Gruinard Island in Scotland was once a British biological warfare testing area. But that's just a prelude to the story Tom Scott tells us about the island and what happened decades later in 1986. The story doesn't even have much to do with anthrax and nothing at all to do with biological warfare. In fact, it might make you grin.

A horse drawn canal boat has a lot of inertia and no brakes. If a horse towing a boat arrives at a bridge, the supervising humans must bring it to a halt, disconnect the towing rig, move the horse to the other side of the bridge, and then reconnect the tow line.

The industrious people of Industrial Era Britain thought of a better solution: the roving or turnover bridge. Whereas some bridges were simply high enough to allow the passage of the tow horse on either side, the roving bridge brought the horse up on ramps facing either direction, turning it completely around as it passed.

-via TYWKIWDBI | Photo: Smabs Sputzer

Finally, 100 years after being hung at a Rhode Island church, a stunning Tiffany stained-glass window can now be admired by visitors at the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC). The window, now known as the Hartwell Memorial Window, was painstakingly restored to prepare it for public viewing, as the Smithsonian details: 

The iridescent tableau depicts a peaceful New Hampshire landscape full of lush, multi-colored trees. Dappled sunlight bounces off a flowing waterfall, while the imposing Mount Chocorua looms in the background. Per Steve Johnson of the Chicago Tribune, Tiffany artists soldered 48 layered-glass panels together to produce the 23-foot-high by 16-foot-wide scene.

In the work, “[w]arm light emanates from the setting sun, catching on the rushing waves of the central waterfall and dancing through the trees—the transitory beauty of nature conveyed through an intricate arrangement of vibrantly colored glass,” writes AIC curator Elizabeth McGoey in a museum blog post.

Image via Art Institute Of Chicago 

If you’ve ever wanted to download Microsoft Flight Simulator, but found out that the game takes 170GB on your hard drive, then I have good news for you. The developers of the game have managed to reduce the game’s size to only 83 GB, about half of the size before. As to what they did to reduce the size, however, is unclear. But one thing’s for sure — it’s now more accessible to people who are interested in the game.

Cool!

(Image Credit: Asobo Studios/ Xbox/ Wikipedia)

Weaving is a skill best pursued by the brave, the patient, and the cunning. It is not something that can be learned easily. Not to mention that your creations take a few days before you can see them in their full glory. Yet, of all the activities he could have taken up as a hobby, 86-year-old Mongijal took basket weaving as his hobby to spend the days with during the first implementation of Malaysia's Movement Control Order (MCO) early in 2020.

But as time passed by, his casual pastime turned into a collection of well-over 30 baskets. And so, he turned it into a small business.

So, on May 22, Mongijal’s daughter Nancy promoted his baskets at Facebook. On the first day of Mongijal’s business, he was able to sell two baskets. Nancy was happy that her post reached some customers, but it seems she got more than that, as the post became viral, and there became a high demand on the baskets. However…

Nancy advised customers to show up to the hut in-person if they want to purchase a basket.

"We can't deliver at the moment. If you want it, just come to the stall and you'll get it. The stall will only open if there is stock," Nancy wrote, adding that she wanted to save her father the physical effort of delivering the baskets himself.

Needless to say, producing a multipurpose carry-all basket alone is not an easy task because it takes two to three days to complete. Bamboos known as 'Poring' or 'Tivung' in Rungus, have to be sourced from a nearby forest, while the rest depends entirely on talented hands and patience.

When Nancy first posted the photos, nearby villagers wound up visiting Mongijal's hut and purchased a lot of his baskets. Others even placed advanced orders, too.

On the next day, on May 23, it is said that Mongjial woke up in early in the morning and excitedly waited for his customers.

Very wholesome.

(Image Credit: Nancy Fuh/ Mashable)

Blender is a free open-source computer graphics software used to create 2D and 3D animated films, 3D character models, and video games. And, in case you missed the fourth word of the previous sentence, this software is free. With just a little patience and practice, you’ll be able to create magnificent stuff that you never knew you could do, just like this kid here named William Landgren.

(Image Credit: William Landgren/ YouTube)

One of the things that you have to make sure of when you’re playing chess is not losing focus at any moment in the game. After all, chess is a game of wits. It is an intense mental battle between two players. And, to be honest, it is really difficult to focus on the game when there are so many things going around you — when people are watching you, and when there are other people playing chess as well.

What happens when you focus on the wrong things while playing chess? You get distracted. And that’s what happens with Ozzy Man. Thankfully, he’s not the one playing the game; he’s just commentating on the match.

(Image Credit: Ozzy Man Reviews/ YouTube)

The type of content that we usually see in live-streams are video game playthroughs, virtual concerts, and celebrity Q&A. Balule Nature Reserve in South Africa, however, uses live-streams to deliver a very different type of content to the world: real-time videos of animals. Their goal: to chase out animal poachers.

Thousands, sat comfortably at home, became virtual rangers with this anti-poaching pilot project, Wildlife Watch, by Balule, Samsung and Africam.

Viewers were able to report suspicious activity - things like seeing fence lines cut or hearing gunshots - and alert rangers to the possibility of poachers and trapped animals needing rescue.

For Leitah Mkhabela, a member of the park's all-female anti-poaching unit known as The Black Mambas, creative use of technology can make a big difference.

"Once poachers become aware that there could be more cameras in the bushes, they'll be worried as we have so many eyes monitoring.

"It will definitely help chase them out."

This is not the only innovation happening in the world of animal conservation.

"There are people on every continent in different environments using every sort of technology," Stephanie O'Donnell tells Newsbeat.

Learn more about this exciting story over at BBC.

(Image Credit: peterjohnball0/ Pixabay)

Can’t think of something fun to do this summer? Not to worry! Katia Hetter has got your back with her 100 things to do this season. That’s right. One hundred things. If that’s not a lot, then I don’t know what is. Some activities can be done alone, while others can be done with either your family, your colleagues, or your special someone.

Here are some of the activities from her list.

• Welcome the birds
• Cooking challenge
• Play video games
• Phone a relative
• Hit the road

Check out the rest over at CNN.

(Image Credit: congerdesign/ Pixabay)

If you’re in the United States, and you’re tired of the usual food that you eat, then you might want to try the insects that have emerged recently — the cicadas. That’s right. They’re edible. Of course, eating insects is not for the faint of heart. But if you want some strange excitement in your life, then you might want to look into the practice of eating insects, known as entomophagy.

Aside from cicadas, which insects are edible? Floyd Shockley, the entomology collections manager at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, provides us with a list of edible insects, as well as how to prepare them. Check the list over at Smithsonian Magazine.

(Image Credit: Kirk K/ Smithsonian Magazine)

Back in the day, air conditioning was a luxury and was only available to commercial businesses. However, in the 1950s, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and the University of Texas at Austin made a feasibility study of bringing central air conditioning to residential homes. 

NAHB got in touch with a variety of builders and and air conditioning manufacturers and asked them to build a village on the outskirts of Allandale, in Austin, Texas, with 22 different single-story homes, each fitted with a AC manufacturer’s equipment. Each house was approximately 1,400 square feet in size with three bedrooms, one or two bathrooms, and garages. The houses were designed with features that made cooling easier and efficient. For instance, walls and roofs were insulated, the roofs had wide overhangs and extended walls to create more shade, windows were strategically located to avoid strong sun, and kitchens and bathrooms were fitted with ventilation systems.

Families who were willing to be observed by researchers bought the houses.

After the one-year-long study was over, the NAHB reported that families spent more time at home, slept longer, took on hobbies, improved their appetites, and were generally happy. The women from the Austin Air-Conditioned Village reported less dirt and dust in the house, which in turn allowed the use of previously considered luxuries such as white rugs, curtains, and upholstery.

The study would then change the standard definition of the middle-class family.

More on this over at Amusing Planet.

(Image Credit: Dewey Mears/ Amusing Planet)

17-year-old Marty Tankleff spent 17 years in prison because authorities didn’t believe in his innocence, because apparently, he was too calm when he found out that his mother was stabbed and his father was mortally bludgeoned in their home.

Jeffrey Deskovic, a 16-year-old man, also spent a number of years (16 years, to be exact) in prison because authorities didn’t believe in his innocence, but for a different reason; Jeffrey was too eager to help the detectives after his classmate was found strangled.

Both were thought to be guilty of a crime, but one was too calm, and the other was too upset and too willing to help. But do these two characteristics really indicate if the person is lying?

They’re not, says psychologist Maria Hartwig, a deception researcher at John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York. The men, both later exonerated, were victims of a pervasive misconception: that you can spot a liar by the way they act. Across cultures, people believe that behaviors such as averted gaze, fidgeting and stuttering betray deceivers.

In fact, researchers have found little evidence to support this belief despite decades of searching. “One of the problems we face as scholars of lying is that everybody thinks they know how lying works,” says Hartwig, who coauthored a study of nonverbal cues to lying in the Annual Review of Psychology. Such overconfidence has led to serious miscarriages of justice, as Tankleff and Deskovic know all too well. “The mistakes of lie detection are costly to society and people victimized by misjudgments,” says Hartwig. “The stakes are really high.”

In other words, it is difficult to identify liars. But is there a way to increase our chances of guessing correctly? Fortunately, there is.

Learn more details about this topic over at JSTOR Daily.

(Image Credit: Pixabay)

One of the things that will come into your mind when you hear the word Japan is “ramen.” In fact, when you arrive in Japan, you will be surprised at the number of ramen shops they have in the country. (It is said that Japan has over 10,000 ramen shops.) But did you know that the regions in the country have different types of ramen that serve as their representatives? Bet you didn’t know that.

Some of the best-known [types of ramen] are Sapporo’s miso ramen and Fukuoka’s tonkotsu (pork stock) ramen.

But if you want to taste a very special type of ramen, then go to Tokyo’s neighbor to the south, the Kanagawa Prefecture, and have a taste of their sanma-men, their regional ramen. It is a type of ramen not commonly known, but it surely is something that you will definitely remember once you taste it.

… the star ingredient in sanma-men is the broth, which is made by adding starch to a soy broth base.

The toppings are special too. Japanese ramen is usually pretty sparse on non-noodle elements, but not only do you get strips of chashu pork, sanma-men also includes a generous serving of stir-fried vegetables such as bean sprouts, carrot, green onion, and shiitake or kikurage (clud ear) mushrooms, cooked to perfection so that they still retain a crisp texture even after being dropped into the broth.

Highly nutritious and very delicious. What more could you ask for?

(Image Credit: SoraNews24)

If I received a badge for every minor thing I did in life like in video games in which they will give you a game achievement for doing a certain action, I probably would be approaching life like some kind of video game, where I will do all sorts of minor things just to get all the badges.

Among these badges made by Winks For Days, which badge would you most likely receive everyday? Mine would be the “Made Coffee” badge.

See the badges over at Sad and Useless.

(Image Credit: Winks For Days/ Sad and Useless)

Some corvids, like the Eurasian jay, are natural magicians. They are capable of deceiving other birds, like a magician deceives his audience through sleight-of-hand. An example of this is how these jays pretend to store their food in one spot, and then secretly hide them in another place. And because they think like magicians, it also seems that jays can see through the deception of a human magician.

Garcia-Pelegrin is a professional magician as well as a cognitive scientist. As the video below shows, he used three standard tricks - known as palm transfer, French drop, and fast pass - to test six Eurasian jays’ capacity to determine which hand held a worm. The birds got to eat the worm if their first guess was right. Garcia-Pelegrin also performed various other hand movements for comparison.

[...]

The jays usually saw through the French drop or the palm transfer, choosing the correct hand 70 and 60 percent of the time respectively. The fast pass was a different matter, with the jays getting just 26 percent of trials right.

[...]

The similarities between the way jays hide food from those who would steal it and the way magicians deceive the public are striking. Not only do jays and their fellow corvids; “Cache food items discretely in among multiple bluff caching events,” the paper notes, they also; “Conceal items in their throat pouch, akin to a magician’s use of false pockets, and will manipulate food items within their beak similar to sleight-of-hand techniques performed by magicians.”

Clever birds!

More details about this over at IFL Science.

(Image Credit: Elias Garcia-Pelegrin/ IFL Science)