Since we ditched the old shorter vats of breweries in favor of the new cylindrical fermentation tanks (which are taller, produce more beer, and are easier to clean), the quality of the beer we drink has reduced in terms of its taste. This reduced quality is caused by excess pressure from the carbon dioxide produced during fermentation. But it turns out we can make beer taste great again (or, at least, better), made possible through gene editing.

Researchers were able to identify in a "specific yeast strain" a single mutation in a gene, which was the source of the banana-like flavor and responsible for the pressure tolerance. Engineering the same mutation in other yeast strains resulted in said strains to better withstand carbon dioxide pressure.

Other strains could also be modified, it seems, and this could lead to better-tasting beers in the near future.

The authors' study is backed by a brewing company who wish to patent the use of the technology.

(Image Credit: aiacPL/ Pixabay)

This is what bacteria, or at least the bacterium Bacillus subtilis, do to handle difficult (and most likely life-threatening) situations. They crouch, make a shell around their DNA, and then shut down all signs of life. Talk about playing dead but taking it to the next level.

Gürol Süel, a microbiologist at the University of California, San Diego, remarks that these bacteria "appear to have literally no measurable biological activity."

But the thing is, bacteria can resurrect themselves back to life. The question is: how?

Süel's team have found the secret behind how bacteria bring themselves back to life: potassium atoms. The team hypothesized that since the bacteria's cores contained positively charged potassium atoms, which can move freely without energy usage from the cell, these said atoms could be the key. And they were correct in their theory.

As they exposed B. subtilis spores to nutrients and tracked the movement of potassium, they found that more potassium left the core with each exposure, and germination was triggered. Those with restricted potassium movement were also less likely to come back to life, no matter the amount of nutrients.

This information could lead to a method capable of bringing bacteria back to life to kill them once and for all.

(Image Credit: K. Kikuchi and Leticia Galera/ Suel Lab)

The Chicxulub impactor, the 6-mile (10-kilometer) wide asteroid, seems to have done more than wiping out 75% of the Earth's plant and animal species 66 million years ago. It may also have shaken our planet... literally. Research conducted by geologist Hermann Bermúdez seems to suggest this.

In 2014, while on Gorgonilla Island, Colombia, Bermúdez found layers of sediment containing deposits of spherules (small glass beads no larger than a grain of sand) as well as tiny shards known as "tektites" and "microtektites." Said substances are formed when heat and pressure from a massive impact melt and scatter material from the Earth's crust and shoot them into the atmosphere. These materials then fall back on Earth as glass beads.

The spherules, tektites, and exposed rocks on the island's coast reveal how the asteroid's impact affected the seafloor 66 million years ago — it deformed layers of mud and sandstone as much as 33 to 50 feet (about 10 to 15 meters).

Aside from the evidence on the island, Bermúdez also found evidence of liquefaction at the El Papalote exposure in Mexico. Liquefaction occurs when strong shaking causes water-saturated sediments to flow like a liquid. This establishes that some strong shaking did occur.

Now, if it was true that the asteroid triggered a "mega-earthquake," how strong would that have been? It is said that it might have released energy equivalent to 10^23 joules, which is about 50,000 times more than the magnitude 9.1 Sumatra earthquake in 2004.

(Image Credit: NASA/ Wikimedia Commons)

NASA's Curiosity and Perseverance rovers do not have to worry about the Martian dust storm affecting their energy levels, as the two rovers are nuclear-powered. However, the same cannot be said for the InSight lander, as it is solar-powered. Now, because of the continent-size dust storm looming over the red planet's Southern Hemisphere, the poor lander is having a difficult time gathering energy.

As the storm increased the dusty haze in the Martian atmosphere, less sunlight reached the InSight's solar panels, and the landers energy fell significantly from 425 watt-hours per sol (a term for a day in Mars), to only 275.

It was decided that the lander turn off its seismometer for the next two weeks to conserve power.

Chuck Scott, InSight's project manager, describes that they are now "on the ground floor" in the power situation. "If we can ride this out, we can keep operating into winter — but I'd worry about the next storm that comes along," he continues.

While common on Mars at all times of the Martian year, more and bigger dust storms occur during northern fall and winter. And while winds blow up to 60 mph (about 97 kph), storms on Mars are not that strong (compared to Earth) due to the planet's thin air.

(Image Credit: NASA/ JPL-Caltech)

(Image Credit: NASA/ JPL-Caltech/ MSSS)

French navy officer Jérôme Chardon knew how dangerous it is to travel between New Zealand and Alaska. An individual who dares to do that has to face ferocious storms formed in the Pacific Ocean. And so he was surprised to hear on the radio a story of a bar-tailed godwit doing just that — migrating successfully between the two places — and being unscathed at the end of its 14,000-kilometer journey. “Can learning how these birds navigate help coastal communities to avoid disaster?” he thought to himself.

Last January, a team from France’s National Museum of Natural History decided to test Chardon’s idea, five years after he thought of it.

Researchers with the new Kivi Kuaka project, led by Frédéric Jiguet, an ornithologist at NMNH, equipped 56 birds of five species with cutting-edge animal tracking technology. The French navy ferried the team to remote atolls and islands in French Polynesia, where the scientists attached tags using ICARUS tracking technology. These tags transmit the birds’ locations to the International Space Station, which bounces the data back to scientists on Earth who can then follow the birds as they forage, migrate, and rest—all the while waiting to see how the birds respond to natural disasters.

The Kivi Kuaka project is focusing on birds’ ability to hear infrasound, the low-frequency sound inaudible to humans ­that the researchers believe is the most likely signal birds would use to sense storms and tsunamis. Infrasound has myriad sources, from lightning strikes and jet engines to the songlike vocalizations of rhinoceroses. Even the Earth itself generates a continuous infrasonic hum. Though rarely measured, it is known that tsunamis generate infrasound, too, and that these sound waves travel faster than the tsunami wave, offering a potential window to detect a tsunami before it hits.

If ever we do learn more about the birds’ ability to hear these sounds inaudible to humans, and how they respond to such sounds, then it would greatly help us indeed.

More about this over at Smithsonian Magazine.

(Image Credit: Frédéric Jiguet / MNHN-Kivi Kuaka)

2D Beat ‘Em Up games have become less popular. Over the years, the genre has been overshadowed by hack and slash games. But it seems that we’re going to see a rebirth of the beat em up genre. This new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game, Shredder’s Revenge, is set to release some time next year, and it looks and feels like it came from the 90s, but much cleaner.

Check out the trailer!

(Image Credit: IGN via YouTube)

When Reddit user Beefball1010 asked people on Reddit about facts they know that could make another person ask them “why do you know that?”, he was not expecting his post to blow up. A mere 3 days have passed, and the post already has over 34,000 upvotes. But of course, it is not the upvotes that make Beefball1010’s post intriguing — it is the answers. Some answers are straight-up horrifying, while others are just plain weird. But there are interesting ones, too!

Bored Panda has collected 40 of these comments. Here are some of them.

You can also go over at the original Reddit thread, too, if you like.

(Image Credit: Bored Panda)

Non-line-of-sight, or NLOS imaging, is a technique that allows a device (such as a camera) to see objects that are not visible to its line of sight. This is made possible through the use of light pulses, which will bounce off from surfaces, and then go back to the camera’s sources. Algorithms will then analyze the length of time it took these reflections to go back to the camera, and then proceed to create an image based on the information.

Scientists have been refining this technique over the years, but it had one weakness: it needed large reflective surfaces. However, researchers at the Stanford Computational Imaging Lab, may have overcome this weakness with their keyhole imaging technique. The results are worse than previous NLOS techniques, though, but the images generated are still enough in order for a person to make an educated guess on what the object is.

The research could one day provide a way for police or the military to assess the risks of entering a room before actually breaking down the door and storming their way inside, using nothing but a small crack in the wall or a gap around a window or doorway. The new technique could also provide new techniques for autonomous navigation systems to spot hidden hazards long before they become a threat in situations where the previous NLOS techniques weren’t practical given the environment.

(Image Credit: Stanford Computational Engineering Lab)

Back during the Tokugawa Shogunate, when Edo (now Tokyo) became the most populous place on Earth (with about 1 million people), the demae (which means “delivery men”) — men of great strength, flexibility, and endurance — roamed the streets of the city. On their shoulders were dozens of hot meals which they would have to deliver to the hungry people of Edo before the meals got cold.

“Basically, you had a lot of urban density and an extremely developed capitalist economy,” says Nick Kapur, an associate professor of history of Japan and East Asia and the author of Japan at the Crossroads: Conflict and Compromise After Anpo. “People had commutes, much like today. They would walk across the city, so they didn’t have time to go back for lunch. A whole restaurant industry evolved to serve these workers.”

Cheap, filling, and nutritious, soba and udon noodles were the preferred foodstuff of the proletariat. A skilled demae could carry dozens of packed soba lunches at once. “Bicycles hadn’t been invented yet, so they would carry these soba trays and bowls in baskets that were hanging down from a pole that they would carry on their shoulders,” Kapur says. “These guys were fast. They would jog through the streets to get the food where it was going while it was still hot.”

When bicycles came into the picture, the demae industry was revolutionized. No longer did the men have to jog. However, because the city was thriving more than ever at that time, there was also more demand for hot noodles.

“You want the noodles to still be hot when you arrive, so speed is of the essence,” says Kapur. “In a lot of cases, they would be carrying lunch to one entire company, so that’s why they’re carrying maybe 20 or 30 portions together.”

In the 1950s, however, automobiles became popular in Japan, and the roads became less friendly toward the demae. Accidents frequently happened with the delivery men. And, in 1961, the government finally intervened by officially banning the use of delivery bikes in the streets of Tokyo. However, the demae carried on with their business, and the police did very little to stop them, as the latter stated that the former “will lose half of their customers” if they became stricter.

Learn more about the story of these legendary men over at Atlas Obscura.

(Image Credit: RIDER GVNG via YouTube)

Have you ever wondered about how film studios make a blockbuster movie trailer? Turns out, there is a secret formula for it, and it seems that most trailers today use the same formula. So if you want to make a fantastic movie trailer, just follow this formula, too!

Auralnauts breaks down for us the elements of a blockbuster movie trailer here in this video.

(Image Credit: Auralnauts via YouTube)

To clarify, it is an imaginable scenario, if the cat was heavier, but the cat in question is still a 6-pound kitten.

Taylor Nelson was in a Zoom meeting when she suddenly heard a commotion in her apartment. As her cat Spike was sleeping near her, she figured out that it was her kitten, Faye. But Nelson tried her best to focus on the meeting and let her kitten be; Faye was “pretty much always zooming around” in her home, after all. But when she heard a huge crash from her bedroom, Taylor knew that it was time to investigate what happened, and she immediately left the meeting.

Nelson figured Faye had knocked some plants off the windowsill, something she and her brother both do a lot, so much so that Nelson has taken to keeping extra terra-cotta pots in the basement just in case. When she walked into the bedroom, though, she was shocked. It was so much more than just a few plants.

“She did, in fact, knock over a couple of plants like I assumed, but she also somehow knocked over a 30-inch TV and a humidifier along with the plants,” Nelson said. “It was like a perfect disaster sandwich, with the plants broken on the bottom, the TV face down on top of the plants and then the humidifier spilled over. This was also all on my rug, so the water from the humidifier made a nice muddy mess under the plants and TV.”

Within seconds, the bedroom had gone from peacefully put together to total disaster zone — and it was all thanks to the tiniest little offender.

“When I walked into the bedroom and saw the chaos, I wouldn’t have believed it was caused by this little 6-pound kitten if it wasn’t for her staring me down from under the bed right beside the mess,” Nelson said.

What a troublesome little kitten.

(Image Credit: Taylor Nelson via The Dodo)

This is the Zero Emissions Utility Vehicle, or ZUV for short. It is an electric vehicle designed by the Viennese social enterprise EOOS Next, in collaboration with The New Raw. With it being an electric vehicle, and with its 3D printed chassis made from 70 kg of recycled plastic, the ZUV is very eco-friendly. But that’s not all, as it is also family-friendly.

ZUV seats two passengers at the back while the box at the front can either hold two small children or cargo. to reduce complexity and cost, the vehicle has no pedals and it’s driven by a rear hub motor. the two front wheels provide steering. ZUV has a top speed of 25 km/h in urban areas, classifying the vehicle as a bicycle, and can travel 50 km on a single battery charge. in total, ZUV weighs approximately 100 kg and can carry a payload of 200kg.

For some reason, the ZUV looks like a vintage vehicle, yet at the same time it looks modern. I’m confused. But one thing’s for sure: it looks gorgeous.

(Image Credit: Studio Theresa Bentz via DesignBoom)

Jean Jullien is known for his installations which feature cartoonish characters. Now, he has collaborated with surfboard manufacturer Fernand to create cartoonish surfboards. The four characters, which feature two grinning fish, a whale, and a seal, are all hand-drawn by Jullien on the foam boards. The boards are then glazed by Resin League, and then polished by Paul Hyde.

The playful and innocent designs on these surfboards seem to contrast with the “coolness” we generally associate with surfing, which is refreshing and perhaps encourages us all to take ourselves a little less seriously.

Jullien has also designed some tiny – yet very cool indeed – surfer dudes which have been embroidered upon sweatshirts and a T-shirt, which come in soothing ocean tones of deep blue, khaki and black.

Cute!

(Image Credit: Julien Binet/ Jean Jullien via Colossal)

Twenty years ago, YouTuber Studson Studio began his model-making journey through plastic Gundam kits. Now, he has become a full-fledged miniature model maker, and he has challenged himself to create models from Studio Ghibli films, such as Howl’s Moving Castle, the bathhouse from Spirited Away, and the house from Kiki’s Delivery Service. While at times, he deviates from the original design, the final result is still very much faithful to its source material. What’s even more impressive is that Studson Studio’s creations are made from trash.

Studson Studio’s videos range anywhere from 10 minutes to 50 minutes as the model-maker takes viewers through the entire process of creating his miniatures. Each video is a joy to watch because of the creator’s witty sense of humor, [emphasis] on each individual piece of trash used, and superb editing skills which help tie the videos together.

Now this is neat!

(Image Credit: Studson Studio)

Located some 2,500 light years from our planet, near the constellation Lyra, is this planetary nebula known as M57, also known as the Ring Nebula. Because this nebula is near the said constellation, it can be easy to spot even for amateur astronomers. Those who find this nebula are treated with a certainly eye-catching view.

However, it is worth noting that, compared to this image, which is the result of combining data from three different large telescopes, seeing the M57 from a small telescope is much less appealing.

(Image Credit: Hubble, Large Binocular Telescope, Subaru Telescope/ Robert Gendler)