A Cry For Help.

Christ the Redeemer (Portuguese: Cristo Redentor) is an Art Deco statue of Jesus Christ in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, created by French sculptor Paul Landowski and built by the Brazilian engineer Heitor da Silva Costa, in collaboration with the French engineer Albert Caquot. It is 30 metres (98 ft) tall, not including its 8-metre (26 ft) pedestal, and its arms stretch 28 metres (92 ft) wide.

The statue weighs 635 metric tons (625 long, 700 short tons), and is located at the peak of the 700-metre (2,300 ft) Corcovadomountain in the Tijuca Forest National Park overlooking the city of Rio. As a symbol of Brazilian Christianity, the statue has become an icon for Rio de Janeiro and Brazil. It is made of reinforced concrete and soapstone, and was constructed between 1922 and 1931.

The statue of Christ the Redeemer with open arms, a symbol of peace, was chosen. Local engineer Heitor da Silva Costa designed the statue; it was sculpted by Polish-French sculptor Paul Landowski. Gheorghe Leonida contributed by portraying Jesus Christ’s face on the statue, which made him famous.

A group of engineers and technicians studied Landowski’s submissions and the decision was made to build the structure out of reinforced concrete (designed by Albert Caquot) instead of steel, more suitable for the cross-shaped statue. The outer layers are soapstone, chosen for its enduring qualities and ease of use. Construction took nine years, from 1922 to 1931 and cost the equivalent of US$250,000 ($3,300,000 in 2015). The monument was opened on October 12, 1931.During the opening ceremony, the statue was lit by a battery of floodlights turned on remotely by shortwave radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi, stationed 5,700 miles (9,200 km) away in Rome.(x)

Dolphins beat up octopuses before eating them, and the reason is kind of horrifying

Generally speaking, it’s best if your food doesn’t kill you. This isn’t usually a problem in the animal kingdom, as prey tends to be dead and limp by the time it hits the gullet. But not all creatures are harmless after death: consider the octopus.

Read more

Fibonacci sequence in the hiding…

Everyday Phenomena: The Maillard Reaction

At first glance, steak, French fries, bread, milk caramel, and soy sauce don’t have very many similarities. However, the preparation of these foods all have one thing in common: browning that occurs via the Maillard (my-YAR) reaction.

The Maillard reaction was first discovered in 1912 by Louis-Camille Maillard, and refers to a long chain of reactions that ultimately leads to browning of food. This chain typically begins with the condensation of an amine (often the amino acid lysine) with a reducing sugar (containing an aldehyde); one example of this Amadori rearrangement is shown above with lysine and glucose.

This Amadori product can react in a variety of different ways, including dehydration and deamination to produce a diverse array of molecules that give browned food a distinctive flavor; a few of these compounds are shown above. At the end of the sequence of reactions that occur during browning is a class of polymeric compounds known as melanoidins, which lend a brown color to the food.

Below about 140°C (280°F), the Maillard reaction does not proceed at an appreciable rate, although alkaline conditions (such as the lye used to make pretzels) can accelerate the process. Without this reaction, many foods we enjoy now wouldn’t be nearly as tasty!

Further Reading: Hodge, J. E., J. Agric. Food Chem. 1953, 1 (15), 928-943 (Full text)

Top image via The Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre

Happy Roald Dahl Day, everyone!  

Here’s a selection of some of our favorite stories about the man behind Matilda, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The BFG and all the other books that traumatized us so delightfully as kids (Vermicious Knids, eeeeeggghhh).

Roald Dahl Wanted His Magical ‘Matilda’ To Keep Books Alive

Roald Dahl, A Bottle Of Dreams And A 'Letter Of Note’

'Where Am I Now?’ Mara Wilson Explains What Happened When Matilda Grew Up

Roald Dahl: The Story Of The 'Storyteller’

And lest we forget – Dahl’s memoirs and fiction for adults are great too. Just don’t  give Someone Like You to a kid.

Wicked And Delicious: Devouring Roald Dahl

– Petra

12 snipers from the Soviet 3rd Shock Army with 775 confirmed kills. Germany, May 4th 1945.

via reddit

Keep reading

Liu Chuyu was the first-born daughter of Emperor Xiaowu and his empress, during the Liu Song dynasty. Never heard of it? Neither had I. Lasting just 60 years in the 400s CE, it was one of the four southern kingdoms which succeeded the Eastern Jin Empire. While it was going, the Liu Song dynasty ruled most of southern China, but a string of incompetent or tyrannical emperors led to internal instability and the dynasty’s quick downfall.

Luckily for her, Liu Chuyu was born during a relatively stable period. Her father became Emperor Xiaowu by force, but his reign was more or less stable, and he died of natural causes when she was 17 or 18. The transition of power was bloodless and his son, Liu Chuyu’s younger brother, followed Emperor Xiaowu upon the throne.

Before he died, her father married her to He Ji, son of a prominent official. Liu Chuyu doesn’t seem to have been so happy about this. History records that when her brother left the palace she would often go to see him. One of those visits, Liu Chuyu said to him “While our genders are different, we are born of the same father. However, you have more than 10,000 women in your palaces, and I only have one husband, and this is unfair.” In response, her younger brother selected 30 young handsome men for her to keep. (Doesn’t it sound weird when put like that?) Liu Chuyu … enjoyed… them for a year before her brother was assassinated. Her uncle took the throne, denounced Liu Chuyu for her immorality, and ordered her to commit suicide. No more male harems for princesses.

Plantigrade vs. Digitigrade Carnivores - the Polar Bear and the African Lion

The foot structure of many animals plays a critical role in their locomotion and environmental niche, and in carnivores, the clear distinction between plantigrade (walking with the podials and metatarsals both flat on the ground) and digitigrade (walking on the toes, with the heel and wrist permanently raised) animals is most evident.

In plantigrade beasts - which include humans, many rodents, bears, racoons, and opossums - the larger surface area that the many bones provide can act as both a stabilizer and a very effective bearer of great weights. In fact, the big ol’ flighted dinosaurs were plantigrade. At the same time, so were the first (and relatively small) mammals, since both of them needed lots of stability in their feet. The weight-bearing ability and stable platform comes at the cost of speed, as the energy and requirements for movement of so many bones and muscles is much greater than digitigrade feet or unguligrade feet.

Digitigrade animals walk on only their toes, leaving their wrists and ankles permanently raised. This affords more speed, much more silent movement. Cats, birds, and dogs are digitigrade. Digitigrade feet evolved long after plantigrade feet, to fit the niche of mid-sized carnivores. However, they cannot effectively sustain large loads, which is why you cannot use a lion as a pack mule. Well, among other reasons. Really, you just don’t want to try using any mid-sized (or large, in the lion’s case) carnivore as a pack mule.

On the Anatomy of Vertebrates. Richard Owen, 1866.

Word of the Day: potlatch

n. An opulent ceremonial feast (among certain North American Indian peoples of the north-west coast) at which possessions are given away or destroyed to display wealth or enhance prestige

Image: “Klallam people at Port Townsend” by James Gilchrist Swan. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

Breakthrough on ash dieback

UK scientists have identified the country’s first ash tree that shows tolerance to ash dieback.

Ash dieback is spreading throughout the UK and in one woodland in Norfolk, a great number of trees are infected. 

The team compared the genetics of trees with different levels of tolerance to ash dieback disease. From there, they developed three genetic markers which enabled them to predict whether or not a tree is likely to be tolerant to the disease. One tree named Betty, they discovered, was predicted to show strong tolerance.

The findings raise the possibility of using selective breeding to develop strains of trees that are tolerant to the disease to help safeguard our forests. 

Read more

Images: Close-up infected ash petioles (leaf stems) - Copyright: John Innes Centre