The Chino Valley Unified School District (CVUSD) Choral Festival in San Bernardino County, California, was canceled, but the Chino Hills High School Chamber Singers still wanted to sing. So they coordinated a performance on YouTube, with each member singing from their homes. It's lovely.

This arrangement is the one made famous by the late Israel Kamakawiwoʻole. His version has been featured in many movies, TV shows, and ads, but the reason it always makes me tear up is because it accompanied the death of the ER character Mark Green.

-via the A.V. Club

You've no doubt heard that hospital workers are facing a critical shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE), including face masks to guard against coronavirus infection. Some volunteers are sewing or 3D printing masks to be used by health care professionals.

But the standard mask to protect workers from infected droplets is the N-95 mask, which is often used in construction. Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity donated their supply of 7,500 N-95 masks to local hospitals in Minneapolis/St. Paul. If you've done any construction, or even a remodeling or painting project at your home, you may also have some N-95 respirator masks in the leftover supplies.  

A thread at reddit showed how finding extra N-95 masks can be a treasure for hospitals. It inspired others to look around for household N-95 masks, and numerous health care workers relayed their gratitude. Even expired masks can help.

Call your local hospital to see if they need any gear you may have. PPE Link is a website trying to coordinate donations of masks and other protective gear. Read more about the project here. Another resource is #findthemasks. Every little bit helps.

(Image credit: splashattack)

When making cheese from milk, you keep the curds and discard the whey. That seems wasteful, and so Dr. Paul Hughes of Oregon State University developed a way to make hay of that whey. Instead of paying to have it hauled off, dairies could ferment that whey and make it into distilled spirits. The process is both sustainable and profitable.  

Todd Koch, owner of TMK Creamery in the rolling hills of Oregon’s Willamette Valley, remembers reading about Hughes’s work in the newspaper early last year. Large, corporate-owned creameries can afford the expensive equipment that converts whey into profitable products such as protein powder. But at his family-owned, 20-cow farmstand creamery, Koch and his wife simply fed their whey into the fields through a nutrient management system. Rather than continue to bury the byproduct, Koch decided to ferment as a means of profitably upcycling the whey while bringing visibility to his animals. He teamed up with Dr. Hughes and a nearby distiller to manufacture the creamery’s newest product: a clear, vodka-like liquor they call “Cowcohol.”

They aren't alone. Several other small family dairies are trying the same thing, with one calling their product “Vodkow.” Read about dairy vodka at Atlas Obscura.

The Interminable Wait.#LifeCommentary #LiveCommentary pic.twitter.com/5nSAlnVq2c

— Nick Heath (@nickheathsport) March 21, 2020

When sports are cancelled, way more people than just athletes are suddenly out of work. Nick Heath is a rugby commentator in London, but with nothing to comment on in the arena, he's turned his talents to other things. Meaning, scenes from everyday life. Crossing the street, shopping for groceries, or strolling in the park are not earth-shattering events, but with the right announcer, they can be made much more interesting.

Mundane Walk. #LifeCommentary #LiveCommentary pic.twitter.com/sDJCI5OVlW

— Nick Heath (@nickheathsport) March 18, 2020

You can see plenty more of these at Heath's Twitter feed. -via Boing Boing

In the United States, different states and municipalities are under widely varying restrictions to guard against the spread of coronavirus. Where I live, restaurants are open, but only for takeout, drive-through, and delivery, which cuts down on the number of people exposed to each other, but raises questions about the safety and desirability of restaurant food. Should you get takeout food or not?

Like many densely populated metropolitan areas, the Bay Area is now on complete lockdown. All non-essential businesses are closed, gatherings of large groups of people are banned, and residents have been told to leave their houses only if necessary. Among the businesses still running—at least in limited capacity—are supermarkets and restaurants, the latter of which are solely allowed to operate as take-out and delivery venues. I expect more cities will follow suit in the coming days and weeks.

Even so, plenty of folks—myself included—have been confused or curious about the safety of allowing restaurants to continue preparing and serving food. Is it actually safe? Should I reheat the food when I get it home? Is it better to support local businesses by ordering food, or am I only putting workers and delivery people at risk? And if I’m cooking my own food, what guidelines should I follow?

J. Kenji López-Alt of Serious Eats answers all these questions with references to scientific studies, and also questions about grocery shopping and handling food at home. After all, we still gotta eat!  -via Metafilter

(Image credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture)

In just the last couple of weeks, we've had to learn a whole new vocabulary to deal with the coronavirus epidemic. However, many of those terms would still be useful in the non-epidemic world. Henry Jones constructed an alternate dictionary of these terms so you can 1. have a laugh, B. remember these terms, and 3. know how to use them once the epidemic is over. -Thanks, Henry!

Maria von Trapp wrote a book about her life and family in 1949. That book was made into a German film in 1956. That film inspired a Broadway musical that debuted in 1959 called The Sound of Music. It was made into a Hollywood film in 1965, which surpassed Gone With The Wind to became the highest-grossing movie of all time for the next five years. Fifty-five years later, children still learn the songs from the movie in school -and one tune was a chart-topper just last year. But how close was the movie to the real story?   

In 1926, when one of Georg von Trapp's children, Maria, fell ill with scarlet fever and could no longer manage the 4-mile walk to school with her siblings, he asked the Reverend Mother at a nearby abbey to send him a suitable tutor. She chose Maria Augusta Kutschera, a 21-year-old novice with a teaching background.

Well, that sounds familiar. But there were differences. Georg and Maria married in 1927, so they were not confronted by Nazis upon returning from their honeymoon. But compared to other movies "based on a true story," the account was remarkably close to the truth. Read the real story of the von Trapp family behind The Sound of Music at Mental Floss.

(Image source: Library of Congress)

While the qualities of opium have been known for centuries, and the name "laudanum" was used in the 1500s, it was English physician Thomas Sydenham who formulated the opium tincture that became a sensation under the name laudanum in the 1660s. As time passed, any combination of alcohol and opium was called laudanum, and it was used alone or as an ingredient in other medicines. As you can imagine, laudanum became a popular remedy for anything that ails ya, because it relieved pain and made one care less about other symptoms. It didn't cure anything, but honestly, neither did other medications of the time.   

One reason that laudanum was popular was that it was cheaper than a bottle of gin or wine because it was not taxed like alcohol. Besides being cheap and readily available, people touted its abilities to relieve pain and there were also claims that it improved the body’s systems. It was thus widely prescribed for all sorts of ailments from colds to yellow fever and from menstrual cramps to cardiac diseases and because of all its supposed benefits it was also found frequently in patent medicines.

Those who took laudanum quickly discovered that it had addictive qualities. Still it seemed as if every Victorian doctor was prescribing it to every patient. In fact, prescriptions were commonly written for teenagers, children, and infants.

While laudanum relieved pain, it also caused addiction, overdose, and was sometimes used in murder. Read about the rise and fall of laudanum, including the experiences of famous people who took it, at Geri Walton's blog. -via Strange Company

(Image credit: Wellcome Images)

Here's some important information about germs and how to avoid them. It may look like a vintage government educational film, but this is a new video by Weird Al Yankovic, who repurposed old clips to construct something truly bizarre. Run! Run for your lives! -via Laughing Squid

The first Earth Day was held 50 years ago next month, and student activists at the University of Michigan staged a month-long "teach in" leading up to Earth Day to inform the public on how modern living is imperiling our planet. The activities included a mock trial where a car, specifically a 1959 Ford sedan, was put on trial for the crimes of “murder of the American public, crossing state lines to pollute, inciting traffic jams, creating physical and psychological dependence, and discriminating against the poor.” Yes, they prosecuted a car -in Michigan. While the case for the prosecution was pretty damning, the car had a slate of witnesses for the defense.  

“Rob Rockyfeller,” witness for the defense, testified that his (fictional) foundation had found that auto exhaust was only half as toxic as aspirin. His appearance lampooned the various foundations that supported business-friendly policy in the name of general prosperity. Another witness attested to the importance of cars to the American economy. But no witness evoked the country’s car mania more vividly than “Dr. Sigmund Ford,” who sat stiffly on the stand with his head tilted slightly back, looking down his nose at the crowd below him.

“The automobile is essential to the maintenance of the American’s psyche,” Ford shouted, urging the court to consider the emotional security a car gives to the American man. “You can’t take it away from him! How else could he know his power and virility? How can we show our neighbors we’re stronger and more powerful than they are without a Lincoln Continental?”

“But what would actually happen to [Americans] if you took away cars?” asked the prosecutor, wearing a plaid skirt-suit and, of all things, leather driving gloves.

“But you see, cars are very important,” Ford began, dodging the question. “They serve a function—”

“What would be the effect on people?” the prosecutor interjected. Ford couldn’t provide a satisfactory answer. “You just can’t take away their cars,” he shouted. “You can’t take away my car!”

While the scripted trial may seem silly today, it had positive effects on the auto industry, public policy, and the lives of those who participated. Read about the trial of the car at Smithsonian.

(Image credit: Mark Aspinall)

Groundbreaking science fiction films that you know and love have something else in common- many of them are the first film their directors made. Many of these first-time directors were previously authors, screenwriters, editors, special effects artists, or film school students who brought a fresh point of view and made the movie truly innovative. We all know about George Lucas' first film THX 1138, so let's explore some other first-time directors who left a mark on science fiction filmmaking. For example, Silent Running was Douglas Trumbull's directorial debut.

Douglas Trumbull was born into the visual effects biz—his father, Donald Trumbull, worked on 1939's The Wizard of Oz, one of Hollywood’s splashiest early showcases for what was then a new art form. Douglas followed a similar path in his career, bringing his own special effects talents to films like 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Andromeda Strain, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and Blade Runner. He’s only directed a few feature films to date, but his first effort, 1972's Silent Running, stars Bruce Dern as a botanist (solo, save for his robot helpers) tasked with tending a forested outer space bio-dome, intended for future use to restore Earth’s dying plant population. When the isolated world he’s protecting is threatened, he rebels as best he can. Silent Running’s story is simple, but Dern is quietly great—and the special effects, it probably goes without saying, are ahead of their time.

Read the stories behind 20 such films, and you'll surely find at least one -probably more- that you'll want to seek out and watch again.

Tales of a Christian kingdom located deep within the pagan realm of Asia -or maybe Africa- were too good for the Europeans of the 12th century to ignore. After all, people then as now tended to believe what they wanted to believe. But this legend was believed by so many people that it fueled travel, exploration, and even war.

Communicable diseases have been forcing people into isolation throughout history. When the plague or Spanish flu runs rampant, you don't have to be sick to want to separate yourself from every one else. If you are stuck at home doing nothing, you can take some inspiration from those who turned a boring situation and turned it into an opportunity for contemplation and creativity.

The Scream painter Edvard Munch didn’t just witness the Spanish Flu pandemic change the world around him—he contracted the disease around the beginning of 1919, while living in Norway. But instead of becoming one of its many victims, Munch lived to continue making great art. As soon as he felt physically capable, he gathered his painting supplies and began capturing his physical state. Self-Portrait with the Spanish Flu shows him with thinning hair and a gaunt face sitting in front of his sickbed.

Read about four other men whose greatest achievements came while hiding from disease at Mental Floss.

(Image credit: Edvard Munch) 

In the "things could be worse" department, while take precautions against COVID-19, we can also take the opportunity to learn about the horrible pandemics of the past. Plague, smallpox, and Spanish flu destroyed communities and even whole civilizations. We've learned a lot about disease mitigation since then. -via Laughing Squid

A new fossil has been identified and named Asteriornis maastrichtensis, but it's becoming known as the "wonderchicken." More than 66 million years old, it appears to be the oldest "crown" bird yet found, the ones modern birds are descended from.

Indeed, physical analysis of the Asteriornis fossil revealed a mixed set of features consistent with both modern landfowls (also known as gamefowls) and waterfowls—two distinct but closely related evolutionary orders. Together, landfowls and gamefowls fit snugly inside a clade called Galloanserae, a group that includes ducks, chickens, turkey, geese, pheasants, and partridges. Fascinatingly, Asteriornis had cranial features common to chickens and ducks, which suggests its evolutionary position is near to the last common ancestor of chickens and ducks, according to the research.

The explanation of why the wonderchicken is so important to the record of bird evolution is at Gizmodo.

(Image credit: Phillip Krzeminski)