Lisa Stinson found a scientific paper with a title that made her laugh. Is it the funniest ever? Maybe so, maybe not, but posting it to Twitter made other people run and look up memorable science paper titles that made them laugh, too. It appears that scientists know all the puns related to their research, and when the opportunity arises to incorporate them into a paper title, they just can't help themselves. There are a lot more of these in the Twitter thread, or you can see the best 30 of them ranked at Bored Panda.
Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’ has been frequently placed as design on different surfaces such as posters, blankets, pillow cases, t-shirts, and coffee mugs. Now, the masterpiece is making the Chinese night sky look brighter as drone production company EFYI Group partnered with Tianjin University to recreate the artwork using drones. A total of 600 drones were used, setting a Guinness World Record for the longest animation performed by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs):
The dazzling, immersive show lasted 26 mins and 19 seconds, which required impressively high-precision positioning technology that coordinated and synchronized the drones. All 600 drones were of the same exact model—the Agile Bee II. Each one weighs about three pounds, travels at approximately 20 miles per hour, and can stay in the air for up to 38 minutes. In order for this display to qualify as an animation, the record’s guidelines required the drones to generate 12 images per second. Guinness World Records adjudicator Maggie Luo reviewed the entire show and announced that they were successful in meeting the requirements and actually breaking the record.
Besides setting the world record, the drone light show allowed Van Gogh’s narrative to unfold in the night sky as it recreated his most famous paintings, shining a light on his art and dazzling the entire world with a mesmerizing show. Together, the drones told the story of Van Gogh’s life and paid homage not only to The Starry Night, but also to Wheat Field with Cypresses, his Sunflowers series, and The Mulberry Tree in Autumn. They also moved through more vignettes of the artist’s famous work, including Almond Blossoms, Bedroom in Arles, and Self-portrait.
To see some highlights from the drone show, check the video at My Modern Met!
That’s just all the Tyrannosaurus rexs before they were wiped out! Scientists now have a numerical estimation for the total population of this particular dinosaur species during their 2.4-million year stay on our planet. According to Charles Marshall, who led the study, this estimation may help contextualize the fossil record and the rarity of finding fossilized prehistoric organisms, as Axios details:
How it works: The team of researchers couldn't use the limited fossil record to estimate the species' population, so they instead used Damuth’s Law, which describes a relationship between population density and body mass.
The relationship, used in population ecology, generally states that species with larger body sizes tend to have lower population densities.
The researchers then computed the average body mass of a T. rex, settling on a mean of 5,200 kilograms (roughly 11,460 pounds).
Using the body mass, the team calculated that the species had a population density of around one individual per 40 square miles.
Surprise, surprise! BlackBerry is still aiming to release phones, huh? The company has partnered with a mobile security company to work on its new line of smartphones. The company, OnwardMobility, announced that they would be launching a “5G BlackBerry Android smartphone with a physical keyboard in North America and Europe.” Yanko Design has more details:
The BlackBerry Key 3 concept comes with a profile that’s reminiscent of the Note 20 Ultra. It features a flat surface on the top and bottom, while cascading edges on the sides result in a phone that’s comfortable to hold, along with a waterfall display, there may be a chance of the phone registering accidental palm touches. The camera setup on the back features 3 lenses and a flash, looking quite similar to the one found on the OnePlus 8, and sitting right beneath that is the familiar BlackBerry logo. Flip the phone back over to the front and it kind of looks slightly meme-ish. It’s obscenely long, considering the screen’s already 20:9 to begin with. Adding to that is a slight forehead bezel (which features a single front-facing camera) and a massive chin, which houses a full QWERTY keyboard. The QWERTY keyboard, from what I can tell, is a part of the display, but it’s always there… even when you don’t need it. Sort of like the soft keys often found on Android phones, the keyboard is static in its position, and can easily be used when you need to type. This ideally means a keyboard never blocks or overlaps elements on the screen, so you’re always treated to a full-screen interface all the time. I’m not entirely sure if the keyboard’s layout is dynamic, i.e., whether it changes to reveal emojis or other languages, but if I were a betting man, that would honestly be a pretty remarkable feature.
Her presence is very soothing. This video of Alice Bradley has gathered nearly 6 million views, so you know that the way she explained what to do when you get too high is effective- or at least, soothing enough to calm people down during their drug-induced high. It will give you a sense of peace, whether or not you’re high:
Alice Bradley, Lifehacker, former victim of getting too stoned, and quite possibly the sweetest lady on Earth, reminds us that no matter how ripped you are, it’s all gonna be okay.
Here are the key steps Ms. Bradley teaches us:
1. Breathe some fresh air – sometimes you need to take a step outside, or open up a window, look up at the sky, and admire the spherical shape of the earth.
2. Stay hydrated – You probably won’t have this issue, because the cottonmouth will have you chugging H2O in an instant, but some nice hydration is a great way to calm down the paranoia.
3. Make Lemonade – According to Ms. Bradley, lemons can help regulate THC levels.
4. Grind some pepper – If you feel like you’re so high you could touch the moon, get you some pepper. It’s been known to help bring you back down.
4. Watch TV – A nice sitcom such as Friends can help bring you back to reality.
5. Phone a friend – Sometimes you just need a familiar voice to remind you that everything’s gonna be okay.
According to an economic report by Goldman Sachs, copper will be replacing oil. Not exactly as a new source for energy, but the material will be crucial in decarbonization and in producing more renewable energy sources. Copper has the physical attributes needed for creating, storing and distributing clean energy from the wind, sun and geothermal sources, as Business Insider details:
"Discussions of peak oil demand overlook the fact that without a surge in the use of copper and other key metals, the substitution of renewables for oil will not happen,' the report said.
Copper will be needed to create the new infrastructure systems required for clean energy to replace oil and gas, however there has not been enough of a focus on this so far according to the report.
Demand will therefore significantly increase, by up to 900% to 8.7 million tons by 2030, if green technologies are adopted en masse, the bank estimates. Should this process be slower, demand will still surge to 5.4 million tons, or by almost 600%.
Copper is a key part of sustainable technologies, including electric vehicle batteries and deriving clean energy. As the deadline of the Paris Agreement comes closer, political and economic pushes towards renewable energy and green technology are becoming stronger.
Need to spice up your social media accounts? Okay, maybe you can’t go to tourist locations and take the most wonderful photos, but you can get creative in the confines of your home! If you’re thinking of the next concept for your photo upload, or just looking for good photography tips, Mango Street provides some tips and tricks on how to make your photos pop, without expensive or gimmicky editing methods:
After a brief discussion of what makes a photograph compelling, you’ll see how to become more creative by abandoning your comfort zone and shooting subjects you haven’t photographed before. This could mean hiding a model’s face with an interesting foreground subject, shooting from a unique perspective, or coordinating a subject’s wardrobe with elements in the background.
Other tips in the video include the creative use of color, telling a story with your photographs, and techniques for making your main subject “pop” by creating background separation. You’ll also learn some simple tricks for using light, and composing images differently from your typical approach.
None of what you see in the video is difficult to achieve—it just requires a different way of looking at the world before you and capturing what you see.
We’re so used to seeing white ancient sculptures in museums that imagining them painted in a variety of bright colors is just odd. It’s logical to believe that these magnificent artworks were just initially white marble or stone. However, it’s also worth considering that these art pieces are white now because the colors have long since faded. Did you know that most of the iconic sculptures, such as Hermes, the Winged Victory and the Venus de Milo were once very colorful statues? The Greek Reporter has more details:
Although the statue has been long since destroyed, there is a description of it in the writings of the ancient historian Pausanias, who wrote that the statue was “chryselephantine” or in other words, covered in gold and ivory.
There is also a verse in Euripides‘ tragedy “Troades” (The Trojan Women), written in 415 BC, in which Helen says:
My life and fortunes are a monstrosity,
Partly because of Hera, partly because of my beauty.
If only I could shed my beauty and assume an uglier aspect
The way you would wipe color off a statue.
The last line clearly indicates that all scultptures had been painted, or made in color, and this must have been essential to their beauty and impact.
Praxiteles, the creator of the famous Hermes and the Infant Dionysus, was once asked which were his favorite statues. His reply was “The ones painted by Nikias.”
Unfortunately, after centuries of lying on the ground the paints on the statues has been irreparably lost
The above photograph by Mads Nissen, titled The First Embrace, was named Photo of the Year by the World Press Photo Foundation. From Nissen's Instagram page:
THE FIRST EMBRACE. 85-year-old Rosa Luzia Lunardi is embraced by nurse Adriana Silva da Costa Souza, the first hug she receives in five months. In March, care homes across the country closed their doors to all visitors, preventing millions of concerned Brazilians from visiting their elderly relatives, while the caretakers were ordered to limit all physical contact with the vulnerable to an absolute minimum. But at Viva Bem, an old age home outside Sao Paulo, a simple new invention ‘The Hug Curtain' has once again allowed people to see and hug each other without risking their lives. And for those who do not have visitors, volunteers and staff are ready to step in – because, as they say at Viva Bem : "Everyone deserves a good hug".
The effect of a hug through the curtain looks like angel wings. The Foundation also named the World Press Photo Story of the Year, Photo Interactive of the Year, and Online Video of the Year. See those and read the stories behind them at the contest site. -via Nag on the Lake
The security camera caught a couple in Burgaw, North Carolina, leaving home when an animal attacked the woman. Her husband bravely grabbed the cat and held it up before realizing it's a bobcat, at which point he yeets it across the yard. This video was originally uploaded to TikTok, where it was deleted by their algorithm for advocating violence as the man vowed to kill the cat. He did indeed kill the bobcat, and later tests found it was infected with rabies. The couple are undergoing a series of rabies shots to stave off infection. This video contains NSFW language. -via Digg
It's like that scene in Starman: red light means stop. Green light means go. Yellow light means go very fast.
Florida Man, the alien living among us, decided that he didn't have time to wait until the drawbridge in Daytona Beach closed again. As it rose, he gunned the engine and was briefly airborne as the two halves of the bridge separated.
Wherever you go in the United States, you'll recognize the official signs of the National Forest Service. The slightly rounded trapezoid shapes, the sturdy base, and the unobtrusive colors are consistent across the country. It wasn't always that way. At one time, Forest Service signs varied from place to place, and many sites didn't have signs at all. The iconic signs debuted 1963, the work of Virgil “Bus” Carrell, a lifelong forest ranger who had no graphic design experience, but really cared about the Forest Service. Carrell teamed up with artist Rudy Wendelin, who designed Smokey Bear.
Carrell, Wendelin, and two landscape architects began their work with a tour of Forest Service-managed areas. They found some entrances marked with the agency’s official shield, others with hand-drawn placards or metallic eyesores. Some signs merely had the property’s name. Others featured entire histories. What they didn’t see anywhere was consistency.
Based on his observations, Carrell developed a philosophy summed up in his essay “Signs to Complement Natural Beauty.” It reads like Sun Tzu’s The Art of War for forest signs: “A sign does not have to be the gaudiest, the biggest, and the most colorful to be the best one,” and “The text should develop no more than one topic and have a warm tone.”
Front-loading machines tend to be very expensive, shake more, and require watertight seals that are prone to mold. Owning one is one big hassle, because your laundry machine could easily be up for repairs. Well, say goodbye to the front-loading washing machines! After years of development, Whirlpool has created a new washing machine that combines the best features of front loaders and top loaders into one splendid machine:
Whirlpool’s latest washer is a “2 in 1” top loader that features the industry’s first removable agitator. The agitator is that spindle in the middle of a traditional washing machine, which rotates the clothing back and forth underwater to wash it. (Front loaders, on the other hand, rely on a basket tumbling clothing in a circle, dropping clothing into a small pool of water again and again to clean it.)
As the name suggests, you can use the washer two ways. The first is a totally traditional wash, with the agitator in. But with a simple grab of the agitator, you can remove it and set it aside. This opens the washer’s cavity, making it larger.
“It’s like a twist,” explains Nelly Martinez, senior manager of the Whirlpool brand. “Basically on the top, there’s a handle. You pull it up, twist, and it comes out. We wanted to make sure the feeling of how we were building [the agitator] was durable . . . and people felt a confidence when they were pulling it out or in that it was going to stay there.”
The removable agitator is a nice UX touch. But what happens when you pull that agitator out? Will your clothes just be stuck in place during the laundry cycle and not get clean? No! Because once you remove the agitator, the system features what’s called an impeller at the bottom of the machine—a flat disc that sprays water upward from the bottom of the machine and uses fins to coax clothing to constantly rotate toward the middle of the machine.
Movie star, fashion icon, and dancer Audrey Hepburn was a young teenager during World War II, when her family lived under Nazi occupation in the Netherlands. We know that deprivation during the war helped led to Hepburn's lifelong thin frame, but she told the press almost nothing about what she did for the war effort.
In stories of doomed World War II gallantry, little is as romanticized as Operation Market Garden. A technical failure by the Allied Powers to defeat the Nazis in 1944, this invasion of the Netherlands left British paratroopers stranded around a bridge in Arnhem, far too removed from their tanks to hold the line. Nevertheless, the bravery of those Airborne “Red Devils” has lived on in pop culture, as have the Dutch resistance fighters who sheltered them. What has been largely forgotten is that among those courageous souls was… a teenaged Audrey Hepburn? For about a week, in fact, the future movie star kept a Red Devil hidden in the cellar.
Yes, before she became a Hollywood actress, Audrey Hepburn worked with the Dutch resistance. She was an assistant to a local doctor who ran resistance operations, and was able to hide her activities from the Germans because she was so young. But she never talked about those things, according to Robert Matzen, author of the book Dutch Girl: Audrey Hepburn and World War II.
Says Matzen, “Her mother and father were pro-German, pro-Nazi supporters up to and through the invasion of the Netherlands. Audrey could never reconcile herself to what her parents represented. It was her darkest secret, really, one that could contaminate the press about her. It could contaminate her career and kill it.”
That knowledge—as well as a lifelong modesty bred into her about never boasting or complaining—caused her to omit those sordid details, as well as stories of her dancing later in private gatherings to raise funds to hide and feed Jewish neighbors as the Holocaust marched on. Both aspects of her youth, her parents’ mistakes and her family’s later resistance, have thus become greatly diminished.
Read about the horrific event that led Hepburn's family to see things differently, and get an overview of what young Audrey did during the war at Den of Geek.
Sure, I'll have a gin and tonic -it's medicine, right? Or it was at one time. You don't want to risk suffering from malaria, scurvy, or the plague! Alton Brown explains the history of this particular cocktail, and how to make one. The original footage is from 2013, recently unearthed and finished, which explains why the text gives us corrections every once in a while. -via reddit
