Oxford's Mathematical Institute reports about the development of shapes that can physically exist only in zero gravity. These "soft shapes" lack corners and are partially available as biological tissues. But recreating them in practice against the pull of gravity is challenging. The fluid dynamics require micro or zero gravity.

In the above video, Hungarian astronaut Tibor Kapu created an accurate physical model of one of these shapes while on board the International Space Station.

-via My Modern Met

Barry's Borderpoints is a website featuring photos and maps of national borderpoints visited by Barry Arnold, the Vice President of the International Border Research Group--an organization of border enthusiasts.

Arnold's website includes some of the more eccentric borders that history and politics have drawn across the world. Among them is this house that is in Slovenia but is surrounded by Italy. It is set in the region of Trieste--a city long disputed among Italians, Slovenians, and Croatians.

A map reveals the international border. There are official marker points at all four corners. Residents have incorporated them into their garden landscaping. There are no indications that the Slovenian and Italian residents across the fence are hostile to each other.

In the 1990 Christmas movie Home Alone, the McCallister family experiences a nighttime power outage. As a result, their alarm clocks don't go off and the family wakes up only when the airport shuttle van arrives to pick them up. This electrical problem is central to the plot. If the McCallisters are not frantically rushed to leave, it's very improbable that Kevin would have been left home alone.

How likely is it that there would be a power outage on that particular night? Physicist Luís Batalha produced this brief analysis on the subject. His conclusion is that the likelihood of this event is about 0.13%.

Kevin got lucky.

You know what Christmas needs? More chaos and destruction! In this bizarre animated sequence the Grinch gets lost on his way to Whoville and somehow ends up in the United States. Instead of correcting his mistake, he instead decides to ruin Christmas here. But since he's not familiar with the huge and powerful transportation and logistics systems in America, he takes quite a beating- to a ridiculous degree. He discovers that his nefarious schemes are no match for the country's over-the-top Christmas spirit. Yet instead of a genuine change of heart, the Grinch realizes that it is in his own best interest to leave Christmas alone. It's the American way. 

This involves teleportation, time travel, and the suspension of the laws of physics, which is what cartoons are for. It's the kind of nonsense you'd expect from Landon Fernald of Landon’s Animation Wheelhouse (previously at Neatorama). He hand-animated all the scenes in Blender, and did the music as well. -via The Awesomer 

The Rockettes are currently performing in the annual Christmas Spectacular show at Radio City Music Hall, just like they did when you were a kid. Christmas is their busiest season, when they perform in five shows a day from Thanksgiving into the new year, after weeks of rehearsals. I had always thought the Rockettes' name was somehow connected to the name Rockefeller, but I was wrong. The troupe, then called the Missouri Rockets, was formed in St. Louis in the 1920s as an opening act for movies. A theater owner saw them and bought the troupe in 1925 and moved them to New York, where they again performed before movie showings, but their name was now the Rockettes. They were kicking up their heels before Radio City Music Hall ever opened. 

The Rockettes have become a tradition in New York and on TV. They've performed in the Christmas Spectacular since 1933, and in the Macy's parade since 1957. Read about the Rockette's history, what they do, and what it's like to be one of them, at Smithsonian. Videos are included. 

Yukon Cornelius, the great mountain man of the frozen north and a hero of the 1964 classic Christmas film Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, is a larger than life figure who taps into hidden universal forces to perform mighty feats.

In the original film, Cornelius wields a revolver. Now he prefers a lightsaber -- an elegant weapon from a more civilized age. In Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back he almost dies when captured by a Wampa.

Travis Chapman, a pop culture artist with a great gift for humor and the Christmas spirit, shows Cornelius at his best.

YouTuber Jonas Wolf and his friends adapt modern songs for the choral styles of the Renaissance and early Baroque period of Western European music. Past recordings include "Let It Be" by The Beatles and "Last Christmas" by Wham!

Embedded above is the 1977 disco hit "Stayin' Alive" by the Bee Gees--a song made most famous for its appearance in the film Saturday Night Fever. Like many of Wolf's recordings, he and his colleagues are performing the 20th Century song as a madrigal. That's a polyphonic form of vocal chamber music that originated in Renaissance Italy and now grooves on the dance floor.

-via Kottke

Like most states, Illinois allows residents to choose combinations of letters and numbers to reflect custom messages on their car license plates. But, the state warns, applicants must follow certain standards of decency and decorum.

NBC News 5 Chicago reports that the state received 55,600 requests during the past year. It rejected more than 550 of them because they were "inflammatory, profane, or offensive...."

In this video, Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias reads off some of the funniest license plate requests that he has had to turn down. I had no idea that "bricked" had an offensive connotation, but Urban Dictionary was unfortunately informative.

-via Jalopnik

Will my shipment arrive before Christmas? I have proceeded through the five stages of grief and reached acceptance: it will arrive at my home on the 27th.

But Flo & Joan, the musical comedy duo from the UK, are not working with the psychology of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, but instead that of Joseph Campbell. In this song, they go on a hero's journey to seek their missing parcel which itself is on a great journey.

Watch this beautifully staged performance that rises to a crescendo of anxiety combatted with courage as the women find the parcel serves as a boon that transforms them.

-via Nag on the Lake

An article at The Takeout explains why pancakes from a diner taste so much better than homemade pancakes. It's because they have specialized equipment and lots of experience. Restaurants cannot afford to have their pancakes turn out differently from one customer to the next, and they don't have the time for a do-over. They offer some tips for making your pancakes more like those you'd find in a restaurant. 

But when the article was linked at Metafilter, the response was swift and adamant. Diner pancakes do not taste better than homemade; they are simply more consistent. And it depends on what you really want in a pancake- thick and fluffy or thin and crepe-y, but most of all, inexpensive. Besides sharing tips on how to improve your pancake and waffle technique, Mefites shared their recipes, including those with a variety of unusual flours, buttermilk, bananas, yeast, malted milk powder, and instant oatmeal, plus some traditional recipes that have always worked for them. There's also a recipe for a berry goo topping. Check them all out in the comments. 

(Image credit: Lajmmoore) 

In Britain, you are considered an adult when you turn 18. In America, that's true for only some things, like voting and signing contracts. You can drive at 16 (or younger in some states), but you can't buy alcohol or tobacco until you are 21, and some companies will not rent a car to anyone under 25. I once explained to a foreign visitor that Americans let their kids have jobs, date, and drive in high school to make sure a parent is available to help them learn those skills. The alcohol and tobacco laws were a response from the government to too many people dying.  

Laurence Brown, who celebrates his birthday on Christmas Eve, also covers the difference between other adult things like traveling, taxes, home ownership, and hosting holiday parties in this video about how the United States is an outlier in transitioning to whatever passes for an adult life. There's a 75-second skippable ad at 1:55. 

We've been following the adventures of Jonathan Stanley (redditor kakalacky_guy, previously at Neatorama) and his family for years, by way of his humorous Christmas cards. Here is a his card for 2025, titled “The Great Backyard Ice Rink Disaster of 2025.” The kids have transformed the driveway into a hockey rink by flooding it with water. The oldest is operating a Zamboni fashioned from the lawn mower. The daughter's goalie gear is also homemade. Dad, in the same sweater he's worn for twelve years, lacks skates so he's fallen. Mom's coffee has escaped its cup. The power cord for the lights has been skated over. You can see more details by greatly enlarging this photo at reddit. 

Kakalacky_guy has been producing these Photoshopped cards since 2014, when there were only two kids (although they seemed like a half-dozen back then). He calls them "honest Christmas cards" because they illustrate the chaos of life with three children. Click to the right and see all the previous Christmas cards.  -via reddit 

John C. Worsley is the master of goofy musical Star Trek videos, and always has something special for Christmas (previously at Neatorama). For 2025, he's focused on Jeffrey Combs for the supercut "Here Comes Jeffrey Combs." Who is Jeffrey Combs? He's an actor and voiceover artist who has become the go-to guy in the Star Trek universe. Combs has played nine aliens (and one human) so far on Star Trek - some of them recurring characters, including the Vorta clone Weyoun and the Ferengi character Brunt in the series Strar TreK: Deep Space Nine. On Star Trek: Enterprise, he was Andorian military officer Schran. He also appeared on Star TreK: Voyager and Star Trek: Lower Decks. Combs has even worked on a Star Trek video game! You need to be a real Trekkie to know all that, but you don't have to have a photographic memory of all the players to enjoy the cleverness of this song. -via Metafilter 

A type of cancer called diffuse midline glioma (DMG) grows on the brain, specifically on the thalamus, brainstem, or spinal cord. Surgery in those areas is impossible because it's so dangerous, and patients diagnosed with DMG have a 1% survival rate. But a breakthrough is giving these patients more time.

The new drug Modeyso was developed with the aid of fireflies. Dr. Joshua Allen has been exploring how our bodies' own immune system fights cancers, and inserted the firefly gene for bioluminescence into human genes known to fight cancer to study their behavior. When the body's cells become cancerous, these genes are activated and made cancers glow and easier to see. The study of how such genes are activated led to the new drug. Some DMG patients that were given nine to twelve months to live have survived months or even years longer after the new treatment. Read how all that came about at Popular Science. -via Damn Interesting 

To torment me, my teenage children introduced me to a YouTube channel filled with AI-generated Christmas carols filled with Gen Alpha slang. The slop flows melodically and the lyrics are far from mid, inducing much gyatt with their rizz rhythms.

In addition to the above embedded "Six Seven on Merry Rizzmas", there is "12 Days of Rizzmas", "Rizzmas Bells", "Oh, Rizzmas Tree," and "Six Seven Christmas."

No cap, they are all very skibidi.