Dodgeball, a game where the objective is to hit other players with a rubber ball and eliminate them, is quite a popular game in school. Proponents of dodgeball point out that it’s a great (and fun) way to get some exercise, but the game does have a dark side: some people point out that dodgeball lets kids gang up upon and pick on their schoolmates who are physically weaker.

Debates on dodgeball’s implications on the mentality of children and what kind of mindset players will get from the game have risen throughout the years: is dodgeball bullying?

A new study presented at the Canadian Society for the Study of Education in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, offers support that dodgeball may send the wrong message to schoolchildren:

Some researchers in British Columbia concluded it's the former, calling dodgeball "a tool of oppression" that unfairly targets some kids, teaches them to dehumanize each other and reinforces negative behaviors parents teach their children to avoid.

David Burns, a co-presenter of the study and an educational studies professor at Kwantlen Polytechnic University in Surrey, British Columbia, told Canadian broadcast station CTV that dodgeball doesn't set young people on a path to become kind adults.

"If someone is going to be a good person when they get older ... they need to have practice when they're young and in school exhibiting those characteristics," Burns said. "If you want people to practice the disposition of ganging up on people, if you want them to practice really enjoying throwing things at people, it can lead to all sorts of other things in the future."

In other words, dodgeball sends the message that it's acceptable to "dehumanize or hurt" the other player, researcher Joy Butler, a professor who studies pedagogy and curriculum development at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, recently told The Washington Post.

The researchers said dodgeball "reinforces the five faces of oppression" — exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism and violence — as defined by political theorist Iris Marion Young.

Do you think that dodgeball encourages bullying?

image credit: U.S. Air Force photo - via wikimedia commons

Surely you’ve heard of prehistoric insects trapped in amber, but what an international team of scientists led by Dr. Lida Xing and Prof. Mike Caldwell found in Myanmar is something much more unusual -  a prehistoric baby snake preserved in amber:

Known as Xiaophis myanmarensis, the snake is thought to be an infant due to its small size (its estimated length is under 8 cm/3.1 inches), the relatively large space occupied by its spinal cord, and the fact that its backbone lacks the complex joints which such snakes are known to have acquired as they reached adulthood.

This discovery will help shed light on how primitive snakes have moved all over the different continents:  

"It dates back to the age of the dinosaurs, well before snakes started to differentiate into modern groups," says team member Dr. Alessandro Palci, of Australia's Flinders University. "This Asian fossil helps shed light on how primitive snakes dispersed from the southern to the northern continents."   

image credit: Ming Ba, Chinese Academy of Sciences via new atlas

Meet the Beishan Broadcast Wall, a popular tourist attraction today. Built in 1967 on Kinmen Islands, it is a three-story concrete structure with 48 loudspeakers built into it. Its sound reportedly travelled as far as 25 kilometers.

This broadcast wall is one of the four built during the 1950s, as Amusing Planet reported:

“Two major conflicts took place during the 1950s as China and Taiwan jostled to take control of the handful of islands in the Taiwan Strait. The Kinmen Islands in particular saw heavy shelling. After the loss of about a thousand lives, China announced it would bomb the islands only on odd-numbered days, with shells containing propaganda leaflets instead of explosives. Taiwan began to do likewise on even days of the week. This odd arrangement continued until China normalized relations with the US in 1979.”

“ During the same period, four broadcast stations were built in the Kinmen Islands that broadcast propaganda messages and music at ear-splitting decibels across the water towards mainland China. One of them was the Beishan Broadcast Wall … “

This broadcast wall has released varying propaganda content:

Many broadcasts from the Taiwan side attacked Mao and the Communist Party, while others depicted the rich and happy life of the Chinese on the island of Taiwan. Broadcasts from the mainland side urged national unity and encouraged Taiwanese soldiers and officers to return home to the mainland. Sometimes Taiwan would broadcast songs of Teresa Teng, a Taiwanese singer known for her sweet voice to win the hearts of those on the mainland.

image credit: Amusing Planet

Arranmore, a picturesque Irish Island has taken the unusual step to keep their small community of 469 residents alive: to ask America and Australia to move in. CNN's Emily Dixon has got the details:

Arranmore, known as Arainn Mhor in Gaelic, boasts towering clifftops, unspoiled beaches, a close-knit community -- and high-speed internet, which community leaders hope will entice remote workers. Earlier this year, the island also opened a shared digital workspace.

"We're the most connected island in the world," Adrian Begley, of Arranmore Island Community Council, told CNN. "So we wanted to send a letter to the rest of the world to say we're here, we're open for business."

The open letters detail the decline of the Arranmore population, explaining: "Traditional industries such as fishing and farming just aren't enough of a draw to keep young people here anymore. It's been a challenge for people to work here. Until now."

"We've a whole host of multi-talented people here, ready to collaborate," the letters read, citing a graphic designer, a mobile games developer, a photographer and an app developer. "Or if you're looking for a change of pace. Why not come here. Your commute, no matter where you are, will only ever be five minutes."

I didn’t know the rest of the world entailed just America and Australia, but here's to wishing Arranmore gets to save its small community.

image credit: wikimedia commons (via Geyo John)

Sascha Breuer is an in-demand Hollywood hairstylist, with a client list including Anne Hathaway, Keira Knightley, Naomi Campbell, Zoe Saldana, Edgar Ramirez and Hilary Swank. But as The Washington Post's Noah Smith reported, his proudest work is giving haircuts to homeless people:

“There were no concise plans when I first started. It was just trying to use my skills to give back,” said Breuer.

He kept at it, and he recruited other stylists to join him. He established the charitable organization The Kind Cut, which has inspired hairdressers around the world to give more than 3,500 free haircuts to those in need in Los Angeles, and additional cuts as far away as Turkey, Italy and Ukraine.

In March 2017, during a four-hour gap between jobs, he set up a chair in front of a burger restaurant in Los Angeles and started asking people who looked like they were in need: “Would a free haircut help you?” If they said yes, he obliged.

The Kind Cut, Breuer told The Washington Post, is where he offers easy acts of kindness where he can:

“I’m trying to show how simple it is to help another person who is going through a rough time and could use a helping hand,” said Breuer.

image credit: Anushka Hauerstock /Anushka Hauerstock via The Washington Post

If our eyes constantly move around to see, then how come our vision doesn't get blurry as they move? Knowable Magazine's Tim Vernimmen got that question handled:

   There are a number of reasons why these movements don’t transform our view of the world into a blur of motion. One is that the most distinct things in our field of view may render us blind to other stimuli that are fleeting and faint: Objects that are in clear sight when our eyes don’t move are likely to make a more vivid impression than the blur in between. Scientists refer to this phenomenon as visual masking, and it is thought to be very common in real-life situations where a lot is going on at the same time.

But visual masking - or transitioning from one angle to another can get unsettling and does not explain enough stability in our vision. Vernimmen cites Robert Wurtz (United States National Eye Institute) as he elaborates:

   A kind of remapping happens even before we move our eyes. In experiments with macaques that were trained to make predictable saccades, brain cells that receive signals from one particular spot in the retina switched from responding to things currently in view there to things that would show up only after the saccade. In this way, Wurtz thinks, the current image is gradually replaced by the future one.

Head on over to Knowable magazine to know more about how we keep our vision: (a)not blurry, and (b) stable regardless of the consistent eye movement. Via The Smithsonian

image credit: Weekend Way via Giphy

That's right, forkligraphy - Turkish artist Yazi Yolcusu creates stunning calligraphy using cutlery like forks and knives.

Yolcusu uses only metal cutlery for his calligraphic works, as Oddity Central explains:

   Yazi Yolcusu, which apparently means “Text Traveler” in Turkish, is living proof that it’s not the tools that make the artist, but their skill. Using only metal cutlery – a spoon to hold the ink and forks and knives as writing tools – the talented artist creates some of the most amazing calligraphy you’ll ever see.

   The way the Turkish calligrapher switches between the bottom and top prongs of a fork and uses all four of them to create a truly unique font is truly mesmerizing to watch.

   Yazi’s knife wielding skills aren’t too bad either, as he’s able to use the sharp tip as a fountain pen.

Now that is talent and skill.

image credit: Yazi Yolcusu

The blue glow behind China's sparkling seas is also a contributor to red tides, as George Dvorsky reported:  

  “ ... red Noctiluca scintillans (RNS), a single-celled microorganism that produces the beautiful bioluminescent blue glow known as “blue tears.” These tiny sea creatures prefer coastal waters, especially along the coast of the East China Sea where they appear in the numbers required to produce the spectacular blue glow.”

  “ Also known as sea sparkles, red Noctiluca scintillans are contributors to red tides—deadly algal blooms that are toxic to marine life. Excessive algae can also starve water of its oxygen, creating noxious dead zones. At the same time, however, RNS are important to ocean ecosystems, as they feed on other phytoplankton and zooplankton.”

In the midst of the RNS' bigger bloom and its effect on marine life, Dvorsky elaborates on the need of a further understanding of how the algae grows :

  “ A deeper understanding of how RNS blooms grow and spread in the East China Sea is obviously important given the ecological value of this species, and its potential to wreak havoc as a contributing organism to red tides.”

image credit: Yu-Xian Yang, Lienchiang county government, Taiwan via Gizmodo

It seems like the next appointment Thanos had after dusting half the universe away was a wedding on Earth.

Reddit user kittencookies uploaded a photo of a Thanos cosplayer attending their sister's wedding online - and as expected, the photo went viral. Kittencookies later clarified:

The invite did specifically say to “Wear your best Marvel t-shirt” since that was the theme. Additionally, their goal was to keep it as low cost as possible for everybody involved since most of those people are barely getting by but they still wanted a wedding.

To know more about the person who wore their best Marvel shirt to the wedding, head here.

image credit : kittencookies on reddit

BBC Travel's Laura Studarus delved into Japanese convenience stores, and is surprised on what they had to offer:

I was surprised to find that Japanese convenience stores, such as 7-Eleven, Family Mart and Lawson (the three companies that claim the lion’s share of the Japanese market), served as an introduction to local tastes, leading me to skip the basic crisps I’d usually grab at home in favour of sampling flavours like mayonnaise, ume (a fruit in the plum family) and soy sauce.

I also found myself considering freshly made onigiri rice balls, grab-and-go udon noodles and traditional buns with flavours like pizza, sweet bean and pumpkin cream. It might not have been as utopic as Murata led me to believe, but even as a foreigner who needed help counting her change, the variety of the goods and the ease of finding a cheap lunch left a lasting impression.

Ginny Tapley Takemori - Convenience Store Woman’s translator explained to Studarus the culture behind what these convenience stores had to offer :

There’s also a sense of underlying practicality to each store. Yes, snacks and novelty items are a big part of their trade, but the goal of the konbini is to be a one-stop shop for all household needs. Mochimaru highlights the bento box – pre-made, ready-to-eat meals in a box – as one such example.

Now, with additional women entering the workforce, more people are opting for easy-to-eat options.

“The reason why Lawson focuses on nakashoku can be explained by the increase in the number of dual-income households,” he explained. “With both partners working, there is much less time for cooking, and bringing home bentos or ready-made dishes is a much more convenient solution. It helps to minimise the amount of time spent eating and to avoid doing the dishes.”

image credit: wikimedia commons

Here's a new interesting fact about our favourite feline companions today: cats farm bacteria in their butts.

Live Science reports :

Cats use their anal glands to produce a stinky pheromone spray made up of many volatile chemicals. And it turns out they probably don't make most of those smelly chemicals themselves; they outsource a lot of the production to microbes that live in those glands, new research reveals.

A secretion extracted from a Bengal cat contained 127 compounds, 67 bacteria produced in culture, and 52 identified microbes. Live Science further elaborates:

"So, it's reasonable to believe the microbes are making the volatile compounds" used in communication, Jonathan Eisen, an evolutionary biologist at UC Davis and co-author on the study, told Live Science.

The partnership makes sense for both parties: the feline host is able to outsource complex biochemical synthesis by offering the microbes a warm, moist, nutrient-rich home. And it's not all that surprising; other mammals also host microbes that can produce the volatile chemicals used in communication.

What do you think about this new information concerning our feline companions? Via Metafilter

Image credit: Andre Karwath/wikimedia commons

A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggested that if you put a sad raven beside another raven, chances are that other raven will get sad as well.

Jessie Adriaense and colleagues, authors of the study, explained this phenomenon, known as emotional contagion:

       “Emotional contagion, which refers to emotional state matching between individuals, is a powerful mechanism for information sharing and, as a consequence, an increased defense against predation and the facilitation of group living,”

The results of their multi-stage experiment on ravens not only reveal that ravens can experience emotional contagion, but also that negative emotions rub off more easily than positive emotions.

   “Negative emotions may be easier to experimentally induce than positive emotions, and they may be more salient in their expression than positive emotions. Moreover, animals (as well as humans) attend more to negative than positive information in their environment.”  

Read more about the sad raven experiment over at Vice.

image credit: wikimedia commons

Join the fun with the cast of Sesame Street on their visit to the NPR headquarters for their 50th anniversary.

Watch the gang - Big Bird, Bert and Ernie, Rosita, Abby Cadabby, Cookie Monster, Elmo, Grover- and other surprise guests sing on NPR's Tiny Desk Segment.

I have also included their set list, so that you know what lyrics to search for as you sing along with them:

1. "The Sesame Street Theme (Sunny Days)"
2. "People In Your Neighborhood"
3. "What I Am"
4. "Sing After Me"
5. "Medley"
6. "Sing"

LA Times’ Lucas Kwan Peterson ranked different fast food’s french fries. He explained his criteria for choosing the different food chains to be ranked and the judging criteria for the fries each establishment offered:

For the purposes of this survey, I've selected chains where there's an emphasis on speed of service, you're not waited on at a table, and where there are at least a couple hundred locations, if not more.

I ordered medium- or regular-sized fries (when available) and judged them based on the two metrics: (1) taste and (2) texture, which includes fry shape and mouthfeel.

The resulting french fries ranking is as follows:

    1. Five Guys

   2. Mc Donald's

   3.Del Taco

   4. Steak 'n Shake

   5. Arby's

   6. Carl's Jr.

   7. Dairy Queen

   8. Wendy's

   9. Shake Shack

   10. Burger King

   11. Chick Fil-A

   12. KFC

   13. Jack in the Box

   14. Popeye's

   15. Wienershnitzel

   16. Jollibee

   17. Rally's

   18. Sonic

19. In-N-Out

Do you agree with his rankings? Head on over to LA Times  to read Peterson’s detailed explanation for each ranking.   

Via book of joe .

Image Credit: (Lucas Kwan Peterson / Stephen Lurvey)

When Marc Chaussidon, director of the Institute of Geophysics in Paris, looked at the map of the newly scanned seafloor in the Indian Ocean, he discovered something very unusual:

   Rising from the Indian Ocean floor between Africa and Madagascar was a giant edifice 800 meters high and 5 kilometers across. In previous maps, there had been nothing. “This thing was built from zero in 6 months!” Chaussidon says.

What Chaussidon saw was the birth of a new volcano - the largest of such underwater event ever seen in human history.

image credit: MAYOBS team (CNRS/IPGP-Université de Paris/Ifremer/BRGM)