In 1937, February 20 to be exact, composer and bandleader Raymond Scott recorded a jazzy tune called "Powerhouse." You might not recognize the name, but you know the song. Raymond Scott never wrote music for cartoons, and never even watched them, but he sold the publishing rights to his catalog to Warner Bros. Music in 1943. Carl Stalling used "Powerhouse" in 40 classic Warner Bros. cartoons. The first part of the song lent itself to frantic chase scenes, and the second half became known as "assembly line" music due to its industrial, rhythmic beat. Stalling used it any time a factory assembly line was part of a cartoon.

pic.twitter.com/YCvWCV9V2N

— Cartoon Study (@CartoonStudy) February 20, 2023

Even after Stalling, the tune that had become so familiar has been used in cartoons over and over, in The Ren & Stimpy Show, Animaniacs, The Simpsons, and even in the Cartoon Network's promotional bumpers. For the song's 86th birthday, Cartoon Brew has assembled a collection of cartoons that use "Powerhouse," plus the story of the song, and even a video of the Raymond Scott Quintet performing it in 1955. -via Kottke

Experts tell us to use up your spices within a year or so because they lose their flavor over time. Then we get this story in which saffron still smells like saffron after being underwater for 527 years!

The remains of a burned and partially buried shipwreck were first discovered in the 1960s off the coast of Sweden. In the 2000s, experts suspected it might be medieval. An archaeological survey began only in 2019, when the ship was determined to be the Gribshunden, a ship belonging to King Hans of Denmark and Norway. The ship caught fire in 1495 as it was moored off of southern Sweden, and there it has been ever since.

One of the remarkable finds inside the Gribshunden is the remains of 40 kinds of foods and particularly spices that are still recognizable after all this time. They came from near and far and were the expensive kinds of spices a king would own. Experts believe they were carried on the ship to impress Swedish authorities as Hans was on a mission to unite Sweden with Denmark and Norway under his rule. In that, he was successful, even without his flagship, although he used strong arm tactics rather than consent.   

The spices found include ginger, clove, peppercorns, dill, mustard, and caraway. The saffron mentioned above comprised 13 ounces of the spice, which costs around $50 per ounce even today, and was more expensive in medieval times. Read about the 500-year-old spice rack found aboard the Gribshunden at Smithsonian.

(Image credit: Mikael Larsson and Brendan Foley/PLOS One)

Phil Vance says that he is "an artist obsessed with process, pattern and rhythm." In his works, we read the rhythm of words, including those that are spoken, sung, and written. 

Here is Winston Churchill, a statesman, soldier, and writer. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953 thanks to his vast corpus of written works. By changing the colors of Churchill's words, Vance creates a vibrant portrait of this giant of the Twentieth Century.

This wonderfully weird video is circulating the internet. It's been attributed to the Soviet Union and it definitely has a late Soviet vibe to it. YouTuber Doktor Uzo dates it so the 1990s and, since the USSR lasted until 1991, I suppose that it's possible. But the electronic music emits an 80s feel.

Office ladies in professional clothing and heels pump up the volume and the energy with a light aerobic workout. They smile with delight at the prospect of increased rations if they keep the charade going well enough for it to become someone else's problem. Keep dancing!

-via Rebecca Baumann

🍳 Singapore Airlines spends $500 million a year to cook 50,000 in-flight meals a day, including up to 7,000 omelet dishes served in flights departing from 77 different cities around the world. How do they do it? Here's how. It's simply amazing.

🎨 The Internet saves an amazing hand-painted mural inside this home from being painted over. Go us!

🕹️ Oh, how I want to go back in time, so I can see Nintendo's SlamFest of 1999 with my own eyes.

🤣 This professor waited and waited for 40 of his students to show up to class. But they never did ... and the reason will have you laughing out loud.

This fat cat is a top-rated tourist attraction in the Polish city of Szczecin. He's rated ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐!

🔫 Watch a bullet bounce off water in ultra slow motion.

🕸️ 8 Wednesday Fan Art Tees and Big & Tall T-shirts

👕 Don't miss: Funny T-Shirt sale over at the NeatoShop. Save up to 20% on all Funny tees!

The Pope's Exorcist is a horror film based on the career of Father Gabriele Amorth, the official exorcist at the Vatican from 1986 until his death in 2016. Amorth claimed to have performed more than 50,000 exorcisms, even after rejecting 98% of the cases referred to him. The movie was adapted from Amorth's two memoirs, An Exorcist Tells His Story and An Exorcist: More Stories. It stars Russell Crowe as Amorth and Franco Nero as the pope, presumably Pope John Paul II, although he wears a beard in the movie. While it is unclear how closely the supernatural horror film follows the books, we can guess that a lot of mustard was thrown on the visuals and action scenes.  -via Digg

Marketing departments love to use the power of the internet to crowdsource decisions, but they tend to not learn from history. Or even research the history of such polls. The classic example is when a British research ship was to be named by online poll. The overwhelming favorite name was Boaty McBoatface, but they didn't give that name to the ship. However, Boaty McBoatface became an enduring meme and a metaphor for internet polls that weren't thought all the way through. Boaty McBoatface is a great name, after all. Other naming polls and crowdsourcing projects have been worse.

But every once in a while, even a joke result works out just fine.

Read 12 other instances of internet polls gone wrong in a pictofacts list at Cracked.

Ryan George (previously at Neatorama) illustrates a few things that TikTok culture has done to the internet video experience. The platform was set up to make remixing videos easy for people who've never done that before, and they've taken off with it, doing weird stuff that you'd never have predicted. The platform assumes that everyone holds their phone vertically to take videos, which they do and I still don't know why. The robotic voiceovers, the text right over what you want to see, and the out of context music can also be annoying. Also, if you watch videos at the TikTok site, you have to be really careful where your cursor is or a new video will start without notice. Also, they won't embed properly on some other platforms -like this one.

But the kids like it, and TikTok has a couple of things going for it, like that fact that the videos are shorter and way less festooned with ads compared to YouTube. Despite its length, the video is only 3:45; the rest is an ad. -via reddit

I really want this character developed into a full story--even if it lasts only one issue before the people of the city decide to kill Trolley Man.

Daniel Murrell of Danby Draws imagines a hero that you wouldn't want to summon without fully thinking through the implications. We'll need a team of ethicists to at least inform us of the consequences of our choices.

But once we have summoned Trolley Man, how do we choose a sacrifice? Random chance? Perhaps only nefarious criminals? Or should being sacrificed be the responsibility of the person who called our hero to the scene?

-via Super Punch

A letter posted to "my dear Katie" in 1916 has just arrived in Crystal Palace.Stephen Oxford, editor of the Norwood Review, said Oswald Marsh was a highly regarded stamp dealer. Written by family friend Christabel Mennell, daughter of a wealthy local tea merchant Henry Mennell. pic.twitter.com/rmWSPZ2Tm0

— The Norwood Society (@NorwoodSociety) February 16, 2023

The Royal Mail delivered a letter to the home of Finlay Glen in London. The postmark says "2 Feb 16." Was this letter from 2016 and thus a rather late delivery? No, it was much, much older. The letter dated from World War I!

The BBC reports that the letter was written by Christabel Mennell to her friend, Katie Marsh. A local history magazine titled Norwood Review tracked down information about these two women and their families.

Strictly speaking, Glen broke the law by opening a letter not addressed to him. But he's not overly concerned about criminal prosecution and has offered to give the letter to any descendants of the correspondents.

-via Instapundit

The narwhal is considered to be one of the world’s most bizarre marine mammals. For starters, it has this one tusk sticking out from the top of its skull. Some scientists compare the tusk to a jousting knight’s lance, as it can extend from six to nine feet straight from its head. 

Scientists have their own theories as to how and why these mammals developed their unicorn-like horns, but no one is sure how it evolved. Only male narwhals grow a single tusk, which can suggest that it has a function in reproduction. A possible theory is that females judge their mates by the size of their tusks, but this has not been proven. 

This unique feature has intrigued experts for so long. This is because no other animal has anything like it. According to the curator of marine mammals at the Smithsonian, Michael McGowen, the tusk is a giant tooth. “The tusk grows out the front of the narwhal’s head, protruding horizontally through the animal’s upper lip. They have no other erupted teeth except for this single tusk,” he explained.

image via wikimedia commons

Researchers from the University of Queensland discovered a type of mushroom that can magically regrow new brain cells. In new research done by Frederic Meunier and his team, they’ve found out that the edible “lion’s mane” mushrooms (Hericium erinaceus) were highly effective in helping to forge new connections within the human brain. 

These fungi have been used in traditional medicine in Asia for millennia, and their efficacy goes beyond– as proven by the lab testing done by Meunier and his team. “We wanted to scientifically determine their potential effect on brain cells,” the scientist explained. His team initially did the test to determine if the hype around the fungi were real or just folklore. 

The initial phase of their research found them on a more positive side in regards to the mushroom’s efficacy. “Pre-clinical testing found the lion’s mane mushroom had a significant impact on the growth of brain cells and improving memory,” Meunier stated. Further testing will be done to fully determine just how beneficial these mushrooms would be on the human body. 

Regardless, the scientists behind the new study believe that these lion mushrooms hold promise for treating brain injury, Alzheimer’s disease, and other brain conditions. 

Image credit: wikimedia commons

Okay, we know how this sounds. It’s kind of stupid. But, it also sort of makes sense. Especially if you’re the type of person to easily forget something, especially if you get easily distracted or overwhelmed while traveling. 

A flight attendant and TikTok creator shared her simple hack that allows people to not forget their essentials while traveling (especially if they’re in a rush). In a video, @esthersturrus suggests using the hotel’s safe as a place to put your essentials in. To not forget what’s inside, she puts one of her shoes in the safe. “Worried about forgetting something from your locker?” Esther wrote in the caption of the viral video. “Put your heel/shoes in it and you won’t forget it!” 

It makes sense, doesn’t it? Since we won’t forget the other pair of our shoes, by extension, we also won’t leave other items stored along it. We’re not sure however if there are any suggestions on what to do if your shoes are too dirty to be stored in a safe. Our recommendation would be to always keep a checklist of your belongings before leaving your hotel room!

Image credit: wikimedia commons 

It’s not all secretive as it seems to be, unfortunately. 

We all use the browsing mode if we want our history to be untracked, not recorded on our computers. The incognito mode functions essentially like a new computer– no cookies to help your browser, no recorded logins, and passwords. You will have to input all of your details all over again. When you exit the mode and open it again, it won’t save any of your past sessions at all. 

In your computer, there’s no recorded trace of all the open tabs and activities in your incognito browser. However, if you ask the question of whether you’re not tracked in this mode, well… not exactly. See, your computer has to connect to the Internet. For it to do so, it has to go through your router— which monitors all web addresses you visit. 

Additionally, your digital footprints will still be all over the Web when you’re using incognito. This is because the website you’ve visited will be able to identify you, and your activities will be tracked. Even if you’re not logging into any site while in this mode, you are still tracked via your computer’s IP address. 

If you want to hide your tracks, the best way so far is to use a virtual private network (VPN). This is because it will encrypt your connection and hide your IP address. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Check this piece on Science Focus to learn how to have a more private browsing session on the Internet!

Image credit: Nothing Ahead/Pexels 

It looks like Florida’s raking in the positions on this list. In a travel survey done nationwide, people have put their bets in the deadliest bodies of water in America. Out of all the ten entries, seven of them can be found in Florida. 

These include New Smyrna Beach (ranked 1st), Cocoa Beach (ranked 2nd), Ormond Beach (ranked 3rd), Panama City Beach (ranked 4th), Melbourne Beach (ranked 6th), Jacksonville Beach (ranked 7th), and Fort Lauderdale (ranked 10th). 

As to why these places made it in the rankings, the survey took note of shark attacks, surf fatalities, and hurricanes. For example, Fort Lauderdale actually had three instances of surf fatalities, and two shark attacks. It also got hit by 120 hurricanes from 1851 to 2020. Learn more about the survey here. 

Image credit: Gagan Kaur