We get older every day, and eventually that fact can astonish you. The website You're Getting Old will spell it out for you. Just enter your birth date, and it will generate a report with all kinds of facts, such as the historical milestones of your life, how many miles you've traveled around the sun, how many people born on the same day are still alive, and even an estimate on how many times your heart has beaten. It's part of Pleated-Jean's roundup of useful websites to keep you busy while you're staying home and practicing social distancing. You might find something else there that's more your cup of tea, or at least less depressing. -via Metafilter
How far will people go for $70,000? It seems that they’ll be willing to play hide and seek! MrBeast challenges people to hide in different places at a rundown amusement park. Whoever he finds last will keep the money. Watch to find out who brings the money home!
Hungry monkeys were fighting over one banana in Thailand. Due to COVID-19, the number of tourists in the country declined, and they are the ones who usually feed the monkeys. The monkeys were from two ‘rival gangs’, a gang from the city, and the other from the temple areas. The monkeys were never seen to be that aggressive as they fought for the banana, as DailyMail details:
Footage shows hundreds of monkeys crossing a road and then chasing a single monkey which has got hold of a banana.
At first the primates are seen running independently as they appear to look for food.
But then the noise of their cries increases dramatically as dozens chase a single monkey which seems to have a banana.
They are seen jumping on it and others as they fight over the food.
Even locals who are used to seeing the monkeys were shocked by their ferocity.
Onlooker Sasaluk Rattanachai captured the scene from outside a shop where she works.
She said: 'They looked more like wild dogs than monkeys. They went crazy for the single piece of food. I've never seen them this aggressive.
image credit: ViralPress via DailyMail
With the spread of COVID-19, businesses and establishments are trying their best to adapt to the changes brought by the pandemic. Due to the pandemic, Pokemon Go will now make you not leave you house, which is the opposite of what the game originally did. The game normally requires players to go outside and head to points of interest. The developers of the game are “prioritizing updates to Pokémon GO features and experiences that can be enjoyed in individual settings,” as Polygon details:
Notably, the game will be increasing habitats so that trainers can see more monsters nearby while playing closer to home.
Incense packs, which increase monster spawns, are also going on 99% discount — and when they’re active, they will now last an hour.
Incubators, which ask players to accrue a certain number of steps before hatching eggs containing Pokémon, will now be more effective. “Trainers can hatch Eggs twice as fast,” Niantic said.
Finally, PokéStops are dropping Gifts with more frequency. All of these changes are in effect immediately, and will continue until “further notice,” Niantic told Polygon. In addition to these tweaks, Niantic has already postponed its previously-planned Abra Community Day, along with some other real-world events. Existing events, such as the first season of the game’s Battle League, will allow players to compete with one another without being in the same place, while the upcoming Special Research adventure that will debut Genesect will require tasks that can be “completed by individuals,” Niantic says.
“While we’ve made these updates based on the current global health situation, we also encourage players to make decisions on where to go and what to do that are in the best interest of their health and the health of their communities,” Niantic said.
image via wikimedia commons
A farm in northern England was set on fire by one of the pigs! The pig swallowed a pedometer, and when it finally excreted the inedible device, the copper in the object’s battery sparked a flame in the pig dung and dried hay. The fire spread out to about 75 square meters of the farmyard before it was put out. Fire crews and civilians rushed to the farm with water to “save the bacon”, as LiveScience detailed:
In recent years, lithium-ion batteries in personal devices such as cellphones and vape pens have spontaneously combusted, sometimes causing severe burns and even broken bones, Live Science previously reported.
However, no animals involved in the pigpen fire — including the firehog who inadvertently started the blaze — were harmed by the flames or smoke, according to the firefighters' tweets.
image via LiveScience
'Why is it important to wash your hands ? pic.twitter.com/exz0Z3H5kd
— B@$$ 🛡 (@24onlinee) March 13, 2020
Why is it important to wash your hands? Because soap scares away pepper!
Kids love science experiments, and this is one anyone can do at home. It impresses kids, especially those who are too young to learn about surface tension. To them, it's magic. This teacher uses the trick to impress upon children the importance of washing their hands with soap (or detergent). You could go deeper and explain the hydrophilic and hydrophobic aspects of soap molecules, but that would be boring to children young enough to believe in magic. What's important is that they form of habit of washing those grimy hands. -via Fark
Indonesia's second-largest Muslim organization has picked an emergency medicine expert to lead a task force to contain the spread of the coronavirus in the country. And it seems that he was born for the job!
Meet Dr. Corona Rintawan, who explained his unusual first name in this Arab News article:
Asked about his name, the doctor said his parents would name their children in alphabetical order. Being the third, his name had to start with “c.”
“There was no such thing as baby name books at that time, so they decided to take my name from the Toyota Corona car, which was a popular model back in the 1970s, and as they also found that it means a crown, which symbolizes something good,” he said.
Read the rest over at Arab News - Thanks Tiffany!
Image: Dr Corona Rintawan/Arab News
Hey! Uranus is sideways! While the other planets in our solar system rotate around an axis that is perpendicular, or just a bit tilted, from the orbital plane, Uranus goes whole hog and rotates around a horizontal axis. Why is the gas giant so contrary?
The leading hypothesis for this weirdness is that something large smacked into Uranus a long time ago, knocking it arse over teakettle. Although that scenario is not impossible, there are some pretty significant holes in this model.
Never fear, though. Astronomers at the University of Maryland have come up with a new scenario that neatly solves those issues. No, Uranus didn't get drunk on comet booze and fall over. But it could have been tilted sideways by a giant ring system.
"Wait a second," you are no doubt thinking, "Uranus doesn't have a giant ring system." And that's correct. Right now, it doesn't - its rings are faint and wispy things compared to Saturn's glorious spread.
But recent evidence from Cassini suggests rings could be temporary and short-lived - so it's possible Uranus had a much more extensive system sometime over its 4.5 billion-year past.
While this idea clears up some holes in the previous theory -that of an impact- it doesn't completely explain Uranus' tilt. However, if you combine the two celestial events, the ring system and the impact, it make more sense. Still, we have no proof either way. Read how rings around Uranus could have affected the planet's tilt, with an animation to help us understand, at Science Alert. -via Damn Interesting
(Image credit: NASA/Hubble)
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.
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
— Randy Emillio (@RandyEmillio) March 11, 2020
*3 months later* pic.twitter.com/M73neen4bp
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)
