Twenty years ago, YouTuber Studson Studio began his model-making journey through plastic Gundam kits. Now, he has become a full-fledged miniature model maker, and he has challenged himself to create models from Studio Ghibli films, such as Howl’s Moving Castle, the bathhouse from Spirited Away, and the house from Kiki’s Delivery Service. While at times, he deviates from the original design, the final result is still very much faithful to its source material. What’s even more impressive is that Studson Studio’s creations are made from trash.

Studson Studio’s videos range anywhere from 10 minutes to 50 minutes as the model-maker takes viewers through the entire process of creating his miniatures. Each video is a joy to watch because of the creator’s witty sense of humor, [emphasis] on each individual piece of trash used, and superb editing skills which help tie the videos together.

Now this is neat!

(Image Credit: Studson Studio)

To clarify, it is an imaginable scenario, if the cat was heavier, but the cat in question is still a 6-pound kitten.

Taylor Nelson was in a Zoom meeting when she suddenly heard a commotion in her apartment. As her cat Spike was sleeping near her, she figured out that it was her kitten, Faye. But Nelson tried her best to focus on the meeting and let her kitten be; Faye was “pretty much always zooming around” in her home, after all. But when she heard a huge crash from her bedroom, Taylor knew that it was time to investigate what happened, and she immediately left the meeting.

Nelson figured Faye had knocked some plants off the windowsill, something she and her brother both do a lot, so much so that Nelson has taken to keeping extra terra-cotta pots in the basement just in case. When she walked into the bedroom, though, she was shocked. It was so much more than just a few plants.

“She did, in fact, knock over a couple of plants like I assumed, but she also somehow knocked over a 30-inch TV and a humidifier along with the plants,” Nelson said. “It was like a perfect disaster sandwich, with the plants broken on the bottom, the TV face down on top of the plants and then the humidifier spilled over. This was also all on my rug, so the water from the humidifier made a nice muddy mess under the plants and TV.”

Within seconds, the bedroom had gone from peacefully put together to total disaster zone — and it was all thanks to the tiniest little offender.

“When I walked into the bedroom and saw the chaos, I wouldn’t have believed it was caused by this little 6-pound kitten if it wasn’t for her staring me down from under the bed right beside the mess,” Nelson said.

What a troublesome little kitten.

(Image Credit: Taylor Nelson via The Dodo)

Carl Koppelman put his art and tech skills to work in amateur forensics to help police connect seemingly unrelated crimes. Aware of how many dead bodies found in suspicious circumstances were unidentified, Koppelman recreated pictures of the deceased as a living person, hoping that they would be more recognizable by those who knew them. As a volunteer, he was instrumental in solving several cold cases. In 2009, he came across the 1999 case of an unidentified young woman found dead in Racine County, Wisconsin, where nobody knew her. Looking through missing persons reports, he saw the case of Aundria Bowman, who had been missing since 1989. Aundria was considered a runaway. Could she have been murdered ten years later?  

Aundria and the Racine County Jane Doe shared physical characteristics, and their ages aligned: Aundria would have been 25 in 1999, when the Jane Doe was killed. Holland, where Aundria disappeared, sits directly across Lake Michigan from where the Jane Doe was found—it’s just four hours by car from one location to the other, tracing the lake’s southern shoreline and passing through Chicago. To test the possible identification, Koppelman created a composite image, superimposing Aundria’s photo with ones from the Jane Doe’s autopsy. He marked the similarities in red.

Koppelman took his theory to law enforcement, who found it compelling enough to investigate. To determine whether the Jane Doe was Aundria, police would need to compare DNA from the body with that of someone in Aundria’s family. Because Aundria was adopted, authorities had to track down her birth mother. Koppelman knew that could take a while, or that it might never happen, forcing investigators to find other avenues for identification.

But Aundria's birth mother was found. Cathy Terkanian had no idea what had happened to the daughter she relinquished until someone called wanting DNA to identify a dead body. When she learned of the case, she teamed up with Koppelman to find Aundria's killer. Their investigation uncovered a lot of other crimes in a story that is disturbing, to say the least. Read how Aundria Bowman's murder was solved more than 30 years after she went missing at age 14 at Atavist magazine. -via Damn Interesting

When we say pickles, we often mean pickled cucumbers. But any number of vegetables (or meat, or eggs) can be preserved in a solution of vinegar or salt brine. While the process of pickling foods goes back into antiquity, it became very handy for sailors during the Age of Exploration.

Scottish doctor James Lind discussed how pickles could fight scurvy, noting how the “Dutch sailors are much less liable to the scurvy than the English, owing to this pickled vegetable carried out to sea.” The pickled vegetable in question was cabbage. And Captain James Cook was such a proponent of what he called Sour Krout that he gave his officers as much as they wanted, knowing that the crew would eat it as soon as they saw the officers liked it.

But not everyone was a fan. John Harvey Kellogg, who as we’ve previously discussed was deeply concerned about eating food with any known flavor, felt pickles were one of the "stimulating foods" that needed to be avoided.

The history of pickles is full of anecdotes like this, which you can see, or watch in a video, at Mental Floss.

We know that Thomas Jefferson was avid to equip his new country with viable agricultural products. He experimented with crops in his garden, bottled his own wine, and imported livestock. That included a ram that Jefferson thought would improve the bloodline -and the wool- of American sheep.

This was no ordinary ram. Gifted to Jefferson by a DC businessman named James D. Barry, the ram was a Shetland – a small, usually docile breed that has either two horns or no horns. This Shetland had the distinction of having four horns, and two of them pointed forward.

At this point the United States was in the middle of the Embargo Act barring trade with Britain and France, so Jefferson was keen on anything that could boost the country’s manufacturing from within. Since at least 1790, Jefferson had been told that Shetland wool was “reckoned the finest produced in any part of the British Dominions” and he hoped this many-horned ram’s wool would produce “the famous Shetland stockings” which sold for a guinea a pair and were “soft as fur.” He clung his hopes on this ram to bring that fine wool to America, and his hopes caused him to overlook this ram’s less desirable qualities. That negligence proved deadly in February 1808.

Those "less desirable qualities" led to the death of 9-year-old Alexander Kerr, when the ram attacked him as he was walking home from school. Jefferson had owned the ram for eight months by then, and the first thing he did was to write to the boy's father, insinuating that he had ordered the ram to be secured before the attack. Was that an attempted at CYA? It turned out that the ram had attacked someone else already that same month! In fact, there were accounts of the ram being dangerous for months by then. But Jefferson went to great lengths to keep the ram from being put down -and keep himself from blame. Read (or listen to) the story of Jefferson and his killer ram at Plodding Through the Presidents. -via Strange Company

David Colhoun and a friend climbed a seemingly vertical slope on the Dark Shadows wall west of Las Vegas. They were using ropes and pitons and had reached about 275 feet above the ground when a free climber -- someone who uses just feet and hands -- asked if he could pass by. He had things to do and the slow-moving Colhoun was getting in his way.

Watch the nerve-wracking ascent of this incredibly brave and skilled man.

-via Twisted Sifter

It's Friday so let's celebrate the end of the (stressful!) week with 9 of the cutest and notable animal stories from Supa Fluffy:

Here's another proof that cat is basically liquid. Take a look at the original slinky cat from Japan, who has a super weird way of sliding down stairs.

What would happen if a duck sneaked in an egg into an owl's nest? You'll get the strangest adoption ever: a cute duckling and an owl, who usually eats a cute duckling.

Proving the saying "eat like a bird" is basically wrong, here's Pelicans trying to eat things much, much larger than themselves (I guess Pelican't eat everything!)

A touching story: Man found an abandoned puppy living in a shoe and saved it. Faith in humanity restored!

Ooh baby! This soulful bird can sing better than me (not a hard thing to do, sadly).

ICYMI: Here's proof of how males of all species act the same when it comes to bringing the groceries home. Papa beaver can carry it all in one go.

Leopard vs porcupine, who wins? Hint: not the leopard. NEVER pick a fight with a porcupine - they bring knives to a fistfight.

One word is all you need to know: Wienerlympics. We're all winners if you watch it.

When money is no object, spoil your dog and buy 'em a $1,125 dog bowl from Hermes.

Why do we men strive to accomplish great things? Why do we conquer obstacles and push ourselves to acts of daring-do?

To impress women, of course.

Bobby Sheldon, a single man in 1905 in the town of Skagway, Alaska, was no different. There were few ladies to go around, and so the competition was steep. Sheldon favored one lady who enjoyed rides in the horse-drawn buggy of a local doctor. Sheldon decided to outdo the doctor by building a car.

Sheldon had never seen a car in person before, but he had seen pictures in magazines. He assembled a functional car from locally available materials. Today, that car, pictured above, is in an antique car museum in Fairbanks. Sheldon accomplished much in his life, such as becoming Alaska's first road commissioner, but he never sufficiently impressed the object of his affections. Atlas Obscura shared the story:

“When he donated the car in 1931, one of the local reporters asked him ‘Mr. Sheldon, did you marry this girl?’ He said, ‘No, but three other fellows have since then,’” Vinton says, adding that the woman’s mother had told her to stay “‘away from Bobby. He’s a genius, but they’re only one step away from insanity’.”

Photo: Fountainhead Antique Auto Museum

Well, this must have been a sight to see. Don’t underestimate this event as something odd or just plain weird, as the dozens of cyclists in their birthday suits did not just parade themselves for perverse reasons or attention seeking. These cyclists took Amsterdam's streets to protest the use of cars polluting the environment and to create awareness for bike safety. All in all, a worthy campaign to champion, right? 

-via Flipboard 

Image credit: Flo Karr

Damn, that’s a huge amount of money. With the rise of electric cars as a potential sustainable replacement for fossil fueled cars, Dyson has also attempted to join the competition. However, while thei design of their electronic car, codenamed N526, was successful, other circumstances led to its tragic cancellation. Fast Company has more details: 

We worked with virtual reality to imagine and show interiors and to look at our car in comparison with other vehicles. I aimed for an entirely flat floor. I wanted to have the same adjustable and ergonomic front seat also in row two, the rear seats. 

While you can’t make electric cars for a reasonable price, existing car companies were willing to make them because they help achieve specified exhaust emissions across their product range. So, if they take a loss on electric cars, they make a profit on polluting cars while appearing virtuous. Their cars would undercut the price of our car by a significant margin. By 2019, it was clear that it would be hard for us to compete at our elevated price and risky for us to proceed.

Because of this shifting commercial sand, we made the decision to pull out of production at the last minute. N526 was a brilliant car. Very efficient motors. Very aerodynamic. Wonderful to drive and be driven in. We just couldn’t ever have made money from it, and for all our enthusiasm, we weren’t prepared to risk the rest of Dyson.

Image credit: Dyson

I like sleeping. Lying in bed and surrendering yourself to a long rest is a great pastime. I wish I could do it all the time, but alas, even I have chores and work to do. On a more serious note, why do our bodies need to go to sleep anyway? A recent study attempted to explore the evolutionary reasoning behind our biological necessity for sleep:

The cortex is one of the most complex brain regions. It can permanently readjust its structural connections to store new memories and eradicate old ones and consumes a large amount of energy for information processing.

While in principle any neuron might have a mechanism that allows it to switch off before it’s damaged by excessive use, the cortex might be the region that needs sleep most and tells us first when we are tired and how much sleep we need.

If the cortex does play such a big role in making us tired, could we somehow manipulate the cortex and change our need for sleep? In recent years, several techniques have been developed to stimulate the brain from the outside with electrode pads placed on the head or through magnetic coils positioned above the skull.

Both these methods generate electrical currents that modulate the electrical signals that neurons use to communicate with each other. This can therefore allow researchers to modify brain activity in a specific area — such as the cortex.

Image credit: Lux Graves

Different geographical concepts are naturally manifested in our surroundings. Lines, shapes, patterns, and textures can be seen in nature, and can be easily captured in photography. Russ Burden shares some tips and tricks in capturing the best shots, from reading the light, color and contrast to considering the shooting angle and the composition. Check his full piece on the subject here! 

Image credit: Russ Burden

Photographer Garcia de Marina uses ordinary objects to express the emotions we cannot say in words. The photographer is interested in the symbolism these everyday objects can provide, and how their intended meaning can change if they are matched with random elements. Garcia doesn’t provide any title or description for his works, leaving the interpretation entirely to the viewer: 

I look for surprise by joining two distant objects with a different symbolic charge; also with the decontextualization and manipulation of the object. Through these tools, these pieces of our daily life are ‘denatured’, to give them a new meaning.

I don’t give titles to photos, because that would condition an initial interpretation and reduce the weight of what I’m trying to achieve, which is a dialogue between the work and viewer.

I think my work is on the path between sculpture and photography. Without this manipulation or previous preparation, I would not have the object, and without the photographic capture, I could not capture it for its visualization.

Image credit: García de Marina

The days of early aviation were crazy, man. F. Gerald Phillips was a Hollywood stunt pilot. He recalled that one time he took off before a landing gear wheel was bolted to his plane. Phillips was carrying a cameraman to film an aerial stunt, so there were plenty of guysy aviators around. First, he lined up with another plane, and wing walker Al Johnson walked over to Phillips' plane.

He climbed through the rigging to the step at the side of my cockpit. Leaning in, he shouted over the engine noise, “Hi, Jerry. Cruise around close to the field. They’ll bring up a wheel. I’ll get it and put it on for you.” It was almost casual.

Bob Lloyd, another motion-picture pilot, took off with Ivan Unger, a wheel, and 20 feet of rope. Ivan, in his early 20s, was a professional wingwalker and parachute jumper, short in stature but long on courage. He had flown with me on many a Sunday show, hanging by his feet from the wing skid or landing gear.

At 1,500 feet and 70 mph Al made an extremely difficult job look easy. Grasping the short strut on top of the upper wing, he nimbly hoisted himself up and assumed a crouching position to await the rendezvous with Bob, Ivan, and the wheel. Soon they approached from behind, slightly above and to my left, and Ivan began lowering the rope, the wheel dangling at its end.

It wasn't an easy task. They dropped the first wheel, and the second wheel wouldn't fit. Then the engine died. That's when they had to get creative. You can read Phillips' entire account of the air emergency at Air & Space magazine. -via Metafilter

Need to win back trust? There's a smile for that!

A new study by researchers from Queen's University in Belfast showed that smiling can win back trust after someone has been uncooperative or untrustworthy. But not just any smile - it has to be a specific kind of smile called the affiliation smile.

From Pictojam:

“Facial expressions are very important in building social relationships and not all smiles are an expression of joy – there is much more behind a smile,” said Rychlowska, “We found that when a person smiled after being uncooperative or untrustworthy, they were viewed as being happy and therefore they appeared untrustworthy and unwilling to change their behaviour. However, when an affiliation smile was used, this was perceived as an attempt to make amends, restoring higher levels of trust than the other two smiles.”

Find out what kind of smile you'd need to win back another person's trust.

Image: Magdalena Rychlowska et al./Cognition and Emotion