Solar flares are, as astronomer Kosuke Namekata puts it, “sudden explosions that emanate from the surfaces of stars, including our own sun”. On rare instances, an interesting phenomenon occurs on the surface of a star: an extremely large superflare. But what makes them interesting, you may ask? They are interesting because “these result in massive magnetic storms, which when emitted from our sun can significantly effect [sic] the earth's technological infrastructure." Studying these flares could also help us understand how they affect the existence or non-existence of life on planets.

Hence understanding the properties of superflares can be vital, but their rareness means that data from our sun is difficult to gather. This has led researchers to look for exoplanets similar to earth, and to examine the stars they orbit.

And thanks to Kyoto University's 3.8 meter Seimei telescope, astronomers from Japan can now observe other stars from great distances. And they have been very lucky to observe a superflare on their very first night of observation.

Learn more about their findings over at EurekAlert.

(Image Credit: National Astronomical Observatory of Japan/ EurekAlert)

Gerald Selbee and his wife Marge figured out how to leverage the odds of the Massachusetts Lottery. Now, this video from Half as Interesting makes it seem like the math involved is difficult, but it's not, so don't let that scare you. The Massachusetts Lottery was once set up in a way that allowed this scheme to happen, but it's not now, and you won't have that kind of luck anywhere else. You can read a more in-depth account of the Selbee's lottery winnings here. -via Digg

Since face masks have become the new normal, we've seen specialty masks for weddings, custom-printed masks, high fashion masks, and masks with political statements. Japanese startup Donut Robotics found a hi-tech way to leverage mask sales by making them translate languages!

The white plastic “c-mask” fits over standard face masks and connects via Bluetooth to a smartphone and tablet application that can transcribe speech into text messages, make calls, or amplify the mask wearer’s voice.

“We worked hard for years to develop a robot and we have used that technology to create a product that responds to how the coronavirus has reshaped society,” said Taisuke Ono, the chief executive of Donut Robotics.

The mask is expected to sell for only about $40. Read about the c-mask rollout at Reuters. -via Nag on the Lake

(Image credit: REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon)

Think that a low-carb diet is a new idea? William Banting was an undertaker well-known for his elaborate funerals for royalty and the upper crust of London. But he struggled most of his adult life with obesity. After trying all kinds of diets, exercise regimens, and odd advice, his ear doctor recommended a diet that limited bread and sweets in 1862. Banting finally lost the extra wright, 46 pounds of it, and in his joy wrote a pamphlet about the diet.

Suddenly you couldn’t turn your head without hearing about this undertaker who wanted to promote longevity. The humor magazine Punch regularly cartooned Banting’s dietary strictures as a gag; an oddball farce called Doing Banting hit the English stage; and a popular song warned men about dieting too enthusiastically, with the narrator’s sweetheart clucking, “I hate thin men, you’re lost to me / if you persist in Banting.” An American paper cheerily proclaimed in the summer of 1864 that two Boston men had tried Banting’s method and lost more than 40 pounds each over the course of a year.

Read the story of the ear doctor's diet and the effect it had on the undertaker, and all of Britain, for that matter. -via Strange Company

(Image credit: Ben Nadler)

Name another city where you can be casually walking your dog and run into this... 🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/u57TtmOXVT

— Everything Georgia (@GAFollowers) July 11, 2020

Chavis Flagg gets your attention by rolling through Atlanta on his motorized unicycle, all without skipping a single beat. He keeps your attention by being a great musician. If you see him at night, you may also be treated to a mobile light show.

Flagg earns his living through busking. Hopefully, his new album can take him further. CNN describes his work:

Flagg's impromptu performances aboard a Onewheel electric skateboard have helped double the 24-year-old musician's social media following over the past two weeks and earn him some money during a time when live venues have closed around the city, he told CNN.

On Saturday, from about 7:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. ET, Flagg earned roughly $300 in tips from people stopping to thank him for his music and to request songs. Since he started playing along the Beltline roughly two weeks ago, he's performed music by Prince, Jimmy Hendrix and Pop Smoke. Flagg's equipment includes a small amplifier and two JBL speakers attached to the Onewheel.

-via Super Punch

Horoscopes usually consist of three things: a brief description of a person (which is sometimes accurate) born within a certain star sign, pros and cons of being born in the sign, and a prediction (which is likely inaccurate) of what might happen to the person in the future. While various horoscopes generally give us good advice on how to live our lives, they shy away when it comes to telling us our bad traits. This horoscope doesn’t, and you’ll love it for its brutal honesty.

See this honest horoscope over at Sad And Useless.

What does it say about you?

(Image Credit: Sad And Useless)

Data Broz brings us another moving graph, this time of animated movies from 1926 to 2020. The first half moves fairly slowly, as Disney films dominated the landscape for decades. Then other studios moved in, and finally in 1989, the age of the Disney Renaissance overtook the chart, raking in cash left and right. Things go really fast toward the end, as computer-generated animation, ticket prices, and a rising population made the money making all that much easier. -via Geeks Are Sexy

1) A stranger than fiction Roman ring mystery thread: this enigmatic Roman gold ring was found in a ploughed field near Silchester in 1785. The square bezel has a portrait of the pagan goddess Venus, inscribed backwards SUNEV for use as a signet ring by the owner. Curiously... pic.twitter.com/Ls0QcDVNzq

— Gareth Harney (@OptimoPrincipi) July 10, 2020

Twitter user Gareth Harney brings us a fascinating tale of two artifacts that were only connected to each other many hundreds of years later. A precious gold ring depicts the goddess Venus, but the inscription proclaims it belonged to a Christian.

3)... at a temple to the mysterious British god “Nodens” 80 miles away in Lydney, Gloucestershire, a lead curse tablet (defixio) was later discovered. On the tablet a man named “Silvianus” complains that his gold ring was stolen and he suspects “Senicianus” was the culprit! ... pic.twitter.com/T50LeVRykr

— Gareth Harney (@OptimoPrincipi) July 10, 2020

It’s a cold case of jewelry theft, possibly signifying the tension between old and new religions. The ring is called the Ring of Silvianus in some sources, and the Ring of Senicianus in others. What is fascinating is the possible connection between this ring and the One Ring to Rule Them All, which you can read about in the full thread at Twitter or at Threadreader. -via Metafilter

The entertainment manager in my nan's care home decided to recreate album covers with some of the residents.
This is my nan. pic.twitter.com/0e6bAzVW97

— Tim Frost (@TimFrost23) July 11, 2020

Residents of the Sydmar Lodge Care Home in Edgware, UK are, with the help of the home's entertainment manager, rocking out their top hits. Tim Frost's photo thread includes remakes of Madonna's True Blue, Blink 182's Enema of the State, Bruce Springstein's Born in the U.S.A., and Taylor Swift's 1989.

-via Nag on the Lake

While most people restlessly sheltered in place this summer, one senior citizen found a way to self-isolate and earn himself $1,000 by mapping his entire neighborhood with his new DJI drone.

Bill Cook from Winchester, Virginia, flew around 50 flights, most of which were from the safety of his driveway. Check out the full story.

Irina Guicciardini Strozzi is the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great granddaughter of Lisa de Giocondo, the original model for Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa. Here, photographer Drew Gardner has photographed her posed and framed like her famous ancestor.

This is part of Gardner's project titled The Descendants. It shows the descendants of famous people in the style and costume of iconic portraits of their ancestors. Gardner's subjects include the descendants of Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens, Horatio Nelson, Oliver Cromwell, and Napoleon Bonaparte.

You can read more about Gardner's project at Colossal.

Dr. Benjamin Rush was an intellectual who influenced George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Paine, among others. He was one of the youngest men to sign the Declaration of Independence, and became the young country's most famous doctor afterward. Rush was an advocate for many social causes, including humane treatment of the mentally ill.

Rush was a founder of American psychiatry. As a scientist, he was fascinated by mental illness; as a doctor, he was horrified by its treatment. Where most saw the workings of God or demons in the manners of the mentally ill, Rush saw malfunctioning parts. It was no sin to be deranged. The mentally afflicted deserved sympathy and sophisticated care. They had “diseases of the brain,” he said, not character flaws of failures of will. Rush was a pioneer in removing psychiatric patients from prison conditions. He unchained them, gave them proper lighting, and had them exercise in the hospital gardens.

While he was a brilliant thinker, he wasn't right about everything. Read about Rush and his views on all sorts of subjects at Nautilus. -via Strange Company

A speed camera in Italy awarded a driver with a $960 prize for taking her Ford Focus up to 437 miles per hour, or approximately 10 times the maximum speed of that vehicle. Alas, she was to be disappointed, as it was a computer glitch which caused the reading. Fox News reports:

The Autoappassionati report said local police failed to double-check the camera’s findings before mailing the woman a ticket – which placed 10 points on her license and carried a fine of 850 euros, or just under $1,000.

Giovanni Strologo, a transportation spokesman for the community of Offagna, in Ancona province, where the incident happened, advised the driver to appeal to the local government for compensation, according to the report.

In a Facebook post, he noted that police should have checked the details before sending the driver a ticket and joked that “even with a missile” the car could not possibly reach speeds that high.

-via Dave Barry | Unrelated photo: TuRbO_J

If one wants to go to Mars, there is a launch window that comes around every two years or so when the planets align in a manner that makes the trip to the red planet a lot easier. NASA takes advantage of that launch window every time it comes around, as in this moth. China and the United Arab Emirates are scheduled to also send missions to Mars in July. The planned European-Russian Exomars mission was scrapped, but three missions are still a go as of now. NASA is out in front with an audacious plan to send a lander to Mars and then bring it back with samples of the planet!

In 2011, when U.S. planetary scientists were asked what big-ticket projects should receive federal funding over the next decade, a Mars sample-return mission came out as their top choice. Actually, they needed two missions. The first would collect rocks and soil and cache them on Mars, and the second would retrieve the samples at some later date and return them to Earth where they could be studied in far more detail than they could be on Mars. NASA’s Perseverance rover constitutes Part One of that plan. Now scheduled for a July 17 launch from Cape Canaveral [Update: Launch is now planned for no earlier than July 30], it’s the most advanced Mars mission yet.

Having established from past investigations that Mars was once a habitable place, scientists now want to know if the planet was, in fact, ever inhabited. That’s a more difficult question, as there currently are no definitive “biosignatures” for identifying life, short of spotting a kangaroo bounding across the Martian surface. More likely, a tentative answer will come from multiple lines of evidence showing that a particular rock’s chemistry and physical characteristics probably resulted from biology. Perseverance’s job is to find the rocks that look most promising for containing that fossil evidence.

Read about all three Mars missions launching this summer at Air&Space magazine. 

(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

YouTuber walter santi (previously at Neatorama) surprised his two cats with a ball pits and 500 plastic balls! Santi and Indy had a ball, so to speak, playing in it. However, Indy kept losing his favorite ball amongst all the new ones. -via Metafilter