Here’s a perfect way to cook your fried rice, supported by science! Physicists analyzed the chef’s movements and formulated the technique to avoid burning your fried rice. Will you try out the technique to perfect your fried rice? 

Do you know what can break a peaceful night in a residential area? A couple hundred goats, maybe. Well, that’s what happened in a residential neighborhood near San Jose, California. Hundreds of goats from a hillside ranch near the neighborhood broke out of their enclosure and made a run for it! The goat stampede didn’t cause much damage, but it is something out of the ordinary! 

image screenshot via TMZ

Noor Inayat Khan was a Muslim Sufi with Indian royalty in her heritage. She was also a young woman in Paris when World War II broke out. She fled with her family to England, and despite her pacifist religion, wanted to do what she could to stop Hitler in his deadly rampage across Europe. So she trained as a radio operator for the WAAF and then as a spy for the Special Operations Executive (SOE). Khan was sent back to France as part of a spy network in 1943, but her group of contacts fell apart. Nevertheless, she was determined to stay, because the next round of spies sent would need a radio operator.

In the following months, Khan relayed data back to SOE regarding the remnants of spy circuits, and locations for where to drop supplies for the resistance. She provided information to rescue two American airmen hiding in Paris. In the same way, she also assisted in the escape of 30 other Allied airmen who had survived being shot down over France.

All this time, Khan stayed one step ahead of the Gestapo by constantly moving from place to place to transmit. She dyed her hair various colors and used assorted disguises. Once, she was cornered by two German officers on the metro. They noticed her suitcase, which carried her secret transmitter. They asked her what was in the case. “A cinematograph projector,” Khan replied. She opened the case slightly, allowing the officers to peer inside. “There are the little bulbs. Haven’t you seen one before?” Apparently, her confidence and boldness embarrassed the Germans so much that they accepted her story, and did not detain her.

But Khan’s capture was only a matter of time.

Read the story of Noor Khan at Damn Interesting. -via Digg

The scaly-foot snail (Chrysomallon squamiferum) lives in deep hydrothermal vents in the Indian Ocean. It has its own suit of armor made of iron! That's a great way to protect yourself from predators, but as far as we know, this snail is the only animal that can do it. -via Boing Boing

When we think of "twenty twenty," the current year and its events are the first thing we think of. Then there's the news show 20/20, which is still airing. But it also means how well you see. If the eye doc says you have 20/20 vision, that's good, but it doesn't mean "perfect," and it doesn't even mean "average." It supposedly means "normal," but what does that really mean? The vision scale was developed by 19th century Dutch doctor Herman Snellen and published in 1862. It's been confusing people ever since.   

And, note here, going back to the irony of naming a news show 20/20, first, it turns out what’s actually average is not exactly what Snelling came up with here (he explicitly was going for, to quote him, “easily recognized by normal eyes”, with emphases on “easily”) and thus around 6/5 (20/15) to 6/4 (20/12) would more accurately be the real “normal”, at least until we get particularly close to being worm food.

As you might have guessed from all of this, 20/20 or 6/6 does NOT mean you have “perfect” vision or see things perfectly clearly, as many people say. It simply means you perform in the ballpark of what Snellen considered normal visual acuity, but actually are kind of below average… Which I guess is sort of fitting when talking accuracy and news.

To add to the confusion, eye test results are sometimes given in smaller numbers, like 6/6. Read about the development of vision measurement and what it means at Today I Found Out.

(Image credit: Openclipart)

The title has nothing to do with the famous Brady Bunch house, which was remodeled. It's about the family itself, fictional as it is, because The Brady Bunch keeps coming back. The show wasn't all that big of a hit when it originally aired, beginning in 1969. But in syndication, it found new life and new fans, and eventually new adventures and new media.  

In a half-century, The Brady Bunch has evolved from sitcom to cartoon to variety show to drama to parody to reality series, molding and re-molding itself to fit the prevailing styles, tastes, and sensibilities of multiple eras. It all began in the late 1960s, when Gilligan’s Island producer Sherwood Schwartz wanted to capitalize on the different types of families that were following in the wake of a relatively new wave of no-fault divorce, the sort seen in big-screen comedies like Yours, Mine, And Ours and With Six You Get Eggroll. This was the zeitgeist that produced Schwartz’s famously blended Bradys, even if their show never mentioned the “d” word: a widower with three sons marrying a widow—or is she a divorcée?—with three daughters

The story of a lovely lady (Florence Henderson) bringing up three very lovely girls (Maureen McCormick, Eve Plumb, and Susan Olsen) and forming a family with a man named Brady (Robert Reed), who was busy with three boys of his own (Barry Williams, Christopher Knight, and Mike Lookinland), wasn’t much of a hit in its original broadcast run. The Brady Bunch aired on ABC for five seasons, beginning in 1969, yet never cracked the Nielsen Top 30. But other factors helped sustain the Bradys’ longevity. Previous sitcoms like Family Affair and The Courtship Of Eddie’s Father also had school-aged characters, but this one was primarily focused on the kids’ viewpoints, not the parents’. The younger Bradys had the adults greatly outnumbered, leading to a plethora of plots involving sibling rivalry, school, dating, and other topics that their peers watching at home could relate to.

Gwen Ihnat looks at the various incarnations of The Brady Bunch, but more importantly, delves into why the family became such a comfort to viewers that it never goes away, at the A.V. Club. -via Metafilter

Dmitri Shostakovich wrote his first opera in 1927-28. It was called The Nose, based on an 1836 story by Nikolai Gogol.  

Shostakovich was only 20 when he began writing The Nose, his operatic debut. He turned to a tiny short story by Gogol: an absurdist satire, where a civil servant’s errant nose launches its owner on a ludicrous battle against both nose and the authorities, as bureaucratic processes break down in the face of so unusual a problem. Gogol’s surrealist fable fired Shostakovich’s imagination, and he responded with a work of exuberant energy, full of musical jokes and grotesque parody…

You can read the story at Wikipedia. This performance is from the  Royal Opera House's 2016 performance of The Nose. -via The Kid Should See This

Jake Lambert, a comedian, writes on Twitter that he, his girlfriend, and their cat have been trapped in quarantine for two months. It's a bit much on their kitty, so the girlfriend very thoughtfully made an art gallery for him to visit.

The photos show famous works of art with cats added. Everything is at cat eye (yes, singular) level. There's even a rope barrier and signs for visitors.

So you've been bitten by a snake. You need to act quickly. There's a hippopotamus over there. You know what to do.

Pedanius Dioscorides, a physician who lived in Roman-ruled Greece in the first century AD, was a pioneer in the field of pharmacology. He listed hippopotamus testicles as a treatment for snakebites.

Dioscorides's comprehensive pharmacology guidebook, De Materia Medica, was basically an early version of the Physician's Desk Reference. It was used in Europe well into the 1800s. I am unable to find an English translation, but there is a brief description of the testicular usage in historian John M. Riddle's 2011 book about the ancient doctor.

Note: if hippo testicles aren't available, Dioscorides also suggests beaver castoreum and weasel meat. You have options.

-via Aelfred the Great | Photo: Mertie

Malaria has always been a huge problem in Africa. In 2018, there were an estimated total of 228 million cases of malaria worldwide. A whopping 93% of these cases (over 212 million) come from Africa. With that in mind, scientists have been very serious in combating the insects that spread the disease — the mosquitoes.

An international team of researchers has used lidar to track mosquito activity levels in Africa as part of an effort to combat malaria. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, the group describes how the lidar was used and what was learned from their study.

More details about this study over at MedicalXpress.

(Image Credit: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/ Wikimedia Commons)

A quantum entanglement happens when microscopic objects, like electrons and atoms, coordinate with each other, which makes them lose their individuality in the process. This process may be considered as the most delicate and fragile of all processes, as a tiny disturbance will undo this entanglement. With this being the case, scientists do their very best in isolating the microscopic systems they work with, and usually operate on temperatures close to absolute zero. But what happens when you heat up a bunch of atoms? This is what researchers from The Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO) tried, and they were surprised at what happened next: they were able to observe about 100 times more entangled atoms than observed before.

More details about this over at PHYS.org.

(Image Credit: ICFO/ PHYS.org)

Every year on June 21, people from around the world gather at Stonehenge overnight to see the summer solstice (the longest day of the year) on the site. As the first rays of the sun sets foot across the prehistoric monument, the people watch as the sun rises above the ring of standing stones.

This year, however, is different, as going outside is greatly discouraged, if not prohibited, and people spend all their days indoors. With this in mind, the English Heritage organization, the institution that manages Stonehenge, announced that they will be livestreaming the Stonehenge summer solstice sunrise on the 21st of June, bringing the sunrise experience directly to our homes.

Nichola Tasker, the director of Stonehenge, said, “We have consulted widely on whether we could have proceeded safely and we would have dearly liked to host the event as per usual, but sadly in the end, we feel we have no choice but to cancel.

“We hope that our live stream offers an alternative opportunity for people near and far to connect with this spiritual place at such a special time of year and we look forward to welcoming everyone back next year.”

Thank you, English Heritage!

(Image Credit: garethwiscombe/ Wikimedia Commons)

Glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration are the two leading causes of blindness in adults. Thankfully, these diseases only cause damage to the eyes and not the brain, and the brain remains intact. Knowing this, scientists over the years tried to propose a device that bypassed the damaged eyes entirely. Instead, a camera would serve as the person’s eyes, and the visual information that the camera sees will directly be delivered to the brain.

In a paper publishing in the journal Cell on May 14, a team of investigators at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston report that they are one step closer to this goal. They describe an approach in which implanted electrodes are stimulated in a dynamic sequence, essentially "tracing" shapes on the surface of the visual cortex that participants were able to "see."

"When we used electrical stimulation to dynamically trace letters directly on patients' brains, they were able to 'see' the intended letter shapes and could correctly identify different letters," senior author Daniel Yoshor says. "They described seeing glowing spots or lines forming the letters, like skywriting."

Amazing!

More details about this over at EurekAlert.

(Image Credit: Beauchamp et. al./ Cell/ EurekAlert)

More than 400 ancient human footprints roughly 12,000 to 14,000 years old were found preserved near the village of Engare Sero in Northern Tanzania. Preserved in hardened volcanic sediment, these ancient footprints gave the scientists a glimpse of what ancient life was like. These footprints, says evolutionary biologist Kevin Hatala, “add up to the largest collection of ancient human footprints ever found in Africa”.

At Engare Sero, Hatala’s team analyzed foot impression sizes, distances between prints and which way prints pointed. One collection of tracks was made by a group of 17 people walking southwest across the landscape, the researchers found. Comparisons with modern human footprint measurements indicate that this group consisted of 14 women, two men and one young boy.

The women may have been foraging for food, while a few males visited or accompanied them, the researchers speculate.

Check out more details about this study over at ScienceNews.

(Image Credit: Cynthia-Liutkus-Pierce/ ScienceNews)

Here's a great idea for family fun, at least for IKEA customers. The furniture company has released plans for converting their furniture into indoor forts! The instructions take you step-by-step in turning a vattviken into a cåve, a few stefans into a cåstle, a landskrona into a förtress, an ölmstad into a höuse, a mulig into a cåmpingtent, and a tjusig into a wigwåm. If that make no sense to you, it will all be clear when you see the diagrams at Bored Panda.