If you would ask me what my best game of the year so far is, I’d have to hand it to an old game. Supergiant Games’ Hades has been filling out the hours of my Nintendo Switch playtime, and I have absolutely no regrets. There are, of course, new releases that took the Internet, gamers, and critics by storm. From Resident Evil Village’s gothic castles, a scary zombie baby miniboss, to the Returnal's outer space survival gameplay, 2021 has its fair share of new games that deserves to be talked about. The Guardian’s Keza MacDonald andKeith Stuart list their top 2021 releases so far. Check the full piece here.
Thanks to volunteers who rated paintings in different genres, a computer program was trained to predict the volunteers’ art preferences. The program was featured in a new study, published in Nature Human Behaviour, which revealed that computers, with the right amount of data and programming, could predict people’s taste in art. In addition, the study showed a new understanding on how people judge art:
“The main point is that we are gaining an insight into the mechanism that people use to make aesthetic judgments,” says John O’Doherty. “That is, that people appear to use elementary image features and combine over them. That’s a first step to understanding how the process works.”
In the study, the team programmed the computer to break a painting’s visual attributes down into what they called low-level features–traits like contrast, saturation, and hue–as well as high-level features, which require human judgment and include traits such as whether the painting is dynamic or still.
“The computer program then estimates how much a specific feature is taken into account when making a decision about how much to like a particular piece of art,” explains Iigaya. “Both the low- and high-level features are combined together when making these decisions. Once the computer has estimated that, then it can successfully predict a person’s liking for another previously unseen piece of art.”
By 1900, when Franz and Konrad Hieke of Philadelphia received their patent, horse-mounted cavalry was fading away as a useful battlefield tool. Horses were far too vulnerable to the volume and accuracy of bullets that modern guns could deliver.
Nonetheless, the Hieke brothers, who were from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, devised a means to extend the life of cavalry horses and their riders. This frame provides a forward-facing shield to deflect bullets, a window to see through, and a sharp spike to encourage enemies to flee.
The Hieke brothers stressed that their invention would be easy to attach to a horse, maintain in the field, and would not be so heavy as to throw the horse off balance:
A further object of the invention is to provide a device of this character whichl can be securely attached to the animal wit-hout inconvenience to the rider, and, furthermore, to make the same to possess comparatively little weight, that it will not interfere with rapid movement.
Furthermore, the object of the invention is' to produce a device of the character noted which shall possess advantages in points of simplicity, efficiency, and durability, proving at the same time inexpensive.
August 4, 1972. The naval mines that the United States had planted in the sea off the port of Haiphong, Vietnam, remained undisturbed. The mines were designed to be sensitive to changes in the magnetic field brought by the presence of large iron objects, like the hull of a ship. On this day, the sea was clear, but something unexpected happened; the sea mines went off simultaneously. What could have triggered the explosions? This phenomenon remained a mystery for the public, as this case was classified by the US Navy. Now, the case is declassified, and a group of civilian researchers have finally solved it. The cause was apparently a very powerful solar storm.
Solar storms caused by coronal mass ejections are known to interfere with electrical and electronic devices here on earth. Solar storms have fried satellites, blacked-out electrical grids, and disrupted navigation and communications systems. The solar storm of August 1972 was a Carrington-class storm, meaning it may have been similar to the strongest storm on record, the Carrington Event of 1859.
“This is a Carrington-class storm that has gone under the radar,” said Delores Knipp, one of the research professor at the University of Colorado Boulder who led the study. “What I am asking scientists to do is go back and reinvestigate with new eyes.”
The huge cloud of charged particles ejected by the sun reached earth after only 14.6 hours, the fastest a solar storm have ever travelled. Such an event usually takes two to three days to reach earth. Once it slammed into the atmosphere, it caused blackouts on radio frequency bands, and produced significant electrical grid disturbances throughout Canada and across much of eastern and central United States. In the South China Sea, off the east coast of North Vietnam, it triggered some 20 to 30 naval mines within a period of just 30 seconds. Another 25 to 30 patches of muddy water were also observed, indicative of further explosions.
Since the 16th century, scientists have already been studying the thale cress. Today, centuries later, the thale cress still manages to surprise these men and women of science. Scientists have discovered a new plant organ thanks to this humble weed that molecular biologist Tim Gookin describes as “the fruit fly of the plant world.”
This wonky-looking plant part is similar to the cantilever beams that buttress the underside of bridges, and is called the “cantil.” The newly discovered part juts out from the stem and connects to the flower-bearing arm of the plant, which is known as the pedicel. Thale cress cantils give the plant the appearance of bent elbows; cantil-less plants seem to have only straight arms. Cantils are neither part of the stem nor the pedicel. They’re an entirely new organ, says Gookin.
How did scientists miss an entire plant body part all this while?
One reason, Gookin concluded, is that cantils only form when the thale cress delays its flowering, usually during spring when daylight is limited. In this season, the thale cress transitions more slowly from the leaf-production phase to the reproductive flowering stage, compared to during the sunshine-filled summer. At this decelerated pace, the cantil slowly manifests at the cusp of flowering, right after the flower-tipped pedicel makes its debut. If the plant only experiences seasons with long hours of sunshine, the cantil will never make an appearance. Researchers often grow the thale cress under long-daylight conditions so as to accelerate to the seed-production stage, not giving time for the cantil to develop.
It’s not only your fitness that you should be worried about this summer season. Your cat probably gained weight, too, in the past months, so you should worry about it as well. The question is, how do you make your chonky cat fit again? Meowingtons gives us some tips and tricks. Here is one of them:
Get Walkin'!
This suggestion will take some work, but it’s worth it. A safe walk outside with you by your cat's side can open up new worlds for your cat without all of the dangers the outside can provide. First, find a harness that fits properly (one that your cat can't easily wriggle out of). There should be at least one fingerwidth of room between the harness and the cat.
Oh-oh! Remember Darwin’s secondary theory for unexplained traits of some animals? No, that’s okay I didn’t remember either. For some unusual traits, like the fancy tails of male peacocks, this particular theory states that sexual selection of traits increases an animal's chance of securing a mate and reproducing. Basically, these fancy traits are used to compete with rivals and are used to attract a potential mate. In a new study however, Tamas Szekely and their colleagues contradict Darwin’s own findings:
In anew study, my colleagues and I have confirmed a link between sexual selection and sex ratios, as Darwin suspected. But surprisingly, our findings suggest Darwin got things the wrong way round. We found that sexual selection is most pronounced not when potential mates are scarce, but when they're abundant – and this means looking again at the selection pressures at play in animal populations that feature uneven sex ratios.
Since Darwin's time, we've learned a lot about uneven sex ratios, which are common in wild animal populations. For instance, in manybutterflies andmammals, including humans, the number of adult females exceeds the number of adult males.
This skew is most extremeamong marsupials. In Australian antechinus, for instance, all malesabruptly die after the mating season, so there are times when no adult males are alive and the entire adult population is made up of pregnant females.
In contrast, many birds parade more males than females in their populations. In some plovers, for example, the malesoutnumber females by six to one.
It’s very endearing. Meet Kotaro and Hana, two very curious otters who reacted to their human’s automatic popcorn maker. Just like every curious animal, the two were initially engaged with the device. What’s funny is how they reacted when the kernels started popping! Check the full video here to watch their reactions!
Los Angeles native Rob DePiazza decided to build a new house after Hurricane Irma destroyed his home. The former art gallery owner and visual artist decided to build a new house out of shipping containers. The result of his three-year journey is stunning. DePiazza collaborated with architect Stephen Bender and built the house from nine containers:
As a former gallerist and art collector, DePiazza contracted Cane, a Barcelona-based artist and friend to paint a massive mural depicting that fateful day when Hurricane Irma destroyed his home. The hurricane appears as a blindfolded, pink-haired figure making the sign language symbol for “I Love You.”
Flying bananas, a candle-wielding alligator, and the snake from the garden of Eden all make an appearance in the mural. As compelling as the exterior is, the interior is even more interesting with art-covered walls, mid-century furniture, a working 1950s era jukebox and television, along with a collection of kooky lamps and ephemera. If you catch the long-haired owner outside he may offer an impromptu tour of the house.
Even at their small size, they can still pack a punch (or a bite, in this case)! Cookie-cutter sharks are almost the size of your pet cat. Don’t underestimate them though, because they can (and will) attack predators bigger than they are, and even soft parts of nuclear submarines. Oddity Central has more details:
Before Everett Jones’ breakthrough, people believed that the gruesome conical wounds often found on all sorts of marine life were caused by parasitic lice, lampreys, bacterial infections or some othermysterious creatures. It wasn’t until they started studying the mouth and saw-like teeth that they understood how dangerous a cookie-cutter shark’s bite could be.
Apparently, the sharks’ mobile tongues and large lips allow them to latch on to their prey by forming a vacuum on a smooth surface. They then sink their sharp teeth in and, using twisting motions, scoop out chunks of flesh, leaving behind bloody craters. These are no minor wounds either, as the most severe wounds ever documented were 5 centimeters wide and 7 centimeters deep.
The new movie F9 is in theaters now. It's a simple name for the ninth film in a series centered around a set of characters driving cars very fast. That's nine movies, and a few spinoffs. These characters -and their plots- have come a long way from that first film in 2001, The Fast and the Furious, which Screen Junkies is just now getting around to making an Honest Trailer for.
We mistakenly sent out an empty test email to a portion of our HBO Max mailing list this evening. We apologize for the inconvenience, and as the jokes pile in, yes, it was the intern. No, really. And we’re helping them through it. ❤️
Last week, thousands of HBO Max subscribers received a mysterious email from the company. The subject was Integration Test Email #1, which implied there would be more, but there was no information that made any sense, and no action requested. HBO Max posted an explanation on Twitter, which blamed an intern, but also appeared to be supportive. You can just imagine how embarrassed and frankly terrified an intern could be over such a public screwup. Twitter users were also supportive, and shared the huge mistakes they made when they were interns, just starting out in their careers.
Dear Intern, I was using my desktop calendar to make a monthly note of when I started my menstrual period, but after several months I realized I was making that note on a calendar I shared with all of my colleagues company wide. I was 37 years old.
Dear Intern, when I was 25 I made a PDF assigning each employee to the Muppet they reminded me of the most. I meant to send it to my work friend, but I accidentally sent it to the entire company. My supervisor (Beaker) wanted to fire me, but the owners (Bert & Ernie) intervened. https://t.co/zMKvQ6nxjj
Some were very public, while others were only terrifying until someone else fixed it. The upshot was that you haven't really arrived in a job until you've messed up big time.
HBO Intern, you are breathtaking! I mean it! Congrats on making your first big mistake. It's like a right of initiation for us developers HT to @_workchroniclespic.twitter.com/8SsQNiXBBr
— Charles C. Pustejovsky III 👍 (@CCPustejovsky) June 18, 2021
A “Potemkin village” is a neighborhood or town purposely made into an illusion, with a shiny facade that hides a not-so-shiny truth. Named after Russian military leader Gregory Potemkin, these villages look prosperous and inviting on the outside, while inside they may be empty, or poverty-stricken, or even full of nefarious activities.
The sole purpose of a Potemkin village is to make outsiders think that a situation is better than it really is, and perhaps no other country is better versed in this practice today than North Korea. Situated in the Demilitarized Zone is a village called Kijong-Dong, built in the 1950s in an attempt to encourage defection from people in South Korea.
From afar, the small town which directly faces its enemy, also known as the “Peace Village”, looks relatively normal. It has clean well-kept streets, a number of brightly-painted multi-storey buildings and identical low-rise apartments which all appear to have working electricity which would demonstrate North Korea’s prosperity and economic success following the split. The government claims that the village is home to some 200 residents, a farm, a hospital, and a school. Despite appearances however, the more likely reality is, KijongDong has no permanent residents.
Telescopic lenses have revealed that the village’s buildings are nothing more than empty concrete shells, lacking glass windows, interior rooms and even flooring. According to South Korea, caretakers flip light switches and sweep empty pavements, all to preserve a grand illusion. Photographs from inside the village, are non-existent and Western media know it better as ‘Propaganda Village’.
Brendan Leonard has a smartphone that converts usual measurement units into measurement units that are used in other situations. Who in the world would think about how many metric teaspoons it would take before a water bottle is full? Certainly not me. But what was Leonard’s purpose in doing such a thing? He writes this on his article over at Outside Online:
This app got me thinking about how contrived all of our units of measurement are, but how they seem to make sense when we apply them to the correct things. Like I always think of backpacks in terms of how many liters they can hold, because I can easily visualize what a Nalgene water bottle looks like, and I can visualize 40 or 60 water bottles fitting in a backpack.
It is only logical to expect that the gas giants in our Solar System would be in an icy state. After all, they are really far from the Sun, with Jupiter being over 754 million kilometers away from the Sun, about five times the distance of the Earth from the said ball of hot gas. And so it was to the surprise of many when NASA’s Voyager spacecraft sailed past these planets and found out that these 4 planets were scorching hot. It was…
a revelation as jarring as finding a bonfire inside your freezer.
Follow-up observations by ground-based telescopes and the Galileo and Cassini spacecraft demonstrated that their planet-wide fevers have persisted through time. Their planetary pyrexias are acute: Jupiter’s lower latitudes, for example, should be a frigid −110 degrees Celsius. Instead, the atmosphere there cooks at 325 degrees. What incognito incinerator is behind this? And how is this unknown heat source warming not just a single spot on the planet, but the entire upper atmosphere?
Finally, after 50 years of looking for answers, scientists have finally found the cause of this puzzling phenomenon: the respective auroras of the planets.
