Most folks had never heard of a dire wolf until they were featured in the TV series Game of Thrones, in which they looked suspiciously like modern dogs. But there really was a dire wolf in prehistoric North America, an extinct canid species that left skeletons behind at the La Brea tar pits. It was a formidable predator that hunted and ate prehistoric horses and camels, even though it wasn't any bigger than modern wolves. Scientists assumed the dire wolf was an ancestor to the gray wolf.

It was only recently that dire wolf DNA has been sequenced, and the results are surprising. The dire wolf is not an ancestor to the gray wolf. In fact, its closest relative is the African jackal! The most recent common ancestor of dire wolves and gray wolves existed 5.7 million years ago. The resemblance between the two species is a coincidence, or rather an example of convergent evolution. Read more about the real dire wolf at Discover magazine. -via Damn Interesting

(Image credit: Charles R. Knight)

Warning: if by any chance you haven't seen the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz or read the 1900 book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, this post and the linked article contains spoilers.

When the producers of The Wizard of Oz adapted the story for the big screen, they changed a lot of details and plot points to make them manageable for the production crew, or make them look better in color. The complex and sometimes overly scary story had to be simplified to fit into a feature film format and allow time for the songs. The one big change that was totally unnecessary and confounds today's filmmakers was the decision to make it all a dream. They supposedly did this to make the fantasy more believable to audiences. But that also cut off the possibility of the more modern practice of making sequel after sequel, which would have been easy considering L. Frank Baum had written a slew of books about Oz.

There were many changes made between the book and the film, ten of which you can read about at Mental Floss.

(Image credit: MGM)

The German Nazi Party is best known for the Holocaust and for causing World War II. Those are such enormous things, other Third Reich programs often fly under the radar. While they were busy killing Jewish people and other racial "undesirables," they were also trying to raise the birth rate of pure Aryan children. It was a multi-pronged effort.

German women who bore lots of children would be honored with swastikas in various precious metals, up to a diamond-encrusted swastika earned by one woman who bore 16 babies. These patriotic mothers were also showered with accommodations that made their lives easier. Free maternal care was offered to pregnant women regardless of marital status to dissuade them from having abortions. And young women were recruited to procreate with anonymous SS officers and give their resulting infants to the state. Of course, to take advantage of any of these programs, the parents involved would have to prove that they were of pure Aryan racial stock, going back several generations.

But the worst was the Nazi plan to just take children from territories they occupied. The children were kidnapped before their racial "purity" was determined, and those who didn't pass were not sent back home. Those who did pass the racial test were given to German families, and only a few were ever reunited with their parents after the war. Read about the horrific Lebensborn program and the children affected at Today I Found Out. 

(Image credot: Riksarkivet (National Archives of Norway))

New original Damn Interesting article/episode by @erikanesvold: In 1933, British WWI vet Maurice Wilson hatched an unorthodox plan to reach the still-untouched summit of Everest https://t.co/qnc7BShczf pic.twitter.com/WP8ALPKxdi

— Damn Interesting (@DamnInteresting) December 14, 2022

As far as we know, no human ever reached the peak of Mount Everest until 1953, when Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary scaled the summit and returned alive. The 1924 British Mount Everest expedition was the most notable attempt, when three teams of two men each attempted the last leg up. Two of the teams returned unsuccessfully, and two men died in the attempt. Maurice Wilson read of the expedition, and thought that it couldn't be that difficult; it's just a mountain. Years later, he was inspired to do something important, a grand gesture of faith, if you will. He remembered Everest and decided he would climb to the summit. The fact that he wasn't a mountain climber did not deter him.

But how would he get to Nepal? Wilson's plan was to fly. He bought a small biplane and got his pilot's license. His plan was to fly to the base of Mount Everest and then climb to the summit. He didn't think he'd really need oxygen bottles, and didn't even know what a crampon was. He never considered altitude acclimation. He didn't have proper maps or flight clearances to even get to the area. And his plane only held enough fuel to travel 740 miles between stops. In 1933, he took off on his big adventure. As you might have guessed by now, it didn't go according to plan. But Wilson managed to get to Everest anyway. Read the story of Maurice Wilson's Everest expedition at Damn Interesting. Or listen to it in podcast form.

Shiloh is an Australian shepherd and Abu is a border collie. They are both very good dogs. Or at least very patient as they get wrapped for Christmas. You can see in their eyes that they consider this a very stupid game, but they love their human so they endure it quite stoically. Why do humans put dogs through such nonsense? As far as dogs know, most of what we do is nonsense and they deal with it because they are good dogs. They don't know whether this Christmas wrapping has a bigger meaning for us or not, but it makes about as much sense to them as when humans go off to work or use a porcelain fixture to do their business. Or bring a tree in the house and put lights on it.

Both Shiloh and Abu were rescued from a neglectful owner, and were adopted by their foster mom in Nebraska. Despite the Christmas wrap, she is not parting with either of them. -via Laughing Squid

In the mid-19th century, the Windham family occupied Felbrigg Hall in the county of Norfolk in the UK. The heir to the family fortune was William Frederick Windham, an eccentric who never fit into his family's high society lifestyle. He was kicked out of Eton and spent his time riding trains and impersonating police. What could the family do about this dissolute young man? Only a couple of weeks after his father died and he inherited the family's assets, he decided he wanted to marry Agnes Willoughby.

Willoughby was personally repelled by this unkempt, socially inept boor, and she never hesitated to say so in his presence.  However, she had no compunction about selling herself when the price was right, and she knew that in this dotty train-fancier she had hit the jackpot.  She agreed to marry him—in return for fifteen hundred pounds a year and nearly twenty thousand pounds’ worth of jewelry.  The happy couple wed on August 30, 1861.  Three weeks later, the new Mrs. Windham ran off to Ireland to join her lover, the famed opera singer Antonio Giuglini, leaving her husband with a pile of bills she had rung up that amounted to nineteen thousand pounds.

Windham and Willoughby's relationship grew even more complicated after that, and involved a famous court case to determine if Windham was a lunatic, which is the focus of Wikipedia's entry on him. But Strange Company goes into more detail about Windham's love life and how it affected his finances. It is a tale both tragic and entertaining.

Christmas is a time when family and friends gather together to share the joy of the season. Or at least that's what we would like to happen. But every year, Mom gets stressed out trying to make everything perfect, Grandma lets you know what's wrong with everything, and every family has that one guy who knows everything and is determined to explain it to you. You know who these folks are because the same stuff happens every year. It's a good thing we love them. Trey Kennedy acts out all the people you don't see often, but they are always the same when you meet up with them at your Christmas family gathering.

Well, brains are certain computers, in the most basic sense of the word. They are responsible for making decisions and running programs and commands, so to speak, that will allow our bodies to move or react in a certain way. 

Our brains are capable of making decisions up to 10 seconds before we are consciously aware of them. So that part of our body is one busy bee. In fact, even experts are still puzzled by a lot of things about the central area of the nervous system. One of them is the issue of consciousness. Known to neuroscientists as the "hard problem of consciousness," which refers to the question of why it exists or what exactly it is. 

Some researchers try to answer this problem by comparing the brain to quantum mechanics. It is still not a popular idea in the field, as neuroscientists and physicists believe that our consciousness happens via classical physics, not at the small, quantum scale. Also, it’s because testing this quantum theory out requires measuring human brain activity at such small levels. Read more about brains and quantum entanglement here! 

Image credit: MART PRODUCTIONS 

How is this home still standing? 

Architecture firm Studio RAP has designed a sustainable floating home by using light materials. One look at the house called The Float, and we were left wondering how the architects made it stable on the water. 

The firm utilized cork to make the home blend in with its surroundings, which makes it looks like a cottage in a forest, except it's on water. Additionally, the company also picked timber to provide a more soft and zen atmosphere. The design for The Float was based on the idea of a house that can be a series of atmospheres that show functions of living without having a single, container-like appearance. 

The structure was built around the idea of having a small series of modules with extra panels in between them for connection. The architects decided to base their designs on Origami and folded structures. So if you’re wondering why The Float looks like a paper doll house that you can build via folding specific areas, well, there you have it. 

Learn more about the wonderful home here. 

Image credit: Studio RAP 

An item that was part of the life of one of the most prominent and iconic musicians in American history is being sold for around $100,000. Well, to be precise the bidding for the said property starts at that amount. 

The product in question is Elvis Presley’s jet, his 1962 Lockheed 1329 JetStar, also known by its call sign, “Hound Dog 2.” The jet has a lavish-looking interior, composed of red velvet upholstery and carpet, as well as its gold-finish hardware. The vintage aircraft was once the jet of choice for celebrities and CEOs in 1976. It can accommodate nine passengers and three crew members. 

The JetStar was only one of the planes in the singer’s collection of private aircraft. It joined a custom Convair 880 named “Lisa Marie” before Elvis sold it to a Saudi Arabian company. This vintage airplane was initially bought at around $840,000 (approximately  $4.4 million today). 

Mecum Auctions will be the one facilitating the auction for this aircraft. The company has hopes that someone can restore the old jet to its old glory so that Elvis fans can enjoy it in an exhibit. 

Image credit: Mecum Auctions

The quality of recent Pokemon games is a hot topic these days. Starting from the release of Sword and Shield, the Pokemon franchise’s first main series game for the Nintendo Switch, fans began pointing out their misgivings about it. 

From the cut number of Pokemon available in the game to the pacing of the story to the overall content the game provides, it’s clear that the reception was mixed. 

Nintendo has not acknowledged the fans during this period, however. But the issues were glaringly obvious when the latest installment of Pokemon Scarlet and Pokemon Violet was launched in November. These include glitches occurring in different NPCs, Pokemon, and even during battle.  

Because of the glitches and crashes found by a significant majority of its players, Nintendo has addressed this in a rare apology post. “We are aware that players may encounter issues that affect the games’ performance,” wrote Nintendo in the update’s patch notes. “Our goal is always to give players a positive experience with our games, and we apologize for the inconvenience.”

Image credit: Nintendo 

The Nintendo 64 (N64), released in 1996, was the company’s response to the rise of major home consoles such as the Sony PlayStation and the Sega Saturn. During the years of its release, over 393 games were created for the device. 

This number is quite low if we compare it to the PlayStation (around 1,100 games) and the Sega Saturn (600 games). Regardless, over 300 games is still a lot, especially if you’re planning to go down memory lane or would like to experience playing games on a retro console. 

Destructoid’s Zoey Handley, an N64 veteran, ranks their top 5 games from the console. While this list is entirely subjective, it could be a good start on what games you can pick up to play. After all, if it was something that somebody likes, it’s bound to be good, right? 

From Star Fox 64 to the cult classic The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, the writer provides some insight on each of their selection to provide merit to them. It also serves as additional commentary if these titles are unfamiliar to you. Check out the list here!

Image credit: Wikimedia commons

Every year, there are particular toys that every child seems to want for Christmas. Over time, you can track the evolution of our culture with them. Stacker has compiled a list of popular toys for every Christmas season since 1920, which gives us a century of toys. These are not necessarily the best-selling toys, since they don't have any repeats, but toys that give us a glimpse into those years. No matter your age, you will find a section that brings up memories. Maybe you played with these toys, or maybe you wanted but never got them.

I was surprised to realize that the toys I actually received as a child were "hot" 20 to 40 years earlier, like Tinker Toys and Raggedy Ann. That just tells us how iconic and universal these playthings are. I bought my own children a Radio Flyer wagon 80 years after they were "hot" (possibly because I wanted one but never got it). Now it occurs to me that my parents bought me toys that they coveted as children. And don't think that modern toys can't be iconic, as My Little Pony, Transformers, and Game Boys have been popular for decades now. -via Metafilter

By the way, one Mefite tells us that "every kid wants a Squishmallow this year."

(Image credit: The Strong National Museum of Play)

Humans have a long history of importing invasive species to places they shouldn't be, and then importing another species to eat them, after which the predatory species becomes an invasive pest. It's like that old children's rhyme that begins, "There was an old woman who swallowed a fly..." Tom Scott shows us how the Oregon Department of Agriculture is raising samurai wasps to help control the invasive brown marmorated stink bug. Is this really a good idea? Scientists struggled with the decision for so long that the wasps made their way to the US without being invited anyway, so they decided to just go with it. Will the parasitic wasps reduce the stink bugs? Will they run out of stink bugs and start eating beneficial insects? Will we have to come up with another predator to add to the chain? Only time will tell.

Despite the YouTube title, these wasps are not available to the general public just for asking.

We know some things about life in medieval times that squick us out pretty badly. Medical care was, shall we say, stuck in the Dark Ages, and people with a problem went to a barber to solve it. A growing population began to live in cities with no infrastructure for removing trash or sewage. People didn't eat with forks and rarely had adequate dishes. Everyone in the household slept in the same room and often the same bed. And how did they take care of their teeth without toothbrushes?

Some studies show that up to 90% of teeth in Western societies had some tooth decay at the turn of the 20th century, just 122 years ago. That figure is down to 30% today, which is still too high but does show the value of toothbrushes and modern dentistry. But get this- in the medieval period, archaeological evidence shows that only about 20% of teeth showed evidence of decay! Today I Found Out looks into why medieval teeth held up pretty well and how peasants cared for their choppers. They also go into the history of the overall hygiene of the period and the customs surrounding bathing and eating with one's hands.