As they do every year, Game On! Minnesota waits until the end of the high school hockey season to announce the best head of hair on the players of Minnesota. These young athletes spend all year selecting their style, growing their locks, and getting their one second on TV just right, hoping to make the Minnesota State High School All Hockey Hair Team. That moment has arrived, and the competition this year is referred to as "Flowchella." The title of this video ended with "presented by Duke Cannon," and I thought we were going to find out the name of the guy who does this every year. But no, that's just the sponsor. Anyway, if you're new to this, you don't have to know anything about hockey at all to enjoy this championship. And you'll learn a few things about Minnesota. -via Metafilter
See the all-hockey hair teams from previous years.
The manufacture of organic, eco-friendly, biodegradable products is not strictly a modern-day idea. Henry Ford himself looked into the possibilities of replacing steel with an agriculturally-derived plastic made of soybeans, hemp, wheat, and other crops. His purpose was not environmental sustainability, though. A car made of plant-based plastic would be cheaper than steel, would reduce the weight of a car to increase fuel efficiency, and what his engineers came up with was surprisingly tough.
Ford's prototype plastic car was unveiled in 1941. It had a tubular steel frame that acted as roll bars, was covered in tough and resilient plant-based plastic, and ran on fuel made from hemp. Ford was eager to get the car off the ground as he suspected the availability of steel would be an issue due to World War II. He was right about that, but it turned out to be impossible to manufacture an alternative car when the government forbade all automobile production and shifted manufacturing to military vehicles and weapons. By the time the war ended, Ford was in ailing health and soon retired. Interest in the plastic car faded.
Recent coverage of Ford's plastic car mainly focuses on the hemp aspect, but he had quite a few agricultural products in mind. However, the exact formula for the plastic no longer exists. There are several ideas for what it might have contained, but no one knows for sure. Read about the plant-based plastic car that might have been at Amusing Planet.
(Image credit: Flickr user John Lloyd)
Boba Fett had a thankless job as a Tatooine crime lord who only wanted to do the right thing, sort of. What he really wants is to relive the joys of the second best day of his life. Specifically, that day he and the Sand People heard an ice cream truck out in the desert. You know what they say, money can't buy happiness, but it can buy ice cream, and that's kind of the same.
Auralnauts continues to be the premiere producer of Star Wars parodies because they see the most ridiculous possibilities in the galaxy far, far away while still refusing to denigrate the actual source material. The result is just plain fun. -via Laughing Squid
From Supa Fluffy, our new amazing animals and cute pets blog:
🦆 Photographer Rhys McKinnon snapped this beautiful photo of three ducks at Parker River National Wildlife Refuge on Plum Island in Massachusetts during sunset and later discovered that he had also captured a fourth hidden animal. See if you can find it before you click the link to find out where the animal was.
🦋 We know that Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever are smart, outgoing and affectionate, but this one named Milo is on another level of friendliness: the dog is best friends with butterflies in his fur mom's flower garden!
Image: @rhysmckinnonphotography/IG
From Pop Culturista, where we showcase everything pop culture:
📞 If you love putting together plastic models from model kits as a pastime, then you should visit Shizuoka City, Japan. The "model city" - home of the famous model kit company Tamiya - has unique and functional art installations that pay homage to the toy, including a mailbox and a public payphone that look like a plastic model kit.
👠 Did you know that Queen Elizabeth II has a staff member whose job is to break in Her Majesty's new shoes by wearing them?
🎵 Brick artist Julius von Brunk has recreated the rock band Nirvana in LEGO. Smells like brick spirits!
Image: @NTTWestOfficial/Twitter
Need a little humor to pick you up today? From Laughosaurus, our new humor and odd news site:
🤣 Security camera caught this four-year-old kid from Andover, Kansas, having a particularly bad case of the Mondays.
💨 Warm front moving in from the South: Did this Louisville weatherman fart on air? Turn your volume up and brace for 100% chance of Twitter comment storm.
From Homes & Hues, our architecture and home decor blog:
🏊♀️ This former asylum's church was converted into a stunning indoor swimming pool. There's just something about crystal blue water and gothic arches!
🧷 Don't settle for ho-hum furniture for your nursery. Check out how this father turned an ordinary toolbox into a "Crap-On" diaper changing station.
From Pictojam, our science and technology site:
🔥 Inside a marbles factory: Here's how they turn lumps of red-hot molten glass into perfectly round marbles.
🦑 A newly discovered 10-armed, 325 million-year-old squid fossil is named after President Joe Biden. Fun fact: the species is the ancestral grandfather of the "vampire squid from hell" (who says science can't make politics fun?)
☘️ Happy St. Patrick's Day! Here's our featured art: It's Your Lucky Day by indie artist Tobe Fonseca
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The super viral game Wordle is a lot of fun, but you can only play once a day. Lucky for us, there are plenty of clones and variations you can try while waiting for the new Wordle. Try some, and pick out your favorites to bookmark. If you happen to be a geography nerd like me, you might enjoy these daily puzzles that challenge your knowledge of the world.
Worldle gives you the shape of the nation, so if you recognize it, you're done in one. If you guess wrong, it will tell you how many kilometers away the right country is. Drawbacks: It only gives you six guesses. It has only one puzzle per day. And it includes territories that you may not have heard of.
Globle gives you a world globe to work with. A guess will tell you whether you are anywhere near the answer by color, but not by direction or exact distance. You won't get any other clues, so it's a matter of triangulation. If there is a limit on guesses, I haven't found it yet. Drawbacks: There is only one puzzle a day. I eventually knew where to go, but had to pull up a map in another window to name countries (which might help with Worldle, too).
-via Metafilter
A surprising number of mammal species have a penis bone, or baculum, a bone that doesn't attach to the rest of the skeleton. Many primates have a baculum, even apes, but not humans. There are many reasons that a baculum would be beneficial, all having to do with mating and reproduction, which explains why ancient species developed one and passed it along to the mammals who use it today. Since our near-relatives still have a baculum, it follows that humans must have discarded it somewhere along the evolutionary line. But why?
Scientists still don't know the definitive answer, but the general theory is that we no longer needed it. Men of today would argue about that, considering how much money is spent to fight erectile dysfunction. The latest hypothesis is more about the behavior of women, specifically monogamy, or at least relatively temporary monogamy. Read about the baculum and why humans don't have one at Inverse. -via Damn Interesting
Go.Adventure Arenal Park in La Fortuna, Costa Rica, offers zip-lining through the rainforest to tourists. Sunday was an adventure that no one foresaw. A young boy was the last of eight tourists to go down the line, with park owner and guide Flavio Leiton Ramos following him closely with a camera. Ramos tells him not to use the brakes, but the kid did, and rightly so, when he bumped into a sloth! How did a sloth get onto the zip-line? The other riders did not see it, and it would be quite a leap from the nearest tree branches. In any case, the sloth didn't zip away- he took his own sweet time, as sloths do, to climb down the line on his own. They had to wait about 15 minutes for the zip-line to be cleared before Ramos and the child could continue. A good time was had by all. -via Boing Boing
We are used to the spectacle of women's bodies being objectified in beauty pageants, but they are held for men, too. The Mister Global pageant is held annually in Thailand, and after a two-year pandemic hiatus, the 2022 Mister Global pageant was held yesterday. The most interesting part of the competition is the parade of national costumes, which are supposed to represent a contestant's home country while making him look as good as possible. The contestant from Vietnam is shown at the top; and Spain is below.
And then there's the USA.
The new Mister Global is Miguel Ángel Lucas Carrasco from Spain. See all the national costumes in a gallery at Buzzfeed. Or you can watch the parade from the pageant in this video. -via Metafilter
(All photos credit: David Ryo via Mister Global at Facebook)
In case you didn't know, the same company that makes Michelin tires is the company that rates restaurants with Michelin stars. How this came about is a rather interesting story. Adam Ragusea explains the history of the French company, which was once so all-encompassing that it had its hand in everything to do with travel. When that hand withdrew from many of those interests, two very different namesakes remained. That's why the tire company also rates the finest restaurants in the world. -via Digg
🏠 Normal people would leave their attic to gather dust in peace or perhaps use it as an extra storage space, but not Blake Weaver. He built an EPIC secret fort (complete with a ball pit) in his attic.
🎬 8 Reasons why people thought that James Cameron's Titanic would be a huge flop. But instead of sinking (heh), the movie was the first to ever gross over a billion dollars!
🐱 You won't guess where this missing cat was found.
🚗 Hero: North Carolina woman fights the DMV to keep "FART" license plate.
🕹️ Mr. Bean inserted into Half-Life 2 worked so well that there's now Episode #2.
🌊 I can hold my breath for, like, 30 seconds tops but this Croatian free diver can hold his breath underwater for 24 minutes and 37 seconds. Hey, that's longer than the average TV show!
Love neat stories? Check out our new sites - we've got tons of new neat posts: Pictojam, Homes & Hues, Infinite 1UP, Laughosaurus, Pop Culturista, Supa Fluffy and Spooky Daily.
Featured art: Super Red by indie artist Getsousa for all of you who've been enjoying Pixar's new Turning Red movie (it's good!)
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The Endurance is a 144-foot ship that sank in 1915 during Ernest Shackleton's expedition. Deep-sea explorers have successfully found the wreckage of the ship, 10,000 feet below the Antarctic waters. Along with the ship, interesting sea creatures were found to have made a home of it. It has become a place of foundation for fledgling anemones, sea squirts, and other animals to take hold. The animals living around the ship can withstand temperatures that reach below -2 degrees Celsius. Learn more about the creatures here!
Image credit: Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust/National Geographic
Okay, looks like someone landed on a bad tile in Jumanji.
The Joro spider is a massive, invasive spider that originated in Asia. The predominantly yellow spider, which can grow as big as the palm of your hand (oh my!), was initially spotted in Georgia in 2013. Ten years later, the species has managed to spread across other parts of the American South.
Because of this rapid spread of the species, scientists from the University of Georgia estimate that the arachnid could reach and take over the East Coast in the coming years. The experts attribute their increase in numbers to having a good tolerance towards colder conditions.
Image credit: University of Georgia via USA Today
According to different studies, aside from providing you the necessary boost to power through your day, coffee also provides anti-inflammatory benefits. However, because of caffeine, our favorite drink might also cancel out the anti-inflammatory benefits it provides. So if caffeine intervenes with the body’s optimal response to inflammation, how can we reap the benefits the drink provides? Well, remove the stimulant. This is where decaf coffee comes in.
It might not be everyone’s favorite, but decaf offers all the same anti-inflammatory benefits as regular coffee without any of the unwelcome side effects thanks to caffeine. According to Lauren Manaker MS, RDN, LDN, CLEC, CPT, “regular coffee has anti-inflammatory compounds, so I look at decaf as a way for people to get the antioxidants and anti-inflammatory benefits of coffee without the caffeine.”
Image credit: Emre
A 65-year-old retired scientist joined a group of amateur treasure hunters looking over a farmer’s field in Norfolk, England. Andy Carter, with his metal detector, dug about ten inches into the mud when his device pinged. It turns out that he picked up a small gold coin. “When I brushed off the soil, I saw the hind leg of a big cat,” Carter told the Guardian’s Harriet Sherwood. “I thought, ‘It can’t be a leopard.’”
The coin with the feline engraving was actually a leopard florin, a currency that was minted as part of a failed currency experiment by Edward III, who ruled England from 1327 to 1377 C.E. It was sold at an auction for a whopping £140,000 (around $185,000).
Image credit: Dix Noonan Webb
Move over, Moleskin journals, there’s a new hit item in town!
Blackwing pencils are writing implements that have a unique style and trademark replaceable eraser. The aesthetic value won over the hearts of many enthusiasts and writers alike, just like how Moleskin journals became a staple item for them, or as SPY.com puts it, the pencils are “a new status symbol for the stylish creative.”
Also called “the $40 pencil,” the Blackwing pencils are made from high quality, premium materials– or at least that’s what its makers claim. Whether or not you think that spending a huge amount of money on a pencil is worth it, there’s no denying the hype surrounding these stationery items.
Image credit: Blackwing via SPY.com
