Author: Kirstin Fawcett

Chicago is overrun with rats, and residents hope that feral cats will save the day. As The Wall Street Journal reports, an explosion in the Windy City’s rodent population has caused desperate homeowners and businesses to adopt stray felines from shelters en masse. They hope that if they treat the kitties well, they’ll stick around and hunt neighborhood vermin. But thanks to skyrocketing demand, it’s no longer so easy to adopt an alley cat.

Chicago’s weather is notoriously cold, but last year’s mild winter meant that more baby rats survived to see adulthood. They multiplied, and by September 2016, the city’s rat complaints had increased 40 percent from 2015, according to The WSJ.

In response, animal rescue outlets have received so many requests for cats that one rescue program, the Tree House Humane Society’s Cats at Work program, has a six-month waitlist for adoption. (The Cats at Work Program traps, spays or neuters, and microchips feral felines, and gives them to Chicagoans with rat problems.) Paul Nickerson, the program’s manager, was even offered bribes by a local restaurateur wanting to hurry up the process.

“If people found out I was bumping people to the front of the list they would kill me,” Nickerson told DNAinfo Chicago. “I just can’t do it, it’s just not fair to everybody.”

To encourage their wild guests to make themselves at home, people are treating their adopted feral cats like kings. Local brewery Empirical Brewery built its adopted strays a custom, multi-tier cat condo, and other adoptive cat owners have constructed feeding stations, installed heated cat houses, and spoiled their finicky kitties with tasty food.

But feral cats alone won’t solve Chicago’s rat problem. To curb the rodent population, locals are also employing other methods, including injecting dry ice into rat nests to asphyxiate them, offering public education campaigns, and even launching an official Bureau of Rodent Control under the city’s sanitation department.

[h/t The Wall Street Journal]

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Newborns in Finland sleep in boxes, not bassinets. Now, thanks to Canadian health officials, many infants in Nunavut will, too. As the CBC reports, the region’s health and education departments have joined forces to hand out more than 800 “baby boxes” to new parents in Canada’s northernmost province. They hope that the boxes will help reduce the region’s high infant mortality rates, as they did when they were first introduced in Finland nearly 80 years ago.

Baby boxes are cardboard containers filled with all the basic newborn essentials: clothing, sheets, toys, diapers, and hygiene products. They even come with a tiny mattress, so infants can sleep in the empty boxes once their contents are removed. According to experts, these makeshift box-beds lower babies’ chances of dying from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), since they prevent them from rolling onto their stomachs [PDF].

Finland’s government began handing out baby boxes in the late 1930s. Initially, they were only given to low-income families, but soon they were gifted to all new parents, regardless of socioeconomic status. They’re credited with lowering the nation’s infant mortality rate from 90 in 1000 to less than two in 1000, the CBC reports.

Naturally, Canadian officials hope the boxes will also help babies in Nunavut. Nunavut is Canada’s most sparsely populated province, but it also has the highest birth rate, along with the nation’s highest rate of infant mortality—a rate five times higher than the national average.

For the most part, Nunavut’s baby boxes are like Finland’s, although they contain unique, culturally-specific items like children’s books written in the Inuit language. The boxes also include family planning materials for parents, like condoms and brochures on baby care and various health risks.

Nunavut’s new baby box initiative was piloted in Alberta earlier this year, through a program called “Welcome to Parenthood,” Huffington Post Canada reports. Now that it’s arrived in Nunavut, the province’s Department of Health will hand out the boxes to parents in 25 communities over the course of the next year (and beyond, if the program is successful). Parents can register for the boxes at prenatal appointments or community health centers.

“Reducing the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) and infant mortality is a priority,” said Minister of Health George Hickes in a news statement published by The Arctic Journal. “I’m thrilled that Nunavut is taking the lead on this baby box initiative—the first publicly funded universal program of its kind in Canada.”

[h/t CBC]

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Around 3.4 million cats enter shelters each year, and only 37 percent of them find forever homes. That’s why animal welfare advocates marked October 29th as National Cat Day, an annual day of awareness to promote feline adoption. This Saturday, celebrate Felis silvestris in all its furry glory by brushing up on the 50 bits of trivia below.

1. Cats spend around 30 to 50 percent of their day grooming themselves. This behavior serves several purposes: It helps cats tone down their scent so they can avoid predators, it cools them down, it promotes blood flow, and it distributes natural oils evenly around the coat, allowing them to stay warm and dry. Grooming also serves as a sign of affection between two cats, and it’s thought that saliva contains enzymes that serve as a natural antibiotic for wounds.

2. Just because a cat is purring doesn’t mean it’s happy. Cats often make the sound when they’re content, but they also purr when they’re sick, stressed, hurt, and giving birth.

3. Scientists don’t quite know why cats purr, but one hypothesis is that the sound frequency of purring—between 25 and 150 Hertz—”can improve bone density and promote healing,” theorizes Leslie A. Lyons, an assistant professor at the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of California, Davis, in an article for Scientific American. “Because cats have adapted to conserve energy via long periods of rest and sleep, it is possible that purring is a low energy mechanism that stimulates muscles and bones without a lot of energy.”

4. Ever wonder why catnip lulls felines into a trance? The herb contains several chemical compounds, including one called nepetalactone, which a cat detects with receptors in its nose and mouth. The compounds trigger the typical odd behaviors you associate with the wacky kitty weed, including sniffing, head shaking, head rubbing, and rolling around on the ground.

5. More than half of the world’s felines don’t respond to catnip. Scientists still don’t know quite why some kitties go crazy for the aromatic herb and others don’t, but they have figured out that catnip sensitivity is hereditary. If a kitten has one catnip-sensitive parent, there’s a one-in-two chance that it will also grow up to crave the plant. And if both parents react to ‘nip, the odds increase to at least three in four.

6. Can’t afford a private eye? A feline might be able do the job for free. In the 1960s, ambassador Henry Helb—who then lived in the Dutch Embassy in Moscow—noticed that his two Siamese kitties were arching their backs and clawing at one of the walls. Helb had a hunch that the cats heard something he couldn’t, and sure enough, he found 30 tiny microphones hidden behind the boards.

Instead of busting the spies, Helb and his staff took advantage of the surveillance and griped about household repairs or packages stuck in customs while standing in front of the mics. The eavesdroppers took care of their complaints—and apart from Helb and his companions, no one was the wiser.

7. Chances are, your cat hates your music—but they might like tunes written by composer David Teie, who partnered with animal scientists to make an album called Music for Cats. Released in 2015, the songs are “based on feline vocal communication and environmental sounds that pique the interest of cats,” Teie’s website states.

8. If you adore felines, you’re in good company: Many of history’s most famous figures—including Florence Nightingale, Pope Paul II, Mark Twain, and the Brontë sisters—all owned, and loved, cats.

9. Still, the title of history’s craziest cat man might go to President Abraham Lincoln. Mary Todd Lincoln was once asked if her husband had any hobbies. Her response? “Cats!”

10. A Kindle isn’t just an e-reader—it’s also a word that’s used to describe a group of kittens born to one mama cat. Meanwhile, a group of full-grown cats is called a clowder.

11. The Guinness World Records doesn’t award the world’s fattest pets since officials don’t want to encourage people to overfeed their pets. But in 2003, a Siamese cat named Katy was a serious contender for the record. Katy, who lived in Asbest, Russia, was given hormones to stop her mating. The treatment had an unintended side effect: It dramatically increased her appetite, and the hungry kitty ballooned to 50 pounds.

12. In 1988, a rich British antique dealer named Ben Rea loved his cat Blackie so much that when he died, he left most of his estate—nearly $13 million—to the lucky (albeit likely indifferent) feline. The money was split among three cat charities, which had been instructed to keep an eye on Rea’s beloved companion. To this day, Blackie holds the Guinness World Record for Wealthiest Cat.

13. As for the world’s oldest living cat, the title belongs to a 30-year-old Siamese named Scooter, who currently lives in Mansfield, Texas with his owner, Gail Floyd.

14. Ever wondered why your cat likes to rhythmically massage you with its paws? Experts haven’t figured out why cats like to knead, but they’ve come up with several possible explanations, one being that your kitty is trying to mark their “territory” (that’s you!) with the scent glands in their paws. And since kittens knead their mama’s belly to stimulate milk production, there’s also a chance that they carry this behavior into adulthood—a phenomenon known as a “neotenic behavior.”

15. Looking to elevate your vocabulary? Try using the word “ailurophile” in a casual conversation. It’s a fancy word for “cat lover,” and it’s derived from the Greek word for cat, ailouros, and the suffix –phile, meaning “lover.” Conversely, the word ailurophobe—a combination of ailouros plus phobe—describes someone who hates cats.

16. In 2015, a 6-by-8.5-foot oil painting billed as the “world’s largest cat painting” sold at auction for more than $820,000. It’s called My Wife’s Lovers, and it once belonged to a wealthy philanthropist named Kate Birdsall Johnson. She loved felines so much that she owned dozens (some even say hundreds) of kitties, and commissioned a painter to capture her Turkish Angoras and Persians in their natural element. Since Johnson’s husband called the clowder “my wife’s lovers,” the nickname was selected as the artwork’s title.

17. Contrary to popular belief, cats don’t always land on their feet when they fall. But more often than not, all four paws end up touching the ground. Cats have a fantastic sense of balance, so they’re able to tell “up” from down and adjust their bodies accordingly. If they sense they’re plummeting downwards, they twist their flexible backbones mid-air, allowing them to right themselves so they don’t fall splat on their backs. Additionally, cats can spread their legs out to “parachute” through the air, plus they’re also small, light-boned, and covered in thick fur—meaning their fall isn’t going to be as hard as, say, a dog’s.

18. In 2015, America’s most popular cat breed was the Exotic Shorthair—a flat-faced kitty that’s essentially a short-haired version of a Persian cat. The second most beloved breed was the Persian, and Maine Coons ranked at No. 3.

19. The musical Cats is based on a collection of T.S. Eliot poems called Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. Published in 1939, it follows the whimsical antics of a group of felines—but the manuscript was originally intended to feature dogs, too. In the end, though, Eliot determined that “dogs don’t seem to lend themselves to verse quite so well, collectively, as cats.”

20. On October 18, 1963, French scientists used a rocket to launch the first cat into space. The feline’s name was Félicette, and she made it safely to the ground following a parachute descent.

21. A train station in Southeastern Japan is presided over by an adorable “stationmaster”: a 6-year-old calico cat named Nitama. The Kishi train station near Wakayama City hired Nitama in 2015, just a few months after its prior feline mascot, Tama, died from acute heart failure at the age of 16.

22. Even if you’re not allergic to cats, your cat might be allergic to you. One in 200 cats are believed to have asthma—and this number continues to rise among indoor kitties as they’re more frequently exposed to cigarette smoke, dust, human dandruff, and pollen.

23. Greyhound dogs are the ones with a bus line named after them, but cats are pretty speedy, too: The average running feline can clock around 30 miles per hour.

24. Nobody quite knows why black cats are considered to be bad luck, but this myth has persisted across Western civilization for centuries. Felines with dark fur first became linked with the Devil during the Middle Ages, and when the Black Death pandemic ravaged Europe in the mid-14th century, superstitious individuals responded by killing off the black cat population. Little did they know that vermin carried the deadly disease and that the rodent-eating cats actually helped curb its spread. And black cats eventually became associated with witches because women accused of practicing black magic tended to adopt alley cats as companions.

25. Black cats are considered to be a bad omen in the U.S., but in Great Britain and Japan, they’re perceived as auspicious. In the English Midlands, new brides are given black cats to bless their marriage, and the Japanese believe that black cats are good luck—particularly for single women. Meanwhile, the Germans believe that a black cat crossing your path from left to right is ominous, but if the feline switches directions and goes right to left, it’s fortuitous.

26. The ancient Egyptians revered cats, and even worshiped a half-feline goddess named Bastet. People who harmed or killed cats faced harsh legal sentences, including the death penalty.

27. The world’s first major cat show was held at London’s Crystal Palace in July 1871. Hundreds of felines (and dozens of breeds) were placed on display, and around 200,000 guests are said to have attended the event.

28. Remember Nyan Cat? The famous viral meme of a gray kitty with a Pop-Tart body who shoots rainbows from its posterior (the internet, folks!) was based on a real-life feline: a Russian Blue named Marty, owned by Nyan cat illustrator Chris Torres.

29. Most cats weigh in the single or low-double digits, but some breeds are truly huge. For instance, Norwegian Forest Cats, Maine Coons, and Ragdolls often range in weight from 15-22 pounds.

30. Long before Keyboard Cat took the internet by storm, inventor Thomas Edison filmed two kitties “boxing” inside a ring. Created in 1894, the brief clip proves that humans have been obsessed with cute cat videos since long before the advent of YouTube.

31. Remember Socks the Cat, the black-and-white tuxedo cat owned by Bill Clinton’s family during his time in the Oval Office? During the early 1990s, Super Nintendo Entertainment System created a video game called Socks the Cat, featuring the First Feline. It was never officially released, and when the game’s publisher shut down, Socks the Cat was lost for years, until video game collector Tom Curtin bought the (reportedly) only existing copy, purchased the rights, and partnered with game publisher Second Dimension to give it a second life. Socks the Cat is slated for an official release in 2017.

32. Some Maine Coon cats are born with six toes.

33. Sphinx cats don’t have fur coats, but their body temperature is still four degrees warmer than a typical feline.

34. Male cats have barbed penises. While painful for the lady cat, they do serve a purpose: The barbs stimulate the vulva, allowing the female to ovulate, and they also keep her from escaping mid-coitus. (Felines are typically loners, and not that into sex.)

35. If you went to college, you’re more likely to have a cat than a dog. In 2010, researchers from the University of Bristol surveyed 3000 people about their pets, geography, and scholastic history. They found that people with university degrees were 1.36 times more likely to own a kitty than other pet owners. This phenomenon might be attributed to the fact that cats are low-maintenance, and therefore better companions for accomplished people with busy careers.

36. Why do cats love to cuddle up in boxes? Animal experts think that the enclosed spaces make felines feel more protected, secure, and important—kind of like they’re back in the womb. (Sure enough, researchers found that when shelter cats are provided with boxes to cuddle up in, they adjust faster and are less stressed than kitties that aren’t given boxes.) Also, sleeping in a box might help a feline retain more body heat so it stays nice and toasty, and therefore relaxed.

37. Experts think that cats hate water because it’s uncomfortable to have soggy fur, or because it’s frightening for a kitty to lose control of its buoyancy.

38. While many kitties hate water, not all do. Breeds including the Turkish Van, the Maine Coons, and Bengals are said to enjoy taking a dip every now and then.

39. Cats are genetically predisposed to not being able to taste sweets. They will likely nibble off your plate if it contains meat, but they’ll leave it alone if it’s laden with cake.

40. A cat has 244 bones in its entire body—even more than a human, who only has 206 bones.

41. Nobody knows quite why cats meow, but experts think they might be channeling their inner kitten. Baby cats make the plaintive noises to get their mother’s attention, but as full-grown felines, they don’t meow while interacting with other cats. Some experts think that felines use the noises they made as infants with humans to convey their emotions and physical needs.

42. Cats sweat through their paws (and sometimes when they get very hot they pant).

43. According to one estimate, a cat spends nearly two-thirds of its life asleep.

44. The iconic Algonquin Hotel in midtown Manhattan owns a pampered lobby cat named Matilda III. She’s one of 11 rescue felines that have lived in the storied institution since the early 1920s.

45. In the 1870s, the city of Liège, Belgium tried to train 37 cats to deliver the mail. Letters were enclosed in waterproof bags tied around the kitties’ necks, but it turns out that cats weren’t great at delivering the goods on time (or to the correct address).

46. Approximately 200 feral cats roam the grounds of Disneyland, where they help control the amusement park’s rodent population. They’re all spayed or neutered, and park staffers provide them with medical care and extra food.

47. The Hungarian word for “quotation marks,” macskaköröm, literally translates to “cat claws.”

48. Napoleon, Caesar, Genghis Khan, and Hitler are all said to have hated cats.

49. There are an estimated 74 to 96 million pet cats in the U.S. In contrast, there are only an estimated 70 to 80 million dogs.

50. A cat can jump up to five times its height, or six times its length—and make the entire thing look easy.

All images via iStock.

Ever felt the impulse to run into the closet, shut the door, and scream? The owners of Bab Aldonia, a bookstore in Cairo, Egypt, know how you feel. In fact, Reuters UK reports, they empathize with stressed-out patrons so much that they created a designated “scream room.” Customers can enter the dark, soundproof room for free, and yell to their hearts’ content for 10 minutes.

The room was originally used for music practice, but one of the store’s customers suggested the creative alternate use to Heidi Radwan, the store’s co-owner. Initially, Radwan told CNN, she thought the idea “sounded crazy.” But she did a little research, and discovered that the urge to relieve tension by screaming is a universal one. For example, indigenous cultures in Canada use yelling as a method of traditional mood therapy, and in Japan, merchants sell scream pots, or “shouting vases,” that muffle yells of frustration. 

Bab Aldonia’s quirky business gimmick ended up being a success. “It’s good for everyday stress. People go there and scream to let go of their daily problems,” Radwan told CNN. “When Cairo gets too much, and there are too many people around, you can go there and scream in the dark.” The room even comes complete with a drum set, which customers bang on to relieve additional tension.

There are a few rules: Customers aren’t allowed to bring their phones into the room, and only one person is allowed in it at a time. However, co-owner Abdel Rahman Saad told HuffPost Arabi that the scream room is open to all individuals, regardless of background, “because everyone is suffering from pressures in life.” 

Right now, people seem to be yelling about the scream room from the rooftops, as it’s reportedly even more popular among visitors than Bab Aldonia’s vast book selection or café. People reportedly travel long distances to try it out for themselves, and Radwan believes the room’s popularity will soon inspire other merchants to open similar attractions.

If there’s nothing like Bab Aldonia’s scream room in your city, you can peek inside the store’s stress-relief chamber by watching the video below.

[h/t Travel + Leisure]

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The Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn is filled with chemicals, waste, and junk. But for those interested in New York’s past, its murky depths might also contain intriguing historical debris. Over the next four weeks, The Village Voice reports, cleanup workers will dredge 36 large items from the water, including two wrecked ships and a fallen tree. Onlookers who swing by the canal’s Fourth Street Turning Basin might be able to catch a glimpse of these forgotten artifacts for themselves before the contractors finally dispose of them.

This project marks the pilot stage of a multi-year endeavor to rid the notoriously filthy Gowanus Canal of its toxins and debris. Built in the mid-19th century, the nearly 2-mile-long body of water was once used as an industrial transportation hub that emptied into New York Harbor. Over the decades, it became severely contaminated with waste from factories, chemical plants, and nearby sewer systems. Today, the Gowanus Canal is considered to be one of America’s most toxic bodies of water. To tackle the pollution head-on, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) designated it as a Superfund site and called for an ambitious, multi-million dollar cleanup initiative.

The EPA used sonar to locate large items, like a 63-foot sunken ship that was once used to ferry passengers to Fire Island, and a floating sculpture that sank in 2015. Over the next month, contractors will pull them out of the water, use a barge to transport them to a staging area near Smith and Huntington streets, and then dispose of them. (Ultimately, the final graveyards of these items will be determined by how toxic they are.) None of the items are expected to be historically significant, but there “might be some surprises,” the EPA’s community involvement coordinator Natalie Loney told DNAinfo.

Once all the debris is finally removed from the basin, cleanup crews will dredge contaminated sediment out of the basin, take steps to ensure that remaining toxins can’t leak out, and then focus their attentions on other sections of the canal. The entire project is expected to be completed by 2022.

[h/t The Village Voice]

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Pick up nearly any book, and you’ll see pithy praises printed on its back or inside the dust jacket, usually written by a well-known author or public figure. You likely know that they’re called “blurbs”—but did you ever stop and wonder how these mini-reviews got their name, or who wrote the very first one?

If you think that “blurb” sounds more like a joke phrase than a highbrow publishing term, you’re not too far from the truth. Frank Gelett Burgess—the artist, author, and humorist who’s credited with coining “blurb”—wrote a short book titled Are You a Bromide? in 1906, and presented a special edition of the work at the American Booksellers Association’s annual convention the following year.

Are You a Bromide? was a mocking expression that Burgess used to describe dull, predictable individuals. (It borrows from a chemical compound of the same name, made from the element bromine, which was used as a component of sedatives.) The book was a smashing success, and today “bromide” is used to describe platitudes spouted by unoriginal, insincere, or simply boring people. But while designing a promotional jacket for the convention, Burgess inadvertently ended up inventing a far more enduring word.

Novels of the time period often featured a picture of a sultry or spirited woman on the cover, so Burgess put his own playful spin on the practice: His cover featured a picture of a young lady, hand cupped around her mouth as she presumably shouts praises about the work. Burgess labeled her “Miss Belinda Blurb,” and wrote that she was “in the act of blurbing.”

Burgess—who included mockingly effusive praises on Are You a Bromide?’s book jacket—pokes fun at the boastful practice, wryly noting, “Yes, this is a ‘BLURB’! All the Other Publishers commit them. Why Shouldn’t We?” Over time, people began to associate the word “blurb” with the fulsome reviews, and lo and behold, Burgess’s comical stunt was immortalized in history.

Burgess named blurbs, but as NPR pointed out, scholars believe they existed at least a half-century before the popular humorist poked fun at them. History’s first known blurb was written in 1856 for a then-obscure American poet: Walt Whitman. His vastly more famous literary contemporary Ralph Waldo Emerson received an unsolicited first edition of Leaves of Grass (1855) and enjoyed it so much that he sent Whitman a letter praising the work. A few months later, The New York Tribune published the missive’s full contents, with Whitman’s approval.

Turns out, Whitman didn’t just have a gift for words, he was also a skilled publicist. In 1856, the second edition of Leaves of Grass was released and, sure enough, its spine was embossed with a quote from Emerson’s letter: “I greet you at the beginning of a great career,” the sentence read in gold-leaf lettering.

Today, blurbs are ubiquitous—so much so that authors send galley copies of upcoming books to their contemporaries for advance praise before publication. Next time you spot one in the wild, take a brief moment to remember the now-obscure Burgess and his Miss Belinda Blurb, especially if the review in question is particularly cloying.

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Next time you visit Arlington National Cemetery, you’ll have to leave Fido or your bike at home. According to Stars and Stripes, the official newspaper of the United States Armed Forces, the Army recently announced two new policies: As of Wednesday, October 26, no pets or unauthorized bikes will be allowed on burial grounds, among other regulations.

The cemetery is one of America’s most sacred spaces, but dog walkers and cyclists often use its 624 acres for recreational purposes. These visitors don’t intend to be disrespectful, but their presence still affects the decorum of both funerals and ceremonies at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the Army explained in a series of official statements.

“We have 27 to 30 services a day,” Stephen Smith, public affairs officers for Arlington National Cemetery, told military newspaper Pentagram. “In almost any quadrant you go to during our work hours, there’s going to be a service going on.”

There are a few exceptions, WTOP News reports. Service animals and working military dogs are still permitted to enter the cemetery, and if you’re visiting a relative’s headstone or niche, you can request a temporary pass from the gravesite’s executive director to ride a bike directly to and from the site. (Arlington National Cemetery doesn’t have designated bike paths, so officials are concerned that cyclists will collide with pedestrians or cars.)

For cyclists using the cemetery as a shortcut to get from Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall to Memorial Avenue (the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery that stretches across the Potomac River to the nearby Lincoln Memorial), officials recommend taking an alternate route around the cemetery that’s only slightly longer than the direct path.

But sorry, animal lovers: The cemetery likely won’t make any special allowances for unauthorized furry friends. (Previously, site policy allowed trained pets on leashes in every part of the graveyard, apart from President John F. Kennedy’s grave.)

[h/t Stars and Stripes]

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Explorers have exhaustively mapped the world’s landmasses, but the ocean floor is still largely a mystery. According to one estimate, we’ve canvassed less than 5 percent of its depths. But recently, New Scientist reports, marine experts discovered an intriguing new feature off America’s western seaboard: 500 bubbling methane vents, which about doubles the known number of such vents found along the continental margins of the United States.

Robert Ballard, of RMS Titanic fame, made the discovery while conducting summer expeditions on his ship, Nautilus. “It appears that the entire coast off Washington, Oregon, and California is a giant methane seep,” said Ballard, who serves as the founder and director of the Ocean Exploration Trust in Connecticut, in a news release.

Experts are still trying to figure out precisely what the bubbles are made of, and are analyzing them to determine which gases they contain. Similar sites have yielded methane, but Robert Embley, chief scientist on the Nautilus, said there’s a chance that methane hydrate, which is made from water and methane, could also be present.

As the methane vents reveal clues about our mysterious oceans, they might also tell us more about climate change. Methane traps heat 40 times more efficiently than carbon dioxide, so scientists want to find out how much of it is seeping from the vents, making its way into the atmosphere, and having an impact on global warming.

“This is an area ripe for discovery,” said Nicole Raineault, director of science operations with Ballard’s Ocean Exploration Trust, in a statement. “We do not know how many seeps exist, even in U.S. waters, how long they have been active, how persistent they are, what activated them or how much methane, if any, makes it into the atmosphere.”

The researchers plan to present the discovery this week at the National Ocean Exploration Forum—and after that, they want to find out how much methane is coming from the seafloor. They also hope to find more vents off the East Coast and map them to broaden their existing knowledge of the sites. You can watch the vents spew in the video below, filmed by the Nautilus.

[h/t New Scientist]
 
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The Smithsonian has officially raised enough money to save Judy Garland’s iconic ruby slippers. Now, Smithsonian.com reports, the organization also wants to solicit donations to preserve the scarecrow costume worn by Wizard of Oz (1939) actor Ray Bolger.

Earlier this month, the Smithsonian Institution announced that they had launched a Kickstarter campaign to drum up enough cash to restore a treasured cultural artifact from the collections: a surviving pair of red shoes donned by Garland in the film. Their initial goal was $300,000 in one month—but thanks to the financial support of more than 5300 backers, they reached their target in only a week.

Since the crowdfunding effort doesn’t end until Wednesday, November 16, curators from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History announced yesterday that they would use the remaining weeks to raise an additional $85,000 to conserve the Scarecrow’s costume from the film.

Bolger died in 1987, and his wife donated the entire ensemble to the Smithsonian. It consists of a pointed hat, pants, and a jacket, along with accessories including a collar, gloves, cuffs, a belt, and shoes. (Bolger’s widow also donated a bag of raffia, which Bolger stuffed inside his clothing to complete the “scarecrow” look, but it’s unclear whether it survived the ensuing decades.)

According to the Associated Press, the restored outfit is too delicate to put on permanent display, but Smithsonian officials do plan on showcasing the refurbished costume—along with the ruby slippers—in a temporary cultural exhibit, slated to open in 2018. Visit Kickstarter for more updates the museum’s Wizard of Oz restoration efforts.

[h/t Smithsonian.com]

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Not all TV is meant to be compelling. In Norway, public broadcast network NRK popularized a genre called slow TV—live coverage of mundane activities like knitting, cross-country train rides, and fishing. Now, The Guardian reports, Spain has jumped on the dull television bandwagon, launching a new online streaming channel called Napflix that’s designed to bore viewers to sleep.

Napflix launched last week, and was co-founded by Victor Gutierrez de Tena and Francesc Bonet, who both work in advertising. On the website (which is designed to resemble Netflix), the two describe their video platform as an online source for “the most silent and sleepy content selection to relax your brain and easily fall asleep.”

De Tena and Bonet scour the internet for the most monotonous footage imaginable—two-hour physics lectures, chickens cooking on a rotisserie—and re-publish it on their channel. But since different things bore different people, Napflix’s creators make sure to compile a variety of video types, which they sort into a variety of genres including sports, education, music, and documentary. Sometimes the two even select something based on how sleep-inducing its soundtrack is.

“We choose the content based on how boring it is, or for the elevator music that sometimes goes with it,” de Tena told The Local Spain.

Unlike those expensive sound machines designed to lull you to sleep, Napflix is free. And even if the channel doesn’t encourage slumber, it might still inspire you to develop some relaxing (or dare we say dull?) interests that help you disconnect from the daily grind.

[h/t The Guardian]

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