If you think old people are just good at sitting down and reading and then falling asleep, then this woman will prove you wrong. Meet Auntie Pim, the 70-year old barista behind the counter of Mother Roaster, one of Bangkok’s new hipster coffee shops.

At Mother Roaster, every bean of coffee is ground and pressed by Pa Pim’s withered but energetic hands. Fittingly, her chatter with regulars is sprinkled with young’un jargon and trendy English vocab.

Not only does Pa Pim brew coffee; she also gives people some advice in life.

“When you really love something, you can do it every day. You know the word, ‘passion’?”

She also talks about the benefits of running the coffee shop.

“I wanted to get out of the house,” Pa Pim said, when asked why she took up the grind. “I make my own coffee at home every day anyway. This is just changing the place I make it, while making money doing something I love. I also get to socialize.”

Pa Pim usually runs the shop alone, but sometimes her son shows up to help her.

Know more about Pa Pim and her shop over at Khaosod English.

(Image Credit: Mother Roaster/ Facebook)

Vietnam War. 1961-1971. The United States commenced Operation Ranch Hand, and they released one of the “tactical use” Rainbow Herbicides in the agricultural lands of Vietnam — Agent Orange. Over four decades after the US tried to rat out Viet Cong fighters, this Agent Orange has a hand on many Vietnamese lives, especially on the children.

Although the war ended in 1975, there have been numerous cases of children born in Quang Tri with disabilities and deformities said to be linked to Agent Orange. Worryingly, they include infants born to healthy parents.

“We were confused because we do not have a family history of Agent Orange, and our parents were not veterans,” said the boys’ mother, Nguyen Thi Quynh, 33.

She and her husband, Mai Cong Tun, 35, eke out a living as scrap metal collectors, searching forested areas for fragments of unexploded military ammunition left over from the war.

Of their four children, only one was born healthy – their daughter Mai Kim Chi, seven.

This only shows us that the wars that we have today would greatly affect the lives of future generations.

More details of this heart-wrenching story over at South China Morning Post.

(Image Credit: Khairul Anwar)

What can you see in this picture? I see a needle. What about you? Turns out this is Nike’s logo viewed from above.

How about this one? This is another company logo viewed from a bird’s eye perspective. Who would do this and why?

The branding, audio, and design agency Why Do Birds just released an interactive quiz, which renders some of the world’s most iconic logos, like IBM’s, from a view above. The project is a bit of self-promotion: a riff on the “bird’s-eye view” the agency brings to branding.

Want to test yourself and see if you can answer all of them correctly?

Check out more over at Fast Company.

(Image Credit: Why Do Birds)

Post-apocalyptic fiction have been popular for quite some time now. However, most apocalyptic films or series that we know of are usually set in America, such as The Walking Dead, or the Dawn of the Dead.

What would Tokyo look like in a post-apocalyptic world? This is what CG artist Tokyo Genso (that’s really his name!) imagined as he illustrated the notable landmarks of the city..

He creates lush CG illustrations of notable Tokyo landmarks that are in ruins and, in many cases, have been reclaimed by nature.

Check out his re-creations over at Spoon & Tamago.

(Image Credit: Tokyo Genso/ Spoon & Tamago)

They say that you can’t compare apples from oranges. I guess this also applies to other types of fruits. But they did not say anything about fusing them, and that is exactly what art director Yuni Yoshida just did in these photographs.

… Yoshida fuses various combinations of kiwis, oranges, apples, and bananas, playing with the recognizable colors and textures of each fruit’s skin as she splices them together.

In an interview with Amazon Fashion Week, Yoshida described her approach to design: “I love taking something real and letting my imagination run wild with it. When I produce something, I am not trying to do something particularly intricate, so that others take notice. I want people to think, ‘Wait, something is different’ and become inspired.”

Check out these photos of Yuni Yoshida over at Colossal.

(Image Credit: Yuni Yoshida/ Colossal)

There’s a new trend going on right now on Easter Island: people make it look like they are picking the noses of the massive moai statues, to the dismay of many. This behavior “has spurred new conversations about how visitors to the island should behave.”

"Because of the ubiquitous nature of photography in our community, people take the same picture repeatedly. Once one person picks a nose of the moai, you can be sure there will be multiple thousands [of photos], because people are lemmings," [archaeologist] Van Tilburg tells CNN Travel.

Two other examples of these "overdone" photos are people who make it look like they're holding the Great Pyramid of Giza in the palm of their hand and travelers making it look as if they're pushing the Leaning Tower of Pisa up to keep it from falling.

"There's nothing creative or interesting or humorous about it. The herd instinct is real."

[...]

And bad behavior is sadly not a new invention. In 2008, a Finnish man who climbed one of the moai and chipped a piece of ear off was arrested, fined $17,000 and ordered to leave the island and never return.

What are your thoughts on this one?

(Image Credit: voltamax/ Pixabay)

It’s already amazing when we successfully teach our dogs something. But it’s even more amazing when that dog passes on his knowledge to another dog. This is what Rufus did to his younger brother Jet.

“Jet — sit!” the woman instructed Jet. Realizing that Jet was being commanded to sit down, Rufus puts his paw on Jet’s back, as if to say “this is how to sit down, little buddy.”

“Isn’t that crazy?” the woman, amazed, told the guy holding the camera.

(Image Credit: The Dodo)

What did Tokyo and Yokosuka look like in the 1970s? To mark the release of his latest book entitled “Tokyo-Yokosuka 1976-1983”, Canadian photographer Greg Girard shares with us a vast collection of unseen images that offer to us a “nostalgic glimpse of the japanese capital before it exploded into the hyper-modern metropolis we know today”.

Using a combination of color and black and white compositions, the photographs perfectly depict the ‘pre-blade runner’ era. Capturing both the people and the urban landscapes of Tokyo and Yokosuka, the series transports viewers back in time – evoking a sense of what it was like to visit, or live in, Japan’s cities during the 70s.

Check out some of the photos over at DesignBoom.

(Image Credit: Greg Girard/ DesignBoom)

We know that there are bird species who fly in formation, such as geese that fly in a V-formation. Birds that fly like this “conserve energy by flying in aerodynamically optimal positions”. But for bird species who do not fly in formation, like pigeons, they spend more energy when in coordinated flight.

The research indicates that flying with another bird requires more energy compared to flying solo. 'The results of this study were completely unexpected. Energy is the currency of life so it's astonishing that the birds are prepared to pay a substantial energetic cost to fly together," said lead-author, Dr Lucy Taylor.

What would be the reason for pigeons to flap faster when flying in groups?

The increase in wingbeat frequency is likely to be related to the demands of coordinating flight. Dr Taylor said: 'Imagine trying to coordinate with and avoid hitting another small object travelling at around 44 miles per hour. This is nearly two times faster than an Olympic sprinter, and the birds can move up and down as well as left and right. For a pigeon, flapping your wings faster will both give you faster reactions and greater control over your movements, and will help keep your head stable making it easier to track where the other bird is.'

(Image Credit: Lucy Taylor)

We wipe it off. We sweep it. We vacuum it. Still, it comes back. But have you ever wondered where they come from? Of course it’s obvious that the dust comes from the outside. It can be from your open windows, or from your shoes, or from your clothes. But did you know that only two-thirds of dust come from the outside? If that is the case, then where does the remaining one-third come from?

It turns out that dust can be generated inside your home as well. And you are also a part of making them.

How does dust affect our health?

Find out in this study over at The Conversation.

(Image Credit: Free-Photos/ Pixabay)

Perhaps one of the worst things that can happen to your birthday is having your cake made wrong. Such is the experience of Harriet’s cousin, Siobhan. 

According to Harriet’s tweet, her cousin told her colleagues that she wanted a Mariah Carey cake, but she got a Marie Curie cake instead. Apparently, Siobhan’s colleagues misheard her. “It's Marie Curie, looking very festive,” Harriet told in her tweet. The said tweet as of this writing got over 45,000 retweets and over 210,000 likes.

The pop star also retweeted the post and said that she could have been the physicist on the cake had she not failed remedial math.

Harriet also posted a picture of her cousin’s reaction to the birthday cake.

(Image Credit: Harriet Alida Lye/ Twitter)

This could've been me if only I hadn't failed remedial math 🤦‍♀️ happy birthday Siobhan!! 😘 https://t.co/Ffz69lTRkc

— Mariah Carey (@MariahCarey) June 15, 2019

Yup. You’ve read it right. Apparently, plants can sneeze, too, through a phenomenon called the flinging effect.

When two water drops unite, surface tension is released and converted into kinetic energy that can hurl the fluid away.

It’s a “surface tension catapult,” says mechanical engineer Jonathan Boreyko of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. 

Like a human’s sneeze, a plant’s sneeze can also spread diseases. This spells danger to healthy plants when sick plants sneeze as they spread pathogens that can cause a destructive disease called leaf rust.

More details of this story at Science News.

(Video Credit: Science News)

This is a nestling of the Cinereous mourner (Laniocera hypopyrra), a bird species widely distributed in Amazonia with a geographically separate population in the central Atlantic forest.

An adult bird of this kind usually weighs from 41 to 51g, and is usually 20-21 cm in length.

It has dark eyes with narrow orange eyering, dark bill, grey legs, rounded head and bill yielding appearance somewhat like that of a dove.

This bird species is usually rare and concealed as it dwells the forest. However, in the fall of 2012, scientists have discovered one of their nests at the Pantiacolla Lodge in the upper Madre de Dios River in southeastern Peru. Upon seeing the nest, they noticed something peculiar about the nestlings.

They observed that upon hatching, the nestlings had downy feathers with long orange barbs with white tips, which was very different from any other nestling they had observed in the area. The peculiar downy feathers attracted their attention, but the nestling behavior provided a more important cue.

While the ornithologists were collecting morphological measurements, the nestling started moving its head very slowly from side to side in a way typical of many hairy caterpillars.

While working in the area, they found poisonous caterpillars of the flannel moths (family Megalopygidae) with similar size and hair coloration as the nestling.

The scientists suggest in their paper that this is an example of Batesian mimicry (a phenomenon in which harmless animals imitate the warning signals of a harmful species; usually common in butterflies) in order to trick its predators that it is a poisonous caterpillar, when in fact it is a harmless bird.

(Video Credit: Dano Grayson/ YouTube)

(Video Credit: MrHawkShadow/ YouTube)

Haughton Louisiana — 43-year old Franklin Welzbacher Jr. unintentionally recorded himself stealing his neighbor’s camera. The neighbor even watched the whole thing unfold in real time, according the Bossier Parish Sheriff’s Office.

According to the sheriff, the camera even showed things inside the culprit’s house.

Sheriff’s spokesman Bill Davis said Tuesday that Welzbacher told deputies he had permission to borrow a paint brush, but had nothing to say when asked about the camera.

See the video of the theft here.

(Image Credit: StockSnap/ Pixabay)

Rich yoghurt, tasty cheese, and a hint of the traditional Japanese amazake — what more could you ask for?

Starbucks Japan announced last week that they “would be mixing Japanese and Western fermented ingredients into a Frappuccino for the first time ever”, and now here it is! The new Lemon Yoghurt Fermentation Frappuccino. Oona McGee of Sora News 24 narrates the experience of their resident taste-tester, Masami.

It looked like a refreshing summertime beverage, but would the yoghurt base make it too heavy for humid days?

Masami took a sip. And then she took another. Rather than getting a mouthful of heavy cream and yoghurt, she was pleasantly surprised to find a complex mix of ingredients and flavours that left her with a light and refreshing aftertaste.

It was so refreshing that Masami believes it would be the perfect tonic for bringing you back to life from a hangover. We don’t usually reach for yoghurt when we’re hung over, but Masami says it was light and gentle on the stomach, and filled with the goodness of potassium, which is beneficial as a hangover remedy.

The said beverage costs ¥630 ($5.20) plus tax, and would only be sold only for tall size for a limited time, from June 19 to July 18.

(Image Credit: SoraNews24)