Step inside the Pitch Meeting that led to Barbenheimer!

From Pitch Meeting:

Once in a while, the internet goes absolutely nuts for something seemingly random. Recently, the concept of a Barbenheimer double feature emerge, and what seemed like just an internet meme translated into actual, real-world, box office dollars. Take that, Morbius!

Barbenheimer definitely raises some questions. Like how did this insane pairing of films come to be? What do these movies have in common? Why is every single word in Oppenheimer underscored with epic music? Why did Barbie keep driving its message home long after it was clear what it was trying to say?

To answer all these questions, check out the pitch meeting that led to Barbenheimer!



Amazing Stop-Motion Masters of the Universe Animations

I recently stumbled on artist Justin Rasch’s work, and the man is truly a master at doing stop-motion animations. Check out his series of short videos featuring the figures from the Revelation Masters of the Universe line. The videos are several months old, and they barely have any views, which is a shame because they’re all incredible! Check ’em all out below!

Things You Never Knew About Atilla the Hun

Meet Attila the Hun: The Original Bad Boy of the Middle Ages! He may have had a killer reputation, but there’s more to this wild ruler than meets the eye. From royal steppe beginnings to epic battles with Rome, Attila and his brother Bleda were the ultimate warrior duo. Learn more about this infamous historical figure in this episode of Weird History.

Unraveling Cancer through PET Scans: Visualizing the Invisible Menace [Science Video]

When a person gets a PET scan to find tumors and see how much cancer has spread, the machine is actually detecting sugar. This is because cancer has a sweet tooth, and this discovery, called the Warburg effect, could help us create better medicines and treatments for cancer. To learn more about how PET scans can find cancer, watch this video from SciShow!

First Room-Temperature Superconductor Announced

Image Source: Julian Litzel (CC BY-SA 3.0)

South Korean scientists have allegedly created a superconductor that works at room temperature and regular pressure. This is a big deal because superconductors transmit electricity with zero resistance and have special magnetic properties that are very useful in technology. Normally, superconductors require extreme cold temperatures, but this new one can apparently work outside the lab under normal conditions. If it’s true, this discovery could change the world.

From IFLS:

There have been previous claims of room-temperature superconductivity that have not panned out. The researchers uploaded a paper to arXiv, and it is unclear if it was submitted for peer review to a journal. IFLScience has emailed them to learn more about the research and the new material, which is called modified lead-apatite or LK-99.

One crucial aspect of superconductivity is critical temperature, the temperature below which the material becomes superconductive. The value stated for LK-99 is 127°C ( 261°F), meaning it could easily be employed in all environments on Earth. If this is confirmed, it would not be the only room-temperature superconductor. But it would be the first to not require enormous pressures to work.

The team also recorded the critical current in the material, the lack of electrical resistance, the critical magnetic field, as well as the Meissner effect. This is the ability of a superconductor to expel the magnetic field during its transition leading to the capacity to repel nearby magnets, allowing the material to levitate. These properties led the team to claim that LK-99 is indeed a superconductor.

“All evidence and explanation lead that LK-99 is the first room-temperature and ambient-pressure superconductor. The LK-99 has many possibilities for various applications such as magnet, motor, cable, levitation train, power cable, qubit for a quantum computer, THz Antennas, etc. We believe that our new development will be a brand-new historical event that opens a new era for humankind,” the researchers wrote in the paper.

From those interested, the paper is available at arXiv.

[IFLS]