Woman Returns to Civilization After Spending 500 Days Isolated in a Cave

A Spanish extreme athlete who voluntarily isolated herself from the world by entering a cave in November 2021 recently emerged from her self-imposed exile after a record 500 days.

When female climber Beatriz Flamini entered an isolated cave in the Spanish region of Granada on November 21, 2021, the world was still in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, Russia had not invaded Ukraine, and Elon Musk had not yet become the tzar at Twitter. Falmini was 48 years old when she entered the cave, but she had turned 50 by the time she stepped out of it and had no idea what had occurred in the outside world in the last 500 days. Although she did not make contact with any other humans, Beatriz was carefully observed by a team of scientists, including psychologists and speleologists, in what is considered a first-of-its-kind experiment.

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Man Is Living Underwater for 100 Days to See How It Affects His Body and Mind

A Florida University professor plans to spend 100 days 30 feet under the ocean’s surface, in an underwater lodge, as a scientific experiment to find out how the constant increased pressure affects his body and mind.

The current world record for time spent living underwater was set in 2014 by two Tennessee biologists who managed to live submerged for a total of 73 days, but if University of South Florida professor Joseph Dituri meets his set goal, he will beat that record by a whopping 27 days. At the beginning of this month, Dituri, who also goes by the nickname ‘Dr. Deepsea’, moved into Jules’ Undersea Lodge in Key Largo, an underwater hotel 30 feet under the surface, where he plans to remain until June 9th. During this time, he and a team of physicians and scientists plan to conduct a series of tests to see how living underwater for prolonged periods of time affects the human body and mind.

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This Slime Mold-Powered Smartwatch Is Literally a Living Gadget

In an attempt to explore the relationships people have with their modern accessories like smartphones and smartwatches, researchers recently created a smartwatch powered by a living organism.

Devices like smartphones, smartwatches, and laptops have become a part of our daily routine, and scientific experiments have shown that many people feel that they can’t function properly without them. Yet as a result of consumerism culture, most of us have no problem discarding our gadgets as soon as we can afford to buy new, more advanced ones, even if we don’t really need them. But what if there was a way to feel more attached to these gadgets, would that make us think twice before replacing them? Inspired by the Tamagochi, a Japanese toy that became an international phenomenon during the 1990s, scientists at Chicago University created a unique type of smartwatch that only functioned if the living organism inside of it was kept alive.

The Tamagochi was an egg-shaped device that allowed users to take care of a digital pet by feeding, training and disciplining it. If not given enough attention, the pet would die, and players would have to start over. It was immensely popular in the 1990s and early 2000s and is still available today. This toy was the original inspiration for a unique smartwatch where the digital pet was replaced by a living organism – a slime mold.

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Scientists Create Weight-Changing Glass That Alters the Drinker’s Perception of the Beverage

A team of Japanese researchers recently unveiled a weight-shifting contraption that attaches to a glass, making it feel heavier or lighter than it actually is, thus altering the drinker’s perception of the beverages they are consuming.

It has long been known that we consume foods and drinks with a number of senses, not just our taste buds. There is a reason why chefs go through the trouble of developing eye-catching plating techniques, or why specialty cafes rely on the scent of freshly ground coffee to attract patrons. But did you know that the weight of the glass can influence the drinker’s perception of the beverage they are drinking. A team of scientists at the University of Tokyo proved this with the help of an ingenious device that changes the weight of the glass depending on the position it is in.

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12-Year-Old Boy Swallows 54 Magnets To See If Metal Would Stick To His Stomach

Human curiosity has been at the core of many breakthroughs throughout history, but its outcome isn’t always positive. The the case of this 12-year-old boy who swallowed dozens of magnetic balls, just to see if metal would stick to his stomach.

Rhiley Morrison, and English schoolboy from Greater Manchester, had to undergo life-saving surgery after deliberately swallowing 54 magnets as part of a dumb experiment. The wannabe Magneto ingested the magnets he had received for Christmas to see if metal objects would stick to his stomach, and also what the metallic balls would look like when he passed them. Unfortunately, things didn’t go according to plan, and after days went by without him passing a single magnet, he finally told his mom.

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This Remarkable Beetle Can Somehow Survive Being Eaten by Frogs

Scientists recently discovered that a species of tiny water beetles can live through being eaten by a frog by somehow surviving a journey through its gut and simply exiting through the butt hole.

Until this week, Regimbartia attenuata was just another species of water beetle, but ever since a study on its astonishing survival skills came out on Monday, it’s been making headlines in mainstream media outlets around the world. And for good reason, as there aren’t many creatures on this Earth that can survive being swallowed alive, journey through their predator’s digestive system, simply crawl out the “back door” and go on with their lives as if they didn’t just pull off a Houdini-like magic trick.

Regimbartia attenuata were the subject of an unusual study carried out by Shinji Sugiura, an associate professor in the department of agrobioscience at Kobe University in Japan. He put the tiny beetles in the same laboratory bin with specimens from five different frog species, and the little bugs managed to crawl out the frogs’ “vents” in the vast majority of experiments.

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Boy Tries to Stop Weeds from Growing in Backyard by Stomping the Ground Every Day for Three Months

In what can only be described as an intriguing childhood experiment, a Japanese boy has been trying to stop weeds from growing in his backyard – without using chemical weedkillers – for the last three years. This year, he’s off to a promising starts.

It all started three years ago, when Twiter user @peco3575’s son finished elementary school and decided to conduct a “study” on weed annihilation solutions that didn’t involve the use of herbicides. He was inspired by his personal desire to clean his home backyard of weeds, because that summer they had grown so tall that he actually couldn’t play there anymore. He then started coming up with strategies to combat the weeds, write them down, apply them to his backyard, and note the conclusion. For the past three years, his ideas all failed, but 2020 is off to a surprisingly good start.

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Japanese Company Pays People to Be Filmed in Their Own Homes for a Month

Our online data is already monetized by several technology giants, but one Japanese IT company thinks real-life data could be monetized as well, and it’s willing to pay people to have their everyday life video-recorded and sold to various businesses.

Last month, Tokyo-based Plasma.inc made national news headlines for inviting people to take part in a controversial social experiment called “Project Exograph”. Participants must agree to have their living rooms, bathrooms, changing areas, kitchens and other parts of their homes wired with cameras that would film them continuously for roughly one month. At the end of the experiment, the footage will be edited in a way that would make it impossible to identify protagonists, and then sent to various companies to see if it can be monetized. Believe it or not, hundreds of people have already signed up for a chance to take part in Project Exograph.

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How One Man Has Been Writing Down His Every Experience Over the Last Decade

Morris Villarroel, a Spanish scientist at the Polytechnic University of Madrid, wanted to have a more detailed and complete record of his everyday life, so he could figure out how to live more effectively. Ten years ago he started writing down all the things he did every day, and he’s been doing it ever since.

Villarroel had just turned 40 in February of 2010, when he decided to embark on an epic experiment of self-knowledge and self-improvement. He decided to keep a detailed record of everything going on in his life by meticulously writing all the experiences, the places he was in, the people he met, every 15 to 30 minutes of every day. He thought that this would not only help him better remember everything, but also help him better manage his time and day-to-day life. Nine years and nine months later, the scientist says that he was right.

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Russian Cows Wear VR Headsets to Reduce Their Anxiety, Increase Milk Production

In an attempt to reduce cows’ anxiety and hopefully increase their dairy production, a cattle farm in Moscow’s Ramensky district has equipped its herd with specially-designed virtual reality headsets.

Research has shown that there is a link between a cow’s emotional state and it’s daily milk yield. In the past, we’ve heard of dairy farms playing soothing classical music for their cows in order to lower their stress level and increase productivity, but as technology advances, new mood-altering solutions are introduced. For example, the RusMoloko farm in Moscow recently equipped its cattle with VR systems adapted for the “structural features of cow heads”.

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Man Ate Expired Food for a Whole Year to Prove Expiration Dates Have Little to Do with Safety

A Maryland man trying to raise awareness about the confusing nature of expiration dates on consumer products ate expired food for a whole year and lived to tell the tale.

Scott Nash got the idea for his unusual experiment began three years ago, when he did something most of us wouldn’t even consider – he ate a yogurt that was six months past his expiration date. The “staunch environmentalist” and owner of MOM’s Organic Market, a D.C.-are grocery store chain, had forgotten the yogurt in the fridge of his old cabin in Virginia in the Spring and only found it again when returned in the Fall. By that time it was already half a year past its expiration date, but that didn’t stop him from mixing it with his smoothie and chugging it down. It didn’t taste funny and he didn’t experience any health problems after consuming it. That got him thinking about the way companies use expiration dates nowadays.

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Man Spends 10 Hours a Day for a Whole Week Watching Game of Thrones in a Glass Cube

Russian social media giant VKontakte and online video subscription platform Amediateka recently launched a unique experiment where a person who has never watched Game of Thrones spends a week binge watching the series for 10 hours a day in a transparent glass cube.

The project, called “One More and I Sleep. Seriality”, is designed to promote the 8th season of Game of Thrones, which launches on April 15, in Russia. VK and Amediateka managed to find a young man who had never watched an episode of the popular HBO series and convinced him to binge watch all 7 previous seasons for 10 hours a day locked in a glass cube at the October Cinema Center, in Moscow. The protagonist of this experiment is not able to leave the cube – except the occasional trip to the toilet – until he finishes watching all the episodes of Game of Thrones, which organizers estimate will take about a week.

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Australian Man Allegedly Cooks Raw Steak in His Car on a Hot Day

An Australian man from Mildura, in the state of Victoria, wanted to show the world just how hot the inside of a car can get on a hot day, so he left a raw steak inside his car for a few hours. When he came back, the steak was allegedly well done.

“Yesterday at 11am I put a porterhouse steak in my car which was parked in the shade and left it until 4pm,” the Mildura Dockside Cafe worker wrote on his Facebook page. “It was very well done upon my return. With this heatwave please remember never to leave children, elderly or animals in the car. Always check on elderly neighbors, ensure your pets have a way to keep cool and cool drinking water.”

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Startup Plans to Send Pregnant Woman into Space to Give Birth

Netherlands-based startup SpaceLife Origin wants to send a pregnant woman 250 miles above the Earth to give birth to the first extraterrestrial baby in history, in the name of science.

Should our planet ever become unable to sustain human life, our species’ only hope would be to leave and settle elsewhere, be it a haven floating through space or another planet. But in order for this exodus to be a success, we first have to learn how to reproduce in space, and the founders of SpaceLife Origin want to get the ball rolling by sending a pregnant woman into space and having her give birth in zero gravity conditions. It sounds like a crazy idea, especially since humanity is a long way from becoming a spacefaring species, but SpaceLife Origin believes that our long-term survival depends on it.

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High-School Student Injects Himself with DNA Pattern Made from Bible and Koran Verses

Adrien Locatelli, a young bio-hacker from the French city of Grenoble, has been called an “idiot” for undergoing a bizarre DIY experiment in which he injected himself with a DNA pattern made from translated passages from the Bible and the Koran.

Locatelli, who is believed to still be in high-school, started off by selecting passages from the Christian and Muslim holy books that he wanted stored in his body in the form of DNA. He then assigned one of the four letters corresponding to the chemicals that DNA is made of (ACGT) to every character in the passages, in the order GACT. Using a free online tool, the daring experimenter translated the nucleotide information into protein sequences that he ended up injecting into his thighs. Why? Simply because he was curious to know if it could be done.

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