While bioluminescence — the ability to glow in the dark — is a fairly common occurrence in fish and squid that live in the ocean's darkest depths, its presence in sharks is not as well-documented or understood. Now, the discovery of the largest-known luminous vertebrate — the six-foot-long kitefin shark — and two other glowing shark species has enabled researchers to gain valuable insights into the luminescent abilities of the deep-sea creatures.
With over 120 pasta sizes and shapes available, one would think there was a design to satisfy every palette. However, Dan Pashman, host of James Beard and Webby Award-winning podcast The Sporkful, was unhappy with the available options. So, the food-lover spent three years, and a substantial amount of his personal savings, to create cascatelli — a new pasta shape that is purportedly more functional than any available today.
The 2020 Summer Olympics torch relay is finally underway. The Olympic flame, which was kindled in Olympia, Greece, on March 12, 2020, and transported to Japan on March 20, 2020, spent a year at the Olympic Museum in Tokyo after the Games were postponed due to the coronavirus. It began its 121-day journey from Fukushima to Tokyo's National Stadium — the venue for the opening and closing ceremonies — on March 25, 2021.
Easter, which will be observed on April 4, 2021, is the oldest and most important Christian festival. Many adults commemorate the holiday, which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ on the third day after his Crucifixion, with prayers and fasting for 40 days before the event. For children in the US, Easter is largely about fun activities like seeking out candy-filled eggs, meeting the Easter bunny, and participating in spring parades. However, not everyone celebrates this all-important holiday with these traditions.
India is home to a wide variety of festivals, each of which is celebrated with much gusto. However, few are as exciting or as anticipated as Holi, the spring festival of colors. The fun holiday, observed annually on the last full moon day of Phalguna — the 12th and final month of the Hindu year — falls on March 29th this year.
With just one correct answer out of 43 quintillion possible combinations, it is not surprising that most people spend days, if not months, trying to solve the Rubik's Cube. However, don't tell that to speedcuber extraordinaire Atharva R Bhat. The eight-year-old from Bangalore, India, just established a new Guinness World Record (GWR ) by solving three of the 3x3 rotating puzzles simultaneously in an astonishing one minute and 29.97 seconds.
On July 31, 1697, a French lawyer named Jacques Sennacques wrote an urgent message to remind a cousin in the Netherlands to send him a relative's death certificate. To prevent others from reading the confidential memo, the note was carefully folded, or "letter locked." The ancient technique, which transformed the letter into its own secure package, was prevalent before the invention of envelopes.
Mount Etna, Europe's most active volcano, has been erupting regularly since 2011. However, the latest series of explosions, which began on February 16, 2021, has been particularly noteworthy. Emanating from the youngest of the volcano's four craters — the Southeast Crater— they have spewed spectacular fountains of lava as high as 0.9 miles (1.5 kilometers). To put it in perspective, that is about three times the height of One World Trade Center, the tallest building in the United States.
