Rolo, a seven-year-old dachshund, wagged his tail so hard that it stopped moving! The dog was very pleased to have his owners home, where he can ask them to constantly play and bond with him. After a few days at home, his owners noticed that his tail was under his legs. After a visit to the vet, Rolo is on pain relief, and his sprained tail will be healed after a week!
(via 9gag)
image via Twitter
Health and safety come first before everything else. With the world’s current status, the Olympics may be inevitably postponed due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has acknowledged that the 2020 games might not continue as scheduled due to the spread of the pandemic. Some athletes and committees will not send their representatives if the event will be held this summer, as The Korea Herald detailed:
Canada's Olympic and Paralympic committees meanwhile announced they will not send teams to the Games if they are held this summer, citing the health of their athletes and the general public.
And Australia's Olympic committee told athletes to prepare for a Tokyo Olympics in the northern-hemisphere summer of 2021.
"It's clear the Games can't be held in July," Australian chef de mission Ian Chesterman said.
For weeks, Japan and Olympic officials have held the line that preparations are moving ahead to hold the Games as scheduled, but there has been increasing pressure from sports federations and athletes whose training has been thrown into turmoil.
On Monday, Abe told parliament that Japan was still committed to hosting a "complete" Games, but added: "If that becomes difficult, in light of considering athletes first, it may become inevitable that we make a decision to postpone."
image via wikimedia commons
The bee hummingbird is barely larger than a bee. Found mainly in Cuba, they lay eggs in a nest the size of golf ball. Meet this itty bitty bird in a video from Nature on PBS. -via Nag on the Lake
In a neighborhood parking lot stands a car equipped with a camera on the front passenger side. All of a sudden, a fox jumps in front of the car and lands on the windshield. The photographer then captures the shot, which resulted in this extraordinary image that won the animal photography competition organized by the Mammal Society, a London-based charity. The photo was taken by amateur photographer Roger Cox.
The other entries are also fun to look at. See them over at New Atlas.
(Image Credit: Mammal Society/Roger Cox)
It was 1784. A twice-widowed woman named Maria Fitzherbert, just came out of mourning and entered English society. Here, the then 27-year-old woman met a man who was six years younger — the Prince of Wales (the future George IV), who was immediately enthralled by her.
Never mind that she was both a Catholic and a commoner, two big strikes against her ever being accepted by his father, King George III. The prince was defiantly infatuated and ardent in his pursuit of marriage, even threatening suicide if she would not have him. Fitzherbert, for her part, thought it was best to flee the country when her relentless admirer proposed.
Soon after Fitzherbert fled the country, she would receive a letter from the prince himself. Along with the letter that says “if you have not totally forgotten the whole countenance. I think the likeness will strike you,” Fitzherbert also received something else: it was a miniature painting of the prince’s right eye. Shortly after this event, Fitzherbert would then return to England and secretly marry the prince, and she would later give him a miniature painting of her eye.
Their marriage was not considered valid due to the lack of royal consent, but the lore around the eye paintings endured, inspiring a fashion for such tokens. While miniature portraits were already popular in eighteenth-century England, they were often private objects viewed solely by the wearer. Yet an eye portrait could be worn boldly on a bracelet, ring, stickpin, pendant, or brooch, with the identity of the subject a mystery.
Similar to exchanging locks of hair, the eye portraits helped keep a person close, even when separated by distance or the decorum of Georgian courtship, which limited public romantic gestures. They also channeled a desire to be seen. Art historian Marcia Pointon explores this context in The Art Bulletin, noting that the “word gaze in this period denotes a fixity of looking or staring that implies a degree of self-consciousness on the part of the looker and the looked at.” So the eye miniatures are not only standing in for an absent person like a miniature portrait would, they’re evoking that charged act of looking. Painted with incredible detail in watercolor on ivory, they also evoked a vigilant stare to remind the wearer to be faithful while their beloved was away.
What are your thoughts about this one?
(Image Credit: The Met/ JSTOR Daily)
Consisting of mayonnaise, ketchup, relish, and seasonings, we find this classic salad dressing in our sandwiches, our Big Macs, and our tacos. This salad dressing is called Thousand Island.
Where did this sauce come from? How did it come to existence? Despite having one place of origin (that is, the Thousand Islands region of Upstate New York), there have been differing legends on who really made the dressing.
Mental Floss tells three of these accounts. Learn them all over at the site.
(Image Credit: Hennem080/ Wikimedia Commons)
The coronavirus has indeed done a lot of things to our world. It has silenced and filled the whole world with fear. Places are locked down, and all kinds of events are cancelled, including sports events.
Since pro racers right now cannot hit the road in the real world because of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, they decided to hit the road in the virtual world by competing with gamers through online sim racing competitions. What does this mean, then?
The first few of these substitute sim races, held last weekend, were successful in ways that surprised even the organizers. Now, many of the people who put them on have spent the intervening week trying to figure out how to use that momentum to fill the gap left by real world racing, as fans around the world hole up at home in a collective attempt to slow the spread of a global virus.
It likely won’t be that difficult, though. The success of these first few replacement races was a testament to how far sim racing has come during the rise of esports (and the era of Twitch), but it also sheds light on a truth that a lot of motorsports fans have become familiar with: that a new age of competitive, virtual motorsports is already upon us.
What happened at the virtual race? Find out over at The Verge.
(Image Credit: PodiumeSports/ Twitch/ The Verge)
Lockdowns are in place all over the world. Hundreds of thousands of people infected, and tens of thousands of lives taken away. These are the things that the coronavirus has brought into the world.
In the current reality we have at this very moment, where we are forced to stay inside our homes, it is not surprising to see alleys, streets, avenues, and highways empty. Still, it is still a sight to behold.
Amusing Planet compiled pictures of empty streets from all over the world. Check them out over at the site.
(Image Credit: Amusing Planet)
What do you get when a science fiction and fantasy writer ventures into the realm of children's books? Sometimes, just sometimes, you get introduced to a fierce and fluffy warrior bear that leads you on an epic adventure.
Spark and the League of Ursus by Robert Repino follows Spark, a cuddly toy bear by day, and protector of children at night. Spark is a member of a secret society of stuffed animals. This society's mission is to protect children from monsters.
When a child goes missing and her owner is threatened, Spark and her stuffed animal friends, put aside their own fears to solve the mystery and secure the return of the missing children.
Spark and the League of Ursus is Robert Pepino first children's book. Some of you may know Robert Repino from his previous works. He is also the author of Mort(e), Culdesac, and D'Arc.
Stuck at home? Don't feel blue. A good book is always there for you.
We gave this book to our 10-year-old NeatoBambino (a 5th grader) to read and she gave it two thumbs up. She said it was a must read if you are a stuffed animal lover.
Spark and the League of Ursus by Robert Repino has a suggested age of 9-12 years old. The book is scheduled to be on sale April 21, 2020 and is published by Quirk Books.
Soft things include kittens, pillows, and sweaters right out of the dryer, but also clouds, ice cream, and airplane landings. When Gizmodo came up with their latest Ask Giz column, they consulted different experts and mainly got a discussion as to how the question is impossible to answer. John E. Hayes of the Sensory Evaluation Center at Pennsylvania State University said,
Softness is fundamentally a perception (a percept). This implies it occurs in the brain, which in turn means that it can only be measured with a human assessor. With any human sensory system, there are limits of detection, both at the high end and low end, and outside these limits, we cannot tell (perceive) a difference, even if a machine or instrument might. Consider the hardness of cut glass and a cut diamond—when we touch them with our fingertip, they each depress our skin (and the mechanoreceptors in our skin) by roughly the same amount, so we cannot tell them apart, even if a lab instrument could.
But still, most came up with a possible answer, depending on how you define the question. Read their thoughts at Gizmodo.
(Image credit: Benjamin Currie/Gizmodo)
We know that cats can drive you insane. In 1895, Miss Lillie James was admitted to the psychiatric ward at Bellevue hospital. She was known as a "crazy cat lady" with at least a dozen cats. And she knew who was to blame.
Miss James agreed to being admitted–on one condition. The two cats that she brought with her to the hospital would also have to be committed to the asylum. After all, she said, it was the cats who were insane. She was perfectly sane and clear of mind.
“It is their conduct that has placed me in my present condition,” she told the doctors. “These cats and nine others have conspired against me and affected my health, with the idea of getting possession of my property. Are these guilty cats to go free while I am locked up?”
Although the hospital refused to admit the cats, one most wonder if they were allowed to stay on the grounds. By 1899, there were more than three dozen cats living at the large Bellevue Hospital complex. And in 1904, there was at least one feline in residence that we know about for sure: a white kitten named Red Cross.
The article at The Hatching Cat is not about Lillie James nor any other cat lady. It is about the adventures of the Bellevue hospital kitten known as Red Cross.
(Unrelated image credit: L. Prang & Co.)
Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Kenya is primarily an elephant orphanage, but they take in wildlife babies of other species who need help. This little zebra is named Diria. He was orphaned when a lion killed his mother.
Little Diria - named after the ranch where he was rescued - arrived into our care at the end of February, fluffy and sporting brown and white stripes (Zebras are famous for their black and white striped appearance, however when they are born they are in brown and white). Since then we have provided Diria with the constant company (and milk feeds) he would have received from his mother, with our keepers even wearing a specially made coat when they are caring for him.
Zebra foals imprint on their mother’s striped pattern and the coat allows Diria to imprint as nature intended, without him becoming too attached to any one individual. A technique we have successfully employed over the years with other rescued zebras, who are now living wild.
Diria appears to be adjusting to his new caretakers quite satisfactorily. -via Bored Panda
(Image credit: Sheldrick Wildlife Trust)
As the Coronavirus pandemic dominates the news, people practice social distancing, and supermarket shelves are picked clean, numerous people have found ways to react to the crisis - and in particular the panic buying of toilet paper - with humor.
twin babies chatting about coronavirus pic.twitter.com/3AH3Jk3v5f
— valeska (@iatemuggles) March 21, 2020
These unidentified twin toddlers are most likely not in an official quarantine, but have learned the terms already as their parents explained germs. They also know about batteries and spring time!
their memory of this will be so different from ours lol death, panic, hoarding for us VS mom and dad at home all day forever!
— valeska (@iatemuggles) March 21, 2020
Did I say they were unidentified? Their beds are labeled A and B. -via The Daily Dot
Ren Nakamura asked Dos Toros, a taco chain, on how many likes he needed to get free burritos for a year. The taco chain said 10,000 likes was all he needed. Nakamura achieved what they asked for and more, with the help of @newyorknico, who asked his followers to help the 17 year old out. Dos Toros gave Nakamura a black card that lets him order the most expensive item in the menu once a week for 52 weeks, as Oddee detailed:
The next afternoon he posted a picture of himself standing outside of Dos Toros saying: “@dostoros promised me free burritos for a year if this post gets 10,000 likes. U KNO THE F***ING DRILL (2 handshaking emoji’s) Like and share! (2 burritos emoji)
Half an hour later @newyorknico shared it via Instagram Stories, with his 305,000 followers. He said ‘help him out. I don’t know why but I wanna see this kid win real bad. Maybe I identify because I was once a high schooler who loved burritos. Please like his post so he can get free burritos for a year. I figured Dos Toros was betting against him hitting 10k likes, so I felt obligated to help him out. I also love the idea of a community coming together to help a kid beat the odds and win a free year of burritos. If that’s not what social media is for, I don’t know what is,” Nicolas Heller, who runs the @newyorknico Instagram account, said.
image via Oddee
