Pluto: The Quantum Planet.

Hey guys, it's Adventure Van here with a blog about Pluto. You know, the celestial that was a planet, then wasn't a planet? Well, be prepared to see it become a planet again, maybe. You can't be sure with it anymore. But, two scientists are hoping to get it to become an official planet again, and they're doing it by attacking the IAU classification system. You see, Pluto went off the official planets list because it's surrounded by icy debris. However, that means that during Earth's first 500 million years of existence, it would also not have been classified as a planet. And seeing that good old Terra is a planet, these scientists are hoping to get it to change how it defines planet to be something more simple. A round object in space that is smaller then a star. If that works, then Pluto will be, once again, a planet.

Adventure Van, waffling and flip-flopping away.

Snopes.com: True News.

Hey guys, it's Adventure Van here with a blog about Snopes.com, a fact-checking service that has come a long way. When Snopes was first started, it was in newspapers checking local rumors for any factual merit. But as the internet has come into play, they moved their and now work on checking the internet's many lies in a hope to make people more informed and less easily fooled. Especially in today's trying times, where many people are lying simply to try to get an advantage in political, business, or any other circles where having a misinformed public would greatly help their cause. I'd definitely recommend cross-checking any outlandish video or quote with Snopes, as it is one of the unbiased sources that can actually be proven to be unbiased.

Adventure Van, snooping.

Walking Up

Hey guys, it's Adventure Van here with a blog about when humans began to stand up straight. Despite the constant jokes to be made about teenagers slouching, mankind and its relatives has only recently on the genetic calendar learned to just walk upright. I mean, the current latest marks we have proving we were walking up straight are just 3.6 million years ago, just before the entire Homo genus was started at 2.5 million years ago. This is because walking upright had advantages for our slowly stalking prey.

Adventure Van, walking away.

The Dorito Effect: Our lack of flavor.

Adventure Van here with a blog about The Dorito Effect, a book by Mark Schatzker. It talks about how we've been making food more profitable, sucking out the flavor as a byproduct, then adding in artificial flavors. And it's in ways you may not even think of. I mean, Doritos are a textbook example of this. Cornchips aren't flavorful anymore, because corn isn't flavorful. So, we overload it with flavor powder to make it taste like nacho. Or salad dressing, or barbecue, or anything you can imagine. If it has a flavor, it can be put on anything. Just don't expect any of the healthy stuff to go on with it.

But you can also see it in chicken. Not only have we changed how the species has functioned, we've also began feeding them nothing but what fattens them up, not what makes them taste good. They've also been bred and changed to grow super fast, so they're larger then the large fully grown chickens 100 years ago were, while still babies. And we don't let them grow past that, we simply kill them, and send the meat out. The meat either gets ground up into a grey pulp, where we shape it into chicken nuggets and the like and then heavily flavor it, or they stay the same and we heavily flavor it as it has the same flavor as teddy-bear stuffing. Either way, we don't end up with naturally good tasting food.

And that comes at a cost. In the past, and by that I mean before the last 100 years happened, flavors were related to stuff like vitamins. Things that were really healthy, and that we needed. But now that we've began taking things that taste like vitamins and other healthy stuff we used to relate to those flavors, and throwing them on junk, we can't get the vitamins. Because our still primitive brains don't realize that, we end up eating more until we fill up on vitamins that aren't there, which is why it's possible to overeat, still feel hungry, and feel nausea and duller.

So, is there a solution that's possible? After all, it's still possible to get unaltered food. But it's expensive, and we don't have enough land to feed the large populations we have. But unlike what has been the case so far, we don't have to trade off flavor for product, and they can work together. The only problem is convincing the companies in charge of giving this food to the public are willing to take steps to get flavor back into food, or if we'll end up eating bland food with inches worth of seasoning on it.

Adventure Van, licking their fingers.

Icarus: Not flying to close to the sun, but being one.

Hey guys, it's Adventure Van here with a blog about the farthest star that mankind has ever detected. This star, nicknamed Icarus, is a good 9.3 billion light-years away, and it's very, very, very visible. Normally, at this distance, the only thing we'd see at this distance is exploding stars or entire galaxies. And the only reason we could see it is because of the fact that a cluster of galaxies perfectly aligned with the Hubble space telescope, greatly magnifying our view onto it. Because of how space works, Icarus very likely no longer exists, as this is how it would look 4.4 billion years after the Big Bang. Meaning this may be one the very few glimpses of it that mankind will ever see.

Adventure Van, soaring off.

Bricks!

Hey guys, it's Adventure Van here with a blog about a common building material. Bricks. You see them. You register that they exist. You may have a loose one or two, and you have definitely seen one shattered. But, have you ever thought about what exactly they are? What they're made out of? What they've been used for? What patterns can you make with them? And what will become of them in the future?

Bricks. They're rectangular. And we've used them since 4000bc, in Mesopotamia. They weren't that hard of an invention to make. We used them back when they were just blocks of clay hardened by the sun. And we've kept using them, as we can shape them, transport them, and use them to make many things, unlike rocks, where we just have to hope for the best that they're the right shape and size for what we're doing, and they're close by. Not many people were willing to move giant rocks for long distances, if you discount Stonehenge.

But, that was back when we just sucked water out of clay to make shaped rocks. The recipe has changed over the years, and now they're made out of... clay. Despite how the times have changed, the recipe is still the same. We just bake them differently, not leaving them out to dry. I mean, there are concrete bricks as well. But, despite the fact they're made out of concrete, they still are a worse choice of material then clay. Weird.

We've used bricks for buildings. That's a great thing they're used for. Their main purpose is that. And they do a great job. Houses benefit from a fire proof building material. Speaking of that, they can also make ovens. And they do great at that too. Honestly, bricks are a great fallback material to have on hand. Just ask the third little pig.

They can also be very decorative. Nice colors, nice patterns. And, because they're clay, and not some fragile rock, they can be melded before being baked to become corners, or ovals, or really just any shape. They're very flexible, which is one of the reasons we have had them around for so long, and use them to this day. And they're beautiful. For a common building material, they're only bland if you try to make them that way. But since they can be blank, that's useful even then.

But, as time goes on, and more and more technology gets created and thrown out there at a sickeningly fast paces, what's to become of this tried-and-true technology? Well, there's many options. Besides the chance that we just stick to this, we've been making environmentally friendly variants, making hollow blocks, and many other things that could one day replace bricks. But don't hold your breath.

That's Adventure Van...

wondering why they just did a blog about bricks.

Healthy Plants, Healthy Minds!

Hey guys, it's Adventure Van here with a blog about Beets! Or, more specifically, Betanin, which gives beets their distinct red color. Betanin is able to prevent a protein plaque that can form in your brain, which would start down a path of neuro-degenerative disease, which is a real bad thing. But this Betanin can help reduce that by almost 90%, which is a huge step towards being able to counter horrible brain diseases.

Adventure Van, thinking forward!

Eyebrows!

Hey guys, it's Adventure Van here with a blog about Eyebrows. We know the reason we have eyebrows. It helps keep stuff out of our eyes, like dust. But the question is, why has mankind got such... expressive eyebrows? We can use them to signal happiness, and discomfort, and tons of other emotions. We can use them for secret codes and signs, even. But why are they so maneuverable? Simple. It was so that we could survive in a changing world. As social interaction became more and more of a big deal, the more information you could get out during a conversation, the less time had to be spent on it, and more time running from predators, catching prey, and later farming and building. Our eyebrows evolved so we could show reactions and interact. It also helps that people with more agile eyebrows were better at getting mates, letting those genes carry on.

Adventure Van, contorting their face in a mirror.