Richard Drew dropped out of college and went to work for the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company, a firm that made sandpaper. Now known as 3M, the conglomerate makes all kinds of products, the most ubiquitous being Scotch tape, which Drew invented. He also came up with masking tape, but he wasn't supposed to be working on those products. He just saw a need and went to work filling it.   

In Drew’s early days at the company he would deliver sandpaper samples to auto manufacturers, who used it for the painting process. In the 1920s, two-tone cars were trendy. Workers needed to mask off part of the car while they painted the other, and often used glued-on newspaper or butcher paper for the job. But that was difficult to get off, and often resulted in a sticky mess. Drew walked into an auto body shop one day and heard the "choicest profanity I'd ever known" coming from frustrated workers. So he promised a better solution.

He spent the next two years developing a tape that was sticky yet easy to remove. He experimented with everything from vegetable oil to natural tree gums. A company executive, William McKnight, told Drew to stop messing around and get back to his regular job, which he did, but Drew kept doing tape experiments on his own time.

Read how Drew came up with his tape innovations, and how 3M changed its corporate culture in response, at Smithsonian.

(Image credit: 3M)

Rome was not built in a day, and just as it took as long to build it, it crumbled just as quickly in a short span of time. The Visigoths are famously known to have sacked Rome just before the Middle Ages and they established a kingdom in modern-day Toledo in Spain. Later on, they also built Reccopolis, on the outskirts of Madrid.

Excavations have been ongoing at Reccopolis for a few decades, but so far, archaeologists have uncovered only about 8% of the area inside the city walls.

The researchers and a few other colleagues teamed up the next year to perform the first geomagnetic survey of the site. Their results quickly showed that empty spaces inside the city walls of Reccopolis were full of hidden streets and buildings. There was even a suburb outside the city's monumental gate.

(Image credit: Wikimedia Commons)

There are four species of blanket octopus that are so called because of the webbing between some of their arms. They are known for their tool use- they tear Portuguese man o'war tentacles off to use as weapons! Blanket octopuses also display extreme sexual dimorphism. The females can be more than six feet long, while the males are about the size of a walnut.

Joseph Elayani accompanied the Three P Diving Club on an outing underneath the waters off Romblon Island in the Philippines, and captured this remarkable footage of two colorful blanket octopuses. A longer video shows more amazing creatures seen on the same trip. -via reddit

One of the most impressive feats during the race to the Moon in the 1960s was the creation of NASA's global tracking and data network. This network was responsible for tracking the astronauts to the Moon and back, giving to and receiving data and information from them. Fast Company's Charles Fishman details the network's creation:

As constructed and operated during Apollo, the network—NASA called it the STDN, the Spaceflight Tracking and Data Network—had 14 big antennas in sites ranging from Bermuda to Madrid to Guam. The three largest antennas, still in use, have surface areas two-thirds the size of a football field, tilted up in the air, aimed at the signals coming from Apollo.

STDN also had four specially constructed ships at sea—oil-tanker hulls hollowed out and retrofitted with huge tracking antennas, mounted bow to stern—and two satellites to help relay signals. During splashdown, as the capsules floated to the Pacific Ocean on parachutes (well beneath the range of land-based tracking antennas), NASA put eight airplanes aloft to maintain communication.

The tracking stations were linked by two-million miles of communication links: telephone wire, undersea cable, microwave towers. That’s enough communication line to circle the Earth 80 times, and it was the first global, high-speed data network. The system was designed and run by NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center in Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C. That’s where all the signals were collected from around the world and then piped from Goddard to Mission Control in Houston. They went back out through Goddard as well.

The network cost $370 million to assemble in the mid-1960s. For comparison, each lunar module cost about $100 million. It required 2,700 people to operate and relied on 39 Univac computers spread around the world to manage the signals pouring in. During the Apollo years, it cost $70 million a year to run. The phone bill alone, the cost of those two million miles of leased communications lines, was $50 million annually (almost $400 million in today’s dollars).

Now that is one impressive feat, in terms of operational capacity and financial cost.

image taken from Sunny Tsiao's Read You Loud and Clear! The Story of NASA's Spaceflight Tracking and Data Network

Japan is gearing up for the 2020 Olympics, and the entire country is getting excited. A group of anime artists have launched an un-official project to welcome to world to Tokyo, by illustrating the participating nations as anime characters! The project, called World Flags, wraps those flags around an anime character from each country, although it is an ongoing project, and not every nation is represented yet.

These are very anime, as all the characters are young, athletic, and attractive (as are Olympic athletes), and the clothing style is medieval Japanese while incorporating features from each country.    

The World Flags gallery is in Japanese, but your knowledge of world flags should help you identify characters who aren't labeled in your language. You may need to copy and paste a character's description to Google Translate for more information. You can see thirty of the characters in a list at Bored Panda.

 

This is Peter Petrov. You may call him Uncle Petrov. Despite his Russian features of bright blue eyes and fair skin, Petrov does not speak Russian; he speaks Chinese.

That's because Petrov, whose legal name is Dong Desheng, lives in his birthplace of Heilongjiang province and is an ethnic Russian, one of China's 55 officially recognized minority groups.

In a country where the predominant ethnic group, Han Chinese, accounts for 92% of the population -- or 1.2 billion people -- Petrov, 44, says his appearance and heritage makes him stand out.

Petrov started posting videos about his life in late 2017 through China’s most popular streaming app, Kuaishou. He went viral a year after.

The clips saw him playing with his dog, Little White; eating dumplings with his family; tending to his corn and soybean crops.

[...]

But more than creating a social media star, Petrov's videos have stirred debate online about what it means to be "Chinese" in a society where ethnic homogeneity and social conformity are the norm.

How did Petrov and his family come and settle in Heilongjiang, China? 

See more details of Petrov’s story over at CNN.

(Image Credit: Peter Petrov/ CNN)

Sometimes when we get overwhelmed by our emotions, we say some stupid things. At times, we just say the first thing that comes to mind without even thinking twice about it so it comes off as really dumb. And there are times, when we just don't know what we're talking about. Here are a few of the dumbest things that people have ever heard:

>My brother used to be a park ranger. One time a lady asked him how long it took for a deer to become a moose. He said about 7 years. -TryThis21

>Oxygen doesn’t come from trees, it comes from the air! -GarfieldGauntlet

>My friend thinks that hibernation is a hoax because she’s seen pictures of bears in the snow.

The first picture she showed me was of a polar bear. -ruyroy12

Check out more on Knowable.

(Image credit: Ryan McGuire/Pixabay)

Vin jaune, which literally translates to “yellow wine”, is a rare wine created in the Jura region of eastern France. Attracting hardcore wine enthusiasts, this wine “matures under a veil of yeast in a barrel for at least six years.” During this time, the wine develops a golden color (thus the name “yellow wine), and an intense, nutty aroma. Last year, a 244-year old bottle of vin jaune was sold at auction for $121,000.

Turns out this yellow stuff has been historically enjoyed and cultivated for at least 900 years, according to scientists.

Researchers conducted DNA tests on 28 samples of grape seeds dug out of waterlogged wells, dumps and ditches at archaeological sites across France. The results, published today in the journal Nature Plants, show strong connections between modern wine grapes and those used as far back as the Roman period.

Check out the details of this study at Smithsonian.

(Image Credit: Arnaud 25/ Wikimedia Commons)

These days mankind's highway of information - for speed, accessibility and capacity is the Internet. Surprisingly, plants have something similar composed of fungi, as Nic Fleming wrote:

While mushrooms might be the most familiar part of a fungus, most of their bodies are made up of a mass of thin threads, known as a mycelium. We now know that these threads act as a kind of underground internet, linking the roots of different plants. That tree in your garden is probably hooked up to a bush several metres away, thanks to mycelia.

They aren't just sitting there quietly growing. By linking to the fungal network they can help out their neighbours by sharing nutrients and information – or sabotage unwelcome plants by spreading toxic chemicals through the network.

Fungal networks also boost their host plants' immune systems. That's because, when a fungus colonises the roots of a plant, it triggers the production of defense-related chemicals. These make later immune system responses quicker and more efficient, a phenomenon called "priming". Simply plugging in to mycelial networks makes plants more resistant to disease.

To learn more about the natural fungal internet network, read the rest of the story over at  BBC Earth.

image credit: Nordschitz via wikimedia commons

More people are traveling than ever before, which is a good thing, but they are often going to all the same places, which makes for a less-than-inspiring experience. Airfare deals, bucket lists, and Instagram goals are leading people to go somewhere just top say they have gone somewhere. The world is full of less-crowded getaway spots that could use your money. Journalist Elizabeth Becker wrote the book Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism, and says you can still see and enjoy many places in the world without adding to the crowds, if you do some research. It's crucial that you first explore why you want to go to a certain place, and what might be waiting for you there.   

Another strategy is to ask yourself what you really want to do and see, rather than seeing something for the sake of seeing it. Becker recommends not doing things you wouldn’t do back home. If you don’t like museums, for example, don’t clog up the Louvre and whiz through without a clue what you’re seeing, she says.

Santander at the European Travel Commission agrees that blindly going through the motions without any research leads to a predictable trip: “You go to different places, but the experience is always the same: it’s an airport, which has the same shops, some trains, some of the monuments are different.” Plus, it makes the most famous sites more congested.

“If you’re going to Prague, instead of spending two days, spend a week – and don’t go to the tourist places. Go all around it,” Becker says. “Maybe you’ve actually read a novel – even a Czech author. Maybe a history book, modern politics – so you know [more about] where you’re going. Soak up that one place, and I promise you can avoid the crowds.”

There are more tips for traveling without adding to the problems of overburdened tourist destinations at BBC. -via Digg

Sydney archaeologist Robert Maxwell conducted fieldwork in the Chernobyl exclusion zone in 2010 and 2012. He saw and experienced some frightening things, which are the very real risks of radiation poisoning. Maxwell also discovered a supernatural tale associated with Chernobyl.

“According to the legend, rumours went through the ranks of Chernobyl, that five employees had seen a large, dark headless creature with gigantic wings and fire red eyes. Chernobyl employees began sharing strangely similar experiences, some had horrifying nightmares, while others received threatening phone calls,” Maxwell said.

“The second account I’ve heard of this story comes from 2007 which says that people in and around the power plant began to experience a series of strange events revolving around sightings of a mysterious creature — also described as a large dark and mutated creature with large wings and piercing red eyes.

“People affected by the phenomena also experienced nightmares and had first-hand encounters with the winged beast.

“Some of the workers reported their bizarre experiences to supervisors of the facility but there was very little these officials could do even if they’d been willing to take action. Then, in April, disaster struck.”

The problem with looking into the story is that those who experienced it are dead, which makes it all the more ominous. Maxwell likens the tale to that of the Mothman, a creature that only appears right before some terrible tragedy. It turns out that the supernatural harbinger of doom appears in folklore around the world, in slightly different but always frightening forms. Read about the Black Bird of Chernobyl at News.com.au.  -via Strange Company

(Image credit: Vasily Fedosenko)

Longtime Neatorama readers know that "reality TV" doesn't have much to do with reality. What makes reality TV shows different from what came before is that the participants are usually not professional actors. Everything else is manipulated: the story, the onscreen conflicts, and often even the very premise of the show. The facade of reality is maintained by the low production values which hint at a low budget. Elizabeth Newcamp tells us what the experience of appearing on House Hunters and House Hunters International was like. For starters, they would be "purchasing" the home they already lived in.  

Some things about the show are completely transparent. There is no wardrobe or makeup department. You’ll hear plenty of opinions on what you should wear, but everything is coming out of your own closet. I learned that all my favorite tops have stripes on them, a no-no for the camera.

But I was surprised how even the littlest details could be fictionalized. When they couldn’t find a local real estate agent, the House Hunters International producers needed a Dutch person who was willing to be on camera for $500 as our “relocation expert.” Our neighbor and friend Michael, who actually works in IT, was happy to oblige. In the episode, I hinted at the absurdity of the whole situation when Michael mentioned that he lived near a house we were looking at. “Oh, so we could be neighbors,” I exclaimed, while biking to tour our actual house, down the street from his … where my children were playing with his daughter, under the supervision of his wife.

For the week's shooting, Newcamp and her husband were paid $1500. But that also included pre-production work, and not only did they "perform," but they also provided the set, the props, the costumes, and most of the script, working on expanding the smallest conflict in their decisions to make the show entertaining. Read Newcamp's story at Slate.  -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Jeff Newcamp)

What do you do if floating on the ocean on a large boat doesn't make you seasick enough? Add a roller coaster! The Carnival Cruise ship the Mardi Gras will boast an onboard roller coaster called The Bolt when it launches in 2020.

The roller coaster contains 800 feet of track reaching speeds of nearly 40 mph.  It will give riders 360-degree views of the water 187 feet above the ocean as it makes its way around the ship's red funnel.

Riders can control how fast they go.

There's no word yet on whether the roller coaster cars are seaworthy themselves, in case they detach from the track. Either way, I wouldn't stand underneath the coaster, especially after the buffet lunch. See a video ad for the Bolt at Fox5. -via Dave Barry

(Image credit: Carnival Cruise Line)

The highways and rivers of a city map forms the capillaries of anatomical paper organs. The artist behind these clever paper sculptures is Katrin Rodegast, an illustrator and paper artist based in Berlin. 

Rodegast rolled, coiled, cut, and scored colorful maps to form a heart, brain, lungs, spine, and knee joint. Curving highways and waterways seem to mimic the intricate network of capillaries that surround our organs, while also highlighting the innovation that arises from different systems and organizations working together.

The anatomical creations were made to showcase “Zurich Heart,” a flagship project involving nearly 20 research groups, which aims to develop a fully implantable artificial heart.

View more of the anatomical city maps over at Colossal.

Image: Ragnar Schmuck

It’s amazing how our DNA informs us of our origin and how we relate to one another. 

A number of people have had their DNA tested, resulting in a finding that the genetic “Adam” lived between 60,000 and 140,000 years ago. However, a newly discovered DNA evidence suggests that he was actually over twice as old as we originally thought.

Albert Perry carried a secret in his DNA: a Y chromosome so distinctive that it reveals new information about the origin of our species. It shows that the last common male ancestor down the paternal line of our species is over twice as old as we thought.

One possible explanation is that hundreds of thousands of years ago, modern and archaic humans in central Africa interbred, adding to known examples of interbreeding – with Neanderthals in the Middle East, and with the enigmatic Denisovans somewhere in southeast Asia.

Learn more of this discovery over at the New Scientist

Image: Pasieka/SPL