Augmented reality (AR) systems overlay the world around the viewer with information displayed through a digital interface. Humans have used it for years. Although your dog won't be able to play Pokémon Go yet, researchers are developing ways that military dogs may be able to use AR headsets effectively. The US Army informs us:

In 2017, Dr. A.J. Peper started Command Sight, a small business based in Seattle, to bridge human and animal communication. Through conversations with current and former military operators he identified a need to increase the efficacy of communication between canine and handler. As a result, Command Sight built the first prototype of augmented reality glasses for military working dogs. [...]

The augmented reality goggles are specially designed to fit each dog with a visual indictor that allows the dog to be directed to a specific spot and react to the visual cue in the goggles. The handler can see everything the dog sees to provide it commands through the glasses.

-via Dave Barry | Photo: US Army

Between 1450 and 1700, mermaids and mermen were a sensation in Europe. The teachings of the Church, ancient writings, and strange new discoveries all fed into the belief in merpeople. Explorers to Africa and Asia had brought back tales of strange creatures such as tigers and giraffes, so why wouldn't they also find a fish-human hybrid?

One might wonder whether such obsession fueled, or was fueled by, Westerners’ push into unknown worlds in the 15th century. In many ways, this “chicken or egg” conundrum is critical, as two developments—local belief and far-off sightings—created a legitimized belief in merpeople during the Renaissance. It made sense to early modern Europeans that such creatures as mermaids and tritons would reside in the furthest, strangest and most “savage” corners of the globe. Europeans thus found merpeople in every new land they explored, thereby fueling the Christian Church’s centuries-old narrative surrounding these monstrosities, while also validating Westerners’ interest in them.

Europeans not only wanted to “see” merpeople at home and abroad—they expected to, even needed to. Early modern Europeans’ deep-seated acceptance of mermaids and tritons cannot be discounted in investigations of this ground-breaking era. As is still the case today, when humans presume the legitimacy of a belief, they often adjust their worldview to fit these supposed realities. This confidence, moreover, is contagious, as surrounding individuals also begin to believe in those same alleged truths. Perception, in short, is everything.

When explorers began to plumb the vastness of the New World, it was a small stretch to believe the tales of mermaids brought back by sailors. After all, even Christopher Columbus told of seeing them! Read about the rise and fall of merpeople during the Renaissance at LitHub. -via Strange Company

It is a long-held belief that you can bond with your cat by giving them a slow blink. Now, this belief has been scientifically proven to be true. But it doesn’t just work on cats and their respective owners. People who are unfamiliar to cats can use this as well to make friends with them.

A new study published in the journal Scientific Reports… that you can bond with your cat by sending them a slow blink. By narrowing your eyes, you can generate the equivalent of a smile for a cat, which according to the authors makes the owner more attractive to their pet.

[...]

Their findings revealed that felines are more likely to send their owners a slow blink when their owners do it to them, sending fewer cat “smiles” when their owners don’t interact with them at all. In the second experiment, researchers who had sent their new feline friends a slow blink before offering them their hand were more likely to be approached compared to those who maintained a neutral expression. Combined, the results show that slow blinking constitutes a positive communication between cats and humans and can be used to establish a bond both between pets and their owners as well as cats and strangers.

The more we know!

(Image Credit: Chiemsee2016/ Pixabay)

Credit

Back in 2018, Elon Musk launched a car into space aboard SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket. The car was, of course, manufactured by a company owned by Elon. It was a cherry-red Tesla Roadster. Now, two years later, the car makes its first close approach with the Red Planet.

“Starman, last seen leaving Earth, made its first close approach with Mars today,” the official SpaceX account tweeted, referring to the mannequin seated in the car’s drivers seat, who is wearing a prototype of SpaceX’s sleek spacesuit.

Don’t expect a pitstop, however. Though the flyby is considered close by galactic standards, it is still 5 million miles away.

The Roadster’s flyby with Mars won’t be its last.

The car is expected to be in orbit around the sun in a slightly off-center path that alternately intersects the orbits of Earth and Mars — for tens of millions of years.

Now that’s awesome.

(Image Credit: SpaceX)

There are parts of your body (or at least mine) that are not routinely displayed to the public. The roof of the mouth is an example. Indy Voet, a Belgian tattoo artist, has been inking tattoos in that remote location for five years. He tells Inked magazine that it's a tricky job that requires delicate handwork and a trusting client:

For this process, Voet uses a handpoking technique rather than a machine, explaining that the machine would be too harsh on this location and too difficult to get to. "I don't really use anything other than a needle and some dexterity, combined with the trust of my client."

Thankfully, it doesn't hurt too much to get tattooed on the roof of the mouth:

"Nine out of 10 people describe these tattoos as being almost painless or at least, very easy to handle. The other 10% mostly complain about jaw muscle aches, which seems logical."

-via Nag on the Lake

Viola Smith was born in 1912, into a family that included seven sisters. Their father, who ran a dance hall, taught each sister to play a different musical instrument so he could have a house band without paying musicians. Viola was assigned to play drums, which she delighted in. When her sisters, and then later bandmates, got married and left music, Viola kept on drumming.

A quick internet search told me Viola is considered the first professional female jazz drummer and one of the oldest renown living jazz musicians. In 1939, she was widely dubbed “The Fastest Girl Drummer.” In the following years, she received endorsement deals with Ludwig, WFL Drum Company, and Zildjian. Viola cut her teeth playing with the jazz drummer Billy Gladstone at Radio City Music Hall and went on to drum in Broadway’s original 1966 run of Cabaret.

Now 107 years old, Viola Smith is part of the Piecemaker community of Costa Mesa, California. Writer Emma Starer Gross wanted to find out more.

I found this all baffling. How did a Midwestern-raised New York City drummer wind up in a conservative Southern California suburb with a gang of law-breaking, Jesus-loving arts and crafters?

Gross went to visit Viola Smith and get her thoughts on her drumming career, her current life, and whatever else was on her mind. It's well worth a read, at the LAnd magazine. -via Metafilter

The first real monument to George Washington was a statue commissioned to stand in the Capitol Rotunda. The artist selected was one of America's first professional sculptors, Horatio Greenough. Greenough was American, but studied classical sculpture in Europe, so American movers and shakers expected some classical influence. What they didn't expect was a semi-nude Father of our Country. It was certainly not the image most people had of the president.

It didn’t help that Washington himself was seen as a prude, with Hone claiming Washington would never have “expose[d] himself” in such a way publicly and Rep. Henry Wise said that no human had ever looked upon the general’s skin (sorry, Martha!) and so to keep the head but throw the rest in the Potomac. Architect Charles Bullfinch summed it up, pointing out it would “only give the idea of entering or leaving a bath.” (The best explanation I read for why Greenough’s statue conceptually was just so wrong is this essay by none other than Garry Wills.) As Savage notes in Monument Wars, it went "down in the annals of American art history as the most reviled public statue ever erected."

The 12-ton statue only stood in the rotunda for a few months, then was moved outside. It eventually ended up in the Smithsonian American History Museum. Read the story of how the nude Washington came about at The DailyBeast.

(Image credit: Wknight94)

YouTube user Matthew Highton masterfully mined stock video archives and wove them into remarkably consistent recreations of TV show introductions. I'm especially impressed that there were appropriate demonic footage reels for Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

In this playlist, you can also find Highton's videos for The A-Team, Friends, Duck Tales, ThunderCats, and more.

-via Geek Tyrant

Dogs can get injuries, surgeries, and illnesses too, so they might need blood from their fellow canines! It works a little differently from how we humans do it, though. Popsugar talks to vets to learn what dogs can donate blood, and what the process is for donating: 

First and foremost, dogs have to be healthy and up to date on their shots. They must be adults and are usually larger breeds, weighing over 50 pounds. It's similar to humans donating blood in that the blood has to be healthy blood. 

It's not so much a casual thing as it can be for humans to drop by a blood donation drive and give blood. Owners of what are considered "donor dogs" are committed to giving their dogs the best care so they can continue to donate blood through their adult lives.

Gary Richter, DVM, a veterinary health expert with Rover.com told POPSUGAR, "The blood can be used for multiple purposes, including anemia (low red blood cells), clotting disorders (toxicity, immune mediated disease, etc.), or for pets with low blood proteins." To get into even more detail, the blood can be separated to be used even further, by giving red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets to dogs in need of just one part.

image via Popsugar

Look, trees take a very long time to grow. Years, decades, some take centuries to grow to their full height. However, trees planted today might not even reach their full growth because a lot of things are trying to kill them, from lumber companies, to housing projects, to cars belching pollution, and to human waste:

American cities are host to 3.8 billion trees—on sidewalks, in parks, in our front yards and backyards, outside houses of worship and office complexes. They’re crucial for urban life: Most notably, trees cool down cities by creating shade and engaging in transpiration, the process by which they return water vapor into the atmosphere. Together, these effects can lower the temperature of a city street a few degrees (and as much as 10 degrees, as one recent study found). Studies have also found that well-placed trees can reduce air-conditioning costs by about one-third. Trees also remove up to 24 percent of dust; studies show that kids who live near urban trees have lower rates of asthma. Trees can even make pavement last a decade longer.

If cities want to keep those benefits, they’ve got to plan 

for a future with a different, more hostile climate. As cities heat up, they effectively become different places, where a species that has persisted for hundreds of years can no longer thrive. By some estimates, the habitable zones for 130 of the country’s tree species could move north by more than 400 miles by the end of the century. New invasive species will arrive. Unless cities continually adapt, these shifts could significantly erode their tree canopies, making urban landscapes uglier—and more unlivable.

image via The Atlantic 

Considered a gender anomaly, this rose-breasted grosbeak is a "gynandromorphic,"meaning it contains both female and male characteristics that can sometimes be seen in physical traits on the body. Also, as if an added bonus (or emphasis that it is a gynandromorphic), Its body displays an even split down the middle between the male and female coloring, as Popular Mechanics detailed: 

The bird's right side shows red plumage (male), while and its left shows golden yellow feathers (female), according to scientists from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s Powdermill Nature Reserve in Pennsylvania, who recently discovered it.

The scientists were "very excited to see such a rarity up close, and are riding the high of this once-in-a-lifetime experience," they said in a press release. Annie Lindsay, bird banding program manager at Powdermill, said one researcher referred to the experience as “seeing a unicorn,” while another described the discovery as an adrenaline rush, because it was “so remarkable.”

Image via Popular Mechanics 

Believe it or not, researchers are getting new information about the brain thanks to psychedelics. Not only do psychedelic drugs prove effective for treating mental illness, but they also expose the brain regions that are affected by these drugs, as Discovery Magazine details: 

Treated disorders have included depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, anorexia, obsessive compulsive disorder and addiction. Dozens of clinical trials are underway, the majority investigating the therapeutic effect of psilocybin, the active component in so-called magic mushrooms. This natural compound belongs to the class of serotonergic psychedelics — those that activate serotonin (type 2A) receptors. 

Researchers are examining the distribution of serotonin 2A receptors to help pinpoint the brain areas affected by psychedelics. The greater the density of these receptors, the greater the likelihood that a particular brain region contributes to the psychedelic experience, according to a study published in Neuropsychopharmacology. 

Check Discover Magazine’s full piece on the topic here. 

Image via Discover Magazine

Humans hunted the Dodo to extinction in the late 1600s, leading us to believe it was the first example of human-driven species extinction. But it was only the first that was well-documented. Long before written records, people have hunted other species into oblivion, and all it takes to know that is to compare the records of human migration since homo set out  from Africa 125,000 years ago to the rise and fall of animal populations.  

"As [hominids] migrated out of Africa, you see this incredibly regular pattern of extinction," said Felisa Smith, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of New Mexico, who studies how animals' body sizes have changed over the course of history. As she and her colleagues explained in a 2018 study published in the journal Science, each time our ancestors set foot in new places, fossil records show that large-bodied species — the humongous prehistoric relatives of elephants, bears, antelope and other creatures — started going extinct within a few hundred to 1,000 years, at most. Such rapid extinction timescales don't occur at any other point in the last several million years (not since the non-avian dinosaurs were wiped out by an asteroid about 65 million years ago.) "The only time you see it is when humans are involved, which is really striking," Smith said.

But what about the time before that big human migration? There are clues that hominids had quite an effect on other African species long before we ventured out into the greater world. Read about human-driven species extinction at LiveScience. -via Damn Interesting

(Image credit: Ballista)

This first-person action short Everywhere from Alex Schauer is all the more ominous because of the things it doesn't tell us. We don't know who is confronting our protagonist here, but she comes across as some kind of Terminator or something.

What is she, the mysterious woman in leather pants? A robot? A witch? A robot-witch? Is she even real or is this all just a dream? Am I dreaming?
These are all questions we have to answer for ourselves.

-via Geeks Are Sexy