Meet Maman, a nine-meter spider that graced the opening of the Tate Modern in 1999. Created by Louise Bourgeois, the sculpture provides a feeling of awe with its detailed crevices and sheer gigantic size. Is it very intimidating? Imagine a nine-meter spider actually hovering over you, like a real spider of that height. No thanks! However, seeing it as a still work of art is another experience altogether. Check the Conversation’s piece on the artwork here. 

Image via The Conversation 

So what does this mean? The site could imply that the dinosaurs liked to travel in packs. Thanks to the discovery of the first T. rex mass death site in Utah, evidence of the species’ pack-like behavior was found. According to Dr. Joe Sertich, curator of dinosaurs at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, the discovery “should be the tipping point for reconsidering how these top carnivores behaved and hunted across the northern hemisphere during the Cretaceous:” 

In the past, paleontologists have long debated whether the huge dinosaurs lived and hunted alone or in groups.

However, with other findings of pack formations in Alberta, Canada, and Montana, the Utah finding may fossilize the belief of a social T. rex.

In the Canadian discovery, 12 individuals found over 20 years ago by Dr. Philip Currie, many scientists doubted T. rexes had the brainpower to organize into anything complex and thought it was an isolated case. Montana's site built upon the social theory, but now this third site may bring more certainty to the idea.

Image via The Next Web

France will be offering its residents €2,500 ($2,975) to trade their old car and get an electric bicycle. Lawmakers in France have approved the measure in a preliminary vote. France would be the first nation in the world to give money in exchange for old cars, as the Next Web details: 

The French Federation of Bicycle Users claims that if France does go ahead with the scheme, it would be the first nation in the world to give people money for old cars to put towards new electric bicycles, Reuters reports.

However, the organization must be leaving out crucial details as to how it reached that conclusion as there have been other similar schemes.

For example, as Martti Tulenheimo, chief specialist at the Finnish Cyclists‘ Federation points out, Finland has a similar rebate which citizens have used to fund more than 2,000 ebikes, 1,000 new low emission cars, and 100 public transport tickets.

Image via wikimedia commons 

Video director, writer, and all-around Renaissance man Mark Slutsky is on fire lately with brilliant, innovative ideas for products and services that could be in our near future.

Why do we use old fashioned fire alarms that scream at us? That tech is decades old. We can do and build better now.

But wait--there's more! Slutsky is already improving his idea before it hits the prototype stage:

An NFT is some sort of blockchain thing. And don't ask me to define blockchain--just invest my life savings in one.

-via Super Punch

The way we deploy satellites is pretty much just throwing them into space, after calculating the specific orbit needed. However, almost all these deployments are done mechanically, from a rocket launch. At the very end of the 20th century, the Russians developed a method that appeared much simpler -tossing them into orbit by hand.

On November 3, 1997, cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov and Anatoly Solovyov were spacewalking outside the Mir space station to remove an old solar panel that was to be replaced three days later during another outing. The solar panel was retracted on command, removed from the Kvant module, and stowed on the exterior of the core module. Before returning inside, Vinogradov took hold of a small satellite named Sputnik 40 and waited until the station had oriented itself to give a clear view of the satellite’s intended flight path. Then giving it a good toss, Vinogradov launched the satellite into orbit. As the little satellite drifted away, it became satellite number 24958 in NASA's catalog and the first satellite to be launched by hand.

That satellite, nicknamed Sputnik Jr, was only eight inches in diameter and didn't do much besides transmitting a tracking radio signal to earth. An experiment, in other words. The Russians launched two more satellites by tossing them manually from Mir. The third one, launched in 1999, generated a scandal due to its fundraising problems and a novel sponsorship deal. Read about the hand-tossed satellites at Amusing Planet.

(Image credit: NASA/Crew of STS-81)

Remember back in the late 1960s, when it seemed like every week or two someone would hijack an airliner and demand to be flown to Cuba? Those incidents gave us the term "skyjacking" and were the subject of many jokes on late night television. While concerning, the public didn't consider them all that serious as they were mostly cases of someone wanting a ride to a country that didn't take scheduled arrivals from the US, and the other passengers were routinely returned. The Cuban skyjackings had faded out by the mid-70s, but you might not know why.

Initially, Cubans greeted the planes generously. As Latner writes, “Stranded crew and passengers alike often received extravagant treatment: live Cuban bands, steak and shrimp dinners, or a night in one of Havana’s best hotels; others were given cigars or photos of Che Guevara while they waited on the tarmac, and the bill was often sent to the airlines.”

But in September 1969 Cuba instituted an anti-hijacking law, which allowed immigration officials to make decisions about what to do with hijackers. Since it was almost impossible to tell whether a hijacker was a spy, the officials who dealt with them could interrogate them and throw them in prison for months.

Read what led to the Cuban skyjackings and how stopping them brought the two countries closer together at Jstor Daily. -via Damn Interesting

(Image credit: clipperarctic)

The latest on the designer gene front has scientists figuring out how to control cell replication in order to make synthetic cells produce divisions that are consistent with the original cell.

Five years ago, scientists created a single-celled synthetic organism that, with only 473 genes, was the simplest living cell ever known. However, this bacteria-like organism behaved strangely when growing and dividing, producing cells with wildly different shapes and sizes.

Now, scientists have identified seven genes that can be added to tame the cells’ unruly nature, causing them to neatly divide into uniform orbs.

Now, this may seem like burying the lede, since you most likely had the same reaction I did: "Scientists created synthetic cells that reproduce? What?" But no, they did NOT create life in the lab. The synthetic cells were made from existing living microorganisms. Scientists removed the DNA and replaced it with completely new genes. So we can see that while DNA may be the basis for our identity, it is not the basis for life. At any rate, these synthetic cells do not have the functionality to exist outside the lab, which is reassuring. An article at NIST explains the value in this research.  -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Jerome Walker)

Oliver the cat wants to play, but his human servant needs to work. The two get along well enough thanks to The Loveseat, a chair designed by Stephan Verkaik and Beth Horneman. It's made out of beech wood and recycled polyurethane leather. The exercise wheel can be added to either side of the chair

Here’s a cute video to give us a little dose of cheer into the week! Watch as the newest big brother adorably shows off his sister to his friends. He wanted to have a little sister for a long time, the father shares, and his big grin as he pushes the stroller of his younger sister is proof enough of how much he adores his newest sibling. The video did make me smile! 

Image screenshot via Sixth Tone

I wish I could hang out with cool animals. Brian Skerry had a chance to hang out with a nursing sperm whale, and produced several photos for National Geographic. Skerry dove into the Caribbean waters to capture the images of a new sperm whale mom with a five- to six-month-old baby. NPR has more details: 

"I very gently approached, just breath-hold diving, swam down. She saw me and then actually closed her eyes. I mean, she was so relaxed that I could enter into that world. I was being allowed into her world and could make these pictures."

That moment produced one of several rare images in a new issue of National Geographic magazine, the culmination of Skerry's three-year project exploring the culture of whales.

"Behavior is what we do. Culture is how we do it," he says, paraphrasing sperm whale biologist Shane Gero.

In the photographs, Skerry assembles examples of whale behavior that seem almost human: belugas play in the shallows, orcas teach their pups to hunt, sperm whales nurse and babysit.

Image source : National Geographic Magazine via NPR 

Researchers have noticed a human-made structure hidden in the lowlands of northern Guatemala. Thanks to LiDAR (short for “Light Detection And Ranging”), they were able to discern the building, which was a pyramid. The pyramid was part of an ancient neighbourhood that included a large enclosed courtyard fringed with smaller buildings, as National Geographic details: 

Edwin Román-Ramírez, the director of the South Tikal Archaeological Project, began a series of excavations last summer. Tunnelling into the ruins, his team discovered construction and burial practices, ceramics, and weaponry typical of early fourth-century Teotihuacan. From an incense burner decorated with an image of the Teotihuacan rain god to darts made from green obsidian from central Mexico, the artifacts suggest that the site could have been a quasi-autonomous settlement at the centre of Tikal, tied to the distant imperial capital.

“We knew that the Teotihuacanos had at least some presence and influence in Tikal and nearby Maya areas prior to the year 378,” says Román-Ramírez. “But it wasn’t clear whether the Maya were just emulating aspects of the region’s most powerful kingdom. Now there’s evidence that the relationship was much more than that.”

Image via National Geographic 

Here’s a fun bonus: it’s made of gunpowder. How cool is that? Scientists have found an alternative material that is as strong as diamonds. The material, called lonsdaleite (also known as hexagonal diamond), is a rare six-sided crystalline mineral that has seldom been found in nature — generally only at meteorite impact sites. However, researchers from Washington State University's Institute for Shock Physics have developed their own hexagonal diamonds, as Free Think details: 

"Diamond is a very unique material," Yogendra Gupta, director of the Institute for Shock Physics and an author on the study, said in a statement. "It is not only the strongest — it has beautiful optical properties and a very high thermal conductivity. Now we have made the hexagonal form of diamond, produced under shock compression experiments, that is significantly stiffer and stronger than regular gem diamonds."

Using gunpowder and compressed gas, Gupta's team launched dime-sized graphite disks at a transparent material at 15,000 miles per hour.

Upon impact, shock waves coursed through the disks, transforming them into lonsdaleite

Image via Free Think 

People who have been in a coma got there for a variety of reasons, and their experiences vary quite widely. Some are totally unaware of the passage of time, some have vivid (and sometimes terrifying) dreams, and some were affected by the things people around them said while they were unconscious.  

2. "I was in a medically induced coma for three days during my cancer treatment. My identical twin brother died around a year prior (also to cancer). The entire time I was in the coma, I was with him. We were in a large green field with a lot of sun, and my conversations with him felt real."

"Other than that, I didn’t hear any of my family talking to me while I was asleep. It was just like I had gone to bed for three days, and I woke up feeling very tired.

I do wonder whether my interactions with my twin brother were real, or if it was just the drugs I was given causing them." —u/prince-william15

 7. "My wife was in a coma for about a month. I brought the kids to see her later after prepping them. Despite the initial shock at seeing her with a ventilator, they were vocally loving, hugged her, held her hand, etc. We sat in the room and talked. At one point, I asked the kids what their favorite vacation was. They both agreed it was the road trip we took from Vegas down to Arizona. My wife heard it all but in a hallucinatory way."

"We talked about driving all over and seeing all the incredible sights. We talked about rides and amusements along the way. It was nice, then they kissed her goodbye saying, 'See you soon.'

My wife now has — nearly 10 years later — a vivid memory of a second Arizona vacation she went on with us. She even asked me early on after she woke up if we had gone on vacation recently. Her mind went through every detail we talked about and even added to it as if it all actually happened. The memories of it are as real as any." -u/Coogcheese

Read the recollections of 18 people who have been in a coma and lived to tell the tale at Buzzfeed.

(Image credit: Edvard Munch)

If you're wearing a mask, how to you hold nails or screws in your mouth while on a home improvement project? Arlen Abraham helpfully suggests gluing a magnet to the inside of your mask. I'd bet that it would also help you keep track of any loose USB flash drives that you need to tote around.

-via Super Punch

There's something strangely rhythmic about pig calling. Andre Antunes noticed it, too, and put his guitar skills to work turning a pig calling competition into a heavy metal song. -via Kottke