We're not talking about the peachy pigs being raised in farms. Wild pigs, boars, hogs (Sus scrofa) may just simply eat entire ecosystems away if they were to be left on their own. And this is because they are considered extreme generalist foragers which means they can practically eat anything that they can get their hooves on.

Although 90% of their diet consists of plants, they can also eat insects, fungi, clams, and mussels. But more than this, they can apparently engage in predatory behavior as well, killing and eating rodents, deer, birds, snakes, frogs, lizards, and salamanders.

This is the reason why the US has launched initiatives and efforts to control and eradicate these wild pigs, as they can cause wildlife to become extinct, whether directly by predation or indirectly by hogging (pun intended) the resources from other animals.

In fact, just recently, some wild pigs from Canada were reported to have migrated into Minnesota which can make things more difficult. What's so troubling about this is that these wild pigs, called "super pigs", were crossbred to make them larger and hardier than the wild pigs found in the US.

One might think that simply introducing a predator to these wild pigs may assuage the situation. However, these wild pigs apparently have no natural predators, so the only way to get rid of them is to hunt them.

(Image credit: Ed van duijn/Unsplash)

(Video credit: WCCO - CBS Minnesota/Youtube)

That title belongs to King Felipe VI of Spain. Last year, he revealed a full breakdown of all his wealth as a way of being transparent with the public.

From this report, it was revealed that his net worth amounted to €2.57 million (~$2.8 million), which is quite low for a reigning monarch. In fact, it's not even enough to break through the top 100 wealthiest in Spain. Most of this wealth comes from bank deposits and investment funds along with jewellery, antiques, and works of art, since the Spanish monarch has no land or properties to his name.

Apparently, his bank accounts, amounting to €2.26 million, make up almost 90% of his wealth, with the remaining €300,000 from collectors' items and jewellery. Sadly, Felipe VI has no pension plan either.

In comparison, the late Queen Elizabeth II in 2022 had a net worth of about €444 million (~$490 million). But the former British monarch was not even the richest among the European royals. That would be the grand duke of Luxembourg, Henri, whose family's estate was roughly €3.75 billion (~$4.1 billion). Closely following him is Prince Hans Adam II of Liechtenstein, with an estimated net worth of €3.3 billion (~$3.6 billion).

Around the world, the title of the richest royal belongs to King Rama X, the Thai king with a net worth valued at €27 billion (~$29.8 billion). After him is Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei with €18 billion (~$19.8 billion), then King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud of Saudi Arabia with €16 billion (~$17.6 billion).

Note: Figures were from 2022.

(Image credit: Vox Congreso/Wikimedia Commons)

You may have heard about the story of Sankt-Vaters-Bier (Beer of the Sacred Father), which they later called Salvatorbier, a strong, sweet malty beer which the Paulaner friars had brewed for themselves back in the 17th century.

According to certain accounts, the monks had crafted this beer as a means of sustaining themselves during the Lenten fast. Since they could not eat any solid food, they drank the beer throughout the day for several days until the period of Lent ended. The beer contained calories, vitamins, and minerals, so it was enough to keep them going.

But that isn't exactly the story of Salvatorbier, by the reckoning of Mark Dredge, a beer expert. Though it is true that monks' diets were limited during Lent, they were allowed to have bread, smoked fish, herbs, and oil in the evenings. Alcohol, on the other hand, was allowed throughout the day.

Furthermore, the Paulaner friars had even stricter diets than other orders, as they were expected to maintain the Lenten diet all the time. And not just this, but their founder, Saint Francis of Paola, was a strong advocate for the complete absence of cruelty, thus encouraging his brothers to stick with what we now know as the vegan diet.

With this in mind, the Paulaner friars had brewed their beer as a necessity for their lifestyle. But the story behind Salvatorbier is one that is not concerned at all about fasting, but feasting.

As the Paulaner friars settled in Nockherberg, they started brewing their own beer as per usual. And even though they were prohibited from selling their beers, they simply sold the beer illegally for 150 years.

During that time, they would celebrate Saint Francis' Feast Day every year on April 2nd. At this feast, they would serve Salvatorbier to the people. Later on, they will be granted a license to sell their beer, at first only on the Feast Day, and after a while, they were allowed to sell it the whole year round.

After celebrating this feast for over a hundred or so years, it lost all its religious connotations, and simply became a Volksfest or folk festival. And the tradition of serving and selling Salvatorbier continued, as it still does today, every year during Salvatorfest (Strong Beer Festival).

(Image credit: Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons)

I have two sisters. They are both single.

Another Holiday is approaching with no brother-in-laws in sight.

We need to change that.

The girl on the far left is my wife - she’s not looking for a boyfriend (at least I don’t think so).

32 Year Old Sister - far right.

•… pic.twitter.com/RID467r7Vt

— Jared Doerfler (@DoerflerJared) December 21, 2023

Jared Doerfler is a businessman with a focus on the golf industry. He thinks like a businessman and it shows in how he is trying to recruit husbands for his sisters, who are currently unmarried. He is, accordingly, requesting applications from gentlemen interested in dating his sisters.

Applicants should complete this Google Form, the results of which are evaluated by a search committee consisting of himself, his mother, his wife, but not his father, who disapproves of the enterprise.

The blog Core77 shows us this curiously designed baseball cap. It has notches cut into the brim, one on either side. Why? The answer is below the fold.

Tom BetGeorge always goes all out in producing extravagant computerized holiday light shows, but I was surprised to find that we haven't posted his Christmas lights since the Star Wars show in 2015! We've always posted them for Halloween, however. BetGeorge launched his 2023 Christmas light show with aplomb and a standup routine delivered by Christmas trees. The full show comprises five musical interludes, so you can skip through to listen to your favorite. They are:

“I Believe in Santa” Meghan Trainor
“You Make It Feel Like Christmas” Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani
“Noel (He Is Born)” Tommee Profitt Feat. Stanaj
“Livin’ On A Prayer” Bon Jovi
Taylor Swift Medley (mix created by Tom BetGeorge)

Veering away from labor-intensive drones, this year's extravaganza has fireworks instead. Two of the songs are accompanied by fireworks because it's too expensive to shoot off fireworks during the whole show every night. You can try to guess which songs. At the YouTube page, he gives a shout out to the Linden-Peters Fire Department for standing by just in case. (via Geeks Are Sexy)

Furoshiki is a traditional Japanese form of wrapping objects, such as gifts or bento boxes, in cloth. Much artistry goes into the cloths used and the means by which they are folded and tied.

Pictured above is a shoe likewise called Furoshiki which is inspired by that traditional artform. The shoemaker Vibram offers a line of shoes that, instead of tying with laces, one wraps around the feet.

We can all think of names that are no longer given to babies because they seem old-fashioned. For my generation, that included Mabel, Gertrude, and Ethel, which reminded us of our grandmothers. Now I'm afraid my own name signals "old." That happens with men's names, too, but for men it's often less because of fad and fashion and more for their association with someone famous, whether real or fictional.

When discussing baby names with my daughter, I mentioned Michael, and she shot that down. She said that name will always remind people of Michael Scott, the lead character of the TV series The Office. Really? Not Michael Jackson, Michael Jordan, or the archangel? You never know what will stick in the minds of a different generation.

The graph above from Memetic shows some men's names that fell out of favor rather long ago, and for some of them, you can see the association that did them in. I would have added the steeper drop off for Herman when The Munsters was on TV. Clarence faded out for babies when It's a Wonderful Life became a hit movie, decades after its release. No doubt there are many other men's names that suffered the same fate. -via Digg

For decades, people thought that avocados with their huge seeds were spread across Central and South America by giant sloths that went extinct 10,000 years ago. That made sense, because avocados have very large pits, and it would take a huge animal to ingest them and poop out intact pits to grow further away from the parent tree. But it turns out there is no study, no data, and no evidence to support that. It was just an idea someone had that seemed to make sense. We reported it, and so did Sci Show. But now Hank Green explains where that "fact" came from and why it ain't necessarily so. It turns out that avocados didn't always have such huge seeds, and the reason they do may have more to do with human avocado fans than with giant sloths. Score one for mythbusting, and an example why there is always a need for fact checking and further research.

Jim Henson, the creator of the Muppets, has always loved cars, and one of his favorites was his 1978 Lotus Éclat, painted mint green and stuck with Kermit eyes on the headlights (although they didn't stay there long as it was illegal to have them while driving).

Car-mit, as some have called it, became Henson's reminder of the difficulty he had convincing US networks to buy into The Muppet Show, despite the Muppets' success in children's programming. It wasn't until Lord Lew Grade, a British media mogul, called Jim Henson up and offered to launch his show in England.

A few years later, Lord Grade was phoning up Lotus and telling them to use a special paint for Car-mit so that it would match Kermit's green. Of course, that was too big of an ask, so they just painted it a mint green instead, which was just as rare. Later on, one of the techs for The Muppet Show suggested adding Kermit pupils on the headlights.

At one point, the Éclat was stolen and used in a bank robbery, although with its distinctive features, the police were able to quickly apprehend the criminals and return it to Henson. However, he had to sell the car due to the difficulty of driving it on British roads and issues with clearance.

It was replaced with a VW Rabbit.

(Image credit: The Jim Henson Company)

When the United Way of Greater Cleveland organized Balloonfest in 1986, it was a time of celebration as the event earned Cleveland a Guinness World Record by releasing 1.5 million balloons into the atmosphere. It had also been used as an opener for the subsequent fundraising activity which urged teenagers and children to participate in volunteering activities.

Reports about the event in 1986 generally reported all the minute details they could gather during the event and even included some marginal events that occurred as a result of the balloons. These mishaps happened on the side though, the overall tone for Balloonfest indicated that it was a success.

Years later, in 2011, the same newspaper that reported on the event, The Plain Dealer, wrote a piece celebrating the 25th anniversary of the event, which included some details about it.

Again, they mentioned some of the unexpected consequences that the event caused such as balloons falling on beaches, lakes, and people's properties. But this time, the tone was more negative, though it never used the words "tragic", "tragedy", "disaster", or "failure". The same was true for the 30th anniversary story from The Plain Dealer.

However, in 2018, The Atlantic produced a short documentary titled "The Doomed Cleveland Balloonfest of '86", which Chris Quinn, an editor for The Plain Dealer, speculates might have been the beginning of Balloonfest '86 being thought of as a "disaster".

So, to settle things once and for all, Quinn looks at all the mishaps that happened on the periphery of Balloonfest '86, and defends the initial reporting made on the event, reflecting its success and the general positive attitude people had about it.

(Image credit: fennelmac2611/Reddit)

The 'returning soldier effect' is the phenomenon which indicates more male births supposedly occur during and immediately after wars.

Research by Brian MacMahon and Thomas F. Pugh looked into the demographic data in the United States between 1945 and 1947, particularly the sex ratio of live-births, and they observed an increase in this figure, taking note that more boys had been born.

Kanazawa Satoshi also looked into the birth records of Britain after World War I. He found the same trend of having more male births directly following the war. So, the idea of the 'returning soldier effect' originated from all these observations and research. However, why this was the case is something that wasn't particularly explored.

Kanazawa had proposed that the reason for this difference in sex ratio of live births may have something to do with the soldiers who survived the wars. He posited that it was because of the physical features of the surviving soldiers, i.e. being bigger and taller, that gave rise to this phenomenon.

However, research into the aftermath of the Iran-Iraq War had recorded the reverse effect. William H. James explained this outcome by saying that the stress experienced by pregnant women was the reason for the decline of male births. Plus, there's no definitive evidence pointing to physical features as the primary factor determining the sex of babies.

Valerie Grant, on the other hand, explains that the changing hormone levels of women during wars might have pushed them to adopt more dominant roles thus resulting in a relative increase in male births.

Is it even possible to predict whether a baby will be a boy or girl by looking at the environmental, physical, or social factors? I think it could just have been a coincidence that more baby boys were born after the wars, and that it was equally probable that either a boy or girl would have been born.

(Image credit: soldiersmediacenter/Wikimedia Commons)

Each culture has its own superstitious beliefs, although there seems to be a few common superstitions which can be found in different cultures.

One such superstition which is also found in Turkish culture is that of the broken mirror. Many cultures believe this to be a sign of bad luck, but Turkish people have their own nuance to the notion. They believe that broken mirrors are caused by the evil eye, and when one encounters a broken glass or mirror, the energy must be dispelled immediately, otherwise, the person who encountered it will experience seven years of bad luck.

Talking about the evil eye (nazar in Turkish), this seems to be the source of all the negative energy, and so Turkish people use these eye-shaped blue and white amulets, shown above, like lucky charms that help dispel the evil eye.

Another common thing that Turkish superstitions have with other cultures' superstitions may be knocking on wood, which is something that one does to prevent certain bad events, especially those they speak out, from happening. It's also a way of protecting their hopeful plans from being disrupted by the evil eye. Further, Turkish people pinch their ear lobe, knock on wood three times, and then say "Aman nazar değmesin" which means, "May the evil eye not be cast".

They also have this interesting belief about ringing in your ears. Turkish people believe that, depending on which ear you experience ringing, it would mean different things. Ringing in the left ear means that somebody is talking about you behind your back. Meanwhile, ringing in the right means the opposite. I wonder if there are instances when one experiences ringing in both ears, and how Turkish people would react to that.

To learn about the other Turkish superstitions, check out this article from Hurriyet Daily News.

(Image credit: Tom Podmore/Unsplash)

Modern technology has allowed us to exponentially increase production, transportation, construction, and urbanization. But some of the conveniences of modern life can hardly be considered recent or novel inventions or innovations. In fact, some of the things we enjoy today can trace their origins to ancient Greece.

These modern inventions may not have been as sophisticated back when they existed in ancient Greece, but the ideas or concepts behind them are similar. We just have the benefit of more than two thousand years of accumulated human knowledge, development, and process improvements.

As listed by Historic Mysteries, these five "modern" inventions are the odometer, the shower, the alarm clock, the vending machine, and automatic doors. I can see how the first three can have rudimentary prototypes made from materials available at that time, but how could vending machines and automatic doors have existed in a time when there wasn't any need for them?

It's actually all about perspective. We might take automatic doors for granted these days, but back when temple doors were so large and heavy, it would make sense why automatic doors could be useful to ancient Greeks. The one who thought of it was Heron of Alexandria, whose schematics showed that the automatic doors were designed to use steam power. Alas, it didn't have a sensor to detect the presence of humans.

How about the vending machine? Well, based on the description, it's more of a mix between a vending machine and a water dispenser, since it had a coin slot which allows one to get water after putting a coin in. Quite a neat business venture if you were to ask me, especially when getting water probably involved pulling a bucket from a well, or something to that effect.

(Image credit: Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons)

Many considered Howard Hughes as an eccentric billionaire but a very influential figure in various fields like film, aviation, and during his latter years, real estate and entertainment, especially with how he helped transform Las Vegas into the luxurious, cosmopolitan city that it is today.

The story goes that one night on Thanksgiving weekend of 1966, he had been driven to the Desert Inn, where he stayed for a few weeks before Moe Dalitz, the owner of the Desert Inn at the time, had to ask Hughes to vacate the penthouse to make room for the expected influx of New Year's Eve guests.

Instead of leaving, Hughes started negotiating to buy the hotel, and was able to purchase the property for $13 million, $6.2 million in cash and $7 million in loans. Hughes then proceeded to stay in that room for the next four years without ever leaving.

Due to suffering from severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, a mania for secrecy, and germophobia, he had the windows taped shut, and instructed the staff regarding the number of tissues they needed to use whenever they carried stuff in and out of his suite.

Still, from inside that room, he conducted all his business, having his public liaison Robert A. Maheu to handle all the affairs needed outside. After buying the Desert Inn, he also bought the Sands, the Frontier, and the unfinished Landmark. He also bought residential lots, the North Las Vegas airport, and all the land surrounding McCarran International Airport, along with several casinos operated by Summa Corp.

Hughes had larger-than-life aspirations for Vegas which included a high-speed train and turning the city into a metropolis with clean air and clean water in the middle of the desert. Despite this, he was carried out of his room at the Desert Inn on a stretcher and flown to the Bahamas in 1970. He never returned to Las Vegas, and died in 1976.

After his death, his company Summa Corp. focused on developing the master-planned community of Summerlin from all the land that Hughes had bought in Nevada. Development had started in 1988 and it finished by the end of 1990 with the first residential village, park, and school.

(Image credit: Acme Newspictures/Wikimedia Commons)