auspicious chinese symbols, bats, cats, crackling fire, fire, magpies, spiders

5 Surprising Auspicious Chinese Symbols: Bats, Cats, and Spiders Are Good Luck

There are countless legends and stories about good omens and auspicious Chinese symbols. Some are lovely, and some seem rather odd. Before the 1970s and 1980s, when people in the countryside held weddings, they would place patterns of beautiful flowers and birds that were believed to be auspicious on various items, like quilts, dresses, and ...

Emma Lu

Cats, bats, and spiders are regarded as auspicious Chinese symbols.

Study Offers Earliest Evidence of Humans Changing Ecosystems With Fire

Mastery of fire has given humans dominion over the natural world. A Yale-led study provides the earliest evidence to date of ancient humans significantly altering entire ecosystems using fire. The study, published in the journal Science Advances, combines archaeological evidence — dense clusters of stone artifacts dating as far back as 92,000 years ago — ...

Troy Oakes

Burning off grassland.

New Study on Early Human Fire Acquisition Squelches Debate

Fire starting is a skill that many modern humans struggle with in the absence of a lighter or matches. The earliest humans likely harvested fire from natural sources, yet when our ancestors learned the skills to set them at will, they had newfound protection, a means of cooking, light to work by, and warmth at ...

Troy Oakes

A roaring fire.

Dangers of Lithium-Ion Batteries

Lithium-ion batteries are the heart of any smartphone, without which the devices would not even boot up. However, the batteries have been known to be quite risky. From smartphones manufactured by Samsung to NASA’s experimental robots, lithium-ion batteries have exploded and caught fire on several occasions. Explosions and fires from lithium-ion batteries In 2016, a ...

Armin Auctor

Mobile phone lithium-ion battery explodes in a fireball.