We do everything with our hands, some of it dangerous, so it's no surprise that the US sees around 45,000 finger or thumb amputations every year. It was a breakthrough when reattachment was developed, but that's not always possible. Alternatively, some of those fingers are replaced by amputating a patient's toe! Moreover, a study in the journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery tells us that the long-term outcomes for replacing fingers with toes is better than reattaching the original finger. The survey compared outcomes of 75 patients with 126 toe transfers to 52 patients with 96 digit replantations five years later, and found the toe transfer patients had significantly better hand function. The loss of a toe or two did not significantly affect foot function.

You have to feel for the folks who lost two or more fingers. Then you might wonder why toe replacement works better on average. The study doesn't go into it, but it may be that a deliberate toe amputation done in the same surgical procedure is fresher and less damaged than a retrieved finger. Read more at Discover magazine, or here if you're out of free articles. -via Damn Interesting 

(Image credit: sole_lover) 

Is there such a thing as having too many ducks? Tara Poole lives in Victoria, Australia, and has ducks and chickens. While she was raising her own set of domestic ducklings, someone from a wildlife group who knew Poole contacted her about taking in a clutch of abandoned ducklings. These were Australian wood ducks, a wild species that proved to be quite different from barnyard ducks. The ducklings apparently imprinted on Poole and her husband. They hung out with the domestic ducks and learned to swim. The wood ducks started flying all at the same time, and Poole expected them to fly the coop eventually. But the wood ducks decided farm life was good enough. Instead of heading into the wild, the now-grown ducks follow their humans around everywhere and cuddle with Tara. They even critique her fashion choices! It's a good thing she loves ducks, because she is stuck with them.   

Homemade ice cream used to be made by churning your ingredients while they are surrounded by ice an salt. It took forever and made your arms hurt. Modern ice cream makers use electricity, but you don't really need them if you know a few things about ice cream. The secret to good ice cream is that the ice crystals that form in it while it's freezing are too small to be detected in your mouth, leaving only delicious creaminess. Churning breaks up those crystals, but the right ingredients will keep them from growing in the first place. Swetha Sivakumar explains why sweetened condensed milk and whipped cream tend to inhibit the growth of large ice crystals, making them perfect for no-churn ice cream. Those two ingredients, with flavoring added, are all you need. However, the kind of flavoring you add makes a difference, since additives will vary in their own crystal-growing tendencies. Read how to make your own ice cream without all the churning at Serious Eats. You will still need a freezer.

(Image credit: Serious Eats/Qi Ai)

You've heard of concrete canoe competitions, designed to challenge the skills of engineering students. You can make concrete float, if the weight of the displaced water is greater than the weight of the boat and whatever is in it. Scale up those little concrete canoes, and you have a concrete ship. It sounds insane, but massive cargo ships made of concrete exist all over the world. They were built mainly during the steel shortages of the two world wars. Concrete may have been easier to get than steel, but these ships were slower and less maneuverable than steel ships, so they were relegated to other uses besides battle (in most cases; we will learn about a crucial exception). Still, concrete is more easily breached, and near impossible to repair before the boat sinks. You can't just bang out the dents. 

Phil Edwards introduces us to concrete ships by tracing the history of 24 ships built at the McCloskey shipyard in Tampa, Florida, in just over a year (1943-44). Oh, they are still around, even if they don't float anymore. It takes more than 80 years for a concrete ship to disintegrate! Find out more about concrete ships at The Crete Fleet. This video has a 95-second skippable ad at 2:00. -via Laughing Squid 

The family of two-year-old Unakite Thirteen Hotel did not select her name. Neither did any human. She was born in 2022 in a house in Nebraska and relinquished by her birth mother, who does not have a current relationship with the birth father. The infant was then taken to a hospital, where she was issued a certificate of live birth instead of a birth certificate, with the randomly computer-generated name of Unakite Thirteen Hotel. 

The normal procedure is to file a certificate of live birth with the state, which then issues a birth certificate. But that didn't happen in this case. The girl's father, Jason Kilburn, found out about her, and filed for custody. Meanwhile, without a birth certificate, she couldn't get a Social Security number, and therefore could not be registered at a daycare nor could she get health insurance. And she couldn't change her name, either. 

Her father named her Caroline Elizabeth Kilburn, and had to go to court to get her a birth certificate. When it was finally issued, Caroline's name was still Unakite Thirteen Hotel. But the state didn't follow through with getting her a Social Security number. Only after the story made national news this week was a Social Security number issued for Caroline  ...in the name Unakite Thirteen Hotel. Kilburn is relieved that the number proves his daughter exists, and will seek a legal name change. 

Unakite is a kind of granite, pictured above. The comments at Metafilter make it clear that unidentified hospital patients are often classified by random words to avoid confusing them with other patients, but that does not explain how so many people dropped the ball with Caroline. 

(Image credit: Tom Harpel) 

On August 10, 1945, after deciding that two atomic bombs was enough, the Japanese government, using rather obtuse language, indicated a willingness to surrender. On August 14, Japan formally expressed this sentiment to the United States through Swiss intermediaries. On August 15, Emperor Hirohito made his first public radio broadcast to inform his people of the surrender. The actual ceremony would take place on board the USS Missouri on September 2.

For the United States and the other Allied powers, August 15 is accepted as Victory over Japan Day. As the last major belligerent surrendered, it was the end of the war and thus a time of great celebration.

WPRI News notes that V-J Day is not a federal holiday. In fact, only the State of Rhode Island designates it as an official holiday--a decision made in 1948. Although Arkansas has celebrated V-J Day in the past, it dropped the holiday in 1975.

Rhode Island marks this great victory on the second Monday of August, which is today.

-via Kiel James Patrick | Photo: Victor Jorgensen/US Navy

When you hear of a celebrity who "dropped off the face of the earth," that usually means they stopped getting work, or fell out of favor, or maybe retired. This list means it literally, in that these people were rather well known and suddenly they disappeared even from their friends, family, and co-workers, never to be seen again. That doesn't mean the disappearance was a mystery, or is "unsolved." The sudden disappearance of Glenn Miller is pretty well established to be a plane crash at sea. The reason for the disappearance of a war correspondent can be assumed, even when no witnesses and no remains are found. But others are inconclusive- they may have been murdered, or they could still be alive somewhere, living under an assumed identity. 

You would expect a list like this to have Jimmy Hoffa and Amelia Earhart, and indeed they are here. But you'll also learn about many celebrities whose disappearances flew under your radar, or were famous in another country, or who vanished a long time ago. Read about 30 of them at Bored Panda. 

The 2002 movie Bend It Like Beckham inspired little girls to play soccer, made soccer players feel represented, and introduced the rest of the world to women's soccer (which outside of the US is just called football). It was Gurinder Chadha who wrote, produced, and directed that film, and she has announced that she's making a sequel. Why did it take so long? Chadha said she didn't have a story for another football movie, but now she has one. The script has yet to be written. The stars of the original, Parminder Nagra and Keira Knightley, are open to returning, but want to see a script before they commit. 

In the 23 years since Bend It Like Beckham was released, women's soccer has gone from an amateur sport with few fans to a global juggernaut. Many of today's players credit the film for some of the sport's rise. Emma Hayes, head coach of the U.S. women’s national soccer team, is one of them. Years after being inspired by the movie, she is collaborating with Chadha to make the sequel as up-to-date and successful as possible. Chadha plans to have the movie ready in 2027. Read more about the Bend It LIke Beckham sequel at Deadline.  -via kottke 

The annual Star Trek convention in Las Vegas is ending today. Many Trekkies have gathered at the Rio Las Vegas hotel to meet their favorite stars, buy merchandise, and, most importantly, dress as their favorite characters.

Cosplayer Michelle Hughes attended as Klingon version of Barbie. Hot pink replaces the traditional black and grey and her bat'leth is especially sparkly. I like the floofy grips.

Photo: Brian K. Nguyen

There's an old saying that you can't unscramble an egg. It means that there are some actions that cannot be reversed, like speech. Sure, you can "take it back," but the damage has already been done. But like many old adages, science looked at it and said why can't you unscramble an egg? Because of entropy. Well, that clears things up. 

But Leonard Hayflick responded to a 1990 article in the journal Science by explaining how you can unscramble an egg. Think about it, and see if you can come up with a better answer than his.

Show Answer

The 2004 movie Van Helsing had all the Universal monsters together being pursued by a monster hunter played by Hugh Jackman. The movie was a moderate success, panned by critics, but was a big influence on young Emily Zarka, who grew up to be an expert on monsters. She tells us about the real monster hunters from history that date back to the beginnings of civilization. They were everywhere in the Middle Ages, or maybe they were just better documented then. More likely, death and disease sparked panic in populations that didn't understand what they were up against, and reached out for help with a rash of undead vampires. A few of these supernatural investigators were rather famous, and became the basis for one enshrined in Bram Stoker's Dracula, and the character type thereafter served as a handy hero for monster movies. Dr. Zarka explains how the historical monster hunters inspired fictional heroes like Van Helsing.   

British prime minister Winston Churchill loved collecting exotic animals for his menagerie, and decided he wanted six platypuses. Australia did not export platypuses, because they knew they rarely survived any kind of travel. But this was 1943 and they needed Britain's help to repel the encroaching Japanese. So arrangements were made to send Churchill one platypus, which they named Winston Churchill. The animal was to be delivered without fanfare, which was all for the good because Winston the platypus died en route.  

Churchill, the man, had Winston Churchill stuffed, and the whole incident was kept from the press. But leaks occurred, and eventually the story became known that a German U-boat attacked the delivery ship and the platypus was shaken to death. Was there any truth to that story? Last year, a team in Britain and another team in Australia went to work to uncover the truth. Read what they learned, plus the story of three platypuses that made it to Brooklyn a few years after the war at BBC.  -via Strange Company 

(Image credit: Charles J. Sharp) 

Kiki was born paralyzed, due to a mosquito-borne virus. She was rejected by her mother, but was taken in by Don’t Forget Us…Pet Us, a sanctuary for neglected or disabled farm animals in Massachusetts. There she was pampered with plenty of attention, walks in a stroller, toys, music, and even a TV in the barn! Kiki showed how intelligent she is by learning to work the controls on her electronic toys, so they built her an electric cart with a joystick she can control. Kiki has since become an ambassador for the sanctuary and for those with disabilities of any species. Kiki has developed a special bond with the sanctuary owner's mother, Barbara, who suffers from Alzheimers disease. 

Since Kiki learned to drive her own vehicle, other barnyard animals have joined in, like Kashu, a goat who is also learning to steer with a joystick. You can keep up with Kiki and the other animals at Instagram and Facebook. -via Boing Boing 

The best thing about reddit is that there's a subreddit for everything.* There's even a subreddit dedicated to outhouses.

While browsing it, I came across this post about a lovely outhouse in Sweden, or, as they say in Swedish, "utedass."

Herbert Hoover was a highly accomplished mining engineer, businessman, and humanitarian before he had the bad luck to be inaugurated as President of the United States shortly before the outbreak of the Great Depression. He then had a long post-Presidential career, living all the way until 1964. 

Hoover married well. Lou Henry Hoover, First Lady of the United States, met her future husband while they were students at Stanford University. She had a sharp mind and became the first woman to graduate from that institution with a degree in geology.

Lady Hoover was a polyglot and, like her husband, had an education in the Latin language. Together, they translated De Re Metallica, a historically important Sixteenth Century Latin text by Georg Bauer about mining and metallurgy. After several years of labor, Herbert and Lou Hoover created the first English translation of the work, making use of their expertise of both geology and Latin. It remains the definitive English translation to this day.