When I was in school, history class was about the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and World War II, every other year until the sixth grade, when we spent a year studying World War II because my teacher's husband fought in it. And then we found out our other teachers' husbands fought in it, too. But it was all from an American perspective (world history classes in the off years stopped at Columbus). Even today, there are many Americans who believe that World War II began on December 7, 1941. Yet Europe had been in a war for two and a half years already, and Japan had been at war for four years in China. Americans think we won the war, but Russia is pretty sure they did, at least in Europe. And the former Axis powers- how do they teach schoolchildren about what happened in World War II? In this video from Weird History, we get an overview of the perspective from which various nations around the world treat the subject of World War II in their history classes. Finland would like to have a word.

We all know at least one person who can magically find their way through an unfamiliar city, and at least one person who get hopelessly lost every time they leave familiar territory. Maybe you are one of those folks. Are people born with a sense of direction -or the lack of one? Do navigation skills depend on some innate talent or can it be trained? Or could a good sense of space and location be genetic? Scientists had trouble pinpointing the source of these skills until recently. GPS and virtual reality equipment have enabled more precise experiments that show why some people manage to get around better than others.

Navigational skill tends to run in families, but that doesn't mean it's genetic. Recent research points to a sense of direction being a matter of upbringing. Maybe you learn navigation from your parents, or possibly the culture itself. Some cultures, like Nordic countries and indigenous people of the Amazon, do better at navigating on average because everyone goes outside and travels from a young age. People who grow up in older and more eccentric European cities navigate better than those in planned cities laid out in a grid because they are forced to learn various methods of getting around. Experience matters. But what does this mean for younger generations who don't roam the neighborhood, depend on GPS, and see no reason to learn map reading or wayfinding? Read about the research into a sense of direction at Knowable magazine. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Archibald Ballantine)

Aalish started finding flowers that had been left in her home, or near the door. A secret admirer? Her partner didn't know what she was talking about, so it was a mystery until she caught a stray cat in the act of bringing flowers! What a sweet gesture; she liked the camellias, and thought Aalish would like them, too. I am glad that their camellias bear so many blooms, and the cat can only reach so many of them. The couple fed the friendly cat and gradually took her in and named her Fiddy. It turns out that Fiddy really needed a home that appreciated flowers as much as she did. Oh yeah, and for another reason that will become apparent in the video. See more of Fiddy in her beautiful home in Aotearoa (which we call New Zealand) at TikTok and Instagram.

Antarctica doesn't get a lot of fires, but it's the windiest and driest continent in the world and thus fires are always a potential source of danger. Given the extreme weather conditions of the place, it's necessary that any potential fire sources be addressed immediately.

Haikai Magazine talked to Nicki Schauman, the senior firefighter at the America's Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, where 7 firefighters and 2 dispatchers respond to fire threats. Most of their work consists of responding to medical emergencies (they are also EMTs), but fire risks are especially acute when planes land and take off at Amundsen-Scott.

Schauman and his colleagues have specialized gear adapted to function in the extreme cold. When it's busy, they often spend half the day in vans near the runway, ready to respond the moment that an aircraft accident happens.

-via Nag on the Lake | Photo: Antarctic Fire Department

John Albert Thompson emigrated from Norway and eventually made his way out to the western US during the Gold Rush, where he was a subcontractor for the postal service for 20 years. Thompson was called "The Viking of the Sierras," but everyone knew him as Snowshoe Thompson, because he delivered mail between Placerville and Genoa, Nevada, on skis, which he called snowshoes. His trips took three days to get to Placerville and three days to get back, a punishing trip over the Sierra Mountains in which he followed snow-covered wagon tracks. Thompson made this trip two to four times a month carrying up to 100 pounds of letters and packages -and silver from the mines.

Today, hikers can get a feel for the endurance Thompson had by retracing his route through the mountains, although there are roads in many of the spots now, plus better clothing and equipment and emergency communications. Read about Snowshoe Thompson and his service to the people of Nevada (which he was never paid for) and about the folks who hiked his route recently, at Atlas Obscura.

(Image credit: Brent Cooper)

The latest video from Action Lab gave me new things to think about. Somehow I missed the fact that astronauts on the International Space Station are now drinking out of cups instead of squeeze bottles with straws. How does that work? That's what the video is about. Another question is, why? Well, I am very much aware that drinking coffee or hot tea through a straw does not work because hot liquids need to be introduced to your mouth gradually for safety. But it's mainly because you don't get aroma from liquids that have no contact with air, which dulls the taste. That made me think of all these little kids drinking Capri Suns. Maybe if they were getting the full flavor, it wouldn't need so much sugar and artificial flavors. Be that as it may, the new gravity free cups are pretty clever. It makes you think about how different it must be to live in an environment devoid of something as fundamental to our lives as gravity. The video is only 3:45, the rest is an ad.

Scientists have long been fully aware that Uranus is filled with gas -- a lot of gas. But exploring deeper inside reveals more. Live Science reports that a recently published study describes a mushy substance deep in the interior of Uranus.

If we could actually get close enough, we might be able to smell this substance: semi-frozen methane. This conclusion departs from previous assessments of Uranus which concluded that the planet consists of mostly water and ammonia.

We will, though, have to wait for more advanced probes to deeply penetrate Uranus instead of relying only on data gathered by flybys, such as that procured by Voyager 2.

-via Dave Barry | Photo: NASA

Normally competitive jujitsu takes place in a gym on a mat or an otherwise fairly open space. But car jitsu contests take place entirely within the confines of a car. One competitor must compel the other to submit. There's a world-level championship program in addition to local events.

This is a great idea for practical training in the martial arts. The karate that I study practices self-defense techniques for specific scenarios (e.g. while seated, from behind, or when lying down). But not for while in a car.

This combat sport could be further improved by placing it inside a self-driving car in motion to add to the chaotic ambiance.

-via Born in Space

You meet someone new, and if you are an American, one of your first questions is what do they do for a living. If it's something that sounds really cool, you might be jealous. But if all you know of that profession is what you see in movies or TV, you might be surprised by the truth. Few jobs are as glamorous as they sound, and you have to remember that if it were really that fun, people would do it for free. Some jobs are downright depressing, even if your own role is relatively simple.

And some are completely misunderstood by those outside the profession. Or at least those who have a limited vocabulary.  



So when you meet someone who has a cool-sounding job, go ahead and ask questions, but save your envy until you understand a bit better. Every job has its ups and downs. See a pictofacts list on the hidden truths of 40 careers at Cracked.

What do you do when your cat wails as if the world is going to end? Get the camera, capture a video, and go viral! Maybe you'll end up in a remix and indeed become a star. Meanwhile, ahem, your cat is lonely.

An orange cat named Cala will let you know when she needs attention. She's quite vocal, bordering on English sentence structure. Therefore, her calls are catnip to David Scott, also known as The Kiffness (previously at Neatorama). He was inspired to write a little song around Cala's lyrics, such as they are, based on Pachelbel's Canon in D (as are most songs). The completed lyrics are available at the YouTube page. They make plenty of sense, opening doors is what cats want to do more than anything. It's not that they want out, and it's not that they want in. They just want the door open so they can have options when the mood strikes.

Writing out HELP or SOS while stranded on a desert island is such a cliche that it has its own TV Tropes page. The US Coast Guard says that it actually happened when, on Tuesday, it rescued three men who became stranded on the island of Pikelot in Micronesia. This 31-acre island is 100 miles away from the nearest settlement.

When a relative of the three men, who had set out across the sea on a 20-foot boat with an outboard motor, reported them missing, the Coast Guard launched a search and rescue mission. A US Navy aircraft spotted them and snapped this image. Then the cutter Oliver Henry picked them up.

It's a good thing that they spelled HELP correctly, as The Far Side warned us many years ago.

-via Kottke

In 1978, Patrick Moriarty was in his first year of teaching science to ninth graders. He told them that there would be a solar eclipse across their location in Upstate New York on April 8, 2024. Moriarty proposed that they reunite at that time to watch the event together and renewed that invitation for his new students for the next 16 years.

Now, 46 years later, about 100 of these now-adults gathered together at Moriarty's home to get reacquainted, remember old times, and enjoy the celestial mystery unfold in the daytime sky. You can see photos of this gathering at the Democrat & Chronicle.

-via My Modern Met

Death Comes Lifting is a unique gym in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The decor, ambiance, and even the fitness routines reflect a fascination with the macabre. People don't so much join as members so much as enlist in an army of the undead who improve their health through online and in-person classes and weightlifting.

The 30-year hunt to find the Priscilla, Queen of the Desert bus: ‘My jaw was on the ground’ https://t.co/RNqgnPdmKm

— The Guardian (@guardian) April 11, 2024

The 1994 Australian movie The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, was about three drag queens on a road trip across the Outback, but none of them was named Priscilla. The title character was their bus. After the filming, the three lead actors went on to other roles, and the bus was returned to its owner, and was used as a band's tour bus for a few years. But eventually, Priscilla the bus disappeared. Fans looked into tracking it and found nothing but copies. The History Trust of South Australia wanted to find the original bus for the National Motor Museum, but kept coming up empty.

Then in 2019 a man in the tiny town of Ewingar, New South Wales, proclaimed he had the bus, and was afraid that it would deteriorate further unless someone took care of it. Authenticating that he had the real Priscilla was a tough job, but it turned out to be the real thing. The bus had been through a lot: divorce, death, abandonment, an owner who didn't know what he had, bushfires, and floods. Read the gripping story of the lost and found bus named Priscilla at the Guardian. -via Metafilter

Curb Your Enthusiasm wrapped up twelve seasons with the series finale last Sunday night. The episode, entitled "No Lessons Learned" was a callback to the 1998 Seinfeld finale, which David wrote. The Seinfeld finale had a huge audience, but left viewers confused and unimpressed. In Sunday's finale, were the "lessons not learned" about David's character in the show, or about Larry David's decision to write the Seinfeld finale the way he did? We cannot know that, because so much of the show itself is ambiguous and about ambiguity itself. The finale had David inadvertently breaking the law, going to trial, and being sent to jail, just like the characters of Seinfeld. But it was done differently. Was it different enough? The finale garnered 1.1 million viewers compared to Seinfeld's 76.3 million viewers for the finale in 1997, but Curb Your Enthusiasm aired on HBO in the age of streaming, so 1.1 million is now considered a successful episode.  

The reviews of the episode were great, and audiences considered it a step up from the Seinfeld finale it spoofs. But how accurate was it legally? Jill Harness gets a lawyer's opinion on the courtroom drama in the final episode that will show us how Larry David may have learned some lessons about TV writing, but maybe not so much about legal procedures.