Whale sharks are fish that can grow as long as 59 feet (18 meters), so there's not much in the ocean that's going to mess with them. However, they are vulnerable in their own ways, and have developed adaptations to protect themselves from the friction of swimming, namely, teeth that grow all over their bodies, including their eyeballs! These modified teeth are called dermal denticles.   

Whale sharks, unlike some other shark species, don’t have eyelids. Also, their tiny eyes are located at the corners of their square heads, exposing their peepers to potential damage. That’s where the protective eye denticles come in.

Sharks have dermal denticles elsewhere on their bodies. These marine animals don’t have scales like other fish, but they do have placoid scales, which are made of dermal denticles. These modified teeth, with their hard enamel, provide sharks with armor-like protection, but they also work to reduce friction in the water, helping sharks swim with speed and stealth.

A study of whale sharks from Japanese aquariums, both living and dead specimens, show the denticles comes in all sorts of shapes. One shark eyeball had nearly 3,000 denticles! Read more about this research at Gizmodo.

(Image credit: istolethetv)

Throughout the course of a lifetime, a person learns thousands of words. But of these many words stored in his tiny brain, some are withdrawn by his brain more frequently than other words. The question is, why? Turns out that it has something to do with that person’s memories of past experiences.

In a recent study of epilepsy patients and healthy volunteers, National Institutes of Health researchers found that our brains may withdraw some common words, like "pig," "tank," and "door," much more often than others, including "cat," "street," and "stair." By combining memory tests, brain wave recordings, and surveys of billions of words published in books, news articles and internet encyclopedia pages, the researchers not only showed how our brains may recall words but also memories of our past experiences.

"We found that some words are much more memorable than others. Our results support the idea that our memories are wired into neural networks and that our brains search for these memories, just the way search engines track down information on the internet," said Weizhen (Zane) Xie, Ph.D., a cognitive psychologist and post-doctoral fellow at the NIH's National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), who led the study published in Nature Human Behaviour. "We hope that these results can be used as a roadmap to evaluate the health of a person's memory and brain."

More details about this interesting study over at MedicalXpress.

(Image Credit: geralt/ Pixabay)

Living in this world is a challenge for the mute and the deaf. There are only a few places that can be considered as friendly to them. Human interaction is also difficult, as many do not know sign language. Thankfully, there are people who are committed to making the world a better place. Bioengineers from UCLA have developed a wearable glove that can translate American Sign Language (ASL) into English in real time via a smartphone app.

"Our hope is that this opens up an easy way for people who use sign language to communicate directly with non-signers without needing someone else to translate for them," said Jun Chen, an assistant professor of bioengineering at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering and the principal investigator on the research. "In addition, we hope it can help more people learn sign language themselves."

[...]

UCLA has filed for a patent on the technology. A commercial model based on this technology would require added vocabulary and an even faster translation time, Chen said.

More details about this over at TechXplore.

(Image Credit: Jun Chen Lab/UCLA/ TechXplore)

Soldiers who go into the battlefield have, at the very least, two things to consider: bullets and explosives. Both could kill a person. Soldiers wear thick and heavy armor to protect their bodies from these things. However,...

... much of their body remains exposed to the indiscriminate aim of explosive fragments and shrapnel.

Not only that, but this heavy armor greatly restricts a soldier’s mobility.

Designing equipment to protect extremities against the extreme temperatures and deadly projectiles that accompany an explosion has been difficult because of a fundamental property of materials. Materials that are strong enough to protect against ballistic threats can't protect against extreme temperatures and vice versa. As a result, much of today's protective equipment is composed of multiple layers of different materials, leading to bulky, heavy gear that, if worn on the arms and legs, would severely limit a soldier's mobility.

Now, Harvard University researchers, in collaboration with the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Soldier Center (CCDC SC) and West Point, have developed a lightweight, multifunctional nanofiber material that can protect wearers from both extreme temperatures and ballistic threats.

More details about this over at PHYS.org.

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: Grant Gonzalez/Harvard SEAS/ PHYS.org)

The violin is a difficult instrument to learn. Unlike other common stringed instruments such as the guitar, the violin doesn’t have frets, and so the violin player has to be precise as to where he puts his finger on the fingerboard. Note that precision, or the musical term “intonation”, is one of the keys to good violin-playing.

With this thing in mind, how many notes does it take before these guys play one note that is considered out of tune by a digital tuner?

Watch this video to find out.

(Image Credit: TwoSet Violin/ YouTube)

Fish eggs that unfortunately get into a duck’s mouth and into its stomach may just one be one of the saddest moments on Earth. These eggs get pummeled by the duck’s gizzard and then burned up by the stomach acids, and by the time that they exit the duck’s body, most of these eggs can no longer hatch. They don’t get to hatch and have a chance at life. With these great odds stacked against these eggs, you wouldn’t expect that some will survive unscathed… but some surprisingly do survive.

…a few eggs can exit unscathed in a duck’s excrement, possibly helping to spread those fish, including invasive species, to different places, a new study finds.

It’s been an “open question for centuries how these isolated water bodies can be populated by fish,” says fish biologist Patricia Burkhardt-Holm of the University of Basel in Switzerland, who was not involved with the work. This study shows one way that water birds may disperse fish, she says.

More details about this over at ScienceNews.

(Image Credit: ArtTower/ Pixabay)

Katmai National Park and Preserve's Fat Bear tournament last fall was won by a fabulously rotund female brown bear named Holly. You can see her at her chonkiest here. But soon after winning the competition, Holly went into hibernation, and now she has emerged a changed bear.

After online voters crowned Holly the fattest of the fat bears in October 2019, she went into hibernation during the long winter famine, subsisting on her ample fat reserves. What's more, Holly also gave birth and nursed a cub during hibernation (female bears are the only animals known to give birth and lactate while hibernating, noted Fitz).

"All that fat paid off," Naomi Boak, the media ranger at Katmai National Park and Preserve, told Mashable. "She’s one-third the bear she was," Boak, who's currently stationed at the Brooks River in Katmai, added.

Giving birth to a cub is all the more remarkable because Holly is 20 years old, which is the expected lifespan of a brown bear. She probably won't be in the running this fall, because this summer she is fishing for two. Read more about Holly at Mashable. You can follow the bears of Katmai on a webcam through the summer.

(Image credit: National Park Service)

I have never seen The NeverEnding Story, but according to this Honest Trailer, it was full of doom, gloom, misery, and sadness. In other words, it was a German kids' movie. It was a big hit in West Germany, which was still a country in 1984, and managed to make money in the US, although it was not what we'd normally think of as a blockbuster. However, people who were children in 1984 now run the internet, so The NeverEnding Story is a fondly remembered shared experience among them.

You might look at a map and think about how wonderful a road trip it would be to drive from the top of North America down to the bottom of South America (or vice-versa) on the Pan-American Highway. The problem is that the Pan-American Highway doesn't go all the way- there's a relatively short route that connects the two continents that has never been paved -and might never be. It's called the Darién Gap, and RealLifeLore explains why it's so difficult to build a road through it. -via Digg

Still looking for a Jim for your Pam? Instead, you should look for a Tuxedo Mask for your Sailor Moon. Sora News 24 tells us that Japanese bridal wear company Mariarosa now offers a line of six dresses and two tuxedos modeled from the anime and manga franchise Sailor Moon. For now they can only be rented, not purchased, so they're not available for everyday cosplay.

As I’ve been trained by fab @guidedogs how to navigate using tactile pavement I thought I would share some key info in a thread! First, blister paving at road crossing points. The tactile round bumpy paving at pelican crossings is usually red & bumps are in horizontal rows. pic.twitter.com/bGdmfW3sZ9

— Dr Amy Kavanagh👩🏼‍🦯 (@BlondeHistorian) June 13, 2018

Amy Kavanagh is visually impaired, and navigates London with a cane. She writes about her experiences and disability issues at her blog Cane Adventures. Kavanagh explains the nuts and bolts of tactile paving, which is a guidance system in city streets for those who cannot see what's ahead. Textured blocks denote road crossings, rail platforms, stairs, ramps, and other hazards. The pattern of raised bumps signal what is ahead, which can be felt by feet or a cane. The shape of these blocks help to orient direction. Kavanagh gives us a short tour of the different ways tactile paving helps her navigate city streets in this Twitter thread.

Kavanagh describes tactile paving as it exists in British cities. The system varies slightly slightly by country, which you can read about at Wikipedia.

-via Bored Panda

German paper designer Peter Dahmen shows us some of the commissioned pop-up cards he has created. You won't find these in your local drug store! If you want to see how it's done, he has a few tutorials for beginners. -via Geeks Are Sexy

With Microsoft intending to focus more on their online storefront which is Microsoft.com, the tech giant has announced last Friday that it will permanently close all of their physical retail stores. Some locations, specifically Microsoft Experience Centers in New York, London, Sydney, and in Redmond, Washington (the corporate headquarters of the company), will still continue to operate, but they will no longer be selling products.

Microsoft has operated physical retail stores for about a decade. At its peak, the company had 116 locations around the world, including 106 in the United States. Microsoft says that there will be no layoffs as a result of the decision. 

[...]

“Our sales have grown online as our product portfolio has evolved to largely digital offerings, and our talented team has proven success serving customers beyond any physical location,” said Microsoft Corporate VP David Porter in a statement. Porter detailed the shift in strategy in a post published on LinkedIn.

This isn’t the first time Microsoft has shifted strategy on its physical retail locations. About a year ago, the company closed down its specialty kiosks, which were typically found in malls. The decision to close these small spots was made, according to the company, to focus on its full-scale Microsoft Stores.

What do you think of the company’s decision?

(Image Credit: Microsoft Corporation/ Wikimedia Commons)

Cookies are used by many websites in order to improve the browsing experience of their users. Too many of these cookies from various websites, however, could cause a slow Internet performance, which, opposite to what was said above, could lead to a poorer browsing experience.

The question is, where do the cookies stay? Do you clear them from your computer cache? Or from your computer case?

Watch this mind-boggling video to find out.

(Image Credit: Steven Giacomelli/ Pixabay)

(Video Credit: Viva La Dirt League/ YouTube)

In order to create an inclusive environment as well as to make their coffee more accessible to everyone, Starbucks recently opened their first ever Signing Store in Japan — a Starbucks store that is focused on serving those who are mute and have impaired hearing. The Signing Store in Japan is the fifth of its kind.

On June 24, Starbucks Coffee in Japan announced on its Twitter that it will be opening a Starbucks Signing Store on June 27 in Kunitachi city, which is located in the western portion of the Tokyo Metropolis and has a high hearing-impaired population.

[...]

 It was said that the store will have 19 hearing-impaired employees who will be supporting deaf customers.

“Starbucks has been hiring [deaf] and hard of hearing partners (employees) since we entered Japan in 1996, and these partners have made incredible impacts in their communities. [Inspired] by their passion, we created this store as a place of belonging, where our partners and customers can stay true to who they are and be inspired. This store truly represents infinite possibilities for all,” said Takafumi Minaguchi, the CEO of Starbucks Coffee Japan in their press release.

[...]

Despite the cafe focusing on those with hearing and speech disabilities, it will be open to all people regardless of whether they have difficulties communicating. There is a special menu sheet and writing instruments as well as special signs to facilitate communication for customers who cannot speak sign language.

More details about this over at Bored Panda.

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: Starbucks/ Bored Panda)