One of the things that will come into your mind when you hear the word Japan is “ramen.” In fact, when you arrive in Japan, you will be surprised at the number of ramen shops they have in the country. (It is said that Japan has over 10,000 ramen shops.) But did you know that the regions in the country have different types of ramen that serve as their representatives? Bet you didn’t know that.

Some of the best-known [types of ramen] are Sapporo’s miso ramen and Fukuoka’s tonkotsu (pork stock) ramen.

But if you want to taste a very special type of ramen, then go to Tokyo’s neighbor to the south, the Kanagawa Prefecture, and have a taste of their sanma-men, their regional ramen. It is a type of ramen not commonly known, but it surely is something that you will definitely remember once you taste it.

… the star ingredient in sanma-men is the broth, which is made by adding starch to a soy broth base.

The toppings are special too. Japanese ramen is usually pretty sparse on non-noodle elements, but not only do you get strips of chashu pork, sanma-men also includes a generous serving of stir-fried vegetables such as bean sprouts, carrot, green onion, and shiitake or kikurage (clud ear) mushrooms, cooked to perfection so that they still retain a crisp texture even after being dropped into the broth.

Highly nutritious and very delicious. What more could you ask for?

(Image Credit: SoraNews24)

The type of content that we usually see in live-streams are video game playthroughs, virtual concerts, and celebrity Q&A. Balule Nature Reserve in South Africa, however, uses live-streams to deliver a very different type of content to the world: real-time videos of animals. Their goal: to chase out animal poachers.

Thousands, sat comfortably at home, became virtual rangers with this anti-poaching pilot project, Wildlife Watch, by Balule, Samsung and Africam.

Viewers were able to report suspicious activity - things like seeing fence lines cut or hearing gunshots - and alert rangers to the possibility of poachers and trapped animals needing rescue.

For Leitah Mkhabela, a member of the park's all-female anti-poaching unit known as The Black Mambas, creative use of technology can make a big difference.

"Once poachers become aware that there could be more cameras in the bushes, they'll be worried as we have so many eyes monitoring.

"It will definitely help chase them out."

This is not the only innovation happening in the world of animal conservation.

"There are people on every continent in different environments using every sort of technology," Stephanie O'Donnell tells Newsbeat.

Learn more about this exciting story over at BBC.

(Image Credit: peterjohnball0/ Pixabay)

Can’t think of something fun to do this summer? Not to worry! Katia Hetter has got your back with her 100 things to do this season. That’s right. One hundred things. If that’s not a lot, then I don’t know what is. Some activities can be done alone, while others can be done with either your family, your colleagues, or your special someone.

Here are some of the activities from her list.

• Welcome the birds
• Cooking challenge
• Play video games
• Phone a relative
• Hit the road

Check out the rest over at CNN.

(Image Credit: congerdesign/ Pixabay)

New London, New Hampshire — Mary Beth Westward, with her daughters, left on a trip last month, leaving her husband Todd at home. But while she and her daughters were away, Todd was able to develop a strange relationship with someone else. This someone else was Walter. And no, Walter’s not human; he’s a grouse.

“I just thought it was a fluke before we left,” Mary Beth Westward said Friday. “While we were gone, this bird formed this crazy attachment. He was here every single day, all day long, following him.”

Walter has perched on her husband’s shoulder and arm, and has visited his backyard work station.

While Walter was able to develop a very positive relationship with Todd, it seems that he disliked Todd’s wife and daughters.

“He runs like a feathered velociraptor while he chases us down the driveway in our cars. And he goes back up and sits on the porch and pretends to be our watch-bird,” Westward wrote in her post.

But why is Walter acting this way? The reason behind this could be the fact that grouses become tame come springtime. (So, don’t expect grouses to perch on your shoulder on other seasons.)

(Image Credit: Mary Beth Westward/ AP News)

If you’re in the United States, and you’re tired of the usual food that you eat, then you might want to try the insects that have emerged recently — the cicadas. That’s right. They’re edible. Of course, eating insects is not for the faint of heart. But if you want some strange excitement in your life, then you might want to look into the practice of eating insects, known as entomophagy.

Aside from cicadas, which insects are edible? Floyd Shockley, the entomology collections manager at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, provides us with a list of edible insects, as well as how to prepare them. Check the list over at Smithsonian Magazine.

(Image Credit: Kirk K/ Smithsonian Magazine)

Back in the day, air conditioning was a luxury and was only available to commercial businesses. However, in the 1950s, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and the University of Texas at Austin made a feasibility study of bringing central air conditioning to residential homes. 

NAHB got in touch with a variety of builders and and air conditioning manufacturers and asked them to build a village on the outskirts of Allandale, in Austin, Texas, with 22 different single-story homes, each fitted with a AC manufacturer’s equipment. Each house was approximately 1,400 square feet in size with three bedrooms, one or two bathrooms, and garages. The houses were designed with features that made cooling easier and efficient. For instance, walls and roofs were insulated, the roofs had wide overhangs and extended walls to create more shade, windows were strategically located to avoid strong sun, and kitchens and bathrooms were fitted with ventilation systems.

Families who were willing to be observed by researchers bought the houses.

After the one-year-long study was over, the NAHB reported that families spent more time at home, slept longer, took on hobbies, improved their appetites, and were generally happy. The women from the Austin Air-Conditioned Village reported less dirt and dust in the house, which in turn allowed the use of previously considered luxuries such as white rugs, curtains, and upholstery.

The study would then change the standard definition of the middle-class family.

More on this over at Amusing Planet.

(Image Credit: Dewey Mears/ Amusing Planet)

Plants, like humans, catch diseases. They also sometimes suffer from physical stress (due to lack of water, cold weather, lack of sunlight, etc.). But, unlike in humans, it is very difficult to identify sick and stressed plants. And, by the time that signs of disease or stress appear, it may already be too late to save the plant. This has been one of the challenges in farming.

In order to address this problem, scientists, led by Dr. Shilo Rosenwasser, have genetically modified a plant known as the Irish potato.

The researchers introduced a new gene into the plant's chloroplasts, which are organelles (subcellular structures) that conduct photosynthesis. That gene expresses a fluorescent protein in response to the presence of reactive oxygen species – these are highly reactive chemical molecules that are produced in order to help mitigate stress, although they can also harm the plant if they build up in its cells.

Putting it simply, the more stress that a plant experiences, the greater the amount of reactive oxygen species it produces. In the case of the new potato, this in turn causes it to produce more of the fluorescent protein – so the more stressed the plant is, the brighter its fluorescent glow. And although the fluorescence can't be seen by the naked eye, the scientists could detect it using a highly sensitive fluorescent camera.

Cool!

(Image Credit: Shilo Rosenwasser/ Hebrew University/ New Atlas)

It is often said that before working out, one should stretch first to prevent injury. However, this piece of advice seems to contradict decades of scientific research, which say that static stretching prior to exercising does not help. In fact, it might make performance worse and increase one’s chances of getting hurt. At least, that’s how it is for runners.

“If the goal is to improve performance, then you usually don't do static stretching prior,” says Nick Kruse, an exercise physiologist at the University of Iowa. Instead, it might be better to swap in another warm-up before your run, and maybe move the static stretches to another part of the day.

But for those who aren’t athletes, static stretching is a big help for the body. There is growing evidence that this activity could improve cardiovascular health.

More details about this over at Discover Magazine.

(Image Credit: Pixabay)

17-year-old Marty Tankleff spent 17 years in prison because authorities didn’t believe in his innocence, because apparently, he was too calm when he found out that his mother was stabbed and his father was mortally bludgeoned in their home.

Jeffrey Deskovic, a 16-year-old man, also spent a number of years (16 years, to be exact) in prison because authorities didn’t believe in his innocence, but for a different reason; Jeffrey was too eager to help the detectives after his classmate was found strangled.

Both were thought to be guilty of a crime, but one was too calm, and the other was too upset and too willing to help. But do these two characteristics really indicate if the person is lying?

They’re not, says psychologist Maria Hartwig, a deception researcher at John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York. The men, both later exonerated, were victims of a pervasive misconception: that you can spot a liar by the way they act. Across cultures, people believe that behaviors such as averted gaze, fidgeting and stuttering betray deceivers.

In fact, researchers have found little evidence to support this belief despite decades of searching. “One of the problems we face as scholars of lying is that everybody thinks they know how lying works,” says Hartwig, who coauthored a study of nonverbal cues to lying in the Annual Review of Psychology. Such overconfidence has led to serious miscarriages of justice, as Tankleff and Deskovic know all too well. “The mistakes of lie detection are costly to society and people victimized by misjudgments,” says Hartwig. “The stakes are really high.”

In other words, it is difficult to identify liars. But is there a way to increase our chances of guessing correctly? Fortunately, there is.

Learn more details about this topic over at JSTOR Daily.

(Image Credit: Pixabay)

Like the previous entries in the franchise, Age of Empires III did not disappoint in its music when it was released way back in 2005. But of all the tracks in this game, the track that almost made me cry was the credits track, titled “There Is Weather/ Decisions Are Made”. It just sounds so… beautiful. And apparently, this piece also is a particular favorite of Stephen Rippy and Kevin Mcmullan, the composers of the game’s music.

Try to give this track a listen.

If you want to hear the original version, click here.

(Image Credit: Kevin Mcmullan/ YouTube)

About 18 years ago, entomologist Andrea Colla received a strange request to survey the secret tunnels under the Italian city of Trieste. The said secret tunnels were a Nazi-raid shelter during the Second World War, and it eventually became a museum managed by cave enthusiasts of the Trieste Alpine Club. But what was inside the now not-so-secret tunnels aside from the usual tourists and school groups? That’s what Colla went to find out.

Colla did not expect much from his investigation. And he was right. What he found out inside the bunker were “standard basement crickets and spiders.”

So he was taken aback in 2019 when one of the air-raid tunnel guides sent him a snapshot of a cartoonishly evil-looking creature — like a cross between a tarantula and a crab, with skin-crawlingly long legs, barbed pincers, and a brownish coat of armor. To Colla, it was unmistakable. This was a harmless arachnid called an amblypygid, sometimes known as a whip spider or tailless whip scorpion, which was neither spider nor scorpion. And it was not supposed to be in Italy at all.

Amblypygids were popping up elsewhere, too. In 2018, an undergraduate in suburban Athens found a few scuttling through his bathroom and kitchen — now he’s credited with uncovering the species’ presence in continental Europe. In 2019, there was the first confirmed record of amblypygids in Jordan, also in a bathroom. In both cases, the person who helped identify the critters was Brazilian arachnologist Gustavo de Miranda. And he’s just outdone himself: Last year he submitted a paper, the publication of which is forthcoming, describing 33 new amblypygid species, one of which has only ever been seen in the pipes and storage sheds of a Rio de Janeiro museum.

The question is, where are these whip spiders coming from?

Learn more about this story over at Undark.

(Image Credit: Graham Wise/ Wikimedia Commons)

Having a cat in your home is good, but having two cats is infinitely much better. Of course, this would mean that your stress, cat food, and your expenses, will be doubled, so don’t keep a second cat if you’re not ready for the commitment. But if you can, then go.

Bored Panda provides us with 50 photos which prove to us why keeping two cats is much better than just keeping one. See them all over at the site.

(Image Credit: Bored Panda)

They say that we should not judge a book by its cover. From the outside, this piece of technology looks like a regular Nintendo GameCube to an unsuspecting person, and I wouldn’t blame him if he made that remark; it does look like a regular Nintendo GameCube. But, as the title says, this is, in reality, a gaming PC made by modder Cityle.

Cityle shared pictures of his one-of-a-kind gaming rig on Reddit..., which is outfitted with an Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 graphics card, a Ryzen 5 4500u processor, a 2TB Samsung 860 QVO solid-state drive, and 16GB of HyperX DDR4 RAM.

Cityle published his build log here, and it seems it was no easy feat fitting so many intricate parts into something the size of a GameCube. Though clunky by today’s standards, the console measures just 5.9 × 6.3 × 4.3 inches (150 x 161 x 100 mm). Since it’d be nothing short of impossible to fit a top-tier gaming motherboard inside a case this tiny, they transferred one from a disassembled Asus PN50 Mini PC.

Who would have thought that a powerful computer could fit inside a GameCube? I sure didn’t.

(Image Credit: Cityle/ Reddit/ Gizmodo)

Over a decade ago on an internet forum for mineral collectors, Alysson Rowan stumbled upon a post from another user. The man said in his post that he’s terrified because some of the mineral specimens that he bought were apparently radioactive. Fortunately, Rowan is a radiation safety professional, and, in response to the man’s post, she wrote an article about nuclear safety and the reality of radioactivity. Naturally, Rowan’s article became popular for many radioaction enthusiasts, but with more readers came more follow-up questions. Rowan could have answered these questions one by one, but she followed someone’s advice.

‘Look, forget about these bits and pieces: Just compile this all into a book,” Rowan says. “And so that’s what I did.”

And so, Rowan wrote a book titled Here Be Dragons: The Care and Feeding of Radioactive Mineral Species. The better news? The book is free!

Just like her article which introduced people to nuclear safety, Rowan’s book also became popular and is now the “go-to resource for the radioactive rockhound community.”

Learn more about the book, as well as stories from various collectors, over at Atlas Obscura.

(Image Credit: Andrey Stoev/ Atlas Obscura)

Jennifer George wanted to have a closer look on the animals that she saw by her window, and so she set up an outdoor camera in 2019. One day, George noticed a family of coyote pups from her outdoor camera, and noting that that day was a hot one, she decided to set up some water for them. Little did she know that not only will she help those coyotes, but also other animals as well.

“It started with just a metal bowl of water,” George told The Dodo. “We thought that would be a harmless way to get [the animals] in front of the camera. That brought birds at first — mostly scrub jays. Then other animals started showing up, and I wanted to improve the accommodations for them and bought a bigger bowl and a solar fountain.”

George’s makeshift fountain has quickly become a gathering place for feathered, furry and scaly creatures alike.

Visitors range from a snake going for a swim to a family of quail taking a bath, as well as turkey vultures, long-tailed weasels, skunks, coyotes and bobcats.

“The birds particularly like the moving water, especially hummingbirds,” George said. “Right now I'm hoping to see this year's coyote puppies — we saw a pregnant female a few weeks ago.”

So wholesome.

(Image Credit: Jennifer George/ The Dodo)