The Tropicalia is a conceptual greenhouse that will be built in Northern France by 2024. Designed by French firm Coldefy & Associates, the greenhouse will span over 215,000 square feet and will be covered by a huge 35-meter-tall dome. The Tropicalia will accommodate a diverse range of fauna and flora: 

The experience will be nothing less than that of an enchanted forest as visitors are led along a kilometer-long path where they pass by an 82-foot-high waterfall, an 82-foot-long “tactile pool” filled with koi carp, and an Olympic-sized pool filled with Amazonian fish, some even growing up to 3 meters in length! You can either choose to look at these fish through an aquarium-style glass surface or a platform and pontoon if you are feeling adventurous!

At this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale, you will be able to catch a glimpse of Tropicalia’s architecture, engineering systems, and sustainable air treatment engineering. It will also include the current state of the research on tropical fauna and flora, and how they benefit the ecosystem, the planet, and our health. Tropicalia’s exhibit wants to showcase how science provides ways of peaceful coexistence between man and nature as we move towards a sustainable future. Tropicalia is expected to attract 500,000 visitors per year when it opens and it is certainly on our bucketlist!

Image via Yanko Design 

Did you know that lapis lazuli once adorned great works of art from the past? The material has been associated with ‘cosmic wisdom,’ and it was once more precious than gold. From adorning King Tut’s coffin, and other ancient funeral items, to coloring the most expensive blue paint, the gemstone once ruled the hearts of artists and craftsmen: 

But in addition to being used on pharaoh's masks, scarabs and beads, it is rumored that pulverized lapis lazuli was the eyeshadow of choice for Cleopatra.

During the Crusades, lapis lazuli began making its way to Europe where it was also ground, but in this case for paint. It's "rarity and cost meant that it could be afforded for the creation of art works only by the richest of patrons," Roderick Conway Morris wrote in a 2015 piece for The New York Times.

During that medieval period, the pigment, a color named ultramarine, which means "beyond the sea," was "more precious than gold," Ravi Mangla wrote in The Paris Review. It was so special (and expensive), ultramarine was usually reserved for special commissions or parts of paintings like the Virgin Mary's robes.

Until the 19th century, lapis lazuli was the only game in town for "true blue" ultramarine. But in the 1820s, French chemist Jean-Baptiste Guimet created a synthetic alternative.

Image via How Stuff Works 

Imagine finding a marble head of Rome’s first emperor while you’re doing renovations! Well, construction workers in Isernia, Italy, were surprised to find a long-lost portrait of Augustus, who ruled as the first Roman emperor from 27 B.C. to until his death in 14 A.D. The marble bust has remained relatively intact, as the Smithsonian details: 

Speaking with isNews, superintendent Dora Catalano and archaeologist Maria Diletta Colombo, both of whom are overseeing the new project, said that some locals had proposed supporting the historic walls with concrete pillars.

“We highlighted that the solution was not feasible, not in the least because the piling would have risked destroying the foundation of the walls and any traces of ancient presence in the area,” the pair explained, per Google Translate.

“Yes, it is really him, the emperor Augustus, found today during the excavation,” writes the Archaeological Superintendency of Molise in the statement, per a translation by ARTNews’ Claire Selvin. “Because behind the walls of a city [lies] its history, which cannot be pierced with a concrete [pillar].”

Per a separate report from isNews, Mayor Giacomo D’Apollonio announced that the rare artifact will remain in Isernia and eventually go on display in the nearby Museum of Santa Maria Delle Monache.

Image via the Smithsonian 

Wow. Zoe Roth became an Internet sensation at the age of four when she stood in front of a burning building with a smirk on her face. Sounds familiar? The image is the famous ‘disaster girl’ meme! Roth, now 21-years-old, has managed to sell the original photograph of the meme as an NFT for a whopping $473,000: 

The picture in the form of a non-fungible token (NFT) - a kind of unique digital asset that has exploded in popularity so far in 2021 - was snapped up for 180 Ethereum, which is equivalent to $473,000, by a collector known only as @3FMusic.

An NFT is a unique digital token encrypted with an artist's signature and which verifies its ownership and authenticity and is permanently attached to the piece.

It allows 'original' versions of popular online content - like viral memes and tweets - to be sold as if they were physical pieces of art. 

The collector @3FMusic is reportedly Farzin Fardin Fard, CEO of a Dubai-based music production company, according to Gizmodo.  

Zoe, now a university student and waitress, and her father Dave - who captured the photo - were approached by an anonymous person via email in February who encouraged them to sell the image as an NFT.  

Image via the Daily Mail 

Did you know that you can bake bread using the ground? Iceland’s popular volcanic lava bread is a rye bread that was cooked for 24 hours buried in the country’s hot springs. Food Insider speaks with Sigi Rafn Hilmarsson to learn about the process involved in cooking the baked treat. Check the full video here. 

Image screenshot via Food Insider 

Mustatials, a group of ancient monuments discovered in Saudi Arabia, are part of the world’s oldest ritual landscape, according to archaeologists. A study published in Antiquity reported that the monuments were built between 8,500 and 4,800 years ago. Experts have raised numerous theories on the structures’ function, but the new study shows that the monuments could have been used to raise cattle: 

“You don’t get a full understanding of the scale of the structures until you’re there,” archaeologist Hugh Thomas, the director of the project, told New Scientist. “It’s not designed to keep anything in, but to demarcate the space that is clearly an area that needs to be isolated.”

Archaeologists found animal bones on the sites, which seem to be the remains of religious offerings. The presence of cattle skulls in particular suggests the existence of prehistoric cattle cult.

The largest mustatils are more than 1,500 feet long, with one example constructed from 12,000 tons of basalt stone. Some are simple constructions, with low rock walls forming long rectangles. But others are far more complex, with pillars, interior walls, and small chambers that may have been used for ritual sacrifices.

During the construction of the mustatils, Saudi Arabia would have been all but unrecognizable to contemporary eyes, a verdant green landscape where there is now arid desert.

“The environment was certainly much more humid during this period,” Melissa Kennedy, assistant director of the Aerial Archaeology in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia project, told Live Science. “Cattle need a lot of water to survive.”

Image via Artnet  

Well, sort of. Sony and Nike have collaborated to create a Playstation-themed basketball sneaker for the NBA and Paul George. The sneaker, called  “PG5,” is a design based on a piece of a DualSense controller that was sent to Nike’s senior footwear designer, Tony Hardman. This was because Sony can’t show him the actual console (or any images of it): 

More specifically, [Yuji] Morisawa said he wanted Hardman and Nike to really get a feel for details like the texture and patterns being used across the PS5, such as the small PlayStation squares, triangles, circles, and Xs that are all over the DualSense controller. Those elements were, naturally, hard to show off with a webcam and over Zoom video calls, prompting Morisawa to eventually decide to literally cut off a piece of a DualSense controller and ship it to Hardman so Nike could have a reference point for the sneaker’s design.

“Usually, we are not able to send a sample like this,” Morisawa said about trusting Nike with a PlayStation 5 component before the console had been announced. “But this time I tried really hard and said, ‘I have to send it to them.’ So I cut [the DualSense] out so nobody could see which part it was and I think it helped them that we could actually send the sample to them before production.”

Image via Input Magazine

Researchers from all over the globe are now looking at wood, showing how its complex makeup can be edited to give it new properties. One of the new developments was making the construction material transparent by removing polymers. Scientists from Sweden’s KTH Royal Institute of Technology have produced a renewable version of see-through wood using a fruit peel extract, as New Atlas details: 

The scientists at KTH Royal Institute of Technology have been at the forefront of this research for years, demonstrating their first transparent wood back in 2016. Like other versions of this technology, the process starts by extracting lignin – an organic polymer that gives wood its color, rigidity and ability to absorb light – from the material.

This leaves behind empty pores, and previously, the team has filled these gaps with synthetic polymers to give the material strength and transparency. Now, the scientists have found a more eco-friendly replacement, in a monomer made from a component in citrus fruit peels called limonene.

Image via New Atlas 

One seven-year-old girl noticed that the dresses sold in the game Animal Crossing: New Horizons were more expensive than the jumpsuits or pants. Confused, she asked her mom about it, who had no answer to her question. Finding no answer, she then decided to write a letter to Nintendo on her own. We’re still waiting for Nintendo’s answer on her query! 

Image via Bored Panda 

Yep, you’ve heard that right -- it’s a toadlet. A small frog. Surprisingly, the actual scientific term for the newly-discovered tiny orange toadlet is toadlet. The B. rotenbergae is less than an inch long! The amphibian can be found in the Mantiqueira mountains in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest. Besides being small, did you know that its bones glow under UV light? Popular Science has more details: 

This pumpkin toadlet looks almost identical to another species of pumpkin toadlet. If you were walking in the forest and came across one (they are difficult to spot, as they hide amongst the leaf litter), you almost certainly wouldn’t know this tiny frog from its cousin. But if you’re a herpetologist, like those that described the new species in a recent PLoS ONE article, you might have noticed the faded spots on its back that differentiate it from its cousin, Brachycephalus ephippium. The new toadlet, B. rotenbergae, is also a little smaller, though the two share fluorescent bones. It’s unclear what function the fluorescent bones serve, though they might have something to do with communication. 

Image via Popular Science 

Have you ever wondered what the best-designed rooms look like? Well, interior design enthusiasts, rejoice! The 2021 edition of By Design: The World’s Best Contemporary Interior Designers has been released. If you don’t know what that is, it’s basically the bible of interior design. Introducing new or groundbreaking interior designers, the book also showcases well-designed rooms. Homes and Gardens gives us a preview of the book, presenting the nine best living rooms featured in the book. Check the full list here. 

Image via Homes and Gardens

It’s for their own good, apparently. Yellowstone National Park  is now shooting paintballs at wolves. Since wildlife and human interaction is an issue in the park, signs and notices are scattered all over the park to warn visitors. However, it seems that these warnings are no longer enough to keep the tourists safe from accidents when they get too close for the animals’ comfort. Now, park officials are using paintballs to deter the wolves from engagement and interaction with the park’s visitors: 

“Instead of killing them, we want to do everything in our power to preserve them—that’s where non-lethal munitions come into play,” Smith said.

Hazing, used frequently on wildlife like coyotes, involves the use of deterrents, like loud noises, inflicted pain, and in many times, a combination of the two on an animal to discourage them from engaging in an undesirable activity or behavior. The idea with wolves is to essentially make them afraid of humans again, especially if they’ve lost that fear due to park visitors feeding them or getting too close to them.

According to Ausband, the use of wolf hazing doesn’t really work. “We tried hazing methods in the livestock industry in Idaho, but the wolves were pretty smart and caught on pretty quickly.”

Smith and his crew disagree. In fact, they’ve developed a method shared with Teton National Park, Denali National Park, and others, that involves bean bag rounds “in the ass,” which is according to Smith “the best place to hit a wolf,” rubber bullets, and cracker shells to create a cacophony of noise and a barrage of the senses that frightens the wolf and discourages it from interacting with humans again.

“I tell my guys to make it seem like the Fourth of July is happening right over their heads,” Smith told The Daily Beast.

Clear paintball rounds (that, importantly, don’t leave a mark on the animal), are also a tool used since, Smith says, “you’re lucky if you can even use one tool before the moment has passed.”

Image via the Daily Beast 

Did you know that there are houses being sold  for just €1 ($1.20) in Italy? The deal sounds too good to be true, of course. However, according to California resident Rubia Daniels, they’re real - just don’t expect brand new houses. Daniels was one of the first who bought a house in Mussomeli, Sicily. Travel and Leisure spoke with her to know what to do and what to avoid when you’re trying to buy one of Italy’s  €1 homes:

Does that €1 home really cost just €1? There are taxes and fees to pay, of course, along with the building work, but not all schemes are equal when it comes to the price of the house itself.

"I know some people who went to another town, and it turned out to be an auction," says Daniels.

Each town has different rules, whether that's the pricing structure, deposit system, number of architects or lawyers you must involve (and pay), or time in which you have to complete your renovations to avoid penalties. Make sure to pick the one that works for you.

You should also be aware of the criteria for renovations. In Mussomeli, for example, you can do what you like with the interior, as long as you keep the façade as it originally would have been. Daniels is already planning an art gallery on the ground floor of one of her homes.

Image via Travel and Leisure

First-person shooter game Team Fortress 2 will not run if you delete an image file of a coconut from its game files. The discovery of this sent fans into a frenzy (also it’s funny, right?), as removing the image will actually make the game unplayable. The Gaming Bible details how the image holds the entire first-person shooter game: 

"In the Love & War update, when particles for the taunts were added, one of the particles were [sic] the unused coconut.vtf," said Reddit user TheThunderGuyS. "It was literally a coconut. Due to some spaghetti code other taunts were linked to this particle, so even though it was unusued [sic], it causes errors and crashes when removed (crash on map load because TF2 preloads everything)." As Valve itself hasn't acknowledged the coconut in Team Fortress 2, it's not known just how entangled the file is with the code and whether it could ever be extracted. Still, it's a funny quirk of one of the most influential games in the multiplayer genre.

Image via the Gaming Bible 

Well, this kid has his priorities sorted. When a mother asked her son what he wanted for his birthday, he responded with two things: a Nintendo Switch and a trip to Buffalo, New York. Both of these choices are costly, so she told him he could only pick one. The little guy actually chose the trip to Buffalo to try out their famous pizza. What an unexpected choice! 

Image screenshot via WIVB