What would happen to Earth if humans suddenly disappeared?

A video from AsapScience explores what would happen if humans suddenly disappeared from the face of the Earth (though we obviously wouldn't be around to worry about it).

It's a strange thing to think about, but what would happen if humans suddenly disappeared? A new video from AsapScience explores the impact human extinction would have on our planet.

Body Art: Otzi the 5,300-Year-Old Mummified Iceman Had 61 Tattoos

A diagram of Ötzi showing the locations of his tattoos. The researchers are the first to identify tattoo 15, on the mummy’s right ribcage.Credit: © Marco Samadelli

Four thin, black lines, stacked on top of each other, bring the total number of tattoos on Ötzi, a 5,300-year-old mummified iceman, to 61, according to an exhaustive new study.

Finding the new body art, located on the lower side of Ötzi's right ribcage, "was a big surprise because we didn't expect to see a new tattoo," said Albert Zink, the study's senior researcher and head of the Institute for Mummies and the Iceman at the European Research Academy in Italy.

Ötzi's tattoos are no secret: Even the hikers who discovered him in the Italian Alps in 1991 noticed he had markings on his skin. But researchers have disagreed about the number of tattoos on Ötzi's body for years, and "we decided it would be important to have a clear number of the tattoos" going forward, Zink told Live Science. [Mummy Melodrama: Top 9 Secrets About Otzi the Iceman]

The 61 lines that make up the tattoos on Ötzi, a 5,300-year-old iceman found in the Italian Alps in 1991.

Credit: © Marco Samadelli

CyberSecurity: Beware of "Ransomware"

National cyber security and specialist centre CyberSecurity Malaysia is alerting the public on “Ransomware,” a malware that infects computers and restricts access to the system until a ransom is paid to unlock it.

Victims will see a pop-up message on their screen, which states that their machine has been locked or all files within encrypted, along with a demand for ransom to restore access to their computer.

The new price per litre for Ron95 is RM1.70 (from RM1.91), Ron97 at RM2 (RM2.11) and diesel at RM1.70 (RM1.93).

The Government announced a revision of retail petrol prices with effect from Feb 1.

The new price per litre for Ron95 is RM1.70 (from RM1.91), Ron97 at RM2 (RM2.11) and diesel at RM1.70 (RM1.93).

This follows the Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism Ministry's decision to set the market price of Ron 95 and diesel based on a managed float, starting Dec 1, last year.

It warned oil companies and petrol station operators that strict action would be taken against parties that fail to comply with the new prices.

source: thestar

Beautiful olde-timey GIF art from the Gif Opera Cabinet

Lovely, evocative animated GIFs from classic source materials. Newly assembled gifs regular uploaded by Gualtiero at The Gif Opera Cabinet

7 reasons to use emoticons in your writing and social media, according to science

Do you remember seeing your first emoticon?

The first documented use of “:-)” dates back to 1982, when Scott Fahlman proposed that it be used as a “joke marker” on a message board for Carnegie Mellon University computer scientists. Here’s his Internet-changing message:

“I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers:

“:-)”

Read it sideways.”

Today, emoticons need a bit less explanation. As social media has grown (and character counts have shrunk), these pictorial representations of feelings are playing a significant role in communication.

If you’re still not sure whether emoticons are a good fit for your brand’s social media voice and tone, we’ve gathered up seven real-deal scientific studies that say using emoticons can make you appear friendlier, grow your popularity on social media, and even make you happier offline!

I’m feeling already…

10 Things You Shouldn't Buy at the RM5 Store

The RM5 store welcomes trifty spenders with an immense number of great value items priced at RM5- check out on our list of items worth spending over here. While it may have gotten people loading up their basket with a chockful of items, they are unaware that not everything is worth buying (for various reasons!).

As an update to savemoney.my initial five item list; they have added another five so on par with savemoney.my "Things You Should Buy..." List! Ready? Dig in!

I am a Malay, is DAP for me? – Shukri Mokhtar

Read this article from The Malaysian Insider, I agree to what he said.

Take a look of the article, and tell me what u think.

the content of the article as below,

I am a Malay, is DAP for me? – Shukri Mokhtar
Published: 28 January 2015 4:59 PM

“Religion” and “race” are two dangerous words. Since the dawn of time, men have used these two words to assert control the people, to gain power and self-benefits.

A question that you and I must critically ask ourselves, with everything that human beings have achieved until this day in the 21st century, why do we still fall for the same trick over and over again?

Lasers have turned this metal super hydrophobic

(a)–(f) Video clips showing a water droplet bouncing off a superhydrophobic black platinum surface. The surface has a tilt angle of 8°.
Citation: J. Appl. Phys. 117, 033103 (2015); http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4905616

The ability to repel water has so many potential uses. It can help prevent corrosion as well as the growth of organisms; it means objects need to be cleaned less often, since water can't cling long enough to evaporate and leave behind residue; and it can prevent ice from forming.

Current methods usually involve a hydrophobic coating -- a technique that is prone to damage, since the coating is usually ultrathin and needs to be reapplied every few years. A new technique developed by researchers at the University of Rochester, however, can make a surface hydrophobic without the use of coatings.

Remarkable fossils push back snake origins by 65 million years

An artist rendering from oldest-known snake fossils shows Paleo reconstructions of three Jurassic to Lower Cretaceous snakes: Portugalophis lignites from Upper Jurassic period in a ginko tree from the coal swamp deposits at Guimarota, Portugal (top left); Diablophis gilmorei from Upper Jurassic period, hiding in a ceratosaur skull from the Morrison Formation in Fruita, Colorado (top right) and Parviraptor estesi from Upper Jurassic/Lower Cretaceous period swimming in a freshwater lake with snails and algae from the Purbeck Limestone, Swanage, England (bottom center).

Snakes have been slithering on Earth far longer than anyone ever realized.

Science finds a new way to unboil an egg

Chemistry major Stephan Kudlacek, who worked with Professor Weiss to develop the technique.

There is, as it turns out, more than one way to unboil an egg -- and the new way carries great potential for the development of pharmaceuticals.

As chemist and molecular gastronomy giant Hervé This discovered some years ago, it is, indeed, possible to unboil an egg.

When you put an egg in boiling water, the heat breaks the bonds that hold together the protein's amino acid strings. As the heat rises, these strings then form new, stronger bonds, forcing out the water and hardening the contents of the egg; though, because of differing fat content, the process takes slightly longer for the yolk than the albumen.

As This discovered, these proteins can once again become detached with the addition of a substance like sodium borohydride; applying it to the egg will cause it to reliquefy over the course of about three hours. Though interesting, this serves no practical purpose.

However, a new way to "unboil" a key protein in egg whites, discovered by researchers at the University of California, Irvine, and Flinders University in South Australia, could drastically reduce the costs of biotechnology.

'Super Saturn' with giant rings is first outside solar system

This drawing shows how the ring system would compare alongside Saturn (the tiny dot, top right)

Scientists have discovered an enormous ring system around a star, the first of its kind outside our solar system.

New research shows that the system around the star - called J1407 - consists of over 30 rings, each of them tens of millions of kilometres across.

"This planet is much larger than Jupiter or Saturn," said Eric Mamajek, who helped write the research.

"Its ring system is roughly 200 times larger than Saturn's rings. You could think of it as kind of a super Saturn."

High-speed video shows us why rain smells

I happen to come from the Pacific Northwest, a region of the world that combines a long and elaborate coastline with countless rivers, lakes, and of course the infamous rain. We fish at every depth of water there is, make our power with hydroelectric dams, export drinking water to less glacial parts of the world — we know wet. And I’m telling you, there’s is something about the smell of the first rain after a dry spell; it’s a musty scent that bears no resemblance to the smell of a long-term torrential downpour. Is this smell carried down to us by the clouds? Kicked up from the ground? A new study using high-speed cameras to capture the impacts of raindrops on the ground shows that it is almost the latter.
The technical term for this smell is “petrichor,” and it turns out that it is caused when raindrops actually aerosolize as they bounce off a porous surface — the micro-scale pits actually end up with air dropped inside them as the drop comes down from above. As the tiny pockets of air become compressed, they eventually burst upward due to the pressure and bubble up through the puddled raindrop, carrying small amounts of the raindrop with them. This aerosol effect can create droplet-carrying particles of soil or rock, bacteria, or even viruses from the ground and carry them up on bubbles of air, like champagne molecules entering our nose on bubbles of rapidly expanding CO2.

If Facebook Had Made Ads in 1995

And finally, we now know what a Facebook commercial would have looked like had the social networking service been a thing in 1995. This is according to Brent Weinbach, who designed the faux television spot to mimic early spots for AOL, Yahoo, and others.

It’s keenly observed, and should remind us all how far the Internet and its services have come in the past 20 years. [H/T The Verge]

Source: makeuseof

Google Warns the Internet Will Disappear

The Chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt, thinks "the Internet will disappear," but don’t panic, as his words shouldn’t be taken too literally. Schmidt was speaking at the World Economic Forum is Davos, Switzerland when he made the prediction which has spawned countless misleading headlines, including our own.

Rather than suggesting the Internet will one day go the way of the dinosaurs, Schmidt was predicting that the Internet will "become so ubiquitous that you won’t even notice it." How? By way of the Internet of Things, and how more devices are becoming "smart" every day.

Watch seniors play Grand Theft Auto V for the first time

"Oh man! Destruction Derby!" Seniors have fun stealing and wrecking cars, shooting random people and running from the police as they play Grand Theft Auto V in this Fine Brothers video.

Bring up the topic of Grand Theft Auto around grandparents, and they might be quick to criticize the excessive violence, profanity and sexual themes in the video game. But sit them down to actually play it and you might be surprised by their reactions.

The killer algae making Hong Kong’s water glow

Glow-in-the-dark blue waves caused by the phenomenon known as harmful algal bloom or 'red tide', are seen at night near Sam Mun Tsai beach in Hong Kong. Photo: Reuters

Along a seashore in Hong Kong yesterday, a vibrant blue glow was seen emanating from the water. Beautiful photographs show the shore glimmering, with the lights of the city sparkling in the background.

But this idyllic setting is potentially toxic.

How Bentley handcrafts its luxury cars

How Bentley handcrafts its luxury cars

CNET takes a look inside luxury car manufacturer Bentley's factory, to see how it relies on handcrafting rather than robotics to create its opulent vehicles.

Source: cnet.com

GTA 5 Xbox One and PS4 Cheats Revealed

If you play GTA 5 on the PS4 or the Xbox One you may have been looking for cheats for the game if you are finding it difficult to make money. Cheats can bring with them more weapons and vehicles for instance. You may get a parachute just when you need it or there could be a cheat that would allow you to control the weather.

If you have cheats for the older version of GTA 5 you can use these on the next gen consoles. In first person mode on the next gen consoles you can get a parachute and spawn cars when you want them.

You do have to write the cheats down as you cannot use the in-game phone to use them and you cannot get achievements or trophies if you are cheating. Save your game before going ahead and activating the cheats and you can then continue. Rockstar had the following to say about cheating in the game.

“Saving is allowed when cheat codes are enabled but achievements are temporarily disabled. Entering the same cheat code twice will usually, but not always, disable the cheat.