The missing continent it took 375 years to find

It took scientists 375 years to discover the eighth continent of the world, which has been hiding in plain sight all along. But mysteries still remain.

It was 1642 and Abel Tasman was on a mission. The experienced Dutch sailor, who sported a flamboyant moustache, bushy goatee and penchant for rough justice – he later tried to hang some of his crew on a drunken whim – was confident of the existence of a vast continent in the southern hemisphere, and determined to find it.

At the time, this portion of the globe was still largely mysterious to Europeans, but they had an unshakeable belief that there must be a large land mass there – pre-emptively named Terra Australis – to balance out their own continent in the North. The fixation dated back to Ancient Roman times, but only now was it going to be tested.

And so, on 14 August, Tasman set sail from his company's base in Jakarta, Indonesia, with two small ships and headed west, then south, then east, eventually ending up at the South Island of New Zealand. His first encounter with the local Māori people (who are thought to have settled there several centuries earlier) did not go well: on day two, several paddled out on a canoe, and rammed a small boat that was passing messages between the Dutch ships. Four Europeans died. Later, the Europeans fired a cannon at 11 more canoes – it’s not known what happened to their targets. 

Abel Tasman arguably did find the great southern continent, though he didn’t realise 94% of it is underwater (Credit: Alamy)

And that was the end of his mission – Tasman named the fateful location Moordenaers (Murderers) Bay, with little sense of irony, and sailed home several weeks later without even having set foot on this new land. While he believed that he had indeed discovered the great southern continent, evidently, it was hardly the commercial utopia he had envisaged. He did not return.

(By this time, Australia was already known about, but the Europeans thought it was not the legendary continent they were looking for. Later, it was named after Terra Australis when they changed their minds).

Little did Tasman know, he was right all along. There was a missing continent.

In 2017, a group of geologists hit the headlines when they announced their discovery of Zealandia –Te Riu-a-Māui in the Māori language. A vast continent of 1.89 million sq miles (4.9 million sq km) it is around six times the size of Madagascar.

Though the world's encyclopaedias, maps and search engines had been adamant that there are just seven continents for some time, the team confidently informed the world that this was wrong. There are eight after all – and the latest addition breaks all the records, as the smallest, thinnest, and youngest in the world. The catch is that 94% of it is underwater, with just a handful of islands, such as New Zealand, thrusting out from its oceanic depths. It had been hiding in plain sight all along.

"This is an example of how something very obvious can take a while to uncover," says Andy Tulloch, a geologist at the New Zealand Crown Research Institute GNS Science, who was part of the team that discovered Zealandia.

But this is just the beginning. Four years on and the continent is as enigmatic as ever, its secrets jealously guarded beneath 6,560 ft (2km) of water. How was it formed? What used to live there? And how long has it been underwater?

A laborious discovery

In fact, Zealandia has always been difficult to study.

More than a century after Tasman discovered New Zealand in 1642, the British map-maker James Cook was sent on a scientific voyage to the southern hemisphere. His official instructions were to observe the passing of Venus between the Earth and the Sun, in order to calculate how far away the Sun is.

Possibly due to a quirk of geology, the enigmatic kiwi bird’s closest relative hails from Madagascar (Credit: Alamy)

But he also carried with him a sealed envelope, which he was instructed to open when he had completed the first task. This contained a top-secret mission to discover the southern continent – which he arguably sailed straight over, before reaching New Zealand.

The first real clues of Zealandia's existence were gathered by the Scottish naturalist Sir James Hector, who attended a voyage to survey a series of islands off the southern coast of New Zealand in 1895. After studying their geology, he concluded that New Zealand is "the remnant of a mountain-chain that formed the crest of a great continental area that stretched far to the south and east, and which is now submerged…". 

Despite this early breakthrough, the knowledge of a possible Zealandia remained obscure, and very little happened until the 1960s. "Things happen pretty slowly in this field," says Nick Mortimer, a geologist at GNS Science who led the 2017 study.

Then in the 1960s, geologists finally agreed on a definition of what a continent is – broadly, a geological area with a high elevation, wide variety of rocks, and a thick crust. It also has to be big. "You just can't be a tiny piece," says Mortimer. This gave geologists something to work with – if they could collect the evidence, they could prove that the eighth continent was real.

Tasman’s ships left New Zealand after a bloody encounter with the Māori people – but he believed that he had found the legendary southern continent (Credit: Alamy)

Still, the mission stalled – discovering a continent is tricky and expensive, and Mortimer points out that there was no urgency. Then in 1995, the American geophysicist Bruce Luyendyk again described the region as a continent and suggested calling it Zealandia. From there, Tulloch describes its discovery as an exponential curve.

Around the same time, the "United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea" came into force, and finally provided some serious motivation. It states that countries can extend their legal territories beyond their Exclusive Economic Zone, which reaches 200 nautical miles (370km) out from their coastlines, to claim their "extended continental shelf" – with all the mineral riches and oil this encompasses.

If New Zealand could prove that it was part of a larger continent, it could increase its territory by six times. Suddenly there was an abundance of funding for trips to survey the area, and the evidence gradually built up. With every rock sample that was collected, the case for Zealandia improved.

The final flourish came from satellite data, which can be used to track tiny variations in the Earth's gravity across different parts of the crust to map the seafloor. With this technology, Zealandia is clearly visible as a misshapen mass almost as large as Australia. 

Satellite data can be used to visualise the continent of Zealandia, which appears as a pale blue upside-down triangle to the east of Australia (Credit: GNS Science)

When the continent was finally unveiled to the world, it unlocked one of the most sizeable maritime territories in the world. "It is kind of cool," says Mortimer, "If you think about it, every continent on the planet has different countries on it, [but] there are only three territories on Zealandia."

In addition to New Zealand, the continent encompasses the island of New Caledonia – a French colony famous for its dazzling lagoons – and the tiny Australian territories of Lord Howe Island and Ball's Pyramid. The latter was described by one 18th-Century explorer as appearing "not to be larger than a boat."

A mysterious stretching

Zealandia was originally part of the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana, which was formed about 550 million years ago and essentially lumped together all the land in the southern hemisphere. It occupied a corner on the eastern side, where it bordered several others, including half of West Antarctica and all of eastern Australia.

Then around 105 million years ago, "due to a process which we don't completely understand yet, Zealandia started to be pulled away", says Tulloch.

Continental crust is usually around 40km deep – significantly thicker than oceanic crust, which tends to be around 10km. As it was strained, Zealandia ended up being stretched so much that its crust now only extends 20km (12.4 miles) down. Eventually, the wafter-thin continent sank – though not quite to the level of normal oceanic crust – and disappeared under the sea.

Despite being thin and submerged, geologists know that Zealandia is a continent because of the kinds of rocks found there. Continental crust tends to be made up of igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks – like granite, schist and limestone, while the ocean floor is usually just made of igneous ones such as basalt.

The red band of rock – the Median Batholith – should travel all the way down Zealandia in a diagonal line, but instead it has been twisted out of shape (Credit: GNS Science)

But there are still many unknowns. The unusual origins of the eighth continent make it particularly intriguing to geologists, and more than a little baffling. For example, it's still not clear how Zealandia managed to stay together when it's so thin and not disintegrate into tiny micro-continents.

Another mystery is exactly when Zealandia ended up underwater – and whether it has ever, in fact, consisted of dry land. The parts that are currently above sea level are ridges that formed as the Pacific and Australian tectonic plates crumpled together. Tulloch says opinion is split as to whether it was always submerged apart from a few small islands, or once entirely dry land.

This also raises the question of what lived there.

With its mild climate and 39 million-sq-mile (101 million-sq-km) range, Gondwana itself was home to a vast array of flora and fauna, including the first four-limbed land animals and later, an abundance of the largest to ever live – the titanosaurs. So, could the rocks of Zealandia be studded with their preserved remains?

A debate about dinosaurs

Fossilised land animals are rare in the southern hemisphere, but the remains of several were found in New Zealand in the 1990s, including the rib bone of a giant, long-tailed, long-necked dinosaur (a sauropod), a beaky herbivorous dinosaur (a hypsilophodont) and an armoured dinosaur (an ankylosaur). Then in 2006, the foot bone of a large carnivore, possibly a kind of allosaur, was discovered in the Chatham Islands, about 500 miles (800km) east of the South Island. Crucially, the fossils all date to after the continent of Zealandia split from Gondwana.

However, this doesn't necessarily mean there were dinosaurs roaming over the majority of Zealandia – these islands may have been sanctuaries while the rest was drowned, as it is now. "There's a long debate about this, about whether it's possible to have land animals without continuous land – and whether without it, they would have been snuffed out," says Rupert Sutherland, a Professor of Geophysics and Tectonics at the Victoria University of Wellington.

The plot thickens with one of New Zealand's weirdest and most beloved inhabitants, the kiwi – a dumpy, flightless bird with whiskers and hair-like feathers. Oddly, its closest relative is not thought to be the Moa, which is part of the same group – the ratites – and lived on the same island until its extinction 500 years ago, but the even-more giant elephant bird, which stalked the forests of Madagascar until as recently as 800 years ago.

The finding has led scientists to believe that both birds evolved from a common ancestor that lived on Gondwana. It took 130 million years to fully break up, but when it did, it left behind fragments which have since been scattered all across the globe, forming South America, Africa, Madagascar, Antarctica, Australia, the Arabian Peninsula, the Indian Subcontinent, and Zealandia.

This, in turn, suggests that at least part of now-submerged Zealandia has remained above sea level the whole time. Except around 25 million years ago the entire continent – even possibly the entirety of New Zealand – is thought to have been plunged underwater. "It was thought that all the plants and animals must have colonised afterwards," says Sutherland. So what happened?

Though it's not possible to collect fossils from the seafloor of Zealandia directly, scientists have been plumbing its depths by drilling. "Actually the most helpful and distinctive fossils are the ones which form in the very shallow seas," says Sutherland. "Because they leave a record – there are zillions and zillions of tiny, tiny little fossils that are very distinctive."

In 2017, a team undertook the most extensive surveys of the region so far, and drilled more than 4,101ft (1,250m) into the seabed at six different sites. The cores that they collected contained pollen from land plants, as well as spores and the shells of organisms that lived in warm, shallow seas. 

"If you have water, which is only you know, 10m (33ft) deep or something like this, then there's a good chance that there was land around as well," says Sutherland, who explains that the pollen and spores also hint at the possibility that Zealandia was not quite as submerged as was thought.

A (literal) twist

Another lingering mystery can be found in Zealandia's shape.

"If you look at a geological map of New Zealand, there are two things that really stand out," says Sutherland. One of these is Alpine Fault, a plate boundary that runs along the South Island and is so significant, it can be seen from space.

The second is that the geology of New Zealand – as well as that of the wider continent – is oddly bent. Both are split in two by a horizontal line, which is where the Pacific and Australian tectonic plates meet. At this exact point, it looks like someone has taken the lower half and twisted it away, so that not only do the previously-continuous ribbons of rock no longer line up, but they are almost at right angles.

An easy explanation for this is that the tectonic plates moved, and somehow deformed them out of shape. But exactly how or when this happened is still totally unresolved.

"There are various interpretations, but this is quite a large unknown thing," says Tulloch.

Sutherland explains that the continent is unlikely to give up all its secrets anytime soon. "It's quite hard to make discoveries, when everything is 2km (1.2 miles) underwater, and the layers that you need to sample are 500m (1,640ft) beneath the seabed as well," he says. "It's really challenging to go out and explore a continent like that. So, it just takes a lot of time, money and effort to go out and ships and survey regions."

If nothing else, the world's eighth continent surely shows that – nearly 400 years after Tasman's quest – there is still plenty to be discovered.

Zaria Gorvett is a senior journalist for BBC Future. Twitter: @ZariaGorvett

(Source: BBC)

Whale sculpture catches crashed Dutch metro train

 A train driver in the Netherlands has had a lucky escape thanks to a fortuitously placed art installation.

Getty Images

A metro train in Spijkenisse, near the city of Rotterdam, crashed through a barrier at the end of the tracks shortly before midnight on Sunday.

But rather than plummeting 10m (32ft) into the water below, the train was left suspended dramatically in the air.

It ended up being delicately balanced on the large sculpture of a whale's tail at the De Akkers metro station.

"We are trying to decide how we can bring the train down in a careful and controlled manner," one official told the Dutch national broadcaster NOS on Monday.

Getty Images

The driver, who has not been named, was able to leave the empty train by himself. He was taken to hospital for a check-up and is not believed to have suffered any injuries.

The sculpture, titled Whale Tails, is the work of the architect and artist Maarten Struijs, and was erected in the water at the end of the tracks in 2002.

Mr Struijs told NOS that he was surprised the structure did not break.

"It has been there for almost 20 years and... you actually expect the plastic to pulverise a bit, but that is apparently not the case," he said.

"I'll make sure that I get a few photos," he added. "I could never have imagined it that way."

(Source: BBC)

The teenage girls who flirted with Nazis before luring them into woods and shooting them

‘They were teenagers and they were young and pretty. They would dress up very nicely and wear heavy makeup,’ says author

Red lipstick and shiny eye shadow were unlikely but important weapons deployed by members of the Dutch resistance when taking on Nazi soldiers.

Freddie and Truus Oversteegen, two sisters, and their best friend Hannie Schaft would put on their best clothes and fastidiously apply their make-up before going into bars to seek out unsuspecting targets.

The young girls, who were active in the Dutch resistance during the Second World War, would then strike up conversations with Nazi soldiers or Dutch collaborators. They would giggle and bat their eyelashes as they cajoled them into disclosing classified information.

Then they would lure them into the woods on the pretext of a “romantic walk” – and shoot them dead.

Freddie and Truus survived the war but Hannie, who is far more famous than the Oversteegen sisters, was caught and executed by the Nazis just three weeks before the war came to an end.

The last words she uttered are said to have been “I’m a better shot” after one of her executioners wounded her with the first attempt.

Sophie Poldermans was a close friend of Freddie and Truus, who both recently died at the age of 92, and intimately and regularly spoke to them about their memories of the war throughout their lives.

Ms Poldermans, a lawyer who specialises in women and war crimes, has now written about their harrowing experiences in a book titled Seducing and Killing Nazis – Hannie, Truus, and Freddie: Dutch Resistance Heroines of WWII.

“They were extremely brave women,” she told The Independent. “I would not want to have stood in their shoes. They started out small in the resistance – carrying illegal newspapers printed by the resistance news about Nazi troops. They would ride their bicycles and deliver them to specific addresses. They would also steal false identification papers for Jewish people in hiding.”

Freddie and Truus, who was two years older than her, were born and raised in Haarlem, a Dutch city close to Amsterdam, by a single mother.

The parents had divorced and their mother was a communist. She would get the young girls to make dolls for children who were victims of the Spanish Civil War.

Truus Oversteegen with a Sten gun (Sophie Poldermans)

Ms Poldermans, who worked with the siblings for over a decade as a board member of the National Hannie Schaft Foundation but also knew them personally, said Truus and Hannie would help transport Jewish children to safe houses but Freddie, 14 at the beginning of the war, had been too young to help.

“People also could have easily thought she was a Jewish child herself because of her appearance so it would have been too dangerous for her,” Ms Poldermans said. “But Truus and Hannie would take Jewish children from one safe house to another on their bikes if they knew there were traitors around. It was not suspicious for them to be carrying young children because they were women. They would sing songs to distract the children.”

But the three girls’ roles and tactics in the resistance grew increasingly dangerous as they got more heavily involved.

Freddie Oversteegen in 1945 (Sophie Poldermans)

“They would use explosives to blow up railway lines and trains to make sure Germans were not able to transport soldiers or weapons or Jewish people,” Ms Poldermans explains. “This was a heavier type of resistance. They wanted to make sure it was chaos on the railway line.”

It was not long before the teenage girls started seducing and shooting Nazis – with commanders assigning them particular targets.

“These are the only three women we know of who seduced and killed Nazis in the Netherlands,” Ms Poldermans says. “That is what makes it such a unique story. They were teenagers and they were young and pretty. They would dress up very nicely and wear heavy make-up. They would pretend to be kraut girls who were local women who had relationships with German officers, Dutch traders and general members of the Nazi party. Of course, their main target was the high-ranking officers.”

She adds: “They would go into bars and then they would flirt with these soldiers and giggle and smile and be girly girls. They would say ‘We can go for a romantic walk in the forest’. They would lure these guys into the woods to try to extract all the information they needed and then they would shoot them right there on the spot. Freddie was about 16. Truus was 18 and Hannie was 21. They started in the summer of 1943 and carried on until the end of the war.”

Truus was a real tomboy who had never worn make-up before, whereas Hannie always powdered her face right before an assignment in order to “die beautifully” in case she was captured by the Nazis.

Ms Poldermans, who notes the girls never slept with the Nazis, said they would have to relocate if their profile started to become known in the area to ensure they were not recognised. The girls kept their actions a secret from everyone – even friends and family – for security purposes.

The sisters always refused to reveal how many Nazis they had killed when asked about it after the war – with Freddie telling Ms Poldermans: “One should not ask a soldier any of that.”

“They did what they did because it had to be done,” Ms Poldermans says. “They believed in justice. They did not believe there was another way. At the same time, they tried to remain human. They suffered from depression and had nightmares and what we would now call PTSD.”

The lecturer says it took a long time after the end of the war before the sisters got the recognition they deserved – explaining many people wanted to look forwards rather than backwards, and stories of the resistance were dominated by men.

Ms Poldermans adds: “They had to fight for recognition. Truus was very outspoken. She would always tell her story but Freddie was very traumatised. She couldn’t talk about the war and it was only in the last few years of her life that she could. Freddie got all the recognition for her work after she died. It is too bad she doesn’t know.

“War affected everything in their lives. Truus became a well-known sculptor but the war was present in all of her artwork. The trauma never went away for them. Every day around liberation day in May, they would wake up screaming, having nightmares about the war. All the memories came back to them. It was so bad that Freddie would have to leave the country for a couple of months during that time of year.”

(Source: Independent)

Photographer catches squirrel stopping to smell a flower

Dutch photographer Dick van Duijn was visiting Vienna, Austria, in June when he captured an adorable series of photos showing a squirrel taking a moment out of its busy day to smell the flowers.

The wildlife, nature, and landscape photographer tells PetaPixel he was visiting Vienna especially to shoot photos of ground squirrels.

“On the first day we observed them and their behavior,” Van Duijn says. “On the second day, we photographed them the whole day. In the evening just before sunset, when the light became soft and nice, one of the many ground squirrels walked towards the yellow flower and began to hold it and sniff it.”

“When I saw this happening in the viewfinder of my camera, I already knew I had captured a very beautiful and intimate moment,” Van Duijn says. “I felt very happy and satisfied with the shot.”

You can find more of Dick Van Duijn’s work on his Facebook and Instagram.

(Source: PP)

The Netherlands’ national airline is encouraging people not to fly

KLM Royal Dutch Airlines has an unusual message for its customers: Maybe don’t take that flight.

In a June 29 open letter from its CEO, Pieter Elbers, the airline invited air travelers to make “responsible decisions about flying,” and encouraged customers to invest in the airline’s carbon offsetting scheme, CO2ZERO.

We’re in this together. We work hard to get things right, but all parties involved need to join forces to create a sustainable future. All stakeholders in the aviation industry, all corporations in any industry. And yes, all air travelers too. What can you do, in addition to carefully considering your travel plans?

It’s all part of KLM’s new “Fly Responsibly” campaign, which includes a website with information on its commitment to sustainable fuel and practices. A short video poses three questions to customers: Do meetings always have to take place face-to-face? Could you take the train instead? And could you contribute by compensating your CO2 emissions or packing light? “We all have to fly every now and again,” it concludes. “But next time, think about flying responsibly.”

KLM is already among the world’s more fuel efficient airlines, according to the International Council on Clean Transportation (pdf), due in part to its cabin layout. Airlines with more business- and first-class seats, for instance, have a greater carbon footprint, relative to the number of people they are able to transport.

Fuel efficiency of airlines on transatlantic passenger routes

Environmentally conscious customers, especially in Europe, are increasingly opting out of flying, which contributes about 2.5% of global emissions. (Few personal actions are quite so harmful for the environment.) They may be following in the footsteps of climate campaigners such as Greta Thunberg: The Swedish teenager and activist will only travel by rail or bus, and is considering taking a cargo ship to attend the UN’s special climate change meeting in New York in September.

At the same time, governments across Europe are pressuring airlines to be more accountable: The French government recently called for EU executives to end a global tax exemption for jet fuel to reduce air travel and, in turn, emissions. Lawmakers have also previously proposed banning short domestic and international flight routes, which are often only marginally quicker than high-speed trains.

Of course, KLM isn’t planning to hang up its flying goggles just yet. “It is our business and we want to stay in business,” it said, in a statement following Elbers’ letter. “We are stepping up to speed up progress towards a sustainable future, but we are a company that needs to make profit to survive and to continue to invest in sustainable solutions. We want to still be around when we have succeeded in our efforts to make aviation sustainable.”

Some Dutch politicians have already dismissed the campaign as simple greenwashing. For now, the airline is only offering gentle encouragement to fly less, and has not imposed more drastic solutions, such as making its carbon-offsetting scheme compulsory for consumers, or reducing its short-haul legs.

(Source: Quartz)

Tourists can marry a Dutch local in new tourism initiative

The "wedding" is part of a new tourism initiative designed to smooth relations between locals and visitors

Amsterdam tourists can marry a local for a day, go on a date while weeding or pluck and eat a city pigeon in a new initiative designed to combat the negative effects of overtourism.

Visitor numbers to Amsterdam are predicted to jump to almost 29 million over the next decade, from 19 million currently.

Just one million people live in the Dutch capital, which announced earlier in May that it would stop actively promoting tourism as it buckles under the weight of its visitors.

An initiative called Untourist Amsterdam has been set up as a way to give growing numbers of visitors a way to contribute positively to the city.

The group runs a number of activities, co-founder Sabine Linz told The Independent, to turn consumers into “changemakers” for Amsterdam.

One of those activities is “Marry An Amsterdammer”, where a local and a visitor are matched up for a wedding ceremony, complete with rings, vows and proper attire. The ceremony takes around 35 minutes, said Linz, and the "honeymoon" is spent exploring lesser-known spots in the city.

The marriage is is symbolic rather than legally binding. "It's a chance for a visitor to have a meaningful encounter with a local," Minsk told The Independent.

Other quirky activities include “weed dating”, where a visitor is matched with a local to know each other while pulling out weeds at an urban farm; walking a local elderly person around a park; or plucking and eating a city pigeon at a local artists' studio.

The movement launches next week, which is when the first "weddings" are slated to take place.

(Source: Independent)

Dutch tulip growers beg selfie-taking millennials to stop trampling their flowers

Tulip growers in the Netherlands are pleading millennials to stop taking selfies among the flowers, after tourists caused thousands of euros' worth of damage by trampling over the plants in search of the perfect picture.

Colorful tulip fields throughout the Netherlands are popular destinations for visitors, but the rise of the selfie in recent years has resulted in damage as people enter and walk across the fields.

Now the Dutch tourist board and local growers are fighting back, launching a social media campaign and employing a team of "ambassadors" to tell selfie-takers not to step on the bulbs during their travels.

"They cross all over the fields and they damage the [tulips]," grower Simon Pennings, who owns more than 40 fields to the west of Amsterdam, told CNN. He said the problem has emerged "in the last couple of years," and is driven by younger selfie-takers.

"Last year I had one field and there were 200 people in the field," he added. "We have to keep them clear ... we have fields nearby the road and all the time, from 10 o'clock in the morning to nine in the evening, they take pictures."

Thousands flock to the Netherlands' tulip fields each year.AFP/AFP/AFP/Getty Images

"When the tulips are damaged the bulb won't grow," he explained, noting that the selfie-takers ignore some fields in favor of those with pink hues or several different colors.

Pennings estimates that thousands of people walk into his fields to take pictures on a daily basis, and said they once caused 10,000 euros' worth of damage to his plants. "For me, that was the point where I said, 'this has to be changed.'"

The Dutch tourist board also blames Instagram for fueling the trespassing problem.

"It is incredibly tempting, of course, to walk into a tulip field and shoot a picture in the sea of wonderful flowers," an online guide from the board reads, adding: "(but) surely you would not like people to walk into your back yard without asking every day."

"Ten years ago there were lots of people 50 and older," Dutch tourist board spokeswoman Elsje van Vuuren told CNN. "In the last two years since, Instagram is up and coming, there are lots of millennials visiting," she said.

"You are very welcome, please come and visit the flower fields, but please be aware that you're not allowed to visit the fields inside," she added, noting that the problem is not confined to the fields.

"We see it in tulip fields and also in museums," she said, adding that some museums in the Netherlands are creating "selfie spots" where people can take pictures.

The tourist group's video says tulips are "nourished with love and cherished by caring Dutch farmers."

"But a predator lures from above, careless and unknowingly destructive," the video adds, showing a woman stepping on a flower to take a selfie. "Enjoy our flower fields but make sure it is tulip friendly," the video says.

(Source: CNN)

DNA tests prove disgraced fertility doctor used own sperm to secretly father 49 children

Suspicions were partially raised because so many donor offspring looked alike

A fertility doctor accused of illegally using his own sperm to inseminate patients has been found to be the father of at least 49 children.

Jan Karbaat, who died two years ago, impregnated their mothers at his clinic near Rotterdam, in the Netherlands.

None of the women were aware he was using his own semen in the operations.

The mass deception, which the doctor always denied, was revealed on Friday after DNA tests were made public by a Dutch court.

DNA tests to determine if fertility clinic doctor fathered 200 children with his own sperm ( EPA )

It followed a two-year legal battle instigated by dozens of the children – most of who are now in their 30s – after suspicions grew they were related.

One of the apparent giveaways, an early court hearing was told, was that several donor child had such close physical resemblances.

Items were seized from the doctor’s home after his death, aged 89, in April 2017. DNA was then extracted from a toothbrush.

Tests carried out subsequently proved Dr Karbaat was the father of the 49 – although it is now thought he may have sired even more offspring.

Martijn van Halen, one of the doctor’s children, told Dutch news website nrc.nl: "It's nice to know for sure. It gives peace."

He added that he and many of his newly confirmed half-siblings had become friends through their legal fight and would be staying in touch.

The clinic itself was closed in 2009 - after being open for decades - amid allegations of falsified data, and systematic exceeding of the permitted number of six children per donor.

(Source: Independent)

Dutch church clocks up 1,400 hours to prevent family being deported

A non-stop church service in the Netherlands -- aimed at stopping an Armenian family from being deported -- has become so popular it has issued tickets for the Christmas period to control numbers.

The service has been going around the clock since October 26 -- more than 1,400 hours.

Under Dutch law, police officers are not permitted to enter a church while a religious service is taking place. So, church leaders hatched the idea of meeting non-stop to prevent the Tamrazyan's from being removed from the country.

Since then, hundreds of pastors and volunteers have taken part in the service.

Hayarpi Tamrazyan (C) from Armenia attends a service in the Bethel church as it holds round-the-clock religious services to prevent the family from being deported.

Axel Wicke from the Bethel church and community center in The Hague told CNN the service has become something of a "pilgrimage" for people across the Netherlands.

"We have had to account for so many people who want to visit during Christmas," Wicke said, adding that two of the services are being streamed on Christmas eve and Christmas Day.

The Tamrazyans have lived in the Netherlands for almost nine years, but their claim for political asylum was rejected. The Dutch Minister for Migration, Mark Harbers, has so far refused to use his discretionary powers to intervene and allow them to stay. His office declined to specifically discuss the case when contacted by CNN.

The five members of the Tamrazyan family, who have been living in the Netherlands for nine years, took refuge in the church on October 25, 2018 after Dutch authorities turned down their request for asylum.

Last week, the church said it was disappointed by the Minister's inaction and vowed to continue the service.

"Just before Christmas, when we celebrate Gods humanity-loving and peaceful deeds, we feel strengthened not to forsake our responsibility for the Tamrazyan family," Rev. Theo Hettema, chair of the Protestant Church The Hague, said in a statement.

He says the church provided an "extensive file with new information" to the Minister to help convince him of the family's case.

21-year-old Hayarpi -- the oldest daughter in the family of five -- said on Twitter she has been encouraged by the full attendance at the church.

Óók vandaag zit de Bethelkapel vol.. wat een bemoediging voor ons na een harde klap. Dank allemaal! ☺ #kerkasielbethel #kerkasielgaatdoor #kinderpardon pic.twitter.com/Mr7caAzAhT

— Hayarpi (@hayarpi_3) December 21, 2018

Speaking to Reuters earlier this month, she said: "I really don't know what the outcome will be, but we hope we can stay here (in the Netherlands), because this is our home, this is where we belong. And my brother, my sister and I, we grew up in the Netherlands and we have been living here for almost nine years."

This Christmas season, though, the family will spend time together holed up in a church that has offered them sanctuary, hoping and praying for a Christmas miracle.

(Source: CNN)