Chemists at universities in England not Italy are responsible for developing nanopasta--the world's thinnest spaghetti. It's not just a minutely fine thread of material but, specifically, white flour so it's technically pasta by, at least, English standards.

The nanopasta measures 370 nanometers across. A nanometer is one billionth of a meter. You can read the science-y bits in the article published a few months ago in Nanoscale Advances. Their process is called electrospinning, which I gather means using electrical current to create fibers small enough that you wouldn't be able to roll it out on your cutting board.

-via Dave Barry | Images: Nanoscale Advances

You may associate virtual meetings and conference calls with Skype, Zoom, or Webex. But the task of gathering together large numbers of people to communicate with each other across vast distances long predates our century.

IEEE Spectrum reports that the large conference call dates back to 1916, which 5,100 engineers in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, New York, Philadelphia, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco gathered in live discussions that took place across telephone lines. There were even breakout sessions when local groups met privately to discuss particular topics.

The revolutionary nature of this event was widely understood at the time. President Wilson sent a telegram of congratulations, which was read to the participants. After musical performances, a keynote speaker addressed the virtual gathering and then the engineers conducted a formal business meeting.

-via Nag on the Lake | Image: IEEE

You’re not allowed to stop and watch the Las Vegas Formula One Grand Prix without a ticket and stopping in a pedestrian walking zone or on a bridge with a view will get you a ticket, a fine or worse trouble. A few locals and tourists are circumventing this by utilizing the… pic.twitter.com/u8d35JdDkF

— Jen G. (@vegasstarfish) November 24, 2024

The Las Vegas Grand Prix is an elite racing event. Tickets are extremely expensive but 306,000 people paid to watch it, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports.

Vegas Starfish, a Las Vegas tourism guru, reports that other enterprising people found a way to watch the race up close for free. All that was necessary was that they ride escalators continuously without stopping, making laps next to a good viewing position.

As the saying goes, frog pizza is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. The Independent reports that this is an option at some Pizza Hut restaurants in China. The thick crust pizza is topped with a bed of parsley, serving as the frog's grassy home. The whole bullfrog is fried and served below two halves of a hard boiled egg which are decorated with black olives so that they resemble eyeballs.

It is unfortunate that this culinary masterpiece is available only in China. As an American, I fear that we are slipping behind China in pizza technology.

-via Dave Barry

Elle Cordova is a musician and comedian who specializes in one-woman sketches in which she personifies different objects. In the past, we've seen her conversation among different fonts. Most recently, she brings together the Holy Grail, Excalibur, and the Ark of the Covenant.

The three holy relics interview an applicant to join their crew. It's a modern object of desire and veneration common in households yet surprisingly elusive at times. Watch the elders ask insightful questions of the newcomer, testing her commitment to the lifestyle of a legendary artifact.

At the end of the sketch, the trio consider other applicants for the position.

-via Laughing Squid

Hoyte van Hoytema, the cinematographer behind Her, Interstellar, Dunkirk, and Oppenheimer, brings to us this long-form narrative commercial for Volvo's XC90 SUV.

The point is, of course, to sell us cars. The hook for the ad is buried deep into the soul of every parent who has ever seen his or her child in life-threatening situation. It's a common if not normal experience and one that never leaves your mind completely.

Hence the genius of van Hoytema's commercial. It taps into both the delight and fear that begins with first learning that you're having a baby and ends . . . somehow, depending on about a million everyday decisions.

-via Normie MacDonald

for my last lunch in paris i went to a bistro where, at the end of your meal, they bring you card and a fountain pen to write yourself a letter which they will send in a year’s time 🤎 pic.twitter.com/h4hsahQuby

— kitty 🤎 (@pastryangel) November 20, 2024

X user @pastryangel tells us about a unique restaurant in Paris in the fashionable and quaint Saint-Germain district in Paris. Bistro des Lettres offers gourmet dining with amazing dishes that you can view on Instagram. It's a memorable experience for that reason alone, but also because you can compose a letter to your future self which the establishment will send your way in a year.

Frisk Me Good is a fashion designer who creates original and innovative outfits from other objects, such as bodysuits and corsets made from shoes.

She is catching eyes with this bustier made out of tape measures. It's pricey at $375, but that comes with a guaranteed fit (A to DD) because everything in the package has been measured precisely. And, because this is an American firm, it's made with normal inches, not that weird foreign metric thing.

Surfers usually prefer to not get bitten by sharks. Recent research by Dr. Laura Ryan of Macquarie University in Australia and her colleagues may offer a means to reduce the number of shark attacks on surfers.

The Guardian reports that Ryan towed seal-shaped objects through the water in Mossel Bay, South Africa. When the researchers attached LED strips to the undersides of these silhouettes, the number of shark attacks plummeted. This is likely because sharks have poor eyesight and may have found the shapes confusing.

This research indicates that LEDs on the undersides of surfboards may disrupt the silhouettes that draw sharks.

-via Dave Barry

Okay, that headline is a lot, but it is about as succinct a summary as I can provide. Sora News 24 has the full story.

A taishoku daikou is a company that a worker in Japan will hire to inform his/her current employer that he is quitting. This is apparently a thriving industry in Japan for cultural reasons that elude my understanding.

Momuri is the name of one such company that has processed over 20,000 resignations. Recently a rival firm contacted Momuri and informed it that a Mormuri employee was quitting. This particular employee had, prior to his employment at Mormuri, been a customer who had hired Momuri to help him quit the job that he had at the time.

You follow that?

Photo: Lukas Bieri

The New York Post reports that an Ecuadorian restaurant has opened in the Corona neighborhood of Queens. Le Casa Del Guy -- "the house of the guinea pig" -- has become famous for its focus on a staple of Ecuadorian cuisine: the guinea pig.

Guinea pigs raised for food are usually larger than those raised to be pets, weighing about two and a half pounds and measuring sixteen inches long. They can be quite expensive, sometimes over $100 a plate. That's because the restaurant management has to have the guinea pigs shipped from Ecuador then inspected. It might be cheaper to raise them domestically.

-via Dave Barry | Photo: La Casa del Cuy

Altas Obscura tells us about the S.S. Relief--the formal name for an outhouse that floats in Lake Casitas near Ventura, California. The artificial lake is an important water reservoir for the thirsty people of southern California, so the Casitas Municipal Water District takes its cleanliness very seriously.

The lake is popular among boaters and fishermen. After a few hours out on the water, people need to relieve themselves. They can then paddle up to the S.S. Relief, which is a 2-seater outhouse that floats on the surface of the water. The waste is contained on the barge, so there's no contamination of the lake's purity.

Night is a sculpture on the tomb of Giuliano de Medici, the Duke of Urbino, in the city of Florence. Michelangelo carved it between 1526 and 1531 and composed these lines to place in the mouth of this personification of the night:

Precious is sleep, better to be of stone,
while the oppression and the shame still last;
not seeing and not hearing, I am blest;
so do not wake me, hush! keep your voice down

In a 2000 letter to the New England Journal of Medicine, James J. Stark and Jonathan Katz Nelson argue that the model that Michelanglo used likely had advanced breast cancer. Her left breast has lumps indicative of a tumor in the nipple or the lymphatics beneath the nipple. As these shapes are not present in the other female breasts that Michelanglo composed, it's likely that this shape reflects, tragically, the model herself.

-via TYWKIWDBI

The USS Thomas A. Edison was an Ethan Allen-class ballistic missile submarine in the service of the United States Navy from 1961 until 1983. Although submarines, especially boomers, are supposed to prize silence, the Edison was built with a fully functional piano that remained in use throughout the boat's service.

The Naval Submarine League reports that Steinway and Sons made the custom upright piano for the Navy, which installed the huge instrument during the submarine's construction. Crew members who knew how to play it did so and the piano was often the centerpiece of musical performances conducted by the crew.

The piano was removed when the Edison was scrapped. Veterans of the boat rescued the piano from destruction and arranged for its restoration. It's now in the Steinway and Sons Museum in New York.

-via U.S. Naval Institute

Spikeball is a recently-invented game that developed from volleyball. A webpage from Southern Arkansas University summarizes the rules. Two teams of two players each surround a circular let. Each person bounces a ball toward his/her partner. The partners can touch the ball up to three times before it must be served again at the net.

As you can see, this is similar to volleyball. But one core difference is that there are no fixed sides. Players can move around each other, seeking the best angles to serve and receive the ball. When one team loses control over the ball, the other team receives a point.

-via Massimo