The Chikuraku is a 3-day festival celebrated each year by thousands in Taketa City (Oita Prefecture) in Kyushu, Japan.
Rather than let their bamboo forests fall into disrepair, the city came up with the idea of carrying on with their felling and using the bamboo in an annual lantern festival. It began with just 400 and has grown, gradually, to 20,000 bamboo lanterns.
Learn more about how economic changes in Taketa City’s bamboo industry marked the birth of this beautiful display of lights.
October 22, 2017 — Storm clouds had gathered above the Central United States, and they released a flash of lightning so huge it lit up the skies above three states, namely, Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. The flash of lightning, which spanned over 310 miles (500 kilometers) horizontally, was so totally unexpected that a group of researchers wrote a study about it, and they described it as a “megaflash”. It was one of the longest flashes of lightning ever recorded.
Typically, regular lightning flashes measure between just 0.6 miles and 20 miles (1 and 20 km) in length. But as increasingly sophisticated mapping techniques have revealed, some truly colossal bolts are crackling above our heads. These recent discoveries raise an interesting question: How big can lightning actually get? And should we be worried about these atmospheric heavyweights?
We humans are creating digital data at an extremely fast pace. Experts predict that by 2020, each person on Earth will be producing an average of 1.7 megabytes of data every second. That’s a gigabyte every 10 minutes.
This plastic bunny could be the key in storing all of those digital data.
Today, most data is stored in 1s and 0s, usually on magnetic- or optical-based systems such as hard drives or DVDs. That’s far from ideal, given that the systems have a max lifespan of about a century and the amount of data each device can store is tiny compared to the massive amount humanity produces.
This is where DNA data storage comes in.
Past research has shown that it’s possible to translate the 1s and 0s of binary code into the As, Ts, Cs, and Gs of DNA and then create artificial DNA molecules containing that code. A single gram of this DNA can store a billion terabytes of data and preserve it for potentially thousands of years.
A team of European scientists has found a way to store that DNA in pretty much any object. They have demonstrated this capability by encoding instructions for creating a 3D-printed plastic bunny right in the bunny itself.
For their study, which was published in the journal Nature Biotechnology on Monday, the researchers first encoded the printing instructions for the bunny in DNA. They then encased that DNA in glass nanobeads and added the beads to the plastic used to 3D print the bunny.
After printing the first bunny, the scientists cut off a bit of its ear and extracted the DNA-containing beads. A DNA sequencer was then used to decode the instructions, which they used to create another bunny complete with the DNA-containing nanobeads. They did this until they had five generations of identical bunnies.
Amazing!
(Image Credit: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich/Erlich Lab LLC, Israel)
A man from Perry Hall, Maryland, was finishing his shift at a Baltimore auto shop when he received a text from his pregnant wife asking him to buy cookies on his way home.
The man was told to stop by the store and pick up some of her special cookies. “I already knew which kind and where to get them because there is only one store where I know they are sold,” the man said. His wife’s simple wish turned out to be a “life-changing shopping trip.”
Doing what his wife said, the man stopped at the Food Lion market in Baltimore and bought the cookies. He also bought a $10 Cash Club scratch-off ticket when he saw another customer buy the same ticket.
He scratched off the ticket later while watching TV with his wife.
"I sat there scratching and listening to the TV in the background," the player said. "Then, I see that I matched a number and I was happy to see it was $10,000. When I realized I misread the number, I almost jumped off the couch!"
The ticket was a $100,000 jackpot winner.
The father of four boys and a baby girl on the way said he and his wife plan to use the money to pay off their car loan and credit cards, buy holiday gifts and save for expenses related to the upcoming birth of their daughter.
Brock Armstrong has recently been investigating a fancy new stationary bike, which arrived on the market not too long ago. The bike uses a variation of High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). The bike appeals to Brock’s fashionista side, inner nerd, and inner coach because of its features, but despite that being the case, he still finds himself scratching his head.
This is where the stumbling block starts for me. The bike's website claims that the device is "clinically proven to give you the same cardio benefits of a 45-minute jog in under 9 minutes, with only 40 seconds of hard work."
Really? On a stationary bike? Where you aren't using your arms at all, your skeleton is supported by a seat, and your legs are only moving through a biomechanically repetitive and limited range of motion? I find that claim dubious at best.
Don’t worry. It’s just a t-shirt with a picture of a baby on it.
Not many details can told about this photo, but it appears to have emerged from a Russian Imgur user named A Russian And His Bike.
He tagged the image “Please, if you are ever washing your favourite shirt with a picture of your child on it, just put a warning note on the washer or something…”
Dozens of Imgur users commented the image had made them do a serious double take. More than one asked him to add a similar warning to the actual upload.
One commenter, typical of many, said “'GOOD GRIEF! Put a note on the title that actually shows up on the thumbnail, too, please!’”
I wonder where the real baby is when this photo was taken.
There are plenty of no-frills dessert recipes out there that manage to still be hits without the hassle, especially for the holidays when you have guests over. You can easily tweak these recipes to your liking, but the basic groundwork is already laid down for you, and the rest of the creative process, like decorating and adding your own personal touch, is in your hands. These ideas could also be handy for baking beginners. I would personally want to try making those cute-looking Oreo snowman balls. Edible Frosty the Snowman, anyone?
“This is a music typewriter: how music was typed before computers,” reads the caption of this photo from Mass1m01973. Just one among the many unique and fascinating pictures you can find on the Internet, from gynandromorph butterflies to random once-in-a-blue-moon moments captured in photos. Here’s another one that might blow your mind:
They may look like novelty household trinkets, but they’re actually grains of sand taken by Dr. Gary Greenberg, a scientist slash photographer with a knack for observing the miracles of the natural world through a microscope. The full slideshow is available for viewing on Science American.
It makes news headlines every time that Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates switch places as the richest person on earth. What you have to remember is that those rankings are based on publicly available data. They don't include people who have enough money and power to hide their wealth. And then there's the problem of defining exactly what we mean by wealth. Cash and property are measurable, while the ability to use money that belongs to other people usually doesn't factor into the tally. And what about the power wielded by enriching and therefore obligating others? These abilities lead some to assert that the richest person in the world is actually Vladimir Putin.
Once elected, Putin, like his predecessor, reported his finances and holdings publicly, including his salary and exact amount in his many bank accounts. He has continued to do so since. The result? Over the years while his salary has changed regularly from year to year, he has made approximately $100K-$190K annually in that span, for example in 2018 reporting an income of $135K. Today between his wife’s and his own accounts, the couple seem to have a little over a half a million in cash in various bank accounts, though why he isn’t investing this is rather curious given his apparent lack of any other investments and almost complete lack of actually needing any cash for his day to day life given the government foots the bill for most everything. Of this, Putin states, “Honestly speaking, I don’t even know what my salary is. They deliver it to me, I take it, put it my bank account and don’t even count it…”
As for his other assets, he also owns a studio sized apartment in Saint Petersburg, a slightly larger apartment in Moscow, owns a small garage, a couple cars, a small plot of land outside of Moscow, and otherwise has various minor assets of no great worth.
Of course, over the years people can’t help but notice that Putin has a collection of watches he wears very publicly whose purchase price combined is around that of his reported entire net worth, ringing in at about $400,000-$700,000 if various reports are to be believed. For reference, the highest valued watch he has been spotted wearing costs around $140,000- a Patek Philippe Perpetual Calendar watch.
On top of that, the clothing he can often be seen wearing is likewise extremely expensive, such as his $6000+ tailored suits from outlets like Kiton and Brioni. Not just expensive suits, in one photo of him working out, Putin can be seen wearing sweatpants that cost over $1,400 a pair, apparently made from silk, cashmere and the tears of impoverished children, along with a similarly priced top.
What really makes us grateful for modern medicine is learning about not-so-modern medicine. In the 16th and 17th centuries, epilepsy was beginning to be seen as a disease instead of demonic possession, but there was still very little that could be done about it. Known by many names, such as grand mal, the sacred disease, crank, and the falling sickness, epilepsy was studied, but little understood.
The natural causes of the disease were debated extensively. Various explanations were proposed including rising vapours within the body; black bile and other bad humours; elemental similarities to thunderstorms; and excessive pride (leading to a fall).
The possible cures for the falling sickness were also wide-ranging and varied in their availability. The hermetic physician, Paracelsus, recommended mistletoe, blood from a decapitated man, pieces of the human skull, preparations of gold and coral or spirit of vitriol (now known to contain ether). Another treatment, based on the doctrine of signatures (which used herbs which resembled particular body parts to heal those parts), was powdered soap-wort seed, offered for three months at the time of the new moon; this was a substance which frothed when rubbed in water.
Adding to the difficulty was the tendency to accuse a practitioner of witchcraft if a patient actually got better. Read about the early modern era of epilepsy at the British National Archives. -via Strange Company
The video above shows the top winner in the annual Illusion of the Year competition. It's called the Dual Axis illusion by Frank Force. Is this shape spinning vertically or horizontally? You can't tell, because it's a 2D image, but your brain makes it seem one or the other, until visual cues help you change the orientation. Another of the finalists, Bodiject Fingers by Kenri Kodaka, shows us how seeing one's fingers as disembodied from our hands makes them seem like separate foreign objects.
Growing up, I have received a lot of the word “no” from my parents, and you might have as well, too. And, if you’re a parent, you might have said a lot of “nos” to your kids. But how often should a child be corrected? When does the word become detrimental to a child?
While redirecting toddlers and small children is often necessary to help keep them safe, as they grow and start to explore their world, the negative reinforcements often increase. They have curfews; limits on their television watching or video game playing; bedtimes, etc. Then, as children turn into adolescents, they start to test the limits of their household rules. They want to assert their independence which can lead to household friction. As a result, the “no’s” may increase. Then, as they go through their teenage years, their pushing of boundaries can lead to even more negative responses.
While the word “no” is not in and of itself a problem, constantly hearing negative feedback can be detrimental to a child's healthy development. As children grow, they are constantly exploring who they are and testing their limits. They want to be able to do what they want when they want. This manifests itself in them asking for more and more freedoms, even freedoms they may not be ready for. For example, they may want to sleep over at their girlfriend’s house, or feel school is a waste of time and want to quit.
Unlike other plants, sweet potato plants do not have spines or poisons to defend themselves. Some of them have, however, something else that lets hungry herbivores know that they are not an all-you-can-eat buffet, a new study finds.
When one leaf is injured, it produces a chemical that alerts the rest of the plant—and its neighbors—to make themselves inedible to bugs. Sweet potato breeders could potentially engineer plants to produce the chemical as an all-natural pest defense.
Plant ecologists led by Axel Mithöfer of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, started to look into sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) defenses after they noticed something interesting about two varieties of the plant grown in Taiwan: The yellow-skinned, yellow-fleshed Tainong 57 is generally herbivore-resistant, but its darker orange cousin, Tainong 66, is plagued by insect pests.
To find out why, the team offered up Tainong 57 and 66 plants to hungry African cotton leafworm caterpillars. Both plants released at least 40 airborne compounds as the caterpillars snacked on their leaves. But Tainong 57 produced a lot more of a chemical called DMNT, which has a very distinct odor, the team details this month in Scientific Reports. (“The smell is not nice,” Mithöfer says. “You wouldn’t want it as a perfume.”)
The chemical DMNT causes the exposed plants to produce a protein called sporamin in their leaves, which makes caterpillars unwell when they eat the leaves.
The ancient Babylonians were an amazing people who had many extraordinary achievements. Among those is a mathematical formula that I believe most of us still remember from eighth grade, and that formula was originally a solution to paying tax.
The particular problem for the ordinary working Babylonian was this: Given a tax bill that has to be paid in crops, by how much should I increase the size of my field to pay it?
This problem can be written down as a quadratic equation of the form Ax2+Bx+C=0. And it is solved with this formula [see photo above]:
Are your middle school memories returning?
Over four millennia later, millions of people across the planet still remember this formula thanks to the modern way mathematics is taught.
But far fewer people can derive this expression. That’s also due to the way mathematics is taught—the usual derivation relies on a mathematical trick, called “completing the square,” that is far from intuitive. Indeed, after the Babylonians, it took mathematicians many centuries to stumble across this proof.
[...]
Enter Po-Shen Loh, a mathematician at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, who has found a simpler way—one that appears to have gone unnoticed these 4,000 years.
A neutron star truly has a unique magnetic field properties that it could change how we understand these enigmatic objects. It could also be a representative of an entirely new class of neutron stars.
… never before had a neutron star been detected with a magnetic field from one angle, and without one at others…
GRO J2058+42 is a pulsar neutron star about 30,000 light-years (9 kiloparsecs) away. Its binary companion is a type of star that spins so fast, it is spitting out a disc of material around its equator - a decretion disc. That's not super common, but not rare either.
The neutron star has a spin period of 196 seconds - relatively slow for a pulsar, but not outrageously. It's also what's known as an X-ray transient object, with variable X-ray emission.
More details about this weird space object over at Science Alert.
