Pagan folk trio Heilung will release live album Lifa Iotungard (Live At Red Rocks 2021) in August

Lainey Wilson has been killing it in the love song department lately, and it’s all because of her boyfriend. Last year, the country singer made her relationship with former quarterback Devlin “Duck” Hodges public. Recently, she revealed that this guy inspired her latest single, 4x4xU. Social media user Nashville Stacy caught the most adorable video of Wilson gushing over her partner before performing this song. “Lainey Wilson’s boyfriend is the inspo behind new song 4x4xU,” the fan wrote over her concert footage. @nashville_stacy 4x4xU is about @Lainey Wilson’s cheerleader #laineywilson #laineywilsonconcert #nashville #countryconcert ♬ original sound – Nashville Stacy In the video, Lainey Wilson addressed the fact that she didn’t usually write love songs. However, things had changed for her since she started dating Hodges. “The truth is, I write what I know, and I finally found a man worth writing about,” the musician told the crowd. “So you know it’s a love song because y’all probably thought, dang, she ain’t got it in her, she ain’t got it in her… but I do. I got me a cheerleader.” Lainey Wilson doesn’t usually share a lot of personal details about her relationship. Case in point: American Songwriter tells us that, by the time she and Hodges made their public debut at the ACM Awards, they’d already been together for two years! Screengrab from TikTok According to People, the pair met in Nashville through friends. “We went to this old place called Silverados, and it had free beer and wine from 5 to 10 p.m.,” Wilson recalled. “I was like, ‘This boy likes to ball on a budget too. This is gonna work out.'” Lainey Wilson means it when she says that her boyfriend is “her cheerleader.” She told the magazine that he’s incredibly supportive of her goals. “Duck is the kind of dude who high-fives me on the way in the door and on the way out and says, ‘Go get it,'” the country star said. “He knows how important this dream is to me.” We’re totally rooting for this adorable couple! You can find the source of this story’s featured image here. The post Country Star Shares Her Heartwarming Muse And Finding A “Man Worth Writing About” appeared first on InspireMore.

The post Where Did Smurf Cat Come From? Explaining the Internet Meme by Jessica Kim appeared first on Catster. Copying over entire articles infringes on copyright laws. You may not be aware of it, but all of these articles were assigned, contracted and paid for, so they aren't considered public domain. However, we appreciate that you like the article and would love it if you continued sharing just the first paragraph of an article, then linking out to the rest of the piece on Catster.com. While cat memes are no stranger to the internet, the Smurf Cat has left many feeling confused and scratching their heads about how it became so viral. As with many memes, images of the Smurf Cat seemed to have started popping up on people’s social media accounts overnight with no context or traceable reason for its sudden popularity. While the exact cause of the Smurf Cat meme’s virality remains a mystery, we do know where the meme image originates from. The original image is concept art created by a talented artist named Nate Hallinan. He hadn’t intended for his artwork to go viral, but it was certainly a welcomed surprise that it ended up gaining global recognition. Origins of the Smurf Cat Image The original image of Smurf Cat was created by Nate Hallinan. Hallinan is a concept artist and illustrator who has created many concept art pieces of fantasy and sci-fi creatures and animals. Included in his portfolio is Smurf Sighting, which is his take on a realistic rendition of a Smurf. While Hallinan didn’t explicitly say that his artwork was modeled after a cat, many people viewed his version of a Smurf as having a cat-like face and features. The Rise in Popularity of the Smurf Cat Meme Hallinan created Smurf Sighting on September 9, 2014, but it didn’t reach internet notoriety until nearly a decade later. It’s unclear who first started using this image as a meme, but the image started getting reposted in August 2023. It was first circulating on Russian social media with the hashtag “Шайлушай,” which translates to “Shailushai” in English. This meme eventually made its way to TikTok, where it was also paired with the lyrics “We live. We love. We lie.” from the song “The Spectre” by Alan Walker. It was only a matter of time before the Smurf Cat meme started taking over TikTok, and its popularity trickled to other platforms, including Instagram and YouTube. Discourse about Smurf Cat also started appearing on Reddit. True to the course of viral memes, the Smurf Cat meme evolved as people added their personal takes to it. It became such a sensation that you could even find people creating their own versions of it on Minecraft and other popular games. The Smurf Cat meme reached peak popularity in the fall of 2023. While the craze over the meme has died down since then, it’s still worth noting its impressive reach. The hashtag #smurfcat has over 3.4 billion views, and #Шайлушай has over 1.1 billion views on Russian social media. Why Did the Smurf Cat Meme Go Viral? It’s unclear why the Smurf Cat Meme became so popular so fast. However, most speculations revolve around the idea that its appeal had to do with many people not understanding its appeal. While posts of the meme started cycling, many people took to social media to ask why the meme was so popular or to ask people to stop reposting it. These types of posts and complaints only seemed to cause others to create even more posts featuring Smurf Cat. Conclusion Whether you love the Smurf Cat or are confused by it, there’s no denying that the internet loves cats and creating cat memes and content. While its peak in popularity has passed, it still remains a widely recognized meme. Considering that the original image was created almost a decade ago, we wouldn’t be surprised if this meme resurfaces again and causes another stir across social media platforms in the future. It would be an amazing feat for it to become relevant again in another 10 years’ time. See Also: The Top 30 Most Popular Cats on the Internet in 2024 Sources https://www.dexerto.com/entertainment/what-is-the-blue-smurf-cat-on-tiktok-viral-meme-explained-2293106/ Featured Image Credit: Property of Deviant Art. All rights reserved to the copyright owners. The post Where Did Smurf Cat Come From? Explaining the Internet Meme by Jessica Kim appeared first on Catster. Copying over entire articles infringes on copyright laws. You may not be aware of it, but all of these articles were assigned, contracted and paid for, so they aren't considered public domain. However, we appreciate that you like the article and would love it if you continued sharing just the first paragraph of an article, then linking out to the rest of the piece on Catster.com.

Everybody loves a teeny tiny animal. I mean, c’mon, have you seen the pea-sized frog? Or the recently discovered mini deer species? Perhaps you’ve been tempted to slip a fluffy, tent-building Honduran white bat in your pocket. Well, it’s time to introduce you to another itsy-bitsy animal to squeal over: the bee hummingbird (Mellisuga helenae), aka the smallest bird in the world.How big is the bee hummingbird?Hummingbirds as a group are already pretty small, but the bee hummingbird really is absolutely tiny. Males of the species measure just 5.5 centimeters (2.2 inches) long – only a touch bigger than the height of your average credit card – while females are about 6.1 centimeters (2.4 inches). About half of that length is made up of the tail and beak.The scientific name for Big Bird may or may not be made up.Image credit: © IFLScienceThe bee hummingbird is also super light. Find a penny and put it in your hand; this bird weighs about the same or even less, with males clocking in at 1.95 grams (0.07 ounces) and females 2.6 grams (0.09 ounces). Anywhere between 22 to 34 percent of that is muscle, specially adapted to keep up with the demands of flight.With its all-around smolness and rapidly flapping wings (80 times per second) creating a “humming” sound, it’s no wonder that this bird got the bee as a namesake.What do bee hummingbirds look like?What they lack in size, bee hummingbirds more than make up for in beauty. Like many other hummingbirds, they have iridescent feathers, which in males, cover their upper body, heads, and throats. Although females also have iridescence, the colors on a male tend to be brighter.However, where they differ from other hummingbirds is in the shape of their beaks. While other species tend to have the characteristic long, curved beak, bee hummingbirds have a comparatively short, straight one for gobbling up their body weight in nectar and insects each day.Where do bee hummingbirds live?If you want to catch a glimpse of a bee hummingbird, there’s only one place you need to put on your list: Cuba. The species is endemic to its islands, typically found at the edge of or within dense forests, though they can also be spotted in swamplands and even people’s gardens.How do bee hummingbirds reproduce?As the wet season turns to dry and plants begin to flower, bee hummingbirds get to breeding. This involves the males banding together in groups called leks to sing attractive songs. Like a talent show with a splash of Tinder, the females take in the performance of multiple leks before settling on a mate – although males can take multiple partners in a season.Bee hummingbirds can also mate whilst hovering in the air, with their wings sometimes beating up to 200 times per second – human performance seems more than a bit lackluster in comparison.  Skip to 1:30 to see teeny tiny bee hummingbird babies.The result of such athleticism is usually two tiny white eggs, each roughly the size of a coffee bean, laid in small, cup-shaped nests carefully put together from moss and cobwebs. These eggs take about two to three weeks to hatch, after which they can spend over a month with their mom before flying the nest.Are bee hummingbirds endangered?While the bee hummingbird calls the forests of Cuba its home, that home is rapidly shrinking. According to the IUCN Red List, its native woodland habitat has been modified or destroyed to make way for crops and livestock, or because of logging. As a result, the population of bee hummingbirds has declined to the point that it’s now considered Near Threatened.

Exploring another planet is difficult, but NASA's Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) has one solution that might make it a little easier: a swarm of robot bees.NASA has already flown a robot on Mars, the Ingenuity helicopter, which sent its final message back to Earth earlier this year. The robot performed better than the US space agency could hope for, making 72 flights over 1,000 Martian days, when it was only planned to perform five.While we may have mastered flight on Earth, flying on another planet poses a tougher challenge."The Red Planet has a significantly lower gravity – one-third that of Earth’s – and an extremely thin atmosphere with only 1 percent the pressure at the surface compared to our planet," NASA explained in a press release when Ingenuity made its first flight. "This means there are relatively few air molecules with which Ingenuity’s two 4-foot-wide (1.2-meter-wide) rotor blades can interact to achieve flight."In this low-density atmosphere, however, a swarm of robots taking inspiration from nature could thrive."Migrating flying animals showcase astonishing long-range flights, disproportionate to their sizes. For example, Monarch butterflies (wingspan: 10 cm [4 inches]) fly 4,000 km [2,485 miles] from North American to central Mexico, which has been reported to fly through thin air as high as 11,000 feet [3,353 meters]. The wandering albatross (wingspan: 3.1 m [10 feet]) can circumnavigate Antarctica 2-3 times, covering 120,000 km [74,565 miles]," the Kanglab at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) explains of the inspiration behind the Marsbee project. "While the aerodynamic mechanism behind these long-range flights is currently unknown, recent studies have shown that the use of lightweight flexible wings leads to energy efficient flapping wing motions. Also, the compliant nature of the flexible wings is surmised to aid soaring and gliding in the unsteady atmosphere."  The Marsbees – about the size of a bumblebee but with cicada-sized wings – would be fitted with sensors and communication devices, fly around collecting data, and return to a rover acting as their base. The robots would be designed with energy efficiency in mind, with a predicted flight time of 16 minutes with commercially available battery technology. "Our preliminary numerical results suggest that a bumblebee with a cicada wing can generate sufficient lift to hover in the Martian atmosphere," Associate Professor at UAH, Chang-kwon Kang, explains on the NIAC website. "Moreover, the power required by the Marsbee will be substantially reduced by utilizing compliant wing structures and an innovative energy harvesting mechanism. "While performance on the planet is key, another appeal of the project is the low weight of Marsbees in comparison to other robots."The smaller volume, designed for the interplanetary spacecraft payload configuration, provides much more flexibility," Kang explained. "Also, the Marsbee inherently offers more robustness to individual system failures."When Ingenuity failed, we were left without a flying robot on Mars (an unacceptable state of being), but if one bee fails you still have the rest of the swarm.

Be sure to join visit Space.com at 12 p.m. EDT (1600 GMT) on July 17 for what promises to be an amazing discussion on the future of space exploration and astronomy.

Best Buy are giving Amazon a run for their money with this amazing smart telescope deal — grab the Unistellar Odyssey for $1799.99 ahead of Prime Day.