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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Today in “You Guys, The Ocean Is So Weird”: Scientists say some crustaceans wear mattifying living layers to hide from predators. A report on the sea critters’ clever camo was published in the journal Current Biology.

Amphipods are a group of shrimplike crustaceans that make their homes in a variety of venues, from freshwater to beaches and deep into the sea. They’re not particularly charismatic creatures, but charisma doesn’t count for much in the darkness of the ocean. What counts is adaptability.

Some species have developed glowing fishing poles; others, sparkling arms. Some creatures light up in order to be seen, while others use illumination to hide. Others, like these amphipods, would prefer to avoid light altogether.

This is harder for them than it would be for you or me. Why? Because they’re naturally transparent—and reflective.

Scientists put seven specimens of mid-water amphipod species under high-powered microscopes and looked closely at their shells. When they zoomed way in, they discovered that all the amphipods were sporting little coats of what looked like beads on their bodies and legs. The beads themselves are microscopic, ranging from 50 to 300 nanometers in diameter depending on the species. This makes them just the right size and shape for absorbing undersea light.

 
Biologist Laura Bagge is lead author on the study and a Ph.D. candidate at Duke University. Speaking in a press statement, she said the coating reduces reflections “the same way putting a shag carpet on the walls of a recording studio would soften echoes.” Some species’ coatings could cut down on glare by as much as 250-fold, rendering them effectively invisible to wide-eyed predators.

The coats are certainly effective. But what are they?

We’re not totally sure. “They have all the features of bacteria,” Bagge said, “but to be 100 percent sure, we’re going to have to perform an in-depth sequencing project.”

Crustaceans shed their shells on a regular basis. For carefully camouflaged amphipods, this could mean becoming shiny again—unless they take their special coats with them. If the mattifying layers are indeed made of bacteria, they could easily be transferred to a new shell as the amphipod tugs its way out of the old one.

 
They could also share them with their kids. Phronima amphipods raise their babies in the hollowed-out bodies of a translucent creature called a salp. The researchers say it would be pretty simple for a mama amphipod to pass her coating materials on to little ones in the nest.
 
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If you’re not a fan of spiders, you’re far from alone. But before you swat away another spider web, remember this: Relative to weight, the strength of a spider web rivals steel and Kevlar, the material used to make bullet-proof vests. (That’s important when your dinner flies headlong into your trap and writhes violently as it tries desperately to escape.) This tensile strength has inspired humans to develop a surprising number of products—but it’s just one of the fascinating facts that may give even arachnophobes a new appreciation for these eight-legged architects.

1. SPIDER SILK TRANSFORMS FROM LIQUID PROTEIN TO SOLID THREAD WHEN IT LEAVES THE BODY.

Spiders are like tiny silk production factories. Inside their bodies, thread is stored as a highly concentrated liquid. A common garden spider can produce as many as seven types of silk, each made up of a different sequence of proteins. Each type of thread serves a distinct purpose: one, for example, makes the web stretchy to better absorb the impact of insects smacking into it; another makes the thread less brittle. Still other proteins protect the threads from bacteria and fungi, and keep it moist.

2. NOT ALL PARTS OF THE WEB ARE STICKY.

In fact, the silk itself isn’t sticky. Picture a classic web, like one made by an orb weaver spider: The basic structure includes radial threads that extend out like wheel spokes from the center. Another set of threads spiral out in concentric circles. The silk used to construct these two parts of the web is actually produced by different glands, which is why one is sticky and the other isn’t.

The silk’s gumminess comes from a super strong polymer adhesive produced by another gland in the spider’s abdomen. The spider secretes droplets of this adhesive along the spiral threads of the web to catch its prey. Most spiders leave the center of the web free of this “glue” so that they can move around with ease. But when the spider needs to travel along the sticky threads of its web, it has a special tool: tiny claws on its legs help it keep from getting stuck.

3. LIGHT, TEMPERATURE, AND HUMIDITY CAN AFFECT THE STRENGTH OF THE WEB.

The adhesive droplets that spiders apply to their silk become sticky only when the silk leaves the spider’s body. But its strength can be affected by environmental factors, including humidity and temperature. Recently, scientists discovered that ultraviolet radiation also affects the glue. In a series of experiments, researchers found that spiders inhabiting bright, sunny places, such as common garden spiders, produce webs better able to withstand UV radiation than those of nocturnal spiders and forest dwellers, where webs are generally less exposed to direct sunlight.

4. SPIDERS USE THEIR SILK FOR MUCH MORE THAN CATCHING DINNER.

Webs are used for trapping prey, but spiders produce silk for other reasons, too. Hunting spiders often make silk to use as drag lines to trail behind them as safety nets while they walk and stalk. Other spiders use a specialized silk to create egg sacs, or even to build a little protective shelter for themselves. Perhaps most remarkably, some spiders use their silk to pick up air currents and go sailing up into the sky, sometimes migrating hundreds of miles. When conducted en masse, these so-called mass ballooning events can involve millions of tiny spiders. When they land—or if they have an unsuccessful takeoff due to unfavorable winds—their silken strands can blanket the ground in thick white layers, as they did in Memphis near the end of 2015.

5. AT LEAST ONE KIND OF SPIDER USES ELECTRICITY TO SNARE ITS PREY.

 
Sometimes called the garden center spider for its love of humid greenhouse conditions, the feather-legged lace weaver has a truly far-out way of catching a meal. Researchers at Oxford University discovered that, rather than spinning sticky webs like orb weavers, this spider produces an incredible nano-thin silk inside a special organ called the cribellum. It uses special hairs on its hind legs to comb the silk as it emerges from the body, creating an electrostatic charge in the process. Together, the charged threads form “poofs,” similar to a ball of wool, that trap prey.

6. SOME SPIDERS’ WEBS ARE LARGE ENOUGH TO CROSS ENTIRE RIVERS.

 
The female Darwin’s bark spiders build enormous webs—some extending more than 80 feet—across rivers and lakes. By building their super-strong web across the water like a bridge, they can catch large insects like dragonflies that quickly swoop and rise along the water’s surface. The female will spend days building and reinforcing the so-called bridge lines that she casts across rivers to anchor the web on each bank, and repairing damage to the center caused by large insects. Meanwhile, the male of the species, which is considerably smaller than the female, hangs out in plants close to the webs to watch the show from the sidelines. Scientists are racing to learn more about this newly described species as deforestation in Madagascar diminishes their habitat.

7. ANOTHER AMAZING ARACHNID CAN SURVIVE COMPLETELY UNDERWATER.

In Europe and Asia, the diving bell spider has carved out an extraordinary niche. It spends its entire life underwater—the only spider known to do so. It can survive underwater because of its bell-shaped web, which it anchors to aquatic plants, with additional lines of silk extending up toward the surface. The spider climbs these lines of silk and lifts its rear out of the water to collect air bubbles around the tiny hairs that line its legs and abdomen. Carefully holding the air bubbles between its back legs, it descends back to its bell-shaped web and places the bubbles inside to form one large bubble. Scientists recently discovered that the bell can also take up dissolved oxygen from the water, behaving as a kind of gill. If the spider isn’t very active, this combined oxygen supply can last it an entire day.

8. WE LOOK TO SPIDER WEBS FOR ALL KINDS OF USEFUL PRODUCT IDEAS.

Because spider silk is so flexible, light, strong, and water resistant, it has a ton of potential applications. Researchers are busy developing bioinspired, synthetic versions of spider silk like this “liquid wire,” as well as adhesives based on their sticky glue-like protein droplets. Taking inspiration from spider silk, researchers have recently made big strides in designing medical devices, parts, and supplies that need to be strong and stretchy or sticky. These include artificial tendons, ligaments, and implants, as well as sutures, adhesives, and bandages. Spider silk protein is also aiding in the design of textiles and protective products that need to be strong and flexible but also light, like body armor, airbags and even athletic helmets.

But while scientists may draw ideas from spiders, actually using spider silk or protein has one major drawback: harvesting enough to facilitate commercial scale production of these items. So researchers have turned to transgenics—inserting the genes for spider silk inside other organisms. Like E. coli bacteria, which reproduce quickly. And goats. Yes, goats. By implanting spider DNA in goats, scientists can harvest components of spider silk from their milk. The hope is to eventually be able to extract those proteins on a scale large enough to support mass production.

So the next time you recoil in disgust at a spider, remember: You’re dissing a tiny master of engineering.

Emojis may feel like a fairly recent innovation, but the cutesy, digital pictographs predate iPhones by about eight years. In 1999, the Japanese mobile provider NTT DoCoMo developed the original set of “emojis” for pagers. Now, the 12-by-12 pixel pieces of modern history have found a new home at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), The New York Times reports.

The MoMA announced the acquisition of the retro emoji collection on Thursday, October 20. The set includes some images today’s texters will recognize: crude versions of a sun, a peace sign, and a smiley face are all represented. There are also a few glyphs that have failed to stand the test of time, like a ’90s-style cell phone and a “FAX” emoji.

The NTT DoCoMo emojis were successful when they first debuted, inspiring many copycats throughout Japan. It would take over a decade for the concept to gain steam around the rest of the world with the launch of the first emoji keyboard for the iPhone in 2011. The symbols have since multiplied from the original 176 in 1999 to over 2000 today.

The old-school emojis are the latest digital collection to become a part of the museum. In 2010, they added the @ symbol, and in 2012 they acquired 14 video games including Pac-Man, Tetris, and The Sims. The new emoji installation, which will include 2D graphics and animations, will be on display starting in December at the MoMA in Manhattan.

[h/t The New York Times]

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Disrespect or respect? Exclusion or inclusion? These Deaf kids don’t see themselves as having a problem that needs to be fixed. They are asking to be seen by others the way they see themselves, as an asset to a diverse community and as equals. This video, produced for the Kickstarter Election Issues project, lets them speak for themselves in their own language. Learn the signs for oppression and justice, open-minded and close-minded, and other important concepts in the fight for Deaf equality.