These creations are absolutely witty. Fancy getting a vaccine-inspired alcoholic beverage? If you’re near Penang, Malaysia, then you’re in for a treat! Backdoor Bodega came up with vaccine-themed drinks, or as Vice’s Heather Chen calls them: booze-ter shots, to sell as packaged cocktail orders. The ‘boredom boosters’ can combat and eliminate any “pandemic-induced lockdown boredom and sobriety,” according to the bar’s online drinks menu: 

There’s Sinosour (a play on China’s Sinovac vaccine), ExtraGineca (named after the AstraZeneca shot and combining a potent blend of gin and dry bitters) and the Pfizermeister, an obvious reference to the Pfizer vaccine.  

The drinks cost around $8 and are available by delivery—part of a successful business strategy that has helped the bar avoid closure at a crucial time when many businesses folded.

“We’re thankful that cocktail deliveries have been sufficient to sustain our overheads over the past year,” said owner and bartender Koh Yung Shen, who added that the lack of in-person interaction has taken away from the experience of running a bar.

Image credit: Mohd RASFAN / AFP 

Some celebrities find no rest in death. There are plenty of people who want just a little piece (or more) of a famous body for one reason or another. That's to be expected if one becomes a saint, but keeping body parts around is not limited to religious icons. When Galileo's remains were moved to a new tomb in 1737, several pieces were snatched up along the way. One of the scientist's fingers ended up in a museum, and a stolen vertebra eventually went to the University of Padua. That left two missing fingers and a tooth unaccounted for.

Galileo’s tooth and the other two fingers didn’t leave such an obvious trail. The original thief, an Italian marquis, bequeathed them to his progeny, and they stayed in the family for generations. But the last written reference to the artifacts was from 1905, and historians later in the 20th century assumed they were gone for good. Then, in 2009, two fingers and a tooth showed up in a jar at an auction in Italy. The auction organizers didn’t know whose body parts they were selling, but the buyer had an inkling that they were Galileo’s. They brought their purchase to the Institute and Museum of the History of Science, where museum director Paolo Galluzzi confirmed the theory.

He based his verdict on the fact that the items and their container matched the detailed description from 1905. And since the objects were unlabeled and sold for a scant sum, it seemed unlikely that someone had produced them in some kind of bizarre counterfeiting scheme. As Galluzzi told CNN, “[The] story is so convincing I cannot think of a reason not to believe it.” After renovations, the museum reopened in 2010 under a new name—the Galileo Museum—which proudly exhibited Galileo’s two shriveled digits (and lone tooth) next to the finger already on display.  

Read the stories behind ten corporeal relics of historical figures at Mental Floss, or you can listen to a video telling the same tales.

(Image credit: Marc Roberts)

We all know George Washington, Father of our Country, Commander of the Continental Army which defeated the British Empire to create the first modern democracy. He was the most famous and most respected man of his time among the 13 states, and so Americans elected him to the presidency twice. But do you recall exactly what Washington did while he was in office? He had his work cut out for him, as the young nation's government was fairly unorganized, and the states worked as if they were all separate countries. Washington went to the people, to sell them on the idea of putting "United" before "States."

Washington took his show on the road in the spring of 1789. Over the span of two years, he visited all 13 original states (14 if you count Maine, which was then part of Massachusetts), traveling on horseback and by carriage along rutted dirt roads and over rising rivers. The president often donned his magnificent Continental Army uniform and rode his favorite white stallion into towns, where he was greeted by cheering citizens. Along the way, he communicated his hopes for the new nation and how he needed everyone’s support to make this vision reality.

“It was awe inspiring,” Philbrick says. “Washington was seriously the only one [who] could have sold the concept to the people. Not only was [he] able to unify us politically, he was able to unify us as a nation. Instead of saying our state is our country—as was customary back then—we were saying the United States is our nation. We take that for granted today, but it wasn’t that way when Washington took office in 1789.”

Get an idea of how the new nation came together under the leadership of Washington on his road trip at Smithsonian.

Melissa Miller started a project called Bad Science Jokes back in 2012 when she was in high school. She had a science teacher that would give extra credit for a science joke, and so she saw and heard a lot of them. Her collection was very popular on Tumblr, and then moved to Instagram. Some consider it just a meme page, but she also hears from students who credit the jokes in helping them to remember important concepts to get through science class.



Bored Panda picked out a bunch of these jokes that are both funny and understandable to anyone with a passing knowledge of science. See 40 of them in a list ranked by votes. Some of them are actually good science jokes!

The Nazi party in 1930s Germany was all about convincing the majority of Germans that they were superior to Jews and foreigners because of their racial purity. This led to an entire scientific discipline out to prove that theory, and the mad race to find evidence to support it.  

Those who swore by the idea of a white Nordic superior race were believers in the tale of the imagined lost city of Atlantis, where people of "the purest blood" had apparently once lived. Believed to have been situated somewhere between England and Portugal in the Atlantic Ocean, this mythical island allegedly sunk after being struck by a divine thunderbolt.

All the Aryans who survived had supposedly moved on to more secure places. The Himalayan region was believed to be one such refuge, Tibet in particular because it was famous for being "the roof of the world".

In 1935, Himmler set up a unit within the SS called the Ahnenerbe - or Bureau of Ancestral Heritage - to find out where people from Atlantis had gone after the bolt from the blue and the deluge, and where traces of the great race still remained and could be discovered.

In 1938, he sent a team of five Germans to Tibet on this "search operation".

The Germans were reportedly there to study zoology and anthropology, all the while taking casts of human body parts and measuring skulls and features of the local people, before the war cut their research short. Read about the Tibetan adventures of Himmler's research team at BBC. -via Damn Interesting

(Image credit: German Federal Archives)

Dolls can be creepy, especially when they are staring at you in the middle of the night from the top of the dresser. But there are a few dolls that have become famous for their activities in addition to their appearance. These real-life dolls have a reputation for inspiring terror. Whether the stories are real or not, the dolls are, even though one was also a movie character.

Twilight fans will recall that the film series concluded with the birth of the offspring of fang-crossed lovers Bella and Edward. In The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn—Part 1 (2011), their baby, Renesmee, was represented by some questionable CGI. On set, she was embodied by a very peculiar-looking animatronic doll (above). That prop is now being accused of malevolent sentience by people near the Forever Twilight display at the Chamber of Commerce in Forks, Washington, where the movies are set.

“One day she might be standing up straight, and the next, when you come in on another day, she’s in a weird position,” Lissy Andros, executive director of the Chamber of Commerce, told Jezebel in 2020. “It’s like, is she moving around in there? We don’t know. But we tell everybody that the [display case] cover is on her for their protection.”

Fortunately, Renesmee appears to be decomposing as a result of the fragile materials used to build her, so she likely won’t be around to disturb people for too much longer.

Read the stories of seven such haunted dolls, and see several videos on them, at Mental Floss.

Aerial photography is amazing. It provides a perspective that we humans cannot see on our own. Unfortunately, we can’t fly (yet, I hope), but we can take advantage of drones to get images from such a high point. The Drone Photo Awards 2021 celebrate different stunning aerial photographs, and they just announced their top picks. Terje Kolaas’ shot of birds above snow-covered ground took the top prize. Looking at the image makes me want to count the birds included in the shot, to be honest-- there were way too many! 

Check some of Time Out’s favorites from the competition here! 

Image credit: Terje Kolaas / Drone Photo Awards 2021 

Sleep is not the only way to take a break and recharge. While some of us may be working from home, it doesn’t mean that we’re not exhausted from daily chores and activities! The daily grind is draining both physically and mentally, and we need all the help we can get to recharge and power through the following days. So how do we do that? Entrepreneur’s Daniel Colombo shares different methods of resting to balance our energies. Check the full piece here!

Image credit: Toa Heftiba/Unsplash 

The Brook is a tiny home in Rosebrook, Australia. The 27-square meter home was designed by Small Not Tiny, and incorporates hidden storage compartments, multifunctional furniture, and expanding frames to make the place liveable regardless of its size. In addition to its features, the tiny home was designed to be a passive house with a fully off-grid solar panel system: 

Designed to be a passive home, The Brook hosts a fully off-grid solar panel system on its roof stocked with batteries and a backup generator to ensure a constant flow of power when needed. The roof itself also expands in height on a telescopic frame. During the transportation of The Brook, height parameters margined the home to a height of five meters. Once transported and situated into place, telescopic framing had the uppermost walls fold in so the roof could expand before locking the walls back into place, creating a lofty sleeping area and high ceilings.

The loftiness inside The Brook was inspired by New York-style apartments, bringing expansive glazed glass windows and an industrial aesthetic with a mid-century modern flair to Australia’s regional setting. Throughout the home, recycled brass elements and metal mesh shelving add to the home’s rustic energy and multipurpose outfittings. Copper and ply louvers border the perimeter of the home on both floors and pivot doors provide access to the home’s south and west sides to offer plenty of fresh air and cross-ventilation.

It’s time to update those travel bucket lists! Outdoor sports and outdoor shoe specialists Zalando conducted research on the world’s most Instagrammable hiking routes. From analysing nearly five million Instagram hashtags from the world’s most famous hiking trails, they were able to produce a list of the world’s top 20 most picturesque routes. Amateur Photographer has more details: 

Heather Morning, Mountain Safety Advisor with Mountaineering Scotland, says:  “The dramatic landscapes, wildlife and flora, ease of access (particularly on the West Highland Way), human history and unrivalled right to roam laws make Scotland a top place to visit.

“There has been a massive increase in the numbers of people enjoying the Scottish mountains and countryside, as would be expected with Covid-19 and the associated difficulties travelling abroad. The rise of the ‘staycation’ is certainly very evident. When lockdown was lifted last summer, Scottish Mountain Rescue saw a 35% increase in the number of call-outs, compared to the same period in the previous year.

“When hiking, it’s important to be respectful and considerate to others and the environment. Solid preparation is also vital. We’ve just launched an initiative called ‘Sofa 2 Summit’, which is a free online resource for those who are new to the hills. It’s a great place for people to start when planning their adventures.”

Check the full list here! 

Image credit: Vero Gnz /Unsplash 

YouTuber Paulogia Live asked the Question, "If every copy of Star Wars was destroyed, could we recreate A New Hope from non-Lucasfilm projects?" And then he answered the question himself, by editing together a shorter but comprehensive version of Star Wars Episode One: A New Hope using parodies, tributes, and cultural references found in movies, TV shows, YouTube videos, ads, and other media that are not from Lucasfilm. The effect is somewhat like Star Wars Uncut, except you'll recognize most of the clips used here.  -via Boing Boing

The East London Group is a band of artists composed of mostly self-taught, working-class, part-time painters. The members of the association came to John Cooper’s classes at London’s Bethnal Green and Mile End during the 1920s and 1930s. These artists depicted different melancholic scenes in Mile End, Clerkenwell, and other areas in London: 

[...] Comparisons can also be made with two other urban-inspired London groups: the earlier Camden Town Group and the contemporaneous Euston Road School—some of whose prominent figures, including Walter Sickert and William Coldstream, made the journey east to lecture to Cooper’s classes and became members themselves.

The East London Group made its mark with an exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in 1928 and its ascent was rapid, with artists finding their work increasingly sought after, both by national collections and private buyers at exhibitions in the West End. The group’s high point was arguably the participation of Hawthorne and Walter Steggles in the 1936 Venice Biennale.

Cooper died in 1943 during the Second World War and the East London Group’s upward trajectory was rapidly curtailed, to the point that they practically vanished from the art world’s collective memory. “To be blunt, after the war, the world was moving into the jet age, the space age, electronic age,” says Alan Waltham, the curator of a new exhibition about the Steggles brothers and the East London Group at the Beecroft Art Gallery in Southend-on-Sea. “Most likely what the group were doing pre-war looked decidedly old hat. Whatever you’re doing has to appear to be relevant, otherwise people will move on.” 

Image credit: The Art Newspaper 

Long ago, four mysterious beings, who were both male and female, sailed from Tahiti to Hawaii and brought the art of healing with them. They were named Kapuni, Kinohi, Kahaloa, and Kapaemahu. The Hawaiians erected four great boulders in their honor at Waikiki, which are still there. Their story is told in this beautiful animated short by Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu featured in the 2021 PBS Short Film Festival. Read more about the film at The Kid Should See This.

The Earth looks stunning! A new photograph from European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Thomas Pesquet  shows our beloved planet wrapped in its atmosphere, and surrounded by a background of glittering stars. Honestly, it’s like an artwork that came to life! Pesquet managed to capture the night side of Earth from the Cupola of the International Space Station (ISS):

"A few night pictures from the Cupola: sometimes star lights battle it out with city lights for who's the brightest and more beautiful," Pesquet wrote on Flickr. "I'm just lucky to get to be the judge."

The glowing atmosphere, not mentioned by Pesquet, is also astonishing. It's called nightglow, and it's created by natural processes.

Earth's sky is never completely dark, not even at night, and not even once you've extracted light pollution, starlight, and diffuse sunlight. The molecules in the atmosphere are constantly undergoing various processes, which causes them to faintly glow across a range of wavelengths.

Nightglow, which appears at night, occurs when molecules and particles broken apart during the day by solar radiation (a process called photoionization) recombine, releasing their excess energy in the form of photons. On Earth, this occurs in layers – the blue-green layer at the outer edge is oxygen and nitrogen.

At a lower altitude, the red-gold layer is called the sodium layer. This is where meteors break apart, releasing sodium into the atmosphere. Photoionization and recombination of sodium atoms then produces a distinctive golden glow.

Image credit: ESA/NASA-T. Pesquet

This sport is called Polish Dragon Boat Racing. It's the aquatic equivalent of tug-of-war. Sometimes rowers are in the same boat, pulling in opposite directions. In other competitions, there are two boats separated by a towline. This video from 2015 shows two highly trained teams throwing themselves completely into the task.

-via Super Punch