Smelling garlic through your feet, the intelligence of the octopus, firefighting rhinos and artisanal semiconductors, among many other things, viral videos and galleries. These are the Recommended Links of the Week, don't miss them!
You can smell and taste garlic through your feet (without anyone else noticing): "To test it for yourself, cut a fresh clove of garlic in half. Then, in a separate room that doesn't smell of garlic, take off your shoes and socks and place them in a plastic bag with the piece of garlic. After an hour, you will be able to taste and smell the garlic. How is that possible? Because your skin has greasy and watery layers, which protect it from external molecules. However, garlic contains a molecule called allicin, which has properties of both water and oil."
Yes, the octopus is very intelligent. But why?: "To demonstrate how intelligent an octopus can be, Piero Amodio directs us to a YouTube video. It shows an octopus joining two halves of a coconut shell to hide inside. Later, the animal stacks the shells like nesting bowls and carries them away. "He suggests that the octopus is carrying these tools because it has some understanding that they may be useful in the future", said Mr. Amodio, a graduate student studying animal intelligence at the University of Cambridge in Great Britain."
If a rhinoceros sees fire, it instinctively runs to put it out: "They might have known thanks to Stone Phillips and NBC's wonderful news coverage, or perhaps to The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980). Since the late 19th century, it was said that the Burmese, Indians, and Malays had a legend in which the rhinoceros ate fire. In Malay it had the name badak api (badak: rhinoceros, api: fire)."
UNIVAC, the computer that inspired Asimov: "Obviously, we cannot say that UNIVAC directly gave way to the personal computer, but without it first, home computing would not have existed, and today we would not be looking for a smartphone the size of our hand, infinitely more powerful than the first UNIVAC and that we have surely lost between the sofa cushions."
Lorna, from erotic comic in the Star Wars fever to science fiction story (NSFW): "In the late 70s, Azpiri created Lorna for the magazine Mastia, a kind of Interviu. They asked him to include sex, like Playboy comics, and sexual satire about Star Wars, the fashionable movie. The result was Lorna, a space adventurer who had sex with her robot, a C-3PO. Over the years, however, the character evolved to introduce social and ecological content in her adventures, which constituted a critique of capitalism."
Witchcraft in history and art: "Stories and legends about witches have existed since the late Middle Ages, when a genuine obsession with witchcraft and heresy broke out on the European continent as a result of the fears of the dominant religion: Christianity. Witch stories cannot be understood without Christianity, because from the doctrine of this faith a reaction is born. This reaction to the word of God manifested itself in many ways (all of them heretical according to the Church, of course), but perhaps Satanism and everything related to the Devil is the most suggestive, disturbing, and unknown."
'Doom', the first video game blamed for all violence: "A book reviews the history of Doom, the video game that revolutionized the world of electronic entertainment, laid the foundations for many of today's games, and set off alarms for adults due to its high doses of violence. On April 20, 1999, two teenagers from Colorado stormed into Columbine High School armed to the teeth, killed thirteen people, wounded more than twenty, and then committed suicide." The title is incorrect, because the first game to achieve that was Death Race, by Exidy, in 1976. You can read more in an old note I wrote about it.
History of IBM and its first personal computer and the figure of Chaplin as an advertising claim: "Almost 35 years ago, on August 12, 1981, the centenary IBM announced with great fanfare its first personal computer model, the IBM 5150 (more popularly known as the IBM PC). Its launch was a turning point by extending its use beyond the business and university fields, fields to which this technology had until then been confined. Not only that, but it also established software and hardware standards, laying the foundations for the architecture that the vast majority of computer manufacturers continue to use today."
Artisanal semiconductors: "We want to build all the necessary tools to make chips at home. Our philosophy is that there are great things that can be done with 1960-1980 technology by putting it in the hands of all the creative people interested in that field, who would have no other option. It is something similar to the 3D printers revolution, although somewhat more technical and specialized."
How cats can survive a fall from a skyscraper: "In the case of the cat that fell from the 32nd floor, after the vets treated a chipped tooth and its lungs, the feline returned home two days later. How on earth could it survive?"
History of innovation, or how power is sought with hammer blows: "From politics it has jumped to all fields, because not only must companies be innovative, but innovation must also occur in education, public services, cities, and practically any corner susceptible to change. Converted into a predominant value and reveling in a cult of novelty, innovation and progress go hand in hand: why?"
From Chaplin to H.P. Lovecraft, for the first time in 21 years thousands of American works will enter the public domain: "That is why, decades after an artist has died, their work is still protected by law. However, this protection does not last forever, or at least not yet. After a certain time, that work passes into the public domain; that means it becomes 'owned by everyone', and anyone can copy, imitate, or distribute it."
**VIDEOS**: How to build a Dyson sphere, what's inside a disco ball, man eating hot sauce, LEGO Indiana Jones, frozen fish comes back to life, eel vs eel, tungsten ball vs anvil, shipwreck simulator, what are patellas for, what is a Fourier Series?, first breath after lung transplant, Danny DeVito eating a hard-boiled egg, walking through Paris in the late 1890s, they pull something creepy out of the girl's nose, apetor wishes you Happy Holidays, and the short films: The Real Santa, Bilby (animated), The Last 7 (Korean short), and SHINE (Director's Cut).
**GALLERIES**: The monsters of Ivar Arosenius, the retrofuturistic kitchen, extreme temperatures in a small Russian town, beautiful photographic portraits of nuns, Peter Rzemiski's photographic archive, trees and their shyness, the best animal photos from Associated Press, the artist dog, Pierre Pellegrini's landscapes, wonders around the world, Stephan Schmitz's illustrations, Haiti's mobile pharmacies, retro beauties celebrating Christmas, the Christmas Truce of 1914, the Animated Dump and Visual Dump of the week, ending with a very fun neural app where you can create your own monsters.Ganbreeder.
