Well, at least it’s not just for rich people to flaunt when they want to, right? Meet the Earth 300 Climate Research Vessel, conceptualized by naval architect Iván Salas Jefferson (founder of Iddes Yachts). The huge yacht has 22 state-of-the-art laboratories, a cantilevered observation deck, and enough space for 160 scientists for research. The most impressive feature of the vessel is that it runs entirely on ‘clean’ nuclear energy: 

The Earth 300 vessel boasts of an incredibly captivating design, with its ‘floating marble on a surfboard’ aesthetic that’s supposed to resemble the planet earth on a path to the future. The vessel has an almost sculptural quality to it, of which designer Iván Salas Jefferson said “We wanted to create a design that would inspire. When one looks at the sphere, we want them to be inspired to protect Earth. When one walks into the sphere, now housing the science city, and feels the action of all the ongoing scientific works, we want them to be inspired to become an alchemist of global solutions.”

Expected to set sail as soon as 2025, the Earth 300 vessel is currently being constructed by Polish naval architecture firm NED. The construction of the gigayacht is projected to cost anywhere between $500-700 million, and prominent backers of this project include names like IBM, Triton Submarines, EYOS Expeditions, and RINA, an international leader in maritime safety. The Earth 300 will also be powered by a unique ‘Molten Salt Reactor’, a new generation of atomic energy that’s safe, sustainable, 100% emission-free, and is developed by TerraPower – the nuclear innovation company founded by Bill Gates.

Image via Yanko Design 

Geoglyphs are large designs on the ground that are formed from earth or stone. These are typically classified as a type of land art. Geoglyphs are usually found in deserts in Peru and Kazakhstan, and now they can also be found in India! Located in India’s Thar Desert, the recently-discovered geoglyph covers 51 acres (20.8 hectares): 

It's not clear why the lines were made, though they are situated near several rock cairns, or stacks, and memorial stones, the latter carved with images of the Hindu deities Krishna and Ganesha. The lines may have some sort of religious or ceremonial meaning, discoverers and independent French researchers Carlo Oetheimer, and Yohann Oetheimer, wrote for the upcoming September issue of the journal Archaeological Research in Asia. The overall pattern is not visible from the ground, as there is no high point nearby and the terrain is flat. Only by scouting the region on Google Earth were the Oetheimers able to discover the geoglyphs.

image credit: Carlo Oetheimer and Yohann Oetheimer / Archaeological Research in Asia

A newly unveiled quantum computer is now also Europe’s most powerful quantum computer. The machine was a collaborative effort between IBM and Europe’s largest application-oriented research organization, Fraunhofer. The creators of the device hope that its computational power will have applications across a varied range of industries and scientific disciplines. Learn more about the computer here! 

Image screenshot via Euronews

The Dendrohyrax interfluvialis is a new species of a tree hyrax. Recently announced by scientists this week, it was actually initially discovered in 2009 by researchers in Nigeria. The researchers noticed a bark-like call in the night, and they discovered the species. But why did it take years to fully confirm its existence? It turns out that when it comes to an elusive, nocturnal, forest-dwelling animal in a remote region the process would not be easy. Check the video above to learn more! 

(via Mashable)

It’s less of an official game and more of a fan-made crossover. Meet Yong Yi Lee, an artist who has worked with major gaming studies such as Ubisoft and Treyarch. Yi Lee has published his take on what Sesame Street characters would look like in the world of Bloodborne, and the results are, frankly, horrifying. Creative, yes- but it shatters the nostalgic image of these fluffy and funny puppets as the artist depicts them as cursed monsters with a lot of sharp teeth. Scary, but great art! 

image credit: Yong Yi Lee

Look, I just hope the new Windows 11 is better than Windows 10. It doesn’t matter if the new operating system is less aesthetically pleasing, I just want software that doesn't update too many times (and randomly sometimes, too). A build of a supposed ‘new Windows’ software has spread online-- and it appears to be legitimate. The build looks like the discontinued Windows 10X builds, as ZDNet: 

The leaked build -- which I first saw via XDA Developers (which credited BetaWorld on Baidu as the source) shows Build 21996.1 as the build number. This is from the "Cobalt" engineering branch. It also shows Windows Feature Experience Pack 321.14700.0.3 alongside the "Windows 11 Pro" dev build.

[...]

Some have speculated that Microsoft could deliver some pieces of Windows 11 via the Feature Experience Pack -- a mechanism Microsoft currently uses to deliver OS components and apps that can be updated independently from the base operating system. According to previous leaks, Microsoft is also expected to overhaul the app store as part of Windows 11. The app store is currently a separate Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app.Windows 11 is expected to include the "Sun Valley" user-interface refresh, as well as some underlying improvements, such as better touch capabilities along with the new app store, based on various leaks. I've heard Microsoft will likely make Windows 11 available to OEM partners this month or next and release it to the mainstream user base this fall.

image credit: BetaWorld (Baidu) 

Talk about a serendipitous discovery! A ‘miniature Pompeii’ was randomly discovered by construction workers during renovations of an abandoned cinema in Verona, Italy. The buried ruins contained charred wooden furniture and the collapsed remains of a ceiling. Experts theorize that the site was probably abandoned after a fire: 

The ancient site was probably abandoned after a fire, but “the environment was preserved intact, with the magnificent colors of the frescoed walls dating back to the second century,” Superintendency of Archeology, Fine Arts and Landscape of Verona, Rovigo, and Vicenza said in a statement, noting that the newly discovered artwork “evokes a miniature Pompeii.”

The modern-day building, the former Astra cinema, has been closed for 20 years, with construction first turning up signs of the lost Roman structure back in 2005.

image credit: Superintendency of Archeology, Fine Arts and Landscape of Verona, Rovigo, and Vicenza. 

There are existing applications that turn a photo into a video. From Photoshop, to Premiere Pro, to After Effects, there are also plugins and other predictive algorithms that can do this task. This new algorithm however, aims to be the better version of the current applications for turning a photo to a video. Researchers at the University of Washington have developed a deep learning method that only needs a single photo to make a believable video, as DIY Photography details:  

Aleksander Hołyński explains that turning a photo into a video requires the algorithm to predict the future. “And in the real world, there are nearly infinite possibilities of what might happen next,” he adds. So, he and his team trained a neural network with thousands of videos of waterfalls, rivers, oceans, and other material with fluid motion. They would first ask the network to predict the motion of a video only by the first frame. Then, it would compare its prediction with the actual video, which helped it learn to identify clues that tell it what was going to happen next (such as ripples in a stream, for example).

The researchers tried to use “splatting,” a technique that moves each pixel according to its predicted motion. However, it posed another set of challenges. “Think about a flowing waterfall,” Hołyński told UW News. “If you just move the pixels down the waterfall, after a few frames of the video, you’ll have no pixels at the top!” So they had to come up with a solution for this, and they called it “symmetric splatting.” It doesn’t only predict the future, but also “the past” of an image, creating a seamless animation.

image credit: Sarah McQuate/University of Washington

Yes, it’s explorable. In a stunning display of talent and artistry, Ernesto Neto has created a new fiber-based installation. Housed at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the artwork, called “SunForceOceanLife,” is a hand-crocheted, walkable maze that stretches 79 feet across the gallery and spirals 12 feet in the air:

Plastic balls also fill the pathway and shift underfoot, which forces those passing through the suspended structure to intentionally maintain their balance. Neto explains:

It directly engages the body as does a joyful dance or meditation, inviting us to relax, breathe, and uncouple our body from our conscious mind. The sensation of floating, the body cradled by the crocheted fruits of our labor, brings to mind a hammock: the quintessential indigenous invention that uplifts us and connects us to the wisdom and traditions of our ancestors.

“SunForceOceanLife” is on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston through September 26, 2021. You can see more of Neto’s interactive, site-specific projects at Galerie Max Hetzler.

Image credit: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston via Colossal 

The Video Game History Foundation has finished its restoration of a single Nintendo-related, 3.5-inch floppy disk. This small storage device is an Earthbound disk, discovered by original Earthbound translator Marcus Lindblom in 2018. Lindblom donated the disk for preservation to the institution, and they were able to recover a single file: 

Longtime Mother/Earthbound series expert Clyde "Tomato" Mandelin, who famously co-translated Mother 3 as a free, fan-made patch for its Japan-only version, partnered with VGHF to parse the discoveries. His very long report on the findings is mostly wonky stuff for people who know the series like the back of their hand as opposed to a laundry list of shocking revelations.

Still, the findings include breadcrumbs to help fans understand how this text-heavy game was made and released, along with enough code-related discoveries to allow ROM hackers to recreate some of the unfinished scenes mentioned in the disk's code and notes. (The disk doesn't contain art, sprites, or textures, but the script contents are dense enough for VGHF's ROM hackers to work with.)

Image credit: Video Game History Foundation

The answer is surprisingly simple: it’s because a cicada thinks that people strongly resemble trees. What’s with trees anyway? Cicadas land on them to mate, lay eggs, and do other life-related tasks. Since cicadas prefer to perch on trees, they tend to go right towards any dark upright object - or in this case - a person. Mashable has more details: 

That's why if you're standing on a flat runway, like President Biden, a cicada may be keen to find you. "You might be the tallest structure out there," mused Day.

The sheer number of cicadas that emerge over a short time in spring also likely plays a role in the cicada landings, noted George Hamilton, the chair of the Department of Entomology at Rutgers University. With potentially millions of bugs around, a structure-seeking insect is more likely to find you.

Cicadas are indeed cacophonous as males vigorously vibrate their abdomens to attract mates. But they are no threat to people. And the cicadas' short-lived emergence is a great boon to wildlife.

Image credit: Jason Weingardt

For now of course, it’s just a concept. Norway’s Wind Catching Systems has proposed a floating power grid composed of more than 100 small wind turbines. The company claims that this conceptual power source could produce enough energy for 80,000 European homes. This new wind farm would stand at more than 1,000 feet tall, atop platforms that are anchored to the ocean floor: 

A common complaint about wind farms is the space they take up, but Wind Catching Systems' grid scales thins down with its compact design. The small size of the individual turbines makes installation and maintenance easy, with no specialty vessels or cranes necessary. With an estimated shelf life of 50 years, they are also designed to be scalable.

image credit: Wind Catching Systems

While birds don’t have enough brainpower to match our own, did you know that certain birds can understand abstract concepts too? In a study published in The Journal of Neuroscience, a team of researchers studied two male carrion crows (Corvus corone), and proved that crows can understand the concept of zero: 

The crows were trained to peck at the screen or move their heads if the two images matched one another, and to remain still if they did not match.

The greater the difference between the two sets of dots, the more accurately the birds responded; in other words, the birds mixed up closer quantities, such as two and three, more often than more divergent quantities, such as one and four. This phenomenon is known as the "numerical distance effect," which can also be observed in monkeys and humans during similar tests, Nieder told Live Science.

In the more recent study, which included a blank screen, "what we found is that the crows, after this training, could discriminate zero from the other countable numerosities," Nieder said. However, importantly, the birds still demonstrated the numerical distance effect in trials that included the empty screen.

Image credit: Andreas Nieder

Researchers have successfully created a self-healing concrete that can repair its own cracks! The concept behind the self-healing concrete is that an intervention needs to be staged before water gets in tiny cracks and causes the rupture to spread. The special concrete makes use of an enzyme found in human blood, as New Atlas details: 

The team put the CA enzyme to use by adding it to concrete powder before the material is mixed and poured. When a small crack forms in the concrete, the enzyme interacts with CO2 in the air to produce calcium carbonate crystals, which mimic the characteristics of concrete and promptly fill in the crack.

Through their testing, the scientists demonstrated their doped concrete can repair its own millimeter-scale cracks within 24 hours. The team says this is a marked improvement on some previous technologies that have used bacteria to self-heal, which are more expensive and can take up to a month to heal even far smaller cracks.

While the amount of CO2 the concrete gobbles up is likely to be negligible in the grand scheme of things, the real environmental potential of the material lies in its potential longevity. Rahbar predicts that this type of self-healing technology could extend the life of a structure from 20 years to 80 years, which reduces the need to produce replacement concrete in what is a notoriously carbon-intensive process.

“Healing traditional concrete that’s already in use is critically beneficial, too, and will help reduce the need to produce and ship additional concrete, which has a huge environmental impact,” says Rahbar.

Image credit: Worcester Polytechnic Institute

At some point imitation pieces were sure to appear. This doesn’t come as a surprise. With Crocs rising to be the new trendy shoe, copycat versions of the rubber shoes are now all over the market. The company, of course, filed a 175-page complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission to fight against the fakes, as Input magazine details: 

Although Crocs have been around for years, the shoe’s recent popularity explains why other brands might be seeking to make a profit off the chunky silhouette. Collaborations with Post Malone, Bad Bunny, Justin Bieber, Diplo, and even Balenciaga have marketed the rubber clogs to nearly every consumer available — and have done so successfully, selling out drops in minutes and leading Crocs’ share price to an all-time high. According to TFL, the hype surrounding Croc’s offerings is so great that the brand alleges that “the Classic Clog garnered nearly 25 billion observed media impressions in 2020, alone.” Now is the perfect time to cash in on the growing demand for the clog, if court cases allow.

[...]

As a result, Crocs claims its shoes, including its “CROCS” word mark, “the three-dimensional configuration of the outside of an upper of a shoe, the textured strip on the heel of the shoe, [and] the decorative band along the length of the heel strap,” are all distinctive enough to be recognized as belonging to the brand, TFL writes. And in a not so humble note, Crocs also claims that there are already an “infinite number” of footwear styles similar to its rubber clogs — so much so that the copycat market “requires constant attention,” and as a result, “each year, customs and other enforcement officials around the world seize hundreds of thousands of shoes that improperly bear” Croc’s trademarks.

Image courtesy of Crocs