Nansledan is a residential community in the southwestern corner of England. Residents of Nansledan have to abide by some rules, such as painting their homes and doors in certain colors, and no fast-food chains should be set up, only local businesses. It just happens that these rules must be followed because your landlord, the Prince of Wales, told you so. Having Prince Charles as your landlord in Nansledan is no surprise, as the community is a project taken by the Duchy of Cornwall, as The New York Times details: 

Nansledan, which will eventually have about 4,000 homes, could be the most ambitious project undertaken in the 700 years of the Duchy of Cornwall, the patchwork of properties spread across England, covering more than 200 square miles, that provides an income to the Prince of Wales.

A dukedom within a kingdom, the duchy was created in 1337 by Edward III for his eldest son, Prince Edward (known after his death as the Black Prince, perhaps because of the color of his armor). Prince Edward became the first Duke of Cornwall and the Prince of Wales, but he was never king — he died, probably of an illness, at age 45 while his father was still on the throne.

Most of the time since then, the duchy has passed to the eldest surviving son of the monarch, who is also heir to the throne and holds the title of the Duke of Cornwall.

Since 1952, that has been Prince Charles. At age 71, he has been in charge of the duchy longer than anyone before him (thanks to his mother, still reigning at age 93).

The duchy, which receives rent from tenants that include farmers, homeowners and shopping centers, earned 21 million pounds, or about $28 million, for the year that ended in March 2019, and Charles shared some of that income with his two sons and their families.

image via The New York Times

The Curiosity rover froze in place thanks to a software glitch. The multi-billion dollar rover has been operating on Mars since 2012. The unexpected glitch came in the form of the rover forgetting its awareness. Curiosity is designed to maintain an awareness of where each of its arms and implements are so it won’t damage them as it goes around Mars. On January 20, Curiosity lost this awareness, triggering a safety mode in which it ceases any movement, as SlashGear details: 

According to Dawn Sumner, a Planetary Geologist at University of California Davis and one of the people working on the Curiosity project, that “body awareness” – also known as attitude – is checked before any motor on the rover is activated. That way, it stands a better chance of spotting a potential issue before it happens.

“When the answer is no – or even maybe not – Curiosity stops without turning the motor,” Sumner writes. “This conservative approach helps keep Curiosity from hitting its arm on rocks, driving over something dangerous, or pointing an unprotected camera at the sun."

It was that safety evaluation which was interrupted, with “some knowledge” of Curiosity’s attitude escaping it, Sumner explains. The rover did continue sending back information to Earth, and that allowed scientists on the ground to come up with a recovery plan. “The engineers on the team built a plan to inform Curiosity of its attitude and to confirm what happened,” Sumner says. “We want Curiosity to recover its ability to make its safety checks, and we also want to know if there is anything we can do to prevent a similar problem in the future.”

image via wikimedia commons

The new Star Wars series The Mandalorian takes a step away from how the usual Star Wars films were created. Instead of building massive and elaborative sets, Lucasfilm is using new Stagecraft technology. They are using a rear-projected LED screen to create a dynamic environment, essentially a real-time green-screen. New photos from the set showcase the Stagecraft technology at work, as SlashFIlm details:  

 Here’s a wide glimpse at the Stagecraft being utilized in the opening scene of The Mandalorian from the first episode. As you can see, the screen surrounds the entire set and allows the crew to shoot from any angle. The technology allows the screens to change how the environment looks based on how a scene is being shot.

So if the camera is panning along with a character (as above), the perspective of the environment moves as the camera does, recreating what it would be like if a camera were moving in that physical space. You can get a better idea of how this is achieved over here.

image via SlashFIlm

The coronavirus is an airborne virus that primarily infects a mammal or a bird’s upper respiratory and gastrointestinal tract. First reported in late December 2019 in Wuhan, China, the aforementioned virus has infected people in China. As sick people from Wuhan traveled, the illness also spread in other countries, including the United States.

Belonging to the same family as SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, which have killed hundreds of people almost two decades ago, the World Health Organization has named the newly discovered coronavirus as 2019-nCoV.

The question is, where did this come from? Some scientists say that the Chinese krait and the Chinese cobra could be the original source of this virus.

More details about this over at Discover.

(Image Credit: Thomas Brown/ Wikimedia Commons)

Digital illustrator and graphic designer Kostis Pavlou reimagined well-known cartoon and comic characters and redraws them in a more mature way, from Marge Simpson to Popeye to Smurfette. Pavlou wondered what these characters would look like in a more adult style, and if they can become models even with their character design. Does his reimagined Marge Simpson look like a model to you? 

(via Design You Trust)

image via  Kostis Pavlou

Rolls-Royce revealed their plan to BBC about installing and operating power stations by 2029. The manufacturer is leading a consortium to build small nuclear reactors and install them in former nuclear sites. The company estimates they will build 10-15 stations in the UK. While these mini nuclear stations reduce costs, some people are against the idea of nuclear power, as BBC details: 

But opponents say the UK should quit nuclear power altogether.

They say the country should concentrate on cheaper renewable energy instead.

Environmentalists are divided over nuclear power, with some maintaining it is dangerous and expensive, while others say that to achieve net zero emissions by 2050 all technologies are needed.

However, the industry is confident that mini reactors can compete on price with low-cost renewables such as offshore wind.

image via BBC

Tinder will unveil a new feature that lets its users alert the authorities if they need help or are in danger during a date. Tinder will partner up with Noonlight, a safety app that tracks people’s locations and sends the information to emergency services when the user alarms the trigger in the app. If a user hits the panic button in Tinder during a date, it will alert a certified Noonlight dispatcher, who will then notify the authorities. Buzzfeed news has more details:

Once a Tinder user opts in to Noonlight, they have the option to add a badge to their profile.

Tinder CEO Elie Seidman told the Journal, “I liken this to the lawn sign from a security system."

"It serves as a deterrent if people feel comfortable putting it on their profiles," a Tinder spokesperson added to BuzzFeed News.

Though location sharing may be a privacy concern for users, the Tinder spokesperson said users will be sharing that data with Noonlight, not the dating app itself.

"Noonlight does not share or sell any data, and we only use data to get you help in the event of an emergency," Addy Bhasin, a Noonlight spokesperson, told BuzzFeed News.

Bhasin said users have the option to turn location sharing on and off when they choose.

"So when you go on your date you can turn it on, and when your date ends you can turn it off," she said.

image via Buzzfeed news

A video on Twitter has left fans and casual viewers of the TV show The Late Late Show with James Cordon segment Carpool Karaoke aghast. In the segment, James Corden drives around LA and sings along with a celebrity guest. Apparently, they are being towed by a bigger truck as they sing along! While this video left people to speculate and feel betrayed that the host of carpool karaoke doesn’t really drive the car, a statement from the show clarified that he does drive some of the time, and he doesn’t on the rare occasion where producers feel that it is unsafe to drive. 

Saw James corden and Justin Bieber filming carpool karaoke and this is why I have trust issues — he isn't even driving! pic.twitter.com/bkP9moGJmu

— Zoli ⚡️ (@zolihonig) January 23, 2020

(via Cosmopolitan)

image screenshot via Youtube

A new role-playing game has been released, where you catch adorable elemental monsters and fight against other players’ own elemental monsters.  No, this is not Pokemon, this is Temtem. While having similar elements to Pokemon, the game is also an MMO. You can also fight against fellow players of the game around the globe! Geek.com has more details: 

The game’s focus on double battles, something we wish Pokemon embraced more, aids cooperation. And Temtem’s arguably harsher stamina system, limiting how many powerful moves the monsters can use on each turn, amps up the competitive factor.

Obviously, a Pokemon MMO is something a lot of folks want to check out. So Temtem’s servers are currently swamped. But things are getting steadier as the game continues its early access run on PC before hopefully moving to consoles.

image via Geek.com

Utah is home to a lot of rock art, carved and painted by North American tribes on the red,  sprawling canyons and cliff faces. These people depicted war, hunting scenes, animals, maps, and early calendars on the rocks. These thousands of pieces of art have yet to be recognized and protected by the government. Utah’s rock art has been vandalized and damaged, and is at a risk of being destroyed completely. The National Park Service wants each site (where the rock art lies) documented separately. This tedious process will take a long time and effort, as Hyperallergic detailed: 

“They said they had to do a single nomination for every site,” Loftin told the Salt Lake Tribune. “For [the BLM archaeologists] to go back and do this for each site would be a huge chunk of work they don’t have the time for.”

“We need to say this has national significance, and it’s what makes Moab special.” Pam Baker told the Salt Lake Tribune. “The process is too labor intensive for the BLM to do on their own. Once we were here full time, we recruited others to help, dozens of people.”

The National Park Service says it recognizes the historical significance of Moab’s rock art, but since new leadership has taken over, surveyors are requiring more consistency across the sites’ documentation and a more thorough description of their importance.

The BLM plans to resubmit the sites for listing on the registry even though it will take thousands of hours and significant manpower. Many people think this delay in protection could lead to further vandalization and destruction of the sites.

image via wikimedia commons

Sora News 24 brings to our attention what I will definitely be wearing to my next job interview in order to impress the executives. The company Hanumex apparently makes Frozen-themed Transformer toys. That company has correctly understood that the Frozen franchise should be a mecha anime.

Ideally, Hanumex would make a line of Frozen character watch Transformers that join together into a giant mecha in the fashion of the Constructicons.

Images: @ECEL_

What does friendship mean? Perhaps if I asked all people in the world about the meaning of friendship, I will get billions of different answers. All of us have different pictures of what friendship is like, and these photographers are no exception.

These are some of the photos entered into Agora’s competition called “The World’s Best Photos of #Friends2020”, where over 16,000 photographers entered the competition. Check them out over at Good News Network.

(Image Credit: Georock88)

(Image Credit: George Ako)

Added to the World Health Organization’s priority list of neglected tropical diseases in 2017, snakebite victimizes around five million people yearly, causing up to 138,000 deaths and 400,000 permanent disabilities, such as limb amputation. The world, unfortunately, has a shortage of venom antidote, which is partly due to commercial pressures on biopharmaceutical companies, as well as the labor-intensive nature of antivenom production.

Thankfully, this might just be our lucky break.

European researchers have used stem cells from snakes to grow mini-glands that make venom, a finding that could address the global shortage of life-saving antivenom for snakebite.

The team, led by Hans Clevers at the Hubrecht Institute in Utrecht, the Netherlands, dissected out the venom glands of nine snake species, including the Cape Coral snake and the Cape Cobra, both endemic to southern Africa.

More details about this over at Cosmos Magazine.

(Image Credit: Ravian Van Ineveld/ Princess Máxima Centre)

Before the 19th century, most workers put in a six-day week. It was only the influence of the church that mandated the Sabbath as a non-working day. In Britain, there were some people who knew that six days a week was more than enough work.    

For much of the 19th century, for example, skilled artisan workers adopted their own work rhythms as they often hired workshop space and were responsible for producing items for their buyer on a weekly basis. This gave rise to the practice of “Saint Monday”. While Saint Monday mimicked the religious Saint Day holidays, it was in fact an entirely secular practice, instigated by workers to provide an extended break in the working week.

They worked intensively from Tuesday to finish products by Saturday night so they could then enjoy Sunday as a legitimate holiday but also took Mondays off to recover from Saturday night and the previous day’s excesses. By the mid-19th century, Saint Monday was a popular institution in British society. So much so that commercial leisure – like music halls, theatres and singing saloons – staged events on this unofficial holiday.

But taking Monday off wasn't universal, nor was it mandated. Campaigns arose to make Saturday a half-day, and then a full day off, which was championed by the leisure industry as well as trade unions. Read the story of how the two-day weekend came into being at the Conversation. -via Damn Interesting

If you know England only through crime novels, you're probably terrified to set foot in the country, despite it having a murder rate way below that of the US. The most dangerous place, according to those novels, is the quaint English village. The blog Crime Reads is all about the literature of crime, whether it's true crime, novels, mysteries, or related genres. They have some advice for fans of these books, if they were to travel to such a village. First of all, you must avoid these things:

The village fête

The village fête is a fair, a celebration on the village green. They toss coconuts, judge cakes, drink tea, and whack toy rats with mallets. It’s a nice way to spend a summer’s day and thin out the local population, because where there is a fête, there is murder. If you enter a town while the fête is happening, you are already dead. The tea urn is filled with poison. The sponge cakes are full of glass. There’s an axe in the fortune telling tent. The coconuts are bombs. It’s like the Hunger Games, but dangerous.

Anywhere with a vat

In English villages, vats only exist for drowning people—in beer, in pickling brine, in whiskey, in jam. This is doubly true if the vat was built by 14th century monks. If anyone offers to show you a vat, say you need to get something from your car, then start the engine and run them over. The police understand this sort of thing. Tell them about the vat.

There are a lot more dos and don'ts to memorize if you want to survive your sojourn in a quaint English village, which you can read here. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Dennis Turner)