One of the saddest design projects a person can create is making a poster for a lost pet. But it is also perhaps one of the most beautiful creations a person can make. After all, it came from the heart.

… as Canadian artist Ian Phillips reveals in Lost: Lost and Found Pet Posters from Around the World, many of these posters end up as moving artistic homages to our animals. “The posters are like little mystery stories,” Philips writes in an email. “They’re quickly made and filled with so many emotions.”

In the 1990s, after helping his roommate find her lost cat, Philips became obsessed with finding and collecting missing pet posters–he sent out an open call for people around the world to send them to him, to be compiled in a zine circulated among his art-world friends. His collection, now published in a book, comes from six continents, harvested from telephone poles, car windshields, and bulletin boards. (Phillips instructed submitters to make photocopies of the posters they sent and to hang up more than they took down.)

Via Amusing Planet

Have you made a missing pet poster before? How was your experience in doing so?

(Image Credit: The Amusing Planet)

If you’re the type of person to avoid public restrooms at all costs, then you might have considered peeing in an ocean at some point. But is it actually okay for you to pee in an ocean? The answer is, yes! You can actually relieve yourself in the ocean.

It’s safe for the fish living in the system, as our urine has the same components as the ocean. In addition, our urine can also contribute to the ocean’s life cycle, so no fish will be harmed! While you can pee on the ocean, there are some locations that are an exception, as Refinery29 details: 

Never pee near a coral reef. CNN reported that reefs near Mexico’s Quintana Roo province are suffering because of human waste spilled into the ocean by hotels tourists visit in the region. "There are a lot of nutrients going into the ground water caused by treated water from the hotels and municipal waste water treatment plants," environmentalist Paul Sanchez-Navarro told CNN. "They inject the water into the ground and that makes its way into the aquifer... We've found way too many nutrients — nitrates and phosphates — and that comes from human waste, mostly urine.”

Business Insider points out that small lakes are another place you shouldn’t tinkle. You might want to just get out of the water and find a toilet. TIME Magazine reported in 2012 that a lake in Germany had to close because of "an algae bloom that poisoned over 500 fish.” Some researchers blamed this on a ton of urine in the lake.

image credit: via wikimedia commons

The word "dinosaur" wasn't coined until 1842, but fossilized bones of extinct creatures have been encountered for as long as humans have been digging in the ground. Those who found them would ascribe their origin to whatever they could relate to, such as dragons or giants. Which leads us to a chicken-or-egg question: did the legends come from the fossils, or were the fossils just further evidence of the legends? However, the science of paleontology inched forward over time, with some wonderful stories along the way, like that of the first Megalosaurus bones that were seriously studied.  

But before it was called the Megalosaurus, it had a rather more humorous name. You see, in 1763 a physician called Richard Brookes studying Plot’s drawings dubbed it “Scrotum Humanum” because he thought it looked like a set of petrified testicles. (To be clear, Brookes knew it wasn’t a fossil of a giant scrotum, but nevertheless decided to name it thus because apparently men of all eras of human history can’t help but make genital jokes at every opportunity.)

While hilarious, in the 20th century, this posed a problem for the International Commission for Zoological Nomenclature when it eventually came time to formally classify the Megalosaurus as such. The problem was, of course, that Brookes had named it first.

Eventually the ICZN decided that since nobody after Brookes had called it Scrotum Humanum, even though he was the first to name it, that name could safely be deemed invalid. Thus Megalosaurus won out, which is unfortunate because discussion of the rather large Scrotum Humanum would have provided great companion jokes to ones about Uranus in science classes the world over.

Read about how the science of dinosaurs developed at Today I Found Out.

Collaborations and innovations are made over drinks. Or at least, that's what we hear. Mike Andrew heard it, too, and began to look into the geography of collaboration, to find out exactly where great minds get together to bounce around ideas. To test whether saloons had an effect on innovation, he looked into data on Prohibition in the US.

Across the United States, these new laws promptly shuttered the imbibing regions’ bars and taverns. A century or so later, Andrews realized this was the holy grail of social-science research: a natural experiment. He downloaded patent data, compared the number granted to inventors in the wet and dry counties before and after statewide prohibition began, and came up with a measurement of the importance of slightly drunken discussion to invention.

The result? A 15 percent decrease in the number of patents. The areas whose saloons shuttered had become less inventive.

This is a meaningful change, comparable to the effect the Great Depression had on invention across the United States. In other work, Andrews has calculated that the establishment of a new university results (eventually) in a roughly 45 percent increase in local patents. This suggests that the bars’ closure had an effect one-third as strong as a county gaining a university—albeit in the opposite direction. Which is pretty remarkable! After all, universities are centers of knowledge, and bars are businesses that exchange beer for money.

Andrews tested the data in other ways to check his hypothesis, such as measuring the effect of Prohibition on patents by women and patents by corporations, and the effects of the Great Depression and World War II on patents. Read what he found at Atlas Obscura.

Star Trek Sticky Notes

You are a highly logical being. You know that insufficient facts invite danger. You have obstacles to overcome, but you remove those obstacles with strength and good organizational skills. With compassion and The Star Trek Sticky Notes from the NeatoShop you are prepared for whatever enterprise you undertake. 

Each Star Trek Sticky Notes booklet contains a collection of Star Trek themed sticky notes. Many feature your favorite Star Trek characters.

The Star Trek Sticky Notes are perfect for reminding people that you have boldly gone where no man has gone before, and that you plan to return soon. Beam up a set of Star Trek Sticky Notes from the NeatoShop today! 

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Office & Desk stuff. New items arriving all the time. 

Don't forget to stop by the NeatoShop to see our large selection of customizable apparel. We specialize in curvy and Big and Tall sizes. We carry baby 6 months all the way to 10 XL shirts. We even carry pet shirts. 

No matter what time it is, there are people all over the world joining, contributing, and editing Wikipedia. At 4AM local time, there were 49 edits per minute. Listen to Wikipedia monitors that activity and renders it as a data visualization with sound.

Listen to the sound of Wikipedia's recent changes feed. Bells indicate additions and string plucks indicate subtractions. Pitch changes according to the size of the edit; the larger the edit, the deeper the note. Green circles show edits from unregistered contributors, and purple circles mark edits performed by automated bots. You may see announcements for new users as they join the site, punctuated by a string swell. You can welcome him or her by clicking the blue banner and adding a note on their talk page.

Click on the circles as they appear to go to the page that being edited and see what changes are being made. You can also scroll down on the page to filter the data by type or by language. Even if you aren't sucked into exploring the world of Wikipedia edits, the plucks and chimes are quite soothing to listen to as you do something else. -via Metafilter

The reason why Polish people hate rules is because they want to take matters in their own hands – especially rebuilding their shattered dreams and dire post-war lives. If they don’t like something, they’re going to resist.

During the war, Warsaw was extremely heavily bombed. To help visitors better imagine scale of the near-annihilation the city went through, Hanna Dzielińska, another Warsaw guide, takes them to the Old Town and asks them to find 10 old houses. Then, she asks them to close their eyes. She tells them, “We’re at war”. And then, when they open their eyes, she explains that out of the 10 houses they picked, only one and a half are still standing.

After World War II, the destruction of Warsaw was so complete that post-war authorities considered moving the capital to another city. In other words, rebuilding the town in a large scale was nearly impossible. But because the residents hated to follow that rule, they literally rebuilt their city with their own hands, clearing debris and using bricks and stones from destroyed houses in Warsaw – and occasionally from other cities. Their hope is to restore the city’s Old Town to its former glory.

It’s a shocking statistic, and one that truly tested Warsaw’s resilience. Many Varsovians were forced out of their city. Those who decided to return were also the most determined; they were willing to work hard to start their lives anew in a city that had been totally destroyed. “We can call them a hustler, someone sly and clever like a fox, or we can call them attached to their birthplace. It’s all about the mindset,” Dzielińska said.

The city has a lot to be proud of, and not just because it rose from the ashes after near-total destruction, followed by years of communist regime. “As a guide, you need to find a modus operandi that will make someone say about a city that’s not objectively pretty, ‘this city has been through a lot’,” Dzielińska said.

It’s not a surprise that Warsaw’s Old Town is now a Unesco World Heritage Site!

Image Credit: The Telegraph / AP

El helicóptero de #LaVuelta19 descubre una plantación de marihuana en una azotea. pic.twitter.com/Zhry3x1rng

— AUGC Guardia Civil (@AUGC_Comunica) September 3, 2019

It seemed like a good idea: grow your weed on the rooftop, where the sun shines but no one can see. No one except the cameraman covering a bike race from a moving helicopter, broadcasting the results live!

Catalan cops seized over 40 cannabis plants from a rooftop near Barcelona yesterday thanks to information from an unexpected source: a TV helicopter broadcasting this month’s Vuelta a España. Stage 8 of the race finished in the town of Igualada on Saturday, and as the race made its way through the city streets at the end of the stage, helicopter footage showed a whole bunch of (presumably) dank weed on someone’s rooftop.

Apparently, the cannibis was only noticed when the video hit social media, where rewinding is easier. The owner of the plants has not been found. -via Boing Boing

Looking forward to a vacation or holiday so that you can put down your phone? If your answer is yes, then you might be suffering from social media “technostress” — a type of stress that a person experiences due to his or her use of information systems.

The constant stream of messages, updates and content that social media apps deliver right to our pockets can sometimes feel like a social overload, invading your personal space and obliging you to reply in order to maintain friendships.

You might think that the correct (and obvious) response should be to put down or switch off your phone. But that might not be that easy.

...we have recently published research showing that, when faced with this pressure, many of us end up digging deeper and using our phones more frequently, often compulsively or even addictively.

Conventional wisdom implies that when people are faced with a stressful social situation, for example, an argument with someone – they cope with the stress by distancing themselves. They take a walk, go for a run, play with their kids. But when the stressful situations stem from the use of social media, we find people tend to adopt one of two very different coping strategies.

How do we avoid technostress, then?

More details of this topic over at The Conversation.

(Image Credit: stevepb/ Pixabay)

In 1951, a small 210-gram Wedderburn meteorite, edscottite, was found along the side of a road in a remote Australian gold rush town. It was named after a meteorite expert and cosmochemist, Edward Scott.

For decades, scientists have been analyzing its components and they just found one recently! The meteorite contains a rare form of iron-carbide mineral, one that’s only created in laboratories but never been found in nature.

Such a confirmation is important, because it's a prerequisite for minerals to be officially recognized as such by the International Mineralogical Association (IMA).

Thanks to the new analysis by Chi Ma and UCLA geophysicist Alan Rubin, edscottite is now an official member of the IMA's mineral club, which is more exclusive than you might think.

There are several theories as to how this piece of natural edscottite ended up just outside of a rural town. We are uncertain, but one thing’s sure – our understanding of the universe gets richer and richer as the years go by.

Image Credit: Museums Victoria / CC BY 4.0

There was really a non-fiction legendary samurai who existed in the 16^th century. He was known as "Demon Hanzō," because he fought like hell to make sure his clan ruled over a united Japan.

At the age of eight, Hanzō began his training and proved his skills at an early age. He then became a samurai of the Matsudaira clan (later the Tokugawa clan) at age 18.

Outside of battle, Hanzō made a name for himself amongst the local battle leaders. Not only was he skilled in the ways of the samurai, he was also skilled politically. He had a strategic mind as sharp as his blades.

In battle, and indeed throughout his life, Hanzō was ruthless in both his battle tactics and loyalty to his leader. His prowess in battle earned him the nickname Oni no Hanzō, or “Demon Hanzō,” as he stalked those he intended to kill like a demon haunts its victims.

But in times of need, he was seen as a sort of Samurai Moses, for his inclination toward helping those in need across difficult terrain, especially future shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu and his family.

Though a fierce warrior, he still has a soft heart. As the old Japanese saying goes: “Even a demon can shed tears.” And even his legacy goes on.

Find out more of this story here.

Image Credit: Wonderlist

Car Talk was a live radio show featuring MIT graduates, auto mechanics, and brothers Tom and Ray Magliozzi. It ran for 25 years on National Public Radio, after ten years on WBUR-FM. Since the Magliozzis retired from broadcasting in 2012, the show now consists of previously-aired clips edited together, called The Best of Car Talk. Car Talk combined humor with automotive advice, and relied on the entertaining banter between the Magliozzi brothers. They never took themselves, or the show, too seriously.

“They’re just machines,” Ray told The New York Times in 1988, after recently purchasing 1987 Dodge pickup. “This is not brain surgery. It falls apart, you get another one.”

All this time, Car Talk built a huge audience. Ray and Tom had a vague sense of this, but tried their best to stay oblivious.

“When we were sitting here, just us and [producer David Greene] and [producer Doug Berman] and the engineer it never came into my mind like, ‘Oh, I better do my best possible job because there are four or five million people listening,’ Ray says. “We tried to do our best anyway in whatever that was. We never went out of our way to try to be funny. We never went out of our way to try to give the right answer necessarily although we did try, but we didn’t go to extreme measures.”

Fans of Car Talk will want to read an interview with Ray Magliozzi about his automotive philosophy, his brother (Tom died in 2014), and their radio show at Jalopnik.

Officially, World War II began with Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939. It had initially been a war between France, Germany, and Britain. However, other major players - Italy, Russia, Japan, and the USA - joined in the fray not long after. But it was only two years later that the US became more involved in the war.

In the beginning, the government and the general public had not wanted any direct participation. Things might have been different if America had not been provoked to join in WWII. But in the end, it was inevitable for the US to take part in it and the attack on Pearl Harbor only served to ignite the public and hasten America's participation.

To learn more about the events that led to America's decision to participate in WWII, check out this article on History Extra.

(Image credit: National Archives and Records Administration, Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs Division/Wikimedia Commons)

This is what happens when a girl’s creativity and artistry, with the help of her father, goes out of the box!

Check out the dazzling transformations of her room at English Russia.

All photos were from English Russia Website

In 2004, archaeology professor Robert Muckle was alerted to a site within the forests of British Columbia’s North Shore mountains. There were few old cans and a saw blade found. At first, he suspected the area was once home to a historic logging camp. Little did he know that he would spend the next 14 years unearthing sign after sign of a forgotten Japanese settlement!

It was one that seems to have been abruptly abandoned. There are more than 1,000 items unearthed including rice bowls, sake bottles, teapots, pocket watches, buttons and fragments of Japanese ceramics.

“There was very likely a small community of Japanese who were living here on the margins of an urban area,” Muckle tells Richter. “I think they were living here kind of in secret.”

The settlement is found within an area now known as the Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve, located around 12 miles northeast of Vancouver. Muckle have uncovered two other sites within the region that can be linked to Japanese inhabitants.

No records survive of the people who lived in the North Shore camp, and Muckle has yet to find an artifact that can be reliably dated to after 1920. But given that the inhabitants of the village seem to have departed in a hurry, leaving precious belongings behind, he tells Smithsonian that he suspects they stayed in their little enclave in the woods until 1942, when “they were incarcerated or sent to road camps.”

Find out more about this secret Japanese settlement at Smart News.

Photo from Bob Muckle