The psychedelic venom of desert toads, a ton of European comics, the Starhopper flight, and how to argue with a flat-earther are part of the menu you'll find this week in our recommended links. Are you going to miss them?
The venom of these toads produces a state of euphoria superior to LSD that lasts for weeks: "The species in question is the Sonoran Desert toad or Colorado River toad (Incilius alvarius). Glands on the skin of these animals secrete a compound called 5-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine (5-MeO-DMT) and it is so powerful that its use outside the scientific field is prohibited in many countries. Fortunately for us, scientists are also curious about the use that can be given to this substance, and to investigate it, they have administered it in a controlled manner to a group of 42 volunteers."
Collector discovers lost Konami Famicom games and dumps them so they can be emulated: "Today one might think that the entire history of a great game company like Konami would be well documented. But this is wrong in the case of Space School, a series of educational Famicom games that Konami designed for Japanese elementary school children in the 80s. Designed in collaboration with the Japanese TV network NHK, the Space School series was never available in stores, and could only be purchased directly by the schools themselves."
23 gems of European comics worth discovering: "Thousands of albums and volumes of various formats with a great variety of authors and themes. The European comic, dominated above all by the Franco-Belgian market, has a very long tradition of masterpieces and gems that, perhaps, have gone unnoticed by us. That is why at Xataka we are going to review today 23 great European comics that are worth discovering."
The enigmatic case (or not) of twelve consecutive births of girls in a small town in Poland: "In this boreal summer heat, where the usual news takes a break and the interns on duty in the media have to work hard to find news to fill the pages of newspapers or the time of news broadcasts, a small Polish town has achieved its Warholian 15 minutes of fame: since the last twelve births in the long period of more than a decade have all been girls, which has given rise to all kinds of speculation." Read the comments!
The repugnance principle and the X factor: "After the more than unpleasant affair of the genetically modified twins by scientist He Jiankui, now we have Russian biologist Denis Rebrikov, wanting to emulate the Chinese. These follies, reprehensible at all levels, seem to give reason to all the bioconservatives who speak out against any form of genetic editing. They seem to tell us: See what happens if we play at being gods? We have hardly done anything more than begin with synthetic biology, and we are already skipping every moral norm."
She gives birth twice in 11 weeks, a strange case of twin pregnancy that happens in one in every 50 million births: "As improbable as it may seem, the case of Lilliya Konovalova is real, although so strange that it only happens in one in every 50 million twin births that occur in the world. And it is that this 29-year-old woman has given birth to twins 11 weeks apart, with her first daughter being born prematurely and her second baby at full term. We tell you why this strange phenomenon occurs that has surprised the doctors who have attended her."
Google and how to end a corporate culture: "For many workers in many companies, nothing new under the sun. That the corporate culture of companies tends to 'flatten' dissent and to consider that discussion on topics not directly related to work should be left out of the work environment is, basically, normal. But at Google, such a stance represents such a brutal change that it is hard to think that many of its workers will be able to accept it, and even more so when it comes as a change of guidelines imposed without any hint of discussion."
The Starhopper flight: "And, finally, SpaceX has demonstrated that rockets shaped like water tanks are capable of taking off and landing vertically. After the little 18-meter hop that the Starhopper gave on July 26, the first 'real' flight has been delayed, in part due to the FAA's delay in granting the flight permit to Elon Musk's company (according to the original permit, SpaceX could only make flights of 25 meters in height). Anyway, the gadget took off at 22:02 UTC on August 27, 2019 from SpaceX's facilities in Boca Chica (Texas) and rose to a height of about 150 meters"
This Spanish studio is recreating the motorcycles from 'Dragon Ball': "They haven't dared with Goku's cloud, but everything will come in time. Or it will fly. Bel&Bel designs vehicles out of the ordinary. This studio, founded in 2005 in Barcelona, has already created two Dragon Ball motorcycles. They are two visually striking vehicles and totally faithful to Akira Toriyama's manga vision. But what impresses most is not this but their functionality. "Both are functional motorcycles," its creators clarify, assuring that "it's the first time something like this has been done, until now only figures or props had been made.""
The artist who showed us that we are full of loneliness and repressed desires: "Possibly one of the most important painters of contemporary American art is Edward Hopper; his work reflects a repetitive and constant theme, represents characters in modern buildings but immersed in a deep melancholy. Many art critics consider his work essential, since it addresses themes about industrial and technological growth, an environment in which as living beings we feel increasingly isolated, alien to the reality around us and strangers before a world that we still try to understand."
How to argue with a flat-earther (and win): "Most of the arguments of flat-earthers are easily refutable, and come from a deeply anthropocentric and simplistic conception of the universe. In contrast, the vision that science proposes requires a certain level of abstraction; that is, we cannot observe with the naked eye, nor experience through our own experience, the phenomena that govern the universe. In fact, this is precisely what makes us human: the physical limitations we present, which prove precisely that we are not the center of the universe and, probably, nor the only beings that inhabit it."
They discover the oldest DNA of a parasite in fossilized puma feces: "The study of a coprolite (fossilized feces) of a puma discovered in the paleontological and archaeological refuge of Peñas de las Trampas, in the province of Catamarca (Argentina), has revealed the oldest DNA of a parasite, with an age between 16,570 and 17,000 years. This genetic material belongs to eggs of the worm Toxascaris leonina, a species that is still common to find in the digestive systems of cats, dogs and foxes, according to biologist Romina Petrigh, from the National University of Mar del Plata (Argentina), who explained to Sinc."
VÍDEOS: How to cross a flooded street, how to get syphilis, the real Spider-Man, low-budget Avengers: Endgame, beautiful skateboard loop, Russian pilots write in the sky, office chair accident, self-destructing polymer, scares his mom, the screwdriver prank, the trash artist, skater showdown, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" but with missing notes, an almost abandoned shopping center, the best meals in cult movies, computer animation from 1968, farting while making eye contact, high jump record, atomic vodka from Chernobyl, cooking in a well, Freddie Mercury DeepFake, From 0-100 years, amphibious caravan, crazy accident on a movie set, super zoom, Matrioska and the short The Wrong End of the Stick
GALERÍAS: Beautiful vintage-style video game maps, the animals of Goran Anastasovski, painting with her breasts, wedding at Crystal Lake, the fog in London at the beginning of the 20th century, photos of Greenland, frozen flowers, the girl with giant eyes, the photographer who preferred stray cats to runway models, monstrous illustrations by Stephen Fabian, the Swiss underground of the 50s, wool animals by Anna Yastrezhembovskaya, the Animated Dump and Visual Dump.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR VISIT!
https://old.neoteo.com/creepypasta-scp-323/
