Botanist and geneticist Nikolai Vavilov had a lifelong mission to prevent starvation by improving food production. His native Russia suffered numerous famines under both the tsar and the Soviets. The scientist would walk hundreds of miles in remote locations all over the world to collect seeds that might be bred to grow grain in the cold Russian climate. He initiated experimental growing programs that harnessed Mendel's gene theory for crop improvements.      

At the end of 1920, Vavilov was promoted to director of the Institute of Applied Botany in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg). The previous director, the plant biologist Robert Regel, had died of typhus the previous year. Shortly before his death, he had written to the Commissariat of Agriculture, recommending Vavilov as his successor. Vavilov was not only ‘the future pride of Russian science’ but an especially agreeable person, belonging ‘to a category of people of whom you won’t hear a bad word from anybody at all’. The Institute, under its new leadership, was envisaged as a scientific centre for testing and improving crop varieties to prevent future famines. It was also to be the home of Vavilov’s grand new project: A vast seed collection, acting as a genetic library, a repository of useful genes which he could use to breed new, superior plants. Arriving at the Institute, Vavilov quickly realised that he was at the helm of an institution devastated by poverty. The rooms were in a state of complete disrepair, a chaotic mess of dust and broken furniture. The pipes had burst, and the existing stock of seeds devoured by the starving masses.

The Institute was not alone in its state of neglect; the whole city was in ruins. Hospitals had been abandoned, public transport was at a standstill, and there was an atmosphere of hopelessness among the dwindling population. Leading academics didn’t escape the clutches of poverty and hunger. In Petrograd, seven out of the Academy of Science’s 44 members died of starvation. Even Ivan Pavlov, a national treasure famous for being the country’s only living Nobel laureate, had to scavenge for firewood and food. Laboratory animals disappeared from their cages and appeared on dinner plates. Lab equipment was repurposed to make moonshine in exchange for food on the black market. Hunger wasn’t the only obstacle academics faced. Scientists returning from a conference or a field trip often found their laboratories looted and houses occupied by refugees from the countryside.

Vavilov managed to turn that situation around, collect more seeds from around the world, and continue the Institute's work. Vavilov's adventures in the field continued, and his reputation grew as the USSR went from the era of Lenin to the era of Stalin. But Vavilov then had to deal with Trofim Lysenko, an agronomist with lesser experience and education, but with a philosophy that meshed better with that of Stalin and the Communist ideologists. When it came time to lay blame on someone for the Soviet Union's agricultural failures, Vavilov had a target on his back. Read about the life and legacy of Nikolai Vavilov at Damn Interesting. You can also listen to it in podcast form.  

Thomas Ramsey (left), of Gallman, Mississippi, is a Civil War reenactor. Peep, his pet rooster, accompanies him into the mock battles. It's solid history, Ramsey says, because of the account of a Confederate soldier who kept a pet rooster in this manner until he was finally eaten by Union soldiers (the rooster, not Johnny Reb).

All was merry for Ramsey and Peep until the pair was travelling from a reenactment and stopped at a Cracker Barrel restaurant in Cullman, Alabama. The restaurant did not allow chickens inside, and so Ramsey tied Peep by his leash to his truck while Ramsey and his friends went inside.

When the reenactors returned to their truck, Peep was gone. The Cullman Times quotes Ramsey:

“I went back into the Cracker Barrel and it was very hard for me to say this with a straight face, even though I was panicking: ‘Do you have cameras in the parking lot? I think someone stole my chicken,’” he said. Someone overheard and said they’d seen Peep wandering in the parking lot.

Animal control authorities searched, but were unable to locate Peep. The call went out on Facebook and the people of Cullman sought out Peep. Eventually, a local farmer located the rooser and reunited him with Ramsey:

[...] Ramsey felt like Peep was happy to be back with him. “He stood up and kind of jumped when I got him,” he said.

There’s no doubt about Ramsey’s affection for Cullman. “I was really impressed; I love y’all’s town now,” he said. “I can’t think of many places where there are that many people willing to take the time to help out like that.”

-via Dan Lewis | Photo: Thomas Ramsey

Tom's body suffered a lot of abuse in his long and ill-fated quest to vanquish Jerry the mouse. At one point, he was flattened against a set of stairs. Now you can enjoy that moment forever with this rug by Nellaf, an artist in Florida. He calls it, appropriately, "Flat Tom."

-via Born in Space

Adidas approached Tommy Cash, an Estonian rapper of some prominence, and asked him to collaborate on a shoe design. His response was to insist on creating the longest Adidas original shoe design in the world. Cash comments on the duality expressed in the color choices:

both the ‘angel’ and the ‘devil’ live in me at the same time — two opposites that are constantly fighting with each other. so why hide one side of your personality when they can perfectly coexist with each other. shouldn’t be too good or too bad. balance is needed. as two opposites of yin and yang, forming one whole. yes, these sneakers are different colors. after all, they reflect my mood, which changes every day. and I will proudly wear both versions of the iconic silhouette at the same time

They're available for sale in Russia, so be prepared for a quite a shopping trip if you want to pick up a pair to impress people while clubbing this weekend.

-via Design You Trust

Photos: Tommy Cash (content warning: nudity)

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Highly realistic felting work makes this monstrosity all the more adorably frightening. These are the creations of Sacocho Kisou, an artist and presumably necromancer. His felted cats take on unnatural forms. They're what every home needs!

Dance show enthusiasts in Japan can now watch performances live with the necessary precautions and adjustments made. Japanese dance company Moonlight Mobile Theater was able to come up with a way to bring its live audience back to their shows while maintaining the proper health protocols. The viewers sit in separate cubicles surrounding the stage, where they can watch the dancers perform via the letter-drop slots provided on their seats: 

“We intentionally created small holes and slots resembling mailbox slots,” said Nobuyoshi Asai, the theatre’s artistic director and choreographer, explaining how limiting the scope of viewing allows the audience to become more absorbed in the performance.

The theatre company began this peephole viewing in December after cancelling most of its shows last year because of the pandemic. Since December, all 12 of the peephole performances have sold out.

Though this response has been encouraging, only 30 people are allowed in the audience at each show. This does not cover the cost of the performance, including additional safety measures such as disinfecting the venue. Government subsidies barely help the company make ends meet.

While acknowledging the difficulties, Asai is steadfast in the advantages of this idea.

“If we don’t do it, artists will lose opportunities to dance and act,” he said. “We want to propose this as a model to bring audiences back to theatres.”

Image via Reuters 

Thanks a lot, climate change. The iconic Pacific Coast Highway in California is at risk of collapsing entirely as parts of the road have been falling into the ocean after intense rainstorms. Erosion expert Gary Griggs says that the road’s days are numbered, as another 150-foot piece of the highway broke off, according to the state’s Department of Transportation:

Repairs are scheduled to be complete in early summer. For now, travelers must turn around when they reach the gaping hole – there's no bypass in that remote stretch of road.

As global temperatures warm because of human-caused climate change, Griggs says the conditions that lead to this kind of damage will only increase. 

The PCH's days are numbered, Griggs said. It's "inevitable” one day the fixes and repairs won't be enough or will be too costly to save the highway.

Image via USA Today 

This Australian octopus was caught  trying on a discarded cap on camera by diver Jules Casey. Casey’s footage shows the octopus trying to fit its whole body inside the cap, and then giving up and scuttling away on the seafloor. I suggest watching the entire footage, because it’s both fascinating and adorable. Check the video here. 

Image screenshot via Flipboard 

Hey, animals are smart too! This cuttlefish proves the intelligence of non-human species by passing a new version of a cognitive test. The marshmallow test, a cognitive test designed for children, was adjusted to test a cuttlefish’s intelligence, as ScienceAlert details: 

A child is placed in a room with a marshmallow. They are told if they can manage not to eat the marshmallow for 15 minutes, they'll get a second marshmallow, and be allowed to eat both.

This ability to delay gratification demonstrates cognitive abilities such as future planning, and it was originally conducted to study how human cognition develops; specifically, at what age a human is smart enough to delay gratification if it means a better outcome later.

However, the cuttlefish isn’t the first animal to pass the test of delayed gratification! Other animals have also been trained and were able to pass the test: 

Because it's so simple, it can be adjusted for animals. Obviously you can't tell an animal they'll get a better reward if they wait, but you can train them to understand that better food is coming if they don't eat the food in front of them straight away.

Some primates can delay gratification, along with dogs, albeit inconsistently. Corvids, too, have passed the marshmallow test.

Image via ScienceAlert 

The stories that are handed down from ancient times can seem infinitely weird to us, because we are familiar with the scientific method and modern technology that allows us to explore the nature of things. That doesn't mean there weren't smart people around way back then, but even those who figured there was a logical explanation somewhere had to find a way to explain the world to the uneducated masses. Imagine you were a person of some education and experience in the Dark Ages, and so were considered a medicine man or a wizard. You had to find a way to explain why this place wasn't good for castle construction to an illiterate king, so fire-breathing dragons it was.

Well, it's hypothesized that, back in the Iron Age, people would seal up treasure in the tombs of kings and rich people. The thing is, they would seal these tombs with a ton of things that decomposed: people, animals, vegetables, etc. The buried flesh would emit gasses as they decomposed, and with nowhere to go, they would create pressurized gas pockets. Try to open the tombs with a torch so you could see, or cause a spark with an iron spade, and BOOM!: big, firey oblivion in a world where Michael Bay wouldn't be around for thousands of years.

In Wales, there was a king who was trying to make his walls impenetrable. The only thing is, the walls kept falling down. A young real-life Merlin told the king that it was dragons fighting underground, possibly because he believed it, possibly because when a king asks you a question, you give him an answer even if it's nonsense. Instead of underground lizards, it was more likely gas pockets buried in the vast Welsh coal deposits underground.  

Read more about fire-breathing dragons, plus the likely real-life explanations for witches, vampires, and more at Cracked.

The "Best in Show" award in the Ocean Art 2020 Underwater Photo Competition has been announced. Photographer Gaetano Dario Gargiulo won a trip to the Solomon Islands for the above image of an octopus in a tide pool. According to the story of the shot, the octopus itself snapped the photo!

On the day of the photo, I remained in the tide pool as the tide was too low to venture outside of its boundaries. In one of the shallowest parts of the pool I noticed an octopus. I placed my camera near its den and the octopus started interacting with it. It came completely out of the den and to our amazement it started shooting pictures! My son (3 y.o. in the background) was very curious about the octopus.

The image, titled "Day of the Tentacle," also won in the wide angle category. You can see all the winners in this gallery. -via Boing Boing

Taking a tip from the gritters of Scotland, the Minnesota Department of Transportation ran an online poll to name eight of their snowplows. The winning names are shown above, and all the names in the running can be seen at the competition site. There were more than 122,000 votes cast, and many of those who voted will now have some intangible connection with their local snowplow. I'm just surprised that Tator Tot Hotdish didn't rank among the winners. -via Laughing Squid

Don't you just love it when you watch a video for the comedy you expect, and end up learning something neat? Ze Frank is happy to introduce us to some weird creatures of the rainforest and the things they do to survive. He covers techniques like camouflage, toxicity, and mimicry that rainforest creatures use to avoid predators, which are all forms of deception. Plants do some of these things, too. You can't trust what you see in the rainforest, but you will enjoy the fabulous photography of bizarre animals by David Weiller and Thomas Marent in this video.

A Connecticut man’s yard sale purchase turned out to be a grand bargain of a lifetime. The unnamed man bought a small blue and white porcelain bowl with floral motifs for just $35. Thinking that it could be an antique piece, he had the bowl examined, and it turns out the bowl was a Ming dynasty porcelain bowl from the early 15th-century Yongle period. The bowl is estimated to be worth around $300,000 to $500,000!

To an untrained eye, the porcelain bowl may appear like a relatively modern product. However, by examining the quality of the porcelain, glaze, and floral motifs, experts were able to pinpoint its creation to the rule of the Yongle Emperor. This period from 1403 to 1424 is considered one of the finest periods of Chinese Imperial porcelain production. This small bowl (about six inches in diameter) was likely made for use in the courts of this Ming dynasty ruler. The brilliant blue designs were created during a period of experimentation in cobalt techniques with rigid quality control. Hence, the small “lotus bowl” (named for its shape) is an almost-unparalleled example of craftsmanship.

The floral designs on the bowl bear resemblance to motifs depicted in the Islamic Middle East. In cobalt, lotus, peony, chrysanthemum, and pomegranate blossoms surround the vessel. The porcelain of the Yongle period was traded throughout the world, reaching lands in the Middle East and East Africa. However, according to experts at Sotheby's, it would have been rare to find such a small piece outside of China, as mostly larger pieces were sent abroad. Despite the broad reach of trade routes, Chinese porcelain was a rare luxury in Europe. The first piece is though to have arrived in the 14th century. It would not be until the 18th century that European manufacturers managed to create their own porcelain vessels.

Image via My Modern Met 

Anyone ever heard of "upcycling"? It's repurposing things that would otherwise be thrown into the trash and transforming them into a higher-value product. This man from Thailand really did it well by transforming Coke tin cans into handbags!

This made me think -- what are your "repurposing" project hacks?

Image Credits: Tharinee Kedsopa