Author: Shaunacy Ferro

Fans of David Lynch’s cult-classic television show Twin Peaks are getting more than just an impending reboot. You can now buy LEGO minifigures that let you play out the creepy plot on your own, albeit not ones approved by the show itself.

The pop-culture collectibles—spotted by NME—come from Citizen Brick, a maker of custom-printed LEGO pieces. Due to various copyright and trademark laws, it should be noted that these aren’t real LEGO products, they’re reused and repurposed LEGOs, and while it’s clear who the minifigs represent, the set is called “Double Mountain Murder Mystery Town.” But the name isn’t fooling anyone—that’s definitely Special Agent Dale Cooper wielding that coffee cup ready to be filled with hot “black as midnight on a moonless night” diner coffee.

You can buy them for $60 here. The packaging even features those trippy red curtains.

[h/t NME]

Miami is about to become a major destination for burger obsessives. A popular burger blogger is opening up a museum devoted to the meaty sandwich, which he heralds as America’s first such institution.

The Burger Museum by Burger Beast—created and curated by local burger expert Sef Gonzalez, a.k.a. the Burger Beast—is opening on Friday, December 2, and will celebrate the history of burgers, served with a hefty dose of nostalgia on the side. At current count, it contains 2000 historical artifacts and ephemera from burger and comfort food restaurants across the country, all collected by Gonzalez over the past seven years. The museum’s theater will be showing Hamburger America, a documentary that highlights eight burgers from around the U.S. and their creators.

Sadly, while you can buy old-school sodas and candy in the museum shop, you’ll have to go elsewhere for the juicy burger you’re sure to be craving at the end of your visit. The 1500-square-foot museum will be located near the Miami International Airport, at the Magic City Casino, so you can pop by immediately upon hitting town. It will be open afternoons Thursday to Sunday.

When you’re a few decades out of school, it’s easy to forget even the basics of the U.S. education curriculum. What’s the quadratic formula, again? What’s the Fifth Amendment all about? Only two people have ever won Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader’s $1 million 5th Grade curriculum question, after all.

Eighth grade science curriculum is, needless to say, even harder. The experts at STAT recently put together a quiz that can dash all your hopes of helping your 8th grader with science homework, testing your knowledge of middle school biology in 10 simple (ish) questions.

Unless you’ve taken a refresher on basic cell biology recently, you may not do so well. For instance, I got seven out of 10 answers correct, putting me on the edge of having all of my science writing assignments yanked away from me. Enjoy having your self-esteem dashed!

Take the quiz over at STAT.

Virtual storefronts are minefields of dubious labor and environmental practices. You may not know of a guilt-free brand to support off the bat as you’re looking for dress shirts or kitchen products (though looking for goods with a lifetime guarantee is a good start toward assuaging some of those environmental concerns), but a new Chrome extension called DoneGood is here to help you safely navigate to the checkout. It recommends ethical companies to shop with when you’re searching for products online, according to Co.Exist.

Download the Chrome extension for your browser, and when you Google things like “baby products,” the results will either come up with a “DoneGood Approved” checkmark or a suggested alternative. It works when you visit specific retail websites, too. For instance, if you’re looking at the Brooks Brothers website, you’ll see something like this:

And if you’re digging through Amazon listings, you’ll get brand recommendations to help you pick an ethical product. (Though buying from Amazon comes with its own ethical quandaries.) The extension will also show you discount codes, which may come in handy since ethically made goods can understandably have steeper price tags than sweatshop products.

 

DoneGood bases its approval on a plethora of feel-good characteristics about a brand, from environmental efforts to cruelty-free or made-in-the-USA guarantees to whether they “support diversity.” Compared to big companies, DoneGood says its picks are “cool people making stuff built-to-last,” “using natural materials and ingredients,” “paying their employees well,” and “preserving the planet.” It uses established criteria like Fair Trade certified or certified B Corps (meaning the company is a for-profit but meets certain sustainability standards) and independent research to find its featured brands.

You can download the Chrome extension or use the associated iOS app.

[h/t Co.Exist]

Beppu, Japan—already famous for its hot springs—is promoting a whole new take on the standard amusement park. In the somewhat wacky YouTube video below, spotted by Gizmodo, the city shared its dream of building a spa-themed amusement park, or a “spamusement” park.

The viral video showcases jacuzzi-esque roller coaster cars, steam room carnival games, and merry-go-rounds that feature single-person hot spring pools. The city promised that if the video, posted on November 21, reached 1 million views, it would look into implementing the idea. Obviously, it easily surpassed that goal. (A week later, it’s at more than 2 million views.)

It’s uncertain what a spamusement park would look like in reality. It might be hard to make a jacuzzi roller coaster, but the steam room carnival games seem relatively simple to run.

The concept video comes from a city YouTube channel, named, according to Google Translate, something to the effect of “Hot Spring High Standard! Paradise Hell Beppu”—a reference to the city’s “Eight Hells” hot springs, which can reach temperatures of more than 300°F.

In a press release, the mayor confirmed that with the video surpassing its goal of 1 million views, the city hopes to now organize a task force that will help implement the whimsical idea.

[h/t Gizmodo]

Teaser image by Soramimi via Wikimedia Commons // CC BY-SA 4.0

It’s hard not to be impressed by artists who can construct entire worlds on a small scale. To raise awareness about global sanitation issues as part of World Toilet Day, artist Anastassia Elias—who specializes in cutout art built in toilet paper rolls—teamed up with nonprofit organization WaterAid to create mini cityscapes inside the cylindrical cardboard tubes.

Elias’s art depicts cities as diverse as Dhaka, Bangladesh; Agra, India; Bogotá, Colombia; and New York City. Her tiny works feature notable architecture from each metro area, from the Taj Mahal to Big Ben.

Here’s Bogotá in miniature:

WaterAid explains how cities figure into the fight for better sanitation like this:

“The success of cities like London, Tokyo, Sydney, Toronto, Stockholm, and New York is in part due to the fact that they all have safe sanitation systems, which protect their inhabitants from disease.

“However, more than 700 million people in towns and cities across the world are living without decent toilets. Around 100 million of these people have no choice but to do their business in the open—using roadsides, railway tracks, waste-ground, or plastic bags. As a result, disease can spread quickly.”

To get a better idea of how this kind of art comes together, you can watch Elias at work in the video below. 

All images courtesy WaterAid.

St. Petersburg plans to become the first city in Florida to run on 100 percent renewable energy, according to Orlando Weekly and the Sierra Club.

The city received a total of $6.5 million in settlement money from BP for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, $1 million of which has been set aside for environmental projects. The city council just voted to allocate $250,000 of that money to an “Integrated Sustainability Action Plan” to begin moving St. Petersburg to a 100 percent renewable energy and zero-waste model. In addition, $250,000 will be put toward assessing the city’s energy efficiency, and $300,000 will go to evaluating and mitigating the area’s risks from sea level rise and hurricanes.

These aren’t the only moves the city has made toward sustainability. Earlier this summer, Mayor Rick Kriesman issued an executive order for the city to implement policies to eventually become a net-zero municipality, and this budget plan will further his goals.

St. Petersburg is the first city in Florida to commit completely to clean energy, and only the 20th city in the entire country to do so. However, the city has yet to create a timeline for when the transition will be completed. Around the world, many regions and countries—from Germany to Cape Verde to the Philippines—have already made such commitments, pledging to transition to clean energy by as early as 2020, though many places are operating on 20- to 30-year timelines.

[h/t Orlando Weekly]

CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, the world’s premier particle detector, has a couple of new employees—both named TIM. The robotic inspectors can make their way around the detector’s almost 17 miles of tunnel autonomously, according to Engadget. The two TIMs—short for Train Inspection Monorail—will check the system’s oxygen levels, temperature, structure, and communication bandwidth, ensuring the world’s largest and most powerful particle detector is operating at its best.

The robotic inspectors move around the tunnel on a monorail suspended from the ceiling, and carry the instruments that provide feedback on the tunnel’s status in small wagons. Each device moves at a speed of slightly less than 4 miles per hour and uses infrared and visual imaging to allow scientists to monitor the tunnel. The inspectors can also pull other wagons with specific instruments as needed.

Right now, the TIMs are still located in a service tunnel awaiting their marching orders, but the duo should be chugging along pretty soon.

[h/t Engadget]

A new book gathers 200 beautiful images showing evolution’s influence on the flora and fauna of the world.

On November 8, a huge sinkhole swallowed part of an intersection in Fukuoka, Japan, creating a hole in the street almost 100 feet wide and 50 feet deep. While the hole was repaired and the street reopened about a week later, it has begun sinking yet again, according to Mashable.

The city’s mayor, Soichiro Takashima, initially said that after the two-day filling period, the new road was 30 times stronger than it had been before the sinkhole appeared. The hole was probably caused by underground construction work on a subway line extension.

At 1:45 a.m. on Saturday, November 26, police closed the rebuilt section of road near the city’s Hakata railway station because it began sinking again, sagging by about 2.8 inches. No one was injured, nor were there any gas leaks or power outages reported, and the road was reopened to traffic by 5:30 a.m.

According to The Japan Times, the joint venture responsible for the subway construction warned that sagging could occur again, and promised to close the road if it sank by more than an inch. On his Facebook page, the mayor pledged that officials would keep monitoring the height of the street for further sinkage; in another Facebook post, he also apologized for not warning citizens of the possibility of the road dropping again.

[h/t Mashable]