The stakes are high on this one.

Frontier Communications, an Internet and phone service provider based in Utah, is calling “all smartphone addicts, social media experts, and tech geeks,” for their “1-Week Flip Phone Challenge”. 

If you’re the person we choose, you’ll be responsible for using a flip phone in place of your smartphone for seven full days (that’s 168 hours!), and we want you to log your experience. We’ll have you track (don’t worry, your info stays safe with us!) how long it takes you to do basic tasks such as texting and checking email, how many times you wish you could Google something, how many hours you slept, how your productivity changed (or didn’t!), and even if you were late to appointments (after all, how does anyone get around without Google Maps?). Was your experience #TheWorstThingEver? Did you find new freedom? Either way, we want to hear about it.

Of course, you won’t have to go in blind for a week. Frontier Communications will give a survival kit to the lucky person. The survival kit consists of a physical map of the person’s city, a pocket phonebook and a notepad, and some audio CDs “to soothe [their] Spotify withdrawals.”

The closing date for entries will be on July 1st, 2019 at 5pm MST.

Will you be the lucky person? Would you survive this challenge?

Participate now in their challenge by registering at their website.

Via USA Today

(Image Credit: Qurren/ Wikimedia Commons)

We already know how much damage our plastic products have inflicted to the environment. It is everywhere - on land, in the air, and even at the bottom of the ocean. We even eat particles of plastic, which is really scary.

Despite knowing all this, organic farmers still rely on plastic. It’s not because they want to. It’s because they have no other choice. So how is plastic related to farming?

Spread over fields with giant rollers and held down with soil, the flat plastic blocks sunlight from hitting the ground and stimulating weed growth. That way, plants like tomatoes, set within a hole punched in the plastic, can grow unimpeded. Although conventional farmers use the material, organic produce farmers rely on it even more since they must avoid chemical weed killers, which are banned in organic farming.

[...]

Many organic farmers would love to find an alternative to plastic, but they say there isn't one at the moment. One conceivable solution, biodegradable plastic, isn't allowed under organic rules in its current form, though some think those rules should be changed. Others worry about the long-term effects of biodegradable plastic on soil health and the environment.

(Image Credit: Lisa Elaine Held/ NPR)

This is real, ladies and gentlemen, and this one really creeps me out as I write this sentence. It is so realistic with its misaligned teeth and its thin beard.

This creepy human mouth-shaped coin purse is designed by Japanese music producer and amateur artist ‘Doooo’ and was released on the first day of June. 

People have been asking the artist about the price of such an unusual coin purse, but he said that his was one of a kind and that he currently doesn’t have plans to commercialize it. Judging by the degree of realism alone, this thing would probably cost an arm and a leg.

All I can say is… Eek! This is next level horror.

人肉小銭入れ作りました pic.twitter.com/k6SIDETWD5

— doooo (@44doooo) June 1, 2019

Via Oddity Central

(Image Credit: doooo/ Twitter)

Turn your Disney or Barbie fantasies into Gothic or Halloween ones. Check out the photos of transformation. Soap Plant Wacko wrote on Facebook:

If you should find a saccharine sweet, plastic doll house at the Goodwill, don't dismiss it. Repaint it as a gothic mansion suitable for dolls or Halloween decor.

In my opinion, the Gothic style made the doll house look expensive with its black-and-gold color scheme. What are your thoughts?

Via BoingBoing

(Image Credit: Soap Plant Wacko/ Facebook)

Six-year old Morey Belanger is Dayton Consolidated School’s first deaf student. In order to make her feel welcome, the school decided that everyone, teachers and students alike, would learn sign language.

Sign language posters now line the walls of hallways, and students have learned how to sign more than 20 words including colors, letters and words related to school.

"Morey — without even knowing it — has taught us so much," said school Principal Kimberly Sampietro. "She has brought a culture to our building that we didn't have before."

[...]

Morey's mom, Shannon Belanger, said her family has been blown away by how supportive the school has been.

"I absolutely feel like it makes her feel welcomed," Belanger said. "I think all the kids feel excited that they know another language and I think they think it's fun."

To celebrate the students' hard work, the school invited a real-life princess who knows sign language to come speak to students this week.

Now that’s love!

(Image Credit: Shannon Belanger)

Broken ovens, dysfunctional washing machines, and wrecked cars. These are what you will see when you go to the Gaewern Slate Mine in Ceredigion, Wales. The story goes that after the cave’s useful resources were extracted between 1812 and 1960, the humans started dumping there things that were useless to them.

"It was dumping on a huge scale," says Robin Friend. He documented the surreal scene while visiting the mine a few years ago, capturing a mountain of metal junk that seemed to be tumbling toward its reflection in the murky water below. "I don't know how long it's been going on," Friend says, "but I looked up one of the license plates, and it was 40 or 50 years old."

Aside from the cave’s story, this photograph that you see above has its own story to tell as well. Find out how Robin took this photo over at Wired.

(Image Credit: Robin Friend)

“We beat the code! We beat the code!”, the man’s children screamed as the door to the safe finally opened.

For 40 years, the humble museum Vermilion Heritage Museum in Alberta, Canada tried everything they can in order to unlock this safe tucked away in their basement. They have hired blacksmiths, contacted the manufacturer, called former employees, and even challenged guests to unlock the safe — to no avail.

Last month, to everyone’s surprise, a man who visited the museum cracked the code on his first try.

Stephen Mills, from Fort McMurray, Alberta, was on a family camping trip with his wife, his two children and his father-in-law.

"We wanted to check out what the community has to offer," said Mills. "The museum was actually closed on the day we were there, but we managed to track down one of the volunteers, Tom Kibblewhite, who opened it for us and showed us around."

After giving the Mills' family a tour of the whole building, the volunteer proceeded to show them the objects in the basement, including the mysterious safe.

It originally had belonged to the town's Brunswick Hotel which opened in the early 1900s, Kibblewhite said. When the hotel shut down, in the late 1970s, the safe was locked -- and so it had remained.

"It was like a time capsule, nobody had any idea of what was in there," Mills said.

Like other visitors, Mills was offered the chance to take a crack at opening it.

So he put his ear up to the safe, "just like you see in the movies," he said, as his two children, aged 4 and 6, stood next to him.

"I looked at the dial and I saw the numbers were running from 0 to 60. So I thought in my head 20-40-60. I did a particular combination which is three on the right, two on the left, and 1 on the right, tried the handle ... and it opened!"

"It was a 100% guess," he said. "I was fully amazed. I stepped back a little bit and thought 'I'm buying a lottery ticket tonight!'"

The contents of the safe proved a little disappointing.

"Unfortunately there wasn't what we thought was there," Mills said. "Some papers, old checks, a waitress' notepad, and a receipt from the hotel, that's it."

What a lucky guy!

(Image Credit: CNN)

The kid even wrote the pros and cons of him being absent. What a very informative letter he wrote.

Sarah Holliday, the boy’s older sister, shared the kid’s letter on Twitter last Tuesday. The tweet became viral immediately, garnering over 920,000 likes and over 200,000 retweets. The responses to her tweet were also gold.

Sarah also posted an update on what happened to her little brother.

“YES. My mom let him stay home. 😂 how could she not?!”

Via The Poke

(Image Credit: @sarahhollidayyy/ Twitter)

California police warn everyone to keep their car doors locked as a bear welcomed himself in one unlocked car near Lake Tahoe and destroyed the vehicle’s interior.

According to the Placer County Sheriff’s Office, the bear could not go out as easily as it could have gone in. It was trapped inside.

According to Sgt. Dave Hunt, they could not open the vehicle from the outside as the bear apparently locked the doors somehow and broke the handles off.

While trapped inside, the bear apparently ripped the seats apart, tore open the glove compartment and pulled down part of the ceiling. The animal also urinated, defecated and spit all over the destroyed interior, police said. The department called the vehicle “a total loss.”

Police were eventually able to open the rear hatch to let the bear escape, FOX40 reported.

Poor car owners.

(Image Credit: Placer County Sheriff's Office)

Discovered at Stillfried an der March in Austria, an old Bronze Age site, were these strange cereal rings. Led by Andreas G. Heiss along with his colleagues from Austrian Archaeological Institute (ÖAW-ÖAI), the analysis confirmed that these ring-shaped objects were created from dough derived from barley and wheat. 

The researchers were able to determine that the dough was made from fine-quality flour and then most likely shaped from wet cereal mixture and dried without baking. This time-consuming preparation process differs from other foods known from the site, leading the study’s authors to suggest that these cereal rings may not have been made for eating.

If they were not made for eating, then what were they made for?

Read more details about this discovery at Geek.com.

(Image Credit: ÖAW-OREA / B. Biederer)

It was a swarm of ladybugs, and it was a massive one.

According to meteorologist Joe Dandrea, the ladybug bloom appeared to be about 80 miles by 80 miles. However, the ladybugs are not in a concentrated mass; they are spread out and fly from altitudes between 5,000 to 9,000 feet. The most concentrated mass appears to be 10 miles wide.

After seeing it on the radar, Dandrea called a spotter near Wrightwood in the San Bernardino Mountains to ask what they were seeing.

“I don’t think they’re dense like a cloud,” Dandrea said. “The observer there said you could see little specks flying by.”

It wasn’t immediately known what type of ladybugs were causing the phenomenon.

But at least it wasn’t locusts.

Via APNews

(Image Credit: AP Photo/ Seth Perlman)

For his latest project entitled “Inimical Nostalgia”, Jordanian architect and artist Wasim Zaid used an unthinkable material for his masterpiece: cotton candy. With this type of material, Wasim can easily carve what he wants using his hands as the cotton candy is soft enough. What’s his reason for choosing such a material?

The concept behind the work seeks to convey how our sweet, yet rose-tinted view of the past hinders the progress of society in present day.

By using cotton candy, Zaid gives the work a sense of impermanence. Referencing sculptures from ancient civilizations, the features of the face can be effortlessly pulled apart in an effort to convey how our reverence for the past is based on a mere notion (that can also be pulled apart) and can end up becoming a hindrance to development. In essence, by using the sugary substance in this form, the project aims to reveal the necessity of having a complex cultural relationship with the past, in order to benefit from it in a constructive way.

(Image Credit: Wasim Zaid)

Tacos have become so essential that Taco Bell running out of taco shells would be considered a state of emergency, at least for this guy. 

Slidell Police Department posted via Facebook on Monday that someone called them to complain that the Taco Bell on Gause Boulevard ran out of soft and hard taco shells. “While this is truly a travesty, the police can’t do anything about this,” wrote the Department. “Hopefully, they are replenished in time for Taco Tuesday!” assured Slidell Police Department.

(Image Credit: hayme100/ Pixabay)

Fifty thousand. Fifty. Thousand.

That’s the amount of microplastic particles the average person is estimated to ingests annually, while children on average eat 40,000 microplastic particles. Plus, we are likely to breathe in the similar quantities of plastic.

If that seems high, fifty thousand microplastic particles is actually the lower estimate. The actual amount is presumed to be many times higher, as scientists only analyzed a small portion of food and beverage for plastic contaimination.

But I guess this finding is not that surprising, considering that we are already aware that plastics are everywhere, be it on land or sea.

The scientists reported that drinking a lot of bottled water drastically increased the particles consumed.

The health impacts of ingesting microplastic are unknown, but they could release toxic substances. Some pieces are small enough to penetrate human tissues, where they could trigger immune reactions.

Microplastic pollution is mostly created by the disintegration of plastic litter and appears to be ubiquitous across the planet. Researchers find microplastics everywhere they look; in the air, soil, rivers and the deepest oceans around the world.

They have been detected in tap and bottled water, seafood and beer. They were also found in human stool samples for the first time in October, confirming that people ingest the particles.

The new research, published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, took the data from 26 previous studies that measure the amounts of microplastic particles in fish, shellfish, sugar, salt, beer and water, as well as in the air in cities.

More details about this revelation at The Guardian.

(Image Credit: Paulo Oliveira/Alamy)

We humans always want to make our lives easier and more comfortable. Every day, new studies are conducted, and new things are invented. Technology and our thirst for knowledge have brought us up to this day, albeit at an expensive price: Mother Nature. Moment by moment, the Earth’s resources get depleted, and it gets depleted fast. The Earth’s atmosphere is getting warmer due to climate change, and more and more animal species become extinct by the hour.

One of the animals deeply affected by climate change is the turtle. Their appearance might not show it, but turtles are ecological movers and they do lots of things for ecosystems that they belong to. Fortunately, there are people concerned enough to go to their rescue. John Rucker is one of these people: he finds turtles and preserves turtles with his trained dogs. (Counting the number of turtles is important; this helps the conservationists manage the land better.)

It's a cool spring morning on a 40-acre nature preserve owned by Bur Oak Land Trust in eastern Iowa. John Rucker is scouring a shady hillside with his four Boykin spaniels, looking for turtles.

"Find turtle, find turtle," Rucker calls to his dogs. Turning to a reporter, he says: "Did I tell you I'm the only person in the world that does this?"

In fact, there are a number of conservationists and their canine companions doing similar work (though Rucker may be one of the few who live out of tents and vans while working).

When he's not living off the grid in rural Montana, Rucker travels the country with his specially trained hunting dogs, helping scientists and conservationists find turtles.

The dogs working with Rucker are Rooster, Jenny Wren, Jaybird and Mink.

Rucker and his "super dogs," as he calls them, make their way through the undergrowth, checking in brush piles and under old logs. When the dogs find a turtle, they'll gently pick it up with their mouth and bring it back to Rucker.

"You will notice that as soon as they strike a scent trail their tails will start wagging furiously, and then their whole demeanor becomes extremely excitable," Rucker explains.

…

"It's sort of like a religion for me," Felder says. "Nature is important and somebody has to defend it, protect it, preserve it."

(Image Credit: Kate Payne/ IPR)