Mother of Columbine shooter gives TED Talk about mental health and violence

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Mother of Columbine shooter gives TED Talk about mental health and violence

On April 20, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold walked into Columbine High School with an elaborate plan to kill as many students as possible. Armed with knives, homemade bombs and an arsenal of high-powered guns -- including a TEC-DC9 and various sawed-off shotguns -- Harris and Klebold wreaked havoc at the school before they both committed suicide. When the dust settled, 12 students and 1 teacher were killed, with many more injured in the process.

The Columbine High School massacre, as it's known, could have actually been much worse. Thankfully, a good number of the homemade bombs used in the attack -- some of which were designed to kill and maim emergency responders -- didn't detonate as intended. More broadly, the massacre made headlines across the globe and sparked heated debates about contentious issues like gun control, suicide, bullying, school violence and mental health.

Nearly 18 years later, many unanswered questions remain about the underlying motivations behind the attack, not to mention the mental states of both Harris and Klebold. Recently, though, Klebold's mother Sue has stepped into the public light in an effort to help make sense of the attack.

Over the last year, Sue Klebold has sat down for interviews with publications like the Oprah's O Magazine where she discussed how the massacre has impacted her life. All the more interesting are Klebold's ruminations about and how she seemed to miss some warning signs she, with the benefit of hindsight, should have paid more attention to.

Klebold also penned a book titled, "A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy." The book's description reads in part: "In A Mother’s Reckoning, she chronicles with unflinching honesty her journey as a mother trying to come to terms with the incomprehensible. In the hope that the insights and understanding she has gained may help other families recognize when a child is in distress, she tells her story in full, drawing upon her personal journals, the videos and writings that Dylan left behind, and on countless interviews with mental health experts."

More recently, Kelbold delivered a Ted talk where she touched on a few of the issues referenced in her book, including the "intersection between mental health and violence" as a means to "examine the link between suicidal and homicidal thinking."

For anyone with an interest in the Columbine massacre specifically or some of the issues it brings to the forefront generally, the video is well worth watching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXlnrFpCu0c

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China's ZTE pleads guilty, settles with U.S. over Iran, North Korea sales

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Elusive whale caught on video for the first time

A rare whale species has finally made its cinematic debut. Science students captured two True's beaked whales on camera during an expedition in Portugal's Azores Islands. Their video is the first-ever recording of these elusive whales in the wild.  SEE ALSO: Scientists are now spotting whales from outer space using satellites Such live sightings are extremely rare events. Marine experts know so little about these elephant-sized whales that the species is among the least-understood large mammals on the planet. For example, scientists don't know enough about these whales to estimate the population size. That's why researchers in Scotland decided to publish one of the most comprehensive surveys yet on True's beaked whales.  Their study, published Tuesday in the journal PeerJ, pulls together much of what we know so far about the torpedo-shaped whales. Their report includes the first-ever video, rare photos of a whale calf (!), as well as data collected from strandings and sightings and genetic analyses of individual whales. True's beaked whales are one of 22 species of beaked whales within the Ziphiidae family.  BABY WHALE! Image: Ida Eriksson (Futurismo) (A) Worldwide known distribution of True’s beaked whales, and (B,C)  locations of the reports included in the paper. Image: peerj The researchers also documented a new color pattern for these whales and defined the species' geographical boundaries in Atlantic Ocean. Once thought to be restricted to more temperate waters of the North Atlantic, the beaked whales' range also includes waters in the southern Indian and South Atlantic Oceans as well as the Tasman Sea. True's beaked whales dive to depth for long periods of time, and they only pop up to the surface once in a while for short breathing intervals. They've been observed to dive all the way to 8,200 feet under the surface. Marine biologists could use these insights to improve their long-term monitoring and conservation work for deepwater whales, according to the team at the Center for Research into Ecological and Environmental Modeling at the University of St. Andrew's in Scotland. WATCH: Take a dive with a marine biologist working to restore our ecosystem

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