In the medieval era, people in east Asia were eating with chopsticks, and people in Europe were eating with their hands. In between them in Constantinople, people of the upper class were eating with a strange utensil called a fork. Previously only used for cooking and serving, forks on the dining table spread throughout Byzantium. This was seen as bizarre by Europeans, and you can understand why when they looked like the implements shown above. Sure, Europeans used knives and spoons when called for, but eating with a fork was barbaric. 

Forks were introduce to Europe through Italy. A Byzantine princess married a Venetian Doge and ate dinner with a fork. A theologian blamed her early death on her insistence on using the utensil. But some Italians noticed that a fork would make eating pasta easier. Imagine eating spaghetti or lasagna with your fingers! Still, the spread of fork use took an awful long time, because people have always been peculiar about the right way and the wrong way to eat. Read about the controversial fork and how it made its way across Europe at the Conversation. -via Damn Interesting 

(Image credit: Marie-Lan Nguyen) 

Watch out, Kurzgesagt is going to explain where babies come from, in neon graphic cellular detail. It ain't easy. An embryo does whatever is necessary to establish dominance over the mother's body. It suppresses her immune system, lest it attack the foreign body. It floods her body with weird hormones that change her body and cells she will carry for the rest of her life. An established fetus will take all the resources it needs from the mother, leaving her body lacking, so she must scramble to keep herself going nutritionally. In that, it is like a parasite or a tumor that will drain and possibly kill its host in order to survive. Yet the prize at the end of it can make it all worth the effort. In the last few years, I've had a front row seat to two pregnancies in my own daughter, and can attest to how hard it is to see your baby girl go through the utter havoc a normal pregnancy put her body through. Yet she happily repeated the process.

This video is only 10:40; the rest is promotional.     

This house for sale in Daphne, Alabama, appears quite reasonable for a two-bedroom, two bath house at first glance. The price is more than twice what it should be, but the market will take care of that. However, the listing illustrates how not to stage images when you want to sell a home. Let's take a look inside. 

This is not so much a living room as it is a gallery of possessions. It's mostly religious iconography, but your eye is drawn to the warthog wearing a top hat. There might be a floor under all those rugs. How about a bedroom?

Oh dear. To be fair, the kitchen isn't bad, as if no one ever used it. And the one bathroom we see is decent, if a little busy. If you were serious about buying a 107-year-old house in Alabama, you might look harder and see the awesome fireplace, the clawfoot tub, and some nice wooden antique furniture you can barely see. But you have to really look hard, and if you do, you'll also see the stained walls that need repair, and then you'll have to wonder about all the other sins that are hidden under all this stuff. See 32 pictures at the real estate listing. As this listing goes viral but doesn't yield any offers in the next few months, the furnishings might be removed. -via Zillow Gone Wild 

Most of us never think about punctuation when we read books or internet articles or short texts. But when someone sends you a longer, more involved message and they don't use punctuation, then you start to appreciate it. Punctuation is there to make written text seem more like a natural monologue or conversation. Believe it or not, when writing with letters was first developed, there weren't even spaces between words, much less marks to indicate how the words should sound! Sure, few people knew how to read, but when someone read that written text out loud, how it was done made a difference in how the listener understood the original writer. As more people learned to read, those marks had to be standardized, although they varied by language.   

Dr. Erica Brozovsky (previously at Neatorama) tells the story of how different kinds of punctuation came to be, how they evolved into their modern forms, and why. And aren't you glad they did!  

The autumnal equinox was today, and summer is officially over. That means it's time for Fat Bear Week!

Brown bears in Alaska emerge from hibernation and spend all summer eating delectable salmon and anything else they can find. Their goal is to pack on plenty of pounds to last them through the next winter's hibernation. The bears of Brooks River in Katmai National Park in Alaska are once again in competition with each other during Fat Bear Week. Wild Bears cannot be weighed, so bear fans can help identify who put on the most weight by voting for who you think is the fattest bear. Yes, some bears that have been around for a while have an advantage of a built-in fan base. The real reason for the contest is to raise awareness of these wonderful wild creatures. We've heard that the salmon run was particularly good this year, so the bears should be plenty fat!  

Read the biography of each of the twelve bears in this year's tournament, and be ready to vote in the first round on Tuesday, 9AM-6PM Pacific time (noon-9PM Eastern). There will be a new head-to-head matchup each day through September 30th. 

Meanwhile, you can watch the bears hunt salmon at Brooks Falls on the live webcam. -via Metafilter 

We see audacious prison escapes in movies and think, that can't happen in real life. Strangely, it happens, and sometimes in ways too unbelievable for the movies. Successful prison breaks often require collaboration with outside accomplices. Or with those who are supposed to keep you inside, or at least their carelessness or incompetence. It can also require long term planning, patience, and luck.

However, breaking out of prison doesn't mean you are exactly free. Most prison escapees are apprehended sooner or later while on the run, which leads to the subgroup of prisoners who managed to escape over and over. You have to wonder how someone with an escape on their record isn't under better security, but the most talented escapees have several in their history. Honest Jack Sheppard (illustrated above) flew the coop four times! John Dillinger managed multiple prison breaks because he had a network of people willing to help him. And even Ted Bundy pulled off two of them. Read about eight of the most spectacular prison breaks at Mental Floss. 

(Image credit: J. Sketch) 

Try as you might, it would be extremely difficult to find more disparate music genres than Snoop Dogg's West Coast rap style and a classic Russian ballet. But in the hands of Dustin Ballard, also known as There I Ruined It (previously at Neatorama), the two have finally come together. And we only post those songs that aren't ruined, but are instead actually improved. 

You didn't know this tune had lyrics, did you? Snoop Dogg is all about lyrics, and these are definitely NSFW. Snoop not only sings along with Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Cygnets" from the ballet Swan Lake, he also dances as the prima ballerina. That requires a lot of athletic ability for a 53-year-old. But Snoop has surprised us before. So has Ballard. The comments are all wondering when we are going to see a reaction video from Dogg himself, possibly racking his brain trying to remember when he danced the ballet. 

Chris-Rachael Oseland is a professional chef in Columbus, Ohio. She has a long-established track record as a geek who prepares artistically perfect foods inspired by her pop culture interests, leading to the publication of several cookbooks with dishes inspired by True Blood, Doctor Who, and The Settlers of Catan.

When the first Deadpool film came out, she made these startling brownies that look like Wade Wilson's mask. The recipe is detailed, measured, precise, and orderly--quite unlike the antihero that inspires them. Oseland made the eyes from Oreo cookies and then sliced them midway to produce the sharp impact of Deadpool's vision.

Ian Falconer published the first of the Olivia picture books in 2000, which secured a Caldecott Honor the next year and launched a popular media franchise that included a 40-episode cartoon. Falconer passed away in 2023.

Falconer named the piglet character after his niece, Olivia Falconer Crane. Dan Kois recently interviewed her for Slate.

Crane tells Kois that she was five years old when the first Olivia book came out. She had a close relationship with her uncle, who gave her many gifts, including illustrations of her as a piglet. The characters in the books, including the pets, were all real people and animals that Olivia grew up with.

Despite her fictional appearances in the books, Crane's mother made a point of telling the young Olivia that she was not the character and vice versa. Crane grew up with a healthy separation from Olivia the piglet.

Image: Amazon

The Columbo story aired from 1971 to 2003 with a total of 69 episodes. It was tremendously popular, especially during the 1970s, leading to merchandising efforts. Those projects included this board game published in 1973.

Board Game Geek says that it is structured identically to a 1958 game inspired by the works of Alfred Hitchcock. It has cards for weapons, suspects, and clues, but, sadly, no "Just one more thing" cards. Copies are available for sale on eBay, although they are pricey.

Notice that Columbo is facing away from the players. Internet rumor holds that choice is because the designers did not have permission to use Peter Falk's likeness.

-via Super Punch

Mountains are usually measured by their height, but should height be measured from the center of the earth, from sea level (not possible on Mars), or from the surrounding terrain? Besides, a mountain's height is not its only quality. As a Yale mathematics and computer science student, Kai Xu wanted to measure the impressiveness of mountains, or their magnificence to the person looking at them. He came up with a metric that measures a quality he calls a mountain's "jut." It takes into account how steeply a mountain rises from the surrounding terrain, and other factors. 

The measure of jut has been gaining respect over the past few years. People are planning trips around a mountain's jut. You can see rankings of jut in this database. Strangely, Mount Everest doesn't rank high at all, although many of the highest rankings can be found in Nepal. You can explore the jut of mountains near you with this interactive map. 

Still, "magnificence" is in the eye of the beholder. A visitor's experience can be affected by many things, like the psychological experience of high altitude when viewing Everest. Mount Fuji is familiar, iconic, and beautiful, but it doesn't rank high in jut. Yet sightseers can find wonderful new places to visit by seeking out mountains with high jut rankings. -via Metafilter   

(Image credit: Drouyn Cambridge) 

Cats might not understand death the way humans do, but they sure understand when someone they love is not where they should be.

Maru graced us with his presence for 18 years, and then left us on September 6. When we announced his passing, Mary Ann 02 asked about his little sister Hana. Hana had lived with Maru for all of her 12 years, and felt his absence deeply. She and the youngest cat Miri are clinging to Maru's favorite objects and inhabiting the beds where he napped. So many people inquired about the younger cats that mugumogu posted this video update, with the story told in captions. 

A week after Maru died, mugumogu posted about Miri's 5th birthday party (in which a plate was prepared for Maru) and hinted that Miri may have seen a vision of Maru in attendance. A further update tells us that Hana is still looking for him. 

The Nazis who ran the Auschwitz concentration camp assembled a band from musically trained inmates to play lively marches every morning as they hurried other inmates off to work assignments. The 40 or so women, mostly teenagers, were also required to play concerts for the officers and guards and visiting dignitaries. Later on, they greeted incoming trains of prisoners with music to lull them into thinking this place might be so bad after all. But music by Jewish composers was forbidden, so they had to hide in their barracks to play Beethoven for their own enjoyment. 

Survivors of the camp had mixed feelings about the Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz. They were resented by the men's orchestras because they had to perform physical labor in addition to playing music. Some prisoners enjoyed the music as a respite from everything else around them. Some have traumatic responses to music because it was connected to the worst parts of their confinement. Surviving orchestra members also recall those days with mixed feelings, aware of their privilege and racked by survivor's guilt, while also acknowledging they had no choice in the matter. Read about the Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz in a book excerpt at LitHub. -via Nag on the Lake 

Canonically, the Riker Maneuver is a tactical maneuver completed in the movie Star Trek: Insurrection, which is the last of the Next Generation films. But in trekkie parlance, the Riker Maneuver refers to the way that Jonathan Frakes would swing his leg over a chair to sit down--a practice that the actor didn't know was notable until years after the end of the series.

In this AI-generated video by NetDystopiaMusic, Captain Picard summons Commander Riker to a private meeting in the captain's ready room to address complains about how members of the crew are experiencing these close encounters with Riker's masculinity.

-via Holodeck Four

West of Bakersfield is the town of Taft. It has a population of 8,546 people. It developed in the late 1800s and was known as Moron.

Stories vary as to how it got its name. Either the residents chose it on their own or the Southern Pacific Railroad decided to change its name from Moro to Moron so as to distinguish it from the town of Morro Bay.

Either way, Moron was at the center of the 1909 California oil boom. The next year, residents decided to change the name of the town to Taft in honor of then-President William Howard Taft.

-via Super Punch | Photo: LA Dork