Strange things can happen when you go so long without sleep. When you finally succumb, it’s like you just zoom into the future. As if your time machine really worked! This is the latest from Raynato Castro and Alex Culang of Buttersafe.
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A woman in Mount Isa, Queensland, Australia, ran over a frog with her lawnmower. The frog survived, but suffered a gash on its back. A family member contacted Cairns Frog Hospital to arrange for care, and that started a bureaucratic process to get the frog on a flight to Cairns. By car, the distance is over a thousand kilometers. A flight was arranged and an animal handler was found, and the small amphibian was taken to hospital president Deborah Pergolotti.
Ms Pergolotti said it was clear that the animal was already in distress.
"The person who found the frog had accidently ran over it with their lawn mower, which means the frog was out during the daylight hours in the middle of the day, indicating that it was unwell," she said.
And Ms Pergolotti said by the time the frog arrived in Cairns, its condition continued to deteriorate with the wound getting infected.
"He had a lot of different, alternate treatments to make sure that we would minimise any possible bacterial involvement, and get rid of the bacteria that was already there," she said.
For a sick frog that had been hit by a lawnmower, the little guy is doing well. His wound and infection are healing, and he is expected to be returned to Mount Isa next week. -via Arbroath
(Image credit: Deborah Pergolotti/Frog Safe, Inc.)
A science fiction future may became reality thanks to military research. Ideas that were deemed outlandish just a few years ago are serious projects today, and who knows what ideas may go to the research level tomorrow. Some, of course, will make our military more effective in combat, which we hope won’t be necessary. other projects are aimed at serving those who have already served, like next generation prosthetic limbs and brain implants.
3. Brain Implants to Restore Memory
Another biomedical project being worked on by DARPA is an implant that can help restore memories of soldiers who have suffered brain injuries. The device would be placed into the brain and send small electrical jolts to stimulate memory formation. It would also help recall memories in individuals with traumatic brain damage. This technology will be transformative for soldiers, but can also help countless civilians who have memory loss due to injury.
Check out ten tech projects the US military is working on now at Money Inc.
We’re all familiar with the problem of a young kitten climbing a tree and not knowing how to get down. In this case, rescue was a lot easier because the kitten climbed up in a sunflower plant! It was awfully high from the kitten’s perspective, but an easy problem for his human to solve. Probably the simplest cat rescue we've ever posted. -via Atlas Obscura
Bretagne, pronounced Brittany, was one of the search and rescue dogs charged with looking for survivors at Ground Zero fifteen years ago. She and her handler, Denise Corliss, responded to the call from their home in Texas, where they both had just completed training. We reported on Bretagne's return trip to New York City last year. Warning: you may need a hankie for this video.
At age 16, the golden retriever was suffering the effects of old age, and was taken to the vet one last time on Monday. She got a hero’s salute from the Cy-Fair Fire Department and emergency responders when she walked into the Fairfield Animal Hospital in Harris County, Texas. They were also there when her body was carried out, draped in an American flag. Bretagne was the last of the 9/11 search and rescue dogs. She would have turned 17 in August. -via reddit
In the latest of their Honest Ads series, Roger from Cracked tries to sell you a mobile phone service. Or, to be more accurate, he’s trying to lure you away from your current phone service to another company. That ain’t easy, because there’s hardly any difference among them. And the things they tell us don’t make much sense anyway. -via Viral Viral Videos
— ashley banks (@acbanks3) June 3, 2016
When you have a 16-year-old daughter, you are understandably vigilant. Ashley Banks almost got into big trouble when her mother found a suspicious batch of brightly-colored pills in her nightstand. Mom was pretty upset, as a series of text messages show.
Whew, what a relief! The worst Mom can say now is that Ashley's tastes are a little juvenile. But really, magic grow capsules that sprout into dinosaurs are pretty cool no matter how old you are. -via Uproxx
When Thomas Edison showed off his phonograph in 1877, no one could imagine how important sound recording would become. That would only happen with the improvement of recording media quality so that music could be shared. Coin-operated vending machines were already around, and an enterprising inventor named Louis Glass married the two concepts together with his 1889 device that later became known as the juke box.
Glass's machine looks nothing like what we've come to know as a jukebox. The phonograph was encased in a lead-lined oak cabinet and had a 25-lb. sulfuric acid battery that provided electricity through wires to the motor. It could only play one wax cylinder at a time and had to be changed manually, meaning the music options—which probably included 1889 hits like "Down Went McGinty" and "The Rip Van Winkle Polka"—were quite limited. One clever tidbit: As part of the deal with the saloons, he had added an announcement at the end of each cylinder that told patrons "to go over to the bar and get a drink."
Amplification was poor, hence the four listening tubes. "It was a nickel for each tube, so you wouldn't want to join when (the song) was half-way through," Koenigsberg says, "Also, (the tubes) went into people's ears, so there was the not-quite-aesthetic pleasantry of handkerchiefs hanging on the side of the machine to wipe off the tubes." Nonetheless, the machine was a San Francisco sensation. A few weeks later, Glass placed a second machine in the same saloon. On December 18, 1889, he filed his application for the patent and quickly went to work making more.
That set off a race to make a better jukebox, with Glass competing to keep his innovation on top. Read the history of those delightful machines that fed the pop music industry for a hundred years at Popular Mechanics. -via Digg
(Image credit: Joe Mabel)
In the 1960s, record companies and concert producers scrambled to keep up with the demand for live music. If a loose collection of studio musicians recorded a song that became a hit, they’d slap together a touring group with the same band name, like Steam or The Archies. But a fake road band could even take on the identity of a real band -without their knowledge. Rod Argent, Colin Blunstone, Chris White, Paul Atkinson, and Hugh Grundy had a rock band in Britain called The Zombies. They had a few hits in the mid-60s, and in 1967 recorded the album Odessey and Oracle. By the time the album was released in 1968, the Zombies were on to other projects. Argent formed the group Argent, and Colin Blunstone started working on a solo career.
The Zombies quietly disbanded when Odessey and Oracle failed to make the charts. Nobody even saw fit to correct the unintentionally misspelled “Odessey” on the record’s cover, viewed in hindsight as typical psychedelic-era wordplay. Almost two years after their breakup, after little fanfare and two failed singles, the band’s U.S. label, Date Records, decided to release the track “Time of the Season” as a last-ditch effort; the song went to No. 3 on the Billboard chart and the Zombies were suddenly in demand.
The Zombies, unaware of their stateside success — this was possible in 1969 — had already moved on to new musical projects or day jobs. This vacuum meant anyone could tour the United States pretending to be the Zombies, even a four-piece blues band from Dallas. As the Beatles and Stones went from garage and blues rock beginnings to more adventurous music, the Zombies took their early, more raucous hits (“She’s Not There,” “Tell Her No”) and refined them. But replicating a refined sound was hardly the priority.
There were in fact two different bands touring the United States in 1969 calling themselves the Zombies. Both impostor groups were managed by the same company, Delta Promotions, the owners of which insisted they’d legally acquired the songs of the Zombies and other bands. It was an operation that would be impossible to attempt today, perpetrated in an era when fans didn’t have unlimited access to artists’ whereabouts, or, in some cases, even know what they looked like.
The Texas version of the Zombies was made up of musicians Mark Ramsey, Seab Meador, Dusty Hill, and Frank Beard. You might recognize the last two names. Buzzfeed tells the story off how the fake Zombies were sent to tour the country replicating the British bands’ songs without a keyboard to capitalize on the groups’ radio hits in 1969 and ’70.
お腹に穴空いてるわけではない。 pic.twitter.com/TquGITgim3
— はなもも (@hanamomoact) May 26, 2016
Cows with port holes exist in real life, but this cat is an optical illusion. Oh, the cat is real enough, but the round hole in its side is not. It was spotted in the United Arab Emirates, where the sand is the same color as the cat’s calico spots. The black part of the spot creates the illusion of depth. The caption under the photo by Twitter user @hanamomoact translates to “The hole in my stomach is not empty.”
おかあちゃん、お腹に穴が空いてるわけじゃない、動画バージョン。 pic.twitter.com/gsL2jZ05DM
— はなもも (@hanamomoact) June 3, 2016
The caption of the video translates to “The version of the videos don't lie to Momma, hungry hole.” That’s a machine translation; if you can read Japanese, I’m sure the original is more eloquent. -via HuffPo
This is the way to run a business, if you are more concerned about enjoying your occupation than chasing every dollar you can pull in. Artist Ichimura Mamoru owns the museum and creates the art for sale there. Redditor inexion took a picture of the sign that’s inspired visitors for years. Here’s more about the museum.
The sign (originally written in Japanese but translated into English by a tourist back in 2003) was for a Ukiyoe museum, Ukiyoe is a traditional Japanese painting style that uses carved wooden blocks to print with and recreate works. Luckily for us the owner hadn't yet had enough for the day and the museum was still open.
You can find the Ukiyoe Small Museum on Yasaka Dori street in Kyoto, Japan, but it might not be open when you get there. -via reddit
Drexel University students got new uniforms a few months ago. So they could all look the same. I don’t know whose idea the khaki pants were. Or the haircuts. They weren’t the only ones wearing these shirts. This is one of 19 Photos That Are The Definition Of Irony at Buzzfeed.
The following article is from the book Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Nature Calls.
Move over Kardashians, these media darlings not only knew how to build a huge fan base that lasted more than a few TV seasons, they also helped to change humans’ view of the animal world.
ELSA THE LIONESS (1956–61)
Elsa was one of three orphaned cubs rescued in the 1950s by George Adamson, the senior game warden of Kenya’s Northern Frontier District. (Adamson and a scouting party had been called out to capture a lioness that was attacking people. When the lioness charged, the men killed her in self-defense… and only discovered her cubs, Elsa among them, afterward.) Two of the cubs went to a zoo, but George’s wife Joy insisted on keeping Elsa to raise, an idea that was unheard of then because, at the time, lions were just considered to be mindless killing machines.
Not Elsa, though. She was playful, loving, and devoted to the Adamsons. When she reached three years old, however, she’d grown so large and strong that the couple decided she couldn’t continue being a pet. So George began taking Elsa out to the bush, helping her learn to stalk animals, kill her own food, and fend for herself. Eventually, Elsa became the first captive lion successfully returned to the wild.
Elsa retained her affection for George and Joy, always returning home to visit. When she arrived one day with three cubs, it was clear she’d adapted to her new world. But life in the wild was hard— Elsa died of a blood disease before her cubs were grown. So the Adamsons raised them, too, and then set them free on the African plains.
Claim to fame: Joy Adamson wrote Born Free about raising Elsa and returning her to the wild. The book became a best seller and was made into a film in 1966. George trained the captive, but not-quite-tame lions that starred in the movie, and the natural charm of the lions helped make the film an international hit.
Legacy: Elsa’s love and loyalty changed an entire generation’s view of wild animals. For the first time, lions were seen as individuals with differing personalities, instead of brutes just to be hunted. The success of Elsa’s release into the wild also sparked a new movement to help captured animals to be returned to an environment that was as close as possible to what nature intended. When Elsa was returned to the wild, most people considered it a novel and even crazy idea, but today, returning animals to their native habitat is an important part of conservation. After Elsa’s death, Joy established Elsa Wild Animal Appeal to aid in the preservation of animal habitats. She also became a founder of the World Wildlife Fund. George founded the George Adamson African Wildlife Preservation Trust and worked full time teaching orphan and captive lions how to survive in the wild. And the actors who played Joy and George Adamson in the 1966 movie founded the Born Free Foundation to aid wild animals in captivity.
CHI-CHI THE GIANT PANDA (1957–72)
You know how the Mercator Map makes Greenland look huge? Since we used the handy flat world map so often in school, we are just used to it. Now a site called The True Size can help dispel those notions of geography that are so ingrained. Type in a nation and drag it around to see how large it really is in comparison to other countries on the map. Greenland is actually tiny when set next to, say, Brazil. We know that Russia is the world’s largest nation in area, with Canada in second place, but when you drag them closer to the equator, you see that the difference is not as vast as you may have thought.
Meanwhile, those "small" nations in equatorial Africa aren't really small. The Democratic Republic of Congo grows to cover half of Europe when you move it north. The real fun is to move Antarctica around. Sure, it’s big (if it were a nation, it would be second only to Russia), but it’s not as ridiculously dominant as the Mercator map would have us believe. -via mental_floss
Jeff Wysaski, working as Obvious Plant, put together a newspaper full of humorous want ads and distributed it as a free community paper. The ads are a real hoot! Any ad that isn’t funny is probably real.
You can read the entire newspaper in enlargeable full-page photos from an imgur album.
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