You've probably heard the term "suicide by cop," in which people deliberately cause a situation in which the police shoot them, and police are trained to shoot to kill. They want to commit suicide but can't, so they get someone else to do the deed for them. Wanting to die implies some mental health issue, but it doesn't mean the person is irrational. In the 17th and 18th centuries, some folks rationalized that suicide was a more dangerous sin than murder, since you won't have time to repent, so they committed murder in order to be executed for that murder. That idea was even canon in the Lutheran faith. The premeditation in this concept should make that loophole moot, but that's what happened. People even planned their crime according to the expected type of execution that was sure to follow. That's one trend we are glad was extinguished by a change in the law. Strangely, the word "suicide" is censored in this video, but "suicidal" isn't.

When you first encounter Edvard Munch's most famous painting, The Scream, you focus on the person screaming. But what's going on in the background? Is that wavy technicolor sky something he observed, or something he imagined?

Munch painted four version of The Scream between 1893 and 1910. Those who've studied Munch's work have connected it with his 1892 diary entry in which he described his feeling of angst at seeing "The flaming clouds like blood and swords".  The passage could be from his imagination, but it could also be a real meteorological phenomenon he witnessed. Maybe it was a spectacular burst of sunset color caused by a volcanic eruption, maybe the 1892 eruption of Indonesia’s Mount Awu, or more likely the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa. But in 2017, three Norwegian researchers offered a theory involving nacreous clouds, that only happen during rare and very particular weather conditions.

You can see the resemblance, right? Read about nacreous clouds and The Scream at Mental Floss.

(Cloud image credit: Cepstral)

Redditor /u/special_evan shares a photo of a multi tool quite unlike the Leatherman PST in your pocket. It's labeled with the words Underwood and Haymarket. Underwood was a metalworker who operated from a shop on Haymarket Street in London. This tool is allegedly made specifically for fishermen and sailors. /u/Nathan51530 identifies the tools from left to right as:

• A hook used to untie knots.
• A scoop for measuring medication.
• A screw starter.
• A different screw starter.
• A corkscrew.
• A toothpick or possibly an awl.
• A saw blade.
• A flathead screwdriver.
• A pick.
• A hook to snag fishing lines.

Of course, from those times to now, tools can be used for different purposes. /u/Big_Message_1110 jokes that, "Every tool is a hammer, unless it's a screwdriver. then it's a chisel."

-via Birch Brother

Florian Ulrich Jehn is a scholar who examines ways that humanity could mitigate starvation risks in the event of existential crises, such as nuclear war. He and colleagues have published a peer-reviewed report which considers the possibility of the mass cultivation of seaweed in the aftermath of a nuclear war.

Such an event and any ensuing nuclear winter could devastate terrestrial food production due to reduced sunlight. But tropical oceans are likely to remain environmentally sound. The authors conclude that it might be possible to produce sufficient quantities of Gracilaria tikvahiae in quantities equal to 45% of global human food needs.

-via Marginal Revolution | Still shot from Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter took this picture with its High Resolution Imaging Experiment camera (HIRISE) from about 166 miles above the planet. It shows an area called Aeolis Planum where rivers once flowed billions of years ago, when Mars had an atmosphere. The planet dried up when that atmosphere was stripped away, although water still exists in ice form at the poles. But wait- this picture doesn't look like river channels at all. It looks like those lines are jutting out of the ground!

This happened because the ancient rivers had rocks of all sizes flowing with the water. When the banks overflowed, the rivers would dump smaller sand and silt over the sides, but the heavier gravel and larger rocks remained in the channel. Once the rivers dried up, the silt and sand blew away from the banks, leaving a ridge of larger rocks in place where the river had been. So they are ridges now, but are evidence of ancient rivers. Scientists call these "inverted channels."

Read more about the image and the orbiter that took it at Mashable.

(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona)

The movie Blazing Saddles had its premiere on February 7, 1974, meaning it will be 50 years old tomorrow. It was vulgar and outrageous and crossed the line in so many places that it couldn't be made at all today. Mel Brooks battled producers over many scenes, but he won, mainly by ignoring them. The result was what many people who saw Blazing Saddles that year call the funniest movie ever. Brooks took on the project because he was broke and his wife was pregnant, and he turned a newcomer's script about racism in the Old West into a bizarre comedy that made fun of everything and everyone it touched.

Brooks screened the film and Ted Ashley, the chairman of Warner Brothers, told the director, "The farting scene has to go. You can’t punch a horse. You can’t hit an old lady. And you can’t use the ‘N’ word." If Brooks had followed orders and cut 26 scenes, there would be little movie left. Co-writer Richard Pryor was the one who insisted on using the N word. One area where Brooks bowed to the producers was in dropping Pryor and Gig Young from the lead roles due to substance abuse problems, and struck gold with Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder. Read what went on behind the scenes in creating Blazing Saddles at The Independent. -via Digg

Last month, we brought you the story of Zoozve, the moon of Venus. The name was a misunderstanding of an asteroid, described as a quasi-moon, provisionally designated 2002-VE. John Farrier suggested we keep using the name Zoozve, and so did Latif Nasser, who first noticed the name on a child's poster of the solar system. Nasser took the story to Radiolab, and consulted those who make such decisions for the podcast. Not long after, the name Zoozve has become official.

The International Astronomical Union's Working Group on Small Bodies Nomenclature (WGSBN) has adopted the name Zoozve for the asteroid, on page nine of their bulletin issued yesterday. Wikipedia has already updated their entry to reflect the story of the heavenly body's new name.

There are guidelines for naming astronomical objects, and Zoozve works for a satellite because it contains "ve" for Venus. However, as a quasi-satellite, a majority of votes among the WGSBN sufficed. Besides, Zoozve has a great story. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Alex Foster)

It's 2024. I doubt that I'm the only person to look into this new year with some trepidation for the future. There is a zeitgeist suggesting, to borrow from the words of Yeats a century ago, that some rough beast, its hour come at last, is slouching toward us.

Our greatest minds, seeking to pierce the separation between machine and man, have created artificial intelligences. These AIs are to be our servants for now. And to what purpose do we set these minds? To decode a necronomicon that was lost with the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD and the destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum in a blood-dimmed tide.

There, a collection of papyrus scolls were seared into unintelligibility. Humanity was preserved from the Cthulic knowledge within until human scientists used artificial intelligences (or possibly the reverse) to reveal them. The Guardian reports that a cabal of researchers led by Youssef Nader, Luke Farritor, and Ulian Schilinger have won a $1 million prize called the Vesuvius Challenge to anyone who could discern the strange writings on the scrolls.

Surely some revelation is at hand.

-via Abraham Ash | Image: Vesuvius Challenge

The sinking of the RMS Titanic in April of 1912 was shocking, but it was never a mystery. Despite the huge death toll, there were many survivors, and documented communications with other ships, plus that iceberg that was still there after the Titanic was gone. Still, the ship had been called unsinkable, and in the aftermath people started to think there was more to the story than what they had been told in the newspapers. Such a horrible disaster couldn't have simply been a case of a collision with an iceberg! And so the conspiracy theories started.

These theories range from the slightly plausible ideas that only differ from the verified accounts by some small detail to the truly bonkers theories like the one where the ship was a victim of a mummy's curse. Or that it was engineered by J.P. Morgan to eliminate political enemies. Or that the Titanic never sank at all, and the headlines were a hoax. Read up on 10 strange theories about what happened to the Titanic, some that are still believed today, at Mental Floss.

Manuel Eisner, the deputy director of the Cambridge Institute of Criminology, along with his wife, had this hobby of mapping medieval crimes, which led to the creation of the Medieval Murder Maps project in 2018, with the help of Cambridge historian Stephanie Brown.

The particular case of the chaplain John Ford piqued Eisner's interest, as the clergyman had been stabbed by three people in broad daylight. Those three people were Hugh Colne, John Strong, and John Tindale. They were hitmen hired by the noblewoman Ela FitzPayne. But the question that stuck in Eisner's mind was why?

What could the clergyman have done to provoke the ire of the rich and famous Ela FitzPayne? To get down to the bottom of the matter, the team searched for any connections between the two. And they came across a letter that the Archbishop of Canterbury, Simon Metham, had written to the Bishop of Winchester, dated January 29, 1332.

From the letter, the team found out that FitzPayne had previously been convicted of adultery, and was sentenced to public humiliation, which involved walking barefoot from the western entrance of Salisbury Cathedral to the high altar, much like the "walk of shame" in Game of Thrones. This she had to do every day for seven years. Not only that, but she was also prohibited from wearing any jewelry or makeup.

The letter also revealed one other thing: the connection between FitzPayne and Ford. Apparently, Ford had been a former lover of FitzPayne, and we can deduce that it was he who told the Archbishop about FitzPayne's adultery. However, his involvement with her had been swept under the rug, going without punishment. Needless to say, Ela FitzPayne took matters into her own hands, and served the poor chaplain a dish of revenge.

(Image credit: Walters Art Museum, Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons)

A year ago, we brought you the story of the person who has killed more people than any other. Vasili Blokhin wasn't just a criminal, though, he carried out killings for the Soviet Union. What about non-sanctioned criminals? Today I Found Out has gone back through history to see if the most prolific serial killer could be identified. However, that depends on the exact definition of "serial killer," which is a separate category of murder that does not include single acts that kill many people, like causing a plane crash or mass shootings.

Still, they found quite a few people who might fit the bill, depending on the parameters of what a serial killer is. Cases from further back in history suffer from lack of verifiable facts, and in some cases, we will never know the exact number of people murdered. So instead of crowning the most horrific serial killer, they bring us the stories of two historical killers and four modern serial killers who could be candidates for the nefarious title. The stories are disturbing and gruesome, so the article ends with a couple of uplifting stories to cleanse your brain. Read all of this at Today I Found Out. The article is a transcript of an earlier, and rather long, video.

Think different. #applevisionpro pic.twitter.com/dEALUsntS8

— Dante (@lentinidante) February 2, 2024

Last Friday, Apple began selling its new $3500 Vision Pro spacial computing headset. That same day, Dante Lentini posted a video of himself using the headset while driving a Tesla, presumably with the autopilot feature turned on. The Vision Pro allows you to see what's in front of you at the same time as you see whatever you're computing. How dangerous is this? Apple explicitly warns us not to use the product while driving, and Tesla requires drivers to have their hands on the wheel when using any of their three types of autopilot feature.

The video ends with Lentini appearing to be pulled over by police. However, Lentini told Gizmodo that he was not arrested, that he just pulled over when he saw the police because it would enhance the video. Were any laws broken? The legal code hasn't adapted to autopilot features and virtual reality headsets, but you could always make a case for distracted driving.     

Assuming that the future history of humanity is not accurately depicted in Idiocracy, it's possible that large numbers of humans will eventually settle the solar system. These human communities will be isolated from each other and the languages that they use will change. What sort of accents might they develop?

Live Science investigated the scientific literature on accents developed in isolation. This includes a study of 11 researchers who spent the winter together in Antarctica and isolated from the rest of humanity. These people began developing a unified phonetic pattern in just a few months.

It is likely that the initial wave of colonists would establish an accent that later colonists would adopt. This is why the dominant Australian accent resembles the Cockney accent of the initial European colonists of that island.

Thus it will be essential that terran leadership ensure that the first colonists speak Valley Girl with a sharp vocal fry.

-via Dave Barry | Image: NASA

During the Dome Fire of 2020, it was estimated that as many as 1.3 million Joshua trees in Mojave National Preserve were killed. The wildfire started when lightning struck near Cima Dome and spread to about 43,273 acres in nine days before being fully contained and suppressed.

There is no estimate of the total population of Joshua trees in the world, but the 1.3 million Joshua trees that were killed in the fire constituted approximately 13% of the Mojave National Preserve tree population.

Considering that the yuccas are native to California, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and parts of northwestern Mexico, the preservation of Joshua trees is critical especially with the difficulty of dispersing the seeds due to the lack of large megafauna like giant ground sloths which used to take on that role.

Nowadays, rodents have been the ones, scientists say, to help in the seed-dispersing of Joshua trees but unlike the giant sloths, they don't travel far. So, with that problem in mind, a couple of concerned friends, Jennifer Lagusker and Nance Fite, have volunteered their camels to help in delivering some Joshua tree sprouts for the restoration efforts in the Dome Fire burn scar.

This is a huge aid especially since the National Park Service said that majority of the Joshua trees planted in 2021 and 2022 have died. So, it's going to take a lot of effort and close attention to get the trees back to their previous numbers.

Thankfully, Lagusker plans to continue working with NPS and hopes that they will be able to bring as many as 12 camels to help with the transportation of the Joshua tree sprouts. So far, Lagusker's three camels - Chico, Sully, and Herbie - were able to help in planting 24 new Joshua trees on Cima Dome.

(Image credit: Gretchen Spencer/Unsplash)

We won't be getting into the neh-VAD-uh / neh-VAH-duh distinction with this one, as we have already looked into how Nevadans prefer their state name to be pronounced in a previous article. But the question is, why do Nevadans insist so much in going against the grain, with how the rest of America pronounces the name of their state?

To be perfectly clear, it's not a capital offense to pronounce 'Nevada' one way or the other, but it does say something about the person pronouncing it. More than the geographical element, Nevadans want to differentiate themselves from the rest of the country as a source of local identity.

Historically, Nevada made its way into its statehood much later in 1864, the 36th state to be admitted into the Union. And there wasn't exactly any particular local symbol that represented Nevada and made it stand out from the other states.

It was a hodgepodge of demographic groups when it first started out. There's no state dish, no distinguishing 'Nevadan accent', and even sports teams have only been recently created, with the Vegas Golden Knights NHL hockey team in 2017, and the recent relocation of the football team, the Las Vegas Raiders in 2020. (Originally, the Raiders were based in California.)

So, in a way, presenting their state to the rest of America might have been difficult for Nevadans, and one way to make inroads was to start with how locals wanted their state name to be pronounced. Although not necessarily a faux pas as to merit scorn or ridicule, the distinctive pronunciation that locals set have become a symbol for community, one of the things that ties Nevadans together.

Of course, with more and more people moving to Nevada in recent years, will that pronunciation hold up? Well, we can say that the longer people live among a certain community or group, the more they are able to assimilate themselves with the rest of the group. And so, there may not need to be any worry regarding that.

(Video credit: KCLV Channel 2/Youtube)