Lazaro Nolasco of New York City boarded a train late on Friday night. There were only a few people in the car. Among them was an old and clearly sick homeless man who, despite the freezing weather, didn't have a shirt on.
Nolasco watched as an unknown man stood up, took off one of the shirts he was wearing, and give it to the homeless man. The old fellow was too physically incapacitated to put on the shirt, so the donor helped him put it on, then gave him his knitted cap, too.
It's hard enough to learn the violin as a child. When YouTube user Therese was ready to learn, she was already 24. This time lapse video shows her progress over 2 years, starting with scratching the strings in a barely identifiable tune and ending with a beautiful, concert-worthy performance.
Cosplay photographer David Ngo spotted this inventive costume at Dragon Con in Atlanta last year. The young lady in the picture remixes the colors and cutie mark of Pinkie Pie from My Little Pony with Princess Leia's iconic slave costume from Return of the Jedi.
We trained chickens to react to an average human female face but not to an average male face (or vice versa). In a subsequent test, the animals showed preferences for faces consistent with human sexual preferences (obtained from university students). This suggests that human preferences arise from general properties of nervous systems, rather than from face-specific adaptations. We discuss this result in the light of current debate on the meaning of sexual signals and suggest further tests of existing hypotheses about the origin of sexual preferences.
Diego Cusano, an artist in Modena, Italy, combines real objects with doodles to create surreal forms. In this one, he shows the birth of a morning. It cannot begin without coffee. And, for some of us, it has to continue that way through the day.
Although he's only 11 weeks old, Eli has already made his choice: he's turned to the dark side of the Force.
His father, Micah Hayman, suspects this because he needs only play the Imperial March from Star Wars to calm Eli when he's crying. But Hayman tells ABC News that he'll be more certain "if [Eli] tries to force choke me."
Gut Aiderbichl is an animal rescue organization in Germany and Austria. In 2014, a member named Christian discovered a bull named Bnadit living in deplorable conditions on a farm. Despite being ill and trapped, Bandit was friendly and licked Christian's hand.
Iceland lies at the border between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates, which are moving away from each other at the rate of 2 centimeters per year.
In the late 18th Century, one spot in the gap known as the Silfra fissure formed. It gradually filled with water from a nearby glacier. The resulting lake, which is called Þingvallavatn, is world-renowned by scuba divers for its crystal clear waters.
Not only is the scenery beautiful, but Þingvallavatn also gives divers the chance to be right between the two tectonic plates. Discovery reports:
According to Padi 5 Star Dive Center, which operates tours of the park, the lake's crystal clear water comes from a nearby glacier. As it travels to the lake, the water must pass through porous volcanic rock, which effectively filters out impurities. Padi claims that divers can drink the clean water, saying that it is "as pristine as water can get."
You can see visually stunning videos of the Silfra fissure at Vimeo.
It used to look like this. But now much of the lake has fallen off a cliff. That's because the natural wall that separated the lake from the cliff was made of permafrost. When the permafrost recently melted, the lake spilled over, as you can see in this time-lapse video:
Dr. Michael Persinger is a neuroscientist, but he can cuss like a sailor. He uses profanity prolifically in his lectures to psychology students at Laurentian University in Ontario. To make students understand this, he informs them in writing at the beginning of the semester. Persinger calls this his "Statement of Understanding", which he asks students to sign. CBC News reports:
The statement lists a sample of words that might be used during class, and includes the F-word, homophobic slurs and offensive slang for genitalia.
"One of my techniques is to expose people to all types of different words," Persinger told CBC News. "Silly words, complex words, emotional words, profane words. Because they influence how you make decisions and how you think."
By using words in lectures that cause emotion, Persinger said he can teach students about how that affects the brain's rational processes.
Persinger has done this for many years and says that his Statement of Understanding has actually recruited students into his courses. But now university administrators have removed him from teaching due to his swearing:
But in December, two months into the course, Persinger said he was called into the office of the university provost and told he would no longer be teaching the class.
"[I was told my] statement of understanding interfered with the senior administration's idea of the workplace policies, specifically the respectful workplace policies. When I asked for details, I didn't get any."
He should have taken Jabba's approach. Clothes are an unnecessary distraction. You only need clothes when someone is going to give you a medal, but that clearly isn't happening.
I remember when, as a baby, my eldest daughter discovered that she had feet. For a few days, they were to her the most fascinating things in the world.
This week-old baby elephant at Chai Lai Orchid Eco-Lodge in Thailand has made a similar discovery: she has a trunk! Her immediate task is to explore it fully.
Three years ago, the percussion troupe Etnobit visited Lake Baikal in eastern Russia in the middle of winter. There, the wife of one of the members slipped and fell. When she hit the ice, she made a loud booming sound. The drummers instantly recognized what that sound was: not a crash, but music.
They were very lucky. Other parts of the lake didn't produce resonant sounds when struck. It was only this particular spot where the water beneath the ice was shallow.
For 2 hours, they played on camera, striking different parts of the ice as only professional percussionists know how. The results are magical.
