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2021/03/01

Neatorama

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Meet The Company That Will Buy Your Old Ratty T-Shirts

Posted: 28 Feb 2021 09:33 PM PST

Hey, at least you can get cash by trading in the clothes you'll never wear again! For Days is a startup company that aims to incentivize people to part with clothes responsibly through their system called "Closet and Credit." The zero-waste fashion brand, under this system, will give its customers store credit for giving up their old clothes. The clothes will either be resold or recycled, as Fast Company detailed: 

You get $10 for filling up a "clean out crap" bag with clothes from other brands; you earn more for sending back For Days garments. It's all part of founder Kristy Caylor's vision of creating a "closed-loop" system in the fashion industry.
Caylor founded For Days three years ago as a kind of experiment in rethinking how consumers shop for clothes. In the current system, most of us buy garments without thinking about what happens to them at the end of their life cycle. As a result, millions of tonnes of clothes end up in landfills every year. For Days started with a very different model. Its subscription program sent customers a set of T-shirts that they could wear as long as they wanted, then swap them for new ones, knowing that the old ones would be recycled.

Image via Fast Company 

HP’s Free 4G Commercial

Posted: 28 Feb 2021 09:33 PM PST

Back in 2015, tech company HP announced that their HP Stream Tablets and x360 Notebooks with Intel Inside would come with free 4G, and they promoted this via this funny commercial, which showed two people Skyping at their respective offices, when in reality they were walking at the beach.

(Image Credit: HP/ YouTube)

The Open World Pokemon Game We All Needed

Posted: 28 Feb 2021 09:32 PM PST

Take all the time to develop this one, Gamefreak. Pokemon Legends: Arceus, what seems to be an open world action based-RPG, has been revealed during the Pokemon company's Pokemon Presents broadcast. The game will arrive in Early 2022 for Nintendo Switch: 

The game aims to "break new ground" for the Pokemon series, and features Rowlet, Cyndaquil, or Oshawott as partner Pokemon. The game will centre around the mythical Pokemon Arceus, but no further story details were given.
The player will travel out from the central Sinnoh Village to different areas of the region, using traditional Pokeballs to capture monsters. Rather than traditional capturing, however, the official website says you'll need to "observe them to learn their behavior, then carefully sneak up, aim your Poké Ball, and let fly!"
It's not the only new Pokemon game set in Sinnoh - remakes of Pokemon Diamond and Pearl will be released in late 2021.

image via the Nintendo America

Throat Notes

Posted: 28 Feb 2021 09:32 PM PST



They say the animals of Australia all want to kill us, but even when they don't they can be pretty creepy. It's not so bad when they are cartoons. In a backyard in Tasmania, there are plenty of creatures who have plenty to do in the middle of the night. Throat Notes actually has a plot, involving a possum, a star, and a hapless frog. This trippy animation is from Felix Colgrave, who we've featured before.  -via The Awesomer

The Fever That Struck New York

Posted: 28 Feb 2021 09:31 PM PST

You've read plenty about COVID-19 and what it did to New York City in early 2020. We've also posted quite a bit about the 1918 influenza pandemic and the Black Death. But disease epidemics strike somewhere in every era. New York was the scene of a yellow fever outbreak in 1795 and again in 1798. Alexander Anderson was a 20-year-old medical student from Manhattan who was drafted into the fight against the fever in its first wave, and came to be the first doctor at Bellevue Hospital. Anderson kept a diary of his work, when around 700 New York City residents died. His diary continued into the second wave, when he was a certified physician and a family man.  

Anderson abandoned that record-keeping on September 4 when a friend arrived at Bellevue to tell him that his wife was sick with the fever; on the following day, his father came to the hospital to say that Sandy's brother John had fallen ill as well.

For a few days Anderson tried to care for everyone—his wife in Bushwick and the rest of his relations downtown, plus dozens of Bellevue patients. Then, on September 8: "A heavy blow!—I saw my Brother this morning and entertain'd hopes of his recovery. In the afternoon I found him dead!" Yet he could not rest to grieve. "I left my poor parents struggling with their fate and return'd to Belle-vue." Before setting aside the diary that day, he paused to sketch a small coffin next to the entry.

His father died on September 12. Anderson sketched another coffin next to the entry. In Bushwick, he found his wife in a shocking condition: "The sight of my wife ghastly and emaciated, constantly coughing & spitting struck me with horror." She died on September 13; he drew another coffin. His mother, the final member of his immediate family, took ill on the 16th and died on the 21st; another coffin. "I never shall look upon her like again," he wrote.

Get a glimpse of the yellow fever epidemic that caused Anderson to give up medicine for good at Smithsonian.

(Image credit: Alexander Anderson Papers/New-York Historical Society Library)

What Caused The Extinction of the Woolly Mammoth?

Posted: 28 Feb 2021 09:29 PM PST

For years, scientists have debated the cause of the extinction of the woolly mammoth. Some suggested that the giant creatures went extinct because of the climate change that happened about 15,000 years ago. Others suggested that they went extinct because of human hunting. And then there were those who suggested that the mammoth went extinct because of both. But which of these was the closest to reality? A new simulation suggests that it was the third theory.

Prior research has shown that as the planet warmed after the last ice age, woolly mammoths began to move north—they survived by eating the types of grass that grow in cold climates. Prior research has also shown that most of them died out approximately 11,000 years ago—small pockets managed to survive in some isolated areas for a few thousand more years. It is generally believed that the last of them died out approximately 4,000 years ago.
In this new effort, the researchers created a simulation showing wooly mammoth populations from approximately 21,000 years ago, to 4,000 years ago—the time when the last of the mammoths died out. To recreate conditions the mammoths faced, the researchers added climate data as well as known human hunting data. They ran their simulation over 90,000 times with slight changes to the factors that might have led to their demise. The simulations showed that the most likely scenario involved climate change pushing the mammoths into smaller environments and hunters finishing them off. The simulations also showed that it is likely that some of mammoth populations survived for longer than has been thought in regions that have not been explored yet. Interestingly, the researchers also found that if they removed human hunters from the simulations, the majority of the mammoths held on for another 4,000 years.

To put it simply, had we humans not hunted every last one of them, they would have been around for a little bit longer.

(Image Credit: Pixabay)

A Virtual Ride On A LEGO Roller Coaster

Posted: 28 Feb 2021 09:28 PM PST

The Akiyuki Brick Channel on YouTube has set up a 224-foot LEGO roller coaster track for those who miss riding roller coasters. A cart equipped with a GoPro camera was put on the track, which gives us a point-of-view ride along the track.

Traveling at a speed of 0.38-meters/second (1.2-feet/second), the roller coaster cart pulls itself along the track, which includes cranks, corkscrews, somersaults, stairs, wall rides, and bridges.

Cool!

(Image Credit: Akiyuki Brick Channel/ Technabob)

This May Be The Oldest Pet Cemetery In The World

Posted: 28 Feb 2021 09:27 PM PST

Ten years ago, in the early Roman port of Berenice in Egypt, archaeozoologist Marta Osypinska and her colleagues discovered a grave site just outside the city walls, beneath a Roman trash dump. But it wasn't people that were buried in this site. Rather, the remains at this site were that of animals. In 2017, about a hundred remains of animals — most of them being cats — were unearthed by Osypinska and her team. At the present, the team has already excavated about 600 animals in the site, which could be considered the oldest pet cemetery in the world. 

"I've never encountered a cemetery like this," says Michael MacKinnon, a zooarchaeologist at the University of Winnipeg who has studied the role of animals across the bygone Mediterranean but was not involved with the new work. "The idea of pets as part of the family is hard to get at in antiquity, but I think they were [family] here."
[...]
"We have individuals who have very limited mobility," Osypinska says. Yet many lived long lives and their injuries healed. "Such animals had to be fed to survive," she says, "sometimes with special foods in the case of the almost-toothless animals."
[...]
The fact that humans took such good care of the animals, especially in a rough-and-tumble region where almost all resources had to be imported—and that they took such care in burying them, just as many modern owners do—suggests the people of Berenice had a strong emotional bond with their cats and dogs, the team concluded last month in World Archaeology. "They weren't doing it for the gods or for any utilitarian benefit," Osypinska says. Instead, she argues that the relationship between people and their pets was "surprisingly close" to the one we see today.

More about this over at Science Magazine.

(Image Credit: M. Osypinska/ Science Magazine)

Can Cats See Ghosts?

Posted: 28 Feb 2021 12:18 PM PST

Have you ever spotted your cat (or someone else's, that's also fine) staring into space for a long period of time? If you did, don't worry, because that is not a sign that your feline companion can sense the supernatural.  In fact, there are four main reasons why cats stare off into space, as PopSugar details: 

  1. They're trying to let more light into their eyes.
  2. If you've ever taken a picture of your cat in dim lighting with the camera flash on, you've probably noticed that their eyes stand out and even look ghostly. "The pupils should constrict when light is shined in the eye, so that's a normal response," Dr. Zimmerman told POPSUGAR. The glowing you see is caused by a layer of tissue in the eye called the tapetum lucidum, which captures light, even the tiniest amount, and brings it back through the retina. "Theirs are actually pretty large because they're nocturnal animals," she added. To engage the tapetum lucidum at its highest capacity, especially at night, cats will widen their eyes to let in as much light as possible. But while widened, staring eyes are normal, bulging eyes are not. "Make sure the eyes aren't pushed out," Dr. Zimmerman said. "This could be a sign of things like a mass behind the eye."
  3. Their ocular anatomy and feline instincts cause them to be extremely observant.
  4. Cats are visual hunters and curious by nature, which means they're observant at all times, equally during the day and the night. "Due to wild ancestors like lions and panthers, domestic cats have nocturnal instincts," Dr. Gutierrez explained. Their extensive field of vision spans 20 degrees more than ours, so it's more than just the wall in front of them that they're fixating on. Cats pick up on a lot through their peripheral, including things like shadows and tiny bugs we wouldn't be able to see unless we had six to eight times more rod cells. According to Dr. Gutierrez, a cat staring into space is simply an alert one who's gathering information about their environment.
  5. They pick up on every little noise, even when we think it's dead silent.
  6. Dr. Zimmerman made sure to remind us that a cat's sense of hearing is just as important and powerful as their eyesight. Our perception of silence is a lot different from a cat's — in fact, the end of our perception is right around the beginning of theirs. So if your cat is staring blankly into the distance, it usually means they're fixating on a noise or echo they heard, and they're trying to figure out where it came from. Cats can hear about 1.5 octaves higher than we can, and can detect variances in sound, even something as minor as the wind outside, or your pillow falling on the floor in the middle of the night. But if you notice that your cat startles easily during their state of concentration, it could mean they're having trouble hearing. "If there's heavy debris or puss in the ear and ear cleaner is not solving the problem, you may want to contact your veterinarian. Sometimes ear infections can happen," Dr. Zimmerman said.
  7. 4. They had too much catnip.
  8. Catnip can have a sedative effect, so if a cat has indulged in too much catnip, you can usually tell by simply looking at their eyes. This often translates to a fixed, relaxed gaze at seemingly nothing. The reaction varies from cat to cat, and shouldn't be cause for major concern. "There is some research in which that catnip produces a certain relaxation in some, and even hyper salivation and excessive drooling in others," said Dr. Gutierrez — both of which are normal.

image via PopSugar 

Baitinger’s Automatic Eater

Posted: 28 Feb 2021 12:18 PM PST

Conveyor belt sushi restaurants have been around since 1958, but the concept goes back much further. In 1923, John Moses Baitinger of Minnesota received a patent for a restaurant system that brought food to diners on a sort-of conveyor belt. This would allow the proprietor to do away with servers completely. We assume the diner paid for an all-you-can-eat experience, since they didn't order, but instead grabbed food off tiny railroad cars that passed by them. Baitinger took his setup to the Minnesota State Fair, where he reportedly made quite a profit.  

Baitinger's Eater was, in many ways, a perfect expression of the mentality of the automation-mad 1920s, obsessed with speed, technology, and efficiency. There were minor drawbacks to the system, however. Diners seated near the end of the line sometimes found that the only cargo left for the eating was boiled cabbage.

Talk about disappointment! That cabbage would be cold, too, by the time you decided to settle for it. Read more about Baitinger's Automatic Eater at Weird Universe.

How Sacred Flowers Are Turned Into Incense Sticks

Posted: 28 Feb 2021 12:14 PM PST

Well, at least they're not just thrown away after use! Indian startup Phool collects flowers offered by Hindu worshippers and recycles them into incense sticks. Watch as Business Insider gives an insight into the company's process. With the huge number of Hindu worshippers who offer flowers at temples every day, it's wonderful to know that all of them get recycled into something useful again! 

Physicists Claim That A Multiverse Has To Exist

Posted: 28 Feb 2021 12:14 PM PST

The concept of multiverses isn't just in fiction. Physicists believe that a multiverse has to exist in our universe today, because of how the different clusters of stars and galaxies are placed, what they are made of, and how they move.  Forbes details more reasons why scientists subscribe to this theory: 

While a variety of interpretations were initially suggested, they all fell away with more abundant evidence until only one remained: the Universe itself was undergoing cosmological expansion, like a loaf of leavening raisin bread, where bound objects like galaxies (e.g., raisins) were embedded in an expanding Universe (e.g., the dough).
If the Universe was expanding today, and the radiation within it was being shifted towards longer wavelengths and lower energies, then in the past, the Universe must have been smaller, denser, more uniform, and hotter. As long as any amount of matter and radiation are a part of this expanding Universe, the idea of the Big Bang yields three explicit and generic predictions:
a large-scale cosmic web whose galaxies grow, evolve, and cluster more richly over time,
a low-energy background of blackbody radiation, left over from when neutral atoms first formed in the hot, early Universe,
and a specific ratios of the lightest elements — hydrogen, helium, lithium, and their various isotopes — that exist even in regions that have never formed stars.

image via Forbes

Photographers Make Children's Dreams a Reality

Posted: 28 Feb 2021 10:31 AM PST

Atlanta photographers Regis and Kahran Bethencourt are a couple who make kids' wildest dreams come true in their portrait photography. The highly stylized and stunning photos depict children as their visions straight out of their imaginations.

The Bethencourts hope that these pictures will transcend our society's traditional ideas of beauty.

Dogs in the Arctic

Posted: 28 Feb 2021 10:30 AM PST

The British Museum planned an exhibit called Arctic culture and climate, but was unable to open due to the pandemic. You can take a video tour instead. Part of the exhibit looks at the dogs of the Arctic, which have been more than companions to the people who live there. One fascinating thing that sticks out is how dog sledding varies according to the route. We are used to seeing teams of sled dogs in a double line, taking up little room as they maneuver through the woods, such as in the Iditarod. This style is typical of the Khanty people of Siberia.

Another style of hitching dogs is used by Inuit in eastern Canada and Greenland. The so-called 'fan hitch' spreads out dogs and runs in a line like this model from Hudson's Bay, Canada shows. This style of hitching sled dogs is preferred as it is safer to have a wide spread of dogs when travelling across sea ice. The dogs also have more room to maneuver across rough patches of ice.

Read more about how dogs have made life in the Arctic possible for humans at the British Museum blog. -via Strange Company

(Image credit: The British Museum)

Grandmother Beats Up Purse Snatcher

Posted: 28 Feb 2021 10:30 AM PST

Our heartwarming news story of the day comes from Australia (AKA "British Texas"), where a grandmother celebrating her birthday fell prey to a purse snatcher. The purse snatcher then fell prey to her. She chased after the thief, tackled him, and wrestled the bag away from him as he tried to escape from her clutches.

The thief fled in his truck, but was later arrested.

-via Dave Barry
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