A few years ago, the National Aquarium of New Zealand instituted a Naughty Penguin of the Month award, in which we all got to know the aquarium's penguins as the individuals they are. If you have a favorite penguin, you'll want to vote in the third annual Penguin of the Year competition! Even if you don't have a favorite penguin already, you will soon. Click on a picture at the contest page to read about each of the 14 contenders, and then place your vote. Follow the progress of the competition at Twitter or Facebook. -via Metafilter
Underneath the city of London are tunnels that serve as storage basements, subway trains, utility lines, and sewers, like most cities. Then there are the tunnels built for more secretive reasons. This underground system has grown and shrunk, with passageways connected and then separated, and no definitive map exists of them. Still, data from the 2017 Land Registry tells us there are four million kilometers of tunnels under London, most of them built for communications purposes during the Cold War. Bits and pieces of this network are revealed when old government buildings are sold.
The most intriguing revelation was of the Postmaster General’s secret tunnel beneath the heart of the government at 57 Whitehall. It was built to protect machinery and communications from the threat of atom bombs in the Cold War, and the bunker emerges into the basement of the Old War Office, once used by Winston Churchill. In 2014, the Raffles hotel chain bought the 54,000 sq m Grade II-listed building from the Ministry of Defence for £350 million. Named “The OWO”, the London landmark is set to open as one of the world’s highest-profile hotels in 2022.
More than 30 gears and a dozen lifts – stretching from the working-class East End to the heart of Whitehall – connect the Postmaster General’s tunnel to a secret underground network, which mostly emerges unobtrusively into government buildings and telephone exchanges.
That doesn't mean that you, or the hotel staff, or anyone can follow the tunnels from the now-private properties. But quite a few people are dedicated to exploring the underground system, and even mapping them. Read what we know of these underground tunnels and what we may learn in the future at BBC Travel. -via Damn Interesting
Hannah Grace, an artist in the UK, transforms herself into amazing creatures with paint and makeup. Parts of her body disappear, then reappear elsewhere. She seemingly melts, breaks apart, and comes together again.
At first glance, this four-piece furniture collection by Niko Koronis looks like big blocks of soap carved into something new, but they’re actually made of resin. Koronis was inspired by the work Italian architect Carlo Scarpa, whose work featured sharp lines and graphic shapes. The artist designed each furniture item to look like “small scale architectural entities,” as Dezeen details:
"One has to love Scarpa, for many different reasons," Koronis told Dezeen.
"Apart from his charismatic personality, his unique formal and material aesthetic that stood in contrast to his contemporaries' loud and artificial early postmodernism is something that has been a constant inspiration for many architects and designers alike."
Koronis made each of the translucent furniture pieces from resin in hues of blue and green, granting them a frosty, soap-like appearance.
According to the designer, resin is "a somewhat misunderstood material that is experiencing a revival these days".
The resin used for the collection was industrially produced via a chemical process, as resin usually is, but Koronis wanted to make the material seem as organic as possible.
He carried out multiple tests with the material to test its properties, as well as its limitations and advantages.
Image via Dezeen
Oh, you're going to love this, whether you are into the history of animation or just like to watch. A list of the animation sequences that advanced the art or brought something new to it is dangerously close to being a list of the best cartoons ever. The 100 sequences are not ranked, but instead are arranged in chronological order so you can follow the history of animation, beginning in 1892. There follows not one decade that didn't have an entry.
All animation, whether it depicts a whistling mouse, a walking dinosaur, or a leaping superhero, is a kind of magic trick. It’s right there in the name of one of the earliest devices used to project slides: the magic lantern. If you take an image of an open hand and an image of a fist and project the two in sequence, you’ll convey the illusion of a clench. “What happens between each frame is more important than what happens on each frame,” the prominent experimental animator Norman McLaren (who makes the list with his short Neighbours, below) once explained. “Therefore, animation is the art of manipulating the invisible interstices between frames.”
The best part is that the entries have videos, relevant clips if not the entire cartoon. You can read about each and how it contributed to the advancement of animation, or you can just watch them at Vulture. -via Metafilter
(Image credit: Giacomo Gambineri)
You might recall the recent post about Helene Adelaide Shelby's ridiculous invention for scaring criminal suspects into confessing. Tom Scott saw it, too, and had to try it out. He actually built the device and invited some "suspects" to face it and see how they would react. Honestly, you can skip the first two minutes of this video and just get to the reactions. Can he pinpoint which suspect stole the cookie? -via Digg
The Tasmanian devil is the largest carnivorous marsupial in the world since the thylacine went extinct in 1936. While Tasmanian devil fossils have been found in Australia, for the past 3,000 years the animal has only existed in the wild on the island of Tasmania. Until now. A group of devils has been relocated to the mainland in hopes they will thrive again.
The cause of Tasmanian devil’s disappearance from continental Australia is murky, with some evidence tying it overhunting by Indigenous Australians. Other signs point to the introduction of the dingo. Whatever the case, Monday’s news is part of an effort to bring the Tasmanian devil back to its former range. Aussie Ark, the group leading the reintroduction, has released 26 devils into a sanctuary in New South Wales near Barrington Tops National Park.
The sanctuary is enclosed and covers nearly 1,000 acres, giving the devils space to roam without impacting native wildlife outside the area. Each marsupial has been outfitted with a radio collar, and camera traps dot the sanctuary. That will allow scientists to study them in a somewhat controlled setting to see how they fare and interact with other wildlife.
Tasmanian devils are endangered, and disease has ravaged the population in Tasmania. It is hoped that the imported animals will be able to avoid the devil facial tumor disease on the island. Aussie Ark also hopes that the re-introduced devils may help to control the feral cat population. Read about the Tasmanian devils and their new home at Gizmodo.
(Image credit: Aussie Ark)
(Image credit: Lotus496)
Something is wrong with your car, so you take it to a mechanic because they will understand what is going on under the hood. Then the pro opens that hood and laughs. Then takes a picture. It happens more often than you'd think, because there's an entire universe of weird things that can cause automotive trouble.
(Image credit: m4rkz0r)
This list also contains pictures that don't explain your engine trouble, but are odd enough that they felt the need to take a picture for proof. See 50 such pictures at Bored Panda.
If you’re the type of person who drinks coffee first thing in the morning, then you better change that habit and instead drink coffee after eating breakfast. Through this study, researchers from the University of Bath found out that “a strong coffee first thing in the morning can impair the body’s glucose response.” Thus, the researchers recommend that coffee should be drunk after eating breakfast, not before.
“We know that nearly half of us will wake in the morning and, before doing anything else, drink coffee – intuitively the more tired we feel, the stronger the coffee,” says James Betts, corresponding author on the new study. “This study is important and has far-reaching health implications as up until now we have had limited knowledge about what this is doing to our bodies, in particular for our metabolic and blood sugar control.”
Head over at New Atlas to know more about this study.
(Image Credit: freephotocc/ Pixabay)
December 1924. Dr. Curtis Welch thought that a number of children, in the small Alaskan town of Nome, were suffering from tonsillitis. But as the number of cases began to grow, and as children began to drop dead, Dr. Welch knew that it wasn’t tonsillitis. It was something worse.
Diphtheria is a highly contagious disease caused by the bacterium Corynebacterium diphtheriae. The bacteria attacks the respiratory system, destroying healthy tissues there. The dead tissues build up in the throat and nose to form a thick leathery coating that makes breathing difficult. If not treated, a patient can die of asphyxiation. Diphtheria is usually fatal among children. During the 1920s, between one hundred to two hundred thousand people were infected each year in the United States, with fifteen thousand deaths, most of which were children.
By mid-January 1925, Nome, a town home to some 1,400 people, found itself amidst an imminent epidemic. Dr. Welch, the only physician in that town, knew that not only his town was in danger, but also the other communities. If the disease spread, it could potentially affect some 10,000 people. He had to do something. The race against time was on.
After this would be the chain of events which would be known as the 1925 Serum Run to Nome. Know more about this historic event over at Amusing Planet.
(Image Credit: U.S. Bureau of Land Management/ Wikimedia Commons)
One of the great things about music is that you don’t need to understand the language in order to tell if it is good or not. It doesn’t even have to have words, or even meaning. Music can be great, even if it’s just nonsense.
Daniel Thrasher treats us to some musical nonsense that we can listen and vibe to. Hear them on this video.
(Image Credit: Daniel Thrasher/ YouTube)
Hades (the game by Supergiant studios, not the actual god from Greek mythology … wait) is one of the games with the loudest reception this year. Sure, it’s an excellent roguelite, but one of the main reasons everyone is talking about this game is because, well, the characters are hot. If you’ve seen that tweet of someone lowkey joking that the official Nintendo Indie World account is being horny on main, or if you’ve seen YouTubers go crazy over how gorgeous the characters are, well, they’re right: the art for these characters is insane. Game designer Greg Kasavin told Kotaku the reason why everyone is so damned hot:
Everyone, from Megaera to Thanatos (call me, zaddy), down to even Asterius and Dusa owe their attractiveness to the vision of Supergiant’s art team.
“There’s a really simple answer to your question,” he said via email. “Because Jen Zee.”
“Our portrayals of the gods owe greatly to classical tradition,” Kasavin continued.
“Something Jen cares a lot about as an artist. For instance, there’s this idea of heroic nudity that dates back to ancient Greek art, and culture, and it’s something we explored as part of developing the look of the game. So, I guess this is me telling you with a straight face that the gods in Hades are ‘friggin’ hot’ as part of our commitment to honoring the source material, expressed visually through Jen’s instincts as an artist.”
Beyond being an utterly gorgeous disaster bisexual, Zagreus’ most attractive feature is how disarmingly tender he is. He has all the hallmarks of your typical cantankerous bad-boy. He is the prince of the Underworld, who resents his father, struggles with abandonment issues, and whose only talent it seems is killing monsters. I would have expected him to be some grimdark, I’m-not-here-to-play-nice kind of guy. But in his conversations with people, even people that annoy him, he is unfailingly gentle and jovial.
Image via Kotaku
To live on the International Space Station, which, according to Russian cosmonaut Andre Borisenko, is the “most expensive object in the history of humanity”, is nothing short of a privilege. However, one doesn’t live there for months to chill and sightsee. Rather, he lives there to work. And of all the types of jobs that exist in this world, the astronaut’s work might just be the most specialized of them all.
“... we understand our responsibility to humanity,” says Borisenko. “It’s impossible and incorrect to forget that.”
But what is it like to live in the International Space Station for a period of time? Staff from Air & Space Magazine asked some of the astronauts this question. Head over at the site to know about their interesting stories.
(Image Credit: NASA/ Wikimedia Commons)
The 61st International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) began on September 21, 2020. But, unlike the previous IMOs, this one stands out for two reasons. The first reason is that this year’s IMO was held remotely because of current circumstances. The second reason is more interesting than the previous one: this year’s IMO might be the last one that would only have human contestants. Artificial intelligence systems might also participate in future Math Olympiads.
Indeed, researchers view the IMO as the ideal proving ground for machines designed to think like humans. If an AI system can excel here, it will have matched an important dimension of human cognition.
“The IMO, to me, represents the hardest class of problems that smart people can be taught to solve somewhat reliably,” said Daniel Selsam of Microsoft Research. Selsam is a founder of the IMO Grand Challenge, whose goal is to train an AI system to win a gold medal at the world’s premier math competition.
But why do scientists think that the IMO is the perfect place to test an AI system’s abilities?
Answers over at Nautilus.
(Image Credit: Seanbatty/ Pixabay)
Iron Cat is here to save the world. He's ready, now that he has a 3D printed helmet that even pops open to reveal the (very patient) cat's face on demand. Cathode the cat of Besançon, France models the latest superhero costume.
-via Dave Barry
