Category: Science

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A Study Shows That Cats Are Less Stressed When They Have Access to Cardboard Boxes

If you have a cat, you’ve probably suspected this for a long time, but now we know that it’s official: cardboard boxes help alleviate cats’ stress.

Researchers from the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands conducted the study on shelter cats to see if access to cardboard boxes genuinely helped lower their stress levels in a scientifically measurable way. The scientists used 19 shelter cats in the study, 10 of which were given access to boxes, while 9 were not.

What...?

The study showed that the cats who had access to the boxes showed a faster recovery ability and adapted more quickly to their new environment than those cats that didn’t have access to boxes. The researchers noticed major differences between the two groups just three or four days into the study.

Nap time photoshoot

The researchers explained, “Stressful experiences can have a major impact on the cats’ welfare and may cause higher incidences of infectious diseases in the shelters due to raised cortisol levels causing immunodeficiency. Though several studies showed preference for hiding places and stress-reducing effects of hiding boxes on cats in combined studies, none of these studies determined if proper hiding enrichment would be effective in a quarantine cattery.”

Muffin9

The study lasted 14 days and the cats who had access to the cardboard boxes had a lower mean CSS, which means they had lower stress levels than the cats without the cardboard boxes. Also, the 10 individual cats with the boxes showed little difference in their stress levels while the 9 cats with no access to boxes showed high variance in their levels.

Bottom line: if you have cats, you’ll probably make them feel a lot more comfortable if you toss some old boxes around the house. It makes sense – in the wild, cats are pretty small, and would likely spend quite a lot of their time hiding out of sight.

So help your kitties keep those stress levels down!

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A Czech Drugstore Has a Shampoo Refill Station to Help Cut Down on Plastic Waste

What a great idea!

This is something that definitely needs to happen in other countries besides the Czech Republic.

A Reddit user shared a photo with a caption that said, “Some drugstores in the Czech Republic introduced shampoo and shower gel filling machines. Customers can refill their empty bottles with various products so they don’t have to buy a new one every time.”

Some drugstores in the Czech Republic introduced shampoo and shower gel filling machines. Customers can refill their empty bottles with various products so they don’t have to buy a new one everytime from interestingasfuck

The photo looks like a regular, everyday drug store, but that filling station for shampoo and shower gel must cut down on plastic waste in a big way. Think about how often you buy a new bottle of shampoo or some kind of soap for your shower…and then think about everyone else who uses your local CVS.

Those numbers add up.

These kinds of measures not only cut down on plastic waste, but also reduces landfilled trash in general, which cuts down on methane release. And, on top of that, it helps reduce the demand for new plastic to be produced (which takes more fossil fuels). It’s all a cycle, you see?

At the landfill

Shopping in bulk is a classic way to cut down on plastic waste, and if you’re looking to do your part, it’s a good route to go – because I don’t know how common these kinds of soap refilling stations are in the U.S. There are a lot of good resources online for buying in bulk and to help you cut down on waste, including the blog Litterless and the website Zero Waste Home.

RECYCLE

This is a seriously great idea, and I hope it turns into a worldwide trend. We all need to do our part to help out the environment – climate change isn’t going to solve itself, and even though reducing trash doesn’t seem like it makes a difference, when enough people do it, it really does.

So let’s get moving in the right direction. Every little bit helps.

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An Expert Says That Unmarried Women Without Kids Are the ‘Healthiest and Happiest Population Subgroup’

We all face a lot of pressures in our lives – pressures about marriage, kids, happiness, and what the perfect ingredients are to live a “perfect” life. Well, the older we all get, we know that there is no such thing as perfect,’ and we also know that what works for one person doesn’t necessarily work for someone else.

As a man, it seems to me that women have it much tougher than men when it comes to societal expectations (though I can only speak from my personal experience). A lot of people still think that women are supposed to settle down, get married, have children, and raise a family. That’s been the ‘traditional’ way for generations, but what if those pressures really aren’t pushing women toward happiness at the end of the day?

Woman pointing

A professor of behavioral science named Paul Dolan published a book in 2019 called Happy Ever After: Escaping the Myths of the Perfect Life in which he makes some very interesting claims. Dolan, who teaches at the London School of Economics, said something quite controversial: he claims that “married people are happier than other population subgroups,”  but only “when their spouse is in the room when they’re asked how happy they are. When the spouse is not present: f—ing miserable.”

Wow. That sure turns a lot of ‘common knowledge’ on its head, doesn’t it? On top of that, Dolan said that “the healthiest and happiest population subgroup are women who never married or had children.”

Dolan’s book and his claims are based on research that polled people who are married, single, divorced, separated, and widowed. Dolan also claims that men seem to get more out of marriage because many of them “calmed down” after getting married.

Dolan pointed out the different effects that marriage has on the sexes: For men, “you take less risks, you earn more money at work and you live a little longer. She, on the other hand, has to put up with that, and dies sooner than if she never married.”

Woman's portrait

Dolan also added this little nugget about his research and findings: “You see a single woman of 40, who has never had children — ‘Bless, that’s a shame, isn’t it? Maybe one day you’ll meet the right guy and that’ll change.’ No, maybe she’ll meet the wrong guy and that’ll change. Maybe she’ll meet a guy who makes her less happy and healthy, and die sooner.”

Yikes.

What do you think? Let us know in the comments!

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A Biology Student Gave Wasps Access to Colored Paper and They Made Rainbow Nests

I’m not sure I can ever be a wasp lover…

That said, they can built some pretty-looking nests if you give them some colorful tools!

University of Florence biology major Mattia Menchetti came up with the idea: he would slowly fed a captive colony of paper wasps different colors of paper over time.

The result? Nests that look more like trippy kaleidoscopes than the houses of terror that they actually are.

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They’re the #product of an #experiment conducted by #MattiaMenchetti, a #biology #student at the #UniversityofFlorence. He realised that by giving a #captive #colony of #European #paper #wasps #different #colored #paper over time, the #insects would eventually #construct their own #kaleidoscopic #houses. And as you can see, the result is #pretty remarkable, if not slightly reminiscent of a #bad #trip. While this #experiment was deliberate, unintentional #human interference with the insect world has also produced some equally surprising results. In 2012 for #example, #beekeepers in #France were amazed to discover that their #bees had created #green and #blue #honey. The reason? The unsuspecting insects were using sugar collected from the shells of M&Ms at a nearby waste-processing plant. #ARTLifeForever http://www.boredpanda.com/colorful-paper-wasp-nests-rainbow-mattia-menchetti/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=BPFacebook

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It’s not the first time scientists have realized that the insect world can get more colorful than nature intended – sometimes, with no intentional human intervention at all. In 2012, a group of French beekeepers discovered that their bees were creating green and blue honey. The culprit?

Bits of M&M shells they had found at a nearby waste processing plant.

Honestly more depressing than magical, if you ask me. Which no one did, I realize.

These pictures still 100% give me the heebies, even if they’re technically pretty.

What about you? Are you a wasp fan now?

If so, please explain yourself or submit for voluntary psychological hold.

It’s for your own good, I swear.

Check out Mattia’s Twitter or Facebook for more pics like these, or to see what amazing thing this young scientists comes up with next!

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Appalling but Real Scientific Research Says You Should Make Tea in the Microwave

Sorry to all my British friends out there…

It’s time to ditch those pretty, whistling teapots (and having to wait 10 minutes for hot water) because science says the best way to brew a cuppa is in the microwave.

There is a method to measure a good cup of tea, apparently, and it is by how much of the catechins and caffeine contained in the leaves you can get into the brew (more being better). With the microwave method, you get 80% and 92%, respectively.

Catechins are a complex group of chemical compounds that are potentially good for your cardiovascular health, while caffeine’s effects – positive and negative – on the human body are well-documented.

And the microwave gives you way, way more of both than the traditional method of adding kettle-boiled water to your teabag.

So, here’s your new tea-making routine:

  1. Put hot water in the cup with your teabag.
  2. Put the whole thing in the microwave, set to 500 watts, and set the timer for 60 seconds.
  3. Wait another 60 seconds, dunk your teabag up and down 10 times, squeeze it out, and enjoy.

If you need more reason, look no further than David Tennant, whose Broadchurch character was seen microwaving his tea on the show. It caused a flutter of horror among tea enthusiasts, but according to researchers like Dr. Quan Vuong, microwaving also extracts more nutrients from green tea leaves.

I guess technology might actually be worth something after all?

If you can bring yourself to retire your grandmother’s tea pot to the china cabinet, I mean.

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15 Downsides of Smoking Marijuana That People Don’t Talk About Enough

As legalization sweeps the country, weed is becoming more acceptable. Smoking weed after work is basically the new version of having a glass of wine. But surely there are some potential downsides to weed, and one AskReddit thread had people chatting all about it. Here are 15 downsides of weed that people don’t talk about, courtesy of Redditors.

1. Lack of appetite.

“Not having an appetite if you’re not high. You have to smoke heavily though to get to that point.”

2. All thought, no action.

“Been smoking everyday for the past decade and am recently realizing that being too introspective can be a negative thing at times – I’ve been thinking too much and acting too little.”

3. Cognitive issues.

“Both my roommates are heavy smokers, and they just… think so slowly. It takes them forever to understand anything. They also forget a lot of stuff, like they’ll step away from the dishes for a moment and then never finish them without prompting.”

4. A one-track mind.

“It can become your only personality trait.”

“Some of my peers’ only goal is when they are going to get their next high and like they are so stuck in the culture that they just become sort of boring and their personality lacks dimension.”

“I lost a significant chunk of my best friends in college because by senior year all they were focused on was weed.”

5. Loss of motivation.

“It is fine in moderation, but multiple times per day seems to suck the ambition from most people I’ve seen, including myself long ago.”

“I used to smoke every day multiple times a day and I can confirm: it made me useless and killed my motivation. It also contributed to me losing my job.”

“It makes you okay with being just okay.”

6. Anxiety or panic.

“Things that aren’t currently stressing you out may start to induce anxiety in you. While this isn’t always the case, weed has the potential to worsen your mental state if you aren’t careful. This impact became more pronounced when I smoked weed solo, having other people around allowed me to be more present in the moment, whereas I was in my head when I was alone.”

7. Poor conversational skills.

“I’ve noticed after the initial uptick in chatter- people tend to get really quiet, and zoned out in their own thoughts.

When I used to smoke it, I found it had a dulling effect on my personality and conversational skills after the fact, too.”

“Yeah I’d never tell any of my sweet lovely friends this in real life in case it hurt their feelings, but a couple of them are a lot less fun after they smoke weed.”

8. No more dreams at night.

“One thing that I never see brought up is the effect of marijuana on dreaming. Marijuana use can prevent the user from dreaming during regular sleep. When the user stops using Marijuana for a while, they can experience night after night of extremely vivid dreams. I can only speak for my own experience, but I have heard this echoed by a co-worker’s dad who started smoking again because he couldn’t handle “having acid-trip dreams every night”.

I suspect that marijuana has some potent effect on REM sleep that will remain under-documented until it is de-scheduled and more thorough research can be done.”

9. Vomiting.

“Cannabinoid hyperemesis and cyclic vomiting syndrome.”

“Yeah my ex had cyclic vomiting syndrome so bad, but he smoked weed to help him fight the nausea turns out it was making him worse off. Not a lot of people know about this one, where I’m from at least.”

“I started smoking regularly at night to assuage anxiety and kick start my appetite and eventually ended up developing this super fun condition. It’s absolutely awful. I thought I was pregnant and or dying.”

10. Dependency.

“Its not that its super addicting its just nothing is as fun as being high so you want to be high all the time.”

“As a pretty consistent weed smoker, I don’t like when people say that weed isn’t addicting. They’re right in saying that it’s not addictive chemically like nicotine or something, you can still get addicted to not being sober.”

“I’ve been a daily user for the last 15 (or more) years and my mind automatically starts to feel like I’m not relaxing if I haven’t smoked.”

11. A higher tolerance.

“The one most annoying thing with being a smoker is your tolerance level goes way up so even though you are smoking you arent getting that high you used to get, just a mind numbing insomnia almost.”

12. Triggering psychosis.

“It can trigger psychosis if you’re susceptible to it already.”

“I had a friend go through a mental break after smoking a lot. Had to be admitted and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder (which ran in their family).”

“NPR did a report about a study done in the UK, saying that heavy pot smokers are 3x more likely to have a psychotic episode than people who never smoked at all.”

13. Brain development.

“There is “moderate evidence” that acute marijuana use can impair learning, memory, and attention, leading to a reasonable argument that it shouldn’t be consumed by those under about 25 since the brain is still developing during that time.”

14. Money.

“If you use it regularly it can become super expensive.”

15. Disassociation.

“Cannabis induced disassociation. Can completely ruin your life.”

“I’ve had it (I think it materialized from my generalized anxiety disorder) but it was the scariest fucking thing when it first happened. You feel like you’re in a fog, and disconnected from everything. Took about 8 months for me to shake it.”

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This Is Why Your Phone Struggles for Service on Airport Tarmacs

One thing is certain when you’re on the tarmac: your cell phone service sucks. Unfortunately for passengers sending a “taking off” or “just landed” text from the airport tarmac, the message never seems to reach its destination in a timely fashion.

From a logical perspective, perhaps being trapped inside a sealed metal plane explains why your cell phone struggles for service worse than me trying to make a decision at the buffet. It turns out you can blame the structural design of both airports and planes for the terribly slow service on the tarmac.

Christopher Schaberg, a writer for The Atlantic, spoke to three commercial pilots who fly for major airlines like Delta and British Airways in order to discover the secret behind the slow cell service on airport tarmacs. The professor at Loyola University of New Orleans discovered that cellular antennae often do not provide sufficient coverage to span the entire distance of an airport, including the tarmac.

Airports utilize distributed antenna systems that work best indoors. Unfortunately for travelers (and even pilots), those antennae really only work inside the terminal. That lack of capacity combined with the plane’s materials—which are obviously designed for structural integrity rather than connectivity—means that anyone sitting in the tarmac has a better chance of winning the lottery than refreshing their Instagram feed in a timely fashion.

And if your flight gets delayed, the connection conundrum only gets worse.

To avoid the painful boredom of sitting in the cabin with nothing to do, try downloading some content before boarding your flight. Having a few episodes of your favorite show stored in your downloads will come in handy to pass the time, especially if weather or technical issues cause a delay.

Believe me, bing-watching a few episodes of Breaking Bad is far better than thumbing through the safety evacuation manual.

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Here’s Why It’s Impossible for Someone to Open a Plane Door Mid-Flight

On rare occasions, an airplane passenger decides they want to trying to disrupt a flight…while in midair.

The bad news is the rest of the passengers can get quite a scare watching someone, who is usually drunk, have a breakdown and go for the exit door.

The good news is it’s impossible to get the door open while the plane is in flight.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia

There are a couple of reasons why no passenger, for any reason, could release a plane door during a flight.

The first reason is that plane doors are mechanically latched closed, and only the pilot has the controls to unlock them. Next time you’re in a plane making a landing, listen for the pilot’s announcement, “doors to manual.” At that point – and only at that point – the unlocking control is undone, allowing someone else to open the doors.

Pilot Patrick Smith, on his blog AskThePilot, explains that the reason why the doors can be opened once the plane is on the ground is in case of an emergency evacuation. A similar announcement, “disarm doors,” refers to the function of deploying slides, if needed. “Those slides can unfurl with enough force to kill a person, and you don’t want them billowing onto the jet bridge or into a catering truck.”

Photo Credit: Wikimedia

So, yes. If the plane is on the ground, it is possible for a passenger to get a door open.

But, in flight, it is literally impossible – and that’s because of reason #2…

Air pressure. Planes are pressurized on the inside during flights because of the lack of oxygen at typical cruising altitudes. We can’t breathe up there without pumped-in air.

Photo Credit: Flickr

The air that keeps the cabin pressurized so we can breathe also seals the doors shut. The doors actually fit the plane like plugs. To give you an idea of the amount of pressure keeping cabin doors sealed, at usual cruising altitude there will be eight pounds of pressure per square inch of the plane’s interior. This works out to 1,100 pounds pushing against every square foot of door.

Meaning no one is opening any airplane door while it’s flying. So get back to worrying about something more likely to happen: your luggage getting lost.

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A Terminally Ill Scientist Wants to Turn Himself Into a Cyborg Before He Passes Away

We sometimes joke from time to time about robot uprisings, the day when technology becomes too much for humanity to handle, or how we might be able to use it to be able to “live” forever. There have been countless television and movies that have explored those ideas (and associated fears) over the years – but now one scientist thinks he could actually live forever via tech.

Or at least become part robot.

Dr. Peter Bowman Scott-Morgan is a roboticist who has been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). It’s a degenerative condition, also known as Lou Gehrig’s. It has few treatment options and no cure, so Scott-Morgan decided to work toward becoming the “world’s first full cyborg.”

Image Credit: Twitter

After undergoing four medical procedures in an attempt to prolong and improve the quality of his life, he refers to himself as Peter 2.0.

Peter has a feeding tube that goes directly into his stomach, a catheter that goes directly into his bladder, a colostomy bag into his colon, and he also underwent a laryngectomy to remove is larynx, which connects his mouth and nose to his lungs.

He’s not able to speak with a natural voice and can breathe only with a respirator, but it also takes away the risk of  saliva accumulating into his lungs, which would basically cause him to drown.

He tweeted after coming home from the hospital the last time.

“Just home from 24 days in Intensive Care. All medical procedures now complete and a huge success. My mini-ventilator keeping me breathing is a LOT quieter than Darth Vader’s. All speech is synthetic but at last sounds like me again. Long research road ahead but in great spirits.”

Scott-Morgan writes on his website that he’s working on the “experiment of this life,” and plans to use his robotics knowledge to not only survive, but to thrive with a disease that spells the end for everyone who gets handed the diagnosis – over 220,000 people around the world.

In addition to the surgeries, he’s made big upgrades to his wheelchair that make it easier to move around his home, and will undergo laser eye surgery so that he can better read and control the computer screen using only his eyes – because in time, he won’t be able to control any of the other muscles in his body.

You can catch a documentary detailing his journey into becoming Peter 2.0 in 2020.

And for now, Peter is living happily in Devonshire with his husband, Francis.

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Wow! Playing Music Benefits Your Brain More Than Any Other Activity.

If you’re interested in strengthening your brain, playing a musical instrument is the best exercise you can do to improve brain function, make you happier and protect against dementia.

Learning to play an instrument actually changes brain structure and improves functioning better than any so-called brain games. Those who learn to play when they are young also have better long-term memory and brain development.

Photo Credit: Pexels

A study completed by researchers at the University of Montreal found musicians tend toward more mental alertness over those who don’t play.

Head researcher Simon Landry said,

The more we know about the impact of music on really basic sensory processes, the more we can apply musical training to individuals who might have slower reaction times. As people get older, for example, we know their reaction times get slower. So if we know that playing a musical instrument increases reaction times, then maybe playing an instrument will be helpful for them.

Previous to this study, Landry discovered musicians have faster auditory, tactile, and audio-tactile reaction times, and an altered statistical use of multisensory information.

Photo Credit: Pxhere

In other words, playing an instrument is a complex and emotional task requiring multiple senses, inputs and fine motor skills. This is what changes the brain and can also help musicians be successful in other fields, like business.

Scans of brains actually show physical differences between musicians and non-musicians. The huge bundle of nerves connecting the two sides of the brain, or the corpus callosum, is larger in the brains of musicians.

Learning an instrument at a young age leads to the biggest brain differences. Even if someone doesn’t dedicate the rest of their lives to an instrument, there are still drastic changes caused by even moderate or intermittent study. That’s because music instruction makes these changes in the brain more efficiently than any other activity (that we know of).

Photo Credit: Pxfuel

From strengthening speech processing to protecting against dementia, learning to play an instrument is like lifting weights for your brain. So forget the dumb brain games on your phone. Pick up guitar or find a piano teacher.

Your brain will thank you.

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