Revealed: “Satanic” baby sharks swim from womb to womb, in utero, devouring each other with “cannibalistic glee!”

The "Baby Shark" song has lost all cuteness.

It has been known, for some times, that most sharks begin life, or even pre-life, as cannibals. Inspired, likely, by Satan himself, or possibly Anton LaVey, they smack their embryonic lips and feast upon one another, preparing for the day they can escape mother and feast on the feet of male surfers.

Disturbing, yes, and should hamper sympathy amongst the non-binary, but in a just released study, scientists discovered how much glee baby sharks derive from the taste of their brothers and sisters. The mini-apex predators, it was revealed, will swim from womb to womb, seeking and destroying.

While I am a trusted shark-cum-surf journalist we must head to the pages of Science Alert for the very latest here.

A novel kind of ultrasound device has provided biologists with a detailed view of this common act of cannibalism, and it revealed they don’t just nibble on their neighbour. Embryos will travel between wombs to feast.

No, that’s not a typo. Many species of shark mature their eggs or gestate embryos in a left and a right uterus.

For most animals, embryonic movement is rather limited to a bit of squirming and the occasional flip. Even for young that aren’t anchored to a placenta, gestation is thought to be a rather sedentary affair.

So researchers from Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium in Motobu, Japan, were surprised to find the unborn pups of captive tawny nurse sharks (Nebrius ferrugineus) not only moving around their own uterus, but moving house altogether.

“Our data shows frequent embryonic migration between the right and left uteri, which is contradictory to the “sedentary” mammalian fetus,” the team wrote in their report.

The discovery came courtesy of a fancy new piece of equipment that allows the kind of ultrasound device you’d use to scan a human pregnancy to be packed up and carried underwater.

Etc.

A moveable feast and very scary. Very much ahead of human dullness while in utero and if we have any hope in surviving the current apocalypse we should start our training as embryos. Maybe learning how to fashion little fishing poles or some such.

Any better ideas?

More as the story develops.

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Language: “Surfing” revealed as hottest new corporate buzz-word!

Surfing equals green in modern corporate language.

Doesn’t it feel, I don’t know…intrusive… to see the word “surf” used in advertising?

It’s as gross as a CFO throwing double shakas as he wobbles through the office making his requisite, self-centered small talk?

And, what copywriter wrote that Jeep garbage?

Actually, knowing the way it goes, that copywriter probably had a perfectly sane idea that got squashed and revised through countless “alignment” meetings by vice-presidents with finance degrees to the point where we’re at: Surfing sand. Surfing streets. Surfing conference calls. Surfing the open office. Surfing the gibberish I type on a sticky note so I appear productive (which is much more important than actually being productive in the open office).

There’s a Beckett-like absurdity to corporate garbage language, and laughing at the serious use of utterly stupid buzzwords was getting me through my Monday, until I saw a stack of trade magazines in the trash.

The magazine cover was clouds, sky, airplane. The usual for one of these trade rags that industry “leaders” swap at conferences without ever reading.

(The irony that what I ghostwrite for work goes in mags like these that are immediately thrown away is not lost on me; and I try to think of it like my own sand mandala.)

The headline caught me.

All caps, sans serif, like what Apple was using ten years ago: SURFING FOR EFFICIENCY.

The article informs its one reader (me) that “air-wake surfing for efficiency” shows “significant promise but substantial challenges,” leaping ahead optimistically with news that Airbus and Boeing tested how to save gas by flying planes in formation. The writer toots that, “Commercial aircraft would fly in extended formation, up to one nautical mile apart, on what the industry prefers to call ‘cooperative trajectories.’”

However!

Despite the fact that “the physics of wake surfing are on a firm footing, there are many technical and operational questions still to be answered.”

And then there’s a good bit of the article devoted to pumping the brakes on air-wake surfing, specifically because “only the trail aircraft sees a fuel saving” so they’d need to work out “who gets preference.”

But that doesn’t really matter, because the article accomplishes its only point, which is to tick the “sustainability” box.

And it does so while co-opting the new corporate meaning that surfing equals green along the way.

Which leads me to wonder: What surf terms could be turned into buzzwords that office people use seriously?

Tell you what.

We’ll brainstorm on this messaging, leverage our collective learnings, maybe take the conversation offline, and circle back next week.

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Thanks for the laughs, I'm out, world champ Carissa Moore tells fans in December. | Photo: @rissmoore10

Mystery: World Champ Carissa Moore quits tour for one year; appears at first Qualifying Event of the year!

Who owns the record for the world's shortest sporting retirement? Sugar Ray Leonard or Carissa Moore?

Shortly, before Christmas the four-time and reigning world champion of surfing, Hawaiian Carissa Moore, shocked fans when she announced she’d be taking a year off the tour.

“I have dedicated the last ten years of my life to competing at the highest level and want to continue to do that well into my thirties,” said the twenty seven year old. “This break is a press refresh so that I can come back to the tour happier and more excited than ever in 2021.”

The announcement came as Hurley’s new owners Bluestar Alliance were winding down their vaunted surf team, the best ever assembled, unable to see that the sponsored surfer is the magic elf of the industry, paid hundreds of thousands, millions, for their ability to influence sales and define brands.

If you had a termination clause in your contract you were gone.

Filipe scraped under the wire with a contract until 2024; Kolohe Andino’s was good until 2022.

Carissa, however, started appearing in IG posts without Hurley stickers, even with a contract reported to be until 2025. The ol Olympic Clause, which forces surfers to ride logo less boards in the games, was a convenient deal-breaker, according to our source.

“This Carissa thing ain’t what they’re saying,” said the source. “She was gone via notice at the end of the last year while still basking in her world title glory. And mightily pissed how it was handled. Now they’re paying her and Eli Hanneman more than they were before. It’s fucking crazy.”

And now, despite the pre-Christmas announcement and the need to refresh, find happiness etc, Carissa has flown a dozen hours across the Pacific to Australia to compete in the Sydney Surf Pro.

As I said, a mystery, and, almost, the world’s shortest sporting retirement.

(Sugar Ray Leonard retired five times during his career, once for a week.)

https://www.instagram.com/p/B9cyL_eHwqo/?igshid=1dvsv5s14ol9o

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Let him eat sand!
Let him eat sand!

Exciting new surfing World Championship Tour rookie Morgan Cibilic alleges: “I still haven’t received prize money for WQS finishes!”

From, like, years ago.

How did today’s stock market plunge affect you? Or is it effect? Did your heart drop while your children’s futures were wiped clean out? Or is it whipped?

Did you smile, laugh and mumble “eat the rich?”

Unaware?

Well, maybe the stock market plunge into bear territory is a blessing in disguise for exciting new Australian men’s surfing World Championship Tour rookie Morgan Cibilic seeing as he still hasn’t received his prize money for a third place finish at the Pantin Classic Galicia Pro, a 10,000 level Qualifying Series event completed September 2, 2018 and worth…

…I have no idea.

$5,000?

$12,000?

Morgan speaks about the theoretical rip-off on a recent Lipped podcast and you can/should/must listen here while also subscribing for future episodes…

…but back to the matter at hand. However much he should have won, it might be a wonderful gift to have never received for the smart move would have been to drop that money into the markets which no longer exist.

It’s over.

A wrap.

Blue Monday.

People are eating each the rich’s faces off in Paris.

Or maybe that’s just touristy steak frites.

Chewy etc.

But, once again, back to the matter at hand. Is this how the World Surf League is paddling its bottom line? By allegedly not paying debts?

Very wise.

More as the story develops.

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My fountain, my beret, my boulevard, go home."
"My fountain, my beret, my boulevard, go home."

Inspired surfer-father teaches young daughter “The art of Localism” as Coronavirus Zombie Apocalypse grips Europe!

Locals only.

After reading yesterday’s news that toilet paper is selling out in America, that Europe is gripped in a panic so severe the entirety of northern Italy has been completely walled off all over a disease manufactured in a Chinese factory, working just as well as other things manufacturers in Chinese factories, I knew I had to take my seven-year-old daughter to Ye Olde World and at once.

There was no other option. We needed to shred this Coronavirus Zombie Apocalypse in a place actually fun as opposed to San Francisco or Washington D.C. or Wuhan.

The price for hand sanitizer may be through the roof. The price for direct flights to Paris decidedly not.

We drove to LAX too early, as the I feared mass flight cancelation. The Bradley International Terminal was save random Koreans in surgical masks and a smattering of Western Europeans also wearing surgical masks but extremely self-consciously.

Since I am a surfer, I booked us on Air Tahiti Nui. The pastel, sexually ambiguous carrier of our dreams

The flight itself was uneventful. Daughter slept. I wept rolling tears while watching the World War II film Midway starring Woody Harrelson, Ragnar Lodbrok’s eldest son and Joe Jonas who delivered the stirring line, “Who knows how we’re gonna die so might as well not care.”

Maybe it was Nick Jonas but, in any case, true. Except I know how I’m not going to die.

The Coronavirus.

Exactly like I know how a Huawei dishwasher will crap out in 1.5 years.

“Northern Italy has been completely walled off…” I tell my daughter after we clear customs at Charles de Gaulle, catch a cab then stroll the directly to The Louvre all jet-lagged while a cold grey sky begins to spit. “We used to be brave, damn it. When we got smacked by foreigners from the East we used to smack back.”

“Did you drink beer on the plane?” She asks.

“I drank inspiration.” I holler.

“Inspiration?”

“Never mind about that. I can’t imagine there are any Chinese left in Paris but we need to keep those northern Italians out. Them and their Coronaviruses. This is our chance to not lose our minds alongside the rest of the world but pretend we’re Paris locals. It’s the best thing surfers do, claim a strip of beach as theirs, however dubious the claim, and scare everyone else away. If you see a northern Italian you must find a rock and throw it while shouting whatever French you’ve got. ‘Oui merci beaucoup’ or some such.”

“How will I know northern Italians?”

“They wear Prada, Valentino, Miu Miu, Armani, Missoni and drive Fiats”

Beat it, kooks.
Beat it, kooks.

Localism really is a thing surfers understand and employ better than all comers. A gift I can give my daughter alongside anything she chooses to be in this life.

We walk up to the glass pyramid with only ten other confused people around but a sign reads: To prevent the spread of Covid-19 the Musée du Louvre is seeking to limit its attendance. Only visitors already in possession of an e-ticketwill be permitted to enter the Museum.

Well that’s lame.

A rock whizzes past my ear and spin around. My daughter is standing there wearing a new violet beret.

“You’re wearing Moncler…” she says, nonplussed.

She’s right. Fine form and a quick study.

More as the story develops.

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