Untitled

This is real footage from 120 years ago.

None of the people in it knew that the city around them had four days left…

What you are watching is a cable car gliding down Market Street in San Francisco, filmed on the 14th of April, 1906.

The camera was mounted on the front of the car, so you see the city exactly as it was: the crowds, the horse-drawn carriages, the early automobiles weaving through traffic, the men in hats, the great buildings rising on either side. An ordinary spring afternoon in a thriving American city.

Four days later, on the morning of the 18th of April, a magnitude 7.9 earthquake struck. The shaking lasted under a minute, but it ignited fires that burned through the city for days…

By the time it was over, more than 3,000 people were dead and roughly 80 percent of San Francisco had been destroyed. Almost every building you see in this footage was gone.

And the film itself nearly went with it.

The negative was placed on a train bound for New York on the 17th of April, the day before the earthquake. Had it left a single day later, it would have burned in the fire along with the studio that made it.

NGC 4565: Galaxy on the Edge

Why Do Some Black Bears Have Brown Fur?

New research pinpoints the 9,000-year-old genetic mutation that gives some black bears a cinnamon-colored hue

As their name suggests, many American black bears have black fur—but not all of them do. These mammals actually come in a range of hues, from sandy blonde to rusty copper to bluish-grey. Researchers are particularly interested in why some of these bears have evolved to have cinnamon-colored fur, which makes them look similar to grizzly bears (also known as brown bears). From a safety perspective, it’s important for humans to distinguish between these two species so they know how to respond in an encounter. In a new paper published Friday in the journal Current Biology, researchers reveal they are one step closer to unraveling the mystery of these look-alike bears. The reddish-brown hue of some black bears likely comes from a genetic variation, the study suggests...