The distance between a bear's eyes and its nose tends to vary and reflect individual differences among them. So that means that software can reliably identify specific bears by their faces. Three years ago, researchers in the United States and Canada developed the technology. Now conservationists are using it to track wild bears in northern Japan. The Mainichi reports:

The South Shiretoko Brown Bear Information Center, a nonprofit organization based in Shibetsu, is taking photos and accumulating data by installing automatic cameras at two locations on animal trails that brown bears use, and is accumulating data. However, taking photos from the front has proven unexpectedly difficult, and the organization has succeeded in taking only about 20 photos that can be used to recognize the bears' faces. Nonetheless, they were still able to identify four individual bears.

-via Super Punch | Photo: South Shiretoko Brown Bear Information Center

Every author has at least one awkward story of getting asked to perform an authorly duty at an opportune time.

This is mine: pic.twitter.com/siQsSbn7Ik

— Jarrett J. Krosoczka (@StudioJJK) June 29, 2021

Jarrett J. Krosoczka is a children's book author and illustrator. He's most famous for his Lunch Lady series. Perhaps he's a bit too famous, as he learned when he went to a funeral home to pick up the cremated remains of his late mother. Krosoczka tells the story and tells it masterfully. Be sure to stay for the punchline.

-via Aaron Starmer

This video of uncertain provenance shows an ingenious method to eliminate a rat infestation inside a wall. Just cut a hole through the drywall and feed a snake inside. The panicking rats flee through the hole. Amazingly, the snake, once it has completed the task, slides right out, too. That's helpful, because I wouldn't want to have to put a larger animal, like a honey badger or an eagle, into the wall to get rid of the snake.

-via Dave Barry

Brazilian musician Johnatha Bastos was born with limited arms, but that doesn't limit his musical ability. He can masterfully play a guitar with just his feet. In this video, he takes on the iconic Guns N' Roses song "Sweet Child O' Mine."

-via The Awesomer

(Last Place Comics/Zach Cranor)

I've just discovered the comics of Zach Cranor. They have a common theme: something innocent turns into hell and something familiar becomes freakishly alien. They're wonderful, as Cinderella is discovering as she prepares for the ball and/or prison.

Chickfly pants are designed for women who want to enjoy the great outdoors without the need to pull down their pants every few hours to void their bladder and/or bowels. Claire Barber, a writer for Outside magazine, wrote about her practical tests of this invention:

I hung in a climbing harness and let my friend and belayer laugh as I awkwardly grabbed at my crotch and attempted to pee midair. I squatted in various locations, including beside dirt roads and in a snowy canyon. [...]

Once you’ve practiced using the fly, the process is the same as any time you pee outdoors—find a comfortable place, squat, and go—but takes half the time. And the major win here is for privacy. You don’t need to pull the pants all the way down to go, and if you’re opening them from the front, your back and sides will be fully covered. When you’re done, the stretchy fabric springs back into place so you never feel exposed for long. Granted, you’re still peeing outside, so privacy is relative, but you avoid the hassle of hoisting your pants back up and mooning other outdoor patrons.

-via TYWKIWDBI | Photo: Chickfly

It makes perfect sense to me. A running joke among carpenters is that Home Depot wood is terrible. It would be prudent to remove the demonic forces that warp it so much.

I don't know if that was the motivation behind the people who visited the Home Depot in Dickerson, Pennsylvania to perform an exorcism in the lumber aisle. We'll likely never know, as employees called police, who removed the customers from the store without incident.

-via Dave Barry | Unrelated photo by Mike Mozart

A few weeks ago, Core77 introduced me to the book Prisoners' Inventions, which is a book published in 2001 about how inmates in California prisons adapted their limited physical environments to suit their needs. The author, whom we know only as "Angelo", illustrated the many amazing inventions that he had seen prisoners create with whatever they could find.

I requested the book through interlibrary loan and scanned a few pages.

Angelo's acquaintances were capable of astonishing ingenuity, such as this means of communicating between floors using a toilet.

Have you heard of dark matter? Here's how the Encyclopedia Britannica defines it:

[...] a component of the universe whose presence is discerned from its gravitational attraction rather than its luminosity. Dark matter makes up 30.1 percent of the matter-energy composition of the universe; the rest is dark energy (69.4 percent) and “ordinary” visible matter (0.5 percent). 

So most of the universe is dark matter. Here's the mind-blowing biological equivalent: 95% of all of the biomass of fish lie in the mesopelagic zone of the ocean, thousands of feet below the surface of the water and shrouded in perpetual darkness. Phys.org explains:

UWA Professor Carlos Duarte says mesopelagic fish – fish that live between 100 and 1000m below the surface – must therefore constitute 95 per cent of the world's fish biomass. [...]

Prof Duarte led a seven-month circumnavigation of the globe in the Spanish research vessel Hesperides, with a team of scientists collecting echo-soundings of mesopelagic fish.

He says most mesopelagic species tend to feed near the surface at night, and move to deeper layers in the daytime to avoid birds.

They have large eyes to see in the dim light, and also enhanced pressure-sensitivity.

"They are able to detect nets from at least five metres and avoid them," he says.

Prof. Duarte and his colleagues were able to use acoustic techniques to to reliably detect the fish.

-via Kottke | Image: Daniel Mietchen

By 1900, when Franz and Konrad Hieke of Philadelphia received their patent, horse-mounted cavalry was fading away as a useful battlefield tool. Horses were far too vulnerable to the volume and accuracy of bullets that modern guns could deliver.

Nonetheless, the Hieke brothers, who were from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, devised a means to extend the life of cavalry horses and their riders. This frame provides a forward-facing shield to deflect bullets, a window to see through, and a sharp spike to encourage enemies to flee.

The Hieke brothers stressed that their invention would be easy to attach to a horse, maintain in the field, and would not be so heavy as to throw the horse off balance:

A further object of the invention is to provide a device of this character whichl can be securely attached to the animal wit-hout inconvenience to the rider, and, furthermore, to make the same to possess comparatively little weight, that it will not interfere with rapid movement.

Furthermore, the object of the invention is' to produce a device of the character noted which shall possess advantages in points of simplicity, efficiency, and durability, proving at the same time inexpensive.

-via Weird Universe

(They Can Talk/Jimmy Craig)

The cat is attempting to train you to give treats when you stand at a particular place. You are failing these educational goals. Shape up.

Finland offers a unique ice cream treat: salty licorice ice cream infused with a hefty dose of ammonium chloride. Why this unusual combination? Gastro Obscura explains that it's likely that this dessert began in a pharmacy:

Ammonium chloride, as it happens, has been used in cough medicine. Licorice is also prized for its medicinal qualities, and in the early 20th century had its heyday as a popular flavoring. It’s likely the two ingredients met over the pharmacy counter. 

Photo: JIP

In 1492, the people of Spain completed La Reconquista--the seven centuries-long war of liberation of their land. This highly militarized society then launched wars of conquest in far away lands helpfully discovered by Christopher Columbus later that year. Within a century, Spain was a superpower with vast colonies across the world.

Now, what remains of the Spanish Empire is a few small islands and exclaves off the coast of north Africa. Pictured above is one of them: Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera. An international border between Spain and Morocco lies on the 250-foot sandy stretch of land between the rocky peninsula and the mainland.

-via Nag on the Lake | Photo: Ignacio Gavira

Among skydiving aficionados, it is traditional to complete one's hundredth jump in the nude. But Rian Kanouff of Omaha, Nebraska went much further. He completed 60 nude jumps in 24 hours, thus establishing a Guinness World Record for the most number of nude jumps in a day.

Kanouff did not complete this task alone. He needed a well-organized team of pilots, ground crews, and parachute packers so that, as soon as he landed, he could immediately get airborne again to jump again. KOLN/KGIN News describes the process:

Volunteers who have decades of flying experience were taking him up in down in two different planes. Skydiving pals spent their day packing and re-packing parachutes, so he didn’t spend too much time on the ground. There were even nurses to make sure he wasn’t getting too overexerted. Some of the tents were full of supporters there to cheer him on.

“From the time he loads the plane ‘til he takes off and gets out is about five minutes,” said Scott Dvorak, who helped bring it all together. “Then, about a three-minute descent, so we’re about seven minutes there.”

“He spends about two minutes on the ground re-rigging and getting back in the plane for a total of 10 to 11 minutes per turn. That puts us at about six jumps per hour.”

-via Dave Barry

Set and scene designers for Star Trek couldn't invent everything that appeared on the show. So they selected real-life everyday objects from our time that would fit into their image of the future. In this case, Captain Janeway's office chair is a Signét 8400 Chair by HÅG, which is Norwegian design firm.

I found this information on Star Trek + Design, a website created by a Trekkie with time on his hands during the pandemic. The author, Eno, has carefully researched many of the objects, such as furniture and tableware, that appear in the Star Trek franchise.

-via Kottke