Bright, saturated flowers are the central point of Sophia Ahamed’s new series. The clusters of flowers in vibrant shades of red and pink are behind the expanses of cloudy, blue-ish violet skies. The striking difference between the vibrant flowers and the subdued, faded background is designed to skew perceptions of fiction and reality. Ahamed further explains her work to Colossal. “We associate color with how we perceive the world around us, memories, and emotion,” she says, “Often at times, these elements can act as well as a gentle escape into something more soothing.”
Aww! A stray dog interrupts a street performance in order to comfort an actor who was pretending to be hurt. This adorable interaction between actor Numan Ertuğrul Uzunsoy and the dog is truly heartwarming!
The stray pupper interrupted the play to offer Uzunsoy comfort when his character was injured and in great pain. The actor admits that he did not see the dog approaching him during his scene. At first, Uzunsoy thought his costar was approaching him. Upon realizing that it was a dog, he broke character and smiled. “I was very happy when I felt the dog's kisses,” Uzunsoy said. “I was very touched. He was like an angel who wanted to help me. It was a very emotional moment for me. I was not expecting it.”
Popular Japanese clothing brand Uniqlo, known for its simple and minimalistic apparel, has opened its first cafe in Ginza. The new shop, called Uniqlo Coffee, is located on the top floor of their global flagship store. The cafe follows the brand’s minimalist look, with white walls and simple yet refreshing wooden accents.
This place will now be added to my travel bucket list!
Maybe it’s time to let the data do the talking. In order to find out if left-handed people were actually smarter than the rest of the population, researchers studied the mathematical achievements of right- and left-handed students in Italy. Left-handed students had a significant edge on the more difficult math problems compared to the right-handed students.
According to a meta-analysis of 43 studies, left-handed people have a larger corpus callosum. This is the bundle of nerve fibers that connect the two hemispheres of the brain. A stronger connection between the two hemispheres allows left-handers to have stronger spatial abilities, which are linked to mathematics.
To learn more about the possible explanations as to how left-handed people are smarter, check Live Science’s full piece here.
Before social media, before iPhones, before YouTube, even, there was Homestar Runner. It was goofy and subversive, but it was funny and innovative. The experimental Flash animation didn't need any promotion because it had no competition on its level. It didn't need search engine optimization because it was shared granularly. If that sounds like jargon to you, what it means is that everyone liked Homestar Runner because it was weird and innovative, so people turned their friends and acquaintances onto it. This video takes a look at how Homestar, Strong Bad, and the other characters took over the early internet to the delight of all who explored the web back when you were desperate to find anything really worth the effort. It succeeded because it was fun, and fun was what we were looking for.
The cartoon survived the demise of Flash. As old (in internet terms) as Homestar Runner is, it's still there, even though the videos are now hosted by YouTube. -via Digg
There is a planet nearby that is totally populated by robots. But we are going to Mars eventually, or at least of few of us humans will. Therefore, we have to consider all facets of human life as they might be played out on Mars, and that includes death. Sending a dead body back to earth would not be a priority, but what would happen to that body on Mars?
On earth, a dead body that is not embalmed eventually decomposes due to the effects of bacteria and other microbes, insects, fungus, scavenger animals, moisture, and weather. On Mars, there would be no other life forms besides those microbes we carry in our bodies, and the majority of those need oxygen to survive. They also need warmth, and Mars temperatures range from freezing to very much colder.
So what would happen to a deceased human on the red planet? Cremation would be an unnecessary expenditure in oxygen and energy, so burial is a sensible alternative, yet that doesn't mean ashes to ashes and dust to dust. Alison Klesman at Astronomy explains what would likely happen to a dead body in the Martian environment, and offers options for how to deal with it. -via Damn Interesting
Perhaps you've grown used to a very simple relationship with your toilet. Perhaps you use it for only one purpose. But that will change in the future. Competing research teams across the United States are developing "smart toilets" that, with cameras, can identify each user by their "anal print" and diagnose health problems.
The Wall Street Journal (paywall link) reports about various emerging smart toilet designs that will closely monitor your urine and feces. Stanford University's design will chemically test all urine. Duke University's will take stool samples to test for blood and proteins. Other designs will measure blood pressure and heart rate.
Who needs these toilets? Perhaps not you, but the start-up companies working on health-monitoring smart toilets see future markets in assisted living facilities, where staffs could appreciate early warning signs about patient illness.
Vanessa at Messy Nessy Chic presents twenty vintage books on liquor and how to prepare it. Some of them are connected with famous venues of the past, while others have wonderful titles such as So Red the Nose, Here's How to be Healthy, Wet Drinks for Dry People, and For Snake Bites -or Something. The covers are notable, too, as they tend toward Art Deco style.
The oldest is The American Bar-Tender, published in 1874. The alternate title is "The art and mystery of mixing drinks, together with preservations on the quality of wines, liquors, and cigars, to which is attended several hundred toasts, patriotic, firemen's, political, lovers, sporting, etc."
A particularly intriguing volume is Giggle Water, a book published in 1928 New York during Prohibition that tells you how to ferment your own wine and other drinks at home. Many of the books are from the 1930s, when America needed to re-learn how to use legal liquor, instead of just guzzling what they could get.
The map above comes from Rave Reviews, who crunched the numbers and ranked the most-hated brands in each nation. They have world maps of overall brands, game companies, and big tech companies, but what we all have in common are our feelings about major fast food companies, because we all eat, we are all occasionally in hurry, and the biggest brands are global. They got their data from Twitter, where it's easy for people to vent their frustrations and register their opinions.
As you can see, the most hated fast food company in the US is Domino's. It look like a lot of people are a Noid with the pizza outlet. It makes sense that Mexico hates Taco Bell the most, but I had no idea that Japan and Thailand also have Taco Bell, where they don't like it. Starbucks and Wendy's have a lot of enemies around the world, but the fast food brand that tops more nations hate list than any other is KFC, according to negative Tweets. Maybe it's because it sounds so good when you decide to go, but afterward you regret spending so much to ingest so much salt and grease.
Check out the complete article at Rave Reviews, where you can see a brand breakdown by each of the United States as well, enlargeable maps, and learn about their methodology. -via The Takeout
Can growing fungus be a beautiful thing? You betcha, but only under the right circumstances. Russian artist Daria Fedorova, who goes by Dasha Plesen professionally, uses petri dishes of growing bacteria, fungus, and slime molds to make art. She often adds inert objects to impede growth (like beads in the above images), or different nutrients to boost growth. It takes weeks to reveal what the finished piece will look like.
Plesen says her art explores "the relationship between science, religion and art." The petri dishes are an example of nature taking its course while she sets up the conditions from above. They go through stages, but are ultimately ephemeral, surviving only through photographs.
As we slide into October, we look forward to the Halloween season. It's not just a day anymore, because it take a whole month to watch all those horror films, not to mention planning our elaborate costumes, wearing them to parties, and then posting them on social media. Holiday traditions change all the time, but the Victorians celebrated in some weird ways. For example, young ladies of the time were obsessed with their future husbands, so they used Halloween for games that might predict their love life.
One such game involved a woman walking into a dark room, alone, and standing in front of a mirror. As they peeled an apple—try not to ask why that part was crucial—the woman might be able to see the reflection of the person they would someday marry. Alternately, they’d see a skeleton, in which case they’d die alone.
Another manner of speculation was to bake cakes containing a needle, thimble, dime, or ring. In addition to being an excellent way to choke or injure yourself, the cakes were believed to foretell marriage. A needle or thimble in your slice meant spinsterhood, since you’d apparently have plenty of time to sew; a dime or ring meant good fortune or wedding bells.
Playing games of romance at Halloween may be weird to us, but it's not any weirder than telling ghost stories at Christmas or trick-or-treating on Thanksgiving, which were both traditions in the past. The Victorians didn't have horror films, but they had parties, fancy ones with elaborate invitations and decorations, and even costumes of a sort. Read about seven Victorian Halloween traditions that contrast with the way we celebrate the holiday now at Mental Floss.
One of the most famous haunted houses in America is on the market- again. If you'd like to live in Rhode island, the home at 1677 Round Top Road in Harrisville can be yours -for $1.2 million. The two-story, 3-bedroom home was built in 1836, and lies near the Massachusetts border. It comes with a bit of history, if you can believe it.
The true story of ‘The Conjuring’ started in this very house, in Harrisville, RI. The critically acclaimed original movie was based on accounts taken from inhabitants of this fourteen-room farmhouse. Rumored to be haunted by the presence of Bathsheba Sherman, who in the 1800’s lived in the house, 1677 Round Top Road is one of the most well-known haunted houses in the United States. The chilling stories from this house have inspired dozens of books and movies. Many qualified paranormal researchers have been invited into the home - most famously Ed and Lorraine Warren, who founded the oldest ghost hunting team in New England, and in the 1970’s were hired to rid the home of its evil.
The real estate listing goes on to say that the current owners rent out the home for parties and paranormal encounters, which they say continue to this day. The real mystery is the home's purchase history. When a house truly terrifies its owners, they often sell at a loss, but this house's price has bounced between extremes. In 2012, the house was listed for $64,900. In March of 2013, it sold for $25,000, but there's a note of a "price change" in December to $49,900. It went on the market again in 2015, but was not sold. In 2019, it was purchased for $439,000, but then was listed in 2020 at only $69,900. The ridiculous explosion in real estate prices might explain some price increase, but the current price is thirty times what it was listed for last year! For reference, The Conjuring came out in 2013, which may have something to to with that "price change." See the real estate listing here. Get more details of the Warrens, the couple behind The Conjuring, and other paranormal investigators connected to the house at Boing Boing.
When Charles Dickens wrote about the squalid poorhouses and workhouses of London, he barely scratched the surface of the horrors that befell poor people of the time. The poorhouse was the last resort for those with nowhere else to go, but it was the only social safety net available. In the 1850s, in Spitalfields, an area in London's East End, the Whitechapel poorhouse had grown so crowded that a new facility was built to house the children, separated from their parents' "bad influence." The new workhouse held up to 900 children at a time, and around 50,000 passed through it over the next 50 years.
The Forest Gate District School, as it was officially known, was an institution of the kind sometimes called industrial schools, promoted as establishments that taught children trades to keep them from poverty in adulthood. But this was one of many lies. The average age of children was a little over ten years and official reports condemned the ‘industrial’ training as inadequate. In reality, children were employed as free labour – scrubbing acres of floors, peeling tons of potatoes and mending tattered garments – to save staff wages.
In 1875, Henrietta Barnett, wife of the priest and noted social reformer Samuel Barnett, was appointed as an unpaid governor of the children's workhouse. Appalled by conditions, Henrietta set about changing things, although she ran into resistance from the other governors and political figures. So she did the work herself, showing up at the school and insisting on humane treatment for the children. She opened up a smaller home where a dozen girls at a time could receive real training in domestic service. And she continued to work for government regulations that eventually ended up closing Forest Gate District School, although not before a couple of notorious disasters. Read about Henrietta Barnett and the children of London's largest workhouse at Spitalfields Life. -via Strange Company
In the olden days, the homes of poor Irishmen would not have wooden floors--just dirt ones. They were thus inappropriate for dances that require a clacking sound. So the residents would remove the door--the largest piece of wood available--and place it on the floor. They placed four cups filled with water on the corners. Whoever spilled the least water won the dancing competition.
