Yes, it’s explorable. In a stunning display of talent and artistry, Ernesto Neto has created a new fiber-based installation. Housed at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the artwork, called “SunForceOceanLife,” is a hand-crocheted, walkable maze that stretches 79 feet across the gallery and spirals 12 feet in the air:

Plastic balls also fill the pathway and shift underfoot, which forces those passing through the suspended structure to intentionally maintain their balance. Neto explains:

It directly engages the body as does a joyful dance or meditation, inviting us to relax, breathe, and uncouple our body from our conscious mind. The sensation of floating, the body cradled by the crocheted fruits of our labor, brings to mind a hammock: the quintessential indigenous invention that uplifts us and connects us to the wisdom and traditions of our ancestors.

“SunForceOceanLife” is on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston through September 26, 2021. You can see more of Neto’s interactive, site-specific projects at Galerie Max Hetzler.

Image credit: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston via Colossal 

Researchers have successfully created a self-healing concrete that can repair its own cracks! The concept behind the self-healing concrete is that an intervention needs to be staged before water gets in tiny cracks and causes the rupture to spread. The special concrete makes use of an enzyme found in human blood, as New Atlas details: 

The team put the CA enzyme to use by adding it to concrete powder before the material is mixed and poured. When a small crack forms in the concrete, the enzyme interacts with CO2 in the air to produce calcium carbonate crystals, which mimic the characteristics of concrete and promptly fill in the crack.

Through their testing, the scientists demonstrated their doped concrete can repair its own millimeter-scale cracks within 24 hours. The team says this is a marked improvement on some previous technologies that have used bacteria to self-heal, which are more expensive and can take up to a month to heal even far smaller cracks.

While the amount of CO2 the concrete gobbles up is likely to be negligible in the grand scheme of things, the real environmental potential of the material lies in its potential longevity. Rahbar predicts that this type of self-healing technology could extend the life of a structure from 20 years to 80 years, which reduces the need to produce replacement concrete in what is a notoriously carbon-intensive process.

“Healing traditional concrete that’s already in use is critically beneficial, too, and will help reduce the need to produce and ship additional concrete, which has a huge environmental impact,” says Rahbar.

Image credit: Worcester Polytechnic Institute

We know that an asteroid hit the earth about 66 million years ago and caused the dinosaurs to die out. But what was it like in the moment? What were the immediate effects? And how did an impact in one place cause death and destruction globally? Kurzgesagt tells us all about it as if it were a dramatic campfire story.

Don't be daunted by the video length- the actual story is less than ten minutes.

I AM PISSING MYSELF OVER THIS VIDEO HELP SHSJSBSJSBA pic.twitter.com/bIrutKEPlD

— 💘Cherri🌷 (@cherriimiu) June 9, 2021

This video of unknown origin (most likely hidden to protect the horses from public shaming) shows two horses, Domino and Pie, on their way to dinner. Their path is blocked by a ferocious rabbit. The horses, prudently heeding the warning of Tim the Enchanter, are keeping their distance.

-via Super Punch

Before he became Leondegrance in Excalibur, Gurney Halleck in Dune, and Captain Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Patrick Stewart was already an acclaimed Shakespearean actor. In 1996, he slipped on his tights again and played the titular role in Hamlet for Sesame Street. Shakespeare's script was changed a bit.

-via Kottke

Here’s something to brighten up your day! The video of a small group of dolphins playing with a dog went viral on the Internet. The clip, filmed by Anastasia Vinnikova on a beach near Opuk Cape in Crimea, featured her two-year-old dog excitedly interacting with the group of dolphins. The dog, named Patrick, was happily playing a game of chase up and down the beach with the other animals. It’s a wonder how these two different kinds of animals are joyfully playing with each other: 

"When they come across something novel, they want to check it out," Professor Lars Bejder from the Murdoch University Cetacean Research Unit told 9NEWS when asked about a similar interaction back in 2017.

Dolphins and dogs are both intelligent, curious animals. So when they're confronted with something they might never have seen before, that curiosity takes over. And when the New Thing You're Looking At turns out to be a Fun Thing Looking At You, Too, a little playtime might just be in order.

Add it all together, and this video ticks all the right boxes. Incredible sea creature? Check. Fun-loving pupper? Check! It's a fascinating look into the animal world and an adorable inter-species play date. What more could you need?

Since the death of beloved Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek, the show has been hosted by a round robin of celebrities and fans. This is in part fun for those who had appearing on the game show on their bucket list, and also part audition for a new host. Nine different people have put in their two weeks (or a month, in the case of Ken Jennings, who stepped in immediately when the show returned). There are seven more people already scheduled to host the show this summer, and there may be more in the wings. So who's done a good job so far? Den of Geek breaks down the performances of the nine who have hosted so far, some of whom would not take the job permanently and others who would jump at the chance. I've only caught a couple of episodes of each, so I don't know how well this ranking will hold up against your opinions, but I completely agree with number one. Still, there's plenty of summer -and plenty of guest hosts- to come.  -via Digg

Over the weekend, an airliner had to turn back to the gate and the crew summoned authorities because two passengers were fighting over an armrest. Yes, it seems ridiculous to get into it over something so trivial, but these kinds of situations are exactly what etiquette was developed for- so that everyone knows what is expected. Use of the limited armrests in an airplane should be common knowledge, but apparently some people need to be taught. Jason Torchinsky explains how airline armrests should be allocated, and the reasoning behind the unwritten rules at Jalopnik.

(Image credit: Jason Torchinsky)

The question is: could it be the next planetary home for humanity? Experts don’t have the answer to that yet. However, they have pointed out some interesting similarities between the newly-discovered exoplanet and our planet. The celestial body, named TOI-1231b, is located 90 light years from Earth, and its atmosphere suggests that it may bear some resemblance to our own: 

Most notably, TOI-1231b has a similar temperature to Earth, at around 57 degrees Celsius, making it one of the coolest small exoplanets discovered by NASA so far. CNN reports that scientists think studying the planet could help them understand how common it is for Earth-like atmospheres to form, and could also reveal clues as to the likelihood of similar planets capable of creating water clouds being able to host life.

Diana Dragomir, an assistant professor in the University of New Mexico’s department of physics and astronomy and co-author of a new study into the planet, said:

Even though TOI 1231 b is eight times closer to its star than the Earth is to the Sun, its temperature is similar to that of Earth, thanks to its cooler and less bright host star.

However, the planet itself is actually larger than earth and a little bit smaller than Neptune – we could call it a sub-Neptune.

Scientists are especially excited by the possibility of being able to analyse TOI-1231b’s atmosphere, as the majority of similar planets are inaccessible and clouded by interstellar gas. However, scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory believe they may be able to find evidence of hydrogen and helium atoms escaping this newly-discovered planet, which they say are typically ‘almost impossible to detect’.



Image credit: NASA JPL

This slime mold can solve puzzles, and make decisions even if it doesn’t have a brain. How the hell? The Physarum polycephalum has scientists befuddled. This little organism does not have a brain or a nervous system, and yet it is able to thrive undisturbed in the environment for years. In addition, it’s able to do things that requires thinking, even with the lack of the organs needed for the action: 

"I think it's the same kind of revolution that occurred when people realized that plants could communicate with each other," says biologist Audrey Dussutour of the French National Center for Scientific Research.

"Even these tiny little microbes can learn. It gives you a bit of humility."

P. polycephalum – adorably nicknamed "The Blob" by Dussutour – isn't exactly rare. It can be found in dark, humid, cool environments like the leaf litter on a forest floor. It's also really peculiar; although we call it a 'mold', it is not actually fungus. Nor is it animal or plant, but a member of the protist kingdom – a sort of catch-all group for anything that can't be neatly categorized in the other three kingdoms.

It starts its life as many individual cells, each with a single nucleus. Then, they merge to form the plasmodium, the vegetative life stage in which the organism feeds and grows.

In this form, fanning out in veins to search for food and explore its environment, it's still a single cell, but containing millions or even billions of nuclei swimming in the cytoplasmic fluid confined within the bright-yellow membrane.

To learn more about this unique and intriguing little fella, check out ScienceAlert’s full piece here! 

Image credit: (Audrey Dussutour/CNRS)

The cost to fully realize the idea is just way too big for me to process right now. Business Insider discusses the solution NASA scientists came up with to prevent the eruption of Yellowstone’s supervolcano. While experts believe that there won’t be any catastrophic supervolcano eruptions this century, there is no harm in thinking ahead right? To learn more about this billion-dollar idea, check the full video here!  

(via Flipboard) 

Image credit: Aaron Thomas

If it was just a random reference, for example, a name mentioned on a math problem, it’s probably not that surprising. Teachers often put cultural references in their questions by using names of celebrities or fictional characters in their problems. However, when Hatsune Miku, the popular digitally-created musician, appeared in Ireland’s exam for students graduating from high school, it was less of a casual reference and more of a full-on exam question about the vocaloid herself: 

As first pointed out by a thread on ResetEra, the English section of Ireland’s 2021 Leaving Certificate Examination includes two sections on Hatsune Miku. The first tests participants’ comprehension by having them read a short essay on the blue-haired vocaloid’s fame and then answer questions about the text, including, “Would you prefer to attend a concert that featured a real-life performer, like Lady Gaga, or a virtual performer, like Hatsune Miku?”

The exam later tasks students with writing a composition based on a variety of topics, each of which call back to previous parts of the test. The prompt referring to Hatsune Miku basically amounts to fanfiction, asking participants to compose a story about the artificial singer breaking free from her digital confines and escaping into the real world. After seeing how some folks react to Hatsune Miku online, I probably would have included some restrictions on explicit content here if I were the one putting these tests together for the Irish government, but alas. 

Image courtesy of Crypton Future Media, Inc. via Miku Expo  

Imagine the hours the artist spent in carving or cutting out the small details for this intricately-detailed octopus paper art! Japanese artist Masayo Fukuda has been practicing the traditional art of paper cutting, also known as Kirie for 25 years. The art form involves cutting detailed pieces from a single sheet of white paper and contrasting it against a black background: 

At first glance, the beautiful artwork looks as though it was rendered using fine-tipped pens, but Fukuda carefully cut every detail from one sheet of paper. The elaborate depiction details the majestic sea animal’s rounded body, bulging eyes, and 8 long arms. Various textured sections look like pieces of delicate patterned lace, such arm suckers that resemble ornamental doilies and decorative swirling patterns on the head. The mesmerizing artwork celebrates the beauty of the fascinating species, who are known to change their skin color and texture within seconds to match their surroundings.

You can see Fukuda’s stunning Kirie designs up-close at Miraie Gallery in Osaka from April 24 through April 30, 2019. If you can’t make it to Japan, you can check out more of the artist’s impressive creations on Instagram.

Image credit: Masayo Fukuda  

The China National Space Administration successfully landed a rover on Mars on May 14. Now we have a selfie that shows just how cute the Zhurong Mars rover is! The rover's landing platform is seen to the right.  

The rover took this selfie by dropping a camera attached to its belly about 10 meters (32 feet) away from the landing platform, then positioning itself next to the landing platform, Chinese space officials said. The camera wirelessly transmitted the picture to the rover, which then sent it to Earth via the Tianwen-1 orbiter.

The rover is expected to monitor Mars weather, analyze surface material, and look for evidence of water over the next 90 days. The Tianwen-1 orbiter is designed to orbit above for a couple of years. Read more about the Chinese rover at LiveScience.  -via Metafilter

(Image credit: CNSA/Zhurong Mars rover)

As much as I would like to say that this is kinda sus, it’s a legit transaction on eBay. What’s special about this nugget is that not only is it from the newly-released McDonald’s collaboration, the BTS Meal, it’s also shaped like the avatars in Among Us. Esquire states that people are selling their Among Us nuggets from $9,000 to $30,000: 

Of course, the only listings reaching tens and thousands of dollars are Chicken McNuggets. Not just any old piece of nuggets... Among Us-shaped ones from the BTS Meal. There are currently three BTS Meal Chicken McNuggets up on eBay selling for $9,000, $20,000, and $30,000. But, the bids are climbing fast.

Not to worry, though. If you have a spare couple of millions lying around, you can bid until Friday for the most expensive one of the bunch which, in our opinion, looks best like an Among Us character.

The highest eBay posting reads: "Authentic Among us shaped Chicken McNugget that originated from a BTS Combo meal. McDonald’s Among us shaped chicken nugget. Condition is "Used". Shipped with USPS First Class."

According to the listing, the item will also be frozen and air sealed in order to ensure freshness. Sounds like the seller knows a thing or two about selling rare and potentially collectible food items. A very serious question: Does it come with the Ikea baggie?

image credit: eBay