But there she was on Wednesday, speeding from the North Castle Town Hall in Armonk, N.Y., to the police station in Mt. Kisco, the footwells of her Toyota scattered with spilled llama treats, passing out bushels of fliers: “LOST LLAMA,” one read. “Try not to scare him.”

“Gizmo,” she said aloud, as if a missing llama roving the hills of Bedford Corners, a wealthy, equestrian pocket of Westchester County, could hear her. “Where are you?”

Word of the weekslong hunt for Gizmo, the 7-year-old llama who absconded on Dec. 13, had already ricocheted around the town, the state and far beyond. Prayers and tips poured in from people who knew neither Ms. Heimann nor the first thing about pack animals. But a llama was on the loose, and it had captured the public’s imagination.

As the days stretched into llama-less weeks and concern grew, Ms. Heimann’s increasingly desperate Facebook posts morphed into calls for llama search parties.

Tipsters from around the region began calling her at all hours. Someone sent pictures of a llama — a different llama, safe in its paddock. Someone else sent a photo of “llama” dung that turned out to be the leavings of a deer. Complete strangers took to the hills and dales between the mansions and horse estates of the surrounding towns to find Gizmo. One caller said she had located him — with her psychic.

Read it all.

Feel good story and hilarious read — thank you @SarahMaslinNir

The detail that the poster had a picture of the llama’s rear…. ::chef kiss::https://t.co/AyA8jPtabP

— Sally Kohn (@sallykohn) January 3, 2021

Enjoy them all.

In pictures: Christmas celebrations around the world – BBC#Christmas2020 #CelebrationsAroundTheWorld #InPictures #BBC #photography #Photos
https://t.co/8oCVcO7mKv

— Richard Norman Poet (@ElmerPalaceSE25) December 26, 2020

A group in France, led by veterinary scientist Dominique Grandjean at the National Veterinary School of Alfort near Paris, posted its work3 on the preprint server bioRxiv in June. The researchers, who included Sarkis, trained 8 dogs to detect COVID-19 in 198 sweat samples, around half of which were from people with the disease. When these were hidden in a row of negative samples, the dogs identified the positive samples 83–100% of the time. The paper does not say how well the dogs identified negative test results. The research is now under review at a journal, but Grandjean says the process has not been easy. “To publish papers on detection dogs is very difficult because most reviewers do not know anything about working dogs,” he says.

The data in that study look promising, says Fyodor Urnov, a gene-editing scientist who is working on COVID testing at the University of California, Berkeley. But he would like to see larger data sets on how well dogs identify positive and negative samples. He also notes that there is variation in how well individual dogs perform. In Grandjean’s study, for example, 2 dogs identified 68 out of 68 positive samples, whereas one missed 10 out of 57 cases.

Groups need to boost their sample sizes before the wider scientific community can evaluate how useful the dogs might be, agrees James Logan, an infectious-disease researcher at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine who is training and studying COVID-19 dogs, including Storm, Maple and Asher. “It’s important not to go out too early with grand claims and small data sets,” he says.

Read it all.

Can dogs smell COVID? Here’s what the science says

Canines seem to detect coronavirus infections with remarkable accuracy, but researchers say large-scale studies are needed before the approach is scaled up.https://t.co/0XgMmjdzRf pic.twitter.com/td34nAxJKW

— Rahim Azizian (@AzizianRahim) November 23, 2020

After preaching yesterday morning at Saint Michael's, Charleston #parishministry #homiletics #southhcarolina #anglican @StMichaelsChrch @CityCharleston #theology #christianity #charlestonsc #lowcountrylife #religion #photography pic.twitter.com/Wwpu36GA8r

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) November 9, 2020

‘At just two years old, Bentley Boyers has undergone two surgeries after being born with a cleft lip. His family recently adopted a puppy with a cleft lip, and they’ve formed a special connection.’

Watch it all.

Many compelling stories and photos from #September11, but this last known photo of @FDNY Firefighter Gary Box, running through the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel towards the Twin Towers, always sends a chill down my spine ever since I first read this backstory: https://t.co/ParlMcMRoC pic.twitter.com/vaPXcXwRrE

— Tamar Abraham (@tamarabraham) September 11, 2020

Check out all of them.

In pictures: Americans celebrate Independence Day https://t.co/rK9Bb6SaQm #America #IndependenceDay #InPictures

— Alan G (@MoRaY1959) July 5, 2020

Scrub-a-dub-dub, it’s Bill Murray in a bathtub.

The Charleston resident and movie star video-chatted with Jimmy Kimmel on Wednesday night from his home — more specifically, from his bathtub.

“If there’s anyone that can shake us out of this pandemic doldrum, it’s my guest tonight,” Kimmel begins the video. “He’s joining us tonight from Murray Manor. Please welcome Bill Murray.”

Read it all.

Charleston’s Bill Murray talks about wearing masks, missing RiverDogs from his bathtub | Charleston Scene | https://t.co/r8rC7tf9TP https://t.co/bZAVHJIs9R

— Victoria Hansen (@VHansenSCRadio) May 15, 2020

Beneath the waves, two smoldering coals for eyes watched me with an intense, unyielding stare. Pristine white bodies floated up elegantly from the depths, one after another, surrounding my kayak in the open water. Their ghostly pale faces with wide, Joker-esque smiles pushed closer. A long, powerful sound burst up through the air, like a slowly deflating balloon, followed by silence and more expectant staring.

I was having a one-sided conversation with a pod of curious beluga whales. The mouth of Churchill River in northern Manitoba, Canada, was calm and quiet on this chilly, overcast July day, but these bright white whales were not. Belugas, nicknamed “the canaries of the sea” thanks to their song-like sounds, are social, playful and highly communicative. They repeated their shrieks and tunes, floating around me in anticipatory silence. There was only one thing left to do: sing along.

In response, raucous clicks and squeals drifted upward out of the dark water, like someone tapping on a microphone for attention, broken by steady streams of blowhole bubbles. I got the distinct feeling that I was being discussed.

Read it all.

Each summer in Churchill, Manitoba, the beluga whales are in charge. Humans are their rubber duckies in the tub. https://t.co/Q2L9ZP4naW

— NYT Science (@NYTScience) May 13, 2020

Part of the problem may simply be that we get our cues from others. In a famous experiment conducted in the late 1960s, the psychologists Bibb Latané and John Darley pumped smoke into a room in which their subjects were filling in a questionnaire. When the subject was sitting alone, he or she tended to note the smoke and calmly leave to report it. When subjects were in a group of three, they were much less likely to react: each person remained passive, reassured by the passivity of the others.

As the new coronavirus spread, social cues influenced our behaviour in a similar way. Harrowing reports from China made little impact, even when it became clear that the virus had gone global. We could see the metaphorical smoke pouring out of the ventilation shaft, and yet we could also see our fellow citizens acting as though nothing was wrong: no stockpiling, no self-distancing, no Wuhan-shake greetings. Then, when the social cues finally came, we all changed our behaviour at once. At that moment, not a roll of toilet paper was to be found.

Normalcy bias and the herd instinct are not the only cognitive shortcuts that lead us astray. Another is optimism bias. Psychologists have known for half a century that people tend to be unreasonably optimistic about their chances of being the victim of a crime, a car accident or a disease, but, in 1980, the psychologist Neil Weinstein sharpened the question. Was it a case of optimism in general, a feeling that bad things rarely happened to anyone? Or perhaps it was a more egotistical optimism: a sense that while bad things happen, they don’t happen to me. Weinstein asked more than 250 students to compare themselves to other students. They were asked to ponder pleasant prospects such as a good job or a long life, and vivid risks such as an early heart attack or venereal disease. Overwhelmingly, the students felt that good things were likely to happen to them, while unpleasant fates awaited their peers.

Robert Meyer’s research, set out in The Ostrich Paradox, shows this effect in action as Hurricane Sandy loomed in 2012. He found that coastal residents were well aware of the risks of the storm; they expected even more damage than professional meteorologists did. But they were relaxed, confident that it would be other people who suffered.

Read it all.

“I nodded, believed her, did the maths in my head — 50 million dead — and went about my business. I did not sell my shares. I did not buy masks. I didn’t even stock up on spaghetti.”https://t.co/N3Q2wwwV6x

— Pablo Melchor (@pmelchor) May 11, 2020

Jerry Seinfeld says he’s “adjusted pretty comfortably” to his new life in quarantine.

“I think there’s something to be said for not socializing,” he tells Weekend Edition. “It’s kind of a rest for your face and your fake emotions and your repeating the same stories.”

Seinfeld’s new standup special, 23 Hours to Kill, starts streaming May 5 on Netflix.

He jokes in the special: “I could be anywhere in the world right now. Now you be honest. If you were me, would you be up here hacking out another one of these?”

Talking to NPR, Seinfeld says he actually loves hacking out standup bits. It’s just a joke….

“Humor is of the greatest value in times like these,” he says. “Humor is an essential survival quantity, I think, of human life. I mean, I’ve been seeing some stuff about these nurses and medical professionals and these horrible units where they’re losing people so regularly. And I heard this one nurse say, she said, ‘You cry for a while and then you tell jokes.’ And that seems like the most human you can be.”

Read it all.

‘You cry for a while and then you tell jokes.’ And that seems like the most human you can be.”

Jerry Seinfeld On Staying Home: ‘At My Dinner Table, You’re Supposed To Be Funny’ https://t.co/r3nRosISDs

— susan hoff (@susanphoff) May 2, 2020

“The book I’m reading is The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson. It’s the story of Churchill and his family during the World War II London blitz, bringing to life the resilience of the family and the British people during such a challenging time. It’s a book that had been on my wishlist, but I pulled it from my nightstand as I found myself wanting to read about inspirational moments in history, where people had lived through experiences that were intense and overwhelming and to find inspiration in how other people had gone through unprecedented challenges. It’s a very beautifully written book.”

—Indré Rockefeller, Cofounder and Co-CEO of Paravel

Read it all and see what you make of the list.

‘Discover Joy in Work’ by @shundrawn is listed as one of the 25 best books for business leaders to read during the #coronavirus lockdown by @worthmag! #DiscoverJoyInWork https://t.co/YkR2ARE9V7

— InterVarsity Press (@ivpress) April 15, 2020

Coronavirus: Easter Sunday under lockdown captured in pictures https://t.co/0vuLhoC7Ma

— David Kisamfu (@thedextazlab) April 12, 2020

World celebrates #GoodFriday despite lockdown https://t.co/TV5moE9MkI

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) April 10, 2020

National acts of special worship could be either particular prayers or whole church services. Until the 1850s, the services were for use on special fast or thanksgiving days. These were usually ordered by royal proclamation, for observance by the whole population. As they were often appointed for weekdays, all work was suspended as on Sundays.

In England and Wales, and in Ireland, these prayers and services involved departures from the Book of Common Prayer. New texts were supplied by special forms of prayer, long series of which are often found in parish records.

The original rationale for these occasions was provided by the conceptions of “special providences” and divine judgements, drawn especially from Old Testament examples of afflictions suffered under the kings of Israel. Dislocations in the natural world as well as in human affairs were seen as God’s punishments for the collective sins of the kingdom, to be assuaged by simultaneous penitence, petitionary prayers, and promises of repentance.

A preface in the forms of prayer used during plague epidemics in the 16th and 17th centuries declared:

We be taught by many and sundry examples of holy Scriptures, that upon occasion of particular punishments, afflictions, and perils, which God of his most just judgement has some times sent among his people to show his wrath against sin, and to call his people to repentance and to the redress of their lives: the godly have been provoked and stirred up to more fervency and diligence in prayer, fasting, and alms deeds, to a more deep consideration of their consciences, to ponder their unthankfulness and forgetfulness of God’s merciful benefits towards them, with craving of pardon for the time past, and to ask his assistance for the time to come to live more godly, and so to be defended and delivered from all further perils & dangers. . . (1563)

Read it all.

Wars, famines — and pandemics https://t.co/qb1tjsnwWj

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) April 3, 2020

We know everyone could use a #NationalPuppyDay post. So here is one of the hardest working, best looking puppies in the business. pic.twitter.com/tjL85SSKHZ

— U.S. Secret Service (@SecretService) March 23, 2020

“Turtles keep you guessing,” she said. “What’s more shocking is since that nest we’re seen five more.”

The early nestings have bad and good implications for sea turtle nesting in South Carolina and across the Southeast. Loggerheads, which lay most of the eggs here, are also nesting earlier.

The phenomenon is likely one more sign that warmer seas and sands are becoming one more threat to the declining species.

But it might mean the ancient turtles themselves are adapting — again — to a changing climate.

Far more of the eggs that are laid in warmer sands emerge as females, disrupting the gender balance needed to reproduce. The trend has worried biologists for the turtles’ future. The turtles, metabolically if not instinctively, might just be looking for cooler sands. The shift in nesting season is occurring along with an apparent northward shift in range.

Read it all.

Sea turtles have begun nesting in Florida, earlier than ever.

South Carolina is seeing the same troubling trend.https://t.co/nkZeGy1ArK

— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) February 24, 2020

A Manitoba Hydro worker stumbled across an “extremely rare” sight while traveling the highways in rural Manitoba – a mother lynx and her litter.

Sean Kirchmann, a Hydro employee, was on his way to Grand Rapids, Man., when he noticed some small feline heads poking out of the trees near the highway.

“One by one, the mother came out followed by her kittens, gingerly crossing through the ditch and then at the side of the road,” said Bruce Owen, the spokesperson for Manitoba Hydro.

Read it all and do NOT miss the video.

Aa parts of East Africa face the worst plague of locusts for decades, the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) has made a plea for international help. It described the situation as “unprecedented” and “devastating”.

At the same time, the Christian relief and development agency Tearfund, which works with hundreds of rural self-help groups in the region, has urged people to pray for an end to the crisis.

In Kenya, the insect swarms are the worst for 70 years, destroying staple food supplies and farmers’ livelihoods. In Somalia, where the invasion is the worst for a quarter of a century, a state of national emergency has been declared. This week, locusts were reported to have reached Uganda. Tanzania and South Sudan have been added to a watch list.

In Ethiopia, the influx is the worst for 25 years. Tearfund’s Emergency Officer, Tewodros Ketsela, said: “The region is already struggling after several poor harvests, due to either drought or excess rain. As such, farmers are particularly vulnerable to this new threat. Anyone who is fortunate enough to have food reserves will have to use them up earlier than expected.

Read it all.

“The region is already struggling after several poor harvests, due to either drought or excess rain. As such, farmers are particularly vulnerable to this new threat.”https://t.co/Jlizb9INkB

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) February 14, 2020

A Minnesota woman was reunited with her dog, Hazel, this week after spotting her missing pet’s picture on a Florida brewery’s beer can.

The road back together for Monica Mathis, 33, and Hazel began last month when Mathis was scrolling through Facebook and saw a picture of a dog that looked familiar. It was Hazel, her mixed breed that had been missing for three years.

What Mathis had hit upon was a label posted on Facebook from Motorworks Brewing, of Bradenton, Florida, which featured four adoptable dogs, including Hazel. Proceeds from sales of the cans were destined for a fund to build a new county animal shelter.

Read it all or watch the video below (highly recommended).

A number of blog readers may remember Peter and Amy Mitchell from their time in the diocese of South Carolina. They now serve at All Souls Anglican Church, Woodstock, VA.

Enjoy them all.

Epiphany Celebrations Around the World https://t.co/5TEHj4t1Ld

— The New York Times (@nytimes) January 6, 2018

HyperZooming through Hallstatt from geoff tompkinson on Vimeo.