[rflash8]

There’s a math formula for when kids will have tantrums on an airplane — here’s how to prevent them

It’s the cry-baby formula.

Tired of receiving death stares — or even tongue-lashings — from fellow flyers over your crying baby?

Not to fear: A UK mathematician has devised a scientific equation that he claims can predict when a tot’s going to have a mile-high meltdown.

“If all four of the main causes of a tantrum are addressed, meaning they score 10, the average time until a tantrum occurs on a flight can be increased” — considerably — according to Dr. Tom Crawford, an applied mathematics professor at Oxford University.

The freakout formula, a methodology revealed to credit broker Asda Money, comes after a new study by the firm found that children are most likely to have a tantrum 27 minutes and 48 seconds into a flight.

Meanwhile, each fit reportedly lasts 15 minutes and 6 seconds on average, per the research.

And while that might not seem too long for a seasoned parent, it can feel like an eternity in the unfriendly skies.

Fortunately, Crawford has devised a formula for this emotional explosion so that parents can make sure it doesn’t go off at 30,000 feet.


UK mathematician Dr. Tom Crawford has devised a scientific equation that can predict when a tot’s going to have mile-high meltdown.

Stay with him here.

For the laypeople, the arithmetic whiz took the most common tantrum triggers — sleepiness (S), boredom (B), hunger (H) and noise (N) — and scored each from zero to 10, with zero indicating that the issue is being ignored while 10 signifies that the parent has quelled it.

Crawford explained that if all four crying catalysts receive a 10, meaning they’re addressed, the parent can delay a tantrum by 129 minutes.

That’s an hour and a half of fit-free flying — the length of many short-haul flights around the US.

And it turns out that other passengers aren’t the only ones potentially scared about an onslaught of screeching.

Asda points out that the fear of fits is so paralyzing that 63% of parents admit to feeling stressed about the prospect of traveling, while 26% percent of British guardians would rather have lunch with their in-laws than fly with their progeny.

Meanwhile, 35% of parents have even chosen less convenient modes of transit such as buses, ferries and even trains to avoid being subjected to tantrum-induced anxiety.


Dr. Tom Crawford, the Oxford University mathematics professor who invented the tantrum equation.


Crawford outlined his thought-out formula.

So, how does one mathematically mitigate the chances of a meltdown?

“To score 10 and effectively address the four main tantrum triggers, parents need to ensure children are taking a nap for 37 minutes to conquer sleepiness and will need to prevent boredom by either drawing, watching movies or giving their child a tablet or phone, which is reported to entertain them for 31 minutes,” Crawford explains.

“On top of this, they will need to set aside 19 minutes to enjoy snacks … to prevent hunger and, finally, omit noise through music or reading that is reported to preoccupy kids for 14 minutes,” the mathematician added.

Here’s hoping the tantrum-quelling techniques will help parents and passengers alike feel more comfortable in flight.


Thirty-five percent of parents have opted for alternate, less convenient modes of transportation out of fear of their tots crying on a plane.

This is perhaps especially important at a time when many flyers don’t seem to recognize that babies, crying or not, are part and parcel of flying the friendly — if oft-frantic — skies.

In April, a passenger was shamed after ironically throwing a tantrum over a tot’s tantrum on a stalled flight to Orlando, Florida.

[Alessa9]

Hair expert's genius hack to get Hollywood waves in under one minute



Los Angeles based hair expert, Carlos Atila, is urging people to ditch numerous hair tools in favour of some kitchen foil and a hair dryer if they want Hollywood waves without the effort

Curling tongs, Dyson Airwraps, and rollers, are just some of the many hair contraptions we have tried to recreate the perfect Hollywood wave in the comfort of our own home. Some hairstyles we have trialled require drying our hair first before styling it with heated straighteners, curling tongs, or other tools.

We are told time and time again blasting our tresses with extreme heat does more harm than good, and to avoid wherever possible, so we are constantly on the lookout for ways to be kinder to our hair while also taming any frizz and looking a little more put together with a sleek do.

We think we may have found the solution, using nothing but a basic hairdryer, and kitchen foil, which most households are fully stocked in their kitchen. Los Angeles based hair expert, Carlos Atila, shared a genius hack to get luscious waves in under one minute.

Sharing a video mastering the trick on his Instagram account, he wrote: “Wavy hair in 30 seconds.” The post has received over 1,000 likes on the social media platform. So what’s the secret? All you have to do is divide your hair into two sections by following the middle parting down to the nape of your neck. Twist those two sections separately, and then twist round one another.



Now for the interesting part. You wrap the twisted hair in foil, all around the length of the twisted plait, and blast with a hairdryer to achieve effortless coils. Be careful when removing the tin foil as it will be hot, so Carlos recommends removing with a towel so not to hurt yourself.

If you wish to apply any nourishing oil to your hair after, or set in place with hairspray, that’s down to you, but Carlos doesn’t so that’s a personal preference if you want sleek and nourished tresses. A selection of Instagram users have asked if the hair is wet beforehand, but in Carlos’ video the hair appears to be dry.

Some are desperate to try the simple hair hack, as one commented: “I must try this!”, another shared: “So cool, I’m going to do it.” While others have praised the styling trick for working wonders. They shared: “I did this to my hair yesterday and it worked a treat, my hair was dry and only did it for about five mins.” A second Instagrammer echoed this and insisted Carlos’ trick “works perfectly.”

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/h ... d-31265796

My body was eating itself alive after getting fat-dissolving injections at a luxury spa



A fitness influencer’s worst nightmare came true after vitamin injections left her in a years-long battle with a flesh-eating illness.

When Beatriz Amma was 23, she reportedly spent $800 at a luxury spa to receive dozens of shots of vitamins B1 and C mixed with “fast dissolving” deoxycholic acid, injected in each arm, her back and stomach.

Just a few days later, “I had all these welts on my skin,” Amma, now 26, told Kennedy News. “They just started popping up in the places it had been injected … My entire body started eating itself alive.”

Doctors confirmed she’d contracted Mycobacterium abscessus, a bacterial infection that causes festering and painful skin lesions. They believe it was the result of deoxycholic acid being injected improperly.

“It all looked super legit, clean, professional,” Amma said of the Los Angeles spa where she got the contaminated injections. “[A worker] said it was made by a really reputable company and she showed me the vials. I was excited.”

Beatriz Amma dreamed of becoming a successful swimsuit model before she became infected with flesh-eating bacteria.

Previous research has shown a connection between faulty injections and similar reactions in the skin.

“During that time I was just rotting in bed. I couldn’t even put clothes on. I needed help going to the restroom. I needed help showering and changing,” Amma recalled of the horrifying ordeal.

Now still recovering from the condition, Amma remembered when she thought she might lose her life to the flesh-eating disease: “I prayed to God and said ‘If this is my time, take me’. My body had lost the fight. I remember just being in so much pain that I thought I was going to die that night. I couldn’t fight anymore.”

The former swimsuit model has undergone several surgeries to remove infected tissue and endures six hours of IV antibiotics daily.

Amma said doctors advised her not to wear bikinis in public lest she scare others.

Amma has had multiple surgeries to remove rotted skin.

“Every time I look in the mirror I remember that I’ve lost so much of my life to this. My dream was to be a fitness influencer and I loved traveling and wearing bikinis. I’d worked so hard for the body I had,” she said.

“I’ve had doctors tell me ‘you’re going to have this forever, give up on your dreams of being an influencer, your skin is always going to alarm people.'”

Now, Amma is focusing on spreading body positivity and awareness of the unsightly illness. “I want all of us to be able to express our bodies and feel beautiful even if people feel different,” she said.

“I just really want to help ignite this body positivity movement and empower people of all kinds with all different adversities to not hide and to feel beautiful regardless of their scars – internally and externally.”
Amma has since become a beacon of body positivity.

Amma now devotes herself to promoting body positivity.

Still, Amma is in many ways still gripped with the misfortune to suddenly come over her life.

“I’m on year three and it still isn’t over. I would never have thought that something so simple could almost take my life and leave me still fighting for my life.”

https://nypost.com/2023/10/23/lifestyle ... njections/

[PennySerenade]

Haunting Sounds Made by World's Largest Living Thing Recorded



We can now hear one of the largest and most ancient living organisms on Earth whisper with the tremble of a million leaves echoing through its roots.

The forest made of a single tree known as Pando ("I spread" in Latin) has 47,000 stems (all with the same DNA) sprouting from a shared root system over 100 acres (40 hectares) of Utah. Here, this lone male quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) gradually grew into a massive 6,000 metric tons of life.

After possibly 12,000 years of life on Earth, this massive plant, whose tree-like stems tower up to 24 meters (80 feet), surely has plenty to say. And recordings released this year let us 'hear' it like never before.

"The findings are tantalizing," Lance Oditt, founder of Friends of Pando, said when the project was unveiled in May.

"While it started as art, we see enormous potential for use in science. Wind, converted to vibration (sound) and traveling the root system, could also reveal the inner workings of Pando's vast hidden hydraulic system in a non-destructive manner."

Sound artist Jeff Rice experimentally placed a hydrophone inside a hollow at the base of a branch and threaded it down to the tree's roots, not expecting to hear much.

"Hydrophones don't just need water to work," Rice said. "They can pick up vibrations from surfaces like roots as well, and when I put on my headphones, I was instantly surprised. Something was happening. There was a faint sound."

Amid a thunderstorm, that sound increased – the device captured an eerie low rumbling.

"What you're hearing, I think, is the sound of millions of leaves in the forest, vibrating the tree and passing down through the branches, down into the earth," Rice explained when he presented his recordings to the 184th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, as reported by The Guardian.

The hydrophone also captured the thumps from tapping on a branch 90 feet away, even though that sound was not audible through the air at that distance. This supports the theory that Pando's root system is interconnected, but a proper experimental setup would be required to confirm the sound wasn't traveling through the soil.

Such shared root systems are common in colonial quaking aspens, but the size and age of Pando make it unique. While quaking aspens can reproduce through seeds, they seldom grow from them as pollination is rare since large aspen stands are usually only one sex, being clones of the same individual.

Friends of Pando invited Rice as an artist in residence to try and better understand this strange, enormous entity. Oditt hopes to use sound to map Pando's tangle of roots.

"The sounds are beautiful and interesting, but from a practical standpoint, natural sounds can be used to document the health of an environment," said Rice. "They are a record of the local biodiversity, and they provide a baseline that can be measured against environmental change."

Rice also recorded Pando's leaves, bark, and the surrounding ecosystem.

"Friends of Pando plans to use the data gathered as the basis for additional studies on water movement, how branch arrays are related to one another, insect colonies, and root depth, all of which we know little about today," said Oditt.

Sadly, this magnificent tree is deteriorating, leaving researchers concerned that Pando's days and all the forest life it supports are numbered. Human activities, including clearing and slaughtering predators that keep down herbivore numbers, eat away at this ancient being.

All the more reason to listen to 'The Trembling Giant' while it can still share its secrets.

The recordings were presented at the 184th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America.

Chicken Feathers Can Replace “Forever Chemicals” inside Renewable Hydrogen Fuel Cells, Lowering Cost

Oct 24, 2023


credit Ashlee Marie – Unsplash

With a brilliant idea that could clear two hurdles in one leap for renewable energy sources, scientists at ETH Zurich have discovered a way to use chicken feathers to manufacture a critical component for hydrogen fuel cells.

Hydrogen fuel cells can generate both emissions-free energy and a volatile portable fuel similar to diesel, but at the moment they are manufactured with so-called “forever chemicals” that are toxic in certain quantities and don’t biodegrade in any way.

On the other hand, chicken is an invaluable part of the food supply but comes with 40 million metric tons annually of feathers that are incinerated as a waste product that produces CO2 and other toxic gases as well.

This is where the team at ETH in collaboration with Nanyang Technological University in Singapore has come up with a brilliant solution of using the feathers instead of the chemicals, thereby sparing the environment on both ends in two different ways, and potentially lowering the cost of hydrogen adoption.

“I’ve devoted a number of years to researching different ways we can use food waste for renewable energy systems,” says Raffaele Mezzenga, Professor of Food and Soft Materials at ETH Zurich.

“Our latest development closes a cycle: we’re taking a substance that releases CO2 and toxic gases when burned and used it in a different setting: with our new technology it not only replaces toxic substances, but also prevents the release of CO2, decreasing the overall carbon footprint cycle,” he adds.

Fuel cells create hydrogen fuel by separating the hydrogen from the oxygen in water. At the heart of the fuel cell lies a semipermeable membrane that allows protons to pass through but leaves electrons behind to escape via an external circuit from the negatively charged anode to the positively charged cathode: thereby creating a current that can be harnessed for electricity.

Chicken feathers are made up of 90% keratin, a protein in our hair and fingernails that Mezzenga et al. converted to ultra-fine fibers called amyloid fibrils by breaking the feathers down in an environmentally friendly way. The fibrils can be used to make the membrane between the anode and cathode of the fuel cell three times cheaper than synthetic materials.

But better still, this fibril membrane can also be used to create pure hydrogen (as in H without the 2 and the O) which doesn’t exist on Earth naturally but which can be used like diesel fuel to power heavy machinery like planes and trains.

In this case, a current is sent directly through water as part of a method called electrolysis. Under conditions inside the fuel cell, oxygen this time escapes at the positively charged anode and leaves hydrogen to exit at the negatively charged cathode. The membrane in this case allows protons to pass through even when it’s pure water, which typically isn’t conductive enough for electrolysis.

Per UTH Zurich press, the researchers’ next step will be to investigate how stable and durable their keratin membrane is and to improve it if necessary. The research team has already filed a joint patent for the membrane and is now looking for investors or companies to develop the technology further and bring it to market.

Ancient face carvings exposed as Amazon water level drops to record lows



Human faces sculpted into stone up to 2,000 years ago have appeared on a rocky outcropping along the Amazon River since water levels dropped to record lows in the region’s worst drought in more than a century.

Some rock carvings had been sighted before but now there is a greater variety that will help researchers establish their origins, archaeologist Jaime de Santana Oliveira said on Monday.

One area shows smooth grooves in the rock thought to be where Indigenous inhabitants once sharpened their arrows and spears long before Europeans arrived.

“The engravings are prehistoric, or precolonial. We cannot date them exactly, but based on evidence of human occupation of the area, we believe they are about 1,000 to 2,000 years old,” Oliveira said in an interview.

The rocky point is called Ponto das Lajes on the north shore of the Amazon near where the Rio Negro and Solimões rivers join.

Oliveira said the carvings were first seen there in 2010, but this year’s drought has been more severe, with the Rio Negro dropping 15 meters (49.2 feet) since July, exposing vast expanses of rocks and sand where there had been no beaches.

“This time we found not just more carvings but the sculpture of a human face cut into the rock,” said Oliveira, who works for the National Historic and Artistic Heritage Institute (IPHAN) that oversees the preservation of historic sites.

[Misstee]

Wisconsin brothers cook up world's largest grilled cheese sandwich
By Ben Hooper








Oct. 24 (UPI) -- A pair of Wisconsin brothers led their friends and family in the creation of a massive grilled cheese sandwich measuring 10.9 feet long and 6.25 feet wide.

Exodus Chaudhry, 11, and brother Iggy, 10, stars of The Exodus and Iggy Show on YouTube, used a custom-welded pan, more than 300 pounds of dough and 60 pounds of cheese to create the 2.75-inch-thick sandwich at the Tripoli Shrine Center in Milwaukee.

The brothers aimed to break the Guinness World Record for largest grilled cheese sandwich, which was set by Cabot Creamery of Vermont in 2000 with one that measured 10 feet long, 5 feet wide and 2.5 inches thick.

The Chaudhry brothers' record attempt raised money for local food banks.