We've seen a lot of domino falls, marble runs, and chain reactions on the internet. I always have to wonder what happens when a complicated run just stops for no discernible reason. Do you start all over or edit the video? One way to keep things going is to enlist the help of cats. But these aren't just any cats, they are the trained cats of Cat Navi Desk (previously at Neatorama), although you may glean from the video that some are better trained than others. In this domino/marble run/Rube Goldberg contraption, they are ready to help whenever the chain goes awry. This is an expanded and improved version of the domino run they did a few years ago. I'm not convinced that this is one smooth run, but it doesn't really matter because it's so darn entertaining. -via Geeks Are Sexy   

An 18-year old woman died of leukemia in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, in the early 1980s. Then her 16-year-old brother contracted the disease and also died. The heartbroken family wondered if the apartment building they lived in might have had something to do with both their children's illnesses. After all, they had only moved in a year before their daughter became sick. They were the first family to move into new building number 7, which was luxurious by Soviet standards. Officials told them it was just the luck of genetics. Then the mother died, also of leukemia. The remaining family members moved out, and another family took that apartment.

In 1987, the second family in the same apartment had two sons develop leukemia, and one died. That adds up to five cases of leukemia in one unit! It had to be something about the building itself. It took another two years for Soviet officials to open an investigation. Find out what they learned at Amusing Planet.   

(Image credit: Artemka)

When was the last time you thought about Steak-umm? Let's see what the company has been up to. While they still sell frozen sandwich meat, for the last couple of years they've also been on a campaign to educate the public on media literacy, and to fight against misinformation, disinformation, and outright fraud. Their Deepsteaks ad warns that artificial intelligence and deepfake technology can manipulate anyone against their will, to the point of making dedicated vegans say they love steak. This is the ultimate in identity theft, when someone with a computer can put you in a video saying things and doing things you would never do.

The focus group in the video by ad agency Tombras isn't made up of actors, but real vegans, and while parts of this video are deepfaked, their responses to the shenanigans are real. They didn't have to be called back in, because creating the deepfakes of the vegans only took about 20 minutes. It left them feeling eerily violated. The point is that this kind of manipulation isn't limited to celebrities and politicians, but could happen to anyone. -via Boing Boing  

The 1940 film The Great Dictator was Charlie Chaplin's 78th movie and his first full talkie. As such, it was bound to be different from his tightly-edited slapstick silent films. The movie was shocking to audiences for many reasons, and early criticism of the film was cutting. Devout Chaplin fans had a hard time seeing him intersperse the slapstick with serious acting and all that talking. Many were upset that Chaplin injected political references of any kind into a comedy. Some were disappointed that he was obviously making fun of Adolf Hitler, and others labeled the final speech as downright communist. Remember, this was in 1940, when America was leaning toward isolationism, and had a small but active Nazi party. And some moviegoers were just put off by its length- 125 minutes, which was unheard of for movies at the time.

But Chaplin had something to say, and the power and creativity to say it. The Great Dictator was ultimately a hit, and became a classic. Read of those early critiques and Chaplin's thinking behind making the movie the way he did at Lithub. -via Damn Interesting

Read more about the making of The Great Dictator in a Neatorama feature article.

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

It's the first time I'm hearing the term 'invisible innovation' and it may be yours too. No, it's not technology that would make things invisible to the naked eye, as if we were in the realm of fantasy. Rather, it's a term used to describe a certain way of doing things that can benefit us without seeing it outright. This may be more easily envisioned as process innovation. For example, when a process is simplified through automation, it makes it easier for people to do certain tasks but it's not something readily recognized as innovation because it's not really flashy. Anyway, in the food industry, invisible or hidden innovation may be the key to solving some of the major problems we face, according to Beatriz Jacoste Lozano, director of the KM ZERO Food Innovation Hub.

Essentially, what they want to target is the fact that about one-third of food goes to waste. And the effects of that reverberates not just to those people in hunger but also to the environment since food production is one of the leading contributors to pollution. In light of this, one of the things they are looking into, for example, is regenerative agriculture, which basically reduced the amount of water needed for the soil to stay healthy. It's not grand or mind-blowing, but it makes production efficient and helps the environment. Another possible area they want to target is the use of plastics, and their organization is planning to partner up with the startup, Notpla, which makes compostable packages. More on this on The Next Web.

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Throughout human history, people have been looking for ways to elongate their lives. Whether it was the elixir of life, the fountain of youth, or the philosopher's stone, humans have been obsessed with the idea of immortality and eternity. Now, science has a suggestion that could possibly be a solution to that problem. Researchers suggest that blocking certain 'jumping genes' can be the key to increase our lifespan. Obviously, at one point or another, we're all bound to return to the dust, it's just a fact of life, but we can at the very least, see a couple more generations down the line with this.

Scientists who have been looking for answers to the question of immortality were inspired by certain species that seemingly appear immortal like the immortal jellyfish, which can reverse its life cycle if injured or hurt. The hydra is also capable of self-renewal with its store of stem cells which it uses to regrow missing body parts. So, they have looked to genetics to try and find the secret to immortality in humans, and think that transposons or these 'jumping genes' may be the holy grail for human immortality. Whether or not, we can reach ages beyond 150 years again is too difficult of an ask, but this may be the start of the quest for longer lives.

Of course, whether or not it's actually good to live for that long is another discussion entirely, since if our bodies will be shriveled by then, and we won't have the energy or the physical capability to enjoy life at that age, then it would all be for nought. So, let's see what the future has in store.

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Nyad has recently been released on Netflix, and it's a biographical film that recounts the story of how famed long-distance swimmer Diana Nyad attempted and succeeded in swimming from Havana, Cuba to Key West, Florida in 2013 at the age of 64. The film stars Annette Bening as Diana Nyad and Jodie Foster as Bonnie Stoll who's Nyad's best friend and coach. The directors of the film were asked to break down how they filmed the particular swim scene as it's painstakingly meticulous to get everything right, to be able to set the scene up and finally get the right conditions to recreate the moment.

In the Vanity Fair video, directors Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin go through all the technical details that they had to get right, from the lighting design, the boat design, to the pool and platform in which they filmed the scene. Furthermore, they also explain how Annette Bening insisted on having no make-up except for when depicting how being underwater for 40 hours affects the face. Finally, they also talked about the dynamic between the actors, how they formed a friendship during the shoot and having conversations with the real Diana Nyad and Bonnie Stoll, and what it was like directing them.

(Video credit: Vanity Fair)

We learned the potential health side effects of observing daylight saving time as it causes cluster headaches to occur in some people, particularly those with Alzheimer's and dementia, and others who have sleep disorders. Medical professionals suggest that it would be much better for people to stick with standard time, as it helps with the regulation of our circadian rhythms. However, there are political debates surrounding the implementation of DST, and there are currently 19 states pushing for a permanent DST. But it won't be law just yet until Congress makes it so. To learn which states those are, NPR lists them here.

On the opposite end, there are also nine states that would rather end daylight saving time altogether. Those in support of DST say that the reason why DST would be beneficial is economic as they see higher spending with DST as it encourages people to go out and do things. Now, the proposals are still pending in Congress but whether the benefits of a permanent DST outweigh the costs enough to justify legalizing it is still up in the air.

Personally, I just check my phone to see what time it is, and my circadian rhythm is a bit irregular, but I do use some sleeping pills to help me fall asleep, so it wouldn't matter much to me. Perhaps, other people would prefer sticking to the standard time, and not DST, while others may prefer DST because you get to go home earlier or go to work later. What do you think?

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The richest person in Australia is Gina Rineheart, the executive chairman of Hancock Prospecting, a mining and agricultural business company that mainly extracts iron ore. Now, the company will be venturing into lithium, the metal used in batteries, which will make her the world's first lithium queen. This is on the back of several market raids to secure a stake in the lithium industry which primarily involved purchasing 19.9% of shares in Liontown Resources, an emerging Australian lithium miner, thereby pushing away US-based Albemarle Corporation which had plans on taking over Liontown.

As the prices of lithium fell, some may argue that this move may be a bit questionable, but Rineheart and her company are following some investment practices put out by Warren Buffett who asserts that one should buy when others are fearful. Certainly, this may be a risky move, but a well-calculated one as many technologies will rely on lithium for their batteries, and with the growth of electric vehicles, the chances that lithium will become obsolete is quite low. Still, Rineheart will require the assistance from specialists who can process the metal, so they are looking toward Korean company Posco as a potential partner.

For more details on the story, check it out on Forbes.

(Image credit: Gina Rineheart)

This guy tries to tell us he doesn't know anything about music, but don't let that fool you. This is El Estepario Siberiano, also known as The Groovefather, a professional percussionist. He built himself a tubulum, which is a musical instrument made of PVC pipes of different lengths. It might remind you of a pipe organ, but you play it by whacking the ends of the pipes. Blue Man Group plays one in their stage shows. Anyway, enjoy his performance of AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" played on pipes with spatulas. This video contains NSFW language. -via Born in Space

The British Empire had a way of killing two birds with one stone. Instead of building penitentiaries, they sent shiploads of convicted criminals to far-flung colonies, first America and then Australia, thus relieving Britain of their unwelcome presence and providing cheap labor for their colonies. They also reused large ships that were no longer capable of long voyages as prisons. These were called prison hulks, and convicts could be held on them for up to seven years awaiting transport. This became a particular problem between 1776, when transports to America stopped, and the first prison transport to Australia in 1787. Serious overcrowding continued long after as convicts were gradually sent elsewhere.

In 1801, London police magistrate Aaron Graham was charged with reporting on conditions in the prison hulks. He found that private contractors had been running them, with deplorable results. There were no standards for the treatment of prisoners, even for the amount of food they were given. The death rate was high, the hospitalization rate was higher, and the staff turned over often due to inadequate pay. Graham instituted reforms, including a government takeover of the ships' management, and posted daily food rations. The prisoners were to be given oatmeal and barley for breakfast and supper, and bread, meat, cheese, and beer for midday dinner. That sounds like a recipe for scurvy and other deficiencies, but it was a lot better than they had before the reform, and these were men who worked loading and unloading ships all day. Read about the conditions aboard prison hulks at the British National Archives. -via Strange Company
  

If you are still avoiding spoilers for the movie Killers of the Flower Moon, you might want to skip this video, which is the historical account behind the film, but at this point there are few people going to see the film without knowing what it's about. We linked to information on the Osage Indian Murders back in the spring, but Weird History tells the true story with plenty of details that may or may not be in the film. For this video, the narrator has dropped the usual jokes and snark, as is appropriate. The visuals are a bit jarring, though, as we get a combination of historical photographs, characters illustrated by the actors who play them in the movie, and anachronistic stock video footage. They still aren't as jarring as the huge numbers of murders that no one talked about, because talking about them could endanger your own life. History can be brutal.

The Big Five model of human personality scores people along spectra of conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness to experience, and extraversion. Recently, researchers Kätlin Anni, Uku Vainik, and René Mõttus at the University of Tartu in Finland, surveyed people in 263 different occupations to assess their personalities using the Big Five model. Their full paper is available online.

I would like to note that, in my completely non-professional understanding, neuroticisim is not inherently bad. To have a touch of neuroticism--that is, to have some negative emotions--is to be realistic. It's unhealthy to be on the extreme ends of the spectra of any of these five personality traits and some environments, such as professions are optimal or suboptimal for particular personalities.

I was delighted to see that my own profession--librarianship--appears in the survey on p. 63. Librarians are among the least conscientious professions.

-via David Thompson

Google has been quite popular recently and not for the reasons that you would think. They are currently embroiled in an antitrust battle against the US Department of Justice who charged Google for making an anti-competitive move by paying companies to keep Google search and Google Chrome as their default search engine and browser.

On a different note, not all search queries on Google make them millions as this article on The Verge reveals. For the week on September 22nd, 2018, it has been disclosed which Google queries were the most profitable, and it won't be surprising how these 20 words made the most money. Let me give you a hint of what they could be. The term that got the highest revenue for that week was iPhone 8. It would make sense that product-related queries would make the most money since the psychology behind it is that people searching about those terms are already considering buying them at some point in the future.

For the complete list of those 20 search queries, check out The Verge.

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Shoplifting is bad, and that's just for business, we're not even going into the ethical aspects of it. And in America, it's apparently a very huge issue, with estimates saying it happens as much as multiple times in an hour, and only those that are blatantly done. So, what have retailers done to mitigate and stop it from happening? Not enough, according to several retail employees interviewed by Emily Stewart from Vox, who also talked to a couple people who themselves admitted to committing retail theft.

It might seem like a simple solution for us, so much as to simply suggest that security be increased, more cameras be installed in the stores, or just locking up certain products to dissuade people from stealing them in the first place. These measures cost money however, and the return on investment on them just aren't enough to justify them, at least that's how retailers' lack of action on the shoplifting problem is being rationalized. And it's actually more complex than it seems, as Stewart finds out. Read the entire article at Vox to see the explanation as to the difficulties with trying to crack down on shoplifting and maintaining retail sales at the same time.

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