The Olympic Summer Games open on Friday in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Sports Illustrated has a special section in which you can see videos and pictures of quite a few of Team USA’s athletes as they prepare for the competition of their lives. This video of gymnast Gabby Douglas is just one of 62 athlete profiles. -via Digg
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Marna Gillian and Sean Purdy had a cat named Moon Unit, until she disappeared from her home in London as they hosted a New year’s Eve party in 2007. They searched for her, and posted notices, but after a few months decided that Moon Unit was not coming home. Fast forward to 2016, and Gillian received an email from a French animal rescue group that they had identified Moon Unit from her microchip!
"She was found in Essonne, a suburb south of Paris," Gillian explained. "We have no idea how she got there. Our best guesses are that she stowed away, or found a new family, was brought over by them, and then ran away? The stowaway theory seems the most likely i think.
"She didn't get there legally, we do know, because her microchip would have been checked in that case."
Gillian and Purdy are no longer a couple, but they took a train together to collect Moon Unit in Paris. They say she is adjusting well, and will soon be introduced to one of her adult kittens. -via Uproxx
(Image credit: Marna Gillian)
Are there more rats in Vancouver than ever before, or are people just more aware of them now? There has been very little research on rat populations in cities, and the Vancouver Rat Project aims to change that. Veterinary pathologist Chelsea Himsworth is leading a team that captures, analyzes, and tags rats to see where they live, how they behave, in what diseases they may be carrying. One thing they know is that rats thrive in urban areas because rats always thrive where the natural world has been disrupted.
Which brings into question the constant human quest to disrupt rats and their habitats. As much as rats thrive in disrupted environments, Byers says, they’ve managed to create very stable colonies within them. Rats live in tight-knit family groups that are confined to single city blocks, and which rarely interact. The Rat Project hypothesized that when a rat is ousted from its family by pest control, its family might flee its single-block territory, spreading diseases that are usually effectively quarantined to that family. In other words, the current pest control approach of killing one rat per concerned homeowner call could be backfiring, and spreading disease rather than preventing it.
Read exactly how this can happen, and the case for leaving city rats be, at Nautilus. -via Digg
(Image credit: Jia Sung)
In a word, no. But somehow we got that idea and enshrined it in our fables and pop culture. Simon Whistler from Today I Found Out gives us the lowdown.
Someone told me long ago that it’s better to load your mousetraps with peanut butter. But I never had to compare the baits because I have cats. -via Laughing Squid
Photographer Carol Highsmith began donating her works to the Library of Congress in 1988, and continues to do so. She also posts images on the website of her non-profit photography foundation This is America! But Highsmith received a copyright infringement notice and a bill for $120 from License Compliance Service for hosting an image she herself took.
Highsmith then had a 27-minute phone call with LCS, where she explained that she was the author and that she found it baffling that she had to pay a license fee for a photograph that she not only took, but donated to the public.
Two days later, she got an e-mail from LCS, saying that it considered the matter “closed.” However, according to the suit, the photo in question remained on sale by LCS and Getty.
And it isn’t just Getty Images. Highsmith also found her images for sale at at the image licensing company Alamy, which was named in the notice she was sent from LCS, and Picscout, too. All are named as defendants in a one billion dollar lawsuit. The coming suit will be quite interesting, and will possibly uncover the photo licensing companies' methods for selling licenses to publish public domain images. In fact, it may be an important, precedent-setting case. Read more of the details at Ars Technica. -via Metafilter
(Image credit: Carol M. Highsmith via the Library of Congress)
Politifact, a fact-checking website from the Tampa Bay Times, is a handy tool when you want to know the real story behind a political soundbite, even when you don’t like the results. Most of the time, the details are a lot more complicated than the sound bite would lead you to believe, and if you click on the quotes and read the entire explanation, you can see how the information was distilled and sometimes twisted. You can guess how the politicians quoted feel about it. Imagine Politifact following you around and checking the validity of the things you say all day. It would only take about five minutes before you are ready to strangle it. This is the latest from Randall Munroe at xkcd. Go to the link to see the hover text punchline.
Did you have a treehouse when you were a kid? Mine was a few boards placed across some branches, just a platform, really, but the neighborhood kids had fun climbing up and sitting in the tree together. Thanks to professional treehouse builders and/or parents with free time, some kids have more. Much more.
This extra large treehouse very closely resembles a modern day lake house retreat. The beautifully detailed staircase has natural branch supports that make it have a sophisticated quality. The large porch area is big enough to play with several friends. The main part of the house has a skylight and has a large metal double roof. The builder used natural wood for the exterior just like a lake cabin would have. There is two extra large sectional window for that have great views. Under the treehouse are two playground style swings. The whole structure is held securely by two large pine trees.
See more fabulous kids' treehouses at Housely.
The explosion of the game Pokémon GO is leading to the inevitable: babies named after Pokémon. It’s not the first time someone’s done it, but the popularity of the name Eevee is growing, as well as Onix. Ash is also seen more often. There have been babies named Pikachu in Japan for years, and it may well happen in the U.S. soon, if it hasn’t already. These children will never be able to lie about their age. -via The Daily Dot
Big Bird channels Will Smith as he and the the usual suspects from Sesame Street do the song “Summertime” by DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince. It’s a product of the editing skills of Adam Schleichkorn, also known as Mylo the Cat (previously at Neatorama).
It will take you back to the summer of 1991, or in some cases, back to the days of watching Sesame Street as a kid. -via Uproxx
Believe it or not, this is a live parrot, and not a squeeze toy! Kanji has not only learned how to make the exact sound of a squeaky toy, he also knows the appropriate time to use that talent. -via Tastefully Offensive
Lake Urmia in Iran is suffering the fate of many lakes, and is shrinking. One factor is drought, and the other is all the water that is diverted for agriculture. As the lake shrinks, it becomes saltier, and that is causing it to actually change color during the year. NASA’s Aqua satellite captured the image on the left on April 23, and the image on the right on July 18. Rains and snowmelt bring fresh water to the lake in spring, but by July, that starts to change.
The fresh water in the spring drives salinity levels down, but the lake generally becomes saltier as summer heat and dryness take hold. That’s when the microorganisms show their colors, too. Careful sampling of the water would be required to determine which organisms transformed the lake in 2016, but scientists say there are likely two main groups of organisms involved: a family of algae called Dunaliella and an archaic family of bacteria known as Halobacteriaceae.
“Previous research suggests that Dunaliella salina is responsible for reddening of Lake Urmia,” explained Mohammad Tourian, a scientist at the University of Stuttgart. “In the marine environment, Dunaliella salina appears green; however, in conditions of high salinity and light intensity, the microalgae turns red due to the production of protective carotenoids in the cells.”
Read more about how Lake Uremia changes at NASA’s Earth Observatory. -via Boing Boing
America’s Funniest Home Videos put together a compilation of confounded dogs and cats struggling to deal with their cones of shame.
It must be awful to suddenly find that either your head or the world is a different shape. Some of these pets aren’t sure which it is, but it is difficult. -via Tastefully Offensive
Wheeeee! A little bird landed on the handrail of a moving walkway and was carried down to the end. It must have been a fun ride, because he went right back to where he was to start all over again!
If only we could all spend time enjoying the little pleasures of life. We don’t know where this is, but the walls sure could use some artwork. -via Laughing Squid
We love to study the Middle Ages because Europe a few hundred years ago was such a weird and busy place. You’ve got the fall of the Roman Empire, early written English, the plague, crusaders and conquerers, myths and legends, and the stuff that we use for our fantasy pop culture these days. John Green gives us some fascinating tidbits to add to our store of knowledge about the Middle Ages, in the latest episode of the mental_floss List Show.
We read about various conflicted communities in which the locals did not side with the rest of their state during the Civil War, but Town Line, New York, was a puzzling outlier. This town is nowhere near the South- it’s near the Canadian border, just east of Buffalo. There weren’t any slaves or slaveholders there. The citizenry was almost entirely German immigrants. But for some reason, they voted in 1861 to secede from the Union and join the Confederacy.
According to New York: A Guide to the Empire State (Federal Writers’ Project, 1940), the dissenting minority referred to the town as a “nest of Copperheads,” threatening them with arrest under charges of sedition and even lynching. Nonetheless, according to oral history, at least five members of newly-Confederate Town Line headed south to join the Army of Northern Virginia, even as twenty residents stayed put and fought for the Union Army.
There are few records about Town Line’s secession, and the names of those who voted for it were not recorded. Add to that the fact that the federal government dealt with Town Line mainly by ignoring it, and you’ve set up somewhat of a historical mystery. Read about the New York community that joined the Confederacy at Atlas Obscura.
(Image credit: Chriskyddwr)
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