When social distancing threatens one of the biggest farmer's markets in the country what does it do? It converts into a Drive-Thru Farmer's Market.

The Beaverton Farmers Market was open on Saturday, but things looked a little different. Instead of people walking up to vendors, they drove up. The market was converted to a drive-thru process.

Ginger Rapport is the market manager. She said she wanted to find a way to keep the market open, while still complying with new state guidelines. While bars and restaurants are closed, grocery stores, retail stores, and workplaces are exempted.

Bless Oregonians and their ingenuity.

Via and Photo - KATU

When making cheese from milk, you keep the curds and discard the whey. That seems wasteful, and so Dr. Paul Hughes of Oregon State University developed a way to make hay of that whey. Instead of paying to have it hauled off, dairies could ferment that whey and make it into distilled spirits. The process is both sustainable and profitable.  

Todd Koch, owner of TMK Creamery in the rolling hills of Oregon’s Willamette Valley, remembers reading about Hughes’s work in the newspaper early last year. Large, corporate-owned creameries can afford the expensive equipment that converts whey into profitable products such as protein powder. But at his family-owned, 20-cow farmstand creamery, Koch and his wife simply fed their whey into the fields through a nutrient management system. Rather than continue to bury the byproduct, Koch decided to ferment as a means of profitably upcycling the whey while bringing visibility to his animals. He teamed up with Dr. Hughes and a nearby distiller to manufacture the creamery’s newest product: a clear, vodka-like liquor they call “Cowcohol.”

They aren't alone. Several other small family dairies are trying the same thing, with one calling their product “Vodkow.” Read about dairy vodka at Atlas Obscura.

The Interminable Wait.#LifeCommentary #LiveCommentary pic.twitter.com/5nSAlnVq2c

— Nick Heath (@nickheathsport) March 21, 2020

When sports are cancelled, way more people than just athletes are suddenly out of work. Nick Heath is a rugby commentator in London, but with nothing to comment on in the arena, he's turned his talents to other things. Meaning, scenes from everyday life. Crossing the street, shopping for groceries, or strolling in the park are not earth-shattering events, but with the right announcer, they can be made much more interesting.

Mundane Walk. #LifeCommentary #LiveCommentary pic.twitter.com/sDJCI5OVlW

— Nick Heath (@nickheathsport) March 18, 2020

You can see plenty more of these at Heath's Twitter feed. -via Boing Boing

The schools in Broadview Heights, Ohio are closed. But the children are still gathering--while maintaining proper social distancing--to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in unison. The pandemic has not dampened their patriotism. Local teacher Jennifer Mahnic offers this video.

-via Ian Miles Cheong

Itsuo Kobayashi is a master of his crafts, which include both cooking and drawing. For decades, he worked at restaurants, lovingly crafting each dish for his happy customers. He made careful notes about these meals and illustrated over 1,000 of them in a notebook.

Although Kobayashi is now medically retired from front line cooking, he still prepares and draws meals from home. Lately, he's been offering them as little pop-up books. You can almost smell the flavors and feel the steam rising from these hot dishes. You can see more examples at Colossal.

It’s not the roleplaying kind of furry, no. Two new Funko Pops will be available online, Pokemon’s Eevee and Pichu! The new Funko Pops are available in a furry texture. The new figurines are limited edition, Pop Vinyl World details: 

The Pichu Pop will be a FYE shared exclusive and the Eevee Pop! Vinyl will be a Hot Topic shared Exclusive.  Both should be available on April 10 and should also be available from Funko Shop as a part of their Virtual WonderCon. 

image via Pop Vinyl World

Paulo Coelho has made some of his works free for public download on his website due to the Coronavirus lockdown. The globally-acclaimed Brazilian writer, known for his works such as The Alchemist, has announced the availability of his works via his social media. The ebooks he has made available for free are in English, Portugese, and Spanish. Check out his website to see some of his works! 

(via Rappler)

image via Rappler

We can all admit that Mario has been through a lot over a very long time. He’s been rescuing princesses, fighting enemies, joining sports and racing games! He’s been working since 1981, so don’t you think that Mario should get some rest? Well, Polygon’s Brian David Gilbert surely believes that Mario can retire from all of his shenanigans. Watch as Gilbert computes the amount of coins Mario needs so he can fully retire from his long and tedious work! 

Despite being very near to the Sun and having daytime temperatures of up to 750°F (450°C), it would be very surprising to hear that there could be ice on such a planet.

In 2011, a NASA probe began orbiting Mercury and confirmed signals typical of glacial ice near the poles. The MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging) spacecraft sent back images and data that corroborated previous signatures for ice picked up years earlier by Earth-based radar.

So how does ice form on this planet? An upcoming study that will be published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters explains what helps Mercury make ice.

Check out more details about this over at ScienceDaily.

(Image Credit: NASA/ Wikimedia Commons)

We’ve been very much aware that the coronavirus has devastated Italy. Tens of thousands of people have been infected, and thousands of lives were taken by the virus. All of Italy has currently been under a lockdown for a while now, as response to the growing threat of the coronavirus. With the lack of human activity at the Italian canals, the water has now become clear enough to see the bottom, and the animals such as swans and dolphins have begun to appear on it.

Cool!

(Image Credit: Angel media/ YouTube)

It took me a while to figure out how Mederos executes these marvelous paintings. Does he paint on bubble wrap? Does he paint portraits and then overlay sheets bubble wrap? Or does he paint the impression of bubble wrap on the canvas?

As far as I can tell, it's the latter. Darian Mederos is a master of hyperrealism. He can render nearly photographically accurate paintings, but chooses the added challenge of adding an impression of bubble wrap to obscure them. You can see more of his work on his Instagram page.

-via So Super Awesome

In the United States, different states and municipalities are under widely varying restrictions to guard against the spread of coronavirus. Where I live, restaurants are open, but only for takeout, drive-through, and delivery, which cuts down on the number of people exposed to each other, but raises questions about the safety and desirability of restaurant food. Should you get takeout food or not?

Like many densely populated metropolitan areas, the Bay Area is now on complete lockdown. All non-essential businesses are closed, gatherings of large groups of people are banned, and residents have been told to leave their houses only if necessary. Among the businesses still running—at least in limited capacity—are supermarkets and restaurants, the latter of which are solely allowed to operate as take-out and delivery venues. I expect more cities will follow suit in the coming days and weeks.

Even so, plenty of folks—myself included—have been confused or curious about the safety of allowing restaurants to continue preparing and serving food. Is it actually safe? Should I reheat the food when I get it home? Is it better to support local businesses by ordering food, or am I only putting workers and delivery people at risk? And if I’m cooking my own food, what guidelines should I follow?

J. Kenji López-Alt of Serious Eats answers all these questions with references to scientific studies, and also questions about grocery shopping and handling food at home. After all, we still gotta eat!  -via Metafilter

(Image credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture)

The Fargo Police Department put together a funny little video of one of their trained police dogs sniffing out black market items - hand sanitizer!

“Our canine unit has adjusted their training a bit to account for black market items,” the police department joked on Facebook.

Public Information Officer Jessica Schindeldecker told Storyful the video was put together as a joke, and that a small bit of marijuana, a substance Kilo is well-trained to find, had been placed in the bag alongside the hand sanitizer.

K9 Officer Kilo may not have really found any hand sanitizer, but that doesn't make him any less of a hero.

Via-Katu

In just the last couple of weeks, we've had to learn a whole new vocabulary to deal with the coronavirus epidemic. However, many of those terms would still be useful in the non-epidemic world. Henry Jones constructed an alternate dictionary of these terms so you can 1. have a laugh, B. remember these terms, and 3. know how to use them once the epidemic is over. -Thanks, Henry!

An urban algae canopy can produce 4 hectares of woodland worth of oxygen. The structure, displayed at Expo Milano, can also produce 150 kilograms of biomass. The canopy houses a fluid rich in microalgae. The microalgae in turn would produce shade, biomass, and a massive volume of oxygen, as TruthTheory details: 

The forerunner of the structure has been designed to regulate the transfer of energy, water, and CO2, influenced by several variables including weather patterns, visitor movement, and other environmental factors. Sunlight falling on the structure acts as a catalyst that leads to a synergy between biology and technology. For instance, intense sunlight will induce photosynthesis which will cause the algae to grow. This will diminish the passage of sunlight through the structure and offer shade. The algae are transformed by the process of photosynthesis and grow throughout the prototype.

image via TruthTheory