Author: KnowledgeHippo
Art of Craft is a series for artisans whose work rises to the level of art.When Ayoung An was 8 years old, her parents bought her a violin. Every night she slept with the instrument on the pillow next to her.Two years later, a shop selling musical instruments opened in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, her hometown, and An became attached there, raising questions for the owner. “I think I disturbed him a lot,” Ann, now 32, said.As a teenager he decided he would become a violin maker. Eventually, a journey of twists and turns led her to Cremona in northern Italy—a…
On the east side of San Jose, California, there’s an abuela who seems to have more grandchildren than she can count.”A lot of people see me and hug me,” Mardonia Galeana, 89, said in Spanish. “I don’t even know them, but sometimes they ask me for a blessing on the street and I do my best in front of them.”Her likeness has been featured in a painting at the San Jose Museum of Art and a mural in the city’s mission district. But it is her online presence that has captivated the thousands of people who have come across the…
NASA will rent some cool wheels to drive around the moon.Space agency officials announced Wednesday that they have hired three companies to come up with preliminary designs for vehicles that will carry NASA astronauts to the lunar south polar region in the coming years. After the astronauts return to Earth, these vehicles will be able to drive themselves as robotic explorers, similar to NASA’s Mars rovers.Self-driving capability would also allow the vehicle to rendezvous with the next astronaut mission at a different location.”Where it’s going, there are no roads,” Jacob Blitzer, NASA’s chief exploration scientist, said at a news conference…
The first patient to receive a kidney transplant from a genetically modified pig did so well that he was discharged from hospital on Wednesday, just two weeks after the groundbreaking operation.The transplant and its encouraging result represent a remarkable moment in medicine, scientists say, possibly heralding an era of interspecies organ transplants.Two previous organ transplants from genetically modified pigs have failed. Both patients received hearts and both died a few weeks later. In one patient, there was evidence that the immune system had rejected the organ, an ongoing risk.But the kidney transplanted into Richard Slayman, 62, makes urine, removes waste…
High in the mountains of Oman and along its beaten coastline, I stumbled upon an unexpected slice of heaven thanks to a friend’s recommendation. I even started for a few extra amenities for a mishmash of poor meets paradise.I first visited Oman in 2018 after making regular one or two day stopovers in Abu Dhabi, Dubai or Qatar to break up long flights between Europe and Asia. And although it’s about an hour’s flight from these bustling and hot cities, Oman can feel almost removed from time, whether you’re in the Hajar Mountains that cut a strip through the northern…
Seven World Central Kitchen workers were killed in the Gaza Strip when their convoy came under fire on Monday night, according to the aid organization and Gaza health officials.The disaster relief organization, founded by Spanish chef Jose Andres, said the convoy was hit by an Israeli strike. In a statement after the attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to a “tragic case of our forces unintentionally hitting innocent people.” He said Israel was in contact with foreign governments about the episode.Here’s what we know.The convoy of three vehicles had just left a food warehouse.World Central Kitchen staff members were…
As Paramount, the media company that is home to the “Top Gun” franchise and Nickelodeon, was finalizing exclusive talks to sell itself to media company Skydance, another suitor emerged.Apollo Global Management, the investment firm, told Paramount over the weekend that it was interested in buying the entire company for more than $26 billion, including the value of Paramount’s debt, according to two people with knowledge of the matter. It had previously made an $11 billion bid to acquire the Paramount film studio alone. (Paramount also owns CBS as well as other cable networks.)Paramount decided not to pursue the Apollo sequel,…
The Internet, as anyone who works deep in its trenches will tell you, is not a smooth, well-oiled machine.It’s a messy patchwork assembled over decades and held together by the digital equivalent of Scotch tape and chewing gum. Much of it is based on open source software that is grudgingly maintained by a small army of volunteer developers who fix bugs, patch holes, and ensure that the whole outbreak, which is responsible for trillions of dollars in global GDP, keeps running.Last week, one of these developers may have saved the Internet from massive trouble.His name is Andres Freund. He is…
As lawmakers in a nearby hearing room debated last month whether to support her Medicaid expansion legislation, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly dared the state’s Republican Speaker of the House to hold a vote.“If he thinks he can kill it, bring it on,” Ms. Kelly, a moderate Democrat, said in an interview in her sprawling suite of offices at the State Capitol in Topeka.The next morning, in his office off the House floor, Speaker Dan Hawkins showed no signs of backing down. He described the Medicaid expansion as “almost like the biggest Ponzi scheme ever devised.” That same day, a House…
For our last night in La Paz, Mexico, we kept it simple: a few cans of cold Pacifico, a bench on the malecón, the city’s boardwalk, and the sunset glowing orange over the sparkling silver-blue Sea of Cortez. My husband, Alex, and I had spent almost a week taking scenic desert drives and leisurely city walks, visiting stunning beaches and mountains, and enjoying a steady diet of fish tacos and mezcalitas. But now we were coated in salt and sinking into a blissful exhaustion that only comes after a day of diving.La Paz is the capital of Baja California Sur,…