Located on the bank of the Sava River near Trbovlje, Slovenia, is the Trbovlje Power Station, where the tallest chimney in Europe stands. The said chimney soars 360 meters into the sky. Mere humans would not dare climb this thing, but for Janja Garnbret and Domen Škofic, this is a chance of a lifetime.

In October 2020, Janja Garnbret and Domen Škofic became the first people to free climb the chimney's new route which is now the tallest artificial multi-pitch route in the world.

The pair, who had just a rope to catch them if they fell, were successful on their second attempt after over seven hours of climbing.

"It's definitely the most special thing I've done in my climbing career. It is climbing, but it's a combination of just about everything I experienced before, just combined in one thing," Škofic told CNN Sport.

[...]

Despite their expertize, the challenge was still way out of their comfort zone, with both more accustomed to indoor climbing where the wall is usually no more than 30 meters high.

Now this is epic.

(Image Credit: Red Bull Media House/ CNN)

On January 29 of this year, the people of Texas received a bizarre Amber Alert. The alert named the killer doll Chucky (from the horror film Child’s Play) as the suspect for the kidnapping of his 5-year-old son, Glen Ray (who was featured in the 2004 film Seed of Chucky).

The emergency alert described Chucky as a 3-foot, 1-inch-tall (0.9-meter-tall) doll wearing “blue denim overalls with multi-colored striped long sleeve shirt wielding a huge kitchen knife.”

The alert was mistakenly sent out three times last week to Amber Alert subscribers. The agency said it was a test malfunction.

Would you rescue Glen from the hands of Chucky?

(Image Credit: Texas Department of Public Safety/The San Antonio Express-News via AP)

It was around the turn of the 6th century B.C. when the first Greek philosopher, Thales of Miletus, concluded that, based on his observation, “all is water.” However, his pupil, Anaximander, argued that Thales was wrong, and that everything came from the apeiron (“the indefinite”). And then there was Thales’s other pupil, Anaximenes, who argued that air is the source of all things. By today’s standards,

These ideas seem fantastic, but in them the scientific mind is taking root. They’re arguably the first competing hypotheses, marking “a shift away from mythological explanations,” says Brian Hepburn, a philosopher of science at Wichita State University. Setting aside gods and supernatural forces, these philosophers instead base their understanding of nature on observation. In other words, they employ a rudimentary form of what we now call scientific method. 

Thales and his disciples influenced Aristotle, who in turn deeply influenced every prominent Western philosopher for the next two and a half millennia — that includes Francis Bacon, who repackaged scientific method for the modern age and set the agenda for the Scientific Revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries.

Since then, science has earned its place among the most fruitful human enterprises. Not only is it “the most robust and rigorous tradition we have of applying scrutiny to stories about the world,” Hepburn says, but it also “allows you to do things like build an Internet or a GPS satellite, or send a rocket to the moon.” And, as the cosmologist Hermann Bondi put it, “There is no more to science than its method.” 

Discover Magazine tells us a brief history of how the scientific method evolved through the centuries. Head over at the site to know more.

(Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Just when you thought food delivery services are now at their peak, it would seem that they still can go even further beyond.

In order to deliver food to hungry fishermen, this Thai Foodpanda rider decided to do the unthinkable: to get in a boat and row towards them. The whole event was posted on Facebook by a user named Pradit Saengdee.

The photos have since gone viral, turning foodpanda rider Tanyapisit Eiamkitjakarn into an overnight celebrity of sorts.

The post was accompanied by a caption that read, "foodpanda now has marine delivery services." And by the looks of it, they do.

"Props to the foodpanda of Chachoengsao. Riding a motorbike is outdated. Let’s paddle a boat," said Saengdee. “This is the new frontier for food delivery."

And according to Eiamkitjakarn, he knew the fishermen personally. So delivering their food wasn't such a difficult task to undertake.

Now that’s what we call extraordinary service.

(Image Credit: Pradit Saendee/ Facebook)

In the event that a sudden tragedy happens inside a room of six exits, the most logical course of action is for the crowd to divide themselves into the number of exits. That way, people can get out of the room safely. But in reality, that is not what happens. Instead, all of the people panic and try to go out in one exit, and the result is a stampede. This happens because we’ve developed a tendency to clump together when we find ourselves in a dangerous situation.

There are many advantages to that… from defense (it’s easier for a group to fight off a threat) to safety in numbers (people can hide in a crowd). When humans moved to agrarian and urban lifestyles, our dangers changed—but our responses didn’t, says Randolph Nesse, a professor of psychiatry at Arizona State University who studies the evolutionary reasons behind anxiety. “We continue to be afraid of things that were dangerous to our ancestors,” Nesse says. When we panic, ancient instincts kick in.

Is there a way to somehow solve this problem of ours? Hopefully, there is, and it seems that the solution is found in the humble creatures that we see in our homes: the ants.

More details about this over at Nautilus.

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: monsterpong09/ Pixabay)

We humans love snowfall and winter storms because of the “cool” and fun stuff we can do outdoors, like sledding, snowball fights, and snow angels. Animals love snowfall, too, and for similar reasons.

The National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute has recently released pictures and videos of zoo animals enjoying the snow, which include the two giant pandas Mei Xiang and Tian Tian. See the pictures and the videos over at Smithsonian Magazine.

Cute!

(Image Credit: The National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute/ Smithsonian Magazine)

When it comes to opening a window, the main dilemma is whether to trade your peace and quiet for some fresh air. Sure, your room gets ventilated, but in exchange it gets noisier because of the sounds outside. Scientists at the National University of Singapore come to address this problem with their Acoustic Friendly Ventilation Window (AFVW). The said window is claimed to “bring in more fresh air than a conventional open window, while still keeping out unwanted sounds.”

There are two horizontal louvered vents built into the assembly, one above the actual glass window itself, and one below it. The bottom vent is open to the outdoors, while the top vent opens into the room. An electric ventilation unit (basically a cylindrical fan) in the lower vent draws fresh air in from outside, pushing it up through the air gap between the panes, and out of the top vent into the building.

Along its way through the window, the air passes through a dust filter that removes pollutants. Additionally, sound-absorbing material located along either side of the air gap limits the amount of noise that makes its way in from outside. As a result, the setup is claimed to provide four times better ventilation than a conventional open window of a similar size, while also providing a fourfold reduction in the perception of outdoor ambient noise.

There's no word on the ventilation unit's power consumption, although it would be lower than that of an air conditioner, and likely similar to that of a standalone fan within the room.

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: National University of Singapore/ New Atlas)

Found in the middle of Germany’s capital city is a former animal research facility known as the “Mouse Bunker”. Why does it have such a name, you ask? The answer is because the place was brimming with mice. It is said that at some point, the facility has housed over 45,000 mice and 20,000 rats, as well as other rodents.

Officially the Central Animal Laboratory of the Free University of Berlin, the Mäusebunker was completed in 1981 as part of the Institute for Hygiene and Microbiology. It’s connected to the latter via an underground tunnel. The sinister-looking building was designed by the husband-and-wife duo of Gerd and Magdalena Hänska. Construction of the bunker began in 1971, and would have been completed at least three years earlier if cost had not gone spiraling out of control.

The Mäusebunker was built to look like a fortress, although it is more often compared to a warship because of its inclined walls and blue-painted ventilation shafts that protrude from the sides like cannon barrels...

The use of the building is just as uncanny as the threatening appearance of the building: The mouse bunker was built by the Free University to carry out scientific experiments with live animals and to breed the animals required for this on site. For safety reasons, the animal testing laboratories are located deep in the building and are ventilated with cannon-like air intake pipes.

Despite the Mouse Bunker’s closure in 2010, the building still stands tall in Berlin to this day, thanks to the efforts of some residents, architects, and other activists, who launched a campaign and successfully stalled its demolition.

The building will now be reviewed to explore reuse options.

With its cannon-like ventilation shafts, it certainly does look more like a battleship than a fortress.

Well, what do you think?

(Image Credit: Gunnar Klack/ Wikimedia Commons)

Everything changes over time. Whether something is natural or artificial, it will meet change somewhere along the way.

Ever since its first appearance in 1935, beer cans have, like other man-made stuff, undergone some change over time. If you’re interested in seeing how beer cans evolved, then you’ll be delighted to know that there is a person who has collected over 4,500 antique beer cans since 1993 — David Maxwell.

[Maxwell has] compiled a handy field-identification guide meant to assist researchers in pinpointing “changes in major and minor design features [in beer cans]…to yield age estimates accurate to within five years of production.”

The archeological study of beer cans is a small niche within the field of “tin can archeology.” For archeologists, the value of tin cans comes from one key feature: disposability. According to archeologist Jane Busch, “Immediate disposal makes the…can a valuable dating tool for archaeologists,” since “there are few uses for an open tomato can once the tomatoes are gone.” Even though beer cans are relatively modern compared to something like a Civil War–era metal milk can, Busch argues, “The historical archaeologist who ignores the beer can at his site is like the prehistoric archaeologist who ignores historic pottery.”

Know more about how beer cans changed over time, over at JSTOR Daily.

(Image Credit: Visitor7/ Wikimedia Commons)

The search for eco-friendly materials, which we can use to build eco-friendly stuff, goes on as we try to solve the problem of climate change, and it seems that mushrooms are going to be of great help in our quest.

Mushrooms are helping architects and engineers solve one the world’s biggest crises: climate change. These fungi are durable, biodegradable, and are proving to be a good alternative to more polluting materials.

Materials made with mycelium, the fungal network from which mushrooms grow, might be able to help turn that around. They produce far less planet-heating carbon dioxide than traditional materials like cement. An added bonus is that mushrooms are biodegradable, so they leave behind less harmful waste than traditional building materials. Mushrooms can even help with clean-up efforts, feeding off things that might have otherwise ended up in a landfill, like sawdust or agricultural waste.

While materials made from mushrooms are still in the early stages of development, they’re already showing some promise as an insulation material and as an alternative to concrete blocks. And how do they perform? The Verge documents it in this video.

(Image Credit: The Verge/ YouTube)

In 1902, Greek archaeologist Valerios Stais revealed his findings about an object found in a shipwreck off the coast of Greece near Antikythera. Seeing a gear embedded in the strange object, Stais deduced that the object in question was an astronomy-based clock.

He was in the minority—most agreed that something so sophisticated must have entered the wreck long after its other 2,000-year-old artifacts. Nothing like it was believed to have existed until 1,500 years later.

It turns out, however, that Stais’s insight about the object was correct. The object, which we now call “Antikythera mechanism", is in fact, an astronomy-based clock.

In 1951, British historian Derek J. de Solla Price began studying the find, and by 1974 he had worked out that it was, in fact, a device from 150 to 100 BC Greece. He realized it used meshing bronze gears connected to a crank to move hands on the device's face in accordance with the Metonic cycle, the 235-month pattern that ancient astronomers used to predict eclipses.

By 2009, modern imaging technology had identified all 30 of the Antikythera mechanism's gears, and a virtual model of it was released.

Understanding how the pieces fit goes together confirmed that the Antikythera mechanism was capable of predicting the positions of the planets with which the Greeks were familiar—Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn—as well as the sun and moon, and eclipses. It even has a black and white stone that turns to show the phases of the moon. Andrew Carol, an engineer from Apple, built a (much bigger) working model of the device using Legos to demonstrate its operation.

Learn more about this fascinating device over at Big Think.

(Image Credit: Marsyas/ Wikimedia Commons)

Vox populi. The voice of the people, or at least the majority of people. I believe that it is a phrase that exists for a reason, as the voice of people can do many things. It can establish and overthrow rulers. It can also reshape society through change and revolution. Time and time again, the voice of the people has proved itself to be a powerful force, and it seems that it has displayed its power once again, and this time, you can hear it in the meme world and the cryptocurrency market, specifically, in Dogecoin — a cryptocurrency inspired by a meme.

One of the most difficult problems in finance right now is figuring out the fundamental economic value of cryptocurrencies. And the past week has complicated this further.

For many cryptocurrency investors, the value of Bitcoin is based on the fact it is artificially scarce. A hard cap on “minting” new coins means there will only ever be 21 million Bitcoin in existence. And unlike national currencies such as the Australian dollar, the rate of release for new Bitcoin is slowing down over time.

Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency that takes its name and logo from a Shiba Inu meme that was popular several years ago, doesn’t have a cap. Launched in 2013, there are now 100 billion Dogecoin in existence, with as many as five billion new coins minted each year.

But how can a currency with a seemingly unlimited supply have any value at all? And why did Dogecoin’s price suddenly surge more than 800% in 24 hours on January 29?

At the time of publication, the “memecoin” was worth about A$5.6 billion on the stock market.

If there’s one thing that this sudden phenomenon teaches us, it is this: “memes move markets.”

More about this over at The Conversation.

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: ARTIST Ryzhi/ Wikimedia Commons)

One glance at a couple’s bed and you’ll know immediately who lies down on which side. How? Easy. Just look at which side is clean and organized, and which is dirty. The former belongs to the woman, and the latter belongs to the man. Of course, this is not to generalize that men don’t organize their stuff, as there are some who do, but this is the case most of the time. And men’s side of the bed have lots of things in common, like the weapon (a knife, a baseball bat, or a gun), a water bottle, charging cables, and some gadgets.

Bored Panda has compiled various tweets of women comparing their side of the bed to their respective partners. Check out the photos over at the site.

(Image Credit: Bored Panda)

You know that someone really loves what he’s doing when he braves even a winter storm, in a rather thin costume, just to show the world what he’s passionate about. New York cosplayer CosPlayNay donned his Frozone costume as he headed out to face the snow and the gusty winds in the city.

CosPlayNay had also found himself sliding down a snowy hill on the superhero's iconic snowboard later that day. The kids who had brought their sleds for some winter fun quickly noticed CosPlayNay as Frozone and were ecstatic to see him.

"[They called me] Hey Iceman! Hey Mr. Freeze! Hey Frozone! You're that guy from the cartoon!" CosPlayNay told Cosplay Central. "They kept asking 'Hey Frozone are you cold?!' and I responded with 'I'm never cold, just cool.'"

When asked why he wanted to cosplay as Frozone, CosPlayNay explained that he felt like he connected to the character.

"Aside from my love for The Incredibles, I strongly feel more black super heroes need to be recognized, acknowledged and shown on the silver screen," CosPlayNay told Cosplay Central. "Frozone is one of the coolest characters (no pun intended. He's tall, dark, average build, funny, witty, stylish, loves the kids, loves the people and overall a character/person a lot of people can genuinely relate."

Now this is dedication!

(Image Credit: CosPlayNay/ Twitter)

You speak in acronyms! You speak in acronyms! You speak in acronyms! Everybody speaks in acronyms!

Does your boss or your co-workers use acronyms inside the office? If yes, how often do they do it, and how many acronyms do you know?

(Image Credit: Viva La Dirt League/ YouTube)