One of the justifications that Donald Trump had for wanting to build his beloved border wall is to stop the flow of drugs in the US. However, data from the US Customs and Border Protection  (CBP) proves that wrong:

In 2018, for example, 90% of heroin, 88% of cocaine, 87% of methamphetamine and 80% of fentanyl seized by officials was smuggled through legal crossings.

To prevent future entry of illegal drugs in the future, the CBP is relying on x-ray technology to detect attempts to smuggle such illegal drugs:

In all, a CBP spokesman told CNET, the agency has more than 300 drive-through scanners, 3,500 small-scale X-ray machines and 35,000 handheld devices deployed at US ports of entry. In the 2019 federal budget, CBP received an extra $520 million for additional nonintrusive inspection technology at land border ports of entry.

"The focus is not just to replace aging systems," Robert Perez, deputy commissioner of CBP, said before the House Committee on Homeland Security on May 9, "but to transform port operations in order to expertly facilitate legitimate travel and trade, while successfully interdicting deadly fentanyl and other contraband."

To know more about CBP’s attempts to prevent illegal drug smuggling in the US, go to cnet.com.

image taken from cnet.com

The phrase Kung Fu Tea brings us to Chengdu, where you’ll find the city’s famous intricate tea pouring performances. In these performances, men and women perform sequences of acrobatics, dances, and martial arts while maneuvering long-spout teapots and filling the teacups of their lucky patrons.

However, there is an underlying question with regards to Kung Fu Tea. Is it performance or tradition? Atlas Obscura's Jordan Porter gives us some insights:

Zeng’s style of kung fu tea has certainly become a calling card of the city of Chengdu, and synonymous throughout China with Sichuan tea culture.

However, tea culture in Chengdu is unpretentious, more the setting for socializing than the high art of the tea ceremony.

Wu Bo, a young local tea master tells us that true kung fu tea is the opposite of performance, and almost minimalist in its expression. “You can spend all your money on fancy teaware, or learn special movements, but a real tea master can make great tea in anything,” she says.

The creator of the performance type Kung Fu Tea admits that performance is not enough to give the art meaning, and that the real kung fu tea is the art of making great tea :

Zeng’s style of kung fu tea has certainly become a calling card of the city of Chengdu, and synonymous throughout China with Sichuan tea culture. However, he fears that performance itself is not enough to give the art meaning, and actively takes time to pursue the study of tea. He requires his disciples to study as well, sometimes forcing them away from their athletic training to sit down and actually learn how to pour. “I feel a responsibility,” he says. “I am the creator of the long-spout teapot performance. I need to make sure my students learn about the real kung fu tea as well."

image via atlas obscura

Don't be deceived by these adorable cats - they're actually bags. Felissimo, Japan’s premier provider of cat-themed lifestyle products released a new line of kitty kinchakus (traditional drawstring pouches carried by women wearing kimono). Sora News 24’s Casey Baseel reports:

The Nekomanmaru Kinchaku, as they’re officially called, are priced at 2,478 yen (US$23) each, and can be ordered here through Felissimo’s online store. As with many of the company’s products, the cat kinchaku are being offered in a subscription-like format, with customers receiving a different, non-specified design each month, but you can rest easy knowing that any of them will pair well with Japan’s enticing cat sandals this summer.

image via Felissimo

After the ruckus behind the famous toy chain’s shutdown in 2018, Toys ‘R’ Us is set to return this 2019 holiday season by opening half a dozen US stores and e-commerce site. As to how the revival will come to be, , Bloomberg's Matthew Townsend and Joe Deaus have the details:

During the chain’s bankruptcy, lenders led by Solus Alternative Asset Management and Angelo Gordon took control of the company’s assets. After results didn’t improve, they opted to shutter operations in the U.S. Units in Australia and other regions also closed, with divisions in Asia and Canada acquired by new owners.

This group tried to sell the intellectual property, but opted to keep it to garner a better return. As owners of the intellectual property, they have been collecting licensing and other fees from the units still operating and selling them private-label goods. The lenders then formed Tru Kids with the goal of reviving the brand in the U.S. and other regions it exited. It has since hired several industry veterans and signed a deal to bring Toys “R” Us and Babies “R” Us back to Australia through a partner.

image via wikimedia commons

The Apollo mission is an accumulation of effort from many different fields of discipline. While we usually hear feats of engineering and exciting scientific discoveries associated with the Apollo mission, there’s a whole lot of other things going on inside the project. Take, for example, healthcare. Going behind the scenes the mission, BBC recaps the health of the Apollo 7 crew in numbers:

    24: Number of decongestant tablets taken by the Apollo 7 crew

  Over the course of the mission, Wally Schirra (one of the commanders of the 

mission) exhausted the supply of tissues and all 24 of the decongestant tablets 

carried in the spacecraft medical kit.

    3: Cases of flatulence

because they had to ration their water, the crew of Apollo 13 suffered dehydration. 

Three astronauts reported instances of excessive wind – most likely caused by 

their diets.

    150: Neil Armstrong’s heart rate as he descended towards the lunar surface

At 1,000ft (300m), with fuel running low, it raced at 150 beats per minute and 

remained that way during landing.

   0.2: Total radiation exposure of the Apollo 11 crew in rads

     According to the official Apollo 11 flight report, the 0.2 rads (0.002 grays in today’s 

standard international units) experienced by the crew “fell below the medically 

significant level.

  21: Days in quarantine after returning from the Moon

     Mobile Quarantine Facility (MQF) and was designed to protect the Earth from any 

potential Moon bugs – infections from pathogens in space. Inside, the crew could 

relax and be monitored for any ill effects of their voyage to the Moon.

image via wikimedia commons

These days mankind's highway of information - for speed, accessibility and capacity is the Internet. Surprisingly, plants have something similar composed of fungi, as Nic Fleming wrote:

While mushrooms might be the most familiar part of a fungus, most of their bodies are made up of a mass of thin threads, known as a mycelium. We now know that these threads act as a kind of underground internet, linking the roots of different plants. That tree in your garden is probably hooked up to a bush several metres away, thanks to mycelia.

They aren't just sitting there quietly growing. By linking to the fungal network they can help out their neighbours by sharing nutrients and information – or sabotage unwelcome plants by spreading toxic chemicals through the network.

Fungal networks also boost their host plants' immune systems. That's because, when a fungus colonises the roots of a plant, it triggers the production of defense-related chemicals. These make later immune system responses quicker and more efficient, a phenomenon called "priming". Simply plugging in to mycelial networks makes plants more resistant to disease.

To learn more about the natural fungal internet network, read the rest of the story over at  BBC Earth.

image credit: Nordschitz via wikimedia commons

One of the most impressive feats during the race to the Moon in the 1960s was the creation of NASA's global tracking and data network. This network was responsible for tracking the astronauts to the Moon and back, giving to and receiving data and information from them. Fast Company's Charles Fishman details the network's creation:

As constructed and operated during Apollo, the network—NASA called it the STDN, the Spaceflight Tracking and Data Network—had 14 big antennas in sites ranging from Bermuda to Madrid to Guam. The three largest antennas, still in use, have surface areas two-thirds the size of a football field, tilted up in the air, aimed at the signals coming from Apollo.

STDN also had four specially constructed ships at sea—oil-tanker hulls hollowed out and retrofitted with huge tracking antennas, mounted bow to stern—and two satellites to help relay signals. During splashdown, as the capsules floated to the Pacific Ocean on parachutes (well beneath the range of land-based tracking antennas), NASA put eight airplanes aloft to maintain communication.

The tracking stations were linked by two-million miles of communication links: telephone wire, undersea cable, microwave towers. That’s enough communication line to circle the Earth 80 times, and it was the first global, high-speed data network. The system was designed and run by NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center in Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C. That’s where all the signals were collected from around the world and then piped from Goddard to Mission Control in Houston. They went back out through Goddard as well.

The network cost $370 million to assemble in the mid-1960s. For comparison, each lunar module cost about $100 million. It required 2,700 people to operate and relied on 39 Univac computers spread around the world to manage the signals pouring in. During the Apollo years, it cost $70 million a year to run. The phone bill alone, the cost of those two million miles of leased communications lines, was $50 million annually (almost $400 million in today’s dollars).

Now that is one impressive feat, in terms of operational capacity and financial cost.

image taken from Sunny Tsiao's Read You Loud and Clear! The Story of NASA's Spaceflight Tracking and Data Network

There's a pop song that tells the story of a lonely whale continuously calling out to the world until someone can understand or hear its call. Lonely lonely lonely whale; like this, try calling once again, the translation of the song says, until this song that doesn’t have a response; reaches tomorrow.  

The whale in today's spotlight isn't the same whale that the song took  inspiration from, but the story is somewhat similar. Now, marine biologists have recorded the song of the world's rarest largest whale - the eastern North Pacific right whale, for the very first time. Here's CNN's Amy Woodyatt with the details:

The calls, which researchers have been trying to capture and identify for years, are thought to be the cry of lone males trying to attract mates. In the remote Bering Sea, it is an increasingly difficult task as the population of the extremely endangered whale dwindles.

North Atlantic and Southern right whales have been found to use single gunshot calls, upcalls, screams, and warbles instead of the patterned phrasing that constitutes singing.

From initial field surveys in the Bering Sea, the NOAA researchers thought that the sound patterns they heard could be song coming from the right whale, but struggled to link the song to the rare mammal. After seven years of documenting sound patterns and combing through data collected from different locations in the Bering Sea, scientists were finally able to visually identify the right whales, confirming their theory.

"We heard these same songs during a summer survey in 2017, and were able to localize the songs to male right whales," said Crance. "We can now definitively say these are right whales, which is so exciting because this hasn't been heard yet in any other right whale population."

Scientists think that these songs may be part of a reproductive display.

With their song finally reaching out towards the scientists, here's hoping that their song also reach its tomorrow - the response of their female counterparts.

image credit : John Durban (NOAA) via wikimedia commons

Pablo Hidalgo of the Lucasfilm Story Group spotted the said error in the Wampa cave scene from the 1980s "Empire Strikes Back".

If you look closely, "NEW YORK" can be seen stamped into the bottom of Luke's lightsaber. Good luck on not seeing that when you watch  the star wars franchise again!

I've noted this before, but every time I watch a Star Wars movie, there's something new to notice. Especially if I'm fortunate to catch it on the big screen. This latest discovery? that 'NEW YORK' is visible on the bottom of Luke's lightsaber in EMPIRE. pic.twitter.com/Z85NPvgcVR

— Pablo Hidalgo (@pablohidalgo) June 19, 2019

Visit the HuffPost for more details about this error that we now know.

Sophia's stepdad, Brian would leave her a note to inspire her every day when she was going to during middle school to inspire her every day. Now, Sophia who is 20 and in college, decided it's finally time to return the favour (or gift) for Father’s Day.

The Father’s Day gift is in the form of a framed collection of all the notes Brian had left for her. Watch his reaction to the gift below:

during middle school, my stepdad used to leave me a note on my door each day to inspire me. well, I kept those notes & It’s been 6 years since then. today I gave him those notes back🥰 #HappyFathersDay pic.twitter.com/ftT3sjQEH5

— soph (@Sophia_Kallie) June 17, 2019

Now if you excuse me, I'm going to get some tissues to wipe my tears away.

via Popsugar

Artist Victoria Siemer showcases human emotions in various situations in her art series  Human Error.

Human Error is an ongoing series of polaroid photos, with  pop-up notification superimposed on the images.

The pop-up notification is a mock-up of a real one you'd see pop on your computer screen when an error occurs, confirming an action, or displaying a process update. However, Siemer replaces the phrases in those pop-ups with messages about feelings, heartbreak and moving on, to name a few.

The aesthetic imagery of human emotions and the pop-up notification is appealing. The decisions we take in consideration of our emotions - the choice to ignore, continue, or cancel are somewhat captured by the edited notification pop-ups.

images via Victoria Siemer

First time property-buyers, here's a story that can either : (a) make you feel more anxious, or (b) make you determined not to screw up.

The story focuses on Kerville Holness, who thought he landed an absolute steal after his $9,100  bid won the online auction for a villa. Unfortunately, this villa was actually only a strip of land worth $50.

Not only did he buy a foot-wide  strip of land, officials told Holness there's not much he can do about it:

“It’s deception,” said Holness, a first-time auction bidder from Tamarac. “There was no demarcation to show you it’s just a line going through [the villa duplex], even though they have the tools to show that.”

Holness said that property appraiser pictures linked to the auction site showed the villa as being the parcel he was bidding on.

But the appraiser’s site and information on the county’s tax site also show the negligible value of the property, that there is no building value, that the land takes up only 100 square feet and that the property is one-foot wide.

Officials say state law does not allow the refund Holness is seeking.

Remember this when bidding in your first real estate auction!

image credit : via 7news.com

“Shortcuts make for long delays,” as the proverb goes, but one doesn’t usually expect to be swept out to sea simply for following a shortcut. That’s what happened to Remopita Pongi, 29, who took  Google Maps’ suggestion of taking a shortcut home by swimming across a body of water. Otago Daily Times explains what happened next:

Pongi, 29, had been on a more than 80km trek home from Opotiki to Kawerau on Saturday morning when a look at Google Maps suggested he could take a shortcut by swimming across a tidal estuary opening onto the Bay of Plenty.

But once in the water, a riptide pushed him 2.5km out to sea.

"I was just paddling along, and the waves were getting a bit carried away and I happened upon a piece of wood," he said.

"I just grabbed on to that and floated."

The log helped him stay afloat for three hours, before he pulled his soaked iPhone from his pocket and called for help.

Police then put the Whakatane Surf Lifesaving Club in touch with Pongi and he directed them to his position.

But as he was waiting, a jetski playing around in the ocean chanced upon him.

"He saw my head bobbing up and down in the water and went along to investigate and found me."

The jetski transferred Pongi to a rescue boat that then took him to the Whakatane Surf Lifesaving clubhouse where he jumped into a hot shower.

So much for following Google Maps, right? But we're glad he's all safe now.

image: Remopita Pongi snaps a selfie of him at sea.

Some people take photos and videos of their trips as mementos; some people write travel journals. Adam Hacklander, on the other hand, took the task of recording his travels to whole ‘nother level. He creates beautiful and colorful illustrations detailing the sights he’d seen in his journey.

View this post on Instagram

Another of the older drawings - Santorini and Crete 🌞- I tried to note down some interesting inventions and observations - such as the clepsydra - the ancient water clock.

A post shared by Adam K. Hackländer (@akhacklander) on May 13, 2019 at 6:50am PDT

And naturally, this being the modern age and all, Hacklander uploaded pics of his illustrated travel journals to his Instagram page for all of us to appreciate.

Sleeping Beauty doesn’t just exist in fairy tales, kids. There are real life Sleeping Beauties, but they are not sleeping until they get their true love’s kiss, no. They wake up from their long slumber on their own, but with a lot of side effects.

These real life Sleeping Beauties have Kleine-Levin Syndrome (KLS), which is also nicknamed the ‘Sleeping Beauty syndrome’. KLS is a rare brain disorder that is:  (a) difficult to diagnose, and (b) unexplainable as to its cause.

People with KLS have the following symptoms: sleepiness for almost 20 hours a day, derealisation (dream-like sense of detachment from her surroundings), apathy, and disinhibition (for example  eating more or hypersexuality). Science Focus provides more of the details:

For one thing, there’s no specific test for KLS. Instead, it’s identified by its symptoms; that means doctors have to know about it to diagnose it. Teenagers are often labelled as being lazy, or are accused of trying to avoid exams. A mental health misdiagnosis is common, since depression and anxiety are prevalent in KLS, even between episodes.

Dr Guy Leschziner, consultant neurologist and sleep expert at the Sleep Disorders Centre at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital in London, sees some similarities between KLS and other neurological immune disorders.

“In a few cases, inflammation in the brain has been found, although it remains uncertain if these cases were KLS or another disorder causing similar features,” he explains. “KLS remains a syndrome – a collection of clinical features – rather than a specific disease, and so we do not know if all patients have the same underlying cause. My own view is that some patients probably do have inflammation of the brain, while others have a channelopathy – a disorder of the ion channels that mediate electric impulses in the brain.”

There’s a genetic hypothesis, too, even though no specific ‘KLS gene’ has been identified so far and most cases are sporadic.

“We have no real inkling of the cause of KLS, which makes life very difficult,” Leschziner explains. “The major reason, however, is its rarity. Getting sufficient numbers of patients into a randomised controlled trial to demonstrate a clear effect is nigh-on impossible,” he adds.

image : A Woman Asleep by Johannes Vermeer via wikimedia commons