Link About It: This Week’s Picks

Easy-peel avocados, a "Bugsgiving" feast, an all-diamond ring and more from around the internet

How and Why the Kilogram Value Changed At this year’s General Conference of Weights and Measures, a collective of 60 countries voted to change the kilogram’s value. Up until this vote, the kilogram was based on a platinum and iridium fragment, called the “Le Grande K,” which is stored in a chamber in the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Sèvres, France. Over time, Big K …

Link About It: This Week’s Picks

Inside Japan's KitKat factory, Hockney's $90 million painting, hidden continents and more

Tavares Strachan and SpaceX Send Art to Space On Monday, 19 November, SpaceX will send its Falcon 9 rocket into space. But, this time the launch will be adorned with a Tavares Strachan sculpture of Robert Henry Lawrence Jr, the first African-American NASA-trained astronaut. Sadly, Lawrence Jr never made it to space (he died in a jet crash in 1967) but, thanks to this collaboration, …

Link About It: This Week’s Picks

An alien probe, ancient bathroom humor, the mistaken history of chocolate and more

Ancient Bathroom Humor Discovered Uncovered this week in Turkey, inside what was once a Roman latrine, are a bunch of dirty jokes that date back to the second century. Two mosaics depict well-known Greek and Roman characters, Narcissus and Ganymede—only the scenes are a little different than the myths we know. In one, Narcissus is staring down at his penis, obsessed; in the other, Ganymede (who was …