Google employees have created "pixel art" masterpieces using sticky notes on their office windows. Here's how they do it. Read more on The Keyword.

Second Wave feminism came from the acknowledgement that the vote was not enough. Women in the 1960s and '70s wanted to change a culture that saw them as the weaker sex. One form of protest was art, particularly art produced by a collective in London that channeled rebellion against the demeaning way women were portrayed in media and advertising. See Red Women’s Workshop was a printmaking cooperative founded in 1974 that produced feminist posters used in schools, galleries, and political campaigns through 1990. Pru Stevenson, one of See Red's four founding members, remembers those early days well.

Collectors Weekly: What was the status of women within the larger leftist movement at the time?

Stevenson: I think we were mainly seen as a distraction; we weren’t taken seriously. It was seen to be a side issue. Within our personal relationships, there were also issues around domestic work. It was very much seen as women’s work, and the men would say they had more important things to do. “I have to take on issues which are of state importance, and who does the housework or who looks after children isn’t important to me.” So our status on the whole was pretty low. We were very much marginalized within the Left and tended to be pushed into the kitchen, making cups of tea.

Yet See Red embraced intersectionality long before it was a buzzword, knowing that oppressed groups are all in this together. Stevenson tells the story of See Red's early days of operating with no money, the attacks they suffered, and the visions they had for the feminist movement. Read the rest of the interview and see a variety of their posters at Collectors Weekly. 

(Image credit: See Red Women's Workshop)

Scientists have been able to detect these fullerenes in interstellar medium (ISM) found between stars. Not much is known about ISM but this find may shed some light as to why they are there and what other insights it might give us.

“Currently, the leading theory is that they form as a result of carbon chemistry in the warm envelopes of dying stars, such as Red giants.”

“The confirmation of interstellar [buckminsterfullerene] represents a breakthrough in our understanding of chemical complexity in the diffuse interstellar medium [..] bringing a new understanding of the types of molecules that may be responsible for the remaining (unidentified) diffuse interstellar bands.”

(Image credit: Wikimedia Commons)

What time is it, kids? It's Howdy Doody time!

Back we go to the early days of television, where we encounter another of the legendary kids' programs, The Howdy Doody Show, the first nationally televised American children's TV program.

This program is probably my earliest TV memory. Though such a program would never survive today, 60+ years ago we kids all thought it was fantastic. From the IMDb:

I can't say that I have ever seen such a quality children's program. Maybe this is because Bob Smith & Co. were trained in radio and live television back in the 1940's, but there was something authentic about their performances. Their diction, their facial expressions, their chemistry, and their interaction with the kids... And then the story lines were not bad either. Plus, after seeing the live commercials, we all craved Wonder bread.

All you have to do is compare their work product against any children's show today and you will see what I mean. They had a connection with the audience--something the Power Rangers don't have. Frankly, I feel sad for my son's generation, because there is nothing so real on television for him to stimulate his curiosity and imagination today. Instead of finding role models like Buffalo Bob on TV, all he has are impersonal and violent cartoons.

I fondly remember the antics of Clarabell the Clown (played initially by Bob Keeshan, who later became Captain Kangaroo), Buffalo Bob, Chief Thunderthud, Princess Summerfall Winterspring, and other of the ensemble characters. I can't believe how the plugs they did for their sponsors, like Halo Shampoo or Three Muskateeres candy bar, were worked into an audience-participation thing. It's so different from what we've known the last 60 years. Instead of cutting away to a commercial, they plugged the products as part of the show. Speaking of participation, I had also forgotten exactly how young the audience - the famous "Peanut Gallery" - was, the kids all looking about five years old. This was definitely a show for very young kids.

YouTube offers many if not all episodes and I have embedded a couple of the early ones below, followed by the last full episode of 1960, wherein we see Clarabell speaking - finally - and crying as he says goodbye to the kids. This was traumatic stuff for a child to see 59 years ago.

Parents - these videos are all SAFE for young children to watch unattended.

The Salt Cathedral of Colombia is one amazing spectacle. It is located about 600 feet underground in what was once a salt mine in Zipaquirá, just outside Bogotá, the capital of Colombia.

At the bottom, the temple opens up to reveal three naves representing the birth, life and death of Christ. There is a basilica dome, chandeliers and an enormous, floor-to-ceiling cross illuminated with purple lights. The pews are jammed with the faithful and when a choir breaks into song ahead of Mass, the sound envelops the chamber.

Despite not being part of the 7 Wonders of the World, the people of Colombia still love their own masterpiece, with the Congress calling the Salt Cathedral “The First Wonder of Colombia.”

Learn more about the structure’s history on NPR.

(Image Credit: Remi Jouan/ Wikimedia Commons)

The northern lights or aurora borealis is a spectacular display of colored lights shimmering across the night sky. What causes them? (As a matter of interest the southern lights is called the aurora australis).

Via Amaze | Image credit: United States Air Force photo by Senior Airman Joshua Strang/Wikimedia

Single-cell organisms grow, engulf other cells, split, decline, and die. So do empires. Pedro M. Cruz and Penousal Machado created a visualization that illustrates the historical timeline of the British, French, Spanish, and Portuguese empires as cells undergoing mitosis. You can see how this idea of independent countries really caught on over time. -via Everlasting Blort

Photographer David Ngo snapped this funny and punny cosplayer at DragonCon last year. Now Wonder Woman gains her powers not from Queen Hippolyta's magic but eating as much Wonder Bread as she can.

Nichelle Nichols portrayed communications officer Nyota Uhura in the original Star Trek TV series (and six later films). Her role as a professional black woman in a science fiction story was a breakthrough in 1966, and it took Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to convince Nichols of the importance of her influence. After the series was cancelled, she volunteered to recruit women and minority astronauts for NASA. This film from 1977 is one of the recruitment pitches she made, introducing the space shuttle program to potential new astronauts.   

The program was a success. Among those recruited were Dr. Sally Ride, the first American female astronaut, and United States Air Force Colonel Guion Bluford, the first African-American astronaut, as well as Dr. Judith Resnik and Dr. Ronald McNair, who both flew successful missions during the Space Shuttle program before their deaths in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster on January 28, 1986. Recruits also included Charles Bolden, the former NASA administrator and veteran of four shuttle missions, Frederick D. Gregory, former deputy administrator and a veteran of three shuttle missions and Lori Garver, former deputy administrator.

-via Boing Boing

007: From Russia with Whale (2019) https://t.co/D4EEyaOxHm

— Tony Romm (@TonyRomm) April 29, 2019

Norwegian fishermen were surprised when a beluga whale approached their boat with its mouth open, as if it were asking for food. As the tame whale hung around the boat for several days, the fishermen noticed it had a harness. They managed to remove the harness, which had a GoPro camera attached and was labeled "Equipment St. Petersburg." Scientists say that it doesn't seem to be a science experiment, but could belong to the Russian Navy, which bases its fleet in Murmansk, 415km (258 miles) away from where the whale found the fishing boat. Could this whale be a trained spy? Not likely, but it is a mystery.

Interviewed by Russian broadcaster Govorit Moskva, Col Viktor Baranets said "if we were using this animal for spying do you really think we'd attach a mobile phone number with the message 'please call this number'?"

"We have military dolphins for combat roles, we don't cover that up," he said.

"In Sevastopol (in Crimea) we have a centre for military dolphins, trained to solve various tasks, from analysing the seabed to protecting a stretch of water, killing foreign divers, attaching mines to the hulls of foreign ships."

-via The Daily Dot

Over half of the respondents from the U.S — approximately 55% — have reported feelings of high stress the day before the Gallup’s annual survey was conducted. According to Gallup’s press release, 45 percent of the respondents worry much of the day, while 22 percent get angry multiple times a day.

Americans’ stress levels were significantly higher than the global average of 35 percent, leaving the U.S. tied for fourth (alongside Albania, Iran and Sri Lanka) in Gallup’s ranking of the world’s most stressed populations. Greece topped the list at 59 percent, while the Philippines and Tanzania finished in second and third with 58 and 57 percent, respectively.

In terms of worry, the U.S.’ 45 percent was ahead of the global average of 39 percent. Comparatively, 63 percent of the world’s most worried population, Mozambique, reported strong feelings of worry the day prior.

Despite these reports of high levels of negative emotion, Americans stated as well that they experience positive experiences more than the global average.

(Image Credit: Ben White/ Unsplash)

Did you know that every state in the USA has its own slogan?

Of course you did. 

What you probably didn't know is that some of these slogans are quite cinematographic. 

That gave us an idea. 

What if someone were to write a movie titled "Life Elevated" (Utah's slogan) What would be the genre of the movie? What would the poster look like? 

Maybe something like this.

See this poster (and 5 other fictional movie posters) here: https://www.netcredit.com/blog/if-6-us-states-were-films/

Source: https://www.netcredit.com/blog/if-6-us-states-were-films/

Fictional Movie Poster for Texas' slogan

Fictional Movie Poster for South Carolina's slogan

Fictional Movie Poster for Maryland's slogan

Fictional Movie Poster for New Hampshire's slogan

Fictional Movie Poster for Montana's slogan

Envisioning an ideal utopia of not just a flourishing Earth and its people, but also a prosperous “God-free Great Beyond”, the artists of the Soviet Union in the 50s and 60s drew these inspiring posters.

Why don’t you check them out?

(Image Credit: Flashbak)

"Let's conquer Space!"

"In the name of peace."

For a long time now, plans have been in the pipeline for a high-speed railway system in the United States which would speed up logistics and hopefully, integrate lines to connect different states to make transportation and travel easier and faster.

However, high speed rail has faced staunch opposition from the legal to the political, and now to issues on semantics.

Despite having everything laid out for the Texas High Speed Rail to come into fruition and begin its construction, Texas Central Railway is facing an existential question posed by the opposition: whether it's a railroad at all.

“Simply self-declaring that you are a railroad does not make it so,” Kyle Workman, the president of the opposition group Texans Against High-Speed Rail, told the Houston Chronicle in February.

The terminology is important for reasons beyond its own sake. Being a railroad or not determines whether Texas Central is entitled to use eminent domain as it surveys and acquires property. State law allows railroads and certain other private companies to use eminent domain to seize land for projects in the public interest.

Unfortunately, a judge ruled that Texas Central did not have the right of eminent domain because they do not operate a rail system yet. But that's not all. There are other legal hurdles dealing with property rights and right-of-way that Texas Central has to overcome.

Hopefully, if these would be cleared, the plans would be underway by late 2019.

(Image credit: Sui-setz/Wikimedia Commons)

Takumi, a Japanese illustrator who previously created the Ghibli Theme Park conceptual art, now gives us some stunning artworks — the Avengers characters rendered in Ukiyo-e, a genre of Japanese art which became popular from the 17th century to the 19th century.

Featured in his artwork are Captain Marvel, Captain America, Thanos, Thor, Ant-Man, and many more.

Check them out on Spoon & Tamago.

(Image Credit: Takumi™ / Twitter)