Upon facing the horrors of documenting the genocide that happened in Rwanda, East Africa, 25 years ago, photojournalist Sebastião Ribeiro Salgado returns to Brazil only to find another horrifying sight. Minas Gerais, a region he remembered as a thriving rainforest became a barren land. At that time, only half a percent (0.5%) of trees remained in the land and all the wildlife was gone.

“The land,” he tells The Guardian, “was as sick as I was.”

Then, his wife Lélia had an idea: they should replant the forest. In order to support this seemingly impossible cause, the couple set up the Instituto Terra, an “environmental organization dedicated to the sustainable development of the Valley of the River Doce,” in 1998. Over the next several years, the Salgados and the Instituto Terra team slowly but surely rebuilt the 1,754-acre forest, transforming it from a barren plot of land to a tropical paradise.

Now a Private Natural Heritage Reserve, hundreds of species of flora and fauna call the former cattle ranch home. In addition to 293 species of trees, the land now teems with 172 species of birds, 33 species of mammals, and 15 species of amphibians and reptiles—many of which are endangered. As expected, this rejuvenation has also had a huge impact on the ecosystem and climate. On top of reintroducing plants and animals to the area, the project has rejuvenated several once dried-up springs in the drought-prone area, and has even positively affected local temperatures.

As the wildlife of the land returned, Salgado also felt reborn himself and considers that to be the most important moment.

See the amazing photos of the now-restored forest at My Modern Met.

(Video Credit: InstitutoTerra/ YouTube)

(Image Credit: Instituto Terra/ Facebook)

DeviantArt member Fantasio composed this haunting image of old, long-abandoned starship left to molder in a forgotten corner of a faraway world. We know not what became of Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise, but we can only assume the worst.

Fantasio composed this image as part of a series showing similarly abandoned machines, including an AT-AT, an AT-ST, and the Iron Giant (warning: artistic nudity).

Humans and animals have evolved to develop different parts of their anatomical and physiological structures mostly for functional purposes, though some according to research were for aesthetic purposes useful for evolution.

There are genetic differents and developmental variants that have no significant negative impacts on a person's well-being. They just oddly occur for various reasons but exactly why they do so is a mystery.

Whether there is a purpose for these variants or not, it's still interesting to note that our bodies - our cells, tissues, and organs - have different paths in growth and interaction with one another to make us who we are now. Let us look into five odd human anatomical variations here. One sample would be the teeth:

People have 20 primary teeth (“milk teeth”), which are lost and replaced by 32 permanent teeth. But up to 2% of people have extra teeth. Most of these people have one or two extra (supernumerary) teeth, but there are medical reports of people with many more extra teeth, with one female having 19 supernumerary teeth.

I also have a friend who has polydactyly on his left hand. It doesn't cause him any harm neither does it bother him. It has become part of his life. And it also makes for good small talk. I, on the other hand, am missing one of my front teeth which, doctors say is a congenital birth defect. Nothing that a little cosmetic dentistry can't fix.

(Image credit: Cplbeaudoin at English Wikipedia; CC by SA 3.0)

I have asthma and allergies to certain types of chocolate that trigger skin asthma. My mom's side of the family are allergic to various types of seafood. I had a pretty rough childhood when it came to diet and nutrition due to these restrictions.

Today, my asthma is dormant. Thankfully, it hasn't been triggered since high school and I can eat chocolate and seafood in moderation. But for many kids born at the turn of the century, the allergy situation has gotten worse. And researchers try to figure out why. But first, let's break the down the mechanisms behind allergies.

A food allergy results from a chain of biochemical misunderstandings. The first time the immune system encounters an allergen (as a protein that triggers an allergy is known), it mistakes the substance for a hostile invader—perhaps a parasite with a similar molecular profile.

In response, it produces an antibody called immunoglobin E (IgE), which is designed to bind to a specific protein and flag it for attack. These antibodies circulate through the bloodstream and attach to immune-system foot soldiers known as mast cells and basophils, which congregate in the nose, throat, lungs, skin, and gastrointestinal tract.

The next time the person is exposed to the allergen, the IgE antibodies signal the warrior cells to blast the intruder with histamines and other chemical weapons. Tissues in the affected areas swell and leak fluid; blood pressure may fall. Depending on the strength of the reaction, collateral damage to the patient can range from unpleasant—itching, runny nose, nausea—to catastrophic.

As many people with allergies will know and as you might have inferred, these are usually hereditary. They are passed down to your children and their children. There are cases when they don't manifest in certain members of the family or aren't as severe as others. We don't know why. But for the most part, the gist of why food allergies are increasing comes down to exposure.

So if we assume that everybody is born with the same immune system and that some have a slight vulnerability to allergies, we can say that these allergies develop as children grow and interact with their surrounding environment.

Given the mechanism of how our immune system fights allergens, the less it is exposed to these at an earlier stage, the less it will be able to develop familiarity or defense mechanisms for them. Perhaps, apart from less exposure to the elements, our comfortable lives have caused our bodies' defensive capabilities to atrophy, in a sense.

Though this may be a possible reason for the surge in food allergies, it's not the only one.

So which culprit is most responsible for the food allergy upsurge? “The illnesses that we’re measuring are complex,” says Sicherer. “There are multiple genetic inputs, which interact with one another, and there are multiple environmental inputs, which interact with each other and with the genes. There’s not one single thing that’s causing this. It’s a conglomeration.”

What can and should parents do for their children especially when they know their medical history? Read on at Leaps Mag -via Real Clear Science

(Image credit: Hannah Morgan/Unsplash)

Heavy traffic, congested public transport, more traffic can all be very annoying especially when it's hot and humid outside. Thankfully, there are great alternatives to driving your car or taking a bus or train to wherever you need to go.

Urban Daddy gives us a list of all the coolest rides you can get on to make your way through the city.

...we've taken it upon ourselves to find seven of the coolest, most unique ways to get around this summer, whether to work or...not-work. This roundup does not include your typical road bikes or motorcycles or cars. But it does include a few motorized rides, one hoverboard-esque device and a flying motorcycle, which may or may not be reserved for military use.

(Image credit: Skitterphoto/Pixabay)

Looking at the see-through church in Belgium from the side, it would appear as thought it is close to disappearing from view, like hazy streaks into the horizon. But the architectural design of this church is quite interesting.

The church is made of 100 metal plates, which are less than a half inch thick. It took 30 tons of metal and 2,000 columns to construct the church. The whole structure was placed on a reinforced concrete foundation. Visitors come to see the seemingly weightless chapel, which consists of two thousand rods connecting hundred layers of steel plates.

Built by Pieterjan Gijs and Arnout van Vaerenbergh, the installation was part of the Art in an Open Space campaign in 2011. It is situated at an orchard farm in Borgloon, Belgium.

(Image credit: Nolde16/Wikimedia Commons; CC by SA 4.0)

In the dawn of time, there were no video games. Then, in 1958, a nuclear scientist took an oscilloscope, and created the first video game. Before this time there was only OXO by A. S. Douglas , but, that was just Tic-Tac-Toe, and not counted by most as the world’s first video game. The creation of Tennis for Two was different. Now you could play tennis on a screen! The world and people at the Brookhaven National Laboratory were amazed. Over sixty years later, the video game world has exploded, to everything from a Russian group of falling blocks to an agile Italian plumber. Where this fantastic world of video games will take us next no one knows.

Can you imagine, kids in the fifties never had video games. The only thing even close to modern video games were locked inside giant computers the size of rooms. Mere mortals couldn’t play with those computers. These computers were used for important calculations, like nuclear testing and the first mission to the moon. In fact, the first video game was made as an insignificant side project.

The game Tennis for Two was created by William Higinbotham in 1958 at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in Long Island, New York. Most people call this the first video game even though it used an oscilloscope and not a traditional screen. The reason this is considered the first video game and not OXO, is that OXO was created purely for academic purposes. Tennis for Two was created for fun. What makes a video game a video game is that it is a controllable game, made for entertainment, that runs on a computer, and is projected on a display screen. Therefore, following this definition, the first video game intended for entertainment was Tennis for Two.

Thanks Zach!

The only way to really get an idea of how big something is, is to relate it to something more familiar with a known size. That's why the Corridor Crew set the ships -and Death Stars- of the Star Wars movies on earth. The first Death Star was no moon, but it was way bigger than any space station we have anywhere near earth. -via Geeks Are Sexy

Via Real Clear Science

Scientists have been looking into various avenues to find any evidence that would strongly suggest that life on Mars is not just fiction or fairy tale but that it is a reality. We found clues that would point to the plausibility of Mars once being habitable.

Now, researchers say that certain meteorites could indicate the conditions that Mars had which might be clues to Martian life.

Now a new paper by Ildikó Gyollai from the Research Centre for Astronomy and Earth Sciences in Budapest, Hungary, and colleagues, claims that there might be clues to Martian life in another Allan Hills meteorite, this time ALH77005.

They base their conclusions on morphological and geochemical indicators—including the presence of organic material—which lead them to speculate on the past presence of iron bacteria in this Martian rock.

Still though, there are dissenting opinions to this evidence. We can't positively say that Mars once accommodated biological life despite there being supposed evidences of water or bacteria once present on Mars. Our search continues.

(Image credit: NASA/Wikimedia Commons; Public domain)

This is Suoi Tien Amusement Park, Buddhist-themed park located just outside Ho Chi Minh city (commonly known as Saigon). Most of the park really reflects the Buddhist theme like the golden dragon found at the entrance, and a garden full of Buddhas. But there are also things in the park that have nothing to do with the Buddhist theme such as the crocodile farm, coasters, and park rides.

The peculiar thing on this park, however, is its “Magic Castle” that seem to be a rip-off of the fantasy series Harry Potter. 

Really weird and a bit creepy for me.

(Image Credit: Your Mileage May Vary)

I was too old for Pokémon when it came to the USA in the late 90s and this has apparently been to detriment of my cognitive development. Jennifer Ouellette explains at Arstechnica that scientists have concluded that when young children spent a large amount of time learning to recognize the hundreds of different Pokémon, they altered their brains:

[...] a new paper has just appeared in Nature Human Behavior, concluding that people who avidly played the game as children have developed a unique cluster of brain cells devoted to recognizing the hundreds of different Pokémon species.

It's well known that human beings are remarkably adept at visually recognizing faces, words, numbers, places, colors, and so forth thanks to a constellation of regions—small clusters of neurons about the size of a pea—in the temporal lobe, located just behind the ears. Those regions show up in the same place in most people, despite differences in age, sex, or race. There's even a so-called "Jennifer Aniston neuron," (aka the "grandmother cell") discovered by a UCLA neuroscientist in 2005, whose primary purpose seems to be to recognize images of the famous actress. Similar neurons have also been found for other celebrities like Bill Clinton, Julia Roberts, Halle Berry, and Kobe Bryant.

I missed the Pokémon era, but somewhere in my brain there must be a cluster of cells lovingly devoted to my childhood crush, Donna Douglas.

Photo credit: Monsieur Gordon

Unless you have some connection to a school, like children attending one, you might not have realized that this week is Teacher Appreciation Week. However, it's never too late to appreciate a teacher who impressed you, even if it's one from TV. What better time to compile a list of memorable teachers from television? The list is heavy on series that Gen Y and Millennials would know well, but also has some throwbacks, like Our Miss Brooks.   

When English teacher Connie Brooks would complain of being underpaid—and she did, often—teachers across the country rejoiced. Here was a portrayal of the profession that didn't mince words. One of TV's earliest educators, Brooks (played by Eve Arden) refused to conform to the stereotypical image of a mechanical authority figure. When a student drew graffiti on a wall, Brooks didn't run to the principal's office—she rushed to paint over it. Nor did she ignore the fact that teachers had feelings, too. (In Brooks's case, it was unrequited love for fellow teacher Mr. Boynton.) After the series ended in 1956, Arden got the ultimate compliment: several job offers to teach. —Jake Rossen

Miss Brooks is not the oldest TV teacher on the list, however. See all 20 at Mental Floss.

The Drain Addict is an expert with a following who shares the satisfying accomplishment of fixing nonfunctional fluid management systems. Here is "Blocked Drain 73," a storm drain that directs water from a yard to the street. That's a pretty neat device he's using. The head attached to the hose redirects water pressure behind it, propelling the head forward. This video shows what's going on out of our sight.

If you get a kick out of seeing drains that suddenly work as intended, check out his other videos. -via Boing Boing

When she was 17 years old, Dee was dared to eat a pickle with her chocolate-drizzled strawberry ice cream. To her surprise, she loved it. Dee still enjoys this bizarre combination of ice cream and pickles after 32 years, and last April Fool’s Day, she enticed the customers at Pine Mountain Country Coffee House (the shop she owns along with her husband) to try it as well.

"How about something crazy for April.....ice cream and pickles! Try a Pickle Ice cream sundae! Not an April's Fool Day joke, it's really good, especially when you top it with chocolate sauce," Dee wrote on the Missouri mercantile's Facebook page.

But it wasn't until a few days later when Ken was poking fun at his wife over dinner that they decided to actually sell the "Pickle Split."

And so the Pickle Split came into their menu.

Would you try this?

(Image Credit: Pine Mountain Country Coffee House/ Facebook)

Most of us have problems and worries that seem to never disappear. Oftentimes, we carry these burdens every time, and more often than not, we let these worries get the best of us. This turns us into gloomy and anxious people. However, as with all problems, there is a solution, and for this one it is something easy to say, but hard to do — teach yourself to have a positive outlook in life (this requires training yourself). A positive attitude may lead to less anxiety and depression.

The latest evidence comes from a new study of caregivers — all of whom had the stressful job of taking care of a loved one with dementia. The study found that following a five-week course, participants' depression scores decreased by 16 percent and their anxiety scores decreased by 14 percent. The findings were published in the current issue of Health Psychology.

The course teaches eight skills to help people cope with stress. Techniques include mindfulness and deep breathing, setting an attainable daily goal, keeping a gratitude journal and — yes, it works — performing small acts of kindness.

More details of this at NPR.

(Image Credit: Nick Shuliahin/ Unsplash)