When you think of the rules that govern the Star Trek universe, you first think of the Prime Directive, which is broken all the time. The next rules are that Captain Kirk always gets the girl, and that any new crew member played by an unknown actor beaming down to the surface has a death warrant. And they probably wear a red shirt. But those last two rules only apply to the original series. John Farrier could come up with other obvious rules, but that's not what this video is about.

Believe it or not, there is an underlying philosophy that guides how Star Trek stories are told. Some of the nine rules governing the fictional universe may have been born of necessity, like how almost all aliens are human-shaped, but they have become incorporated into the framework of all the Star Trek movies and TV series. Some are contrary to the rules of our reality. Sometimes the rules are bent or broken, but that doesn't ruin the structure as a whole that makes this fictional universe so familiar and understandable to fans.

Tião e os Bravos is a Brazilian band that clearly takes its inspiration from American bluegrass music. Or the members at least have a hillbilly aesthetic. The use of a banjo, an upright bass, and a washboard certainly reflect a American folkways take on "All Star" by Smash Mouth.

Many of their vocal tracks are in Portuguese, as you would expect from a Brazilian band. Fortunately for the monolingualists among us, American classics such as "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana and "Times Like These" by the Foo Fighters are presented in English.

-via The Awesomer

Genteel people with a working sense of empathy try not to draw attention to the farts we detect, lest we embarrass the perpetrator unnecessarily. But farts in general, fictional farts, and farts from unidentified persons are fair game. After all, flatulence is funny. We all know that it's natural, everyone does it, and it's hard not to giggle when you hear that sound, whether it's a fart or merely an imitation. In fact, the oldest joke we've found so far involves a fart. That one set off a never-ending stream of fart jokes, some that went into the history books, although you will find them more often in science books and fiction. Poetry, too.

In the history of fart jokes, some stand head and shoulders above the rest. Cracked brings us five of the most notorious fart jokes, from ancient Sumer, Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, Benjamin Franklin, and Joseph Pujol.

You can read a more extensive article on Pujol right here.

(Image credit: Barb Crawford)

Canelo the dog lived on the streets of Cadiz, Spain, with the man who loved him. Canelo didn't regularly have a roof over his head, but he loved his human more than anything. The man went to the hospital for dialysis treatment every week, where Canelo wasn't allowed inside. But he would patiently wait outside the door for hours, which seemed like forever to the dog, because he knew his human would eventually come back outside. Until the day he didn't.

You might have to grab another hankie when you learn that this is a true story. It happened about thirty years ago, and people from Andalusia are very familiar with it. Canelo spent 12 years waiting outside the hospital, escaped from the pound twice, and refused to stay with families who wanted to adopt him. After his death, the street that ran in front of the hospital was renamed in the dog's honor. -via Nag on the Lake

Want more? We have similar stories of a dog's loyalty from Japan, Russia, and Brazil.

Leavenworth, Washington, was settled as a timber town with a productive sawmill. In the early 20th century, the town opened its first ski resort. Then in the 1960s, as the timber business was declining, they launched a scheme to draw in tourists and they rebuilt the town on a Bavarian theme. Leavenworth now sells beer, lederhosen, and pretzels. There are Bavarian restaurants, a "Krampus Kave," extensive Christmas shops, and a huge Oktoberfest every year. But how authentic is the experience?

Four journalism students from Austria, two of them born in Munich, Germany, spent the summer at the University of Washington in Seattle. Friends recommended that they visit Leavenworth to see how it compares to the real thing. To sum up their first impressions, "Wherever we look, it feels irritatingly familiar and completely strange at the same time." The students were baffled at how Americans associate Christmas ornaments with Bavaria, while they celebrate with Santa Claus and Mariah Carey. Krampus was another puzzler -why would Christians in America object to Krampus? Read what they thought of the food, the architecture, and the American idea of Bavaria in their report on the visit.  -via Metafilter

(Image source: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration)

On August 31, 1939, the first issue of Timely Comics was published. The company changed its name to Marvel and became a beloved source of stories about Captain America, Iron Man, The Mighty Thor, and a pantheon of other superheroes. To celebrate Marvel's 85th anniversary, the company has released a tribute video featuring its biggest superheroes over the years, with a special emphasis on Marvel's most beloved character ever, Stan Lee.

But that's not all you'll see here. The tribute video also looks to the future, with the first official release of images of Harrison Ford as Red Hulk in Thunderbolts*, which we won't see until May of next year. You'll also catch glimpses of other upcoming projects such as the feature film Captain America: Brave New World (slated for February), the 2025 TV series Daredevil: Born Again, and the 2025 miniseries Ironheart. Read more about the anniversary tribute at Entertainment Weekly.

During the heyday of the sideshow, performers came in several categories. There were those who were born as physical oddities, those who became so through injury, those who merely displayed an exotic background (which was usually exaggerated), and those who worked hard to perform amazing feats. Martin Laurello had no exotic background, but he combined the other three categories to become "the Human Owl." He could turn his neck until his head was completely backwards!

Laurello was born flexible, and was a contortionist in a circus act. There is some evidence that he suffered an injury that left his neck even looser than before, and while recuperating, he trained himself to turn his head 45 degrees, then 90 degrees, then 180 degrees, although the last part needed his hands to achieve. Laurello worked for Ringling Brothers, then at Coney Island, then for Ripley's Believe It or Not. He was also an activist inside the community of human oddities, working to change the demeaning language of his time away from calling such people "freaks." Read about the life of Martin Laurello at Mental Floss. The article includes a video of Laurello doing his thing. -via Strange Company

(Image source: Txemari. (Navarra).)

Americans are pretty unique among the countries of the world in the way we love to display our country's flag. They are everywhere! And we are so familiar with the sight that when we see a different version of it, we immediately notice that something is off. The truth is that while our flag has had a constant design since 1960, it was changed a lot before then. In the early days of the United States, quite a few very different flags were tried out, and colonies and local regiments all made their own flags. The stars have had five, six, seven, or eight points and various stripe placements. Some looked nothing at all like the flag we fly today. But the basic design was set in 1777, and only the number of stars has changed since then. Weird History shows us some of the many flags that were tried out on the way to the stars and stripes.

I've tried to source this claim by the always-interesting X account Traces of Texas. The histiography is a bit sketchy. But it's not unreasonable for North Street in Nacogdoches, Texas to claim the title of the oldest public road in the United States.

The Spanish explorers and early settlers referred to the route as La Calle Real del Norte. It stretched across eastern texas, serving as a trade out between a variety of indegenous peoples, most notably the Nacogdoche and Nansoni.

A historical marker in Nacogdoches, one of the oldest settlements in Texas, notes the possible beginning of the route.

Image: Google Maps 

This map of the United States isn't missing any of the 50 states. It just reminds people, from an Alaskan point of view, of their relative importance.

The Lower 48, as Alaskans are fond of calling the beleaguered 48 contiguous states, fit into a neat box that contains the essential geographic features of that region, including Pike's Peak and the Mississippi River.

It's all to scale. Oh, perhaps not to a geographic scale. But it is an accurate reflection of the importance of each region of the United States. The chart, which contrasts Alaska and the other 49 states, provides data to support the visuals.

-via Terrible Maps

The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine two-part episode "Past Tense," which aired in January of 1995, presents Sisko, Dax, and Bashir being accidentally transported to the San Francisco of 2024. It's a city that, like the rest of the United States and much of the world, is wracked by poverty, crime, and tyranny.

Jen Yates at Cake Wrecks takes a break once a week from hilarious cakes that went all wrong, when she posts remarkably beautiful cakes on Sundays. This week was all about Disney Princess cakes, the kind ordered by adults, that go beyond pink frills to illustrate the essence of the character.

The intriguing cake above featuring Merida from the movie Brave was designed and crafted by Spanish cake artist Floren Bastante, who makes amazing portrait cakes. The Brave cake was made for his niece's 10th birthday, and you can see it from all angles here.

This Little Mermaid cake went viral for Karine Jingozian of Farine in Los Angeles. Of course it did, just look at it! You'll also be amazed at cakes featuring Cinderella, Jasmine, Elsa, Snow White, Belle, Mulan, and Rapunzel. See lots more lovely Disney Princess cakes that look too awesome to eat in a list at Cake Wrecks.

Newgate prison was built in 1188, and for 700 years it was a place of dread. Criminals were sent there, but also people following the wrong religion or political philosophy, and even people who couldn't afford to pay their debts. Life on the street in the Middle Ages was pretty tough, but inside Newgate it was much worse. There was overcrowding, little food, and no beds, but supervision was minimal, so life inside Newgate could only be described as chaos. The worst part of the facility was an unlit dungeon underneath the prison, where prisoners condemned to death were kept until their execution. It was no wonder that some convicts prayed to be sent to Australia rather then to Newgate. While conditions changed somewhat over the centuries, Newgate was always the worst prison in London. It was rebuilt twice after being burned. It was finally closed in 1903, and demolished a year later. -via Digg

It's not easy being Russian these days. Ukraine has pressed into Russian territory past Crimea, which is only expected after the Russians invaded Ukraine more than two years ago. Russian soldiers in Kursk often find their vehicles being chased down by attack drones. Understandably, they throw their vehicles into high gear when this happens in order to escape. If they do escape, there's a good chance that they will be issued a ticket for speeding. Police refer to these tickets as "letters of happiness." Being a soldier in an active war zone does not allow a driver to escape the many speed cameras in Kursk.

Some soldiers are trying to avoid the speeding tickets by papering over their license plates, but police will pull them over for doing so. Kursk police say they are sympathetic to the plight of military members fleeing for their lives, but the police are not military, and they have their own mission to uphold law and order in the region, and fund their department. They say that soldiers can come to court and try to fight the tickets.

American cheese is loved for its role in delicious macaroni and cheese, cheeseburgers, and grilled cheese sandwiches, but it's also been dragged through the mud for not being cheese. So what is it, then? It's a food product that contains cheese and other ingredients. While there are regulations on how it can be labeled, calling it "not cheese" is like saying sparkling water is not water because it has carbon bubbles added to it. You can argue amongst yourselves about the quality of American pasteurized process cheese, which is a matter of opinion. You can't argue with the fact that it melts into sauce very nicely before it burns.

The video gives us the science of how cheese melts or doesn't, and explains how to make your own melty cheese out of a variety of cheeses by using sodium citrate. I recently came across a recipe that does this using Alka-Seltzer, which is made of sodium bicarbonate and anhydrous citric acid plus aspirin, so you have to find the kind that doesn't contain aspirin. It may be easier to just order some sodium citrate. Or buy some Velveeta.