Wombats are Australian marsupials, which you know come in all sorts of strange shapes and lifestyles. You might be surprised at how large a wombat can be, or how fast they run. Wombat poop is oddly cube-shaped, and research has figured out how that happens. Matthew Inman at The Oatmeal explains a lot of weird things about wombats in a rather comprehensive comic, with facts that get weirder and weirder as it goes along. The real focus is on the wombat butt, which is quite unique in the animal kingdom. If you don't already know about wombat butts and how they are used, you should go and read the while thing. Or even if you already know, go see it because it's entertaining. -via Metafilter

At My Modern Met, Madeline Muzdakis describes clocks, with and without alarms, from millennia ago. A common one, first described in China in about 520 AD, uses candles that burn evenly. By marking the drop in the wick, users could note the passage of time.

To make this candle clock into an alarm clock, place nails into the candle. When the wax around a nail melts, the nail falls into a metal tray, clattering noisily, and hopefully getting the attention of the user.

Read about other ingenious early clocks, most notably those that could keep track of time on seagoing vessels, at My Modern Met.

Photo: Benutzer:Flyout

The Soviet Union launched the first leg of the space race in October of 1957, when the satellite Sputnik 1 became the first manmade object to orbit the earth. It was soon followed by Sputnik 2. The United States made a big deal about its first satellite launch, which was on December 6, 1957. The rocket that was to deploy the satellite Vanguard 1 rose four feet and then fell back and exploded, which you can see here. In February of 1958, the US launched Explorer 1, its first successful satellite in orbit. But Vanguard got a second chance, and went into space a month later.  

Although tiny, compared to its predecessors, Vanguard 1 had quite a few mission objectives. It carried on board instruments that could measure the densities of the upper atmosphere and the electron content of the ionosphere, which was then used to determine the effect of the space environment on a satellite. It also obtained geodetic measurements through orbit analysis, and these proved that the Earth was indeed pear-shaped with the stem at the North Pole. The launch itself was a test to determine the launch capabilities of a three-stage launch vehicle as a part of Project Vanguard.

The Sputnik satellites lasted a few months each, and Explorer 1 remained in orbit for 12 years. But the Vanguard 1 satellite is still orbiting the earth 63 years later! Read the story of Vanguard, the little satellite that could, at Amusing Planet.

(Image credit: Flickr user Bruce Irving)

You already know the answer to this question: 1. It's dangerous, and 2. it doesn't work. But you want to see someone demonstrate it, right? And who better than Lauri Vuohensilta (previously), the Finnish madman who will try anything?

"...and definitely don't do this. You are going to see soon why."

Oh yeah, we need another quote here.

"Mushroom cloud is always good thing to have on nice summer day."

They end the video by burning their sauna, as one does. -via Digg

One of the biggest and most challenging restoration projects of the Tate Modern was fixing a damaged painting. Russian artist Vladimir Umanets vandalized a corner of Mark Rothko’s 1958 work titled Black on Maroon in 2012. Restoring the painting to its original state took almost 18 months, and the museum labels the project as one of its most successful attempts at restoration: 

Due to Rothko’s layered technique, the painting’s “surface is really delicate and it turned out that most of the solvent systems that could dissolve and remove the ink could potentially damage the painting as well.” Patricia Smithen, the Tate’s head of conservation, told The Guardian. The video above from the museum shows the art and science that went into restoring the famous work, an eighteen-month-long process that involved some reverse engineering from a canvas donated by the Rothko family.

Black on Maroon seemed like an odd choice for a protest, as a blogger at Art History Abroad wrote the following day: “‘Why Rothko?’. His paintings [are] often criticised by those who don’t favour their abstraction, but rarely deemed politically or socially motivated to a point that they might provoke vandalism.” The presence of Black on Maroon and other Seagram Murals at the Tate, in fact, mark an act of protest by Rothko himself (who committed suicide the day the paintings arrived at the London museum).

Meet Lightograph, photographer Jeremy Cowart’s patent-pending creation. Cowart believes that his creation is the next level of photography. While images captured under the Lightograph concept seem to be moving at first glance, Cowart points out that they are not motion pictures, as the subjects involved are not moving. The only aspect of these images that are moving are the lights in the photos: 

To Cowart's knowledge, his process is unique and has never been done before, at least not with portrait photography. There's no use of CGI or 3D graphics in the process. 'This is truly a new method of art-making and analog photography,' Cowart says, 'Light can now tell multiple stories in a single image. It can show the hero and villain side of a person in the same portrait with a simple shift of light. Humans are multi-faceted. We're constantly changing and evolving.'

There's an inherent dynamism to a Lightograph. In a single Lightograph, the entire mood and emotion in a scene can dramatically shift with changing light. Light changes temperature, direction, and much more. Cowart also says that the process can be used for more than portraiture, with possible applications in commercial, lifestyle, fine art, fashion, beauty, editorial, travel, headshots, automotive, stock, architecture and more.

While the Lightographs are fascinating to look at with portraiture, the process could also have implications for advertising and marketing. Cowart says 'I see it as the future of digital media. So, magazine covers for example. Future issues of any magazine could have Lightographs as their covers […] Imagine driving past a digital billboard and the light changes completely in those three seconds that you drive past it […] Netflix movie posters could be Lightographs that evolve as you sit on your couch and scroll through movie titles.'

Image credit: Jeremy Cowart 

Would you purchase a sculpted block of goat cheese? I would! Daniel Elkayam teamed up with a shepherd and cheesemaker in Jerusalem to create a special collection of goat cheese. The collaboration, called Tatriz El-Habib, was created as part of the matchmaker project, where designers are paired with craftspeople. Designboom has more details: 

The focus of this year’s matchmaker project is food, and the brief for the designers was to tell the story of food makers through design. after being matched with shepherd and cheesemaker efrat giat, elkayam spent time in the yemenite valley in ein karem, where the giat family’s goat farm is located. during this time, they took the goats out to pasture, milked them, made cheese, and, most importantly, absorbed the shared experience.

From this shared experience, the designer learned about the giat family, whose origins are in yemen. there, the family business was based on small handmade factory for jewish traditional embroidery. after immigrating to israel, they settled in ein karem and raised goats for a living. today, efrat raises a herd of 11 goats, produces cheese, and makes jam from the surrounding mountain fruits. in addition, she conducts workshops revealing her unique way of life.

image by Oded Antman

I can’t understand the Internet sometimes. Thanks to big online stars, canned fish is now up in the ranks of being the summer snack of 2021. Once seen as a mediocre pizza topping, canned fish is now hyped online. Nylon’s Sophia June raises a point regarding the food’s rise in popularity. According to June, the popularity of tinned fish is fueled by the demand for shelf-stable foods during the pandemic: 

Caroline Goldfarb and Becca Millstein started Fishwife, a tinned fish company that sells high-quality, sustainably-sourced seafood in shamrock, bubblegum, and cerulean tins with loopy cursive, in what is an aesthetic that falls somewhere between a Glossier store and a Starbucks cup, last year. Goldfarb and Millstein quarantined together and found themselves eating tons of tinned fish during that time: throwing it in salads for protein, eating it straight out of the can, or putting it out for happy hour with natural wine. They got the idea to start the company when they couldn’t find tinned fish at the grocery store that was based in the United States and that marketed itself as being sustainably sourced — something that was important to Goldfarb and Millstein. Other newer tinned fish brands like Scout, Vital Choice, and even Patagonia are also marketed as sustainable. Now, Fishwife sells smoked rainbow trout and wild-caught smoked albacore tuna, with more types of fish planned.

“Tinned fish is the ultimate hot girl food,” says Goldfarb. “There is no food that will make you hotter than tinned fish. Straight up. Do you know a hot girl who doesn’t exist on protein? I don’t.” She adds that in addition to protein, tinned fish also has omega-3s, vitamin B, and calcium, of which a tin of sardines contains more than a glass of milk.

Image credit: Anna Auza

For your viewing pleasure. Modder Scottina123, who was known for creating a mod that removed all butt shots of Miranda from the Mass Effect series, created a new mod that technically reverses the work of their previously-released mod. Since BioWare acknowledged their questionable camera choices in the original games and decided to change the scenes for the remastered release,  Mass Effect Legendary Edition, the butt shots were already removed in the official remaster. Here’s where the new mod comes in, as Polygon details: 

Not everyone liked the exaggerated fan service. So, in 2018, Scottina123 released a mod called “No More Butt Shots” that removed the gratuitous butt shots from that conversation. On the mod’s original page, Scottina123 said that the camera positioning annoyed them, and that “it was extremly disrepectful [sic] to Miranda’s character.”

Well and good. And this year, BioWare’s people said Mass Effect Legendary Edition would have remastered, reframed sequences that significantly dialed down the amount of booty. (You can watch a comparison video here). So Scottina123, in what can only be described as a cheeky move, has created a mod that adds the sequences back into Mass Effect 2 and 3. Now people can play the remastered version with the original camera angles.

Image: BioWare/Electronic Arts

Tini Wini cookies are snacks made by Monde two decades ago. With the product no longer available in the market, any leftover evidence of its existence is considered as a rare item by collectors. John Albert Cortes was walking home when he found a metallic blue wrapper of Tini Wini cookies. Cortes took it home, cleaned it, and placed it in a plastic protector: 

Despite Tini Wini being discontinued around 20 years ago, it still remains to be a memorable snack for kids who grew up in the '90s. 

Now, a quick search on Google about Tini Wini will produce very few results. Cortes's photos are the most recent and clear images of the wrapper. 

Cortes collects items from the 1990s, but this is the first time he has picked up a wrapper. "I usually collect toys from my childhood," says Cortes. "This is the first time I decided to keep a wrapper." 

Asked about how much he thinks is the price for such a rare item, Cortes admits he has yet to learn about it. "I don't know how much it sells for, to be honest," says Cortes, who says what's more important is the item's historic and sentimental value to a lot of people.

Image credit: John Albert Cortes 

This looks fun! Japanese artist Tanaka Tatsuya’s Miniature Calendar series features playful scaled-down scenes using tiny figurines and everyday objects. In celebration of Star Wars Day (that’s May 4th, by the way), Tanaka created a series of miniature scenes featuring different tiny figurines based on the series: 

Tanaka has been crafting miniature scenes every single day for almost a decade, but he never seems to run out of ideas. His Star Wars-themed images are particularly imaginative; he incorporates otherwise mundane items into the scene and transforms them to look as though they’re part of the sci-fi world. In one image, an eggshell becomes Luke Skywalker’s igloo-shaped home on the planet Tatooine. In another, the Rebel Alliance battles against the Galactic Empire on a camera case that looks like a spacecraft.

When he’s not creating tiny Star Wars scenes, Tatsuya crafts miniature worlds inspired by everyday life. From a cheese grater-turned rock climbing wall to a cup of green tea that looks like a tiny lake, the talented artist can really turn any object into a whimsical narrative.

Image credit: Tatsuya Tanaka 

Here’s another dose of cuteness, because why not? Nigerian Dwarf goat Hector didn’t hesitate in befriending a bunch of ginger kitties that kind of look like him-- and the resulting footage from their interaction is adorable! Hector proves that friendships can be made between animals of different species, alright. Daily Paws has more details: 

The kitties are all, "You do you, Kid." They're not prohibiting the diminutive goat from climbing up to where they're resting all nice and cozy. But they're also not helping him either 'cause, you know, cats. Whereas most dogs would offer a muzzle lift of the little goat's behind, the kittens rarely even move—only acknowledging Hector's jumping efforts with languid, slow blinks. 

However, as the video below shows, he remains undeterred! Once he finally achieves his goal, barn kitties are all, "Oh, yea, hai goat" before scampering away because he's invaded their space. His charm and persistence obviously wins one of them over, though. But later, when a curious pussycat finally reaches out to Hector for a bit of playtime, mama goat Amelia Earhart has something to say about it!

Do you throw your food away when it gets past its labeled ‘expiration date’? Frankly, while this action is understandable, as eating ‘expired’ food may squick you out, on some level, throwing away food is wasteful. Vox’s Alicia Wilkinson reports that throwing out uneaten food is bad for the environment. Landfills in the US are piled with wasted food, with most of which was still perfectly fine to eat. So how do we stop ourselves from wasting food? We need to look past the ‘expiration dates,’ Wilkinson believes: 

Apparently, very wrong. Researchers have found that “expiration” dates — which rarely correspond to food actually expiring or spoiling — are mostly well-intentioned, but haphazard and confusing. Put another way, they’re not expiration dates at all. And the broader public’s misunderstanding about them is a major contributor in every single one of the factors I named above: wasted food, wasted revenue, wasted household income, and food insecurity.

If you’ve been throwing out food based on the freshness label, though, you’re not alone. It’s a widespread practice. Chef, journalist, and cookbook writer Tamar Adler, author of An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace, explains: “In the absence of culinary information, people assume that any information they’ve been given must be the most important information.” A big part of the problem is that most of us don’t really believe we’re capable of determining if a food is good for us.

“It’s really hard to imagine you’re supposed to trust your own nose and mouth,” Adler said. “Add that to convenience culture and rapacious late-stage capitalism and, well, we’re fucked.”

Image credit: Jimmy Dean

You've seen videos of cats vocalizing while they eat. This one, however, has a definite melody in his voice. South African musician The Kiffness noticed it, and turned it into a song.



A simple duet between a man and a cat. As you see, he couldn't help but incorporate Ievan Polkka into the mix. The "Balkan remix" went viral, and before you know it, musicians from all over the world were joining in. Continue reading to see what they did with it.

Consumerism is what drives the economy in a capitalist society, so buying more stuff is a good thing, right? Not always. Buying more stuff than we can afford can ruin one's personal finances. Many of us end up with way more stuff than we need. All that unnecessary stuff takes a lot of energy and resources to produce, and getting rid of it overflows our landfills. So why do we buy so much stuff?     

An easy story to tell is that marketers and advertisers have perfected tactics to convince us to purchase things, some we need, some we don’t. And it’s an important part of the country’s capitalistic, growth-centered economy: The more people spend, the logic goes, the better it is for everybody. (Never mind that they’re sometimes spending money they don’t have, or the implications of all this production and trash for the planet.) People, naturally, want things.

But American consumerism is also built on societal factors that are often overlooked. We have a social impetus to “keep up with the Joneses,” whoever our own version of the Joneses is. And in an increasingly unequal society, the Joneses at the very top are doing a lot of the consuming, while the people at the bottom struggle to keep up or, ultimately, are left fighting for scraps.

That drive to keep up with the Joneses and display our status with consumer goods hasn't followed an even trajectory, as our references (meaning the people we want to keep up with) have gone through changes. Sociologist Juliet Schor explains how our buying habits have changed with the times and why at Vox. -via Digg