Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in Missouri in 1835, but the name Mark Twain didn't exist until years later. After working as a printer, typesetter, riverboat pilot, and a miner, Clemens got a job at a newspaper, the Territorial Enterprise in Virginia City, Nevada, in 1862. The newspaper was influential and the staff was young and daring. They often wrote stories that played hard and loose with the facts and rubbed readers the wrong way. Later in life, Clemens made up stories to make a point, but printing hoaxes in a newspaper made him enemies. 

Authors often work under a pseudonym to keep their professional and private lives separate. We don't know if this was the reasoning behind Clemens using the name Mark Twain, but it happened while he was at the Territorial Enterprise. It didn't work, as people hated what Twain published as much as they hated what Clemens wrote, and he was pretty well known on sight. By 1864, an exchange of insults with a rival publisher led Twain to challenge the man to a duel. Read about those days, and how Twain left Virginia City in disgrace, at The American Mind. As an aside, don't get discouraged by the first two paragraphs, which are incomprehensible compared to the rest of the article. -via Strange Company 

Three girlfriends are checking their baggage. At an airport? Well, it looks like an airport, but things are not at all ordinary here. The people in line for inspection are warned to dispose of all bottles, but one woman has a bottle hidden deep inside that she'd honestly be better off without. We tend to cling to what is familiar, even when it holds us back. This wordless story seems scary, but in the end, what is exposed and discarded leaves the characters in a better place. I'm not going to reveal any more of the plot, but do read the signs and small print as you watch this.  

Baggage is a stop-motion short written and directed by Lucy Davidson at The Aardman Animation Studio Academy. After a round of film festivals, which won this short some awards, the rest of us finally get to see it. -via Nag on the Lake 

The movie Jaws opened on June 20, 1975. Directed by 27-year-old Steven Spielberg, Jaws was filmed on location at Martha's Vineyard, Edgartown, Chilmark, and Menensha, all in Massachusetts. The 50th anniversary is bringing tourists to all those places, with a huge celebration taking place in Martha's Vineyard. Hotels and events for this weekend are sold out, but events will continue through the summer.

Unlike other films at the time, Jaws opened nationwide in 409 theaters at once and made $7 million in its first weekend. It was the first movie to reach $100 million at the box office, and that only took 59 days. Jaws' success is often attributed to the fact that the monster shark wasn't actually seen for most of the movie, raising the suspense factor. That was because the mechanical shark prop rarely worked, forcing Spielberg to work around the problem. A lot of credit must also be given to John Williams' musical score featuring that familiar two-note motif. 

Jaws was based on the novel by Peter Benchley, who came to regret writing the book because of the shark frenzy that it sparked. Great white sharks were not only feared, but mercilessly hunted. Benchley spent the rest of his life advocating for sharks and for other marine conservation projects. -via Metafilter 

(Image credit: Roger Kastel) 

We read about TikTok challenges in which everyone tries to outdo each other in something outrageous and sometimes dangerous. But that's not really new, because children have been doing this kind of thing forever. I remember when kids were dared to chew on cinnamon toothpicks. In the 1990s, it was Warheads. It seems that Warheads were the result of a candy manufacturing challenge to make the sourest candy on earth, since those types of candy were growing more popular all the time. Warheads lent themselves readily to a schoolyard dare. How many could you eat before they burned a hole in your tongue? No one found out, because you gave up before that happened. But are Warheads really as dangerous as they are rumored to be? Tom Blank of Weird History Food explains how Warheads came about, what they are made of, the controversies they sparked, and why kids are both attracted to and frightened by them. -via Geeks Are Sexy 

These lovely handmade glass vessels get their distinctive color from crushed quagga mussel shells. Quagga mussels are an invasive species in the US and most of Europe, having originated in Ukraine. The mussels tend to clog pipes and must be removed, but they aren't fit to be eaten, so they end up in landfills by the ton.  

Glass artist Lulu Harrison has spent years studying and experimenting with waste products in order to turn them into beautiful new objects. Her Thames Glass project uses artifacts removed from pipes in and out of the River Thames such as quagga shells, local sand, wood, and metal to make glassware and tiles. She collaborated with glass blowers Sacha Delabre and Rosie Power to make the Thames Glass collection, which will be shown at the Design Museum in London June 24th through August 25th. The museum has recently awarded Harrison the Ralph Saltzman Prize for the project. 



See more of the Thames Glass project at Harrison's website and at Instagram.   -via Nag on the Lake  

The Duluth News Tribune introduces us to Dustin Soyring of Hibbing, Minnesota got his start by restoring antique cars. His skills at paint and bodywork made for a smooth transition to provide customers with matching refrigerators. Soon, he developed a reputation as skilled in this specialized trade conducted by perhaps four people in the United States.

Then the famous football players Travis and Jason Kelce reached out to Soyring and asked him to provide vintage fridges decorated with the logos of the brothers' beer brand, Garage Beer. After the Kelces showcased the fridges on their social media outlets, Soyring's services have been in high demand. He now keeps a couple 1949-1951 units in stock, ready for the next celebrity request.

-via Marginal Revolution

A truly ridiculous scenario was submitted to the What If? series (previously at Neatorama). What would happen if you tried to send all the water going over Niagara Falls through a straw? That's 50,000 to 100,000 cubic feet of water per second! Randall Munroe and Henry Reich gamely explain why you can't do this with some of the finer points of fluid dynamics, and how this attempt would trigger some bizarre effects, like water "boiling" under pressure in a pipe. 

Most of that went over my head, but I wondered how they knew that the flow was 50,000 to 100,000 cubic feet per second. It turns out that's the mandated minimum amount of water regulated by treaty. A lot more Niagara River water is diverted for power generation. The preservation of Niagara Falls is overseen by at least five different organizations- or else the falls could be dry a lot of the time. You can learn a lot from a stupid question. 

Jaws was the movie that gave us the word "blockbuster" in 1975. Of course, they made Jaws 2, without Steven Spielberg. Producers David Brown and Richard Zanuck thought making another sequel after that would be stretching things unless they came up with a different idea. How about a comedy? They approached National Lampoon, which had a hit in 1978 with Animal House. National Lampoon writers John Hughes and Tod Carroll started working on a script for Jaws 3, People 0. 

The premise of the film was that a Jaws sequel was being filmed at a beach when an executive producer was eaten by a real shark. The shark continued attacking the cast and crew, while the movie executives fought amongst themselves. Oh yeah, and the shark was from outer space in at least one version of the script. The film was announced and the roles were cast, but Jaws 3, People 0 was never made. The reason it was canned varies depending on who you ask, but there could have been many reasons. Ultimately, there were two other Jaws sequels released (Jaws 3D and Jaws: The Revenge) that were not intentional comedies. Read the story of Jaws 3, People 0 at Mental Floss.  

It stands to reason that if you can do something--especially something of a culinary nature--you probably should. Thus if you have a few cans of tuna and a soda water maker, it's time to be creative.

YouTuber Ordinary Sausage makes extraordinary foods for his viewers' appreciation. These marvels include chocolate-covered pickles, Oreo-stuffed sausage, and steak flavored with Sour Patch Kids candy.

Most recently, Ordinary Sausage carbonated tuna and water to produce a sparkling tuna liquid that made for a fine tuna salad. He then turned this into a tuna salad sandwich with a bit of kick.

Not everyone on YouTube appreciates his genius, though:

-via Born in Space

According to the available statistics, there are 13,162 nuclear weapons in the world today. That's a lot, considering how we know from experience that the most you need to defeat an enemy is two. However, that experience comes from 80 years ago, back when no other country had the means to respond in kind. There have been times when the number of nuclear weapons was staggeringly large, peaking at more than 64,000 in 1986. What did we think we were going to do with all that?  

Sasha Medin of Data Is Beautiful put together an animated timeline to show how many nuclear weapons existed in each year since they were developed. For a statistics video, this actually has some dramatic moments, like in the 1950s when the Soviet Union raced to build their nuclear arsenal. In the late '80s, both superpowers began pulling back their numbers. In 1991, the Soviet Union suddenly disappears from the timeline, as Russia became the world's biggest nuclear power, with Ukraine and Kazakhstan just below the US. Ukraine and Kazakhstan gave up their nuclear weapons in 1994. In the 21st century, the US and Russia have achieved parity as they cut back, while other nations are still building their arsenals up. -via Laughing Squid 

In 1878, the American Neurological Association was informed of a strange phenomena in the lumber camps of northern Maine. A visit to the camps proved the stories to be true. Many of the lumberjacks and their family members were extremely sensitive to being startled, and they reacted by jumping to extreme heights. Not only that, but they would unthinkingly and immediately obey any command given to them during the startle. Those afflicted became known as "the Jumping Frenchmen of Maine," since many of them were of French-Canadian heritage. 

Later studies proved that the condition was not limited to any ethnicity, nor to the state of Maine. Experts thought it might be genetic, but it only appeared that way because the affected logging camps contained families. At first you might think the jumping reflex might be related to the dancing manias of medieval Europe, but then it also seems akin to the physical condition that affects the fainting goats of Tennessee. Then in the 1960s, yet another possible cause arose from sociological studies in isolated lumber communities. We still don't know the exact cause of the jumping syndrome because it doesn't happen anymore, but you can read what we do know about it at Amusing Planet. 

You would have a hard time finding entertainment franchises as different as the sitcom It's Always Sunny inPhiladelphia and The Lord of the Rings. But that's exactly what makes this mashup so funny. Danny DeVito's character Frank Reynolds is rude, crude, and socially unacceptable. He frequently pulls a gun for the slimmest of reasons, or for no reason at all. Putting him in LOTR, among characters regarded for their loyalty, bravery, and honor is totally antithetical to the ethos of Tolkien's tales. YouTuber Your_Kryptonite7 edited Reynolds into Middle-Earth, using clips from both The Lord of the Rings movies and The Hobbit films. Frank is just Frank, in all his psychopathic glory, while Gandalf, Aragorn, Galadriel, and the other characters can't hide their feelings of bafflement, disgust, and shock. What Galadriel is shocked by is blurred out, but you get the point. Yeah, it's a deranged idea, but you will be impressed by the editing and timing. -via Cracked 

Remember when you first watched Star Wars on the big screen back in 1977? The movie blew you away because the special effects were way beyond anything else movies had at the time. Then the years went by and George Lucas kept fiddling with the original, bringing us Special Edition after Special Edition with his improvements. Fans hated the changes, like making the puppet Jabba into a CGI Jabba and having Han shoot Greedo only in self-defense. Eventually, Hayden Christensen became a Force ghost even though he wasn't even born until 1981. Meanwhile, George Lucas refused to allow the original print to be shown. 

Until now. A group of movie critics and avid Star Wars fans were invited to see the 1977 print screened by the British Film Institute as part of their Film on Film Festival. That's when fans learned that a lot more has changed besides Jabba and Greedo. The 1977 special effects that were so groundbreaking at the time now look laughably amateur. The sets appear cheap. The sound effects are tinny. The audience realized that Lucas had changed so much more than just the scenes they recalled, and that's why watching A New Hope on TV looks almost as good as watching Rogue One. Read how the 1977 version of Star Wars went over at The Hollywood Reporter. -via Fark 

Once upon a time, wolves were the stand-ins for any evil in folklore. There was a good reason for that, since hungry wolves were dangerous for small villages, and children had to be warned to stay out of the dark forest lest they become dinner. But when it's just a story and not a literal life lesson, wolves can be anything. The danger still comes from the dark and mysterious forest. 

Lesllie Pulsifer reworked the folk tale of Little Red Riding Hood into a new story titled The Wolves Are All Gone. It's an allegory about strangers with malicious intent upending the established way of life by frightening the populace. You have to let go of the traditional reputation of wolves in such stories to really understand the metaphor. Relating the tale to modern times, who the wolves are and who the stranger is all depends on your preconceived notions of friend and foe.

Pulsifer wrote the story, created the animation, and wrote and performed the music, which will give you an earworm. 

The movie Fantastic Four: First Steps will hit theaters on July 25th, and the marketing is ratcheting up quickly. Leading the pack is a pizza from Little Caesars that is a four-in-one combo. Each quadrant has different toppings: cheese, pepperoni, Italian sausage and bacon, and pepperoni and jalapeño. The jalapeño quadrant obviously represents the Human Torch, and the sausage quadrant looks like rocks, so it should represent The Thing. But which quadrant is Mr. Fantastic and which is The Invisible Woman? More importantly, how are we going to split this pizza when everyone wants the pepperoni and jalapeño slices? 

But that's just the beginning. The Fantastic Four will also appear on cereal boxes on grocery shelves, on boxes of limited edition Pop Tarts, on jugs of flavored blue milk, and on Snapple tea. Read about all of these food tie-ins that appear to tell us this movie is a kids film at io9.