If you've been to a grocery store in the past couple of days, you've probably noticed they are starting to look like a going-out-of-business sale. Shelves are surprisingly empty, so for the foreseeable future, I will be putting shredded cheese on sandwiches and cooking whole wheat fettuccini. What you see now in stores are the things that no one really wants, even in an emergency situation.  

Slate’s Ben Mathis-Lilley reports that shoppers laid waste to the entire pasta aisle at a Whole Foods in Millburn, New Jersey, save for the chickpea-based options like Banza. The Amazon product page for Banza’s linguine notes, “Banza is bringing the sexy back to pasta.”

Chocolate hummus? Canned asparagus? Slate has a rundown of the orphaned products still on supermarket shelves. If any of these are your favorites, you might want to make a note to check the expiration dates the next time you stock up. -via Digg

(Image credit: Ben Mathis-Lilley)

Ze Frank introduces us to the wide, weird world of nudibranchs, the fashionistas of the sea. Or at least one the fashionistas of the sea. Nudibranchs are a kind of slug or snail, and they come in quite a variety of colorful, fanciful forms. They have also adapted to their environment in many astonishing ways, which Ze has a lot of fun with. "Because the ocean is weird."

With all of Italy under lockdown because of the coronavirus, physical interaction between people is now kept to a bare minimum. Fortunately, in this lonely time, we have something that can keep us connected, at least virtually, and that something is the Internet.

… many daily interactions among family, friends and colleagues have moved to messaging platforms such as Facebook Inc’s WhatsApp and Microsoft’s Corp Skype.

[...]

Italians say staying in touch through these platforms is helping them cope with isolation and anxiety, in a country that has already reported more than 1,260 deaths due to the virus. In some cases it is also giving them remote access to some mental healthcare providers, or even allowing hospitalized coronavirus patients to interact with loved ones.

More details about this wholesome news over at Reuters.

(Image Credit: GDJ/ Pixabay)

Mmm... Pi by Nathan Mazur

Happy pi day, everyone! If you have an irrational love for this beloved mathematical constant, please check out the Pi Day T-shirts over at the NeatoShop. We carry sizes for people with all circumference - from S to 10XL.

Ultimate Pi Day and St. Patrick's Day 2 in 1 by Mudge

We don’t yet have all the tools we need to fight COVID-19. This is an important step toward having treatments, while we also explore vaccines and diagnostics. Thanks to @wellcometrust and @mastercard for launching this effort with us. https://t.co/M8AJ3083zK

— Bill Gates (@BillGates) March 10, 2020

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has decided to step down from the board of directors of the said company. Gates will also step down from the board of Berkshire Hathaway. But it doesn’t mean that Gates will leave Microsoft — he will still be a “technology adviser” to Microsoft, which is under the leadership of Satya Nadella, the current CEO. Gates states a lot of reasons for his decision.

Gates posted a statement on LinkedIn that said "I have made the decision to step down from both of the public boards on which I serve – Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway – to dedicate more time to philanthropic priorities including global health and development, education, and my increasing engagement in tackling climate change. The leadership at the Berkshire companies and Microsoft has never been stronger, so the time is right to take this step."

[...]

… The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has publicly announced it's committing $100 million to the fight against COVID-19, including a collaboration with Wellcome and Mastercard that's funding an accelerator project for treatments.

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: Gates Foundation/ Bill Gates/ Twitter)

Us: 2020 is gonna be our year

*3 months later* pic.twitter.com/M73neen4bp

— Randy Emillio (@RandyEmillio) March 11, 2020

Have you ever declared something in advance, and then had to eat your own words later? Well, that’s what these people did, after realizing that 2020 was clearly not their year. So much for advance declarations.

Mashable compiles tweets of people who regretted their previous tweets about this year. Check them out over at the site.

Hopefully, 2021 would be much better. But will it be?

(Image Credit: Randy Emilio/ Twitter)

All of us want our pizza fresh and newly cooked. But amidst the coronavirus outbreak, it seems that we have a new criteria for our pizza (or at least, the Japanese people have this criteria): we want it clean, and free of the virus.

With the concern of possible transmission of the virus to the pizza, the Japanese branches of Pizza Hut decided to create this new option for their delivery service: Oki Pizza, which comes from the Japanese word “oku”, which means “to put” or “to place.”

The Oki Pizza aims to minimize any possible physical contact or breathing on each other between customer and delivery person by having the deliveryperson place your order on the ground and back away before you open the door to pick it up.

The delivery service option is only available on pre-paying, however, which means that you have to pay online to avail of the extra clean service.

When Pizza Hut offered this service on March 12, the guys at SoraNews24 immediately availed of the service. Find out how their experience was over at the site.

Well, what do you think?

(Image Credit: SoraNews24)

Italy is now in a lockdown. That much we know. But despite not being able to go outside, and despite having empty streets, the spirit of the country’s people never falter; they find a way to cheer themselves up amidst the sad reality of the current lockdown because of the coronavirus. Across the balconies and windows in the cities of Rome, Milan, Naples, and Palermo, the people sing together and crash pots and pans together, as well as applaud the heroic healthcare workers. The events were organized through WhatsApp.

They also shouted phrases including 'Viva l'Italia' (Long live Italy) and 'Vinceremo' (we will win). The few cars on the street joined the chorus by blaring their horns.

Many also waved banners decorated with rainbows and the phrase 'Andra tutto benne' (everything will go well).

See the videos over at DailyMail.

Very wholesome.

(Image Credit: AP)

Henry Cyril Paget, the fifth Marquess of Anglesey, was a 19th-century Welsh eccentric who was almost erased from history. While he was well-liked by the local population, his family downplayed or ignored his flamboyant lifestyle. As a young man, Paget inherited his father's wealth and the family estate, and proceeded to blow it all on lavish productions he staged at the theater he built in his home.   

He then hired a professional theatre company, and set about putting on pantomimes and plays for all to see - for free.

Playing centre stage in every performance was Paget, who became known as "The Dancing Marquess" by the newspaper gossip sheets.

He used every show to put on a "butterfly dance" display, adorned by costumes which would literally cost millions of pounds today.

"He didn't understand the concept of costume jewellery - he thought it all had to be real," explained actor and writer Seiriol Davies, who wrote and performed an acclaimed musical show based on the life of the marquess.

Indeed, when Paget wanted a green jacket, he had it encrusted with real emeralds. The lavish costumes were prone to theft, and were mostly sold to pay off debts after Paget's death in 1900. However, one diamond tiara from his collection is now up for auction. Read about the short but notorious life and spending habits of the Dancing Marquess at BBC News. -via Strange Company

For five days, Italy has been under national lockdown. Most citizens must remain in their homes in order to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

But that separation hasn't stopped their joyful hearts from sharing a sense of community in other ways. In many cities, people are stepping out onto their apartment balconies to sing together.

What song would you sing with your neighbors under these circumstances?

-via Rod Dreher

Paul O’Sullivan of Baltimore had a crazy idea one day: he decided to add other people with the same name as him on Facebook as a joke. But when their stuff began to show up on his own News Feed, he realized that all of them, including him, had something in common: they were all musicians, and so his next step “was to form this supergroup of Paul O’Sullivans.” And that’s how the Paul O’Sullivan band was born.

Check out the fun interview of the band over at The Atlantic.

(Image Credit: Paul O’Sullivan/ The Atlantic)

We’ve all been kids, and that’s a fact. And that also means that we’ve all cried because of dumb and absurd reasons.

Sad And Useless compiles posts of parents which document why their kids cried. Check them all out over at the site.

(Image Credit: Sad And Useless)

The coronavirus has indeed been the talk of the town. Nay, it has been the talk of the whole world as the virus claims people’s lives, and as thousands get infected by the virus. In order to keep us safe from the virus, health experts tell us that we should disinfect high-touch surfaces, and that we should wash our hands frequently. While the latter activity is good for most people, it’s not good when it comes to those who suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

… to be warned they must scrub to protect themselves from an invisible enemy, and to do so in a ritualistic way with internal musical accompaniment, is akin to inviting a demon to come for tea. Some of these people have spent years trying not to wash their hands, often as a prescribed part of their treatment.

“It’s definitely put a lot of the internal OCD dialogue back into my life. It’s being reinforced by outside, authoritative voices,” says Erica (not her real name), a long-term OCD patient. “It’s a lot harder to tell yourself that the urge to wash your hands is irrational when everyone on your Twitter feed or on the news is saying: ‘Wash your hands. Nobody is washing their hands correctly.’”

The worsening outbreak affects people with OCD in other ways, too. Chiefly, the spike in anxiety about the virus can fuel existing obsessive fears of contamination and trigger destructive compulsive actions.

Head over to The Guardian to know more about this story.

I personally feel bad for these people.

(Image Credit: zukunftssicherer/ Pixabay)

The coronavirus has now been declared a pandemic. Across the world, tens of thousands of people have now been infected by the virus, and thousands have become casualties to it. With this in mind, countries now race to create a vaccine against this deadly pathogen.

Researchers around the globe are trying different approaches to make a vaccine for the virus known as Sars-CoV-2. They include the conventional use of dead or weakened pathogens and others that are genetically modelled. It is unclear how long the development will take. The previous Sars epidemic happened 17 years ago, but no vaccine has been developed.

[...]

Technical advances have dramatically reduced laboratory research time and made it much faster to leap to the important stage of clinical trials – the first test of a possible Sars vaccine was conducted more than a year after the outbreak 17 years ago. It took only about four months for Covid-19.

[...]

The DNA or RNA-based vaccine technology, however, saves a lot of laboratory time by using a copy of the genetic code of the virus instead of the actual virus. This work was made possible after Chinese scientists released the genome sequencing of the new coronavirus on January 11.

More details about this story over at the South China Morning Post.

(Image Credit: Pettycon/ Pixabay)

The coronavirus has indeed spread across the globe. Around the world, there’s a growing number of people who get infected with the virus, and there is also a growing number of people who had close contact with a person who has the virus. While the former are isolated because they have the virus, the latter, who had close contact with them, are being told to self-quarantine. The question is, how exactly do we do this self-quarantine?

Dr. Tara Narula, a CBS News medical contributor gives her advice on self-quarantine. These are only some of them:

• Use your own dishware, utensils and cups.
• Disinfect all devices.
• Open windows if you can.

See her other tips over at CBS News.

(Image Credit: qimono/ Pixabay)