A few years ago, French TikToker Cyrilschr (who is no longer at that account) played with Orbeez, beads made of sodium polyacrylate, a superabsorbent polymer that soaks up water. The beads can expand to many times their size when exposed to water, so Cyrilschr bought enough Orbeez to fill his bathtub. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and made a fun video. But then what? How do you get rid of them? He thought it would be a simple matter of letting them go down the drain. But they aren't liquid, and they clogged the drains. The follow up TikTok videos told a horror story as he panicked over the growing problem of Orbeez in the sewer. It's both funny and horrifying.

The original videos are narrated in a combination of French and German, and this compilation has been edited down and English captions added, which are NSFW. You'll have to toggle the CC button to turn them on. Boing Boing has the full compilation of videos, but the captions are not available in English.

A 32-year-old Kelsey Hatcher, diagnosed with uterus didelphys, a rare condition characterized by having two uteri, has defied the odds by delivering a set of twins at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) hospital.#Birmingham #Alabama pic.twitter.com/lzKh1qIbQu

— Bnz English (@BnzEnglish) December 27, 2023

Last month we brought you the story of Kelsey Hatcher, who has two uteruses and became pregnant in both. Doctors were concerned about the high-risk pregnancy. The story now has a happy ending, as Hatcher gave birth to two baby girls, Roxi Layla on Tuesday, December 19th, and then Rebel Laken on Wednesday, December 20, at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital. Hatcher underwent 20 hours of labor. The first girl was induced and delivered vaginally, and the second was by a cesarian section performed the next day. The infants were born only a few days short of their due date, which was on Christmas. Although the girls are technically twins, fraternal of course, they are unique in that they do not share a birthday, nor did they share a womb. Both babies are healthy. -via Damn Interesting

In 1987, a barge carrying more than 3,000 tons of garbage from New York took over the news as it floated around the Atlantic seaboard looking for a place to offload. No one wanted it. The Mobro 4000 was originally intended to take its cargo to Louisiana for burial, then to Morehead City, North Carolina, to be converted to methane, then plans were hatched to take it to Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, New Jersey, the Bahamas, Mexico, and Belize, but the garbage was rejected everywhere. The boat stayed afloat and loaded for months.

What was the problem? Well, there were mob ties to the garbage transportation operation. There were also questions about the safety of the exact type of waste it carried, as it was rumored to contain medical waste. But it mainly boiled down to "we don't want your garbage." Read about the Mobro 4000 and what eventually happened to it at Amusing Planet.

According to a kinesiologist, it depends. Each individual has their own set of goals why they're going to the gym, and depending on their physical constitution and personal preferences, it might be better for them to start with one over the other.

Essentially, according to Randal Claytor, an exercise physiologist from Miami University, if your purpose for going to the gym is more generalized i.e. staying healthy, losing weight, or just enjoying working out, then it doesn't matter which one you start with, as both will provide you with similar benefits.

Things become a bit trickier when you have a performance-oriented goal, e.g. high-level athletes who are working toward more specific objectives like improving their speed, mobility, or quad strength.

In these cases, Claytor suggests doing resistance training first as it reduces what is called the "interference effect" which slightly decreases the benefits an athlete would gain from doing both exercises as they have competing influences.

Or, depending on their performance goal, they might want to start with aerobic exercise first. Furthermore, it would be best to take long breaks in between, especially when transitioning from one type of exercise to the other.

An in-between that he suggested was to do short bursts of both exercises, called "microcycles". Basically, they do a few minutes of weights followed by a few minutes of running, etc.

One important thing to note was that Claytor suggests that even though people who don't have performance-oriented goals in mind need not worry about the order with which they sequence their exercises, it would be best to still do both in one session.

(Image credit: Graham Mansfield/Unsplash)

There are several difficult books to read, and you might find yourself in the awkward position of having to talk about them, whether to impress a potential partner at a soirée or not feel left out when your friends start talking about these books.

In such instances, you might want to use some of these tips to bluff your way into the conversation. These five books include War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, Ulysses by James Joyce, In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust, Moby Dick by Herman Melville, and Paradise Lost by John Milton.

This, however, may involve not just knowing these bits of information about the books, but also knowing how to pivot the conversation when people start to prod you for further details. Moreover, since most of these books are pretty long and thick, most of the bluff just involves feigning memory loss.

To be fair, however, these books usually delve into deeply philosophical themes, so it might be a lot easier to blab one's way out of it.

Still, as long as you can touch on some of the salient information of the book, then you might just be able to swindle others into believing you have actually read the whole thing.

(Image credit: Liannadavis/Wikimedia Commons)

The pavlova is a meringue dessert which is said to have originated either in Australia or New Zealand. Not content with the uncertainty of its origins, two historians, Annabelle Utrecht from Australia, and Andrew Paul Wood from New Zealand, wanted to remove all doubt and get down to the bottom of things.

What they found was an interesting revelation indeed for the both of them. There have been attempts to assert the claim over the pavlova, and according to a few sources, it seemed that New Zealand was the clear winner. However, the two historians dug even further into the roots of pavlova, and traced its journey to the United States, and finally to Austria.

Apparently, the predecessor of the pavlova was called the Spanische windtorte, popular in Austria during the 17th and 18th centuries which was a variation of the European petit meringues.

When German immigrants traveled and settled in the United States, they brought those desserts along with them in the form of the schaum torte and baiser torte. Then, as these desserts rose in popularity, they found themselves traversing the globe and finding their way to New Zealand.

Why the pavlova was named such, however, was even more of a mystery and an interesting find for the two historians. It was named after Anna Pavlova who was a Russian ballerina.

Surprisingly, the meringue pavlova wasn't the only food named after the famous ballerina. There was also such a thing as "Strawberries Pavlova", which wasn't made of meringue at all. It was a sorbet.

In any case, how the pavlova got its name came from the story of a New Zealand chef who had taken inspiration from the Russian ballerina while she toured New Zealand and Australia, and so gave birth to the meringue pavlova, and named it in her honor.

And since the early 1930s, the pavlova has been a staple Christmas dessert in New Zealand and later in Australia.

(Image credit: Deborah Rainford/Unsplash)

The Vangunu giant rat (Uromys vika) has been eluding scientists for decades, but with the help of the Zaira community residing in the Solomon Islands where the rat is native, and is the only place it is known to be found, they have finally obtained the first few photos of the critically-endangered mammal.

Since 2011, researchers have been trying to capture the giant rats on film, but the tree-dwelling rats have always found a way to give them the slip, and no photos were taken of them that time. However, the researchers did find a large fecal pellet which they believe was left by one of the giant rats.

In 2015, an injured Vangunu giant rat had been captured by some loggers felling a tree. They sent it to the Queensland Museum in South Brisbane, the first ever proof that the mammals existed, however, the rat died soon after from its injuries.

Now, the team of researchers led by Tyrone Lavery, a mammalogist from the University of Melbourne, with the help of the indigenous Zaira community, were able to strategically place cameras in trees where the Vangunu giant rat were known to scurry about, and finally, they have been able to take some of the first photos of living Vangunu giant rats.

With these photos, scientists want to urge local authorities to ensure the protection and conservation of the critically-endangered species, especially as their survival is being threatened by continuous logging of the island's forests, the giant rat's only habitat. -via Atlas Obscura

(Image credit: Lavery et al/University of Melbourne)

Not to be confused with the structural marvel that is the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Garisenda tower, one of the twin towers of Bologna, has raised the city's concerns that it might tip over and fall.

Built around the 12th century, the Two Towers have been leaning ever since they were constructed. It comprises of the Asinelli, the taller of the two, and the Garisenda, the smaller one which leaned much further than its twin.

The Asinelli had been originally built at 70 meters high (230 feet) but was later increased to 97.2 meters (319 feet). Meanwhile, the Garisenda currently stands at 48 meters (157 feet), but it initially stood at a height of 60 meters (roughly 200 feet).

The reason for the decrease in the Garisenda's height was because of concerns that it might fall due to a yielding of the ground in the 14th century which caused it to tilt to a dangerous degree. From that time onward, it has been a constant fear for the people of Bologna.

Recently, in October 2023, the local government closed off the Garisenda because of the threat of falling. On December 2, 2023, the city announced that they will be spending €4.3 million (~$4.7 million) to reinforce the structure.

Construction work will begin in January next year, and local officials expect that it will take at least 10 years to finish. -via Atlas Obscura

(Image credit: Vanni Lazzari/Wikimedia Commons)

Once thought as a backwater town during the time of Julius Caesar, the ruins of Interamna Lineras, after 13 years of excavation work, is now being re-examined and new discoveries show that the former Roman colony had actually been a bustling town with its own commerce and urban development.

Historians have traditionally placed the peak of Interamna Lineras at around the late 2nd to early 1st century BCE, however, a team of archaeologists, headed by Alessandro Launaro, found remains of markets, structures, and thousands of local pottery which suggested that the town at its peak had been home to around 2,000 people.

Furthermore, although it was widely believed that Interamna Lineras had diminished by the turn of the 1st century CE, Launaro's team think that the evidence points toward the survival of the town well into the 3rd century CE, and perhaps even toward the 4th century, with some estimates suggesting that the town had been deserted by the 6th century CE.

From their geophysical surveys, they found that, not only did the town have a market, residential buildings, and other commercial establishments, but it also had a large 1,500-seater theater covered by a roof and decorated in marble. Moreover, it also had a warehouse, a temple, three bath complexes, and 19 courtyard buildings.

Just goes to show that if you dig deep enough, something is bound to turn up.

(Image credit: Alessandro Launaro)

If you've ever watched a lineman up on a telephone pole (do we still call them that?) or an electrical tower of some sort, you first gasp at their bravery. But you may have also wondered how they learned to do it. They say you learn from your mistakes, but in this kind of work, one mistake can be fatal. Tom Scott visited the National Grid Training Centre in Yorkshire, UK, to see how that training goes, and of course the first thing he does is climb an electrical pylon. Don't look down! Being an internet star must pay well, because he keeps doing scary things even though he does have a normal sense of self-preservation that is lacking in certain stunt YouTubers. And that's why we can feel his trepidation like a normal person. But this is just tower climbing. If there were real electricity involved, Tom would have had to undergo a lot more training.        

Another thing about this video is our opportunity to look at how other countries get their power. Coal is being phased out in the UK, and natural gas has to be liquified and shipped in. The US has plenty of oil and natural gas, and plenty of room for wind and solar, while European countries have to import so much fuel of one kind or another. That's why electricity prices and heating bills are so much higher in western Europe.

Also: In America, a lineman's job can be even scarier.

I've often said that the most memorable part of weddings and holiday family gatherings are the parts that go wrong. Those can become funny stories later. But when things go wrong at a funeral, it can be sad, terrifying, or really gross. After all, there's a dead body involved. There have been some really memorable funerals that go way beyond a drunk uncle or mourners showing up hoping for the deceased's possessions or a free meal. One US president's funeral was interrupted by his parrot, who swore loudly at everyone who attended. An elephant killed a woman, then showed up at her funeral to do more damage. An embarrassing mishap at Queen Victoria's funeral led to a new British royal tradition. A funeral in San Diego was interrupted by a police chase right through the church. But the worst had to be the king whose corpse exploded as he was being buried. Read about nine funerals in which something went very wrong -all different disasters- at Mental Floss. You can read the list or listen to it on a video.

The school bus is coming down the street, but it's not there to take your kids to school. This bus is specially for dogs! Denzel Morrison owns Ruff and Puff Doggy Day Camp in Calgary, Alberta. He also drives the bus, which may just be the best job in the world. The doggy bus picks up 10-14 dogs at a time and shuttles them to one of several private dog parks where the dogs can have a good time and run off energy. The dogs really enjoy their adventures. They get to ride, run, and play with familiar canine friends, so what's not to love about it? After all this activity, the dogs are delivered to their homes ready to relax with their human, who is also tired after work. Rover is ready to snuggle on the couch, since he's just been thoroughly walked.  

In this video, Morrison explains how he naturally fell into work with dogs, and came up with the idea of a bus that could transport dogs without using cages. The dogs really appreciate that. See more of Ruff and Puff's doggie adventures at Instagram and TikTok.  -via Born in Space

In 1928, Walk Disney Studios released a cartoon called Steamboat Willie. It was the debut of a character called Mickey Mouse, and also of his girlfriend Minnie Mouse. Ever since, Mickey has been the flagship character and the symbol of Disney. The character has been close to entering the public domain several time: in 1955, 1986, and in 2003, but each time the copyright was extended by legislation. Since there has been no copyright extension laws enacted in the past twenty years, the earliest version of Mickey Mouse will enter the public domain on January 1, 2024.  

But that only applies to the original version of the mouse as he was designed for Steamboat Willie. Disney still has a copyright on later versions, and has trademarked the mouse, too. Trademark law is different, however, and is designed to protect companies from logo infringement, not the character itself. Disney will be watching us in the new year to see how the rubber-hose version of Mickey will be used. Read the details of the soon-to-be public domain Mickey at Variety. -Thanks, WTM!

(Image source: Wikipedia)

You might have seen this video before showing the school bands of Bridle Path Elementary and Kulp Elementary performing Jingle Bells. It starts off with the maestro introducing the band and its soloist who will be performing the verses of the song on the trumpet.

Following the trumpeter, the beginner section of the band will join in the chorus, which will then pass again to the soloist, and then onto the advanced section of the band. The last verse and chorus will be played by the soloist and the whole band respectively.

The maestro also gives a small, cheeky caveat telling the students that if things go wrong, he might have a heart attack, but then immediately follows that by saying that even if things go well, he might still have a heart attack.

So, here's a throwback to the Jingle Bells performance that adorably "went wrong". Also, I'm quite surprised how most of the parents kept themselves together throughout, as I would have been giggling from just how cute the whole thing was. But the kids deserved that applause in the end. - via Digg

(Video credit: iamlcubed/Youtube)

More precisely, solastalgia is taken from the Latin word solacium, meaning comfort, and the Greek root -algia, referring to grief, pain, or suffering. It is the existential distress one experiences when they encounter environmental changes. Particularly, it's the feeling some people get when they miss what it felt like to celebrate the holidays before.

The feeling of solastalgia is typically associated with climate change, and how the changing weather patterns affect the way people have grown to live during the winter season.

Many people have ingrained traditions or lifestyles connected to winter and the holidays, but that has slowly changed due to the rising temperature, and extreme shifts in the weather.

Cold places, like Minnesota, are gradually becoming less cold and experiencing less snow, and there are even instances when warm places, like Texas or California, have started to experience cold snaps and snow storms.

Because of these changes in the weather, people experience disruptions in their coping mechanisms for the winter months, and that's when solastalgia occurs. There's a disorientation going on in our minds when things aren't the way we remember them, the way we're used to live.

Not only this, but climate change has also affected certain cultural practices such as the indigenous hunters of Alaska who had a subsistence form of life by catching marine mammals. With the disappearance of sea ice, this has slowly vanished.

Despite the feeling of solastalgia becoming more pronounced as the years go by, people have been finding ways to adapt to the new circumstances. We may have this longing for the winters of old, but in time, we will develop newer coping mechanisms for the changing times.

(Image credit: Colin Lloyd/Unsplash)