To help the visually-impaired to admire the huge tourist attractions, miniatures of these attractions are created. They are placed near the attractions themselves, including information in Braille to help more people read about the monuments or entire city centers. This wonderful addition helps the blind and the visually-challenged to appreciate tourist attractions better, as My Modern Met details: 

“When blind people finger their town for the first time it is a completely new experience for them,” Broerken writes. “Before they could feel the walls of the town but only the model gives them a chance to understand the dimension of the town they live in.”

By bringing architecture to life on a small scale, visitors can take a walk through the city using their fingertips and marvel at the incredible detail they might have otherwise missed. Of course, new technology like 3D printing has made scale models more affordable and so tactile models have become increasingly commonplace. So the next time you walk past one of these beautiful miniatures, take a moment to consider its important role in unlocking the details of the world’s greatest architecture.

image via My Modern Met

Physiologist and coach Jack Daniels once filmed a group of runners in stride. He then showed the footage to coaches and biomechanists to see if they could identify who was the most efficient.

“They couldn’t tell,” Daniels later recalled. “No way at all.” Famously awkward-looking runners like Paula Radcliffe and Alberto Salazar sometimes turn out to be extraordinarily efficient. Smooth-striding beauties sometimes finish at the back of the pack.

The act of running, it turns out, is a complicated subject. There are many factors that need to be considered, and these factors have endless variations.

So it’s a more or less hopeless task to simply watch someone run past and diagnose problems with their stride, whether it’s inefficiencies or vulnerabilities to certain types of injury. Amid the endless variables, we can’t possibly zero in on the ones that matter in real time.

More details about this over at Outside.

(Image Credit: skeeze/ Pixabay)

It seems that plastic has become an almost-omnipresent being on our planet. It is now literally under our skin. Plastic pollution, as well as tiny plastic particles, or microplastics, have become ubiquitous in modern society.

These microplastics have been detected in the air, water and even in some foods, making their presence in our bodies essentially inevitable. 

“We definitely know we’re exposed, there’s no doubt,” says Chelsea Rochman, an ecologist at the University of Toronto in Canada, who studies human-made pollutants in fresh and saltwater environments. “We drink it, we breathe it, we eat it.”

Is plastic exposure bad for our health? Scientists do not know yet.

Check out Discover for more details about this topic.

(Image Credit: Hans/ Pixabay)

Alison Green has heard lots of stories about terrible job interviews, from an interviewer who demands to see what’s inside the candidate’s purse, interviewers who are insulting and hostile, and candidates being left to wait for hours, and many more. She has advice for people who might experience these in the future: walk away from them.

One common denominator in these stories is that when job candidates are subjected to rude behavior from employers, they mostly feel obligated to stick it out until the end of the interview. They don’t get up and leave. They sit politely, then walk out quietly stewing.

[...]

Why don’t more people walk out of bad interviews? These are just business meetings, after all; no one has been ordered to appear by subpoena.

Find out more about this over at Slate.

(Image Credit: Tumisu/ Pixabay)

Josh McConnell finds an interesting object in the pizza joint he went to. In the men’s washroom, a hole in the wall was framed. The framed fracture is titled as “fragile masculinity”. The pizza joint sure has a sense of humour, framing something that was broken instead of fixing it. They sure won’t let the person responsible for it ever forget! As to who did the hole in the wall, no one knows.  

The pizza joint I went to framed a hole in the wall in the men’s washroom and called it “Fragile Masculinity” pic.twitter.com/ZTxO2BsWMH

— Josh McConnell (@joshmcconnell) January 10, 2020

image via Josh McConnell on Twitter

Whether it’s simply doodling on your notepads, or creating elaborate drawings or paintings, creative work helps us to be healthy and connected to the world. There’s the feeling of elation and a burst of creativity every time we try to create anything, regardless of form. NPR has more details:  

"Anything that engages your creative mind — the ability to make connections between unrelated things and imagine new ways to communicate — is good for you," says Girija Kaimal. She is a professor at Drexel University and a researcher in art therapy, leading art sessions with members of the military suffering from traumatic brain injury and caregivers of cancer patients.

image via wikimedia commons

What matter where, if I be still the same,

And what I should be, all but less then he

Whom Thunder hath made greater? Here at least

We shall be free; th' Almighty hath not built

Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:

Here we may reign secure, and in my choyce

To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:

Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav'n.

Therefore as we have fallen from a great height into the bowels of the earth, let us dine appropriately with this meal of kiwi fruit-covered pizza, a monstrosity befitting our condition. Redditor nre found it for us and dubs it "an unholy abomination."

-via Kurt Schlichter

Australian Aboriginal lore is filled with references to birds carrying fire. Some traditional ceremonies even illustrate the behavior. Across the savannas of the northernmost part of Australia, which is known as the Top End, ornithologists have compiled accounts about these birds from witnesses. These accounts suggest three Australian birds of prey species use smouldering branches to spread fires to flush out their prey.

Black kites (Milvus migrans), whistling kites (Haliastur sphenurus) and brown falcons (Falco berigora) all regularly congregate near the edges of bushfires, taking advantage of an exodus of small lizards, mammals, birds and insects – but it appears that some may have learnt not only to use fire to their advantage, but also to control it.

Full story over at Cosmos.

(Image Credit: Bob Gosford/ Cosmos)

Malaka Gharib loves to spend her free time doodling. She always draws in between tasks. She sketches at the coffee shop before work, and she likes to challenge herself to complete a little magazine (called a zine) on her 20-minute bus commute.

I do these things partly because it's fun and entertaining. But I suspect there's something deeper going on. Because when I create, I feel like it clears my head. It helps me make sense of my emotions. And it somehow, it makes me feel calmer and more relaxed.

What is going on inside our brains when we draw? Why does it feel so nice?

It turns out there's a lot happening in our minds and bodies when we make art.

More about this on NPR.

(Image Credit: pencilparker/ Pixabay)

Oh, don't we internet denizens just love to categorize things. You've seen plenty of alignment charts fashioned from the moral structure taken from Dungeons & Dragons. Illustrator Robert James Russell (robhollywood) took a stab at categorizing French fries in this manner, and all I can say is "Your mileage may vary." It's difficult to see any pattern in the chaos and morality here. Yes, the relatively nutritious sweet potato fries are a lawful good, while artery-clogging poutine is in the opposite chaotic evil corner, but if healthy eating has anything to do with it, how did cheese fries end up as neutral good? If the shape is important, why are waffle fries lawful? This may be one of those things that is completely dependent on Russell's taste or past experience. -via Geeks Are Sexy 

One thing that can really boost the enjoyment of a new toy is having a cat -or better yet, a kitten- who assumes it's really a cat toy. Athena, a kitten who lives in Brazil, was fascinated by her owner's new slot car and track, much too fascinated to be scared. And that's a joy. -via Mashable

The heart-wrenching, nightmare-inducing game that took the gaming world one sneak attack at a time will now be available to play on Playstation 4, Xbox One, and the Nintendo Switch. Five Nights At Freddy‘s 1-4 will soon be available for the consoles, according to Clickteam,the developer of the franchise. That’s more consoles to play the game with, besides the PC. 

(via IGN)

image via IGN

New York City has established a program that allows people arrested for minor offenses such as fare beating, painting graffiti, shoplifting, and trespassing to avoid jail by taking a two-hour course at the Brooklyn Museum. After the course, the cases would be dismissed, and no criminal court record is registered. The program, called Project Reset, has shown an improved view of criminal justice agencies, as Hyperallergic detailed: 

“It’s about holding people accountable, but doing it in ways that promote human dignity,” said Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez at a press conference at the Brooklyn Museum on October 21. “It requires individuals to view and discuss a piece of art with people they don’t know,” he added. “They’re asked to create their own art, to think and find meaning in that art.”

image via wikimedia commons

No one would have expected a remake announcement for the recent Pokemon direct, where the expansion pass for Pokemon Sword and Pokemon Shield was announced. However, fans and gamers were surprised to see a reveal trailer of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team DX, a remake of  the Rescue Team games released on the Gameboy Advanced years ago, Now this game is definitely going to be in my wishlist! 

We've known for some time that human being originated in Africa, but it's a big continent. Scientists have been trying to pinpoint exactly where Homo sapiens first appeared, and the more we learn, the muddier the search becomes. The theory of "mitochondrial Eve," in which one woman is the ancestor to all humans, indicates it was in East Africa, while the corresponding "genetic Adam" points to West Africa. The earliest evidence of art and symbolic thought come from South Africa. These discoveries have led some scientists to a fairly new pan-African theory: that modern humans evolved over a very large area.

Chris Stringer, of the Natural History Museum, London, explains. “The immediate predecessors of modern humans probably arose in Africa about 500,000 years ago and evolved into separate populations,” he says.

“When times were bad – for example, when the Sahara was arid, as it is now – you would get little isolated pockets of humans clinging on to existence. Some of these people would have gone extinct. Others managed to hang on.”

Later, when conditions improved – for instance, when the Sahara became green again and lakes and rivers formed – surviving populations expanded and came into contact with each other. When they did, they would have exchanged ideas – and genes. Then the climate would have turned grim again and they would have separated.

“This happened over and over again in different places for different reasons for the next 400,000 years,” adds Stringer. “The end product was Homo sapiens, the species that is more or less the version of modern humanity that now inhabits every continent on Earth.”

This idea hints that our very existence comes from our distant ancestors' willingness to travel and to connect with others. Read about the discoveries that led to this concept at the Guardian.  -via Strange Company

(Image credit: Wapondaponda)