BLOGEMONIUM

A Baby Otter is Saved by People Performing CPR and Whistling Lullabies

After looking beyond the crowd gathered at the Alert Bay Boat Harbor on Cormorant Island in British Columbia, Canada, Robin Quirk (inset below) saw what looked like a wet sock on the dock. She raced over to what turned out to be a baby river otter. That’s when Robin gathered random materials lying nearby to build a shelter to protect the animal from the birds of prey she usually rescues, before hearing what Gordon Mellish (inset below) had done before she got there. He explained that there were three otters in the water, wrapped in a fishing net. One of the three was wrapped so badly that it was motionless and its head was hanging in the water. After Gordon spent 20 minutes pulling the tangled trio out of the ocean, he cut the first two free, before returning to the third, who wasn’t moving. “It didn’t look like it was going to survive, but you’ve got to try, so that’s what I did,” explained Gordon. The retired logger and fisherman did what he had done to 10 humans before, but never to an otter. He wrapped his mouth around the otter’s mouth and began performing CPR. After the baby started breathing on its own, Robin took over. Following expert advice, she cared for the otter in her car overnight, before taking a ferry and driving to the wild animal rescue center. Like a mother might sing her baby a lullaby, Robin began to whistle lullabies to the otter. After driving the otter to the wild animal rescue, the baby spent a week being rehabilitated. Then, Robin picked the baby up and met with Gordon to release it back into the wild. Before the otter went to swim away, it turned and looked at Gordon. “A life’s a life no matter what it is,” Gordon said.

Are We Seeing More Food Recalls?

It’s bad enough that we’re dealing with the recent outbreak of cyclospora linked to lettuce, now nursing moms are warned that Lacnola Lactation Granola is potentially contaminated with salmonella. That begs the question: Are we seeing more food recalls? The short answer is no, and even if we were, that wouldn’t automatically mean that our food is less safe. It’s important to stress that the annual number of recalls isn’t an indicator of whether our food is safe or not. As of July 31, we’ve had 122 food and beverage recalls so far this year, compared to 135 during the same period in 2025 and 146 in 2024. So, the bottom line is that while there does seem to be an uptick in recalls, there really aren’t any more than normal. The media just happens to thrive on sensationalism, and recalls are a way to keep you tuned in.

Consumer Reports Tested 13 Electric Scooters and Don’t Recommend Any

At their best, e-scooters are a fun way to get from Point A to Point B. They’re quick, portable, and relatively cheap, making them an obvious choice for short trips or commutes. However, riding one comes with real risks, and years of incremental increases in top speed have made many models more dangerous in key ways. At the same time, new safety data has shown that injuries on e-scooters are both widespread and, in many cases, very serious. For that reason, Consumer Reports doesn’t currently recommend any electric scooters. According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, there were roughly 10,500 e-scooter injuries in 2017. By 2024, that number grew to nearly 80,000. Unlike e-bike users, who remain seated, e-scooter riders stand upright. That makes e-scooters exceptionally dangerous when you hit something, particularly at high speed, because you have a higher center of mass and may be more likely to fall headfirst. In the U.S., there is no safety standard specifically for adult e-scooters sold to consumers. “Consumers simply cannot trust that manufacturers are putting safety first as long as e-scooters come with such glaring hazards,” says William Wallace, Consumer Reports Director of Safety Advocacy. “If this industry is going to help reduce injuries, they need to agree on a set of strong baseline standards to make sure all e-scooters are designed and built to be safe.”

The Mind-Boggling Images That Will Have You Scratching Your Head

Nobody knows better than photographers how split-second timing can skew a picture, having you staring at an image with absolutely no clue what’s going on. Nothing makes you question your intelligence more than mind-boggling illusions, and the ones below are some of the best on the Internet.