Stuffing pillows with hair!

Palestinian mother Ezzeya Daraghmeh opens up a pillowcase and pulls out large clumps of her multi-coloured hair that she has kept for nearly seven decades.

“I like my hair and I hate to throw it away. Even when I comb my hair or wash it I keep the hair that falls off,” the 82-year-old told at her home in Tubas in the West Bank.

Daraghmeh started collecting her hair when she was 15, storing the different shades of black, brown, grey and white-coloured locks in a mattress before opting to use it to stuff three big pillows in her home.

She uses the hair pillows as decoration.

Rainbow spiders inspire scientists

Scientists have identified the unique micro-structures that lend Australian peacock spiders their bedazzling iridescence. The abdomens of male peacock spiders offer a shiny rainbow colouration. And scientists have now a better understanding of the surface structures that give the spider its unique colours.

As researchers explained in a new release, the combination of the scales’ textured pattern and shape “enables separation and isolation of light into its component wavelengths at finer angles and smaller distances than are possible with current man-made engineering technologies.”

Researchers hope their findings will inspire new optical technologies and help scientists manipulate light on smaller scales. Improved fine-scale spectral resolution could prove useful to scientific instruments used on space missions and in spectroscopic devices designed to image and identify chemicals.

Game of Thrones Hotel made entirely of ice

Game of Thrones fans might not be able to visit the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, but now they can visit the next best thing. HBO Nordic has partnered with Lapland Hotels to create a Game of Thrones-themed hotel — and it’s all made of snow and ice.

Appropriately named the SnowVillage, the hotel is located in Finland and consists of approximately 30 snow-built rooms.

There are several references to the show throughout the hotel. Guests can sit in a life-sized iron throne with swords, visit the Braavos Hall of Faces and gaze at a map of Winterfell. They may even come across an icy dragon that would get Daenerys Targaryen’s approval. If guests need to warm up with some food, they can visit the hotel’s Ice Restaurant. There, they can sit at a long, ice table fit for Jon Snow.

This is the 17th time a themed SnowVillage has been built. Construction for the village begins once the temperature drops to about 10 degrees below zero (around late October or early November).

Half-tonne butter sculpture at farm show

A half-tonne of butter has been transformed into a sculpture celebrating Pennsylvania’s dairy industry and heralding the start of the state’s 102nd Farm Show.

Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding says the sculpture unveiled recently highlights the careers and roles the dairy industry plays in the state. The sculpture features renderings of a cow and a farmer, an agronomist, a milk processor and a shopper with a basket full of products.

The butter came from waste scrap butter unsuitable for human consumption. After the show the sculpture will be taken to a farm and turned into energy in a methane digester.

Published in Dawn, Young World, February 3rd, 2018