The blue-tongued skink, also known as a blue-tongued lizard, is already fascinating due to its colourful gob, but researchers have discovered its secret power.

Ordinarily when threatened, the lizard uses its tongue as a warning to predators.

But it’s the final throes of the skink’s defence that has excited researchers: As a last-ditch attempt, it shows the back of its tongue, which is more UV-intense and luminous compared to the front. 

That could be a useful defence against its main predators, such as birds, snakes, and monitor lizards, who are thought to have UV vision.  Read more…

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Clear out your living rooms and get ready for an upgrade: Solange is collaborating with Ikea. 

Saint Heron, the art collective founded by Solange Knowles, announced the collaboration on Thursday. According to the announcement, the collection will explore “architectural and design objects with multifunctional use.” 

The announcement didn’t include any photos or release date, but the kaleidoscopic video accompanying the tweet might hint at the aesthetic Saint Heron has in the works. 

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Your wedding venue search is over. Who needs a wedding chapel when there’s a perfectly functional driverless shuttle bus roaming the streets of Las Vegas?

That’s the venue the American Automobile Association is offering a lucky couple looking to get hitched in Las Vegas. The regional office is holding an essay contest to find the perfect twosome to take part in the first wedding aboard a AAA autonomous vehicle. AAA has a self-driving shuttle pilot program that launched in Las Vegas at the end of last year. The all-electric, eight-seat Navya shuttles run on a .6-mile route through the city. In a few weeks, one of them will become a designated marriage mobile. Read more…

More about Weddings, Las Vegas, Autonomous Vehicles, Driverless, and Shuttle

More than 3 billion years ago, Mars was a very different place. 

It wasn’t the rusty, dead seeming world we see today. Instead, lakes, rivers, and deltas likely covered much of the planet’s surface. Thanks to previous NASA research, we know that at least some parts of the planet were, in fact, capable of supporting microscopic life as we understand it. 

But who knows what once lurked within Martian waters. 

Over the years, we’ve sent robotic missions to Mars to try to figure out the answer to this very question, and on Thursday, NASA announced that its Curiosity rover brought us another step closer toward figuring out if life once existed on the red world.  Read more…

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Instagram just added one of its most-requested features to Stories: the ability to re-share a post from friends.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that the feature is limited to posts you’ve been tagged in — you won’t be able to just re-share any Stories posts to your own account.

Still, the feature should be welcome news to Instagram fans who’ve long relied on a various assortment of third-party apps to repurpose other users’ Instagram posts. 

Here’s how the new Stories feature works: When a friend tags you in their Story, you’ll get the same notification you’ve gotten in the past, which lets you view the image or video in your Direct inbox.  Read more…

More about Tech, Instagram, Apps And Software, Instagram Stories, and Social Media Companies

A trapper that captured an alligator was knocked out cold with a headbutt from the gator. 

In a video captured by a local NBC affiliate, the alligator was restrained by zip ties. It had been wandering through a central Florida neighborhood, endangering the kids who play outside.

“There’s gators everywhere,” one person in the video can be heard saying. “And they’ll be on the road and I literally have to get off the bike and walk around them.” 

The trapper in the video seemed to tease the gator, whose mouth is taped shut. The trapper smacked the gator’s snout, tapping it as it squirmed away from him. It’s unclear if this is a tactic used to calm the gator, but it did not seem to enjoy the tapping.  Read more…

More about Animals, Viral Videos, Culture, and Web Culture

In 2016, Kanye West kept fans at the edge of their seats when he continuously updated The Life of Pablo well after the album’s official release date. 

Turns out he’s using the same tactic with his latest project, Ye.

It’s been less than a week since the album dropped, and new lyrics have been added to the clean version of the opening track, “I Thought About Killing You.” 

“Buckwheat ass n****, it’s ‘gon be otay / Sorry, but I chose not to be no slave,” West raps in the updated lyrics. The added line — about choosing not to be a slave — is a reference to West’s controversial comments during his visit to the TMZ offices in May.  Read more…

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The best way to communicate with the president is by meeting him where he’s at: in front of the TV.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Richard Madaleno did exactly that when he paid for a campaign ad during Trump’s favorite show, Fox & Friends. Madaleno kissed his husband in the ad, hoping to incite the president.

The Victory Fund, which supports LGBTQ candidates, believes that this is the first same-sex kiss in televised campaign ad history.

“What’s the number one way I piss off Donald Trump and the Republicans?” Madaleno asks in the clip. He then kisses his husband. “Take that, Trump.” Read more…

More about Watercooler, Campaign Ad, Lgbtq Rights, Culture, and Politics

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The long, tangled tale of Scott Pruitt — a pile of grift and corruption come to life — as head of the Environmental Protection Agency may finally soon be coming to an end. It won’t be because of a new scandal, but, rather, the fickle feelings of the folks on Fox News.

On Wednesday afternoon, as the nation tried to make sense of the EPA chief enlisting an aide with finding him a used mattress and helping him purchase a Chick-fil-A restaurant for his wife, a Fox News Twitter account blasted out this shot at Pruitt’s ongoing scandals. Read more…

More about Fox News, Donald Trump, Scott Pruitt, Scott Pruitt Scandals, and Culture