Psychology professor Michelle D. Miller points out a problem in the widely-cited 2014 study on the effectiveness of written note-taking versus using a laptop. According to Miller, when other scholars attempted to repeat the experiment in the study, titled  “The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard: Advantages of Longhand Over Laptop Note Taking,” they weren’t able to get the same results: 

“Some patterns found in the original study replicated, but some—most notably the conceptual recall question advantage—did not,” Miller writes in a forthcoming book, “Remembering and Forgetting in the Age of Technology.” Miller is quick to note that the authors of the original study did nothing wrong, and that it is typical for small studies to have findings that turn out to be “fragile” when submitted to follow-up studies. As she notes: “All this back and forth is good social science, but from a practical standpoint it leads to one fairly glaring conclusion: If the supposed advantage of handwriting is flaky enough, or simply small enough, not to reliably show up across studies, we probably shouldn't be remaking our classroom policies because of it.”

Miller has been looking into what learning science says about all kinds of narratives that float around technology and teaching these days. Do learners remember less when they can fall back on search engines? Do younger generations that grew up with technology—so-called digital natives—really function better with machines than older folks do? And can tech be used to help boost students' memory of what they’re taught?

Image via unsplash 

Meet the aye-aye (Daubentonia madagascariensis), a particularly unique lemur that has its own taxonomic family. Dubbed as the weirdest primate in the world, the aye-aye is also the world’s largest nocturnal primate. The lemur spends the night eating and traveling, and sleeps in elaborate nests made of leaves and branches during the day. In local lore,  aye-ayes bring bad luck and death and must be killed on sight (ouch). Check World Wildlife’s full piece on the creature here. 

A clip of a seagull freeloading on another seagull’s back as they fly through the sky has gone viral! In a video posted by Twitter user buitengebieden_, a seagull can be seen on the back of another, using the other one as a makeshift uber ride. The nine-second video clip has been watched by nearly three million people, and I can assure you, it’s hilarious! Check the video here. 

Image screenshot via Comic Sands 

I don’t think I’ll be able to handle the height if I ever get a chance to swim in this pool. Meet the Sky Pool, a special outdoor pool in London’s Nine Elms business district. The most distinct feature of this outdoor location is that it is suspended 35 meters above the ground between two residential buildings. The transparent pool is made of acrylic and can hold up to 148,000 gallons of water: 

The impressive sky pool is the centerpiece of Embassy Gardens, a new 2,000-home development in the Nine Elms and Battersea Power Station regeneration zone. When it opens, next month, Sky Pool will become the most exclusive place to take a dip in all of Britain.

Sky Pool will nor only be offering swimmers breathtaking views of the House of Parliament, the London Eye and London’s city skyline, but also the thrilling experience of floating in the air, tens of meters above ground, with nothing but a transparent layer of acrylic separating them from the chasm below.

Apparently, transporting the bool from Colorado, over the Atlantic was an adventure in itself, but designing and installing it between the two new residential buildings was even more challenging, with engineers and workers having only inches of tolerance.

Image via Oddity Central

Spoiler alert: the sculpture in question was not made by Da Vinci. A sculpture of Flora, the Roman goddess of flowering plants, has been the subject of long debates concerning its origins. Housed in the collection of Berlin’s Bode Museum, the art piece has been investigated by a trio of researchers to prove that Da Vinci didn’t create the sculpture. The team took samples from the bust and used radiocarbon dating and chemical analysis to pinpoint the work’s creation to the 19th century, which is 300 years after Da Vinci’s death: 

When the researchers analyzed samples taken from the bust, they determined that it was composed of spermaceti—a waxy material found in the heads of sperm whales and bottlenose whales—and beeswax. Per Mindy Weisberger of Live Science, spermaceti was rarely used by Renaissance artists but had become increasingly commonplace by the 18th century. At the time, noted Cosmos’ Martin Harris in 2014, the wax was used in cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, industrial lubricants and candles.

The sculpture’s blend of terrestrial and marine sources complicated the dating process, as “carbon consumed by the organisms in deep and shallow seawater is older than that consumed on land,” write the authors in the study.

The scholars add, “To further complicate the procedure, the location of the marine source”—in this instance, the whale that provided the spermaceti—“must be known to accurately calibrate marine material.”

To overcome these obstacles, the team developed an entirely new calibration method that took into account the amount of spermaceti versus beeswax present in the Flora bust. Per the Art Newspaper, the analysis yielded a date range of 1704 to 1950.

Image via the Smithsonian 

Instagram user In Love with Drinks offers this Last Word cocktail. This gin drink began in 1915 at the Detroit Athletic Club. It was popular during the Prohibition Era, then fell into obscurity until its revival last decade. To make one, you will need equal parts of gin, Chartreuse liqueur, lime juice, and maraschino liqueur. Drink and clear your mind of questions.

-via Gastro Obscura

Loic Suberville gives us short and funny skits about the way languages are constructed and used. While no language is exempt, he has had a lot of fun with French as it is heard by English speakers. There seems to be a wide gap in how we use vowels.  



The latest in the French series is labeled as part 107, although the numbering seems a bit random, as there are not 107 videos (it's about language, not math). You can browse through a ton of these videos at Suberville's YouTube channel. -via Laughing Squid

The advent of powdered gelatin and refrigeration led us into a dark period of cuisine in which anything and everything was suspended in gelatin because it looked as if you'd put a lot of work into it. But suspending weird things in gelatin was big even before that, back when it really was a lot of work. And that's where we first encounter coffee jelly.  

Coffee jelly might seem like nouvelle cuisine of the highest order, seeing as most of us are used to having our coffee as a liquid rather than a solid. But it’s actually the opposite. Early recipes for coffee jelly are at least as old as Durgin-Park. One recipe, from an 1836 issue of New York’s Lady’s Book magazine, told readers to mix coffee with the gelatin produced by boiling a calf’s foot. With cream and sugar, it became an elegant dessert. Gelatin, for much of the 19th century, was a luxury, requiring boiled animal parts and a cool enough spot to allow it to set. A platter of shimmering coffee jelly, turned out of a decorated mold and served with a cream sauce, would have elicited oohs and ahs at a tea or dinner party.

In the 21st century, we aren't all that impressed with gelatin dishes, so coffee jelly pretty much died out in America. However, in the past hundred years, it has traveled around the world and back again. Learn where you can find coffee jelly, plus a recipe for making your own at Atlas Obscura.

This is a 1990 Daihatsu fire truck. It's not a toy or a model, but built for its stated purpose. It's also adorable. Owner Todd Lappin has named his new friend "Kiri". You can see Kiri on the streets of San Francisco. Although Kiri is not affiliated with the San Francisco Fire Department, it's fully functional and can fight fires. SFist reports:

"I imported Kiri directly from Japan with a local importer I got to know," Lappin tells the paper. "Essentially it was retired by the town, went through the auction system. It sold for almost nothing, because who wants a 30-year-old tiny fire truck?" [...]

Lappin had some experience importing a Japanese car previously, and after he got to know the ins and outs of the process, he decided to seek out something cooler and more unique for San Francisco, as a whim. Enter Kiri, which served a volunteer fire department in Kirigamine, Japan for about 30 years, and came to SF about five months into the pandemic. The truck is made to navigate hills and narrow streets, and it's never had its own water tank — it has a pump that relies on suction, so you just need to park it next to a pond and drop a hose in, and you're good to fight a fire.

-via Super Punch | Photo: Kiri the Japanese Fire Truck

It's been 35 years since the world's worst nuclear disaster occurred in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union. A complicated series of events led to explosions and a fire that burned for days at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Pripyat, during which nuclear fallout rained over Ukraine and nearby Belarus.

April 26, 1986, started off like any other day for Alla Shapiro. The pediatrician, then 32 years old, was at work in the Pediatric Hematology Unit at the Children’s Hospital in Kiev, Ukraine. But everything changed when she learned that an explosion had occurred 80 miles north at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, just outside the city of Pripyat. In the hours that followed, hundreds of children arrived at the hospital by bus seeking treatment.

As a front-line worker, it was the first time that Shapiro and her colleagues were faced with treating patients during a disaster of Chernobyl's magnitude. Unfortunately, the Soviet government didn’t have any nuclear disaster protocols in place, and basic supplies were severely limited, leaving medical professionals to improvise and adapt. In the days and weeks that followed, Shapiro discovered that the government was misleading the public about its handling of the explosion, which was caused by a flawed reactor design, according to the World Nuclear Association.

Shapiro wrote a book about her experiences titled Doctor on Call: Chernobyl Responder, Jewish Refugee, Radiation Expert. She is now a consultant on the effects of radiation on human health. In an interview with Smithsonian, Shapiro describes the flood of children from Pripyat coming into her hospital coughing on radioactive dust, and the measures the staff took to care for them.

Just found my new role model pic.twitter.com/f1HkBXSxyy

— human_not_bees (Beës) (@human_not_bees) April 25, 2021

Before you watch this video, remember that speed competitions involving food are often a bit gross, and should never be attempted in everyday life. She had the sandwich made and EATEN before he even got to the jelly! This one-on-one competition was over before it began, but it highlights the reasons why Guinness World Records has to establish rules and standards before they recognize any record holder. -via Metafilter

Deep in the heart of the Amazon, in the riverside town of Maués, they grow a fruit you may have never heard of. Guaraná grows in other places, but Maués is the heart of its production, as guaraná is not only a prized fruit made into a daily drink, it's a tourist draw. They even have an annual guaraná festival.

Guaraná contains high levels of caffeine – as much as four times that of coffee beans, as well as other psychoactive stimulants (including saponins and tannins) associated with improved cognitive performance. And numerous research papers explore its potential in the prevention of cardiovascular disease, as an anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antidepressant, intestinal regulator and even an aphrodisiac.

Maués might be dubbed the "land of guaraná" but the fruit's history long predates the town. The Sateré-Mawé indigenous people have been cultivating guaraná in their ancestral forests nearby for millennia. It was their ancestors who domesticated the species, learned of its properties and devised the best cultivation and processing techniques.

Guaraná has a traditional origin story that, yes, involves an eyeball, and long-held traditions on how to prepare and consume it. But it's also a moneymaker, working its way into South American sodas. It may even prolong life. Read about guaraná and what it means at BBC Travel. -via Digg

(Image credit: Anita Fortis)

In the rush to colonize Africa, various European countries scrambled to claim lands, exploit their natural resources, raise crops using forced labor, and export Africans as slaves. By 1761, the French East India Company was in control of Madagascar and the Mascarene archipelago. The Mascarene Islands were uninhabited, and the French set about bringing in enslaved people to work the land. The preferred crops were coffee and sugar, which were in high demand around the world. They did not grow crops that would sustain the people who lived and worked there, so supplies had to be imported. Captain Jean de Lafargue was willing to take food to the Macarene Islands, but he was also open to making some extra money on the side.  

The governor gave Lafargue his new orders: go to Foulpointe, on Madagascar’s east coast, and bring back food. Oh, and don’t bring any slaves.

From the governor’s point of view, the proscription made perfect sense. The one advantage of having been abandoned by the navy was that its crews no longer stopped by, insisting on being fed, but even with that reduction in overall appetite, Île de France still needed victuals more than extra mouths to feed. Lafargue, though, had no intention of paying attention to the restriction: L’Utile was his first command, and one of the benefits of being captain of a Company ship was the possibility of engaging in trade on your own account. Indeed, it was an official perk: the Company had suffered so many losses from pilfering captains that it had eventually thrown up its hands and given them the right to merchandise for themselves, in the hopes that they would stick to their permitted limits and leave the Company’s goods alone. And Foulpointe was Madagascar’s main slave trading port.

L’Utile departed on 27 June. Three weeks later, on 22 July, it set sail for its return journey. In between, Lafargue had not only filled up the hold with flour, meat, wine, and other necessities, he had also negotiated the purchase of 158 Malagasy men and women, who cost him 10,000 livres. This was something over his yearly salary, but he could expect to sell them in the Mascarenes for twice that⁠—and the buyers would consider it a good deal as long as a slave lived more than three months.The slaves were shoved into the hold and walled up in a compartment separating them from the foodstuffs. The only mitigation in their situation was that L’Utile was not a specialised slave ship, and so they were not chained.

Lafarge's plan was to sell the Malagasy people on the island of Rodrigues, then continue to Île de France (now Mauritius) with the supplies. But on his secret route, there was the Island of Sand, a tiny, treeless, uninhabited volcanic island with a dangerous reef that had been badly plotted on various maps. You guessed it; L’Utile was shipwrecked when the island appeared where Lafarge wasn't expecting it. The surviving French sailors and the Malagasy worked together to built a boat, in which the Frenchmen sailed away, leaving the Malagasy behind. Read the incredible story of the castaways who lived on the island for 15 years at Damn Interesting. The story is also available as a podcast.

I want one pic.twitter.com/WiGHfOwked

— Sven Henrich (@NorthmanTrader) April 24, 2021

I want one, too! Last weekend, people on the streets of Los Angeles were treated to the sight of a guy surfing through the air on a real hoverboard. It wasn't a movie stunt- this is a real quadcopter that's strong enough to lift a person and controllable enough to stand on. It's made by Omni Hoverboards, Inc. and their website says to "Stay tuned for our consumer version". The hoverer in LA was most likely part of that promotion. Here's the company's demonstration video.



Let's just hope the first people who buy the consumer version are as good at staying upright as the guys in these videos. -via Geekologie