We think of Australians as a tough bunch, because it takes guts to live in a place with so many deadly animals, like snakes. It indeed requires a tough person to catch a snake right after it bit them. But hospitals in Queensland are asking that snake bite patients refrain from bringing those snakes into the hospital for identification. Live, venomous snakes in poorly-secured containers are unnecessary, and pose a danger to hospital staff and other people. Besides, trying to capture it risks you being bitten again. Yet people bring those snakes in more frequently than is comfortable.  

It's true that Australia has many species of venomous snakes, but they also have polyvalent antivenom that works on bites from multiple Australian snake species. Hospital staff can tell what kind of snake bite you have by the bite marks and symptoms, much better than they can identify a snake. The same is true for emergency rooms in the US, although the CDC says it may help to take a photograph of the snake from a safe distance if you can. However, hospitals do not want to host the snake itself. -via Boing Boing

(Image credit: John Wombey, CSIRO)

"I was human once" begins a soliloquy from a successful alchemist who developed an elixir that gave him immortality and magical powers. What would you sacrifice for immortality and magical powers? We find that the price was quite high, and he wouldn't do it again if he had a choice. The lesson was learned, but it's too late to back out. You can't appreciate the value of time when it's unlimited, and all the power in the world doesn't help you in your relationships with other people if you are no longer human.

Cory Williams of Daydream Studios made this animation in just five days with the help of various modern animation tools, including Unreal Engine. You can see a behind the scenes video here. It will give you a new appreciation for the technology that puts such power in the hands of animators, and you will surely appreciate Williams' voice work. -via Laughing Squid

Imagine being a Jewish soldier in the Union Army during the Civil War, in what would later become West Virginia where no one knew how to celebrate Passover. There were 21 Jewish soldiers in the 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment under the command of future president Rutherford B. Hayes in 1862. Most were young men who had celebrated, but had never organized a Passover Seder before. Private Joseph A. Joel obtained permission for the soldiers to take a day off for the Seder, and it was granted.

The men had to enlist help from their provisions supplier and the local residents to get what they needed for the feast. Cider was a substitute for wine, and whatever they substituted for the usual horseradish and parsley as the bitter herb was so bitter that it caused the men to drink all the cider and the Seder got quite lively, or even rowdy. Joel published an account of that Seder in 1866 in the Jewish Messenger. While it wasn't the only Passover celebration on the battlefield, it was the one best documented for posterity, and you can read about it at Smithsonian.  

(Image source: Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library and Museum)

Warning: this video contains lots of NSFW language. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is crossing its fingers that bringing back two of its more popular superheroes in the R-rated Deadpool & Wolverine will reverse its fortunes after a slew of disappointing movies with lesser-known comic book characters. Maybe a young teen audience isn't all that necessary when you've got sass, action, blood, humor, and two proven stars in Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman. In this film, a disruption of the timeline is on the line, so to speak, so Deadpool and Wolverine must team up to set things right. The villain is Cassandra Nova, played by Emma Corrin, the evil twin sister of Charles Xavier. So, do Deadpool and Wolverine hate each other like it seems in this film, or is that just the way guy friends act sometimes? We will find out when Deadpool & Wolverine hits theaters on July 26.

The International Space Station was launched 25 years ago and has hosted nearly 300 astronauts from around the world. Each of those astronauts carries their own natural biome into space. There have been many experiments on the effects of space on bacteria, which show the effects of microgravity, radiation, air quality, and other conditions on their rate of mutation. But there are also bacteria that just go along for the ride, and a sampling of those bacteria show evidence of mutation as well. A survey of environmental bacteria on the ISS was conducted in 2019, and further research was done on 13 strains of Enterobacter bugandensis, which can cause gastrointestinal infections.

They say what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, and that has proven to be the case for this bacteria. Scientists found that the E. bugandensis on the space station has mutated to be more resistant to antimicrobial treatment. We don't know what danger this may pose to astronauts, or the people they come home to after their mission. Read more about this discovery at Gizmodo.  -via Fark

(Image credit:NASA)

It begins with the atoms in your morning coffee, then take a detour through your body, or maybe just your imagination, and then somehow leads us into an alternative version of nature. That's when things really get weird. The animated short film Cosmohedron by Duncan Hatch is disorienting because you never know where it will go next, but the bright colors and range of images is enough to keep you watching. It's altogether baffling. At the very end, it all comes together, but that doesn't mean it makes any more sense. Does it have a message? I doubt it. One commenter says, "Themes of interconnection, fractal scales, and humorous jabs at work culture all hit home." I have to wonder where he lives. -via The Awesomer

Many of us are familiar with the idea that coffee makes you poop. There are substances in coffee that contribute to this, and not just caffeine. But it could also be that coffee is usually a stable part of one's normal morning routine. And there is also the psychological association of coffee with one's morning routine, so much that the smell of a coffee shop can make you run to the bathroom. How much each of these factors contribute to the effect is arguable, but the effect is real.

However, there are variations. The urge to poop can arise from the experience of being in a book store. This is called the Mariko Aoki phenomenon, named for a woman in Japan who wrote about her experiences in 1985. Since then, many folks have admitted that bookstores have this effect on them. While there has been little scientific interest in experimenting with the Mariko Aoki phenomenon, there have been several theories suggested for why it occurs, from scientists and non-scientists alike. And some folks get this urge at more general locations, like shopping malls. -via Nag on the Lake

(Image credit: Ryan Abel)

What would Darth Vader put on his barbecue sandwich?

In the run up to Star Wars Day on May 4, the hot sauce company Truff has partnered with Lucasfilm to offer a special limited edition hot sauce styled after Darth Vader. It's called Dark Side Hot Sauce, and it comes in a bottle with Darth Vader's head, er, helmet as the bottle cap. It will be shipped in a "collectible gift box" featuring Star Wars imagery, resembling the volcanic hellscape of the planet Mustafar. They call it their hottest hot sauce so far, but also extol the virtues of its flavor. Does it taste good? Who knows? It sounds downright evil. Dark Side Hot Sauce won't go on sale until April 24, but you can sign up for the wait list at the Truff site. If you get your order in early, you could be enjoying some really spicy snacks for Star Wars Day.   -via Boing Boing

After World War II, the US continued its research into nuclear weapons and developed a bomb named Mike. That was the nickname of the first hydrogen bomb, and it was too big to ever drop from above. In fact, Ivy (for Operation Ivy) Mike (for megaton) weighed 74 metric tons, used a 20-foot tower, and required a cryogenics facility and a power plant for its liquid deuterium fuel. Why build a bomb that big? To see if it could be done.

Ivy Mike was detonated on November 1, 1952, on an island named Elugelab, which was part of the unpopulated Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands. I used the word "was" because Elugelab ceased to exist on that day, and became a crater in the ocean floor. The rest of the atoll was stripped of all its vegetation. The ten-megaton explosion created a fireball five kilometers wide, and a mushroom cloud 33 kilometers high.

Ivy Mike explodes in a clip from the documentary Trinity and Beyond.

Mike's detonation left the entire atoll contaminated. Despite decades of decontamination efforts, it will still be a few years before Eniwetok Atoll is safe for humans. Read the story of Operation Ivy and the first hydrogen bomb at Amusing Planet.

(Image credit: United States Department of Energy)

Charles Schulz drew 17,897 Peanuts comic strips over nearly 50 years. In the 1950s, though, he was still experimenting with the Peanuts gang. One of the characters he introduced in 1954 was named Charlotte Braun, who was loud, extroverted, and everything the beloved Charlie Brown was not. She was obviously intended to be the anti-Charlie Brown. The problem was that Charlotte had no redeeming qualities, nor any underlying issues that readers could relate to, and they really disliked her. She only appeared in ten strips, and then disappeared forever. Charlotte's absence was never addressed in the strip, and no one thought much of it.

Fast forward to the year 2000. Following Schultz's death, 66-year-old Elizabeth Swaim submitted a letter that she had received from Schulz in 1955 to the Library of Congress. It was Schultz's response to her complaint about Charlotte Braun. No doubt it wasn't the only complaint that Schulz received about the character, but it may be the only reply that revealed what happened to her behind the scenes. Read the story of Charlotte Braun and her untimely death at the hands of Charles Schulz at Mental Floss. -via Strange Company

We've grown to known and love Boston Dynamics' Atlas robot over the years, so much that we think if him (and his dog Spot) as everyday robots that have outgrown the "wow" factor and have become part of the family. So of course, they are retiring him and now have a replacement that is all electric. Yes, our old friend Atlas has plenty of electronics, but his strength and movement relies on hydraulics. The new fully electric Atlas is smaller, has more refined movements, and can articulate its limbs at 360 degrees. The upshot is that while the new Atlas may more resemble a human shape at first glance, watching it move gives us the creeps, as if it were a sideshow contortionist or a demon-possessed little girl in a movie.  

Boston Dynamics owes a lot to the original hydraulic Atlas, and have posted a tribute video for its retirement. The first half is a blooper reel, and the second half shows what Atlas can really do.



What does a robot do in retirement? Atlas should probably stay away from cruise ships. Maybe he could take up gardening instead. -via Born in Space

The odds of getting hit by a piece of space junk are smaller than the odds of winning the lottery, but they are not zero. You can reduce your odds of winning the lottery slightly by not buying a ticket, while space junk could hit anyone. We've learned that most debris that falls out of orbit burns up on re-entry, and most of the rest falls into the ocean. That still leaves a few unfortunate people who have to deal with the fallout, so to speak. Just last month, a piece of a pallet of batteries crashed through the roof of a Florida home. The falling debris was foreseen, but no one knew where it would end up.

It wasn't the first time that space junk fell on unsuspecting people and their property- it's been happening since 1969. Of course now there is a lot more junk up there. Read up on five cases of damage caused by stuff falling from space at Cracked.

(Image credit: NASA)

Archaeologists have found cannabis remains in a 2,500-year-old grave, with evidence indicating it was used at the funeral. And you thought "putting the 'fun' in funeral" was just a mortuary joke. But seriously, folks, researching the origins of cannabis is difficult because it's been deliberately cultivated for so long that any cannabis growing wild is feral instead of truly wild, and documenting historic samples is iffy because of its illegal status in many places. Scientists were having a hard time even charting out its taxonomy until gene sequencing came along. What we do know is that the plant developed its amazing chemicals to deter enemies, but the cannabis plant had no idea that humans would come along and find those chemicals so attractive.  

Yeah, this video from PBS Eons is posted a day early as far as the informal holiday known as 420 is concerned, but that leaves time for sharing. This video isn't nearly as long as it looks; the last two minutes are promotional.  

You have probably heard of Munchausen syndrome, a psychological condition in which a person is driven to spin fantastic tales about false symptoms and illnesses for attention. It is formally referred to as “factitious disorder imposed on self," or in the case of Munchausen by proxy, “factitious disorder imposed on another.” That's when a parent gains attention by insisting their child is sick when there is no illness present. The disorder was not named for the doctor who discovered it, but for a pop culture character from the 18th century.

Baron Munchausen as a character is legendary for telling tall tales about his military career, from traveling to the moon to riding a horse underwater to battling exotic beasts to riding a cannonball. His appearances over the centuries saw him change from a liar to a deluded old man reminiscent of Don Quixote. The original novel about him, Baron Munchausen’s Narrative of His Marvelous Travels and Campaigns in Russia, was published in 1785 and gave birth to a character featured in many stories and several films since then. But that original novel by Rudolf Erich Raspe only portrayed him as a teller of fantastic tales that no one believed. In reprints and translations, the story grew until Munchausen was a mentally ill buffoon.

However, there was a real Baron von Munchausen, whose name was Karl Friedrich Hieronymus, and he was not pleased at all for his title to be associated with such a character. Hieronymus was a storyteller, but not a liar, and he spent the rest of his life trying to find Raspe and suing anyone associated with the novel. Read the story of the real Baron von Munchausen at Smithsonian.

(Image credit: Gottfried Franz)

Passover begins on the evening of April 22 (Monday) and will run through sunset on April 30. No, it doesn't always coincide with Easter. As they do every year, the Jewish a cappella group Six13 has unveiled another pop music parody for the holiday. This year their nine voices bring us "Matza Mia! An ABBA Passover." They've put new lyrics to four classic songs from the Swedish vocal group ABBA: "Take a Chance on Me," "Dancing Queen," "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight),” and “Mamma Mia!” They've also posted a song sheet if you want to use the new lyrics at your Seder or school program.

See also: previous Jewish holiday songs from Six13. I don't think anything will ever beat "5784" for Rosh Hashanah.