Derby artist Joseph Wright's painting, titled An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump is one of the most popular 18th-century art pieces owned by the National Gallery in London. The artwork is now on loan to the Huntington Art Museum near Los Angeles and has attracted visitors due to its intriguing image. 

The massive 1768 work depicts a man who looks like a “mad scientist,” with his red robe and long white hair. NPR’s Susan Stamberg guesses that the person is most likely to be an academic and less of a maniac for experiments. “ [The mad “scientist is] probably a traveling lecturer,” she wrote. A beautiful white bird inside a bubble accompanies the man, looking very distressed due to the lack of air inside its bubble." The poor cockatoo is unable to breathe!" exclaimed Melinda McCurdy, Huntington's curator of British art. "And if air is not let back into the jar soon, that bird will, unfortunately, die," she giggled.

Learn more about the painting here! 

Image credit: The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens 

This application can easily enlarge photos and maintain the original quality, detail, and sharpness of the images. Developed by ON1, the ON1 Resize AI is claimed to be  'the next generation' of photo enlargement software. The application uses state-of-the-art artificial intelligence technology to deliver quality results for photographers and editors. Learn more about the software here! 

Image credit: ON1

It turns out that exploring the mythical-sounding “dark web” is easier to access than what is expected. All you need is the right software and a corresponding walkthrough on how to do so if you’re feeling edgy or adventurous. However, before you attempt to read to the end of this article to check the original link for the full detailed guide, be warned: that area of the Internet is dangerous. 

The dark web is full of illegal activity, along with illicit and disturbing content. Note that the U.S. government sometimes treats the simple use of browsers that access the dark web as grounds for search and seizure of personal property. Also, your personal and private data might be stolen as you venture through the dark depths. So if you want to, here’s the link to the full guide so you can try. Do not go into this lightly. 

Image credit: Markus Spiske

I didn’t know there were 27 villains in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) until I saw this list! If you want to go look and judge Nerdist’s subjective ranking of all the bad guys from the cinematic franchise or you’re just curious to see if you actually remember all of these characters, check the full official list here. Just to clarify, the villains included in the list are only those who appeared in the movies and the Disney+ series and doesn’t include comic books. 

Image credit: Marvel Studios 

The Endurance is a 144-foot ship that sank in 1915 during Ernest Shackleton's expedition. Deep-sea explorers have successfully found the wreckage of the ship, 10,000 feet below the Antarctic waters. Along with the ship, interesting sea creatures were found to have made a home of it. It has become a place of foundation for fledgling anemones, sea squirts, and other animals to take hold. The animals living around the ship can withstand temperatures that reach below -2 degrees Celsius. Learn more about the creatures here! 

Image credit: Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust/National Geographic

Okay, looks like someone landed on a bad tile in Jumanji. 

The Joro spider is a massive, invasive spider that originated in Asia. The predominantly yellow spider, which can grow as big as the palm of your hand (oh my!), was initially spotted in Georgia in 2013. Ten years later, the species has managed to spread across other parts of the American South. 

Because of this rapid spread of the species, scientists from the University of Georgia estimate that the arachnid could reach and take over the East Coast in the coming years. The experts attribute their increase in numbers to having a good tolerance towards colder conditions. 

Image credit: University of Georgia via USA Today

According to different studies, aside from providing you the necessary boost to power through your day, coffee also provides anti-inflammatory benefits. However, because of caffeine, our favorite drink might also cancel out the anti-inflammatory benefits it provides. So if caffeine intervenes with the body’s optimal response to inflammation, how can we reap the benefits the drink provides? Well, remove the stimulant. This is where decaf coffee comes in. 

It might not be everyone’s favorite, but decaf offers all the same anti-inflammatory benefits as regular coffee without any of the unwelcome side effects thanks to caffeine. According to Lauren Manaker MS, RDN, LDN, CLEC, CPT, “regular coffee has anti-inflammatory compounds, so I look at decaf as a way for people to get the antioxidants and anti-inflammatory benefits of coffee without the caffeine.”

Image credit: Emre

A 65-year-old retired scientist joined a group of amateur treasure hunters looking over a farmer’s field in Norfolk, England. Andy Carter, with his metal detector, dug about ten inches into the mud when his device pinged. It turns out that he picked up a small gold coin. “When I brushed off the soil, I saw the hind leg of a big cat,” Carter told the Guardian’s Harriet Sherwood. “I thought, ‘It can’t be a leopard.’”

The coin with the feline engraving was actually a leopard florin, a currency that was minted as part of a failed currency experiment by Edward III, who ruled England from 1327 to 1377 C.E. It was sold at an auction for a whopping £140,000 (around $185,000).

Image credit: Dix Noonan Webb

Move over, Moleskin journals, there’s a new hit item in town! 

Blackwing pencils are writing implements that have a unique style and trademark replaceable eraser. The aesthetic value won over the hearts of many enthusiasts and writers alike, just like how Moleskin journals became a staple item for them, or as SPY.com puts it, the pencils are “a new status symbol for the stylish creative.” 

Also called “the $40 pencil,” the Blackwing pencils are made from high quality, premium materials– or at least that’s what its makers claim. Whether or not you think that spending a huge amount of money on a pencil is worth it, there’s no denying the hype surrounding these stationery items. 

Image credit: Blackwing via SPY.com

Now, this is a good find!

A medieval gold brooch was found by a metal detectorist in Wiltshire, United Kingdom. The item has a series of Latin and Hebrew inscriptions, believed to be protection against illness or supernatural events. The accessory is estimated to have been created between A.D. 1150 and 1400.

The Latin inscriptions translate to "hail Mary full of grace the Lord/ is with thee/ blessed art thou amongst women/ and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. Amen," while the Hebrew initials on the jewelry represent words that meant "thou art mighty forever, O Lord."

Image credit: Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum

If you think that the beautiful photos from space only need one click of the cameras in space instruments, think again. Obtaining images of different celestial objects requires time, effort, and a lot of technological power. Take the James Webb Space Telescope’s project of capturing a star that it looked at as an example.

 This single star was rendered 18 times into a hexagonal shape, which will be aligned into a single, sharp focus image of the heavenly object. The current result from the interim stage looks like a space snowflake. The star’s images are placed in this pattern so that they have the same relative locations as the telescope’s mirrors. Read more about it here!

Image credit: NASA/STScI/J. DePasquale

The “Finders Keepers” project was started in 1999 by a local artist who wanted to use glass floats to celebrate the new millennium. The Lincoln City, Oregon, government agreed to this project and has been running it for more than 20 years now. The project encourages artists and enthusiasts to visit the beaches in the area to search for artisan glass floats. An estimated number of over 3,000 floats are hidden in the city’s beaches year-round. Learn more about the project here.

Image credit: Peggy Cleaveland

The Military Diet is a fad diet popularized on social media that was designed to be a quick weight loss program. It is not associated with the dietary patterns of those who serve in the army. The diet is used to lose a significant amount of weight rapidly– up to 10 pounds (4.5 kg) in one week. This kind of dieting raises concerns about its safety. 

The meal plan consists of high-protein meals. It is low in total calories, fat, and complex carbohydrates. Losing weight through this method means that the amount you manage to stave off is actually just a loss of water from consuming less salt, sugar, alcohol, processed food, and overall food mass. It’s not a true fat loss diet at all!

Image credit: Romina BM

On the legendary U.S. Route 66 lies one of the longest operating motels on the road. The Blue Swallow, which was built in 1939, is a small 12-unit, L-shaped property in New Mexico that is on the list of the National Register of Historic Places.

Photographer Rick Sammon captured the location in bright and cool tones, which make the hotel look old and vintage– which it actually is. Sammon used HDR photography to snap the image in a 7-stop exposure sequence to also capture the rising sun. According to the photographer, he wanted the viewer of the photo to see into the building and notice the sun. 

Image credit: Rick Sammon 

After years of research on coffee, experts have found the optimal amount of the delicious caffeinated drink we need to drink for maximum health and brain benefits. Three cups of coffee a day is good enough, according to Harvard-trained psychiatrist, trained nutrition specialist, and trained chef, Dr. Uma Naidoo. 

Studies that focused on coffee consumption and its effect on the cognitive health of men and women show us that coffee drinkers had less than half the cognitive decline as the non-coffee drinkers did. Participants of these studies that had the least decline healthwise drank at least three cups a day. Now there’s my excuse when my parents tell me I drink too much coffee– I haven’t even passed the minimum recommended amount! 

Image credit: Nathan Dumlao