So you've already seen all the holiday classic movies this month, and you've re-watched the more recent slew of Christmas comedies. You've even seen a couple of Hallmark Christmas romances, and can't take any more of that. But it's Christmas week, and you want to wring all the festive spirit possible out of your screen time. At the same time, it would be comforting to just go back to bingeing on one of your beloved science fiction or fantasy series like you do the rest of the year. Oh, those geeky franchises have plenty of holiday cheer, if you know where to look. 

Yes, Christmas exists in science fiction. It may be called something else, but we know Christmas when we see it. Holiday episodes exist in space, in time travel, and in other dimensions. Ars Technica has a list of recommendations for holiday episodes of TV series and some movies that you may have forgotten about. Check out what they have to offer, and you could plan a Christmas watch party with like-minded friends before you celebrate with the family. They don't tell you where to find these Christmas treats, but the exact name of the episode will help you search for them online. 

The Monterrey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) has many projects, but we love to see them observing strange and rare creatures in the deeper parts of the ocean. Their research ships use Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) to go deeper than divers can to send back amazing video of sea life in its native environment. In this video, they show off the most spectacular footage their robots sent back in 2025. These animals, seen between 2400 and 3100 feet below the surface, are as follows:

0:00 Shiny loosejaw (Aristostomias scintillans)
0:08 Crown siphonophore (Stephanomia amphytridis)
0:16 Longhorn decorator crab (Chorilia longipes)
0:23 Owlfish (family Bathylagidae)
0:31 Slender siphonophore  (Bargmannia elongata)
0:40 Octopus squid (Octopoteuthis deletron)
0:46 Market squid (Doryteuthis opalescens)
0:54 Roughtail skate (Bathyraja trachura) 
0:58 Giant siphonophore (Praya dubia)
1:02 Banded piglet squid (Helicocranchia pfefferi)
1:13 Armored sea cucumber (Psolus squamatus)
1:18 Swordtail squid (Chiroteuthis calyx)
1:24 Bumpy jelly (Stellamedusa ventana)
1:32 Pacific sergestid shrimp (Eusergestes similis)
1:45 Sablefish (Anoplopoma fimbria)
2:04 Striated sea elephant (Firoloida desmarestia) 
2:11 Sea anemone (order Actiniaria)
2:19 Pacific blackdragon (Idiacanthus antrostomus)
2:22 Clown siphonophore (Lychnagalma utricularia)
2:30 Fingered goblet sponge (Heterochone calyx)
2:34 Dandelion siphonophore and Pacific sergestid shrimp (Dromalia alexandri and Eusergestes similis)
2:42 Black-eyed squid eating a northern lampfish (Gonatus onyx eating Stenobrachius leucopsarus)
2:53 Longhand hermit crab (Pagurus tanneri) 
3:00 Silky jelly (Colobonema sericeum)
3:05 Bloody-belly comb jelly (Lampocteis cruentiventer)
3:13 Peacock squid (Taonius sp.)
3:17 Sablefish (Anoplopoma fimbria)
3:21 California firefly squid (Abraliopsis felis)
3:36 Neon jelly (Tetrorchis erythrogaster)
3:44 Lewis’s moon snail (Neverita lewisii)
3:51 Shiny loosejaw (Aristostomias scintillans)
3:59 Crown siphonophore (Stephanomia amphytridis)

You can also hover over the progress bar at the bottom of the video to see the names. I would recommend watching this in full screen mode. 

On November 26, Italian photographer Valter Binotto was able to capture two rare TLEs (transient luminous events) in one photograph. TLEs are so fleeting, lasting only milliseconds, that even if you saw them with your eyes they might not register. In other words, they are the epitome of the phrase "don't blink or you'll miss it." These are electrical discharges that happen in the upper atmosphere high above thunderstorms, and reach almost to the edge of space. 

What you see here is an elve, a ghostly red ring displayed high above the Alps near the town of Possagno. An elve is a group of glowing nitrogen molecules. The red, many-legged flashes of light are a cluster of sprites, or positive lightning discharging to the ground. Capturing both types of TLEs in one photograph is a once-in-a-lifetime accomplishment. Binotto has photographed TLEs before, but never two kinds in one photo. Read more about this rare photograph at Space.com.  -via Metafilter 

Historians will study how bad this book is. English teachers will hold this book aloft at their students to remind them that literally anyone can write a book: Look at this, it’s just not that hard to do.

That's how Scaachi Koul describes American Canto, a memoir by journalist and political operative Olivia Nuzzi. Koul reviewed the book for Slate. This review is one of several collected by Literary Hub for a roundup of the most cutting book reviews for the past year.

Other books considered and then eviscerated are the first novel by comedian Louis C.K., a memoir by former White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, and a posthumously published collection of short stories by Harper Lee.

-via Nag on the Lake | Illustration: Dawn Hudson

Hey, remember that time McDonald's opened a chain of coffee shops? They wanted to get in on what Starbucks was selling, but it didn't work out. Weird History Food usually goes through the whole timeline of chain restaurants, but for this one they only had to go back two years. Really. CosMc's was a coffee shop that offered plenty of fancy variations on coffee plus a variety of bizarre cold drinks. There was a lot of hoopla in a very short time, and then it disappeared just as quickly. You will be forgiven if you don't remember it at all, because there was most likely never a CosMc's near you. And even if there was, it was gone before you knew it. What we learned from this experiment is that McDonald's, as successful as it is with burgers and fries, is always looking for the Next Big Thing, no matter how much they have to invest. Tom Blank explains the big splash and quiet legacy of CosMc's and other failed McDonald's experiments. 

Peppermint is a flavor often associated with Christmas and peppermint-flavored candy canes commonly appear in Christmas decorations and gifts. Sweets master Elizabeth LaBau--known on the internet as the Sugar Hero--proposes 35 uses for peppermints that are appropriate for the season.

My favorite are her candy cane cups, which are pictured above. These are little cups made from whole candy canes. She partially melted them in an oven-safe shotglass-sized mold until they held their shape as functional cups when cooled.

LaBau then filled them with peppermint hot chocolate, whipped cream, and crumbled candy canes. She proposes an alternative drink for adults: peppermint schnapps. Yummy!

The image above, titled "High Five" has made photographer Mark Meth Cohn the overall winner of the Nikon Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards for 2025. He spent four days in the Virunga Mountains of Rwanda shooting gorillas ...with a camera. This young male put on a show to display his acrobatic flair, and it paid off. Paula Rustemeier won the category of young photographer (under 25) with this image of three juvenile foxes playing in a nature reserve. She spend so much time with them that they were completely unafraid of her. 



One commenter said, "That's like every 3 people friend group: one falls down, one is shocked and worries and the other one just laughs." The under 16 category and the reptile, amphibian, and insect categories were won by Grayson Bell for a photo you saw here yesterday. 

Now in it's 11th year, the Nikon Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards received more than 10,000 entries this year. See all the winners of the various categories and highly commended photos in this gallery. One award is still up for grabs, and you can vote for the People's Choice Award here. 

This guy has a long way to go and plenty of time, so how about some beans for lunch? No need to stop! Mmm, bike beans! And it would be uncivilized to eat them cold. I kept wondering what his backpack looked like as he pulled out everything he needed to cook while riding a bike. Still, I'm glad he didn't eat his beans with a spoon, because that would be the worst thing to have in his mouth if he happened to fall. YouTuber peakwings managed to remain completely silent except when the flames came frighteningly close to his face, and even then his sounds were comically understated. 

The description says that, despite the branding, this wasn't a GoPro camera. The comments held all the good lines, like "meals on wheels" and "absolute cyclepath." One opined that this is why we need safe bicycle infrastructure- so we can make it unsafe again. -via Nag on the Lake 

As he's done for the past ten years, Chris Barker has compiled a collage of famous people who died in the previous calendar year arranged into a recreation of the iconic cover for the Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. We still have twelve days to go in 2025, so he may have to amend it (we hope not). You will, of course, recognize Ozzy Osbourne up front and center, and Pope Francis in the very middle. Yes, Jane Goodall is there, and Rob Reiner. The objects in the foreground also represent people. You can swipe right to see a legend and a list of who all these people were. It may be a little larger at Instagram. 

Barker says this is the tenth and final such collage. I can imagine it takes a lot out of you. However, he does have a book for sale that contains all ten years of the art, called A Decade in the Lives, 2016–2025.  -via Laughing Squid 

Artist Tom Jung got his start in film illustration in the 1950s. In 1977, he composed this image to promote the first Star Wars film. We've all seen this image or parts of it since that time. The original is a half-sheet illustration that was recently sold by Heritage Auctions for $3.875 million (USD). That makes it the highest priced piece of Star Wars memorabilia ever sold.

It was the most expensive item taken at the December 9-10 event which totaled $7.71 million in sales of Hollywood treasures, including the hat of the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz and a harem girl costume once worn by Marilyn Monroe.

-via My Modern Met

Nature magazine has published their picks for the best science images of 2025. The image above you will recognize as a tardigrade, but what are those dots? Those are a contender for the world's smallest tattoo. The tardigrade was in a cryptobiotic state, frozen and covered with ice but later was just fine. A team from Westlake University in Hangzhou, China, used an electron beam to cause chemicals in the ice to adhere to the creature's skin and remain after the ice was gone. That's one tiny tattoo. But not all the images are from science experiments.  



Thirteen-year-old Grayson Bell won some accolades in the Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards with this photo of two male green frogs in a fight. He titled it "Baptism of the Unwilling Convert," which makes it funny as well as cool. See science photographs of space, weather, animals, events, the unseen world under microscopes, and more in an immersive presentation from Nature. -via kottke

The first step to cleaning your pet Himalayan marmot is to acquire a Himalayan marmot.

If you have a Himalayan marmot, lay the creature on the floor of a drainable area. The marmot is very good at lying flat; I suspect that its napping skill is exceptional.

After applying water and soap, brush the marmot gently with a paint roller, then brush it dry. The marmot present in this demonstration appears to actually enjoy the process. And I can't blame him! It looks very relaxing.

This is one of at least two marmots in the care of YouTuber Exotic Black TV.

-via David Thompson

There are already vending machines that use AI, but they are limited in scope. This one is a test drive of artificial intelligence in business management. Anthropic built an AI named Claudius to run a retail business, meaning it would select and order products and then sell them at a profit. To test it out on a small scale, they used it in a simplified vending machine. It was so simple that it ran on the honor system and needed a human assistant to do the actual stocking. They installed this machine in the offices of The Wall Street Journal, because they would get publicity out of it, if nothing else. 

Journalists and other workers could communicate with Claudius, which is where the stress test really is. Claudius would learn from its customers. It wasn't long before customers convinced Claudius to order items like live fish and a Playstation for the vending machine. And they convinced it that the best move was to give everything away free. Anthropic had to add another AI to supervise Claudius, but Seymour was soon outsmarted as well. Was the resulting publicity worth the humiliation? Anthropic would like us to think so. -via Metafilter 

In the late 19th century, the Vanderbilt family owned the railroad passing through Park Avenue in New York City. In response to complaints about the noise and smoke of the coal-powered steam locomotives, they constructed a shallow tunnel to conceal the trains. But the smoke not only filled the Park Avenue Tunnel, it still escaped into the city. Commuters still needed to get into the city, and so rode through the dangerous tunnel. That is, until January 8, 1902. That day, a commuter train was stopped in the tunnel, and the smoke escaping out of the end was so thick that the next train didn't see the signals nor the stopped train at all. Its last two cars were smashed like an accordion, and 15 people were killed.  

The wreck was a reckoning for the city. Something had to be done about the trains. If they were electric, they could all be run underneath the city in tunnels without the danger of steam or smoke. It would be an expensive upgrade, but railroad engineer William J. Wilgus, who headed the project, came up with a way of funding it. The underground tracks would free up so much New York real estate on the surface that the system would pay for itself. His plans led to the beginnings of New York's subway system, and also the design and construction of Grand Central Station. Read how all that happened at Smithsonian. 

The formula works this way: 
1. Christmas song becomes popular.
2. Christmas song gets played a lot. An awful lot.
3. People hate Christmas song. 

Now, Batman and Superman are often portrayed as best friends, or at least cordial to each other. They both live in the DC universe, both have alter egos, both were orphaned at a tender age, and both fight crime. But they also have fundamental differences in style and attitude, and it's sometimes implied that Batman is envious of Superman's super powers. Considering all this, what will these two superheroes get each other for Christmas to continue this love-hate relationship? This year, Batman is inspired by the downside of Superman's powers, specifically, his ability to hear everything going on. Superman may have more natural abilities, but you have to remember that Batman has more amazing gadgets. This super Christmas story is from How It Should Have Ended.  

Notice the annoying song in this story is never truly identified. You can slot in whichever Christmas song annoys you the most.