Zillow Gone Wild points us to this mansion located in Disney World (TIL: you can live at Disney World) that is decked out for a committed and extremely wealthy Disney fan. The Star Wars-themed home theater gives the impression that you are watching the screen from inside the Millennium Falcon.

As Gary Larson predicted in the below 1982 scene from The Far Side, bovine life has now developed the ability to use tools.

Scientific American reports that Veronika, a cow in the town of Nötsch im Gailtal, Austria, has begun using a deck brush to scratch herself. She even adjusts her grip on the brush to scratch different parts of her body and both ends of it for distinct purposes. Veterinary behaviorists report this is the first known tool use by bovine life.

It begins with scratching sticks. It ends with nuclear weapons.

I say that we strike first while we still can.

-via @gdholtby

In the latest episode of the What If? series by Randall Munroe and Henry Reich (previously at Neatorama), the question is: "If someone's DNA suddenly vanished, how long would that person last?" While the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell, it's the DNA that tells a cell what to do. You might think that our cells should know what to do by now, and they would continue because of inertia, but that won't go on indefinitely. Each of our body organs have a different task, some more time-sensitive than others. 

As far as we know, this scenario has never happened. But to give an answer, they looked at a few scenarios in which our DNA becomes damaged and can't do its job properly. Those are mushroom poisoning, chemotherapy, and radiation poisoning. The consequences of each are pretty ghastly, even though they don't completely destroy the DNA in each cell. Without DNA, we would certainly be up a creek without a paddle. 

PS: Commenters cited the case of Hisashi Ouchi, which is a tragic and gruesome read. 

Imagine, if you will, seeing a DVD in the dollar bin called Almighty Thor. You might think it's a steal, getting a Marvel movie for just a dollar. And that was the point, somewhat. This movie came out the same year as the first Marvel Thor movie, but Marvel had nothing to do with it. Everyone knows when a new Marvel superhero movie is coming out, so The Asylum rushed to get in the game by spending $200,000 on Almighty Thor, starring Cody Deal, that premiered in the US only one day after Marvel's Thor. The low budget guaranteed it would make a profit, mainly from those who confused it with the MCU movie.  

This is an example of a mockbuster, a film designed to profit from another movie's publicity. Some are better than others, although they are all cheap. Some pass themselves off as parodies. Get a taste of what these movies are like in eight trailers (if you haven't already been fooled into watching some) at Cracked, where you'll find Avengers Grimm, Sinister Squad, Captain Battle: Legacy War, and others, including the most ridiculous of all, The Amazing Bulk. 

Since the extended versions of The Lord of the Rings movies are playing in select theaters to commemorate the silver anniversary of the the beginning of the trilogy (previously at Neatorama), Screen Junkies is taking a cockeyed look at them, one at a time. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers is like many middle trilogy episodes, dark and violent, and downright depressing in places, to build the suspense for a triumphant end in the next film. Yeah, there's plenty of backstabbing and bloody warfare, but also a few new components. There's Gollum, which, thanks to motion capture, comes surprisingly close to your disgusting vision of him from the books. There are the ents, who came from The Wizard of Oz and then went on to give us Groot. And there's a thirsty focus on Aragorn, because the first movie was pretty ambiguous about making him the hero. But Saruman gets the best joke in this Honest Trailer. 

At the top of the world, there are four islands. They would form a donut, but four mighty rivers dividing these islands flow from the oceans into a sea between them, then form a whirlpool as the waters rush down into the earth. A "polar vortex," if you will. In the middle of the sea, a giant magnetic rock the size of a mountain stands. Its magnetic force pulls the needles of every compass on earth toward it, defining "north." At least that's what people thought before the North Pole was actually explored. 

You can see all this in the map above, produced by esteemed cartographer Gerhard Mercator for his groundbreaking atlas published in 1595. The layout came from a 14th-century book that has been lost, but was referred to in other works. The lore of the North Pole included inhabitants of at least one of the four islands. This account of the Arctic was accepted in the Middle Ages because who was to prove otherwise? This notion was gradually changed as explorers mapped islands in the Arctic, until it was completely dropped. Read about the early concept of the North Pole at Amusing Planet. 

You might think of birds as bird brained, but there are so many different types of bird that you cannot compare the smarts of, say, a chicken with a crow. Crows are pretty intelligent, and can use tools. But a particular bird of the species Cacatua goffiniana, also known as Goffin's cockatoo, pulled scientists into studying them. That was Figaro, who was clever enough to use a tool to get what he wanted. That put Figaro into a lab with other Goffin's cockatoos to see how good they are at problem-solving. The increasingly difficult tasks they solved surely made these birds regret the day they showed off in front of a human. Still, they proved they can figure out how to get what they want, up to a point. I was waiting for the cockatoos to attack the researchers for the ridiculous treasure hunts they forced on the birds. The subject matter is so wholesome that Ze Frank had to stretch to get any prurient jokes in here, but he managed it occasionally. There's a 70-second skippable ad at 4:30.  

In 2026, Disney will release a new Star Wars movie titled The Mandalorian and Grogu. In 2027, look for another, Star Wars: Starfighter. And that will be 50 years since the first Star Wars movie hit theaters. The question remains- will anyone have an appetite for these movies the way we did all those years ago? The original trilogy and the prequels came out with three years between each episode. There were 16 years between the end of the original trilogy and the beginning of the prequels. That's a generational difference, made obvious by the disdain '70s kids had for the prequels, which are now beloved by those who saw them in theaters as children.  

Then in 2012, Disney bought Star Wars and everything changed. We got five Star Wars movies in five years: the three Skywalker movies, two years apart, and Rogue One and Solo in between. After The Rise of Skywalker in 2019, Star Wars went to streaming TV. There have been seven live-action shows, six animated shows, and a revival of The Clone Wars. The excitement and anticipation for two new movies doesn't seem to match the vibe for any of pre-Disney movies. Read more on this subject at Gizmodo. 

(Image credit: Disney/Lucasfilm)

Jamie Costa was always a Robin Williams fan -he even looks like him. In 2020, Costa (previously at Neatorama) wanted to make a film biography of Williams, who died in 2014. He portrayed Williams in this five minute concept film, but in discussions, found out that Williams' family had no interest in turning it into a feature-length movie, so Costa pulled the short. Five years later, the family has no problem with Costa releasing the short online again, although they still do not want a full-length film. Any proceeds from the short will go to charity. 

This scene is set in 1982, on the set of the sitcom Mork & Mindy. Williams receives some devastating news, but the show must go on. It shows how Williams dealt with heartbreak by leaning into his comedy. Costa is uncanny in his role, with the looks, the voice, and the frenetic energy Williams was noted for. -via the Awesomer 

When you were in junior high, or middle school, you probably drew monsters or dinosaurs when you were sitting in class. Around 1487, Michelangelo drew demons, and painted them with oil paint. The work pictured here, titled The Torment of Saint Anthony has been identified as an early Michelangelo, painted when he was only 12 or 13 years old. The painting was never lost, but for 500 years, no one knew who the artist was, and it was classified as anonymous. 

When the painting was sold in 2008, the new owner took it to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where it was cleaned and examined, and suspicions began to mount that it was an early Michelangelo. That, combined with early accounts of young Michelangelo attempted the subject matter of St. Anthony in his first painting, convinced experts that this could be the painting they wrote about. He used an earlier engraving as a reference, but it was not an exact copy. The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth purchased The Torment of Saint Anthony, betting that it was the real thing. Since then, more and more art experts have come to the same conclusion. Read how they discovered the artist behind the painting at Open Culture. An informative video accompanies the article. -via Boing Boing 

(Image credit: Michelangelo) 

William Shakespeare is the most famous writer in history, but we know little about his personal life. You may have seen the 1998 movie Shakespeare in Love or the recent (and Oscar-destined) Hamnet, but the former is fiction and the latter is highly fictionalized history. The truth is that people in the 16th century weren't as curious about artists as they were about the art, and Shakespeare's biography has a lot of holes in it. And maybe Shakespeare liked his privacy. 

Anyway, the documented facts about Shakespeare's personal life are few and far between, and only take up about half of this video from Weird History. Then there are plenty of rumors and tales that mostly arose after his death and may have been changed over time. They address those, too. What it all adds up to is that the most famous English artist of his time is now a rather blank slate for more stories to be written. 

If you've been cooking for some time, you know that you can take appropriate leftovers, throw them in a pot with some broth or juice and spices and make a pretty good soup. It's not so easy when baking or trying a new recipe, because proportions are crucial in those cases. That's why you need a slide rule as a kitchen tool. When you want use up that 3.3 ounces of horseradish before it gets old, and your recipe calls for 2 ounces, can you afford to double the recipe without ruining it? Now, I never learned to properly use a slide rule, and suffer the handicap of having to use math in the kitchen, but if you know what you're doing, a slide rule makes it much easier.

If you have no slide rule and would rather throw out the horseradish, the more interesting part of the article is how to compare recipes. Calculating the proportions of ingredients in different recipes will give you an idea of which recipe is spicier or runnier, and an idea of which ingredient proportions are important and which are up to your taste. Learn how to do this at Entropic Thoughts. -via Nag on the Lake 

(Image credit: ArnoldReinhold) 

The French company and brand Bic is famous worldwide for its iconic ballpoint pens, notably the Cristal, which it unveiled in 1950. To celebrate the 75th birthday of this office staple, the South African division of Bic company threw a party for it.

Fast Company reports that the company also commissioned the creation of selected LED lamps made to resemble giant versions of the Cristal pen. They can be suspended over your work-covered desk like a Sword of Damocles or tastefully accenting a wall. Each will sell for $350 when they become available in the United States.

Previously on Neatorama: hilarious reviews of Bic Cristal pens made specifically for women.

When you find a beautiful dog in an unusual place or out in the middle of nowhere, there's a good chance that the previous owners dumped her because they were too cheap to have her spayed and now she's pregnant. This happened to me twice- one was even dumped right in my front yard. I managed to find homes for 15 puppies in total. Oh, you betcha, they both were spayed soon after. 

Joel and Scott found a Great Pyrenees dog right in their front yard. How did she get there? She had no microchip, and there were no lost dogs posted, so they kept her and named her Waco. Waco got along fine with their golden retriever Wellington, and fattened up quickly. That was because she was pregnant, and she soon gave birth to eight puppies who were all mini-Wacos. If you want to see more of these puppies, check out Wellington's TikTok channel. 


 

On January 6, 1592, Irish patriots Hugh Roe O'Donnell, Art O'Neill, and his brother Henry Shane O'Neill escaped from English captivity in Dublin Castle. They ran for 62 kilometers to safety in the wild lands of the Wicklow Mountains. The winter conditions were brutal and Art O'Neill died while Hugh Roe O'Donnell lost his big toes due to frostbite.

To commemorate this heroic moment in Irish resistance to foreign rule, runners participate in the Art O'Neill Challenge. There are running, hybrid, and trekking categories. All participants strive to reach the summit of a mountain topped by Art's Cross--the spot it is thought to be the location that Art O'Neill was buried.

-via Frank McNally | Photo: History Ireland