This and That ... perhaps of interest ...

More Vitamin C today ...

 

I thought I posted yesterday about these Vicky..

Nevertheless they are all fabulous what a skill and eye for detail this very talented person has.

 

Smallest international bridge in the world links Portugal to Spain

This bridge connects the “Marcos” of Portugal and Spain, the Portuguese village of Marco and the Spanish town of El Marco.

The smallest international bridge in the world is located in Arronches, a village in the Portalegre district. It is called Marco International Bridge and is just 6 metres long and 1.45 meters wide.

This bridge has a very rustic visual appearance, suggesting that it is older than it actually is, but it is, in fact, an ecological structure, with wooden floors and side railings made from tree trunks.

According to NiT, which cites information from the Arronches City Council website, in the past, the Marco International Bridge was just an “improvised pier” that allowed trade between smugglers from the two countries on the Iberian Peninsula of products such as tobacco, coffee, cork and olives.

This improvised pier ended up being washed away by the waters of the Abrilongo River whenever it rained and it was the inhabitants of the two localities who had to replace the wooden planks to be able to pass between one country and the other.

But it was in 1996, with the Schengen agreement, that these illegal commercial exchanges ended. And in 2008, with the support of community funds, the bridge was rebuilt, giving it the visual appearance you can see today

Despite the obvious improvements to its structure, the Marco International Bridge only allows the passage of pedestrians and two-wheeled vehicles, given its small dimensions.

 

Possible hatching soon

 

I lived in Huntsville, Alabama, from 1963 through 1977 so missed this ...




Courtesy of
Huntsville Revisited (GROUP)
Stacey Cooper Brewer · ·
Shuttle Orbiter Enterprise arrives on top of Boeing 747 at Redstone Airfield in March 1978. Enterprise traveled to NASA Marshall Space Flight Center to undergo vibration testing to prove its structural integrity. These are digital copies of official NASA photos in my possession.

 

We've got a VR set. One of my kids wanted one for Christmas. I initially said no, mostly for the reasons I think you're alluding to, namely that it might be seen as yet another reason not to do actual activity. But I eventually caved on on the condition that it's shared among the whole household, and limited time using it.

Now, here's two surprising genuine benefits. First, let's say that after a period of health issues you lose all your fitness, and a lot of your confidence also goes because things that used to be easy are suddenly exhausting. You put the VR on and you're suddenly moving about, and you actually work up a sweat. The intensity is up to you. In some games you're just slowly moving your arms and looking around. In others, such as a boxing game I found, you come off it drenched in sweat after a really hard workout.

The second scenario is someone else in the family that is slowly losing their vision due to age related macula degeneration. In the real world, he describes it as like when your glasses steam up. He has a go on the headset, and because the imagery is actively illuminated, he can see it almost normal. So in a way, albeit in an entirely fake world, the VR gives him a temporary break from being almost blind.

 

The Bosco Verticale / Vertical Forest high-rise complex in Milan, Italy. The plant life, which is said to equal 3 hectares of forests (20,000 sq m), not only moderates the temperature in summer and winter but also converts as much as 30 tonnes of CO2 each year. On top of that, it filters out dust particles, protects the residents from noise pollution and creates a microhabitat for insects and birds.

 

FIGS: NOT FRUIT, Did You Know?
A fig is not just an ordinary fruit, in fact, it's not even a fruit.
Strictly speaking, figs are inverted flowers.
Figs don’t bloom in the same way as other fruit trees like almonds or cherries.
Figs have a very curious history.
First of all, they're technically not a fruit, but an infruity (a set of fruits).
And secondly, they need a slaughtered wasp to breed, an insect that dies inside the fig.
In a nutshell, figs are a kind of inverted flowers that bloom inside this large, dark, red-hued bud we know as figs.
Each flower produces a single nut and a single seed called an "aquarium".
The fig is made up of several branches, which give it this characteristic crunchy texture.
Therefore, when we eat one fig, we are eating hundreds of fruits.
But the most amazing thing, it’s the special pollination process that fig flowers need to reproduce.
They can’t depend on whether, the wind or the bees bring pollen as other fruits, so they need a species known as the fig wasps.
These insects transport their genetic material and allow it to reproduce.
For their part, wasps couldn’t live without figs, as they deposit their larvae inside the fruit.
This relationship is known as symbiosis or mutualism.
Currently, the vast majority of producers of this fruit no longer need the work of wasps.
Most fig varieties for human consumption are part non-genetic.
This means they always bear fruit in the absence of a pollinator.

 

Australia’s oldest man Alfie Dates (109) knits tiny sweaters for injured penguins!

 

1. Go to the woods. Bring a pinecone home.
2. Put the cone in a pot with some soil - so that most of it stands out.
3.Every day water it with a small amount of water, as excess water makes the cones rot.
4. After some time, a tiny tree will appear.
5. Congratulations - you just started oxygen production and you have a piece of Forest in your own home.
Thank-you for doing something for nature!

 

Fortunate that the commercial figs don't need a pollinator, or vegetarians wouldn't be able to eat figs.

 

Room 8” ( 1947–1968 )
Room 8 was a neighborhood cat who wandered into a classroom in 1952 at Elysian Heights Elementary School in Echo Park, California. He lived in the school during the school year and then disappeared for the summer, returning when classes started again. This pattern continued without interruption until the mid-1960s.
News cameras would arrive at the school at the beginning of the year waiting for the cat's return; he became famous and would receive up to 100 letters a day addressed to him at the school. Eventually, he was featured in a documentary called Big Cat, Little Cat and a children's book, A Cat Called Room 8. Look magazine ran a three-page Room 8 feature by photographer Richard Hewett in November 1962, titled "Room 8: The School Cat". Leo Kottke wrote an instrumental called "Room 8" that was included in his 1971 album, Mudlark.
As he got older, Room 8 was injured in a cat fight and suffered from feline pneumonia, so a family near the school volunteered to take him in. The school's janitor would find him at the end of the school day and carry him across the street.
His obituary in the Los Angeles Times rivaled that of major political figures, running three columns with a photograph. The cat was so famous that his obituary ran in papers as far away as Hartford, Connecticut. The students raised the funds for his gravestone. He is buried at the Los Angeles Pet Memorial Park in Calabasas, California.