Often when discussing species that go extinct, someone will say that we could do without mosquitos, which not only bite but also spread disease. We wiped out smallpox, didn't we? There are plenty of other parasites that cause misery, like fleas, ticks, intestinal worms, and those horrible parasites that cause their hosts to become zombies. But like other species, they have their place in the ecosystem, and causing them, or even letting them, go extinct may not be in the host species' best interests.

“We need to reframe how we think about parasites,” says Kayce C. Bell, assistant curator of terrestrial mammals at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. “They are really important animals to keep around. They help host populations, and they are so under-studied that there’s the potential they can go extinct before we know what they are doing in the ecosystems.” Bell studies genetic diversity in ground squirrels, and over time has come to appreciate the role parasites play in keeping squirrel populations healthy. In fact, she says, specific species of parasites have evolved along with their squirrel hosts to help ward off other invading parasites that could kill them.

Find out about several ways parasites may be good for a host species, if not the individual animal, at Wired. -via Damn Interesting

(Image credit: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

In 1910, 17-year-old Beatrice Sanders went to a drug store in Newark, New Jersey, for an ice cream sundae and was entranced by the young soda jerk who served her, 17-year-old soda La Vere Tallman. She returned to the soda fountain again and again, and the two fell in love. Beatrice's parents objected to the romance, so much that they sent her to school at a seminary to keep the couple apart. But they corresponded by mail, and hatched a plan to run away together. La Vere knew of a cave in the Catskills where they could go live. He'd bring guns and fishhooks and utensils, and they would live off the land, away from their parents prying eyes.  

    It was just the finest cave imaginable, too. A great, big regular robbers’ cave. Why, Captain Kidd himself would have pounded upon it in glee as a bully hiding place from policemen, and might have hid a million dollars in bullion and diamonds in the big black hole that led off to—no one knows where—from the southeast corner.
    – The Spokane Press, December 12, 1910

Beatrice and La Vere fled to their cave in September and lived there for "many happy weeks." They both kept diaries of that time, which later made it into the newspapers. But the teenagers didn't plan for winter weather, and the cave eventually got rather cold. They would have to return to civilization, if not to their families. Read the story of the teenagers who lived in a cave, which was really just the beginning of their adventures, at Second Glance History, part one and part two. -via Strange Company

BJ Ross from Altoona, Pennsylvania, has a cat named Jordan. Jordan collects shoes. He doesn't buy them, though, he steals them from the neighbors! Jordan will often carry a shoe home and then go back to the victim's home and steal the mate as well. Ross employed technology to investigate Jordan's crimes: a surveillance camera, a GPS tracker, and a Facebook group to help reunite the shoes with their rightful owners. It's all made the cat burglar a feline celebrity. -via Bored Panda

When people get lost, they often become disoriented. In wilderness settings, this can lead to what John T. Coleman describes as “nature shock,” when "they scramble their brains along with their bearings." It's happened to experienced explorers and trackers, people close to their homes, and those whose confidence outstripped their abilities. In other words, almost anyone. There are plenty of historical accounts of lost people, including some whose survival could be described as miraculous.   

Paul Gasford got lost hunting for sarsaparilla on the shore of Lake Ontario in 1805. Eager to collect the sixpence reward his mother was offering the child who picked the most, he scurried through the brush, eyes peeled and legs pumping, giddy to be free of the small boat his family was using to move their belongings from the Bay of Quinté in Ontario to their new home in Niagara, New York. None of the bigger kids noticed that Paul was missing, a staggering oversight given that, according to The True and Wonderful Story of Paul Gasford, published in 1826, he was “a little over 4 years old.”

After a three-day search, Gasford’s parents gave him up for dead. Chances were slim that a child that young could survive multiple nights exposed in a strange place. But Paul Gasford was no ordinary kid. Instead of falling apart when he realized that he was lost, he remembered the adults saying that Niagara lay 40 miles away and decided to complete the final leg of the journey on his own. He found the lake and followed the coastline. He dug holes in the beach at night and snuggled deep into the sand to keep warm. He jammed a stick in the ground before he slept to stay oriented in the right direction in case he woke confused. He nibbled grapes when he grew hungry, but not too many, for he remembered his mother’s admonition not to gorge himself and sour his stomach. When he sauntered into town, the place exploded in celebration.

Others in this list were eventually rescued, but each account presents a different aspect of what can happen when you get lost in the woods. Read them all at Smithsonian.

Lauren Blumenthal told a story to her dog Hazel about a squirrel carrying a bone in its mouth. The story contained many words that Hazel was very familiar with, and upon hearing the word “squirrel”, Hazel dropped the ball that was in her mouth.

Who knew dogs could listen to our stories with enthusiasm if they knew the words?

See the video at Laughing Squid.

(Image Credit: lo_hayz/ TikTok)

Humans and other living creatures use many of their senses to survive, as well as understand the environment around them. However, unlike living creatures, robots mainly use one sense and that is their sense of sight. Some robots, on the other hand, also use touch alongside the sense of sight. But in order to greatly improve a robot’s perception, researchers from Carnegie Mellon University found out that adding a sense of hearing to the machine would do the trick.

In what they say is the first large-scale study of the interactions between sound and robotic action, researchers at CMU's Robotics Institute found that sounds could help a robot differentiate between objects, such as a metal screwdriver and a metal wrench. Hearing also could help robots determine what type of action caused a sound and help them use sounds to predict the physical properties of new objects.

"A lot of preliminary work in other fields indicated that sound could be useful, but it wasn't clear how useful it would be in robotics," said Lerrel Pinto, who recently earned his Ph.D. in robotics at CMU and will join the faculty of New York University this fall. He and his colleagues found the performance rate was quite high, with robots that used sound successfully classifying objects 76 percent of the time.

The results were so encouraging, he added, that it might prove useful to equip future robots with instrumented canes, enabling them to tap on objects they want to identify.

More details about this study over at TechXplore.

(Image Credit: Carnegie Mellon University/ TechXplore)

Hong Kong-based video production company VisualSuspect has got their hands on a 360° camera lens and took advantage of the warped footage that they had using it. After adding some distortion effects, the result is this surreal, dizzying, and hypnotic, video.

Well, what do you think?

(Image Credit: VisualSuspect/ The Awesomer)

One of the best things that we can teach our children is to do household chores. Not only do we teach them a part of family life necessary for the upkeep of the home, but we also teach them responsibility as well as other important life lessons as they learn to do these things. Cheryl Butler from Quick and Dirty Tips has this to say:

Today's kids are so involved with academic pressures, music and art clubs, AAU teams, competing to place on a school sports team, never mind figuring out how to juggle a part-time job, friends, and land in a decent college. Whew! It's more than a full plate.

Though we may want to coddle our overscheduled kids, we aren't doing them any favors by giving them a free pass when it comes to helping out with standard family chores.

If you're on the fence about enlisting your children's help with chores around the house, take comfort in knowing that duties are not only necessary, but they will have a positive impact throughout their life.

Consider this info from an article called The Benefits of Chores from the Center for Parenting Education.

Research indicates that those children who do have a set of chores have higher self-esteem, are more responsible, and are better able to deal with frustration and delay gratification, all of which contribute to greater success in school.

With these things in mind, how, then, would you lead your child to help out with the chores at home? Butler has tips over at the site.

(Image Credit: smtwastebrokers/ Pixabay)

Bob Mettauer took up cycling when he retired in the 1990s. Ever since then, he has been logging his miles, and he has committed to ride nine miles with his bike every day, no matter the weather. Now, almost 30 years since that fateful day, the 95-year old man from California, known to neighbors as “Bicycle Bob”, logged his 100,000th mile of cycling.

Mettauer logged his 100,000th mile Tuesday and was treated to a celebration by friends and neighbors at Casa Grande Senior Mobile Estates in Santa Maria.

[...]

The cycling enthusiast said he plans to take a few days to rest after reaching the 100,000 mile mark, but he has no plans to quit his hobby.

"On Sept. 18 I'll be 96 years old, and I'm going to keep on going," he told KEYT-TV.

Now that’s dedication right there.

(Image Credit: KEYT - KCOY - KKFX News/ YouTube)

Yeah, it seems early to talk about Thanksgiving, but Brach's is way ahead of us with their new product Thanksgiving Dinner Candy Corn. It may sound disgusting, but if you will be in isolation for the holiday, here's your excuse to pig out on candy instead of cooking. You can even tell Mom you had a Thanksgiving dinner when she checks in by FaceTime.   

A full course meal presented in a unique mix of candy corn flavors. BRACH’S Turkey Dinner includes all of the traditional Thanksgiving favorites. From roasted turkey, green beans and stuffing to ginger glazed carrots, cranberry sauce and sweet potato pie.
Flavors include Green Beans, Roasted Turkey, Cranberry Sauce, Ginger Glazed Carrot, Sweet Potato Pie & Stuffing.

One has to wonder how savory these sweets really are. The first ingredients are still sugar and corn syrup, while everything else is under "Natural and Artificial Flavor." Then you have to wonder why they didn't mix in some regular candy corn and call it corn flavor. -via Boing Boing

There can only be too much decoration on your walls, right? If you feel like your home needs to be more lively but you don’t have any more available space, here's an unorthodox suggestion: try hanging decorations on your windows! Painter Chambers Austelle hung her artworks on her window frame. It might limit the view outside, but it can actually create a focal point in a room, as Apartment Therapy details: 

It also just might draw more attention to, say, a set of windows with pretty moldings. I probably wouldn’t pick a piece that’s going to totally obscure the entire window, blocking all natural light in the process. However, if you did have a not so great view, this is a decent fast fix for covering that up a bit.

Austelle herself was inspired by a pin she saw on Pinterest. “I love the look of artwork hanging on bookcases, but that wasn’t an option for me, as I don’t have a bookcase,” she says. She then realized she could create the same effect with this set of double windows on her porch.

“Just like you would on a wall, I used wire resting on a nail to mount the photo in the center of the windows,” says Austelle. You can also explore more temporary mounting solutions like Command Strips, too, especially if you choose a lighter, smaller piece. One other tip to keep in mind: This idea works best on undressed windows, so drapes and shades don’t get the way of your prized piece of artwork.

image via Apartment Therapy

This might look like an ordinary ring, but it’s more than just an accessory. The Oura Ring is a health tracker that has sensors on the inside, but the wearer won’t even notice it! The small tracker has been getting traction from being used by the NBA and WNBA as a tool for preventing outbreaks of COVID-19, as TechCrunch details: 

So what does the Oura Ring actually track? A lot of things, actually. It measures sleep, as mentioned, as well as various other metrics under two broad categories: Readiness and Activity. Sleep, Readiness and Activity all provide one overall summary score out of 100 to give you a topline sense of where you are, but each is actually calculated from a range of sub-metrics that add up to that larger score.

Oura’s sleep tracking is much more in-depth than the forthcoming Apple Watch sleep tracking that Apple is releasing with its next watchOS update in the fall. It monitors when you go to sleep, how long you sleep, how much of that qualifies as “deep” and how much is “REM,” and gives you a metric or you sleep efficiency, your time in bed, your total sleep time and more. Readiness tracks your ambient body temperature, heart rate variability, respiratory rate and your resting heart rate, while activity automatically measures calorie burn, inactive time, your steps and how close you are to your overall activity goal.

image via TechCrunch

Thanks to technology, most of the resources we obtain are in digital form. We view our textbooks, documents, and other resources as PDFs on our phones. While these files are easy to retrieve, we can’t deny that it is difficult to zoom in and out to read. But that’s not the only shortcoming of PDFs. According to Jakob Nielsen, co-founder of the user experience research and consulting firm Nielsen Norman Group, PDFs are still problematic, even after twenty years: 

In the article, co-published this week with user experience specialist Anna Kaley, several reasons are given as to why PDFs are problematic when used for online reading. Some of the usability issues mentioned include a jarring user experience, slow load times, unnecessary content, unnavigable content masses, and the fact that PDFs are sized for paper and not screens. 

“The format is intended and optimized for print. It’s inherently inaccessible, unpleasant to read, and cumbersome to navigate online. Neither time nor changes in user behavior have softened our evidence-based stance on this subject,” the article reads. “Even 20 years later, PDFs are still unfit for human consumption in the digital space.” 

image via Vice

Most of a video game’s narrative is relayed in cutscenes, flavor texts (the random bits of information about a game’s setting scattered all around the game), or through simple dialogue between characters. But some games are now telling the bits and pieces of their narratives through dungeons, buildings, and other environmental spaces. Watch Game Maker’s Toolkit as he provides the best examples of this very practice. 

It’s through assigning priority to the information they want to convey. Designers effectively present content or information by following a visual hierarchy. They try to organize their content so to present the content with the highest priority first. This, in turn, will be the first item that will grab the eye’s attention, as the Interaction Design Organization details: 

“Hierarchy” is simply a nicer way of saying organized from most to least important. We also use “hierarchy” to show relationships (where relationships exist) between content blocks.

There are common patterns for hierarchy both on the printed page and for the digital page. These patterns are based on the movements that our eyes tend to make when presented with a fresh page. English, for example, is read from left to right. English readers have a set scanning pattern when facing a page of text. Arabic readers have a different pattern. Why? It’s because Arabic is read from right to left.

It’s important to understand how your audience processes information before adopting a hierarchy pattern. 

Check out the full piece here.

image via The Interaction Design Organization