It’s almost time for two young birds who have captivated the internet around the world to leave the nest. According to Friends of Big Bear Valley (FOBBV), Fledge Watch for eaglets Sunny and Gizmo officially kicks off today.  Young eagles like Sunny and Gizmo typically fledge–or leave the nest and fly–when they can flatten their wings and have feathers capable of flight. This typically occurs when the birds hit 10 to 14 weeks of age. Males also tend to take their first flight a little sooner than females. Over the past several weeks, Sunny and Gizmo have made major progress towards this goal. They can feed themselves and even spent their first night alone on the nest on May 8. They’ve also been flapping vigorously to build up their strength to take to the skies. Sunny has even started hopping up onto the edges of the nest, in what looks to be preparation for flight. This week’s Fledge Watch is expected to be similar to Pip Watch from early March. However, the fledge window is wide and could take until mid-June. A previous eaglet named Simba took a full 16 weeks to fledge. “When they feel confident enough, you know, we don’t know whether they’ll go together or separately, but each one will just decide it’s ready,” FOBBV Executive Director Sandy Steers told LAist. “They may come back to the nest, you know, now and then, but they just fly for the first time and it’s beautiful.” It might take the pair  a little while to get their wing strength up to fly back up to the 145-feet high nest. However, they are expected to stick around the Big Bear Lake for at least three months and follow their parents while they learn to fish and hunt. According to FOBBV, fledglings from Southern California have been spotted as far south as Baja California, as far north as British Columbia, and as far east as Yellowstone National Park. About 70 percent of bald eagles survive the fledgling stage. Getting hit by cars when they are scavenging on roadkill. flying into power lines, or lead poisoning from eating something that has been shot are their biggest threats during this time. Two monitored chicks–Simba and Stormy–were both found dead only after fledging.  Tens of thousands of viewers have been following their journey via a 24-hour livecam, and it has been an emotional rollercoaster. After three eggs failed to hatch in 2024, three eggs appeared in the nest earlier this year. Chick 1 hatched late on March 3, followed by Chick 2 early on March 4, and Chick 3 hatched on March 8. On the evening of March 13, a snowstorm hit the area, dumping up to two feet of snow and pummeling the nest with strong winds. On the morning of March 14, only two of the chicks were visible on the live cam. FOBBV later confirmed the passing of one of the chicks. [ Related: Jackie and Shadow’s eaglets officially named: Meet Sunny and Gizmo. ] FOBBV believes that Chick 1 died based on foot size and the amount of thermal down feathers on the other two eaglets. The deceased chick has since been named Misty in honor of Kathi Misterly, an FOBBV volunteer who passed away after a battle with cancer. A group of students from a local elementary school voted on the names Sunny and Gizmo in early April. As of now, their bones are almost fully grown. They’re estimated to be about 3 feet tall at this stage, closer to dad Shadow’s height. As with most female eagles, Jackie is larger.  While the sex of the eaglets is not yet determine–and they look a lot alike–there are some slight differences on their heads and tails.  CREDIT: Friends of Big Bear Valley. Sunny is the older eaglet and has a longer tail. The first bits of white on Sunny’s tail feathers are also starting to show. As for Gizmo, the corner of this eaglet’s mouth is more orange than Sunny’s. Gizmo also sports a thicker lower lip. FOBBV says that this gives Gizmo a “Mona Lisa smile.” The post Bittersweet fledge watch begins for bald eagles Sunny and Gizmo appeared first on Popular Science.

New Research By Shoving a Bed Frame Against the Door, This Pompeii Family Tried to Survive Mount Vesuvius’ Eruption Archaeologists are learning new details about the four individuals’ futile attempt to hide inside an ancient residence called the House of Helle and Phrixus A bed frame shoved against the door served as a makeshift barricade. Pompeii Archaeological Park In 79 C.E., Mount Vesuvius erupted, spewing ash and small volcanic pellets known as lapilli over the city of Pompeii. Nearly 1,950 years later, archaeologists are still sifting through the layers of debris and making remarkable discoveries about life—and death—in the ancient city. Researchers recently discovered four members of a family, including a child, who attempted to escape the eruption by barricading themselves inside a bedroom, according to a statement from the Pompeii Archaeological Park. Though their efforts were futile, their remains provide remarkable insight into the doomed city’s final moments. When the eruption began, most residents of Pompeii “had no clue what was happening,” Gabriel Zuchtriegel, director of the park and co-author of a new study published in the journal Scavi di Pompei, tells the New York Times’ Sara Novak. “Many thought the end of the world had come.” A majority of the 15,000 to 20,000 residents of Pompeii and nearby Herculaneum fled and survived the eruption. The four family members were among the roughly 2,000 Pompeians who remained when the city was destroyed. As Helle struggles in the sea, Phrixus reaches out to his sister from atop a flying ram. Pompeii Archaeological Park Archaeologists found the family’s remains in a small but stately residence known as the House of Helle and Phrixus, named after a fresco of the mythological siblings discovered on the dining room wall. In Greek myth, the siblings survive their stepmother’s attempt to sacrifice them to the gods by flying away on a ram with a golden fleece. While Phrixus escapes, Helle falls off the ram into the sea. The fresco captures the siblings reaching out to each other—Helle in the sea, Phrixus on the ram—in a fittingly futile attempt at rescue. The architectural features of the house may have accelerated the family’s demise. Like many Roman houses, the House of Helle and Phrixus featured an open-roofed atrium, intended to aid rainwater collection. But as lapilli fell from the sky during the first phase of the eruption, the rock debris, which reached up to nine feet in some locations, quickly flooded the house through the atrium. At first, the archaeological evidence shows, the four individuals tried to protect themselves by packing into a small room. They even pushed a wooden bed frame against the door, hoping that it would prevent the lapilli from entering.When that failed, the researchers think they pulled back the barricade and attempted to escape. Based on the location of the remains, they only got as far as the triclinium, or dining room. “This house, with its decorations and its objects, shows us people who tried to save themselves,” says Zuchtriegel in the statement, per a translation by La Brújula Verde’s Guillermo Carvajal. “They didn’t succeed, but their story is still here, beneath the ashes.” Over the centuries, the ash preserved the remains of the family, the wooden bed frame and other items, including a bronze amulet known as a bulla and a stash of amphorae filled with garum, a popular Roman fish sauce. Ash and lapilli flooded into through the open-roofed atrium, burying the house in up to nine feet of debris. Pompeii Archaeological Park Researchers don’t know that this particular family owned the House of Helle and Phrixus. The group may have taken refuge there after the owners fled, as Marcello Mogetta, an archaeologist and Roman art historian at the University of Missouri who wasn’t involved in the study, tells the Times. Still, the recovered objects offer a glimpse into Pompeian family life. For instance, the child was likely the one wearing the bronze bulla, as tradition dictated that boys wear such amulets for protection until adulthood. Additionally, traces of masonry materials suggest that the house was under renovation. As Zuchtriegel says in the statement, “Excavating Pompeii means confronting the beauty of art, but also the fragility of life.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Given how incredibly successful Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 has been, it would make sense for it to become a full-fledged franchise at this point that can potentially take its legacy far beyond the foreseeable future. It has introduced lore and a world that is so rich with detail, there are more than enough routes it could go with subsequent entries. However, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 itself could even benefit from some DLC before another installment is released, and developer Sandfall Interactive is fortunately not closed off to the idea of that eventually happening.