Two brides, porcelain wedding cake toppers Val and Mara, are unsatisfied with the grooms they are paired with. Val's designated groom turns abusive, and his bride is injured but not destroyed. The other couple, Mara and Jesse, come to the rescue and the whole cake shop turns into a war scene. After the violence dies down, Val and Mara really only want to be with each other. It's a touching tale, but the real story is revealed in still shots shown during the credits. I had to laugh when the shopkeeper arrived the next morning. As Marvel has taught us, never leave before the credits roll. The award-winning short film Piece of Cake was written and directed by Sophie Feher and produced by Emma Goeas at the Savannah College of Art and Design.

As soon as Benjamin Franklin flew a kite in an electrical storm (and didn't die) and then invented the lightning rod, the idea was appropriated by the fashion world. Electricity was such a modern concept that it became the next big thing for a while. Lightning rod fashion reached its height in fashionable France, where one could purchase a lightning rod hat (le chapeau paratonnerre) equipped with a grounding wire dragging behind the wearer, or carry a lightning rod umbrella (le parapluie-paratonnerre). If it worked to keep a house safe from lightning, why wouldn't it also work for a pedestrian on the streets?

That was just the beginning of electrical fashion. As soon as the battery was invented, the trendiest people rushed to wear jewelry or decorate their clothing with lights. You could even hide the battery in your bustle! Read about the 18th-century fad for electric fashion at Messy Nessy Chic.

Warning: this video may induce a little queasiness. We've seen heart-stopping POV videos of mountain bikers wearing helmet cams. The next iteration of this type of videography is from the view of a FPV (first person view) drone. In this sequence, we follow champion racer Kade Edwards down the Red Bull Hardline downhill mountain bike race track in Wales, an extreme track if you ever saw one. Can Edwards stay upright on this terrifying run? Can the drone keep up with him? Can the drone navigate through thick groves of trees? (Spoiler- not in the first attempt.) Can we keep our stomachs from leaping while watching? Edwards makes the run look easy, although we all know that it takes both skill and daring, and the drone pilot did a fantastic job, drawing kudos from professional FPV drone pilots. Any of us would have crashed and burned in either role. -via TYWKIWDBI

The search for life in other planets or an inhabitable place outside Earth has been one of the missions of astronomers studying the vast expanse of our solar system and beyond. Exoplanet K2-18b has been on their radar since 2015, but it wasn't until recently when NASA's James Webb Space Telescope finally observed and measured the atmosphere of the exoplanet.

The new study found a lot of carbon dioxide and methane. This is interesting as this is like what is found on Earth, Mars, and Venus in our solar system—rather than Neptune.

However, it also found a small amount of dimethyl sulfide. Dimethyl sulfide is an interesting molecule, made up of carbon, hydrogen, and sulfur.

On Earth, it’s generally a bit smelly. But it’s also closely linked to life.

The only process we know that creates dimethyl sulfide on our planet is life. In particular, marine life and plankton emit it in the form of flatulence.

Is this potentially one such place which can be inhabited by future humans? It's tough to say, but scientists are hopeful that the presence of dimethyl sulfide could be a sign. -via Singularity Hub

(Image credit: ESA/Hubble, CC by 4.0/Wikimedia Commons)

Nature TTL is a collective of photographers with a passion for nature photography and their annual Photographer of the Year contest has seen thousands of entries that showcase the marvel of nature taken by photographers from all over the world. The contest started in 2020, and this year's crop of winners is truly outstanding.

Chosen from more than 8,000 submissions, the winners of this year’s Nature TTL Photographer of the Year competition capture both the immense beauty of our planet and the threats we face with a changing climate. Thomas Vijayan took home the top prize for his heartbreaking panoramic of the Austofonna Ice Cap cracking and emitting gushing waterfalls into the sea.

You may check out the complete winners gallery from POTY 2023 on Nature TTL's website. -via The Colossal

(Image credit: Thomas Vijayan/Nature TTL)

Recently, Kraft Heinz recalled 83,000 of its Kraft Singles as it potentially posed the risk of gagging or choking due to an issue with one of its wrapping machines. Read more about it on The Cut.

(Image credit: Martylunsford/CC by SA 4.0/Wikimedia Commons)

We were also bamboozled. These areas might look directly lifted from a set in Star Wars, Star Trek, or any popular science fiction novel that has been on mainstream media. These stunning locations are very much of Earthly descent. 

As you can see from the photo above– that’s not edited or generated by a computer. That is a snapshot of the Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone, in the western part of the United States. The area’s hottest spring has a wild rainbow pattern that is naturally created by thermophilic algae and bacteria along a temperature gradation. At the center of the spring, which is colored in blue, is the hottest part of the body of water. Nature is honestly amazing! 

Learn about the other places on Earth that feel otherworldly here! 

Image credit: Mariana Bobina

What you see is what you get, or so the adage says. But, according to a study, that statement can be truer than just a passing observation, especially when we are making decisions:

A recent study demonstrated that our eyes can reveal decisions we’re making, even if we aren’t consciously aware of it. This eye-brain connection, especially the subtle eye movements known as saccades, gives away clues about our cognitive processes.

Eye movements aren't just telling of our cognitive processes. They also play a significant role in our purchasing choices, especially when it comes to understanding consumer behavior.

I can tell from experience that there is some credence to this observation. Generally, the more we look at something, the higher the chance that we grow to like it and justify our need for it. However, at the end of the day, whether or not we buy it will depend on our budgets. But it's clear that the visual stimuli have already factored into our decision. And it will only be a matter of time before we check out that stuff from our online carts.

Read more about this interesting study on Psychology Today.

(Image credit: Ion Fet/Unsplash)

A private Facebook group called "The Vintage Photo Booth" hosts a community of people who share historical photos that are dated "no later than 1990." Many photos nowadays, after being taken, are either immediately posted online or shared through messenger apps with friends or loved ones.

But there was a time when people did not have the luxury of having their photos taken anytime, anwhere and that's what makes this collection of photos quite special as they capture moments and memories in history of the mundane, ordinary lives of people, whether they be candid or posed. Take a look at these 80 historical snapshots on Bored Panda.

(Image credit: The Vintage Photo Booth/Facebook)

Agnes Fults of Kimberly, Idaho, gave birth to three daughters in 1934. Josephine, Julene, and Joyce Fults joined their older sister Mabel and father Alton and made the family locally famous. The triplets were followed by local newspapers as they grew up. But Agnes disappeared from the public record in 1939. Agnes' sister Martha Hagerman took charge of her four nieces, and moved them to Tennessee in 1940, but then returned to Idaho in 1949.

The case of Agnes Fults' disappearance was brought to light when Julene's granddaughter Marsha Trotter and Mabel's granddaughter Rebecca Hardesty met through Ancestry.com and learned they were second cousins. They were both looking for any record of their great-grandmother Agnes after 1939. They knew from their grandmothers' recollections that their mother had simply disappeared, and they weren't supposed to talk about it, ever. The family story was that Agnes abandoned her family, but the rumor mill in Kimberly had it that Agnes was killed and buried in a potato field. There was no missing person's report ever filed. Trotter and Hardesty recently contacted Kimberly police, and they are opening an investigation, which will include the use of ground-penetrating radar on the empty plot where the Fults home once stood. Read the fascinating story of an 84-year-old mystery at KTVB.  -via Strange Company

No, you won't die if you hear the sound of an Aztec death whistle, but you'll hear it a lot in this video, and you might want to be ready with the volume control. It can cause a jump scare in the people in the next room, or make children cry. It's a small instrument that looks like no more than a duck call, but the sound it produces is like a terrified person screaming beyond control. If you were in enemy territory, or had the possibility of an invading army, hearing this in the night would make the hairs on your back rise up. Not knowing what's going on and hearing what sounds like someone dying would ruin your evening considerably. James Orgill of The Action Lab (previously at Neatorama) actually made some Aztec death whistles with a 3D printer. He tells us both the history and science of these whistles, and blows those darn whistles quite a few times. That's an interesting and sneaky way to lead up to an ad for the 3D printer. -via Digg

World Gorilla Day has been celebrated on September 24 every year since 2017. That date was chosen because it was on that day in 1967 that the Karisoke Research Center in Rwanda was founded by gorilla researcher Dian Fossey.

Gorillas are the world's largest primate. There are two species, the eastern gorilla and the western gorilla. All gorillas are classified as Critically Endangered, with the exception of the subspecies called the mountain gorilla, which is classified as Endangered. This weekend many zoos are holding special programs so you can learn more about gorillas. This includes the Los Angeles Zoo, the Cincinnati Zoo, the Little Rock Zoo, the Oklahoma City Zoo, the Louisville Zoo, the San Antonio Zoo, the Franklin Park Zoo in Boston, and possibly at another zoo near you.

And if you can't get to your local zoo for the festivities this weekend, you can read about gorillas and see a gallery of enchanting photos of them at Smithsonian. 

(Image credit: Robert from Uganda gorilla safari tours)

We've talked about kopi luwak a lot here on Neatorama, and we know that it comes from the poop of the civet. But did you know that this comes at a cost to the said animal?

Researchers from Oxford University’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit and the London-based nonprofit World Animal Protection assessed the living conditions of nearly 50 wild civets held in cages at 16 plantations on Bali. The results, published Thursday in the journal Animal Welfare, paint a grim picture.

Some of the civets were very thin, from being fed a restricted diet of only coffee cherries—the fruit that surrounds the coffee bean. Some were obese, from never being able to move around freely. And some were jacked up on caffeine, D’Cruze said.

And that's not all. Check this article on National Geographic to learn more about the most disturbing secret behind the world's most expensive coffee. - via Metafilter

(Image credit: Victor Loh/Unsplash)

Dogs can be quite mischievous as any dog owner can attest, and that's not limited to just within the confines of their own homes. In these four stories shared by an emergency veterinarian, you'll get to read some antics that might make you chuckle or smile. 

Dr. Laura de Armas, the medical director at Veterinary Emergency Group (VEG), shared some of her funniest ER memories with The Dodo, and although the ER is usually a serious place, these stories definitely show that there’s always room for a bit of laughter!

Read more at The Dodo.

(Image credit: Veterinary Emergency Group/Instagram)

It has been five years since Stephen Hawking, world-renowned physicist whose work on black holes and singularities opened our horizons to what could be out there in space, passed away into stardust. Two years after that, poet Marie Howe was inspired to write an ode about singularities and our place in the cosmos. - from The Marginalian

(Video credit: Maria Popova/Vimeo)