🐱 Cat photos on the Internet are nothing new, but this cat pic is SO old that it's actually quite remarkable. The daguerreotype above titled "Cat drinking from a bowl" is dated from 1840 to 1861, making it the earliest known photo of a cat. See more at: World's Oldest Photos of Pets.

🚀 Psst, wanna buy an Atlas missile silo for cheap? Sadly, missiles are not included.

❤️ For Valentine's Day, give your loved one a love sausage (What? What did you think we were talking about?)

🎬 In China, the ending of the movie Fight Club was changed so the authorities win.

🚢 Love The Love Boat? Here's the ultimate Love Boat Intro with 901 celebrity guest stars. See if you recognize them.

👑 Which would you rather be, a landlord or a king? How about both? You can now apply to be the landlord-king of a remote English island of Piel (plus, you get to run a pub so you practically have unlimited power over people).

More neat posts over at our new sites: Pictojam, Supa Fluffy, Pop Culturista, and Homes & Hues.

Image: Houghton Library/Harvard University

Featured art: Legend of the Rebel by indie artist glitchygorilla

Current NeatoShop special: Save up to 20% on all Sci-Fi T-Shirts, Fantasy Tees, and Horror T-Shirts.

Until recently, scientists thought that Arctic hares traveled up to 22 miles in their lifetimes. But in 2018, a young female hare was tagged near Alert, Nunavut, and named BBYY. The name comes from the colors of her tags: blue, blue, yellow, yellow. That and the tracking device around her neck -plus the white fur- make her look like she's ready for a night out on the town.

The dozens of hares tagged in this study showed that Arctic hares travel much further than other lagomorphs, but BBYY still turned out to be an outlier. She traveled more than 240 miles in one 49-day period! Small herbivores just don't do that. Wildlife biologist Sandra Lai led the study tracking the hares.

Lai had previously done research on Arctic foxes, but had come to Alert with colleagues to track, for the first time ever, the movements of individual Arctic hares. Nearly four years later, Lai still grins recalling her first meeting with BBYY. “She is very special to me,” Lai says.

While BBYY's travels may be a record for her species, the research hints at how animals are adapting to changing environmental conditions. Read about the research project that put one hare in the spotlight at Atlas Obscura.

(Image credit: Charline Couchoux)

Today is the Lunar New Year, and in China that means we are welcoming in the year of the tiger. In honor of the occasion, Jessica Leigh Clark-Bojin, known as the thepieous (previously at Neatorama), baked a cherry pomegranate pie with a tiger on top! Isn't it gorgeous?

But notice the Instagram photo is a gallery. Click to the right and see how this crust was made. Clark-Bojin begins by making a template, then cuts the crust dough to fit, separately from the rest of the pie. She sculpts the tiger, adding layers as needed. The flowers (made with a cookie cutter) are added, then she paints the tiger with food coloring. The top crust isn't added to the pie until it is perfect, and then it is baked. And finally... she cuts a piece out of it to eat. This is always the heartbreaking part of Clark-Bojin's masterpieces, but when you are this talented, you can always make another pie. And who can resist a piece of cherry pomegranate pie? -via reddit

It was just announced yesterday that Wordle has been purchased by The New York Times. If you aren't familiar, Wordle is a word puzzle with a new word available every day, and it has taken the Internet by storm.

As one might expect, it is inspiring other word-based games to be unleashed on the world. One such game is Phrasle. Instead of a five-letter word, every day Phrasle provides a different phrase for you to solve by guessing one letter at a time.

If you enjoy word puzzles and guessing games, you should enjoy this!

It sounds like the beginning of a joke: "Ten German scientists walk into a bar..." But instead, they walked into a house, and not by their own choice. In July of 1945, when Allied forces were working their way across Germany, ten of Germany's most prominent scientists were arrested and taken to Farm Hall in Godmanchester, UK. They were all suspected of working on Germany's nuclear weapons program. But instead of being interrogated or prosecuted, they were mostly left to their own devices during their six-month internment. However, the house was riddled with listening devices. The theory was that the ten would not be able to resist discussing their research, which would inform British intelligence about the progress of Germany's quest to develop nuclear bombs.

The ten included Werner Heisenberg, Otto Hahn, Karl Wirtz, and others you may be familiar with. The plan turned out to be quite beneficial, because there was little else for the men to do besides talk. While they had differing views on the war and the ethics of nuclear weapons, they couldn't help but discuss the science. A month into their incarceration, the internees heard the news that the Americans had dropped the world's first nuclear bombs on Japan. They were astonished, as they believed such weapons were years away from viability. Read about the ten German scientists locked up together and what happened to them afterward at Amusing Planet.

We librarians value patron recommendations for collection acquisitions. These usually come in the form of suggestions verbally presented to us. But 8-year old Dillon Helbig, a patron of the Lake Hazel Branch of the Ada Community Libraries of Boise, Idaho, took a more assertive approach to contributing to his local library. 

Last December, Dillon wrote and illustrated an 81-page graphic novel in a blank notebook. Titling it Dillion Helbig's Crismis Adventure, he snuck it into the library and slipped it onto a shelf in the children's area.

Library workers discovered the book and thoroughly enjoyed it. Branch manager Alex Hartman read it to his 6-year old child, who found it, the Washington Post reports, "one of the funniest books he'd ever known."

So, with Dillon's permission, the library staff added it to their collection as a circulating book. It's become so popular among patrons that there is a 55-person waitlist for Dillon's novel about the star on a Christmas tree that explodes, catapulting the young boy through space and time.

This is the sort of demand that would normally lead a library to purchase additional copies. But as it is a one-of-a-kind item, we will have to wait until The Adventure of Dillion Helbig's Crismis is available as an ebook.

-via Jessamyn West | Photo: Ada Community Libraries

😮 This is mesmerizing: Domino master Lily Hevesh built a giant hexagonal tower out of 13,000 dominoes ... and of course, sent it toppling down after spending over 52 days of painstaking build.

💰 The world's #1 Smartest Multi-Billionaire Superhero Orphan without any superpower is ... not who you'd expect.

😻 Cat stays faithful to his true love, a cardboard box shredded to pieces.

🕷️ Oldie but goodie: Coastal peacock spider dancing to Y.M.C.A.

🧀 This Scream movie-inspired cheese and fruit platter is brie-lliant.

🚚 Don't like big semi-trailer trucks hogging the road? This grumpy trucker has a message for you.

🏠 No need to squint to see the street address numbers on this house. They're two feet tall!

🎨 What would famous logos look like in the Middle Ages? Behold, Medieval Branding by graphic artist Ilya Stallone.

More from our new sites: Pictojam, Homes & Hues, Laughosaurus, Pop Culturista, Supa Fluffy, and SpookyDaily.

My father was a geologist. When Interstate 75 was being built through Kentucky, a lot of hills had to be cut through, and Dad would often stop and take a look at the layers of earth and rock those cuts exposed, including layers that aren't horizontal due to tectonic uplift. I don't know if everyone else is as familiar with rock layers and geologic time as I was as a child, but most of us understand the concept somewhat.

At Siccar Point in Scotland, the layers are completely different. In the area called Hutton's Unconformity, the older layers are on their side, while others just above are horizontal. This changed the science of geology in 1788, when James Hutton studied these layers. Tom Scott takes us there and explains.    

Sesame Street has been around for 50 years. Its success has been attributed to the fact that it was designed by researchers in early childhood education, and the fact that the main characters for that entire time have been the Muppets. It's a formula that works, but great care has to be taken to ensure that the show and the Muppet characters stay consistent for all those years. A Sesame Street employee lets us in on some of the rules of the road for Sesame Street that he's picked up on over a couple of years. To illustrate, he gives us theoretical Sesame Street scenes and then tells us why it would never happen. The rules not only pertain to the Muppets, but also the preschool audience the show is serving.

Goodbyes are always tricky. In kids’ media, it’s no different.

At Sesame Street, the rule of thumb is to never say a full “goodbye.” A goodbye could leave kids at home panicking that they’ll never see their furry on-screen friends again.

To avoid this, we use phrases like “See you next time!” or “That was so much fun today! I hope you’ll join us again soon.” This way, no kids have to freak out.

Read the various scenarios and what rules they would be breaking at Cracked.

The 255th Rule of Acquisition says that "A wife is a luxury; a good accountant a necessity." Managing your business enterprises requires prudent, detailed attention. This is even more true for "legitimate businessmen" who work in organizations unfairly maligned as mafia families.

Crime bosses hire accountants. Are those accountants actually skilled at their work? Pietro A. Bianchi and his colleagues, all professors of accounting at various universities, conducted a study of accountants who, due to criminal records, are associated with criminal organizations in Italy.

Their peer-reviewed paper, published last November, affirms that, in general, financial statements compiled by these accountants of dubious employment are of superior quality to those of a control group of accountants who lack such criminal connections.

-via Marginal Revolution | Photo: Paramount

The Star Wars universe is well known for ridiculous alien design. The idea was that different sentient creatures in a galaxy far, far away would not all look like humans... but that idea clashed with what was possible with the special effects technology of the day. In the original 1977 Star Wars, we were astonished by the aliens at the cantina. Each movie afterward introduced more weird alien types. But as there was a limit to what can be done, there was also a limit to what the audience will buy. The story of the Lightman, or the Lightbulb Man, was the limit. He was a character in Return of the Jedi tested in 1982. The Lightman was covered in light bulbs.

According to Uproxx, the character was cut because it just looked so funny and not at all believable. But according to a much earlier article at Star Wars Aficianado, the idea was to cover the light bulbs with effects from Industrial Light & Magic to make him a luminescent alien of sorts. The reason for dropping the character was because it slowed down the pacing of the scene. So which is right, and why was the Lightman cut from the movie? Let's ask Phil Tippett, who was the visual effects supervisor on Return of the Jedi. He was there.

Looked just like that.

Everyone laughed.

Never got shot. https://t.co/4LkxvbWCDO

— Phil Tippett (@PhilTippett) January 25, 2022

I guess that's the real answer. Star Wars fans will accept some ridiculous alien designs, but with the Lightman, the production found an uncrossable line. Too bad they didn't have LEDs at the time. -via Mental Floss

Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) are great tools for protecting sensitive or personal information online. These programs hide internet activity from prying eyes. This feature earned them a top spot in the best recommendations for internet security. However, using VPNs for regular browsing may not be the best option anymore. According to Jacob Hoffman-Andrews, a senior staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, "for most day-to-day browsing, a VPN isn't needed, and may make things worse." Tom’s Guide’s Emily Long writes more on this topic here. 

Image credit: Petter Lagson (via Unsplash) 

Hopefully, the next solar storm will be way, way far into the future! 

Solar storms are celestial phenomenons that occur when the magnetic fields on the sun get tangled up and snap back into place. These storms are a result of the magnetic reconnection in the sun’s corona. The storms can release magnetic fields known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that flow through space on solar winds. 

A solar storm that reached our planet 9,200 years ago has left experts concerned for the next one, if it ever happens. When the previous storm passed by our planet, it left permanent scars on the ice buried deep below Greenland and Antarctica. In addition, it would have crippled modern communications systems if it had hit Earth today. Read more about the phenomenon here. 

Image credit: NASA

Life is very good at throwing different problems and issues along our way. Sometimes, it gets to the point that we think about things way too much and we need to force ourselves to just stop thinking, or else we’ll never survive or solve these problems. A lot of mantras and tips online on how to relax usually just tell you to ‘empty your mind,’ or ‘respect your inner child.’ But how in the world do you actually do that? Because let’s get real, meditating does not work all the time. Psychologist and professor at the University of Michigan Ethan Kross sat down with Inverse to talk about how to help ourselves not to fully stop the inner voice in our brains, but to master and keep them at bay. Read more about it here. 

Image credit: kevin turcios (via Unsplash)

French artist Vincent Leroy revealed his latest artwork in Tokyo. The art piece, called Tokyo Metacloud, is a giant floating cloud that was designed to roam the streets of the city. The installation is made up of thin curved blades and was designed to showcase the balance between material, air, and transparency to create an impression of extreme lightness. Learn more about Leroy’s masterpiece here.  

Image credit: Vincent Leroy