Every once in a while, we need to remind ourselves that our ancestors, even ancient ancestors, weren't stupid. They were just as smart as people today, but they lacked the number of advancements we inherited to build on. We have writing and books and instant communication. Pre-literate cultures had their own way of passing along crucial knowledge in the form of oral history. The stories of things that happened, people, places, and events that are important, were related over and over again by storytelling, until the next generation knew these things intimately.

Author and geography professor Patrick Nunn tells us about oral histories passed along by indigenous cultures that reveal important geological events that happened many thousands of years ago, when volcanoes changed the landscape and islands formed where there was once continuous dry land. These stories come from all over the world, and have been confirmed by geological studies. The ability to memorize and pass on such knowledge indicates how monumental those events were to the people who witnessed them. Of course, people remember only what they need to remember. You don't memorize a movie when you can see it again on demand, but in 1977, it was important to see Star Wars as many times as you could because it would eventually be gone from theaters. In pre-literate societies, memorizing everything about the land, the people, and their history was just what was done to preserve that knowledge.

Some of those stories became infused with mythology over time. Nunn explains that with the need to embellish stories with explanations that kept the audience's attention and helped them to understand difficult concepts. We can look beyond the supernatural embellishments to find the core nuggets of why these stories were crucial to pass along. Read about the oral history knowledge that is still being passed on today in a thought-provoking essay at Aeon. -via Strange Company 

(Image credit: Zainubrazvi)

Paul Klusman and TJ Wingard are engineers who are particularly interested in cats. You might recall them from An Engineer's Guide to Cats which established them as authorities in 2008, or from their subsequent videos. In this video, they examine how cats have always inspired humans to develop technology to make our lives easier. They also extrapolate about which tech developments may be in our future as inspired by cats. Then at the five-minute mark, they run out of inspiration and stage a Sweded Star Wars video starring cats and the tech they've already talked about.  

There are many clever inspirations in this video, but I was drawn to the idea of using a lint roller on a cat. It's been my habit to use a brush on a cat's fur, and a lint roller on the rug. I should just combine those two activities! But what really drew my attention was the YouTube description.

This video was ten years in the making. Getting it done was a big part of my incentive for beating cancer (stage IV Lymphoma, November 2020). Thank you TJ, Monica, Larry, Mark, Ben, Tom, Calyssa, David, Nick, Paulette, Eldon, Richard, and Mitch. Thank you sweet kitties. Thank you patrons and supporters. Thank you all our lovely fans watching all this these years!

We wish Paul all the best. As he says, imagination and cats are the most powerful force in the universe.  -via Laughing Squid

You know those signs in a bakery that say "Oops, we baked too much!"? This is story like that on steroids. Crystal Regehr Westergard started a business back in 2018 to bring back lost candy bars. She started with her mother's favorite, called Cuban Lunch. She bought the discontinued trademark and contracted with a manufacturer, and the candy was a hit among those who remembered it. That led to the formation of Regehr Westergard's company Canadian Candy Nostalgia. 

The next project was her husband's favorite candy from his childhood, called Rum & Butter. But by then the pandemic was causing delays in everything from raw ingredients to wrappers, and Regehr Westergard had trouble stocking Rum & Butter. Until now. When all the ingredients came together, she was inundated with way more back orders of Rum & Butter bars than she can sell. And they all have sell-by dates on them. The candy will be good after those dates, but grocery stores won't stock them. Regehr Westergard is willing to take a loss on the candy itself, but she doesn't want to waste them, and doesn't want to pay to dispose of them. She's already contacted food banks, but they could only handle 22,000 bars. Do you have any suggestions? Read about the candy bars and the dilemma of overstock at CBC.

My first thought was that she should sell them by mail order at a discount and charge for shipping, especially now that she's been in the news. The sell-by dates on the big shipment are still a couple of months away. -via Metafilter

🥪 Sandwich chain Subway and chocolate maker Cadbury collaborated to launch one of the strangest Easter-themed food ever made. Behold, the SubMelt, which is basically a Cadbury Crème Egg sandwich. What do you think? Yum or yuck?

🎵 Now this is one way to sell a house: nightclub singer turned real estate agent Claire Cossey created a singing real estate ad based on the 1984 theme song from the movie The NeverEnding Story. Cossey called her version The Never Ending Property.

🐔 This chicken lamp puts the lightbulb where the sun don't shine.

🕹️ Remember playing the endless running game Temple Run on your iPhone way back in 2011? The iconic game has now been recreated in Unreal Engine 5.

🎬 Are you an action movie hero? Then chances are, your name is John, James, or Jack. It's scientifically proven!

🐕 Rollo and Sadie are two dogs that became best friends during the pandemic. But when Rollo's owner had to move far away, the two dogs managed to stay in touch ... with Facetime!

🌻 Spring is here, and it's time for our gardens to shine! Here's a cute tee for those who love planting things: Gardening is My Therapy by indie artist Edu Ely - via Shirt Stack

😊 ICYMI: 7 Funny Tees and Big & Tall T-Shirts

👕 Don't miss NeatoShop's sitewide special - save up to 20% on all tees sitewide.

Please check out our new sites Artgonaut, TastyTastic and Grand Blog Auto. Thank you!

This is Cerro de los Siete Colores, the Hill of Seven Colors in English. You'll find it in the Andes, in Argentina's Jujuy province. Tectonic movement revealed the earth's many layers of sediment and their amazing colors. The dark brown is rich in manganese and is about two million years old. The red layer is a mixture of red clay and sand laid down three to four million years ago. The brown and purple layers are around 90 million years ago and are colored by the ratio of lead and calcium carbonate. The yellow is also from that period, with a layer heavy in sulphur. The white layer is limestone, at least 400 million years old.

The legend of the hill is that the children of the village of Purmamarca at its base decided to paint the hill one day, and snuck away for seven nights to leave it as you see it today. Read more about Cerro de los Siete Colores and see more gorgeous pictures at Kuriositas.

(Image credit: travelwayoflife)

You may have seen a popular TikTok video by Bergman Joe in which water finds its way through a maze with the utmost efficiency. It's an animated simulation, so Steve Mould (previously at Neatorama) felt challenged to recreate it in the real world, just to see if he could do it.

Water in a maze presents some interesting ideas. Trapped air in a maze will force the water to work more efficiently (and only if you can make your maze airtight), but surface tension will force it to work less efficiently. Mould made several different sizes of mazes to see how the different factors changed the overall scheme of the fluid dynamics involved.   

As a bonus, you'll also learn the basics of making your own maze, which is interesting even if you never consider trying it. This video is only a bit more than seven minutes- the rest is for the sponsor. -via Metafilter

The Meyer lemon is named for intrepid “plant explorer” Frank N. Meyer, who discovered the lemon variety in China in 1907. His story alone is worth checking out the history of the Meyer lemon, but he did not live to see his namesake lemon become a sensation in the United States. It was more fragrant and hardy than other available lemons, and soon it became a standard tree in California household gardens, bearing lovely fruit for those who owned one. Grower in Texas and Florida followed suit.

But then in the 1940s, it was discovered that the Meyer lemon tree was the cause of citrus tristeza virus (CTV), commonly called “quick decline citrus” virus. The disease was getting out of hand because the Meyer lemon trees carried the virus, but was more immune to its effects than other trees. Therefore the lemon trees did not show symptoms for years, but aphids carried the virus to orange and grapefruit trees, which succumbed much more quickly. The war was one to eradicate Meyer lemon trees in the US.

Yet we use Meyer lemons to this day. Read how the eradication program was carried out, and what saved the Meyer lemon, at Atlas Obscura. -via Strange Company

(Image credit: Burkhard Mücke)

The musical collective Postmodern Jukebox has become famous around the world for remixing modern songs with styles from earlier times in the Twentieth Century, including ragtime, jazz, swing, doo wop, sock hop, and more.

Their most recent music video is inspired by the rhythm and blues music of the early 1960s that is depicted in the Broadway stage and film musical Hairspray. Jeffrey James sings "Lucky," a song most famously sung by Britney Spears for an album released in 2000. The lyrics tell the story of a girl who is a Hollywood star and, consequently, thought to be extraordinarily lucky to have such a happy life. But, as would turn out to be appropriate for Spears's own life, is actually lonely and sad.

This isn't some old T-55 from a couple generations ago that you could buy cheaply after the Soviet Union fell in 1991.* This is a T-90, which is Russia's top-shelf modern main battle tank.

Redditor /u/Mutantlight snapped this photo from a Peto's truck stop and casino in Roanoke, Louisiana. The Drive followed on the story and contacted the manager. She said that the truck hauling the trailer with the tank broke down and the driver asked if he could leave it at the stop while he went to Houston for another truck. The Drive learned that the tank had been captured in Ukraine last fall. Somehow, it has been brought to the United States.

-via Dave Barry

*There was some truly amazing Warsaw Pact milsurp available in the early 1990s.

"Gangsta's Paradise" written by Coolio and Doug Rasheed and performed by the former is one of the most iconic hip hop songs of all time. It's even been honored with a "Weird" Al Yankovic parody, which is how a musician knows that he's really made a cultural impact.

The song is a tragic ballad describing the narrator's regret mixed with a sense of honor. It's a crime story that would be well-completed if followed by Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues," which tells us what happens at the end of a criminal career.

In this video, musician Bob Strachan sings Coolio's lyrics with Cash's melody in a powerful synthesis of two genres.

-via The Awesomer

There’s a certain tradition behind these little trinkets. If you’ve ever spotted some items left on somebody’s gravestone, it’s not just there randomly. It usually is left because of sentiment. 

Leaving coins on a gravestone signifies that the person buried there was a member of the military. These pennies are a symbol of remembrance, intended to honor the individual for their service to their country. They can be left by loved ones, friends, or coworkers who visit the deceased to convey their pride.

These coins can also make an impact on the family left behind by the deceased. Now, note that each type of coin left holds different meanings. For example, if someone left behind a nickel, it means that the visitor who left the coin went to boot camp with the person buried. A dime, on the other hand, signifies that the visitor served alongside the deceased. 

Lastly, if you see a quarter, it means that the person who left it was present when the soldier passed away. 

Image credit: Ralph C.

🌞 From our new art site Artgonaut (check it out!), here's an art installation by Pierre Brault on a building in Paris that cleverly use the Sun to cast a shadow that reads "Slow Life"

🕹️ The Super Mario Bros theme song is now in the National Recording Registry. Miss C was kind enough to include several fantastic clips of the theme song played by a youth orchestra, played on a Marimba with four mallets, and on a bandura and accordion. TIL bandura, a Ukrainian folk instrument, can replicate the coin sound effect perfectly!

🤣 Self check-out has an unexpectedly hot item in the bagging area.

🏠 This unassuming house has a Mickey Mouse-shaped portal that'll take you to your own private Disney World. It's for sale for $1.1 million, so it's almost as expensive as a trip to the amusement park for a family of four (Image: REcolorado)

🎬 Before green screen and CGI, how did old timey Hollywood movies film those trick special effect shots?

🚗 The crazy story behind the 1932 Bugatti Royale Esders involves King Zog, the self-proclaimed king of Albania who had over 600 blood feuds. This one is from our new car site Grand Blog Auto, which we'll build up over time.

🦟 This one is pretty nifty: a single pollen on top of a fly's compound eye (image: Dariusz Pawlik)

🚢 Is it the Black Pearl from Pirates of the Caribbean? This woman captured the video of a ghost ship in action.

😸 This house comes with an unexpected but cute surprise: bonus cats! How fur-tunate.

🍞 This hand painted bread by artist Rachel Ryle looks too good to eat! From our new food site TastyTastic (check it out!) Image: Rachel Ryle

❤️ The cuteness is strong with this one: 9 Cute Baby Yoda Tees and Big & Tall T-Shirts (and while we're at it, don't miss: save up to 20% on NeatoShop's sitewide special going on right now)

👕 One last link: Pros and Cons of Print on Demand with DTG from State of Tee Art. This one is shop talk, so click only if you want to know all about shirt printing.

This little skit may seem funny in a "back in my day..." way, but the way we pay for things today is altogether weird. I got used to paying for everything with a credit card because of the points, but then stores won the right to add a surcharge for their expenses, so I try to have some cash on me lately for small purchases. Most of my regular bills go to a credit card automatically, and I pay that once a month with a phone transfer from the bank. I use PayPal for mail order. My kids use debit cards and Venmo. Or at least one does; the other doesn't have any money, so it's all credit.  

I still write checks for bills where the drive-through window is close by, and for taxes. But stores either won't take checks at all, or they don't need you to fill them out at all because they just run the check through a machine and get the money transferred. It never occurred to me that a store would give up on checks because the cashiers can't read cursive. But I'm not surprised that young people don't write checks. The banks won't let you open a checking account until you're 18, and by then it's a bit late to get your parents to show you how to do it. Now I'll step down from my soap box and let you tell us how you feel. -via Nag on the Lake

Once upon a time, feature-length movies were filmed in shoots of two to six weeks, but that was back when they didn't have to worry about color, sound, focus groups, or marketing. Now movies can take years to complete. You can blame competition, audience expectations, and big budgets. But Rocky was a blockbuster zipped up in no time at all. Maybe that's because it was a story Sylvester Stallone had dreamed about for years already. You could say the same thing about a band's first album, which might contain original compositions that the band had been playing for years. The second album is not so easy. But sometimes when inspiration hits, you go with the flow and don't worry about refining, especially if you're as talented as Freddy Mercury.

A few other really successful projects came about in astonishingly short time, including architecture, video games, and one very fast mountain climber, in a pictofacts list at Cracked.

It's pretty rare these days that I wake up and realize that I've been dreaming. But just a few minutes later, all memory of the dream is gone, and I go about my daily routine. It's only the memory of remembering that lets me know I dream at all. But maybe you're one of those people who can remember dreams, and maybe you're even sometimes aware that you're dreaming before you wake up. Experiencing a dream while knowing it's a dream is called lucid dreaming, and a few people are lucky enough to be able to guide those dreams by force of will. The good news is that there are some things you can do to induce and practice lucid dreaming and your control of it. Bright Side has some tips and tricks that will help you. If you ask me, it seems to be more trouble than I want to put into it, but you do you. Even if you don't want to try it, there are a some tips for a better night's sleep toward the end of this video. -via Digg