The U.S. military has started playing with paper airplanes. DARPA, the Defense Department’s technology lab, is funding research into inexpensive, biodegradable cardboard drones that can deliver supplies and then disappear, as the MIT Technology Review reports.

Designed by Otherlab, Aerial Platform Supporting Autonomous Resupply Actions (APSARA) gliders are made of heavy-duty cardboard that ships flat, like IKEA furniture. They’re cheap to mass-produce, so it’s not risky to send them into remote areas where the military might otherwise lose another pricey drone. Soldiers can assemble them in the field if necessary.

There’s no engine or battery, just a small set of electronics to allow the glider to navigate to its destination. They can carry 2.2 pounds (one kilogram) of blood, medicine, or other humanitarian supplies into areas that don’t have road or plane access, including onto the battlefield.

According to Otherlab’s press release, a military transport plane stocked with hundreds of pre-programmed cardboard gliders could deliver supplies to an area the size of California in one go. However, this design is just a trial run for the concept. According to Air & Space magazine, Otherlab plans to make the final product out of mycelium (living root structures from mushrooms) that could be activated when the glider is released. The spores would digest the frame, and within a few days, the drone would disappear completely.

If you thought the military’s drone programs were secretive now, just wait until they have drones that can eat themselves.

[h/t MIT Technology Review]

Plants look so helpless and innocent, leafing about in their fields and lawns, but mess with the wrong one and you could find yourself in a world of pain. Scientists say some plants can identify their herbivore attackers—and that the plants use that information to call in bigger, herbivore-killing bugs. A report on the findings was published in the journal New Phytologist.

The arms race between plants and plant-eaters is both brutal and surprisingly advanced. To combat opponents that can bite, pinch, fly, crawl, and run, plants have developed an impressive suite of chemical weapons. Some of these weapons are poison; others simply make the plants taste awful. And then there are the wasp calls. When under attack, some plants emit volatile gases that act almost like dog whistles, silently summoning gangs of parasitic wasps to take care of the offending insect.

Even without the benefit of external sensory organs, plants can tell when they’re being assaulted. Previous studies have found that some plants can sense their attackers’ odors in the air. Others ‘listen’ for the chemical distress calls emitted by nearby plants. Still others pick up on chemicals in a slobbering bug’s saliva.

So lots of plants can tell when they’re being eaten, but can they tell who’s doing the eating? To find out, researchers paired field mustard (Brassica rapa) plants with 12 different herbivore species, including caterpillars, aphids, and a slug. Some species were gnawers and chewers, while others fed via sucking. Some were local and some were unfamiliar. The researchers covered each plant/pest pair with a plastic bag to collect any gases the plants emitted, then tested the gas.

The plants were having none of it. They fought back admirably against all 12 attackers, producing different compounds for each species in order to summon the right species of wasp. The gases all contained the same chemicals; the plants simply adjusted the ratio of chemicals to customize each cocktail. They even concocted successful blends to dispose of species they’d never met before.

Lead author Nicole van Dam says the findings are “spectacular proof” of plants’ hidden capabilities. “The plants may not have a nervous system, eyes, ears, or mouths,” she said in a statement, “but they are capable of determining who is attacking them. What I find truly amazing is that they’re even capable of distinguishing between a native and an exotic herbivore.”

In a suburb outside of Stockholm, bus stops are more than just places to pick up and drop off passengers. They’re also chargers. A new pilot program along a bus route in Södertälje is testing electric buses that can charge up at every stop, as recently highlighted by Co.Exist.

The electric hybrid buses charge automatically when they pull up to the bus stop, where a charging station is buried under the asphalt. It takes seven minutes to charge the bus battery enough for the full 6.2-mile route.

Right now, the Södertälje buses charge overnight and then at the final stop on the route. Sensors direct the bus drivers to park over the right section of the road. A charging box is lowered from under the bus to access the wireless charger.

It’s a collaboration between the Royal Institute of Technology KTH, the city of Södertälje, and Sweden’s national power company, Vattenfall, as well as the bus manufacturer Scania. This is partially a test to see how the system fares in northern climates, and Scania is still working out the best way to implement it, including where the charging stations should be placed along the route.

Seven minutes is a long time for a bus to sit at one stop in the middle of the route, and though this bus route is relatively short, another route probably wouldn’t be able to support a bus running on just one charge. For full-city usage, there would have to be more chargers throughout the route, which could lead to bus bunching as drivers wait for their vehicles to charge. Another solution might be to put chargers under the entirety of the road. The UK has already begun testing an under-road charging system it plans to one day install under the nation’s highways.

[h/t Co.Exist]

Marriage can be a bumpy road, but Megabus wants to give one lucky couple a smooth start by awarding them a free wedding. The discount travel company’s new “Marry Me On A Megabus” sweepstakes provides winners with an all-expenses-paid ceremony aboard a bus, along with two round-trip tickets for the honeymoon and $2500 in cash.

For most people, buses don’t exactly scream “romance.” But according to Sean Hughes, Megabus’s director of public affairs, they often serve as a vehicle for lasting love.

“Over the past 10 years, we have loved hearing about couples that have met on a Megabus or used megabus.com to travel to see their long-distance loves,” Hughes said in a news release. “It’s a pleasure to play Cupid and be a part of so many people’s love life.”

Touching anecdotes aside, all couples—not just far-flung sweethearts—are invited to enter Megabus’s giveaway until February 21, either through the company’s Facebook page or an online form. Submit the story of how you met, and why exactly you want to be married on a Megabus. (The giveaway’s perks—which, in addition to a paid honeymoon, include free music, flowers, and an officiant; and complimentary transportation to and from the ceremony—probably don’t count toward your answer.)

The winning duo will be announced on social media on March 15, 2017; they can select a wedding destination from more than 100 cities. Interested couples can view the official sweepstakes rules online.

“The Star Spangled Banner” is a notoriously difficult song. Not only do singers have to contend with its octave-and-a-half range, but at the Super Bowl, they have to deal with the auditory feedback bouncing around a giant stadium and the pressure of live TV. Since 1992, there has also been a simultaneous American Sign Language performance of the anthem. For Deaf performers, the issues are different, but no less difficult.

In this video, comedian John Maucere describes what it was like to sign the anthem at the 2013 Super Bowl alongside Alicia Keys. He hilariously describes the method he used to keep time with the singer—an interpreter signaling him to speed up or slow down—and what happened when it all threatened to go wrong. (Be sure to turn the sound off on the video for captions.)

[h/t DPAN.TV]

Banner photo courtesy of Getty Images.

In the 24 years since Groundhog Day’s original release, fans have spent plenty of time and precious web bandwidth attempting to decode the alleged layers that exist just below the surface. Groundhog Day as metaphor? These eight theories say yes.

1. BILL MURRAY IS OUR SAVIOR.

Among the first groups to embrace the message of Groundhog Day were Buddhists, who were moved by its story of rebirth. As part of a talk at New York City’s Hudson Union Society in 2009, director Harold Ramis spoke about the many people who had been moved by the film—including his Zen Buddhist mother-in-law.

She isn’t alone. In an essay entitled “Groundhog Day The Movie, Buddhism and Me,” Spiritual Cinema Circle co-founder Stephen Simon calls the film “a wonderful human comedy about being given the rare opportunity to live several lifetimes all in the same day. Of course, that’s not how the film was marketed but, for our purposes, I believe that concept is at the soul of the story.” In an interview with The New York Times, Dr. Angela Zito, co-director of NYU’s Center for Religion and Media, noted that the film illustrates the Buddhist idea of samsara, or continuing rebirth. “In Mahayana [Buddhism], nobody ever imagines they are going to escape samsara until everybody else does,” she noted. “That is why you have bodhisattvas, who reach the brink of nirvana, and stop and come back and save the rest of us. Bill Murray is the bodhisattva. He is not going to abandon the world. On the contrary, he is released back into the world to save it.”

2. PUNXSUTAWNEY PHIL IS JESUS CHRIST RESURRECTED.

Bill Murray isn’t the only seemingly otherworldly figure in Groundhog Day. In the same New York Times feature, film critic Michael Bronski noted the Christ-like attributes assigned to Punxsutawney Phil (yes, the groundhog) in the film. “The groundhog is clearly the resurrected Christ, the ever hopeful renewal of life at springtime, at a time of pagan-Christian holidays,” he noted.

3. PUNXSUTAWNEY IS PURGATORY.

In the space between heaven and hell, according to Catholic Church doctrine, is purgatory. And in Groundhog Day, purgatory is the town of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania itself—a place where Phil Connors must undergo his own brand of purification in order to decide the fate of his afterlife. Blogger Jim Ciscell scoured the Internet to come up with the “Top 10 Reasons Why the Movie Groundhog Day is Actually Set in Purgatory,” which includes Connors’ own assertion in the film that he is “a god.”

4. IT’S A METAPHOR FOR JUDAISM.

Dr. Niles Goldstein, a rabbi at New York City’s New Shul congregation, sees Connors’ actions as specifically geared toward Judaism, citing the fact that his good deeds beget more good deeds, as opposed to a place in heaven or state of nirvana. “The movie tells us, as Judaism does, that the work doesn’t end until the world has been perfected,” Goldstein told The New York Times.

5. IT’S A METAPHOR FOR PSYCHOANALYSIS.

There aren’t a lot of Hollywood comedies that have gained analytical attention from the psychiatric community—and psychoanalysts in particular. In his talk at the Hudson Union Society, Ramis recalled the number of psychiatric professionals who told him that, “Obviously the movie’s a metaphor for psychoanalysis, because we revisit the same stories and keep reliving these same patterns in our life. And the whole goal of psychoanalysis is to break those patterns of behavior.”

The comparisons have continued. In 2006, the International Journal of Psychoanalysis printed an essay entitled, “Revisiting Groundhog Day: Cinematic Depiction of Mutative Process,” which explained that the film “shows us a man trapped by his narcissistic defenses. The device of repetition becomes a representation of developmental arrest and closure from object relatedness. Repetition also becomes a means of escape from his characterological dilemma. The opportunity to redo and learn from experience—in particular, to love and learn through experience with a good object—symbolizes the redemptive, reparative possibilities in every life.”

6. IT’S A PERFECT COMPARISON FOR MILITARY BOREDOM.

Shortly after the film’s release, members of the military began using the term “Groundhog Day” as slang, in reference to the monotony of their days. In 1994, the crew of the USS Saratoga, who were deployed to the Adriatic Sea, nicknamed their post “Groundhog Station” for this very reason. In 1996, while speaking to American troops at Tuzla Airfield in Bosnia, then-President Bill Clinton showed he was hip to the lingo (but in a Commander in Chief kind of way) when he noted that, “I am told that some of you have compared life here with the Bill Murray movie Groundhog Day, where the same day keeps repeating itself over and over and over again. I’m also told that there are really only two kinds of weather conditions here in Tuzla. When it snows, the mud freezes, and when it rains, the mud thaws. Even the dining hall apparently is in on the act, dishing out the same food every morning and night.” The phrase took a turn for the formal when it was included in The Oxford Handbook of Military Psychology, which contains a chapter on “Boredom: Groundhog Day as Metaphor for Iraq.”

7. GROUNDHOG DAY AS ECONOMIC THEORY.

In 2006, economist D. W. MacKenzie published an article on “The Economics of Groundhog Day,” noting that the movie “illustrates the importance of the Mises-Hayek paradigm as an alternative to equilibrium economics by illustrating the unreal nature of equilibrium theorizing.” Say what?

“In economic terms the final reliving of the day constitutes what economists refer to as a perfectly competitive equilibrium based on perfect information,” MacKenzie goes on to explain. “With full knowledge of how to realize every possible gain during this day, Connors is able take advantage of every opportunity for gain. The difference between his first time through the day and his final reliving are dramatic. While this is of course only a movie, it does serve to illustrate the wide gulf between the economists’ notion of perfectly competitive equilibrium and reality.”

8. IT’S A SELF-HELP BIBLE.

For motivational speaker Paul Hannam, the key to self-fulfillment can be found in Groundhog Day’s 101 minutes. His book, The Magic of Groundhog Day, forms the basis of his transformative program of self-improvement, which promises to help its users “learn how to unlock the magic of the movie to transform your life at home and at work” and to “break free from repetitive thoughts and behaviors that keep you stuck in a rut.”

This post originally appeared in 2014.

Home appliances are a lot safer than they used to be, but cooking still accounts for nearly half of all house fires. A new product on Kickstarter aims to lower that number: Not only does it tell you when you left your burner on, but it also lets you shut it off remotely from your smartphone.

As The Verge reports, the Inirv React consists of four smart stove or oven knobs linked to a sensor unit that attaches to the ceiling. The sensor connects to your home’s Wi-Fi network, allowing owners to communicate with the system no matter where in the world they are. If the sensor detects smoke or gas, it can be programmed to send alerts to an app or shut the burners off automatically. It also detects motion, and if it senses that the kitchen has been empty for 15 minutes it will turn off the stove by default (if 15 minutes is too quick, you can adjust the setting to another of the device’s four settings).

Other neat features include voice control capabilities through the Amazon Echo and a child safety lock. The project has already more than tripled their goal of $40,000, and there are still two weeks left in the campaign. To reserve an Inirv React of your own, you can make a pledge of $229 or more. Shipping is estimated to begin in December.

[h/t The Verge]

To sugar-lovers stateside, Cadbury is best known as the maker of the cream-filled eggs that appear in stores each spring for Easter. But their full lineup of sweets includes close to 100 products that are beloved in the UK and around the world. Here are 11 decadent facts about the candy brand.

1. IT STARTED AS A DRINKING CHOCOLATE BUSINESS.

Before it was an international corporation, Cadbury got its start as a humble grocery store. In 1824, John Cadbury opened a shop in Birmingham, England where he sold, among other goods, cocoa and drinking chocolate he ground by hand. The beverage was initially marketed as a health drink, and it was often served with lentils or barley mixed in. He opened up a full-fledged chocolate factory in 1841, and by the following year he was selling 11 types of cocoa and 16 varieties of drinking chocolate. Solid “eating chocolate” only came about years later as a way for the company to utilize the cocoa butter left over from the cocoa-making process.

2. CADBURY MADE CHOCOLATE FOR QUEEN VICTORIA.

The Cadbury company was just a few decades old when it was deemed fit for royalty. John Cadbury and his brother and business partner, Benjamin, received a Royal Warrant to assume the role of “manufacturers of cocoa and chocolate to Queen Victoria” in 1855. Today the company continues to hold a Royal Warrant from Queen Elizabeth II.

3. THE COMPANY INVENTED THE HEART-SHAPED CHOCOLATE BOX.

Heart-shaped chocolate boxes are nearly as old as the commercialization of Valentine’s Day itself, and that’s thanks to Richard Cadbury. By the mid-19th century, exchanging gifts and cards with loved ones had become a popular practice around the holiday. Chocolate became part of the tradition by way of Cadbury’s romantic chocolate boxes. Richard, son of company founder John Cadbury, had the brilliant idea to package his confections in heart-shaped boxes embellished with cupids and roses in 1861. Customers could use the fancy boxes to store keepsakes long after the contents were consumed.

4. “RATION CHOCOLATE” WAS SOLD DURING WORLD WAR II.

Like many European businesses, Cadbury was forced to make sacrifices during the Second World War. When the British government banned fresh milk in 1941, the company stopped production on its Dairy Milk bars. Ration Chocolate, made from dried skim milk powder, was released as a cheap substitute.

5. THE FIRST CADBURY EGG APPEARED IN THE 19TH CENTURY.

Cadbury’s connection to chocolate eggs traces back to its early history. While experimenting with moldable chocolate formulas, Cadbury came up with a hollow Easter egg in 1875. The first iterations had a plain, dark chocolate exterior with sugar-coated chocolate drops filling the inside. In 1923, Cadbury debuted a cream-filled chocolate egg, but it wasn’t until 1971 that the Cadbury Creme Egg we know today, with its white-and-yellow fondant center, became an official part of the lineup.

6. CADBURY WON—AND LOST—THE TRADEMARK TO THEIR SIGNATURE PURPLE.

Cadbury first adopted its signature purple packaging in 1914 as a tribute to Queen Victoria’s favorite color. After a four-year legal battle with Nestle (which uses a similar shade in their Wonka candy line), Cadbury won the right to trademark Pantone 2685C in 2012. But their victory was short-lived—Nestle successfully appealed the ruling the following year and “cadbury purple” became free for all to use once more.

7. ROALD DAHL WAS INSPIRED BY THE COMPANY.

Years before he became a world-famous author, Roald Dahl taste-tested sweets for Cadbury. The company sent shipments of their chocolates to Dahl’s boyhood school for students to sample and the experience sparked the young boy’s imagination. When writing about his inspiration for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in a draft of a speech, he recalled:

“It was then I realised that inside this great Cadbury’s chocolate factory there must an inventing room, a secret place where fully-grown men and women in white overalls spent all their time playing around with sticky boiling messes, sugar and chocs, and mixing them up and trying to invent something new and fantastic.”

His musings came in handy years later when he sat down to write his most famous novel.

8. THE IDEA FOR FLAKE CAME FROM A FACTORY WORKER.

Flake, the crumbly bar made from thin layers of chocolate, is one of the most unique products in the Cadbury family. Rather than being dreamt up by a recipe developer, it was discovered by an employee by mistake. One day a worker responsible for filling the molds noticed something unusual about the excess chocolate spilling over the sides. The ribbons of liquid chocolate cooled into light, flaky bars quite different from anything else on the market. The company ran with the concept, and in 1920 the Cadbury Flake bar made its commercial debut.

9. CADBURY PRODUCTS ARE SOLD IN 40 COUNTRIES.

Cadbury may forever be associated with its British home, but the brand extends far beyond the UK. Their chocolates can be found in countries across the globe including Thailand, Argentina, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia [PDF]. Regional specialties include Cadbury Oreo Eggs sold in Canada and Cadbury Glow that’s marketed as a Diwali gift in India.

10. THE CHOCOLATE TASTES DIFFERENT IN THE U.S.

If Cadbury chocolate tastes better in its British homeland than it does in the United States, that’s not in your head—products sold under the same label are made with different ingredients in the two countries. The UK product is made from milk, sugar, cocoa mass, cocoa butter, vegetable fat, and emulsifiers, while U.S.-made Cadbury chocolate also includes lactose, soy lecithin, natural and artificial flavorings, and lists sugar as the number one ingredient. Unfortunately for Cadbury purists, finding the real stuff in the States is next to impossible. Hershey, the manufacturer of the products sold in U.S. markets, forced a ban on British Cadbury imports in 2015.

11. CADBURY WORLD HAS BEEN OPEN SINCE 1990.

Fans in search of a more immersive look at the company and its history can visit Cadbury World in Birmingham, UK. The space features over a dozen interactive zones, including a 4D chocolate adventure, a chocolate-making exhibition, and a full-sized replica of the street where John Cadbury opened his first shop in 1824. If the original location is too far out of your way, Cadbury also runs a sister attraction in New Zealand.