For many people, the one thing they remember about the 1987 film The Lost Boys is the saxophone player. He only appeared in one short scene, but he made an impression. It was only years later, when people recognized the character parodied in a 2010 SNL short, that we found out everyone else was just as impressed.  

Back in the mid-‘80s, musclebound musician Tim Cappello was performing with the likes of Tina Turner and Ringo Starr. He’d spend months and months learning their songs, recording albums, touring, everything a working musician would do. Then, for just one night, he went to Santa Cruz, California, and shot a single scene in a Hollywood movie. Soon after the movie came out, he watched it once and basically forgot about it. “I did that when I was in my early 30s and it meant nothing to me,” Cappello told io9 over the phone. “It meant nothing when it happened...then all of a sudden it just hit something.”

That movie was called The Lost Boys and Cappello plays “Beach Concert Star,” a bare-chested singer/saxophone player performing a fiery cover of the Call’s “I Still Believe” as soon-to-be-vampire Michael (Jason Patric) sees the mysterious Star (Jami Gertz) for the first time. For Lost Boys fans and non-fans alike, the scene has become an unforgettable snapshot of a time and place in pop culture history.

Read the path that Capello took to making that scene, and what it turned into afterward, at io9. (via Metafilter)

The first trailer for the movie Cats was enough to turn most people off the production. But now Screen Junkies has watched the whole movie so the rest of us don’t have to. They have the details of exactly why this CGI-fest was a stinking bomb, rendered in updated lyrics to the sings from the musical. -via Digg

Have you ever wondered why buildings with white roofs are cooler compared to those who don’t have roofs of that color? The reason why is that materials with lighter colors (like white) absorb less heat from the sun compared to materials with darker colors. This makes houses with white roofs significantly cooler, especially in warmer seasons. But is comfort reduced in cooler seasons? Thankfully, it isn’t.

A New Zealand study tested near-identical buildings in Auckland with either a red or white roof. It found that even in Auckland’s temperate climate, white roofs reduced the need for air conditioning during hotter periods, without reducing comfort during cooler seasons.

The study also identified several large-scale white-roof installations, including at Auckland International Airport, shopping centres and commercial buildings, but the effect was less clear.

This research suggests that there is potential for white-roof installations to significantly reduce the amount of energy needed to cool buildings. This would in turn reduce greenhouse gas emissions and also help us to adapt to rising temperatures.

Check out more details about this study over at The Conversation.

(Image Credit: lenalindell20/ Pixabay)

When the Great Depression hit the United States in 1929 and lasted until the late 30s, it wiped out millions of investors, and the economy came crashing down. Industrial output declined rapidly, and many people got laid off of their jobs.

It’s not just the industry that was affected by the Great Depression; entertainment, too, was heavily affected.

According to Dickstein, the 1929 economic crash hit the entertainment business hard. Movie studios, broadcasters, nightclubs, and the rest of the sector suffered, and numerous ventures went out of business. Meanwhile, many writers and artists who had left the U.S. to seek creative freedom lost much of their incomes and returned home.

But thanks to the efforts of the Works Progress Administration headed by Harry Hopkins, the United States managed to keep the entertainment industry alive, which helped in keeping the spirits of its citizens alive.

The New Deal brought federal support for artists. As Harry Hopkins, the head of the Works Progress Administration, supposedly told President Franklin Roosevelt, “Artists have to eat, too.” The WPA hired muralists, writers, theater directors, and actors to keep supplying the country with entertainment. It also employed photographers and writers to document the lives of their fellow Americans. Among the products of this effort were oral histories that still inform historians’ work today.

This is the reason why the people still managed to laugh even in the midst of an economic crisis.

More details about this story over at JSTOR Daily.

(Image Credit: Dorothea Lange/ Wikimedia Commons)

As social distancing measures continue across the world, ordinary citizens are coming up with extraordinary ways to help the most affected. A businessman in Vietnam has created a automatic rice dispensing machine to provide free rice to people who are out of work.

The machine distributes a 1.5kg bagful of rice from a small silo to waiting workers, many of whom are street sellers or people who earned a living from cash-in-hand jobs like housekeeping or selling lottery tickets.

Hoang Tuan Anh, the businessman behind the idea, had initially donated a batch of smart doorbells to hospitals in Ho Chi Minh City before turning his technological expertise to food distribution.

The idea behind the design was to make sure that the most vulnerable people in the community felt that they always had access to some food source.

Photo: Reuters / Yen Duong

Via - The Jakarta Post

Decades before the Cold War, Russian leaders encouraged science periodicals to educate the masses, publicize the USSR's accomplishments, and whet the people's appetite for advancement in science and technology. They hoped that the Soviet Union would be a worldwide leader in scientific progress. Magazines aimed at adults and children alike included everything from instructions on how to build a radio receiver to science fiction stories by Russian authors. Alexandra Sankova compiled more than 250 illustrations for his book Soviet Space Graphics: Cosmic Visions From the USSR to capture the wonder and optimism of a time when it seemed as though humans were on the cusp of building permanent bases on the moon and maybe even meeting authentic Martians.

Wild Heaven, a microbrewery in Atlanta, GA, has released "Fauci Spring," named in honor of Dr. Fauci as an homage to the nation's top infectious disease specialist. In addition, they named their new lager "Don't Stand So Close to Me" as a reference to social distancing during the pandemic.

We’re very much aware that we’re quickly depleting our non-renewable sources of energy, which is why we try to harness renewable sources of energy, like sunlight. Over the years, solar cells have become much more efficient, capable of storing energy from the sun at a much faster rate. But there’s always room for improvement when it comes to technology, and so solar cells continue to improve in efficiency.

Now, three records have been broken by two different devices, including one that pushes the highest overall solar conversion efficiency towards the 50-percent mark.

The top honor was claimed by researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), who have developed a new solar cell with an efficiency of 47.1 percent. That makes it the most efficient solar cell of any kind in the world – for now, at least. These records have a tendency to be broken pretty regularly.

The device is what’s known as a six-junction III-V solar cell, meaning it’s made up of six different types of photoactive layer. Each of these is comprised of various III-V materials, named after their positions on the periodic table, which collect energy from different parts of the light spectrum. In total there are around 140 layers, packed into a solar cell that’s thinner than a human hair.

More details about this over at New Atlas.

(Image Credit: HZB/ New Atlas)

Ze Frank is still doing what he does- putting thoughts into the mouths of various animals. In this video, he addresses social isolation as it applies to pets. First, the residents of an aquarium, where nothing is different because being in an aquarium already isolates you from the larger world with a small group of random weirdos. Then there are cats and dogs, who are used to having the house to themselves all the time, and now have a hard time putting up the humans.

Artist Tina Yu creates different animals (and fictional creatures) with clay. Yu describes her style as “double c: cute and creepy.” Her creations represent animals “reborn into a new colorful fantasy world, where there’s no pain and suffering, and they can live happily ever after,” as Instagram details: ⁣

“I think the most special moment is seeing all the characters I come up with in my head come to ‘life,’” says Tina. “I’ve learned how to express myself through my artwork in an emotional way. By taking inspiration from people, things and memories that are personal to me, I feel like I’ve found my own identity in art.” #ThisWeekOnInstagram

image via Tina Yu

Rover the Cat is in quarantine, but is still absolutely fabulous! He is the pinnacle of fashion excellence in the latest outfits for the new season. He has the perfect catwalk stroll that makes him the center of attention, but expresses a subtle confidence.

-via Twisted Sifter

NASA has released an infrared image of the “Pillars of Creation”, showing the radiating glow off the pillars. The newest image of the Eagle Nebula gave the iconic pillars a spectacular blueish shadow. The Eagle Nebula is 7,000 light-years from Earth. Futurism has more details: 

The earliest image of the pillars, a composite of 32 different images compiled using visible light, shows the pillars located in the Eagle Nebula throwing off cool hydrogen gas and cosmic dust.

First discovered in 1745 by Swiss astronomer Jean-Philippe Loys de Chéseaux, the Eagle Nebula is roughly 7,000 light-years from Earth, a nursery for stars in the Serpens constellation.

The pillar structure is immense. Just the largest pillar on the left is about four to five light-years long.

image via NASA

The song “Gethsemene” from the opera Jesus Christ Superstar is a challenge for anyone who sings it, due to that one high, sustained note. However, even though it’s in the original, it doesn’t have to be sung like that. Who did it best? Lindsay Ellis compiled a collection of recordings of various singers doing the “Whyyyy?” over the past fifty years for your personal comparison. -via Metafilter

If you’ve got nothing else to do, try taking this Buzzfeed quiz! See if you remembered anything from your initial years in school, or (for those who are in lower years) if you’re knowledgeable enough to answer twelfth-grade questions. All I remember from my initial years in school is that mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. I’m not sure if I’ll fare well in this quiz. 

image via wikimedia commons

Sudeep Khetani called pizzerias and restaurants and placed large orders intended for the local police department. However, the 34-year-old never paid or picked up his orders. The scam cost businesses thousand dollars, according to the South Brunswick Township Police Department. It seems that the scam wasn’t done just out of boredom, as Khetani apparently made statements about Italians and wished they would be affected with coronavirus. 

image via Yahoo! News