A zebra discovered in the savannah of the Maasai Mara, a national reserve in southwestern Kenya, was said to have a rare genetic mutation called pseudomelanism that instead of stripes, it has a polka-dotted coat!
One advantage of this distinctive pattern is that it is uniquely beautiful. However, the disadvantage is that it can be more easily spotted by biting flies and predators since it stands out.
Image Credit: Caters News / Rahul Sachdev
Sunny The Super Happy Blobfish
Bring a little sunshine and happiness into your life with the Sunny The Super Happy Blobfish from the Neatoshop. He may look grumpy, but we all know that looks can be deceiving.
Blobfish are found deep in the waters off the coast of Austrailia and New Zealand. These gelatinous creatures are often voted world's ugliest animal, but they never seem to let that get them down. Their body makeup helps them float, or bob, around. In fact they have the perfect body for withstanding the presures of the deep dark sea.
When your day isn't going great and the pressure of life seems to squish your smile into a frown, think of Sunny The Super Happy Blobfish. Life isn't always easy, but a little fun and laughter has a way of making even the darkest day a little sunnier.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more Office & Desk fun! New items arriving all the time.
Don't forget to stop by the store to see our large selection of customizable bags and apparel. We specialize in curvy and big and tall sizes. We carry baby 6 months all the way to 10 XL shirts. We know that fun, fabulous, and happy people come in every size.
London in the 19th century had a peculiar law that allowed plays to be performed at only two theaters in the city. That was good for the owners of those two theaters, but in 1808, Covent Garden Theater burned down. When it was finally rebuilt, the other theater also burned. Those seeking entertainment had little choice of business to patronize. Actor John Kemble was also the manager of the Covent Garden Theater, and took the brunt of the audience's anger when tickets to the newly-rebuilt theater were hiked 15% in price. One would think that patrons would protest by boycotting the plays, but instead, they paid for tickets and then disrupted the shows. Audience reaction and even participation was expected in those days, but Kemble would be pelted with rotten tomatoes and other produce while performing, over the new price. It got so bad that the theater closed for a few days, but that didn't help.
The crowd thus continued their antics when the theater opened back up, with newspapers as far as Edinburgh regularly reporting on the nightly tumult at the Covent Garden Theater. People across the nation quickly took sides, with those wanting the prices reversed referring to themselves as “OPs”, and those who were on the side of the theater owners called “NPs”.
Beyond making a ruckus at the shows, protesters also reportedly regularly gathered outside of Kemble’s home at all hours chanting for “original prices”, including coming up with a variety of unflattering songs illustrating what they thought of Kemble and his new prices.
Back in the theater, along with plastering it in banners and posters protesting the price change, the theater denizens began to sneak even more ridiculous things into performances including farm animals, flocks of pigeons they’d release inside the building, giant distracting hats and even a coffin with a banner stating in part “Here lies the body of the new price…”
Protesters additionally began turning up to performances in outlandish costumes including full drag, as well as organizing races and mock fights in the pit- in all cases, attempting to either drown out anything the actors were doing on stage or otherwise distract from it.
Doesn't that sound like fun? Read the story of the Covent Garden Theater riots at Today I Found Out. There's also an extended coda explaining what happened to the tradition of audience participation.
Vaping-related illness cases have once again spiked up sharply this week, adding pressure to uncover the cause of the mysterious illness.
There have been 805 confirmed and probable cases of lung injury linked with e-cigarette use across 46 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday. The case count marks a surge from the 530 cases reported last week, and the 380 cases reported the week prior. The agency also reported 12 deaths linked to the illnesses.
Many of the patients stated that they had vaped THC. Many also vaped both THC and nicotine, while some only used e-cigarettes for nicotine products. Health officials, however, have noted that some patients are reluctant to disclose THC use.
Health officials still have not identified a culprit or culprits behind the recent spate of illnesses.
“This is a complex investigation and I don’t think that we should expect definitive answers imminently. This may take some time,” the CDC’s principal deputy director, Anne Schuchat, told reporters last week.
(Image Credit: sarahjohnson/ Pixabay)
Nathan Mattise approached the Mondo Games rep at Fantastic Fest, as he wanted to play a round of Unmatched, the recently released spin on deck battle game board games. There, he stood confused. Should he use the Jurassic Park raptors? What about Robin Hood?
“You should definitely play Bruce Lee,” the rep suggested, directing me to a different board. And with that, our battle commenced: the greatest martial arts fighter of all time against… the mythical King Arthur? Huh?
When “deck battling” gets mentioned, most minds probably go to the classic collectible trading card games: Magic The Gathering, Pokémon, The Star Wars Customizable Card Game, The Star Trek Customizable Card Game, etc. These games developed cult followings for their combinations of complex strategy, varying play styles, and multi-faceted gameplay. But they also alienated other gamers because the process of acquiring cards could get expensive—and building a successful deck required significant thought and time.
Unlike other games, this game, which was created in partnership with Restoration Games, tries to find the middle ground.
It’s deck battling, but the decks have been premade. Players can still use varying play styles, but those styles have been attached to specific characters. (Bruce Lee ain’t here to dink and dunk you with range attacks; it’s melee time, folks.) Because of this, the setup and learning curve are greatly simplified (though options for expansive customization are, too).
Who won the game between Bruce Lee and King Arthur? Find out over at Ars Technica.
(Image Credit: Nathan Mattise)
Since Halloween is fast approaching, there are a few things you can do and places to visit. Like Salem, Massachusetts, which has a history of witchcraft and supernatural elements. If you ever visit Salem, you should definitely check out several museums which showcase some spooky displays. Here are some of them.
(Image credit: Salem Witch Museum/Facebook)
For many countries with four seasons, it's that time of the year again when the leaves start to change into different shades of yellow and orange, and the cool breeze starts to blow. It's fall and that means, as that SNL sketch kept repeating, it's sweater weather.
But not everyone likes fall. Jim Braude is one of them as he boldly confessed that he hated it for various reasons. Find out why on WGBH.
(Image credit: Stephanie Krist/Unsplash)
You’ve seen Neil deGrasse Tyson explain the universe while eating these spicy wings, Gordon Ramsay critiquing them, but eating them nevertheless, and Billie Eilish freak out as she tries to eat these hot wings.
This is Hot Ones, “the show with hot questions and even hotter wings,” and behind this show lies a very interesting story that perhaps you have never heard.
Check it out on Vox.
(Video Credit: First We Feast/ YouTube)
Currently, many nutrition scientists blame the world’s obesity pandemic to overeating fats or carbohydrates. However, a new theory of obesity by a nutrition researcher, Kevin Hall, revealed that ultraprocessed food such as chicken nuggets and instant soup mixes seem to trigger neural signals that make us want to eat more and more.
But Hall, who works at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, where he runs the Integrative Physiology section, has run experiments that point fingers at a different culprit. His studies suggest that a dramatic shift in how we make the food we eat—pulling ingredients apart and then reconstituting them into things like frosted snack cakes and ready-to-eat meals from the supermarket freezer—bears the brunt of the blame. This “ultraprocessed” food, he and a growing number of other scientists think, disrupts gut-brain signals that normally tell us that we have had enough, and this failed signaling leads to overeating.
Hall’s study showed that people ate hundreds more calories of ultraprocessed than unprocessed foods and the participants chowing down on the ultraprocessed foods gained two pounds in just two weeks!
“Hall’s study is seminal—really as good a clinical trial as you can get,” says Barry M. Popkin, a professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who focuses on diet and obesity. “His was the first to prove that ultraprocessed foods are not only highly seductive but that people tend to eat more of them.” The work has been well received, although it is possible that the carefully controlled experiment does not apply to the messy way people mix food types in the real world.
Photo Credit: NOVA. The Star Shines Bright / Jamie Chung
A utilities company in Samara City, Russia resorted to “talking” pyramids to shame the residents who can’t pay their bills. There were notes shaming the debtors.
Not only are the pyramids adorned with arrows and inscriptions like "a debtor lives here", they also broadcast a recording every 10 minutes of how much the debtor is said to owe.
The public reaction, judging by comments to TV correspondents and on social media, has not been very favourable, with the audio shaming a particular bugbear.
Is shaming effective in collecting the dues? Not really. There were only complaints against the installation of the pyramids from inconvenienced residents and that allegedly, it only targets the poor.
Rossiya 1 says previous efforts by Samara Utility Systems to shame debtors, including laser projections of the sums owed onto the walls of their houses, recouped no more than 0.1% of the outstanding bills over the past two years.
Read more about this case here.
Image Credit: Rossiya 1 / YouTube
We have heard so many ghost stories where spirits lurk in abandoned buildings or old buildings which have been renovated and retrofitted to look more modern. There have been such stories at the Paramount Theatre in Austin, Texas. And Chad Lawson experienced it firsthand and even took a photo of it. -via Classical WCRB
(Image credit: Chad Lawson/Instagram)
Go deep into the art of a master filmmaker with Julian Palmer of The Discarded Image. He explains the way Stanley Kubrick used close-ups to give us lots of emotional information from the big screen in just a second or two. Contains a little NSFW language.
When you watch someone analyzing the smallest details of a movie like this, you have to wonder whether Kubrick (or another filmmaker) actually put this much thought into each shot, or whether the effective style became automatic and instinctive to him over time. -via Laughing Squid
Hao Li is one of the leading experts in the field of deepfake technology, and with that tech advancing so rapidly, he can’t keep up with it.
Li has watertight credentials. When he isn’t teaching classes as a professor of computer science at the University of Southern California, he’s the creator of some of the most convincing deepfakes out there.
At an MIT conference on Wednesday, he told attendees that the technology needed to create perfect deepfakes (those that are virtually impossible to detect with the naked eye) are only two to three years away.
While this is already a scary thought, Li recalibrated his statement, which made the matter even scarier.
...two days later, Li appeared on CNBC’s “Power Lunch” program and told the show’s hosts he expects everyday people to be able to create “perfectly real” deepfakes in just six to 12 months.
What changed his mind? Find out on Futurism.
(Image Credit: geralt/ Pixabay)
Pompeii was a city that was buried in ash in A.D. 79 as Mount Vesuvius erupted, and many people that lived there died. But before that catastrophic event, Pompeii was a wealthy city, and it was filled with parties and struggles, at least according to an inscription discovered in 2017, which was recently deciphered.
The inscription describes a massive coming-of-age party for a wealthy young man. who reaches the age of an adult citizen. According to the inscription, he threw a massive party that included a banquet serving 6,840 people and a show in which 416 gladiators fought over several days.
The inscription also tells of harder times, including a famine that lasted four years and another gladiator show that ended in a public riot, Massimo Osanna, the director general of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, wrote in a paper published in the 2018 issue of the Journal of Roman Archaeology, which is published once a year.
Osanna deciphered the inscription and discussed some of the findings the inscription reveals, including new information that may allow researchers to determine how many people inhabited Pompeii.
More details of the inscription over at LiveScience.
(Image Credit: ElfQrin/ WIkimedia Commons)
David Feldman’s mother was only 18 years old when her boyfriend suddenly broke up with her. Because of this, she experienced a mixture of shock and sadness. Fortunately, there was Richard, her brother, who had experienced a similar stage in his life, and he knew exactly what to do.
He picked her up in his late-1960s Firebird and took her to the local A&W Rootbeer stand. There, they sat together. They didn’t say much—just gulped down root beer floats.
When Richard recently passed away at the age of 65, my mom also knew just what to do. In silence, she drove herself, now in a mid-2010s Toyota, to the local A&W Rootbeer stand. There, she ordered two floats and drank both of them.
The act of visiting the root beer stand and drinking floats there has been a ritual for David’s mom, and it’s an effective one. This brings us to the question: why are rituals so powerful in healing us?
Find out the answer over at Psychology Today.
(Image Credit: Engin_Akyurt/ Pixabay)
