Now that’s a true hero! Imagine risking your arms in exchange for saving a poor puppy that’s about to be devoured by an alligator! A Florida man ripped the alligator’s jaws open (wow, that’s extreme) in order to save the poor pup from being the predator’s lunch. Mad respect.
(via Flipboard)
Image screenshot via Flipboard
I can’t even build a regular house made of lego. Then again, people have different talents, and this 12-year-old is recreating huge real life structures with Lego bricks. Meet Joe Bryant, who lives in West Sussex, England. Bryant has managed to build very detailed models of his favorite Bundesliga stadiums without access to design plans or blueprints:
Before lockdown, Bryant was able to tour a few Bundesliga stadiums to show off his craftsmanship.
"They're really kind and generous to me," he said. "I'm a mini-celebrity over here," he said from his home in West Sussex, England. "But over there, like, I'm really well-known, and it's really nice and cool."
He estimates that his most complex works take between 5,000 and 6,000 tiny bricks. They're so imposing that several teams have asked if they can incorporate them in permanent displays, he said in an interview with ESPN.
"Recently a lot of the clubs have wanted to keep my Lego stadiums for their museums, VIP areas or fan shops," he told the website. "That is perfect for me because it means they stay up forever and everyone gets to see it."
Image via NPR
A team of researchers from Hong Kong University have created a shape-shifting robo-fingertip inspired by origami. At first glance, it may look like a paper flower, but this shape-shifting device can morph into three different modes. You know, like a Transformer. The fingertip can easily change so it can function more like a human hand, as Syfy details:
“Robotic systems do not have to be constrained by human’s structure and capabilities, robot can surpass human in various perspectives, also in the grasping genre,” said Zicheng Kan, who co-authored a study recently presented at the IEEE International Conference on Automaton Science and Engineering (CASE). “In terms of stability, our fingertip can form concave tip surface to provide a squeezing equilibrium that traps the object so as to secure a successful grasp.”
If origami can inspire satellites that get launched into space, it can really inspire anything.
Kan and his team leveled up a previous design into something Optimus Prime only wishes he had at his fingertips. Its skeleton is an original origami design that involves a central platform with a quad of facets. Each of these four facets, which look like petals, has its own servo motor (the same tech behind many movie animatronics) that lets them move around individually if they need to. There is a ball joint in the center that allows for maximum pivoting action, especially if it has to tilt when it rotates. The grasping poses are also easy to control.
Image via Syfy
Not really, but it does look like a perfect setting for fairy tales. The Santa Barbara Botanical Garden has 78 acres of natural beauty. Located in Mission Canyon, California, the garden is dedicated to the research, education, and conservation of the state's native plant life. Only In Your State has more details:
The garden is organized by sections, with each section boasting its own breathtaking display of beauty. In all, there are over 1,000 species of rare and indigenous plants thriving in the garden. As you explore the garden, be sure to pay attention to the signage that tells you all about the different flora.
Take your time exploring the 5.5-miles of trails in the garden - there's something to see around every corner! Some of the garden's most iconic features include the historic Mission Dam and aqueduct built in 1807 and the authentic Japanese Teahouse and Tea Garden.
Image via Only In Your State
Wait, what? I’m pretty sure your chosen music player is able to display the title of the song, right? Apple’s new feature will let you identify the artist of the song you’re listening to with one tap. This is one way that the company is using Shazam, as CNBC details:
And you don’t need to have the Shazam app installed for this to work. All you do is add a button to the Control Center menu and then, when you hear a song you like and want to know who the artist is, you just tap the button.
It’s fun and easy to set up. Here’s what you do.
First, make sure you’re running the latest software on your iPhone. To do that, go to Settings > General > Software update. You need to be on iOS 14.2 or newer.
Once the update is installed open Settings on your iPhone.
Tap Control Center.
Scroll down under “More” and tap the green ‘+’ button next to Music Recognition.
That adds the music recognition function to Control Center.
Image via CNBC
With climate change and other environmental issues on the rise, researchers and environmentalists are seeking solutions in order to stop our planet’s destruction. Researchers from Cranfield University in Bedfordshire have developed a new type of latex that can biodegrade in a couple of weeks. That’s a big improvement from the commonly-used latex made from petroleum, which degrades after a 100 years.
Image screenshot via BBC
Using detailed sedimentological data collected by the Curiosity rover, scientists were able to discover that intense floods once washed through the Gale Crater on Mars’ equator around four billion years ago. And when I say intense floods, I mean that these were of “unimaginable magnitude.” This finding might be a hint that life may have existed on the Red Planet.
The research, "Deposits from Giant Floods in Gale Crater and Their Implications for the Climate of Early Mars," was published Nov. 5 in Scientific Reports.
The raging megaflood—likely touched off by the heat of a meteoritic impact, which unleashed ice stored on the Martian surface—set up gigantic ripples that are tell-tale geologic structures familiar to scientists on Earth.
Learn more details about this over at PHYS.org.
(Image Credit: NASA/JPL/ PHYS.org)
At first glance, the video game called Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin seems to be your typical combat-based platformer game with added gameplay mechanics. In this case, when you’re not fighting demons, you’re tending to your rice fields. On second glance, however, you realize that it’s the other way around: the game is actually “a rice farming simulator with platforming combat.” That’s what some gamers found out when they turned to an agricultural website to look for farming tips.
Developers underwent meticulous research and localisation to get the details of rice cultivation (or agriculture in general) in the game right and realistic.
9GAG compiles the stories of these gamers. Check them out over at the site. For now, here is one of the stories:
I've been playing the game since the game had gone on sell at 12am. I've been referring to the the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries's website as a strategy guide, and I'm glad that I did since the rice farming part is too realistic. This is actually a rice farming simulator...
What are your thoughts about this one?
(Image Credit: Sakuna/ 9GAG)
Because of his dark grey speckled coat, Chief the Chow-Chow puppy kind of looks like the Oreo Mcflurry dessert. Thus, he earned the nickname “Oreo Cloud”, which was given to him by his owner, Sarah Hamilton.
Whilst Oreo Cloud is certainly a memorable moniker for the pup, make no mistake he’s still no less of a Chief. As a Chow-Chow this adorable puppy will soon grow to around 85 pounds and has already shown many characteristics of a true leader and a quick learner.
The young chief was potty trained at just eight weeks and is a natural protector sleeping by the main door of the family home every night.
Know more about Chief and see some of his awesome pictures over at Dogs Addict. He also has an Instagram account.
Cute!
(Image Credit: Dogs Addict)
I love New York... pic.twitter.com/0z5uaf9iTO
— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) November 17, 2020
Pizza Rat was (and maybe still is) a famous rat in New York City that was recorded dragging a slice of pizza down a flight of stairs in a subway station.
That was five years ago--a more innocent time. Jonothon Lyons, a theater professional, lifts our spirits by dressing up as Pizza Rat and dragging an enormous slice of fabric pizza around New York City. You can see Lyons's videos on his YouTube channel.
In an interview with Hyperallergic, Lyons describes the reactions that he encounters when he performs:
H: What’s your experience been like as a rat on the subway? What kind of reactions are you getting from people?
JL: People react with either joy, fear, or radical indifference. I’m just out there to have fun and make people smile, and I like that it’s a little mischievous, there’s definitely a little bit of a prankster going on, but I’m not there to aggravate anybody or get in anybody’s way. For the most part, people are really seeming to enjoy it. New York City is the world’s capital of live performance, and our doors have been shuttered since March, so we haven’t seen any theater — everything’s been virtual. I think this is having such a big response because I brought something out into the streets and into the subways that we only usually get to see up on a stage.
My favorite reaction is that of the man on the stairs in the above video. He nopes out of the encounter and walks away without giving Lyons another thought. This is New York: a man dressed as a rat dragging a pizza isn't even the weirdest thing he's seen that day.
-via Nag on the Lake
You don’t see Christmas carolers much anymore, except maybe in shopping malls or preplanned shows, although many of us have fond memories of going caroling as children. Some houses expected us, and had treats ready when the music ended. But in the Victorian era, carolers were regarded as merely beggars, or even extortionists, who were often drunk and could get violent if they weren’t tipped well enough.
Many people dreaded the oncoming Christmas carol season, taking to the papers many weeks before-hand to air their trepidation at the youths who, as this reader writes in October 1861, will be getting… “their various mouths to every hinge, key-hole, letter-box, and opening of the doors and roar out in miserable discord (often two opposing companies together) names and events which all should hold sacred, the next moment running away with ribald jests, or cursing, swearing and quarrelling over the coppers they have received, as a tax to the nuisance”.
Read about the nuisance of Christmas carolers, including some accounts of violence, at News from the Past.
Pictured above is a Bernadoodle: a cross between a female Bernese Mountain Dog and a male Miniature Poodle. Sue Murphy recently delivered one from Colorado to a happy family in Boston. She's a professional pet deliverer. Murphy has been very busy during the pandemic at the behest people who want puppies, but don't want to risk traveling for them. For a price, Murphy takes the COVID-19 risks for them. The Wall Street Journal (sorry, it's a paywalled article) describes the work of these pet deliverers, including one named Lori Sheder:
"People were like contacting me almost every day," says Ms. Sheder. "I felt bad because I couldn't accommodate them."
She restarted service again this month, delivering a tea-cup Yorkshire terrier to LaGuardia. She works for the school board during the week and escorts puppies on the weekends.
Some flight nannies are former airline employees, who still get discounted airfares that help make the margins work out, according to Shane Hallman of Samantha, Ala.
Mr. Hallman, 44, got into the business after a battle with cancer, a truck accident that left him with 23 fractures and a divorce. Now he owns an 11-person operation delivering puppies–some by air, most by ground–for Crockett Doodles, a large breeder based in Greenville, S.C.
Although some pet deliveries come by air, others operate by ground. They often travel continuously from dog site to dog site:
Troy Nichols, co-owner of pet-delivery company in Micanopy, Fla., set out on a Saturday this month with an Italian greyhound in the back of his Dodge Grand Caravan, drove to Norman, Okla., and picked up an English bulldog puppy.
Then Mr. Nichols, 53, and his back-up driver shot south to Orange Grove, Texas, where he collected four Great Dane puppies before dropping the bulldog off with an excited family in Corpus Christi. A couple of Rottweiler pups were ready for him in Houston, as was a customer in Winnsboro, Texas, waiting on one of the Great Danes.
From there it was north to Kenefic, Okla., to get five mini Australian shepherds–four of them puppies–and to Elmore City, Okla., where a man surprised his kids with the Rottweiler babies.
-via Marginal Revolution | Photo: Pixabay
Food allergies are an emerging public health concern in the United States. According to the Food Allergy Research & Education (FARE), 32 million Americans suffer from food allergies. About 5.6 million of these are kids under 18 years old. The organization also states that, annually, 200,000 people in the U.S “require emergency medical care for allergic reactions to food”.
These allergies cost a whopping $25 billion in health care each year. Then there's the time lost at school or work. And there's the risk of serious complications, even death.
As of this moment, there is no known cure for food allergies. The only way that a person can prevent this is by avoiding food that he is allergic with. While there are clinical trials on food allergy therapies, none of them have been approved yet for general use.
It's critical to find ways to reduce the suffering caused by food allergies. Food processing companies already spend a lot of effort to label products so people can avoid items they're allergic to. But what if we could do better? What if we could enjoy the foods we like without worrying they might trigger a health crisis?
Perhaps the best way we can tackle food allergies is by making food that has reduced allergic sensitivity, and that’s just what Eliot Herman’s work is all about.
Herman has spent his career studying why plants trigger allergic reactions and how to reduce the chance of them being triggered...
[...]
"Food allergies are an important societal issue. By altering food and by treating sensitive individuals, this can be mitigated, improving their lives and impacting the total medical expenditure in the U.S.," says Herman.
Herman focuses particularly on soybeans. Soybean allergies especially affect children and infants. And because soybean products like oil and protein are used in countless food products, it's hard to avoid.
Learn more about Herman’s work over at EurekAlert.
(Image Credit: pnmralex/ Pixabay)
An artist who goes by the name Ukiyo Memes illustrates classic internet memes in the style of traditional Japanese woodblock prints. He calls the series Memes of the Floating World. Above you see his version of the Woman Yelling at Cat meme. He's also done Doge, Longcat, This is Fine, and quite a few others you may enjoy, which you can see at Bored Panda.
Back in the day, scientists believed that light was infinitely fast; it traveled instantaneously. But 344 years ago, on November 21, 1676, a Danish astronomer named Ole Rømer disproved that. When he studied Io, one of Jupiter’s moons, he discovered that light did not travel instantaneously, and light had a finite speed.
He was trying to figure out how long it takes Io to orbit Jupiter in hopes of using it as a cosmic clock. He watched Io disappear behind Jupiter and reappear on the other side. He did this over and over every 42 hours for years.
To his surprise, the timing of the eclipses was not consistent. When Earth was closest to Jupiter, the eclipses happened 11 minutes early. Likewise, when the two planets were farthest away, the eclipses were 11 minutes behind schedule.
Rømer figured out the pattern and made an accurate prediction for Io's eclipse on Nov. 9, 1676. Then on Nov. 21, he took his findings to the Royal Academy of Sciences and explained that a finite speed of light must be responsible.
What an intelligent man.
(Image Credit: NASA/ Wikimedia Commons)
