The Brunch round-up: The week and how it made us feel

Remember the Starks’ direwolves on Game of Thrones? Those weren’t real (the species went extinct 12,500 years ago). But someone at Colossal Biosciences decided that we need a new furry threat. They edited the gray wolf genome to create three babies. Can we pet them if we support Winterfell? And why didn’t we get the full set of five?

Is the internet bringing banana clips back? Could we not? There’s a reason we abandoned them in 2016. They only worked if they “vibed” with your hair, took a whole minute to fix, and left us lowkey bald at the back. We’ll stick to claw clips, thanks.

Remember how he got the Friends gang to PIVOTTT! his sofa down the stairs? Mathematicians have finally solved the Moving Sofa problem after 58 years. There’s a formula for how big a sofa has to be to fit around a right-angled hallway. Semicircular couches are the easiest to pivot. But who wants a U-shaped sofa?

Redrawing the map. Shrek 5 is coming out in 2026. The franchise is a roaring, belching, farting success. Do we need that much Shrek? Ice Age 6 will be out soon too, and Zootopia 2, Frozen 3, and Toy Story 5. Where are the new stories for the new generation? Who’s making core memories for them, Lil Nas X?

Turns out, we’ve been using U-shaped neck pillows wrong for 28 years. It’s supposed to be back-to-front, internet experts say. Next, they’ll tell us that bobby pins go groove-side down. And that Post-Its must be peeled from the side. Please hand us a banana so we can peel it from the bottom?

Mukbang, otaku, kimbap. There are plenty of Korean and Japanese words in the Oxford English Dictionary and our vocabulary now. But this time, we get to thank the Philippines for a Tagalog word we didn’t know we needed: Gigil (pronounced ghee-gill). It’s the urge to squish a chubby baby or devour a floofy kitten. Perfect!

Researchers at The Ohio State University have created a device called e-Taste. It analyses food samples and recreates their flavours in a person’s mouth. So far, wearers have tasted lemonade, cake, fried egg, coffee, and fish soup with 87% accuracy. It’s not magic though, it’s just edible liquified chemicals. The scientists say it could be used in VR, research, or online shopping. Is this the new Ozempic?

TIL: ASAP may also mean As Slow As Possible. We’re stealing this! It’s the perfect response to when the boss asks for updates on the weekend. The more chaos, the better. Why are we only hearing about this now, though? Oh, because it took its own time to get here!