world," Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy said at the time."And you leave her off the Olympics team?" he asked. "It's not only a showcase for her; it's for the sport and the other WNBA players who are on this team."Staley is not a stranger to controversy in her own right, either. After winning the NCAA championship, Staley was asked if she thought men who believe they are women should be allowed to compete in women's basketball."I'm on the opinion of, if you're a woman, you should play. If you consider yourself a woman and you want to play sports or vice versa, you should be able to play. That's my opinion," she answered.Team USA defeated Japan 102-76 in its first Olympic contest and will play Belgium on Thursday and Germany on Sunday.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Does Black Myth Wukong have new game plus? As with anything even remotely close to the soulslike subgenre, players are already wondering what happens when you finish your first playthrough of Black Myth Wukong. A lot of these action-adventure games let the players start again, keeping some of the power gained from previous playthroughs. This is called new game plus - but does Black Myth Wukong have it? The Black Myth Wukong release date is nearly here, and players are chomping at the bit to step into the shoes of the Destined One - the prospect of taking down giant Black Myth Wukong bosses is tantalizing, and by the looks of it, it’s something we’ll want to do time and time again. Here’s what we know about Black Myth Wukong new game plus. Continue reading Does Black Myth Wukong have new game plus? MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Upcoming PC games, Best RPG games on PC, Best new PC games

Having broken the Guinness World Record for the most popular YouTube non-music video in 24 hours, the first GTA 6 trailer went down a treat, continuing the streak of records GTA 5 has earned in the 11 years since release. Unsurprisingly then, everyone and their dogs are clamoring for more, whether it’s a crumb of gameplay details or a fresh new trailer. Thankfully, a new promo for GTA 5 has sparked wild but surprisingly plausible theories that a new GTA 6 trailer will be released in October. Continue reading Wild GTA 6 trailer theory could just be true after all MORE FROM PCGAMESN: GTA 6 release date, Best open-world games, GTA 5 cheats