The UN also states that most of these disasters get only little international attention, and that there is an urgency to prepare developing countries for profound impacts of calamities. Indeed, the times have changed, and they have changed dramatically.

Catastrophes such as cyclones Idai and Kenneth in Mozambique and the drought afflicting India make headlines around the world. But large numbers of “lower impact events” that are causing death, displacement and suffering are occurring much faster than predicted, said Mami Mizutori, the UN secretary-general’s special representative on disaster risk reduction. “This is not about the future, this is about today.”

This means that adapting to the climate crisis could no longer be seen as a long-term problem, but one that needed investment now, she said. “People need to talk more about adaptation and resilience.”

More details about this alarming news over at The Guardian.

(Image Credit: Comfreak/Pixabay)

It looks like the tapioca bubble tea craze in Japan won’t be ending soon. Previously we have covered how this trendy drink, together with rice, would taste. Now here comes another unexpected combination: tapioca bubble tea and ramen.

Located in downtown Tokyo’s Tamachi neighborhood, Menya Musashi Gorindo (a branch of the highly respected Menya Musashi ramen chain) recently added Tapioca Tsukemen to its menu. Like the name says, this is tsukemen-style ramen, meaning that the noodles are served dry, with a dipping sauce on the side. But what sets this dish apart is that the broth includes boba/tapioca pearls.

We… honestly weren’t sure what to make of this. We like to think of ourselves as having pretty adventurous palates... but tapioca ramen? That sounded like it was crossing a line, no matter which direction you’re stepping.

How did this odd combination taste like?

Find out over at SoraNews24.

(Image Credit: SoraNews24)

Ah, the humble hot dog, the world-famous food known to represent the American culture. This food is literally everywhere from baseball games to backyard barbecues up to roadside convenience stores! But what’s the history behind this bunned frankfurter?

Find out along with Julia Hammond of BBC as she uncovers the history, the truth, and the rivalry that came off from this food.

(Image Credit: Robert-Owen-Wahl/ Pixabay)

Horrific. Disturbing. These are just some of the words that describe the drawings made by migrant children as they got separated from their parents while in US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) custody.

The pictures were drawn last week by three children, ages 10 and 11, at Catholic Charities Humanitarian Respite Center in McAllen, Texas, after being released by CBP.

"The fact that the drawings are so realistic and horrific gives us a view into what these children have experienced," said Dr. Colleen Kraft… "When a child draws this, it's telling us that child felt like he or she was in jail."

Know more about this heartbreaking news over at CNN.

(Image Credit: American Academy of Pediatrics)

This is the open-top “Rapture”, a vehicle designed for “lightweight, acceleration and wild handling”, created by British manufacturer Radical. It is a 350-horsepower and a Ford-ecoboost powered race car.

Weighing in at an impressive 1,687lb (765kg), much of its lightness is down to the spaceframe chassis, which features a FIA-compliant safety cell and crash structure. at its heart, a Ford Focus RS-derived 2.3-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engine produces 350bhp and a punchy 320 lb ft of torque. It also gets you from 0-60mph in 3 seconds flat, and 0-100mph 8.4 seconds, with a top speed of 165mph.

Now THAT’S fast. But with great speed comes great price. The car costs £89,500 (approx. $112,600 USD), taxes not yet included.

See more details of the vehicle over at DesignBoom.

(Image Credit: Radical/ DesignBoom)

This weekend is called the “Evening of the Seventh”, or simply “Tanabata.” It is a Japanese festival which celebrates the meeting of the deities Orihime (the Weaving Princess), the daughter of the Sky King, and Hikoboshi, a cowman. According to legend, the Milky Way separates the lovers, and they can only meet once a year on the seventh day of the seventh month.

To celebrate their meeting this year, “3700 candles have been placed in front of Tokyo’s Zojoji Temple, curving their way to Tokyo Tower and creating an illusion of twinkling stars reaching up to the sky.”

The installation, known as Washi Candle Night, is on display for two nights only: July 6 -7. The candles are wrapped in traditional washi paper and are lit between 6PM – 9PM, weather permitting.

Hoping that it won’t rain on this fateful day. If it rains, the two deities cannot meet and must wait again for another year.

(Image Credit: Noriake Sato/ Sankei News)

Led by the USF College of Marine Science, scientists used NASA satellite observations to find the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt (GASB), the largest bloom of macroalgae in the world. 

Based on numerical simulations, scientists confirm that the Sargassum, the belt of the brown macroalgae, forms its shape in accordance with ocean currents.

It can grow so large that it blankets the surface of the tropical Atlantic Ocean from the west coast of Africa to the Gulf of Mexico. This happened last year when more than 20 million tons of it - heavier than 200 fully loaded aircraft carriers - floated in surface waters and some of which wreaked havoc on shorelines lining the tropical Atlantic, Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and east coast of Florida.

More details of this discovery over at EurekAlert.

(Image Credit: Brian Lapointe, Ph.D., Florida Atlantic University's Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute)

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Uh oh - Old Uncle Alan has been in the sun all day, reading lies in the newspaper and spewing ochre ribbons of hate.

A post shared by Ed Merlin Murray (@e_merlin_m) on Jun 30, 2019 at 8:46am PDT

With simple materials like paper and ink washes, Scotland-based artist Ed Merlin Murray creates lively and illustrations that come to life with the pull of a tab. Through hand-activated animation, the faces show expression by rolling or blinking their eyes and by slithering their tongues.

Check out Murray’s moving images on Instagram.

(Image Credit: e_merlin_m/ Instagram)

The first ones to land on the moon, as we know, were Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. However, unlike explorations after them, the two men only spent two and a half hours on the lunar surface, before they went back to their spacecraft. The later moonwalks lasted for more than seven hours and were physically demanding, and of course when you get tired, you get hungry. The question is: How are you going to eat with your suit intact?

...the astronauts had a snack, mounted ingeniously inside their space helmets, where they could lean over and take a bite.

What is this snack and who made it? 

Read the story over at Fast Company.

(Image Credit: Neil Armstrong/ Wikimedia Commons)

What kinda psychopathic behavior is this?! pic.twitter.com/T8AIdGpmuS

— Optimus Primal (@BlindDensetsu) June 29, 2019

Food items that were tampered with are easy to identify with broken seals or damaged containers. However, one cannot say the same for ice cream cartons which lack an extra layer of protection. Someone took advantage of this fact.

In a video posted to Twitter last week, a young woman is seen grabbing a half-gallon tub of "Tin Roof" Blue Bell Creameries ice cream from a Lufkin, Texas, Walmart freezer aisle, removing the lid and tonguing the top of the ice cream. She places the lid back on and laughs while returning the contaminated dessert to the shelf where another customer could presumably buy it.

Ewww!

Thankfully, police identified who this woman was.

Jessica Pebsworth, a spokesperson with the Lufkin police, told NPR on Friday that the young woman the department is calling the "Blue Bell licker" is actually a juvenile from San Antonio. Under state law, a juvenile is considered anyone under the age of 17. Police are not releasing her name publicly because she is a minor.

Police said she is connected to the area through her older boyfriend's family. And after confronting the two, officials called them both "forthcoming with what occurred and admitted to the act."

After the video surfaced online, Blue Bell Creameries said this type of incident would not be tolerated, adding that food safety is its top priority. The ice cream company called for all of its division managers to help identify the store from the clip.

(Image Credit: @BlindDensetsu/ Twitter)

Earlier this week, Philadelphia honored the soul singer Patti LaBelle with her very own street. Unfortunately, they got her name wrong.

The city’s Streets Department didn’t capitalize the “b″ in the legendary soul singer’s last name on the signs that were put up before Tuesday’s ceremony on Broad Street. A stretch between Locust and Spruce streets was renamed “Patti LaBelle Way” in honor of the Philadelphia native.

Deana Gamble, the city spokeswoman, stated that they were aware of the error and that they plan to install the signs with the correct capitalization next week.

(Image Credit: AP Photo/ Matt Slocum)

Nine out of ten people are right-handed. Despite this fact, why do most women hold their babies on their left side? It is usually because holding the baby on the left side frees up the dominant hand in order for the mom to be able to multitask. But if that’s the case, then why do left-handed women still hold babies on their left side? Turns out handedness has nothing to do with cradling.

The question of why women default to their left side when cradling an infant has puzzled evolutionary and developmental psychologists for decades. But a new study appearing in the journal Evolutionary Psychology may bring us one step closer to the answer.

A team of psychologists at the University G. d’Annunzio of Chieti–Pescara in Italy designed an experiment to test whether women who cradled their baby on their left side were more likely to display a secure attachment style. Remember that attachment styles come in two forms — secure and insecure. People with secure attachment styles have an easier time establishing and maintaining constructive, close relationships (most likely because they experienced healthy and stable interpersonal relationships growing up). People with insecure attachment styles, on the other hand, find it difficult to maintain healthy interpersonal connections. 

What did the psychologists learn on their experiment?

Find out on Psychology Today.

(Image Credit: fancycrave1/ Pixabay)

“I’ve heard that music contain savage beasts,” stated Rick Hermann as he looked at the camera with saxophone at hand. “Actually, it’s my first audition for a live audience,” continued Rick, “so let’s see how it goes.” And so Rick started playing “Isn’t She Lovely”. Moments later, the cows walked towards him, eager to listen to his tunes.

“They’re coming to you,” Rick’s wife said, chuckling.

Rick then serenaded the herd of cows more with “Careless Whisper”.

Some commented that Rick needed more practice.

Nevertheless, the cows seemed to have gotten excited because of Rick’s SAX-y tunes.

(Video Credit: The Oregonian/ YouTube)

made me some #StyleGAN Pokemon sprites pic.twitter.com/4jUL5VlLST

— Michael Friesen (@MichaelFriese10) May 12, 2019

With the upcoming release of Pokémon Sword and Shield on November, a new generation would be upon us, which is generation VIII. The upcoming generation will have over 800 Pokémon. Could you catch them all?

As a person not so much into the iconic series, I find the current number of Pokémon to be a large one. But for fans of the game, this might not be the case.

Though there are currently more than 800, it’s always fun to think up more, and what better way to do so that to use an AI generator, which has already been used to design hundreds of original anime characters? And so Twitter user Michael Friesen (@MichaelFriese10), who likes to experiment with AI generators, shared some of his original AI-designed Pokémon on Twitter.

Friesen used StyleGAN, a style based generator architecture system, into which he would have first had to feed images of Pokémon from one or more of the games. The AI then used those images as a reference for designing new Pokémon, and what resulted where creatures that look like they could appear in the new games! They’re colorful, have cute and interesting shapes, and appear to even look like they could be a specific type, like ghost, water, or dragon.

What are your thoughts on the AI-generated Pokémon?

(Image Credit: Michael Friesen/ Twitter)

July 4 is Independence Day. Fireworks flash on the night sky, and across the nation’s sidewalks are eggs… for some reason.

Aside from being Independence Day, today is also the “National Fry An Egg on the Sidewalk Day”, an event which coincided with the country’s celebration of independence. It is a day when people, as the name suggests, fry eggs on sidewalks.

One of the earliest references to frying an egg on the sidewalk contained in the Library of Congress dates back to an 1899 issue of the Atlanta Constitution. In a column titled “How to Keep Cool,” Dr. Francis Henry Wade advises his readers: “With the thermometer cavorting away up among the nineties, with the bricks of the sidewalks hot enough to fry eggs, with ‘heat prostrations’ and sun strokes ‘filling bodies with anguish and bosoms with fear,’ as the poet puts it, the question 'How to keep cool?' becomes an all-absorbing one of the hour in the mind of every one, no matter what his vocation or walk of life.”

In other words, this tradition has been around for over a century!

But the question is: can you really fry an egg on the sidewalk?

Find out on Smithsonian.com.

(Image Credit: Clker-Free-Vector-Images/ Pixabay)