Serotonin is one of the happy hormones that our body produces, with the others being oxytocin and endorphins. And it is with good reason that serotonin belongs to the group. This hormone promotes good sleep, and helps in regulating appetite in mood. But it seems that serotonin can do much more than these.
The researchers now report an additional, novel role of the happiness neurotransmitter serotonin which is known to function in the brain to mediate satisfaction, self-confidence and optimism—to act cell-extrinsically as a growth factor for basal progenitors in the developing human, but not mouse, neocortex. Due to this new function, placenta-derived serotonin likely contributed to the evolutionary expansion of the human neocortex.
Legend has it that if you say "Bloody Mary" three times into a mirror, then Queen Mary Stuart will attack you. Personally, I prefer the South Park version of the story, starring the ghost of Biggie Smalls.
Playing up on the legend of Bloody Mary and poking fun at its rival, McDonald's, a Burger King outlet in Sweden has created a haunted bathroom. If you say "Cancelled Clown" -- a reference to Ronald McDonald -- three times, then the clown will appear before you. Business Insider reports:
The software, installed by a Swedish agency named INGO Stockholm, is trained to listen for the phrase "canceled clown." If it hears it three times, it dims the lights, makes a noise, and plays visual effects on a screen behind the two-way "smart mirror."
Ronald McDonald has been "cancelled" in that McDonald's has gradually removed the mascot from its advertising.
Etsy member Jennifer Symons made these cute mittens. They automatically put your fingers into the position of the Vulcan salute.
Do you know the origin of this gesture from Star Trek? Memory Alpha describes how Leonard Nimoy invented it:
The Vulcan salute was devised by Leonard Nimoy, based on a gesture made by various Jewish denominations, including Orthodox and Conservative. In TV Land's The 100 Greatest TV Quotes & Catchphrases, William Shatner described the salute as a benediction, comparing it to the Sign of the Cross. The gesture actually forms the Hebrew letter "Shin" and represents the honorific title "Shaddai", which means "Almighty (God)." The hand gesture is traditionally used by the Kohanim (Hebrew "priests"), Jews of priestly descent, during a blessing ceremony performed during the prayer service of certain Jewish holy days. The Jewish blessing is done with both hands, with arms extended upward at roughly a forty-five-degree angle, rather than one hand held upright as in the Vulcan salute. Nimoy learned the gesture, which takes practice to do, from visiting his grandfather's synagogue as a child.
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.”
Most of us look at a broom as a mere housekeeping tool, but when you consider the history of the broom as a traditional folk art, a broom can be a thing of beauty. Berea College in Kentucky is a hub of traditional Appalachian crafts, and their hand-woven brooms have been in demand for a hundred years. The brooms are made by students for their work study program, in which they not only produce artful brooms but also learn about the history of Appalachian self-reliance.
“There’s something very nostalgic and wholesome about a handcrafted broom,” says Aaron Beale, director of student craft at Berea. “It’s an object rich with meaning, beyond its practical purpose.” The roughly 5,000 brooms made each year at the college are sold through a website and distributed to a number of specialty craft shops. According to Beale, Berea’s broomcraft workshop is the only one in the country to dye significant quantities of broomcorn, which requires a lot of time. And the brooms often sell out quickly. “We work at a fever pace to keep up,” Beale says.
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!”
The dwelling looks like a mechanical gear from afar. We’re used to seeing cube or rectangular shaped buildings that we forget that it’s possible to build impressive structures in different shapes. This two-storey home south of Lisbon, called Casa Trevo, has three circular patios and triangular-shaped indoor spaces, as Plain Magazine details:
The patio’s semi-open columns support a series of multi-level floor slabs which lead to and hold up the amazing rooftop lap pool.
Possessing a sense of autonomy and monumentality, the dwelling subverts the perception of its scale while creating a dialogue between nature and architecture. “It exudes a solid impression of mass while revealing little of its inside,” the studio says. “The house produces its own introverted world facing the sun, with private yet mutable spaces rendered intermittently by Lisbon’s brash light.”
The way laws are written often include some carveouts and exceptions, which we just call loopholes. Tom Scott takes advantage of a loophole in British liquor laws to open a working bar in a moving hovercraft. While this stunt is hilarious (imagine mixing drinks in a moving open air vehicle), he eventually explains the reason the law was written the way it is. -via reddit
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.
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.
Did you know that there was a female pharaoh who ruled ancient Egypt? You may have seen her mentioned in passing, but it was never fully explained in the articles that I’ve read as to how this female pharaoh rose to power, and why her legacy was almost erased from history. Thankfully, Watcher’s Puppet History delves deeper into her story and history. I can’t believe who was behind her legacy’s disappearance!
Take another look at the headline, then check your 2020 Bingo card. The species Procambarus virginalis, also known as marbled crayfish, arose about 25 years ago, possibly from selective breeding by German pet vendors. These crawfish reproduce asexually, by parthenogenesis, meaning they are all genetic clones and all female. They were banned years ago, but some have managed to escape into the wild, and now they are reproducing at a high rate at Schoonselhof cemetery in Antwerp.
Hundreds of the duplicating crustaceans, which can dig down to up to a metre and are always female, pose a deadly threat to local biodiversity after colonising a historic Antwerp graveyard.
"It's impossible to round up all of them. It's like trying to empty the ocean with a thimble," said Kevin Scheers, of the Flemish Institute for Nature and Woodland Research.
Marbled crayfish, which travel across land and water at night and eat whatever they can, do not occur in nature and are banned by the European Union.
While these crayfish might be the ultimate invasive species, there's an upside to their existence. Scientists want to study their amazing adaptability for cancer research. Read about the crayfish in the cemetery at the New Zealand Herald. -via Nag on the Lake
In the early years of the United States, the federal government was a moving target, as Congress met in Philadelphia, New York, and some other towns, until a capital could be built. The town of Washington was a planned city built from scratch with guidance from the Constitution and a design by Peter L’Enfant, who stuck to the guidelines but added interesting details.
Washington, D.C., though, is about as close to that square drawing as any real city gets. It was drawn as a perfect square, with unnervingly straight lines passing at unnatural angles through hills, waterways, and properties. Even stranger, it remains that way today, more than 200 years later—with the notable problem that the city gave away about a third of its land to some angry neighbors. “Of all the planned cities in the world, Washington is probably closer to the original plans than any other,” says Don Hawkins, an architect, historian, and expert on the history of the U.S. capital. But even today, if you look at a map of most cities and then you look at Washington, you think: Wait, does it really have three straight lines, at 90 degree angles, as borders? What the hell?
The plan seemed doable, since the area chosen for the District of Columbia was mostly empty. There were two small towns there, Alexandria and Georgetown, and there was plenty of room to fit the new city of Washington between them. Or there was at the time. While most cities begin small and their borders grow outward, Washington is restricted by its original plan, and by its political differences from other cities. Read how the city and the district started out as different spaces that became one at Atlas Obscura.
English idioms, similes, catch phrases, and colloquialisms make perfect sense if you've heard them all your life, but are pretty nonsensical when you approach them literally. Grant Kolton illustrates some of them for us to highlight the insanity. -via Laughing Squid
What animals are crabs descended from? More than one. It turns out that various earlier species evolved into crabs at least five different times. This process is called carcinisation, or the tendency for adaptations to push creatures into the shape of crabs. You might call it crabification, which is not really a word. And it's not just the shape of a crab that these different evolutionary lineages share.
“Some of the internal anatomical characters studied herein are structurally dependent on the external characters of a crab-like habitus. Since morphological coherence can also exist between internal anatomical structures, the coherence chains which can be traced back to the external characters of a crab-like habitus are relatively complex in some cases (indirect coherences).”
