NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took this picture with its High Resolution Imaging Experiment camera (HIRISE) from about 166 miles above the planet. It shows an area called Aeolis Planum where rivers once flowed billions of years ago, when Mars had an atmosphere. The planet dried up when that atmosphere was stripped away, although water still exists in ice form at the poles. But wait- this picture doesn't look like river channels at all. It looks like those lines are jutting out of the ground!

This happened because the ancient rivers had rocks of all sizes flowing with the water. When the banks overflowed, the rivers would dump smaller sand and silt over the sides, but the heavier gravel and larger rocks remained in the channel. Once the rivers dried up, the silt and sand blew away from the banks, leaving a ridge of larger rocks in place where the river had been. So they are ridges now, but are evidence of ancient rivers. Scientists call these "inverted channels."

Read more about the image and the orbiter that took it at Mashable.

(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona)

The movie Blazing Saddles had its premiere on February 7, 1974, meaning it will be 50 years old tomorrow. It was vulgar and outrageous and crossed the line in so many places that it couldn't be made at all today. Mel Brooks battled producers over many scenes, but he won, mainly by ignoring them. The result was what many people who saw Blazing Saddles that year call the funniest movie ever. Brooks took on the project because he was broke and his wife was pregnant, and he turned a newcomer's script about racism in the Old West into a bizarre comedy that made fun of everything and everyone it touched.

Brooks screened the film and Ted Ashley, the chairman of Warner Brothers, told the director, "The farting scene has to go. You can’t punch a horse. You can’t hit an old lady. And you can’t use the ‘N’ word." If Brooks had followed orders and cut 26 scenes, there would be little movie left. Co-writer Richard Pryor was the one who insisted on using the N word. One area where Brooks bowed to the producers was in dropping Pryor and Gig Young from the lead roles due to substance abuse problems, and struck gold with Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder. Read what went on behind the scenes in creating Blazing Saddles at The Independent. -via Digg

Last month, we brought you the story of Zoozve, the moon of Venus. The name was a misunderstanding of an asteroid, described as a quasi-moon, provisionally designated 2002-VE. John Farrier suggested we keep using the name Zoozve, and so did Latif Nasser, who first noticed the name on a child's poster of the solar system. Nasser took the story to Radiolab, and consulted those who make such decisions for the podcast. Not long after, the name Zoozve has become official.

The International Astronomical Union's Working Group on Small Bodies Nomenclature (WGSBN) has adopted the name Zoozve for the asteroid, on page nine of their bulletin issued yesterday. Wikipedia has already updated their entry to reflect the story of the heavenly body's new name.

There are guidelines for naming astronomical objects, and Zoozve works for a satellite because it contains "ve" for Venus. However, as a quasi-satellite, a majority of votes among the WGSBN sufficed. Besides, Zoozve has a great story. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Alex Foster)

It's 2024. I doubt that I'm the only person to look into this new year with some trepidation for the future. There is a zeitgeist suggesting, to borrow from the words of Yeats a century ago, that some rough beast, its hour come at last, is slouching toward us.

Our greatest minds, seeking to pierce the separation between machine and man, have created artificial intelligences. These AIs are to be our servants for now. And to what purpose do we set these minds? To decode a necronomicon that was lost with the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD and the destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum in a blood-dimmed tide.

There, a collection of papyrus scolls were seared into unintelligibility. Humanity was preserved from the Cthulic knowledge within until human scientists used artificial intelligences (or possibly the reverse) to reveal them. The Guardian reports that a cabal of researchers led by Youssef Nader, Luke Farritor, and Ulian Schilinger have won a $1 million prize called the Vesuvius Challenge to anyone who could discern the strange writings on the scrolls.

Surely some revelation is at hand.

-via Abraham Ash | Image: Vesuvius Challenge

The sinking of the RMS Titanic in April of 1912 was shocking, but it was never a mystery. Despite the huge death toll, there were many survivors, and documented communications with other ships, plus that iceberg that was still there after the Titanic was gone. Still, the ship had been called unsinkable, and in the aftermath people started to think there was more to the story than what they had been told in the newspapers. Such a horrible disaster couldn't have simply been a case of a collision with an iceberg! And so the conspiracy theories started.

These theories range from the slightly plausible ideas that only differ from the verified accounts by some small detail to the truly bonkers theories like the one where the ship was a victim of a mummy's curse. Or that it was engineered by J.P. Morgan to eliminate political enemies. Or that the Titanic never sank at all, and the headlines were a hoax. Read up on 10 strange theories about what happened to the Titanic, some that are still believed today, at Mental Floss.

Manuel Eisner, the deputy director of the Cambridge Institute of Criminology, along with his wife, had this hobby of mapping medieval crimes, which led to the creation of the Medieval Murder Maps project in 2018, with the help of Cambridge historian Stephanie Brown.

The particular case of the chaplain John Ford piqued Eisner's interest, as the clergyman had been stabbed by three people in broad daylight. Those three people were Hugh Colne, John Strong, and John Tindale. They were hitmen hired by the noblewoman Ela FitzPayne. But the question that stuck in Eisner's mind was why?

What could the clergyman have done to provoke the ire of the rich and famous Ela FitzPayne? To get down to the bottom of the matter, the team searched for any connections between the two. And they came across a letter that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Simon Metham, had written to the Bishop of Winchester, dated January 29, 1332.

From the letter, the team found out that FitzPayne had previously been convicted of adultery, and was sentenced to public humiliation, which involved walking barefoot from the western entrance of Salisbury Cathedral to the high altar, much like the "walk of shame" in Game of Thrones. This she had to do every day for seven years. Not only that, but she was also prohibited from wearing any jewelry or makeup.

The letter also revealed one other thing: the connection between FitzPayne and Ford. Apparently, Ford had been a former lover of FitzPayne, and we can deduce that it was he who told the Archbishop about FitzPayne's adultery. However, his involvement with her had been swept under the rug, going without punishment. Needless to say, Ela FitzPayne took matters into her own hands, and served the poor chaplain a dish of revenge.

(Image credit: Walters Art Museum, Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons)

A year ago, we brought you the story of the person who has killed more people than any other. Vasili Blokhin wasn't just a criminal, though, he carried out killings for the Soviet Union. What about non-sanctioned criminals? Today I Found Out has gone back through history to see if the most prolific serial killer could be identified. However, that depends on the exact definition of "serial killer," which is a separate category of murder that does not include single acts that kill many people, like causing a plane crash or mass shootings.

Still, they found quite a few people who might fit the bill, depending on the parameters of what a serial killer is. Cases from further back in history suffer from lack of verifiable facts, and in some cases, we will never know the exact number of people murdered. So instead of crowning the most horrific serial killer, they bring us the stories of two historical killers and four modern serial killers who could be candidates for the nefarious title. The stories are disturbing and gruesome, so the article ends with a couple of uplifting stories to cleanse your brain. Read all of this at Today I Found Out. The article is a transcript of an earlier, and rather long, video.

Think different. #applevisionpro pic.twitter.com/dEALUsntS8

— Dante (@lentinidante) February 2, 2024

Last Friday, Apple began selling its new $3500 Vision Pro spacial computing headset. That same day, Dante Lentini posted a video of himself using the headset while driving a Tesla, presumably with the autopilot feature turned on. The Vision Pro allows you to see what's in front of you at the same time as you see whatever you're computing. How dangerous is this? Apple explicitly warns us not to use the product while driving, and Tesla requires drivers to have their hands on the wheel when using any of their three types of autopilot feature.

The video ends with Lentini appearing to be pulled over by police. However, Lentini told Gizmodo that he was not arrested, that he just pulled over when he saw the police because it would enhance the video. Were any laws broken? The legal code hasn't adapted to autopilot features and virtual reality headsets, but you could always make a case for distracted driving.     

Assuming that the future history of humanity is not accurately depicted in Idiocracy, it's possible that large numbers of humans will eventually settle the solar system. These human communities will be isolated from each other and the languages that they use will change. What sort of accents might they develop?

Live Science investigated the scientific literature on accents developed in isolation. This includes a study of 11 researchers who spent the winter together in Antarctica and isolated from the rest of humanity. These people began developing a unified phonetic pattern in just a few months.

It is likely that the initial wave of colonists would establish an accent that later colonists would adopt. This is why the dominant Australian accent resembles the Cockney accent of the initial European colonists of that island.

Thus it will be essential that terran leadership ensure that the first colonists speak Valley Girl with a sharp vocal fry.

-via Dave Barry | Image: NASA

During the Dome Fire of 2020, it was estimated that as many as 1.3 million Joshua trees in Mojave National Preserve were killed. The wildfire started when lightning struck near Cima Dome and spread to about 43,273 acres in nine days before being fully contained and suppressed.

There is no estimate of the total population of Joshua trees in the world, but the 1.3 million Joshua trees that were killed in the fire constituted approximately 13% of the Mojave National Preserve tree population.

Considering that the yuccas are native to California, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and parts of northwestern Mexico, the preservation of Joshua trees is critical especially with the difficulty of dispersing the seeds due to the lack of large megafauna like giant ground sloths which used to take on that role.

Nowadays, rodents have been the ones, scientists say, to help in the seed-dispersing of Joshua trees but unlike the giant sloths, they don't travel far. So, with that problem in mind, a couple of concerned friends, Jennifer Lagusker and Nance Fite, have volunteered their camels to help in delivering some Joshua tree sprouts for the restoration efforts in the Dome Fire burn scar.

This is a huge aid especially since the National Park Service said that majority of the Joshua trees planted in 2021 and 2022 have died. So, it's going to take a lot of effort and close attention to get the trees back to their previous numbers.

Thankfully, Lagusker plans to continue working with NPS and hopes that they will be able to bring as many as 12 camels to help with the transportation of the Joshua tree sprouts. So far, Lagusker's three camels - Chico, Sully, and Herbie - were able to help in planting 24 new Joshua trees on Cima Dome.

(Image credit: Gretchen Spencer/Unsplash)

We won't be getting into the neh-VAD-uh / neh-VAH-duh distinction with this one, as we have already looked into how Nevadans prefer their state name to be pronounced in a previous article. But the question is, why do Nevadans insist so much in going against the grain, with how the rest of America pronounces the name of their state?

To be perfectly clear, it's not a capital offense to pronounce 'Nevada' one way or the other, but it does say something about the person pronouncing it. More than the geographical element, Nevadans want to differentiate themselves from the rest of the country as a source of local identity.

Historically, Nevada made its way into its statehood much later in 1864, the 36th state to be admitted into the Union. And there wasn't exactly any particular local symbol that represented Nevada and made it stand out from the other states.

It was a hodgepodge of demographic groups when it first started out. There's no state dish, no distinguishing 'Nevadan accent', and even sports teams have only been recently created, with the Vegas Golden Knights NHL hockey team in 2017, and the recent relocation of the football team, the Las Vegas Raiders in 2020. (Originally, the Raiders were based in California.)

So, in a way, presenting their state to the rest of America might have been difficult for Nevadans, and one way to make inroads was to start with how locals wanted their state name to be pronounced. Although not necessarily a faux pas as to merit scorn or ridicule, the distinctive pronunciation that locals set have become a symbol for community, one of the things that ties Nevadans together.

Of course, with more and more people moving to Nevada in recent years, will that pronunciation hold up? Well, we can say that the longer people live among a certain community or group, the more they are able to assimilate themselves with the rest of the group. And so, there may not need to be any worry regarding that.

(Video credit: KCLV Channel 2/Youtube)

Afrobeats refers to popular music from West Africa which were initially developed in Nigeria, Ghana, and the UK during the 2000s and 2010s. 

It's an umbrella term for all the different genres coming out of this region, which include hiplife, jùjú music, highlife, and naija beats, so as not to be confused with Afrobeat, also called Afrofunk, a Tanzanian music genre which is the amalgamation of West African musical styles with American funk, jazz, and soul.

In 2017, Spotify recorded 2 billion streams of Afrobeats on the platform. Since then, Afrobeats has grown by 550% to a staggering 14 billion streams in 2023. Analysts attribute this massive growth to the platform's efforts in bringing Afrobeats to the world stage.

Apart from hosting local events to promote Afrobeats in 2023, Spotify has also put Afrobeats artists like CKay and Rema on the spotlight, recommending them to its users and including their songs in Spotify's curated playlists as well as posting massive billboards on Times Square to support the artists, which has been one of the driving forces for the growth of Afrobeats, within Africa and around the world.

The majority of the Afrobeats streams came from cities like London, Paris, and Nairobi, and although these numbers in themselves cannot be the only indicator for the success of Afrobeats' growth, it is a good jumping point for the industry to get more exposure on the world stage.

To give a sample of what Afrobeats sounds like, the video above is a lyric video of Nigerian Afrobeats artist CKay titled "Love Nwantiti", which is at the top of Rest of World's Afrobeats playlist, which they included on the article page or check out through this Spotify open playlist. - via Atlas Obscura

(Video credit: Vibe Music/Youtube)

Love those dancing chickens! TikTokker ilgallinaio_special posts videos of his/her chickens dancing to music. They've got the moves, the rhythm, and frankly the avant-garde looks that grab attention. People love them. So does actor and dancer Smac McCreanor, who you've seen before on Neatorama, doing interpretive dancing as various objects being crushed in a hydraulic press. McCreanor saw an opportunity to expand her repertoire and enlisted friends Ardyn Flynt, Malia Baker, and Kristi Griffith to learn those chicken moves with her. Every time they would master the moves of a new chicken video, McCreanor posted the side-by-side at TikTok. The video above is a compilation of their best collaborations with the dancing chickens.

Note the passionate dedication to mimicking the chickens' moves accurately. Also notice the hairstyles and accessories that allow these dancers to look even more like the chickens whose roles they are taking. Even the facial expressions are spot-on! -via Boing Boing

Have you ever heard someone say they're coming down with the epizootic? It meant they had some illness that could be a cold or flu but they didn't know, and epizootic was a funny word to say. All these years later, I found out that epizootic, which I've always heard pronounced with a "zoo" in the middle, is a real word that is pronounced epizo-otic. It refers to an epidemic among animals.

The slang use of the word probably dates back to 1872, when an equine influenza spread rapidly among cities in the eastern US and millions of horses suffered. This was a disaster because everything was transported by horse power, from travelers to milk to firefighters. The lack of working horses brought New York, Chicago, Boston, and other cities to a near-standstill. While only about 1% of affected horses died from the disease, many more died from being worked while sick or from pneumonia that develops after the infection clears. Learn more about the epizootic of 1872 at Jstor Daily.  -via Strange Company

Iceberg flipping over revealing very old blue ice.
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What we are seeing here is a glacier moving along a channel and breaking off pieces that become icebergs. The ice is much deeper than it first appears. One large chunk breaks off and then slowly flips. We can see that the ice is bluer the deeper it goes, but when the bottom side finally surfaces, we see how blue it really is. And that's really, really blue, like artificial raspberry flavor in a bomb pop. The location of this glacier isn't posted, but some redditors think it's Grey Glacier moving over Grey Lake in southern Chile.

Why is the bottom so blue? That part is where the ice is the oldest and most compressed and the air bubbles are squeezed out, so it contains more actual water than the whiter parts on top. Water in large quantities is blue. You'll find a more detailed explanation at Wikipedia. If your local lake or pond is green instead, that's because of the things that live in it.  -via reddit