Trapping Fish With Giant Penises
The Genius of Fishing with Tidal Weirs
Native and non-native scientists have come together to counter overfishing with an ancient practice.
BY KATA KARÁTH
Seen from the air, the Micronesian state of Yap is a jewel-green archipelago of dense forests patched with taro fields, fringed by mazes of mangroves, and trimmed by coral reefs. And, fanning out from the wrack lines into the turquoise shallows like a frill of beaded tassels is a geometric design of rock structures that are shaped like arrows, beech mushrooms, or penises. The Yapese call these structures aech, and they are tidal fish weirs, one of the world’s most common Indigenous mariculture tools.
“Our aech is called Aechwol because of its luck,” says Thomas Ganang, whose family has owned for generations an aech near the village of Gachpar, off the eastern shore of Gagil-Tamil Island; in Yapese, “wol” means “luck.” “Whatever fish I catch inside the aech is a sign of luck. So it’s an ‘aech with good luck.’” Ganang, who is 66, fondly recalls how, when he was still a boy, his father, Laman, took him to the faluw—a traditional men’s house in Yap—to teach him everything about fishing, including how to use aech.
Burritoverse
Inside Chipotle in the metaverse where users can roll virtual burritos they can never eat
CHIPOTLE is entering the metaverse and encouraging Roblox players to roll virtual burritos they can’t eat.
Although a virtual burrito is pretty useless, some lucky users will be able to exchange their virtual labor for real life food.
The Mexican food chain has announced a Chipotle Burrito Builder experience that will let metaverse users roll their own burritos.
It’s also revealed a behind the scenes look at the pixelated ‘food’ and a ‘90s themed restaurant that pays homepage to the first ever Chipotle.
The New Unreal
Inside Epic’s Unreal Engine 5—and What It Means for the Future of Gaming, Movies, and the Metaverse
For years, the 3D software development tool Unreal Engine has powered some of the biggest video games on the market—from Fortnite to Valorant—as well as television shows like The Mandalorian and even Porsche engineering. On Tuesday, Epic Games showed off the public release of Unreal Engine 5, the engine’s first major update in 8 years.
The company promises that the new updates to Unreal Engine 5 will make it the bedrock for the next generation of Web 3 developments—from metaverse experiences to movies, and of course, video games.
Unreal Engine is the second-most widely used video game engine, trailing only Unity, and is known for its depth of features and visual quality. Unreal Engine 5 augments those strengths, giving its users hyper-intricate 3D detail, facial realism, and large-scale world building. Its release opens the door for Disney to create a live Mandalorian video game that looks nearly as real as the show does, for example, says Kim Libreri, the CTO at Epic Games.
Cancelling Picasso
Is Picasso being cancelled?
Pablo Picasso’s track-record with women certainly would not make him a feminist pin-up today.
There were two wives, at least six mistresses and countless lovers — with a tendency to abandon women when they became ill, a voracious appetite for prostitutes, and some eye-popping age differences (his second wife was 27 when he married her at 79).
Some of the quotes attributed to him would probably cause Twitter’s servers to combust if he said them now (“For me there are only two kinds of women: goddesses and doormats”).
None of this is new — it has been recycled through books and articles from (sometimes traumatised) family members since soon after his death in 1973.
But in a post-MeToo world, it poses a challenge for those who manage his legacy.
WWNFT
How NFTs Are Helping Produce an Animated Series on Wrestling
The Gimmicks is being developed by Sixth Wall and Toon Stars, featuring former WWE stars
The Gimmicks could be seen as a test case for the sector, writes Stephen Lepitak. Sixth Wall/Toonstars
Remember when Saturday morning cartoons were funded mostly to promote plastic action figures and sugary snacks on television? Well, with adult animated content and potentially future online content, that commercial strategy of how shows are promoted and produced could be set for a revolution that won’t be televised.
The boom of the non-fungible token (NFT) over the last year might have caused a great deal of cynicism as to how viable the purchase of digital IP at eye watering prices might be. But it’s already proving a vehicle for funding online entertainment—with animated series beginning to appear, tapping into the trend.
One such series titled The Gimmicks could be seen as a test case for the sector. Created by the web 3.0 animation studio Toonstar, which will produce 20 short episodes with Sixth Wall, featuring a group of former WWE wrestlers, the series will rely on those buying NFTs connected to the show to access exclusive content. This will test the viability of such a commercial strategy through community building.
Binaural Buzz
Newest psychedelic drug — is sound? How people are using binaural beats to get high
Will the next generation of drugs be coming out of your headphones? A new survey is revealing the growing use of sound as a psychedelic drug.
Researchers from RMIT University in Australia say their study looked at the phenomenon of binaural beats, which are sounds that can allegedly trigger a psychoactive effect in the brain. More specifically, binaural beats are illusionary tones created by the brain when someone hears two different sound frequencies in each ear.
Ultimate Upload for AI
The Human Genome Is Finally Fully Sequenced
BY ALICE PARK
he first human genome was mapped in 2001 as part of the Human Genome Project, but researchers knew it was neither complete nor completely accurate. Now, scientists have produced the most completely sequenced human genome to date, filling in gaps and correcting mistakes in the previous version.
The sequence is the most complete reference genome for any mammal so far. The findings from six new papers describing the genome, which were published in Science, should lead to a deeper understanding of human evolution and potentially reveal new targets for addressing a host of diseases.
Andyverse
Warhol-mania: Why the Famed Pop Artist Is Everywhere Again
Andy Warhol is currently the subject of a Netflix documentary series, an exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum and multiple theatrical works.
Andy Warhol left behind a lot of self portraits.
There was the black-and-white shot from a photo booth strip, from 1963, in which he wore dark black shades and a cool expression. In 1981, he took a Polaroid of himself in drag, with a platinum blond bob and bold red lips. Five years later, he screen-printed his face, with bright red acrylic paint, onto a black background. These and other images of the Pop Art master rank among his best-known works.
But one of his most telling self portraits wasn’t a portrait at all, in a conventional sense. Between 1976 and 1987, the artist regularly dictated his thoughts, fears, feelings and opinions — about art, himself and his world — over the phone to his friend and collaborator Pat Hackett. In 1989, two years after his death, Hackett published “The Andy Warhol Diaries,” a transcribed, edited and condensed version of their phone calls.
And now, more than three decades later, “The Andy Warhol Diaries” has come to Netflix as a bittersweet documentary series directed by Andrew Rossi. In a video interview, the director pointed out that Warhol had intended for the book to be published after he died.
ZombieTok
Screen time terrors: 7 in 10 parents fear their kids are becoming ‘internet zombies’
NEW YORK — Is all that time spent on social media, gaming apps, and streaming services turning kids’ brains into mush? Seven in 10 American parents are worried their children are turning into internet “zombies,” according to a survey.
The study polled 2,000 American parents of school-aged children and found 64 percent are concerned about the amount of time their children spend on the internet. Another two in three believe their child’s overall behavior has changed as a result of increased time online.
While 71 percent trust their child is mature enough to roam the web unsupervised, a quarter of parents think a child should be in their teens before allowing this. Still, the average parent surveyed let their child browse the internet independently at 11 years-old.
Hadidverse
Ambitious plans unveiled for a libertarian city in the metaverse
by Jacqui Palumbo
One of the most prominent architecture firms in the world is designing a new metaverse — a virtual city that hopes to be a libertarian utopia.
Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA) has revealed renderings of the “cyber-urban” Liberland metaverse, a small virtual city made of futuristic, curving buildings in the architectural style that made the late architect’s firm famous. When complete, it will offer users the ability to traverse the hub as an avatar, and feature a city hall, collaborative working spaces, shops, business incubators, and a gallery for NFT art shows. The community it hopes to foster will have a focus on self-governance as well as fewer rules and regulations.]
Andbox = NYXL
Esports Company Andbox Rebrands as NYXL, Pledges 7-Figure Investment Into NYC Gaming Community
New York City-based esports giant Andbox has rebranded as NYXL and will be making a hefty investment into the city’s gaming community over the next year, including building its new Manhattan headquarters, practice facility and live-event space in pursuit of developing New York into a gaming epicenter.
“Dedicated to creating experiences and developing content that connects the worlds of esports, gaming culture, and lifestyle for the discerning modern gamer, NYXL solidifies its commitment to New York in more than just name — making an investment in the high-seven figures into NYC’s gaming community over the next 12 months, including building its headquarters, XLHQ, in Manhattan. The organization will also launch YXL, their Young Creator Project, an annual initiative that discovers, supports and promotes the next generation of New York digital content creators, pledging $500,000 to the program,” the company said.
“NYXL is the first organization focused on bringing major esports events to New York, giving an immense audience here what they’re clearly thirsting for,” NYXL CEO James Frey said.
Chevy Twister
Andymania
Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe Portrait Goes on the Block for $200 Million
Christie’s to sell ‘Shot Sage Blue Marilyn’ for record asking price at auction in May
By Kelly Crow
An iconic Andy Warhol silk-screen portrait of Hollywood starlet Marilyn Monroe is headed to Christie’s in New York later this spring for $200 million—a record asking price for any artwork at auction.
The 3-foot square silk-screen from 1964 depicts a promotional photo from the actress’s film “Niagara.” The artist transformed the actress into a pop-art icon by giving her a bubblegum-pink face, ruby lips and blue eye shadow set against a sage-blue background. The work is part of a signature series of “Shot Marilyn” portraits made famous after a gun-toting visitor allegedly fired a shot into a stack of canvases in the artist’s studio in 1964.
The seller of this “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn” version is an eponymous foundation created by the well-known Zurich dealer Doris Ammann, who died at age 76 last year, and her late brother, Thomas, a dealer who helped sell and catalog the official inventory of Warhol’s works before Mr. Ammann died in 1993.
If successful, this example will smash the artist’s current auction record of $105.4 million set nine years ago when Sotheby’s sold 1963’s “Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster).” Potential bidders will need to spend far more to surpass private sales of Warhol’s work, though. In 2017, hedge-fund billionaire Ken Griffin paid the estate of publishing magnate Si Newhouse at least $200 million for the orange version from the same “Shot Marilyn” series, according to a person familiar with the deal.
Memory Born
Scientists Watch a Memory Form in a Living Brain
While observing fearful memories take shape in the brains of fish, neuroscientists saw an unexpected level of synaptic rewiring.
( originally published in Quanta Magazine)
IMAGINE THAT WHILE you are enjoying your morning bowl of Cheerios, a spider drops from the ceiling and plops into the milk. Years later, you still can’t get near a bowl of cereal without feeling overcome with disgust.
Researchers have now directly observed what happens inside a brain learning that kind of emotionally charged response. In a new study published in January in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team at the University of Southern California was able to visualize memories forming in the brains of laboratory fish, imaging them under the microscope as they bloomed in beautiful fluorescent greens. From earlier work, they had expected the brain to encode the memory by slightly tweaking its neural architecture. Instead, the researchers were surprised to find a major overhaul in the connections.
Idiots All Around
Ellis on Cimino
How Hollywood destroyed Michael Cimino
Talent alone couldn’t keep the lights on
Of all the downfalls in Hollywood history, Michael Cimino’s haunts me the most, destroyed by his artistic ambitions in a corporate town whose rules he didn’t want to play by. Orson Welles and Peter Bogdanovich may come close, but they never ruined an entire movement or destroyed a film studio. In a single stroke of hubris and artistic obsession, Cimino burnt down the New Hollywood that created him with just one movie: Heaven’s Gate (1980).
Filmmakers had made massive bombs before Heaven’s Gate and they have made massive bombs since. Three or four were released last year, including Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story and Guillermo Del Toro’s Nightmare Alley, which is by far the best film Del Toro has created. Both of these films are nominated for Best Picture Oscars this year and have probably lost far more money for their studios than Heaven’s Gate. How is it that Cimino became so famous and was able to create two towering works of art in the space of three years? And then become a pariah?
Supercheer
Deep Peering
James Webb: ‘Fully focused’ telescope beats expectations
IMAGE SOURCE,NASA/ESA/CSA/STSCI – The test star has the ungainly name 2MASS J17554042+6551277. A red filter optimises the visual contrast
The American space agency has achieved a major milestone in its preparation of the new James Webb Space Telescope.
Engineers say they have now managed to fully focus the $10bn observatory on a test star. The pin-sharp performance is even better than hoped, they add.
To get to this stage, all of Webb’s mirrors had to be aligned to tiny fractions of the width of a human hair.
But the agency cautions that a lot of work still lies ahead before the telescope can be declared operational.
Lee Feinberg, the Nasa engineer who has led the development of Webb’s optical elements, described the release of the first properly focused image as phenomenal.
“You not only see the star and the spikes from the diffraction of the star, but you see other stars in the field that are tightly focused, just like we expect, and all sorts of other interesting structure in the background,” he told reporters.
Best Hide-the-ball
Baby Nissan’s
Nissan’s Pike Factory Cars Were Retro Before Retro Was Cool
Today, the four pint-sized cars, including the once-popular Pao and Figaro, are ideal gateways into classic car ownership
In the late ‘90s, the American auto market began its long flirtation with retro-classic design led by models like the Chrysler PT Cruiser, Volkswagen New Beetle and Plymouth Prowler. But by that time, this particular vibe had already run its course on the other side of the Pacific. In fact, Japan’s own infatuation with the marriage of modern motoring and old-school styling had originated nearly a dozen years before Detroit discovered the benefits of mining nostalgia.
In 1985, Nissan took its customers by surprise with the Be-1, a pint-sized car that wrapped one of the brand’s existing commuter platforms in a shape seemingly lifted from a time machine. In the process, it kicked off a minor design revolution that not only changed how Japanese buyers approached the cheap and cheerful section of the showroom, but also reverberated through the years to impact modern-day enthusiasts.
Stray Space Rock Surprises
Asteroid impacts Earth just two hours after it was discovered
The asteroid, 2022 EB5, was small and burnt up in the atmosphere. However, more asteroids are coming, one flying by closer to the Earth than the Moon.
By AARON REICH
An asteroid struck the Earth over the weekend, just two hours after it was discovered.
Designated 2022 EB5, the small rocky object impacted the planet on March 11 north of Iceland, according to numerous astronomers online.
At just three meters wide, 2022 EB5 was around just half the size of an average male giraffe, which grows to be around five-six meters in height. As such, it was unlikely to do any damage if it had impacted the planet.
The Roadkill App
Road to table: Wyoming’s got a new app for claiming roadkill
By MEAD GRUVER
LANDER, Wyo. (AP) — The aroma of sizzling meat in melted butter wafts from a cast iron pan while Jaden Bales shows his favorite way to cook up the best steak cuts from a big game animal.
The deep red backstrap pieces, similar to filet mignon of beef, are organic and could hardly be more local. They’re from a mule deer hit by a car just down the road from Bales’ rustic home in a cottonwood grove beneath the craggy Wind River Range.
Bales was able to claim the deer thanks to a new state of Wyoming mobile app that’s helping get the meat from animals killed in fender benders from road to table and in the process making roads safer for critters.
CME Triple-threat
‘Strong’ solar storm to hit Earth on Monday may pose rare ‘triple threat’ from space
People across the world may be able to see the Aurora, a light show that is often seen in high latitude areas, this is expected to be seen further towards the equator during the storm
By Jaimie Kay
Data from NASA and the US-based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has predicted that the phenomena will impact the planet over the next two weeks.
The NOAA has predicted an 80 percent chance of a major storm hitting Earth on Monday, March 14.https://get-latest.convrse.media/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailystar.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fstrong-solar-storm-hit-earth-26451045&cre=top&cip=4&view=web
Under their current predictions, there is a 20 percent chance that the storm will impact the UK.
People across the world may be able to see the Aurora, a light show that is often seen in high latitude areas, this is expected to be seen further towards the equator during the storm.
Metasex
Sex in the metaverse will be ‘equally enjoyable’ as real life act, experts claim
SEX in the metaverse could become as common and “equally enjoyable” as sex in real life, according to two experts.
Daniel Golden, vice president of adult site DreamCam, and cam model Carly Evans spoke to The Sun about how the metaverse could evolve sex online.
Mark Zuckerberg recently said he thinks people will one day spend most of their time in the metaverse.
Turning our everyday lives virtual will take some adapting and new approaches to common activities, including sex.
Golden told The Sun: “I think the metaverse could change the sex industry and the sex industry could change the metaverse.
“The sex industry has been driving technological innovations for years, since VHS tapes, and I think the expanding technology and room for fantasy in the metaverse will provide a great environment for not just Dreamcam users but sexually curious individuals to try new things.”
Pacino On Michael
Al Pacino on ‘The Godfather’: ‘It’s Taken Me a Lifetime to Accept It and Move On’
Fifty years later, the actor looks back on his breakthrough role: how he was cast, why he skipped the Oscars and what it all means to him now.
By Dave Itzkoff
It’s hard to imagine “The Godfather” without Al Pacino. His understated performance as Michael Corleone, who became a respectable war hero despite his corrupt family, goes almost unnoticed for the first hour of the film — until at last he asserts himself, gradually taking control of the Corleone criminal operation and the film along with it.
But there would be no Al Pacino without “The Godfather,” either. The actor was a rising star of New York theater with just one movie role, in the 1971 drug drama “The Panic in Needle Park,” when Francis Ford Coppola fought for him, against the wishes of Paramount Pictures, to play the ruminative prince of his Mafia epic. A half-century’s worth of pivotal cinematic roles followed, including two more turns as Michael Corleone in “The Godfather Part II” and “Part III.”
Duh
Listening to music really does chill people out, reduces anxiety
TORONTO, Ontario — Listening to music really does chill people out, a new study reveals. A team from Ryerson University says treatments integrating music and auditory beat stimulation are particularly effective in reducing anxiety in some patients.
Auditory beat stimulation (ABS) involves combinations of tones, played in one or both ears, designed to trigger changes to brain activity. Studies show cases of anxiety have been steadily increasing, particularly among teenagers and young adults, over recent decades.
Funny Lemmy
Picasso No NFT
Picasso’s Family Is at Odds With His Work Turning Into NFTs
More than 1,000 pieces of digital art are on the line
Last week, the artist—who died in 1973—was making headlines around the world with some unexpected news: His granddaughter Marina and her son Florian, a DJ and music producer, will mint more than 1,000 NFTs for sale based on Pablo’s work—specifically a large ceramic bowl he sculpted in 1958 that, until now, no one outside the family had known about or even seen. It’s big news for major art collectors and the crypto community, who constantly have their eyes on the big auction houses, eagerly awaiting a piece from one of the 20th-century greats to become available—even if it’s not something they can hang in a frame.
Originally, the main sale was to take place on a dedicated website hosted by the decentralized marketplace Origin Protocol. Matt Liu, Origin Protocol cofounder, explains, “For this particular drop, Marina and Florian Picasso’s team approached us, as they felt that [the] NFT platform Origin Story would offer them all the technology and branding capabilities needed to bring the entire sale to life in a big way.” The nuance of this particular platform? “Origin Story is a pretty incredible, first-of-its-kind platform that lowers the barrier of entry for all creators by offering a streamlined way to mint their own NFTs and sell them on the platform’s customizable storefronts,” Liu adds. There will be a sale of 1,000 NFTs on Man and the Beat, powered by Origin Story, and an auction of 10 exclusive NFTs on Nifty Gateway.
Insert Scrotum Here
Balldo
The “world’s first ball-dildo” is less of an erotic toy, more of a dadaist interrogation of the very concept of pleasure.
“WE DEFINITELY LIVE in the worst timeline, but I’m glad I get to see things like this,” my friend messaged me, along with a link to the Balldo. It took me a minute to comprehend what I was looking at. It’s a sex toy, and that’s about as clear as it gets. The company’s site described it as a “ball dildo” that allows you to “penetrate your partner with your balls,” which not only raised new questions, but unanswered so many questions about sex that I thought I previously understood.
I had to know more.
For anyone who doesn’t want to go down same rabbit hole, which includes multiple NSFW videos featuring both cartoon and real phalluses—the latter of which we won’t link to–here’s the short version of how the Balldo is supposed to work, according to its creators:
The skin of the human scrotum has a surprising number of nerve endings across its surface–an amount “comparable to the vulva,” Balldo’s marketing materials repeatedly remind the viewer. And yet, again according to Balldo’s marketing, said nerve endings have gone underutilized in sex. What—an exuberant voiceover asks two excited cartoon scientists and one inexplicably more excited cartoon naked man—could be done to solve this egregious oversight!?
“I did it for the attention.”
The Great Fracturing of American Attention
Why resisting distraction is one of the foundational challenges of this moment
By Megan Garber
Last month, as Delta Flight 1580 made its way from Utah to Oregon, Michael Demarre approached one of the plane’s emergency-exit doors. He removed the door’s plastic covering, a federal report of the events alleges, and tugged at the handle that would release its hatch. A nearby flight attendant, realizing what he was doing, stopped him. Fellow passengers spent the rest of the flight watching him to ensure that he remained in his seat. After the plane landed, investigators asked him the obvious question: Why? COVID vaccines, he told an agent. His goal, he said, had been to make enough of a scene that people would begin filming him. He’d wanted their screens to publicize his feelings.
I did it for the attention: As explanations go, it’s an American classic. The grim irony of Demarre’s gambit—his lawyer has not commented publicly on the incident—is that it paid off. He made headlines. He got the publicity he wanted. I’m giving him even more now, I know. But I mention him because his exploit serves as a useful corollary. Recent years have seen the rise of a new mini-genre of literature: works arguing that one of the many emergencies Americans are living through right now is a widespread crisis of attention. The books vary widely in focus and tone, but share, at their foundations, an essential line of argument: Attention, that atomic unit of democracy, will shape our fate.