Just when you thought that you’ve had enough virtual backgrounds for your video conferences, Nintendo arrives to give you yet another bunch of virtual backgrounds which you can use for your video calls. Communicate with your friends and officemates from the plains of Hyrule, inside the office of Isabelle from Animal Crossing, the race tracks of MarioKart, or from the mansion in Luigi’s Mansion 3.
Nintendo gives not just one or two, but almost fifty virtual backgrounds for you to choose from.
Thanks, Nintendo!
See the various virtual backgrounds over at SoraNews24.
The Getty Museum's art challenge has everyone trying to recreate famous works of art at home, using only what's available. Bel and Steph took on a unique challenge, to recreate a scene from the Bayeaux Tapestry. There was no horse available, but they had plenty of tinfoil and garbage bags. They did an excellent job with a difficult subject! -via Everlasting Blort
A new study found that drinking sugary drinks daily can increase one’s risk of contracting a cardiovascular disease. The study, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, looked at data from 106,000 women over 20 years. The researchers discovered that women who drink sugary beverages daily had a 20% greater likelihood of being diagnosed with a cardiovascular disease, as Fast Company detailed:
The researchers relied on survey data from the decades-long California Teachers Study and inpatient hospitalization records in the state. They wrote that their findings “expand the literature on unfavorable effects of [sugar-sweetened beverage] intake.”
That literature includes a 2012 study from the Harvard School of Public Health, which found that men who drink one sugary drink per day have a 20% greater likelihood of coronary heart disease compared to men who don’t. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, meanwhile, continues to urge adults and kids to cut back on sugary drinks and instead turn to—you guessed it—water.
Looking at Yatzil Elizalde's tattoos can be disorienting. This Mexican artist layers duplicate images on each other, creating a dizzying result. She tells My Modern Met that she sometimes feels that way when she inks them:
I go crazy just thinking that when starting to follow a line, it is almost impossible to get to the end without ending up dizzy along the way.
Only a portion of Elizalde's work uses this visual effect, but almost all of it uses precise, black and white dots and lines, which you can view on her Instagram page.
Wouldn’t it be nice if you had a pizza that won’t stain your couch? This gigantic pepperoni pizza might be the answer to your wish. Full of mozzarella cheese and topped with some pepperoni slices, this pizza is surely pleasing to the eyes. Unfortunately, it is not edible, as this gigantic pepperoni pizza is a pillow.
The pizza slice pillows sell individually for $24.95 each, so you’re looking at nearly $150 bucks if you want a whole pizza – and that price doesn’t include the box or one of those little picnic table things in the middle that keep the toppings from sticking to the cardboard.
The immune system has a crucial part in protecting our bodies from harmful pathogens and parasites, but did you know that the immune system also helps in shaping our thinking? Our brain houses some immune cells called microglia, which help in repairing our neurons and keeping them alive.
With this in mind, the link between microglia and our thoughts becomes clearer. Our thoughts and actions are a reflection of the brain’s wiring. The core of this wiring is made of neurons, which are influenced by microglia. So, having healthy microglia is essential to healthy cognition.
Check out more awesome details about these cells over at Psychology Today.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
