It’s that time of the year again when you’ll have to think about what gifts you should give to your friends. Fortunately, there are some articles out there on the Internet, such as this one, which might give you great ideas of what to give this season. Engadget suggests 5 DIY kits that make excellent gifts, for both kids and adults who love DIY stuff. Check out the site for more details.

(Image Credit: StackCommerce/ Engadget)

The Zodiac Killer, who murdered at least five people in 1968 and 1969 and claims to have killed many more, sent taunting letters to California newspapers. One of the messages consisted of a series of letters and symbols in a code that no one could decipher. Many tried, and we even posted about a guy who claimed to have solved it in 2011. Now a team of codebreakers operating in three different countries say they have finally deciphered the letter known as cipher Z340. 

I HOPE YOU ARE HAVING LOTS OF FUN IN TRYING TO CATCH ME
THAT WASNT ME ON THE TV SHOW
WHICH BRINGS UP A POINT ABOUT ME
I AM NOT AFRAID OF THE GAS CHAMBER
BECAUSE IT WILL SEND ME TO PARADICE ALL THE SOONER
BECAUSE I NOW HAVE ENOUGH SLAVES TO WORK FOR ME
WHERE EVERYONE ELSE HAS NOTHING WHEN THEY REACH PARADICE
SO THEY ARE AFRAID OF DEATH
I AM NOT AFRAID BECAUSE I KNOW THAT MY NEW LIFE IS
LIFE WILL BE AN EASY ONE IN PARADICE DEATH

The FBI has accepted their decryption. The video above explains how they did it. You can read more at the San Francisco Chronicle, or if that's blocked by a paywall, at Zodiac Killer Facts. -via Metafilter

This is the vegan dog leash made by Project Blu, a pet accessory business based in Wales. This leash, unlike other leash, is made from apple skins with an organic polymer. But don’t think that this dog leash is extremely weak just because it’s made of fruit, as this leash is stronger than the ones made of leather. Project Blu has other environment-friendly products aside from the leash, such as collars, harnesses, and even poop-bag handlers.

Through their Kickstarter campaign, they are offering, for a limited time, special early-bird prices available now…

[...]

And, with every sale made, the company plants a tree in partnership with Eden Reforestation Projects to help combat deforestation.

On a mission to remove pollution from the pet industry, Project Blu wants to revolutionize the pet product market offering products that are sustainable, affordable, and built to last.

Cool!

(Image Credit: Project Blu/ Good News Network)

pic.twitter.com/e3N00xCr5i

— Patty Jenkins (@PattyJenks) December 10, 2020

Disney announced a few details about the next Star Wars movie during a livestream Thursday. The movie is already titled Star Wars: Rogue Squadron. It will be directed by Patty Jenkins, who gave us the 2017 movie Wonder Woman. Jenkins posted the above video about the same time as the announcement.

Rogue Squadron is a known entity in Star Wars lore, referred to in comic books and video games, but the plot of the upcoming film is not yet known. It has been said that the story will take place after the events of The Rise of Skywalker, which gives it a blank slate for what happened a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Star Wars: Rogue Squadron is scheduled to premiere in 2023. -via Boing Boing

A mummified body buried near the Rio Grande between 1000 and 1400 years ago reveals not only a diagnosis, but his end-of-life care. A microscopic-level study of his digestive tract revealed the cause of death. The man suffered from Chagas disease, a parasite-born condition that led to a fatal case of constipation. With no cure available, his people went to great lengths to care for him.

For the last two to three months of his life in the Lower Pecos Canyonlands of modern-day Texas, the man starved. The final meals he did consume seemed to consist entirely of a food that his people rarely relied on for sustenance: grasshoppers. First, though, his family or community took care to pluck the extraneous bits.

"They were taking off the legs," said Karl Reinhard, professor in the School of Natural Resources at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. "So they were giving him mostly the fluid-rich body—the squishable part of the grasshopper. In addition to being high in protein, it was pretty high in moisture. So it would have been easier for him to eat in the early stages of his megacolon experience."

Reinhard studied two other cases of hospice care in North America from hundreds of years ago, revealing how community members would do the very best they could to feed an ailing loved one. -via Strange Company

(Image credit: Ryan Wood)

Engineer and madman Colin Furze (previously) had plenty of spare time during lockdown, and so he built a huge trebuchet. This video is about testing it and adjusting the aim. Watch him chuck a washing machine at about five minutes in! And a clothes dryer at 7:30. They also sling a bicycle and a heater, which don't get much distance, but display a lot of destruction, if you're into that sort of thing. -via Digg

Capture the Atlas has 25 winners in its Northern Lights Photographer of the Year competition. If that seems generous, the photo above, titled “The Hunt’s Reward” by Ben Maze is an image of the Aurora Australis, or Southern Lights, taken in Tasmania.

Captured in this image is a trifecta of astronomical phenomena that made for some of the best astrophotography conditions one can witness in Australia, namely, the setting Milky Way galactic core, zodiacal light, and of course, the elusive Aurora Australis. On top of this, a sparkling display of oceanic bioluminescence adorned the crashing waves, adding the cherry on top to what was already a breathtaking experience.

The photo below, “Turbulunce,” was captured by John Weatherby in Iceland.   

The forecast on this night was for a solar storm, and it did not disappoint. After the first sign of green in the sky, the group decided to book it out to the Sólheimasandur plane wreck. It was a group effort, but we managed to light the plane from the inside with two colored LED lights that a participant brought. Hearing the group’s screams in the dark from seeing a KP6 aurora for the very first time was something I’ll remember for the rest of my life.

That's only two of the 25 fantastical images you can see and read about in the winner's gallery at Capture the Atlas. -via Kottke

As you clean the cobwebs from the corners, you can take comfort in the fact that the ISS has spiders, too. Those are experimental spiders, deliberately taken aboard to see how space conditions affect web-building. In fact, spiders have flown into space for more than ten years, but now it appears there is a breakthrough in our understanding of the way orb spiders build webs in microgravity. From the research paper: 

Under natural conditions, Trichonephila spiders build asymmetric webs with the hub near the upper edge of the web, and they always orient themselves downwards when sitting on the hub whilst waiting for prey. As these asymmetries are considered to be linked to gravity, we expected the spiders experiencing no gravity to build symmetric webs and to show a random orientation when sitting on the hub. We found that most, but not all, webs built in zero gravity were indeed quite symmetric. Closer analysis revealed that webs built when the lights were on were more asymmetric (with the hub near the lights) than webs built when the lights were off. In addition, spiders showed a random orientation when the lights were off but faced away from the lights when they were on. We conclude that in the absence of gravity, the direction of light can serve as an orientation guide for spiders during web building and when waiting for prey on the hub.

It appears that in the absence of sufficient gravity, the spiders saw the light source as a substitute for "up." Read a short version of the study's findings, plus a look at previous experiments with spiders in space at Gizmodo. 

(Image credit: Richard Fuller)

Among the Thousand Islands (actually more than 1,500) at the headwaters of the St. Lawrence River between Ontario and New York is a tiny island named Just Enough Room Island. It's a privately owned summer resort that has just enough room for the single house that was built on it. Atlas Obscura describes it:

[..] Just Room Enough Island was purchased in the 1950s by the Sizeland family who were looking to create a holiday get away. They built a house on the tiny speck of land placing the walls right up to the edges of the island, creating a home that was just big enough to fit, and giving the island its quirky name. A pair of bench chairs were placed in front of the home and there was also a tree growing on one side. And that is all the room the island had.

Photo: Omegatron

Picture-taking will always be a part of any event in any season, so it would be great if you know some tricks that will help you take better photos. And if you’re someone who plans on improving your photography skills this holiday season, then you might consider attending the Nikon School Online classes. Until December 31, Nikon is offering their classes at the best price: free!

… you can stream all 11 of their photography courses just by signing up with your email.

They’ve added a class on how to take better holiday photos to their original lineup of 10—which also features courses on the fundamentals of photography as well as others focused on creating video content, landscape photography, portraiture, macro photography, and even how to photograph children and pets. Each one is taught by industry professionals and offers practical tips, tools, and lessons that will have you taking better shots in no time.

“The holidays are for making memories, and Nikon is meant for capturing them,” says the company. “Come by for ideas, insider tips, and the technical advice to help you get your best holiday shots ever—the more the merrier!”

You can stream all Nikon School Online classes on the company's website.

Nice!

(Image Credit: PIRO4D/ Pixabay)

Professional people cooking food is really a fun thing to watch, and I know that I’m not the only one who enjoys watching these stuff.

Watch this professional chef from Shunraku Kaiten Sushi Restaurant in Hokkaido, Japan break the eggs, mix the ingredients, and then put the oil in the pan (and then drain it), as he cooks a Dashimaki Tamago (rolled omelette). You might be able to pick up a skill or two as you watch it.

Via Laughing Squid

(Image Credit: KaitenSushiTV/ YouTube)

Is it 7 AM? 11 AM? 3 PM? Look at the whole picture. The tire tracks on the snowy road. The school buses. The lamps on the street. The quiet ski resort.

If you can tell the time here on this picture correctly, then chances are you have the potential to be a spy.

Members of the Central Intelligence Agency must be meticulous in order to successfully analyse global intelligence, and now it's testing the public.

The agency asked people to "put your analytical skills to the test" by working out what time of the day it was in [this] wintery scene.

This picture was posted via the agency’s official Twitter account.

The correct answer over at Mirror.

(Image Credit: CIA/ Twitter)

A rare conjunction of planets will soon be visible from earth for the first time in almost 800 years. Jupiter and Saturn will appear to be in close conjunction from our vantage point, only about a tenth of a degree apart. This closest point will be on December 21, the winter solstice, as NBC reports.

It will be the first Jupiter-Saturn conjunction since 2000, but the first time the planets will have been so close since 1623. It will also be the first time such a close conjunction has been observable since 1226, according to EarthSky.

Still, according to NASA, "while the two gas giants may appear close, in reality they are hundreds of millions of miles apart."

The event has been dubbed the "Christmas star," because some astronomers have theorized the “Star of Bethlehem” could have been a rare conjunction involving both Jupiter and Saturn.

While the conjunction on the 21st will be brief, the planets will appear close together on days both before and afterward. Read more about the phenomenon and how to best observe it at Bad Astronomy.  -Thanks, WTM!

(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Japan — Twitter user Nekomarusuisan was worried about his girlfriend, who was spending a really long time in the bath. To make sure that nothing’s wrong with her, he checked up on her, and he was surprised with what he found out. “When I went to check, she was busy enjoying paradise,” he said in his tweet. And when he said that his girlfriend was “enjoying paradise”, he meant this.

If we were the girlfriend, we probably wouldn’t have moved from that position either. A nice drink, a nice game, and two nice cats. What more could you possibly want?

Nekomarusuisan also has a YouTube channel for their cats, Chamunosuke and Marukichi.

I just hope the Nintendo Switch did not get wet.

(Image Credit: nekomarusuisan7/ Twitter)

Peru, Illinois — On December second, cops and firefighters as well as city residents joined forces for a mission. The mission: capture a runaway wallaroo, a marsupial between the size of a wallaby and a kangaroo.

This bloke — named Wally — got away from his owner in LaSalle County.

Over the course of two hours, Wally the wallaroo leapt through yards, streets, and roads, while the townspeople chased after it.

Fearing that the marsupial might get hit by a vehicle, Peru Police Chief Doug Bernabei shut down nearby roads.

Eventually, Wally made his way into a river, where he was rescued by two anglers who happened to be at the right place and at the right time.

“We were screaming and pointing. We were saying, ‘Get your net out, get your net out,’” Bernabei told the (Peoria) Journal Star. “They yelled, ‘It’s not a dog!’ We said ... ‘It’s not a dog, it’s a wallaroo.’”

They used a net to fish Wally from the frigid water and into their boat before taking him to shore.

“He was so cold we couldn’t register his temperature on the thermometer,” said veterinarian Allison Spayer. “We warmed him up. We dried him off.”

What a chase!

(Image Credit: Scott Anderson/NewsTribune via AP)