This chart is a work of art. I hope multiple people got paid well to make it and I hope they get hit by a bus pic.twitter.com/XS6aWwwj7P

— Katelyn Gadd (@antumbral) June 24, 2021

Charts and graphs can be wonderful for breaking down information and showing trends over time, but only if they are constructed in a way that people can understand. On TV, the viewer only has a short period of time to grab that information, but when you take a screenshot, you see that there are many things wrong with this graph. Mefite Stark takes a stab at listing them.

1. The y-axis doesn't start at zero
2. The y-axis isn't labelled correctly (it should be % of Adults who report that they think violent crime is a problem)
3. The gaps between the data points on the x-axis are not representative of the gaps between the dates
4. The margin of error is not highlighted on the chart's data points
5. Straight lines between the data points imply a steady trend which may or may not be the case
6. In my opinion the most amazing weirdness is that the x-axis dates go from right to left!

Someone else mentioned that the x-axis is labeled in alphabetical order. Andy Baio took the information and made a much better chart.

Wait so it isn't even for actual violent crime? Just adults who THINK there's a violent crime problem?????

— Crim Lust (@Cr1ms0n_lus7) June 25, 2021

This is far from unique, though, as many media outlets rely on their graphics departments (or maybe an intern) to make charts instead of data scientists. You can go down the rabbit hole and see plenty of confusing or misleading information in charts here, here, and here. In fact, there are so many ways to make a bad chart that several sites are dedicated to explaining and shaming them. See more terrible charts archived at Bad Visualizations, WTF Visualizations, and the subreddit Data Is Ugly.  -via Metafilter

Chickfly pants are designed for women who want to enjoy the great outdoors without the need to pull down their pants every few hours to void their bladder and/or bowels. Claire Barber, a writer for Outside magazine, wrote about her practical tests of this invention:

I hung in a climbing harness and let my friend and belayer laugh as I awkwardly grabbed at my crotch and attempted to pee midair. I squatted in various locations, including beside dirt roads and in a snowy canyon. [...]

Once you’ve practiced using the fly, the process is the same as any time you pee outdoors—find a comfortable place, squat, and go—but takes half the time. And the major win here is for privacy. You don’t need to pull the pants all the way down to go, and if you’re opening them from the front, your back and sides will be fully covered. When you’re done, the stretchy fabric springs back into place so you never feel exposed for long. Granted, you’re still peeing outside, so privacy is relative, but you avoid the hassle of hoisting your pants back up and mooning other outdoor patrons.

-via TYWKIWDBI | Photo: Chickfly

In 1818, a British writer who published under the name "H" wrote an article for The Pocket Magazine in which he predicted the future of the United States. He (assuming it was a man) placed his musings 500 years into the future. It's only been 200 years, but some of them have come strangely true. For instance, Americans traveled to the moon, but some citizens didn't believe it. However, the method of getting there wasn't quite the way it really happened.

Baltimore, December 1, 2318.—“As many of our readers in distant parts of the country have doubted whether the voyage to the moon ever did take place, we do again assure them, upon our veracity, that the information was literally correct. This aerial journey must indeed appear to many who hear of it as a most extraordinary undertaking; particularly when it is recollected, that in the dark ages of English credulity, it was imagined that tubes two hundred and forty thousand miles in length, besides being exposed to many other insuperable objections, would break with their own weight. Yet such were the tubes used by our adventurers, and such were absolutely necessary to supply them with air from the dense atmosphere of our earth. At the period to which we allude, when every science was fettered with the adamantine chains of system, it was also thought impossible for goose-quill, or any other wings, to be of service where the air was so rare as to offer no resistance. This idea the undertaking of now under consideration has fully disproved; for, after the wonders one goose his quill has performed, what must we not expect from the labours of a number united […]

Other predictions in the article referred to automated doctors, the miracle of temperature control in the home, and the discovery of an unlimited liquid fuel coming from the earth. Read these predictions from 200 years ago at Reynolds's News and Miscellany. -via Strange Company

It is commonly thought that Homo sapiens came from Africa and Neanderthals evolved in Europe. However, a discovery in Israel appears to put both human species in the same location in the Levant. An archaeological dig started in 2012 at Nesher Ramla, and has yielded human remain in which a skull fragment appears to be Homo sapiens, while the jawbone sports Neanderthal features. Dental anthropologist Rachel Sarig says the discovery may force us into a new interpretation of human evolution.

Sarig’s paper describes the physical characteristics of the remains from Nesher Ramla, and the other paper describes the stone tools found at the site. The bones were compared to other members of the genus Homo using 3D morphometrics—basically, the researchers created a dataset of points in three dimensions and looked at how similar or dissimilar the skull fragment, jawbone, and teeth were from those of other humans. They also dated the specimen to between 140,000 and 120,000 years old, which would mean it lived at the same time as Homo sapiens in the area.

“The Nesher Ramla fossils certainly complicate a straightforward evolutionary story, which traditionally hinged on exclusive occupation of the Levant by either Neanderthals or Homo sapiens,” said Michael Petraglia, an archaeologist at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History who was unaffiliated with the recent papers. “Instead, there may be multiple species around at the same time, sometimes interbreeding, learning from one another and sharing in their cultural behaviors.”

That would certainly be a new way to look at human history. Read more about the research at Gizmodo.

There is some speculation that the human remains may be a previously unknown species that was a common ancestor of Homo sapiens and Neanderthals, instead of a hybrid of the two. 

(Image credit: Tel Aviv University)

It makes perfect sense to me. A running joke among carpenters is that Home Depot wood is terrible. It would be prudent to remove the demonic forces that warp it so much.

I don't know if that was the motivation behind the people who visited the Home Depot in Dickerson, Pennsylvania to perform an exorcism in the lumber aisle. We'll likely never know, as employees called police, who removed the customers from the store without incident.

-via Dave Barry | Unrelated photo by Mike Mozart

The US birth rate dropped by 4% during the pandemic, but it's a baby boom for the Tran family of Orange County, California. The Tran triplets, Gina, Nina, and Victoria, are all pregnant at once! The  three women were born just minutes apart, 35 years ago, and now are sharing commiseration, maternity clothes, and an obstetrician.

“I’m actually the oldest by four minutes and I’m having a girl, and her name is Leighton Grace,” Gina said.

“I’m in the middle by four minutes and I’m having a boy, and his name is Hendrix Paul,” Nina said.

“I’m the youngest by four minutes and then eight minutes, and having a boy,” Victoria said. “His name is Zaden Seth.”

The three births are expected in July, August, and November. Read more at CBS. -via Fark

(Image credit: The Tran Family)

Kevin Parry has entertained us with all kinds of stop-motions videos. In a followup to his fruits and vegetables video, he zooms into the inner structures of tropical fruits, some you may not be familiar with (there's a list in the top comment here). But the best part is after the fruits, where we get to see how it's done. And that's where it becomes clear why Parry didn't treat the coconut the same way as the other fruits. -via Kottke

Summer holidays are the time for putting away candy in favor of fresh fruit and ice cream, and for moving the cooking outdoors because the kitchen gets too hot. If your perfect cookout includes grilling a nice steak, you might want to learn a bit of the science behind the process. Meat scientists are willing to share what they've learned about grilling steak. First, they advise us on what to look for when selecting steaks at the butcher shop.  

The biggest influence on the final flavor of that steak, though, is how you cook it. Flavorwise, cooking meat accomplishes two things. First, the heat of the grill breaks the meat’s fatty acids into smaller molecules that are more volatile — that is, more likely to become airborne. These volatiles are responsible for the steak’s aroma, which accounts for the majority of its flavor. Molecules called aldehydes, ketones and alcohols among that breakdown mix are what we perceive as distinctively beefy.

The second way that cooking builds flavor is through browning, a process that chemists call the Maillard reaction. This is a fantastically complex process in which amino acids and traces of sugars in the meat react at high temperatures to kick off a cascade of chemical changes that result in many different volatile end products. Most important of these are molecules called pyrazines and furans, which contribute the roasty, nutty flavors that steak aficionados crave. The longer and hotter the cooking, the deeper into the Maillard reaction you go and the more of these desirable end products you get — until eventually, the meat starts to char, producing undesirable bitter, burnt flavors.

Read what science has to say about the way you prepare steak at Smithsonian.

Erstwhile Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein once wrote a romance novel, but that was totally non-controversial compared to his later literary adventure. As the supreme ruler of his nation, Saddam indulged his whims without the input of Islamic theologians, as in the time he commissioned a copy of the Qur’an to be written with his own blood!  

The dictator had recently re-embraced his Islamic faith after his son, Uday Hussein, narrowly survived an assassination attempt on December 12, 1996. In an official letter published in 2000, Saddam explained that the book was intended as thanks to God for bringing him safely through many ‘conspiracies and dangers’ throughout his long political career: “My life has been full of dangers in which I should have lost a lot of blood…but since I have bled only a little, I asked somebody to write God’s words with my blood in gratitude.”

To write the book, Saddam commissioned calligrapher Abbas Shakir Joody al-Baghdadi. Over the next two years a nurse drew a total of 27 litres of Saddam’s blood and delivered it to al-Baghdadi, who after treating it with chemicals to stabilize it, used the liquid to write out the 114 chapters and 6000 verses of the Islamic holy book. Completed in 2000, the finished book runs 605 pages and is written in lettering two centimetres in height with borders decorated in intricate blue, red, and black designs.

Saddam is no more, but the blood Qur’an remains, and presents quite a paradox. While the book and its contents are holy to Muslims, human blood is considered unclean, so what is the status of this particular copy? And is it really Saddam's blood -or that of someone else? The calligrapher al-Baghdadi refuses to discuss the project to this day. Read about the blood Qur’an and what it means at Today I Found Out.

Sylvia Davat states that the pandemic has revealed that the food system that we currently have is "incredibly fragile and unsustainable." Thus, she believes that decentralizing that system is the solution. Not only does a local food system help local farmers; it also is environment-friendly.

"The food is healthier. The livelihoods are healthier. We know who's growing our food. There's nothing to not like about it," says Davat.

Davat expresses her belief in self-sufficiency through her wheat berry salad, which is made mostly of products local to her.

Watch how she makes it over at PBS.

(Image Credit: PBS)

Turkey — A foul mucus has blanketed the Sea of Marmara, a body of water that connects the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea in the Mediterranean. This has been the situation in Turkey for months, and it has heavily affected the fishing industry of the country. The said mucus is also threatening the shellfish in the area. The Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoǧan describes this as a “mucilage calamity”, but this might be something worse.

The slime is, in short, a national crisis. Turkey is now trying to vacuum up its embarrassment of sea snot, dispatching workers with hoses to collect mucus by the tons for incineration. But scientists say that much more is probably lurking under the water. And even worse, the floating mucus is a sign of much larger disruptions in the sea. As unsightly as sea snot might be, its most devastating effects happen far away from human eyes, deep below the surface.

Slime in the sea is not inherently unusual. “Mucus is everywhere,” says Michael Stachowitsch, a marine ecologist at the University of Vienna. “There’s no marine organism that doesn’t produce mucus, from the lowly snail to the slimy fish.” But in healthy waters, mucus doesn’t amass to epic proportions. The current sea-snot outbreak can be blamed on phytoplankton, a type of algae that produces the small bits of mucus that turn into flakes of marine snow. When these phytoplankton receive an infusion of imbalanced nutrients from fertilizer runoff or untreated wastewater, they make an overabundance of mucus. Beads of that mucus accumulate into stringers, which accumulate into clouds, which accumulate into the unending sheets now washing up on Turkey’s coast.

Vacuuming up the mucus on the surface probably isn’t enough to solve Turkey’s sea snot problem.

Head over at The Atlantic for more details about this story.

Now this is terrifying.

(Image Credit: DW News/ YouTube)

Jessica Lauser was born blind. Suffering from retinopathy due to being born four months prematurely, Lauser’s one eye is completely blind, and the other eye only has 20/480 eyesight, which means that she has very little to no depth perception.

Lauser knew that she would be bullied because of her poor eyesight, so she looked for a way to silence the bullies, and she found that way when she was seven years old. That way was through chess.

"I knew that the kids were going to call me 'four eyes,' and I said, 'Hey, maybe if I beat them, then they will finally shut up,'" Lauser said.

It became more than a way of silencing the bullies.

"When I saw that a child could beat an adult in this game, (I knew) there was obviously something special and different about this chess. It meant that it wasn't something that depended on the fact that somebody was stronger than someone else or that they had to see like everyone else. There was something special about (the game) that made me want to learn more."

As an adult, she found comfort in playing chess on the streets of Washington, DC, San Francisco and San Jose.

Today, Jessica Lauser has dozens of major accolades in chess. She is a three-time US blind chess champion. Lauser aims to be a chess master in the future.

More about her story over at CNN.

Utterly amazing.

(Image Credit: Dave Ruff/ CNN)

Astronauts cannot wash their clothes in space because there is no gravity in that place. And so they just throw away their clothes when they are done with it, and they let it burn up in the atmosphere with the discarded cargo.

Space station astronauts exercise two hours every day to counter the muscle- and bone-withering effects of weightlessness, quickly leaving their workout clothes sweaty, smelly and stiff. Their T-shirts, shorts and socks end up so foul that they run through a pair every week, according to Leland Melvin, a former NASA astronaut and NFL player.

“After that, they’re deemed toxic,” said Melvin, who’s serving as a spokesman for the project. “They like have a life of their own. They’re so stiff from all that sweat.”

For this reason, NASA has partnered with P&G, and the latter will send up some detergent that is said to be “custom-made for space” at the end of this year. The enzymes and the other ingredients will then be observed for six months. Stain-removal pens and wipes will also be sent up in May next year.

“The best solutions come from the most diverse teams,” Melvin said, “and how more diverse can you be than Tide and NASA?”

(Image Credit: NASA via AP)

Why settle for a tiny bit of butter on your bread when you could eat a chunk of butter (minus the bread) to “lubricate [your] arteries and veins.”? And why settle for a cake with some whipped cream when you can make a cake with a mountain of it? 

These are just some of the posts that can be found at the Facebook group Questionable Vintage Recipes, and Bored Panda has compiled the weirdest posts from the said group.

Have a look at these vintage recipes over at the site.

I got to say, some of these are really interesting to make.

(Image Credit: Bored Panda)

Artist Will Quinn did this parody of Bob Eggleton's "A Pint with a Mollusc" (1999)!

Source: Twitter