Now this is innovation. A family in Pennsylvania wanted to keep trick-or-treating safe without totally cancelling the Halloween tradition, so they made their own machine for the event! Their solution is a treat-launching machine called “Candypult” that launches candy at kids, as UPI details: 

Vince Mak, of York County, said his family held a brainstorming session to find a way to distribute candy on Halloween while maintaining social distancing and other safety measures.

"We thought we could try to come up with a creative way to throw candy at kids ... safely," Mak told WPMT-TV. "With everything going on, everyone just needs to feel happy and find something to laugh at."

The family came up with the "Candypult," a catapult designed to launch candy to trick-or-treaters.

"I guess we'll have to get extra candy this year," Mak said.

Image via Fox43

Did you believe that throwing the plastic waste you have in the proper ‘recycling bins’ was the key to saving the environment? Here’s another question: did you believe that you‘ve done your part every time you throw plastic cups or bottles in those special bins marked with the familiar triangle arrows? It turns out that the recyclability of plastics was grossly oversold by the plastics industry, as Ecowatch details: 

The creation of this recycling "myth" is why, despite 30 years of being diligent recyclers, we have things like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

In fact, we've only recycled 9% of all the plastics we've ever produced. And, our use of plastics is still increasing every year.

The reality of the situation is that recycling plastics is actually really hard and expensive.

The myth created around plastic recycling has been one of simplicity. We look for the familiar triangle arrows, then pop the waste in the recycling bin so it can be reused.

But the true purpose of those triangles has been misunderstood by the general public ever since their invention in the 1980s.

These triangles were actually created by the plastics industry and, according to a report provided to them in July 1993, were creating "unrealistic expectations" about what could be recycled. But they decided to keep using the codes.

Which is why many people still believe that these triangular symbols (also known as a resin identifier code or RIC) means something is recyclable.

But according to the American Society for Testing and Materials International (ASTM) – which controls the RIC system – the numbered triangles "are not recycle codes." In fact, they weren't created for the general public at all. They were made for the post-consumer plastic industry.

Image via Ecowatch

This photograph of a lovely couple by Antonie Tissier was not planned. Tissier happened to shoot the couple while shooting in Chicago with his drone. He was just flying his drone to get photographs of the sunset when he captured the image of the couple standing under the Ulysses S. Grant monument. By the time he tried to catch up with them, they were already gone, as Petapixel details: 

Since he could not find them to share the image he took, Tissier intended to delete the photo when he arrived home, but his friends insisted he share the photo online and try to find the couple.

The image was shared to Tissier’s Instagram, a few Chicago Facebook groups, and the story aired on WGN 9 News Chicago. Just three days later, the couple was located.

“To be honest I never believed we could find them,” Tissier said. “They could even be tourists from anywhere else in the US or the world, and maybe they were already back into their plane the next day when I posted it online.”

Lucky for the couple, Emily and Omar, they were local. The on-the-ground photographer, Crane’s Photography, has shared his perspective of that same moment on his Instagram:

“It was so gorgeous and we couldn’t believe our luck that someone else with a drone happened to be in the same spot as us to capture that photo,” Emily said. “It’s super cool that we were able to get in contact with the photographer though, now we’ll have two awesome photos from that day from two completely different perspectives!”

Image via PetaPixel 

Among Us tests your detective and survival skills in one intense game of spaceship repair. What happens if you play with an experienced investigator? Chaos, that’s all. It’s still the same chaotic game, but with more screaming (kidding)! Watch as Buzzfeed Multiplayer plays the game with professional private investigator John to see if his skills can help him find all impostors in Among Us. 

Amber fossils provide a small glimpse into what prehistoric or ancient creatures look like. There are some fossil discoveries that leave scientists in awe by just how bizarre it was. Whether it’s how the creatures in the fossils were frozen, or by how they look, check out Gizmodo’s full piece on the strangest amber fossils ever discovered. One of them got frozen as they were doing the nasty, too! 

Image via Gizmodo 

Keyboard Cat was one of the biggest memes of the previous decade. The meme, usually attached to epic fails, has captured the Internet’s hearts (and funny bones as well). The meme originated when YouTuber Brad O'Farrell posted a mashup video of a man falling down an escalator and keyboard cat. Mashable shares an interview with the creator of the iconic meme, Charlie Schmidt on how he and his cat won the Internet's attention. Check the full piece here. 

Image via Mashable

At first glance, the amount of detail in the water can make you believe that the paintings are actual photographs of people enjoying the water. Marcos Beccari wonderfully captures the movement of waves of water and how the water refracts the image of submerged people, making you believe for a few moments that it’s a photograph and not a painting. His paintings show the tranquility and peace people can have while bathing, as My Modern Met details: 

These radiant works typically feature one or more figures immersing themselves in picturesque coves or lagoons. Although swimmers are often the focus of Beccari's paintings, their faces are rarely in full view. Instead, the artist prefers to keep them anonymous, frequently distorting the features with moving water or by having their backs facing the viewer. This gives Beccari's works a sense of romantic nostalgia and allows the audience the opportunity to complete the narrative created in the painting.

Before each new piece, Beccari gathers a variety of photo references to help him capture the light and find the right color palette. “The pictures which most often inspire me are from movies, which usually give me ideas for a drawing and motivate the painting process,” he explains. “And lately I’ve focused on the body submerged in water, simply because it is a beautiful situation.”

Image via My Modern Met

If you’re planning to sell your house in the future, or just plain curious to know the worth of your house, planting a few shrubs and plants can increase the monetary value of your home. That’s right, a simple addition such as plants can do a lot for your home! In a study by Lawn Starter, mowing your grass can yield you more profit than building a swimming pool, as Domino details: 

While lawn-care services see a 267 percent return of investment, the latter recoups just 43 percent of the average $57,000 cost of installation. 

Fancy water features (think: hot tubs and fountains) can negatively affect your property’s value by $2,500 to $10,000. So what will put money back in your pocket? Leading the way is a well-maintained lawn, which costs an average of $270 per year, but adds around $1,200 in value. In other words, nice-looking grass pleases buyers, especially millennials, who ranked it as the number-one feature they search for in a new home. If you don’t love the idea of committing so much time to cutting the grass, consider purchasing a large zero-turn mower to help shave off a few hours, so you can get back to actually enjoying your outdoor space.

Other low-cost outdoor improvements that see a high return on investment? Planting mature trees (taller species can improve a neighborhood’s property values by up to 15 percent) and installing a built-in, all-season deck (it returns an estimated 83 percent of the amount spent). No need to go overboard with elaborate fencing and a Wimbledon-worthy tennis court. Instead, keep things simple. 

Image via Domino 

Listen, sometimes we want to drown our sorrows in alcohol, and that’s understandable. Maybe we’d like to pour out a cold one every other week, to destress or to relax. But what happens when you drink alcohol every night? Some people associate their long life to the glass of alcohol they drank each night, like the oldest living woman in Great Britain. Grace Jones attributed her long life to the glass of whiskey she drank each night. But is it the same for everybody? Check the List’s full piece to know more! 

Image via the List 

Oreo created a doomsday vault in Norway to house its cookies just in case something terrible happens to the world. Cookies aren’t something you’d put into a vault for safekeeping, but the company isn’t taking any chances. It’s also a great marketing stunt, as people will talk about Oreo cookies, regardless of how ridiculous the Oreo doomsday vault sounds, as Input Magazine details: 

In a video about the Global Oreo Vault project, the company says it was inspired by a tweet from a fan on October 3rd asking if the asteroid strikes, "I wonder who will save the Oreos?" It then sprung into action, working with one of the same architects who designed the seed vault. Except instead of having two years to design the vault as he did with that one, in this case, he had just thirty days before the asteroid reaches us to get the Oreos safely stashed in permafrost.

"As an added precaution, the Oreo packs are wrapped in mylar, which can withstand temperatures from -80 degrees to 300 degrees Fahrenheit and is impervious to chemical reactions, moisture and air, keeping the cookies fresh and protected for years to come," Oreo said

Image via Input Magazine

The first nest of murder hornets in the U.S. has been discovered in Washington state. These hornets are a threat to the native honeybees, so scientists and state officials are working together to wipe the harmful insects. The state’s Agriculture Department used dental floss to tie tracking devices to the giant hornets, as AP News detailed: 

“Ladies and gentlemen, we did it,” agency spokeswoman Karla Salp said at a virtual briefing. Bad weather delayed plans Friday to destroy the nest found in Blaine, a city north of Seattle.

The nest is about the size of a basketball and contains an estimated 100 to 200 hornets, according to scientists, who suspected it was in the area ever since the invasive insects began appearing late last year.

Image via AP News 

The collection chamber of the machine can only hold so much, after all. The OSIRIS-REx’s collection chamber can no longer close all the way, leading to some of the material it collected from asteroid Bennu to float away into space. MIT Technology Review explains the reason why the spacecraft collected too much: 

Over the last few days, the onboard cameras revealed that the collection chamber was losing particles that were floating into space. “A substantial amount of the sample is seen floating away,” mission lead Dante Lauretta said Friday. As it turned out, the sample collection attempt picked up too much material—possibly up to two kilograms, the upper limit of what OSIRIS-REx was designed to collect. About 400 grams seems visible from the cameras. The collection lid has failed to close properly and remains wedged open by pieces that are up to three centimeters in size, creating a centimeter-wide gap for material to escape.

Image via MIT Technology Review

The Hugo Boss Prize is one of the top art awards in the world. The award is given to one artist every other year. New-York based photographer Deana Lawson has won the prestigious prize, and is the first photographer to do so. Besides the trophy, Lawson will have an exhibition at Guggenheim Museum in New York in spring 2021 and take home a $100.000 cash prize, as Art News details: 

Lawson’s photography centers Black men and women, and features them in poses and settings that appear to be highly naturalistic, but are in fact carefully staged in advance. They tend to feature individuals who appear to be families and couples, and they allude to histories of disaporas and racism in the process. “Photography,” Lawson once said, “has the power to make history and the present moment speak towards each other.”

It is a body of work that, because of its rigorous conceptual framework, has been hard to define. But, in its reworking of art-historical tropes and its emphasis on tenderness and intimacy, her photography’s aesthetic has proven influential. Zadie Smith once wrote of Lawson’s photography, “Black people are not conceived as victims, social problems, or exotics but, rather, as what Lawson calls ‘creative, godlike beings’ who do not ‘know how miraculous we are.’”

Image via Art News

If you’re a big fan of watching dance videos or art films, this video of ballet dancers might spark your interest. To celebrate Harlem Week 2020, the Dance Theatre of Harlem created a beautiful dance film of ballet dancers dancing on the streets of New York to the tune of a Bach violin concerto. The short but enthralling video, called Dancing Through Harlem, was produced by Derek Brockington and Alexandra Hutchinson, choreographed by Robert Garland and filmed by Heather Olcott and Joe Samala, as Classic FM details: 

Harlem is a neighbourhood of New York City which occupies a large part of northern Manhattan, and has for decades been one of the most important places of the African American cultural movement. For over a century, it's been a vibrant place for culture and the arts, starting with the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s and since becoming a focal point for jazz, hip hop and creatives through the 20th century and beyond.

We love the vibrancy and vividness when great dance takes place on the streets and everyday settings. 

image via Classic FM

The San Diego Ballet will hold performances of Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker" at an outdoor stage, where the audience can park their cars and be able to watch the play. This adjustment, due to the pandemic, was a way that executive director Matt Carney found to provide work for their artists and to offer something to the public this holiday season, as KPBS details: 

"We have a strong commitment to our company dancers in providing work for artists," said Carney. "And it never occurred to me to do nothing. And to cancel our season or to not offer anything — it just didn't seem like an option."

This season, the company will grace an outdoor stage in Liberty Station for just five live performances of "The Nutcracker," over two weekends. Audience members will park their cars spaced out and offset from each other in the lot, and will have enough room — an additional parking spot's worth — to set up chairs or a tailgate area, weather permitting. (The show is rain or shine and the stage will be covered.) Each performance will be limited to 30 vehicles. Carney said this separates them from other drive-in performances.

"The Nutcracker" and holiday-themed performances in general — like "The Christmas Carol" or "The Grinch," or singalong renditions of Handel's "The Messiah" — serve a much broader community than the season ticket holders or regular attendees.

"The holiday offerings are, oftentimes, an entry point into the arts for people," said Carney. "It's an important show because it's an entry point for people who don't normally see art throughout the year." Plus, it's a way for the company to inspire a sense of hope, tradition and normalcy for the community.

Image via KPBS