Sadie Burkhalter of New Hope, Georgia, will never forget the day that a plane carrying 81 passengers and four crew members crashed in front of her house. The plane had hit ground about a mile away and skidded to her front yard, taking out cars, power lines, and gas station pumps along the way.   

On Monday, April 4, 1977, Sadie was a young mother of three boys living in the small community of New Hope, Georgia. That lovely spring afternoon, she stood in her living room and witnessed a scene almost out of a horror film. A man was running across her front yard toward her, frantically waving his arms, his clothing ablaze. Behind him, downed electrical wires snaked around charred bodies. A traumatized young man with red hair and badly burned hands had taken refuge in the yellow Cadillac parked in Sadie’s driveway. Another man, engulfed in flames, was running blindly toward the creek behind her house. In the midst of it all, a shimmering blue line painted on a fragment of metal was all that remained to identify the mangled fuselage of a Southern Airways DC-9-31 passenger plane that had just crashed into the Burkhalters’ quiet front yard.

Crash survivors, injured, burned, and desperate for help, made their way to Burkhalter's home for refuge. The final death toll was 63 from the plane (including both pilots) and nine on the ground. Read an account of what Burkhalter saw that day from Samme Chittum, author of the book Southern Storm: The Tragedy of Flight 242 at Smithsonian.

Cheetos are far from gourmet food products, and yet cheesy crackers and cheese platters can be quite fancy so maybe the only thing holding Cheetos back from being considered fancy foods is a gourmet makeover.

With better ingredients and lots of experience creating gourmet versions of favorite snack foods Bon Appétit's Claire Saffitz definitely had what it takes to create a Cheeto for the sophisticated foodie. And her gourmet Cheetos look more delicious than the original!

(YouTube Link)

-Via Geekologie

Physics Gives Me A Hadron Funny Science by happinessinatee

Physicists aren't exactly the life of the party, but they do have some pretty good scientifical jokes to tell if you ask 'em when they've had a few- and they're chock full of physics guaranteed to keep you rollin' (your eyes) all night long. Some of their material may come off as a bit blue or edgy, but what is life without a little bawdiness and raunchy humor, right?

Show the world that scientists can be as funny as the less scientifically minded with this Physics Gives Me A Hadron Funny Science t-shirt by Happinessinatee, it's one simply funny design you don't have to be a genius to appreciate!

Visit happinessinatee's Instagram, then head on over to his NeatoShop for more pun-tastic designs:

View more designs by happinessinatee | More Funny T-shirts | New T-Shirts

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Medieval scribes spent years upon years painstakingly copying books by hand. The thought of such work being stolen was a nightmare to them, as you can imagine. And we've seen the freedom that those scribes had, as they added personal notes and wacky art to their manuscripts. So is it any wonder that they'd also include a warning to anyone tempted to make off with their work? Quite a few of those manuscripts still exist, with warnings in the form of curses written into them, sometimes in poetic form.

2. "A WORSE END"

A 15th-century French curse featured by Marc Drogin in his book Anathema! Medieval Scribes and the History of Book Curses has a familiar "House That Jack Built"-type structure:

    “Whoever steals this book
    Will hang on a gallows in Paris,
    And, if he isn’t hung, he’ll drown,
    And, if he doesn’t drown, he’ll roast,
    And, if he doesn’t roast, a worse end will befall him.”

After the printing press was developed, such curses hung on because books were still expensive (and maybe because of tradition, too). Read some of the best (or worst) curses for book thieves at Mental Floss.

They say it's the little things in life that count and the little things that truly make us happy, but I'm pretty sure they didn't mean the word "things" to be taken literally.

However, the little thing in this animated short Little Thing presented by DUST made me happy for some strange reason, and it definitely wanted its existence to count even though the world seemed unaware of its existence. Anyway, enjoy this strange little sci-fi show!

(YouTube Link)

The following article is from the book Uncle John’s Uncanny Bathroom Reader.

Before they became big stars, many musicians had to pay their dues and find their styles by playing with a wide variety of musicians. Here are some band pairings that might surprise you.

1. Jimi Hendrix and the Isley Brothers

In 1964, the Isley Brothers recruited a 21-year-old guitarist named Jimmy James to join their backing band. James, who later became famous using his real name -Jimi Hendrix- played on the group’s novelty single “Testify,” in which each of the Isleys take turns imitating soul legends like Ray Charles, James Brown, and Stevie Wonder.

2. Rick James, Neil Young, and Goldy McJohn

The Atacama Mummy is not an alien, as it was once purported to be, but it's not a fake, either. The tiny skin-covered skeleton is only 6 inches long. It was discovered in a small deserted town in the Atacama Desert in Chile in 2003. Experts who studied the mummy found it to be human, but were confused by test results. The bone density is that of a 6-year-old child, but how could a 6-inch body survive that long? Gene sequencing had now yielded some results.

According to the new analysis, Ata was a human girl of Chilean descent. And indeed, she was very likely still a developing fetus when she died, even though she exhibited the bone composition of a six-year old child. The reason for this, claim the researchers, is that Ata suffered from a rare bone-aging disorder. In total, the researchers identified mutations in at least seven genes that, either separately or in tandem, contributed to Ata’s odd physical characteristics, including facial malformations, bone deformities, and apparent dwarfism (known as skeletal dysplasia). Some of the genes analyzed in the study were already known to cause disease, but this is the first time that some of the mutations were linked to abnormal bone growth or other developmental problems.

Scientists were astonished at how many different genes in the mummy showed mutations. The implications for medicine may mean that health issues could be caused by more than one gene anomaly. Read more about the Atacama Mummy at Gizmodo.

(Image credit: Dr. Emery Smith)

The Face Licker is a custom-made lollipop made to look like your face -or the face of someone you'd like to lick. Firebox offers to use a photograph that you send them and create a life-size replica by hand in delicious tutti-frutti hard candy. It's $57, but if you've got that kind of money, it would make a great gift. You won't get one in time for Easter, however. If you're going to buy a Face Licker for me, send them a picture of Robert Redford, circa 1970. -via Mashable 

In 1912, Norma Pfeiffer, a graduate student at the University of Chicago, discovered a new species of plant growing in the wetlands near Chicago's Lake Calumet. It spent most of its life living off underground fungi. Nothing like it existed anywhere else in the United States, but there were similar species in the tropics. Pfeiffer named it Thismia americana, and wrote her doctoral dissertation on it.   

Pfeiffer was excited to uncover much more about her mystifying botanical outlier. In her thesis, she expressed hope that she could grow the plant in laboratory settings.

"Up to date, the few attempts at germinating the tiny seeds have been fruitless. It is to be hoped that a larger harvest may give a better opportunity for positive results," she wrote.

But two years later, T. americana vanished, a disappearance that coincided with the building of a barn in the vicinity. It has not been spotted since.

Pfeiffer's plant has never been spotted in the wild again, but it left many mysteries behind. With only tropical relatives, how did it ever come to be in Chicago? How long had it been there? What made that particular wetland a good environment for it? And why did it go extinct in 1914? You also have to wonder about how many other species evolve and then go extinct before we ever find a trace of them. Read about the mysterious T. americana at Real Clear Science.

(Image credit: Norma E. Pfeiffer/Botanical Gazette via JSTOR)

Barnaby Dixon (previously at Neatorama) can make a puppet out of anything. He does just that in this video, fashioning a dancer out of a fluorescent silicon furry ball, and has another puppet narrate the process.

(YouTube link)

The dancing puffball look neat, but the narrator, called Dabchick, is the real star of the show. -via Digg

Bullet Bill ain't necessarily a bad bloke, but like all bullets he was made to kill, maim and destroy- so love will remain forever out of reach of his stubbly little arms.

So Bill launches himself into his work, flying back and forth across the level in hopes of making a connection and feeling that certain spark that will lead to explosive revelation.

But, as this Shmorlock Comics strip shows, Bill will never find true love, nor will he ever discover his true reason for being, because he's just an extra in a video game about Mario's life.

-Via Geeks Are Sexy

If you have a Marvel superhero movie you've looked forward to but haven't seen yet, this video might spoil some really great scenes for you. But if you are caught up on them, and have a firm control of your suspension of disbelief, it's cool to see what went on before the special effects were added.

(YouTube link)

A huge part of what you see in theaters was created by people working on computers. This look behind the scenes from Looper gives us a new respect for the actors who had to deliver lines with a straight face when everything going on around them wasn't really going on around them. -via Tastefully Offensive

When you think about classic TV and movie cowboys do you think Clint Eastwood, John Wayne and Charles Bronson instead of Bob Dylan, Bob Denver and Sammy Davis Jr.?

Yeah, so does everybody else, but both Bobs and Sammy were in old school westerns too, they're just not as well known for their portrayals of cowpokes as those gritty Western icons.

(Image Link)

Sammy Davis Jr. was absolutely great as the gunslinger Tip Corey in the 1962 episode of The Gunslinger entitled Two Ounces Of Tin, playing a character with personality, depth and true grit.

(Image Link)

Bob Dylan made in appearance in the 1973 film Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid as Alias, a badass stranger who helps Billy escape from three thugs. Dylan also composed the score for the film, which earned him a Grammy nomination.

But of the three, Bob Denver got to play cowboy the longest, since he starred alongside Forrest Tucker in the Sherwood and Elroy Schwartz series Dusty's Trail for 26 episodes back in 1973-74.

See The Unlikely Dozen: 12 Stars You Forgot Were Cast As Cowboys In TV And Movies here

Don't run with scissors by Anna-Maria Jung

Their movies depict them as dangerous fellows who use the claws on their hands to slice, slash and kill their foes, but nobody knows how often their hand claws land them in the ER because that doesn't make for good movies. The truth is Freddy, Logan and Edward spend at least a few days a week being patched up by ER docs after they accidentally slash themselves while getting dressed, cut themselves while shaving, or trip and fall on their claws while running around. It's like they've never heard the old warning about running around with scissors!

Add a shirt with geeky humor that's a cut above the rest to your wardrobe by bringing home this Don't Run With Scissors t-shirt by Anna-Maria Jung, it's one bloody funny design!

Visit Anna-Maria Jung's Facebook fan page, official website and Twitter, then head on over to her NeatoShop for more delightful designs:

View more designs by Anna-Maria Jung | More Funny T-shirts | New T-Shirts

Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!

In 1844, John W. Jones escaped a plantation in Virginia and walked to New York, dodging slave catchers, with four other men. He settled in Elmira, traded work for an education, and became a sexton caring for his church's cemetery. Jones worked with the Underground Railroad, helping around 800 enslaved people escape to Canada. During the waning days of the Civil War, Elmira sprouted a prison camp for captured Confederate soldiers.

Elmira was never supposed to have a prison camp; it was a training depot for Union soldiers. But when the Confederacy began refusing to exchange African-American soldiers—who it considered captive slaves, not prisoners of war—the Union stopped participating in prisoner exchanges. “Both sides started scrambling for places to expand, and that’s how Elmira got caught up in the web,” says Terri Olszowy, a Board Member for the Friends of the Elmira Civil War Prison Camp.

The rollout was ill-planned, Olszowy explains. When it opened in July 1864, the camp had no hospital or medical staff. The first prisoners were already in rough shape and deteriorated quickly. Latrines were placed uphill from a small body of water called Foster’s Pond, which quickly became a cesspool. A shelter shortage meant that hundreds of soldiers were still living in tents by Christmas. During spring, the Chemung River flooded the grounds. Rats crawled everywhere. When authorities released a dog to catch them, the prisoners ate the dog.

Thousands of Confederate prisoners died at the camp, and the duty to bury them was handed to the town's sexton: John W. Jones. Read about Jones' journey from slavery to life as a wealthy landowner with voting rights at Mental Floss.

(Image credit: Chemung County Historical Society, Elmira, NY)