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• The Designs For London’s Police Box Successor
• This Village Became A ‘Swiss Cheese Land’
• Eight Fun Facts About Black Widows
• What Happens When You Put A Microphone On A Lynx?
• Fall In Love With These Dreamy Analog Photos
• Slinky Physics
• Forgotten Renaissance Portrait By Leonardo Da Vinci
• Danny Huynh Creations
• 18 Forbidden Places You Can't Visit

The Designs For London’s Police Box Successor Posted: 07 Jul 2021 09:29 PM PDT London's police boxes are getting a redesign! Details for the new police box design have been unveiled by the government. A competition was launched to find a 'modern and multifunctional' replacement of the staple structures of the city. The winning design, called The London Stones, is from architecture and design studio Unknown Works, as Design Week details:  Each hub will feature digital information screens, "essential" communication technology and space for the storage of life-saving emergency equipment. Unknown Works' winning design will also seek to celebrate the aesthetic and cultural heritage of the surrounding city. Details from "buildings, stories and images of the past, present and future" will be collected and digitally carved into the stone exterior of each hub. The City of London says this will provide "an active and engaging addition to the public realm". "Our starting point was the London Stone [a limestone block landmark located on Canon Street], a humble fragment of the City's past that's been watching the City grow for thousands of years," says Unknown Works director and co-founder Theo Games Petrohilos. "It's mottled skin hums with myth and wonder – something we hope to echo in The London Stones." Image credit: Unknown Works

This Village Became A ‘Swiss Cheese Land’ Posted: 07 Jul 2021 09:26 PM PDT Don't worry, it's not literally a land made of Swiss cheese. Within a few weeks, a weird phenomenon has occurred in different villages in north-east Croatia. Sinkholes of varying depths and sizes have popped up suddenly and without warning in the villages of Mečenčani and Borojovići. While an earthquake happened before the appearance of the sinkholes, experts were still baffled as almost 100 sinkholes materialized a month after the earthquake:  Sinkholes are not the most common consequence of powerful seismic shocks but they do occur, especially in the areas with hidden underground cavities. After the devastating earthquake near the Italian city L'Aquila in 2009, two sinkholes immediately opened on roads in the old part of the city. Experts at the time suspected that a previous excavation of vertical trenches for a sewage conduit weakened the conglomerate roof of the underground cave, contributing to the collapse. "The real anomaly in Croatia's case is a very high number of sinkholes with significant dimension," says Italian geologist Antonio Santo at University of Naples Federico II. Image credit: AFP/Getty Images

Eight Fun Facts About Black Widows Posted: 07 Jul 2021 09:23 PM PDT The new MCU film Black Widow opens in theaters this weekend. This post has nothing to do with the Avengers, but the movie opening is a good excuse to learn something about the real black widow spider. As with many of the earth's creatures, our common knowledge about them turns out to be less than true. Black widows earned their name because scientists witnessed the females eat their mates after copulation. But research has shown that in a related species, redback spiders, females only cannibalize their mates about two percent of the time, so experts suspect that American black widows have similar rates of cannibalism in the wild. The widows' cannibalistic behavior was first observed in the lab, where males had nowhere to run away from their larger, hungrier counterparts. But in the spiders' natural habitats, males have the opportunity to make an escape. Male black widows also have strategies to avoid riskier sexual encounters in the first place; for instance, research suggests they can tell whether or not a female is hungry by her pheromones, so they can avoid potential mates who seem a bit peckish. Learn more about the black widow spider at Smithsonian. (Image credit: Ken Thomas)

What Happens When You Put A Microphone On A Lynx? Posted: 07 Jul 2021 08:36 AM PDT Well, hopefully the lynx doesn't accidentally destroy it, right? Surprisingly enough, when wildlife ecologists conducted a study on a Canada lynx, the mic they used wasn't smashed into smithereens! Researchers delved deeper into the lives of these elusive predators through safely attaching a small microphone to lynx collars:  Much to our excitement, these recorders were very effective atcapturing the behavior of the lynx: "cats being cats" (grooming, sleeping); social behavior (aggressive interactions, purring, long-distance social calls); and hunting behavior (chases, kills, feeding). Over the five years of our study in the Yukon's Kluane region, we collected over 14,000 hours of audio recordings from 26 individual lynx. After using various methods of data processing, we were able to identify kills by Canada lynx with 87 percent accuracy — an impressive feat. Previously, to know that a single kill had been made often required a full day of intensive snowshoeing and tracking during the short winter days in the Yukon. But by recording multiple lynx, we could collect information 24 hours a day, while we warmed our feet by a wood stove in a rustic cabin. In addition to audio recorders, we also attached accelerometers — small devices that measure activity over time like you would find in a FitBit. Together with GPS tracking devices, these "biologging technologies" provide unprecedented insight into the complex behaviors of these cats. Image credit: Zdeněk Macháček (Unsplash)

Fall In Love With These Dreamy Analog Photos Posted: 07 Jul 2021 08:36 AM PDT Titus Poplawski's analog photos invoke a sense of nostalgia, longing, and mystery. His photos are full of character, and as The Phoblographer states, 'his analog photography is some of the best we've seen.' You know what, they're absolutely right. Looking through his images, from the composition to the colors, these photos make you conjure a story for each of them. Check out the Phoblographer's full interview with the photographer to learn about him and his works here!  Image credit: Titus Poplawski

Slinky Physics Posted: 07 Jul 2021 08:35 AM PDT The Slinky is an amazing toy. It's just a metal spring, but you can do so many things with it! The guy from Action Lab shows us how weird slinkys are when you drop them vertically, thanks to slow-motion video. Someone in the comments compared the slinky's behavior to a Loony Tunes character, recreated in the real world where physics is a thing. -via Digg

Forgotten Renaissance Portrait By Leonardo Da Vinci Posted: 07 Jul 2021 08:35 AM PDT Lady with an Ermine is a commissioned portrait that is a classic example of High Renaissance portraiture. The artwork is mostly unheard of or forgotten as it preceded the better-known Mona Lisa. However, Lady with an Ermine is an excellent display of Da Vinci's fixation with anatomical realism. In addition, Da Vinci uses the ermine as a symbol with meanings related to the subject of the portrait. Check out My Modern Met's full analysis on the oil painting here!  Image via wikimedia commons

Danny Huynh Creations Posted: 07 Jul 2021 08:35 AM PDT Australian photographer Danny Huynh has an amazing hobby. He builds remote control animatronics based on pop culture characters. They are works of art, but the real magic takes off when they move! Sadly, Huynh's creations are not for sale. Continue reading to see more.   You can follow Huynh's projects at Facebook. -via Geeks Are Sexy

18 Forbidden Places You Can't Visit Posted: 07 Jul 2021 08:34 AM PDT It's a mistake to think that if you have enough money, you can travel anywhere. Quite a few places are forbidden, some to outsiders, others to any human beings at all. The reasons are varied. Some locations don't want visitors because they hold precious treasures, fragile artifacts, or delicate ecosystems. Others are dangerous due to volcanoes, radiation, or animals. The rest are top secret for one reason or another. The Island of Surtsey is both volcanic and a delicate ecosystem. In the 1960s, an undersea volcanic eruption created a brand-new island off the coast of Iceland. It's not every day that scientists get to study an island from the moment it emerges, so they decided to make the most of the opportunity. The island, named Surtsey, has become a case study for how ecosystems develop without any interference from humans. (Other than the ideally noninterventionist scientists who study the island, that is.) Some of the lifeforms that have found their way to Surtsey include molds, fungi, at least 89 bird species, and, supposedly, one plucky tomato plant. In 1969, an Icelandic scientist named Ágúst Bjarnason was asked to make a trip to Surtsey to identify a mysterious plant, which he identified as a tomato. Bjarnason looked into the situation a bit further; as he later recalled, "Someone had done their business … and this beautiful tomato plant … had grown out of the feces." Read about seventeen other places you can cross off your vacation list at Mental Floss. The list is also available as a video. Strangely, North Sentinal Island is not among them. (Image credit: Bruce McAdam)

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