otters_raft

Source: https://poorlydrawnlines.com/comic/critic/

Alternate source: https://www.404media.co/the-dude-whose-brain-turned-to-glass

Though it’s commonly associated with dinging bells and chimes in the 1960s, and electronic whirring and beeps in the 1980s, the pinball machine has entered a new era of popularity.

These physical, electromechanical games entered a rough patch during the influx of video games in the 1990s. But in 2023, The Economist reported that sales of new machines by pinball’s biggest manufacturer, Stern, have risen by 15–20% every year since 2008. Pinball tournaments and community events are booming too, with thousands being held each year.

Part of this resurgence in the pinball business can strangely be credited to the Covid-19 pandemic. While it hurt arcades, barcades, and the social aspects of pinball, it increased demand for home buyers. People who were staying home during lockdown found joy in owning their own machines. This expanded the market, creating customers for new machines but also increasing demand (and prices) for old machines from the original heyday of pinball. This in turn created a need for more people to learn to repair machines.

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Author: Louise Archer | Postdoctoral Fellow, Biological Sciences, University of Toronto

Despite being the largest land carnivore and a top Arctic predator that can weigh over 600 kg, polar bears start off surprisingly small. Blind, almost hairless, and weighing just 600g at birth, cubs are born in maternity dens under the snow. These snow caves keep newborns warm and safe for the first few months of their life, when they grow rapidly by nursing on their mother’s rich milk.

After three to four months in the den, cubs will have grown to about 20 times their birth weight and will be large enough and furry enough to follow their mothers out into the frigid Arctic spring.

In a study published in The Journal of Wildlife Management, we used remote cameras to study polar bear families as they emerged from their dens in Svalbard, Norway, gaining insight into the behaviour of mothers and cubs as they experience the world outside the den for the first time.