Category Archives: Immortality

Duke basketball (Jim Dedmon-USA TODAY Sports)

Although the outlook seems bright for Duke basketball in 2021-22, there are some storm clouds on the horizon. The good news for the Blue Devils is that they can see those dark skies up ahead; the question is: can they avoid them?

By looking into Duke basketballs past in the last bully-ball article, we tried to portend some success for the future. Despite those past powerhouses ACC titles, combined record of 69-8, and the reverent places they hold in Duke basketball fandom, neither the 1998-99 nor 2018-19 team won an NCAA titleSIGH!

But tomorrow is a new day, and Im putting my belief, or distorted hope, in the third-time-is-a-charm theory that ran rampant through the other piece. This seasons Duke basketball squad looks more than ready, as evidenced or not by the short snippets of scrimmage video against the preseasons No. 4 team, the Villanova Wildcats.

Paolo Banchero seems like the beast he was advertised to be with a good handle and ability to stretch the floor and initiate offense for himself or others. He also appears to have an air and attitude about him thatscreams National Player of the Year and all that entails. Again, both those other Duke basketball teams actually had NPOYs so thats not always the recipe for ultimate success.

Some of the issues that hurt both the 1998-99 and 2018-19 squads can be seen in this current group, although no one really believes that either of them wasnt the best in the nation and shouldnt have won the title.

Its yet to be seen if this group is that good, but less physically dominant teams have brought the goods back to Durham. Its up to the 2021-22 Blue Devils to take their chance at Duke basketball immortality and do what those two comparable behemoths could not.

We explored how these Blue Devils can be just as good by using their physical gifts to their advantage. Like Dukes previous bullies, this group seems primed to hit the glass, get out in transition, and play smothering defense. They are big and thick, and most dont seem to mind mixing it up a little bit. Offensively, they have one of the more deadly in-out duos in the nation, potentially, in Trevor Keels and Banchero.

I would bring Trajan Langdon and Elton Brand to mind, but thats almost sacrilegious considering neither freshman has played a game yet and those other guys were just the senior/sophomore combo leading Duke basketballs most dominant team of all time. Either way, the potential for great things is there, if Duke can play above the faults that brought those others down.

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Duke basketball bully-ball might be back: The Pitfalls Edition - Ball Durham

Some of you may be surprised to find out that UBCs Vancouver campus is the ninth most-filmed location in the world. Yep, you did read that right, the entire world! Located in the city that is known for never playing itself, UBCs Vancouver campus has been disguised as everything from Nazi Germany to a high school to even multiple different science fiction universes. I hate ranking movies, probably because my own personal favourite changes from hour to hour, so Im going to count them down based on how many UBC locations are visible on the big screen.

It was only after rewatching Shes the Man this summer that I recognized the stadium skyline as being UBC. Based on Shakespeares play Twelfth Night, the film follows a teenage girl named Viola who after her high school gets rid of the girls soccer team, poses as her twin brother so she can play in the big tournament. The film basically annihilated gender stereotypes with its exaggerated performances that are sure to make viewers laugh. While not the most recognizable spot, its still fun knowing that this quirky rom was filmed on campus.

I was unsure of where to put this film on the list. Tomorrowland is a science fiction film about an inventor named Frank and a teenager named Casey who explore Tomorrowland an unexplored dimension of time and space. While the film features the Buchanan side of Main Mall, the few glimpses we get of campus were digitally altered in post production to make it look like New Yorks 1964 World Fair. Its pretty easy to miss campus, but if you watch closely you can see a corner of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery. This movie is probably the least underwhelming and unrecognizable view of UBC out of the bunch, but it technically features more than Shes The Man, so I had to place it at number four.

Set in San Francisco, The Age of Adaline follows the adventures of a woman who after a fatal car accident, is miraculously granted immortality, causing her to remain twenty-nine for eight decades. In the film, Blake Livelys character drives an old-timey car down Main Mall where you can see the Chemistry building and IKB in the background. If you look up the film online, you can even find some student-taken photos posted on reddit of Main Mall from the night of the shoot!

The Butterfly Effect is a science fiction thriller that features a time travelling Ashton Kutcher. In the film, Kutcher uses his powers to change past events for himself and friends; finding himself having to live through multiple alternate universes after realizing that changing the past also changes the future. This film boasts multiple UBC locations. While Main Mall is the most obvious of the locations, some scenes also take place within various classrooms on campus.

Finally, the film with the most UBC locations out of this list is Fifty Shades of Grey. The film is the first film in the Fifty Shades trilogy adapted from E.L. James novels. Perhaps the most entertaining part of this movie is the way they construct spaces using multiple different UBC locations. One of many of these instances is the graduation sequence where they enter the auditorium through the MacMillan building and end up inside The Chan Centre auditorium. Some other notable locations visible in the film are IKB, the Chemistry building and the Frederic Wood Theatre. Similar to Age Of Adaline, you can find student posted photos of Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan filming on campus on the internet.

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Five movies you didn't know were filmed at UBC - Ubyssey Online

The forces of darkness and evil with help from some of those in government insisted on conspiring against the will of the people. Now there is a blanket internet shutdown aiming to create an environment where they can commit their heinous crimes against protesters away from the watchful eyes of the world.

Taking to the streets became inevitable and a legitimate way for people to defend their newly acquired freedom, to stand against the military junta and defend the constitutional document.

All sectors of the Sudanese community, from groups to individuals, from people in the countryside to people in the cities, must join the masses to resist this coup and restore the democratic transition process to its right path towards an undiminished full democratic transformation.

Negotiations, conferences, dialogue or even condemnations of this coup do not spare the thundering masses that rallied on 21 October, demanding the handing-over of the power to civilians.

We must rise to stop the completion of this coup, which has turned into a rough and savage act that sponsors terrorism, terrorises innocent people and suppress freedom and democracy.

These are unprecedented acts in the history of Sudan, and they amount to terrorism

In order to avoid the international catastrophe that threatens the stability of the country and region, and even threatens international peace and security, we call on all countries of the free world that believe in democracy to condemn and reject this coup.

We also ask to expose those who executed the coup and the complicit officials and their supporters wherever they are. Expose the complicit faction army and militias, the terrorist Islamic Brotherhood regime and its security brigades.

Show the consequences of their actions against the unarmed civilians, and against ministers and executives of the state, such as wielding weapons against the minister of industry, dragging the cabinet affairs minister out barefoot in his pyjamas, and kidnapping the prime minister.

These are unprecedented acts in the history of Sudan, and they amount to terrorism crimes against humanity have been committed that contravene international law and human rights. The international community must play its part and protect the Sudanese people.

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Whoever supports this coup either publicly or passively, by being silent, contributes to placing Sudan in the category of tyrannical, dictatorial regimes that must be exposed worldwide. We support the masses of our people flooding the streets roaring like torrents in resistance to the military junta who robbed the people dreams.

Here, we send a message to the UN, that the Sudanese people who are currently in the streets condemning the coup and chanting for freedom, civility and democratic transformation, have paid a heavy price and sacrificed the lives of the most precious of their youth to get rid of a dictatorial regime that lasted for 30 lean years.

The Sudanese people are in dire need of the strongest possible measures from the international community to end this military coup immediately and restore the legitimate authority to the people to complete the transition to democracy, and to start building the new democratic Sudan.

We urge the UN to take the necessary measures to stop any act of violence by the security forces, rapid support forces, and the army against unarmed civilians, and the progress of the Sudanese people towards freedom, democracy and a decent life!

Long live the glorious December revolution, and may the Sudanese people live free, proud, independent, without guardianship from anyone.

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Sudan: Glory and immortality to the martyrs and victory to the masses - The Africa Report

FILL UP YOUR CUP WITH SOME FIZZY CUP FILLER

There are no Big Cup fixtures this week. No action either in Big Vase, or whatever that thing is that Spurs are in. There are no international qualifiers and no rescheduled Premier League matches, this weeks episodes of Succession and the Bake Off have been and gone, and the nights are fair drawing in so Granny Fiver wont let us out to the swings. Theres not much to do, dear reader, so, and you wont hear us saying this sort of thing very often, thank goodness for the League Cup! Yep! You heard us. Aye.

A traditionalist to its marrow, The Fiver has always loved this grand-ish old-ish competition, and none of its myriad dignity-stripping associations with Fizzy Pop, Fizzy Beer, Rumbelows, Littlewoods, Woolies, Timothy Whites, Bejam, MacFisheries, Milk, Eggs, Bacon, Lard, Breakfast Ale or Players No6 have ever lessened our excitement when League Cup week comes round. Even last nights meagre fare the only highlight in three matches being Eddie Nketiahs bid for internet immortality as he sliced the ball with his shin one yard from an open goal, only for it to roll across the line and apologetically into the far corner, a very unsatisfactory denouement in pure slapstick terms hasnt quelled our desire for ever more sensational sparkling soccer. More please, Fizzy Cup!

And indeed the bubbles keep rising thick and fast. The reigning champions Manchester City travel to West Ham, conquerors of Manchester United, who, knowing what we know now, bought Ole Gunnar Solskjr at least three more days by getting themselves knocked out in the last round. Burnley and Spurs replay the 1962 FA Cup final; Preston and Liverpool contest the Bill Shankly derby; Leicester host Brighton in what was a third-division fixture just 11 years ago; and 1935-36s fourth-best team in the country, Stoke, welcome Brentford, who finished just one place below them that year in the First Division. Yes, were pretty sure these are the prisms through which most people will be viewing this particular set of fixtures, and why not, with plenty of scores to be settled there. Our Fizzy Cup runneth over! Hic.

Join Scott Murray at 7.45pm BST for red-hot minute-by-minute updates on Preston 1-3 Liverpool in the Milk Cup fourth round.

Im a footballer and Im proud to be gay Adelaide Uniteds Josh Cavallo becomes the only known current male top-flight professional footballer in the world to come out as gay.

Test your knowledge of unexpected international call-ups here.

With rumours still flying around Old Trafford I really do think they should seriously consider Steve Bruce. I know hes getting on a bit but hes got to be better than the current centre-backs (terrific turn of pace, too Fiver Ed) John Myles.

Alex Ferguson and Martin Edwards turned up at Carrington? Will we see a new midfield on Saturday? Ferguson, Van de Beek and Edwards ? No, thats silly, Van de Beek has no chance Martin Reece.

Given the grovelling press David Moyes has been getting recently youd think he was the second-coming of Brian Clough or Jos Mourinho, the old Special One not the current dysfunctional one. As an experiment why dont the Hammers and Man Utd switch Moyes for Ole? It would give us a return visit to Moyes so carefully tucking his note-to-self Sharpie into his United blazer, while Ole would be under no undue pressure to succeed and we just might find out that one is overrated and the other underrated Hanford Woods.

Thanks for doing an article on stats and commentators (yesterdays Still Want More?), just the excuse I needed to highlight another commentary irritant. Although vast amounts of stats exist it does not mean they must be used. Telling me that the goal I have just witnessed is the first that player has scored with his left foot in three years and that hell enjoy the celebration because its his birthday may well be interesting details but if I am hearing them as the net is still rippling it seems irrelevant. Perhaps I should turn the volume down Liam Stevens.

Once again The Fiver purposely provokes the pedants: Donald Gennaro ... blah blah blah ... T-Rex ... blah blah blah ... not velociraptors ... blah blah blah. Is provocation of the dino-pedants better or worse than the provocation of grammar pedants? Ian Sherman (and no other dino-pedants).

Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And you can always tweet The Fiver via @guardian_sport. Todays winner of our letter o the day is John Myles, who wins a copy of John Nicholsons excellent Was Football Better in the Old Days?

Ole stays! For now at least. Next up for Manchester United? Tottenham. Atalanta. Manchester City. Ah.

Fifpro and European Leagues have called for complete reform of governance to prevent the recurring threat of a uropean $uper eague.

Latvia 0-10 England. Its a night I [and presumably most of the Latvia team] will never forget, honked hat-trick hero Ella Toone. Meanwhile, Estonia put up a bit more fight in losing 4-0 to Wales.

Aston Villas Matty Cash is now a Polish citizen and expects to be Robert Lewandowskis teammate very soon.

We didnt want our first win to be away anyway. Rob McElhenney, one half of Wrexhams Hollywood ownership team, reflects on his first experience of live National League football, having flown in with Ryan Reynolds to watch the 3-2 loss against 10-man Maidenhead at York Road. Next up: Torquay at home. Oh, the glamour.

And Kepa Arrizabalaga has channelled the Baywatch theme tune in declaring he will be ready to step up for Chelsea if his fellow goalkeeper douard Mendy represents Senegal at the Africa Cup of Nations in January.

Richard Gough has written this touching tribute to Walter Smith, whom he for played at Dundee United, Everton and Rangers. He was a second father he could handle himself in any dressing room and got total respect from every player.

Ole is on the ropes but not yet out for the count. Heres a survival guide for Solskjr, courtesy of Jamie Jackson.

This weeks Knowledge: have the outfield players of a team ever had to wear goalkeeper kits?

Patson Daka looks like the Jamie Vardy replacement Leicester need, writes Ben McAleer. Just dont tell him about the Red Bull.

And if its your thing you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace. And INSTACHAT, TOO!

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Eddie Nketiahs bid for internet immortality and the Shankly derby - The Guardian

Ashima got a peek at her destiny when she was 13. Shell live a long life, an astrologer predicted. Even though Ashima didnt take this on blind faith, she was scared. The prospect of longevity wasnt as tempting as her family made it out to be.

The Indian consciousness has long since imbibed a cultural fixation with living a long life. People pray for an everlasting lifespan on birthdays and big occasions. Jeete Raho, as the oft-used blessing goes. Indian palmists hint at the lifeline, an arc meant to determine our stories. This obsession has shaped much of human desire shaping how we love, live, and understand death.

Butforever is beginning to sound exhausting. To young Indians, the stressors of modern life play out endlessly. In swapping forever with for now, the individual lives we lead and the way we talk about death, evolves.

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I have known everything that life can give, lamented the immortal crow to Alexander the Great. Success, love, joy. Now I cannot die and I want to die. Alexander returned without drinking from the fountain of immortality.

Alexanders choice resonates today. In an experiment, Iddo Landau, a professor of Philosophy at the University of Haifa, asked thousands of people if they would take an Immortality Pill a concoction that would not only defy death but also keep people from aging. Almost 70% of people were against the idea.

Recently, researchers found the upper limit of human life is on the rise; some even argue there is no limit to the human lifespan. Perhaps were finally living in a time where we can finally have what the heroes and villains alike have been chasing in our stories: From Gothel confining Rapunzel to a tower to use her golden locks for immortality or Ras Al Ghul from Batman revisiting a pit of immortality to recharge himself. Even Dumbledore once craved eternal life.

Whats the point, asks 23-year-old Gokul. Look at the state of things around us, look at the standard of living whats the point in living long if we are going to be living like this?

Related on The Swaddle:

When Talking About Death Is Taboo, How Can Grieving People Heal?

Today, living forever sounds tedious, futile, and environmentally unsustainable. The Lord of the Rings franchises Bilbo Baggins was burdened with an unusually long life. He was torn over a similar dilemma. I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread, said Bilbo.

There are also some intergenerational aspects to consider. New Scientists Richard Webb argued: Imagine attempting to get old disgracefully while your parents were still around to see it. According to a 2013 survey by the Pew Research Center, the average American isnt interested in living forever or extending life spans much beyond. Or another survey that found only one in five adults in the UK would choose to live forever. Just thinking that I have to work and save for another 100 years so that I can live somewhat comfortably does not really entice me, a Quora user wrote.

We think of life as a gift which is great until it begins feeling like a Russian doll.

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In 1973, anthropologist Ernest Becker argued that much of human action is meant to evade and ignore the reality of death. But as expectations from individual lives change, the way people perceive death changes too. Im more accepting of the inevitability now. The fear of death is no longer there, which is kind of freeing then you can talk about it more openly, says Rhea, 25. A study found constructing stories and conversations around death helps people understand their experiences and themselves and gives individuals a sense of predictability and control over their lives.

People in the past especially in India have struggled to articulate their anxiety around death. Not talking about it in front of elders, for instance, constitutes good manners. But this also discourages any conversation about planning or preparing for it. If we dont want to live forever, is there a way we want to die? I want to go off quietly as a protest against the world, Gokul says.

Most Indians consider it inauspicious to discuss death, much less prepare for it, a 2017 study out of the Tata Institute of Social Science showed. Ashima remembers discussing this with her partner; the two would prefer to exercise the right to die of their own free will. Rhea talked about her death with her friends and family. They found it a little unnerving, she says, understandably, because death makes everyone nervous. His parents always found it unsettling that when there was a death in the family, Gokul would think out loud about what would happen if he were to die; but they didnt talk about this either.

But labeling death as a bad omen only eclipses one reality. Death can be comforting in others, for it anchors an irrefutable, undeniable truth.

In some forms of therapy, people with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) are advised to hold on to a universal truth something undeniable, like No matter what, the sun will rise in the East to serve as an anchor while dissociating. For a colleague, the comforting truth remains One day, I will die.

If life is a party, anticipating death perhaps triggers the worst kind of FOMO of missing out forevermore. But people may no longer be worried about it. The real FOMO, then, is that of not living well.

A fixation with longevity also spills into how we live our everyday lives: people often dont maximize their time or resources in the present, thinking they can do many things later (the spiel of saving until youre 40 and then retiring). Kafka said the meaning of life is that it stops.

In the legend of Doctor Faustus, the doctor exchanges his soul for longer life. But what if we exchange a longer life for a meaningful one? Being unburdened by a larger mission of chasing a long life might alleviate the pressures on those grappling with burnout and exhaustion, for example. Listen to the yelly teenagers: Nobody wants to live through a climate crisis. No one lives to tell the tale after an 80-hour workweek. As the current generational anthem goes: Here for a good time, not a long time.

If people want to live forever, they tend to amass things because no one thinks of a time when they wont be there. Baad mein zarurat padhegi, (youll need it later in life), is a common refrain in Indian households. So you collect as much as you want, as much as you can. But because you are mass consuming everything, youre putting a strain on yourself, says Bindu Puri, a professor of Philosophy at Jawaharlal Nehru University. At some point, you end up being surrounded by clutter of the things you want to do, goals to achieve, adventures to try. But life cant be hoarded; when death isnt hushed away from discussion, people can find clarity.

Related on The Swaddle:

South Korean Fake Funerals Show Thinking About Death Can Make Living Life Better

And what do we gain with this knowledge? Perhaps its the freedom to try a lot of things, try your best to do something because the odds are so good that none of it means anything; that perversely it makes me feel free to try, author Jia Tolentino proposed.

Ashima too finds herself focused on choices that suit her sensibilities, caring less about restrictions we impose on ourselves to make our families happy.

In Gullivers Travels, Jonathan Swift talks of the Struldbruggs, immortals whom Gulliver assumes must be the happiest people ever. But he learns that theyre bitter, crotchety grumps whose message for the rest of us is that living forever might be the harshest curse imaginable, as a blog noted. Just like the Struldbruggs, people may feel like foreigners in their own, ever-changing culture with time, argues Iddo Landau. The desire for a shorter life, thus, responds to a desire for belongingness, of shaping cultural identity, of being kinder.

It might lead to a culture where you value what youre achieving, where youre sympathetic to other people, Puri notes. Because youre sharing this condition of human mortality with other people.

In 1994, the host of the Miss USA competition asked Miss Alabama a now-familiar dinner-party question: If you could live forever, would you want to?

She responded: 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.

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What if People No Longer Want To Live Forever? - The Swaddle

By BrianYoung Jr.

Do you think vampires are real? Im talking about blood-drinking, forever-young ghouls of the night who shapeshift into bats and are weak to crucifixes and sunlight.

You might see a few this weekend, but none of them will drain you of your blood (I hope). However, the idea that blood can deliver eternal youth may not be so fictional after all.

As you know, when you grow old, your body starts to deteriorate. Muscles are harder to build and easier to lose, metabolism slows, and organs which have accumulated damage over your lifetime stop working as effectively. This is an unavoidable certainty of lifewe all grow old and eventually die.

In recent decades however, scientists have shown something super interestingsomething that calls into question much of what we think we know about aging. Scientists have used an experimental method known as parabiosis to show that age isnt necessarily the irreversible march we like to think it is.

Parabiosis is essentially when two mice are joined at the hip so that they share a circulatory system. In the past, scientists have used this experimental method to study the blood and it certainly taught them a lot, but it was when scientists did this experiment with mice of different ages that they saw something really interesting.

When you join two old mice or two young mice together, nothing remarkable happens to one or the other. But when an old mouse is joined with a young mouse, the old mouses injuries heal faster, organs function better, blood and immune function is improved, and much more. It essentially reverts in age, all just by sharing blood with a young mouse.

This set of experiments made it clear that not only are some aspects of aging potentially reversible, but also that these anti-aging or age-reversing factors could be identified in the blood and isolated.

Socould someone like Count Dracula live forever by drinking the blood of the young?

Well technically, drinking blood isnt the same as having blood in circulation, so that wouldnt work anyways.

But more importantly, people have been getting blood transfusions for centuries now and no one has spontaneously grown younger. Also, a number of companies have launched in recent years which are researching if this technology could work in humans (without fusing them together of course) but so far, nothing has been effective.

Considering mice only live a few years while humans live upwards of 80, this isnt so surprising humans and mice are quite different. But theres no telling what the future holds.

All of this raises super interesting questions for me. Imagine that years from now, you could go into the doctors office and get a shot that made you 20 years younger.

Wouldyoudo it? Or if there was a way to keep the human body going indefinitely, would it be wrong to pursue it?

These questions are in the realm of science fiction and maybe will be forever. People have been searching for the fountain of youth and immortality since the dawn of time; this might just be another lost cause. But its possible that with more research, scientists will figure out exactly what aging is and how to slow it, stop it, or even reverse it.

Sothis Halloween, you probably dont need to worry about a vampire draining you to continueitseternal reign of terror, but there is certainly something to be said about the power of blood.

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Could vampires be real? - Shelbyville Times-Gazette

November's Prime Gaming drop is a huge one, featuring nine free games to claim including big titles like Control Ultimate Edition, Dragon Age Inquisition, and Rise of the Tomb Raider.

Here's the full list available to Prime Gaming subscribers next month:

Prime Gaming Adds STAR WARS: Squadrons, Ghostrunner, Alien: Isolation and More

Dragon Age Inquisition Players can become the hero as they are tasked with makingimportant decisions that shape the future of Thedas. With constant wars and demonic invasions, champions must band together to lead the land of strife to victory or fall. Control Ultimate Edition Developed by Remedy Entertainment, the main game and previously released expansions, including The Foundation and Awe are available in one great value package. Rise of the Tomb Raider Embark on an adventure into Siberia as Lara Croft in search for the legendary city of Kitezh while battling the paramilitary organization Trinity, which intends to uncover the city's promise of immortality. Rogue Heroes Team up with friends to combat procedural dungeons and explore theexpansive overworld full of secrets to take down the Titans and save the once peaceful land of Tasos in this 1-4 player classic adventure game with modern rogue-lite elements. Liberated Ignite the revolution as players lock, load, and get ready for a new kind of action adventure! Uncover a cyberpunk conspiracy against human rights in the rain-soaked city inside a paperback comic. Puzzle Agent 2 In this sequel to the award-winning Puzzle Agent, Agent Nelson Tethers just solved the biggest case of his career. Worried that the case will languish forever unsolved, Tethers ventures back to the eerie town of Scoggins, MN to solve the mystery of 'the Hidden People' once and for all. Demon Hunter 2: New Chapter In the sequel to Demon Hunter: Chronicles from Beyond,Dawn challenges players to face puzzles and mini games which reveal secrets that threaten to shake the core of her very existence. BAFL - Brakes Are For Losers Challenge friends, pick a funky car and outrun competitorswith fierce driving skills and dirty tricks in the game that emanates pure arcade fun. Secret Files: Sam Peters Discover the truth about the Asanbosam, a mysterious creature that lurks behind the trees in Bosumtwi, a mysterious crater lake in Africa. Join journalist Sam Peters as she searches for answers behind the legends of the Ashanti people in Ghana.

Beyond the aforementioned free full games, Prime Gaming benefits will also provide a wealth of in-game content next month for games like League of Legends, Apex Legends, New World, Far Cry 6, Genshin Impact, Call of Duty, Rainbow Six Siege, Free Fire, and more. Check out the full lineup here.

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Prime Gaming November Drops Include Control Ultimate Edition, Dragon Age Inquisition and Rise of the Tomb Raider - Wccftech

As Wales prepare to face the All Blacks for the first time since 2017, much of the build-up has been dominated by looking back to the history books and the fact the men in red haven't pulled off a Test win against New Zealand since 1953.

The All Blacks' assignment today - in front of more than 70,000 at the Principality Stadium - sees them chasing a 32nd successive victory over Wales.

They last lost in the fixture 68 years ago, and 25 of those wins were by at least 10 points. Sixteen of Wales' last 31 defeats have been on home soil, too.

Live updates: Wales v New Zealand latest score

So, what exactly happened that fateful day back in the year of the Queen's Coronation?

December 19, 1953, is a date which has been etched into Welsh folklore thanks to Bleddyn Williams' team securing a 13-8 win in Cardiff courtesy of tries from Sid Judd and Ken Jones.

New Zealand at the time were still reeling from a defeat by club side Cardiff earlier in the week, with the tourists being greeted by a crowd of 56,000 at the old Arms Park - meaning club and country captain Bleddyn Williams managed to beat the All Blacks twice in four days.

Wales were trailing 8-5 in the last 15 minutes, with wing Gareth Griffiths playing on despite a dislocated shoulder and Williams having torn thigh ligaments.

Flanker Judd crossed the whitewash to level the scores (tries were only awarded three points back in those days) and back-row forward Clem Thomas soon had the ball on the wing and caught the All Blacks flat-footed when he launched a diagonal kick into the New Zealand 25.

Wing Ken Jones latched onto the ball to score the winning try to complete Wales' third victory in four meetings with New Zealand, at the time of course.

That stat put Wales' winning rate against New Zealand at 75%, and had a measurable impact of the travelling side that day.

All Black icon Sean Fitzpatrick previously described how his father Brian who passed away in 2006 could never forget his dark day at Cardiff Arms Park.

"Unfortunately for Dad, he lost to the Welsh in 1953, which, of course, was the last time the All Blacks lost to Wales. He never got over it.

"My brother and I used to remind him of it all the time! Cliff Morgan would ring him every year and invite him back to Wales for the reunion of the 1953 team and he never went once.

"Even in 1989 when we toured Ireland and Wales, Mum had to go by herself because Dad wouldnt go back to Wales.

"Which shows how we park our success and remember our losses Dad carried that out to the letter of the law."

Nowadays, the burden of history weighs on this fixture like no other.

Immortality and a lifetime of black-tie dinner appearances await the first Welshmen to beat the All Blacks in six decades.

Ignominy looms for the first Kiwis to lose to Wales in 61 years.

Scorers - Wales: Tries: Sid Judd, Ken Jones; Cons: Gwyn Rowlands (2); Pen: Rowlands

New Zealand: Try: Bill Clark; Con: Ron Jarden; Pen: Jarden

Wales: G Williams (London Welsh), KJ Jones (Newport), GM Griffiths (Cardiff), BL Williams (Cardiff, capt), G Rowlands (Cardiff), CI Morgan (Cardiff), WR Willis (Cardiff), WOG Williams (Swansea), DM Davies (Somerset Police), CC Meredith (Neath), ER John (Neath), JRG Stephens (Neath), S Judd (Cardiff), JA Gwilliam (Gloucester), RCC Thomas (Swansea)

New Zealand: RWH Scott, AEG Elsom, JM Tanner, RA Jarden, BBJ Fitzpatrick, LS Haig, K Davis, KL Skinner, RC Hemi, IJ Clarke, RA White, GN Dalzell, RC Stuart (capt), WA McCaw, WH Clark

Referee: Dr Peter F Cooper (England)

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When did Wales last beat the All Blacks? 1953 score and team line-ups - Wales Online

CONOR MCGREGOR is 'impossible to respect' because of his wild antics outside of the octagon, UFC middleweight rising star Khamzat Chimaev has blasted.

The Irishman, 33, is still undoubtedly MMA's biggest name - pulling in extraordinary pay-per-view numbers every time he fights.

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McGregor achieved sporting immortality by holding the UFC's lightweight and featherweight belts at the same time.

But he is not without his controversies, most recently being accused of punching a DJ while on holiday in Italy.

And it's for this reason that Swede Khamzat struggles to fully respect the Notorious.

Ahead of his octagon return this weekend on Fight Island, the 27-year-old admitted to Zuba TV: "Yes, he achieved everything in the UFC he was a champion in two weight classes. This I respect with him.

"But it is impossible to respect him as a person."

Chimaev burst onto the scene last July, gaining notoriety of his own when he battered Rhys McKee just TEN DAYS after defeating John Phillips in his UFC debut.

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He then earned a third consecutive performance of the night bonus in September 2020 when he beat Gerald Meerschaert in just 17 seconds.

A huge bout with Brit Leon Edwards was supposed to follow, but twice fell through as both men tested positive for Covid-19.

Chimaev struggled with the after effects of coronavirus, even temporarily retiring from MMA.

But he finally returns this weekend, as he moves down to welterweight to face No11 ranked Li Jingliang of China.

Bullish ahead of his return, Chimaev added: "I dont think these guys want to fight with me after this fight.

"Theyre gonna start to be scared again, complain he didnt fight some of these good guys, blah blah blah, things like that.

"We will see what happens after this fight."

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Conor McGregor is impossible to respect due to wild antics outside of UFC Octagon, slams rival Khamzat Ch... - The US Sun

Heres the story of how the filmmakers wrangled 200,000 very real honeybees.

Universal Pictures

Welcome to Howd They Do That? a monthly column that unpacks moments of movie magic and celebrates the technical wizards who pulled them off. This entry explains how they shot the bee scenes in the original 1992 movie Candyman.

Even if you havent had the unspeakable pleasure of watching 1992sCandyman, theres a good chance you know about the bees.

Directed by Bernard Rose, the movie transports its distinctly British source material (Clive Barkers short story The Forbidden) to the chilly public housing of Chicagos Cabrini-Green Homes. There, a grad student named Helen (Virginia Madsen) attempts to piece together the urban legend of the Candyman (Tony Todd) for her thesis. But when she digs too deep and flaunts a little too much skepticism, the legend reveals itself to be all-too-real.

While they save their most jaw-dropping performance for the films final act,Candymans tiny striped insects hum, just off-screen, for the entirety of the film. They are inextricably linked to Candymans mythos: swarming the lynched Daniel Robitaille/Candyman after he is coated in honey and stung to death for the crime of loving a white woman. The concrete tombs of urban housing bear a striking thematic resemblance to beehives. While ironically, bees themselves have become a rarity in the cold, artificiality of the urban jungle.

However, Candymans iconic tie to bees isnt merely due to metaphorical beats however powerful and evocative they may be. No, no. The way you burrow deep into the conscience of horror audiences is by imprinting an unforgettable image into the back of their skulls. An image, for instance, of bees pouring out of a mans gaping mouth.

Helen is at her lowest point: she has escaped from a psychiatric hospital only to find Trevor, her husband, shacked up with one of his students. She was committed for a month. And in that short time, he moved on. Its as if she were dead and buried. Trevor was the last thing tethering Helen to her former life, to her sense of normalcy, to her sanity before she became engulfed in the violent grip of myth. He treats her like a dangerous animal a madwoman loose in his apartment, capable of all the heinous acts she has been accused of.

With nothing left to lose, Helen makes her way to Cabrini-Green to rescue baby Anthony, the infant whom Candyman is holding hostage in exchange for Helens love.

When Helen confronts the boogeyman, he offers her the immortality of becoming a legend, laying her down and opening his coat to reveal an exposed ribcage swarming with bees. The winged insects begin to fall out of Candymans mouth as he leans down for a kiss.

A lot of real bees, pheromones, and patience.

The bees used in the film were specifically bred for on-screen use. To clarify, they werent genetically engineered or anything so audacious. Rather, their breeding was more so an effort to make use of specific physiological stages in a bees life cycle. The insects you see on-screen were only 12 hours old. At this age, the bees appeared mature while wielding less powerful stingers.

The bees were controlled with pheromones, which kept them docile and convinced them that the actors were their queen. In the public lavatory scene, where Helen happens upon a toilet bowl filled to the brim with bees feeding on some unseen mass, pheromones were applied inside of a non-functioning, waterless toilet.

Director Bernard Rose hired entomologist Norman Gary after seeing him covered in bees playing the clarinet on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. You can spot Garys insect wrangling skills elsewhere in My Girl(1991),Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), and of course,The Deadly Bees(1966). As Daniel Schweiger wrote in issue #117 of Fangoria magazine, Candyman used over 200,000 real honeybees, employing numerous cautionary measures on-set to keep cast, crew, and bees as safe as possible.

One of the things most people know about theCandymanbee scenes is that Todd made an absolute killing. As the actor explains in an interview with The Guardian:

I negotiated a bonus of $1,000 for every sting during the bee scene. And I got stung 23 times. Everything thats worth making has to involve some sort of pain. Once I realized it was an important part of who Candyman was, I embraced it. It was like putting on a beautiful coat.

Yep. A beautiful coat made of bees.

In addition to agreeing to cover his face in buzzing insects, Todd signed on for a shot in which Candyman spews live bees out of his mouth. Now, if writing this column has taught me anything, its that the Venn Diagram between practical effects and sexual health products is a circle. Sure enough, a crucial element in achieving the mouthful of bees shot was a dental dam that stopped the insects from sliding down Todds throat. It reportedly took half an hour for Gary to put all 500 (!) of the bees into Todds mouth. (By the way, Gary holds a Guinness World Record for holding 109 bees in his mouth for 10 seconds.)

Again per Fangoria, Todd recalls being tranced out when he opened wide and let the insects pour out. And when Todd says tranced he really does mean it: Rose employed a hypnotist on-set to achieve Madsens spacy reactions to Candyman. And if Clive Barker is to believed (bee-lieved?) in his interview in issue #12 of Fangoria, Madsen was also hypnotized during the pivotal bee scene to calm her nerves. Maybe Todd got in on the hypno-action.

During a virtual 2021 Wizard World panel, Todd explained that the bees had their own trailer. And he recalled Garys insistence that he meet them prior to the shoot, and he made a point of assuring him that they were just babies. Todd recalled that Gary spoke to the bees and that he found this reassuring.

For the setpiece in which Candyman reveals the bee-filled ribcage, bees were placed in a special body appliance filled off-stage and strapped to Todds chest.

The shots in which swarming bees fill the screen were accomplished via optical effects, which were supplemented with in-camera shots of say it with me bees. To achieve the effect of bees shooting out towards the camera, a specialized vacuum was deployed with a reverse suction. This was then superimposed over the in-camera and optical shots to achieve the overall effect.

Now, those of you with keen memories might remember that Todd isnt the only one who has to contend with the fuzzy little rascals. When [director Bernard Rose] was first asking me to do the role I said, Well, I cant. Im allergic to bees,' Madsen told HorrorNewsNetwork. In the end, Rose promised Madsen that paramedics would be on set, which was apparently enough to convince her to do the scene that, and learning that she was moreallergic to wasps than bees.

Gary instructed Madsen that staying calm was of the utmost importance. You know? How you stay calm when youre absolutely covered in bees? The actress recalled to HorrorNewsNetwork:

When they put the bees on me it was crazy because they have fur. They felt like little Q-tips roaming around me. Then you have pheromones on you, so theyre all in love with you and think youre a giant queen.

According to Madsen, the longest part of the process wasremovingthe bees, which required the use of a tiny bee vacuum. Reportedly the process took 45 minutes, during which it was very hard to sit still.

When youre talking about covering people in creepy crawlies, you have to talk about 1976s Squirm, a film that truly lives up to the promise of its title. Directed by Roger Corman with special make-up effects by Rick Baker,Squirmtells of hundreds of man-eating worms wreaking havoc on a small town in Georgia.

Half of the worms in the film were made of rubber. But the rest were live sandworms and bloodworms that were electrified in order to move (according to issue #123 of Fangoria). Reportedly, after the production wrapped, newspapers reported that the film caused a worm shortage that impacted the local fishing industry.

Another notable moment in bugs in horror history takes place in the final segment of the 1982 anthology horror film Creepshow. In the story, the penthouse suite of a cruel mysophobe is overrun by cockroaches. The live roaches (which supposedly numbered around 20,000) were partially provided by the American Museum of Natural History. As George A. Romero relayed during an event at 2015s Fan Expo Canada, the insects were the most expensive part of the film.

As weve previously discussed in our breakdown of the locust scene inDays of Heaven, Humane Hollywoods guidelines are very thorough. And this level of detail does not exclude our tiny, insect friends. Indeed they have their own chapter that includes a litany of stipulations including guideline 8-49, which specifies that bees are not to be frozen during filming.

Insects have a long history of not being treatedgreatin horror films. And all told, it is refreshing to read about the gentle treatment of the bees on the set of Candyman.Save the bees, indeed.

Related Topics: How'd They Do That?

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How They Shot the Bee Scenes in Candyman - Film School Rejects