Worldpad

19/08/2026

19/08/2026

Timeline: How Matthew Luckhurst went from SAPD's 'p**p sandwich' scandal to police chief.

19/08/2026

Aki Ra does not know exactly when he was born, or who his parents were. The Khmer Rouge k*lled them, and he was raised by the movement as a child soldier from around the age of five.

He was given a rifle when he was about 10. He was taught to lay landmines.

He later fought for the Vietnamese army when they invaded, and then for the Cambodian army, laying mines each time.

Cambodia is one of the most heavily mined countries on earth. Estimates of the number laid run into the millions, and civilian casualties — overwhelmingly farmers and children — continued for decades after the fighting stopped.

When the UN arrived in the early 1990s he was trained in demining, and something in him settled on it as the thing he was going to do with the rest of his life.

For years he worked alone and unofficially, walking into villages that asked for help and clearing fields with a knife, a stick and a hoe, defusing devices by hand, because that was what he had.

He carried the deactivated ones back to his house. There were so many that it became a museum, which now funds the work and houses children injured by mines.

His methods were eventually shut down by regulators, and rather than fight it he trained, certified and built a licensed clearance organization that now works to international standards.

His teams have cleared vast areas of farmland.

He has said he expects to be doing it until he dies, and that this is fine, because he knows exactly what is in the ground.

19/08/2026

A mom got a full keyboard tattooed on her arm so her nonspeaking autistic son would always have a way to communicate with her.

Her son, Hunter, normally uses an AAC device to select letters, words and symbols.

Then one day, while they were at a restaurant, the device ran out of battery.

Hunter grabbed a napkin, drew a keyboard on it and started pointing to letters so he could still communicate.

That moment gave his mom, Jessica Fletcher, an idea.

She had an entire keyboard tattooed onto her forearm.

The tattoo includes letters, symbols and even an “I love you” button, giving Hunter a permanent backup whenever technology fails.

And when she first showed him the finished tattoo, the first word he reportedly spelled out on her arm was:

“Mama.”

For most people, it looks like a tattoo.

For Hunter, it is another voice he can never lose.

18/08/2026

The fungus is Ophiocordyceps, and what it does to a carpenter ant is the most disturbing thing in the natural world.

Spores land on the ant. The fungus grows through its body, and then it takes the controls.

The infected ant leaves its colony — which is already unusual, because ants are relentlessly social — and climbs. It stops at a specific height above the forest floor, on the underside of a leaf, in a zone with the humidity and temperature the fungus needs.

Then it bites down on a leaf vein and locks its jaws there permanently.

Researchers found the truly unsettling part in 2017. The fungus does not invade the brain. It surrounds the muscle fibres and controls the body directly, leaving the brain intact.

The ant may be conscious, watching its own limbs do this.

Then it dies, and a stalk pushes out through the back of its head and rains spores onto the colony's foraging trails below.

Ants have evolved a response: when a colony spots an infected nestmate, they carry it far away from the nest.

They know.

18/08/2026

On 25 May 2006, the Australian climber Lincoln Hall summited Everest from the north side.

On the way down, above 28,000 feet, he collapsed. Sherpas with him worked on him for hours in the dark at an altitude where nobody survives long. They could not get a response and were eventually ordered down to save their own lives.

He was reported dead. Expedition organizers announced it. His wife and sons were told.

He spent the night at around 28,200 feet, alone, without supplementary oxygen, without shelter, in temperatures far below freezing.

At about 7:30 the next morning, a four-man team led by the American guide Dan Mazur came up the ridge on their own summit attempt.

They found him sitting cross-legged on the ridge. He had taken off his hat, gloves and outer jacket — a documented late-stage hypothermia behavior in which people feel a rush of heat and undress.

He looked up at them and said: I imagine you are surprised to see me here.

Mazur's team abandoned their summit attempt, which they had trained and paid for and were a few hours from completing, and stayed with him until help came up.

He walked down with assistance.

He lost fingertips and toes to frostbite. He wrote a book about it called 'Dead Lucky'.

He died in 2012, aged 56, of mesothelioma — from asbestos exposure at his childhood home.

17/08/2026

Leonardo DiCaprio and conservation partners backed a $43 million mission to help restore the Galápagos Islands and bring lost wildlife home. 🐢🌿❤️

In 2021, Leonardo DiCaprio joined Re, the Galápagos National Park Directorate, Island Conservation, local communities and other partners in announcing a $43 million commitment to restore and rewild the Galápagos. The initiative included restoring Floreana Island, home to dozens of threatened species, and supporting plans to reintroduce locally extinct wildlife such as the Floreana mockingbird and giant tortoise. The effort built on decades of conservation work led by Ecuadorian organizations, scientists and island communities.



References:

Re:wild: Galápagos National Park, Environmental Heroes, Local Communities and Global Funders Unite to Restore the Galápagos Islands.

Island Conservation: Leonardo DiCaprio, Galápagos National Park Directorate, Island Conservation and Re Announce $43 Million Rewilding Initiative.

Charles Darwin Foundation: DiCaprio and Conservationists Launch $43 Million Effort to Restore the Galápagos Islands.

17/08/2026

A window cleaner in New York fell nearly 500 feet from a skyscraper.

And somehow, he survived.

In 2007, Alcides Moreno was working high above Manhattan when the scaffolding beneath him collapsed.

He fell from around the 47th floor.

A fall like that is almost impossible to survive.

Doctors expected the worst.

But when Alcides reached the hospital, they discovered something unbelievable.

He could move his arms and legs.

He could breathe on his own.

His body was badly injured, but he was still alive.

His recovery took time, surgeries, and enormous strength.

But against all odds, Alcides Moreno lived.

It remains one of the most astonishing survival stories ever recorded.

Nearly 500 feet.

A shattered scaffold.

A fall that should have ended everything.

But somehow, he got a second chance.