Month: September 2016

The most-trafficked animal on Earth isn’t a species of rhino or elephant—it’s the pangolin. If you’re not familiar with these unusual creatures, they’re badger-sized mammals native to Africa and Asia that resemble walking pinecones. According to some areas of traditional Chinese medicine, their scales can cure cancer, which makes the pangolin a valuable commodity in Asia. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) recently made a move that could help save the vulnerable species from extinction: As NPR reports, commercial trade of the pangolin is now officially banned under international law.

The 183 nations attending CITES came to the decision Monday, September 26, during the summit in Johannesburg, South Africa. All eight species of pangolin are now designated as “threatened with extinction” and protected under the strictest trade regulations the committee can grant. “This is a perfect example of when the international community can come together for a species that truly needs help, and enacts strong, global regulations that can make a real difference,” Mark Hofberg, assistant campaigns officer at the International Fund for Animal Welfare, said in a statement.

Pangolins have long been hunted for their scales, and lately they’ve been receiving the same attention for their meat. The animal is seen as a delicacy by the Chinese and Vietnamese middle class, and in some cases it’s the dish of choice when celebrating a business deal.

When threatened, the pangolin curls up into a tight ball to protect its face and armorless underbelly. This might provided adequate protection against most wildlife, but it leaves them defenseless against human poachers. According to Hofberg, “This decision gives real hope that extinction of pangolins may be prevented.”

[h/t NPR]

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It’s that time of year again. Prepare yourself for another round of people dressed as visual gags among the vampires and witches. The best pun costumes make people look at you, think for a moment, and then laugh. Here are some that might make you laugh right now!

1. ASSAULT AND BATTERY

When Above the Law held a costume contest for legally-themed Halloween costumes in 2010, they likely weren’t surprised when they got submissions like a ninja warrior or Lady Justice with her scales—but they probably didn’t anticipate two NYU students dressing up as a box of salt and a D battery. The pair won first place, based on votes from the site’s readers. When asked to comment on his loss, the ninja lawyer could not be found.

2. GANDALF

GandALF. #DragonCon2016 pic.twitter.com/Jaa23W0jPF

— Foot Pound Force (@FootPoundForce) September 23, 2016

When a cat-eating alien from Melmac meets the Lord of the Rings, you get GandALF. This ingenious costume was spotted at DragonCon this year.

3. ASH WEDNESDAY

Combine main Pokémon hunter Ash Ketchum (as in “You’ve gotta ‘Ketchum’ all!”) with Wednesday Addams from The Addams Family, and you get this amazingly dour costume. Bahamet234 shared this picture of her boyfriend’s punny Halloween look, probably telling him, “The world should get a good peek-at-you.”

4. BLACK-EYED PEAS

 

Instagram user mad_irene and a friend got together to make themselves into Black-Eyed Peas for Halloween in 2014. Band, chain restaurant, or legume reference? You decide.

5. HAN SOLO CUP

 

Who poured the shot first? Our favorite smuggler from Star Wars gets the “before and after” treatment. Pamela Kemp Grabinski wore this costume to DragonCon in 2013. And here’s a guy who pulled off the same idea in 2015.

6. JON SNOW WHITE

This guy knows something about a good punny costume. Jon Snow White definitely has something to crow about. Redditor mankardo posted this picture of his sister’s co-worker dressed as both a Disney princess and the Game of Thrones hero for Halloween. A commenter took this one step further and gave us Jon Snow White Stripes by replacing the sword with a guitar in Photoshop. Things got out of hand with the suggestion of Jon Snow White Walker Texas Ranger, but if you can pull that look off, we might see you on next year’s list.

7. THE SECOND AMENDMENT

 

Here’s Instagram user Rebecca Jobe exercising her right to bear arms.

8. JACKIE O. LANTERN

 

Combine Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s iconic ’60s hairdo and pillbox hat with a Halloween pumpkin, and you get Jackie O’Lantern. Very clever, and easier to pull off than Patty O’Furniture. Be the first lady at your party to try this look.

9. HOMER AND MARGE

This is what happens when you tell your husband he should dress like Homer, but don’t explain you’re dressing up as Marge. A Greek tragedy? More like a modern classic. All puns aside, the bubble wrap hair is a clever move.

10. DEAD PAN

 

Peter Pan wearing Day of the Dead skull makeup? Oh, I get it … solid Dead Pan delivery. Beats dressing up as a skillet and carrying around a tombstone all night.

11. ZOMBEE

Zombies are everywhere on Halloween, so you need to up your zombie game if you want to stand out. Majorxerocom used his brains and created a lot of buzz at a costume contest by dressing as a Zombee. Be prepared to weather a hundred Blind Melon references if you recreate this costume, though.

12. CEREAL KILLER

 

What’s one of the scariest things in our spooky campfire tales? A cereal killer. A punny costume classic that still earns its fair share of laughs.

13. CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT

 

Instagram member rbooboo could have been a Halloween hit with just the cat costume, but she went for the deep cut, referencing the old adage purrfectly.

Forget Instagram likes, there’s now a better reason to snap a picture of your food. Lose It, a weight loss and calorie tracking app from Boston-based FitNow, Inc., recently released a new feature called Snap It that makes it easier to log all of your meals—just by taking a photo of your food, Engadget reports.

The new app uses advanced machine learning and the company’s database to identify meals and their calorie count solely from a photo. It can also log items by way of the bar code on food packaging and suggest low-calorie menu items available at nearby restaurants.

The app, currently in beta, boasts about an 87 to 97 percent accuracy rate within its dataset and offers users a list of suggestions if it doesn’t get it right the first time. The company hopes that with more use, the app will be able to build a better database and eventually become more precise.

“Ultimately we want to make understanding your diet as simple as Fitbit made understanding your activity,” FitNow, Inc. CEO Charles Teague said. “Snap It is going to give us the opportunity to reach a whole new set of users that may have found tracking frustrating or might’ve never even tried it because it seemed too time consuming. When tracking is a simple as snapping a picture, it becomes accessible to nearly everyone.”

Lose It is free in the Apple App Store for iOS and Google Play Store for Android.

[h/t Engadget]

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If you’re looking to be enthralled and creeped out at the same time, look no further than this timelapse of the Great Barrier Reef by Antonio Rodríguez Canto. The filmmaker took over 25,000 photos over the course of a year, which are stitched together to create this four-minute video. With music from Cedric Baravaglio, Jonathan Ochmann and Zdravko Djordjevic, you can enjoy a number of different types of coral as they shift and change.

The footage is really stunning, if perhaps a little disturbing; While the montage offers incredible and vibrant colors, the pulsing of the coral can be a bit unsettling. Some of the coral shown includes Acanthophyllia, Trachyphyllia, Heteropsammia, Physogyra, Fungia, Zoanthus, Duncanopsammia, Goniopora, Plerogyra and Scolimia, all in their creepy glory. Still, the dazzling patterns and bursting colors will make you forget about the coral’s strange throbbing, at least for a moment.

[h/t SPLOID]

Primary image courtesy of Vimeo.

Know of something you think we should cover? Email us at tips@mentalfloss.com.

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