The Moon has always been an object of interest for many people, the ancients, the conspiracy theorists, the sci-fi writers, and scientists alike, and it seems that a new mystery arises on its surface. The Moon is rusting, apparently.

If you didn't know already, rust is a reddish-brown compound that forms when iron is exposed to water and oxygen. It's a common reaction as seen on The Red Planet, Mars. According to NASA, the planet rusted long ago when the iron on its surface combined with oxygen and water.

Although the Moon is airless, recent findings indicate the presence of hematite, a form of rust that only occurs with oxygen and water. This has scientists baffled.

The Moon is also constantly exposed to a steam of hydrogen from the solar wind. Hydrogen is a reducing agent that 'donates' its electrons to the materials it is exposed to.

Rusting occurs due to a loss of electrons, so if hypothetically oxygen and water were present on the moon, the hydrogen would cancel out the rusting process.

"It's very puzzling," says planetary scientist Shuai Li of the University of Hawaii at Manoa." "The Moon is a terrible environment for hematite to form in."

After months of investigating this phenomenon, Li and the NASA scientists think that they might have solved this baffling case.

More details about this over at Mashable.

(Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

The ability to concentrate and react quickly to the things in the game is what makes a gamer competitive. That’s why Razer designed a drink last year that will keep a gamer’s focus sharp for hours. This year, the company released yet another product for gamers: a fortified gum called Respawn By 5.

Razer has partnered with Wrigley’s 5 gum… to make a gum specifically for gamers. The product is infused with B vitamins and green tea extract to help improve your focus and reaction time, according to a statement from Razer. Choose from a classic cool mint flavor, or two flavors already time-tested in the Respawn drink: pomegranate watermelon and tropical punch.

If the Respawn drink seemed a little out of left field, this gum is a bit of a surprise as well. However, Respawn By 5 could be an alternative for those who don’t want the caffeine in the Respawn drink but still want a “mental performance supplement.” If you think a stick of gum could be the difference between beating the next boss in your video game or becoming an esports master, you can snag 10 packs for $27.99 at the Razer website.

While this gum is intended for gamers, it could be used by other people as well, like those who work in the office.

Well, what do you think?

(Image Credit: Razer/ Engadget)

Mascot characters are usually depicted as smiling creatures whose purpose is to spread joy and happiness to people. But this mascot, created by the Osaki Station in Tokyo, is different, as it is always sad.

… Ousaki has a perpetually furrowed brow, revealing constant sadness.

Posters went up this week introducing passengers to Ousaki, and also explaining the reason for the melancholy design:

“Why does Ousaki look so sad?”

“People are always saying things like ’There’s nothing interesting in Osaki,’ ‘Osaki doesn’t deserve to be a stop on the Yamanote Line,’ ‘I only got off there by accident,’ and it’s starting to emotionally weigh Ousaki down.”

But the train station will not give up on Ousaki, as its staff is “working hard to make Osaki Station a more attractive place to be.” Hopefully, we might see this bunny mascot smile in the near future.

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: compass_sigure/ Twitter)

Ever since he turned three last June, Fuxing has become “particularly active.” His favorite activity was to roll around the zoo, but he might have rolled too much, as the zoo states that he has developed two bald patches on his head for doing so.

A report from Beijing Youth Daily said that Fuxing began to lose hair in late July, and the bald patches appeared in August. 

When the panda in question was featured on Chinese social media websites, people were quick to speculate on the cause of his hair loss.

One user of Weibo, the Chinese equivalent to Twitter, suspected that Fuxing had got his fur plucked out 'while fighting'.

Another person wondered if the panda had hit a midlife crisis.

A third commenter joked if Fuxing had been worrying about not being able to find a partner.

[...]

Zhang Chenglin, the vice director of the Zoo, told Beijing Youth Daily that Fuxing's bald patches were caused by the fact that he rolled around 'frequently'.

He said that the bear often rubbed his head against the ground. 

'We think Fuxing's bald patches aren't external injuries, nor has he suffered bacterial infections. [The hair loss] is caused by his action of rolling,' Zhang told the outlet.

The zoo, nevertheless, gave Fuxing some medication, and his hair has started to grow back ever since.

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: People’s Daily/ Weibo/ Daily Mail)

Hokusai. The name might not be familiar to you, but I’m sure that the picture above is. The picture, called The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, or simply The Wave, is the most famous work of Hokusai, the non-Western world’s most famous artist.

Hokusai lived from 1760 to 1849. It was still a time when “sakoku” — the policy in which no Japanese can come out, and no foreigners can come into 99 percent of the country — was still implemented in Japan. Thus, the Japanese had very little knowledge of the outside world, with all of their knowledge coming from outdated books. This could be one of the reasons why Hokusai tried to make the Great Picture Book of Everything. Unfortunately, he was not able to finish it.

The project was abandoned in the 1830s – either because of cost or possibly because Hokusai insisted on reproduction standards that were difficult to attain.

The Great Picture Book of Everything was to have been a comprehensive way for the Japanese to have access to images of people, cultures and nature around the world – at a time when virtually no Japanese people had been allowed out of Japan for some two centuries - and virtually no foreigners had been allowed into 99 per cent of the country.

In that ultra-restrictive atmosphere, the project was to have given people an opportunity to explore a highly stylised printed version of the outside world as well as Japan itself.

However, so limited was Hokusai's access to up-to-date images of foreigners and foreign cultures, that he often had to use very old pictures as his source material – which led to him portraying much of the outside world as it would have looked several hundred years earlier.

Today, the Great Picture Book of Everything is considered as one of the world’s most important collections of art. And after having been lost for over 70 years, it has now re-emerged.

See some pictures from the book over at Independent.

(Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

It’s always a great experience to be in the kitchen as a child. You get to learn how to cook, and you get to learn the texture and taste of each and every ingredient. You also get to snack on these uncooked ingredients, like this kid who immediately grabs what his grandma puts in the mixing bowl, including the raw eggs and the flour.

Yum!

(Image Credit: Today)

For four decades, Richard Burnham has been commercially harvesting salmon in the Alaska village of Katlag. Over the years, however, Burnham, as well as the fishermen, noticed something was off with their catch.

“At first, it was just a general comment by everybody: ‘The fish, yeah, I didn’t get any big ones this year,’”

It wasn’t bad luck, however. The fish really had become smaller over the years. 

… a new study has borne out those observations on a huge scale, documenting body size declines in fish across the entire state of Alaska in four different species of salmon: chinook, sockeye, silver and chum.

Alaska is “the last largely pristine North American salmon-producing region”, the authors write. Yet the size of the Yukon region chinooks – the largest of the four salmon species – has diminished the most, by 10% compared with those caught before 1990.

The bodies of commercially valuable sockeye shrank by 2% statewide, and silver salmon grew 3% physically smaller.

But why?

It would seem that there are two reasons why the fish have become smaller: climate change, and competition.

One likely factor, the authors say, is climate crisis-driven changes in the quality or availability of the fishes’ food. A second constant, albeit weak, dynamic was that all four species were smaller when they were competing with larger numbers of a fifth species of Alaska salmon, the hatchery-raised pink.

Learn more details about this study over at The Guardian.

(Image Credit: Andrew Hendry/ Reuters/ The Guardian)

Kids are truly difficult beings to supervise. Take your eyes off of them for a moment, and the next thing you know, they are already in trouble. This was what happened to the family of Abbie Paull. When Paull left her son Reuben unsupervised for a few seconds, she was shocked when she found Reuben with his training toilet stuck around his neck.

In the footage filmed by Abbie, she asks her son how it happened, but unfortunately, he doesn’t appear to respond with anything but giggles.

In the footage, Reuben’s father can be heard asking if the seat is clean, to which the mom thankfully responds yes.

Apparently unable to simply remove the seat, the dad grabbed a saw and started cutting (with the blade pointed away from Reuben’s face). While Reuben had some trouble looking up and away from the saw, his father was able to cut the seat apart and free Reuben without any injury.

Whew!

(Image Credit: SWNS/ Fox News)

1927. The Germans had a new toy on their hands. It was a fearsome cruiser 174 meters (571 feet) in length, and with many turrets and cannons. The ship’s name: Karlsruhe. 

Throughout its lifetime, the Karlsruhe was used as a training cruiser for naval cadets. It was also used for non-intervention patrols. It sank, however, only 13 years after its launch, and nobody knew where it sank… until this year, 80 years later.

The wreckage of a German warship that was struck by a British torpedo in 1940 has been discovered off the coast [of] Norway. Norwegian power grid operator Statnett said the cruiser Karlsruhe was identified more than 1,600 feet underwater from sonar images.

Launched in 1927, the 571-foot ship led the attack on the southern Norwegian port of Kristiansand during the invasion of Norway on April 9, 1940. With nine cannons and three triple turrets, it was "the largest and most fearsome ship in the attack group," Statnett said.

[...]

"You can find Karlsruhe's fate in history books, but no one has known exactly where the ship sunk," Norwegian Maritime Museum archaeologist Frode Kvaloe said. "After all these years we finally know where the graveyard to this important warship is."

More details over at CBS News.

(Image Credit: Stattnet/ CBS News)

Melk, Austria — A small group of people gathered around a glass box filled with ice. Inside the ice-filled box was a man wearing nothing but swim trunks. The man inside was Josef Koeberl, an ice swimmer. 

Last year, Koeberl was able to set the record for the longest full body contact with ice cubes with a time of 2 hours, 8 minutes, and 47 seconds. 

Last Saturday, Koeberl broke that record by more than 20 minutes, with a time of 2 hours, 30 minutes, and 57 seconds.

In order to fight the “wave of pain” caused by the freezing temperatures, Koeberl says he was trying to focus on positive emotions.

“I’m fighting the pain by visualizing and drawing on positive emotions so I can dampen this wave of pain,” Koeberl told reporters. “That way I can endure.”

But Koeberl isn’t finished yet, as he plans on beating his own record once more next year in Los Angeles.

What a guy!

(Image Credit: AP Photo/ Ronald Zak)

“Durgs ruin lifes,” and that’s a fact whether we like it or not. So whenever you feel like doing durgs, always remember this sign created by an unknown person.

Image via Engrish.com

England, 2003. A team of archaeologists led by Phil Amery were recording hundreds of old burials on the St. Pancras old church graveyard, when suddenly they came across a coffin which contained remains of human dissection, like skulls and a part of the spine. Amery believed that these were works of an anatomist or a surgeon. But it wasn’t these things that got the team’s attention. It was the other bones that were stuffed alongside these human remains: the remains of a very large walrus. Who put these walrus remains here?

Watch this mini-documentary over at BBC Reel to find out who did this.

(Image Credit: Joel Garlich-Miller, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service/ Wikimedia Commons)

The fashion industry, whether we like it or not, is one of the major industries that inflict harm upon the environment. According to a UNEP report in 2018, the fashion industry produces 10% of our annual global carbon emissions, which is greater than the carbon emission of all international flights and maritime shipping combined. It gets worse, as the fashion industry also contributes to both land and water pollution. Tons of textile waste end up in landfills, while plastic microfibers end up in the ocean.

The question is, how do we fix the fashion industry? The answer is, there is no quick fix, but at the very least, we might be able to reduce our respective fashion footprints.

… shopping less and buying with a mindset toward longevity -- keeping your clothes for as long as possible -- is one of the easiest and most effective ways to reduce your own contribution. According to a 2017 report from the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), a UK charity that helps companies and communities act more sustainably, wearing a garment for just nine months longer can substantially reduce its carbon footprint.

More details about this over at CNN.

(Image Credit: markusspiske/ Pixabay)

One of the first things that you have to consider when camping is the type of knife that you will bring to your journey. Of all the many tools that you will bring, the knife is the handiest of them all. It could be used to prepare food, start fires, cut ropes, and even ward off wild animals — a true survival tool indeed.

Wes Siler states that there are three questions that you should ask yourself in order for you to know the ideal knife to buy for your camping trip. The three questions are:

• How are you going to carry it?
• How are you going to sharpen it?
• What are you going to use it for?

More details about this over at Outside Online.

(Image Credit: LUM3N/ Pixabay)

PJ Brewer-Laye was out with his grandmother Angela. He was riding his go-kart while his grandma walked. Suddenly, Angela felt shaky and noticed that she was seeing spots in her vision. Noticing what was happening, PJ immediately sped back towards his grandma’s house, which was about a mile and a half away. A few minutes later, Angela saw her Mercedes-Benz coming towards her. The driver was none other than the 11-year old boy.

PJ of course doesn't have a driver's license, but he has prior experience of driving having moved cars around for his grandad in their yard before - as well as owning a dirt bike, four-wheeler and his toy go-kart, of course.

However, the youngster didn't let his inexperience get the better of him and drove his grandmother to get medical help.

Apparently choosing the Mercedes-Benz because the keys were the easiest to reach, PJ was 'calm and collected' behind the wheel, said Angela.

She added: "He did not go up the curb, in the grass or nothing. Pulled down in the driveway and into the garage."

An act worthy of praise, indeed.

What do you think?

(Image Credit: 11Alive/ LADBible)