After the recent incidents involving selfies, the US National Park Service wants to reinforce good and safe photo etiquette. There’s no better way to get the attention of your intended audience than to depict the possible effects of their bad selfie behavior through gingerbread cookies. These gingerbread cookies aim to convince all to stay a safe distance away from the wildlife, as Cnet.com details: 

"Use a zoom lens on your camera," the NPS tweeted on Friday. "If you are close enough to take a selfie with wildlife, you are wayyyy too close ... gingerly back away." 

The agency set the scene with photos showing a gingerbread man posing for a selfie with two bison. The next image shows the cookie flying through the air with a "WTF just happened" expression on its face.

The NPS doled out some more detailed advice in an Instagram version of the post. "Animals may appear to be calm and docile but are unpredictable and can easily be startled," the agency warned. It suggests sticking to trails and boardwalks and keeping your eye on the trail rather than your camera.

image via Cnet.com

Minneapolis’ ‘Green To Go Ordinance’ has managed to inadvertently  ban your favorite holiday cups. The Green To Go Ordinance aims to increase the amount of commercial waste that is recyclable or compostable. One of the banned materials is polyethylene, a material used as a liner in coffee cups to make them waterproof. In response to the ordinance, Starbucks retracted its holiday cups, sticking to the classic plain white cups, as Reason detailed:

A spokesperson for Starbucks tells Reason that the company reacted to the new Minneapolis requirements by switching to to-go coffee cups lined with polylactic acid, a bioplastic typically made from corn-starch. But these cups were only available in plain white.

image credit: via Reason

Mortal Kombat is an ongoing video games series, a fighting-themed game. It’s gruesome, violent, and filled with murderous characters. While some would rank the best characters in terms of stats or abilities, or their favourite characters, Polygon’s Brian David Gilbert takes a step in the other direction, as he finds which character can cuddle you the best. 

The decade is closing in a few days, and what better way to reminisce about the past year and the closing decade than to look back at the music? Refinery29 lists its top 10 albums of the whole decade, and while you might not agree on some (or any, music is subjective after all) of their picks, we can all agree on one thing: there’s a lot of good music that came from the 2010s.  Maybe you can take inspiration from them and list the albums that define your decade as well! 

image credit: via wikimedia commons

In NASA’s efforts to map the Milky Way galaxy, scientists captured an image of the galaxy’s central zone. The central zone is highlighted by a candy cane-shaped portion in the captured image. This galactic candy cane isn’t edible at all, as it is part of a set of radio-emitting filaments extending 190 light-years, Science Daily detailed: 

This image includes newly published observations using an instrument designed and built at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Called the Goddard-IRAM Superconducting 2-Millimeter Observer (GISMO), the instrument was used in concert with a 30-meter radio telescope located on Pico Veleta, Spain, operated by the Institute for Radio Astronomy in the Millimeter Range headquartered in Grenoble, France.

"GISMO observes microwaves with a wavelength of 2 millimeters, allowing us to explore the galaxy in the transition zone between infrared light and longer radio wavelengths," said Johannes Staguhn, an astronomer at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore who leads the GISMO team at Goddard. "Each of these portions of the spectrum is dominated by different types of emission, and GISMO shows us how they link together."

GISMO detected the most prominent radio filament in the galactic center, known as the Radio Arc, which forms the straight part of the cosmic candy cane.

image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center via Science Daily

Scientists at Swiss university ETH Zurich have found a way to make chocolate shimmer, without the artificial colorants. The stunning incandescence is achieved through a surface imprint that disperses light to display an array of hues, similar to a chameleon’s skin. Instead of a coating, the researchers tried to do an impression on the surface, which allows a colorful shimmer to appear.  Researchers plan to refine the chocolate shimmer to a glow. Geek.com has the details: 

Thanks to experts from the FHNW University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland, who developed a mould that makes it possible to imprint more than one chocolate at a time, this unique method can be scaled up for industry.

The scientists are in discussions with major chocolate producers, according to ETH; they even plan to establish a spin-off company. A patent for the process has also been filed.

“The project was only successful because different disciplines worked together,” the university said in a press release. “Fresh ideas prevented the project from stalling at crucial moments.”

image via Geek.com

Night-mode is a smartphone feature that shifts the colors of your screen from cold to warm tones, aiming to make you sleep better. However, a study led by Dr. Tim Brown suggest that relying on your phone’s night mode to help you sleep wouldn’t work. Blue light actually don’t disrupt sleep, contrary to popular belief. In fact, your phone’s yellow lights during night mode is actually worse, according to the study. The Guardian has the details: 

According to the study, brightness levels are more important than colour when it comes to stimulating the body clock. However, when the light is equally dim, blue is more relaxing than yellow.

This makes basic sense: daylight is yellow, twilight is blue, and sunrise and sunset are pretty reliable ways to tell your body clock what time it is. Of course, at this point, we only know it works on mice – and mice don’t have phones. “We think there is good reason to believe it’s also true in humans,” says Dr Brown.

There is perhaps a more obvious truth to be drawn – if your phone is telling you to switch to night mode, it is time to put down your phone.

It is not the colour of the screen that is keeping you awake; it is all the stuff your phone offers as an alternative to sleep at 2am. There is only one real night-mode switch: the off button.

image via wikimedia commons

The use of food-related themes in art has been widespread as years pass by. From artists using food as a motif to speak about social issues, to using food as the main material in different mediums, from paintings to sculptures, food isn’t a newcomer in the field of art and self-expression. It seems that food is now also the main motif in decorative pieces. Inedible art decorations are everywhere, from food shops to cafes and home decor stores near you, these food objects are accessible and can be displayed in any corner of your home. The appeal behind this sudden trend of displaying inedible food may be related to the satisfaction of viewing the food you can’t eat, or just for the aesthetic. 

(via Vogue)

image via The Webster

Miyu Kojima is an employee of a firm that specializes in cleaning up homes in morbid pasts. She cleans up after the kodokushi (“lonely deaths”), where people who live alone are found dead in their homes. To show an aspect of the kodokushis’ lives before their deaths, Kojima creates dioramas of the rooms where they died. Her horror-esque dioramas are dark and grotesque, carefully detailed and eerily realistic, as Japan Times details: 

Scattered on a circular chabu-dai coffee table are empty jars of “one-cup” sake and shōchū (distilled spirits), the moldy remains of a convenience store bento-box lunch and horse-racing stubs — hints that the inhabitant may have met his sudden, solitary death while contemplating his chances at the racetrack.

In another room, a blue tarp holding a pool of blood is spread out below a severed noose tied to a ladder leading up to the loft. On the wall, written in tape, is the word “gomen” (“sorry”), while what appears to be a last will sits on the desk.

Then there’s the bathroom. Here, a red soupy liquid fills the bathtub, its contents unknown, and overflows onto the tiled floor.

image credit: Alex Martin via Japan Times

It has been suggested multiple times that nuclear power can be the alternative to the diminishing supply of fossil fuels as the demand for the energy source increases. The suggestion has increased traction as the climate change crisis becomes more urgent. However, is this alternative worth it? While it is a plausible source of energy, the risks can outweigh its benefits, as seen in Chernobyl and Fukushima. Chernobyl and Fukushima are major nuclear-power disasters, where lives were lost. The New Yorker retells the Fukushima tragedy as the discussion for nuclear energy arise again. While nuclear energy is a great alternative, is the world ready for its production? Or are we going to have another major disaster again, as we cannot handle nuclear power well at the moment? 

image via wikimedia commons

People like to read information about aspects that made the historic Apollo moon landing happen, from machinery, preparation, and the astronauts themselves. However, people seem to gloss over one aspect of the famed space mission: the clothes. The space suits that are forever etched in photographs and history were sewn by women, who endured a long process of stitching, and sewing together the right piece of clothing that can endure the harsh environments of space, so that the astronauts can be protected in space. CNN has the details: 

The sturdy light, flexible materials designed for women’s undergarments turned out to be ideal for spacesuits too. Wilson’s sister told her about an opportunity to work on spacesuits for the new Apollo mission astronauts. “I’d just turned 19, so I was very young. But I was so excited.”

Wilson left a job sewing suitcases. “That was production, so every thing was fast,” she says. “And then I came to ILC to work on the Apollo spacesuits and everything was very slow. Every time you sewed a seam, it had to be inspected, it had to be checked, because of the importance of what we were doing.”

The training included learning how to read blueprints, working with engineers and precision sewing using newly designed threads and multiple delicate layers of fine fabrics.

image credit: ILC Dover, LP via CNN

The ‘Ugly Christmas Sweater’ is a wooly pullover, usually in different shades of red, white and green, often of questionable fabric, and with at least one Christmas-inspired motif on it. This subjectively ugly clothing has become an essential part of the holidays. If it’s something you won’t receive as a gift, it’s something that your parents might want you to wear to match theirs. While currently popular, it took some time for the sweater to become a mainstream trend for the holidays. Read CNN’s piece on the now common Christmas tradition’s history. 

image via wikimedia commons

No, these dogs aren’t official mascots of the UPS. The UPS dogs are the puppers the UPS drivers encounter on their routes during work. The drivers have been sharing their photos and stories on Facebook and Instagram feeds called UPS Dogs. The popular pages feature adorable dogs who greet their local parcel carriers, as My Modern Met details: 

UPS Dogs explains that while drivers meet a lot of pups throughout the day, many of them are nice but others are not so agreeable. The posts on their social media reflect the genial pups who break the stereotype that canines despise mail carriers. “When time permits, drivers snap a photo and send it to UPS Dogs,” they explain. “Our followers love the photos and the stories told as we share our love of these special relationships with these lovable creatures.”

image via upsdogs on Instagram

A select number of otakus who chose to marry 2-D wives are now in danger of losing them. Gatebox is a tech start-up that released a “character summoning device” that lets its users live with hologram characters. However, these devices, called GTBX-1 Gateboxes will become inoperable as the company is discontinuing its service for the GTBX-1. Owners will no longer be able to see or talk to their virtual wife, as SoraNews24 detailed: 

There is, however, a silver lining to this potential digital strategy. Gatebox is discontinuing service for the GTBX-1 because its hardware isn’t compatible with improvements made to the newer GTBX-1000 model. Because this isn’t any fault of early adopters, owners of GTBX-1 models can exchange their unit, for free, for a GTBX-1000, for which service will be continuing without interruption. What’s more, the exchange program will go on until May 31, meaning that if users want to watch their original Gatebox wife’s final, fading moments in her original GTBX-1 before she’s reincarnated into newer tech, they can.

image via SoraNews24

Today’s Christmas cards scream joy and cheer, just in tune with the festive season. But before the sparkly cards with drawings of christmas ornaments or adorable festive illustrations, did you know that Christmas cards were designed with anthropomorphic cats, murderous frogs, and insects dancing by the moonlight? Victorians in the 19th century sent such grim cards with the words, “may yours be a joyful Christmas”. 

(via Hyperallergic)

image via Hyperallergic