Literary scholars often trace the novel form back to 18th-century, although it depends on how you define "novel." A book called Beware the Cat, written by William Baldwin in 1553, appears to fill the bill.

Beware the Cat tells the tale of a talkative priest, Gregory Streamer, who determines to understand the language of cats after he is kept awake by a feline rabble on the rooftops. Turning for guidance to Albertus Magnus, a medieval alchemist and natural scientist roundly mocked in the Renaissance for his quackery, Streamer finds the spell he needs. Then, using various stomach-churning ingredients, including hedgehog’s fat and cat excrement, he cooks up the right potion.

And it turns out that cats don’t merely talk – they have a social hierarchy, a judicial system and carefully regulated laws governing sexual relations. With his witty beast fable, Baldwin is analysing an ancient question, and one in which the philosophical field of posthumanism still shows a keen interest: do birds and beasts have reason?

An intriguing read, no doubt, but the story behind the book is interesting, too. Baldwin, a printer's assistant who wrote other books, sat on Beware the Cat for ten years due to the politics of Tudor royalty. Now, 500 year later, the novel is being turned into a play. Read about Beware the Cat at The Conversation. -via Strange Company

Back in February, Kaplamino gave us a wonderful chain reaction called The Blue Marble. He's back with Blue Marble 2, in which physics and timing combine to make this chain reaction act like a pinball machine! What's really neat about this one is that Kaplamino gives us some insight on how the tricks are done. From the YouTube page:

The trick at 0:23 caused the majority of the fails. It had to be exactly in the right position and it was moving because of the vibrations of the trick above.

The air canon with the balloon was a big challenge to make. The rubber band squeezes the balloon around the straw to release the air in a specific direction. Then the hardest part was to find how to stop the air and deliver it when I want. It was too difficult to put something like tape at the end of the straw because it was either too clingy or not enough. The solution was to twist the balloon around the straw and block it in this position with a rope. In this position the air stays in the balloon until it untwists. I explain it because I think what exactly happened it's not easy to get when you see the video.

After this I built a timing catapult trick. I know I'm crazy because timing tricks are so unreliable, it was mostly based on luck but worked 80% of the time. It was so sensitive, just a little more dust or some hair on my table could make it fail so I had to clean it for almost every take.

Yep I used a fidget spinner again, I'm proud of this one, nice and almost never failed.

The big catapult was supposed to be a trick with fire (the plan was to build something with elements: fire, air and water). The marble was supposed to go up because of the explosion of a firecracker :p

But it was too risky, I know it can work (it worked 2 times) but with MASSIVE luck. It's impossible to predict how they'll explode. And it caused lots of others problems. The marble was burned and it wasn't rolling really well after that.

The shockwave can trigger other tricks and finally the debris from the explosions was falling all over the place and could block the marble at a later stage. It also burned the table and hurt my ears. So I gave up, but maybe you'll find this trick in a screenlink later ;)

About the water trick. Release the water was really easy, but it took me weeks to figure out what to do with it. You can't push something with it, not enough force ...

So I taped a folded paper and when the water touched it, it got wet and unfold because of the weight :D But the marble also touches the water and gets wet. After that you can see that it moves slowly.

Note that we get to see how slanted the table is when the camera pans near the window. There's not much slant at all... just enough. -via Laughing Squid

Disneyland in California was originally built with a private luxury apartment inside for Walt Disney himself. After his death, it was made into an art gallery, then an exclusive lodging experience called the Disneyland Dream Suite. It's now called 21 Royal, the setting for a posh dinner offered for $15,000. Don't faint; that price covers 12 people and includes park tickets, so dinner itself is in the realm of a grand per person. As a theme park journalist, Carlye Wisel got to try it out, and she gives us a blow-by-blow description of the evening.

After a seemingly brief cocktail hour, we’re ushered into the dining room. It’s neoclassical by way of New Orleans, all jewel-toned wainscotting and aquamarine velvet chairs with idealized murals of the park’s Mark Twain Riverboat churning through open waters and the famed Haunted Mansion in all its antebellum glory. A floral eruption of sunset-hued ranunculus, roses, and sprigs of rosemary on the table would almost have you forgetting you’re a stone’s throw from mouse-shaped beignets until a candelabra on the mantle is magically lit by, what else, fairy dust.

Sommelier Matt Ellingson does most of the talking throughout the night, with lengthy backstories for every pour, including our first — a Dom Ruinart champagne named for, as we’re told in detail, the 18th-century inventor of “wine with bubbles.” The first course lands, Osetra caviar offset by an acidic yellow tomato sauce and Alaskan king crab with a delicate potato mousseline crepe. The wine and food pairing isn’t just nice, it’s nearly unprecedented: Save for Club 33, nowhere at the original Disneyland Park sells alcohol, for now.

You might never have an evening at 21 Royal, but you can read about it for free at Eater.

(Image credit: Frank Wonho Lee)

We learn a lot about the Founding Fathers and the movers and shakers of colonial America, but what about the regular folk, and especially the poor people who left no records for us? Jon Townsend (previously at Neatorama) knows a lot about colonial America. Here he gives us details from the travel journals of Sarah Kemble Knight and surveyor William Bird, who wrote down the things they saw and the people they met. -via Digg 

Reminiscence Therapy is often used in nursing homes and adult-care facilities to help patients with Alzheimer's and dementia. In this type of therapy, the patients are encouraged to talk about their past - and that act of remembering seemed to help improve their mood and cognition.

The George G. Glenner Alzheimer's Family Center took RT one step further: they created a fake town taken straight from the 1950s. Called the Glenner Town Square, it's built inside a 11,000-square-foot former warehouse and comes complete with a local diner, city hall, gas station, beauty salon and even a library.

Why the 1950s? From the website's FAQ:

Why is Town Square® designed from the era 1953-1961?

Studies have shown that our strongest memories are constructed from the ages of 10-30. The reason being is that this is when the most significant life events occur – graduation from high school, college, first job, weddings, birth of children. That said, a majority of our participants are now in their early eighties. Our participants, who are currently 82 (in 2017), were born in in 1935 and would have been 18 in 1953.

via San Diego Tribune

It's like a scene straight out of a sci-fi movie: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Hayabusa2 asteroid mission has successfully landed two rovers on an asteroid called Ryugu.

The photo above was taken by Minerva-II 1A rover during a hop after it landed on the asteroid. The rovers are designed to hop along the asteroid's surface, and take photos and data, as well as collect samples.

This photo was taken by the second rover, shortly after separating from the spacecraft, on its way down to the asteroid.

Photo: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

It's an '80s song set to a '50s beat, and Generation Z doesn't understand at all. But the rest of us can enjoy Postmodern Jukebox with guest musicians Casey Abrams and Snuffy Walden performing Toto's "Africa." -via Laughing Squid

DAREDEVIL RACCOON: Incredible video shows a raccoon climbing roughly nine stories up a building off the Ocean City Boardwalk. It then appears to turn around and jump from the building, spiraling toward the ground. Then it gets up and walks away…

MORE: https://t.co/a7MU4FnFDT pic.twitter.com/njbzrFcWTF

— FOX 29 (@FOX29philly) September 21, 2018

South Carolina resident Micha Rea was walking on the boardwalk of Ocean City, New Jersey, when he spotted a raccoon scaling a building.  When the animal reached the ninth story ... it JUMPED down!

Click on the embedded video to see what happened next.

Even if you're not a physicist, chances are that you're familiar with Erwin Schrödinger's cat.

In his famous Schrödinger's cat thought experiment, a cat inside a box is both dead and alive until the box is opened, and illustrates (just one of the) paradoxical things about quantum mechanics.

But what if instead of one cat, there are two cats?

Find out what happens in this article by Davide Castelvecchi over at Nature.

Praying mantises normally eat other insects, but they aren't picky. They've been seen eating spiders, birds, frogs, and mice, but now a science paper details the first-ever observance of a praying mantis catching and eating fish. Lots of fish.

Observations of this 2.2-inch-long male mantis (Hierodula tenuidentata) were made in a private roof garden in Karnataka, India. The garden may be artificial, but the researchers say it’s a very close approximation of mantises’ natural habitat, featuring wasps, butterflies, spiders, and several planters. The team observed the mantis as it hunted and devoured the guppies, also known as rainbow fish, in a pond, which it did for five days in a row. In total, the mantis ate nine fish, at a minimum rate of two per day.

This is just one mantis, but it shows how adaptable and intelligent they can be. Read all about the pescetarian mantis at Gizmodo.

(Image credit: Rajesh Puttaswamaiah)  

"I don't know what you're doing, Dad, but I wanna do it, too!"

Eli Clark was exercising by doing lunges across the living room, and his great Dane Luca did his best to join in. He didn't quite understand what moves were involved, but gosh darn it, he did his best! That's a good dog. Luca now has his own Instagram account. -via Tastefully Offensive 

Terry Laurmen of Green Bay, Wisconsin, is 75 years old. He volunteers at Safe Haven Pet Sanctuary, where he enjoys brushing the cats. They love it too! The shelter, which specializes in caring for disabled, ill, and elderly cats, is a comfy place, so Laurmen often falls asleep with the cats.

"They all know him, when he walks through the door they run over to him because they know he has the special brush and the special treats. They all pile on top of him and rub all over him and just love him," sanctuary owner Elizabeth told the BBC.

But grooming 20-30 cats can get exhausting, and the other volunteers began snapping shots of Terry taking his daily siestas with his furry friends.

The pictures, posted at Facebook, went viral. When the shelter attached a fundraising link, they raised more than $40,000 in donations! They also have more volunteers because of the publicity. So what's next?

"People have been requesting we make a calendar with Terry and the cats on it!" Elizabeth says.

"I asked him if he would be comfortable with something like that - and he said he'd do anything to raise money for them."

Read more about Cat Grandpa at BBC. -via Fark

When redditor Monkeygruven posted this picture of some family friends ready for trick-or-treat, others bemoaned that the kids didn't pick their own costumes, nor did they know who they were portraying. Maybe it was more like this.

Mom: Do you want to wear a scary costume or a princess costume?
Girl: I don't know!
Mom: You can be both! You can be a queen who got her head cut off!
Girl: Yeah, let's do that!
Boy: I want to have my head cut off!
Mom: How about you be the king that murdered her?
Boy: Well, okay. But how will people know I did it?
Mom: Let me tell you a scary story, a true story...

That said, the costumes are awesome. -via reddit

Military parades are usually a stuffy kind of affair featuring tanks and things like that, but not in Chile! In their annual military parade in Santiago, the Chilean military featured uniformed officers carrying a bunch of puppies that will be trained to be police dogs.

Ever since we managed to put men on the moon, we've been looking for other places for people to go. Then bigger and better telescopes led us to exoplanets, those outside our solar system. Somewhere along the way, we switched from thinking of pure exploration to colonizing other planets. But our bodies were built for Earth. Even if we find an exoplanet with an oxygen-rich atmosphere, liquid water, and tolerable temperatures, would we be able to live with a different level of gravity?

If its gravity is too strong our blood will be pulled down into our legs, our bones might break, and we could even be pinned helplessly to the ground.

Finding the gravitational limit of the human body is something that’s better done before we land on a massive new planet. Now, in a paper published on the pre-print server arXiv, three physicists, claim that the maximum gravitational field humans could survive long-term is four-and-a-half times the gravity on Earth.  

Read how they figured that out at Discover magazine. -via Digg

(Image credit: NASA/Ames/JPL-Caltech)