Australia — A team of conservation scientists stepped out of a military helicopter on the east coast of Victoria. Standing on an active fireground, they had their mission in their mind — to evacuate 15-20 bristlebirds to Melbourne Zoo. Rescuing this many bristlebirds “would provide an insurance population of this globally endangered species if their habitat was razed by the approaching fire.”

As climate change grows ever worse, such rescues will be more common. Ours showed how it can be done.

Such a rescue may seem like a lot of effort for a small, plain brown bird. But eastern bristlebirds are important to Australia’s biodiversity.

These days, coastal development has shrunk the eastern bristlebird’s habitat. The birds are feeble flyers, and so populations die out when their habitat patches become too small.

Fewer than 2,500 individuals remain, spread across three locations on Australia’s east coast including a 400-strong population that straddles the Victoria-New South Wales border at Cape Howe. Losing them would be a huge blow to the species’ long term prospects.

This is why the rescue was necessary.

More details about this over at The Conversation.

(Image Credit: JJ Harrison/ Wikimedia Commons)

Around 3,000 years ago, the Babylonians invented the twelve signs of the zodiac, dividing the ecliptic (the sun’s apparent path) into twelve equal parts, with each sign having 30° celestial longitude. In doing so, however, the Babylonians left out a major constellation — Ophiuchus — as incorporating it would have resulted in an irregular division. (The Sun passed at least 13, not 12, Babylonian constellations, but the Babylonians ignored that fact for the sake of their neat pie chart).

Fast forward to 2016, astronomers discovered the very same constellation. And upon discovering this constellation, as well as the fact that the Earth’s axis has already changed, the people over at NASA decided to do the math to somehow fix what the Babylonians did wrong. In other words, NASA did not come up with a new constellation: they were just being factual and mathematical about it. At least that’s how they explain it over at their blog post.

But some people are not happy with the sudden change in the zodiac sign order, with some saying that they won’t listen to what NASA is saying and that they will stick to the sign they previously had. Some embraced their new star sign, while others just laughed it off.

If you’re interested in knowing the new zodiac sign dates, head over at The Sun.

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: Tauʻolunga/ Wikimedia Commons)

Adobe has an amazing line of products that are famous among artists around the world. But with lots of apps to choose from, even artists have a difficult time deciding on what app to use. Some apps also have features that are somewhat similar to another Adobe product, and thus the confusion.

Humtog gives us a quick overview of each Adobe product so that we can be familiar with each one.

(Image Credit: Humtog/ YouTube)

At around 10PM on the 8th of July, Cheez Goh stumbled upon a rare scene on her way home: two rats fighting. Unfortunately, Goh was not able to capture the fight, as the rats went their separate ways. But both of them wanted a second round, and so they went back and fought against each other again, and this time, Goh was able to film it. Meanwhile, a cat watches silently from a distance.

“The two rats just gave up and went separate ways,” Cheez told Bored Panda. “One ran away from the camera, one came towards the camera where I was standing. It didn’t seem to notice I was filming the process and ran towards me. I freaked out as it was approaching me, causing a sudden movement. The rat then ran for its life and that’s when the cat saw that the rat was running and charged towards it. However, the cat missed because the rat went under the drain. The rat was really fast!”

I hope those rats are in good terms now.

(Image Credit: Cheez Goh/ Facebook)

According to popular belief, men can safely tolerate more alcohol due to their larger average body size. This is why it is advised that men should limit their alcoholic consumption to two drinks, while women are advised to limit themselves to only one. But increasing evidence suggests that men cannot tolerate more alcohol than women, which means that both genders should limit their alcoholic consumption to just one drink.

The conventional wisdom has been that men can safely tolerate more alcohol than women, possibly due to their larger average body size. But increasing evidence is starting to show that the limits of safe drinking are lower than we’ve assumed—“safe” meaning that it won’t significantly increase the risk of heart disease, cancer, injuries, violence, and other health problems associated with alcohol. Men also tend to suffer the most harm from alcohol-related disorders and have higher rates of binge and chronic drinking.

In keeping with previous recommendations, the committee doesn’t advise people to start drinking because they think it might have health benefits. They also state that there is now evidence to “tighten” up the guidelines for men, and advise both men and women to drink only once a day when they do drink.

More details about this over at Gizmodo.

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(Image Credit: Pixabay)

Marine biologist Karen Osborn just got her hands on a fish with a mouth “full of nasty, big, pointy teeth”. Realizing that this fangtooth was a rare specimen, she decided to document the fish using her camera. When she got the pictures, however, she realized that what she only got were terrible silhouettes. What’s going on?

This wasn’t her first photo shoot with a deep-sea fish, so it couldn’t be operator error. But wait a second, Osborn figured. “I had tried to take pictures of deep-sea fish before and got nothing but these really horrible pictures, where you can't see any detail,” she says. “How is it that I can shine two strobe lights at them and all that light just disappears?”

It disappears because the fangtooth, along with 15 other species that Osborn and her colleagues have found so far, camouflage themselves with “ultra-black” skin, the deep-sea version of Vantablack, the famous human-made material that absorbs almost all the light you shine at it. These fish have evolved a different and devilishly clever way of going ultra-black with incredible efficiency: One species the researchers found absorbs 99.956 percent of the light that hits it, making it nearly as black as Vantablack.

What makes the skins of these sea creatures ultra-black, and why did they evolve like this? Answers over at Wired.

(Image Credit: Karen Osborn/ Smithsonian/ Wired)

In this day and age when many of us now work from home, it would seem that we must resort to this thing that most of us hate — bragging.

…tooting your own horn to your boss and colleagues may be necessary in order to get credit and recognition.

But how do you brag without sounding conceited? Meredith Fineman, author of Brag Better: Master the Art of Fearless Self-Promotion, provides us some tips over at Fast Company. Here are some of them.

When sharing your accomplishments, Fineman recommends using three pillars: proud, loud, and strategic. ”

Being proud is most difficult for some people,” she says. “Acknowledge what you’ve done and be proud of it.”

Being loud about your accomplishments isn’t about volume. It’s about repetition and consistency.

See more tips over at the site.

(Image Credit: cheskapoon/ Pixabay)

Kochi, Japan — Found directly across from the ticket gates of the Kochi Station, right beside a bakery/ coffee shop, is this naked mascot, with swirly eyes, holding two sake cups (called o-choko in Japanese) on each of his fingerless hands, and balancing a sake flask (called tokkuri) on his head. Just one glance and the person would know that this mascot is clearly drunk. But make no mistake. He is not just a mascot. He is Berobero no Kamisama, the God of Drunkards, and he watches over the Japanese prefecture of Kochi, which is a place known for its sake.

(Image Credit: Chiarat/ Atlas Obscura)

In September 2018, a woman received a phone call from her best friend, who told her that she has a squirrel that a cat had in its mouth, and the rodent was a little scratched-up. Along with her husband, the woman came to see the squirrel, and they found out that the squirrel wasn’t doing well, and so the husband decided to take her home.

Over time, the squirrel grew up to be a healthy and agile squirrel, and the man knew that it was time to release her back in the wild.

“The only reason I saved her was so she could eventually be free in the wild, happy,” the man narrates on the video. But the squirrel wants to be with him, and to this day she still is.

More about this wholesome story over at The Dodo.

(Image Credit: The Dodo)

Through this generative adversarial network (GAN) which he trained with thousands of photographs, freelance photographer Bas Uterwijk is able to create realistic images of historical figures using paintings and statues of them for reference.

Dubbed the A.I. generated portraits, this series of images by Bas Uterwijk has been created with artbreeder, an AI software that spots common facial features and qualities from the paintings and statues. The program throws different options for Uterwijk to pick from, who then continues with the editing of the image. His approach is somehow artistic as he has to decide on hair and eye color for the statues. As for the paintings, it’s a bit easier as he feeds the AI with different images meaning that the more paintings available on the subject, the more information the artist has to complete the job.

Check out the hyper-realistic photos over at DesignBoom.

Now that’s amazing.

(Image Credit: Bas Uterwijk/ DesignBoom)

Some jigsaw puzzles focus on difficulty. Others focus on giving the player a unique experience. This jigsaw puzzle goes right in between these two categories. The puzzle, called “Herding Cats”, is composed of 224 puzzle pieces which depict felines “as they lounge, stretch out their paws, and jump in the air” that, when gathered together in the correct order, forms one colorful cat.

WOW!

(Image Credit: Nervous System/ Colossal)

People have complex relationships with one another. But when compared to relationships between penguins, human relationships would seem much simpler. It can be said that penguin relationships are more dramatic, more intriguing, and more colorful.

Two aquariums in Japan, Kyoto Aquarium and Sumida Aquarium, keep obsessive tabs on their penguins and maintain an updated flowchart that visualizes all their penguin drama.

As Kyoto-based researcher Oliver Jia points out, penguin drama can include serious crushes and heartbreaks but also adultery and egg-stealing. And these Japanese aquariums have it all charted in a flowchart that can be studied for hours.

But how do these aquariums identify the couples and the heartbroken ones?

According to the aquarium’s caretakers, the penguin’s romantic escapades are fairly easy to observe. For example, wing-flapping is a sign of affection and couples can be seen grooming each other. Penguins who are getting over a break-up will often refuse to eat.

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: Spoon & Tamago)

Delivering his lines in the way Nathan Drake would say them, actor Nathan Fillion gives justice to the iconic protagonist of the Uncharted video game series in this fan film directed by Allan Ungar and written by Ungar and Jesse Wheeler. The short film also stars Stephen Lang as Victor “Sully” Sullivan (Drake’s mentor and father figure), and Mircea Monroe as Elena Fisher (Drake’s wife).

The fan film was praised even by Naughy Dog’s vice president Neil Druckmann and the franchise creator Amy Hennig.

Fans also recognize that the camera work used when Drake jumps out of the window is a reference to the cutscene-to-game transition in the games.

Now that’s how you do a film based on a video game!

(Video Credit: Allan Ungar/ YouTube)

With the many distractions that we could have while we work, may it be in the office or at his own home, it would really be difficult for us to complete tasks. Thankfully, we have a brain that makes our lives easier by shutting out these distractions, which thereby enable us to focus on the things we have to do. But how does this process work? This is what psychologist Edward Zagha and his team investigated in their study, which was published recently in the Journal of Neuroscience. While he and his team were not able to discover the exact process that happens in our brain, they were able to pinpoint the location where this stuff happens.

“Our discovery may have important implications for the understanding and treatment of neuropsychiatric diseases such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and schizophrenia,” Zagha said. “By studying the mechanisms underlying the blocking of distracting stimuli we may be able to unravel the neural circuitry underlying attention and impulse control.”

More about this over at Neuroscience News.

(Image Credit: ColiN00B/ Pixabay)

For 200 years, scientists have been studying how the trapping mechanism of venus flytraps work. It is now known today that touching trigger hairs twice within 30 seconds would make the trap snap in an instant. New research from the University of Zurich (UZH) and ETH Zurich, however, found another way that could make the trap snap immediately: by touching it slowly.

"Contrary to popular belief, slowly touching a trigger hair only once can also cause two signals and thus lead to the snapping of the trap," says co-last author Ueli Grossniklaus, director of the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology at UZH.

Scientists theorize that this happens to catch slow-moving larvae and snails.

More details about this over at ScienceDaily.

Nature is sometimes scary. It’s good that these kinds of plants are not dangerous to humans.

(Image Credit: Noah Elhardt/ Wikimedia Commons)