IKEA Monkey

The first time I tried farinata, the baked chickpea pancake from Italy, it was dry as particleboard. The second and third times were just as bad. Only after I'd dismissed it as an inexplicably terrible product of the Italian kitchen did I finally taste the real thing, and then I understood why people loved it so much. Savory, custardy, and simple in the best possible way, it's also dead easy to make at home. Here's how. Read More

Apparently, the test of Taco Bell's Quesalupa in Toledo, Ohio went well and the brand announced that it will be "coming soon" to the rest of the country.

The Quesalupa is basically a cross between a quesadilla and Taco Bell's signature Chalupa. It features melted pepper jack cheese stuffed inside of a flaky, crispy shell. Folded inside is seasoned ground beef, lettuce, cheddar cheese, reduced-fat sour cream, and tomatoes (i.e what you'd normally find in a Taco Supreme)

No word yet on when "coming soon" will be but it'd be a safe bet that the Quesalupa will arrive sometime this year.

37-year-old Maggie Gyllenhaal was recently told by a Hollywood producer that she was “too old” to play the love interest of a 55-year-old man. In an interview with The Wrap, Gyllenhaal said was surprised by the producer’s admission, but that it’s just one of the many “disappointing things about being an actress in Hollywood.”

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Sometimes, neither job seekers nor interviewers realize a line has been crossed.

In this list io9 runs down the 10 weirdest things that people once used as status symbols.

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Netflix-o-matic creates mini genres of film so that you can binge watch stuff with a really specific focus.

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These parents take pictures that recreate famous TV shows and movies using only objects found around their home. The results are very entertaining.

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Die Hard with a Vengeance was a fantastic action film. And on top of that, it changed the Federal Reserve.

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Intriguing Headline of the Day: 10 Oddball Questions Scientists Have Genuinely Tried to Answer

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Straight from the home office, The AV Club compiles a top 10 list of David Letterman top 10 lists.

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When the sun is shining, it’s a perfect time to head back into the house and watch some TV. Here are this summer’s must-see shows.

When Americans landed on the moon, they planted a U.S. flag. (As well as, um, some other stuff.) The flags from multiple U.S. missions are still standing, although their stars and stripes have faded to white. As we gear up to send humans to Mars in the 2030s, designer Oskar Pernefeldt began wondering what flag members of the first manned Mars missions might plant when they arrive. 

As part of his graduation project at Beckmans College of Design in Sweden, Pernefeldt designed a new flag that would convey the international nature of space travel. Astronauts, he writes, “are more than just representatives of their own countries. They are representatives of planet Earth.”  

The flag is blue to represent the importance of water to life on Earth. Seven rings (standing in for the seven continents) interlock to form a flower, suggesting the interconnection of the world, regardless of territory or nationality.  

With endeavors like the International Space Station helping to forge cooperation between multiple countries in the pursuit of scientific knowledge, space exploration is more internationally collaborative than it was in the days of the U.S.-Soviet space race. (After all, the U.S. currently needs Russian cooperation to even get its astronauts up to the ISS). Pernefeldt suggests that the flag might also be used in Antarctica, where several countries have made territorial claims but an international treaty prohibits claims of sovereignty.

Now that we have a flag, it's time to go out and start claiming some interplanetary territory—before the aliens do.

[h/t: Wired UK]

All images courtesy Oskar Pernefeldt, The International Flag of Planet Earth

Photographer Anand Varma partnered with the bee lab at UC Davis to capture the first 21 days of a bee's life, from egg to insect. In just 60 seconds, you can watch the featured bees mature in their brood cells. Unfortunately, the mites that run around baby bees and suck their blood—which leads to the weakening and eventual destruction of a hive—also make an appearance. Some beekeepers will treat their hives with chemicals to combat the mites, but it's bad news for the bees in the long run. 

By committing this process to video, Varma hoped to show how mites and bees interact in the hive, in order to help scientists who are working to find and breed bees that are resistant to the mites. Learn more about the process in Varma's Ted Talk. 

[h/t: ThisisColossal.com]

You don’t have to look in your wallet to know that no U.S. currency features the face of an American woman, but one lawmaker wants that to change sometime soon: Rep. Luis Gutierrez urged Congress today to vote on a bill he introduced last month that would change the face of money as we know it, literally, by putting a woman on the $20 bill.

Rep. Gutierrez introduced the Put a Woman on the Twenty Act of 2015 (H.R. 910) on April 21, which seeks “To require the Secretary of the Treasury to convene a panel to solicit recommendations for and select a portrait of a woman to be used in a redesign of the $20 Federal Reserve note.”

Last week, an online campaign called Women on 20s spearheading the effort to get a woman on the $20 bill announced that voters had chosen Underground Railroad conductor Harriet Tubman as the preferred candidate, though Rep. Gutierrez noted during a speech today on the House floor that his bill wouldn’t designate which female should have that honor, just get the Treasury to move forward with plans to replace President Andrew Jackson as the face of the $20 bill.

Using Harriet Tubman as an example of a candidate for the honor, Gutierrez called her an “ideal American” who was “an agitator” and a “subversive.”

“She used the tools of democracy to improve America. She fought for the little guy against the strong guy. And she was willing to put herself at great risk to ensure the justice for others. And she was a woman and she was black,” he said in pushing Congress to vote on the bill.

“In a few years, maybe in a few months, when the idea of putting a woman on our money is considered a quaint, old-fashioned debate, and similarly when the idea of putting a person of color on our money no longer seems like such a remarkable step, we will wonder why it took so long,” Rep. Gutierrez added.

Back in 2006 and 2007, ConAgra shipped out batches of Peter Pan peanut butter tainted with salmonella, sickening more than 700 people in nearly every state. Today, the company has agreed to enter a guilty plea to criminal charges associated with the outbreak and to pay $11.2 million.

The tainted Peter Pan had been produced in the ConAgra plant in Sylvester, GA, and shipped to stores nationwide. The Justice Department accused the Nebraska-based food giant of misdemeanor violations of the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.

According to the plea agreement [PDF] filed today in a federal court in Georgia, ConAgra is admitting guilt to charges of the introduction into interstate commerce of adulterated food.

Of the $11.2 million penalty, $3.2 million will be turned over in the form of forfeited assets. The remaining $8 is the largest criminal fine ever paid in a food safety case, according to the DOJ.

While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified more than 700 reported cases of salmonella poisoning tied to the Peter Pan plant, it estimates that several thousand additional cases went unreported.

After the Sylvester plant operations were halted in 2007, testing found the presence of salmonella in at least nine places within the facility.

In its plea, ConAgra admits that it had previously been aware of some risk of salmonella contamination in peanut butter.

For example, twice in Oct. 2004, routine testing at the Sylvester plant turned up the bacteria in finished Peter Pan products.

Employees attempted to find the source of the salmonella and identified several possibilities, including an old peanut roaster that was not uniformly heating raw peanuts, a storm-damaged sugar silo, and a leaky roof that allowed moisture into the plant.

Though ConAgra took efforts to address these problem areas, the fixes took years and weren’t completed until after the salmonella outbreak.

Additionally, between Oct. 2004 and Feb. 2007, ConAgra employees in charge of testing finished peanut butter failed to detect salmonella. Making matters worse, the company was unaware that some of these employees did not know how to properly interpret the results of the tests they were performing.

ConAgra has since made significant upgrades to its facilities and says that Peter Pan peanut butter is “is safe and wholesome for consumers to continue to eat.”

A time lapse of the first three weeks of a bee's life, from egg to adult, in only 60 seconds.

Some explanation of what's going on can be found in this video. (via colossal)

Tags: bees   time lapse   video

Molten lava reaches temperatures of at least 1300 degrees Fahrenheit, which makes it a solid heat source if you need to grill up some steaks in seconds. Recently, students and geologists from Syracuse did just that as part of their Lava Project, and the resulting video is incredibly intense. In under six minutes, the heavily-protected team cooks up a party's worth of t-bones, hot dogs, and salmon steaks—including searing one hunk of steak directly on the lava itself, for students who prefer their meat "well done."

[h/t Popular Mechanics]

Why take a picture of a woman actually leading a class when you can just slap her face on a stock photo?

 

Found here. Thanks for sending it in, Borja!

 

The post Be Fit Club: Put Your Best Face Forward appeared first on PSD : Photoshop Disasters .

Meet Ahmed Mohammed. He might be the most expensive hot dog vendor in New York, especially if he thinks you're a tourist.

“If you are a strong woman, you can submit to your man.”

This potent message of female empowerment comes to us from Tara Furman, one of the stars of an exciting new TLC special rolling out this Sunday night. The network responsible for such radical re-interpretations of the American family as My Husband’s Not Gay and Sarah Palin’s Alaska stands ready to spice up your weekend with Submissive Wives’ Guide to Marriage.

Read more on The Submissive Wives Of TLC Would Be More Than Happy To Make You A Sammich…

We’ve all seen news stories that claim a “new study” has come out that shows some new thing causes or prevents cancer. In case you needed a reminder not to trust just one study , this chart demonstrates the spectrum that single studies can fall on.

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Small animals love vegetables, and so do people. Sometimes small animals end up harvested along with vegetables, slip through safeguards in the system, and end up in our bowls. Usually, these are harmless, but what if they aren’t? Four people in different places have found potentially toxic beetles in their salad greens, and we really, really hope that there aren’t more out there lurking in more salads.

All four of these critters were reported to the ever-useful r/whatsthisbug subreddit, where users correctly identified the salad beetles as Tegrodera aloga, the Iron Cross blister beetle. (We contacted several universities seeking information about blister beetles: a real-life entomologist, Lynn Kimsey of UC Davis, confirmed the bug’s identity.)

All four were in organic lettuce, spinach, or packaged salads. Two reports were in Illinois, one in Virginia, and one in Ohio. None of those are areas where the Iron Cross blister beetle normally hangs out: while different species of blister beetles are scattered all over the world, this species is supposed to live in the American Southwest and Mexico. Not in Ohio. Not in salad containers.

Here’s the problem with these beetles hanging out in food: when stressed, they give off a substance called cantharidin, which is toxic. While eating one beetle probably wouldn’t seriously harm a healthy adult, it would make them sick. Touching the beetle directly is unwise, too: it can cause skin blistering, and can even be used (by qualified professionals) for wart removal. Eating insects that give off cantharidin or plants that these insects have contaminated has been known to kill farm animals, and toddlers have been documented eating cousins to these beetles and becoming critically ill as a result.

In an e-mail to one customer, Earthbound Farm explained that “Organic farming utilizes beneficial insects as part of the growing process, because certified organic food is grown without the use of toxic synthetic pesticides and insecticides,” they explained. “These beneficial insects work diligently to prevent other insects from damaging our crops.” Which is good, but blister beetles are not one of those beneficial insects. They have the potential to harm consumers.

If you’ve spotted one of these beetles in your salad, let us know. More importantly, let the company that packaged the product and the Food and Drug Administration know. Call them to file a complaint. Even if they can’t do anything in your individual case, reporting incidents like this to the government helps them to notice patterns and investigate them.

[Northern Virginia] Beetle found in a friend’s salad. [Reddit]
Found this sealed in a salad at work. Any idea what kind of bug it is? [Reddit]
Found this little guy in our spinach, what is he? [Reddit]
Found in a salad. Central Ohio. [Reddit]

"I had no idea there were that many ... I'm glad I know it now as opposed to then because I probably wouldn't be living there," said the resident, Mary Jean Dyczko.

The decision to buy a home or rent is a hotly debated topic—both a personal and a financial decision. On the financial side, however, Trulia has found that in the 100 largest metro areas, buying is significantly cheaper than renting.

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ConAgra Foods is likely to face criminal charges after a U.S. government investigation of the company's 2007 peanut butter recall.

The federal government hopes to reverse America's declining honeybee and monarch butterfly populations by making more federal land bee-friendly.

Two days after Jared Padalecki alarmed fans by canceling appearances at conventions in Italy and Australia, representatives for the "Supernatural" actor said he "has pushed himself to his limits and is suffering from exhaustion."

The Internet, an enormous mechanism for creating unfounded rumors that alarm your parents and grandparents, has done it again. This time it’s the “Game of 72,” a diabolical contest in which teens run away from home for several days, just to see if they can. Except—surprise, surprise—the Game of 72 is not a real thing.

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Software from a group at the University of Washington and Google discovers time lapses lurking in photos posted to the internet. For example, their bot found hundreds of photos of a Norwegian glacier on the Web, taken over a span of 10 years. Voila, instant time lapse of a retreating glacier.

First, we cluster 86 million photos into landmarks and popular viewpoints. Then, we sort the photos by date and warp each photo onto a common viewpoint. Finally, we stabilize the appearance of the sequence to compensate for lighting effects and minimize flicker. Our resulting time-lapses show diverse changes in the world's most popular sites, like glaciers shrinking, skyscrapers being constructed, and waterfalls changing course.

This is like a time machine, allowing you to go back 5 or 10 years and position a camera somewhere to take photos every few days or weeks. Pretty clever.

Tags: time lapses   video

Pearl Jam frontman and noted Cubs fan Eddie Vedder showed up to Wrigley Field on Tuesday, dressed in his best businessman attire to continue a long-standing tradition of singing “Take Me Out To The Ballgame.”

This isn’t Vedder’s first appearance at Wrigley. He sang back in 1998, when the Cubs began inviting celebrities to sing during the seventh-inning stretch in homage to broadcaster Harry Caray, who had died earlier that year.

Quick Uproxx Commenter Poll: Vedder sings one of the lyrics in the song as, “I don’t care if I never get back.” Some people prefer to sing it as, “I don’t care if I ever get back.” What do you say? Try to keep your answers civil; this isn’t life or death. Or is it?

Carlin Isles, with his 4.19-second 40-yard dash and 10.13-second 100 yard dash, is widely considered to be the fastest man in rugby.

He used that speed to great effect in team USA’s rugby 7s campaign, scoring two breakaway tries against England in the semi-finals and putting the Eagles in the finals, where the defeated Australia 45-23 to win the London Sevens Cup.

(H/T to BroBible)

The first time I heard of making pizza on a grill all I could think of was, why would anyone want to do that? Now that I’ve done it more than a few times I can think of several reasons, the first being who wants to heat up an oven to 450°F or higher on a hot summer day?

Continue reading "How to Grill Pizza" »

In a vote yesterday, the Illinois House of Representatives shot down a right to work proposal in commanding fashion, garnering 0 yes votes, 72 no votes and 37 "present" votes. [ more › ]

Boston Market's Beef Steak and Pasta frozen meal features beef steak and mushroom gravy over lasagna-like pasta.



A 14-oz box was $2 on sale.

They kept it pretty simple with this one. The beef was a little bit tough but otherwise had a nice texture. It was beefy with a fibrous quality rather than like a tender braise. Still, it feels like something you might cook at home and there was a good amount in the meal.

The mushroom gravy didn't have much in the way of actual mushroom flavor but was still tasty as an onion-y brown gravy.

If you like your pasta very soft and tender, you'll enjoy the pasta here, which was as mushy as can be without falling apart. I prefer something more al dente but I didn't mind it.

Overall, I liked Boston Market's Beef Steak and Pasta frozen meal for its simple but enjoyable flavor profile. While the texture of the meat and pasta were a bit lacking, they weren't dealbreakers.

Nutritional Info - Boston Market Beef Steak and Pasta frozen meal (397g)
Calories - 370 (from Fat - 70)
Fat - 8g (Saturated Fat - 3g)
Sodium - 1320mg
Carbs - 49g (Sugar - 2g)
Protein - 26g

James Holmes seemed jocular before his capital murder trial began, chatting with his lawyers, smiling and even laughing.

When you see the words “Fox” and “woman” in the same sentence before a video clip, you wouldn’t be wrong to worry that whatever you’re about to witness will likely include something heinously offensive about, say, the right to choose, birth control, feminism in general, or, more generally yet — women.

So it’s bad news from the beginning when Hannity (honestly, just the name “Hannity” is bad news from the beginning) starts by calling the things women talk about in support of Hillary Clinton “nonsense.” Everything very quickly deteriorates from there. For, Hannity’s guest is none other than Vice Media co-founder (who departed long, long ago), former “Godfather of hipsterdom” and current spokesperson for misogynists and transphobics everywhere: Gavin Mcinnes.

Also commentating is Tamara Holder, who begins by sensibly defending Hillary against the information Hannity acquired from biased sources regarding the amount Clinton paid her female staff members. Mcinnes intervenes:

Women do earn less in America because they choose to. They Would rather go to their daughters’ piano recital than stay at work all night at work working on a proposal, so they end up earning less. They’re less ambitious. And I think this is sort of God’s way, this is nature’s way of saying, ‘Women should be at home with the kids. They’re happier there.’

Holder responds:

Having a choice does not mean you’re less ambitious, and your comments are absolutely deplorable.

Then, Mcinnes, clearly unable to control himself, says:

If you were a real feminist you would see housewives as real heroes and women who work wasting their time… Most women are happier at home. They are pretending they like working.

To which an increasingly livid Holder replies:

Why am I sitting here?

And then, finally, the repulsive golden nugget, in which Mcinnes tries to coach his co-commentator on how to be a woman:

You’re making a mistake! You would be much happier at home with a husband and children.

If you needed another reason to vomit a little in your mouth every time you see the face pictured above, watch the full video: