It seems that we’re not the only ones who can benefit from VR. Farmers from Moscow put on VR headsets to cows to see if it improved their mood and milk production. The headset has been modified to match the structural features of the cow’s heads so that they could see properly.

The project subjected cattle to a simulated summer field with colors tuned for the animals' eyes, giving them a decidedly more pleasing landscape than a plain, confining farm.

It appears to have worked, at least on a basic level. The first test reduced the cows' anxiety and boosted their overall sentiment. While it's not certain how well this affects the quality or volume of milk, there are plans for a more "comprehensive" study to answer that question.

There are a few concerns, however, such as disturbing the cows and bringing them back to reality when you remove the headsets.

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: Ministry of Agriculture and Food of the Moscow Region)

One of the issues that still remain today is the significant gender gap in society. From job opportunities to education to income, there is a noticeable difference (and preference) between men and women. Apparently, the inequality people face today doesn’t end when they die. Living celebrities already experience a huge gender gap in their industry, but it extends past their death. Male celebrities who have died earn more and are treated with more reverence and importance than female celebrities, as BBC details: 

Both in life and death, celebrities wield significant power as a catalyst for cultural meaning. They possess symbolic and economic value that extends into death through the traces they leave behind. These traces continue the dead star’s celebrity power as a brand and include such things as photographs, films, signatures and recordings of their voice, as well as their celebrity persona (the character or personality they presented to fans).

But this posthumous celebrity varies in value. For many high-profile celebrity women, the traces they leave possess sexualised value, much as they had in life – related to their youth, beauty and sensuality. A great deal of their symbolic and economic value is about their bodies, so the way in which their traces are put to work after they die reflects gendered inequality.

 Forbes suggests that to achieve a financially successful posthumous career it helps to be a white man from either the US or UK, although black and minority ethnic people (BAME) are more likely to make the cut now than in 2001 as illustrated by Michael Jackson, Bob Marley, Prince and Whitney Houston making recent lists.

image credit: via wikimedia commons

Three sets of 18th century jewelry of “immeasurable worth” have been stolen in dramatic heist, described as the biggest theft since the second world war. Thieves in Dresden, Germany, have stolen the pieces from Grünes Gewölbe (Green Vault) at Dresden’s Royal Palace, one of Europe’s largest collection of art treasures. The Guardian has the details: 

German media reported the losses from the burglary could run into the high hundreds of millions of euros, but the director of Dresden’s state art collections, Marion Ackermann, said it was impossible to estimate the value of the items.

“We cannot give a value because it is impossible to sell,” she said, appealing to the thieves not to break the collections into pieces. “The material value doesn’t reflect the historic meaning.”

Ackermann said the stolen items included three “priceless” sets of diamonds, including brilliant-cut diamonds which belonged to an 18th-century collection of jewellery assembled by the museum’s founder.

Created by Augustus the Strong, the Elector of Saxony, in 1723, the Grünes Gewölbe is one of 12 museums which make up the famous Dresden state art collections. It got its name because some rooms were decorated with malachite-green paint.

image credit: via The Guardian

In 1996, Arnold Schwarzenegger starred in a Christmas comedy. Twenty-three years later, would you still watch Jingle All the Way? If you have kids of a certain age, you might. Anything to keep them occupied during school vacation! Watch this Honest Trailer to be sure.

Abraham Lincoln's inauguration in 1861 was not the first presidential inauguration to be photographed, but due to Lincoln's relative importance in US history, that photo has become an icon. Yet it is so blurry that you cannot see Lincoln standing to give his address. The lllustrated Times Weekly chose to publish a woodcut made from the image instead of the photograph in order to make the details clear. And until recently, the photo was uncredited or mis-credited.  

Alexander Gardner, then employed at Mathew Brady’s Washington gallery, is most often credited as the man behind the lens, though he never actually said that he was. Over time, it became attributed to him, which seemed reasonable. He took Lincoln’s portrait many times, he recorded some of the most lasting images of the Civil War and he photographed Lincoln’s second inauguration.

However, my recent research in the Library’s collections has shown that he did not take the historic image of the first inauguration. That photographer, instead, was the unheralded John Wood.

If you’ve never heard the name, don’t worry. He’s virtually unknown in American photography. If five of his images did not appear in “Gardner’s Photographic Sketch Book of the War,” he might not be mentioned at all.

But Wood was the government’s first official photographer.

Adrienne M. Lundgren is a senior photograph conservator at the Library of Congress. She did not deduce that Wood took the picture of Lincoln's inauguration just from his job title. That was a painstaking investigation that she explains in a post at the Library of Congress Blog. -via Damn Interesting

Want to know what’s better than a bowl of noodles with meat? That’s right! It’s more meat! This soba joint, called Fuji Soba, lets you add on to the regular amount of meat by ordering a double-size portion of meat. But the staff of SoraNews24 wonders, can they go even further than the double-size portion? They contacted Mr.Kudo, a representative of the soba joint.

“Mr. Kudo, can we ask for even more meat?” we asked, to which he cheerfully answered “Sure! How much were you thinking of?” “Well, uh, how about 20 times the normal amount?” we asked, fulling expecting him to shoot the idea down.

Instead, though, he smiled again and said “Sure!”

But while his mouth said “Sure!”, we couldn’t help but feel his eyes saying “Haha very funny SoraNews24. Yes, I am calling your bluff.” We weren’t bluffing, though, and so we headed to a Fuji Soba in Tokyo’s Koenji neighborhood with Mr. Kudo accompanying us. As we entered, Mr. Kudo introduced us to Mr. Takahashi, the Kichijoji branch’s manager.

Head over at the site to know what happened next.

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(Image Credit: SoraNews24)

We know quite a bit about the experiences of sailors and explorers through their diaries and sketchbooks, as they documented adventure all over the world which punctuate long, boring sea voyages in the Age of Sail. Some of those diarists were women. They were rare crew members, not limited to pirates, but also found on military ships, scientific vessels, cargo ships, and even whalers. Some traveled with their husbands while others disguised themselves as men. The first documented case was Jeanne Baret, a botanist who sailed around the world in 1766.

Baret’s ally and lover was scientist Philibert Commerson. “That said, the quick-wittedness and determination needed to sustain her disguise was Baret’s alone,” says Glynis Ridley, of the University of Louisville and author of The Discovery of Jeanne Baret. After a year and a half at sea, she was reportedly revealed as a woman in Tahiti—though she had probably aroused suspicion already. She did not relieve herself with the crew and the surgeon noted that her care for Commerson “did not seem natural for a male servant.”

Both de Freycinet and Baret were seriously transgressing social norms. Merely entering the company of men was seen as morally suspect, says Ridley. And both were also involved in scientific work. “Baret’s life spans a period that was one of intense debate about women’s exposure to scientific knowledge,” says Ridley. “A female stowaway was a curiosity, a female botanist was a breach in the natural order of things.” Baret became the first woman recipient of a French government pension for her contribution to science. Ultimately, says Ridley, “Baret refused to be bound by others’ limited expectations for someone of her sex and class.”

Read the stories of several women who bucked the natural order to sail away to the far corners of the earth at Atlas Obscura.

(Image credit: Cristoforo Dall'Acqua)

Radio presenter Dave Matthews has been struggling for a way to get his daughter Eden to brush her teeth for two minutes, which is the desired time frame when toothbrushing. So he launched a podcast titled Brushy. The podcast shares information that children like Eden might be interested in, like dinosaurs and worms. The said podcast is voiced over by none other than his adorable daughter Eden.

It has only been live for a week but there are already seven episodes to choose from, with Mr Matthews' daughter Eden prepared to pre-record more in the future.

At the beginning of each mini podcast Eden's voice encourages kids to pick up their toothbrush and apply toothpaste, before starting to brush.

It’s adorable and very informative.

(Image Credit: Daily Mail)

Nobody *expects* the Cybertruck pic.twitter.com/khhYNFaVKs

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 22, 2019

During the unveiling of Tesla’s Cybertruck, a staff managed to break the truck’s window using a rock. This left the Wall Street unimpressed. As the window shattered, the window of opportunity for the truck to sell also was shattered (aside from the failed presentation, critics also point out the strange design of the truck). The Cybertruck is made of stainless steel used in rockets and is priced at $39,000 and above.

Despite the presentation going horribly wrong and the failure to impress Wall Street, Tesla shares rose 4% on Monday, as Elon Musk tweeted that his company received 200,000 orders for its futuristic truck.

More details about this over at Reuters.

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(Image Credit: Elon Musk/ Twitter)

Thailand — After a video of an elephant squishing a car driving through Khao Yai National Park, park officials published on Wednesday 10 rules to follow when encountering a wild elephant.

The elephant, called Deu, sidled up to a car in Khao Yai National Park around 4pm Tuesday. In the video, he can be seen rubbing against it, before sitting fully on the vehicle. The panicked driver only drove away after his car suffered some damages.

“He usually likes to come to greet tourists anyway, but he never hurt anyone or any vehicles,” park director Kanchit Sarinpawan said Wednesday. “There were many factors that contributed to this, as we can see in the clip. We can see the driver was able to drive out, but he may have been too panicked to do so.”

While both the driver and the passenger remained unharmed, the car’s roof was dented, and the rear and side windows were broken.

(Video Credit: Khaosod English/ YouTube)

It’s difficult to tell someone that you’re sick over the phone. Sending an email is an easier and better option. That’s what local TV reporter Nick Vasas did a few days ago. He decided to email a few of his colleagues to let them know he wasn’t going to work that day.

Unfortunately for Nick, he made a monumental blunder leading to a flood of concerned emails, a shrine being created and the hashtag #PrayersForNick being widely used on Twitter.

Instead of telling the handful of colleagues who would be affected by his absence, the traffic reporter for Kansas City FOX4 accidentally emailed the thousands and thousands of employees of the entire company, made up of stations across the country, using the 'breaking news' contact list.

Employees were then bombarded with 'reply all' responses with concerns for Nick as well-wishers sent their 'thoughts and prayers' from as far as Buffalo and Las Vegas.

Some however, did not see the humorous side of what happened.

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: Twitter/ Mirror)

I can’t stop laughing at this thanksgiving cinnamon roll fail pic.twitter.com/LUf3dy01em

— pokey pup (@Whatapityonyou) November 22, 2018

What makes a Thanksgiving feast memorable? The things that go wrong! Kind of like weddings, except when it happens to Thanksgiving, there's always next year to improve. But the sad thing is that so many people don't have a clue how to prepare traditional dishes because they didn't pay attention when Grandma did it. However, most are just dumb mistakes.  

I used sweetened condensed milk, instead of evaporated, by accident, in my mashed potatoes, my first time cooking Thanksgiving dinner. Haven't had to cook since.

— Lu (@pwroflov) November 16, 2018

Read twenty Thanksgiving horror stories, some more frightening than others, at Mashable.

Can you see through this logical fallacy? I did, but then I also had my own ideas about Lucy, since the only math I ever excelled at was statistics and probability. That doesn't matter once you grasp the idea of the conjunction fallacy. Now that you know what it's called, you might be able to see it in the world around you, or the things people tell you. Me, I'm just tickled to find an educational video that is under ten minutes, which is rare these days.

Smithsonian archaeologist Eric Hollinger made a cake for his office Christmas party in 2004. Hollinger is an archaeologist at the Smithsonian Institution. He went a little over the top and made a cake for the anthropology department's holiday party that illustrated an existing archaeological dig, complete with a blue Jell-o pond. Hollinger didn't know he had started what would become a tradition. The next year, everyone expected another work of art, so Hollinger make a Haida Native American longhouse out of chocolate. Since then, he's provided cake replicas of a Viking ship, Chinese terra cotta soldiers, King Tut's tomb, and the recreation of Al Khazneh at Petra, Jordan, that you see above. That year he brought music to accompany the cake- the theme from the Indiana Jones movies.

While sharing the cakes is what the whole enterprise is about, Hollinger keeps the subject of each year’s cake a big secret until the party. Experts from around the world and his family and colleagues who help with the creation get to be in on the secret, but the rest of his colleagues are left guessing and eagerly awaiting the big reveal. Hollinger is already working on this year's cake and, as always, it is promising to be unique, educational and eye-catching.

If you want to see what sweet treat he has produced, make sure to keep an eye on the museum's Facebook and Twitter feeds come December 18. Even without the sugar high, it is sure to wow you and might inspire you to do a little research or baking of your own.

“Eric is so meticulous and careful with the cakes — similar to his research,” Burgess says. “It's a huge gift to the department and it's the highlight of our holiday party.”

I will try to remember to post the 2019 cake here when images become available. See some of Hollinger's past archaeology cakes at Smithsonian.

(Image credit: James Di Loreto, Smithsonian Institution)

Thanks to the advancements in technology, we can now access information with much ease. Don’t know the meaning of a word? Just type in the word and you have your answers in less than five seconds. Need references for your research? Just type in the keywords of your desired topic and you now have thousands of sources. But at what cost do we pay for such advancements? It seems that we lose as we get immersed in the Web, we lose a part of ourselves. But what is it?

...Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.

More about this topic over at The Atlantic.

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: geralt/ Pixabay)