About spells, charms and incantations. #spells pic.twitter.com/ydVXIBUHSB

— Roger Acosta Villanueva (@1989rav) January 29, 2021

The above picture, taken from the 1971 book The Complete Book of Magic and Witchcraft by Kathryn Paulsen, has been making the rounds of the internet over the past week or so. You have to admit that cheese is magical -it can turn a hamburger into a cheeseburger and make nachos irresistible. The spell as written seems a bit dumb, but it is only out of date. Cheese has been thought of in supernatural terms for a long, long time.

It’s not entirely clear why cheese is seen to have magical properties. It might be to do with the fact it’s made from milk, a powerful substance in itself, with the ability to give life and strength to the young. It might also be because the process by which cheese is made is a little bit magical. The 12th-century mystic, Hildegard von Bingen, compared cheese making to the miracle of life in the way that it forms curds (or solid matter) from something insubstantial.

In the early modern period (roughly 1450-1750) the creation of the universe was also thought of by some in terms of cheesemaking: “all was chaos, that is, earth, air, water, and fire were mixed together; and out of that bulk a mass formed – just as cheese is made out of milk – and worms appeared in it, and these were the angels.” The connection with life and the mysterious way that cheese is made, therefore, puts it in a good position to claim magical properties.

Cheese has been used to produce dreams, to reveal those guilty of crimes, and to tempt people into sin. Witches were blamed for stealing milk or spoiling it, and were accused of using cheese in their nefarious magic.

I like cheese. pic.twitter.com/VxBrxewlVK

— Jay Gravatte (@thatKYWitch) January 29, 2021

Read the details of how cheese and witchcraft go together at The Conversation. -via Strange Company

Also check out the previous post 4 Holy Women Transformed by Cheese.

In 2018, an Ig Nobel Prize was awarded to researchers who studied why wombat poop comes out in cubes. The full research paper has now been published in the journal Soft Matter (even though wombat poop is hard matter). The 2018 paper was based on a necropsy of one wombat.

In the new study, the researchers dissected two further wombats and tested the guts’ layers of muscle and tissue, finding regions of varied thickness and stiffness. They then created a 2D mathematical model to simulate how the regions expand and contract with the rhythms of digestion. The intestinal sections contract over several days, squeezing the poop as the gut pulls nutrients and water out of the feces, the team reports today in the aptly titled journal Soft Matter.

The stiffer portions are “like a stiff rubber band—[they’re] going to contract faster than the soft regions,” says David Hu, a biomechanics researcher at the Georgia Institute of Technology and author on the study. Softer intestinal regions squeeze slowly and mold the final corners of the cube, the team found. In other mammals, the wavelike peristalsis of the intestinal muscles are consistent in all directions. But in the wombat, the grooved tissue and the irregular contractions over many cycles shape firm, flat-sided cubes.

So in short, the wombat's intestines have muscles that squeeze hard on four sides, but less so between those muscles in the region that will become the corners. Read more about wombat poop at Science magazine.

(Imagecredit: JJ Harrison)

The diamond is known to be the hardest mineral in the world. Well, after being under a lot of pressure and under high temperatures, who wouldn’t be made tough? But when it comes to hardness, diamonds can’t get any harder. Scientists have discovered that the mineral in question is “metastable”.

In a series of new experiments, scientists have found that diamonds retain their crystal structure at pressures five times higher than that of Earth's core.

This contradicts predictions that diamond should transform into an even more stable structure under extremely high pressure, suggesting that diamond sticks to a form under conditions where another structure would be more stable, what is referred to as being 'metastable'.

The discovery has implications for modelling high-pressure environments such as the cores of planets rich in carbon.

More details about this over at ScienceAlert.

(Image Credit: Pixabay)

A great sleep and dreams of chicken and gravy. If you’re the person who longs for these things, then you might consider getting yourself the Mocchiri Juicy Karaage (“Springy Juicy Fried Chicken”) pillow made by the Japanese brand Fellisimo. The pillows, which cost around $32 apiece, are available in three sizes.

The pillows include a pouch to hold your smartphone, and you’re encouraged to play the ASMR YouTube video of chicken sizzling and frying provided by Fellisimo…

Careful not to get hungry, though.

(Image Credit: Fellisimo/ Technabob)

Have you ever wondered how the thumb, the most important finger in your hand, evolved? Scientists also wonder the same about the said finger, and they might finally have an answer to that question through this study modeling muscle in fossilized thumbs.

It’s a “thorough, robust analysis,” says Tracy Kivell, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Kent who was not involved with the work. But she and others caution that the research is too preliminary to provide a true smoking gun.

Figuring out how ancient thumbs worked isn’t easy. Fossils don’t preserve muscles, so most previous attempts to estimate ancient dexterity relied on how closely our ancient relatives’ hand bones resembled our own. Hand bones are also small and relatively rare in the fossil record. But resemblance can be deceiving: Depending on how the muscles are connected, some species with similar bone anatomy might have very different grip strengths, and vice versa.

Learn more about the study over at Science Magazine.

(Image Credit: geralt/ Pixabay)

January 28, 1986. It was the day when five NASA astronauts and two payload specialists lost their lives. It was the day that the Space Shuttle Challenger unexpectedly exploded after 73 seconds into its flight. It was a day worth learning from.

The shockwaves through NASA and its aerospace and defense partners were immense, and it took more than two years to resume flights after an external investigation, redesigns and other measures. The accident also caused a few program cancellations, such as an astronaut jetpack that flew spacewalkers on satellite rescue missions and a plan to launch space shuttles from California in addition to Florida.

NASA remembers and since then has learned from its mistakes that led to the tragedy 35 years ago.

More about this story over at Space.com.

(Image Credit: NASA/ Wikimedia Commons)

It seems that humans are not alone when it comes to having diverse languages and dialects. Mole rat colonies have those, too. And much like how we humans sometimes identify ourselves with those who have the same dialect as ours, mole rats also do the same.

Shared dialect [in mole rats] also strengthens cohesion within a colony, a team led by MDC researcher Gary Lewin reports in Science.

[...]

Lewin worked with Dr. Alison Barker from his own team and other researchers from the MDC and the University of Pretoria in South Africa—Professor Nigel Bennett and Dr. Daniel Hart—to more closely analyze the chirps that the naked mole-rats use to greet one another. "In so doing, we established that each colony has its own dialect," reports Barker, lead author of the study published in Science. "The development of a shared dialect strengthens cohesion and a sense of belonging among the naked mole-rats of a specific colony."

Foreigners are not welcome in an established naked mole rat colony. "You might even say that these animals are extreme xenophobes," says Lewin, who has been studying naked mole rats for around 20 years at the MDC.

Learn more details about this over at PHYS.org.

(Image Credit: Felix Petermann, MDC/ PHYS.org)

There are games that make players want to replay all over again because it’s just that good (for them). Besides personal preferences, games also incentivize its players to replay the game by adding benefits, new features, or new gameplay mechanics as the player starts all over again. From easing the difficulty of the game, to adding a new higher difficulty mode, to giving bonus levels or experience points, there are multiple ways to encourage players to replay their favorite games. Design Doc delves deeper into what criterias make a good new game plus. 

TOI-178 is a unique planetary system. The system is not just a group of heavenly bodies revolving around a star, no. The planets dance around their star in a rhythmic pattern, and astronomers can actually hear the beat to which the planets are dancing to. Strange, indeed! 

Image via Flipboard

Remember the viral Bernie meme from a few days ago? Well, a crochet doll version of the politician sitting during inauguration day sold for a whopping $20,000. Texas resident Tobey King turned the meme into a crochet doll for about seven hours of non-stop crocheting. The doll captured the exact look, including the mittens that stole the show during the inauguration. 

Image via The Guardian 

Ever wondered what the interior of a military submarine looks like? Well, wonder no more! The Royal Netherlands Navy (RNN) has provided a drone tour inside their Walrus-class diesel electric submarine. Walrus-class submarines are one of the most effective non-nuclear powered submarines used for intelligence collection : 

The drone video shows off a number of important spaces in the sub, starting with the torpedo room. Each submarine has four 533-millimeter torpedo tubes. A typical load of ammunition includes 20 torpedoes and missiles, including American-made Mk. 48 heavyweight general purpose torpedoes and Sub-Harpoon anti-ship missiles.

In this video, the weapon storage racks are empty, and the missiles and torpedoes have been offloaded while the boat is in port, but the drone does give a closeup of the hatches leading to the torpedo tubes themselves.

Image via Popular Mechanics

Penn Holderness (previously at Neatorama) sings a song about his Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) to the tune of "Under the Sea" from The Little Mermaid. It's the most cheerful description you'll ever hear. He has learned to channel his differences into creativity, which he refers to a "superpower." Holderness is lucky to have a supportive wife to keep him on track. -via Metafilter

The short answer is to turn them into foundations for new coral reefs! Take for example, the Platform Holly, a decommissioned oil rig. Standing 235ft (72m) above the waters of the Pacific Ocean, the abandoned oil rig is now home to colourful fish, crabs, starfish and mussels that congregate on the oil rig’s huge steel pylons. BBC has more details on how we can turn other oil rigs into new homes for creatures and coral reefs: 

But there is one way in which these old rigs can be remarkably useful: the subsurface rig provides the ideal skeleton for coral reefs. Teeming with fish and other wildlife, scientists say that offshore rigs like Platform Holly are in fact the most bountiful human-made marine habitats in the world.

The practice of transforming rigs into reefs in the United States dates back almost 40 years. In 1984, the US Congress signed the National Fishing Enhancement Act which recognised the benefits artificial reefs provided and encouraged states to draw up plans to turn defunct rigs into reefs. The five coastal states on the Gulf of Mexico – Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas – all have rigs-to-reefs programmes and have converted more than 500 oil and gas platforms into artificial reefs.

When oil companies cease drilling in these states, they decommission their platform by sealing the oil well. Then they can either choose to remove the entire platform or convert it into a reef by removing just the upper section of the structure.

Image via BBC 

The owner of most Ikea stores recently purchased a property in the state of Georgia to protect it from development. Ingka Group worked with nonprofit organization The Conservation Fund to save the 10, 840-acre land from destruction. This is not the first property that the company has bought, as it has over 613,000 acres of forest land across Europe and the U.S.: 

Ikea’s mission has long included looking out for the well-being of the environment, but buying land is still relatively new for the company. That investment will pay off in spades toward Ikea’s goal of becoming entirely carbon-neutral by 2030.

It’s easy to buy up carbon offsets on the internet — it’s another level of commitment entirely to buy full-on forests. And Ikea’s only getting started.

Ikea said this week that its 2020 operations used fewer fossil fuels than ever before and that it expects that trend to continue moving forward. Last year, the company sourced more than 98 percent of wood for its products from responsibly managed forests — and announced that, by 2030, at least a third of its wood will be recycled.

Ikea also made other big sustainability moves last year, like discontinuing the sale of non-rechargeable batteries, ending the print version of its catalog, and launching its own secondhand store.

What do you think about the company’s movements against deforestation? 

Image via Wikimedia Commons