Neatorama

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• Majestic Sculptures Made By Beavers
• Ammonium Chloride Ice Cream
• Namaqualand: South Africa’s Daisy Sensation
• Ditch Ducks
• Why a Japanese Delicacy Grows Near Old British Columbia Internment Camps
• The World's Shortest Border
• Foo Fighters to Release Disco Album
• Digging a Tunnel Under the Alps

Majestic Sculptures Made By Beavers Posted: 21 Jun 2021 04:37 AM PDT Wooden carvings that are slightly elevated from the floor can be found at the Contemporary Art Foundation in Tokyo. The dumbbell-like carvings are part of Aki Inomata's exhibition titled "How To Carve a Sculpture." On the corner of the exhibition, however, was a similar carving, but this was placed sideways and is surrounded by wood chips. This gives us a clue as to how the carvings were made. These were not made by human hands. These were made by beavers. "Beavers, like humans, are one of the few animals that actively modify their environment, reforming it to suit their own requirements," says Aki Inomata, who previously created 3D-printed architectural shells for hermit crabs. A continuous theme throughout the artist's practice is how the act of "making" is not exclusive to mankind, which leads her to collaborate with living creatures. Beavers chew on trees, sharpening their constantly-growing teeth, and then use the felled wood as building materials for dams or to create lodging. However, Inomata's exhibition leaves more questions than answers. Can this be considered art? And if that is the case, then who will take credit for these pieces? Will it be Inomata, or will it be the beavers? And how, indeed, do we carve a sculpture? Inomata does not say. (Image Credit: Takumi Gunji/ Spoon & Tamago)

Ammonium Chloride Ice Cream Posted: 21 Jun 2021 04:37 AM PDT Finland offers a unique ice cream treat: salty licorice ice cream infused with a hefty dose of ammonium chloride. Why this unusual combination? Gastro Obscura explains that it's likely that this dessert began in a pharmacy: Ammonium chloride, as it happens, has been used in cough medicine. Licorice is also prized for its medicinal qualities, and in the early 20th century had its heyday as a popular flavoring. It's likely the two ingredients met over the pharmacy counter.  Photo: JIP

Namaqualand: South Africa’s Daisy Sensation Posted: 21 Jun 2021 04:37 AM PDT Namaqualand is an area that extends 600 miles along South Africa's western coast. It is a protected area, home to myriad species of flowers that draw visitors from around the world, despite the fact that there are no tourist accommodations. These flowers have evolved in unique ways because Namaqualand is quite arid, classified as a semidesert!   There are more bulb flora here than in any other arid region on earth.  Over three and a half thousand plant species live here and it is thought that more than a thousand of those are found nowhere else on the planet. Little wonder that the insect life goes in to something of a breeding frenzy during the time of the daisies. It certainly does not happen every year. The rains must not only fall but fall in the right way.  Soaking winter rains in early May and June are vital.  This must then be followed up with plenty of showers, at least one each week, through July and August. It is in the later part of that month that the explosion of life happens. Namaqualand is in the Southern Hemisphere, so late August is at the end of winter. See more gorgeous photographs of the rare yet abundant blooms of Namaqualand at Kuriositas. -via Nag on the Lake (Image credit: Flickr user Malcolm Manners)

Ditch Ducks Posted: 21 Jun 2021 04:37 AM PDT Highway 65 in Minnesota has a ditch with its own ducks. These aren't the kinds of ducks that come and go, though. They are decoys, in a rainbow of colors. Is it a joke, an art installation, a local tradition, or a crowdsourced project? It's kind of all the above. The story of how they came to be there is pretty neat. These ducks even have their own Facebook page. -via TYWKIWDBI

Why a Japanese Delicacy Grows Near Old British Columbia Internment Camps Posted: 20 Jun 2021 08:14 PM PDT As the US did, Canada also forced people of Japanese ancestry away from the west coast and put them in internment camps during World War II. These camps were isolated in the forests of British Columbia, where supply lines were few and unreliable, and the food rations were meager. Inmates in the know turned to a reliable plant called fuki, or Japanese butterbur. It wasn't easy to get, but once established, it's hard to kill.     During the Second World War, it became crucial: In 1942, racist federal policies dispossessed thousands of Japanese Canadians of their homes, boats, and property and forced them into remote internment camps. Fuki seeds and roots were one of the few items sympathetic—and usually white—former neighbors could mail or deliver to the camps without government interception. "A lot of [interned] Japanese Canadians wrote back to their [former] white neighbors and asked them: 'Would you do us a huge favor and send fuki roots or fuki seeds?' And neighbors or friends would [then] either drive up or ship out the fuki seeds," says Ryan Ellan, curator at the Tashme Museum in Sunshine Valley, roughly 16 kilometers (about 10 miles) southeast of Hope, B.C., at the site of the former Tashme Internment Camp. Almost 80 years later, the camps have crumbled, but fuki remains -and still grows as a testament to the history of the camps. The existence of the plant led to the founding of the Tashme Museum. Read that story at Atlas Obscura.

The World's Shortest Border Posted: 20 Jun 2021 12:49 PM PDT In 1492, the people of Spain completed La Reconquista--the seven centuries-long war of liberation of their land. This highly militarized society then launched wars of conquest in far away lands helpfully discovered by Christopher Columbus later that year. Within a century, Spain was a superpower with vast colonies across the world. Now, what remains of the Spanish Empire is a few small islands and exclaves off the coast of north Africa. Pictured above is one of them: Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera. An international border between Spain and Morocco lies on the 250-foot sandy stretch of land between the rocky peninsula and the mainland. -via Nag on the Lake | Photo: Ignacio Gavira

Foo Fighters to Release Disco Album Posted: 20 Jun 2021 08:58 AM PDT pic.twitter.com/cARVmKrDkS — Lau (@lauravieitez) June 17, 2021 The Foo Fighters have been dabbling in disco, and will release an album called Hail Satin that pays tribute to the Bee Gees. The band's name for this project is the Dee Gees, as in Dave Grohl's initials. Hail Satin will see the Foos take on the Gibb brothers' 1970s disco classics Night Fever, Tragedy, You Should Be Dancing and More Than a Woman. It will be released on vinyl for US Record Store Day on 17 July. Side one of the LP will also include their version of Andy Gibb's Shadow Dancing, which spent seven weeks at number one in the US in 1978. Side two will feature five live versions of songs from their last album Medicine at Midnight. Read more of how the Foo Fighters have embraced disco music at BBC. -via reddit

Digging a Tunnel Under the Alps Posted: 20 Jun 2021 08:57 AM PDT The SCAN-MED corridor runs the length of Europe, mostly in straight lines except for a sticky issue of getting traffic over the Alps. Trains must go slowly due to the inclines and necessary hairpin curves that accommodate those inclines. To save time, a lot of cargo is shipped by truck, which causes traffic jams along highway inclines and hairpins. But a 20-year project called the Brenner Base Tunnel is taking shape underneath the mountains. The tunnel will be 64 kilometers long when it's finished in 2028, and will cut travel time significantly. Watch the video to get an idea of how massive this project is, or read a transcript at The B1M. -via Laughing Squid

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