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Tag: vulture

  • Keira Knightley Explains Why She Hated High School

    Keira Knightley may live a glamorous life now, but she had a less than amazing high school one. In fact, she “fucking hated high school.”

    Knightley’s latest films Laggies and The Imitation Game continue to draw in media buzz. Critics are already predicting Knightley’s Oscar nomination for her role in The Imitation Game. People are also praising Knightley for her role in Laggies, but the buzz for the film comes from another place: her high school scars.

    In Laggies, Knightley plays Megan, a 20-something who goes through a quarter-life crisis when her boyfriend proposes. She then retreats for a week to the home of a 16-year-old named Annika (Chloe Grace Moretz) and her single dad, Craig (Sam Rockwell). Laggies deals a lot with trying to relive high school glories.

    — Laggies (@LaggiesTheMovie) October 24, 2014

    So Laggies makes people wonder: if you could relive high school over, would you? Knightley certainly wouldn’t. Vulture asked her a similar question when they asked, “if you had to revert to high school…” Knightley’s answer revealed a lot about her teen years.

    “I fucking hated high school, so I wouldn’t revert to high school ever.” Knightley then stated, “I don’t know, I’m not that kind of gal. Teenage girls and that scream pitch, even when I was a teenage girl, I was like, ‘Ugh, I really don’t like this,’ so that’s never been my place in time.”

    Recently, during a game of 20 Questions, Knightley told her Laggies co-star Rockwell about her prom experience. She shared that she took a girl, who is still a close friend. According to Knightley, “Neither of us got invited by anybody else. No guys came anywhere near us. But she had black tie because it was black tie.”

    In the Vulture interview, Knightley disclosed more details about her prom. She revealed a not-so pleasant encounter with one of her teachers.

    Yeah, I went to prom with my best mate, Emily. We both turned up an hour late, and I’d been filming Bend It Like Beckham, and I turned up in leather pants and a crop top, and she was a model for a while, and she’d been in Paris shooting something, and she turned up as the boy, so she had a black tie with ripped jeans on, and everybody else was completely dressed up, obviously, in that kind of finery, and then we had our picture taken underneath the thing, and she’s kissing me, and we were told that that was disgusting. And one of the teachers took us both aside and said we were never going to come to anything if we didn’t know how to dress appropriately for events like that. So that was my prom. We had a great time!

    Our photograph, though, wasn’t allowed — you know when you get up and, I don’t know if this is in America, but you collect all the photographs of prom and you buy whatever ones you want. Ours wasn’t allowed to be displayed on that because it wasn’t appropriate.

    Laggies is currently playing in limited release. The Imitation Game comes out November 21.

  • Woman Eaten by Vultures Stirs Protected Species Debate

    A woman hiking in the Pyrenees mountains in France who fell to her death is igniting a debate over a protected species of vulture.

    According to an International Business Times report, a 52-year-old woman fell down a 300-meter cliff while walking with friends. Vultures immediately took to the body, reducing it to only clothes and bones in less than one hour.

    The event has highlighted calls by some farmers in France to be able to kill the Griffon vulture, a protected species that has been turning to attacking livestock. Recent European Union laws have required dead animal carcasses, a staple of the vultures’ diets, to be burnt to prevent the spread of mad cow disease. According to the IBT report, this policy has “critically” lowered the food available for the vultures.

    Farmers are now making compensation claims for livestock killed or carried off by the birds. Hunters have also complained of the vultures stealing their kills. The birds, which can grow to have 9-foot wingspans and live over 40 years in captivity, are also reportedly spreading out further into Europe in search of food.

    (Image courtesy Ingrid Taylar/Wikimedia Commons)

  • Oldest Flute in the World Discovered in Southern Germany

    Oldest flute known to mankind was recently unearthed in the Ach Valley of southern Germany, according to AFP. The instrument, which is thought to be 35,000 years-old, was fashioned from the hollowed-out wing bone of a giant vulture. If that’s isn’t enough to get your imagination going, I honestly don’t know what will.

    In addition to the vulture flute, three broken instruments were discovered nearby, though researchers believe these aren’t nearly as old as the aforementioned music maker. A female figurine was also found in the same area last month, leading some to believe that the Stone Age humans who once called that area home enjoyed both a musically and artistically rich lifestyle.

    Located the in the Hohle Fels Cave, the flute was found scattered around the area in 12 pieces. The instrument has four intricately-carved holes, as well as markings where the openings were to be cut. Additionally, there are two V-shaped notches positioned at one end, indicating where the musician should blow. Although a working version of the flute has not yet been crafted, researchers feel that it will produce the same tones as its modern-day brethren.

    “We can now conclude that music played an important role in Aurignacian life in the Ach and Lone valleys,” remarked University of Tubingen professor Nicholas Conard. The ancient crafters of the unearthed vulture flute are believed to lived during the Upper Palaeolithic period, which spans from about 40,000 to 10,000 years ago.

    Of course, bone flutes are nothing new. Several has been found throughout the globe, including some that were discovered during an archeological dig in China a few years back. For an example of someone rocking out on a bone flute, have a look at the video embedded below.