Now, this is just so cool. I wonder how long she worked on this one! 

Canadian-based artist Shanell Papp took the art of crochet to another level by creating a life-sized skeleton. The artwork includes both the skeletal framework and the organs inside the human body. Papp referred to a human skeleton she borrowed from a university and some anatomical textbooks to fully render the details in this piece. “I was curious about the human body and I wanted to make a human body. I was interested in medical history and how we attempt to solve everything, but we are fragile. I was interested in medicine and applied to become an x-ray technician, but never attended. I stayed in art school, I wanted to continue learning new skills with my hands and I loved talking about art. Otherwise, I still read many books on medical history, death, and crime. I am interested in knowing about all the things that scare me,” she said in an interview. 

Image credit: Shanell Papp

This series of phones from Samsung has a hidden menu that users can access– all they need is to dial a set of numbers and symbols. The menu is usually for people running diagnostics on a Galaxy phone. It contains tools for determining whether a component in your phone is experiencing problems, including the display, S-Pen, speaker, camera, vibration motor, and more. If you’d like to see if your Samsung phone has one, it’s important to note that the menu is available on devices that have the One UI. It may also appear on older Galaxy phones running TouchWiz. Learn the steps in unlocking the menu here! 

Image credit: Christian Wiediger

Peruvian historian Donato Amado Gonzalez and American archaeologist Brian Bauer concluded in their study that the popular archeological site in Peru has been called the wrong name for a very long time. The Incans who built the city called it Huayna Picchu or simply just Picchu. The paper, published in Ñawpa Pacha: Journal of the Institute of Andean Studies, cited multiple historical sources that refer to Machu Picchu as Huayna Picchu. The name “Machu Picchu” stuck after  American explorer Hiyam Bingham heard from a different guide that the site was called Machu Picchu. "It's true that at the time it was not so well known to people, but there is a lot of concrete evidence suggesting that those who did know it did not call it Machu Picchu," Amado Gonzalez told NPR. 

Image credit: Agnieszka Mordaunt

A Texas teen received his brand new truck after he survived a powerful tornado in his Silverado. The shocking video of the red truck being flipped over by the tornado went viral on March 21. (Credit: Bruce Lowrie Chevrolet)https://t.co/Q7MUeEbD6P pic.twitter.com/uhvwQbdiPO

— WPDE ABC15 (@wpdeabc15) March 27, 2022

You saw the dramatic video last week of a red pickup truck that was thrown about by a tornado in Texas, and drove away from it. Now we know who the driver is, and how he's doing. Sixteen-year-old Riley Leon was going home from a job interview at Whataburger when he encountered the twister. While he was able to drive away, he was not unharmed. Leon's truck was totaled, and he suffered a fracture in his back which may require reconstructive surgery. His family does not have health insurance.

However, others have stepped in to help him out. Chevrolet worked through Bruce Lowrie Chevrolet in Fort Worth to give Leon a 2022 Silverado LT All Star Edition to replace his truck, plus $15,000 to help with expenses. A GoFundMe account raised $42,000 to cover Leon's medical expenses. And to top it all off, Whataburger offered him the job! Read Leon's story at Texas Monthly.

Many places around the world use defunct salt mines for storage. We posted about one in Kansas some years ago. In the UK, there's a salt mine storage facility that's being filled up as the mine continues! See, this mine is so big that underground chambers are emptied and used to store not only historical records, but actual historical items that may one day be displayed in a museum, while mining is still going on somewhat down the line, so to speak. The salt itself makes up the walls of the facility, and also causes it to have much lower humidity than above-ground storage or other kinds of underground holes, which is crucial for preserving precious materials. Tom Scott, who can talk his way into any place, takes us on a tour of this underground storage facility and finds out what they'll tell us and what they won't about the treasures stored there for posterity.  

A large ship full of passengers sets sail from England to the Unites States in April, but halfway there runs into an iceberg and sinks, causing the death of hundreds of passengers because there weren't enough lifeboats. You might think this is the Titanic in 1912, but it was the Titan, a fictional ship in the 1898 novel called Futility (later republished as Futility: or, the Wreck of the Titan) by Morgan Robertson. The story was about more than just the shipwreck, but when the Titanic sank 14 years later, the novel seemed suddenly like a chilling premonition. The list of eerie similarities goes on and on.

Was Robertson a prophet? No, but he had ten years of experience as a sailor, and kept up with shipping news. As it turns out, he wasn't the only one who wrote about ocean liner disasters of the time, which only makes us wonder why ship designers and those who created maritime procedures couldn't see it coming. Read about Morgan Robertson and how he came up with a fantastic story that came true, at Mental Floss.

This discovery was a great gift for archaeologists! A stone covered with Pictish geometric carvings was discovered in Aberlemno, Scotland. The 5.5-foot-long (1.7 meters) object was estimated to have been designed about 1,500 years ago by the Picts, which were the Indigenous people of the region. The meaning of the symbols remains unclear, but the best guess for now is that they are “a naming system representing Pictish names," according to Gordon Noble, the excavation leader and a professor of archaeology at the University of Aberdeen. 

Image credit: University of Aberdeen

While we all have our subjective opinions on what is the messiest or most disgusting part of an airplane, we can all agree that some trash cans in an aircraft are just gross. Matador Network’s Morgane Croissant  shared her opinion on this topic, stating that she would bet money “that every single person who has ever used an airplane bathroom trash can in the economy [class] has done so with absolute revulsion.”

The bathroom trash cans in this flight class have a manually operated flap, which forces people to actually touch the equipment with their clean hands– who would voluntarily do that, anyway? Imagine the dirt and bacteria there! Croissant further points out that airplane companies can actually fix this issue, by having as few touch surfaces as possible. “Airplane toilet lids should open and close on their own at every use, the toilets should flush automatically, the tap and the soap dispenser should be motion-activated, and airplane bathroom trash cans should not require that passengers put their hands halfway down the hatch,” she wrote. 

Image credit: Alexander Schimmeck

Photographer Alex ten Napel is known for his portraits, especially his focus on avian subjects. His Chickens, Hens, and Roosters series involves showing off the elegance and charisma of these feathered animals. Ten Napel was hit with the inspiration of incorporating animals into his work in 2014 while he was eating breakfast in France. A chicken wandered to him, and that’s when he had an epiphany. “Because we were, in a matter of speaking, on the same level, I saw her in a different perspective and noticed different aspects,” he told My Modern Met. “She was sociable, funny, touching, and curious. She was so human! At the same period, I was looking for a new subject to photograph. I had made many portrait series and had the idea that I had to change course. So why not portray hens and roosters?”

Learn more about his work here!

Image credit:  Alex ten Napel

A Viking settlement was established in Greenland 1,000 years ago. However, this group of people, who thrived for centuries, suddenly vanished in the 15th century. There was no evidence that was obtained from their area that could answer experts as to how and why their society collapsed. However, now, thanks to a team of scientists from Brown University, new evidence has arisen about the possible explanation behind the unsolved mystery. 

Boyang Zhao and his associates aimed to learn about the possible effect of climate change on the Viking settlement.  “From the climate change perspective, there are not actually many reconstructions from this area, so we wanted to revisit this spot in order to provide more detailed and updated records of climate history from this region and see if there's any connection between climate change and the demise of the Vikings,” Zhao explained. Learn more about the study here! 

Image credit: wikimedia commons

Sometimes we tend to be overwhelmed with the tasks we need to finish, to the point that we actually get nothing done. This feeling of having too many things on our mind is called decision fatigue, where we get caught in paralysis-by-analysis due to trying to pick and decide what to do. Inc.com’s Benjamin Harvey explained a simple method for how to reduce this overwhelming feeling and actually be productive. It all boils down to stripping down your list and picking only what’s needed to be done in a significant timeframe. “You've got to strip everything down to the bare essential,” he explained.

Image credit: ian dooley

If you know the names Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall, you should also know Biruté Mary Galdikas. Galdikas was the third member of the "Trimates," women who dedicated their lives to the study of primates, specifically great apes, under the auspices of anthropologist Louis Leakey. They were also sometimes referred to as "Leakey's Angels." Galdikas operated far away from Leakey, Fossey, and Goodall because she went to Borneo to study orangutans. That was in 1971, and she's still there.

Of the three, Galdikas' work may have the most lasting impact. Orangutans are critically endangered due to both habitat destruction and poaching. Galdikas not only gained the orangutans' trust and studied them, but also worked with local people and governments to protect them and their environment. She founded a rescue and rehab center, and has been fighting poachers for decades. This work led to the founding of the Orangutan Foundation International. Read what Galdikas has gone through in her quest to save orangutans at Atlas Obscura.

(Image credit: Simon Fraser University-University Communications)

Twitter user Enfys J. Book (Lucky) accompanied their cousin to the Ax-Man Surplus store in Fridley, Minnesota. They found an odd collection of items, as expected, but what struck them most were the signs labeling the goods, which are well worth sharing.



Staff members have a lovely sense of humor. They see that the goods are odd, and their impressions reflect what customers are thinking anyway. We don't know what these are or what they are for, either, but they are darn cheap!  

See all the pictures and replies in the original Twitter thread, although you can see the images without having to open them at Threadreader. -via Bored Panda

(All images credit: Enfys J. Book (Lucky))

There was a time when all we knew were the nine planets (now eight) that revolve around our sun. Then we developed amazing space telescopes that can capture images outside our solar system. On March 21, NASA confirmed the 5,000th exoplanet. To celebrate this milestone, NASA put together a data visualization, a timeline on a 360° map, showing when each exoplanet was discovered.

As each exoplanet is discovered, a circle appears at its position in the sky. The size of the circle indicates the relative size of the planet's orbit and the color indicates which planet detection method was used to discover it. The music is created by playing a note for each newly discovered world. The pitch of the note indicates the relative orbital period of the planet. Planets that take a longer time to orbit their stars are heard as lower notes, while planets that orbit more quickly are heard as higher notes.

The big blue blob that appears on the left in 2013-14 represents data picked up from the Kepler space telescope. That data confirmed 1,284 exoplanets and hinted at thousands more possible exoplanets. -via Metafilter 

The would-be viral skateboarding star failed on his first attempt at the trick. Although he did flip successfully, he also lost control of his board. It was up to a Mercedes Sprinter work van passing by to rescue the recording. It performed an impromptu trick when the errant skateboard slipped under a back wheel.

Although the driver brought the van to a quick halt, it was a lot of force for a board to hold. Still, it held together remarkably well and the human was able to complete the trick, despite the damage to at least one truck.

-via Born in Space