Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein was written in 1818 and published in 1820. The book was fiction, but brought questions of science, philosophy, and ethics to the public in a way that dry science explanations could not. However, those discussions on the nature of life and death and what man and his knowledge could do about it were at the very forefront of science at the time, due to some very real experiments similar to Doctor Frankenstein's. Vox tackles how scientists at the time were pushing the limits of life itself, and scaring the daylights out of the rest of us.   

Stephen King chimes in on predictions and possible directions that the final episodes of Game of Thrones will be as well as who he thinks would be sitting on the Iron Throne at the end of it all. He took to Twitter to share his thoughts and even quipped about his own story writing credibility. Via Bro Bible

(Image credits: Stephanie Lawton/Flickr, Wikimedia Commons, CC by SA 2.0; Stephen King/Twitter)

Every gardening enthusiast would probably agree with me about weeds. Little weeds are garden “villains”, as they are so persistent and pervasive. We can drain our energy plucking the weeds in the garden on a weekend, only to find vengeful sprouts in less than a week.

But regular weed has nothing on the Japanese knotweed. The title garden “villain” is not sufficient - perhaps we can consider them super villains because they can cause much, much more damage, say, to the foundation of your house:

At the heart of the Great British Knotweed Panic is the fear that knotweed will make your house fall down. The U.K. has made knotweed disclosure mandatory on all deeds of sale. British banks will not issue a mortgage to a property with knotweed on its grounds, or to one with knotweed growing nearby, unless a management plan is in place. In February, HSBC clarified its mortgage policy in a letter to a parliamentary committee, which was committed to addressing knotweed even in the midst of the Brexit chaos. Any knotweed growing within seven meters of a property is “unacceptable security,” said the country’s largest bank. A management plan can be a long and costly ordeal, with a bedroom-size clump of knotweed requiring thousands of dollars of treatment over several years. Homeowners with negligent neighbors or few resources have little recourse at all. In 2016, not far from the Rowley Regis course, a retired butcher named William Jones hanged himself in his home. At an inquest, his wife said he had been troubled by, among other things, the financial implications of knotweed on a piece of land he’d bought. “Bill was a very strong character,” she later told the Telegraph. “But this was something he couldn’t cope with.”

Robert Naczi, a curator of North American botany at the New York Botanical Garden, explains that the plant itself may not be evil per se, but it's still very troublesome. “It’s doing what a plant does. But Japanese knotweed is a very serious invasive. A very, very problematic species. One of the worst invasive species in Northeastern North America.”

(Image Credit: Japanese Knotweed Solutions, Ltd.)

I don't know if Natural Light beer is available outside of the USA. But for sake of clarity, let us say that the brand of inexpensive beer has a reputation. Twitter user David Burge puts it at follows:

Allow me to explain this to aficionados of Belugian Doppelschmutzler and such: Natty Light and Busch Light are the beers one drinks when one is planning to drink 48

Precisely. One drinks Natural Light, aka "Natty Light", in order to become drunk cheaply.

So its intern must be on-brand. CBS 6 News in Richmond, Virginia cites the minimum qualifications cited:

21 years of age or older as of May 8, 2019

Be outgoing, but not annoying, there is a fine line

Be able to spell Protractor

Just be cool

Be prepared to work, though. Here are just two of the heavy job responsibilities:

Product research (yes, it's what you think it is)

Design some sick swag that gives consumers all the feels

Good luck with your future careers, graduates.

In an art series created by photographer Tessa Doniga, she gives us literal illustrations of certain breakfast expressions that we use in English when translated into Spanish. It makes for some incredibly daring breakfast meals.

“The fact that I’m bilingual makes me wonder more,” she told gestalten. “When I try to translate some words into one language from another, I question myself. My challenge was to set in one image both terms in a visual composition that would be recognizable to the viewer.”

To see more of her works, you may check out her studio's website and Instagram.

(Images credit: Tessa Doniga/Fragmento Universo/Behance)

Ancient Chinese structures are known for its durability. The City Wall of Nanjing (built 600 years ago), the Terracotta Army and a 2000-year-old tomb in Jiangsu province are some of the evidences of the remarkable achievements of Chinese ancient engineers.

What has been puzzling to some scientists is the composition of these structures which made them able to withstand centuries:

Scientists have long been fascinated with this unusual formula, and in recent years, different teams have conducted studies to better understand it. Researchers Jiajia Li and Bingjian Zhang spent six years collecting 378 samples of ancient mortar from 159 sites throughout China, dating from the Taosi phase (2300-1900 BC) all the way to the late Qing dynasty (1644-1911). Their numerous chemical tests found that 219 mortars from 96 locations had “organic components”—that is, small traces of starch, protein, brown sugar, blood, and oil. These mixtures have helped preserve much of China’s built landscape. As the researchers write, “the quality of mortar used in construction has played an important role in determining monument durability.”

Rice, sugar and blood were found present in the structures. But what were the reasons for using these organic materials? What chemical compositions do these substances possess that have preserved the structures? 

(Image Credit: Pixabay)

The term “islandeering” is coined by Lisa Drewe. She defined it as making a circular journey around the outer edge of an island by any means possible - walking, scrambling or paddling.

"I just feel that completing the circle and knowing the island as a whole is important to me, rather than daytripping and going to see something specific," she says.

See stunning pictures from her journey on 130 of Britain's "hidden" islands here.

(Image Credit: Lisa Drewe)

If you're an anime fan, or at least have watched one of the most popular Japanese anime films Spirited Away, you would know that Japan has some weird skeletons lurking in their mythical closets.

Monsters are a popular subject in many Japanese folktales. Beings with not just supernatural powers, but also terrifying appearances to boot. It must be an artistic decision to depict these monsters as hideously as possible to make people feel terrified. They seem to be the embodiment of fear itself.

By official count Japan is haunted by eight million gods and monsters, although in Japanese “eight million” is a euphemism for “waaay too many to count.” Monsters are the deep magic of Japan; part of the creation myth, legends tell of the god Izanagi-no-Okami emerging from a sojourn to Hell and bathing in a sacred spring.

As water fell from his body it soaked into the earth, infusing the soil of Japan with latent supernatural energy. This energy manifested as beings, forming kami (gods) if worshiped, and yokai (monsters) if left wild and untamed.

In other cultures, when tales of monsters are told, they usually have the intention of teaching children a lesson, something to remember or abide by but it seems that the monsters of Japan does not teach morals. They are simply there to give you the creeps.

Japan’s yokai rarely tell a moral story. They rarely explain natural phenomena or serve any didactic purpose. They are often spooky. Sometimes funny. If there is one lesson yokai teach, it is that the world doesn’t always make sense. Sometimes things are mysterious, and you can’t understand them. You just accept them. You allow yourself to be amazed, and maybe a little scared, but you don’t try to look for answers.

After probably sifting through millions of tales, Folklore Thursday gives us a list of the spookiest and weirdest of Japan's moster tales. Number one would definitely make me curious, disgusted, and anxious all at once.

(Image credit: Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, The Heavy Basket, 1892. From the Thirty-six Ghosts series. Wikimedia Commons; Public Domain)

Recycling plastics should be the best way for us to control our plastic waste issue but very few people ever think of doing that. There are 6.3 billion metric tons of plastic waste in the world and it would take years for that to decay.

Thankfully, researchers have developed a new design for plastics that would allow them to be broken down into the molecular level and be remade and reused without losing its quality.

According to a statement released by the lab, the researchers "designed a recyclable plastic that, like a Lego playset, can be disassembled into its constituent parts at the molecular level, and then reassembled into a different shape, texture, and color again and again without loss of performance or quality."

As the study's lead author Peter Christensen points out "most plastics were never made to be recycled. But we have discovered a new way to assemble plastics that takes recycling into consideration from a molecular perspective."

That's all well and good but as the article points out, it doesn't solve the current issue of plastic waste, that there are tons of it and it's plaguing the environment. Hopefully though, this new plastic design would prevent the crisis from escalating further but that too might take a while.

(Image credit: Karina Tess/Unsplash)

The object, which appears to be some type of kitchen appliance, is actually a primitive telecommunications device. You can't access Discord or Twitter from it, nor play games, let alone watch movies. Instead, this device was used to transmit oral communications over distance--provided that one could figure out the interface.

-via Aaron Starmer

You think your cooler or dumpster is bear-resistant? Only if it's certified by the Bear and Wolf Discovery Center in Montana. They test products by letting the bears have at it, which is really the only way to be sure. When you see something that says "this product was not tested on animals," think about the products that are tested BY animals! -via Metafilter

(Photo caption: Photomontage of the evolution of a tornado : Composite of eight images shot in two sequences as a tornado formed north of Minneola, Kansas on May 24, 2016)

The science behind the formation of tornadoes may make our heads swirl but seeing it happen in progression using stills would leave you in awe.

In this composite created by Jason Weingart, we see how tornadoes form from a small wisp of cloud which the wind has only begun spinning to a full vortex of devastating proportions.

(Image credit: Jason Weingart/Wikimedia Commons; CC by SA 4.0)

My gut doctor says I'm in trouble for eating too much spaghetti but it's my fav vegetable! pic.twitter.com/Ct51Pnvu2z

— Pazuzu (@ThatPazuzu) May 7, 2019

You've probably seen the internet as in which a "gut doctor" says “I beg Americans to throw out this vegetable now.” The ads are often in a chumbox, which is a slang term for the promoted links often found at the bottom of a webpage. The ads are so ubiquitous that they've become a meme. What vegetable could that be? The pictures vary, and are hard to decipher. The answer is actually quite elusive. See, chumbox links fall into five categories: they go to search results, or affiliate marketing links, or long slideshows, or advertisements, or hidden content.

The gut doctor falls into the fifth category, hidden content: These ads redirect someplace totally unexpected, a website unrelated in any obvious way to what you originally clicked, and lead you on a wild goose chase between loosely connected sites that are also littered with ads.

The identity of the vegetable is still a question with no answer. However, Kaitlyn Tiffany took a deep dive and found the "gut doctor" the ads refer to. Read about him, and about the business of chumboxes at Vox.

Bocholt, Germany — It was a peaceful February afternoon when suddenly a pigeon flew down a residential street at a speed of 45km/hr (28mph) — faster than the established speed limit of 30 km/hr. Now THAT’s fast.

As soon as the pigeon flew past the mobile speed camera, the camera immediately took a picture of the said pigeon.

While this happened 3 months ago, the town hall of Bocholt said that they had taken some time to assess the photos.

The penalty for speeding is €25 (£21;$28). What do you think? Should this pigeon be fined for speeding?

(Image Credit: Stadt Bocholt)

What? There are other designs of the periodic table? Yes, you’ve heard me correctly. There are other designs of the periodic table, and I admit, I was surprised to see these. The only periodic table that I know of is Dmitri Mendeleev’s periodic table, and I would assume that you’re only familiar with him, too. But, as it turns out, Mendeleev’s table is not the only periodic table in the world.

Here are some of them. Check their respective functions at Science Alert.

(Image Credit: Offnfopt/ Wikimedia/ Public Domain)

(Image Credit: DePiep/ Wikimedia/ CC-BY-3.0)

(Image Credit: DePiep/ Wikimedia/ CC-BY-3.0)