David Bingham writes about cemeteries and the stories behind the people buried in them at the blog The London Dead. He admits he usually skips the more recent gravestones, as he prefers to dig up history, so to speak. But during one visit to Highgate East Cemetery in London, where relatively wealthy people are buried, Bingham noticed an intriguing headstone for a woman who died in 2019. It said, "This is life." That's a definite head scratcher. So he looked at others and found that the way many people want to be remembered (or really were remembered by the person who ordered the stone) were stories in themselves. Sally Hunter, who died in 2015, has a grave marker saying "LAWYER should have been a marine biologist". He hunted down the stories behind that and other epitaphs, such as the man who had five words describing his life, including "nudist," but couldn't find out anything at all about the man buried under the gravestone you see here. -via Strange Company
Nobody’s gonna pick on the band kids any more!
— Nathan Pryor (@nathanpryor) April 23, 2021
I built my buddy a chainsaw clarinet, combining his two passions into one ridiculous multi-tool: the Clarisaw! Or would that be the Chaininet? pic.twitter.com/PQ0ibZiw7o
Nathan Pryor comes from a "DIY family" and grew up making things, many of which are useful. The chainsaw clarinet is certainly one of those for the times in life when one desires to make music, but also clear away brush and cut up firewood.
Pryor made the instrument for a friend who is a professional clarinetist in a symphony orchestra, as well as the owner of a wood milling business. The saw is an adapted angle grinder powered by a battery and a motor from a drill.
This is as close to an example of why we exist as you can probably get.
— US Consumer Product Safety Commission (@USCPSC) October 12, 2022
Pryor's invention has gathered the strong approval of the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, a US federal agency responsible for ensuring that unsafe commercial products stay out of the hands of consumers.
Amazing walnut carvings.. 👌 pic.twitter.com/H8YbOjqOe2
— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) October 14, 2022
These dioramas are attributed to xiujun1314, a user of Douyin, a Chinese-language social network that I gather is identical to TikTok. The artist hollows out walnut halves with a craft knife and adds miniature hinges to allow them to easily open and close. Tiny homes exist inside. They're cozy due to space limitations, but full of useful furniture and homey decorations. Lights provide illumination for those cold nights when you want to crawl inside your shell and shut out the world.
And perhaps the rent is, at least temporarily, affordable.
King Tut, who ruled Egypt over 3,000 years ago, captured America's imagination in the 1970s when the exhibit called The Treasures of Tutankhamun toured the US and showed off the golden artifacts he was buried with. The impression we've had ever since was that King Tut lived a glorious life of immeasurable wealth. While he was a wealthy king, he suffered from birth defects and poor health, then died while most likely still in his teens.
The tomb of Tutankhamun was discovered in 1922. His embalmed remains got their first x-rays in 1968. A full CT scan of his body was performed in 2006. They reveal that Tut suffered a cleft palate and a club foot, possibly due to generations of inbreeding. He also had malaria and a broken leg. An article at Mental Floss looks at the speculation on what his cause of death may have been, and there are plenty of possibilities.
(Image credit: EditorfromMars)
'Dead Men's Bones' cookies are just one way that the island nation remembers the dead. Check out the recipe here.https://t.co/KrD4Fmkgce
— Atlas Obscura (@atlasobscura) October 12, 2022
Malta, the island nation in the Mediterranean, marks November as the Month of the Dead. One of the traditions associated with the Month of the Dead is a cookie called Għadam tal-mejtin, which translates to Dead Man's Bones. Thanks to the influence of Halloween, these cookies start showing up in Maltese bakeries in late October.
They are more than bone-shaped. The outer layer is a sweet vanilla cookie with a consistency that you're used to in regular shortbread cookies. Inside, however, is the "marrow." It is a chewy yet crumbly dough made of almond flour with spices like cardamom and cloves. The baked cookie is often decorated with icing. Għadam tal-mejtin is more than a treat; it serves as a memento mori, a reminder that we are all destined to die one day. That reminder spurs people to remember and honor those that have gone on before them.
That said, who wouldn't want to try one of these cookies? You'll find the story of Għadam tal-mejtin, plus a recipe so that you can make your own, at Atlas Obscura.
When the time comes when we are alerted of an asteroid approaching our planet, what can we do to defend Earth? Is it possible to alter the course of that celestial body? It may very well be possible, it turns out.
NASA has been thinking of methods to defend against near-Earth objects (NEOs) for a long time. Recently, the agency sent one of its missions to space. The mission, called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), had a straightforward objective: to crash into Dimorphos (the minor-planet moon of the asteroid Didymos) in hopes of altering its course.
On September 27, 2022, the DART spacecraft successfully collided with Dimorphos. The spacecraft wasn't even able to send its last photo completely back to NASA. But did the attempt work? Yes, it did. It was a smashing success.
A few days ago, on October 11, NASA announced that they were able to shorten the orbit of the Dimorphos asteroid by 32 minutes, which surpassed NASA's humble goal of only 72 seconds.
Should an asteroid be reported to be approaching Earth, humanity may have a chance of deflecting it.
(Image Credit: NASA/ Johns Hopkins APL)
It's October again, which means the time for spooks is here. Spooky, weird, and bizarre stories. Spooky-themed events. You name it. And if you want to read strange stories, let me introduce you to the Cult of Weird Twitter account.
As its name suggests, this account is for the weird, and you should always expect that in the account's tweets — to be weird. Some can give chills. Some are humorous. And there are some that are straight-up horrifying.
Bored Panda has compiled 30 of "uneasy but captivating pics" from the Cult of Weird, but if you want to satisfy your appetite for the spooky, you can always visit the Twitter account on your own.
(Image Credit: Cult of Weird via Bored Panda)
Recently, the home security company Ring (owned by retail giant Amazon) gave law enforcement access to real-time home surveillance footage through the numerous Ring products installed in homes. While this might be good for monitoring neighborhood activities and potential crimes, this is privacy abuse.
This is not the first time the company disregarded the safety and privacy of its customers. And some have already grown tired of Ring's antics that they began building alternatives to the brand. And it seems these perform better than this mainstream home surveillance system.
Of course, doing the alternative may require "a little extra work," but it is worth the trouble to those who value their privacy.
The alternatives require third-party cameras, NAS (Network Attached Storage) devices, or dedicated NVRs (Network Video Recorders).
And, if you want to take things up a notch, you can embed AI technologies into the NVRs, making your DIY surveillance system on par with Amazon's human detection features. These DIY systems may also outperform Ring, apparently. One user reported having 10 false positive notifications with Ring cameras to only having around 2 or 3 when he decided to go DIY.
But the best thing about creating a homegrown system is that all footage is recorded locally on one's own hardware.
While doing this requires some technical skills, there are helpful resources out there in the form of subreddits (like r/selfhosted or r/homesecurity) and tutorials.
(Image Credit: Frigate)
If you grew up or currently living in Canada or the northern part of America, you've probably heard of the giant monster of the pine forests that "eats people, especially children" — the terrifying Wendigo. Over the centuries, there have been multiple versions of the Wendigo. But how did the legend begin?
According to the Ojibwe People's Dictionary, the Wendigo legend began as a towering "winter cannibal monster" who was always hungry for human flesh. The creature was a metaphor for ice, hunger, cold, death, despondence, and desperation.
The Wendigo went beyond metaphor, however. It became an idea. It is believed that those who put their survival needs over others, and are tempted to, or even do, eat human flesh, can "go wendigo." They will be possessed by the monster's spirit, and their hearts and spines will be encased in ice. The idea of "going wendigo" probably warned people not to be selfish and to consider others, especially in a community located in a harsh environment.
Today, pop culture depicts the Wendigo as this ghostly winter spirit who appears as a humanoid deer with a deer or elk skull as its head. While the scare factor of the Wendigo is significantly toned down, it still is a frightening sight to encounter at night.
(Image Credit: Victoria Ellis/ Atlas Obscura)
Last month, staff from the Millstone Wildlife Center in New Hampshire answered the call of a crying baby bobcat who had been abandoned by its mom. The kitten was assessed to be only about 6 weeks old. Thankfully, she was found to be in good health. Physically, at least. It is without saying that the kitten would be emotionally devastated by its recent experience.
To make things a little better for the bobcat, her rescuers contacted Spicy Cats, a recently established rescue and rehabilitation organization for feral cats. The group gave the bobcat to one of their resident cats named Honeybun, who they describe as "very maternal and patient."
Honeybun has raised several kittens that were not her own. However, this would be her first time raising a wild kitten. The president of Spicy Cats, Caroline, told The Dodo that "it was a bit of a gamble."
Thankfully, their gamble paid off. Honeybun and the bobcat "are doing so great together."
However, as Honeybun is not a bobcat, her role in raising the kitten will only be temporary. The kitten will then be placed under the care of another bobcat back at the Millstone Wildlife Center.
The center hopes she can be released successfully in spring.
(Image Credit: Spicy Cats via The Dodo)
Tourists captured the action in Kruger National Park when a honey badger found himself surrounded by three leopards. But you know honey badgers don't care. This one is not even trying to get away. He'll show those leopards a thing or two!
Two of these leopards are pretty young. They found the honey badger, and had some idea that they would make their mom proud with a kill. Then their mom joined in to supervise. Mom probably figured it would be a good lesson for those two young 'uns to find out what a honey badger is all about. As the badger walks away, you can imagine it saying, "and don't make me come back!" That will teach them to take on the world's most fearless animal! -via Metafilter
The 2022 winners in the Nikon Small World microphotography competition have been unveiled. The first place winner is the photo above by Grigorii Timin and Dr. Michel Milinkovitch of the University of Geneva. This little hand belongs to an embryo developing into a Madagascar giant day gecko. The gecko embryo was stained with fluorescent dye and the image was made by stitching together multiple high-resolution microscopic images. The whole hand is about three millimeters long. Unless you call it a foot, but even then it's only three millimeters long.
Second place went to Dr. Caleb Dawson of the The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne for this image of "breast tissue showing contractile myoepithelial cells wrapped around milk-producing alveoli."
The third place winner is the above image of the blood vessels inside a mouse's intestines. Satu Paavonsalo and Dr. Sinem Karaman of the University of Helsinki managed to make them pretty.
See all the top winners in this gallery, along with other galleries for Honorable Mentions and Images of Distinction.
The excitement is growing during the annual Fat Bear Week tournament. On Sunday, a semifinal matchup between two previous champions, Holly 435 and Bear 747, ended in what seemed like a victory for Holly. However, those administering the tournament thought something smelled fishy, and it wasn't all that salmon that the brown bears of Katmai National Park have been eating all summer.
It appears someone has decided to spam the Fat Bear Week poll, but fortunately it is easy for us to tell which votes are fraudulent. We have discarded the fake votes and today’s official totals are:
— Katmai National Park (@KatmaiNPS) October 10, 2022
747: 37,940
435: 30,430
The tournament bracket was adjusted, and Bear 747, who is as big as a 747, advanced to the final round. He's so big that he's been referred to as Bear Force One by fans. Jezebel laments the decline of fairness when even Fat Bear Week can be corrupted by cheaters. But they are even more offended that in the first eight years of the tournament, only four bears have won the tournament, despite Katmai National Park being the home of 2,200 bears. Well duh, some bears are just naturally talented at putting on weight.
The championship round is today, and voting is open until 9PM Eastern and 6PM Pacific. Cast your vote here for either Bear Force One 747 or Bear 901. Both are extremely fat now. -via Fark
Update: Bear 747, aka Bear Force One, has won the title of fattest bear!
(Image credit: National Park Service)
Back when the camera had no colors, people created illustrations to relay information and their knowledge. These illustrations were vibrant and full of tiny details. These were, in their own right, masterpieces. And because these illustrations were intricate, it was a gold mine of knowledge. Just look at this 1877 illustration of the male sagittal section. The labeled parts are also not to be missed.
We still use illustrations today as much as we used them in the past. And they are still as valuable as they used to be.
In honor of the huge contributions of illustrations to the field of science, the publishing company Taschen compiled over 300 charts, graphs, and modern-day renderings into one book. The book, titled "Science Illustration: A History of Visual Knowledge from the 15th Century to Today", consists of 436 pages, and contains Isaac Newton's law of gravitation, a spectra of stars and nebulae, how anaesthesia was administered before, and many more illustrations.
(Image Credit: US National Library of Medicine/ Taschen)
Artist Tsuyoshi Hisakado just had a new solo exhibition after four long years. His recent event was presented at Ota Fine Arts in Tokyo, and one of the works he showcased is this panel of multiple frames called "River."
From afar, Hisakado's work looks chaotic, with the bunch of lines and the small circle near the center of the work. However, all fall into place once you approach the circle. As you move closer towards the shape, you notice that the lines are paper torn apart. Moving even closer, you notice that the the artwork does not actually have a grey background; the whole work is full of numbers. The numbers of the mathematical constant pi, to be specific. And those numbers begin at the once "small circle," which you realize is just empty space.
Hisakado's works always highlight the laws of nature and the universe — things that we can't wrap our mind with and beyond our understanding.
(Image Credit: Spoon & Tamago)
