Photographer Elke Vogelsang captures portraits of dogs in their more intense and emotional moments, such as waiting for a treat, or waiting to catch a toy. Vogelsang highlights fleeting expressions, shown through head tilts, open-mouthed smiles, and wide-eyes stares, as Colossal details: 

Each piece is matched with an equally playful title, like “The Dog Side of the Force” and “Bessy Muppetational.”

Vogelsang began photographing her three rescue dogs during a period of family hardship that started in 2009—she was charged with caring for her mother-in-law, who was suffering from dementia, shortly before her husband was in a coma due to a ruptured aneurysm. “I decided to start the project, despite my husband being in the hospital, or rather because of it, as I wanted to try to keep up a bit of normality and have something like a visual diary for my husband of that time,” she tells Colossal.

image via Colossal

Nataliya Koshivaya received a small cat figurine as a gift 15 years ago, and began collecting tiny cats in all forms. The collection grew to over a thousand pieces of cat kitsch from all over the world! When the war got too close to their home in Ukraine, the couple fled to Krakow, Poland, bringing their cat collection with them. In June of last year, they opened The Cat Museum to share their many cats with the public. The 15-square-meter museum is stacked tight with cats, and has proven to be quite popular.

Of these assorted curios, many serve ulterior purposes to act as teapots, pepper shakers, soap dispensers, snow globes, paperweights or saucers – still more, however, are for decorative use only and it is these that are arguably the most kitsch of all.

Complimented by a range of other feline related items like the cheerful blue cats painted by Belarussian artist Rina Zeniuk, as well as a motherlode of other pussy paraphernalia such as cat-embossed cushions and bags, it’s a feast for the eyes that asks many questions: is it tacky or eccentric? The truth, perhaps, lies somewhere in between.

Guarded by a very real, trick-performing, four-legged princess by the name of Geisha (“the real owner,” laughs Nataliya), the cat count could well be extended in the near future should the couple realise their ambition to open another chamber to house living creatures.

-via Mental Floss

We think of dinosaurs as big and birds as small. The connection between the two types of animals is displayed in a very small piece of amber with a 99-million-year-old skull inside. The skull is only 7 millimeters long and belongs to the newly-named species Oculudentavis khaungraae, a bird-like dinosaur discovered in Myanmar.

Using high-resolution synchrotron CT scanning, the researchers were able to study the fossil in exquisite detail, without having to crack it open. The skull measures just 7.1 millimeters in length, which is comparable in size to the skull of a bee hummingbird, the smallest modern bird living today.

“The discovery suggests that miniature body sizes in birds evolved earlier than previously recognized, and might provide insights into the evolutionary process of miniaturization,” wrote Roger Benson, a paleobiologist from the University of Oxford who wasn’t involved with the research, in a Nature News & Views article. “In this case, weighing perhaps 2 grams, Oculudentavis is about one-sixth of the size of the smallest known early fossil bird. This indicates that, only shortly after their origins late in the Jurassic period (which lasted from about 201 million to 145 million years ago), birds had already attained their minimum body sizes.”

This is one strange creature. It had plenty of teeth, and eyes that were like a lizard in some ways, like an owl in other way. Read about this discovery and what it tells us about the history of dinosaurs and birds at Gizmodo.

(Image credit: Lida Xing)

Mike Hicks is a humble man, despite his noble work. His mission in life to purge his community of the scourge of goose poop.

Hicks lives on the southern tip of Vancouver Island--a land blighted with nearly infinite Canada Geese. They defecate everywhere, much to the annoyance of the human residents.

He convinced the local government to fund the purchase of a curious machine that scoops up goose droppings at phenomenal rates of speed and accuracy. Chek News reports:

Once attached to a vehicle, the machine’s wheels drive brushes which flicks the excrement into a catcher. Hicks has been testing out the machine in Sooke, unloading the droppings on the side of the field. He says they can be used for compost, or even sold for charity. [...]

The device has even earned him a new nickname around Sooke.

“Instead of the King of Pop they’re calling me the King of Poop…the Michael Jackson of goose poop,” he says.

-via Dave Barry | Image: Chek News

Wonder Woman Sticky Notes

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Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Office & Desk stuff. New items arriving all the time. 

Don't forget to stop by the shop to see our large selection of customizable apparel. We specialize in curvy and Big and tall sizes. We carry baby 6 months all the way to 10 XL shirts. We know that fun, fabulous, and powerful people come in every size. 

As of now, it is illegal to buy kidneys from living donors in the United States. At the same time, most people on a waiting list for a transplant die before they get to the head of the line. The cost of keeping people on dialysis while they wait is tremendous, both in money and in the patient's diminished life and health. Some are proposing various incentives for living donation.

On the other hand, paying living donors for kidneys, as in some Third World countries, means that the people who donate are the ones who are desperate for money. In the precarious US health care system, you can see a situation in which people sell kidneys to pay off already-onerous medical debt. The poor should not become organ farms.

There have been several different schemes proposed for compensating living donors, from tax breaks to covering a wide range of expenses to paying cash. The studies show that even paying large sums of money to donors saves money in the long run compared to keeping patients on dialysis. Read about several of these proposals at Metafilter, and let us know your thoughts.  

(Image credit: Scientific Animations)

Many colleges around the United States are closing or making contingency plans to close in the event of a coronavirus quarantine. On Monday, the University of California at Berkeley joined them by suspending in-person classes and moving as many classes as possible to online instruction.

One physics instructor responded by emailing his students with detailed instructions on how he will teach online and the steps that they must take to participate. He has a backup plan in case that fails. He also has a backup plan for his backup plan and a backup plan for his backup backup plan.

You can view his entire message below the fold.

Traffic signs come in all sizes, shapes, and colors, but there is some standardization, which has to do with how important the message is. The STOP sign is the only one that has a octagonal shape, which was standardized in the United States 1923. They are also red, which was standardized only in the 1950s. Now all stop signs are red, except for some in Hawaii. And there are reasons for the unique octagonal shape of the stop sign, which you can read about at Now I Know. -via Digg

Roger Dickey is an avid geography fan and intrepid traveler. He is a member of Atlas Obscura who tracks down earth's anomalies and visits them. He came by his interests honestly, from his mother, Ellie Talburtt. Together they went to explore Michigan’s Isle Royale, which has the title of the US's least-visited national park.   

What had brought them there, and into this rather dicey situation, was something called Moose Boulder, a kind of geological matryoshka. Here’s what makes Moose Boulder special, from the outside in: Lake Superior is the world’s largest freshwater lake, and its largest island is Isle Royale, whose largest lake is called Siskiwit, whose largest island is called Ryan. According to Wikipedia, at least, Ryan Island is home to a seasonal pond called Moose Flats that, when flooded, contains its own island—Moose Boulder. This makes it “the largest island in the largest lake on the largest island in the largest lake on the largest island in the largest lake in the world.” Pity it’s not in Greenland, it could have gone all the way.

Dickey did his research before going to Ryan Island. He looked up every mention of Moose Boulder on the internet, and while he found plenty of mentions, he never found anyone who had actually been there. Every path he explored turned out to be dead links, people who couldn't be found, and circular citations. He became convinced that Moose Boulder was a nonexistent hoax, but that didn't stop him from looking. Dickey and Talburtt's trip to Isle Royale held more adventure than they were expecting. Read about the trip and the research into Moose Boulder at (where else?) Atlas Obscura.

(Image credit: Roger Dickey)

You can actually filter out what recommendations you’d like to receive from Google Maps. If you tell Google Maps what kind of food you like, it can customize its recommendations based on your preferences. While you can still get recommendations that may not be to your liking, but overall you can still get suggestions that fit your preferences. Lifehacker has more details: 

To customize yours, launch Google Maps and then tap on your profile icon. From there, select Settings followed by “Exploring places” and then “Food & drink preferences.” From there you’ll be able to add different types of dietary preferences as well as let Maps know if there’s a particular type of cuisine you’re interested in.

For instance, you can tell Google Maps that you’re Gluten-free or a vegan. You can also say you’re interested in things like Australian food or Bubble tea, or less interested in chain restaurants like Chili’s or Applebees.

image via wikimedia commons

Okay, even if you don't have a dedicated pantry room, you have a place to store groceries. Regardless of where you place your groceries, it’s important we at least have the right food items at home so we can put together dishes when there’s nothing available in the market, or if there’s an emergency when we can’t get out of our homes. Head to the New York Times for their tips on what to stock up on, and how you can properly manage food and supplies. 

image via wikimedia commons

Seven armed men entered the cargo area of Santiago Airport in Chile, and stole a cash shipment worth $15M. The cash shipment was from abroad, and was scheduled to be taken to banks in Chile. Police are now looking for them and suspect that the group had “inside information”, as BBC detailed:  

They used two vehicles, one painted in the colours and with the logo of courier company DHL.

An airport security guard was injured after receiving a blow to the head.

One of the vans used in the robbery was later found abandoned and partially burnt. Police said it did not belong to the courier company DHL but had been painted to look like it did.

image via BBC

October 2019. Then fifty-nine-year old Tommy Hughes just finished the Frankfurt Marathon with a stunning single-age world record time of 2:27:52. Less than four minutes later, the Irishman’s son Eoin crossed the line as well, with a time of 2:31:30. With their combined time of 4:59:22, they earned a spot in the Guinness World Record book for the fastest father-son duo.

Their performances also got them into the Journal of Applied Physiology, which last month published the results of a series of physiological tests on them by a research team led by Romuald Lepers of the University of Bourgogne Franche-Comté in France, working with colleagues at the University of Toulon and Liverpool John Moores University in Britain. The data yields some insights into what makes the elder Hughes unique, and perhaps offers a note of optimism for the rest of us.

What did the scientists find out about Tommy's body? What can we learn from his physiology? And what does the data tell us? The answers to these questions over at Outside Online.

(Image Credit: Deep RiverRock Belfast City Marathon/ Facebook)

In this study, 153 people were divided into 51 groups, with each group composed of three humans and a robot. They were asked to play a tablet-based game in which members of a group will work together to build the most efficient railroad routes over 30 rounds.

Groups were assigned to one of three different types of robot behaviour. At the end of each round, robots either remained silent; uttered a neutral, task-related statement (such as the score or number of rounds completed); or expressed vulnerability through a joke, personal story, or by acknowledging a mistake. All of the robots occasionally lost a round.

Results showed that people teamed with robots that made vulnerable statements spent about twice as much time talking to each other during the game and reported enjoying the experience more compared to people in the other two kinds of groups.

Through these results, it can be said, then, that robots can affect human-to-human interactions. What does this mean for the future? It might be that we will talk to each other more because of these vulnerable robots.

Check out Cosmos Magazine for more details about this study.

(Image Credit: Pixabay)

1564. Summer. A weaver’s apprentice passed away in Stratford-upon-Avon, a small village in the English countryside. Next to the name of the weaver’s apprentice, which was found in the town’s records, were three words: “Hic incipit pestis” — “here begins the plague.”

Much of this town’s inhabitants were wiped out because of the plague. Nobody knew who would live and who would die — it all came to chance. The plague would visit one family and skip the next one in the neighborhood. All were in danger due to the plague, especially helpless infants. It would only be a miracle if an infant would survive.

A couple from this town who had already lost two children to previous waves of the plague breathed a sigh of relief when the plague finally ended in their town, as they just witnessed a miracle in their lives — their infant, which was less than a year old, survived the plague. That infant would soon become one of the well-known poets in history. His name: William Shakespeare.

For much of his writing career, the plague remained a taboo subject. 

Even when it was the only thing on anybody’s mind, nobody could bring himself to speak about it. Londoners went to the city’s playhouses so they could temporarily escape their dread of the plague. A play about the plague had the appeal of watching a movie about a plane crash while 35,000 feet in the air.

But Shakespeare didn’t shy away from taking advantage of the plague. It was Shakespeare’s secret weapon in telling the tragic story of Romeo and Juliet.

Find out where the plague is in the story over at Slate.

(Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons)