Ryan George plays the part of the first guy to ever have a home, or apparently any kind of shelter. He also plays a stranger he's explaining it to. However, the home is fairly contemporary and we know that it was something that evolved over a long time. Maybe it would be better to pretend this is a homeowner trying to explain the concept to an alien from another dimension. It would be pretty strange to someone who's never seen been exposed to the concept of shelter or privacy or property. Oh yeah, the skit is only three and a half minutes, the rest is an ad. -via Geeks Are Sexy
Which cat breeds are more aggressive to family members? Which are shy towards strangers? Which cat breeds groom a lot, and which cats groom less? These might be some factors that you might want to consider when adopting a cat. A group of researchers decide to examine the behaviors of different cat breeds, as well as the heritability of their behaviors.
Salonen et al. (2019) surveyed Finnish cat owners on their cats’ behaviors, which included “tendency to seek human contact," “aggressiveness towards human family members, strangers, or other cats," and “shyness towards strangers or novel stimuli." In total, 5,726 cats were studied. The researchers then separated these cats into 19 breeds. The researchers controlled for environmental factors including “weaning age, access to outdoors, presence of other cats,” and general characteristics (sex, age of cat) in their analyses.
Check out the summary of the study over at Psychology Today.
(Image Credit: ClaudiaWollesen/ Pixabay)
Finding it difficult to win in PS4 racing games? Consider making your own steering wheel and attaching it to the controller just like this man did. That, or you could just buy a steering wheel compatible with the video game console.
Despite making this however, the man still placed last in the race.
Watch The Q's video on YouTube.
What are your thoughts about this one?
(Image Credit: The Q/ YouTube)
To study how humans evolved large brains compared to other primates, scientists experimented with marmosets, a small primate with a small brain that is still genetically similar to humans. At the heart of the study is one of a few genes that appear in no other species besides humans.
ARHGAP11B, a gene found only in humans, is known for its role in expanding neocortex, the part of the brain responsible for higher cognitive functions such as language and planning. In experiments detailed in a new study published today in the journal Science, researchers inserted the gene into the fetuses of marmosets, who, like humans, are primates, but don’t carry the gene. The team found that after 101 days, the neocortices of the monkeys’ developing brains were larger and had more folds in the tissue than normal monkey fetuses without the gene.
If this experiment sets off your cringe response, you aren't alone. How man human brain genes can be transferred to another species before that species becomes human? More than one, apparently. Read about the experiment and what it could mean for the study of "humanness" at Smithsonian.
(Image credit: Leszek Leszczynski)
Did you have a Little Tikes Cozy Coupe when you were a kid? You might be interested in the history of the toy, which has become fairly universal since its development 40 years ago. -via Digg
The sun is the source of all of our energy, directly or indirectly. The sun has always been the subject of myths, legends, and even religious worship as long as people have observed the star. The sun takes on even more meaning in latitudes further from the equator, where the sun comes and goes over the course of a year. The June solstice is the point that sun climbs the highest in the sky in the Northern Hemisphere and gives us the longest daylight, so the date was important for those who lived before artificial climate control, spawning festivals, celebrations, and rituals of all kinds.
In Ireland, the Midsummer fires were lit at sunset after being sprinkled with holy water. In Ireland and Scotland bonfires were lit in memory of the Baal fires, a name derived from either Celtic sun god Bel (bright) or the Saxon word bael (fire). These bonfires were believed to boost the ebbing power of this life-giving, mysterious solar fire. In Irish folklore, fairies took the form of whirlwinds to try and extinguish these powerful Baal fires but throwing burning wood in their direction usually discouraged them. Children joined hands and leapt through the embers to symbolise the growth of corn and harvest abundance. Farmers drove animals through the ashes to protect them from disease. On the Isle of Man, blazing furze was carried around cattle for the same purpose. In Cornwall, the Midsummer fire was lit by “The Lady of the Flowers” who cast flowers into the flames. Cornish elders could then predict futures by reading the fire.
That's just a few of the rituals associated with the summer solstice. Read more of them at Folklore Thursday. -via Strange Company
(Image credit: Andrew Dunn)
Just ready $16,000 for donations, of course. The actor is auctioning off a phone call via fundraising portal Greater Giving. Reeves is doing a phone call for a cancer charity, and the bidding for a special phone call from the star is up to $16,800 and climbing. Interested? MentalFloss has more details:
The call is intended to benefit Camp Rainbow Gold, a nonprofit that provides support for patients and families in Idaho dealing with cancer. Reeves has reportedly long been active in various charitable efforts for the disease following his sister’s leukemia diagnosis in 1991.
Organizers have a few caveats. The call has to take place the week of July 6, pending the availability of both Reeves and the winning bidder. If the caller exhibits any “threatening or inappropriate behavior,” the conference will be terminated. Otherwise, the winner should feel free to discuss Reeves’s career, including the forthcoming Bill and Ted Face the Music, due out August 14.
image via MentalFloss
Vitamins and other forms of supplements have been marketed to “boost one’s immune system.” During the pandemic, people have been inclined to purchase more of these to strengthen themselves against COVID-19. But do vitamins really do what they’re marketed to do so? James Hamblin and Katherine Wells discuss the effectiveness of these supplements in their podcast Social Distance. You can listen to the episode here.
image via wikimedia commons
Twitter is now testing out a new feature for a limited number of users. Unfortunately, it still isn’t the edit button we all need. You can now tweet your voice with audio tweets, a feature that will be available to all users in the coming months. If you have early access to the new feature, here’s how to use it, as FastCompany details:
- Compose a new tweet
- tap the audio button (beside the option to add a photo)
- tap the record button
- and then tap done
Twitter is limiting audio tweets to 140-second clips (like the original 140-character limit), but the company says it will automatically create a thread of tweets when users’ recordings stretch past that time limit. Twitter won’t allow users to reply to tweets with their voice, a decision presumably shaped by the social network’s failures to address harassment and abuse on the service.
image screenshot via FastCompany
A fossil soft-shell egg has been discovered in Antarctica. The egg is a large, football-sized egg believed to have been left by an ancient marine reptile known as a mosasaur. The fossil was estimated to be 66 million years old, as iflscience details:
"It is from an animal the size of a large dinosaur, but it is completely unlike a dinosaur egg," said lead author Lucas Legendre, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas Austin's Jackson School of Geosciences,” in a statement. "It is most similar to the eggs of lizards and snakes, but it is from a truly giant relative of these animals."
It was previously believed that giant marine reptiles from the Cretaceous did not lay eggs, yet “nothing like this has ever been discovered.” Chilean scientists first came across the fossil nearly a decade ago, after which it sat unlabeled in the country’s collections at the National Museum of Natural History. Scientists referred to the more than 28-by-18-centimeter (11-by-7 inches) stone-like fossil simply as “The Thing”.
image via iflscience
An archaeological site in Russia, near the Mongolian border, has baffled scientists. Set on an island in Lake Tere-Khol, it is unlike other ancient structures in that it contains no supporting artifacts, like bones, pottery, or tools that would give clues as to its age or purpose. Even the discovery of the site reads like an adventure game.
Since its presence was learned from a stone near the Selenga river (a runic tablet with an inscription detailing the site), the settlement—known as Por-Bajin—has eluded understanding. A complex roughly the size of Buckingham Palace, with 30-foot-tall clay walls and numerous courtyards set alongside its numerous buildings, the eighth-century Uighur construction yielded surprisingly few of the archaeological artifacts you’d expect from a building of its magnitude—items that are usually telltale markers of a place’s purpose.
“There was a lot of mystery around the site,” says Margot Kuitems, an isotope researcher at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and lead author of a new study that dates the site, published last week in the journal Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences. “Who built it? When was it built? But also for what purpose? Was it a monastery? Did it have defensive purposes? Or was it a palace?”
That sets up the mystery, which has been solved in an amazing way. Analysis of tree rings in the timbers used pinpoints the construction date at 777 CE. That reveals its place in history, from which the details could be filled in. Read how they did it at Atlas Obscura.
(Image credit: Por-Bajin Fortress Foundation)
Haribo gummy bears are one of the top-selling candies in the world. With the various flavors in its roster, it actually takes a lot of time and effort to add a new flavor that the masses will love. Popular Science details on the process behind the famed gummies flavors:
Anointing a new flavor to the Haribo lineup, however, takes some confection-making perfection. The company’s food scientists test each recipe exhaustively for aroma, texture, and regional preferences. The last step is key to ensuring a gummy will succeed across multiple markets. For example, Triffler says, Americans and Germans don’t always agree on what a “lemon” candy should taste like, making it tricky to develop a single yellow piece for a mix that suits everyone’s tongues. The company even had to change up Riegel’s famous recipe when introducing Goldbears stateside in the 1980s.
Haribo is quite tight-lipped about what makes their gummies such a culinary delight. But outside of the candy industry, food scientists are upfront about the challenges of crafting gummies. “Most gummy confections contain 5 to 10 percent fruit juice and the rest is sugar water,” Vodovotz says. “There are non-synthetic flavors and dyes, but they’re really still mostly chemicals.”
image via Popular Science
If you’re a big fan of cold brew, here’s a new iced coffee recipe that you might enjoy! Japanese iced coffee is a faster-to-brew version of the regular cold brew, with enthusiasts claiming that the iced coffee is better than cold brew. Japanese iced coffee can be made in under ten minutes, as The Huffington Post details:
“I think it is a superior method to cold brew, since you get a chance to unlock more flavor from coffee compounds with the hot water extraction, while still getting an equivalent body as if it were a cold brew,” said Julie Nguyen, co-owner of Contra Coffee and Tea in Orange, California.
The name derives from a method that’s been used in Japan since the 1920s, but it also refers to the use of Japanese coffee equipment, like Hario products, to brew it. Some coffee shops refer to this method of making coffee as flash-brewed, flash-chilled or just iced coffee.
image via The Huffington Post
That beekeeper heart honeycomb image. A thread. pic.twitter.com/55lqUZ4uiI
— Steve Byrne #stayathome #wearfacecoverings (@byrnesong) June 16, 2020
Have you seen this picture before? It recently went viral with a caption about a French beekeeper who neglected to insert frames into a beehive, so the bees went freestyle with their comb and managed to come up with a heart shape. Many people thought that was adorable, while some beekeepers were suspicious. Steve Byrne, an internet folklorist, recalled that he had seen the image before. So he decided to investigate and find the story behind the story -the true origin of the honeycomb image. The journey led him back to 2015, then 2013, and to a South African beekeeper who, seven years later, had physical evidence of the honeycomb he grew that year. And we learn how he did it.
The thing to take away? On the internet, search behind what you see. Don't take things at face value. Don't let your "aww" gene get in the way of thinking, hmm, is this for real? Because there are people out there who seek to use such kindly human instincts in unkind ways. /34
— Steve Byrne #stayathome #wearfacecoverings (@byrnesong) June 17, 2020
You can read the entire story in detail at Twitter, or the simpler Threadreader version if you prefer. -via Nag on the Lake
Not gonna lie, totally into Lady Spock pic.twitter.com/2L2OEdq9WD
— Art Of Coop (@ARTofCOOP) June 16, 2020
People have been having fun with FaceApp and other image manipulation tools to see what they would look like as the opposite gender. I tried one of those many years ago and discovered what my father would look like with long hair. Lately, a new trend has emerged: seeing what fictional characters would look like gender-swapped. The cast of Star Trek: The Original Series looks pretty good! Impressed with that, Geeks Are Sexy went and found plenty of other Star Trek characters, from The Next Generation and later series, in gender-swapped versions. You can see them in this gallery.
Next, they decided to use FaceApp to see what the characters from Firefly would look like. Shown above is Captain Malcolm Reynolds. You can see their gender-swapped versions of the entire Firefly cast at Geeks Are Sexy.
