Neatorama

---

• Weatherman Uses His Yard As A Green Screen
• Travel Photographer Recreates Vacation Scenes with Food
• 1989
• The Dancing Plague
• The Group Saving Africa’s Stunning Painted Dogs
• Some Chimpanzees Have a Bone in Their Heart—and Some Humans Might, Too
• The Dirty History of Soap
• The History Behind the <i>Greyhound</i> Movie
• The Gnarliest Injuries Actors Have Sustained Performing Their Own Stunts
• How Can We Spot Fake Photos?

Weatherman Uses His Yard As A Green Screen Posted: 13 Jun 2020 12:56 AM PDT This weatherman from Austin, Texas, knows how to take advantage of his luscious greenery. It turns out that his yard is a good replacement for a green screen, as seen in this video shared in r/nextfuckinglevel. The weatherman used his yard to display the map for his weather forecast. Now that's cool! image screenshot via reddit

Travel Photographer Recreates Vacation Scenes with Food Posted: 13 Jun 2020 12:56 AM PDT What does a travel photographer do when travel is restricted? In Erin Sullivan's case, she got creative at home. For her photo series called Our Great Indoors, Sullivan built landscapes using food! Pancake mountains, broccoli forests, and gelatin lakes stand in for natural landscapes. In the photos here, click to the right, and the last image will show you how it's done. See more of Sullivan's work at Instagram. -via Laughing Squid

1989 Posted: 12 Jun 2020 08:14 PM PDT Do you recall what music you were listening to 31 years ago? The latest mashup from The Hood Internet will bring those memories back, with 50 songs from 1989 mixed into a three-minute video. You can check out their mixes for each year from 1979 to 1989 in this playlist.

The Dancing Plague Posted: 12 Jun 2020 08:14 PM PDT I'm terrible at remembering historical events, along with names of famous people and locations. Isn't history easier to study when it's presented in an entertaining manner? Watcher's Puppet History does just that. The series presents historical events in such an entertaining and funny manner that you'd remember the event well. Or you'll remember the catchy songs at the end of every episode. This episode about the dancing plague is not only entertaining, but the catchy song at the end will make you remember the dancing plague really well!

The Group Saving Africa’s Stunning Painted Dogs Posted: 12 Jun 2020 08:13 PM PDT The African wild dog or painted dog (Lycaon pictus) is a canine, but it evolved way further back in the Canis family tree than wolves or domestic dogs. They naturally eat antelope, but because livestock is a tempting meal in their ever-dwindling territories, they are among the most endangered species in Africa. The Painted Dog Conservation organization, headquartered in Hwange, Zimbabwe, is trying to save these wild dogs. Of the 7,000 painted dogs left in the world, approximately 160 reside in Hwange, where the PDC was established in 1992 by Greg Rasmussen, a wildlife conservation biologist. Painted dogs' "biggest threats come from humans," says Shepherd Phiri, the facility's head keeper. Because the animals sometimes hunt cattle –– although they prefer wild prey –– they're considered "vermin" by farmers "and are often lost to snares," Phiri explains. Another threat comes from infrastructure development, which results in habitat loss for the animals, which in turn increases human-wildlife conflict. The biggest challenge the PDC faces is changing people's mindsets. Read about the unique painted dogs and the efforts to save them at Ozy. (Image credit: Derek Keats)

Some Chimpanzees Have a Bone in Their Heart—and Some Humans Might, Too Posted: 12 Jun 2020 12:40 PM PDT A few species of animals naturally have a bone in their hearts, including cows, sheep, and dogs. This os cordis has not been seen in primates, until recently discovered in chimpanzees in a study by the University of Nottingham's School of Veterinary Medicine and Science. Not all chimpanzees, but some chimps who have heart problems, specifically idiopathic myocardial fibrosis (IMF). This is the first time a heart bone has been found in great apes. For the new study, 16 chimpanzees, some with IMF and some without, had their hearts scanned with x-ray microcomputed tomography. No animal needed to be killed, as all chimps died of natural causes in European zoos. The scans generated clear, high-resolution images showing the tiny os cordis, which measures just a few millimeters across. For anatomy nerds out there, this "hyperdense" bone structure was found inside the right fibrous trigone. Simply described, this meaty part of the heart forms a link between the aortic, mitral, and tricuspid valves. Some chimp hearts also exhibited cartilago cordis, that is, cartilage formation. This is an important discovery, because the cartilage might have something to do with the growth of the rare bone structure, as cartilage has the potential to turn into bone. This discovery might open up research into possible ossification of human hearts with IMF. Read more about the discovery at Gizmodo. (Image credit: Bjørn Erik Pedersen)

The Dirty History of Soap Posted: 12 Jun 2020 12:40 PM PDT We know that soap is a surfactant made by combining fat and and alkaline substance such as lye. Wouldn't you love to find out who first decided to combine these things, and what they were trying to achieve? But alas, like many products invented before written accounts, we don't know. We do know that ancient Mesopotamians produced soap in this way. Ancient people used these early soaps to clean wool or cotton fibers before weaving them into cloth, rather than for human hygiene. Not even the Greeks and Romans, who pioneered running water and public baths, used soap to clean their bodies. Instead, men and women immersed themselves in water baths and then smeared their bodies with scented olive oils. They used a metal or reed scraper called a strigil to remove any remaining oil or grime. While some people later used soap to clean skin sometimes, it was mainly a laundry product until after the Civil War! Read what history professor Judith Ridner knows about the history of soap at The Conversation. -via Metafilter (Image credit: Strobridge Lith. Co., Cin'ti & New York, restoration by Adam Cuerden)

The History Behind the <i>Greyhound</i> Movie Posted: 12 Jun 2020 12:40 PM PDT Tom Hanks' new World War II film is called Greyhound, after the ship it's set on. Is it based on a true story? No, Hanks' character, Commander Ernest Krause, is fictional, as is his ship and his story. But the naval campaign at the heart of the movie was real, and it lasted six years. That may be the reason you didn't study the Battle of the Atlantic in school. Greyhound takes place at a critical moment in the Battle of the Atlantic, which began in September 1939 and only ended with the Germans' surrender on May 8, 1945. As Blazich explains, the conflict was centered chiefly on supplies: An island nation, the United Kingdom required a steady flow of imported goods and raw materials, many of which originated in the U.S. The Soviet Union, besieged by the Nazis' Operation Barbarossa, was also in dire need of food, oil and other essential supplies, which arrived via seaports on the Arctic Ocean. "Had the Atlantic been lost, so too would have Britain," writes historian James Holland for History Extra. "There would have been no Mediterranean campaign, no D-Day, no VE or VJ Days. The vast, global supply chain upon which the Allies depended … would have been cut, and with it the lifeline." The Allies sent supplies by convoy, merchants ships protected by navy destroyers and air cover. This added security made the convoys large and difficult to maneuver, all the easier for German U-boats to find and attack. Read about the Battle of the Atlantic and what it was like for those who participated at Smithsonian. After its theatrical released was delayed several times, Greyhound moved to streaming television.  Its debut on Apple TV+ has been moved to July 10.

The Gnarliest Injuries Actors Have Sustained Performing Their Own Stunts Posted: 12 Jun 2020 12:40 PM PDT Actors seem to be taken more seriously when they perform their own stunts. Maybe it's part of throwing themselves into a role, or giving their all for a production. And when they do those stunts bravely and enthusiastically, well, injuries happen. Producers hate it when a shoot has to be delayed because a star is in the hospital, but it happens ...often enough to make an internet list. Harrison Ford has contributed to these stories on more than one occasion. During the filming of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Ford had to take a break from the set and fly back to L.A. for surgery after a rupturing disc in his back. Ford didn't say exactly what the stunt was that caused the injury, but he told The New York Times in 1984 that he blamed the elephants. Indiana Jones climbing off an elephant and yelling, "Oww! My Back!" isn't the most exciting story, but hey, that's Hollywood stunt work. Ford's worst on-set stunt, though, would come decades later when reprising his role as Han Solo for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. According to The Guardian, Ford walked under the door of his trusty old spaceship, the Millennium Falcon, when the hydraulic door — which weighed the same as a small car — pinned him to the ground and nearly crushed him to death. Ford was lucky enough to get out with only two broken bones in his leg — had somebody not quickly hit the door's emergency stop button, Han Solo could have been down for the count before ever reuniting with Kylo Ren. Read about stunt injuries involving Charlize Theron, Bruce Willis, Tom Cruise, and others at Mel magazine.

How Can We Spot Fake Photos? Posted: 12 Jun 2020 12:40 PM PDT Fake photos are initially difficult to spot. There are some photos that look too real, but at a closer inspection, have been tampered with multiple times. So how can we actually decipher if a photo has been edited or fabricated? It can be spotted by looking at shadows included in a photo, as Hany Farid tells BBC:  One trick he has picked up over time is to check the points of light in people's eyes. "If you have two people standing next to each other in a photograph, then we will often see the reflection of the light source (such as the Sun or a camera flash) in their eyes," he explains. "The location, size, and colour of this reflection tells us about the location, size, and colour of the light source. If these properties of the light source are not consistent, then the photo may be a composite." Another giveaway is the colour of people's ears. "If the Sun is behind me, my ears will look red from the front because you'll see the blood," he says. "If the light is coming from the front, you won't see the red in the ear." Take shadow, for example. If you draw a line from the edge of a shadow in a photograph, to a point on the object that is casting the shadow, you can trace that further to reveal where the light in an image is coming from. If you map out several points on a shadow, the lines should intersect. If a photo has been tampered with, the shadows of some objects in the image may not match the light sources in the rest of the picture, says Farid. He has shown it is possible with this method to identify images that have had objects or people added after they were taken. image via BBC

You are subscribed to email updates from Neatorama. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States