What should the Chernobyl exclusion zone be used for, more than thirty years after a nuclear meltdown? Not for a tech sector with half a million people, no. A wildlife preserve? That's happened already, as animals took advantage of the lack of people to move in. The zone encompasses 2,600 square kilometers (1,000 square miles), with levels of radiation varying from nope to meh. To promote the possibility of bringing agriculture back to the zone, scientists have produced vodka from grain grown in Chernobyl, using local water.

Described as “high quality artisan vodka,” the alcoholic beverage was brewed by the Chernobyl Spirit Company, and branded—appropriately enough—ATOMIK. Only one bottle of ATOMIK currently exists, and the product is not yet for sale, but it’s considered the first commercial product to come from the exclusion zone, the BBC reports. Jim Smith, a professor of environmental science at the University of Portsmouth, led the project.

Part science, part promotional stunt, the project is meant to demonstrate a possible way in which land in and around the damaged nuclear power plant can be put to good use, namely through the growing of crops. The producers of this single bottle of vodka are hoping it could lead to something far grander—the revitalization of a traditional Ukrainian industry in a region beset by economic distress.

Oh yeah, strict testing shows that the vodka is not at all radioactive. Read more about the project at Gizmodo.

(Image credit: University of Portsmouth)

The American woodcock, also called the timberdoodle, the bogsucker and hokumpoke, is quite an entertaining bird. They dance better than most of us. If you prefer slightly more modern music, check out this number at reddit. Or maybe this one. And they can sing, too!



Ah, to be young and talented... and have a lot of free time.

 
Watching people ride a roller coaster can be a thrill without the willies, but Fernando Livschitz of Black Sheep Films (previously at Neatorama) goes a step further in this short collage of thrill rides that goes completely off the rails, so to speak. -via Everlasting Blort

Everyone wants to know the secret to long life. When someone turns 100 years old, they are always asked, and their answers range from drinking beer every day to avoiding marriage. There's even more interest in people who make it to age 110, called "supercentenarians." There aren't that many of them, and according to new research by Saul Justin Newman of the Biological Data Science Institute at Australian National University, the one thing they have in common is poor record keeping.

Across the United States, the state recording of vital information — that is, reliable, accurate state record-keeping surrounding new births — was introduced in different states at different times. A century ago, many states didn’t have very good record-keeping in place. But that changed gradually over time in different places.

Newman looks at the introduction of birth certificates in various states and finds that “the state-specific introduction of birth certificates is associated with a 69-82% fall in the number of supercentenarian records.”

In other words, as soon as a state starts keeping good records of when people are born, there’s a 69 to 82 percent fall in the number of people who live to the age of 110. That suggests that of every 10 supposed supercentenarians, seven or eight of them are actually younger than that, but we just don’t know it because of poor record-keeping.

That doesn't necessarily mean that supercentenarians are committing deliberate fraud. There are several reasons why one could believe their age is greater than it is. But if a person were to add ten years to their age to get a pension, that might catch up with them 40 or 50 years later. Read about the research and what it reveals at Vox.  -via Metafilter

How many different lightsabers are there in the Star Wars universe? Let's see, Darth Maul had one that swung both ways, and Kylo Ren had those weird side lasers where a guard should be, but to a casual fan, the rest come in straight weapons of red, blue, or green -except for Mac Windu's purple lightsaber. But when you look closely, there's a lot of variety, particularly when the animated stories and comic books are included. The list at io9 has 26 different lightsabers with descriptions and the reasoning behind whether they are cool or not.

More than 30 years later, Coming to America is getting a sequel. Eddie Murphy will return as Akeem, the crown prince of Zamunda, and Arsenio Hall will reprise his role as Akeem's best friend Semmi. Wesley Snipes has joined the production as General Izzi, the ruler of another nation in Africa. He could very well be the antagonist in the story. What we know so far:

In the sequel, Akeem is set to become King of Zamunda but discovers he has a son he never knew about in America – a street-savvy Queens native named Lavelle. Honoring his father’s dying wish to groom this son as the crowned prince, Akeem and Semmi set off to America to meet the unlikely heir.

James Earl Jones will also return as King Jaffe Joffer, and Paul Bates, who played Akeem's bodyguard, will also appear. Newcomers to the story include Leslie Jones. It is unclear whether the movie will be called Coming to America 2 or Coming 2 America, but it is scheduled to open in December of 2020.  -via Uproxx

A group of guys who have a popular fishing channel go fishing and are distracted by a friendly and agreeable calico cat. They called her Maruo. Next time they went to the same fishing spot, they arrived bearing gifts.



Once they made sure she was a stray, one of the guys adopted her and named her Marimo. There are plenty more videos of Marimo afterward, adjusting to being a pampered house cat, linked at Metafilter.

Volcanoes blow smoke rings occasionally. Not all of them, and the ones that do only fire off rings under certain conditions, and it's hard to catch them at it. But observations of the phenomena have been recorded throughout history. Fabio Pulvirenti of the NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory wanted to know why rings were ejected from volcanoes, but was daunted by the unpredictability and ephemeral quality of volcanic smoke rings, so he went to work creating a computer simulation to see what conditions they required.

As a doctoral student of volcanology at the University of Auckland, Benjamin Simons has seen smoke rings at several persistently active volcanoes, including Mount Yasur in Vanuatu. The majority of the rings he saw escaped from skylights, roughly circular natural openings perched above the level of volcanic vents that are open to the “beautiful night glow of magma” below.

When small puffs of volcanic gas were forced through these narrow openings, smoke rings appeared. They rose ponderously, he says, rarely having the power to leave the summit crater before fading away. The results of the new computer model match with Simons’ own observations; the more circular the opening, “the more likely it is to produce a smoke ring,” he says.

National Geographic spells out the conditions that cause a volcano to blow smoke rings as determined by Pulvirenti's research. -via Damn Interesting

(Image credit: Steven W. Dengler)

Today, the moose is the largest animal in the deer family. But that wasn't always so. This is the story of Megaloceros, often called the Irish elk (although they lived throughout Europe and Asia). Just the antlers of this enormous deer could be 12 feet wide! But those amazing antlers may have contributed to Megaloceros' extinction.

Everyone has a butt, but Pablo Stanley has 44 of them besides the one he sits on. The above video is an introduction to his graphic design collection called Buttsss, "A collection of beautiful round butt illustrations." In order to understand it, you should read an elaborate (but wonderfully funny) chronology of the design process. It will make you appreciate Stanley's butts. -via Metafilter

Humans invented the house to get away from nature, with its rain and predators and other inconveniences. However, insects are everywhere, and never got the message that they aren't welcome inside. Bugs will come into your home if they get the chance to check out what's good to eat in there. Should we be worried? Yes, depending on the type of insect.

Research shows that human homes harbor an average of 100 different insect species, regardless of cleanliness or the presence of pets, which often provide outdoor bugs with free (albeit bumpy) rides to the great indoors. Glancing around my home office, I see a small spider hanging in an upper corner and a modest swarm of gnats circling my dampened snake plant. But going by those statistics, there are almost certainly dozens of other bug species in my near vicinity, hidden just out of sight (and here comes the senseless itching, oh dear God).

Spiders are not insects, but are listed anyway, and are actually beneficial in controlling bugs. The number one bug on the list does not bite, nor is it said to be a disease-carrier. You might be able to guess what kind it is before you check out the list at Mel magazine. 

(Image credit: Ministerio da Saude Timor-Leste)

Cleopatra was legendary in her use of perfume. It was said that you could smell her before you could see her. But what was in her perfume, and what did it really smell like? Archaeologist Robert Littman and his team wanted to find out.  

Littman and his colleague Jay Silverstein came up with the idea during their ongoing excavation of the ancient Egyptian city Thmuis, located north of Cairo in the Nile Delta and founded around 4500 BC. The region was home to two of the most famous perfumes in the ancient world: Mendesian and Metopian. So when the researchers uncovered what seemed to be an ancient fragrance factory—a 300 BC site riddled with tiny glass perfume jars and imported clay amphoras—they knew they had to try to recover any scent that had survived.

The amphoras did not contain any noticeable smell—but they did contain an ancient sludge. After conducting a residue analysis, Littman took it to two experts on ancient Egyptian perfumes, Dora Goldsmith and Sean Coughlin, who tried to replicate the Thmuis scent using formulas found in ancient Greek materia medica texts.

While they did come up with a plausible recipe, no one knows if it resembles Cleopatra's perfume. However, their new but very old perfume may have been quite a familiar scent in ancient Egypt, where so many people perfumed themselves daily. Read about the project to recreate ancient perfume at Atlas Obscura.

Avengers: Endgame brought together characters from twenty previous Marvel films, and ended up as the top-grossing movie of all time. It's coming to home video soon, so it's time for Screen Junkies to give us an Honest Trailer. I have yet to see Avengers: Endgame, and I learned more about it from the Honest Trailer than from anything else I've seen. That doesn't make it any less confusing.

The Air Force's F-16 fighter jets produce 29,000 pounds of thrust and can fly at twice the speed of sound. Maj. Jason Markzon is a pilot in the U.S. Air Force Air Demonstration Squadron, called the Thunderbirds. When they performed in New York earlier this year, Rob Verger got a chance to take a ride with him. He found out why fighter pilots must stay in top physical condition and undergo years of training.  

We cruised to the Garden State, and Flack made a 90-degree turn, then a brutal 180-degree turn—a hard long pull and a steep bank angle. I experienced 6.2 Gs during the maneuver. (Astronauts typically endure three or four during liftoff, and an F-16 and its pilot can handle nine.) The sudden moves were part of our G-exercise, a standard practice before any flight that might hit the crew with high Gs to ensure that the plane, and anyone aboard, can take the stress. I did not pass.

It’s hard to describe the frightening sensation of pulling heavy Gs. A crushing feeling pushes you back into your seat. You experience difficulty breathing. The force pushes blood away from your eyes and brain, potentially giving you tunnel vision. It’s not unusual for rookies to feel pummeled by the Gs—some even lose consciousness—and shaken to the point of puking from air sickness.

I didn’t vomit. Not then, anyway.

Read the full account of Verger's flight, with accompanying video evidence at Popular Science. -via Digg

(Image credit: US Air Force Thunderbirds)

A warehouse caught fire in South Bend, Indiana, on Sunday. As firefighters battled the blaze, they caught sight of a pair of raccoons trapped on the roof. Knowing the animals would not approach people, they set up two ladders so the raccoons could reach the ground on their own. This video from Paul Bierwagen shows how the raccoons made their descent, while onlookers cheered. -via reddit