James Phyland

Data cruncher by day with a passion for cooking. Love to try new things daily. Sales/marketing tweeters will be blocked

[Sesame Street @sesamestreet]

Every flower blooms in its own time 💛🌻💛

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

Swedish warship Vasa sank to the bottom of the Baltic Sea in 1628.

In 1961 it was salvaged and the wood was still strong enough to be able to walk the decks.

Today is the world's best-preserved XVII century ship.

[Gabrielclyde @Gabrielclyde1]

@LakotaMan1 One of those Kiwis that us Aussies always claim because we wish he was ours. A huge talent, but most of all an awesome bloke. My favourite Sam Neil bit - insisted on Event Horizon that his national flag which was intended to be Aus had the land rights flag in place of union jack

[Lakota Man @LakotaMan1]

Wishing actor Sam Neil a blessed journey to the land of beautiful souls.

[James Phyland @james_phyland]

Amazing tree!

[Gabriele Corno @Gabriele_Corno]

Margaret, 90, had gotten outside twice before her son Keith installed cameras. He expected to find footage of the problem.
He found something else. Every single night for nine months their golden retriever Flynn had already been at the front door before Margaret reached the hallway.
Blocking. Redirecting. Taking her sleeve and guiding her back to bed. Thirty-seven documented nights. Not once had she made it outside. Margaret's neurologist watched the recording and said: "I have worked in memory care for twenty-three years. Flynn is performing structured redirection. He built every component of it on his own." Keith said: "He figured it out the first night."

[Ideal Lady @Ideallady5]

This is what "you become who you hang around" looks like. 😂

[Ancient Content @HistContent]

Tipón, Peru sits at 3,500 meters in the Andes. Its stone water channels have been running continuously for over 500 years: no pumps, no electricity, no maintenance crew.

The Incas tapped a natural spring and engineered a gravity-fed system so precise the water still doesn't overflow, stagnate, or waste a drop.

Modern infrastructure can't say the same after 50 years, let alone 500.

[ArchaeoHistories @histories_arch]

Everyone told her to throw it away. She tested it anyway—and saved 3,000 lives...

In July 1965, DuPont Laboratory, Wilmington, Delaware. Stephanie Kwolek held a beaker toward the light and frowned. The liquid inside didn't look right. It was cloudy, thin, and watery. Every polymer she had ever created was thick, smooth, and clear like honey. This one looked contaminated.

Her supervisor looked at it for a moment.

"Discard it and start over."

It was standard procedure. Sensible advice. Almost any other chemist would have poured it straight down the drain without a second thought.

But something inside Stephanie quietly asked one question.

What if?

"I'd like to test it anyway," she said.

That quiet decision would change thousands of lives forever.

Stephanie had never planned to save people through chemistry. Her dream had always been to become a doctor and care for patients. But in the 1940s, medical school was simply too expensive for the daughter of hardworking Polish immigrants.

So she accepted what she believed would be a temporary job at DuPont in 1946, planning to stay only long enough to earn enough money for medical school.

The temporary job became a forty-year career.

Her father, who passed away when she was just ten years old, had taught her to observe carefully, stay curious, and always ask questions. Her mother, a skilled seamstress, taught her patience, precision, and attention to every small detail.

Those lessons made Stephanie an extraordinary chemist.

By 1965, she had spent nearly twenty years researching strong, lightweight fibers that could improve automobile tires. It wasn't glamorous work, but she approached every experiment with determination and curiosity.

That strange cloudy liquid refused to make sense.

The chemical structure looked correct.

So why did it look completely wrong?

Stephanie wanted to spin it into fiber using a delicate spinneret machine. The technician warned her not to do it.

"That liquid will clog the equipment and ruin the machine."

But Stephanie insisted.

Finally, he agreed.

They ran the experiment.

And discovered something extraordinary.

The fiber that emerged was unlike anything DuPont had ever seen.

When they measured its strength, they checked the results again and again, convinced there had been a mistake.

There wasn't.

Weight for weight, the new fiber was five times stronger than steel. It was incredibly light, highly heat-resistant, remarkably tough, and almost impossible to break.

Stephanie had just invented Kevlar.

It was first used in tires.

Soon, researchers realized it could do much more.

Police officers received Kevlar body armor. Soldiers gained stronger protection in combat. Firefighters wore heat-resistant suits made from the same remarkable material.

By the time Stephanie passed away in 2014 at the age of ninety, more than one million Kevlar vests had been produced.

Conservative estimates credit the invention with saving over 3,000 lives, and many believe the true number is far higher.

Stephanie Kwolek never became a doctor.

Yet she saved more lives than most doctors ever will—simply because she refused to throw away a cloudy beaker and chose to trust her curiosity instead.

© Women In World History

#archaeohistories

[Christopher Webb @cwebbonline]

Naomi Osaka walked into Wimbledon carrying both a tennis bag and generations of Japanese cultural elegance.

Absolute slay. 🤍🇯🇵

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

Death Valley National Park experienced its first major superbloom in a decade this year, driven by record winter rainfall (1.7 – 2.5+ inches) that transformed the desert landscape with vibrant carpets of yellow, pink, and purple flowers.

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

Orion's Belt

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

Scientists have created one of the most detailed 3D reconstructions of a human cell (eukaryotic cell) ever produced.

This groundbreaking model, often termed a "Cellular Landscape Cross-Section Through a Eukaryotic Cell," combines data from X-ray tomography, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and cryo-electron microscopy to map molecular structures in extreme detail.

[BlueBriefing🎬🍿 @Uzonna7]

The best comeback in Aussie cinema history. 😂🔥❤️

🎬📺 The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert. ❤️🔥

[Jason Clare MP @JasonClareMP]

I don’t want us to be a country where your chances in life depend on how rich your parents are, where you grew up, what school you went to or the colour of your skin.

This week I introduced a Bill which will open the doors of our universities wider to more people from poor families and the regions and the bush.

This is what it’s all about. 👇

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

Yes: handwriting still matters.

A new study has confirmed that writing by hand activates far more complex and widespread neural networks in the brain than typing, underscoring its importance for learning and memory.

Researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology used a high-density EEG cap with 256 electrodes to record brain activity in university students. They found that the intricate, sensory-rich movements involved in handwriting, especially cursive, trigger highly synchronized brain waves across extensive areas of the parietal and central regions. These coordinated patterns are strongly linked to memory formation, cognitive processing, and encoding new information.

In contrast, typing, which involves repetitive, simpler finger movements, produced significantly less neural connectivity and engagement. The difference was striking: the brain appears much less active during digital writing.

The researchers conclude that the unique motor and sensory experience of holding a pen plays a key role in brain development and learning. As a result, they argue that handwriting instruction should remain a core part of education to support deeper comprehension and cognitive growth in the next generation.

[ “Handwriting vs. Typing: A High-Density EEG Study on Brain Connectivity During Learning” — Norwegian University of Science and Technology (published in Frontiers in Psychology, 2025)]

[Henry Winkler @hwinkler4real]

With deep respect and affection

[SARS‑CoV‑2 (COVID-19) @COVID19_disease]

🚨 After 40 years of research, Brazilian scientist Dr. Mariangela Hungria wins the World Food Prize for pioneering a $2 nitrogen-fixing bacteria treatment that replaces costly fertilizers, saves farmers $25 billion annually, and cuts 230 million tons of CO₂ emissions.

[Crazy Moments @Crazymoments01]

One little call, one gentle step, one unforgettable hug

[World's Amazing Things @Hana_b30]

The Royal Portuguese Reading Room, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It opened to the public in 1883.