A tapestry is basically a combination of a story, a painting, and a massive sewing project. It’s hard to imagine how such a project even starts. Take a look at this video, though. It walks you through the process of making a tapestry from the beginning to the end. It involves lots of transparencies, hand-dyed fabric, a massive loom, and lots and lots of hand-stitching. The end result is, of course, spectacularly beautiful. 

Sometimes it seems like science has discovered all of the animals. But there are still parts of the planet that are relatively unexplored. Laos, for example, doesn’t exactly draw the attention of western scientists, and its forests are pretty dangerous meaning that scientists don’t want to traipse into them. But there are ways of finding what’s in those forests: the local meat markets. There you can find the Lazarus Rat, a rat that was thought to be extinct but cropped up in this market. 

Have you heard of Norilsk, Russia? Probably not, because it’s not exactly a place people talk about. It’s a nickel mining city, it’s among the most polluted cities on the earth, it’s in the permafrost zone (meaning nothing grows there). In Norilsk, blood illnesses are 44% higher, nervous system illnesses are 38% higher, and bone and muscle system illnesses 28% higher among children in Norilsk than in other Siberian cities. So congrats, Norilsk. You may be the most depressing city on the planet. 

Boston Dynamics has a variety of robot projects in the works––one of those projects is a robotic “dog.” Now, to the human eye this monstrosity can only loosely be compared to a dog. But in the eyes of an actual dog…well, take a look. This real dog doesn’t seem to like Boston Dynamics’s creation. Even when the robot dog taps it “paws” and enters play postures, the terrier is not a fan. Perhaps if they put fake fur on the robot? 

If you’ve ever watched Olympic archers compete, you might have noticed that they let their bows swing loose after they take their shot. Why are they doing that? Aren’t they holding the bow tightly to make their shot? Actually, no. You need to hold the bow loosely to avoid blowing out your forearms, and you want to reset between each shot to avoid exhaustion. This video explains the exact process of setting up and resetting a shot. 

Remember the guy who made an epic commercial to sell his girlfriend’s 1996 Honda Accord? Last we heard, he put the commercial (and car) on eBay where it garnered a pretty huge sum before eBay shut it down as a suspected fraud. Well, there’s been a new development. In this video, CarMax makes a heck of an offer for that car: $20,000 to fill the “Honda Accord sized hole” the commercial left in the hearts. He has a week to redeem the car for the money. 

If you’re worried that global warming is making the planet unlivable, don’t worry! There may be options out in space. One of the major hurdles for space colonization is materials––getting materials off of the earth is prohibitively expensive. But astroids might contain enough important minerals to use for electronics, fuel, and more to make space travel and colonization cheaper and easier. Of course, don’t be excited for yourself, but for your progeny because this stuff might not be happening for another hundred years. 

Volunteers in one Japanese town regularly hand out food to stray cats. Over time, they noticed that one stay would never stay and eat; instead, it would carry its food off and disappear until the next day. So one day the volunteers decided to follow the cat to see where it went. It led them on what seemed like a wild goose chase until they found out why the cat carried its food so far: to feed its sweet, little kitten. 

Karl Marx called it alienation: the separation of a worker and the thing he or she produces. Max Weber called it the iron cage: a prison made of the overly-specialized, assembly-line work environment. Most of us just call it, “Work sucks.” But for the artist behind this video, work really sucks. So he took out his frustrations––and particularly his frustrations with working with a bad boss––out on this animation. Anyone who works can sympathize with “The Working Man.”

Most of our readers are Americans, so obviously y’all don’t need advice about how to travel in the United States. But that’s not exactly the point of posting this video. Rather, it’s interesting to see what other people find important to know about your home country––what they expect, what they assume, what they’re afraid of, and so on. Some of the things are obvious: don’t touch the Americans, we like our personal space. Others are less obvious: don’t expect someone to wait for you to answer if you ask, “How are you?” It’s just another way of saying hi. 

In 1953, a storm struck the Netherlands with such strong winds, high tides, and massive amounts of rain that it killed over a thousand people and two-hundred thousand cattle, and it destroyed forty-three thousand homes. After this tragedy, the Netherlands opted to change its entire water-protection strategy. The result was one of the seven wonders of the modern world. Real Engineering explains how the Netherlands built the massive series of levees that protects it from floods. 

If you’re ever been to a Korean restaurant, you’ve tasted gochujang. It’s that sweet, savory, and spicy sauce that comes with bibimbap, kimchi, and a variety of other Korean foods. If you’re lucky enough to have grown up in a Korean household, it probably tastes like home to you. This video takes you to the town that makes the best-tasting gochujang in South Korea, thanks to Seo Youngsoon who has been making the stuff for four decades.