For couples who plan to be parents, taking care of a baby will be a difficult challenge. Because babies are fragile, we have to be very very careful in handling them, especially when bathing them. Thankfully, we have our grandparents to show us the way.

The best way to learn is from observing, but what if your grandparents don’t have an infant? Give them a cat and let them demonstrate how it’s done.

We’re serious, because this is what a grandpa in Vietnam did to show the world how to bath a baby using a cat.

[...]

The experienced grandpa showed how to ensure the baby gets full support of its head and body when dipping it into the water. After that, he even showed how to clean behind the ears and keeping the water from entering the ‘baby’s’ nose and ears.

He ended the demonstration by showing the best way to wrap the baby in a towel so *they can dry off.

But throughout the demonstration, the star of the show was the cat, which was extremely patient with the grandpa. The cat had no flipping idea what was going on, but it seemed comfortable and even enjoyed the entire experience from the look on its face.

Watch the clip over at Mashable.

Good stuff.

(Image Credit: Vinh Quang Pham/ Mashable)

Japan — On May 26, at about 10 p.m, as a woman walked through a parking lot in a residential area of Kobe’s Higashinada Ward, a man snuck up on her from behind, put her in a standing half-Nelson hold, and then pressed a gun on her back.

Being held at gunpoint is a terrifying experience for many, but not if you have nerves of steel like this 19-year-old woman.

“Give me money,” the man ordered, and while there would have been no shame in speedy compliance, the woman didn’t feel like handing over her wallet just because an armed assailant had gotten the drop on her.

Instead, she asked the man why he needed money, to which he responded “I don’t have any money because of the coronavirus.” But not every reason for a person’s behavior counts as a valid excuse, and so the woman responded with “How about if you earn some money by working?”

It’s a gutsy move to give someone unsolicited life advice when they’ve got a gun aimed at you at point-blank range, but the woman’s words apparently had enough weight to make the man reconsider his methods for obtaining financial means, as he then let go of her and ran off.

The police arrested the man last week, after successfully determining his identity through surveillance camera footage.

Now that’s a badass woman.

(Image Credit: svnash/ Pixabay)

Tracey Collin did not expect to bring her 7-year-old dog Rosie back so soon to the salon. Just the day before, Rosie got treated to a £40 cut and blow dry.

But the following day while Tracey was sat relaxing in the living room, Rosie seized her opportunity to explore the kitchen bin for any leftovers.

It was only when...Tracey spotted her dog "looking like a Smurf" later on and found the discarded ink cartridge on the kitchen floor that she was able to piece together what her bichon frise had been up to.

Upon realizing what had happened, Tracey immediately called her husband Robert to ask him to bring Rosie back to the salon.

The salon welcomed back their regular client and were forced to shave off some of Rosie's fur to remove the blue dye, but her nails retained their new colour for weeks afterwards.

Rosie usually goes to the salon every six weeks.

Tracey, who also has a three-year-old poochon named Honey, says she's now purchased a new bin to stop it ever happening again.

(Image Credit: Kennedy News and Media)

It is normal for sour cream to smell sour because it is, well, sour. But while we humans can handle the smell, it seems that cats, or at least this one, cannot.

(Image Credit: ViralHog/ YouTube)

Surfing online always has its risks, so it’s comforting to know that there are apps that will try to keep you safe as you navigate through the Web. Mozilla has integrated a new security feature in its latest version of Firefox. Called HTTPS-Only Mode, the said feature will “make sure you’re always establishing secure connections to every website that you visit.”

When the new HTTPS-Only Mode is switched on, the browser will automatically connect to the HTTPS version of a page, even if you manually type HTTP in the address bar or click on a legacy HTTP link from search results. Further, Firefox will ask for your permission to load websites that aren’t encrypted via HTTPS in any way.

The browser will Firefox will display an error message that explains the security risks of connecting to a non-HTTPS website before you can click through to load it. In case a page has certain HTTP elements such as images that refuse to load in HTTPS-Only Mode, though, you can temporarily disable the feature by clicking on the lock icon next to the URL in the address bar. To switch the feature on for the first time, you’ll have to go to “Privacy & Security” in Preferences and choose “Enable HTTPS-Only Mode in all windows.”

Good to know!

(Image Credit: Mozilla/ Engadget)

It was about 10:30 PM. Rachel was in the kitchen, and was about to take her dogs for a walk. Her laptop was left charging on a hard table. Suddenly, Rachel heard a loud cackle, and as soon as she heard the sound, she immediately fled into the garden with her dogs. As it turns out, the sound came from the laptop, and as Rachel fled into the garden, she heard the laptop make a sound once again, and saw it catch fire, which immediately spread on the table.

Fortunately, no one was harmed during the accident, but Rachel learned a lesson that night: to not buy cheap electronics online.

"Luckily my two kids were staying at their grandmother's that night but if they'd been in the house at the time the fire would have between them and myself which is absolutely horrible to think about.

"I was told it was the battery of the laptop that was at fault. I'd bought the replacement battery from Amazon through a third-party seller after the original battery died."

Upon hearing this news, the safety charity Electrical Safety First was prompted to warn people about the dangers of buying electrical products online. 

Many others are likely to make similar purchases in the run-up to Christmas, said Lesley Rudd, chief executive of Electrical Safety First.

"We would urge people purchasing electrical products to use the stores of websites of known manufacturers and retailers such as those found on the High Street, rather than resorting to third-party sellers on online marketplaces.

"Our investigations have found some extremely dangerous items for sale on these platforms and sub-standard or counterfeit products are often very difficult to spot to the untrained eye."

Stay safe!

(Image Credit: Pexels/ Pixabay)

I have two theories for this photo. One, the camera experienced the pareidolia effect. Two, there is an unknown entity that blended itself with the curtains. Judging by how the cat doesn’t seem to care about its surroundings, I would say that the first one most likely happened. But what are your thoughts about this one?

Image via Awkward Family Photos

Games are made for different purposes. There are games that were developed to educate people, such as those made for kids. Other games are made to tell a story, like The Last of Us. And then there are games which are designed to make the player angry and frustrated, like Dark Souls. And finally, there are these games that, according to science, may improve your mental health and improve your mood.

The research by the University of Oxford analyzed the effects of playing two popular video games: Nintendo's "Animal Crossing: New Horizons" and Electronic Arts' "Plants vs Zombies: Battle for Neighborville."

It found that time spent playing the games was associated with players reporting that they felt happier.

But the study was limited to those two titles, and researchers did not explicitly conclude that increased play time was what caused participants to experience better mental health.

"Our findings show video games aren't necessarily bad for your health; there are other psychological factors which have a significant effect on a person's well-being," Andrew Przybylski, Director of Research at the Oxford Internet Institute and the study's lead author, said.

"In fact, play can be an activity that relates positively to people's mental health -- and regulating video games could withhold those benefits from players."

Learn more details about this study over at CNN.

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: Nintendo/ YouTube)

If you and your friends want some elbow room for the holidays, then nothing suits your group better than renting a whole ski resort. Not only do you get a big lodge where you can spend some winter nights in, you also get an unlimited amount of snow for snowball fights.

Plus, in some cases, splitting the fee among a group may not cost you much more than a day ticket at a larger mountain. Not every resort offers this option, of course, but select ski areas—usually smaller hills that may close for a day or two during the week anyway—do allow full-resort buyouts for private groups midweek.

Outside Online shares with us their favorite hills for rent. They also inform us of the price range. Check them out over at the site.

(Image Credit: Beaver Mountain/ Outside Online)

Scotts Valley, California — When the police received reports of a suspicious figure standing in a roadway in the mountains north of Santa Cruz, some officers were immediately dispatched to investigate the area. Upon arriving there, the officers encountered a four-foot-tall statue of Bigfoot, up close and personal. The said statue was apparently stolen from the Bigfoot Discovery Museum, which was temporarily closed due to certain circumstances.

“He was a little banged up but will be returned to his rightful place… ,” the Scotts Valley Police Department said in a Facebook post.

The Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office had urged people to keep their eyes peeled for the 4-foot-tall (1.2 meters) wooden statue after it was stolen from outside the tiny museum in nearby Felton on Monday.

I wonder who left the statue there. Who do you think it is?

(Image Credit: Scotts Valley Police Department/ Facebook)

I remember being amazed as a kid when my classmates brought one of these bad boys into the school one day. Back then, I used to wonder what material the slap bracelet was made of. Now, I know the answer. I finally know the secret of the slap bracelet.

(Image Credit: u/craigzerz/ Reddit)

Lightning is the most frequent natural cause of fires. According to the National Fire Protection Association, during 2007-2011, the local fire departments in the United States responded to about 22,600 lightning-caused fires annually. Lightning strikes have also caused many of the bushfires in Australia both last year and this year. With this being the case, scientists wonder: can we tame lightning? Turns out, we might.

A new laser tractor beam technology, described in a paper in the journal Nature Communications, may be the answer.

In a laboratory experiment, the team used a laser beam to trap and heat microparticles of graphene in the air between two metallic plates. This created a heated channel that induced lightning and allowed the electrical discharge to flow towards a pre-defined target.

“The experiment simulated similar atmospheric conditions to those found in real lightning,” says Vladlen Shvedov, co-author of the study from the Australian National University.

“We can imagine a future where this technology may induce electrical discharge from passing lightning, helping to guide it to safe targets and reduce the risk of catastrophic fires.”

More details about this over at Cosmos Magazine.

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: WKIDESIGN/ Pixabay)

We know that there are millions of animal species in the world, and we know that species differ from one another, physiologically and anatomically speaking. With that in mind, it is unsurprising that we observe some species sleeping less, and others sleeping more, than others. But which animals sleep the least, and which animals sleep the most?

Learn the answers over at Discover Magazine.

(Image Credit: Pixabay)

We know from our science classes that the universe is made up of “fundamental” particles, but have you ever wondered what exactly is a particle? When we ask the question “what is a particle?”, the usual answers that we get are “electrons”, “photons”, and “quarks”, which are examples of “fundamental” particles in the universe. But what, exactly, is a particle?

“We basically think of a particle as a pointlike object,” said Mary Gaillard, a particle theorist at the University of California, Berkeley who predicted the masses of two types of quarks in the 1970s. And yet particles have distinct traits, such as charge and mass. How can a dimensionless point bear weight?

“We say they are ‘fundamental,’” said Xiao-Gang Wen, a theoretical physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “But that’s just a [way to say] to students, ‘Don’t ask! I don’t know the answer. It’s fundamental; don’t ask anymore.’”

When Natalie Wolchover has asked some particle physicists about the definition of a particle, the physicists she asked gave “remarkably diverse descriptions”.

They emphasized that their answers don’t conflict so much as capture different facets of the truth. They also described two major research thrusts in fundamental physics today that are pursuing a more satisfying, all-encompassing picture of particles.

“‘What is a particle?’ indeed is a very interesting question,” said Wen. “Nowadays there is progress in this direction. I should not say there’s a unified point of view, but there’s several different points of view, and all look interesting.”

Know more about the different points of view of what a particle is over at Quanta Magazine.

(Image Credit: Pixabay)

Thanks to their fur, camels don’t sweat quickly, and they don’t easily run out of water. This is why these animals last long in the scorching desert. Inspired by this scientific fact, engineer Jeffery Grossman wondered if he could imitate the camel’s sweat glands and the insulating fur. As it turns out, he could, and the result is this new technology which “could be used to keep food and medical supplies chilled without requiring additional energy.”

For the bottom layer of the camel-inspired system, Grossman used hydrogel, a highly absorbent network of polymers that is super-charged with water. As water evaporates from hydrogel, the liquid cools the surface it’s on. The top layer Grossman created was composed of aerogel, a hydrophobic silica structure filled with tiny pores that make the material more than 90 percent air—earning the substance the title of “the world’s lightest solid.” Aerogel acts like the camel’s fur, insulating the hydrogel from warmer ambient temperature and slowing water evaporation for sustained cooling power.

[...]

To measure how the two-layer approach performed, Grossman and his team placed a heat sensor beneath the layers and placed the system in a humidity and temperature-controlled chamber. The sensor monitored the temperature beneath the hydrogel over time as liquid evaporated into the 86-degrees Fahrenheit chamber. The team compared their camel-inspired creation to a single layer of uncovered hydrogel. The two-layer system dropped the temperature near that of the hydrogel alone, but the duel layer kept that cooling power for much longer. Grossman found that the layered materials extended cooling time by 400 percent.

Learn more details about Grossman’s system over at Smithsonian Magazine.

Now that’s literally cool.

(Image Credit: Manuela_Burkhalter/ Pixabay)