Officials of Philadelphia's Zero Waste and Litter Cabinet are going to tackle the issue of illegal dumping of construction debris by changing their procedures for issuing construction permits to contractors so that only contractors whose haulers are approved will be given permits.

Starting Oct. 1, anyone applying for a permit for construction, demolition, or major alterations to a building has to tell the city which company is responsible for taking away the rubbish.

Applicants must select their haulers from a city registry. The idea is to make sure contractors taking advantage of the city’s construction boom are working with reputable haulers that use approved disposal facilities.

(Image credit: City 311)

Archaelogists have uncovered charred ruins of the Turkish city Sam'al which was revealed to have been burned by the Hittite Empire on their way to destroying Babylon.

“It’s an incredibly lucky find. Every archaeologist hopes for an intact destruction layer because it gives you a snapshot of a day in the life of this town,” said David Schloen, a professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and a leading scholar of the ancient Middle Eastern world who co-directs the excavation.

“Pottery is still sitting inside the buildings where the inhabitants left it in 1650 B.C. You know that everything is where it would be on a typical day, which is really valuable cultural knowledge.”

(Image credit: Henrik Brahe)

Our supply of water will not be enough to provide for and sustain the global demand after a decade. Water consumption isn't just about the ones coming out of the faucet or the shower. In fact, 90% can be ascribed to agriculture.

So it would be best to be conscious of how much water we are consuming and how much we are wasting when we don't finish our food.

(M)any of us are completely unaware of how much water it takes to produce the ingredients for the meals we eat. The Wonderwater Café is a pop-up that provides its diners with information they need to make ethical decisions on the food they choose to consume.

The project features in the XXII Triennnale di Milano, Broken Nature: Design Takes on Human Survival and the museum’s Triennale Caffé is hosting the Wonderwater Café for the duration of the exhibition.

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For the first time next year, Strictly Come Dancing will allow same-sex pairs to participate in the competition as the policies have been relaxed in order to reflect the current trend and inclusivity of modern Britain.

They said BBC bosses had a change of heart after realising that other nations had happily accepted the idea. “Having previously thought it was unnecessary, it has dawned on people at the BBC that the original British show looks a bit backwards in not having embraced the notion of a same-sex couple," they added.

“It could well be that we follow the Aussie model and go for a charismatic drag act, because Courtney Act proved hugely popular with traditionally conservative Australian viewers. “And why not shake things up a bit over here? It’ll be fun. Exciting times are ahead.”

(Image credit: BBC/PA Wire)

When US presidents go out and take a trip or visit other states, the things that they do and the places they have been become part of the history of those places which can be told and re-told to future visitors and generations, either as a means to attract more visitors or just an interesting anecdote to share.

5280 Magazine shares a list of some of these moments wherein past US presidents spent their time in Colorado. From William Howard Taft's refusal to take a dip in a hot springs pool in Glenwood Springs to Theodore Roosevelt's commendation of the breakfast he was served in Hugo, these little stories add a little more to what we know about the presidents and the state of Colorado.

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For many inventions and innovations, the key is to address a certain problem in a novel way, or in a way that is different from past methods which would make whatever process they are improving more efficient or less costly.

In this regard, engineers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison have devised a thin piece of glass that has the ability to do what cameras, sensors, and deep neural networks do but in a more compact material which they call a "smart" glass.

Embedding artificial intelligence inside inert objects is a concept that, at first glance, seems like something out of science fiction. However, it’s an advance that could open new frontiers for low-power electronics. 

Now, artificial intelligence gobbles up substantial computational resources (and battery life) every time you glance at your phone to unlock it with face ID. In the future, one piece of glass could recognize your face without using any power at all.

(Image credit: Sam Million Weaver)

As he looked up at the ceiling of his girlfriend's house, Vine star Michael LoPriore noticed something about the lighting fixture attached. It was in the shape of a bowl and was fastened to the ceiling by a button driven at the center of the bulb. It looked like a female human breast. And a thought came to him, inspiring a song that would go down in internet history.

Over the last six years, LoPriore’s Vine has given a name to virtually everyone’s bedroom light. On Instagram, there are more than 1,200 #ceilingtitty posts as people identify the boob-shaped lamp in the background of their photos — and record their own covers. (LoPriore’s six-second track is a true earworm.)

On TikTok, users remix LoPriore’s video, adding their own #ceilingtitty to a long chain of musical light fixtures.

(Image credit: Mel Magazine)

In an interview with Lisa Lutz, Olivia Rutigliano from Crime Reads asks the famed crime fiction writer how she is able to write beautifully complex, competent, and brilliant women investigators and characters in her mystery novels, something that has mostly been written with male characters in mind.

How do you write your women characters—are there essential qualities you feel a good female protagonist must have? 

Lisa Lutz: I don’t know. It really depends on the story. I mean, sure, there are similarities—I don’t tend to write about women who put on a front, whether it’s physical or emotional. There’s enough of that bullshit in life. I like my characters to be difficult, amusing (in varying degrees), slightly insane (also to varying degrees). Write what you know, they say.

I also have to admit that when I write women I’m thinking about what I want to put out in the universe. I’m not saying that I think Isabel or Alex would be anyone’s role model, but if they help one person be a little less uptight or more themselves (because sometimes uptight is your personality, and I think you should own that) then I’ve done my job or part of my job.

Read more of the interview on Crime Reads.

Driving a car requires that one exercise extreme care and caution so as not to cause injury, harm, damage, or even the death of someone or destruction of property. But there was one man from Wales who admitted that driving his car when it had another car attached above it was a "stupid thing to do". Because of it, he was penalized.

Glyndwr Wyn Richards, 51, was caught on camera driving a Volkswagen Passat with a Skoda Octavia strapped to its roof through an industrial estate in Aberystwyth, Wales, in March.

Prosecutor Ceri Ellis-Jones said Police Constable Phil Westbury had been sent a WhatsApp message showing footage of the car being driven by Richards with another car on top.

Ms. Ellis-Jones said police had sought information from the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) about regulations on vehicle loads and how items should be secured safely.

In the end, he received three penalties on his driving license, was fined GBP80, and was ordered to pay costs of GBP115.

(Image credit: Independent Digital News & Media Limited)

For many who have seen medical drama on TV, reality is nothing like that. Or perhaps, there are certain scenes or events that may actually have happened in real life but it's not the norm.

Being an ER doctor for example isn't all about the blood, the untimely deaths, or the grieving process. It's not all about these stressful situations that happen round the clock. The most difficult part of being an ER doctor, according to Dr. Rada Jones, is a simple one. And it's something we all probably face each day. It's just for ER doctors, it's on a much higher intensity.

“What’s the hardest thing about your job?”

That’s a hard question. I stumble. I mumble. I try to come up with something intelligent to say. I fail. They see my discomfiture and try to help me.

“Is it being a foreigner? You have an accent. Since "immigration" is a dirty word, is that the hardest part of your job?" 

“Is it being a woman? Dealing with the glass ceiling?” they ask.

“Is it the abuse you get? Is it people swearing at you, throwing feces at you, keying your car, and threatening to rape your daughter? Is that the hardest part?" 

“Is it people dying?” they ask. 

In fact, it's none of these. If you want to know her answer, check out the article on OpMed.

(Image credit: JC Gellidon/Unsplash)

Anybody is susceptible to cracking under pressure and what other place is there which would be a perfect setting for a crime to take place than academia? Sure, other settings would be possible but there is a certain kind of thrill and curiosity when such things occur inside schools and campuses.

A history of the academic mystery mirrors the rise and fall of academia itself, and particularly, women’s place within academia. The more women who have become academics, the lower the status of their profession and the size of their salaries.

Early academic mysteries are concerned with fighting for a place for women within academia, and more broadly, for women’s right to live as intellectuals. Academic mysteries from the 70s and 80s often featured female professors at the top of their game, with jobs that were a clear result of hard work and education, yet with plenty of jealous and old-fashioned colleagues waiting for the slightest misstep to swoop and say “I told you so.”

In this list, Molly Odintz sums up several great reads for academic mysteries and research noir. If you are ever interested in finding a good book about mysteries or thrillers set in academia, you can check out the list for some recommendations.

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It would be appropriate to mention a little bit of The Matrix when we're talking about the discourse on reality as an aspect of a technological simulation, or more like a projection of things that have been configured in a computer program.

If we were to humor the thought, what then would be outside the simulation? One curious individual asked this question in connection with Elon Musk's statement about the realm external to the simulation. And here's an answer to that:

In April 2019 an interview of Elon Musk conducted by Lex Fridman was uploaded to the YouTube website. Fridman is a teacher and research scientist in artificial intelligence (AI) who works at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The pair discussed a variety of topics including the possibility of artificial general intelligence (AGI).

In the context of AGIs, Fridman asked Musk what question he would ask an AGI system if one would be created. And his question was simply what's outside the simulation?

It's an interesting question and one could follow the trail and go down the rabbit hole to see what would come up on the other side but seeing as we have no means of completely knowing whether we are in a simulation or not, we can only hope that there will be someone from the outside who would awaken us to the truth of reality.

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It's a controversial topic especially since there are people who claim to have died, went to heaven, and lived to tell the tale but what is the truth behind these "out-of-body" or "life-after-death" experiences?

Over the last decade, Dr. Sam Parnia of NYU’s Langone School of Medicine has tracked the brain activity of thousands of subjects in the United States and Europe, charting what happens to the brain in the minutes and hours after cardiac arrest — when the heart ceases to beat. He said that following the loss of heartbeat, brain function ceases “almost instantaneously” and the body stops producing basic reflexes such as gag reflex or pupil dilation.

However, Parnia said, a surprising number of patients who have been brought back to life report having had the capacity to see or hear even after being officially declared dead. Some clinically dead patients who have been revived, he said, describe “watching doctors and nurses working… having awareness of full conversations, of visual things that were going on, that would otherwise not be known to them.”

Given this, how can we then explain what happens in somebody's brain or body when they are declared clinically dead but were able to be revived several minutes or maybe even a longer period of time later?

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Various cultures have different customs, traditions, tastes and preferences when it comes to food, cuisine, and dining in general. Mexican food and other food from Central America have been part of the plethora of cuisines in the US, particularly in San Francisco, but there came a time when the open-air kitchens serving these cuisines struggled. What helped them survive that period and even experience a boom was La Cocina.

Financial backing, business planning, moral support. La Cocina has worked now with dozens and dozens of ambitious, talented women and people of color in food, to get them the tools to make it in the Bay. Their grantees are, as Emiliana put it, are eating awards like candy.

Emiliana is incredibly well-suited to her role because she was there herself, a La Cocina grantee who took the love of food she got from growing up in Venezuela and turned it into a career, then a business, and now a calling. We drank Negronis and talked about it all.

(Image credit: La Cocina)

Taking medical tests can be tedious, cumbersome, annoying, and awkward not just for the patients but for the personnel who administer them. In this funny little anecdote, Dr. J. Lane Wilson shares a story of when he was an intern and had to conduct a test for chlamydia and gonorrhea on a young man.

It should have been an easy procedure with the new urine test however, due to their circumstances, they opted for the swab. And here's where the issues started to pop up.

Upon opening the drawers for the swabs, the naive intern had no idea which among the myriad of swabs was the correct one. A frantic search and inquiry ensued. What followed was a series of mishaps that, eight years later, the now-MD (and perhaps the young man) still couldn't forget.

(Image credit: OpMed Doximity)