In September 2018, a woman received a phone call from her best friend, who told her that she has a squirrel that a cat had in its mouth, and the rodent was a little scratched-up. Along with her husband, the woman came to see the squirrel, and they found out that the squirrel wasn’t doing well, and so the husband decided to take her home.

Over time, the squirrel grew up to be a healthy and agile squirrel, and the man knew that it was time to release her back in the wild.

“The only reason I saved her was so she could eventually be free in the wild, happy,” the man narrates on the video. But the squirrel wants to be with him, and to this day she still is.

More about this wholesome story over at The Dodo.

(Image Credit: The Dodo)

Through this generative adversarial network (GAN) which he trained with thousands of photographs, freelance photographer Bas Uterwijk is able to create realistic images of historical figures using paintings and statues of them for reference.

Dubbed the A.I. generated portraits, this series of images by Bas Uterwijk has been created with artbreeder, an AI software that spots common facial features and qualities from the paintings and statues. The program throws different options for Uterwijk to pick from, who then continues with the editing of the image. His approach is somehow artistic as he has to decide on hair and eye color for the statues. As for the paintings, it’s a bit easier as he feeds the AI with different images meaning that the more paintings available on the subject, the more information the artist has to complete the job.

Check out the hyper-realistic photos over at DesignBoom.

Now that’s amazing.

(Image Credit: Bas Uterwijk/ DesignBoom)

Delivering his lines in the way Nathan Drake would say them, actor Nathan Fillion gives justice to the iconic protagonist of the Uncharted video game series in this fan film directed by Allan Ungar and written by Ungar and Jesse Wheeler. The short film also stars Stephen Lang as Victor “Sully” Sullivan (Drake’s mentor and father figure), and Mircea Monroe as Elena Fisher (Drake’s wife).

The fan film was praised even by Naughy Dog’s vice president Neil Druckmann and the franchise creator Amy Hennig.

Fans also recognize that the camera work used when Drake jumps out of the window is a reference to the cutscene-to-game transition in the games.

Now that’s how you do a film based on a video game!

(Video Credit: Allan Ungar/ YouTube)

With the many distractions that we could have while we work, may it be in the office or at his own home, it would really be difficult for us to complete tasks. Thankfully, we have a brain that makes our lives easier by shutting out these distractions, which thereby enable us to focus on the things we have to do. But how does this process work? This is what psychologist Edward Zagha and his team investigated in their study, which was published recently in the Journal of Neuroscience. While he and his team were not able to discover the exact process that happens in our brain, they were able to pinpoint the location where this stuff happens.

“Our discovery may have important implications for the understanding and treatment of neuropsychiatric diseases such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and schizophrenia,” Zagha said. “By studying the mechanisms underlying the blocking of distracting stimuli we may be able to unravel the neural circuitry underlying attention and impulse control.”

More about this over at Neuroscience News.

(Image Credit: ColiN00B/ Pixabay)

Bluish-white stars, as well as red and yellow stars shine brightly in this part of the cosmos, while clouds of dust and gas hover around. At the center of the most famous of all astronomy nebulas — the Great Nebula in Orion — the star-forming nebula, the M43, can be spotted.

The Great Nebula in Orion can be found with the unaided eye near the easily identifiable belt of three stars in the popular constellation Orion. The entire Orion Nebula, including both M42 and M43 spans about 40 light years and is located in the same spiral arm of our Galaxy as the Sun.

Beautiful.

(Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble, HLA; Reprocessing & Copyright: Bryan Goff)

A man in a hazmat suit carries spraying equipment into a London Underground train. He appears to be disinfecting the cars, but looks can be deceiving! This is Banksy in disguise, or else someone who works for Banksy, stenciling rats and masks with a message about not spreading disease. The BBC adds,

Transport for London (TfL) said the art was removed "some days ago" in line with its "strict anti-graffiti policy".

The work, called If You Don't Mask, You Don't Get, features a number of rats in pandemic-inspired poses and wearing face masks.

I guess it's a good thing there's a video. -via Boing Boing

Theodore Roosevelt began his presidency in 1901 promising to follow business-friendly policies. However, it was the Gilded Age, where monopolies grew to dominate industry, particularly coal and the railroads that delivered it. Roosevelt soon turned toward regulating those monopolies and their predatory practices. Then in May of 1902, the United Mine Workers of America went on strike in the Pennsylvania anthracite fields. That strike lasted 162 days and threatened to deprive a big part of the US of heating fuel for the winter. Advisors cautioned Roosevelt stay out of it.     

By early September, the Washington Monument had run out of coal to operate its new electric elevator for the thousands of tourists who visited every month. Unscrupulous businessmen in cities throughout the Northeast and Midwest were buying most of the remaining supply and charging four times the normal price. The Post Office threatened to shut down, and public schools warned they might not be able to remain open past Thanksgiving.

Roosevelt was restless, fretful. He knew he would be blamed for remaining idle while Americans suffered. “Of course we have nothing whatever to do with this coal strike and no earthly responsibility for it. But the public at large will tend to visit on our heads responsibility for the shortage,” he wrote a friend.

Prices increased at laundries, bakeries, cafés, restaurants. Landlords raised the rent on apartments. Hotels charged more for rooms. Landowners sold their timber. In Chicago, residents tore out wooden paving from their streets to use as fuel. Railroads gave their employees old crossties to burn. Trolley lines limited service. Some manufacturers had to get by with sawdust in their furnaces. Pennsylvania steel mill owners said they might be forced to impose mass layoffs.

Eventually, Roosevelt did intervene. Read how that worked, and how he became the first president to settle a labor strike at Smithsonian.

Swan Lake Bath Ballet - 27 elite ballet dancers from companies across the globe perform a modern-day Swan Lake from their own home (filled) baths. Remotely directed by @CoreyBakerDance from his UK bathroom.
#FilmedInLockdown #CultureInQuarantine @ace_national @thespacearts pic.twitter.com/uzXReJtbRD

— BBC Arts (@bbcarts) July 8, 2020

Corey Baker choreographed a version of Swan Lake that dancers can do in their own bathtubs! He taught the dance to 27 professional dancers, who then filmed themselves at home in their own tubs. Edited together, it’s a quarantine project you have to see to believe. On another note, a-list dancers have really nice bathtubs. -via Metafilter

There's something very enthralling about watching Mantenka Hime, a Japanese calligrapher, work at her desk. Sora News 24 tells us that she's popular in Japan, where a fanbase supports her enormous talents. There's a lot to watch here:

Mantenka Hime’s videos are focused on visual examples, and often include an overhead view or her writing in a separate window in the video’s top left corner. As a result, even viewers who don’t speak Japanese can learn the proper order, number, and direction of strokes to write each character. Watch closely, and you’ll even be able to spot where she performs hane, the subtle flourish where the artists leaves behind brush strokes while drawing the bristles away from the paper at the end of certain strokes.

And thanks to the scientists in MIT who first thought of the concept of the internet in the 1960s, we get to experience the fine arts of so many cultures around the world. Verily, it is an uplifting tool for all humanity.

I often hear skeptical voices say that today's youth don't have what it takes to thrive in a changing, demanding world. But then I read uplifting stories like this one in the New York Post. Teenagers are taking advantage of masking requirements to disguise themselves as old geezers and buy alcoholic beverages:

The “prank” has taken social-media platform TikTok by storm, with videos of users bedecked as boozehound bubbies — seemingly victorious, bottles in hand — racking up millions of views. [...]

“PSA: use ur fakes as much as possible bc if you wear a mask they can’t see ur whole face lol,” one adolescent posted to her not-of-legal-age brethren.

“Now that we have to wear masks, this is the best time to buy alcohol with a fake ID since the early 80’s . . .” standup comedian Jason Lawhead posted on Twitter.

The future is in good hands.

-via Kurt Schlichter | Image: TikTok

#killbill wooden pull toy. Because there aren’t enough preschool toys based on #tarantino films. pic.twitter.com/DQtlx9Jcmp

— Steve Casino (@SteveCasino1) July 13, 2020

Toy maker extraordinaire Steve Casino has made, for some happy child, a pull toy that shows the duel between the Beatrix and Gogo in Kill Bill, Vol. 1. Let us hope that it is only the first in a line of toys that will educate young children about Quentin Tarantino's cultural legacy. I'd love to have some toy cars with which to re-enact the car chase scene from Death Proof.

-via Super Punch

Sonnet 80 arrives on the eve of my 80th birthday. #ASonnetADay pic.twitter.com/iqkUcAXSEM

— Patrick Stewart (@SirPatStew) July 13, 2020

Back in March, Sir Patrick Stewart posted something on Instagram. It was a video of him reading Shakespeare’s sonnet, and the post quickly went viral. Delighted by the response to his video, Stewart decided to post another video the next day, this time reading Shakespeare’s Sonnet 1.

"When I was a child in the 1940s, my mother would cut up slices of fruit for me (there wasn't much) and as she put it in front of me she would say, 'An apple a day keeps the doctor away,'" tweeted Stewart. "How about, 'A sonnet a day keeps the doctor away?' So, here we go: Sonnet 1."

Ever since then, the legendary actor has been posting videos of himself reading Shakespeare’s sonnets, and just a few days ago he managed to work his way up to Sonnet 80, which was pretty significant to him, because the next day (July 13) would be his 80th birthday.

The rest of his readings can be found on his Twitter feed, along with the glorious news that he's started work on a memoir.

Heartwarming.

(Image Credit: Patrick Stewart/ Twitter)

For 200 years, scientists have been studying how the trapping mechanism of venus flytraps work. It is now known today that touching trigger hairs twice within 30 seconds would make the trap snap in an instant. New research from the University of Zurich (UZH) and ETH Zurich, however, found another way that could make the trap snap immediately: by touching it slowly.

"Contrary to popular belief, slowly touching a trigger hair only once can also cause two signals and thus lead to the snapping of the trap," says co-last author Ueli Grossniklaus, director of the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology at UZH.

Scientists theorize that this happens to catch slow-moving larvae and snails.

More details about this over at ScienceDaily.

Nature is sometimes scary. It’s good that these kinds of plants are not dangerous to humans.

(Image Credit: Noah Elhardt/ Wikimedia Commons)

Cattle farts (and burps) put methane into the atmosphere. And since there are more than 900 millions cows on earth right now, that’s a significant contributor to climate change. Burger King is all for the beef industry, but they are taking baby steps, so to speak, to reduce cows’ methane production by giving them a new diet incorporating lemongrass. You can read more about the research here. Burger King is offering burgers made from cows fed the new diet in select cities now. The rest of us can just enjoy the cow fart song. -via The Takeout

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Hamburger 🍔 Moving day for McDonald’s. #adlife #advertising #artdirection . . . . . @leconsulat @lasauvette @sylvainlemaitresylvainlemaitre @bueller_toutnou @cossette.fr

A post shared by Simon Duhamel (@simonduhamel) on Jul 11, 2020 at 5:06pm PDT

For an ad campaign for McDonald's, photographer Simon Duhamel shot arrangements of household goods in the back of a moving truck. From the right angle, they look like iconic McDonald's products.