A samurai in full armor, holding a bow in his right hand and a spear in his left, stands on what seems to be the shoulder of a gigantic robot. In front of him is the gigantic robot’s head with one of its eyes gouged out.

This cardboard sculpture by Greg Olijnyk is called “David vs G 2.0”. It is a retelling of the story of David and Goliath. And, to fit into his current series, Olijnyk retells the story with a sci-fi twist.

Fully articulate and outfitted with LED lights and glass where necessary, the extraordinarily detailed works are futuristic, slightly dystopic, and part of larger world-building narratives. The architectural constructions, for example, are “the start of a series of pieces exploring the fear, fascination, and curiosity aroused by the stranger in our midst. The weird presence out of place. The building of unknown purpose with no windows and with lights flickering at night,” he says. “What’s going on in there?”

Check out Olijnyk’s cardboard sculptures over at Colossal, and check out even more of them over at his Instagram account.

(Image Credit: Greg Olijnyk/ Colossal)

The color green is usually associated with Mother Nature. This is why we have phrases such as “going green”, which means taking steps that are beneficial for the environment. And when it comes to green things, green tea is something that could come into one’s mind first. With this considered, green tea could be used to encourage people to go green.

Mirume is a new green tea cafe and shop that opened this month in Nagoya. The cafe has in-store offerings but what makes them unique is their morning bottle (朝ボトル) service. For 300 yen, you get a cold-brewed bottle of green tea that can be refilled with water up to 3 times a day. At the end of the day, simply return the bottle into the shop’s stylish concrete slab and pick one up the next morning.

[...]

Mirume’s morning bottle service is open from 8AM – 10AM and those in a hurry can grab their bottle on the go. But if you have a bit more time, step inside and explore the tea leaves they have available for purchase, which are all sourced from the Shinsabo tea farm in Mie Prefecture. You can even sit at the counter and enjoy a hand-poured cup of green tea along with a selection of wagashi sweets.

Cool!

(Image Credit: Ryo Yahara/ Spoon & Tamago)

Found some 22,000-25,000 light years away from Earth is the Hercules Globular Cluster, which is also known as Messier 13 (and is designated as NGC 2605). Consisting of several hundred thousand stars, the Hercules Globular Cluster is one of the brightest star clusters in the northern sky.

Martin Dufour has been taking pictures of this cluster every year since 2011. This is his 2021 version.

(Image Credit: Martin Dufour/ NASA)

Oh, look! It’s just a cat staring into nothingness… But wait! Why is its shadow so long, and why is the shadow not reflecting its current state?

There are many mysteries in this strange photograph, but everything will make sense when you give it a second look.

Image via Important Animal Images on Facebook

We’ve been told by scientists for decades that we need at least 30 minutes of exercise every day if we want to stay healthy and prolong our life. However, it would seem that this advice isn’t enough, depending on how a person spends his day. To put it simply, the benefits that a person can get from exercising for half an hour could be negated if he lives a very sedentary life, like sitting for over 11 to 12 hours per day.

“Getting 30 minutes of physical activity per day, or 150 minutes per week, is what’s currently recommended, but you still have the potential to undo all that good work if you sit too long,” says Sebastien Chastin, PhD, professor of health behaviour dynamics at Glasgow Caledonian University in Scotland and lead author of the study.

In this day and age when we now spend most of the day sitting down, what can we do if we want to stay healthy and prolong our life? Scientists gave us three options on how to spend our day. According to this study, these options could reduce the risk of early death by 30%:

• 55 minutes of exercise, 4 hours of light physical activity, and 11 hours of sitting
• 13 minutes of exercise, 5.5 hours of light physical activity, and 10.3 hours of sitting
• 3 minutes of exercise, 6 hours of light physical activity, and 9.7 hours of sitting

More details about this over at Neuroscience News.

(Image Credit: RyanMcGuire/ Pixabay)

In their quest to understand how the human heart works and develops in the womb, scientists exposed some stem cells to a suite of proteins and small molecules that were known to be involved in early human heart development. After a week of observing, the scientists noticed something amazing.

The cells sorted themselves into hollow, chamber-like structures, analogous to the left ventricle of the heart, the team found. What's more, the walls of the chambers began to contract rhythmically, mimicking a human heartbeat.

[...]

"This work is significant in the sense that they started from embryonic bodies," meaning 3D clumps of pluripotent stem cells, a type of stem cell that can give rise to many cell types, said Ying Mei, an associate professor of bioengineering at Clemson University, who was not involved in the research. In particular, the team managed to coax the cells into a hollow chamber structure — something that hasn't been done before with embryonic bodies, Mei said. 

The findings of their study (which was published on May 20 in the journal Cell) could prove to be useful in studies about cardiogenesis and heart conditions.

More about this over at Live Science. 

(Image Credit: JB_Bandit/ Pixabay)

Compared to what we see in the movies, archaeology is boring work. There are no mummies or action-packed shootouts against other “treasure hunters”. To be honest, there aren’t even that many treasures to hunt to begin with, unless you consider good ol’ pottery fragments as treasures. And yes, those are what archaeologists usually encounter on sites, and they collect thousands of these fragments and sort them out painstakingly. Tedious work, but at least no one dies, so I guess there’s a happy ending for everyone at the end of the day.

Potsherds are ubiquitous at archaeological sites, and that's true for pretty much every culture since people invented pottery. In the US Southwest in particular, museums have collected sherds by the tens of thousands.

Although all those broken bits may not look like much at first glance, they’re often the key to piecing together the past.

“[Potsherds] provide archaeologists with critical information about the time a site was occupied, the cultural group with which it was associated, and other groups with whom they interacted,” said Northern Arizona University archaeologist Chris Downum, who co-authored a new study with Leszek Pawlowicz.

Thinking of a way to expedite the potsherd sorting process, Pawlowicz and Downum decided to turn to machine-learning.

For now, Pawlowicz and Downum’s recent study is a proof of concept. They chose a pottery type, Tusayan White Ware, that is especially easy for a computer to sort based on photos, because its patterns contrast so strongly with the background. A neural network would likely do reasonably well at sorting other types of decorated pottery, but so-called plainware—ceramics without any visible decoration or markings—would probably be a bridge too far.

Now that’s a brilliant idea.

Go over at Ars Technica to know more about this topic.

(Image Credit: Pawlowicz and Downum 2021/ Ars Technica)

On May 17, a natural arch located over half a mile off the coast of Darwin’s Island in the Galapagos Islands had its top removed as “a consequence of natural erosion.” The said natural arch was none other than Darwin’s Arch, named after the English biologist. The arch was a favorite subject of photographers, and a popular landmark for cruise ships. Hopefully, even if the arch is now “topless”, it is still something to look forward to by both groups.

… one tour company, Aggressor Adventures, is calling the two stone monoliths that remain "The Pillars of Evolution," CNN reported.

That, and whale sharks, and other aquatic animals, still thrive on the waters around the now called pillars.

(Image Credit: obv/ Wikimedia Commons)

At first glance, electric vehicles (EVs) seem to be environment-friendly vehicles because they could reduce emissions that contribute to climate change. However, electric vehicles could prove to be harmful to our environment as well when their batteries die. In the possibility that these batteries end up in a landfill,

[their] cells can release problematic toxins, including heavy metals. And recycling the battery can be a hazardous business, warns materials scientist Dana Thompson of the University of Leicester…

That’s just one of the many problems confronting researchers, including Thompson, who are trying to tackle an emerging problem: how to recycle the millions of electric vehicle (EV) batteries that manufacturers expect to produce over the next few decades. Current EV batteries “are really not designed to be recycled,” says Thompson, a research fellow at the Faraday Institution, a research center focused on battery issues in the United Kingdom.

That wasn’t much of a problem when EVs were rare. But now the technology is taking off. Several carmakers have said they plan to phase out combustion engines within a few decades, and industry analysts predict at least 145 million EVs will be on the road by 2030, up from just 11 million last year. “People are starting to realize this is an issue,” Thompson says.

In response to this growing concern, governments are now leaning towards requiring some kind of recycling of these dead batteries. However, recycling dead batteries will be a challenge.

Batteries differ widely in chemistry and construction, which makes it difficult to create efficient recycling systems. And the cells are often held together with tough glues that make them difficult to take apart. That has contributed to an economic obstacle: It’s often cheaper for batterymakers to buy freshly mined metals than to use recycled materials.

And so, government institutions, such as the U.S Department of Energy are now investing in research about recycling EV batteries.

More details about this over at Science Magazine.

(Image Credit: Wolfgang Rattay/ Reuters/ Science Magazine)

This single sheet of paper contains common questions regarding pregnancy, like whether it is okay to have children after 35. However, the answers written on this paper are not what you might expect, but they still are informative.

Image via The Language Nerds on Facebook

Elegant. Useful. And unique. Those are the words that perfectly describe this Wisdom Tree Bookshelf by Bookniture. Now, people can have a designated place for the books that they are currently reading, so they won’t misplace said books ever again. Now if that’s not useful, then I don’t know what is.

This bookshelf is available for pre-order for only $69, while the item’s shipping will be made available in August of this year.

Cool!

(Image Credit: Bookniture/ Technabob)

We’ve often heard people describe good music as “lit”. But when it comes to being lit, Bach’s music would be the first one to achieve that... literally speaking, at least.

Someone has built an organ that shoots out actual flames – and this guy has played some Bach on it.

This incredible instrument was found at the Transworld Halloween and Attractions Show, which took place a few weeks ago in St. Louis, Missouri.

It’s played by Tom BetGeorge, a Californian music teacher and YouTuber who goes viral every Christmas with his house light displays to Beethoven, John Williams and more. So he knows a thing or two about syncing music and blazing visuals.

Flame-throwing organs aren’t new, however. People have been trying to make this type of instrument as far back as 1777. So I guess Bach’s music isn’t the first one to achieve “lit” status.

(Image Credit: Tom BetGeorge/ YouTube)

The main function of the anus is to expel the waste that remains after food digestion, but in the case of rodents and pigs, the anus can have another function; through this part of the body, vital oxygen could be delivered to their bodies. This study, which was published on May 14 in the journal Med, could be useful in creating a new way to support critically ill patients with respiratory failure, according to the senior study author Takanori Takebe.

In the new study, Takebe and his collaborators provide evidence for intestinal breathing in rats, mice, and pigs. First, they designed an intestinal gas ventilation system to administer pure oxygen through the rectum of mice. They showed that without the system, no mice survived 11 minutes of extremely low-oxygen conditions. With intestinal gas ventilation, more oxygen reached the heart, and 75% of mice survived 50 minutes of normally lethal low-oxygen conditions.

Because the intestinal gas ventilation system requires abrasion of the intestinal muscosa, it is unlikely to be clinically feasible, especially in severely ill patients—so the researchers also developed a liquid-based alternative using oxygenated perfluorochemicals. These chemicals have already been shown clinically to be biocompatible and safe in humans.

Now this is weird but fascinating.

Learn more details about the study over at PHYS.org.

(Image Credit: PHYS.org)

This Shiba Inu (which I think is named Mickey, based on her Instagram account) sure knows how to act like she’s in pain. The pillow that, at first glance, looks like a real hollow block, makes the act even more convincing.

I think Mickey-chan is a cosplayer, as you can see her cute cosplays over at her Instagram account.

Image via 9GAG on Facebook

As the sunlight shines on a portion of our planet Earth, the shadow line, or terminator, is diffused, which results in a gradual transition between light and darkness. This is how twilight looks from above our planet.

This photo was taken in June 2001 from the International Space Station.

(Image Credit: ISS Expedition 2 Crew, Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth, NASA)