The image above is of Thomas Edison looking at an x-ray image of the hand of his employee Clarence Madison Dally, taken in 1896. It was just a year earlier that Wilhelm Roentgen had announced his discovery of x-rays, and the world was going crazy over them. Edison had followed Roentgen's research, and was particularly interested in using such radiation to develop a fluorescent lamp. He enlisted Dally, a talented glassblower in his company, to work on the project.

Dally enthusiastically experimented with x-rays toward developing a working fluorescent lamp, directing the rays onto his hand until it began to stiffen. So he switched to his other hand. Scientists had speculated on the unknown effects of x-ray radiation on the human body, but had no data at the time. Dally's physical problems grew worse over time, with horrific effects. His ultimate demise was so painful and gruesome that it put Edison off the idea of fluorescent lamps forever. Read the sad story of Clarence Madison Dally at Amusing Planet.

(Image source: Wellcome Collection)

The Drolatic Dreams of Pantagruel was a book published in France in 1565 with no text. It contains 120 woodcut illustrations with no artist mentioned. The "author" is Richard Breton, who only wrote a preface and did not create the illustrations. The artist is unknown to this day. YouTuber hochelaga refers to these illustrations as "demon doodles." The grotesque drawings remind us of what middle school students draw when they are bored in class. In this video, we learn some of the hypothetical inspirations for the fantasy creatures in the amusing illustrations. We'd never figure out on our own that at least some of these are akin to political cartoons, because we'd have to be medieval scholars to know what was going on at the time. The narrator doesn't know the meaning behind all of them, but the ones he tells us about are fascinating. -via Metafilter

There have been not one but two scientific papers that describe scans of a man's nether regions that show haunting faces in places where they shouldn't be. A case study published in 1996 concerned a 45-year-old Welshman who was referred for an undescended testicle. The description reads, "the left side of the scrotum seemed to be occupied by a screaming ghost-like apparition."

Another case from 2011 revealed a face in a painfully-inflamed scrotum belonging to a 45-year-old Canadian man. The face looks as if it were also experiencing pain. You can see those faces in the provided links. Neither article notes the reaction of the patient, but we can imagine they were disturbed by the images.

Both are, of course, cases of pareidolia, or the tendency to see faces in odd places. This phenomenon is explained in detail at Cracked, which gave them a reason to talk about haunted scrotums.  

As US troops sailed off for Europe during World War II, their families back home were eager to send letters and packages, but delivering that mail was difficult, and by the beginning of 1945, there were six airplane hangars full of mail in England, millions of pieces that were waiting to be sorted, including Christmas packages that were delayed by the Battle of the Bulge. By then, the packages were being eaten by rats. Other nations had similar backups of mail that had been in limbo for up to two years. The US responded by sending in the the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion.

The Six Triple Eight, as they were called, were 800 members of the Women's Army Corps, who had volunteered years earlier and had been performing support work. They became the first Black women ever sent overseas by the US military. The battalion was led by 26-year-old Major Charity Edna Adams, shown being served in the image above. They worked 24 hours a day and sorted, censored, repackaged, and distributed that mail in three months, and were then sent to newly-liberated France to do the same.

The women of the Six Triple Eight came home after the war and were mostly ignored. The six surviving members are now over a hundred years old. But their deeds began to be recognized in the 21st century with a monument at Fort Leavenworth, a Congressional Gold Medal, and a documentary. Read about the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion and their adventures in Europe in their own words at Smithsonian. 

(Image credit: United States Army Signal Corps)

How many things can possibly go wrong with a movie? You might be surprised. In the pantheon of "movies that are so bad, they're good," The Room reigns supreme, but that's principally because of Tommy Wiseau's self-casting as the lead. In the case of the 2011 movie Love on a Leash, there are so many aspects of filmmaking that went wrong that the finished product is a full-blown train wreck. Yes, it's a bad film, and you don't want to spend an hour and a half watching it, but you do want to spend 20 minutes learning about what went on to cause this disaster to happen.

Love on a Leash is about a guy who is a dog during the day and a man at night, who falls in love with a woman who takes him home. Does that make sense? Good, because nothing else in the movie does.

The guys from Bloodbath TV break down everything wrong with Love on a Leash from the flawed and somewhat disturbing premise to the confusing editing to the incomprehensible symbolism to the soundtrack (or lack thereof). You have to wonder if the director was completely oblivious to the movie's problems, or just blew them off because it would be too much trouble to fix anything. Love on a Leash might be a wreck, but this critique is interesting and quite funny. -via Metafilter

La Ruetta, which Google Translate is rendering as "The Wheel" is a road in Civitella del Tronto, Teramo, Italy. Measuring under 16 inches across, it's the narrowest road in Italy.

Metaphorically. We wish these websites can grant us some cool powers we can use to make our lives flashier or easier. Despite being mundane and non-magical (in a fantastical sense), these platforms can still add a lot of convenience to our daily tasks. 

A Tweet from writer Gurwinder Bhogal shared a couple of platforms that can help you in your tasks, from fixing your bad writing to assisting with your dinner, these suggestions are meant for making our lives easier without spending much money. 

Out of all the websites he listed, our favorite was myfridgefood.com. All you need to do here is to list what’s in your fridge, and the website will give you recipes that uses what you have. This is great when you have no idea what to cook for a meal! 

Check out his original Tweet below, or Jellica Stillman’s recap on all of them here.

Image credit: cottonbro studio/Pexels

There are over a billion websites on the internet, yet most people never use more than a dozen.

Here are 10 little-known websites that give you superpowers.

Thread:

— Gurwinder (@G_S_Bhogal) December 22, 2022

London tour guide and author Jack Chester was just visiting London Bridge when he discovered some remnants of the previous wars. He spotted two uprooted bollards, which looked totally alright to be there at first glance– because they are used for mooring boats. However, upon inspection, he discovered that they were “sneakily disguised, recycled, upended cannon barrels.”

The cannons were dug out of the ground in the footage he uploaded online. According to Chester, these cannons were actually repurposed into moors. “Upended cannons were used as mooring posts and bollards in the city for centuries, as a convenient way of repurposing old cannons,” he explained in another video.

Well, now at least we know what other countries do to their old cannons! 

Image screenshot via The Independent

Now, this person just really got a good find. A man was reported to have bought a chandelier that looks like the work of Swiss sculptor and painter Giacometti for only £250 ($309). The lucky finder was British painter John Craxton, who found the art piece during the 1960s.

As to why it is being sold just right now, his estate decide to sell the work, more than a decade after his death. 

The artist was known for his elongated figure sculptures and his unique pieces that were inspired and influenced by the Surrealism art movement. The chandelier, with its bronze and golden-brown patina, is measured to be 53 inches tall and 60 inches wide.

Christie’s estimate is that the fixture will be sold for around $1.9 million-$3.7 million in their February 28 auction. 

Image credit: Christie’s  

The first trailer for the DC movie The Flash dropped during the Super Bowl broadcast. The film finished production in 2021, but was was delayed because of lead actor Ezra Miller's year of bad behavior, and is now scheduled for a summer release. The Flash is all about time travel, and explores the commonly-discussed paradox of meeting your past self, which happens to the Flash's alter ego Barry Allen. Also the paradox of changing the past big time and ruining everything, which is the main plot. But the real hook in this trailer is the return of Michael Keaton as Batman. I am not making this up. In fact, there are two Batmans, the other played by Ben Affleck, as well as two Flashes. And, of course, a whole bunch of other superheroes and supervillains. The Flash will arrive in theaters on June 16.

DeviantArt member Alexey, a woodcarver in Kiev, Ukraine, seems to call forth his art from the web of narrative that lies beneath and links together ancient and modern cultures. That's why I'm choosing to describe his work as mythopoetic. This pipe depicts Veles, a central figure in Slavic mythology.

My yard borders on a flowing body of water that's named a creek, but it's bigger than many that are named rivers. The name goes back a couple hundred years, and no one is bothered by it. But sometimes the definition of a geographical feature is important. The 1995 movie The Englishman who Went up a Hill but Came Down a Mountain had to do with a strict definition of what a "mountain" is, which enraged the residents of a Welsh village because they were proud of their mountain. The moral of the story is that strict definitions can make a mountain out of a molehill, so to speak. Throw in the different definitions of "mountain" in different parts of the world, and it becomes clear that no one definition will do. Many agencies have definitions that are pretty broad and have the word "or" several times.

This distinction can be silly, or it can have serious political implications, such as the difference between a lake and a sea. Both are bodies of water surrounded by land, but in the case of the Caspian Sea, the distinction makes a big difference in how the sea's jurisdiction is divided between the five countries that surround it. Read about the difficulties of these definitions and the controversies surrounding them at Today I Found Out.

This photo isn't flipped. You are looking at it correctly. This fig tree is actually upside-down and it grew that way!

Atlas Obscura tells us that near the Italian coast town of Bacoli are ruins from the ancient Roman resort town of Baia. Throughout the centuries, several Roman emperors had vacation villas there, including Nero. This tree grows under an archway of a villa thought to be owned by Nero.

The origin of the tree is uncertain, but tourists flock to see it as it blooms and fades, each year. You can find it at the Parco Archeologico delle Terme di Baia.

-via Oddity Central | Photo: /u/AsterUwu

No, I'm not referring to that gentle, romantic ballad by Aerosmith. This is an older and true story set during World War II. Paul Wilson shares the story of how he met the love of his life while she was working as an elevator operator in Wichita, Kansas. It's a sweet How I Met Your Mother story that he tells his daughter.

The recording is part of an interview conducted as part of NPR's StoryCorps project. This ongoing enterprise encourages people to interview each other, especially older friends and relatives, and share those stories. StoryCorps has excellent resources to help you participate so that we can document the lives of people dear to us.

-via Laughing Squid

Super Bowl Sunday is peculiar American holiday that celebrates the confluence of an advertising showcase, a concert, a smörgåsbord of snack foods, and a football game. Since you can select the aspects of the celebration that appeal to you, there's something for everyone. To get you into the proper mood, how about reliving some Super Bowl productions of the past? No, not sports replays, but the many skits dealing with the Super Bowl from Saturday Night Live.

The website If it's hip, it's here collected the 15 best SNL skits dedicated to the Super Bowl and posted them together for your entertainment. They range from a 1982 sketch featuring Eddie Murphy and the late John Madden to a fake ad aired just last week with Pedro Pascal. Since there was no SNL last night, it will not only get you in the right frame of mind for the game, but also give Saturday Night Live fans their weekly fix. -via Nag on the Lake