As we get older, we realize that we don’t need that many friends. We just need a handful of friends who we know will stick with us through thick and thin. These behaviors were once thought to be unique to us humans. As it turns out, they weren’t. Scientists have discovered that some animals, such as chimpanzees, have these traits as well.

The work is described in the journal Science and is authored by a team of psychologists and primatologists, including current and former researchers from the Harvard Department of Human Evolutionary Biology.

The study draws on 78,000 hours of observations, made between 1995 and 2016, which looked at the social interactions of 21 male chimpanzees between the ages of 15 and 58 years old in the Kibale National Park in Uganda. It shows what's believed to be the first evidence of nonhuman animals actively selecting who they socialize with during aging.

Learn more details about this study over at PHYS.org.

(Image Credit: Ikiwaner/ Wikimedia Commons)

Pet the dogs. Start a fire. Observe or hunt down some animals. Go fishing. Tend to your wounds. Distribute the food you have accordingly to yourself and your dogs, to ensure that no one will starve. These are some of the things that you have to do in order to survive in the Alaskan wilderness.

The Red Lantern is a survival game developed by Timberline Studios and was recently released in the Nintendo Switch. As a survival game, your goal is to survive in the wilderness, and prevent your dogs from dying.

When people saw the announcement trailer last year, some were turned off because of the scene where one of your sled dogs presumably died from a bear attack. 

But there are some options to keep your dogs alive in the game, and one of them is by turning off dog deaths in the settings.

“Though The Red Lantern contains roguelike elements and poor decisions can result in unfortunate consequences for your sled team, an optional toggle can disable death for your dogs,” Can You Pet the Dog? tweeted.

People in the tweet comments are pretty excited to see an option like this, which makes the stakes pretty clear. Things might not go right, but it won’t send you over the edge if seeing dogs die is something that upsets you. Plenty of folks reacted with relief, noting that they weren’t originally going to play the game because of it — but now they might be able to give it a go.

Yay!

(Image Credit: Can You Pet The Dog?/ Twitter)

Bugs and glitches are inevitable in games, and the FIFA games aren’t an exception. In some FIFA games,...

The ball flies off into orbit, limbs twist and turn to form Lovecraftian nightmares, and the AI creates mysterious giant goalkeepers who spread through the game like a virus.

But of all the many bugs that the FIFA games have had, this bug of this year’s FIFA game may just be the most remarkable.

The ball hovers at top of the goal, just under where the crossbar and post meet, neither passing across the line or moving away from it. The goalkeeper flaps about underneath, trying and failing to grab the ball. One of the defenders trots over for a closer look, but doesn't lift a finger to help. Eventually the player-controlled player comes storming in, and there's a brief FIFA physics moment before the ball decides to fall, and it drops over the goal line, seemingly oblivious to the chaos it has caused.

My favourite part of this clip is the commentary - poor Derek Rae seems locked in a loop, rinsing his various lines of dialogue used to describe a shot that hits the bar. It's amazing.

See the clip of the glitch over here.

(Image Credit: u/BuschLatte/ Reddit/ Eurogamer)

In this two-minute clip, Good Comparison shows us how the legendary Leonidas line from the film 300 sounds like in 12 languages, including Spanish, French, Russian, and Japanese.

Which one is your favorite and why?

When it comes to making slo-mo hair flip videos, a person needs two basic elements: a person with long hair, and a camera that has a slow motion feature. Other elements are optional, but if you want to make your video unique, then you should go and do just that.

Check out this clip of a woman flipping her hair, and find out what makes this video unique, over at Reddit.

(Image Credit: u/jaxjax55/ Reddit)

It’s understandable to have unskippable ads on free-to-play mobile games. After all, that’s how they can earn money. But to have unskippable ads on a game that you paid for full price is not, and that’s what the NBA 2k series of games does for the last few years, with this year not being an exception.

The ads usually turn up as part of a pre-game video, and while in previous years they’ve been for brands like Converse and the TV show Snowfall, this year it’s an Oculus Quest commercial that’s got fans upset.

Fans have been and continue to be pissed every time this happens, and if you’re wondering why, it’s because this is a full-priced video game, not a free-to-play mobile title. Folks have already paid in full for the game itself, then been fleeced at every turn to spend on microtransactions, and now have to sit through an ad as well? Get outta here.

In response to the uproar, the NBA 2k21 Twitter account posted an apology on the platform.

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: Stevivor/ YouTube)

Did you know that you release up to 1.5 liters of gas everyday? Are you aware of the fact that the microorganisms in your body outnumber your own human cells 10 to 1? How much do you know about the human body?

Check out the funny and the scary facts about the human body that Cracked Plasticians and Shea compiled, over at Cracked.

(Image Credit: Cracked)

One of the best foods that you can order at Chinese restaurants is steamed grass carp. Grass carps are a good choice for those who don’t like fish that much, due to their flaky meat that only has a mild taste and not that fishy.

And then there’s steamed grass crap, which I don’t recommend eating.

Image via Engrish.com

Is it really possible to compose a great piece by relying on chance? It turns out, it is possible. This composition method, called ‘aleatoric’ or ‘chance’ music, was made popular in the 20th century by composers like Charles Ives and John Cage, but its roots can go back as far as the 18th century, at the time of Mozart.

Today, there are still a few musicians who use this method in composing their music. One such man is Edward Chilvers.

Read about his story over at Classic FM.

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Losing a toy is one of the most painful experiences that you can have as a child. It causes a lot of tears to be shed, as well as a few sleepless nights. Fortunately, there are adults who know just how valuable a toy is to a child.

When staff at Lavish Dog Day Spa found this lost plush toy outside their establishment, they decided to treat it inside their spa.

A bubble bath, shampoo, a good combing, and a shiny blue bow were all part of the toy’s big day.

By Sunday morning, the pampered pup was back in its owner’s arms.

“Thank you so much for looking out for my son’s puppy,” the boy’s mother wrote on Facebook. “He was so happy to be reunited with him.”

Wholesome!

(Image Credit: Lavish Dog Day Spa/ Facebook)

Nitrous oxide, which is also called laughing gas, can be used in many ways. Dentists use it to reduce the anxiety of their patients. The chemical compound is also used as fertilizer. But too much of anything is bad, and it seems that we’re generating too much nitrous oxide.

While carbon dioxide (CO2) is responsible for about 10 times more warming than nitrous oxide, laughing gas is 300 times more potent and stays in the atmosphere for a century or more. To get serious about the matter, an international team of scientists from 48 research institutions banded together to investigate the impact of this versatile chemical compound. The team have called the study the most comprehensive picture to date of N2O emissions.

For the study published in Nature, the team measured natural and human-caused N2O emissions between 1980 and 2016. Overall, global N2O levels have risen by 20 percent from pre-industrial levels, with a surge in the last half-century.

These emissions are increasing at a faster rate than the goal set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to limit warming by less than 2°C (3.6°F), with an ideal scenario tightening that limit to less than 1.5°C (2.7°F). Instead, emissions are in line with a scenario that is above 3°C (5.4°F) from pre-industrial levels.

Where does this large amount of nitrous oxide emission come from? How can we reduce the emission?

Answers over at IFL Science.

(Image Credit: barskefranck/ Pixabay)

One of the worst problems that parents can have with their kids is picky eating. For kids who have sensory issues, it is difficult for them to eat foods with certain textures. How should parents deal with such kids? Cheryl Butler provides us with some tips over at QDT. Here is one of them:

My number-one tool to ease your journey with a picky eater might surprise you. Are you ready? It's you!

As parents, we'll do anything to make sure our kids feed our kids nutritious foods. We prepare leafy green salads and whole grain pasta topped with fresh veggies and low-salt marinara sauce, opt for the leanest proteins, and even encourage dairy alternatives like almond milk.

But what do we do when our best efforts don't cut it with our kids?

No, we don't force them to eat what we've made. We do the opposite—let them decide if they'll give it a try.

Check out the tips over at the site.

(Image Credit: avitalchn/ Pixabay)

California — As helicopter pilot Dan Alpiner helped conduct water drops over the Creek Fire, he witnessed what he describes as an “unheard of” scene: an owl boarding the chopper mid-flight.

Dan was worried that the owl might fly around the cockpit, a scenario which would put both him and the bird in danger. But that didn’t happen, fortunately. The owl rode the chopper with him calmly for a few minutes, and it flew back out the window the same way it did when it entered the chopper — “safe and announced.”

I wonder what the owl was thinking. What do you think?

(Image Credit: Sky Aviation/ CBS 47/ UPI)

As you walk up the stairs in this house, you’ll be greeted by a pair of ghost dogs, clothed in white and with glowing eyes. But have no fear, as they are harmless. In fact, they are friendly ghosts, who can help you find your way in this seemingly haunted house.

They still look spooky, though.

Via Loki & Friends on Facebook

A human-like robot designed to do manual labor is now for sale at Agility. Get ready to break the bank if you want to buy one, though, as the robot costs $250,000.

Most of the robots that have been built in recent years are for research purposes. Scientists all over the world are striving to give them more and better capabilities. On their web page, the team at Agility claim that it is time for robots to start getting out of the research lab and into the real world where they can start doing useful things. They note that Digit has been engineered to do just that, and it is ready right now, for customers.

Learn more details about this robot over at TechXplore.

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: Agility/ TechXplore)