Tausi Insider

Photo : Serkanyalcinkaya ( Shutterstock ) With energy costs continuing to rise, ceiling fans are becoming an increasingly popular way to make homes more energy efficient. As we’ve written about in the past, not only can ceiling fans keep your home cooler in the summer— with or without air conditioning —but they can also help your home stay warm and toasty in colder weather. 02:15 How to Steam an Egg Wednesday 11:19AM But when it comes to choosing a ceiling fan, it’s not solely a matter of finding one to match your decor: You should also consider the room’s square footage in order to ensure that the fan is able to get the job done. Here’s what to know. How to buy the right size ceiling fan for a room First, you need to figure out the square footage of the room where you’re going to hang the ceiling fan. Find the square footage of the room You can use an online square footage calculator , or do the math : Measure the length of the room (in feet) Measure the width of the room (in ...

Photo : New Africa ( Shutterstock ) You might love essential oils, but there are good reasons to avoid putting them inside of your humidifier. Essential oils can corrode plastic A humidifier isn’t made to have essential oils in its water storage tank. The type of plastic they’re made from, usually ABS (Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene), isn’t designed to hold oils long-term. They can corrode, causing the water tank to crack. The oil can actually degrade the plastic so that the plastic itself ends up in the water, causing odors and clogging your humidifier’s parts. Essential oils can damage the filter Anything besides distilled water in your humidifier can cause problems. Since the filter mechanism in a humidifier is only designed for environmental elements like dust, minerals, or pollen, oils can get sucked into the filter and cause it to break down. This’ll obviously make the filter less effective, reducing your air quality and preventing the humidifier from doing its job. It can ...

If you’ve ever wanted to travel to a galaxy far, far away, now’s your chance to get at least a peak at some on a map—around 200,000 galaxies, to be more specific. But this isn’t just any interactive map of the universe : It’s the first to display “the span of the entire known cosmos with pinpoint accuracy,” according to a release from Johns Hopkins University . Astronomers at the university created the map using data collected over a 20-year period via a telescope in New Mexico. It’s the first time this information is available to the general public. Here’s how to use the map to explore the universe. What’s on the map of the universe The interactive map visualizes a slice of the universe, depicting the actual position and colors of approximately 200,000 galaxies—each of which (including the Milky Way) is represented by a dot on the map, and contains billions of stars and planets. “In this map, we are just a speck at the very bottom, just one pixel. And when I say we, I mean our ...

If someone on your holiday shopping list has an interest in astronomy, but you don’t know the Pleiades from pilates, read on. Herre is a ground-zero, get-started guide with 11 gifts that are perfect for budding star-gazers and planet peepers containing everything from gear and books to chemical helpers for the… Read more... https://www.tausiinsider.com/11-of-the-best-gifts-for-amateur-astronomers/?feed_id=330766&_unique_id=644e582ecace4

Photo : DimaBerlin ( Shutterstock ) If you live in an area that regularly gets snowfall, you know the love-hate relationship with the white stuff. A snowy evening can be a peaceful, beautiful thing—everything gets quiet, and that untouched blanket of snow creates a gorgeous blank slate of a world. There’s sledding, and snow angels, and kids having snowball fights. And then there’s the cleanup. Snow and ice look pretty for a while, but they also make getting around dangerous and difficult, so the day after a snowstorm is a day of sweaty, back-breaking shoveling. And making sure that no one slips and falls outside your house usually means applying some form of ice melt on your sidewalks, driveways, and steps. While we tend to use the generic term “ice melt” (or the very specific term “rock salt” as a generic), there are actually a lot of different compounds used as ice melt, and each one comes with some pros and cons. In order to choose the right one for your property, here are the ...

Photo : mady70 ( Shutterstock ) Jumping off the body wash bandwagon to reunite with classic bars of soap comes with benefits for your wallet and the environment. But it also leaves you with a relatively small but still annoying problem: What to do with the little pieces left when you’re almost done with a bar. One option is to turn multiple slivers into a “new” bar of soap—something that TausiInsider has covered in the past . But there are other possibilities, too. Here are a few more ways to use up the remnants of a bar of soap. How to use up the final pieces of a bar of soap Don’t even think about throwing those soap scraps away—especially if you splurged on a particularly nice bar. Try one of these other uses instead: Keep your clothes smelling fresh Rinse off the leftover pieces of soap, then leave them out to dry. Then p lace them at the bottom of a drawer where you keep clothes or linens, or in your suitcase when you travel. Put smaller scraps in a small mesh bag or piec...

Photo : rangizzz ( Shutterstock ) Whether you have a traditional green grass lawn , or one of the alternative varieties gaining traction recently—like bee lawns , clover lawns , or tapestry lawns —you probably want it to be intact when spring eventually rolls around. You also probably don’t want to put time and energy into maintaining it over the winter. The good news is that you really don’t need to do much to make that happen—just don’t kill it. Here’s how to avoid doing that. Find somewhere else to pile shoveled snow When you’re shoveling your sidewalk or driveway, it’s convenient to dump the snow onto your lawn, but try to avoid doing that if possible—especially if you used deicer on the pavement. (More on that in a bit.) Both the salt in the deicer and the weight of the snow could damage your lawn. Shovel carefully Speaking of shoveling, pay attention to what you’re doing when you get close to the edge of your lawn. In other words, try not to remove chunks of lawn or soil al...

Photo : Ground Picture ( Shutterstock ) We often don’t understand things as well as we think we do. How often have you “learned” something you can’t fully recall later, or that you can’t explain to someone else? While we’ve previously suggested that you write down or discuss a detailed version of your understanding, there’s a related and simpler way of filling gaps in your own knowledge: the Feynman technique. This comes from physicist Richard Feynman’s observation that if you can’t explain a complex concept at a simpler level, you probably don’t understand it well yourself. Or to put it another way: T eaching others can be the best way to learn. How to learn things with the Feynman method There’s a four-step method that has been named after Feynman. It goes like this: Teach the concept to an imaginary child. Identify gaps in your knowledge and go back to your source material to learn what you’re missing. Organize your notes into a narrative. Now go actually teach it to someo...

Photo : ArtBitz ( Shutterstock ) A huge winter storm is making its way across the country this week, bringing with it heavy snow, high winds, and single-digit temperatures as far south as Louisiana. Conditions are expected to significantly affect holiday travel , and similar storms have recently challenged power grids and other infrastructure even in states that are accustomed to winter weather . Remember how an arctic freeze went for Texas ( not accustomed to winter weather) in February 2021? So—especially if you live in a place that doesn’t often see extreme cold, ice, or snow—you should check the forecast and prepare your home and belongings accordingly . Here are the precautions to consider ahead of any winter storm. Bring your pets and plants inside This should be a no-brainer, but anything living is unlikely to weather an arctic freeze well. If you have outdoor pets, livestock, or plants, bring them inside or make arrangements for shelter until temperatures rise. For cold...

When making my Christmas (shopping) lists and checking them twice, I often forget to consider ice, which makes some amount of sense. Depending on where you are in the world, ice is probably not at the forefront of your mind in the days leading up to Christmas, especially if you’ve been shoveling snow, driving through snow, or just looking at snow. But you do need ice on Christmas (both day and eve). You need ice for shaking cocktails, making iced tea (or any other iced beverage), chilling champagne, filling coolers, or—if you’re fun and fancy—keeping your caviar or shrimp cocktail at the proper temperature. Unfortunately, there is no instant ice- making hack, and it takes several hours in the freezer for those water molecules to align themselves into a solid crystal. You could go buy ice, but many stores are closed for most or all of the day. But you know who (probably) isn’t closed? McDonald’s. I say “probably” because nearly all of the restaurants are franchises, so it’s not a gu...

Photo : Piotr Krzeslak ( Shutterstock ) After a few years of limited international travel, people are more eager than ever to take their bucket-list trips to far-flung destinations—and we’re not getting any younger. If you’ve been longing to see the Northern Lights and are thinking of making the trek in 2023, it would help to know where you have the best shot of experiencing the aurora borealis in person. Fortunately, the travel experts at Kiwi.com have put together a list of destinations to consider . Here’s what to know. How to increase your chances of seeing the Northern Lights Before we get into the destinations, we wanted to mention a few general strategies to maximize your chances of catching the Northern Lights: September through April are the best months to plan a trip. Though you can’t control the weather, you can schedule your trip around the moon: The Northern Lights will be most visible during the new or crescent moon . Get as far away from cities and light pol...

Photo : Suzanne Tucker ( Shutterstock ) Black ice is a thin, barely visible layer of ice that often masquerades as water and can really ruin your day if you come across some unexpectedly. It usually shows up when there’s moisture in the air and the temperature drops below freezing quickly, creating an ice slick across the coldest surfaces. While black ice is a menace, it can be both avoided and dealt with when it does form. How to prevent black ice from forming Keeping an eye on the temperature outside is the first step to keeping black ice in check. If the temperature will be above freezing by the time you need to use your walks or driveway, you might not need to de-ice at all—y ou can just wait for the sun to do the work. As long as the surfaces you’re concerned about warm up above 32 degrees, you shouldn’t need to worry. One way to proactively keep black ice at bay is to s hovel regularly to prevent melting snow from running onto surfaces and refreezing. Of course, mel...