Everything changes over time. Whether something is natural or artificial, it will meet change somewhere along the way.

Ever since its first appearance in 1935, beer cans have, like other man-made stuff, undergone some change over time. If you’re interested in seeing how beer cans evolved, then you’ll be delighted to know that there is a person who has collected over 4,500 antique beer cans since 1993 — David Maxwell.

[Maxwell has] compiled a handy field-identification guide meant to assist researchers in pinpointing “changes in major and minor design features [in beer cans]…to yield age estimates accurate to within five years of production.”

The archeological study of beer cans is a small niche within the field of “tin can archeology.” For archeologists, the value of tin cans comes from one key feature: disposability. According to archeologist Jane Busch, “Immediate disposal makes the…can a valuable dating tool for archaeologists,” since “there are few uses for an open tomato can once the tomatoes are gone.” Even though beer cans are relatively modern compared to something like a Civil War–era metal milk can, Busch argues, “The historical archaeologist who ignores the beer can at his site is like the prehistoric archaeologist who ignores historic pottery.”

Know more about how beer cans changed over time, over at JSTOR Daily.

(Image Credit: Visitor7/ Wikimedia Commons)

A razor has a blade and thus can be turned into a weapon. So how do you make a razor that can't be turned into a shank? You make it bright orange so that it's very visible and build in 8 fragile points which break apart if you apply pressure. It can't be opened, so there's no way to hide contraband inside.

Rain Noe of Core77 perused the online store of Bob Barker, a company that sells products made specifically for prison and jail environments. There are many adaptations that you might never think of, such as soft silicone chess pieces (so they can't be used as weapons), transparent toothpaste tubes, and transparent wind-up radios.

My favourite species of birds are the ones named by people who clearly hate birds. (thread) pic.twitter.com/81Ztls7B2O

— Stu Royall (@stu_bot3000) February 3, 2021

There are about 10,000 known species of birds, so it stands to reason that some of them will end up with less-than-noble names. Yeah, we know about tits and boobies, but that only scratches the surface of weirdly-named birds. Stu Royall has been collecting the most head-scratchingly awful names for birds, which he presents in a Twitter thread.  

Excuse me? pic.twitter.com/bvFk5GRh64

— Stu Royall (@stu_bot3000) February 3, 2021

It gets weirder.

If you hate *birdsong* maybe find a different hobby idk pic.twitter.com/k5zMtF9zbe

— Stu Royall (@stu_bot3000) February 4, 2021

And those are just a few of the unflattering bird names Royall shows us. Replies came in with hilarious names for birds, fish, reptiles, and other species. Translations, too, like the Swedish buttdork. Read the whole thread here. -via Digg

Found in the middle of Germany’s capital city is a former animal research facility known as the “Mouse Bunker”. Why does it have such a name, you ask? The answer is because the place was brimming with mice. It is said that at some point, the facility has housed over 45,000 mice and 20,000 rats, as well as other rodents.

Officially the Central Animal Laboratory of the Free University of Berlin, the Mäusebunker was completed in 1981 as part of the Institute for Hygiene and Microbiology. It’s connected to the latter via an underground tunnel. The sinister-looking building was designed by the husband-and-wife duo of Gerd and Magdalena Hänska. Construction of the bunker began in 1971, and would have been completed at least three years earlier if cost had not gone spiraling out of control.

The Mäusebunker was built to look like a fortress, although it is more often compared to a warship because of its inclined walls and blue-painted ventilation shafts that protrude from the sides like cannon barrels...

The use of the building is just as uncanny as the threatening appearance of the building: The mouse bunker was built by the Free University to carry out scientific experiments with live animals and to breed the animals required for this on site. For safety reasons, the animal testing laboratories are located deep in the building and are ventilated with cannon-like air intake pipes.

Despite the Mouse Bunker’s closure in 2010, the building still stands tall in Berlin to this day, thanks to the efforts of some residents, architects, and other activists, who launched a campaign and successfully stalled its demolition.

The building will now be reviewed to explore reuse options.

With its cannon-like ventilation shafts, it certainly does look more like a battleship than a fortress.

Well, what do you think?

(Image Credit: Gunnar Klack/ Wikimedia Commons)

If you wished to have a device that can help you understand other languages in real time, well, these earphones are for you! Meet the Timekettle WT2 Edge, designed by  Leal Tian & Alex Qin. The ‘translator-buds’ can perform bi-directional translation in as many as 40 languages and 93 accents. The earphones also offer offline translation with the top seven most spoken languages in the world: 

The earphones are powered by 6 leading translation engines (DeepL, Google, Microsoft, iFlytek, AmiVoice, and Hoya) along with Timekettle’s own translation engine to provide translations between both languages and accents. Just pop these in-ear translators in and they can be used in 3 different modes. A “Simul Mode” lets you share one earpiece with the person you’re talking to, and both earphones work as individual translators, actively translating both input and output in realtime to ensure you have a seamless conversation. 

For shorter conversations, the “Speaker Mode” lets you turn your smartphone into a speaker. Just say what you want into the earpieces and the phone plays it back for the opposite person in the translated language. The phone can even display the text back in both languages, working well in noisy environments like bars and restaurants where you want to quickly communicate with someone but you don’t speak the local language. The third “Touch Mode” facilitates cross-cultural conversations, and gives you the ability to touch the earpiece to activate your mic (and mute the others), like a smart walkie-talkie that translates your speech in real-time for as many as 6 people. Beyond the “Touch Mode” function, the WT2 Edge can handle group chats of 30 people speaking thirty different languages at once, and the earphones translate everything. Pair this with Zoom and you could have a multi-lingual conference with your entire global team practically seamlessly, and with everyone on the same page.

Image via Yanko Design 

You already knew that tardigrades are weird creatures, but you'll get way more weirdness when Ze Frank explains them. For example, they come in all shapes and colors, including transparent. In this video, we get to watch them eat diatoms and poop crystals, come back to life after being dehydrated, and reproduce by various means. Because that's how tardigrades do.

Jang Ji-sung was able to reunite with her seven-year-old daughter Nayeon thanks to virtual reality. Their reunion was part of a special documentary called “I Met You,” produced by the Munhwa Broadcasting Corporation. Nayeon died of an incurable disease in 2016, and technology was able to let her mother see her (sort of) and have a birthday party: 

“Maybe it’s a real paradise,” Jang said of the reunion in VR, according to Aju Business Daily. “I met Nayeon, who called me with a smile, for a very short time, but it’s a very happy time. I think I’ve had the dream I’ve always wanted.”

According to Aju Business Daily, the production team spent eight months on the project. They designed the virtual park after one the mother and daughter had visited in the real world, and used motion capture technology to record the movements of a child actor that they could later use as a model for their virtual Nayeon.

All that to say: the process might not be simple and the final product might not be perfect, but we now have the technology to recreate the dead in VR — convincingly enough to move their loved ones to tears.

And the implications of that are impossible to predict.

It may have taken an entire team of experts to produce “I Met You,” but how far can we be from a platform that lets anyone upload footage of a deceased love one and then interact with a virtual version of that person? Years? Months?

Image via Futurism 

Cheryl Lee Myers, an artist in Cape Coral, Florida, makes a variety of uniquely surreal sculptures. I'm especially taken with her dioramas set inside split coconuts. What does this mysterious apothecary offer you from his laboratory?

-via So Super Awesome

Kitty wants to join you at work, but your office furniture isn't always designed with cats' needs in mind. That's where designer Dan Devine comes in. His Ascend Desk makes it easy for cats to climb up to your level and lounge around.

To make the desk more comfortable, you can add carpeting. And there's even a built-in cat bed! The only feature that is missing is a litter pan.

-via Toxel

It’s very expensive, though. The YInMn Blue was discovered in 2009 at an Oregon State University lab. The discovery of the pigment was serendipitous, with chemist Mas Subramanian and his team coming upon the color after conducting experiments with rare elements. YInMn Blue’s name comes from the elements Yttrium, Indium, and Manganese, as Artnet details:

YInMn Blue’s appeal stems in part from its high opacity, which means you don’t need to apply much of it to get a good coating. (Ultramarine, by comparison is quite transparent.) It also has unusual hyper-spectral properties, reflecting most infrared radiation, which keeps the pigment cool.

That makes it especially well-suited for energy-saving applications on building exteriors—which was part of what attracted Shepherd Color, which sells pigments for industrial use.

“The art world likes it because of the color. The industrial world likes it because of what it can do in terms of environmental regulations for building products,” Shepherd Color marketing manger Mark Ryan told Artnet News.

The pigment also has a great deal to offer anyone more focused on the visual appeal.

“It is very vivid compared to Cobalt blue or Prussian blue, and it comes with some additional advantages in terms of the durability and stability of the pigment,” Subramanian told Artnet News.

Described as something of a cross between Ultramarine blue and Cobalt blue, YInMn Blue fills “a gap in the range of colors,” Georg Kremer, Kremer’s founder and president, said. “Our customers loved it from the very first moment they had seen it.”

Image via Artnet 

Among the wild ducks of Lake Merritt, Oakland residents noticed and soon became fans of two that really stuck out from the crowd. He was tall, dark, and handsome, with a green head and a proud stance. She was a white duck with a plume of poufy feathers on her head. And they were devoted to each other. The two ducks became social media favorites, as people shared images and videos. But those who know ducks were worried.

“When you see a duck that looks a little different, it’s probably not supposed to be there,” says Kira Kiesler, who, along with her family, runs a Bay Area animal rescue organization called Genevieve’s Gentle Hearts Rescue.

This was the case for the Lake Merritt ducks, whom some in the community call Ebony and Ivory. Both are domestic breeds, not wild like the others around them. Ebony, the black duck, is a male Cayuga. Ivory, the white duck, is a female crested duck.

“They weren’t supposed to be at Lake Merritt, which is why they were so friendly,” Kiesler adds. “Someone actually hand-raised them. And unfortunately, they dumped them there, which is a very common story.”

Read the story of how Ebony and Ivory charmed Oakland and were finally rescued and given a proper home, at the Bold Italic. Do not miss the video of Ivory taking a bath surrounded by rubber duckies. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: bentonboy)

Just in case the purpose of helicopter skids is unclear, this HH-60G Pave Hawk in the US Air National Guard has footprints painted on its feet. This chopper is engaged in search and rescue training. Let us hope that the feet make it more visible to people in need of rescue.

-via Super Punch | Photo: Senior Airman Kelly Willett

You know that someone really loves what he’s doing when he braves even a winter storm, in a rather thin costume, just to show the world what he’s passionate about. New York cosplayer CosPlayNay donned his Frozone costume as he headed out to face the snow and the gusty winds in the city.

CosPlayNay had also found himself sliding down a snowy hill on the superhero's iconic snowboard later that day. The kids who had brought their sleds for some winter fun quickly noticed CosPlayNay as Frozone and were ecstatic to see him.

"[They called me] Hey Iceman! Hey Mr. Freeze! Hey Frozone! You're that guy from the cartoon!" CosPlayNay told Cosplay Central. "They kept asking 'Hey Frozone are you cold?!' and I responded with 'I'm never cold, just cool.'"

When asked why he wanted to cosplay as Frozone, CosPlayNay explained that he felt like he connected to the character.

"Aside from my love for The Incredibles, I strongly feel more black super heroes need to be recognized, acknowledged and shown on the silver screen," CosPlayNay told Cosplay Central. "Frozone is one of the coolest characters (no pun intended. He's tall, dark, average build, funny, witty, stylish, loves the kids, loves the people and overall a character/person a lot of people can genuinely relate."

Now this is dedication!

(Image Credit: CosPlayNay/ Twitter)

Vox populi. The voice of the people, or at least the majority of people. I believe that it is a phrase that exists for a reason, as the voice of people can do many things. It can establish and overthrow rulers. It can also reshape society through change and revolution. Time and time again, the voice of the people has proved itself to be a powerful force, and it seems that it has displayed its power once again, and this time, you can hear it in the meme world and the cryptocurrency market, specifically, in Dogecoin — a cryptocurrency inspired by a meme.

One of the most difficult problems in finance right now is figuring out the fundamental economic value of cryptocurrencies. And the past week has complicated this further.

For many cryptocurrency investors, the value of Bitcoin is based on the fact it is artificially scarce. A hard cap on “minting” new coins means there will only ever be 21 million Bitcoin in existence. And unlike national currencies such as the Australian dollar, the rate of release for new Bitcoin is slowing down over time.

Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency that takes its name and logo from a Shiba Inu meme that was popular several years ago, doesn’t have a cap. Launched in 2013, there are now 100 billion Dogecoin in existence, with as many as five billion new coins minted each year.

But how can a currency with a seemingly unlimited supply have any value at all? And why did Dogecoin’s price suddenly surge more than 800% in 24 hours on January 29?

At the time of publication, the “memecoin” was worth about A$5.6 billion on the stock market.

If there’s one thing that this sudden phenomenon teaches us, it is this: “memes move markets.”

More about this over at The Conversation.

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: ARTIST Ryzhi/ Wikimedia Commons)

In 1902, Greek archaeologist Valerios Stais revealed his findings about an object found in a shipwreck off the coast of Greece near Antikythera. Seeing a gear embedded in the strange object, Stais deduced that the object in question was an astronomy-based clock.

He was in the minority—most agreed that something so sophisticated must have entered the wreck long after its other 2,000-year-old artifacts. Nothing like it was believed to have existed until 1,500 years later.

It turns out, however, that Stais’s insight about the object was correct. The object, which we now call “Antikythera mechanism", is in fact, an astronomy-based clock.

In 1951, British historian Derek J. de Solla Price began studying the find, and by 1974 he had worked out that it was, in fact, a device from 150 to 100 BC Greece. He realized it used meshing bronze gears connected to a crank to move hands on the device's face in accordance with the Metonic cycle, the 235-month pattern that ancient astronomers used to predict eclipses.

By 2009, modern imaging technology had identified all 30 of the Antikythera mechanism's gears, and a virtual model of it was released.

Understanding how the pieces fit goes together confirmed that the Antikythera mechanism was capable of predicting the positions of the planets with which the Greeks were familiar—Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn—as well as the sun and moon, and eclipses. It even has a black and white stone that turns to show the phases of the moon. Andrew Carol, an engineer from Apple, built a (much bigger) working model of the device using Legos to demonstrate its operation.

Learn more about this fascinating device over at Big Think.

(Image Credit: Marsyas/ Wikimedia Commons)