Spin around and around with these electric vehicles (EV) made by automaker company Rivian. Through a video posted on Christmas Day, Rivian showed off how the quad-motor version of their R1T and R1S can make tank-turns.
It will surely cost a lot of money, however, but I guess it’s a good feature for your car to have. What do you think?
(Video Credit: Rivian/ YouTube)
For the first time ever, scientists have been able to “unmix” the black pigment that colors our skin and gives bananas their spots, through the use of eumelanin, a form of melanin that produces brown or black colors.
Melanin is important to the human body: It acts as a natural sunscreen, protecting DNA from damage caused by the sun’s ultraviolet rays. It also destroys free radicals in the body and keeps metal ions from harming organs.
But despite knowing all of that, scientists do not know one of the most basic things about melanin, said Bern Kohler, senior author of the study, published today in the journal Chemical Science.
“The most fundamental question that can be asked about a pigment is what gives it its color,” said Kohler, Ohio Eminent Scholar and chemistry professor at Ohio State.
More details over at Ohio State News.
(Image Credit: ClickChemist/ Wikimedia Commons)
This is “Kaleido”, a humanoid robot designed to assist disaster areas. Kaleido was made by Japan’s Kawasaki Industries.
The humanoid robot can lift heavy pieces of metal, and kick objects. It can also go to a kneeling position to properly carry the mannequin (which most likely represents an injured person), and stand up again. Kaleido, however, is a bit slow on moving. But he looks promising.
See the video over at Reuters.
What do you think?
(Image Credit: Reuters)
San Francisco photographer Eric Brummel posted this stabilized timelapse video of the night sky highlighted by the beautiful Milky Way to give us a better picture of how the Earth rotates.
Brummel recorded the video at Font’s Point in the Anza-Borrego Desert in California back in August 2016, although it’s just recently gone viral on twitter via the Wonder of Science.
The incredible illustration is real according to Brummel but many are skeptical whether it’s actual and authentic footage. Find out how Brummel created this video using a motorized tripod and more at Nerdist.
-via Flipboard
(Video: YouTube)
Everyone likes to think that they are exceptional. The opposite of being exceptional is to be mediocre, that is, somewhere in the more common range of whatever it is you are measuring. Mediocre might sound bad, but the word stripped of its reputation as an insult implies commonality with others. The same applies to entire planets, or even galaxies.
In the scientific context, exceptional means something very different than it does in the everyday language of, say, football commentary or restaurant reviews. To be exceptional is to be unique and solitary. To be mediocre is to be one of many, to be a part of a community. If Earth is exceptional, then we might be profoundly alone. There might not be any other intelligent beings like ourselves in the universe. Perhaps no other habitable planets like ours. Perhaps no other planets at all, beyond the neighboring worlds of our own solar system.
If Earth is mediocre, the logic runs the other way. We might live in a galaxy teeming with planets, many of them potentially habitable, some of them actually harboring life. In the mediocre case, we bipedal little humans might not be the only sentient creatures peering out into the depths of space, wondering if anyone else is peering back.
Our understanding of those concepts goes way back, fueling arguments between theologians, philosophers, and scientists. Why we still argue, the increasing knowledge we have of worlds that were once beyond our perception is leading us towards regarding earth as mediocre. And that may be a good thing. Read more on this at Nautilus. -via Damn Interesting
(Image credit: NASA, ESA, H. Teplitz and M. Rafelski (IPAC/Caltech), A. Koekemoer (STScI), R. Windhorst (Arizona State University), and Z. Levay (STScI)
Several T-800 are sent back in time by Skynet. But their mission is scrambled...
And now they are all targeting each other!
Tribute to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Terminator.
At almost 32,000 square miles, Lake Superior is the largest lake in North America. Much of it freezes during the winter. Recently, 77% of the surface was frozen.
Let's say that you wanted to smooth over that surface to create an enormous skating rink. How long would it take for a single zamboni--an ice resurfacing machine--to do the job? The Detroit Free Press found the answer provided by U.P. Supply Company, a Michigan-based clothing retailer:
1 frozen Lake Superior = 52,020,513 ice rinks.
At aboout 7 minutes per rink it would take 364,143,591 minutes to resurface all of Lake Superior. That is 252,877 days.
In all, that means it would take approximate 693 years to resurface Lake Superior in its entirety. The ice resurfacer will have driven approximately 39,015,384 miles.
So: overtime pay. A lot of overtime pay.
-via Dave Barry | Photo: mark6mauno
SoraNews24 staff put this to the test and sent one of their reporters to find out. What they discovered was incredible — you only need a little over 2,000 yen (around $18.50) to put together an entire outfit.
Check it out over at the site.
(Image Credit: SoraNews24)
In 2018, Vito’s (the orange tabby cat) humans went off on their honeymoon, leaving him behind. Unknown to them, something terrible were to happen to Vito — a car accidentally ran over him.
Luckily, however, the people watching him took him to the hospital immediately. Despite the veterinarian’s best efforts, Vito’s legs had to be amputated.
When his humans returned, Vito was quickly fitted for his prosthetic replacements.
Now, it seems that Vito has adjusted to his new bionic feet, and he’s having the time of his life as a superstar on Instagram.
(Image Credit: Vituzzo Superstar/ Instagram)
Some made us laugh. Some made us cry. Some made us annoyed. Memes have truly come a long way as they journeyed with us across the decade, which will now come to a close.
Know Your Meme provides us The Top 10 Memes that have defined the decade. See all of them over at the site.
Sad to see that SpongeBob didn’t make it to the Top 10.
Which meme is your favorite?
Dorothy Arnold was an educated woman from a high-society family in New York City. She had aspirations of becoming a writer, which her parents discouraged. And one day in 1910, she went shopping and never came home.
As evening approached, Francis and Mary began to worry. They feared their daughter was up to some kind of scandalous business, but eventually broke down, called on her friends, and asked them for clues to her whereabouts. No one knew. Alerting their circle of friends meant inviting high society’s gossip mongers to speculate about a missing heiress. For the Arnolds, the fear of embarrassment and public scandal may have played a part in the decisions they took next. Denial, while just as tragic, goes down a little easier. When a friend named Elsa returned their call quite late at night to check in on Dorothy’s whereabouts, the Arnolds assured her that their daughter was home at last. Could she come to the phone? Not tonight, they said. She was under the weather after a day of shopping.
For the next two weeks, the Arnolds kept things under wraps, refusing to tell the police of their missing daughter. Their refusal to seek professional help during the first days of her disappearance spiralled the case out of control.
The Arnolds' reluctance to besmirch their family reputation caused delays in the investigation of her disappearance that possibly sunk the case forever. When Dorothy's disappearance was finally made public, it caused a huge scandal. Was Dorothy murdered? Did she die from an illegal abortion? Did she commit suicide? Or did she just run away? Read about the disappearance of Dorothy Arnold at Messy Nessy Chic.
We've addressed this question before, looking back at comic book superheroes such as Matter-Eater Lad, Bouncing Boy, and Dogwelder. They never got a big-budget feature film. The Mary Sue looks at the superheroes who have made the big time, meaning being in movies or TV series. There are an awful lot of them now, between the MCU and DC movies, plus TV and streaming services. And trying to make all the superheroes different from each other means some some get super powers that aren't all that useful, like the ability communicate with animals.
I’m not saying that this isn’t something that wouldn’t be really cool in real life. I personally want to know for sure if my dog knows he’s a good boy. But for superheroism? Eh, not so useful.
I guess it depends on the animals and if you can actually control the animals you talk to. Imagine a hero that could talk to cats, but the cats, being cats, don’t care and just let the world end. Again, talking to squirrels would be cool – but can that stop a bank robbery? Even Aquaman knew that talking to fish isn’t useful.
Read about other superheroes whose powers are lamer the more you examine them.
Humongous monsters are often painted as a villain of any story, monsters such as King Kong and Godzilla are viewed with awe by the movie goers. Some of us might just remember these movies with the big, bad monsters as mere action flicks, but there’s also something else included: analogies. Watch as Overly Sarcastic Productions explain the metaphors behind these huge movie monsters.
Ben Workman is a Utah man who does a “magic trick”: he opens up his car with the object in his hand. The trick behind it is one of the four chips implanted in his hands, a Tesla key to unlock his car with a wave of his hand. According to Workman, a piercing studio helped him implant the Tesla key. UPI has the details:
"I play tricks on people who don`t know I have it in my hand. I try and convince them a banana is the key and then I hold a banana up and [the chip] unlocks the door," he told KSTU-TV.
The other chips in Workman's hands allow him to unlock doors at work, log on and off of his computer and share contact information using the same technology as Apple Pay and Google Pay.
He said most of the chips were installed by a family member, but he required the help of a piercing studio to implant the Tesla key.
image credit: screenshot via ABC7 News Bay Area
Here’s a shocking revelation: most of the famous people on Instagram have Lord Farquaad’s haircut, the short bob with the ends notably flipped inwards. From Selena Gomez to Kylie Jenner, a lot of celebrities are sporting this hairstyle. Has Lord Farquaad finally gained influence in the masses? Maybe so, as Elle details:
Jesus Guerrero, the stylist behind the Kardashian-Jenner flips says it's "an easy chic look" that will help you channel your inner Lord. "I love how simple it is, yet it exudes so much power," adds Guerrero.
image via Elle
