J. Kenji López-Alt is mostly a stay-at-home dad responsible for all the meals in his household. As an essential part of his planning, he relies on a supply of boiled eggs in the refrigerator.

During one of the years in his egg-citing cooking adventures, he became curious and asked himself, “What's the best way to boil an egg?” This question would then lead to a multi-decade endeavor.

See more details on The New York Times.

(Image Credit: minree/ Pixabay)

Adult Swim television co-host Max Simonet offers bystanders egg nog on the streets of Atlanta, Georgia.

Night vision goggles are amazing, but they're also bulky, limit your field of vision, and require electricity. What if you could just inject the ability directly into your eyeballs? Would you do it?

Research from the University of Massachusetts Medical School suggests that may be a possibility. Popular Mechanics reports:

In a study from the University of Massachusetts Medical School, researchers injected nanoparticles that converted infrared light into visible light into the eyes of mice. Those mice were then placed in a maze along with mice who didn't receive the injections, and were able to find their way out of the maze. The nanoparticles bound to the photoreceptors of the mice's eyes and provided night vision for up to 10 weeks without any ill effects.

Can we transfer this technology to humans?

Xue Tian, a scientist based in China, is quoted as saying he “definitely” thought it would work in humans.

-via Instapundit | Photo: US Air Force

Breeding and raising hundreds of thousands of mosquitoes seems like a crazy idea. I mean, there's already a lot of mosquitoes around bringing death everywhere. But researchers from the Oregon Health and Science University just opened a mosquito facility in order to advance malaria research.

Located in the basement of a research building, the facility has three areas, all of which are separated by safety doors. Scientists first enter a small area called an ante-room, which is largely empty and separates the facility from the outside world. Researchers then pass into the main area, where rodents and non-flying larvae and pupae mosquitos will be kept for malaria research.

Through a reinforced screen door is the interior barrier room, where mosquitoes infected with malaria are kept in climate-controlled incubators inside multiple screened barriers. The insects are kept at 78.8 degrees Fahrenheit and at 75% humidity, mimicking the mosquito’s native environment.

The facility is carefully designed to prevent mosquitoes from escaping. But local residents need not worry about such an unlikely event. Wilder raises an African species of the Anopheles mosquito that can’t survive in Oregon’s temperate climate. Only specially trained OHSU staff are allowed to enter.

Scientists hope that with this new facility they will be able to develop a vaccine that would have a long-lasting effect against malaria.

(Image credit: OHSU/Kristyna Wentz-Graff)

I'm sometimes unaware of my own surroundings, so there have been times when I walked toward a pole or bumped my head on a low-hanging beam. And since I'm also a bit clumsy, I sometimes hurt myself when I drop things or when close the drawers and closets.

But there are several surprising ways that one who's over 40 can injure themselves. McSweeneys lists them here.

(Image credit: Jesper Aggergaard/Unsplash)

The room is aptly called the “Room of Horrors” where guests can adjust the dial on the room’s wall, which in turn adjusts the level of uncanny occurrences in the room. The room of horrors is one of the many odd rooms that Mysterious Lodging offers, with a total of 11 themed rooms, each costing 7,500 yen (US$70) per night. Mysterious Lodging has a game themed room, a room where you can rock climb (Room of Regeneration), and a room where you can commune with a famous samurai, to name a few. If you’d like to spice up your vacation in Japan, why not give the lodging a try! 

(via SoraNews24)

image credit: via SoraNews24

For a long time, researchers believed that winning the lottery won’t make people happy and can even make them worse off at times. This became widely appealing to many people.

It’s nice to think that life satisfaction isn’t just about how much money you have, that other things matter more, that we can’t solve all our problems with a sudden infusion of cash.

Economists, on the other hand, don’t agree with that belief. They have reason beyond just curiosity to care whether lottery winners are happier than the rest of us. They want to find out the correlation between higher income and happiness.

Several studies were presented, indicating that winning the lottery doesn’t have a significant effect on happiness. However, recent studies showed that the previous studies have no enough sample population to draw out reliable data. This is where Ostwald and Winkelmann’s study enters.

“We have access to more winners with economically substantial winning amounts than almost any other study before us,” Oswald and Winkelmann argue. In part because people keep winning the lottery, the high-quality data from Germany used for many of these studies now has 617 lottery winners with significant earnings. (The country keeps good records on this.) That’s still not a very large sample size for complicated social science research, but it’s a whole lot better than 22, or even 137. (Counting only winnings of more than 2,500 Euros ($2,770), Oswald and Winkelmann are down to 342 winners to analyze.)

Their study definitely showed that winning money actually make people happier. In totality, it looks like having more money makes people less stressed and more satisfied with their life.

Money might not buy happiness, but it buys a lot of things that make the pursuit of happiness easier.

Image Credit: Desiring God Website

Photographer Joseph Ford and knitting artist Nina Dodd combined their skills to show people blending into very specific backgrounds by wearing very specific sweaters. Their project, which is appropriately titled Knitted Camouflage, is an incredibly detailed project that must have taken meticulous planning--especially for Dodd. Perhaps in the future, we'll see clothing that does this automatically.

-via Colossal

The girl in the box: the mysterious crime that shocked Germany https://t.co/uYL7wt1Dxq

— The Guardian (@guardian) September 24, 2019

On a Tuesday night in September of 1981, 10-year-old Ursula Herrmann of Eching, Germany, left her aunt's house on her bike. She should've made it to her home in ten minutes, but she never did. Within an hour, police and villagers were combing the woods. Ursula's parents received a demand from kidnappers to pay two million deutschmarks in ransom. The Hermanns were not rich, but neighbors and the local government agreed to raise the money. But they never had a chance to deliver it. After negotiations with the kidnappers faded, a new search began in the forest.   

By the fourth day of searching, a gloomy Sunday, they had covered most of the forest. Ursula had been missing for 19 days. At 9.30am, there was a loud shout. In a tiny glade about 800m away from the lake path, one of the officers had struck something solid when probing the soil. Another policeman rushed over and, after wiping away the leaves and scraping through a layer of clay, discovered a brown blanket covering a wooden board. He removed it only to find second board, which appeared to be the lid of a box. It was 72cm by 60cm – the size of a small coffee table – painted green and locked from the top with seven sliding bolts. Using a spade, he forced the lid open, and peered in. There was Ursula. Her body was cold, lifeless. The officer wept when lifting her out.

Two detectives were sent to break the news to Ursula’s parents at their home, a short walk away. While her mother was too distraught to ask any questions, her father asked repeatedly: had his daughter been hurt before her death? The truthful answer was no. An autopsy concluded that Ursula died within 30 minutes to five hours of being buried. Since there was no sign of struggle, or even movement, inside the box, the doctors assumed she had been drugged beforehand, possibly with nitrous oxide.

It appeared that the kidnappers had planned to keep Ursula alive. The box, 1.40m deep, was fitted with a shelf and a seat that doubled as a toilet. It was stocked with three bottles of water, 12 cans of Fanta, six large chocolate bars, four packets of biscuits and two packs of chewing gum. It also contained a small, bizarre library of 21 books, from Donald Duck comics to westerns, romance novels and thrillers with titles such as The Horror Lurks Everywhere. There was a light and a portable radio tuned to Bayern 3, the same station that broadcast the traffic jingle. To enable Ursula to breathe, the box had a ventilation system made from plastic plumbing pipes, which extended to ground level. But whoever designed it had failed to realise that without a machine to circulate the air, the oxygen would quickly run out.

Police investigated the crime for years, but without evidence linking any particular suspect, it was closed in the late '80s. More than 20 years later, it was reopened bcause of new DNA technology that might point to he perpetrator. However, what investigators found leaves doubts. Has the crime been solved or not? Read the case of the girl in the box at the Guardian. -via Damn Interesting

Star Trek Spock Finger Puppet and Magnet

Are you looking for a highly logical and practical way to hold notes on your favorite metal surface? Beam the Star Trek Spock Finger Puppet and Magnet from the NeatoShop into your world. He is perfect for keeping enterprises organized and reminding you of critical moments. 

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Magnets. 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 speciliaze in curvy and Big and Tall sizes. We carry baby 6 months to 10 XL adult shirts. We know that fun, fabulous, and logical people come in every size. 

Renowned and prolific classical artists have a recognizable style to their paintings, but with so many artists to study, who can recognize them all? Redditor DontTacoBoutIt has some simple rules for that. For example, a painting with dappled light will be a Manet if the people look depressed, a Renoir if the people are happy, and if there are no people at all, it's Monet.

The Redditor’s explanations about how well-known artists can be recognized at a single glance are as informative as they are blunt and funny. For example, you can know almost for sure that a painting was done by Peter Paul Rubens if everyone’s naked and they all have very large derrières (‘butts’, the word means ‘butts’). And if everyone in a painting looks a bit like Russia’s leader Vladimir Putin, then you can bet your hat that it’s probably Jan van Eyck’s work.

See a roundup of these rules with examples that show how true they are at Bored Panda. The paintings above, obviously, are by Jan van Eyck.

Guitars nowadays have various styles and designs, some are custom-built depending on a person's preferences, but this guitar made of ramen takes creativity to a weird level. Artem Mayer of Copper Guitars used 36 packs of ramen noodles to create this one-of-a-kind guitar.

He used 36 packs of ramen noodles, and covered them in 5 liters of polyester resin, then cut and sanded the structure into a guitar body. He later would add a maple wood neck, and all the necessary hardware to turn it into a working musical instrument.

(Image credit: Artem Mayer/Copper Guitars; Instagram)

Many teenagers and children nowadays are getting woke, as they call it, and participating in social, environmental, and political issues. Perhaps, this may be due to the effects of social media and the internet where they are able to gain access to information quicker and with more depth. It also enables them to become more involved.

One example of such is teen environmental activist Greta Thunberg who delivered her speech at the United Nations Climate Action Summit. Watch the full video of her speech here.

(Image credit: NBC News/screen cap)

That donut forced me to eat it! A likely story, indeed, but that's what happens in this very short French animation by MegaComputeur. Stay past the credits for the best scene. -via Laughing Squid

Music doesn't just affect humans. They also have a soothing effect on animals. And through his music, Martin Agee, a professional violinist, helps soothe shelter dogs who have suffered from abuse. Watch him as he performs classical music, from the likes of Bach, Handel, and Mozart, for rescue dogs at ASPCA.

Every few weeks, Agee carries his violin to the shelter’s Animal Recovery Center, which houses animals coping with medical and behavioral issues stemming from cruelty and neglect.

Often, dogs herald his arrival with barking, jumping and general chaos. Then he sits in a chair and begins to play soothing sonatas by classical composers like Bach, Handel and Mozart.

(Image credit: ASPCA)