Image: Suzanne Tucker/Shutterstock

Obesity is now officially a disease.

The American Medical Association has formally declared obesity as a disease, a move that effectively defined one third of adults and 17% of children in the United States as being sick.

The Los Angeles Times report:

The AMA's decision essentially makes diagnosis and treatment of obesity a physician's professional obligation. As such, it should encourage primary care physicians to get over their discomfort about raising weight concerns with obese patients. Studies have found that more than half of obese patients have never been told by a medical professional they need to lose weight — a result not only of some doctors' reluctance to offend but of their unwillingness to open a lengthy consultation for which they might not be reimbursed.

Past AMA documents have referred to obesity as an "urgent chronic condition," a "major health concern" and a "complex disorder." The vote now lifts obesity above the status of a health condition, disorder or marker for heightened risk of disease — as high cholesterol is for heart disease, for instance.

"As things stand now, primary care physicians tend to look at obesity as a behavior problem," said Dr. Rexford Ahima of University of Pennsylvania's Institute for Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism. "This will force primary care physicians to address it, even if we don't have a cure for it."

The decision, which was voted for by the members of the AMA, was controversial - it overrode AMA's own committee who recommended against reclassifying obesity as a disease (it noted that many people with high BMI are actually quite healthy).

Would it lead to "medicalizing" obesity and lead to more reliance on drugs and surgery rather than lifestyle changes? Does this mean that you have a pre-existing medical condition that would lead to higher medical insurance costs or denial of coverage altogether?

What do you think? Did the AMA do the right thing?

My kids love to come to the NeatoHQ (for one, they get to roam the NeatoShop warehouse, which is filled with toys), but they'd probably still get jealous of five-year-old Malalai who practically grew up in her mom's workplace: the Afghan air force's helicopter!

Here's what Col. Latifa Nabizada, the first female pilot in the Afghan air force, said:

There was a need for us to fly and we flew a lot of missions during our pregnancies. Despite that, I managed to bring Malalai into the world well enough. [...]

Unfortunately, there was nobody to take care of my daughter at home and there is no kindergarten in the military. So most of the time I took Malalai with me in the helicopter. She has grown up in a helicopter - sometimes I think she's not my daughter, but the helicopter's daughter!

She was almost two months' old when we first flew together.

BBC's Outlook has the story: Link

The following is an article from The Annals of Improbable Research.

by Philip O’Leary
Boston College

For those working with the Celtic languages, the definite article looms large. The problems it creates are in no way balanced by the fact that the Celtic indefinite article creates no problems at all because it doesn’t exist. I recently finished co-editing the two-volume Cambridge History of Irish Literature. After five years of work, I and my colleague Margaret Kelleher saw the end in sight, particularly when Cambridge announced they would provide the index. That index, imposing in its length and detail, duly arrived. With its arrival, the end of the project quickly receded from our field of vision, to be replaced with another six months of work -- almost all of it the result of the Irish definite article (or articles, as will soon become clear).

That definite article in the singular is An, and when we looked at the proofs of the index for the first time and saw that the letter “A” went on for several pages we knew at once what had happened -- entry after entry began with An. All would need to be rerouted to their proper places under the initial letter of the following noun.

(Image credit: Flickr user One Tree Hill Studios)

An vs. An, and Worse

Nor was the job to be that simple. First of all, there were also a few entries misplaced under the English definite article “An” and under the Irish interrogative particle An (as well as titles in the interrogative misplaced under the initial letter of the word following this particle in various titles).

Moreover, Irish has a vocative particle A, which created further confusion for the indexers, who understandably enough saw it as an indefinite article and accordingly ignored it as they alphabetized those entries. Needless to say, the plural form of the definite article, Na, created its own chaos down the road in the “N” section of the index. And, to add to the confusion, since this was a history of Irish literature from its beginnings, it, and its indexers, had to deal with earlier forms of the language (and of the definite article, which can appear as – and this list is by no means complete – in, int, ind, a in the singular and ind, in, int, inna, na in the plural.

All bad enough, but it gets worse.

Pancake artist Nathan Shields is stepping up his game. Not only do his pancakes realistically depict dinosaurs, but one also comes with an articulated jaw!

Why does the pteranodon say, "I know, I know"? Click on the link to find out.

Link

King Richard I of England invaded the island of Cyprus in the year 1191 as part of the Third Crusade. He ordered a castle built there, but it only lasted thirty years before an earthquake destroyed it, and it was never rebuilt. The site of the ruins turned out to be an amazing opportunity for archeological research -in its toilet!

As castles go, Saranda Kolones had a pretty poor run. But two University of Cambridge researchers recently realized that, precisely thanks to the castle’s short use, a priceless treasure had been left behind in the Saranda Kolones’ bowels. One of the centuries-old castle latrines (read: ancient toilet), they found, was still full of dried-up poo. That feces, they thought, could provide valuable insight into what kind of parasites plagued the former residents’ guts. And because only 30 years’ worth of waste clogged the ancient sewage system, those parasites could provide specific insight into what ailed medieval crusaders. The researchers rolled up their sleeves and collected samples from the dessicated cesspool.

They found plenty of parasites, almost 900 years later. They identify them for us, and describe how they would have affected the Crusaders, in an article at Surprising Science. Link

(Image credit: Anastasiou & Mitchell, International Journal of Paleopathology)

Chances are, you've ran across one of George Zimmer's famous Men's Warehouse commercial on TV. Well, not anymore: the founder and spokesman for the men's suit company has just got fired.

The company announced the termination in a blunt statement ... and explained, "The board expects to discuss with Mr. Zimmer the extent, if any, and terms of his ongoing relationship with the company."

Sounds like a pretty nasty breakup. 

Link

German artist Tobias Wüstefeld reveals the terrifying reality of the Mario universe. His contribution to the We Love 8bit Art Show in Vienna placed Mario's adventures on animals skulls. You can view more photos in the series at the link.

Link -via it8bit

A subdivision just outside of Austin, Arkansas is in a tizzy about one neighbor who installed two toilets on poles high above the fence and signs that say "Trailer Park Coming Soon." Some residents complain that it has affected their property values.

"Who is going to buy a house where you see signs about a trailer park coming soon? It borderlines harassment. However, if you own property you can do with the property as you please," said Lonoke County Sheriff John Stoley.

Stoley said it all started with a disagreement between a property owner and the developer building homes adjacent to his land. What exactly upset the property owner is still a mystery, but in March, he placed two toilets on two approximately 20-foot poles and nailed spray-painted signs to his trees facing the developer's property with the words "Trailer Park Coming Soon."

Though neighbors claim they can't sell their homes due to the unattractive new displays, toilets in trees are not illegal.

"This is the city limits here. Where the signs are is in the county, and there is no ordinances prohibiting signs in the county on a property. It's not threatening. It's nothing criminal at this time," Stoley stated.

Neither the owner of the toilets not the property developer would make a statement. It's things like this that cause some people to sign draconian HOA agreements. Link -via Arbroath

Intrepid local heroes. Battles from long forgotten wars. The Great Squirrel Stampede of 1822.

These are all historical events that deserve commemorating, and that's exactly what Hamilton County, Indiana, is going to do:

Dave Heighway knows all about [Indiana's Squirrel Stampede].

"There is one paragraph that talks about a great squirrel migration in 1822," he said.

As the Hamilton County historian, he's been educating all who would listen about the 1822 and 1845 stampedes where migratory squirrels destroyed cornfields as they trekked across Indiana.

"I read that. I thought that's crazy. I actually thought, that's nuts," he said.

He told the Hamilton County Leadership Academy and members secured a grant to start work on a mockup for a fiberglass squirrel. In fact, the group would like to see a half dozen of these in all eight Hamilton County communities.

Kevin Rader of WTHR chased down the story: Link

Sunglasses with Bow and Stars

Are you looking for the perfect warm weather accessory? The Sunglasses with Bow and Stars from the NeatoShop are sure to light up your life. This great pair of adult sunglasses features a star pattern and 3-dimensional bow. The Sunglasses with Bow and Stars is available in: 

• Red
• Black
• Pink
• Yellow
• White
• Blue

The Red, Blue, and White styles are sure to be a hit at any 4th of July bash. 

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more festive Eyewear!

Link

Geeks and nerds will argue until the end of time about the difference between a geek and a nerd. After all, they are just words, and usage varies with context, community, and era. Burr Settles at Slackpropagation conducted an extremely nerdy (or geeky) word experiment by plotting the instances of certain words as they appear on Twitter, gauging how often each word appears near the words "geek" or "nerd" and plotted the frequencies on this graph. A noble experiment, to be sure, but you have to consider that Twitter itself is a community that does not necessarily represent typical geeks and/or nerds, much less all people who use the English language. Of course, you are free to classify such a quibble as either geeky or nerdy as you wish. The most sensible statement about the argument comes from xkcd, although your mileage may vary. Link -via the Presurfer  

I've never thought of the Ood from Doctor Who as delicious, but I'll bet that Chris-Rachael Oseland's dinner rolls will make me want to get a secondary brain. She used Hawaiian bread dinner rolls for the skulls and dough died with maraschino cherry juice and bourbon vanilla for the tentacles.

Link -via That's Nerdalicious!

Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website. This article was selected for what would have been Moe Howard's 116th birthday.

Moe Howard, the face-slapping, eye-poking leader of the Three Stooges was born Moses Horwitz on June 19, 1897, in Bensonhurst, New York. Early in his youth he got the nickname "Moe" and adopted the middle name Harry. Moe was the fourth of five sons born to Solomon and Jennie Horwitz. Brother Samuel ("Shemp") was two years older and younger brother Jerome ("Curly") was six years Moe's junior.

While he was growing up, Jennie Horwitz loved to have young Moe's hair styled in a feminine-looking "Buster Brown" haircut, complete with girlish curls. The girly-looking mop top haircut caused poor Moe to get into an inordinate amount of fights at PS 163 in Brooklyn. After one bloody nose too many, Moe took shears and carefully clipped off his curls, one by one. This left him with a fringe of long forehead bangs, his future trademark as the bossy leader of the Three Stooges.  

Early on, Moe displayed a very quick mind and had an uncanny ability for memorizing anything, an ability that would later come in handy and help make him a "quick study" with scripts. Moe got the show business bug early and at PS 163 he made his acting debut (as well as directing) The Story of Nathan Hale. He soon became a frequent truant, preferring to catch plays at the local melodrama theaters around town. Moe would sit up in the high balcony, rest his chin on a rail, and "select the actor I liked the most and follow his performance throughout the play."

After graduating from PS 163, Moe dropped out of Brooklyn's Erasmus High School after only two months to pursue a career in show biz. He started hanging around the Vitagraph Studios in Brooklyn, running errands for many of the famous actors and actresses of the era. He was to appear in many silent films for Vitagraph, earning from 50 cents to a dollar a day.

In 1909, Moe met another acting hopeful named Ted Healy and the two became close friends. In 1912, Moe and Ted joined Annette Kellerman's aquatic act as "diving girls," a job that lasted through the summer.

In 1913, Moe and older brother Shemp started singing in a quartet (Moe sang baritone; Shemp sang lead). Moe and Shemp sang every night until about 9 or 10 PM in the family room at Sullivan's Saloon, until Solomon found out and put an end to it.

In 1914, Moe found employment acting on Captain Bryant's showboat Sunflower. He developed his chops as a thespian on the Sunflower for the next two years, acting in various melodramas. By 1917, Moe and Shemp developed a blackface act and trod the boards of Vaudeville together for the next five years.  

In 1922, Moe resumed his acquaintance with old friend Ted Healy. Soon Moe, Ted, and Shemp formed the earliest version of the Three Stooges act, an act which was to last, in various forms, for the next five decades. Comedian/violinist Larry Fine joined the act in 1925 and for the next seven years, the act would feature Ted Healy as "the boss" of the act, bullying, slapping, and eye-poking Moe, Larry, and Shemp.

(YouTube link)

Macho, Rex, Maya, Dave, Bella, and George all come when their names are called. Twiggy, the cat, couldn't care less, as cats will. All the animals are from shelters or rescue groups. -via Tastefully Offensive

Panna cotta is an Italian gelatin dessert. How did Rhiannon get hers in this visually striking slant? Click on Continue reading to find out.

What's more summery than watermelon? Watermelon Oreos, of course! Unlike some of the other odd Oreo flavors, Dinosaur Dracula says these ones are actually pretty good, though they taste more like watermelon Bubblicious than the actual fruit. Some people would say that's even better though.

Link Via The Consumerist

Sahily's right eyelid looks just like the poster for Star Trek Into Darkness. Impressive! I can't wait for the sequel.

Link -via When Geeks Wed

Back to Reality by ntesign

The way I see it, if you're gonna mash up pop culture references on a T-shirt, why not do it with some style? What you have to do is start at the absolute basic, like ntesign did with this Back to Reality T-shirt over at the NeatoShop.

Check out ntesign's Facebook page (give 'im a like, wontcha?), then head on over to his NeatoShop page for more neat designs: Link

The Ring Bearer	Retro Park	Kobayashi Cups	The God Particle

View more designs by ntesign | More Funny T-shirts - Thank you in advance for your business! Your purchase helps support indie artists as well as this blog.

Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop, earn generous royalties, and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!

(YouTube link)

The latest parody song from the talented and hardworking Peterson Farm Brothers is a takeoff on "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air" with the lyrics changed to reflect their real passion: farming. In this video, we also get a glimpse of their animals, including dancing cows! -via Viral Viral Videos

See more videos from The Peterson Farm Brothers.

Shelbi and her sons love Adventure Time and now two of them can live in Ooo all the time. You can view more photos of their new room at the link.

I'm not sure including Lemongrab was a good decision. He can get grating after a while--like five seconds.

Link -via reddit

Anguistralobe Steampunk Pendant Necklace

Are you having trouble navigating the world of fashionably geek accessories? Harness the power of the Anguistralobe Steampunk Pendant Necklace from the NeatoShop. This fantastic piece of jewelry features internal discs you can rotate and is made from English pewter and brass. 

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Jewelry. 

Link

Forget speeding cars! Pedestrians in London have a new danger to look out for: exploding sidewalk.

The Health and Safety Executive in the UK announced that sidewalks in London have been exploding at an alarming rate. There were 8 blasts in 2010 and 29 last year. So far, they've seen 12 blasts this year.

UK Power Networks, the firm responsible for many of the under-pavement electricity boxes at the heart of the problem say that the explosions should be placed in context. There are over 100,000 of the boxes under London's streets and with just a handful of explosions reported these represent 'relatively few cases when our equipment has faltered' say UPN.

The Youtube clip above, taken in April 2013, shows a gas explosion on Pimlico Road: Link

Photo: Rajanish Kakade/AP

144 years after the invention of electric telegraphy, the last telegram service in the world will shut down. This technology is still used in India, where about 5,000 telegrams are sent down the wires daily. But on July 14, it will...stop.

The BSNL board, after dilly-dallying for two years, decided to shut down the service as it was no longer commercially viable. 

"We were incurring losses of over $23 million a year because SMS and smartphones have rendered this service redundant," Shamim Akhtar, general manager of BSNL's telegraph services, told the Monitor. 

What do you think the last telegram should say?

Link -via Marginal Revolution

Theo, a part-Siamese cat in Ipswich, England, is a kleptomaniac, although he would probably describe himself as a "collector." Paul Edwards and girlfriend Rachael Drouet began noticing things around the house that they did not recognize. First it was cat toys.

Mr Edwards said things "escalated" after that.

"We've had things like muslin cloths, fluffy pens, a USB phone charger cable, a child's piece of art which they'd obviously spent most of the morning making - a glorious thing with lots of different colour feathers and leaves stuck to it, lots of things.

"We've got some other neighbours who have young children and quite like the cat so [they] had encouraged him into the house.

"He started stealing things from them and it kind of went downhill from there."

Edwards says his neighbors are mostly understanding, and has set up a Facebook page to post the stolen items and reunite them with their owners. Link -via Arbroath

The best thing about this happy Harry Potter family is that the adults told the kids they would be going as Professor McGonagall and Dumbledore only to shock the kids by showing up as two of the most evil characters in the series.

Link

Elisa Strauss isn't just a baker, but a trained artist who uses food as her medium. This cake is an example of what she can do in her studio. She used fondant and gum paste and, I assume, mushrooms, cheese and beef.

Link -via Cake Spy

Navy Corpsman and redditor Tokyomaneater69 found four newborn bunnies in a hole near their dead mother. He took them back to the barracks and hand-fed them each four times a day until they started to jump out of their box, at which time they went to a wildlife shelter. The four were named Steven, Raymond, Vaughn, and James. He scheduled their feedings around his workday and luckily had no barracks inspection while the rabbits were there. See more pictures and videos linked in the reddit thread. Link

(Video Link)

My sister once had a cat that hated cat food, loved dog food and tried to steal steaks off of the plate -he was the most dog-like cat I think I've ever seen and I'm pretty sure he would even make Shorty and Kodi look more cat-like. Even then, these two are still pretty darn doggish.

Via Pets Lady

The following is a Whodunit by Hy Conrad featuring Sherman Oliver Holmes, a mysterious crime solver and great-great-grandson of Sherlock Holmes. Can you solve the crime?

(Image credit: Flickr user Yumi Kimura)

Here's a little backstory on our hero:

No one knew where Sherman Oliver Holmes came from or how he'd gotten his money. One day, Capital City was just your run-of-the-mill metropolitan area. The next day, a short, rotund millionaire in a deerstalker cap began showing up at crime scenes, claiming to be the great-great-grandson of Sherlock Holmes and offering his expert opinion.
      
Sergeant Gunther Wilson of the Major Crimes Division was irritated by how often this eccentric little man with the southern drawl would appear within minutes of a grisly murder and stick his nose into official police business. What disturbed Wilson even more was the fact that this eccentric little man was nearly always right.
      
"The loony should be committed," Wilson had been heard to say on more than one occasion. "He always has some outlandish theory. I'd sign the commitment papers myself Đ if I didn't have a soft spot for him." But Wilson didn't have a soft spot. What he did have was a phenomenal record for solving cases, thanks in large part to his "loony" friend.
      
To his credit, Sherman wasn't much interested in taking credit. As far as the public was concerned, the Capital City police were simply doing a better job than ever before. So Sergeant Wilson decided to swallow his pride and befriend the exasperating, unique little gentleman who had nothing better to do than pop up like a fat rabbit and do the work of an entire detective squad.

And now, the Bus Station Bomber.

"Where have you been?" Sergeant Wilson stepped around the burned and mangled debris of what had been the rear wall of the Capital City bus terminal. "I thought you must be sick."

Gunther Wilson was secretly dependent on Sherman Holmes's habit of showing up uninvited at crime scenes. He certainly wasn't used to waiting three hours for the odd, pudgy millionaire to make an appearance.

"Sorry, old man." Sherman sniffled. "I haven't been myself. Spring allergies."

Wilson pointed to a four-man squad arranging charred bits of metal on a white sheet. "The bomb was in a locker. It went off at three P.M. There were a few injuries, but nothing serious. The mechanism was an old wind-up clock wired to two sticks of dynamite. It was triggered by the alarm mechanism hitting the '3'."

"Do you have a motive?"

"Not a clue. My guess is he did it for the thrill, like some of the sick arsonists we've dealt with lately."

No words to explain this we have.

Ren Netherland of Animal Photography took these photos below and many other excellent examples of creative dog grooming. He travels thousands of miles each year criss-crossing America to document our country's most extreme grooming competitions.

The Force is clearly with this Yoda dog (who da dog? Yoda dog!):

All of the dogs have been sheared and coloured to achieve the final look. Contestants at the grooming competitions visited by Mr Netherland included a dog dressed as the characters of Sesame Street, one dressed as Yoda from Star Wars and another dressed as different Disney characters.

Other dogs were dressed as tigers, elephants, robots, lions, dragons, and exotic birds. It takes two intense hours for the groomers to produce their masterpieces before facing judges. 

Mr Netherland said: 'The owners have to grow out their dog's hair in preparation for the show - so that it's long enough for them to make something. 'They train and rehearse throughout the year in preparation for the competition, whittling their creation down to a fine art.

'The best thing for spectators is that when the poodles fist come onto the stage, they just look like normal poodles. Suddenly they are transformed before your eyes into something colourful and completely different. The dogs seem to enjoy the pampering and all the attention.' 

View more over at the Daily Mail, which also has a neat Barcroft TV interview with Netherland: Link | Gallery at USA Today's For The Win