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"Researchers found that people emit more of the COVID-19 virus when breathing through their noses than through their mouths. " "Since mask-wearing is a two-way street—we wear them to protect ourselves from inhaling the virus and to shield others from virus we may unwittingly be transmitting as we exhale—letting a mask slip below the nose is a double failure."
posted by folklore724 at 4:16 PM - 26 comments

Do Sharks Sneeze?
posted by spamandkimchi at 1:41 PM - 4 comments

From Dr John Gorrie, "a crank down in Apalachicola, Florida, that thinks he can make ice by his machine as good as God Almighty" to the Super Cube, "an absolute unit, at least three times larger than a conventional cube" — the history of packaged ice.
posted by Vesihiisi at 1:22 PM - 19 comments

An Archivist's Plea [more inside]
posted by niicholas at 12:29 PM - 37 comments

These Precious Days (Harpers) An engaging read, serious (cancer) but not depressing.
posted by j810c at 12:15 PM - 5 comments

A homemade Princess Bride. Many of the actors are ID’d here. Fbo World Central Kitchen Please feel free to suggest tags.
posted by anshuman at 12:08 PM - 15 comments

The Tibetan Book of Proportions is an eighteenth century manual that gives precise iconometric guidelines for depicting the Buddha and Bodhisattva figures. Labels for each image in the book. Clouds. Buddha face and teaching mudra. Earth touching mudra and Tara. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye at 11:17 AM - 6 comments

“My sister and her friends had to give a series of lessons on the geological sciences to a class of primary school kids. So she asked me if I could make a spherical cake with all the layers of the Earth inside it. I told her I couldn’t do it. ‘How do you get a sphere inside a sphere inside a sphere?’ I recall saying. ‘Oh yeah,’ she replied, realising what it would involve. I kept mulling it over until I had a breakthrough.” [more inside]
posted by ambrosen at 10:26 AM - 29 comments

Twenty years of doubting your commitment to Sparkle Motion - an oral history of the making of Donnie Darko. [more inside]
posted by dnash at 8:54 AM - 36 comments

The one time home run king has passed away at the age of 86. One of the last stars to come out of the Negro Leagues, Aaron played a 24 year career with the Braves, famously beating Babe Ruth's career home run record - for which he faced death threats for doing so. [more inside]
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:35 AM - 65 comments

An in depth RF focused teardown and analysis of a Starlink base station antennae.
posted by loquacious at 8:01 AM - 10 comments

10 gigapixels of a three hundred and fifty year old painting, made up of 9,100 individual photographs of the 17" by 15" canvas. Clicking on specific sections of the individual painting to zoom in and reveal cracks, specks of dust, brush strokes, the tiny shadows cast from a heavier spot of paint in a minor section, and to try and understand some of the creative ability involved was one of the most religious experiences of my last few years. The work even allows a topographical view! I often try to get as close as possible to paintings in a museum to see in detail the work of the artist so this incredible opportunity left me breathless. [more inside]
posted by humuhumu at 4:30 AM - 14 comments

Mira Furlan, best known for her roles as Delenn in Babylon 5 and Danielle Rousseau in Lost, has died at age 65. Furlan was a member of the Croatian National Theatre and frequently appeared in Yugoslav television and films. She played Ankica Vidmar in the 1985 film When Father Was Away on Business, which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. J. Michael Straczynski's In Memoriam.
posted by adrianhon at 2:22 AM - 86 comments

Have you ever wondered whether expensive clothes are worth their price? Or had that subtle feeling of guilt when buying something pricey, and then justifying it because you will wear it so many times, even if you have no clue if it’s actually true? If you thought yes, then this is for you. 4800 words from Olof Hoverfält at Reaktor.
posted by cgc373 at 1:01 AM - 55 comments

From Aprikosenwähe and Birchermüesli to Zigerhöräli, Helvetic Kitchen has been posting hundreds of Swiss recipes since 2015.
posted by jedicus at 9:18 PM - 6 comments

You Don't Need Science to Tell You Why You Like a Song Musicologist Linda Shaver-Gleason points out that we can like music just because... This from a newsletter of WQXR, the NYC classical station, discussing the (lack of) scientific merit to the claim that Mozart makes you smarter. Mozart's birthday is coming up on January 27.
posted by geekP1ng at 6:56 PM - 45 comments

The first injectable treatment for HIV-infected adults has been approved in Europe, Canada, and (as of today) the US. Monthly injections of cabotegravir/rilpivirine (brand name Cabenuva) were found to be as effective as daily oral antiretrovirals at maintaining viral suppression, and injections every other month were effective too. Also, the same drug given every other month is highly effective in preventing HIV but not yet approved. [more inside]
posted by esoterrica at 5:22 PM - 9 comments

Exploring the Supply Chain of COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines Somewhat technical (but fascinating) summary of how the giant poly-dimensional intermeshing of modern industrial and scientific society is used to validate, produce, formulate, package, distribute, administer and monitor COVID-19 vaccines to billions of people. [more inside]
posted by lalochezia at 4:30 PM - 9 comments

With seasoned skill, the men hoist the blue-bottomed wooden boat atop a four-wheel drive vehicle that will take it from this inland hideaway to the Western Sahara shore. From there, the boat is meant to take 20 to 30 migrants into the Atlantic Ocean and across what the European Union’s border agency calls “the most dangerous migratory route in the world.”
posted by sammyo at 3:42 PM - 3 comments

Recently, there was news that the train dispatching system of Dalian Railway in Liaoning Province was directly paralyzed due to the suspension of Flash, after which technical staff installed a reduced version of pirated Flash to solve the problem.
posted by signal at 3:13 PM - 31 comments

Chris Ramsay likes to solve puzzles. Lots and lots of puzzles. Puzzle boxes, lock puzzles, furniture puzzles, puzzles made from Lego, and very weird jigsaw puzzles.
posted by garrett at 3:04 PM - 3 comments

You're wondering now (Andy and Joey) what to do (The Specials) now you know (The Skatalites) this is the end (Isaac et Nora). [more inside]
posted by biogeo at 2:34 PM - 10 comments

We don't actually need another post to tell us that Hades is very good, right? But Scott Benson, animator and developer on Night in the Woods, spins his list of the best games of 2020 into a surprisingly tender essay on Kentucky Route Zero, capitalism, loss, solidarity, surviving the apocalypse or the post-apocalypse, and Sid the very sick kitten. [more inside]
posted by Jeanne at 2:26 PM - 11 comments

...we will wake and greet the dawn, knowing that your wicked life is over and that we will carry on.
posted by Sokka shot first at 12:38 PM - 13 comments

Workers at Hunts Point Market, a Bronx-based food hub that supplies 60% of the produce in New York City, are on day five of their first strike in 35 years. [more inside]
posted by rabbitbookworm at 12:35 PM - 11 comments

Goodbye! [SLYT]
posted by haricotvert at 12:24 PM - 15 comments

Belgian photographer Niki Colemont shares some secrets of squirrel photography in this short video (SLYT).
posted by Harald74 at 10:15 AM - 12 comments

Watching others paint is relaxing, even when the painter is not the beloved Bob Ross and his happy trees and friendly squirrels. Why don’t you try watching someone paint over chill lo-fi beats? Maybe some speed paintings of Ghibli scenes backed by delicate piano music? Or what about more traditional landscapes in oil? How about plein air painting with instructional narration?
posted by tofu_crouton at 8:50 AM - 6 comments

"In a spark of genius, Holiday Inn saw an opportunity to retrofit existing properties and introduce new ones that would have year-round indoor pools. These pools formed the cornerstone of large indoor atria, which would also feature things like table games (like ping pong, pool, and foosball), restaurants and bars, mini-golf, shuffleboard, and arcade games." [more inside]
posted by brilliantine at 5:29 AM - 64 comments

Cryptoart - the category of art related to blockchain technology - has exploded over the course of the last year. This is in part due to platforms such as SuperRare offering 'tokenised' art pieces. These give people the ability to stake verifiable ownership of digital art works, as well as offering artists the ability to produce 'limited edition' digital art. But as Memo Atken found, the ecological damage of this rising art marketplace is staggering.
posted by secretdark at 3:02 AM - 54 comments

The finest of Corporate TikTok: @tegaalexander's Every work email thread ever, @cearajane's Every millennial vs. their boomer boss, @charles_rojas' SexySlack.
posted by adrianhon at 2:08 AM - 66 comments

HI EXCUSE ME, I just found out the the prof for this online course I’m taking *died in 2019* and he’s technically still giving classes since he’s *literally my prof for this course* and I’m learning from lectures recorded before his passing ..........it’s a great class but WHAT
posted by LarryC at 12:43 AM - 79 comments

TOBE NWIGWE | WAKE UP EVERYBODY (Teddy Pendergrass cover)

NYT: Tobe Nwigwe Never Planned to Go Viral. Then He Rapped About Breonna Taylor. (archive version)
Tobe Nwigwe: NPR Tiny Desk Concert (August 26, 2019) [more inside]
posted by Lexica at 6:32 PM - 8 comments

For utterly no reason, Sting and Stevie Wonder singing "Brand New Day"; "A Brand New Day" from The Wiz; the American Authors' "Best Day of My Life"; a neat cover of "Celebration"; Shirley Bassey (w/Orchestra!)'s cover of "Get the Party Started"; Barry Manilow's "Looks Like We Made It"; and, well, this one.
posted by metabaroque at 4:20 PM - 25 comments

While sea shanties and experiencing joy are in vogue, perhaps you would like to see The Longest Johns, recently famous as seed crystal of The Wellerman phenomenon on TikTok, making the video for their recent song Hoist Up The Thing.
posted by mhoye at 1:05 PM - 8 comments

For your consideration: Two deep dives on dithering techniques, from random thresholds to blue noise to error diffusion. Here's a listicle with example animations from a wide range of historical 1-bit games, including one recent and one upcoming game. [more inside]
posted by kaibutsu at 12:37 PM - 23 comments

Click for a made-up bit of folklore. This page generates two-sentence lore on demand. One sentence describes its origin while the next summarizes the story. For example, "There is a legend which comes from the book The Ghosts of Shildon & Stanley by Cleveland Kendall. In 1841, the Devil himself died of 'rising of the lights', contracted from a witch named Mother Liliana." [more inside]
posted by doctornemo at 8:47 AM - 26 comments

Joe Biden, Welfare King "Joe Biden's presidency could be one in which the toxic ideological bias against a proper welfare state and active government dies an extremely deserved death. Free money is both good and fun!" [more inside]
posted by schoolgirl report at 8:03 AM - 111 comments

The inauguration of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris: Live camera feed from C-Span; live updates from CNN; NYT live updates; NYT live stream and analysis; The Guardian live updates; NPR coverage beginning at 11 a.m. EST; streaming beginning at 10:30 a.m. EST at bideninaugural.org. [more inside]
posted by taz at 6:41 AM - 1041 comments

A report finds that 76% of internet users participate in online communities. (Up from 72% in 2017.) The report also says that 90% of Gen Z and Millennials are part of at least one online community. [more inside]
posted by veggieboy at 4:21 AM - 24 comments

The first complete, preserved, fossilised dinosaur butthole has been discovered. [single link dinosaur butthole science] [more inside]
posted by prismatic7 at 3:49 AM - 37 comments

This list documents the verbal attacks Mr. Trump posted on Twitter, from when he declared his candidacy in June 2015 to Jan. 8, when Twitter permanently barred him.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 12:13 AM - 27 comments

“Sea Shanty TikTok is the perfect expression of masculinity for 2021. In shanties, we find something both extremely manly and subversively tender.” Wikipedia entry on the “Wellerman” shanty. Full lyrics and more available here, on The Longest Song wiki.
posted by darkstar at 10:11 PM - 63 comments

Bad science, computational imperialism, and the economy of attention. Problems with the attempts to predict complex human traits like sexual and political orientations from facial features.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 9:34 PM - 7 comments

Since last summer, Cesar (also known as Guitar_Knight14) has been painstakingly recreating the musical Hamilton inside of Animal Crossing: New Horizons. After six months of work, he completed all of Act 1, which you can view as a YouTube playlist or a single hour-long video. [more inside]
posted by mbrubeck at 7:29 PM - 22 comments

Artist Spends 3 Months Planning and Folding Origami Samurai From a Single Sheet of Paper - "You can see how each of the parts develop in the folding process."
posted by kliuless at 5:43 PM - 17 comments

Have you ever considered owning a pet leech? You're not alone! While some might keep leeches for medicinal reasons (hirudotherapy, previously) there is a small, but enthusiastic, community of leech fans that sing the praises of these simple to care for creatures. If you are ready to welcome a new bloodsucking friend into your life then Emzotic's video has everything you need to know about leech care.
posted by forbiddencabinet at 4:52 PM - 40 comments

The USPS has announced their lineup of new stamps for 2021. Especially exciting is this stamp, Raven Story, designed by Tlingit artist Rico Lanáat’ Worl, this is thought to be the first time such a design has been illustrated by a Tlingit artist. Inspired by this recent post, Forever Leguin [more inside]
posted by winesong at 4:19 PM - 25 comments

“As a user of Instagram I want to have all the growth features at my fingertips in the tab bar so that I can help the growth PM hit KPIs.” More shit user stories at @shituserstories.
posted by adrianhon at 10:56 AM - 64 comments

Because of guano... The Incas were some of the earliest bird conservationists. And for the sake of seabird poo, the U.S. Congress authorized the earliest significant expansion beyond the North American continent in the Guano Islands Act of 1856, which "allowed (and still allows) any American who discovered an island with a large supply of guano to claim that island as an American territory." Haiti continues to demand the return of Navassa Island from the U.S.
posted by spamandkimchi at 10:50 AM - 9 comments