Annalisa Di Maria, a scholar who worked with UNESCO’s Florence division claims that a drawing of Jesus found by a collector in Lecco was created by Leonardo da Vinci. The art, a red chalk drawing, was found kept in a private collection for years. Not all experts believe Di Maria’s claim of course, as Art News details: 

Di Maria told La Stampa that the work “recalls everything in the drawings of Leonardo: it is his language, and speaks loud and clear.” She added that the work is “the true face of Salvator Mundi,” another work attributed to Leonardo—but not by Di Maria, who said she thinks that Salvator Mundi, which sold at Christie’s for a record-setting $450.3 million in 2017, is unlikely to be by the Italian artist because the new Jesus drawing has a much different look to it.

The red chalk drawing was brought to Di Maria for attribution by the collector who located the work, which had been held privately for years. Di Maria is currently in progress on an extensive report, and the date the work was created has not been specified.

Not all experts are convinced of Di Maria’s claim. Art historian Martin Kemp, who has written prolifically on Leonardo, said he would need to examine it himself in order to see whether the method used to craft the work matched the artist’s. “I would need to see if it is drawn left-handed,” he told the Telegraph. “Leonardo drew everything with his left hand.”

Image via Art News 

The tiny owl found in the Rockefeller Center in Manhattan would not be taken back to his former home. The owl survived the long drive, hiding in the Norway spruce, from upstate New York to Manhattan, and is now conveniently cooped up in the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree. The initial expectation was that wildlife officials would rescue the bird and take him back to the wild, right? But it seems that there are other plans for the lost owl: 

"There's been a lot of controversy over the release site," said Ellen Kalish, director and founder of Ravensbeard Wildlife Center, a nonprofit in Saugerties, New York, where the owl, named Rockefeller after the Christmas tree where he was found, is recovering. "[But] saw-whet owls by nature are nomadic. They basically don't have a home base unless they're raising a family, in which case they both help to feed the babies and then they're off to their solo life."

This nomadic lifestyle works in Rockefeller's favor. Rather than "stress him out" on a two-hour journey to his old home in Oneonta, New York, Kalish is planning to release him from the wildlife center into the surrounding woods this Saturday (Nov. 21). 

"It's called a soft release where we're going to put food out on the platform in case he's hungry and doesn't have a successful night of hunting," Kalish told Live Science. "We believe that he's going to go where he wants to go."

In the end, this unexpected adventure will be "just a little detour" for the nocturnal predator, she said.

Image via Live Science 

A new luxury train route will take tourists and locals alike to the US’s most scenic locations. The glass-domed train designated for the route will take passengers on a two-day ride from Denver to Moab, Utah, which will let passengers view the Rocky Mountains and Utah’s beautiful natural arches. Travel and Leisure has more details: 

It makes an overnight stop in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, a town known for its hot springs and rugged Rocky Mountain views. 

Rocky Mountaineer, the company behind the route, operates three existing luxury trains in Western Canada — between Vancouver and the Canadian Rocky Mountain towns of Banff, Lake Louise, and Jasper. 

"The work to find a new route has been underway for several years,” Steve Sammut, president and CEO of Rocky Mountaineer, said in a statement announcing the expansion. “We needed to find a special location with many of the same features we have in Western Canada — incredible scenery, iconic destinations, and the option for an all daytime, multiday journey that is best experienced by train.”

The company is known for its glass-domed trains, chef-designed menus, expansive outdoor viewing platforms, and a lack of sleeping cars. It instead aims to showcase mountain views during the day and deliver passengers to comfortable, cloud-like hotel beds at night. 

Image via Travel and Leisure 

If you live through a meteorite landing near your home, you’re most likely going to be rich. At least, that’s what happened to 33-year-old Josua Hutagalung. The Indonesian coffin maker was working on a coffin at his home when a meteorite slammed through the edge of his roof. Talk about dodging death! Not only did he survive, he now has a lot of money:  

According to reports, the rock is believed to be roughly 4.5 billion years old. It’s been nicknamed “Hammerstone” and a tiny piece of the larger rock sold for an absolutely huge sum of money. Based on the price-per-gram, the main rock is estimated to be worth around a $1.8 million USD.

“I was working on a coffin near the street in front of my house when I heard a booming sound that made my house shake. It was as if a tree had fallen on us,” Hutagalung reportedly said. “It was too hot to pick up so my wife dug it out with a hoe and we took it inside.”

Image via BGR 

I didn’t even know you can smell them! An innocent TikTok  video started an unusual debate across social media. The creator asked whether others can smell the disgusting scent of dead ants on the sidewalk. That’s where the chaos began. Some users commented they could, while a whopping majority were left surprised by the fact that ants emit a scent: 

Many common species of ants release pungent smells when they are in danger, squished, or otherwise dead, according to Clint Penick, an assistant professor at Kennesaw State University and ant researcher. The most common type of ant that people find in their homes on the East Coast and in the Midwest is called the odorous house ant, and when squished, it releases a pheromone that smells like blue cheese. This odorous chemical belongs to a group of chemical compounds called methyl ketones. It’s also produced by the Penicillium mold that grows on rotting coconuts and it’s what gives blue cheese its distinctive, pungent odor.

But that’s far from the only smelly compound ants produce. Some species, including carpenter ants, spray formic acid, a caustic chemical that smells a lot like vinegar, when they feel threatened. (Some people think that the ability to smell formic acid is genetic, like asparagus, and that might be why some people are more sensitive to this particular ant smell than others.) Citronella ants are named for the distinctive citrusy scent they often produce, and trap-jaw ants release a chocolatey smell when squished. When ants die of natural causes, they also release oleic acid, so dead ants “smell a little something like olive oil,” Penick says.

Image via Popular Science 

Hey, how else can you reach the younger generation but with games? Evangelists are now using streaming platforms to spread the gospel. Yes, this means that they’re playing Fortnite while lecturing about religion. No, I’m not joking. The gaming community, according to Catie Dexter, has some people that need Christ: 

Dexter is the chief operating officer of God Mode Activated (GMA), a group dedicated to “activating gamers in faith.”

 GMA’s stated goal is to create a community for both believers and nonbelievers to experience Christianity in the context of gaming. Dexter, also known by her Twitch handle Catastrophic, described the ministry’s approach to OneZero as a “network” of GMA affiliates, each of whom is offered free rein to stream whatever games they like — as long as they use their Twitch platform to share Christian content and encourage their audiences to join the GMA Discord server. Sometimes, affiliates hold Bible studies on their streams. In other instances, gamers gather impromptu on the GMA Discord server to chat about personal life while playing games together.

Pastors and evangelists, some of them genuine gamers themselves, are taking to the video game streaming platform because it represents a new mission field for approaching people with the Gospel.

Image via One Zero 

One of the questions that astronomers have been trying to answer for decades is whether or not the universe itself produces a glow.If we take out all the stars, galaxies, and other heavenly bodies that produce their own light, will the universe just be a dark, barren space? It seems that  Tod Lauer and other researchers with NASA's New Horizons space mission have finally been able to answer that question: 

To try to detect the faint glow of the universe, researchers went through images taken by the spacecraft's simple telescope and camera and looked for ones that were incredibly boring.

"The images were all of what you just simply call blank sky. There's a sprinkling of faint stars, there's a sprinkling of faint galaxies, but it looks random," says Lauer. "What you want is a place that doesn't have many bright stars in the images or bright stars even outside the field that can scatter light back into the camera."

Then they processed these images to remove all known sources of visible light. Once they'd subtracted out the light from stars, plus scattered light from the Milky Way and any stray light that might be a result of camera quirks, they were left with light coming in from beyond our own galaxy.

They then went a step further still, subtracting out light that they could attribute to all the galaxies thought to be out there. And it turns out, once that was done, there was still plenty of unexplained light.

In fact, the amount of light coming from mysterious sources was about equal to all the light coming in from the known galaxies, says Marc Postman, an astronomer with the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. So maybe there are unrecognized galaxies out there, he says, "or some other source of light that we don't yet know what it is."

Image via NPR 

Look, we all thought the main protagonist of Home Alone was a genius for subjecting the two robbers to multiple traps and accidents in the movie. However, many fans realize that Kevin McCallister’s booby traps would have done more damage in real life than what was depicted in the film. Vsauce’s Jake Roper tested some of the traps in real life, and the effects are far more frightening: 

In a recreation of the McCallister home, Roper set out to test the hand-burning hot doorknob, the swinging paint cans both Wet Bandits received to their faces, and the crowbar to the chest that Marv doles out to Harry.

The results of the tests are… frightening, to say the least. Turns out, the doorknob is substantially more dangerous to Kevin than to the bandits. The temperatures needed to transfer enough heat to the outside knob would likely melt the door, or at least set it on fire. A crowbar to the chest would send Harry to the morgue. That blow could puncture his lungs and heart, but he’d already be dead. That paint can trap would have definitely killed Harry and Marv. Roper’s video demonstrates how a swinging paint could knock your head clean off your shoulders.

Image via Nerdist 

They’re also downright hilarious. Listen, I know how difficult it is to maintain and remember a lot of passwords for different websites, and sometimes some may just decide to have one password for everything. That is a security risk right there. Hopefully though, your password isn’t part of NordPass’ 200 most used passwords for 2020. Check PC Magazine’s piece on what you can do to avoid easily compromised passwords. 

Image via PC Magazine 

More that 60 percent of Americans are considered either obese or overweight. It’s odd for the country to have such a huge percentage when there are fitness areas scattered in most areas, along with the rise of weight-loss and nutritional supplements. Obesity is a major public health issue, as observed by  Dr. Rajiv Shah, a leading Minneapolis-based nephrologist and kidney specialist. Researchers are now looking at gene mapping to learn what causes weight gain, as Observer details: 

Enter Dr. Andrés Acosta, a soft-spoken Ecuadorian-born research physician and scientist at the world-famous Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. What began as a research project at Mayo has gradually been spun out into a separate company called Phenomix, which is now taking on venture capital from major physician-led associations and health insurers. If successful in its mission, Phenomix may end up forcing large swaths of the traditional weight-loss industry to go belly up.

“70 percent of all people who try to lose weight either fail to lose any or lose some and gain it back quickly,” comments Acosta. “And that has massive healthcare implications from heart disease to type 2 diabetes to stroke. Instead of looking at how to lose weight, we should first understand why people are gaining weight.”

The why, as it turns out, comes down to combining two somewhat distinct areas of human science: genotyping, the process of determining differences in the genetic make-up of an individual’s DNA, and metabolomics, the scientific study of chemical processes driving our unique metabolic profiles when the genotype interacts with the environment. Together, by looking at our unique genetic and metabolic fingerprints, the Mayo team has created a roadmap for understanding each human’s unique chemical and genetic profile that can not only predict obesity but better address and contain it.

Image via The Observer 

Alright, I don’t know why we would ever need a phone that stretches, but I assume there may be a market for that if there is a concept video for it! Meet the Oppo X 2021, a standard 6.7-inch smartphone. Or at least, that’s what it is at first glance. With a press of a button, it can expand in your hand to a 7.4-inch tablet! That’s like how ‘futuristic’ gadgets work in movies, right? The new ‘magical’ display is part of the evolving technology inside smartphones: 

Over the past few years, modern displays in phones have evolved from LCDs to OLEDs, meaning a slightly different core technology is used to display information. That evolution comes with all sorts of benefits, like better contrast and lower power consumption. But it also comes with more experiments in form.

Without getting too in the weeds about these technologies (more background here), know that LCDs aren’t inherently flexible, while OLEDs are essentially paper-thin ribbons that can bend and carry pixels. Major companies have experimented with curved and flexible OLED gadgets for a decade now.

Image via Fast Company

Any item crafted from Lotus silk can cost ten times the price of products made from regular silk. That’s because Lotus silk is one of the rarest fabrics in the world. The natural fiber is only extracted by a few people, and extracting enough for one scarf can take up to two months! Watch as Business Insider explains about the rare and expensive fabric and how it is made. 

This event is part of a celebration of this years’  Leeds’ Compas Festival, when the city’s live art will be celebrated around the area. The festival will be held in COVID-safe places across Leeds, from bridges to shopping centres and to the streets. The audio exhibit Pick Me Up (& hold me tight) will make 34,000 payphones across the UK ring all at once: 

Items from Leeds collectors including cats’ whiskers, drum-kits and models of hands have been re-fashioned into a set of artworks for Museums in People’s Homes, a portable museum which will be featured at the festival.

The second confirmed exhibition is part of a national project to make the 34,000 payphones across the UK ring at once.

The audio experience Pick Me Up (& hold me tight) explores how people listen to each other and will see all of Leeds’ public phone boxes ring at 11am each day during the festival.

A four-sided, fully operational pop-up pub The Yorkshire Square will come to Kirkgate Market during the festival.

Image via Wikimedia Commons

Here’s a spoiler alert: they’re still the company’s popular Powerbeats, but they just glow in the dark. Beats, in collaboration with design label Ambush, has released a new special edition Powerbeats. Inspired by Tokyo’s energetic nightlife, Ambush wanted to capture the city’s energy when someone is outside late at night listening to music: 

While glow in the dark earphones may seem unnecessary, especially when they cost $50 more than the regular Powerbeats, we won't be surprised if they do find buyers. Firstly, it's admittedly cool and will easily draw attention (if you want that kind of stuff). And speaking of attention, city runners could definitely find utility in these for their night runs.

The new variant sports a minty green colour of sorts which glows bright green in the dark. Another aesthetic difference is that there is now an Ambush logo stamped on the earbuds, right alongside a red Beats logo.

Apart from these aesthetic differences, this is still very much the Powerbeats Pro. They last up to 15 hours on a single charge, offer IPX4 sweat-resistance, and ear-hooks which make them suitable for workouts. In terms of sound they're comparable to the more expensive Powerbeats Pro. They also have an Apple H1 chip which lets it seamlessly connect to Apple devices and access to 'Hey Siri' for hands-free control.

The Ambush x Powerbeats cost $199.95 and go on sale in the US from November 18. 

Image via Mashable India 

Scientists theorized that dinosaurs were on the decline before the asteroid that completely wiped them out 66 million years ago hit the Earth. It seems that their theories are about to be proven wrong! Researchers in a new study suggests that the huge beasts had been thriving instead, as Daily Mail details: 

Previous works used fossil records to assess diversity of dinosaurs, but researchers in the latest study say how bones are preserved and other factors produce sampling bias.

Teams from the University of Bath and the Natural History Museum collected a set of different dinosaur family trees and used statistical modelling to assess if each of the main dinosaur groups was able to produce new species at the time.

This allowed them to examine the rates of speciation of dinosaur families rather than counting the number of species belonging to the family, revealing some groups, such as hadrosaurs and ceratopsians, were flourishing on Earth before the mass extinction.

image via Daily Mail