Great shots of Alicia Savage.

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Shh! I'm Trying To Sleep Over Here.

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Starpath

Earlier this week, Tuan C. Nguyen wrote about an algae-powered street lamp, currently being developed by a French biochemist, that absorbs carbon dioxide along with photosynthesized sunlight and, in return, produces oxygen and bio-illumination for streets and parking lots. Well, in the United Kingdom, a businessman named Hamish Scott hit upon a similarly bright idea in creating Starpath, a special luminescent coating for common ground surfaces that collects and stores energy from ambient light during daylight hours and releases a blueish, galactic glow when it gets dark. The multi-layered organic material, which may cut electricity bills, has proven promising enough that city officials in Cambridge have opted to try the technology at Christ’s Pieces park where 1,600 square feet of a pathway were renovated. What’s remarkable about Starpath is that while the material, a high-grade version of what’s found in glow-in-the-dark toys, can generate reliable illumination for about 16 continuous hours, it also exhibits “smart” sensing qualities that allow it to adjust to varying light conditions, brightening up just enough during the early evenings and going into full effect when the sun is down. Though Scott says that Starpath loses luminosity over time, most observers will still be able see people walking toward them and even make out what the person is wearing.
It’s also environmentally friendly and 100 percent recyclable. more 

 

Quality Family Time

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Where is the best place in the world to be a woman?

Iceland is joined at the top of the The Global Gender Gap Report, 2013 by its Nordic neighbours Finland, Norway and Sweden. Overall, the gender gap narrowed slightly across the globe in 2013, as 86 of 133 countries showed improvements. However, "change is definitely slow", says one of the report's authors, Saadia Zahidi. Explore the maps here to find out how countries compare overall - as well as in key areas of daily life, such as in health, education, employment and politics.

 

Family Meeting

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Croatian musicians help American woman to lose 50 kilograms of weight

A woman in United States has revealed that listening to Croatian violoncello duo 2Cellos has helped her to lose 50 kilograms of weight. Katherine Levine from Huntsville in Alabama said it started from September last year when she first listened to Luka Sulic and Stjepan Hauser playing with Elton John. After the concert she has bought a CD and while listening to it she said she has more wish to walk and less wish for food. It has resulted losing 50 kilograms of weight, she claims.

 

Dammit Jacques Cousteau!

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Biscuit, smell a flower.

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This is what a nap should look like

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There’s a Reason Why Pandas Are So Damn Cute

When China gave the United States two giant pandas in 1972, in honor of President Richard Nixon’s historic diplomatic visit that year, we reciprocated with a pair of...musk oxen. Milton and Matilda arrived at the Beijing Zoo, one reportedly with a case of the sniffles and the other a nasty skin infection. Their long fur—which is what musk oxen are best known for, along with their odor—began to fall out. Meanwhile, back at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., the pandas appeared only to grow cuter. Perhaps the people of China got a raw deal. Or maybe they had discovered the perfect export. Giant pandas are highly addictive critters. Neuroscientists speculate that their snub noses, generous cheeks and toddling gaits may excite circuitry in our brains normally related to interactions with human infants. Likewise, babies have supersized eyes, and pandas’ trademark black patches make their eyes appear larger by a factor of ten. (Part of a “facial mask” that likely evolved to repel predators, the eye patches seem to have the opposite effect on us.) Pandas are also one of the only animals to have a pseudo-thumb, a flexible wrist bone that allows them to manipulate objects in a cunning manner. They can stand on their hind legs, they like to frolic in the snow—the list goes on.

 

Coffee v smoothies

One is made of fruit. The other is caffeinated. So a smoothie is a healthier option than a coffee, right? Don't be so sure, says Michael Mosley, as he weighs the evidence.

 

Jailed artist Nigel Milsom wins portrait prize

Nigel Milsom was awarded the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, winning $150,000, for his portrait Uncle Paddy. He pleaded guilty to robbing a 7-11 store in Sydney in April 2012. He later apologised to police, saying he thought he was "buying doughnuts". Milsom, a former security guard, is serving six years for armed robbery. The artist, who suffers from depression, completed the painting earlier this year while on bail awaiting sentencing for the crime. The winning portrait was picked by 2009 Moran Prize winner Ben Quilty and ex-Art Gallery of South Australia director Daniel Thomas, who were not told the names of the artists.

 

Let me in

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Hilarious Halloween dog costume

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I need to talk to someone ..

There's a Japanese Travel Agency for Stuffed Animals (Because of Course There Is)

A Japanese travel agency, Unagi Travel, which calls itself a "travel agency for stuffed animals," has been taking plush animals on trips for the last three years. Why? To allow their owners to live vicariously through them. In fact, many of Unagi Travel's customers are physically impaired. Well, and photos of traveling stuffed animals are cute.

 

Gold Particles in Eucalyptus Trees Can Reveal Deposits Deep Underground

If you traveled to the town of Kalgoorlie, in Western Australia, then headed about 25 miles north, you’d eventually reach a grove of large eucalyptus trees, some more than 30 feet tall, scattered across a dusty, arid landscape. Examining the dirt at your feet would reveal no trace of the gold deposits that lie roughly 100 feet underground, due to the thick layers of clay and rock that sit atop the precious metal. But, scientists recently learned, if you peered closely enough at the eucalyptus trees—specifically, using X-rays to detect nanoparticles—you’d find that there’s gold in them thar leaves. As detailed in a study published today in Nature Communications, a group of researchers from Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation has shown that plants can absorb gold particles deep underground and bring it upward through their tissues.

 

Sunrise on the Overlook

Photo and caption by Lauren Furch

 

Pig in a blanket

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Breasts Age Faster Than the Rest of a Woman's Body

The breasts of women seem to age more quickly than the rest of their body, according to new research which uses DNA analysis of tissue and blood to measure the rate of cell decline. As we age, the chemical signature of our DNA changes subtly, with genes becoming more or less methylated (that is, they pick up or lose certain methyl chemical groups) in a process known as epigentics. Now, Steve Horvath at the University of California, Los Angeles has used that knowledge to estimate age, reports New Scientist. They took 7,844 healthy tissue samples from 51 different types of tissue, with participant age ranging from fetus to 101. Then, they analyzed how methylation varied between site, allowing them to identify a subset of 353 regions of the genome that became either more or less methylated with age in almost all types of tissue. In turn, that can be flipped on its head to indicate the apparent age of tissue—a technique they validated against thousands of other samples. The interesting upshot is that some parts of the body seem to age quicker than others. Healthy breast tissue, for example, was on average two to three years older than the woman's actual age. Elsewhere, heart tissue in both sexes appears nine years younger than true age. The research is published in Genome Biology. 

via Gizmodo

 

The Cutest Pet Costumes On Etsy

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Horrific Tales of Potato Poisoning

You've probably been told not to eat green potatoes because they are poison. Just how poisonous are they? The presence of chlorophyll in a potato's skin indicates an increased level of solanine, which at critical concentrations can cause horrible illness (vomiting, diarrhea, headaches, paralysis, and/or coma) and even death. It's happened more than you know. Smithsonian's Food & Think blog has a rundown of solanine poisoning cases spanning a century, with scary details.

 

Shake by Carli Davidson

SHAKE by Carli Davidson, is a heartwarming collection of sixty-one beguiling dogs caught in the most candid of moments: mid-shake. 

 

Baby Parasaurolophus

Life reconstruction of the new baby dinosaur by Lukas Panzarin.

 Despite the fact that they were likely very numerous indeed, baby dinosaurs are actually extremely rare to find as a fossil and so any new discovery is one that is to be welcomed. There are some inherent biases in the fossil record such that some things tend to preserve more often than you would expect by chance and others are much more rare. One of the major biases is against young vertebrate animals since being small they are harder to find, and as they are still growing their bones contain more cartilage and so are less likely to preserve well. The new baby dinosaur described today belongs to the genus Parasaurolophus a member of the group called the hadrosaurs (often known and duck-billed dinosaurs) and is in beautiful condition and in particular has a very well preserved skull.

 

Chewing gums Camel Balls raise controversy in Croatia

Chewing gum Camel Balls are causing protests of parents in Croatia because of its name. The Spanish producer has placed its product in Croatia, but parents have told tabloid 24 Sata they find it not appropriate for kids. The paper reports that similar protests against this product that shows camel's balls on the package, have been noted in the UK. "I was shocked seeing they were selling chewing gums with a drawing of camel's balls on a package", a worried parent from northern town of Velika Gorica has told to the tabloid. 

A seller at the news stand on the contrary revealed the chewing gum was tasty, so she found no reason why not to sell it to kids.