What we have here is a lesson in flatulence in the animal kingdom. We'll meet a snake that draws in air to make scary noises, insects that kill with farts, and fish that can die if they don't break wind properly. But which farts are the worst? It depends on how you define "worst." -via Digg

Shall we take a trip to Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauo tamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronuku pokaiwhenuakitanatahu? That's a hill on the North Island of New Zealand named after a Moari hero. There are various spellings, the shortest of which is 85 characters and the longest is 105 characters. Atlas Obscura reports that the name translates as follows:

the hill of the nose-flute playing by Tamatea - who was blown hither from afar, had a slit penis, grazed his knees climbing mountains, fell on the earth, and encircled the land - to his beloved

Ouch! That sounds painful.

I hate it when I skin my knees.

Photo: Archives of New Zealand

Every once in a while, you comes across a name listed as "John Doe, Esquire," or something like that. What does it mean? The short answer is that it means John Doe is a lawyer. However, that pretty much only pertains to American lawyers, and there is no codified rule as to the word's use. The custom descends from British titles of nobility, and to understand it, you have to go back to how other titles came about, such as that of "knight." In medieval Europe, every knight had a "squire."

This is where esquires come into play. The word itself derives from Old French, and in turn from Latin, where it means something like “shield-holder.” In the 1200s and 1300s in England, a variety of languages were used, so such figures might be referred to as the Latin armiger (“arms-holder,”) or scutifer (“shield-bearer”), or the French escuier, which became “esquire.” These terms all refer to roughly similar people. This role was generally considered moderately prestigious for young men of some wealth, but at its core it was a service job. You carry a knight’s stuff, tend to his horses, that kind of thing. “Esquire” and “squire” were names for the same gig for a few hundred years.

In 1363, the esquire’s place as a respectable social rank was codified in the Sumptuary Laws, which were essentially a huge list of what different groups of people could and could not wear. That list included esquires as a social group, alongside gentlemen and anyone else below the level of knight who actually had money and land. This was the same time that the idea of a gentry emerged in England: People who are not noble, but certainly not peasants, either. They were people worthy of being ranked above somebody in the social hierarchy.

But how did "esquire" come to mean lawyer? For the rest of the story, you'll need to go to Atlas Obscura.

(Image credit: Kenneth C. Zirkel)

In the event that a sudden tragedy happens inside a room of six exits, the most logical course of action is for the crowd to divide themselves into the number of exits. That way, people can get out of the room safely. But in reality, that is not what happens. Instead, all of the people panic and try to go out in one exit, and the result is a stampede. This happens because we’ve developed a tendency to clump together when we find ourselves in a dangerous situation.

There are many advantages to that… from defense (it’s easier for a group to fight off a threat) to safety in numbers (people can hide in a crowd). When humans moved to agrarian and urban lifestyles, our dangers changed—but our responses didn’t, says Randolph Nesse, a professor of psychiatry at Arizona State University who studies the evolutionary reasons behind anxiety. “We continue to be afraid of things that were dangerous to our ancestors,” Nesse says. When we panic, ancient instincts kick in.

Is there a way to somehow solve this problem of ours? Hopefully, there is, and it seems that the solution is found in the humble creatures that we see in our homes: the ants.

More details about this over at Nautilus.

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: monsterpong09/ Pixabay)

We humans love snowfall and winter storms because of the “cool” and fun stuff we can do outdoors, like sledding, snowball fights, and snow angels. Animals love snowfall, too, and for similar reasons.

The National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute has recently released pictures and videos of zoo animals enjoying the snow, which include the two giant pandas Mei Xiang and Tian Tian. See the pictures and the videos over at Smithsonian Magazine.

Cute!

(Image Credit: The National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute/ Smithsonian Magazine)

In an interesting turn of events, plants can now send us emails. Sort of. The situation is a bit more complicated than that. Scientists have engineered spinach plants into sensors. The plants can now detect explosive materials and wirelessly relay the information back to scientists. If the spinach roots detect an explosive compound in groundwater, the plant will emit a signal, which will be read by an infrared camera that will send an email alert to the scientists: 

This experiment is part of a wider field of research which involves engineering electronic components and systems into plants. The technology is known as “plant nanobionics”, and is effectively the process of giving plants new abilities.

“Plants are very good analytical chemists,” explains Professor Michael Strano who led the research. “They have an extensive root network in the soil, are constantly sampling groundwater, and have a way to self-power the transport of that water up into the leaves.”

“This is a novel demonstration of how we have overcome the plant/human communication barrier,” he adds.

Image via Euronews 

Restoring old items is an art and a meticulous process. From recreating new parts for the item to repainting the item, the process takes time and a lot of effort. There is also a certain art to it of course, as the main objective is to restore the item to its original glory, as if time has never touched it.A video from Art Insider features Kerchie, a YouTuber who repairs vintage Polly Pocket sets. Check out how she restores a 28-year-old Polly Pocket set. 

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