Have a deep view into what people are curious about.

🔗 Architecture 🔗 Kent 🔗 Architecture/Historic houses 🔗 Historic sites

The Shell Grotto, sometimes called the Shell Temple, is an ornate underground shell grotto in the seaside town of Margate, Kent, England. The grotto, which has a passageway and main room, was dug out from chalk, a soft limestone common in the region. Almost all the surface area of the walls and roof is covered in mosaics created entirely of seashells, totalling about 2,000 square feet (190 m²) of mosaic, with approximately 4.6 million shells. Its age, creators, and purpose are unknown, which has inspired a wide range of speculation, although several other shell grottos in England were made in the 18th century. This grotto was rediscovered in about 1835 and first opened to the public as a privately-owned tourist attraction in 1837. The grotto is a Grade I-listed building and remains open to the public. Attached to the grotto is a modern museum room, cafe, and gift shop.

🔗 Medicine 🔗 Ageing and culture

Old person smell is the characteristic odor of elderly humans. Much like many animal species, human odor undergoes distinct stages based on chemical changes initiated through the aging process. Research suggests that this enables humans to determine the suitability of potential partners based on age, in addition to other factors.

One study suggested that old person smell may be the result of 2-nonenal, an unsaturated aldehyde which is associated with human body odor alterations during aging; however, there are other hypotheses. Another study failed to detect 2-nonenal at all, but found significantly increased concentrations of benzothiazole, dimethylsulphone, and nonanal on older subjects.

In 2012 the Monell Chemical Senses Center published a press release claiming that the human ability to identify information such as age, illness, and genetic suitability from odor is responsible for the distinctive "old man smell". Sensory neuroscientist Johan Lundström stated, "Elderly people have a discernible underarm odor that younger people consider to be fairly neutral and not very unpleasant."

Old person smell is known as kareishū (加齢臭) in Japan, where much social value is placed on personal grooming, and specific upmarket odor-eliminating soaps are targeted at more elderly consumers.

🔗 Computing 🔗 Computing/Software

86-DOS is a discontinued operating system developed and marketed by Seattle Computer Products (SCP) for its Intel 8086-based computer kit. Initially known as QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System), the name was changed to 86-DOS once SCP started licensing the operating system in 1980.

86-DOS had a command structure and application programming interface that imitated that of Digital Research's CP/M operating system, which made it easy to port programs from the latter. The system was licensed and then purchased by Microsoft and developed further as MS-DOS and PC DOS.

🔗 Environment 🔗 Automobiles 🔗 Croatia 🔗 Environment/Green vehicle

The Rimac Concept One, sometimes stylized as Concept_One, is a two-seat high-performance electric car designed and manufactured in Croatia by Rimac Automobili. With a total output of 913 kW (1,241 PS; 1,224 hp) and an acceleration time from 0–62 mph (0–100 km/h) in 2.5 seconds.

The Rimac Concept One was claimed to be the world's fastest accelerating electric vehicle in 2013.

To advertise both Rimac Automobili and Formula E, the Concept One was used as the official zero-emission race director's car during the first season of Formula E championship in 2014.

🔗 Computing 🔗 Bulgaria

Pravetz (Правец in the original Cyrillic, series 8 and series 16) were Bulgarian computers, manufactured mainly in the town of Pravetz. Some components and software were produced in Stara Zagora, Plovdiv, and other Bulgarian cities.

🔗 Telecommunications

A dark fibre or unlit fibre is an unused optical fibre, available for use in fibre-optic communication. Dark fibre may be leased from a network service provider.

Dark fibre originally referred to the potential network capacity of telecommunication infrastructure. Because the marginal cost of installing additional fibre optic cables is very low once a trench has been dug or conduit laid, a great excess of fibre was installed in the US during the telecom boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s. This excess capacity was later referred to as dark fibre following the dot-com crash of the early 2000s that briefly reduced demand for high-speed data transmission.

These unused fibre optic cables later created a new market for unique private services that could not be accommodated on lit fibre cables (i.e., cables used in traditional long-distance communication).

🔗 Urban studies and planning 🔗 Horticulture and Gardening

A ha-ha (French: hâ-hâ or saut de loup) is a recessed landscape design element that creates a vertical barrier while preserving an uninterrupted view of the landscape beyond.

The design includes a turfed incline that slopes downward to a sharply vertical face (typically a masonry retaining wall). Ha-has are used in landscape design to prevent access to a garden, for example by grazing livestock, without obstructing views. In security design, the element is used to deter vehicular access to a site while minimizing visual obstruction.

The name "ha-ha" is thought to have stemmed from the exclamations of surprise by those coming across them, as the walls were intentionally designed so as not to be visible on the plane of the landscape.

🔗 Extinction 🔗 Evolutionary biology 🔗 Ecology

Conservation-induced extinction is where efforts to save endangered species lead to the extinction of other species. This mostly threatens the parasite and pathogen species that are highly host-specific to critically endangered hosts. When the last individuals of a host species are captured for the purpose of captive breeding and reintroduction programs, they typically undergo anti-parasitic treatments to increase survival and reproductive success. This practice may unintentionally result in the extinction of the species antagonistic to the target species, such as certain parasites. It has been proposed that the parasites should be reintroduced to the endangered population. A few cases of conservation-induced extinction have occurred in parasitic lice.

🔗 United States 🔗 Biography 🔗 Virginia 🔗 Montana 🔗 United States/Wyoming

John Colter (c.1770–1775 – May 7, 1812 or November 22, 1813) was a member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1804–1806). Though party to one of the more famous expeditions in history, Colter is best remembered for explorations he made during the winter of 1807–1808, when he became the first known person of European descent to enter the region which later became Yellowstone National Park and to see the Teton Mountain Range. Colter spent months alone in the wilderness and is widely considered to be the first known mountain man.

🔗 Writing systems 🔗 Deaf

Sutton SignWriting, or simply SignWriting, is a writing system for sign languages. It can be used to write any sign language, including American Sign Language, Brazilian Sign Language, Tunisian Sign Language, and many others.

SignWriting is the only international writing system for sign languages. It has been used to publish young adult fiction, translate the Bible, caption YouTube videos, and study sign language literacy.

The SignWriting system is visually iconic: its symbols depict the hands, face, and body of a signer. And unlike most writing systems, which are written linearly, the symbols of SignWriting are written two-dimensionally, to represent the signing space.

SignWriting was invented in 1974 by Valerie Sutton, a ballet dancer who eight years earlier had developed a dance notation named Sutton DanceWriting. The current standardized form of SignWriting is known as the International Sign Writing Alphabet (ISWA).