Interesting tidbits

Today’s blog will deal with a number of very interesting topics. These are things that you normally wouldn’t come across on a daily basis, so yes, a bit off the beaten path.

A forty-year-old snowman

This Snowman Never Melts—Here’s How Two Artists Pulled It Off

Move over, Frosty! Here’s the story of the art world’s most famous weatherproof snowman, courtesy of the Swiss duo Fischli and Weiss. Back in 1987, a German thermal power station in Saarbrücken commissioned the artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss to create a “never-melting snowman”. It would live inside a refrigerator that would be powered by excess energy syphoned off the power plant. The duo duly created one, and it has been living inside that frozen box for almost forty years now.

How placentas are healing untreatable wounds

The New York Times recently highlighted the remarkable, true story of Marcella Townsend, a 2nd and 3rd degree burn victim who underwent an incredible transformation thanks to the innovative use of donated human placenta. After suffering severe injuries from a propane explosion in 2021, Townsend’s face was left unrecognizable but after a six-week medically induced coma, surgeons applied placental tissue to her wounds, resulting in her face healing to its pre-injury state.

The different types of tissues that form the placenta have been established to play various roles in wound healing. To begin with, placental tissues are immunologically privileged, which implies there is no risk of rejection when used in transplant or graft situations.

When plants weep, moths avoid them

This is the second article I’ve read in recent months regarding plants emitting ultrasonic waves in response to physical distress. And accordingly, moths listen to these sounds and avoid nesting in plants that aren’t feeling up-to-par!

Scientists have known that when plants are under distress (i.e. being dehydrated) they make ultrasonic clicking sounds, but humans do not have the ability to hear these. However, moths can, because they have ultrasonic hearing. So, the scientists wondered if moths listen to plants and thus avoid the ones in peril? The answer is yes!

Building houses made of straw?

Remember that story of the Three Little Pigs? Then you might be interested in reading about this earth-friendly solution.

Using this material has so many benefits including, sound deadening, insulation factors, it can be recycled, it’s easy to work with, and its small carbon footprint, among other things.

In Slovakia, EcoCocon, a company that manufactures prefab straw panels, just opened a new factory a month and a half ago built out of its own product. The automated factory showcases EcoCocon’s modular, straw-based construction system, as well as striking wooden trusses that suggest straw panels could play a role in building out warehouses and other large facilities. 

“Literally, you put in straws, plywood, and a pack of screws on one end, and then on the other end, you have the finished product,” says Peter Jensen, a representative for EcoCocon in the U.S., about his firm’s new factory. “You don’t have any people involved in between.”