A survey of 2000 Americans finds that the "average person" thinks they can survive 16 days in the wilderness. The survey, conducted by OnePoll on behalf of Avocado Green Mattress, does not give the percentage of people who make such a claim, but we might assume that a majority of respondents claim a survival time of at least that long. We also don't know if the survey defined wilderness at all, which is important. "Wilderness" can be the Appalachian Trail, the Yukon, or Death Valley. However, the same survey found that only 17% of respondents felt "very confident" in their ability to start a fire with flint. There seems to be a disconnect here. Other results show that people don't know as much about nature as they think they do.

While over half the poll (52%) are confident in their ability to identify different types of plants and trees, researchers put that to the test and discovered many weren’t quite as knowledgeable as they claimed. Only a quarter of respondents could identify a black oak leaf, while just 35 percent correctly spotted poison ivy when seeing it in a photo.

As a lifelong enemy of the poison ivy vine, I find that appalling. I hope the 65% never find themselves answering the call of nature in the woods and looking for something to use for toilet paper. Read more results from the survey at StudyFinds. -via Fark

The slimy, smelly, gelatinous goop called "sea snot" comes and goes in normal times, but now it is seriously gumming up the works in the ocean waters around Turkey, affecting swimming, fishing, and more importantly, killing the plants and animals of the delicate ecosystem.  

The stuff, unofficially and disgustingly known as “sea snot,” was first recorded on the Sea of Marmara in 2007. But there’s more of it now than there has ever been before. For the past six months, it’s spread in a thick, beige layer across the normally deep blue waters.

“I have been traveling here for 15 years and there used to be (snot) at some times,” Burak Yenilmez, who works on a ship, told the Daily Sabah. “But it is worse this year. It is such a dirty sight, and it stinks.”

The strange goo, made of dead overgrown phytoplankton, forms when nutrient-rich water remains still and calm during prolonged periods of heat. Experts think the nutrients came from wastewater, such as untreated sewage, getting dumped into the sea.

The invasion is attributed to climate change and pollution. Read more about sea snot and its effects at Earther.

(Image credit: Annaleida)

Slava Korolev in Palisades Park, New Jersey operates the unique studio named Light Dents. He takes discarded musical instruments and turns them into lovely and eye-catching lamps, candelabras, and wine bottle holders.

Twitter user Melinda in Naples, Florida has access to many bodies of horseshoe crabs. Their hard shells are perfect for painting.

Here’s 17 reasons why you should live alone, if you can afford it. It’s funny to read about now, because we’re not the people involved in these pranks. Alternatively, if you do have a roommate, here are reasons why you shouldn’t piss them off, unless you want to come home to 3,000 fake ladybugs on your bed, or any of the other pranks listed by Buzzfeed. Check the full list of pranks here. 

Image via Buzzfeed 

Japanese collector @marumi_1985 has managed to amass an impressive collection of Game Boy games. His goal is to get every game released for that console in Japan! According to him, he has collected 99.3% of the games he needs: 

He’s still missing R-Type DX, Wizardry II, Wizardry III, Esparks, The Black Onyx, Deja Vu 1 & 2, Little Magic, and Earth Liberation Army Zas.

“There are a lot of Game Boy games that are surprisingly cheap,” he reported, which might explain how he’s been able to get so many. Even if he’s still missing some, his collection has helped him go viral in Japan.

He’s still missing eight games, by the way.

Image via Otaku USA Magazine 

Florida panthers are now coming back to reclaim territory north of the Everglades National Park. The once nearly extinct and rarely seen cats are now showing up in Florida. Panther biologist Brian Kelly and photographer Carlton Ward Jr. show the life of the Florida panther in a feature article by National Geographic magazine. Kelly and Ward discussed the process in trying to find panthers they could take photos of: 

"First things first is identifying the track and knowing if it's a panther or not. And then the real trick is following it," he said. "So because they go so far, like in any given night, a panther might walk oh, a couple of miles. Maybe more. To actually follow panther tracks to find the panther itself — it's way harder than it is for any of those African animals. Way harder."

Following their routes is the best way to figure out how to find them.

"The first thing you learn are which tracks are fresh enough to follow and find the animal, and which are not. Because if you start following tracks that are not fresh enough, you're not going to catch up to the animal. You're not going to find it," he said. "So, the key is identifying the difference between a couple of hours-old track and a couple of days-old track."

On this day, Kelly is visiting public land, but most of the range of the Florida panther is on private land. Huge ranches bracket the preserve, and the cooperation of ranchers is considered essential to their survival.

"It varies," Kelly said of the attitude of most ranchers. "Some are very amenable and work with us quite a bit, some not so much. At the moment anyway, we can get the information that we need from public lands, from state land. It's not a huge priority to push the envelope with private landowners."

Panthers "need a lot of room," he said. "That's the big challenge."

Image via NPR 

Yikes. The body of a 39-year-old man was found inside a dinosaur statue in Spain. The body was found by a father and son who noticed a smell coming from  the papier-mâché figure in Santa Coloma de Gramenet, a suburb of Barcelona. The corpse was in the dinosaur’s hollow leg. The police are now investigating the circumstances behind the tragic incident: 

Three fire brigade teams were called to scene after the body was discovered, and firefighters cut open the dinosaur leg to retrieve it.

Local media report the man - who has not been named - was trying to retrieve a mobile phone he dropped inside the statue. He then fell inside the decorative figure and was left trapped upside down, unable to call for help.

Police have not confirmed how the man ended up inside the dinosaur, and are awaiting the results of his autopsy to find out how he died.

The decorative statue has been removed from its place outside the city's Cubic Building, where it had been used to advertise an old cinema.

Image via BBC 

Now that’s dedication! Sebastião Salgado and his wife decided to bring life back to Minas Gerais, a rainforest that was completely dried out when he returned home to Brazil in 1994. After acquiring the land, the couple spent the next 20 years replanting the forest that died due to deforestation and uncontrolled exploitation of its natural resources, as IFLScience details: 

“The land was as sick as I was – everything was destroyed,” Salgado told the Guardian. “Only about 0.5% of the land was covered in trees. Then my wife had a fabulous idea to replant this forest. And when we began to do that, then all the insects and birds and fish returned and, thanks to this increase of the trees I, too, was reborn – this was the most important moment.”

The couple set up Instituto Terra with the noble goal of restoring the 17,000-acre property to its natural state. The organization they set up and ran recruited partners and volunteers, and together they set about planting 4 million saplings. 

Taking care of the plants – all carefully sourced and native to the area – they were able to restore the forest, which flourished over the next 20 years.

It wasn't easy. The land was dry, and the rains didn't return until 1999. They first had to restore nitrogen to the soil, planting legumes, before they could plant seedlings. Even then, after the first planting, most of the plants died in the ground.

“We made the holes too tight,” Salgado told the Smithsonian. “For weeks I was sick – sick to see this disaster.” 

Image via IFLScience 

Israeli archaeologists Yonatan Adler and Omri Lernau teamed up to glean insights into fish remains that were found among the relics of ancient Judea. The kinds of fish the residents ate during that time give us a glimpse into how kashrut, or Jewish dietary law, was adopted by the communities.

Now, in a study published today in the journal Tel Aviv, the pair reveals that ancient Judeans, in a period that spans throughout much of the first millennium B.C., enjoyed a diet that didn’t fully adhere to Jewish kosher laws. According to the study, archaeologists have found the remains of three non-kosher species in the two ancients Judean settlements—the Kingdom of Israel in the region’s north and the Kingdom of Judah in the south. Judah residents in particular ate a lot of catfish. These findings help scientists and historians build a more complete picture of how the ancient Judean cultures developed and adopted these rules.

According to rabbinic tradition, Moses, the most important prophet in Judaism, received the commandments that outlined how to live life as a Jew sometime around the 13th century B.C. Scholars don’t know exactly when these rules and practices were written down into the Torah, but in his upcoming book, Adler argues that evidence for its observance does not appear until the Hasmonean period that lasted from 140 B.C. to 37 B.C. And the point in history at which Judean citizens adopted the dietary rules prescribed in Torah into their lifestyles, essentially becoming kosher, is also not certain.

Besides not knowing when the rules of keeping kosher were written down, we don't know when they became accessible to the masses, who were largely illiterate. But the story of the remains found in archaeological digs may help scientists figure that out. Read more about the research at Smithsonian.

This is the worst acronym I’ve ever seen in my life. I laugh at a different bit every time pic.twitter.com/s3ymAN4IU9

— roxannat (@NicLiamo) May 23, 2021

According to Wikipedia, an acronym is "a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase," which this is not. The purpose of this sign is presumably to be a mnemonic device, or a shortcut for remembering things, which it is also not. One commenter came up with much more sensible wording in eight seconds.

Footwear
Alarms
Lenses
Lavatory
Supports

Now that wasn't so hard, was it? -via Fark

Ooh, neat, a vintage toy with a self-contained marble run! But that's just the beginning of this compilation of kinetic artworks, each offering a new twist, like intricate shapes, multiple paths, clever return mechanisms, bells and whistles, and motorized returns. These aren't antiques. LittleBall Creations hand-solders amazing marble run sculptures out of copper wiring, which gives them a lovely vintage look, but it's the clever designs that get us hooked. If these were for sale... we couldn't afford them. See more of LittleBall Creations' sculptures at Colossal. -via Everlasting Blort

When Florida neurologist Dr. Thomas Newman left the world of the living at 73 years old, he left a carefully curated collection of baseball cards to his family. The collection is worth over $20 million. Wow! According to Joe Orlando, chief executive officer of Collectors Universe, Newman’s collection "exhibits the kind of depth and level of quality that are rarely achieved." The Insider has more details: 

It includes a Mickey Mantle rookie card from 1952 expected to sell for more than $1 million, and a mint condition Babe Ruth card from 1933 that Memory Lane expects to break the current record price of $5.2 million for a single baseball card.

"He jokingly called his cards his 'paper babies,' and spent almost every day attending to his collection in one way or another," his wife Nancy Newman said in a statement released by the auction house. "It gave him such pleasure. The only reason he would ever sell a card was if he had acquired the same card in a higher grade."

Memory Lane's public online auction will take place from June 21 to July 10.

Image via Insider 

Kindergartners saved themselves from a hostage scenario by annoying their hostage taker with a lot of questions. The children managed to keep themselves and the bus driver, Kenneth Corbin, safe from the hijacker, 23-year-old army trainee Jovan Collazo. Collazo moved all the students on the front to keep them in his proximity, which just resulted in giving the kids a chance for their barrage of questions: 

Authorities believe that Callazo, who was on his third week at Fort Jackson, was trying to get home when he hijacked the bus.

“As we were traveling, I guess he realized there were several students on the bus — kind of scattered throughout,” Corbin was quoted as saying. “He decided to move all the students upfront so he could keep us all in close proximity, and when he did that, especially some of my kindergarteners, they started asking questions.”

“They asked him, ‘Why are you doing this?’ He never did have an answer for this one. They asked, was he going to hurt them? He said ‘no.’ They asked, ‘are you going to hurt our bus driver?’ He said, ‘no. I’m going to put you off the bus,'” Corbin recalled.

Corbin added that Callazo might have sensed more questions coming from the children and just told them, “Enough is enough already,” and ordered Corbin to ‘stop the bus, and just get off.”

Corbin, who was trained to handle such situations, shared that he remained calm and just followed Callazo’s instructions, explaining that he was thinking of the kids and did not want to agitate the hijacker.

Image via The Inquirer 

Emanuele Magini, a furniture designer and scenographer in Italy, calls this chair the Lazy Basketball. It suggests a helpful distraction for the workplace or a possible prank to play on unsuspecting users just looking for a place to sit.

-via Toxel