If there is a possibility that aliens exist, then why don't we see or hear from extraterrestrial beings? This question pops up a lot and the Fermi paradox sums it up quite nicely. And to offer a few possible answers to this dilemma, Singularity Hub enumerates four explanations.

(Image credit: NASA Johnson)

Tumbleweeds don't seem like much. Usually we imagine them rolling on a barren wasteland, until the winds die down. But researchers have discovered a new species of tumbleweed called Salsola ryanii which has the capacity to grow as high as six feet.

To complicate matters, the tumblebeasts may very well thrive on climate change. "It's one of the only things that's still green in late summer," said researcher Shana Welles in an interview with U.C. Riverside News. "They may be well positioned to take advantage of summer rains if climate changes make those more prevalent."

(Image credit: USAF/Senior Airman Ericka Engblom)

Though basketball is a popular sport the world over, there is a variation of it called streetball. Every year, one place in China turns up with a throng of people coming from distant lands to catch a glimpse of Beijing's legendary streetball tournament at Sunset Dongdan.

Streetball is more fast and loose than your NBA variety of the sport, typically played with less enforcement of the rules, more flair and tricks. There are courts around the world that draw perennial crowds hoping to catch some of the city’s — even country’s — most talented streetball players in action.

For New York, it’s Rucker Park; for LA, it’s the courts at Venice Beach. For China, that court is Dongdan, which plays host to the aforementioned yearly streetball tournament that falls between May and June.

(Image credit: Dawei Chen/Radii China)

Sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places #HarryPotter #CursedChild pic.twitter.com/TQb68Wtqiz

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) September 5, 2019

Warner Bros. rumors about developing new film for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child and also original cast return.

Harry Potter’s universe creator J.K. Rowling’s mystery tweet hints about a new film or something else. After last movie The Deathly Hallows – Part 2., they’re defeating Voldemort. Then we see cast as an adult also shows the right way their knowledge to upcoming wizards. If you know the play Broadway show Harry Potter and the Cursed Child follows Harry and Draco’s children Albus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy as a teammate for the save Cedric Diggory. Now Cursed Child gets a new design logo and fans excited for what’s coming to the universe.

Will there be another Harry Potter movie?

Warner Bros. Pictures isn’t working on a film adaptation in this news. They’ve just revealed a fantastic new look for this play touring around the world.

Warner Bros. wants to film the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child as an upcoming story, but the Pottermore don’t accept and tweets about that.

While others travel or live in a van with a partner, she travels alone. While everyone else has dogs, she has a snake.

This is Jennelle Eliana, a solo female traveler who is taking YouTube by storm. In her first three weeks in the video sharing website, Eliana has already garnered over 1.3 million subscribers. She is projected to hit 2 million subscribers in the coming month. (As of this writing, she is already on 1.9 million subscribers).

Part of what makes Eliana’s success so fascinating is that she essentially came out of nowhere. It takes most YouTube vloggers years to gain an audience, but Eliana, a seemingly average girl living in a beat-up van, did it in a matter of weeks.

Know more about her and her channel over at Outside.

(Video Credit: Jenelle Eliana/ YouTube)

Before he became a dad, 37-year-old Yaka Oyo was terrified of the thought of soothing his crying baby. He, like other first-time parents, worried that he would misread the cries of his newborn baby.

"I pictured myself pleading with my baby saying, 'What do you want?' "

Oyo's anxieties are common to many first-time mothers and fathers. One reason parents-to-be sign up for prenatal classes, is to have their questions, such as 'What's the toughest part of parenting?' and 'How do I care for my newborn baby?' answered by childcare experts.

Prenatal classes, however, are usually focused at the mom and not at the dad, and discuss her shifting role and how she could cope up with the roller coaster of emotions she would experience in motherhood.

With that focus, "Dad's parenting questions can fall to the wayside," says Dr. Craig Garfield, an associate professor at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine and an attending physician at Lurie Children's Hospital in Chicago. And the lack of attention to a new father's needs can have ripple effects that impact the whole family — in the short-run and later, Garfield says.

Around the U.S., a number of health care providers, such as Garfield in Chicago and the non-profit 'Bootcamp for New Dads' in New York City, have begun trying to change their approach to such classes. Some go so far as to hold single-sex prenatal classes specifically for men.

Know more about this over at NPR.

What are your thoughts on this one?

(Image Credit: Jason LeCras for NPR)

The summer interns at Microsoft got together (with some employees, 150 people in all) to make a Broadway-style musical about the company. These computer geeks are talented! Sure, a lot of it is high praise for Microsoft, but there's some humor involved, too, because no one should be above poking fun at themselves... or their workplace. Read more about the project at Gizmodo.

The next time you travel through New England, or even if you live there, keep your eye out for stone enclosures with nothing inside, except possibly overgrown weeds. These relics of the past are not promoted much, but they are historic. They are town pounds. Not for stray dogs, but for stray livestock.   

If an animal strayed and was found wreaking havoc on private property, it was brought to the pound, where it was corralled with other wayward creatures and watched over by a town-appointed “pound-keeper” (sometimes called a “pound-master,” or “pounder”) until its owner could retrieve it—for a fee.

(Prices varied by time and place. One community, according to Elizabeth Banks MacRury’s book Town Pounds of New England, set the bail of a horse, mule, ass, cow, or pig at 12 cents and 5 mills (a mill was a thousandth of a dollar). For a sheep, it was 1 cent and 4 mills; for a goose, 8 cents. Unclaimed animals could be sold at auction after three days (one day for geese). Stealing an animal from the pound incurred a fine of $7.)

Villages in colonial Massachusetts were required to have pounds, and since a lot of work went into lifting the heavy stones, the structures are with us hundreds of years later. Read about town pounds and see plenty of pictures at Atlas Obscura.

(Image credit: Johnna Kaplan)

The European Space Agency's Rosetta probe took ten years to reach its target, comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Then it spent two years studying the comet up close, including deploying the Philae lander to the comet's surface. The ESA released 400,000 images of the comet, which motion designer Christian Stangl weaved together to make this video. Composer Wolfgang Stangl created the sound. The Comet gives the mission an epic science fiction feel, one that the mission deserves. You should watch this in full-screen mode. -via Kottke

Perhaps as many as 3,000 people were planning to descend upon this Ikea in Glasgow, Scotland in order to play hide and seek together. When store management learned of this plan, they summoned the police to quash the fun. The Scotsman reports:

At some point on Saturday, staff at Braehead became aware of a Facebook thread suggesting some 3,000 youths were about to descend on the store.

As well as drafting in extra security, Ikea contacted Police Scotland, who dispatched five officers.

Police remained at the store until it closed at 8pm.

-via Marginal Revolution | Photo: The Scotsman

Every year, Dragon Con highlights the work of cosplayers who find new and ingenious ways of mixing up the classic bunny girl costume. Jen of Epbot attended this Bunny Hutch party and photographed many of the elegant and funny cosplayers.

At least eleven herbs and fabrics went into this Colonel Sanders. You can see others at Epbot, including bunnified versions of Mrs. Doubtfire, Edward Scissorhands, the Demogorgon, and Beetlejuice.

People who produce internet content would kill for a viral recipe, like Swineapple. That's more difficult than it seems, because Swineapple is actually tasty. That's not the case with most "food hacks." Doing something new and different with food might get attention, but it will only last until someone tries it out and finds it useless, unpalatable, or downright gross. Or even dangerous, like opening a wine bottle with a blowtorch. There's a recipe for pancakes with only three ingredients, and they aren't pancake mix, butter, and syrup. No, these pancakes are supposed to be made with bananas, eggs, and cinnamon, and nothing else.

This is a fried egg that tastes vaguely like cinnamon. Egg is a strong flavor, and when desserts taste eggy, that's not good. With no sugar to speak of and just cinnamon to contribute any real flavor, this ends up tasting like Christmasy eggs that once thought of a banana. Are all of these rapid-fire cooking hack videos just an elaborate prank?

Check out ten recent food hacks and their horrifying real-world results (many of them involving cheese) at Cracked.  

“If you ever want an ice cream, there you have an ice cream parlor,” the 89-year-old man said as he points to a part of the rubble with his walking stick. Pointing his walking stick towards another part of the rubble, he continued, “Do you want a special dessert? There’s a shop just around the corner. Well, there was. Today, there is nothing left.”

This man is Pablo Novak. He was born here in Villa Epecuén, a small town in the Buenos Aires province. He has witnessed the town’s birth and death.

The whole town was flooded due to violent rains in the year 1985, and the waters would only subside 25 years later.

“When the city flooded, I didn’t leave. Both because I wanted it and also because I felt an obligation towards this place.”

See the full story over at BBC.

(Image Credit: BBC)

Tennis balls were already yellow when I grew up, and, I admit, I didn’t really pay much attention to that detail and pretty much took it for granted. But really, why are tennis balls colored yellow?

Believe it or not, tennis balls before were white, and the reason for its color change was quite simple. Check it out on CNN.

(Image Credit: skeeze/ Pixabay)

A new poll finds that almost 3 out of 4 Americans see disasters, such as Hurricane Dorian, worsening, with most of them blaming global warming to an extent, and scientists say they’re correct.

The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey shows 72% of Americans think catastrophic weather is more severe, while 4% see it as less nasty. About one-quarter say those disasters are about as extreme as they always were.

Half of the people who believe that the catastrophic weather is becoming severe say that the reason behind this is man-made climate change. Another 37% say that randomness and climate change are equally to blame.

See more details of this survey over at AP News.

(Image Credit: 12019/ Pixabay)