It’s very easy to lose track of the emails you receive every day. While there’s no harm in just letting unimportant emails stay in your inbox, hoarding a lot of them in the long run can cause problems when you’re using Gmail’s mobile application. When you have thousands of emails (or more), the app’s search function can lag or crash. So how do we avoid this issue? Well, mass deletion, right? The issue here is that the application doesn’t have an easy way to let its users mass delete their emails. TechRepublic shares a handy trick to solve the issue. Check it here!
Oh dear. Because of the losses suffered due to the pandemic, Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) decided that the archaeological project that involved exploring and studying a 2.5-mile-long, 400-year-old tunnel under Mexico City will be postponed. Therefore, archaeologists will need to cover up the dig due to the lack of funding to safeguard the site’s precious artifacts:
[...] The institute hopes that putting dirt back on top of the Indigenous artworks—which adorn a sluice gate from the early 1600s, part of early colonial Mexico City’s extensive flood control infrastructure—will be enough to keep it safe until someone has the means to properly build an on-site exhibit for the public.
The most remarkable artifacts found at the tunnel entrance were carved images of animals, gods, and other iconography, Mexico News Dailyreported at the time, though nails and some of the original wood of the gate were also uncovered. Depictions of a bird’s head, raindrops, a war shield, and a temple structure were among the excavated artworks.
Austrian artist Gustav Klimt was popular for his symbolism and usage of actual gold leaf in his paintings. His work featured a lot of historical significance, and centered largely around women. Klimt is also considered one of the best decorative painters of the 20th century, as the Collector details:
Klimt was born in Austria-Hungary in a town called Baumgarten near Vienna. His father, Ernst was a gold engraver and his mother, Anna dreamed of becoming a musical performer. Klimt’s two other brothers also showed great artistic talent, one of which became a gold engraver like their father.
For a while, Klimt even worked with his brother in an artistic capacity and they did a lot together in terms of adding value to the Vienna artistic community. It’s interesting that Klimt’s father worked with gold as gold became an important facet of Klimt’s career. He even had a “Golden Period.”
To learn more about Klimt, check out the full piece here!
Listen, it’s easy to deal with grass clippings after a good mowing session if you throw them in the trash. Sure, that’s convenient and straightforward, but did you know that these clippings can be utilized to do multiple things for your yard or garden? Mark Wolfe lists different methods and uses for leftover grass clippings. From using them as free fertilizer to compost to garden beds-- we have a lot of options to choose from! Check the full piece here.
We’ve gone further than using helmets to spot brain tumors; we can now crush them. Okay, maybe that wording is too harsh and somewhat inaccurate, but a helmet that can actually treat tumors is real. Researchers have created a helmet that generates a magnetic field to shrink a deadly tumor by a third. The invention, as part of the latest breakthrough, was used to treat a 53-year-old patient:
The 53-year-old patient who underwent the treatment ultimately died due to an unrelated injury, but an autopsy of his brain showed that the procedure had removed 31% of the tumor mass in a short time. The test marked the first noninvasive therapy for a deadly form of brain cancer known as glioblastoma.
The helmet features three rotating magnets connected to a microprocessor-based electronic controller operated by a rechargeable battery. As part of the therapy, the patient wore the device for five weeks at a clinic and then at home with the help of his wife. The resulting magnetic field therapy created by the helmet was administered for two hours initially and then ramped up to a maximum of six hours per day. During the period, the patient’s tumor mass and volume shrunk by nearly a third, with shrinkage appearing to correlate with the treatment dose.
The inventors of the device — which received Food and Drug Administration approval for compassionate use treatment — claim it could one day help treat brain cancer without radiation or chemotherapy.
Image credit: Houston Methodist Neurological Institute
Have you ever wondered how people in the past threw parties? A good example to look at would be ancient Romans. Well, while their partying methods are completely different, they were known for their excessive feasts and parties. The Roman elite preferred to hold private dinner parties in their homes rather than big, open, public parties. A type of Roman dinner party called convivium was usually held in residences with a small group of friends, family, and business associates. Don’t underestimate the small number of guests, though, because conviviums were designed to be extravagant and expensive:
[...]The most common reception room for such parties was the dining area, which in Roman homes were known as the triclinium, or "three-couch room," because dining was typically done while reclining on couches, which were arranged in a U-shape with a table in the middle in order to facilitate sharing and conversation. As these entertaining spaces were meant to be a delight to the senses, an upper-class triclinium would often have many decorative elements such as floor mosaics, sculptures or other pieces of art, and fancy furniture.
While the Greeks were known to enjoy drinking parties known as symposia (the one at which Socrates and friends discussed the true nature of love being the most famous one), Roman dinner parties were different in a number of ways. The chief difference is that women were allowed to attend Roman parties, providing that they were of the appropriate class. At Greek symposia, the only women allowed were entertainers, musicians, or sex workers known as hetairai. If you were Roman, at least your wife could be there.
Don’t think about the gold-infused recipes served in New York, because this list features none of those dishes. Here’s a spoiler alert: you’ve probably seen or eaten some of these. While I can’t live like a rich heiress, I certainly can look up the extravagant practices and luxuries employed by the rich. The Internet, afterall, is a huge well of varying information! Luxury Columnist lists their top twelve most expensive food items here!
The Trajan Column is a marble column that rises 38 meters above Rome. The column recounts one of ancient Rome’s greatest achievements, presenting a narrative of the Dacian Wars. The intricate carvings on the pillar show more than 2,500 figures of Roman and Dacian warriors locked in combat. Besides the column being a high quality artwork, it is also a piece of imperial propaganda:
[...]After the emperor’s death, the monument served as a tomb for Trajan and his wife. For centuries this movie in stone was adored by artists and emulated by many leaders. Despite its deterioration, caused by pollution and traffic, Trajan’s Column remains one of the finest ancient monuments even today.
Today, Trajan’s Column rises above the busy cityscape, dominated by the gargantuan Altare della Patria, built in the end of the 19th century. But when the monument was erected in the 2nd century CE, the 38-meter column was an integral part of theForum of Trajan, a piece of art that celebratedTrajan’s splendid victory over the Dacians. The construction of the Forum began almost immediately after the end of the war. The endeavor was financed by the huge war booty seized from the vanquished Dacians. Most of the work was completed within five years. Trajan’s Column was put in place in 113 CE, with the special commemorative coin depicting the Column issued for the occasion.
Thanks to marsquakes, which are described as the shaking of the surface or the interior of Mars, experts now have an idea on what the interior of the red planet looks like. The data from NASA's InSight mission was used to map the interior of the planet, from the thickness and structure of the crust and upper mantle to the revelation of a molten core, different papers have provided a huge amount of information to answer the long mystery of a once unknown part of Mars:
The liquid core of Earth's planetary neighbor is quite a departure from our own planet's deepest characteristics. Composed mostly of an iron-nickel alloy, the Martian core extends about 1,100 miles out from the center, about halfway to the surface. Meanwhile, Earth's inner core is also mostly an iron-nickel alloy but it's a dense, solid ball with a radius under 800 miles. A liquid iron and nickel outer core surrounds it.
The papers also describe the crust layer as being about as thin as Earth's, only reaching about 15 to 45 miles beneath the surface.
These new conclusions were drawn from measurements taken by InSight's seismometer, which measures the vibrations of quakes as they rattle through the interior of Mars. By measuring the quakes' speeds and intensities as they travel throughout the planet's layers, scientists pieced together a likely idea of the planet's composition.
No, it’s not the purple dinosaur. A dark-coated bull, nicknamed ‘Barney’, has escaped on Long Island and eluded capture for several days. This is despite the effort thrown in by different rescue teams, from employing a helicopter to using night-vision equipment to attempting to lure the animal with grain and a cow-- none of them worked. Residents have spotted bull walking across fields, roads, and suburban front yards, and the bull was also able to shut down a portion of Sunrise Highway:
“We’ve tried luring him with a cow, with horses,” Frankie Floridia of Strong Island Animal Rescue told Newsday. “I’m out here with a (tranquilizer gun), looking for him, and I’m thinking, ‘I’m hunting cows in an Indiana Jones movie.’ It’s just frustrating. The longer it goes, you wonder what happens.”
The bull is roaming around a part of Long Island that features dense underbrush and pine barrens. Floridia said the dense vegetation has hindered the search.
Rescuers said they hope to have the bull moved to a sanctuary.
“I’m not afraid of him being aggressive to humans,” Floridia said. “He doesn’t have horns, he’s not an aggressive animal. I think he’s going to see people and he’s going to run away. I’m just afraid, with the color of his coat, he’s going to wander into a road in the dark and some driver won’t see him.”
Image credit: Suffolk County Police Department via AP)
Atomic bunkers were created in the late ‘60s and ‘70s to withstand the blast of a nuclear bomb. Commissioned by Chairman Mao, roughly 10,000 bunkers were promptly constructed in Beijing. When the government gave the opportunity to lease the shelters to private landlords, these fallout sanctuaries became tiny residential units. Today, the underground bunkers house more than a million people such as migrant workers and students from rural areas. Photographer Antonio Faccilongo, fascinated by the people that live in these bunkers, visited Beijing to document the phenomenon:
It seemed everywhere Faccilongo went, a neighborhood security guard would turn him away, citing a law barring foreigners from entering such nuclear refuges. Dismayed, he submitted an official request with the local government, which was rejected. Finally, Faccilongo slipped by when guards were off-site for lunch.
But even after Faccilongo attained access, he found many residents wary, in some cases embarrassed, of being photographed.
“I met around 150 people, and only 50 gave me permissions [to photograph them],” Faccilongo says. “Some of them are afraid because they told their families [back home] that they have good jobs and are living in good apartments.”
Theliving conditions in the bunkers are indeed harsh. Although they were built with electricity, plumbing and a sewage system in order to shelter people for months in wartime or fallout, the lack of proper ventilation makes the air stagnant and moldy. Residents share kitchens and restrooms that are often cramped and unsanitary.
This cat just straight up said, ‘Oops, you’re my dad now!’ Basil Akwan and his girlfriend noticed a pair of kittens that visited the cafe where they worked for food and cuddles. The cats would always wait in the same spot for them, until one day one of the cats decided to follow Akwan home. Akwan realised, after noticing that the cat was following him to his car, that she was trying to tell him that she wanted to be his pet. Ever since then, Sophie has been happily getting her cuddles and treats from Akwan, and her sister was adopted by his girlfriend.
Now this is just amazing! Game developer and controller modder Super Louis 64 beat Dark Souls with only a controller made out of a Pizza Hut pizza. The modder explained that he used a special board, some wires, and plugged them to each pizza slice. How did he incorporate the controls to the slices though? He further explained that each pizza slice was actually its own button:
[...]And in order to heal in-game, he had to take an actual bite of pizza, which is an unusually excellent incentive to take some damage. Watch the clip below and enjoy the majesty of beating Dark Souls with a pizza controller.
The whole point of the tech that Super Louis 64 used is to turn ordinary (or not so ordinary) objects into controllers, so Pizza Hut pizza is merely one of the greasier, messier options he could have selected. Nonetheless, that doesn’t take away from the fact that Dark Souls is really hard with a normal controller, so beating it with a whole squadron of pizza buttons is still a pretty awesome (and mildly ridiculous) feat.
“For twenty dollars, I was able to beat Dark Souls and have a good meal at the same time,” concluded Super Louis. That sounds like a stellar Friday to us. Let us know what you think of it.
What in the world happened? Gonzalo Montoya Jiménez, a 29-year-old prisoner in the maximum security wing of Asturias Central Penitentiary in northwest Spain, was declared dead by three different doctors. However, much to everybody’s surprise, he woke up in the morgue, mere hours before his own autopsy! This baffling event has led hospital officials to conclude that the cause is catalepsy:
[...] was found unresponsive in his cell during a morning roll call on 7 January 2018 and had been transferred to a hospital mortuary in a body bag when pathologists heard something strange.
The day before Jiménez was found 'dead', he complained of feeling ill, and while it was unknown exactly what caused his condition, officialsdescribed his body as showing signs ofcyanosis – a purplish discoloration of the skin caused by poor circulation or lack of oxygen – in addition torigor mortis.
Hospital officialstold Spanish media the faux fatality could be a case ofcatalepsy, in which the body enters a trance or seizure-like state, exhibiting a loss ofconsciousness and sensation, together with physical rigidity.
Just how Jiménez became cataleptic is unclear, although the prisoner experienced epilepsy, and takes medication for the condition – buthis family said it wasn't always easy for Jiménez to adhere to his medication schedule in lock-up, so that might have had something to do with it.
Reddit user Michael Ranger (rg1213) was able to unwrap or flip the perspective of a photo of Buzz Aldrin on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission. Ranger was able to unwrap Buzz Aldrin’s visor into a 2D image so we can essentially ‘see’ what Aldrin saw, and then opened the photo in Google Street View:
Ranger downloaded ahigh-resolution film scan in RAW format, which allowed him to make some edits before creating the panoramic image and video. Ranger sharpened, and color corrected the image in Photoshop. The visors of the spacesuit helmet are gold, so Ranger used the source image to help color correct the mirrored image in the visor. Ranger also 'added more room in the initial photo crop around the edges of the visor so that when it was unwrapped it would more accurate account for the space in the final image that represents the inside of [Aldrin's] helmet.'
It's wild to think that we are getting a new perspective on an iconic image and moment in human history more than 50 years after it occurred. Reddit user SlowCrates writes, 'It's kind of eerie. This is an unintended, unanticipated photo. It's literally people 52 years in the future using modern technology to catch a new perspective of the past. What kind of fancy ways will people be looking at our present 52 years from now?'
