More photos from photographer and astronaut Thomas Pesquet’s stay in the International Space Station were shared by the European Space Agency. After sharing the images of the ISS against the inky blackness of space, and the Earth, the organization shared a photo of the ISS 250 miles above the Nile Delta in Egypt. The satellite can be seen shining against the darkness of space and the night lights on Earth below.
Image credit: Thomas Pesquet/ESA
Big Bend National Park reported that a visitor or visitors carved their names and the date in a pictograph panel of a 5,000 years old petroglyph in the park. The boulder and the engravings on it had survived millennia of punishing weather, but all it took for it to be ruined were people who had no right to ‘leave their marks.’
Park service personnel moved as fast as they could to repair the vandalism, but according to Big Bend’s chief of interpretation and visitor services Tom VandenBerg, much of the damage is permanent.
Image credit: National Park Service
Hey, we’re all here for the drama. All jokes aside, sometimes it's best to part ways if your relationship will only bring harm to each other, right? Well, some couples have outrageous reasons for filing a divorce. Reddit user u/dankph asked divorce lawyers the juicy details that they were willing to share. From a husband thinking his wife was having an affair but the wife was just driving around to play Pokemon Go to another breaking it off with his wife after a car accident made her incapable of giving oral pleasure, Buzzfeed lists several outrageous and outright ridiculous reasons for divorce. Check the full piece here!
Image credit: Afif Kusuma
Japanese pop artist Takashi Murakami, who is known for his bright and colorful art, is now doing his spin on the Tamagotchi virtual toys from the 1990s and 2000s. The artist revealed his project in an Instagram post, where he shared that he spent a year or so working on a children’s handheld nurturing game inspired by the old virtual toys. This marks Murakami’s first venture into game development.
The game will be played in a flower-shaped case, with its pixelated petals reflecting Murakami’s art style. Sonic Unleashed director Yoshihisa Hashimoto will develop the game.
Image credit: Takashi Murakami
Germany employed the help of 700 goats and sheep to encourage more people to get COVID-19 vaccinations. The animals formed a shape of a 100-meter syringe in a field at Schneverdingen, Hamburg. The campaign was aimed at people who remain hesitant to get the vaccine. “Sheep are such likeable animals — maybe they can get the message over better,” said Hanspeter Etzold, the organizer of the campaign.
Image credit: Philipp Schulze/dpa via AP
Very high definition!
Rembrandt’s artwork, The Night Watch (formally titled The Shooting Company of Frans Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch or Militia Company of District II under the Command of Captain Frans Banning Cocq– that’s a long one), now has a 717-billion-pixel digital twin thanks to Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum efforts.
The digital copy of the 1642 artwork was done by the museum’s "Operation Night Watch" research team. According to AP News, “the team laser-scanned the surface of the painting, fine-tuned focus before every shot, and used a neural network to ensure optimal color and sharpness for each exposure.”
Image credit: Rijksmuseum
Before anyone freaks out about a new genetic mutation– it’s merely an illusion. A pretty photographic illusion, that is. Photographer Renatas Jakaitis managed to capture an incredible shot of three deer heads that seem to sprout from one body. Jakatis was walking and taking photos behind a deer in Lithuania when he managed to make the animals turn their heads at the same time with the sound of his camera shutter, which in turn yielded the photo above. Now that’s incredible luck!
Image credit: Renatas Jakaitis via My Modern Met
A Real-life Santa Claus!
Basketball legend Shaquille O'Neal bought 1000 Nintendo Switches and PS5s for kids in Georgia. According to him, this was to make sure kids received ‘good toys’ for the holidays last year.
With the high demand for these consoles, how in the world did O’Neal obtain these units? There’s no issue with the money because he can certainly afford them, but how did he find 1000 units?“I called you to know, my friend from Nintendo Switch. Ordered about 1,000 Switches and 1,000 PS5s. I went to Walmart and got bikes. So you know yesterday, at this little elementary school in McDonough Georgia, kids were crying, kids were happy. And that’s what it’s all about,” he shared in Gary Vee’s podcast.
Forbes’ Paul Tassi theorizes on how the basketball legend managed to snag a lot of units of these in-demand consoles. Check his full piece here.
Image credit: wikimedia commons
All you need to do is ask. Hotels have different items for their customer to freely take during their stay, from the typical hygiene kit (eg. toothbrush, toothpaste, lotions). But some hotels offer other free items that their customers might need. From laundry bags to body pillows to an actual DJ turntable, the Travel lists the 28 items people can ask for during their next hotel adventure. Check the full list here!
Image credit: Marten Bjork
It’s all about the potential. After the news of Apple getting patents for a foldable iPhone, tech enthusiasts have been cooking up their theories and expectations for the future phone. AppleInsider shared 3D renders of what they think the much-rumored smartphone would look like. Check more of the renders below!
Image credit: AppleInsider via CreativeBloq
Have you ever wondered how the world’s most well-known statues would fare in a height ranking list? Well, Amir Kedir has you covered! The architect/ YouTuber created a 3D animation video that compares the relative sizes of famous statues from all over the globe.
The video ranked the artworks from smallest to the largest, with Michaelangelo’s Statue of David ranking the lowest, and India’s Statue of Unity is the tallest.
Check the video below!
Image screenshot via The Laughing Squid
Maybe this can help you gain the upper hand during arguments. Inc’s Bill Murphy Jr. shared a strategy to be more persuasive. His strategy relies on doing two things: (a) to avoid distracting, emotional mini-controversies, and (b) to offer easy ways for people to overcome emotional objections, and more easily follow the path you want them to take. Murphy Jr. calls these tips the ‘emergency exit rule.’
According to him, the rule is all about planting the seeds that allow people to maintain their pride and reputation even if they agree with you. Check out his full piece on the rule, filled with examples, here!
Image credit: Andrew Teoh
An odd-looking cube was spotted on the surface of the moon by Yutu-2, which gathered a massive public interest over its mysterious origins. The Chinese rover went straight for the structure after its two-week sleep for experts to discern and examine the cube as much as possible. It turns out that the cube is merely a small chunk of rock near an impact crater. According to experts, the ‘cube’ could be a piece of debris from an object such as a comet or asteroid that hit the lunar surface.
Image credit: NASA
Peat bogs are wetlands with soft ground composed of living and decaying moss. This kind of landmass is one of the greatest stores of carbon. Flanders Moss bog, which can be found in Scotland, is an 860-hectare (2,125-acre) site that has been hacked away and drained to make space for farmland.
Researchers in Scotland are now tracking these bogs using the latest satellite technology, which provides information on how healthy they are and how much carbon they hold. This monitoring helps restoration efforts to lock carbon in the country. Check out The Guardian’s full piece on Scotland’s peat bogs here!
Image via The Guardian
Apollo, stop randomly giving the gift of prophecy to random people!
It could just be a coincidence, but The Sovereign Individual, by James Dale Davidson and Lord William Rees-Moog, actually predicted the rise of our present financial technology and techniques. From the metaverse to digital currency to e-commerce and more, this 1997 book was oddly spot on in describing these concepts. It is unknown if the industry actually based its techniques on this book. Learn more about this book and its predictions here!
Image credit: rupixen.com
