The US government has assured its citizens that, much like zombies, mermaids probably do not exist, saying in an official post: “No evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found.”
“Mermaids — those half-human, half-fish sirens of the sea — are legendary sea creatures,” read the online statement from the National Ocean Service.
The agency, charged with responding to natural hazards, received letters inquiring about the existence of the sea maidens after the Discovery Channel’s Animal Planet network broadcast Mermaids: The Body Found in May.
The show “paints a wildly convincing picture of the existence of mermaids, what they may look like, and why they’ve stayed hidden ... until now,” a Discovery Channel press release says.
The US government declaration offered no conclusive proof to deny the existence of mermaids.
The statement comes after another government agency, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), declared there was no conclusive evidence for the existence of zombies.
The CDC had published instructional materials on how to survive a “zombie apocalypse,” in what the agency now calls “a tongue in cheek campaign to engage new audiences with messages of preparedness messages.” The campaign was followed by a series of cannibalistic attacks in North America.
In one such attack on May 26, a 31-year-old Miami man stripped naked and chewed off most of a homeless man’s face. The Twittersphere was suddenly alive with people talking about the real and present danger of a zombie apocalypse.
The CDC was quick to respond to allegations of corpses rising from the dead to eat the living.
“CDC does not know of a virus or condition that would reanimate the dead,” a government spokesperson wrote in an e-mail to The Huffington Post.
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
Brazil, the world’s largest Roman Catholic country, saw its Catholic population decline further in 2022, while evangelical Christians and those with no religion continued to rise, census data released on Friday by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) showed. The census indicated that Brazil had 100.2 million Roman Catholics in 2022, accounting for 56.7 percent of the population, down from 65.1 percent or 105.4 million recorded in the 2010 census. Meanwhile, the share of evangelical Christians rose to 26.9 percent last year, up from 21.6 percent in 2010, adding 12 million followers to reach 47.4 million — the highest figure
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel yesterday, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, the day after the Israeli navy prevented her and a group of fellow pro-Palestinian activists from sailing to Gaza. Thunberg, 22, was put on a flight to France, the ministry said, adding that she would travel on to Sweden from there. Three other people who had been aboard the charity vessel also agreed to immediate repatriation. Eight other crew members are contesting their deportation order, Israeli rights group Adalah, which advised them, said in a statement. They are being held at a detention center ahead of a
‘THE RED LINE’: Colombian President Gustavo Petro promised a thorough probe into the attack on the senator, who had announced his presidential bid in March Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, a possible candidate in the country’s presidential election next year, was shot and wounded at a campaign rally in Bogota on Saturday, authorities said. His conservative Democratic Center party released a statement calling it “an unacceptable act of violence.” The attack took place in a park in the Fontibon neighborhood when armed assailants shot him from behind, said the right-wing Democratic Center, which was the party of former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe. The men are not related. Images circulating on social media showed Uribe Turbay, 39, covered in blood being held by several people. The Santa Fe Foundation
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