Gideon Futerman is a scholar in the fields of solar radiation modification and global catastrophic risk. Last month, he and a colleague worked the northernmost tip of the Isle of Lewis, which is the largest of the Hebrides in Scotland. They were doing geological surveying and had a geological hammer handy. So when they noticed that a Google Street View car was approaching, they staged a violent scene.

You can find it on Google Street View close to the point of the island which is called the Butt of Lewis. Notice that Google helpfully blurs the faces of both the killer and his victim.

There are some factoids and trivia on the internet that have been around so long they are accepted as common knowledge. But that doesn't necessarily mean they are true. If something is repeated over and over, especially if different people repeat it, people will believe it, at least until someone calls their bluff. And if it is something plausible that has no obvious agenda, it's easier to swallow it whole.

In this example, we've all heard that the blood vessels in your body, if laid out end-to-end, would be 100,000 kilometers or 60,000 miles long, which is long enough to wrap around the earth twice and then some. But where did that figure come from in the first place? Who figured this measurement out? And is it true? Kurzgesagt decided it would be best to run this down after someone asked for a source. It was a long path back to 1922 to find where the "fact" came from, and a big job figuring out if it was plausible. The moral of the story is that fact-checking can be a lot harder than you'd think. This video is only 10:35 long; the rest is promotional.   

The question is, "How long does Halloween candy last?" which is a kind of a dumb question. If you are handing out candy to trick-or-treaters in my neighborhood, a five-pound bag of candy will last about 10 minutes. If you are talking about what the kids bring home from trick-or-treating, it depend on how many family members have their hand in the bag, and how much chocolate your neighbors splurged on. In many homes, that's less than an hour.

But let's assume you are an adult who bought candy on sale, or were given leftover trick-or treat candy. You looked at it and said "That will last a year." It might, because it's okay to eat candy past its expiration date, but you really want to consume it or share it before the quality goes downhill. And in candy, the quality will tank long before food spoilage becomes a danger. Some types of candy will last much longer than others, and you can extend that time by keeping it in proper storage, away from heat, light, and humidity. Eater goes over which candies you should make a point of to eat first while they are fresh, and which candies will last longer. After all, you may be inundated with Christmas sweets before the Halloween candy is gone.

(Image credit: Islandsislands)

In 1973, a movie called The Wicker Man hit theaters and was called "The Citizen Kane of horror movies." Too bad this Honest Trailer is not about that movie. Rather, it is about the 2006 remake starring Nicolas Cage that set the standard for bad remakes. The Wicker Man from 2006 has Nic Cage showing his emotional range without any coherent reason. Sure, he's investigating a missing child in a strange community that performs pagan rituals, but he's not getting anywhere by going all psychotic about it. In trying to ramp up the creepy factor, the movie veers into unintentional hilarity. That would be good if this were a comedy, but it's not, and anyone who appreciated the 1973 masterpiece was appalled by the remake. It did not make enough money to cover its budget, and was nominated for five Golden Raspberry Awards. Screen Junkies reminds us of why we didn't see The Wicker Man in 2006 in this Honest Trailer.

Walk in style into the nail salon to get your pedicure. Bravest Studios in New York City and footwear designer @canyaon offer these slides that look like giant human toes. They're optimal for attracting attention of both the wanted and unwanted categories.

If you prefer body parts other than toes for shoe design, consider these brain-like mules by the same company or cross species with these shoes that look like bear claws.

-via Ugly Design

In the natural order of things, Chinook salmon swim from the Pacific ocean up into freshwater rivers for hundreds of miles, back to their birthplaces to spawn the next generation. But a dam was built on the Klamath River in Oregon in 1912, and three more followed, leaving the salmon unable to complete their biological imperative. The salmon population declined, and the pooled water along the river became infected with algae and diseases. You might recall the salmon cannon that was supposed to help the fish get upriver, but that wouldn't help the newly-hatched salmon get down to the ocean, nor would it restore the river quality. Native American tribes advocated for dam removal for decades, and that finally happened beginning in 2023. The last dam was removed in August of this year.

Lo and behold, the salmon are coming back! Despite being blocked for more than a century, they know where to go to spawn, and it took the fish less than two months to get to the Upper Klamath and its tributaries. The dam removal was a major project, but the free-flowing water is showing signs of recovery. Read about the saga of the Chinook salmon on the Klamath at Smithsonian. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: USFWS Fish and Aquatic Conservation) 

The Alice Cooper song "Feed My Frankenstein" is silly, but is always a go-to song for Halloween. This year, it gets a lively dance beat when music mixer DJ Cummerbund (previously at Neatorama) mixes it with "Uptown Funk" by Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars. This masterful mashup is called "Uptown Frank," and it's not only a smooth mashup, it's a lot of fun. You'll see video clips of Wayne and Garth not be worthy of Cooper's attention, since he sang the song in the 1992 movie Wayne's World. The mashup gets all Halloween-y with the cast of the 1974 film Young Frankenstein and that movie's musical interlude, which is just the perfect touch. You'll also see Randy “Macho Man” Savage, but that's no surprise at all because he's in every DJ Cummerbund mashup. Make sure this one's on your Halloween party playlist, when it's time to get everyone up and dancing! -via Laughing Squid

X user @OxKruzr is, for this Halloween, dressing as the most famous character created by Stan Kelly of the satirical newspaper The Onion. Note the right side of this cartoon:

Kelly's 2015 comic about a future with legalized drugs imagines degenerates labeled as "sickos" enjoying the downfall of society while cackling "Yes...ha ha ha...yes." It's become a meme. We Sicko-Americans try to take it in stride as a joke from a less culturally sensitive time.

Montgomery McPhee, a cosplayer in Seattle, is known for his flamboyantly extravagant and visually loud cosplays as the Mandalorian from the Star Wars television series of the same name. Sequins, LEDs, and fans help him develop glam rock versions of favorite characters, such as the Glam-dalorian pictured here at the Emeral City Comic Con last year.

-via @atotalposer

Dysentery is a condition caused by the Shigella bacteria. Sufferers become dehydrated by diarrhea, and 70,000 people, mostly in poor countries, die of it each year. It's treatable, but Shigella is becoming antibiotic-resistant. It's difficult to study this phenomena in the US because dysentery is rare here, but in a challenge trial, volunteers are given the bacteria in order to study the disease.

Georgia Ray volunteered for a challenge trial at the University of Maryland because they were testing a bacteriophage treatment regimen, which she had studied, and because it paid well. Sixteen volunteers were isolated in a university building ad given the bacteria Shigella flexneri. Half were also dosed with the bacteriophage, but the subjects did not know whether they were given the treatment or a placebo. Soon, they suffered joint pain, chills, projectile vomiting, and diarrhea. Ray spent nine days in the facility before she was cleared to go home. She was never in danger of dying, as there were medical personnel monitoring the subjects constantly, but it was no picnic, either. Read the account of her experience and learn a lot about dysentery and bacteriophages at Eukaryote Writes Blog. -via Nag on the Lake

Vultures have never been considered cute birds, and no one keeps them as pets. But Bernard and Twinkle, endangered Eurasian black vultures who live at Horstmann Vulture Trust, will win your heart because they are so devoted to each other. The pair previously produced the first Eurasian black vulture chick hatched in the UK. Bernard is 28 years old now, and has arthritis, which limited his activities. Then he became a groundbreaker as the first vulture to undergo experimental stem cell therapy. A veterinary team extracted some of Bernard's stem cells and cultured them until they grew to more than seven million cells! These were re-introduced into the bird, and they replaced the tissue in Bernard's worn-out knees. The Trust hopes that a rejuvenated Bernard will be able to produce more chicks with Twinkle. We wish them luck. Vulture populations are declining around the world, and while their feeding habits may seem disgusting, they are a vital part of our ecosystem.

We haven't heard much about Kylo Ren since The Rise of Skywalker, but you have to admit that the saga did him dirty. Adam Driver was awesome as the Big Bad in the Star Wars sequel trilogy until they unnecessarily flipped him into a "good guy" just like they did with Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi -and then killed him off to escape consequences. But the character is coming back in comic book form as his former evil self. A new series called The Legacy of Vader places Ren at the point where he was most dangerous: after killing Snoke and becoming the Supreme Leader of the First Order, but before the events of the disappointing last movie.

The comic series will focus on Ren's obsession with Darth Vader as he explores the places Vader obtained and used his powers, looking for guidance, and the series will also reveal some insights into Vader's psyche. Avid Star Wars fans are looking forward to the series, as they know that the franchise is rich in satisfying stories outside of the films, which tended to try to please everyone. The first comic will be released in February, and you can read more at Gizmodo.

(Image credit: Lucasfilm/Marvel Comics)

You will always run into people who remember that McDonald's hamburgers were once 15 cents. They were also ready when you got there, because that's all they served, unless you wanted a cheeseburger, which were ready as well. The slowness of fast food is due to the variety of options available, but what happened to the price? You can go to a sit-down restaurant and get a plate of hamburger and fries and a drink brought to your table for $10, and it may cost you the same to get one at a window to eat in your car, and you won't know what a mess it is until you unwrap it a half-mile away. I wrote that before I watched the video, but the sentiment is widely observed. McDonald's isn't the only outlet where prices have risen dramatically. Weird History explains what happened, beginning with the history of fast food.

Some companies struggle to accommodate employees who really want to work from home. I'll bet that The Great Exhibition, a creative studio in Stockholm with the most painfully designed website that I've seen in years, doesn't have to convince workers to work at the office. The new facility has a fully functional 200-foot long roller coaster inside.

Fast Company tells us about this new working environment that I hope will attract the attention of Neatorama CEO Alex Santoso, who will no doubt leap at the opportunity to put our firm at the forefront of entrepreneurial innovation. An in-office roller coaster enhances drone productivity by providing a form of rapid transit through an office complex.

Petter Kakracka, the founder of The Great Exhibition, says that he overcame naysayers who told him that "it’s not only impossible, it’s impractical, dangerous, and too expensive" to construct a creativity-generating tool appropriately named "The Frontal Lobe."

If you were to ask a longtime Neatorama reader which city has the most haunted hotels, they might guess Savannah, Georgia. And they would be right. Vio crunched the numbers, and Savannah came up with a "horror score" of 75.41. I'm not sure what that means, but it landed Savannah at the top of the list of cities with haunted hotels. I'm surprised that New Orleans came in as low as fifth -behind Orlando, for goodness sake! Baltimore, San Antonio, and Charleston also ranked high in hotel spookiness.

The factors they considered include the number and percentage of hotel guests who report paranormal activities during their stay, and the number and percentage of hotels in each city that guests reported to be haunted. However, one would think that a hotel's reputation might color a guest's expectations. You can't visit Savannah without hearing about the many ghosts who call that town home. The good news is that haunted hotels are slightly cheaper than non-haunted hotels. The bad news is that all these cities have very expensive hotel rates. See the complete list at Vio, plus the breakdowns of cities by either haunted mentions or paranormal mentions. I'm not sure how the difference between the two terms was determined. -via Digg 

(Image credit: Steve Langguth)