If these new prototype lenses can successfully monitor changes in intraocular pressure ( the pressure within the eyeball), then who knows what kind of upgrades and advancements researchers could do with contact lenses? Researchers from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology developed the prototype lenses that change in shape to monitor the changes within the eyeball, as the Conversation details: 

The continuous monitoring provided by the contact lens could come in handy for people suffering from glaucoma. This lens can monitor changes in intraocular pressure throughout the day, and can responsively release drugs to alleviate the glaucoma. A similar lens, called Sensimed Triggerfish, has received regulatory approval in the United States and Japan.

Thanks to the ubiquity of electronic devices, we are currently living in a world constantly bathed in electromagnetic radiation. Although a clear consensus is absent, studies have pointed out that exposure to electromagnetic radiation could possibly induce some effects in human tissue. Engineers in South Korea have applied a layer of graphene to contact lens to help shield the eyes from electromagnetic radiation. The thin graphene layer also reduces dehydration.

Image via unsplash 

The Surtshellir Cave in Iceland was discovered to be a trove full of Middle Eastern artifacts, and the location was used by the Vikings as an offering pit for sacraments to stop the apocalypse. The most noticeable artifact in the cave was a stone, boat-shaped structure that served as the main offering pit, as All That’s Interesting details: 

As deputy director and chief curator of the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology at Brown University, Kevin Smith was thrilled at the discovery. The Surtshellir Cave in question was formed by a volcano that erupted nearly 1,100 years ago — and gave Smith a window into what might have happened there.

[...]

Smith and his team also found 63 beads made of a mineral common in the Middle East but rarely found in Scandinavia. Most entrancing are the specifics of how these animal sacrifices aimed to avert Ragnarök. A study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, the study proffers some rather staggering theories.

Image via All That’s Interesting 

No alcohol was consumed to create these special concoctions. This bartender was able to entertain his toddler son and make his milk! Using formula and pre-boiled water, the father employs his bartending tricks to please his son (and honestly, me too, as I watched the video). Check People Magazine’s video here to see the father’s full show! 

Image via People Magazine

Meet Strength In Numbers, a beer with an alcohol by volume (ABV) of 57.8%. The beverage, dubbed as the ‘world’s strongest beer,’ is made by BrewDog in collaboration with Schorschbräu, a German brewer that funnily enough, BrewDog tried to beat in a ‘strongest brew’ competition. So how do these brewing companies produce the eye-watering beer? Shortlist has the details: 

BrewDog uses the traditional Eisbock method. This is when freeze the beer, remove chunks of ice (water) until you’re left with the concentrated high ABV liquid.

To give the beer a bit of a spin, it features a blend of BrewDog’s Death or Glory, an ice distilled Belgian golden ale that’s been sitting in whisky casks for 10 years.

Because of the exclusivity and rarity of the beer, it costs a whopping £28.95 a bottle - but just think about the bragging rights when you get hold of a bottle.

BrewDog has a long history of brewing high ABV beer. Its most famous is Tactical Nuclear Penguin, an imperial stout that clocked in at 32%.

It also created Sink The Bismark (41%) and End of History at 55%. All of these are brewed in the same way using the Eisbock method.

Image via Shortlist

The simple question of why rabbits remain so small opens a pathway to a big part of evolutionary science. Since certain species of animals only exist in small sizes, while some exist in big and small sizes, one might ask: what causes some animal species or taxonomies to have carrying sizes? Researchers from Kyoto University explored this topic in evolutionary science by studying rabbits, ungulates, and lagomorphs: 

They found that once lagomorphs reach around 6 kilograms (about 14 lbs) in mass, they're at a competitive disadvantage to ungulates.

The researchers point out that there are other factors that come into play once lagomorphs become too big to operate at optimum capacity: competition from other animals from the same clade and increased danger from predators.

However, it's the ungulate comparison that seems to have had the most effect in this case. The research feeds into two contrasting ideas about how species evolve: the 'red queen' hypothesis, which ascribes most importance to species competition, and the 'court jester' hypothesis, which says abiotic forces like climate changes have the most impact.

According to the research, it seems that the red queen model is the one that's most significant here, against the backdrop of abiotic forces that aren't anything to do with animal competition.

Image via wikimedia commons 

The Rosicrucian Order was founded in the early 1600s. The order is a system of study to understand natural laws. The organization had to operate in secret to avoid persecution during its initial years. Surprisingly, after centuries, the secret society is now on different online platforms, such as Facebook and YouTube. Now, anyone can become a member: 

"Anyone can be a member and we have moderators who make sure that somebody who's not a member is not joining in order to sell their product or something like that," Scott said. "So the main thing is we want people to feel welcome and included and just to be able to observe what Rosicrucians do and how we approach the world."

The Facebook page the Rosicrucian Order AMORC, which anyone can like and follow, has more than 300,000 followers. The largest private Rosicrucian Facebook group, which you have to ask to join, has 17,000 members. Not all of the followers are members of the Order, and it's mostly a place to do what you do on any other community-based Facebook group: set up meetups, post quotes written in cursive script on stock image backgrounds, and argue playfully in the comment sections about the artistry of Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Then there are the dozens of pages made for Rosicrucians in specific areas, which, Scott says, are really where the power of Facebook lies for them. "The strength of Facebook is it connects people locally," Scott, who joined the Rosicrucian Order in 1993, said. 

Image via Mashable

Talk about recycling second-hand shirts! Popular sneaker brand Converse has collaborated with vintage store Beyond Retro to create a limited edition summer-themed sneaker collection made from salvaged Hawaiian shirts. Each pair in the collection is unique, with its own distinct textures, patterns, and shades: 

Both Beyond Retro and Converse sourced Hawaiian shirts from across the U.S. to reassemble them into vibrant uppers for a Chuck 70 High and Chuck 70 Low sneakers. According to the companies, the project diverted over 7,000 tropical shirts from ending up in a landfill.

To make the upcycled look more obvious, each sneaker opts for a duo-panel design, with each side mismatching the other. While each pair’s look differs, many of the sneakers sport vivid shades like orange, yellow, and red alongside patterns like tie-dye, leafy graphics, and floral prints.

The tongue and laces of each sneaker don’t boast a Hawaiian print, instead donning a clean cream hue. Despite their lack of pattern, both the tongue and laces are made of 100 percent recycled materials, keeping in check with the sustainable aspect of the shoe. Rubber toe caps and midsoles match the upper’s cream accents.

Image via Input 

Yikes. IT teacher Richard Glenn threatened pupils and took some to a strip club during a school trip. The 55-year-old was one of the leaders of a group of 16 to 18-year-olds who went to Costa Rica in July 2019. Glenn has displayed a lot of inappropriate behavior, such as getting drunk with pupils, allowing one or more underaged pupils to drink alcohol, and taking students to a strip club, as BBC details: 

His actions included:

Drinking with pupils

Allowing one or more pupils to drink alcohol despite being under the legal age of 18

Threatening to "kick the head in" of one pupil and "kill" another

Telling one pupil: "I'm not in trouble - you'll be in trouble"

After being aggressive to one pupil, he kissed the boy's forehead and told him "you're all right"

Taking one or more pupils to a strip club

Acting aggressively towards the woman leading the trip when she tried to help him back to his tent

Exposing himself to the woman in a shared hotel room, although it was agreed this was not "malicious or sexually motivated"

The panel said his behaviour "placed one or more pupils in his care at risk".

It added there was "no malice or sexual intent" in taking the students to the lapdancing club, but Mr Glenn admitted it was "inappropriate and unprofessional" for him to fail to control the situation.

Glenn has been arrested and banned from teaching for three years. 

Image via BBC 

The mother of dragons is now a mother of a new comic book series! Game of Thrones actress Emilia Clarke has written and developed M.O.M.: Mother of Madness, a three-issue miniseries for Image Comics. M.O.M. follows Maya, a single mother who is a scientist and a superhero, as IGN details: 

"We're always calling mothers superheroes, and I'm like, what if they were? What if they legitimately were superheroes?" Clarke told Entertainment Weekly.

"Maya has had a very hard life, and she finds herself in a place where everything that makes her unique, she hates and is ashamed about. It's only in the discovery of her powers that she finds her true acceptance of who she is."

Clarke assembled an all-female creative team for the project, including illustrator Leila Leiz, contributor Isobel Richardson, and cover artist Jo Ratcliffe. The Game of Thrones actress describes the tone of M.O.M. as "Deadpool-esque" in its humor.

Clarke isn't the only actor jumping into comic books. Keanu Reeves made his comic book writing debut with BRZRKR, a 12 issue limited series at BOOM! Studios.

Image via IGN 

I didn’t even know that buying or downloading a thousand games was possible, let alone 25,000! Steam was apparently prone to crashing if you owned half of the total games on Steam. For reference, there are currently over 51,000 games on the platform. An update for Steam’s beta client was released to fix a possible crash for owners with a lot of games in their library. If an update like that was released by the developers, that means someone currently owns over 25,000 games and spotted the error: 

Working out how many people this may even have affected is a little tricky. Steam analytics site Steamladder currently lists three people as having passed this threshold. Their public Steam profiles don't show quite as many, however, as it appears this number omits hidden games. SteamDB has its own chart of users who supposedly own over 25,000 games, using the associated badge to keep track, and reckons there's a good few hundred more. According to their SteamDB page, Steam user Sonix apparently owns a staggering 42,061 titles.

Of course, it's also possible that this was just a small issue discovered by Valve's own testing, making Steam more stable for folks with ludicrous library counts. Steam is only getting bigger, with 10,263 games added in 2020 alone. Collector's libraries are only going to increase in size—and while we can debate who actually owns the most games on the platform, collectors can be fairly sure the client won't buckle under the strain anymore.

Image via PC Gamer 

From different kinds of merchandise, to animated series, to animated movies, and to games, the Pokemon franchise is well known all over the world. It’s not a surprise that the franchise collaborates with different establishments such as cafes and exhibits. A touring exhibition called Pokémon Kaseki Hakubutsukan (Pokemon Fossil Museum) will open in Japan, as Kotaku details: 

According to the official announcement, the exhibition will let visitors observe and compare fossils from dinosaurs and other creatures as well as extinct plants with Pocket Monsters, with the idea of hopefully showing how enjoyable paleontology is.

The Pokémon Fossil Museum will kick off this July at the Mikasa City Museum in Hokkaido, before wrapping up there in September and moving on to Shimane Prefecture, Tokyo and Aichi. Other locations will be added before the exhibition ends its run in summer 2023.

Image via Kotaku 

There’s a lot of kissing in movies. It’s used as a sign that a relationship between two characters is going to get deeper or more complicated. There’s a certain happiness and anticipation in waiting for two characters in a film to get their heads together and realize that they’re in love. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, however, regardless of how many potential couples were presented, kissing is rarely shown on screen. I know that it’s not really important, but it does make you wonder, right? Well, Polygon’s Joshua Rivera also thought about that, and he investigated. Check out his full piece on the topic here. 

Image via Polygon

Horrible gelatos could be fined up to €10,000 ($12,030) in Italy. Italian politicians have proposed legislation that would fine ice cream makers  add excess air to gelato to give it a fluffier texture, or who rely on artificial flavors, synthetic dyes, and hydrogenated fats. In this new proposed law, the only permitted ingredients for a gelato would "milk and its derivatives," eggs, and fresh fruits: 

Italian ice cream has always been one of the gastronomic symbols of our country, recognized globally together with pizza and pasta, but our laws do not preserve artisanal ice cream and producers who make it." senator Riccardo Nencini said. "

Il Messaggero reports that currently, "artisanal" ice creams contain between 20 to 30 percent air which is a side effect of "vigorously mixing the ingredients," while "industrial" versions use compressed air, and might be up to 80 percent air. "Basically, you pay for the air," the outlet writes. (The proposed legislation would cap the amount of air allowed in gelato at 30 percent.)

Stefano Ferraro, who is considered one of Italy's 50 best ice cream makers, isn't opposed to legislation that recognizes and protects the work of true gelato artisans—and that distinguishes their products from those made by corner-cutters who use pre-made ice cream bases or compressed air. "A law that protects consumers and real artisans would be useful," he told Il Messaggero. "Many of us search for the best cocoa mass, the one that best fits our idea [for gelato]. But, at this point, it doesn't make any sense to compete with those who use much easier methods."

Image via wikimedia commons

Four Picasso paintings are a subject of a new multidisciplinary project to prevent degradation through environmental control. The four artworks were made from new mercerised cotton canvases, oil paints based on drying oils such as linseed and sunflower, and animal glue which was used to coat the canvases. After being exposed to identical conditions, staff from the Museu Picasso in Barcelona questioned why one of the works, Hombre sentado (Seated man), deteriorated faster than the other Picasso artworks: 

Picasso used a canvas with a tighter weave for Hombre sentado, coating it with a thicker ground layer of animal glue, researchers found. Both factors meant larger internal stresses formed when the paintings were exposed to fluctuating humidity, while chemical reactions between certain pigments and binding media sparked chemical reactions that caused paints to degrade. As a result, the paints gradually cracked when stresses built, Francesca Izzo, a conservation and heritage scientist at Ca’ Foscari, tells The Art Newspaper.

In the past, conservators have relied mainly on chemical analysis to determine how some materials lead to deterioration. Combining such studies with those of more tangible signs of mechanical damage offers a more rounded picture, allowing conservators to take more informed conservation decisions. “As a conservator-restorer I was finding it difficult to define a conservation strategy: the chemical perspective was not enough, so I started looking for a complementary perspective,” Fuster-López says. The team's discoveries, she hopes, will aid other conservators. “It is our responsibility to supply them with the right tools and understanding of materials.”

Image via the Art Newspaper 

PhD candidate Matthew Harkness is now exploring the question of what if our body could actually recycle plastic with his Biorecycling Machine. The machine isn’t something big or complicated, it is based on an open-source blueprint of a 3D-printed tattoo machine that he downloaded from GitHub. The concept is that getting a plastic-ink tattoo, your body becomes the recycling machine. Scary, right? Well, the project is merely speculative: 

The catch? This approach only works with a certain type of bioplastic, which is generally considered safe for the human body. Petroleum-based plastics, such as the bags that fill our oceans, need not apply.

The project is speculative, meant to prod us to rethink our values. It’s not meant to become an actual commercial product. As Harkness explains over email, his intent was to “interrogate the . . . ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’ campaign introduced in the 1970s. Central to this campaign was placing responsibility for recycling plastics onto consumers and in the Biorecycling Machine project, this concept is taken to the extreme.”

Image via the Fast Company