The N95 Mask is now one of the most significant and sought-after health devices of the 21st century. The small polymer cup has been widely used as protective equipment, and has saved a lot of lives. The origin of the N95 can be traced way back to the Renaissance era, where people would cover their noses with cloth to avoid the plague. Fast Company has more details: 

e The N95 mask is a descendant of Wu’s design. Through World War I and World War II, scientists invented air-filtering gas masks that wrapped around your entire head to clean the air supply. Similar masks, loaded with fiberglass filters, began to be used in the mining industry to prevent black lung.

“All the respirators were these giant, gas mask-looking things,” says Nikki McCullough, an occupational health and safety leader at 3M, which manufactures N95 respirators. “You’d wash them out at night and you could wear them again.”

his equipment saved lives, but it was burdensome, and a large reason why were the filters. The fiberglass required a lot of effort to breathe, and the full head enclosures were hot to wear. By the 1950s, scientists began to understand the dangers of inhaling asbestos, but people working with asbestos preferred not to wear bulky respirator masks. Imagine working in construction in 85-degree heat and having your head wrapped in rubber to protect yourself from an invisible threat.

So in the 1970s, the Bureau of Mines and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health teamed up on creating the first criteria for what they called “single use respirators.” The first single-use N95 “dust” respirator as we know it was developed by 3M, according to the company, and approved on May 25, 1972. Instead of fiberglass, the company repurposed a technology it had developed for making stiffer gift ribbons into a filter, by taking a melted polymer and air-blasted it into layers of tiny fibers. “They look like somebody dropped a bunch of sticks—and they have huge spaces between them,” says McCullough.

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King Henry VIII is best known for his cruelty towards his wives. He executed two of his wives as King of England. There’s even a mnemonic to remember the fate of all six of King Henry VIII’s wives! The Infographics Show looks into the reason behind the fate of all the king’s wives. Watch and find out the reason why King Henry VIII beheaded two of his wives!

Dreams can come in a lot of variations. They can be pleasing, sad, or just outright weird. Some say that dreaming is just our brain trying to process things, but what do they really mean? Sometimes we’d like to decipher the message or meaning behind these dreams, but even scientists can’t say what our dreams mean. It’s up to the dreamer to determine what their sleep-induced movies mean, as MSN detailed: 

Dr. Kryger says that dreams are "mostly speculation in terms of specific meanings." Among the scientific community, he continues, there are two main trains of thought: One is that every part of a dream has a specific meaning, and the other is that dreams are entirely spontaneous and mean nothing. 

The first train of thought can be attributed to Sigmund Freud, who is recognized as the first person to assign definitive meanings to dreams -- like that dreaming about a king and a queen actually means you're dreaming about your mother and father, Dr. Kryger says. 

Although dream psychoanalysis may have only begun in the last century or two, people have studied dreams for far longer: Aristotle wrote about dreams as early as 325 B.C., according to Dr. Kryger.  

Lauri Quinn Loewenberg, a professional dream analyst, says the problem with arriving at proof across the board "is that dreams and their meanings are so very personal because they are based on the person's individual life experiences." 

Additionally, neuroscience tends to focus on the function of dreaming (like memory retention) rather than the "comparative analysis between the imagery in dreams and the content of the previous day, which is how I approach dream analysis," Loewenberg says. 

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A video of the Etobicoke Creek in Ontario, Canada, turning completely red has creeped out the Internet. The video was shared online by Twitter user adamcarson0205. The creek turning red was like a scene from a horror film! Some people are believing that the end is near, with the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and the creek turning red.

(via Daily Star)

Almost no one is going outside due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As Japan fights off the virus, Nara’s various tourist attractions and amenities are devoid of people. The deer are now taking this chance to roam around Nara, Japan. Some wander off to gift shops and restaurants. Head over to AP News to see photographs of the deer roaming around! 

image via AP News

Hotel thievery is more than taking hotel towels and toiletries. From ceramic bowls to throw pillows to oil paintings and to wireless speakers, hotel thieves take more than what we would expect. It can be anything, as long as it can fit in a suitcase. One guest at the Beverly Wilshire hotel stole a marble fireplace by cutting it out of the wall with a chisel, Peter Greenberg told The Guardian: 

“There’s a sense of entitlement,” explains Greenberg. “The guest thinks: ‘I overpaid for this room, and what’s in it is mine.’ Anything that can be squeezed into a suitcase seems to be fair game.”

Some things that don’t fit in the overhead bin are up for grabs, too. That’s the takeaway from the latest Theft in Hotels survey published last year by Wellness Heaven, a German website that reviews luxury hotels and spas. The data, collected from 1,157 four- and five-star hotels, helps explain why rack rates keep rising. The first sentence of the report jumps off the page like the price of beluga on a room service menu: “Stealing soaps or pens seems harmless for many hotel guests, however, some are so bold that they carry TVs, pianos, mattresses or even [taxidermied] animals out of the hotel.”

The other shocker from this biennial survey is that the people who stay in the best places are the biggest thieves. Four-star hotel guests tend to pilfer common household staples like pens, towels, hangers and cutlery. It’s at the posh five-star places, though, where the good stuff goes missing.

A television set is nine times more likely to be stolen from a five-star than a four-star hotel. The same goes for art heists, which happen five times more often in the very best establishments. Duvets and pillows are another five-star obsession. There’s a fourfold increase in the theft of those coveted goose down accessories. The scam: bring some old bedding from home, and switch it out just before checkout.

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It’s been a few months since the latest iPhone was released. However, it seems that iPhone 12 is coming to retail stores soon. People speculated that it would be released in September, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ll probably see the iPhone 12 in October or November. Jon Prosser of Front Page Tech shared some details on Twitter concerning the new phone, as tom’s guide detailed: 

he says that while things are returning to normal in the supply chain, the damage has already been done, and we'll see the iPhone 12 in October or November instead of the normal September.

He explains that while the iPhone 12 is still pencilled in for mass production in May, it's not going to be ready in time for Apple's usual September launch. This is because Apple isn't sending its American executives over to China to approve the final design due to travel bans put in place in order to prevent exposure to infection. This means that the prototyping stage may not yet be complete and that Apple is already two months behind schedule.

image via wikimedia commons

There’s an Icelandic show about four kittens living in a miniature house. It’s like animal reality television, which is appropriate for its name, Keeping up with Kattarshians. This is what Reddit user u/palmodi discovered, and shared online. The show is about Gudni, Stubbur, Britet, and Ronja, who are all nine weeks old. Now that’s a show added to my to watch list!

image via nutiminn

Due to the spread of COVID-19, Reddito Ashmush and her fiance’s wedding had to be called off. However, this doesn’t mean they can’t have a wedding at all! Ashmush’s fiance decided to surprise her with a special wedding in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Her fiance invited their friends, and prepared a virtual wedding in the game. Now that’s sweet! 

(via GoNintendo)

image via GoNintendo

Scientists discovered that the world’s highest dwelling mammal is a yellow-rumped leaf-eared mouse. The mouse lives on Llullaillaco, the world’s highest historically active volcano, straddling Argentina and Chile. It survives at an elevation above 20,000 feet, where no plants grow. What does it eat? It’s a surprise that a mouse can live in such a hostile environment, as National Geographic detailed:

“It’s hard to overstate how hostile an environment it is,” says Jay Storz, a biologist at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and a National Geographic Explorer.

Intrigued by the discovery, Storz organized an expedition to the volcano in February specifically to search for rodents. And rodents he found. In fact, he encountered another yellow-rumped mouse even higher than previously sighted, atop the very summit of Llullaillaco, at 22,110 feet—breaking the record announced just last year.

The yellow-rumped leaf-eared mouse (Phyllotis xanthopygus), is a known species that lives in the foothills and mountains of the Andes, and also can be found as low as sea level. (Related: Meet the animals that thrive in extreme mountain conditions.)

That means the mouse has an unprecedented elevation range of more than 22,000 feet. “That wide of a range is extraordinary,” says Scott Steppan, a mouse expert and biology professor at Florida State University. “No other species does that.”

The Labirinto Della Masone is the world’s largest labyrinth. It is an eight hectare complex, with a path that is three kilometers long. Located in Fontanello, Italy, the labyrinth was created by Franco Maria Ricci. Riccis is publisher, designer, art collection and bibliophile. The labyrinth was created due to a promise Ricci made to Jorge Luis Borges, an Argentinian writer. Borges has always been fascinated by the symbol of the labyrinth, as Designboom detailed: 

it is entirely made of bamboo plants (numbering around 200 thousand in total) between 30 centimeters and 15 meters in height, and belonging to many species. all throughout, it is a maze for losing oneself in, and for fantasizing and reflecting.

I first dreamed of building a labyrinth around thirty years ago,’ comments franco maria ricci. ‘on several occasions back then, in my country house outside parma, I played host to a friend and valued contributor in the publishing house had I founded: argentinean writer jorge luis borges. it is a well-known fact that the labyrinth was one of his favorite themes. and the paths traced by the hesitant footfalls of the blind writer as he walked around me, made me think of the uncertainty of those who move in the midst of forks in the path and enigmas. I think that it was watching him, and talking to him of the strange journeys made by men, that the very first embryo of the project finally opened to the public in june 2015 first took form.’

image via Designboom

Researchers from the University of Plymouth discovered that LEGO bricks can last for 1300 years in a marine environment. The researchers measured the mass of colorful bricks found along the coastlines of England against unused pieces, along with the age of bricks in storage. The research proves that LEGO bricks can last for centuries! Geek.com has more details: 

This research, published in the journal Environmental Pollution, reinforces the message that people need to think twice about how they dispose of household items.

“LEGO is one of the most popular children’s toys in history and part of its appeal has always been its durability,” according to lead study author Andrew Turner, an associate professor at the University of Plymouth.

“It is specifically designed to be played with and handled, so it may not be especially surprising that despite potentially being in the sea for decades it isn’t significantly worn down,” he said in a statement. “However, the full extent of its durability was even a surprise to us.”

Fifty pieces of weathered LEGO—made from acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and collected from beaches in Cornwall—were washed and weighed in labs at the university.

The chemical characteristics of each block were determined using an X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectrometer, the results of which confirmed age based on the presence of certain elements no longer in use.

“The pieces we tested had smoothed and discolored, with some of the structures having fractured and fragmented, suggesting that as well as pieces remaining intact they might also break down into microplastics,” Turner explained.

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Solving jigsaw puzzles helps to pass the time and ease boredom. In addition, solving puzzles also helps people calm down from anxiety. Robyn Breen turns to puzzles instead of prescription medication when anxiety strikes. Jigsaw puzzles do have stress-relieving benefits, as clinical neuropsychologist Susan Vandermorris tells Reader’s Digest: 

Any type of puzzle is good for the brain and points to the stress-relieving benefits of jigsaws, in particular, she says. “If you’re doing a puzzle, you are, by definition, disconnected and engaged in a task that’s immersive, away from the interruptions and stresses of day-to-day life,” she explains. “And that, of course, is good for your brain.”

Vandermorris believes that doing puzzles with others boasts even more health benefits than doing them on your own, adding that it provides a rare opportunity for intergenerational engagement. “Get the teenagers off their smartphones and working on a puzzle with Grandma, and suddenly you’ve got a really nice family interaction that seems to be harder and harder to come by these days,” she adds.

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Tired of playing regular mainstream games on your chosen console? Or are you craving for a different gaming experience? Hyperallergic lists some creative and quick games you can play all for a low price. Some of the games on the list can be played from fifteen minutes to a few hours. Dive into these games that are unique and artistic! Head on to their site to check the full list!

Rolo, a seven-year-old dachshund, wagged his tail so hard that it stopped moving! The dog was very pleased to have his owners home, where he can ask them to constantly play and bond with him. After a few days at home, his owners noticed that his tail was under his legs. After a visit to the vet, Rolo is on pain relief, and his sprained tail will be healed after a week! 

(via 9gag)

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