Geography can confound the life of a sea turtle. Turtles will migrate any place where the water is warm, and many end up in New England during the warm summers. When the waters off Cape Cod Bay quickly turn cold in the fall, they find returning to the sea difficult. Stunned by the cold, they become disoriented and end up stranded in the cape, often injured by waves bashing them against the land. These sea turtles include Kemp's ridley sea turtle, the most endangered sea turtle species. The stranding is natural and has happened for thousands of years, but climate change has worsened the problem, and when a species is critically endangered, every turtle counts.
To help these turtles make it back to their semitropical nesting grounds, turtles airlifts were organized, involving conservationists, volunteers, turtle rehab facilities, several organizations, and a group of pilots who run the organization Turtles Fly Too. The effort involves the public finding distressed turtles, rehab centers keeping them alive, flights to the Gulf of Mexico, more wildlife rehab for the turtles, and finally, freedom in the warmer waters near the turtles' nesting areas. Read how all that comes together to save Kemp's ridley and other sea turtles at Atlas Obscura.
All you need to do is ask. Hotels have different items for their customer to freely take during their stay, from the typical hygiene kit (eg. toothbrush, toothpaste, lotions). But some hotels offer other free items that their customers might need. From laundry bags to body pillows to an actual DJ turntable, the Travel lists the 28 items people can ask for during their next hotel adventure. Check the full list here!
Image credit: Marten Bjork
It’s all about the potential. After the news of Apple getting patents for a foldable iPhone, tech enthusiasts have been cooking up their theories and expectations for the future phone. AppleInsider shared 3D renders of what they think the much-rumored smartphone would look like. Check more of the renders below!
Image credit: AppleInsider via CreativeBloq
Have you ever wondered how the world’s most well-known statues would fare in a height ranking list? Well, Amir Kedir has you covered! The architect/ YouTuber created a 3D animation video that compares the relative sizes of famous statues from all over the globe.
The video ranked the artworks from smallest to the largest, with Michaelangelo’s Statue of David ranking the lowest, and India’s Statue of Unity is the tallest.
Check the video below!
Image screenshot via The Laughing Squid
Maybe this can help you gain the upper hand during arguments. Inc’s Bill Murphy Jr. shared a strategy to be more persuasive. His strategy relies on doing two things: (a) to avoid distracting, emotional mini-controversies, and (b) to offer easy ways for people to overcome emotional objections, and more easily follow the path you want them to take. Murphy Jr. calls these tips the ‘emergency exit rule.’
According to him, the rule is all about planting the seeds that allow people to maintain their pride and reputation even if they agree with you. Check out his full piece on the rule, filled with examples, here!
Image credit: Andrew Teoh
An odd-looking cube was spotted on the surface of the moon by Yutu-2, which gathered a massive public interest over its mysterious origins. The Chinese rover went straight for the structure after its two-week sleep for experts to discern and examine the cube as much as possible. It turns out that the cube is merely a small chunk of rock near an impact crater. According to experts, the ‘cube’ could be a piece of debris from an object such as a comet or asteroid that hit the lunar surface.
Image credit: NASA
🦕 Todd Perkins of Washougal, Washington, spared no expense to create this Jurassic Park-themed vacation rental house, which comes complete with five animatronic dinosaurs. Welcome to Jurassic Retreat!
🩺 Can you figure out why a woman patient is more likely to die if her surgeon is a man?
🐿️ Bet you didn't know that beavers actually help prevent wildfires and droughts.
🍩 In this gloriously wrong game show answer, the contestant was thinking of the wrong Homer.
🚀 This Trekker converts a teardrop camping trailer to look like a Star Trek shuttlecraft.
More neat posts: Homes & Hues, Pictojam, Pop Culturista, Laughosaurus and Supa Fluffy.
🤖 Featured fan art: Omni Smart Home Security by indie artist jorgetiradoart.
More from the NeatoShop: Movies T-Shirts and TV Shows T-Shirts
Famous author Ernest Hemingway had a brother who was 16 years younger. Leicester Hemingway was a writer who always lived in his older brother's shadow, but he had some small share of the Hemingway brashness and creativity. Leicester once founded his own micronation called the Republic of New Atlantis. He was the president, and the "land" consisted of a bamboo raft anchored off the coast of Jamaica. New Atlantis had a flag (shown above), a constitution, and its own currency called the Scruple.
The definition of scruple is to hesitate on a moral basis, which was intended as a joke that those with too many Scruples should question their ethics. Additionally, the Scruples used in New Atlantis would not be printed paper bills. Instead, Scruples were shark teeth and other specially-marked nautical items.
New Atlantis has a purpose, which was marine research, and a money-making scheme in postage stamps. But it still didn't last long. Read the story of Leicester Hemingway's New Atlantis at Cracked.
(Image credit: Hyméros)
Vatican City consists of only 109 acres, but it boasts the arms of its famous Swiss Guard. Perhaps their uniforms and polearms look out of date, but they are modern, professionally trained soldiers--proper heirs to the Papal troops who fought with bloody savagery during the 1527 Sack of Rome.
The Swiss Guard is one of the long-established but tiny armed forces fielded by the microstates of Europe: Vatican City, San Marino, Monaco, Liechtenstein, and Andorra. In this video, historian Mark Felton describes them.
I find microstates fascinating and have read much about them, but still learned something that I didn't know: Andorra maintains a 12-man army equipped with weapons passed down as heirlooms within families. Gun ownership is common, so the Andorran government is prepared to call upon the entire adult male population, if necessary, to protect the nation.
For years, David Bird was a designer for LEGO. After going freelance, he still designs characters, but these are his own. Bird makes small woodland creatures he calls "becorns," made from acorns, pine cones, sticks, and other natural materials. He sets the becorns outside and waits for real woodland creatures to approach, and then photographs the encounters. Bird says this technique requires lots of patience and birdseed. You can see some of the process in a promotional video.
For this one, the frog was already there, and stayed still while Bird placed the becorns around him. Continue reading to see more of Bird's delightful becorns and their new friends.
Three years ago, Morgan Cooper made a short film reimagining The Fresh Prince of Bel Air as a drama that delved into the social issues that caused Will to relocate from Philadelphia to southern California. It was so good that it caught the eye of Will Smith, the original Fresh Prince, who pushed to make the concept into a real movie or possibly a TV series. That series is now a reality. Bel-Air will premiere in February on NBC's Peacock streaming service. Cooper is the co-producer, co-writer, and director of the series, along with T.J. Brady and Rasheed Newson. Will Smith is the executive producer. The first three episodes will drop on February 13.
This is a message to all those who make internet fan films- keep on working at it; lightning may strike for you one day. Or else you'll get better with experience and might get noticed. -via Boing Boing
Foothill Division Officers displayed heroism and quick action by saving the life of a pilot who made an emergency landing on the railroad tracks at San Fernando Rd. and Osborne St., just before an oncoming train collided with the aircraft. pic.twitter.com/DDxtGGIIMo
— LAPD HQ (@LAPDHQ) January 10, 2022
In an action scene worthy of a Michael Bay movie, Los Angeles Police Department officers rescued an injured pilot from his crashed plane just a few seconds before a train hit the plane at high speed, destroying it completely.
The pilot had the bad luck of completing the crash landing of his Cessna on train tracks. This was in the Pacoima neighborhood near Whiteman Airport, a general aviation facility, at 2:10 on Sunday afternoon. Those tracks served Metrolink, a commuter rail service in southern California. Although responding police asked Metrolink to stop trains on that stretch, they were unable to communicate the need quickly enough. It was necessarily to pull the pilot out as quickly as possible.
Frightening cell phone video of first responders pulling a pilot to safety seconds before a train slams into the plane that crashed onto the tracks near Whiteman Airport in Pacoima. @CBSLA #BreakingNow #news #crash #kcal 📸 Luis Jimenez https://t.co/NWGu2HhBUM @composerluis pic.twitter.com/D4VhNPGYID
— JASMINE VIEL (@jasmineviel) January 10, 2022
Here's a video showing the train impact from a different angle.
-via Super Punch
Peat bogs are wetlands with soft ground composed of living and decaying moss. This kind of landmass is one of the greatest stores of carbon. Flanders Moss bog, which can be found in Scotland, is an 860-hectare (2,125-acre) site that has been hacked away and drained to make space for farmland.
Researchers in Scotland are now tracking these bogs using the latest satellite technology, which provides information on how healthy they are and how much carbon they hold. This monitoring helps restoration efforts to lock carbon in the country. Check out The Guardian’s full piece on Scotland’s peat bogs here!
Image via The Guardian
Apollo, stop randomly giving the gift of prophecy to random people!
It could just be a coincidence, but The Sovereign Individual, by James Dale Davidson and Lord William Rees-Moog, actually predicted the rise of our present financial technology and techniques. From the metaverse to digital currency to e-commerce and more, this 1997 book was oddly spot on in describing these concepts. It is unknown if the industry actually based its techniques on this book. Learn more about this book and its predictions here!
Image credit: rupixen.com
These keycaps look amazing! Keycap maker Hirosart created these amazing keycaps that contain dioramas of Pokemon in their natural habitats. From fiery, volcanic settings for fire-type pokemon to different waterscapes for water-type pokemon, the artist’s talent and skill can be seen in these small landscapes that fit in a single key. The amount of detail in each of the keys explains its price, sold at $50 per key and $175 for a spacebar.
Photo: Hirosart
