Kyoto's traditional homes called Machiya are going extinct. That's partially due to the government's desire to keep the people safe from fires (since a Machiya is traditionally made of wood). Moreover, Machiyas tend to be extremely hot during the summer and extremely cold during the winter. The ceiling is very low, too. Thankfully, because of the increasing number of tourists, the locals and the government have been more involved in trying to preserve and renovate these traditional houses!

See this video to have a virtual tour of a Machiya. My favorite part? The traditional Hinoki Cypress tree bath and the courtyard garden!

Video Credits to Abroad in Japan / Youtube

Have you received a sealed letter and looked at it against the sun to see what's inside? Only to find out that you can't understand anything.

Well, these researchers have been successful (unlike us...) in reading an unopened 17th Century letter without breaking the seal.

Image Credit: Unlocking History Research Group archive

The letter, dated 31 July 1697 and sent from French merchant Jacques Sennacques in Lille to his cousin Pierre Le Pers in The Hague, had been closed using “letterlocking”, a process in which the letter is folded to become its own envelope, in effect locking it to keep it private. It is part of a collection of some 2,600 undelivered letters sent from all over Europe to The Hague between 1689 and 1706, 600 of which have never been opened.

Image Credit: The Museum Voor Communicatie

The international team of researchers from universities including MIT, King’s College London, Queen Mary University London, Utrecht and Leiden, worked with X-ray microtomography scans of the letter, which use X-rays to see inside the document, slice by slice, and create a 3D image. They applied computational flattening algorithms to the scans to enable them to virtually unfold the letter without ever opening it, and discovered that Sennacques had been asking his cousin for a certified copy of a death notice of one Daniel Le Pers

For those curious, here's what's written:

“It has been a few weeks since I wrote to you in order to ask you to have drawn up for me a legalised excerpt of the death of sieur Daniel Le Pers, which took place in The Hague in the month of December 1695, without hearing from you,” runs the letter. “I am writing to you a second time in order to remind you of the pains that I took on your behalf. It is important to me to have this extract & you will do me a great pleasure to procure it for me & to send me at the same time news of your health & of all the family.”

Image Credit: Unlocking History Research Group archive

Babies need a lot of sleep for their development. Kittens are similar to babies, so don’t be surprised and worried if you find them sleeping most of the time. But how long do kittens sleep? The Dodo has interviewed Dr. Julian Rivera, a veterinarian, in order to find answers.

More often than not, it’s totally normal.

“Depending on their age, kittens can spend between 70 to 90 percent of their time sleeping,” Dr. Rivera told The Dodo. “Cats are prodigious sleepers, and even as adults sleep about 50 percent of the time.”

So when should you worry about your kitten? This is what the veterinarian has to say.

According to Dr. Rivera, you should hit your vet up if your kitten:

• Is unable to stand
• Isn’t nursing (if your kitten is young enough to still be nursing)
• Isn’t eating
• Has gums that are turning blue or purple

(Image Credit: Alexas_Fotos/ Pixabay)

Back in 2019, Russian photographer Daniel Kordan had the chance to go to Kyushu, Japan, during the beetle mating season. Kordan did not miss the opportunity to photograph the thousands of fireflies that lit up the thick vegetation in the island, and the results are these dazzling photos of trails of light emitted by the tiny beetles (yes, fireflies belong to the beetle order).

Check out Kordan’s stunning photographs over at Colossal.

(Image Credit: Daniel Kordan/ Colossal)

After seeing that Caesar’s paws often get burnt, inflamed, or cut, the designers from RIFRUF immediately realized that their dog needed shoes. However, as they searched for dog shoes available at the market, they did not find any that met their expectations, and so they decided to make shoes on their own. With this, the RIFRUF brand was born.

“Dogs and humans have been companions for over 16,000 years, yet to this day not a single person thought of creating a quality set of dog shoes that function and actually look good – we are here to change that,” the RIFRUF team shares. The shoes are made from custom knitted ‘rufknit’ mesh upper and natural rubber outsoles – the same materials one finds in their favorite human sneakers. Secured with Velcro straps at the heel, the design allows for a custom fit that accommodates most paws while locking the shoe in place.

Being avid dog lovers, the RIFRUF team seeks to represent more than just dog fashion, introducing contemporary design, adaptability, and safety into one sneaker model. “From the dirty streets to the fashion runway, on those hot summer days and cold snowy nights, in the pouring rain and across rough terrain, and from the moment they are born to when their health matters the most, RIFRUF is with your dogs every step of the way,” the company says. 

Now Caesar’s paws will always be safe. And the same goes for the dogs that will wear these. 

(Image Credit: rifrufqueens/ Instagram)

Different types of sushi are beautifully lined up on the table. At first glance, they look appetizing, but on a closer look, you’ll notice that something’s not right with them. That’s because they’re not real food. These are made of stone.

The artist, who goes by the name Hama, is a graduating senior from art school who created this series of hand-polished sushi stones during the pandemic-induced lockdown and subsequent remote learning. It may be heard to believe, but all the rich colors you see are from natural stones – no paints or artificial coloring of any kind was used.

Close observers will notice that among the sushi are body parts like ears, lips, nose and a finger. The artist says that the series – both the fish but also the body parts – were inspired by his part-time work in the seafood industry where he saw so much life being ended and then thrown out without even being eaten. Creating body parts as pieces of sushi was the artist’s way of reminding us that much of the food we eat was once alive, and that we all need to do our part to combat food waste.

Hama’s work is part of the Joint Graduation Exhibition of 5 Art Universities in Tokyo.

Cool!

(Image Credit: Hama/ Spoon & Tamago)

A ‘long, cylindrical object’ was spotted by an American Airlines flight crew over New Mexico during their flight from Cincinnati to Phoenix. The crew saw the unidentified flying object, which almost looked like a cruise missile as it zipped over their airplane. The FBI issued a statement after TMZ reached out to the organization  concerning the incident: 

When TMZ reached out to the FBI, spokesperson Frank Fisher said the Bureau is “aware of the reported incident.” He continued: “While our policy is to neither confirm nor deny investigations, the FBI works continuously with our federal, state, local, and tribal partners to share intelligence and protect the public.”

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) also released a short statement confirming the encounter:

A pilot reported seeing an object over New Mexico shortly after noon local time on Sunday, Feb. 21, 2021. FAA air traffic controllers did not see any object in the area on their radarscopes.

Image via TMZ 

Karagöz, or shadow puppetry, is a Turkish art form going back hundreds of years. The plays performed this way center around two main characters, Karagöz and Hacivat, who worked together to build a mosque, despite coming from different social classes. They were both charming and witty, and their shenanigans led to their execution, yet they live on in shadow plays. These characters lend themselves to both drama and comedy.

The concept of shadow theater came to Turkey during the 16th century, when the Ottomans conquered the sultanate of Egypt. Ottoman sultan Selim I defeated the Mamluk dynasty and attached Egypt to his empire, capturing Tuman bay II, the vanquished sultan, and hanging him in 1517. To win the victor’s favor, a Mamluk puppeteer portrayed the hanging during a shadow theater performance. Selim the Grim, as he was also known, was so pleased by the grisly show that he brought the puppeteer to his court. Soon after, shadow theater became popular throughout the Ottoman Empire, with performances based on social events, daily life, politics, and romance.

But the practice of Karagöz is waning. Master puppeteer Cengiz Özek is one of the few artists working full time to keep the tradition alive. Learn about his work at Atlas Obscura.

Have you ever heard of a bongo? According to Wikipedia, the bongo is the third-largest antelope in the world, and comes in two species: the western bongo is a near-threatened species, and the eastern bongo has a native habitat that consists of only a few mountains in Kenya. It is critically endangered, and there are more in zoos than in the wild. The Naples Zoo welcomed the birth of a new eastern bongo in January. The female calf's name is Amali, which means "hope" in Swahili. Read about bongos and the breeding program trying to save them from extinction at ZooBorns.

We learned about the historical practice of letterlocking some years ago. Then we learned about a trove of 17th-century undelivered mail discovered in the estate of postmasters Simon de Brienne and Marie Germain. Some of the mail was eventually opened and read, and some remained letterlocked to preserve its historical significance. Now a team of scientists and engineers from MIT have figured out how to read those letters without unfolding them!

“We’re X-raying history,” says team member David Mills, X-ray microtomography facilities manager at Queen Mary University of London. Mills, together with Graham Davis, professor of 3D X-ray imaging at Queen Mary, used machines specially designed for use in dentistry to scan unopened “locked” letters from the 17th century. This resulted in high-resolution volumetric scans, produced by high-contrast time delay integration X-ray microtomography.

“Who would have thought that a scanner designed to look at teeth would take us so far?” says Davis.

The technology had to be adapted to the project in order to separate the different layers of handwriting on paper. On the one hand, this could be a real breakthrough for deciphering writing on fragile ancient materials such as the Dead Sea Scrolls. On the other hand, it could enable nefarious organizations to read our contemporary correspondence. Read about the project at MIT News.  -via Metafilter

(Image credit: MIT Libraries)

When G Cody QJ Goldberg brought his child Harper to the playground, her little walker got stuck in the wood chips that surround typical playgrounds, and so he and his wife started what would eventually be called "Harper's Playground."

This playground is "radically inclusive through three levels of inviting":

1. Physically inviting - that is, if you use wheels, you can get everywhere
2. Socially inviting with circular seating areas, communal gathering spaces, and the use of nature
3. Emotionally inviting that uses art, good design lines, music.

Watch the story of this family that influenced a whole community towards building inclusive playgrounds.

Video by Catalysts on Facebook

It’s like the moving images in Harry Potter. Deep Nostalgia is an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered service that animates still photos. Offered by genealogy company MyHeritage, the software uses AI licensed from D-ID to create the effect that a still photo is moving. The application has taken over Twitter, with people using the service to create the creepiest fake videos.’ But how does Deep Nostalgia work  their magic? The Verge has the details: 

The program uses pre-recorded driver videos of facial movements and applies the one that works best for the still photo in question. Its intended purpose is to allow you to upload photos of deceased loved ones and see them in “action,” which seems like a lovely idea.

Users have to sign up for a free account on MyHeritage and then upload a photo. From there the process is automated; the site enhances the image before animating it and creating a gif. The site’s FAQ says it does not provide the photos to any third parties, and on its main page a message reads “photos uploaded without completing signup are automatically deleted to protect your privacy.”

Image via The Verge 

If there was a word that could completely describe the human gut, that word would be diverse. This region in the human body is home to thousands of viruses called bacteriophages, as well as trillions of bacteria. A recent research published about two weeks ago in the journal Cell identified more than 140,000 viral species living in the human gut, most of them never seen before. The research analyzed over 28,000 gut microbiome samples acquired in various places in the world, mainly from healthy individuals.

The number and diversity of the viruses the researchers found was surprisingly high, and the data opens up new research avenues for understanding how viruses living in the gut affect human health.

Dr Alexandre Almeida, Postdoctoral Fellow at EMBL-EBI and the Wellcome Sanger Institute, said: "It's important to remember that not all viruses are harmful, but represent an integral component of the gut ecosystem. For one thing, most of the viruses we found have DNA as their genetic material, which is different from the pathogens most people know, such as SARS-CoV-2 or Zika, which are RNA viruses. Secondly, these samples came mainly from healthy individuals who didn't share any specific diseases. It's fascinating to see how many unknown species live in our gut, and to try and unravel the link between them and human health."

Learn more about this research over at Science Daily.

Cool!

(Image Credit: Pixabay)

Anything could be possible, huh? Scientists have discovered that communication is possible with people who are lucid dreaming. Lucid dreaming is a state where the person is aware that they are actually dreaming. Ph.D student Karen Konkoly and her colleagues have published a study in Current Biology that asked lucid dreamers questions to try two-way communication: 

They were studying rapid-eye-movement sleep, which is the stage of sleep where people dream most vividly. In REM sleep, "every muscle in your body is completely paralyzed, except you can twitch and you can move your eyes," Konkoly tells Scott Simon on Weekend Edition. "So if you become lucid in a dream and you want to communicate, then when people are dreaming, they just look left-right, left-right, really dramatically. And then we know that they're communicating out."

Lucid dreaming is not common. So to study it, researchers recruited people who had experience with it and also trained people to try to make lucid dreaming more likely.

Before the participants went to sleep, they were also trained on how to communicate their answers. Special sensors measured people's eye movements or experts would judge their facial movements.

For example, a typical question would be to ask what is 8 minus 6. A 19-year-old American man was able to respond by moving his eyes left-right, left-right — two times — to signal "2." Researchers asked the question again, and he moved his eyes the same way two times again.

Out of the 158 trials among 36 participants, about 18% of the time, they were able to give correct answers. In another 18%, it wasn't clear whether participants were responding or not. They were wrong 3% of the time. Most often, 61%, participants didn't respond at all.

Image via NPR 

Now this is a very expensive purchase. Honestly, when it comes to puzzles, I’m satisfied with the basic jigsaw puzzles we can find in stores, or the puzzle games that are freely available on the Internet. Chris Ramsay takes puzzle solving a step further by getting an expensive and elaborate puzzle worth more than my tuition for a semester! The puzzle was created by Labsterium, and Ramsay shares in the comments section of the video that it took him more than four hours to solve it.