The following is an article from Uncle John's 24-Karat Gold Bathroom Reader.

(Image credit: Virginia State Parks)

Do you have a ring on your finger? Is it made from gold, silver, platinum, or another natural metal? Then ponder this: The metal in that ring on your finger is older than the planet you’re standing on.

WHAT IS “METAL”?

Scientifically speaking, metals are naturally occurring chemical elements that are typically hard, lustrous, and good conductors of both heat and electricity. Examples include iron, gold, silver, copper, zinc, nickel, etc., but also elements we don’t normally think of as metals. One is sodium- a metal we regularly eat: Sodium is a soft, silvery white metal that commonly bonds with the element chlorine to form sodium chloride, or common salt.

Another is astatine, which was discovered in 1940 in a lab, where it was created artificially. It wasn’t discovered in nature until 1943. Astatine is highly radioactive, and only a single ounce of it is believed to exist -in total- on Earth. Of the 118 known chemical elements in existence, 88 of them are metals.

REAL ALCHEMY

So, where did all these metals come from? Here’s a very simplified explanation:

All elements, including metals, are made of the same stuff: atomic material—electrons, neutrons, and protons. Atoms of different elements can be distinguished from one another by the number of protons they contain. (The number of neutrons and electrons can vary even among atoms of the same element.) For example, a hydrogen atom contains just one proton. A gold atom has 79. This is true of every one of the countless hydrogen and gold atoms in the universe.

If you could find a way to mash 79 hydrogen atoms together into one atom, you’d have an atom with 79 protons, and therefore you’d have a gold atom. And that’s almost exactly what happens… except it happens inside stars.

THERE’S GOLD IN THEM THAR STARS

Roughly 13.7 billion years ago, matter first appeared in the form of atoms of the two lightest elements: hydrogen, with one proton, and helium, with two. They remain, by far, the most abundant elements in the universe.

Ask anyone who has tried to walk around San Francisco and they'll tell you- steep hills can be really hard to walk up, and when you add rain or ice the uphill battle becomes nearly impossible to win.

But the guy in this video was hell bent on getting to where he needed to go and wasn't about to let an icy hill stand in his way, so he slipped and slid his way up the hill until he could grab a signpost and stop his downward slide.

(YouTube Link)

-Via Digg

FFIVII Throne by MIKELopez

There are few pop culture characters worthy of being called the King of all Heroes, and even fewer who would survive the battle for the throne. But if there's one character you can bet on to win it's that supersoldier with a heart Cloud Strife, because he speaks softly and carries a giant sword. Cloud has proven he's got what it takes to dominate the pop culture competition by spending twenty years in the spotlight without losing his cool, and when the smoke clears you can be sure Cloud will be the one sitting on the throne with a litter of bodies at his feet...

Add some royal awesomeness to your geeky wardrobe with this FFIVII Throne t-shirt by MIKELopez, it's the epic way to show love for your favorite video game and the hero who won your heart.

Visit MIKELopez's NeatoShop for more mighty cool designs:

View more designs by MIKELopez | More Video Game T-shirts | New T-Shirts

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You've probably seen this picture somewhere. It gets posted at reddit every few months, and it is shared on social media quite a bit. The cat's name is Suki, and she has 800,000 Instagram followers. Suki the Bengal cat was adopted by Marti Gutfreund, who trained her from kittenhood to walk on a leash and to enjoy traveling to new places, such as the beautiful parks of Alberta, where they live, and the deserts of the Southwest. Suki has a great time, and takes awesome pictures because she always looks like she is posing.

Though Suki usually appears without a leash on Instagram, she’s always wearing one when outdoors — Gutfreund simply removes it in Photoshop to achieve a cleaner image.

Canada’s provincial and national parks require animals to be leashed, and Gutfreund is committed to Suki’s safety. She encourages other owners of aspiring adventure cats to properly leash-train their pets before taking them outdoors. Once a cat is comfortable outside, owners should ensure their pets stay hydrated even on shorter adventures, Gutfreund advises.

Suki herself is gearing up for the adventure of her lifetime: In August, Gutfreund is whisking her to Europe for six months. They’ll visit Gutfreund’s family in Germany and tour the rest of the continent too, snapping as many pictures as possible along the way.

Read about Suki at Adventure Cats and see more pictures at Instagram.

Competing in a cotton candy eating contest sounds like a sticky, sugary nightmare, and even though kids would think it's a great idea most adults would probably rather chow down on some pie or watermelon.

But the host of the Chinese TV show I'm The Winner has a serious sweet tooth, so she found it quite easy to crush her competition in a cotton candy eating contest- and then she just sat there like the cat that ate the canary.

Girl crushes a cotton candy eating contest . pic.twitter.com/AiEATAWBQH

— DestinyDelight (@DelightDestiny) March 15, 2018

-Via TIME

Admiral Richard E. Byrd loved milk and missed it during his expeditions to Antartica, so he dreamed up a scheme to bring dairy cows to the South Pole. Milk wasn't the only reason, though. Byrd surmised that a boring scientific expedition would get few headlines, especially since actual outposts had been established on Antartica by the 1930s. Shipping in cows would give the rest of the world something to talk about. And he was right.  

And so—for all these reasons, and perhaps more—in the fall of 1933, the team loaded a trio of Guernsey cows into the SS Jacob Ruppert. There was “Foremost Southern Girl,” from New York, “Deerfoot Guernsey Maid,” from Massachusetts, and “Klondike Gay Nira,” from North Carolina, who was pregnant. All were the same breed, thanks to a deal Byrd had struck up with the American Guernsey Cattle Club. The crew’s carpenter, Edward Cox, shouldered the caretaking responsibilities. A bevy of other sponsors provided the cows with some necessary accoutrements: 10 tons of feed, various farm equipment, and a Surge Milking Machine.

The cows took the three-month journey alongside their human companions, living first in a knocked-together stall on the deck, and later, after it was completed, in a larger barn below. There was hope that Klondike would give birth within the Antarctic Circle, giving her calf “a unique claim to immortality,” as Byrd put it in his memoir of the expedition. Instead, it happened about 250 miles too far north. Still, this proved more thrilling than the frozen surrounds: “Almost to a man the crew waited with breathless expectancy for an event which has been common in Nature since the world began,” Byrd recalled wryly. They named the calf Iceberg—only fair, given baby icebergs are called calves—and the birth announcement made the New York Times.

So that was three cows and a young bull that landed in Antarctica in January 1934. Their year on ice didn't show them much of nature, but they were pampered by the men around them. They returned as heroes, but the experiment was never repeated. Read about the world's southernmost dairy at Atlas Obscura. 

Thor seems a bit shocked. Never underestimate the power of a cat responding to the basic feline instinct of knocking things to the floor. And you can grant them all the power in the world, but that won't motivate a cat to come to your rescue, unless he happens to be in the mood to do it. This is the latest comic from Jon Baker at Alarmingly Bad Comics. -via Geeks Are Sexy

The Sony World Photography competition received 319,561 entries from all over the world. Images were sorted into four categories: Professional, Open, Youth, and Student Focus (for those studying photography). National awards were bestowed to the best photos from each participating country. Now the winners have been announced. The picture above was taken by Martin Stranka, and won the Czech Republic National Award. The cat below was photographed by Brendon Cremer, who won the South Africa National Award.  



See more national winners in this gallery. You can also see a ranked list of the winning photographs from all categories at Bored Panda. -via Metafilter

Japanese comedian Akira 100% shows us how he can dance naked without exposing his genitals to us, because he's got a pie plate and is behind a strategically-placed Newton's Cradle. Not that we wanted to see 100% of Akira, but the skill and timing required by this weird routine is, let's say, fascinating.

(YouTube link)

Don't try this at home! Or, if you do, just keep it at home. You can see version 2, where the dancing is a bit bawdier, at Boing Boing.

A collaboration between Gallup and Sharecare led to the 2017 Well-Being Index, which they've done annually since 2008. The news is not good. While a few states improved over the previous year, none of the improvement scores were statistically significant. Most states had lower scores, some drastically lower.  

Despite the national downturn, the Gallup-Sharecare Well-Being Index found improvement in several traditional measures of physical health in 2017, such as the proportion of Americans reporting participation in regular exercise, abstention from smoking and being overweight. Community well-being – defined as liking where you live, feeling safe and having pride in your community – also improved for Americans between 2016 and 2017.

Although improvements in certain physical health categories and community well-being signal progress, the sharp declines in overall well-being were driven by drops in purpose and social well-being metrics, as well as the mental health aspects of physical well-being. Out of a possible score of 100, the national Well-Being Index score dropped from 62.1 in 2016 to 61.5 in 2017, marking the largest year-over-year decline since the index began in 2008.

South Dakota improved its ranking, coming in at #1. Vermont, North Dakota, New Hampshire, and Idaho had improved scores, while all other states' well-being declined in 2017. You can read the full report here, or the short version at Digg. 

After the massive success of the 2016 movie Deadpool, despite its R rating, there was never any question of a sequel. And we finally get a glimpse of it in the first full trailer for Deadpool 2. Contains NSFW language. 

(YouTube link)

The YouTube description says,

After surviving a near fatal bovine attack, a disfigured cafeteria chef (Wade Wilson) struggles to fulfill his dream of becoming Mayberry’s hottest bartender while also learning to cope with his lost sense of taste. Searching to regain his spice for life, as well as a flux capacitor, Wade must battle ninjas, the yakuza, and a pack of sexually aggressive canines, as he journeys around the world to discover the importance of family, friendship, and flavor – finding a new taste for adventure and earning the coveted coffee mug title of World’s Best Lover.

Which is complete nonsense. From the looks of the trailer, DP2 is more goofily irreverent than the first movie. In theaters May 18. -via Tastefully Offensive

No matter what age you are, that age is new to you, and you learn surprising things about being that age. Cracked has a pictofacts post about things that surprised you about adulthood, and it's obvious that the top contributors range in age from new adult to newly elderly. Having to change your own sheets comes a long time before waking up with aches and pains every day.

However, thanks to sharing on the internet, we needn't be too surprised by things our parents didn't tell us about aging. No matter what (adult) age you are, there's something you can relate to in the list of 23 disappointing things about being an adult.

The calendar says we're officially into spring, but if you are watching the snow fall outside, you might need some encouragement to remind yourself that the season of growing is just ahead. GPhase grew a kidney bean plant from seed in a glass container and recorded it growing over 25 days. This time-lapse video captures its progress in photos taken every 9.5 minutes. It's set to the most appropriate soundtrack: "The Blue Danube" by Johann Strauss.

(YouTube link)

If you'd like some music that's just as pleasant but more contemporary, enjoy this time-lapse video of eight spinach plants growing for 40 days, set to the song "Spanish Summer" by Audionautix.

(YouTube link)

-via Nag on the Lake

SMART is the new SEXY by Cafe Pretzel

It's sad that there are still people in the world who don't see the value of intelligence and don't think of smart people as sexy, because they're missing out on the greatest attraction of them all- a mental connection. Maybe they're intimidated by intelligence and afraid they'll be made to look dumb, or maybe they just don't like to date people who challenge them in any way. Whatever the reason, denying smart is sexy is like denying attraction begins in the mind- in other words just plain dumb!

Show the world how much you value intelligence by wearing this SMART is the new SEXY t-shirt by Cafe Pretzel, it's a bright way to meet people who are on your mental level and weed through all the dummies who would just be a waste of your time.

Visit Cafe Pretzel's Facebook fan page, official website and Twitter, then head on over to his NeatoShop for more truly genius designs:

View more designs by Cafe Pretzel | 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!

Randall Munroe at xkcd has been playing with names. You can string a lot of celebrity names together, as there are so many standard names that are used over and again, in different combinations. That is only multiplied when a famous person uses three names because their names are so common. Munroe laid out these associations in a game of dominoes to show how they fit together. See the enlarged readable version here. When you study this grid, you comes across some full squares where everyone's name intersects with someone else's.

John Brown leads to James Brown, which leads to James Newton Howard, which leads to Wayne Howard, Wayne Brady, Wayne Knight, and Wayne Newton, which leads back to James Newton Howard. And John Wayne fits in there just fine. You don't even need Olivia Newton John! And the Howards peel off in a second direction, which leads one to believe this could have been 3D dominoes. The grid is from today's xkcd comic.