Desiree Steven

Animal lover. Marketer. MotoGP enthusiast. Love being where the sand meets the sea. All images & video my copyright unless otherwise stated. Profile pic A.Brown

[Desiree Steven @Questanzar]

@Shorty368550310 Have a great evening ✨️

[Cats with aura @Catsworldtweet]

This is why you should always trust your cat.

[cinesthetic. @TheCinesthetic]

The chase scene in Johnny English Reborn is hilarious. Rowan Atkinson plays every ridiculous moment with complete conviction, which makes it even funnier.

[BazzaCC @bazzacc2]

Brilliant 👏

[Desiree Steven @Questanzar]

@Shorty368550310 Stunning ✨️

[Desiree Steven @Questanzar]

@Shorty368550310 Happy Maori New Year ✨️

[Mr PitBull Stories @MrPitbull07]

In 1916, a pack of dogs attacked a private zoo in Hawaii. Two terrified wallabies broke out of their cage and escaped into the mountains.

What happened next is one of the wildest accidents in wildlife history.

After the wallabies vanished into the forested cliffs of Kalihi Valley, the zoo's owner called for a massive public hunt. Nobody caught them.

A local newspaper joked that they might eventually "produce a breed of Hawaiian wallabies."They were exactly right.

Despite being 5,000 miles from Australia, the steep volcanic rock faces in Hawaii turned out to be the perfect habitat.

By 1984, researchers counted roughly 250 wallabies thriving in the valley. They had even started developing their own unique evolutionary characteristics.
The craziest part?

They aren't considered invasive.They only eat non-native plants.

They don't compete with native species (Hawaii has no native land mammals).
Because they peacefully coexist with the ecosystem, the state of Hawaii officially protects them. It is strictly illegal to hunt or harm a Hawaiian wallaby.

Back in their native Australia, the brush-tailed rock wallaby is fighting for its life. Predators, habitat clearing, and the devastating 2019-2020 bushfires wiped out an estimated 70% of their remaining habitat.

But that accidental Honolulu colony?
They have no foxes. No feral cats in the cliffs. No bushfires.

Two wallabies that broke out of a cage 110 years ago accidentally founded what might be the most secure population of their species anywhere on Earth.

[Desiree Steven @Questanzar]

@ShereleMoody 💔💔💔

[Desiree Steven @Questanzar]

@profesterman 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

[Desiree Steven @Questanzar]

@Shorty368550310 Epic plan. Get to enjoy the flowers, memories, and food with your friends and loved ones 💕✨️💕

[Sama Hoole @SamaHoole]

Wool is a technology so good that if a startup unveiled it tomorrow, it would raise a fortune.

Run through the spec sheet with a straight face.

It keeps you warm even when it's soaking wet, which almost nothing else does. It is naturally flame-resistant. It doesn't catch and melt onto your skin like plastic does. It chars, refuses to sustain the flame, and puts itself out when you take the fire away. It manages moisture, breathes, and resists smell so well you can wear it for days. It bends tens of thousands of times without snapping.

And when you're finally done with it, you can put it in the ground and in a matter of months it's gone, rotted back into the soil, feeding it nitrogen on the way out.

Then there's the supply chain, which is the part no engineer could ever replicate. It grows back. Every year, on its own, on nothing but grass and rain, on a sheep that was going to stand on that hillside anyway. A self-renewing, fireproof, compostable insulation fibre with a production input of weather.

We replaced it with polyester. Oil, spun into thread, that melts on you in a fire, sheds plastic into the sea with every wash, and sits in landfill for centuries when you're done.

We had the better version the whole time. It says baa.

[God @TheTweetOfGod]

Will the owners of a blue planet between Venus and Mars please attend to your vehicle. It is overheating.

[Denis - The COVID info guy - @BigBadDenis]

The Ruby Princess cruise ship, infamously linked to a March 2020 Sydney voyage resulting in 663 COVID-19 cases and 28 deaths, faces a new health crisis. The vessel has now reported over 120 suspected cases of Norovirus during a tour of the United States.

https://t.co/6FaJFEdEiA

[Give A Shit About Nature @giveashitnature]

Swiss farmers planted flowers between their crops and watched pest damage drop by over half. The UK is now running the same trial across 15 farms. The reason this works is embarrassingly simple.

A Swiss study on winter wheat found that fields with wildflower strips had 40 to 53% fewer leaf beetle pests than fields without. Crop damage dropped 61%.

The mechanism is simple. Wildflowers feed hoverflies, lacewings, parasitic wasps, ladybugs, and ground beetles. Those insects eat the aphids, beetle larvae, and caterpillars that farmers would otherwise spray for. A few meters of wildflowers hosts an unpaid pest control crew that would jump at the chance to whoop some aphid ass.

In apple orchards where no insecticides had been used for five years, plots with wildflower alleyways had 9.2% damaged fruit. Control plots without flowers had 32.5%.

The UK is now running a five-year trial across 15 farms placing 6-meter flower strips through the middle of fields, not just at the edges, because the beneficial insects can't reach the center of a large field otherwise.

This works the same way in a backyard vegetable garden as it does on a commercial farm. Plant native flowering species near your tomatoes, beans, and squash. The pests still show up, but the predators show up too.

Study doi: 20151369

[ArchaeoHistories @histories_arch]

Everyone told her to throw it away. She tested it anyway—and saved 3,000 lives...

In July 1965, DuPont Laboratory, Wilmington, Delaware. Stephanie Kwolek held a beaker toward the light and frowned. The liquid inside didn't look right. It was cloudy, thin, and watery. Every polymer she had ever created was thick, smooth, and clear like honey. This one looked contaminated.

Her supervisor looked at it for a moment.

"Discard it and start over."

It was standard procedure. Sensible advice. Almost any other chemist would have poured it straight down the drain without a second thought.

But something inside Stephanie quietly asked one question.

What if?

"I'd like to test it anyway," she said.

That quiet decision would change thousands of lives forever.

Stephanie had never planned to save people through chemistry. Her dream had always been to become a doctor and care for patients. But in the 1940s, medical school was simply too expensive for the daughter of hardworking Polish immigrants.

So she accepted what she believed would be a temporary job at DuPont in 1946, planning to stay only long enough to earn enough money for medical school.

The temporary job became a forty-year career.

Her father, who passed away when she was just ten years old, had taught her to observe carefully, stay curious, and always ask questions. Her mother, a skilled seamstress, taught her patience, precision, and attention to every small detail.

Those lessons made Stephanie an extraordinary chemist.

By 1965, she had spent nearly twenty years researching strong, lightweight fibers that could improve automobile tires. It wasn't glamorous work, but she approached every experiment with determination and curiosity.

That strange cloudy liquid refused to make sense.

The chemical structure looked correct.

So why did it look completely wrong?

Stephanie wanted to spin it into fiber using a delicate spinneret machine. The technician warned her not to do it.

"That liquid will clog the equipment and ruin the machine."

But Stephanie insisted.

Finally, he agreed.

They ran the experiment.

And discovered something extraordinary.

The fiber that emerged was unlike anything DuPont had ever seen.

When they measured its strength, they checked the results again and again, convinced there had been a mistake.

There wasn't.

Weight for weight, the new fiber was five times stronger than steel. It was incredibly light, highly heat-resistant, remarkably tough, and almost impossible to break.

Stephanie had just invented Kevlar.

It was first used in tires.

Soon, researchers realized it could do much more.

Police officers received Kevlar body armor. Soldiers gained stronger protection in combat. Firefighters wore heat-resistant suits made from the same remarkable material.

By the time Stephanie passed away in 2014 at the age of ninety, more than one million Kevlar vests had been produced.

Conservative estimates credit the invention with saving over 3,000 lives, and many believe the true number is far higher.

Stephanie Kwolek never became a doctor.

Yet she saved more lives than most doctors ever will—simply because she refused to throw away a cloudy beaker and chose to trust her curiosity instead.

© Women In World History

#archaeohistories

[Harshi Peiris, Ph.D. @Neuroscope_mp]

Two identical twins. Same DNA. Same childhood.
One developed MS. One didn't.

Scientists went looking for the difference — and found it in an unlikely place: the bacteria living in their small intestines, not their genes.

Thread on the 2025 study that's changing how we understand MS. 🧵

[Give A Shit About Nature @giveashitnature]

Canada built bridges for bears, and the bears used them.

So did wolves, cougars, elk, moose, lynx, wolverines, bighorn sheep, black bears, deer, and almost everything else trying to cross one of the busiest highways in the Rockies.

The Trans-Canada Highway cuts through Banff National Park for 82 km. For decades, it did what highways do: split habitat in half, severed migration routes, isolated populations, and turned animal movement into roadkill.

So Parks Canada tried something that sounded ridiculous to a lot of people at the time: they built wildlife bridges and tunnels.

They look nice, but they're far from a decoration. Forested overpasses wide enough for grizzlies and elk. Dark underpasses for cougars and black bears. Fencing along the highway to keep animals off the pavement and guide them toward safe crossings.

At the time, critics called it a waste of money and editorials opined that animals would never use them.

Fortunately, animals don't read opinion pieces. Since monitoring began, wildlife have used Banff’s crossings more than 250,000 documented times.

Grizzlies took years to trust them. Elk started testing them while they were still under construction. Different species chose different designs: grizzlies and elk tended to prefer wide, open overpasses, while cougars and black bears often used narrower underpasses.

The results were not subtle. Wildlife-vehicle collisions dropped by more than 80% overall. For elk and deer, they dropped by more than 96%.

Banff now has one of the most studied wildlife crossing systems on Earth, and countries around the world have looked to it as a model.

[ShiannonCorcoran💉x4 @shiannonc.bsky.social @ShiannonC]

It’s time for some AAP Factchecks..

Ahem..

A claim doing the rounds on social media from every anti-immigration yeehah this side of the black stump… “the government is reserving 100,000 homes for recently arrived immigrants. 🙄

This information is FALSE.. yanno.. not true in this universe or any alternative tin foil universe.

FACT: The homes are reserved for first-home buyers who are citizens or permanent residents. For those who don’t understand what “citizens” or “permanent residents” are - you might want to log off your social media platforms and participate in some research and critical thinking.

The federal Labor government are also partnering with the QLD LNP government to build 20,000 properties - this is also fact, although eagle eyes might want to keep an eye on that one. The QLD LNP are slippery suckers. 🙄

Another furphy doing the rounds is that various politicians have launched legal actions against the abc. This misinformation is being spread by social media clickbait accounts such as “The Public Square” and “The Aussie Way”. If you have guessed that these pages did not originate in Australia - you’d be right.

These stories are being spread by questionable online pages that Peter Dutton and Pauline Hanson are suing the abc. AAP Factcheck have debunked all claims and stories as being entirely fabricated.

Another faux pas to keep an eye on are the fake Australian media street interviews that are generated by AI. These so-called interviews are non-existent and are created by foreign entities in foreign countries.

.. so in conclusion, don’t believe everything you see and hear online. Look for AI distortions and always check for sources outside of social media platforms. If you look carefully at the AI videos you will generally see evidence of AI generation. Things don’t always match, spelling is wrong, things in the background are misshaped and don’t move correctly. Videos are too cinematic, almost like animation.

Alternatively, you can be a gumbie who believes this online emotive crap and become a festering and angry pissant who yells at clouds and believes that tin foil hats are back and once again in season.

https://t.co/EkWIpUa2Ag

[ShiannonCorcoran💉x4 @shiannonc.bsky.social @ShiannonC]

This was a couple of months ago now, but it’s relevant to what is going on around social media, Pauline Hanson, misinformation, fake news, AI-produced content & overseas accounts that generate the majority of this rubbish.

‘Research from ABC News Verify & The Guardian confirms that many large, seemingly grassroots pro-One Nation Facebook groups operate as foreign-run "meme factories". These networks are managed by offshore administrators in Southeast Asia (such as Vietnam & the Philippines) & are designed to monetize Australian online engagement through ad revenue rather than legitimate political support’

The abc news have identified at least 20 foreign-run pages with many linked to admins based in Sri Lanka, Vietnam & The Philippines. These pages rely on high volumes of AI-generated content - deepfakes, bogus articles, fabricated stories about political figures to drive outrage and generate interest.

The pages exist to game algorithms & direct traffic to external sites, which are profit driven.

The same techniques are used via foreign Facebook accounts using an AI Pauline Hanson to manipulate Australian users. Posts involving Hanson are generally AI images with a small number of genuine pictures that depict Hanson in a positive & formative light in events that have never happened. Philanthropic roles in the community depict Hanson as a caring individual giving money away & helping people. Other “news stories” depict Hanson taking on other politicians - usually Anthony Albanese - painting the PM in a bad light.

All the so-called news & events that are generated have never happened - but these events & imagery are being liked & shared throughout social media thousands of times by users who believe what they see without question & can’t see past the fake stories & imagery - these people aren’t prepared to research factual information that would negate this outside of the platform. Simple online searches would result in confirmation that these stories & events are not present in real life or in any news sources outside of the online platform source.

While Pauline Hanson has primarily been depicted in a positive light - Albanese has been depicted in negative events, argumentative and duplicitous. None of these events are true.

These fake news and events posts are used to engage users, encouraging emotive responses - and are more likely to induce anger and resentment.

According to The Guardian Australia, pro One Nation facebook groups appear to be run by foreign meme factories that monetise content.

‘Guardian Australia examined 14 of the largest pro-One Nation public groups with at least 8,000 members, and found most were created this year.

While some groups appear to be longstanding and set up by genuine supporters, the majority are full of content overwhelmingly fed by what digital media researcher Timothy Graham said appeared to be “a foreign-run, predominantly Indonesian, for-hire engagement farm operation”

Much of the content across these groups is designed to be what Graham called outrage or “poll bait” – asking yes or no questions, such as “Was Pauline Hanson right to scold this journo?” or “Should Sharia law be banned in the Australia?”
Other posts are reactive, with some of the accounts Guardian Australia tracked posting multiple times about the party’s “Fire the Liar” campaign. In at least one case, the text and image promoting the party’s fundraising drive was copied from a verified One Nation page’

So, pro Hanson content on social media driven by foreign players for positive pro-Hanson political content that is entirely fictitious….

I wonder who is driving this and how much of it is being paid for by Australian taxpayers?

It would appear there is much to be gained for some but not others via online fake media stories, memes and AI.

https://t.co/dQEHk0uzF8

[Dave Phippen @DavePhippen]

Do you or someone you know have a hidden phone for safety reasons? At 2 pm Eastern time on July 27 at 2 pm AEST, a nationwide test of the alert emergency system will take place and phones will make a noise even if they are on silent or do not disturb. If this will cause an issue,