Posts by : Matthew Brockbank

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCIV) — A dream came true for a South Carolina fossil hunter this week, when he found an enormous megalodon tooth in the Lowcountry.

Matthew Basak was doing some fossil hunting at a construction site in Summerville when he says he found this fossil shark tooth of a lifetime.

Basak, who guides fossil hunts professionally with the team at Palmetto Fossil Excursions, said he noticed what looked like a promising soil layer exposed in a drainage ditch at the construction site.

When he hopped down to take a closer look, Basak says he began probing and found one nice sized tooth before something else caught his eye in the muddy ditch bank. 

A few inches below the first toot...

While we can all hopefully agree that South Carolina has much bigger problems to tackle in 2021, lawmakers (for whatever reason) decided this should be the year to change the flag.

The South Carolina flag has been named the best state flag in the U.S. With its robust palmetto tree in the center and a crescent/gorget (not a moon) in the upper left corner, our state flag stands out among the rest.

For a state that’s used to being at the bottom of most lists, you would think we would leave our beautiful flag design alone. South Carolina had a good thing going with its flag — and 2020 tried to take that, too.

Technically, South Carolina never had a specific flag design and there are all so...

Three hundred years ago, Georgetown County, South Carolina, held a claim to fame. More than half of the country’s rice was grown on the county’s 45,000 acres of rice fields. Ron Daise, a Gullah Geechee culture preservationist, explains why: “Here, there was the largest number of enslaved Africans because of the confluence of the five waterways flowing into Georgetown.”

European settlers were aware the land was fertile for rice production, “But they didn’t know how,” Daise says. “So they went to the coast of West Africa where people had been producing rice for thousands of years. They were enslaved for their technical skills and expertise.”

Descendants of these slaves, known as Gullah...

Giving the ocean space to recover promises to help declining fish populations recover, restore habitat, and help save the climate, according to a new plan to save the seas.

PUBLISHED MARCH 17, 2021

7 MIN READ

The campaign to protect 30 percent of the world’s oceans by 2030, supported by more than 70 nations, is known mostly for soaring ambition and scant achievement so far. Just 7 percent of the seas are protected and only 2.7 percent are highly protected.

“It is very optimistic to think we’ll reach ‘30 by 30,’” says Patricia Majluf, a Peruvian fisheries scientist who has worked to create a deep-sea protected area off Peru in the face of strong resistance from the fishing industry...

March 2, 2021

WESTSIDE — Mamas’ Boys Sandwich Emporium is the second concept from restaurateurs Jeremiah Schenzel and Nicholas Dowling of Daps Breakfast + Imbibe. They will sell hearty sandwiches and hot dogs from a ghost kitchen, which means the food is only for pickup or delivery (coming soon through UberEats). The menu includes takes on classic deli fare, like a meatball sub, a chorizo chili dog, an Italian sandwich with Duke’s mayo, and more. Status: Certified open. 280 Ashley Avenue, Unit A; website.

MOUNT PLEASANT — Stuck in traffic on the way to Sullivan’s Island? Now there’s Ty’s Roadside Coastal Kitchen on the way for those who need a food break. The new Coleman Boulevard resta...

You won’t find a more honestly named restaurant than Toups Meatery in New Orleans, where husband and wife Isaac and Amanda Toups serve up fork-tender beef ribs, double-cut pork chops in dirty rice, and side dishes of house-made boudin, cracklings, and head cheese. Even the doberge cake has bacon in the icing.

That’s not to say that chef Isaac, who grew up two hours away from the Crescent City in the small town of Rayne, Louisiana, overlooks seafood. Toups cooks soft-shell crabs with Cajun gusto, crusting them with buttermilk and pulverized local rice before dropping them into a bubbling vat of peanut oil. He serves the fried crabs with a hunk of French bread, a swipe of lemon aioli, and ...

This may be one of the best stories on Reddit, especially on r/legaladvice.

 
That’s where people go when they’re hoping some lawyers might be interested in handing out free advice. A lot of people actually were interested in helping Redditor u/cranne, because her story is so unique.

She says she’s living in Portland, Oregon, and was watching a nature program about crows at home: The program mentioned that if you feed and befriend them, crows will bring you small gifts. My emo phase came back full force and I figured that I was furloughed and had lots of time- so why not make some crow friends. 

My plan worked a little too well and the resident 5 crows in my neighborhood have turned int...

Here’s an innovative way to make bees happy: 100% biodegradable masks with flower seeds, ready for planting! The woman behind the idea, Marianne de Groot-Pons, a graphic designer living and working in Utrecht, the Netherlands, states on her website:

“All these years I have been working as a graphic designer I have used so many resources from nature to be able to make my drawings (especially paper), so I wanted to give it back to her. For weeks I fell on blue disposable masks, thrown on the streets and sidewalks, so I woke up one morning with the idea of ​​a biodegradable face mask with flower seeds on it. Thus, the earth remains happy, the bees, nature, people also happy. I am selling th...

The singer previously revealed that she'd lived in the apartment for three years before she was launched to stardom following the release of her first album, "The Fame Monster 

Lady Gaga's former Lower East Side apartment is on the market!
The unit, located at 176 Stanton Street, is available to rent for $2,000 a month.
The one-bedroom, one-bathroom pad features 10-foot ceilings, an open kitchen with stainless steel appliances, and inlaid wood flooring, according to the listing.
The apartment also has a lot of natural light thanks to two windows in the bedroom, as well as a window adjacent to the kitchen and a skylight over the living area. RELATED: Lady Gaga's Dad Makes Plea to 'Help Us Ca...

People often complain about both the high cost of energy and the fact that "they don't have time to exercise." This invention certainly solves both problems.

It is an invention that could provide free electricity to 1.3 billion people living without electricity due to extreme poverty. Manoj Bhargava has built an exercise bike to power the millions of homes around the world that have little or no electricity. 

Early next year, he plans to distribute 10,000 of his free Electric - Battery Equipped - Bicycles to India, which he claims cover the energy needs of a home, lighting and other appliances for an entire day, by cycling an hour.

Bhargava, who dropped out of Princeton University af...

We’re finally closing the book on 2020, and many of us have never felt more desperate for a fresh start and a new beginning. And since it's not like we're leaving the house anytime soon, it makes perfect sense that the first place to start anew would be at home. (Plus, decorating and home renovation projects are a pretty good distraction from ever-present existential dread, if we do say so ourselves.)

If you're looking to do a design overhaul, you're probably also looking for some inspiration—so we asked real estate and design experts to weigh in on what they anticipate will be the biggest home trends of 2021. It turns out, with all the stress that 2020 brought to our lives, it also infl...

https://www.postandcourier.com/blog/raskin_around/luxury-tourism-market-isnt-a-cinch-for-downtown-charleston-restaurants-eager-to-rebound/article_6e8f73d8-5c3a-11eb-811f-6fbc4906294d.html

Picking up dog poop is probably the least enjoyable part of owning a dog. If you’re tired of doing it yourself, now you can let a robot do the job.

GET THE SCOOP ON HIGH-TECH POOP SCOOPING
A company called Beetl Robotics has come up with a machine that any dog owner would prize. It’s called the Beetl, and it does the whole messy job for you.

How does it work? If you’ve ever seen a Roomba in action, you might have an idea of how the Beetl works. It’s a compact machine that looks like a small lawnmower.

The best part about the device is that it works on its own. Beetl uses real-time image analysis to detect piles of poop in the grass. It then goes toward the poop, stops and uses a mechani...

Whoever thought music was just for listening has yet to experience Sonic Bed, a bed with speakers built into the frame. By concealing yourself in the Sonic Bed chamber, the music’s vibrational frequencies will stimulate your whole body, creating a dynamic, multi-sensory approach to experiencing music.

The bed was designed by Kaffe Matthews, a sound artist, and there are several featured in museums around the world. With a 12-channel speaker system installed directly into the frame, the possibilities for musical exploration are endless. As of now, there are no plans to actually release the bed commercially. You can get a taste of the experience by watching the video below:

https://www....

The city of Charleston will be closed December 24-25 and December 31-January 1 for the Christmas and New Years holidays. In order to provide service to all residents in a timely manner, garbage and trash collection will take place on a modified schedule.

If you have any questions about your collection day, please call the Citizen Services Desk at 843-724-7311.

MYRTLE BEACH — As more than a dozen school districts across South Carolina will offer bonuses to their employees for the holidays — with some receiving as much as $1,000 apiece — staffers with Horry County Schools were asked for $5 contributions to wear jeans to a Friday “Jingle Non-Mingle Staff Holiday Event.”

“Holiday miracles do come true, as employees can also wear JEANS too! (For a $5 charitable donation),” the email said.

The “miracle” wouldn’t come in the form of a bonus — confirmed by an HCS spokesperson — but instead common clothing that most teachers wear on Fridays as part of teaching online. 

To say that teachers are incensed over the timing of the $5 fundraising request wo...

The Lowcountry Lowline will spur different opportunities, depending on who you ask. Some see a safe way to move people through downtown; or a critical piece of stormwater infrastructure; even a way to repair urban neighborhoods ripped in two by Interstate 26.

“It’s aspirational. And, a little ambitious,” Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg told the City Paper before City Council signed off on the Lowline’s conceptual master plan on Tuesday.

Plans for the Lowline stretch a linear park two miles from Marion Square to Mount Pleasant Street along a historic, long-abandoned railroad line. Organizers envision the space as one commuters can use to get to work and where residents can unwind at th...

Snow showers are now expected to fall throughout the Charlotte region on the morning of December 25th, 2020, giving the Queen City its first true ‘White Christmas’ since 2010.

The Weather Channel is forecasting a low of 27 degrees and a high of 42 degrees for Christmas day, with morning snow showers likely.  

According to VentuSky, we should be seeing the most significant amount of snowfall in the early morning on Christmas day from about 6am-9am. The snow accumulation is expected to amount to 0.5 – 2 inches, depending on what part of the Charlotte region you live in.

If you’re not from the north and you don’t already have the necessary supplies for an inch or two of the powdery stuf...

The U.S. is nine months into the pandemic — and for some people, it's the first time they've gone without seeing their loved ones for months on end.

Even with a vaccine rolling out, many families won't be able to gather for the holidays.

That separation is something the more than 1 million international students studying in the U.S. this year are familiar with. If it was hard before for them to get home for visits, the coronavirus pandemic has made it even more difficult.

To help cope with being away from home, they've created new support networks, immersed themselves in American culture and developed other techniques to help lessen the burden.

Creating A New Community

Katayoon Beshk...

We all know the saying about assumptions.

And if you don’t, well…just Google it.

With the massive surge of unemployment that happened this year, it’s natural to assume that a massive surge of foreclosures will follow.

However, history is not expected to repeat itself this time.

Here are 3 simple graphs that prove why we’re not headed for another foreclosure crisis. 

The unique conditions that led to the 2008 market collapse and foreclosure crisis were in big part due to cashed-out equity. With many borrowers owing more than they could afford on their homes, mass foreclosures followed. 

Today’s market, however, looks a lot different. Instead, homeowners have an abundance of equity,...