Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales was the granddaughter of King George III, and the only confirmed child of the Prince of Wales who eventually became King George IV. Charlotte was second in line for the monarchy her entire life. Sadly, that life was cut short when she died in childbirth at age 21.

Charlotte’s pregnancy was the subject of the most intense public interest. Betting shops quickly set up a book on what sex the child would be. Economists calculated that the birth of a princess would raise the stock market by 2.5%; the birth of a prince would raise it 6%.

The mum to be Charlotte spent her time quietly, however, spending much time sitting for a portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence. She ate heavily and got little exercise; when her medical team began prenatal care in August 1817, they put her on a strict diet, hoping to reduce the size of the child she was carrying. The diet and occasional bleeding they subjected her to seemed to weaken Charlotte and did little to reduce her weight.

Charlotte's labor lasted for more than two days before she gave birth to a stillborn boy. An article from author Julia Herdman looks at the medical practices of the day, and how Charlotte might have been saved if her accoucheur (a male midwife) and the doctor called to assist had made different choices in her care. -via Strange Company

Someone in Savannah, Georgia, put googly eyes on the city's statue of Revolutionary War general Nathanael Greene. The city responded by venting its outrage on Facebook.

Who did this?! Someone placed googly eyes on our historic #NathanaelGreene statue in #JohnsonSquare. It may look funny but harming our historic monuments and public property is no laughing matter, in fact, it's a crime.

But indeed, it is a laughing matter, as you no doubt got a kick out of the picture. Savannah police are treating it as a trespassing instead of vandalism, since no harm was done to the statue. The comments at the Facebook post are priceless. Read more on the story at Buzzfeed.

(Image credit: City of Savannah Government)

You know the Pallas's cat as the fluffy, twitchy, rare wildcat of Central Asia. This video takes a deep dive into what makes the Pallas's cat different from other cats, like their genetic lineage, their round pupils, and their adaptations for living in difficult remote environments. Plus, we get to see plenty of manul footage, which is worth the price of admission by itself.

Meet the Pacu fish, a South American freshwater fish related to the piranha. But unlike the piranha, which has pointed razor-sharp teeth, the Pacu fish has straight teeth that looks very much like human teeth!

Photo: Nisamanee wanmoon/Wikipedia

The "Sruth in Aghaidh an Aird" waterfall (translated as "stream against the height", AKA the Devil's Chimney waterfall) in Ireland is not only that country's tallest waterfall, it's sometime also its weirdest.

During certain weather conditions, where the wind blows from the South, the waterfall is actually blown upwards and back over the cliff (hence the name "Devil's Chimney").

Maybe they should just call it the "waterrise."

Sphen and Magic are a gay penguin couple at Sea Life Sydney Aquarium in Australia. During breeding season, aquarium staff gave the couple a dummy egg to practice incubating ... and the gay penguins turned out to be so good at it that they've been given real eggs to hatch!

In 1961, ten scientists - including Frank Drake, Melvin Calvin and Carl Sagan - met in a secret meeting at a rural observatory in West Virginia to discuss how they would find, and talk to, aliens. This meeting later set the foundation for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence or SETI.

But what most people don't know is that during the meeting, a neuroscientists named John C. Lilly enthralled the scientists with his attempts to communicate with dolphins, and how that could help us communicate with aliens. The scientists were so excited with Lilly's research that they called themselves the Order of the Dolphin:

Drake would write that, “Much of that first day, he regaled us with tales of his bottlenosed dolphins, whose brains, he said, were larger than ours and just as densely packed with neurons. Some parts of the dolphin brain looked even more complex than their human counterparts, he averred. Clearly, more than one intelligent species had evolved on Earth.”

Lilly told the attendees he also heard signs of language, and empathy, in recordings of the dolphins. “In fact, if we slowed down the playback speed of the tape recorder enough, the squeaks and clicks sounded like human language,” Drake wrote. “We were all totally enthralled by these reports. We felt some of the excitement in store for us when we encounter nonhuman intelligence of extraterrestrial origin.”

Lilly’s research generated so much excitement that, by the end of the conference, the attendees called themselves the Order of the Dolphin. Calvin, in his post-Nobel joy, even went on to send commemorative pins to the attendees. “He caused to be made these little pins which had silver dolphins on them, which he sent to all of us,” Morrison told David Swift, author of the book SETI Pioneers.

Read the rest of the story at The Crux.

Photo: SETI Institute's Allen Telescope Array/SETI Institute

Air India Express Boeing 737-800 slammed into a wall at the end of the runway during takeoff and ripped a large part of the undercarriage ... but the pilots didn't notice and continued flying!

NDTV explains:

Miraculously, none of the 136 passengers and crew onboard IX 611, an Air India flight bound for Dubai, were injured though pictures of the jet after it made an emergency landing in Mumbai show severe damage.

A large gash along the belly of the jet and multiple perforations on the engine nacelles and parts of the fuselage clearly indicate that the passengers onboard the jetliner had a miraculous escape.

According to a statement made by Air India Express, ''after flight IX 611 from Trichy to Dubai had taken off from Trichy at about 1.30am today, it was reported by local Airport officials at Trichy, that they have observed that [the] aircraft might have come in contact with the airport perimeter wall.''

As Halloween approaches, it's time for scary stories. People are scared of spiders, but Lucas the Spider knows better. So what is Lucas afraid of? Listen to him tell a story of the scariest thing he can think of.

See more of Lucas' adventures in other videos.

Tony Ann is a young pianist from Toronto. His amazing skills are well suited for pop or house music. Browse through his youtube channel and you can find Daft Punk, Avici, Chainsmokers remix.

The smells mentioned in Star Wars are not exactly the things you'd want your home to smell like: the inside of a tauntaun, the garbage compactor, a walking carpet. But if you are into that sort of thing, Merchoid is now offering candles scented like your memories of the Star Wars original trilogy. You can buy sets of five candles from each movie, or a set of all 15. The limited edition version comes with an engraved plinth on which to display them. The scents are:

        Wookie: Ever wondered what a walking carpet smells like?
        Bantha Milk: Love the smell of bantha milk in the morning?
        Trash Compactor: Find out what was very nearly the last smell Luke, Leia and Han ever experienced
        X-wing Cockpit: Perfect for playthroughs of Battlefront’s aerial combat
        Cantina: Eau de scum and villainy
        Lightsaber Duel: Do you prefer the smell of the dark side or the light side?
        Han Solo Carbonite: This smell is all Leia had to remember Han for a long time
        Millenium Falcon: She may not look much, but she’s got it where it counts (the smell)
        Inside of a Tauntaun: Thought it smelt bad on the outside? You’ve experienced nothing yet!
        Yoda’s Cooking Pot: Yoda’s legendary Force powers are only eclipsed by his cooking skills. Smell it for yourself!
        Rancor: The only way to smell a Rancor without ending up its lunch
        Sarlaac Pit: Add a new dimension to your favourite ROTJ scene
        Jabba’ Palace: Admit it, you’ve always wondered what Jabba smells like
        Ewok: Do they smell as cute as they look? Let’s find out!
        Death Star Destroyed: The sweet smell of rebellion

Check out the selection here. Mind you, they are not cheap. -via Geeks Are Sexy

We put up scarecrows to keep birds out of our gardens, which varying results, but how do you keep birds away from airports? That's pretty important, because a flock, or even one bird in the right place, can bring down a plane. LED technology that allows us to animate signs gives us a leg up, as new research shows. 

In an effort to come up with a more effective strategy, a team of scientists from Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and the University of Rennes, with some help from the Airbus corporation, applied their knowledge of avian physiology to the problem. By exploiting the powerful visual system of raptors—a group of birds that includes eagles, falcons, and hawks—the scientists were able to devise an optical illusion that effectively dissuades these birds from loitering around airports—and it looks suspiciously like a pair of googly eyes. These findings were published this week in PLoS One.

The research presented birds with eight images, half of them animated, plus a plain sign as a control, and found that simple googly eyes that grow larger scared the birds off so well that they wouldn't return to the area, even after five weeks! Nothing else came close to deterring them. You can read the research paper at PLoS One, or the short version at Gizmodo. 

(Image credit: Anthony Boigné)

When you think of burial, usually you'd think of being buried in the ground - but not in certain parts of Tibet and Mongolia. There, according to Vajrayana Buddhist traditions, bodies are disposed of in a sky burial.

More details from Tibetpedia:

Villagers take the body to the sky burial site by horse or car. The master of the sky burial ceremony performs rituals over the body. He then burns incense and tsampa to summon the vultures. In no time, birds begin to circle over the site. The master then proceeds to chop the body into small pieces.

And makes way for the feasting to happen.

If the vultures consume the entire body, it’s a good sign. Tibetan folk custom believes that even vultures will not want to consume a human’s body if he or she has done evil deeds in life.

Photo: Bundesarchiv/wikipedia

When he was twelve years old, Andres Ruzo was told a strange story by his grandfather: Spanish conquistadors that went deep into the Amazonian rainforest in search of gold found a river so hot that it boiled from below.

Years later, as a graduate student in geophysics, Ruzo wondered if the legend of the Amazonian boiling river could be true.

But when he approached his senior colleagues, Ruzo's idea was dismissed as crazy - the Amazon was hundred of miles away from any active volcano. There couldn't be such a thing ... or could there?

Rizo himself couldn't quite believe that a boiling river in the Amazonian rainforest could exist ... until he saw it himself:

The river turned out to be no legend at all, but the sacred geothermal healing site of Mayantuyacu, nestled deep in the Peruvian rainforest and protected by a powerful shaman.

Up to 82 feet (25 meters) wide and 20 feet (six meters) deep, the river surges for nearly 4 miles at temperatures hot enough to brew tea or cook any animals unfortunate enough to fall in. And yes, a small portion of it is so hot that it actually boils. There are documented hot springs in the Amazon, but nothing nearly as large as this river.

Read the rest over at Gizmodo | The Boiling River website

Photo: @theboilingriver

Okay, the armadillo technically can't shoot you back - but its tough shell can cause the bullet to ricochet right back at you.

That's what happened to a Texas man who discovered an armadillo outside his house early one morning and decided to "shoo" it away with his .38 revolver:

From CBC.ca:

"His wife was in the house. He went outside and took his .38 revolver and shot three times at the armadillo," Rowe said.

The animal's hard shell deflected at least one of three bullets, which then struck the man's jaw, he said.

Photo: Hans Stieglitz/Wikipedia