David L. Glover is also known as the Bartlett Bee Whisperer. Just this past week, he shared the story of the biggest beehive he’s ever removed. It was in a house that was built in 1924, and there had been bees reported in the walls for 50 years. Glover thought he might see as much as eight feet of honeycomb, but before he was through, he had found 30 feet!

“No one is aware of the size of their honey beehive,” The Bee Whisperer told us that people are shocked by how big the hives are. “They are all surprised because they are expecting something the size of a wasp nest or hornet’s nest. The infrared gives them the first clue, but that’s only the brood combs of the hive. The babies are incubated at 94.5 degrees Fahrenheit [34.7 degrees Celsius]. Any honeycombs in the hive are cooler and usually don’t show on the IR.”

To get to the hive, Glover had to remove the outer clapboard of the house. Once he did, clues led him to finding more and more of the hive. Read the story of the 30-foot beehive at Bored Panda.

(Image credit: Mrs. Joey Parker)

Father and son Richard and Steve Doner make custom electric guitars, such as this bass inspired by Back to the Future. Like Doc Brown's DeLorean, it comes equipped with a flux capacitor and switches for players select a destination date. When they sold it in May, the Doners donated all of the proceeds to the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research.

You can see more photos and videos of the time machine in action here.

-via Super Punch

Who knew there was a perfect way to cuddle? Cuddling is one of the gestures that can give someone comfort and warmth, and to know that there’s a way to do it perfectly is quite interesting! Scientists from Toho University in Japan studied the effect of different hugs on infants. Yahoo News has the details: 

By monitoring heart rates for the infant and using pressure sensors on the adult's hand, the researchers assessed the baby's reaction to just being held, a hug with medium pressure, and what they called a "tight hug."

According to the results, published in the journal Cell, babies were soothed more by a medium-pressure hug than just being held but the calming effect decreased during a "tight" hug.

The researchers kept the length of the hug to 20 seconds as "it was almost impossible to avoid infant's bad mood during a one-minute or longer hold or hug," they admitted in their paper.

Unsurprisingly perhaps, for infants older than 125 days, the calming effect was greater when receiving a hug from a parent than from a female stranger.

So, the perfect hug is considered to be medium pressure from a parent, the scientists believe.

The infants are not the only ones who feel the benefits of a comforting hug, the research showed.

Parents also exhibited significant signs of calmness while hugging their child.

image via Yahoo News

The Bird Library is not strictly a public library, but it is open to the public--or at least everyone who can fly inside. This birdhouse project in Charlottesville, Virginia looks like a library service desk complete with books, accessible space, and a staff on duty when there is birdseed to be found behind the desk.

Kevin Cwalina and Rebecca Flowers built the Bird Library in 2015 and are livestreaming its patrons in action on YouTube. This is impressive, but the library needs to match this innovation by providing more electronic materials to keep up with changing patron demands.

-via Atlas Obscura

A Gömböc is a shape that always rights itself, which we introduced you to in 2008 (before the umlauts were added). The Action Lab has a concise and easy-to understand explanation in this video. Gömböcs don’t happen in nature, but the shape of one animal comes close. You can probably guess which animal it is. -via Digg

Seasickness has been plaguing mankind since we first took to the seas, tens of thousands of years ago. The stability of the body in relation to the boat is in conflict with the motion of the ocean, and our bodies react to that disconnect, sometimes violently. And it's not just the sea, as modern life can give us the same reaction to air travel, space flight, self-driving cars, and virtual reality experiences.

Motion sickness, as many point out, is not a sickness or a disorder by definition. Clinically, it’s “a natural response to unnatural conditions.” There is a point where it’s no longer “natural” and becomes an actual illness: if you can’t adapt, even after many exposures, and you feel sick for a long time after motion ceases, it’s a problem and an illness. However, unlike a fear of heights, and maybe even hiccups, the motion sickness reaction has no practical meaning. Evidence suggests it’s really just one big misunderstanding.

“The best explanation is that motion sickness is a bit like other sicknesses: to clear out poison,” says John Golding, a professor of applied psychology at the University of Westminster, England, presenting the most widely accepted reason for seasickness in his keynote speech at the conference. The poison-detector theory posits that dizziness and vomiting are backups, in case the taste buds or the gut’s chemosensory system fail to pick up on a poisoned meal—the wrong kind of mushroom, say, or too much alcohol. In a mobile environment, the part of the brain processing movement interprets the action as dizziness and, through neural pathways, alerts the “vomit center” located in the medulla, a part of the brain above the spinal cord. And with luck, there are a few moments before the signal kicks in so that you can consider the direction of the wind.

Remedies have been offered throughout history, with varying results, and scientists are still studying motion sickness to treat or prevent it. Read up on seasickness and what it really means at Hakai magazine.  -via Metafilter

(Image credit: lienyuan lee)

Face masks are now frequently used for safety and as a precaution against the current pandemic. If you want to spice up your face mask collection, The Daily Beast shares some different stylish face masks in different colors and patterns. From neutral ginghams to polka-dot patterns, there are a lot of variations of face masks you can choose from!

image via The Daily Beast

The Hatching Cat's latest post is a reprint of a 1907 newspaper article about the cats of Hell's Kitchen. It paints a depressing picture, but it contains an image of Tommy, the mascot of the Lamb's Club in the 1930s. The Lambs is a social club for theater professionals in New York City, founded in 1874. Their animals mascots have included a parrot named Sir Oliver, a goat named Billy, and Tommy, who was quite a character.

Tommy Casanova Lamb, a husky grey-and-white cat from the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood, wandered into The Lambs Club in 1932 when he was just a kitten. There, at 128 West 44th Street, he took up his station at the bar, where he spent most of his waking hours gazing at the celebrity customers, fattening up on beer and free lunches, or kicking out any other cats that tried to create disorder in the club.

Although The New York Times called Tommy the Feline Bar Fly, he did keep good order at the establishment. One time a black tom with green eyes from Sixth Avenue crashed into the bar and tried to steal some bologna from the counter. As the Times reported, Tommy evicted him with a few well-placed lefts.

Tommy was also a very smart feline. Not only did he know when anyone in the dining room ordered fish, he was quite aware that The Lambs Club was his forever home.

Tommy's adventures include various fights, injuries, and romances, an appearance in a vaudeville skit, and a formal dinner given in his honor. Read about Tommy Casanova Lamb at The Hatching Cat. -via Strange Company

(Image: The Lambs Collection)

Will Hulsey was the undisputed king of the animal attack pulp cover. You name it, he'd paint it attacking you in a pool of stagnant water. pic.twitter.com/fallsyzZX2

— Pulp Librarian (@PulpLibrarian) June 10, 2020

Wil Hulsy illustrated covers for men's magazines in the 1950s, and followed the formula to a T. A masculine white man in a swamp, accompanied by a woman in a ripped or ill-fitting red shirt, fighting off a deadly animal attack. You may think I am exaggerating, but in this Twitter thread, Pulp Librarian gives us 14 examples (yes, it includes "Weasels Ripped My Flesh") with commentary on the reasoning behind them. You may also notice the similarity of the other articles promoted on the covers. If a formula works, you may as well run it into the ground. -via Metafiter

French comedian Michel Lauzière has a unique act he calls Les Klaxons, performed in a suit covered in horns. You don't need to understand French to follow along as he performs several classical tunes with his body movements at Patrick Sébastien's Plus Grand Cabaret Du Monde. -via The Kid Should See This

This weatherman from Austin, Texas, knows how to take advantage of his luscious greenery. It turns out that his yard is a good replacement for a green screen, as seen in this video shared in r/nextfuckinglevel. The weatherman used his yard to display the map for his weather forecast. Now that’s cool!

image screenshot via reddit

What does a travel photographer do when travel is restricted? In Erin Sullivan's case, she got creative at home. For her photo series called Our Great Indoors, Sullivan built landscapes using food! Pancake mountains, broccoli forests, and gelatin lakes stand in for natural landscapes.



In the photos here, click to the right, and the last image will show you how it's done. See more of Sullivan's work at Instagram. -via Laughing Squid

Do you recall what music you were listening to 31 years ago? The latest mashup from The Hood Internet will bring those memories back, with 50 songs from 1989 mixed into a three-minute video. You can check out their mixes for each year from 1979 to 1989 in this playlist.

I’m terrible at remembering historical events, along with names of famous people and locations. Isn’t history easier to study when it’s presented in an entertaining manner? Watcher’s Puppet History does just that. The series presents historical events in such an entertaining and funny manner that you’d remember the event well. Or you’ll remember the catchy songs at the end of every episode. This episode about the dancing plague is not only entertaining, but the catchy song at the end will make you remember the dancing plague really well! 

The African wild dog or painted dog (Lycaon pictus) is a canine, but it evolved way further back in the Canis family tree than wolves or domestic dogs. They naturally eat antelope, but because livestock is a tempting meal in their ever-dwindling territories, they are among the most endangered species in Africa. The Painted Dog Conservation organization, headquartered in Hwange, Zimbabwe, is trying to save these wild dogs.

Of the 7,000 painted dogs left in the world, approximately 160 reside in Hwange, where the PDC was established in 1992 by Greg Rasmussen, a wildlife conservation biologist. Painted dogs’ “biggest threats come from humans,” says Shepherd Phiri, the facility’s head keeper. Because the animals sometimes hunt cattle –– although they prefer wild prey –– they’re considered “vermin” by farmers “and are often lost to snares,” Phiri explains. Another threat comes from infrastructure development, which results in habitat loss for the animals, which in turn increases human-wildlife conflict. The biggest challenge the PDC faces is changing people’s mindsets.

Read about the unique painted dogs and the efforts to save them at Ozy.

(Image credit: Derek Keats)