Did you know that the longest-living animal on Earth is a creature called the immortal jellyfish? Just from the name alone, we might assume that it could escape death a few times. For real though, they could, in theory, of course. The adult versions of these invertebrates can roll back their biological clock when injured or on the verge of starvation:

However, while this is technically feasible, it’s by no means provable. That’s because these jellyfish have only been studied sporadically since the early 1980s, meaning experts have only a few decades’ worth of data.

There’s also another factor to consider. While an immortal jellyfish can age in reverse, it can also be easily killed by predators including various fish, sharks, turtles and even other jellyfish. This is why the immortal jellyfish is unlikely to overpopulate the Earth anytime soon.

Normally, a mere mortal jellyfish passes through five stages of life:

Fertilised egg: an adult jellyfish (known as a medusa) will spawn eggs and sperm into the water, with these two types of cells joining up to create a fertilised egg.

Planula: the fertilised egg grows into a small larva called a planula. It looks something like a microscopic worm and can swim about freely.

Polyp: The planula will swim down to find a solid surface (such as a seabed), where it will develop a digestive system and is able to feed itself. When conditions such as water temperature suit it, the polyp will reproduce asexually, cloning itself to create a small colony.

Ephyra: after forming a new set of muscles and nerves, a section of a polyp (either the original polyp or clone) becomes an ephyra, an organism that can swim independently, grow and feed.

Medusa: this is a fully-grown adult jellyfish, which can reproduce sexually with another jellyfish (usually dying shortly afterwards).

Image via Science Focus

Sasha Gray, organiser of the forthcoming Birdsong exhibition to occur in Doncaster as the outcome of the programme of commissions, gives an overview of the development of the journey in making the works that the artists have travelled.

Birdsong on The Planet of the Apes exhibition will appear in waves from June the 21st onwards culminating during the ArtBomb long weekend August 5-9th.

As the world entered a whole new existence at the emergence of the Covid 19 pandemic, we began to try and make huge adjustments to a life known previously, many of us had no idea of the hardship ahead. Early on in the pandemic, hit hard or exposed perhaps for the first time, to loss in the form of livelihood, death and illness, human interaction and community.

In high contrast to the tragedy and suffering, we became aware of our environment, as the roads emptied of cars and highstreet shops and businesses shut down, our senses adjusted. We were rid of the distractions that we were so attuned to and we began to notice nature and its apparent ‘take over’ of our towns and public spaces and gardens. Our minds cleared long enough for us to think.

In March 2020, Doncaster Creates commissioned 14 artists in the area to respond to the Covid 19 crisis within a project named Birdsong On The Planet Of The Apes. For many of the commissioned artists, this project was a welcome opportunity at a time when freelance work was scarce and even more insecure than ever. For some of the artists, struggling to establish themselves on their fledgling career path, it also became a significant building block of practice development in a very precarious time. As the work comes to fruition, it is interesting to reflect back.

This summer, the work of the Birdsong artists will be showcased from June over a period of 8 weeks which will also form a part of ArtBomb festival taking place between 5th and 9th of August.

With a wide variety of art forms being presented to the public, the show presents the results of the work, part of a continued experiment soon to be presented in the centre of Doncaster based at and in partnership with the Unitarian Church on Hallgate.

Each artist has used different media which includes screenings by film producers Angela Robson with Writing the World Backwards and James Lockey, 2D exhibitions from artist Mandy Keating with The World Beyond The Square, photographer Amelia Londsale with God Bless Bentley, sound, light and photographic work by multi media artist Ryan Harston with I Give You My HeART, audio short by film maker Raj Madaan with White Privilege, ceramic work by Sarah Villeneau with The Ground Beneath Our Feet, podcast with young writers from Vicky Morris with Brave New Worlds, photography by Les Monoghan with Invisible Vox Pops, youth radio show by Ian Byatt Breakin Radio, posters, placards and tee shirts by Sarah Smizz with Networks of Care, interactive slow karts by Sacha Gray with Listening for Birdsong, eco-audio hack by Warren Draper with Unbound Arts. Woven into the mix of exhibitions and performances will be workshops and artist talks will make up the Birdsong show in the shop space as well as spilling out into the public realm and online.

The Birdsong projects embrace that chink in ‘normality’ presented by the pandemic and innovatively explore how we might begin to build a new, better, world which places ultimate value on care, nurture and respect for all life.

A Red-winged Blackbird looking like it's getting a free ride on an Osprey's broomstick. The Blackbird was focused on driving the Osprey away from the marsh, while the Osprey was focused on bringing back a good stick for the nest. pic.twitter.com/vGxbSkKQ32

— Jocelyn Anderson Photography (@JocAPhotography) May 11, 2021

Have you ever seen a skateboarder grab the back of a tractor trailer? That's something akin to what this blackbird is doing in this amazing shot by wildlife photographer Jocelyn Anderson.

-via Super Punch

the explanation for why he-man has a tiger is one of the funniest things i've ever seen in my life and i have to share the whole clip pic.twitter.com/1pgtQglG0M

— Bobby Schroeder (@ponettplus) May 21, 2019

The Netflix series The Toys That Made Us looked into the origins of He-Man and She-Ra, and found that, like many cartoons of the era, the two TV series were conceived solely to sell action figures. The clip above (which contains NSFW language) explains why He-Man had a gigantic tiger for a sidekick. While the relative size of the tiger varied in the TV series (Cringer the pet was half the size of the transformed Battle Cat), it was huge in the toy line. We can assume that the reason the cat was green was to signify that it was a different species and could not be compared with a normal, everyday tiger. -via Boing Boing

Muriel Howorth founded the Atomic Gardening Society in 1959. Years before that in 1950, the atomic energy enthusiast staged a ballet/pantomime production based on atoms. A review from Time magazine said,  

Last week in Aldwych's Waldorf Hotel, Mrs. Howorth's high-minded Atomic Energy Association of Great Britain (membership: 300) celebrated its second anniversary with an atomic pantomime called Isotopia.

Before a select audience of 250 rapt ladies and a dozen faintly bored gentlemen, some 13 bosomy A.E. Associates in flowing evening gowns gyrated gracefully about a stage in earnest imitation of atomic forces at work. An ample electron in black lace wound her way around two matrons labeled "proton" and "neutron" while an elderly ginger-haired Geiger counter clicked out their radioactive effect on a pretty girl named Agriculture. At a climactic moment, a Mrs. Monica Davial raced across the stage in spirited representation of a rat eating radioactive cheese.

You can read the script for the show at Atomic Gardens. If the idea of combining dance and science sounds familiar to you, it’s because people still do it. The winners of the annual Dance Your Ph.D. competition were announced just a few weeks ago.

(Image credit: Jacobo37)

Tom Scott titled his latest video “I promise this story about microwaves is interesting.” But I went ahead and took a shortcut with a spoiler title. However, those hamsters are only one of the many interesting things you’ll learn about microwaves in just a few minutes. -via reddit

Golsa Goldchini, an artist born in Tehran and now living in Milan, depicts miniature, watery worlds on ordinary objects, such as discarded pieces of cardboard or a mound of acrylic paint. I'm especially delighted by her works executed on her own left hand. Goldchini's use of shadows and realistic depiction of her subjects make these ephemeral stories especially striking.

You are, no doubt, familiar with kamikaze, the Japanese pilots who flew explosive-laden planes directly into Allied warships in World War II. The suicide missions came about because the Japanese military was fairly desperate by 1944. But they weren’t limited to aircraft. Kamikaze missions also used trucks, motorboats, submarines, and even pedestrians. But the weirdest were the Fukuryu, or kamikaze frogmen.

The Fukuryu, or “crouching dragons,” were first conceived in late 1944 by Captain Kiichi Shintani at the Yokosuka Naval Base Anti-submarine School. With an American invasion expected within a year, Shintani feared that the Navy’s plan to use suicide torpedoes and motor boats to sink incoming landing craft would be inadequate given the critically low supply of men and materials needed to construct such craft. Instead, he proposed using an army of divers who would live underwater for weeks at the expected landing sites and emerge at night to attack incoming ships directly. While the Japanese Navy had used surface swimmers or Kaiyu to attack ships around the island of Peleliu, Shintani’s scheme would require far more sophisticated equipment and tactics. But as with the aerial Kamikaze, the doctrine of “one man – one ship” proved extremely attractive to the Japanese High Command, and in November 1944 feasibility studies and training began at Yokoska and Kawatana under the direction of Lieutenant Masayuki Sasano.

The Fukuryu were equipped with a specialized diving suit made of rubberized canvas with a steel helmet and a simple rebreather system. 3.5 litres of oxygen were stored in two tanks on the diver’s back, the carbon dioxide from their breath being scrubbed out by a canister of Sodium Hydroxide. With 9 kg of lead for ballast, the suit allowed a diver to walk along the ocean floor at a depth of around 5-7 metres for up to 8 hours, a special liquid food even being developed to sustain them underwater. In the lead-up to an invasion the Fukuryu would live in special underwater bunkers from which they could emerge undetected to attack enemy ships.

The reasons we never heard much about the Fukuryu are the same reasons that the Japanese military was desperate by 1944. Read about the suicide divers at Today I Found Out.

A father in China creates his own version of popular games so his young daughter could play them at home, even if she doesn’t have a computer or a game console nearby. Zhang Shuai started his crafting projects by working on a playable kitchen set for his daughter Nini, using cardboard and other materials. It’s important to point out that he has created physical versions of popular video games so his daughter could play them. From Tetris, to racing games, to his own version of Flappy Bird- his daughter must be having a lot of fun! 

Image screenshot via South China Morning Post on Facebook 

I have a vague recollection of watching the ‘90s show Legends of the Hidden Temple during Sunday mornings when I was a child. I remember being excited as I rooted for the contestants as they brave through the puzzles in the show, and being scared or surprised as jump scares (of a sort) pop in some areas to distract the contestants as they try to get out of the temple. So imagine my surprise that a reboot was going to be launched! The CW Network is now looking for adult contestants, as WKBW details: 

The CW Network has ordered a "new, re-imagined edition of the iconic Nickelodeon adventure series," although a premiere date has not yet been announced.

The show, which originally aired from 1993-1995, had younger contestants take part in physical tasks that included running, rope climbing, and more.

The CW says many of the original show's iconic sets, including "Olmec," the giant talking Mayan head, "The Steps of Knowledge," and the "Moat Crossings," will return.

"Once again, the gate to Olmec’s temple is about to open, but this time it’s for grown-ups!" the show's description says.

How to sign up:

To try out for the show, you must be 21 or older and be in the Los Angeles area in July.

The show is looking for teams of two.

To apply, fill out the form here.

Image via WKBW 

I’m not surprised that the trial is still ongoing. Here’s a new update on the Epic Games vs. Apple lawsuit: they’re now playing Candy Crush in court. Well, sort of. When the Verge’s Elizabeth Lopatto sat in a federal court to watch a huge trial with major stakes for these two well-known companies, she wasn’t expecting it to be a crashing bore to the point that she started to slightly reflect on her life. Lopatto shares a portion of the court session when Apple’s expert witness, Lorin Hitt, was driving the point that being blocked from the App Store isn’t a huge blow to developers: 

Epic attorney Yonatan Even, also in a face shield, is now doing his best to blow a hole in Hitt’s testimony. I am doing my best to follow a confusing spreadsheet that includes games that Hitt has promised are on both PC and mobile phones. Even begins by pointing out some of these games are not, in fact, available for PC. One game, Words Story, is listed as available on PC on the document, but does not say this on the developer’s website. In the Microsoft store, a “Words Story” with the same art exists, but it’s not the same developer. “Sir, this is not the same developer and not the same game, is it?” Even says. “It’s what is called a ‘fake game.’”

[..] 

Hitt said earlier that he’d identified eight games that let people buy things on the iOS web browser, and then use them in iOS apps; these are identified in the spreadsheet. Epic has complained that this process isn’t good enough — and certainly isn’t ubiquitous. Now, Even raises the “frictionless” process that Hitt had blithely testified to earlier in the day. Candy Crush Saga is the example Even chooses. We go to the website, and press “install,” where we are promptly sent to the App Store. We tab back to the website. The only possible way to play on the web is on desktop. The Facebook option for Candy Crush, too, is desktop.

“That’s part of the frictionless process you have envisioned?” Even asks, somewhat sarcastically.

Image via the Verge 

Remember that post about someone challenging all the other people who had the same name as him in a big brawl to decide who gets to keep the name once and for all? Well, the legendary Josh fight has already happened, and one YouTuber created an epic video to commemorate the fun event. Spark Freerunning created a Super Smash Bros-style edit featuring the different Joshes who attended the event.

That’s a nice accessory you got there, little fish! Susan Prior noticed a sand mullet with a gold wedding band lodged on its neck. Prior was snorkeling in Emily Bay when she spotted the unlikely sight. While fishes wearing plastic collars from juice and milk bottles are commonly seen, the ring was a gut-wrenching sight for her, as she explains on her blog: 

"Yesterday, I saw another mullet with a ring collar, but this one looked a shiny metallic gold, with a lot less algal growth compared to the plastic ones," she explained on her blog.

Prior noted that the ring likely got caught on the fish while it was searching for food on the ocean floor.

"Sometimes these rings escape into the wild, and this is the sad consequence," she explained. "Mullet snuffle through the sand looking for food making it so easy for a ring or hair tie to flip over their noses and get stuck."

After snapping photos of the fish, Prior returned to land, where she remembered that someone had posted on a community social media page earlier this year about a man's wedding ring that had gone missing in the bay.

Image via Yahoo News 

This is what happens when a whale gets too close to a propeller-driven ship. A humpback whale known as Bladerunner is believed to have had a close encounter with a large propeller in 2001. She has deep scars along her left side and on the right wing of her tail fluke.  

Rosalind Butt, who owned a whale watching business in the New South Wales town of Eden, saw Bladerunner twice in her 30 years in the business.

"The first was in 2008, my husband was the first one to comment on it," Ms Butt said.

"It looks like a zebra, it has got stripes on it.

"As we got closer, we saw it was very badly cut, it must have been a huge ship that struck her."

Ms Butt saw Bladerunner again in 2013, with a calf.

"She’s probably one of the most unique animals I've seen," she said.

Read about Bladerunner, and the danger that ship's propellers pose for whales at ABC News Australia. -via reddit

(Image credit: Rosalind Butt)

Attention, Friends fans! LEGO is offering a new build set that recreates the two main apartments in the TV series Friends. The 2048-piece set will allow you to reconstruct the most telegenic parts of Chandler and Joey’s apartment, Rachel and Monica’s apartment, and a tiny hallway between them just perfect for eating cheesecake. The set includes seven minifigs (all six Friends plus Chandler’s ex-girlfriend Janice), and all kinds of memorable props like a foosball table, a duck, a canoe, turkeys that fit on heads, a ruined cheesecake, and a cat that may or may not be smelly.    



The set will be released on June first, and will retail for $150. Central Perk sold separately. -via Mental Floss