The Republic of Kiribati (pronounced "Kirr-ih-bass") is, by population, a very small nation with only 117,000 people. It consists of 33 islands, of which a third are inhabited, stretching across 2,400 miles of central Pacific Ocean near the equator and 1,300 miles along the International Date Line.
Kiribati became famous on the internet a few months ago for its unimaginative place naming practices. Yet it has another claim to fame, too. This both large and small nation is spread across four hemispheres: the northern, southern, eastern, and western. The CIA World Factbook identifies it as the only nation so endowed.
Visitors from Europe are always amazed that public restrooms in the US offer so little privacy. The doors on the toilets don't go down to the floor, and usually have notable gaps around the door all the way up. Anyone who is inclined to look can see you doing your business in there. Lucky for us, most people are not inclined to look because that's both rude and creepy. We tell them it's because authorities or business owners want to know if people are in there doing drugs or sleeping or something they shouldn't. But that's not the original reason toilet stalls were designed this way. The first US very public toilet stall design came from architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and his reason for it was a surprise to me.
Yes, we can turn around and ask Brits why their bathroom sinks have separate hot and cold water faucets, which is inconvenient and can be dangerous. We also want to know why public toilets don't have lids, and why the seats have a gap in the front. Read up in the arcane reasons behind these and more burning bathroom questions at Cracked.
Tornados are not just an American phenomenal; they happen all over the world. But there are more of them in the US than any other country, and more in Texas than any other state with an average of 124 a year. There are written accounts of twisters and their damage going back to the 1550s when a tornado sank several ships in Malta. Extrapolating from the reports, modern meteorologists estimate the damage at T7 level, meaning a tornado powerful enough to knock over a locomotive, if there had been such a thing in the 1550s.
The deadliest tornado in US history moved through Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana on March 18, 1925. It was called the Tri-State Tornado, and it left 695 people dead and more than two thousand injured. Its path of destruction went for 220 miles, and left entire towns flattened. But the deadliest tornado anywhere killed 1300 people in Bangladesh in 1989. Tornados tend to kill more people in Bangladesh because of population density and the quality of building construction. Read about all these and more, a total of ten particularly devastating tornados and their aftermaths, in a list at Mental Floss.
The saber-toothed tiger (Smilodon fatalis) was a cat that went extinct about 12,000 years ago. It got its nickname (and probably the species name fatalis) from its fangs that could grow up to seven inches long. But it was still a cat, a mammal, and started out life suckling milk from its mother. Picture that, and also picture that cub growing its saber teeth. It's not easy being a mom.
Like other cats, S. fatalis first grew baby teeth, which were replaced by a set of adult teeth. A fossil discovery from the La Brea Tar Pits shows us that the super-long fangs erupted while the baby teeth were still in use, long before a cub could hunt prey on its own. The image above shows the baby fangs are not pushed out by the adult teeth, but erupted alongside them, meaning that a saber-tooth tiger cub had four saber teeth for some time.
A separate study of S. fatalis fossils found in Ecuador gives us evidence that these cats had an extended period of maternal care compared with modern big cats. Modern lions stay with their mother for about a year, while the saber-toothed cubs ventured out on their own at about two years. This is based on the time that the last molars erupted, which are important in chewing meat. Before those molars come in, cubs get nutrition from their mother's milk. So when the kids drive you crazy, you can be glad you're not a saber-toothed tiger mother. Read more about this research at Smithsonian.
The future is here ...in our dreams. Imagine planning a family vacation trip to the moon! Or, of course it would be more affordable for just two, especially if you really, really wanted to impress someone. This video shows what we might have today if we had unlimited space program budgets and none of the corner cutting that has lead to well-known space disasters. The airline pictured is labeled Pan-Am to make it clear that this is a retro fantasy and not something that NASA has planned or even imagined. YouTuber yukon09 made this animation in the game Kerbel Space Program using imagery inspired by the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Both the aesthetic and the music are retro-futuristic as if this adventure were from the 1970s, showing a future we have not yet achieved all these years later. The song is "4:00 AM" by Taeko Onuki from 1978. -via The Awesomer
We have to guide children and model what it means to pursue a certain interest or passion, or even just to walk with them in their journey toward discovering the thing that best fits them. So, in this regard, I would like to share a bit of my story.
I remember when I was in grade school, I was part of this speech and theatre arts club, not by choice but by compulsion, I would say. For one, I was a very impressionable kid when I was younger, and so whenever teachers tell me to do something, I would just do it. My English teacher volunteered me to be part of that club, and so I just went ahead and joined it.
To be fair, I quite liked some parts of that club although a lot of it was embarrassing. Being a shy kid, that was a nightmare for me. But through that experience, I learned how to suck it up and just do what you're told. It also gave me some confidence and provided space for practicing speaking and acting.
In a way, the experiences that I had in that club helped mold my personality and, props to my teacher for pushing us because it really opened up a whole world of opportunities for me. English isn't my first language, but that teacher drilled English into my tongue, my thoughts, and even my behavior and attitude. It's safe to say that it literally defined who I was going to be throughout high school and parts of my college life.
That wasn't the only extracurricular activity I had done in grade school. I was also part of a literature or creative writing club. Again, that was not by choice, but by compulsion. However, my writing teacher wasn't as forceful as our speech and theatre arts teacher. She was more gentle but very strict when it came to judging our essays and other written output.
These two extracurricular activities formed the foundation of what I was going to do and what paths I was going to take in the future. Of course, they didn't determine everything about my life. But they provided several avenues which I was able to consider, and again numerous opportunities.
I remember being ridiculed by people because I spoke in English without code-switching. It hurt since, from the perspective of a 12-year-old, being laughed at for doing as you're told seemed unreasonable. But anyway, things worked out in the end. And even though I had grievances from my English teacher for forcing us to speak in English and essentially, abandoning our native tongue for a time, in hindsight, I think it was a net positive for me.
If I were to be given a choice of which extracurriculars to participate in back then, I probably would have chosen something like the chess club or a special elective for coding and programming. Only later in life did I realize that I hadn't actually explored my passions a lot when I was a kid, and to be honest, I somewhat regret having wasted some time.
If I had been more adventurous and explored many different fields, endeavors, interests, and hobbies back in my pre-pubescent period, then I might have been able to pour all my energy, attention, and resources toward those things, and I might have been able to have a clearer goal in mind with regard to the direction I want to take my life.
Extracurricular activities may be considered as decorations on a person's résumé, something that they can show others to prove their capabilities or talents. But, it's more than that. It's what we use to help us figure out what it is exactly that we love to do. What ignites a burning passion in us to pursue something. It's what helps us find those things that cause us to get up every morning.
For some people, they may even use extracurricular activities as a means of relieving stress, finding community, discovering and bettering themselves, and learning what is truly important to them. So, although it is good for children to dedicate themselves to their academics, balancing that with some extracurriculars can help them.
It's important to note, again, that we also need to be aware of the limits that children have. Just as much as adults get burned out, children do too. Pushing them or forcing them to do something that they find no passion for will just lead to resentment in the end.
In my case, I found some benefit to what I had been forced to do. But, to be honest, I kind of liked it as well. Or, at least, I learned to like it. And I'm greatly benefitting from it today. However, it's really a different experience when somebody is pursuing something out of their own volition and initiative.
So, we too as parents or guardians, need to find the right balance on how to encourage and motivate our children to pursue what it is that they love, and the thing that they find most fulfillment in doing. That's what extracurricular activites are for.
I am of the opinion that words are neutral. Just like the saying, sticks and stones may break my bones, and you can just fill in the rest. Some words may sound daunting, other words less so. Words can convey positive or negative meanings. But, words per se cannot swing the pendulum either way.
The way that we use words, our intentions, and the meanings that we want to convey with them, are what gives words their weight. How we say certain words despite how neutral they are can evoke certain emotions from people. So even the most benign, innocuous words can be taken as offensive or hurtful depending on how the speaker says them and how the listener receives them.
There are some words that we don't ever want to hear, because we have attached certain meanings to those words that bring out perhaps negative memories, emotions, or past experiences. Different people may consider different words annoying to them. But there are some words which, by consensus, people have found quite annoying.
The Marist Institute for Public Opinion has conducted yearly polls that asked Americans which words they found the most annoying. And for more than ten years, one word has consistently been elected as the most annoying word in the English language.
That word is "whatever". Now, this is what I mean when I say I believe words are neutral. Because the word "whatever" in and of itself, should not elicit such negative responses from people. However, when we look at the usage of the word and in which context it is being used, you can imagine why a lot of people find it loathsome.
According to the poll in 2019, 34% of Americans said they hated the word "whatever" and found it really annoying. We can try to dissect why that is, but I think anyone who has ever heard that word being said in conversation knows why, and you can imagine who it is that's saying it as well.
In my mind, I see a bratty, teenage girl using that word as a snide remark, or as a means of responding to someone with a sarcastic tone or a condescending attitude. Basically, it's used as a disrespectful comment when somebody doesn't agree with what you are telling them. Just imagine the film Mean Girls.
So yes. Depending on the way certain words are used, they can be very annoying. The second most annoying word or phrase voted on by 20% of respondents was the phrase "no offense but," which is odd because usually the statement that comes after that is quite offensive.
The other words or phrases on the list of 2019's most annoying English words or phrases were "dude" garnering 16% of the votes, "literally" getting 14%, and "please wait, I'll be right with you" with 9%. One particular thing to note about the survey was that, despite the age range, it appeared that "whatever" placed at the top for Americans 45 years and older, as well as those under 30.
So, which words in the English language do you find annoying?
The annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest invites aspiring writers to enter the first sentence of the worst novel ever written. Except that novel has not been written; only the first sentence is required. The contest honors the legacy of novelist Sir Edward George Bulwer-Lytton (pictured above) who famously began one of his books with "It was a dark and stormy night..." which continued with a paragraph-long run-on sentence that made little sense. We've been covering this contest for years. The 2024 Grand Prize went to Lawrence Person of Austin, Texas, for this entry.
She had a body that reached out and slapped my face like a five-pound ham-hock tossed from a speeding truck.
That certainly draws a picture for us, although not an alluring one. Person's reaction to winning the award was, "Top of the world, ma. Top of the world…" There are also winners in various categories and plenty of Dishonorable Mentions that you should read at the winner's gallery. -via Metafilter
When I saw the title of this video, I thought, "This has to be about ambergris." Ambergris is a waxy substance produced in the gut of a sperm whale that was once used to make perfumes, preservatives, and medicines, and it was rare and expensive. But this TED-Ed video is not about ambergris at all, just everyday whale poop. You might think that a huge whale dump would be an ocean pollutant, but nature knows better. Whales do the ocean a solid by pooping at the surface, and then leaving the area to eat. That's only natural, but it's also fuels the way the marine ecosystem works. Many species, including whales, have evolved to take advantage of the cycle. If we remove even one part of this system, the delicate balance of nature could falter and maybe even fail. David Biello explains the value of whale excreta, even when it's just poop.
After reading this article by Melissa Dahl on The Cut, I realized that I may have had more friendship breakups than I thought. The concept of a "friendship breakup" never really occurred to me, and I've only encountered it now. But it's a deeply thought-provoking subject to explore.
I know about the act of "cutting ties" with people and this term "FO", short for "friendship over", which some people from my generation use similarly to say that they have cut ties with a friend of theirs. In these contexts, it is usually clearly apparent to both parties that the friendship has ended. So, in my mind, this is what pops up when I read "friendship breakup".
However, as I read further through this article, it became clear to me that there are cases when it's actually ambiguous. Those friendships which just fade away as you gradually drift apart from each other. It's the kind of "breakup" without closure. And perhaps one where you would be hard-pressed to get closure, since it will be awkward to broach the subject with the person in question.
The ambiguity, the feeling of "not knowing" why the friendship just fell apart is probably the main reason why these types of "friendship breakups" hurt more than romantic relationships.
With romantic relationships, it's often understood between both parties why it fell apart because it is made explicitly clear. You talk it out and you tell the other person that it's over. With some friendship breakups, it's not at all clear why you grew apart and just stopped talking to each other.
In my life, I have only considered one person with whom I have completely cut ties. She was my best friend when I studied abroad, and without going into too much detail, things gradually fell apart because it was getting more toxic. We couldn't see eye to eye and the expectations that we had from the friendship were widely disparate. Things accumulated and escalated until such a point when the bubble just burst and there was no other way to repair the friendship. It ended on a bad note.
But as Dahl recounts in her article, there are friendships that end in ambiguity. And that resonated with me because I think it cannot be avoided that certain friendships just naturally drift apart. For one, most of our friendships are formed during high school and college, so once we graduate and go our separate ways, those friendships just fade away until we happen to reconnect or meet in person unexpectedly.
I have made some good friends while in college and high school, and for some of them, although we don't talk as much with each other, whenever we do get to catch up, it feels as though nothing has changed in our friendship, except the physical distance and the frequency at which we see each other.
However, I also have some friends, or at the very least, I still consider them friends. I'm not sure if the feeling is mutual. I feel as though they have become distant, and upon reflection, I think it may be because we just don't share the same interests anymore, or we don't click like we used to.
Another reason why friendship breakups happen, according to the article, is because of conflict. In particular, when conflicts happen, Dr. Beverley Fehr, a social psychology professor at the University of Winnipeg, suggests that the natural response to deal with it, i.e. to talk it out, may not be the best way to resolve the conflict. In some cases, she says that avoiding the conflict may be more appropriate, albeit it's still on a case-by-case basis. But, in general, unlike romantic relationships, the way to address conflicts in friendships is to put some distance in between.
And I can relate with that. I am a very conflict-avoidant person, whether it be in friendships or potential romantic relationships. I don't like conflicts, and there were a couple of big conflicts that I had with friends throughout my life, apart from the friend with whom I cut ties.
When I had a huge fight with my best friend in college, my initial response was actually to try and resolve the matter as quickly as possible. But because we had different approaches to it, we both resorted to avoidance. We stopped talking to each other and we didn't want to be around each other for a whole week.
The only problem with that was, at the time, we were part of a committee working on an event, in which we had to coordinate with each other. So after a week, I decided to try and make amends. Fortunately, we both had the same thing in mind, so we made up and from that point on, we never had any spat that caused us to give each other the cold shoulder.
I don't know how other people deal with friendship breakups. To be honest, I'm not the type to wallow in the pain of losing a friend. From all of the experiences I've had, I have learned to treasure the ones who, despite our differences and past conflicts, still consider me a friend even when they've seen the worst of me.
As painful as it is to lose a friend, I've learned to be gracious to those who may have silently cut ties with me, and to be open to the possibility of reconnecting and rekindling the friendship I've had with some people with whom I've grown apart.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, whenever we had to do mandatory checks to see if we contracted the virus or not, we had to go to the local health center, queue up in a long line, and once it was our turn, a medical professional would stick a swab up our nose to collect some samples, mix it with some solution, and wait for the results to see if we were positive or not. It was so tedious.
A couple years in, they released these self-testing kits which can be done at home. We just needed to buy one at a local pharmacy and conduct the test ourselves at the comforts of our own home, and then, we can simply send the results to whoever required them. I helped a friend conduct that self-test kit, and I was pleasantly surprised at how convenient it was.
Now, imagine having a disposable self-testing kit for something like cardiovascular diseases readily available at home. That would save anyone the time that they would take to get an appointment and travel to the hospital twice a year to get their heart health checked.
Similar to how the COVID self-test kits made it more accessible and convenient for people to check if they are COVID positive or not, this saliva test may actually help save lives and prevent heart failure at the earliest stages.
The most reliable method being used right now to check for signs or symptoms of heart failure is a blood test which measures B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP), which signals heart stress. On the other hand, this new device, called the electrochemical capillary-driven immunoassay (eCaDI), uses a biosensor to detect two biomarkers, Galectin-3 and S100A7, proven to have correlation with heart failure.
The researchers say that each eCaDI device costs about $3 to make, and the team can make about five devices in 20 to 30 minutes, because of how easy it is to assemble. It's basically just five layers, three of which are transparent, flexible plastic, with two layers of double-sided adhesive in between.
Saliva testing may not just be for detecting heart failure. With further improvements, the researchers may be able to develop reliable, non-invasive biosensors for other diseases as well.
Surely, if this new technology is mass-produced, it can help people who have no access to healthcare by giving them an affordable way of detecting any underlying conditions that they may have. Hopefully, this research gets all the funding that it needs and all the support for production and distribution as the benefits that it brings to the general public can be game-changing.
Over the last 30 years, the board game industry has evolved to produce some of the most beloved modern board games all over the world. According to data from Board Game Geek, the top 10 board games based on the number of people who own them place Catan at the top, with some other popular titles such as Pandemic, Carcassonne, Codenames, and Wingspan populating the list.
As much as board game culture has gained more interest and popularity over the years, it did not start out that way in the US. According to this short history on American board and card games, there was a time when playing cards had been banned by law.
In 1656, it became illegal in Plymouth Colony to play cards and dice, even to the point that people could get publicly whipped if they were caught for a second time. However, as time passed, playing board and card games gradually became more acceptable in society.
Although playing board and card games had been allowed, the Stamp Act of 1765 taxed American colonists one shilling for each pack of playing cards and 10 shillings for each pair of dice. Then, at some point, the board game, "The Mansion of Happiness", was published by William and Stephen B. Ives of Massachussetts, which had been considered the very first published board game in America for almost a century, until a game collector discovered a copy of "The Travellers' Tour" in 1991.
"The Travellers' Tour" was published by F. & R. Lockwood in 1822, whose aim was to provide players with a fun way of learning US geography by taking a tour through the then-24 states and the 139 towns and cities within them. It also includes a numbered list with written descriptions for each town.
Apart from teaching players US geography, it also tested them on their knowledge of the different cities and towns. Each player has a traveler placed on a space on the map, and they roll a dice variant called a teetotum to see how many spaces on the map they will go. If the player knows the name of the city, then they move their traveler to that space. The first to get to New Orleans wins.
Despite having no records or sales data on "The Travellers' Tour", the fact that only five copies exist today may suggest that the board game wasn't as popular back then. Still, it's a wonderful piece of board game history in America which shows us that there had been a burgeoning interest in board games which began two centuries ago.
(Image credit: US Library of Congress/Public Domain)
In our modern education system, children are frequently tested, and some are labeled as "gifted," meaning they score high on IQ tests or are performing above their peers in classroom work. Over the last few decades, many schools have implemented special programs for gifted children. But do they really help them? Studies show that gifted children actually have different brains, which may leave them talented in learning, but affect other parts of their personalities. Different studies show that highly intelligent students may actually do better in life if their parents don't realize how gifted they are. The label itself comes with high expectations that few children can live up to. A student who internalizes those expectations may grow averse to trying anything in which they may have a chance of failing. And any failure can be devastating after a childhood full of classroom success. Another problem for students who sail through elementary and high school without having to study is their surprise struggle when they get to college or graduate school without the study skills others have developed. No wonder many children labeled as gifted in elementary school end up feeling like failures as adults. Read about the dangers of being a gifted child at Vox. -via Damn Interesting
A new social media account called LinkedIn Lyrics just began at TikTok a couple of weeks ago and on Instagram three days ago. The premise is that names from LinkedIn accounts can be used for any song lyrics, and they are even better for songs that you cannot really decipher just by hearing, like Pearl Jam's "Yellow Ledbetter," heard above. Check out "Otherside" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
The LinkedIn Lyrics account uses the slogan "We turn resumes into remixes." I'll have to keep my eye out for any songs using my LinkedIn name (Miss Cellania), which really ought to be useful for something like this. Not that I'm looking for a job or anything, but LinkedIn makes it near-impossible to delete an account, or at least that's the way it was the last time I tried. You can hear plenty more of these short music videos at the LinkedIn Lyrics page at Instagram, and even more at TikTok. -via Laughing Squid and Boing Boing
British cuisine was saved by South Asian immigrants who made Indian takeaway the national dish. In the past few years, though, katsu curry has emerged as the kingdom's hottest food craze, to the extent that McDonald's and Burger King have tried incorporating it into their menus, as well as long established restaurants. Katsu curry is a Japanese dish made of breaded and fried meat cutlets served with a curry sauce. The strange part of the story is that katsu curry was introduced to Japan in the late 19th century by the British navy! Really. The dish was promoted by the imperial Japanese government to bring more nutrition to its citizens by encouraging the consumption of red meat. "Curry" is just a name for a sauce that's flavored with Indian spices, and the exact ingredients vary widely. The curry sauce introduced to Japan hid the unfamiliar smell and flavor of beef, pork, or mutton, and became a popular dish in Japan. More than 100 years later, it has returned to Britain.
Still, those who know will tell you that while British katsu curry is pretty good, it is not the same as katsu curry in Japan, nor most curries in India. When foods make their way around the world (and back again, in this case), they are changed and adapted to local tastes. Read the story of katsu curry and how it became a favorite in the UK today. -via Metafiter
