A list of curious facts

One: This mask is for cows, and it helps fight global warming by capturing the methane they exhale through their mouth and nostrils—and turning it into CO2 and water vapor. FYI: In a single year, a single cow can belch around 220 pounds of methane, a form of greenhouse gas. (Fast Company)

Two: People are paying tens of thousands of dollars to buy emoji usernames called Yats. Basically, this is a combination of emojis that would then become a replacement for your social media handle, website URL, payment address etc. For example, Magic Mushroom i.e. 🔮🍄 sold for $60,000 in the Yat auction. Sounds bizarre? It is, very, as Mashable explains.

Three: In other odd things people are doing: holding ‘business showers’ for their startups—which takes the idea of your biz being your baby to its logical extreme: “The idea is that if building a business is just as comprehensive (and expensive!) as having a baby, why not build in the same kind of communal support?” Yes, these ‘pregnant with capitalism’ founders also have gift registries. Also: there is now a company that offers a free virtual kit called Startup Stork to help people plan business showers. Of course, there is. New York Times reports on this 🙄 trend. 

Four: Last week, we showed you a caterpillar that looks like a bird feather. This week: a moth that perfectly mimics a dead leaf: “It's not just brown like a dead leaf, it's brown like a curled up, dead leaf. And it's not just brown like a curled up, dead leaf, it depicts a leaf catching the light, with shadows in all the right places and you can even see the veins casting tiny shadows along the curled underside.” Awesome!

Five: Did you know feminist icon and Pulitzer prize-winning poet Sylvia Plath absolutely adored cooking for her husband, Ted Hughes? According to her daughter Frieda, “She was a fantastic baker and a fanatical cook … cooking for my father was one of her joys.” OTOH, Plath also wrote in her diary: “You will escape into domesticity & stifle yourself by falling headfirst into a bowl of cookie batter.” FYI: A set of her recipe cards and rolling pin just sold for $27,000. Atlas Obscura has more on Plath’s culinary obsessions.