A list of curious facts

One: Meet Kyra, India’s first ‘virtual influencer’—as in she is a 3D avatar pretending to be real. This makes perfect sense given all the real people being fake on Insta. She is 21 years old and has nearly 100K followers. Mashable isn’t very impressed with this glorified “thirst trap”—which some gentlemen seem to have mistaken for a real person. You can check her handle out for yourself.

Two: Thanks to climate change, polar bears and grizzlies are coming in close contact with one another—and making babies called ‘pizzlies’ or ‘grolars’. And we may soon have new species: “a short-furred bear that is more adept at handling hot temperatures than the grizzly. At the same time, it’s better at foraging for food that isn’t just the polar bear’s usual blubber-based diet.” This isn’t a bad thing in itself but it’s startling evidence of how humans are changing the planet. The Real Science video below is about 14 minutes but worth a watch. (BGR)

Three: Think hot and sweaty Bikram yoga sounds like a nightmare? How about infrared hot yoga—that claims to mimic the power of the sun:

“Rather than cranking up the temperatures in studios with traditional forced air systems, infrared hot yoga uses heated panels to mimic the sun’s warmth. The radiant energy warms practitioners’ bodies and the floor rather than the surrounding air.”

Its advocates insist the benefits include detoxification and weight loss, but experts aren’t quite as sure. Popular Science has more on the form of yoga and its claims.

Four: Last not least, we are going to leave you with this back-to-the-future bit of trivia: Vinyl records account for most of the US sales of Harry Styles’ new album. Of course, most people still stream their music on various platforms. But when it comes to actual sales, digital formats are plummeting—even compared to CDs. (Quartz)

FYI: Bangaloreans, if you too are in a retro mood, we just discovered a newly opened ‘craft beer and vinyl bar’ called Record Room. Conde Nast Traveller seems to be in love, though we personally would prefer an old-fashioned jukebox with bad 80s music lol! And in keeping with the theme, here are some images of very cool Art Deco record players from way back when.