The Mespilus germanica was known as the "open-arse" due to its shape, resembling an anus opening to extrude its contents. Although extremely rare today, this fruit was loved in Medieval Europe, in part because it bloomed during the winter. Thus it was one of the few sources of sugar available to eat during the winter. But Europeans didn't eat it right away. The medlar, as the fruit is called today, becomes edible only after it has rotted for a few weeks. BBC describes this lost, beloved foodway:

When they're first picked, medlars are greenish brown and resemble oddly-shaped onions or alien-looking persimmons. If they're eaten straight away, they can make you violently ill – one 18th Century doctor and botanist said that they cause diarrhoea. But if you put them in a crate of sawdust or straw and forget about them for several weeks, they gradually darken and their hard, astringent flesh softens to the consistency of a baked apple.

The exact chemical mechanism involved remains elusive, but broadly, enzymes in the fruit break down complex carbohydrates into simple sugars such as fructose and glucose, and it becomes richer in malic acid – the main culprit behind the sour taste of other fruits such as apples. Meanwhile, harsh tannins, which contribute to the bitter astringency of younger red wines, and antioxidants such as ascorbic acid (Vitamin C), are depleted.

-via Kottke | Photo: Solange Cabe

Food artist ent.co_mam used pastry dough and neatly cut hot dogs to make edible versions of the walking brooms from Disney's Fantasia.

These brooms are less menacing than the ones that the sorcerer's apprentice foolishly created.

When it comes to high level chess play, the Berlin Defense is usually used by grandmasters in order to draw a game. In this particular game, Carlsen and Nakamura both expected that their game would be a draw, but Carlsen had a better way of drawing the game than the Berlin Defense — the Bongcloud. As Carlsen (the white pieces) moved his king immediately in the game, Nakamura (the black pieces), taken by surprise, couldn’t help but burst into laughter. Nakamura then accepted Carlsen’s invitation and moved his king, too. With big smiles on their faces, the two grandmasters moved their kings back and forth. And just like that, the game was drawn via threefold repetition.

You could tell by their faces that they truly enjoyed this short game.

(Image Credit: chess24.5/ YouTube)

There is growing evidence that the earth may have been completely covered by water billions of years ago. Some of the evidence comes from the mantle, the layer of the planet that makes up two thirds of the earth's mass. The minerals down there can hold water, but long ago they weren't able to hold as much water as they do now.  

What they posit is that, eons ago, the Earth's surface used to have a lot more water on it, maybe twice as much as it does now. Water seeping down into cracks in the crust may have weakened the crust, starting plate tectonics for the first time. When one plate slid under another (called subduction) it brought water with it, which was then stored in the mantle. As time went on and the mantle cooled, it was able to hold more and more water (plus as the mantle cools it's easier to form wadsleyite and ringwoodite, so it could soak up even more water). They suppose that over time the mantle sucked down about half the water on the surface, leaving us with what we see today.

The composition of the mantle is not the only evidence for an ancient water world, but it is the focus of an explanation from Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy.

The police who staff this station comment:

If you do drink and drive, please be so kind to hand yourselves in like this chap.

The suspect delivered himself directly to (but, fortunately, not through) the front door of the police station in Northwich, Cheshire, UK early on Saturday morning. It looks like he slipped through those poles in a non-lethal manner.

-via Dave Barry | Photo: Northwich Police

Curious about the menu item, redditor Vozembouch69 asked the waiter at the restaurant in Žilina, Slovakia for "Pizza Americana." This was the result. It is deeply offensive and correct (aside from the absence of a Bud Light).

In the background is a more tempting pizza with Niva blue cheese.

What "American foods" have you encountered around the world?

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A post shared by foodart_bremen (@foodart_bremen)

Maik, a sous chef in Bremen, Germany, wants a sauce to be evenly and elegantly spread across the center of a plate. So he sets a fidget spinner in motion to splatter the sauce perfectly. How clever!

-via Gastro Obscura

Taiwan — A few weeks ago, the Japanese food chain Sushiro announced that they will be giving free meals to people whose names contain the Chinese characters 鮭 and 魚. When put together, these characters translate to “salmon.”

The offer promised such individuals a free meal for up to six people including the one with the fishy name.

But in order to be eligible for the promotion, participants would be required to provide proof via official identification.

Naturally, only a few people would qualify in the promo. But because of Taiwan’s Name Act, which allows individuals to change their names up to three times, there were people who went into the registration office to have their names changed in order to qualify for the promo.

Of course, Taiwan’s Ministry of the Interior was not too happy about this, and he warned the country’s citizens about changing their names.

(Image Credit: Sushiro Taiwan/ Facebook/ Mashable)

How do you say hi to someone when you don’t have hands and you can’t speak? This dog had found a way, and that is through its teeth. You have to be very observant, however, as its teeth are tiny. But even if you don’t look at the teeth, you know that it is pleased to meet you, and is looking forward to playing with you. Just look at its cute eyes.

Image via Important Animal Images on Facebook

Working dogs will venture into spaces that humans consider too dangerous. Whether this is due to extraordinary bravery or ignorance of the actual danger, you can't say that the dogs of war aren't brave in their own way. They're also loyal and hard-working. Dogs were first trained to find wounded soldiers in the late 19th century, but came into their own in World War I.

During World War 1, mercy dogs were trained by national Red Cross societies to serve the country in which the specific society operated. A typical mercy dog was equipped with a saddlebag containing water, alcohol, and first aid supplies, which a wounded soldier could use to tend to his wounds. The dogs were trained to move silently around no man’s land, usually at night, sniffing out wounded soldiers, ignoring those belonging to the other side. The dogs were smart enough to recognize and differentiate between slightly wounded men and soldiers who were beyond help. Their mission was to alert the troops back at the camp that a man who had a chance of survival was lying in the battlefield waiting for help.

Mercy dogs are credited with saving thousand of lives during the war. Some were awarded for outstanding service. Read about the mercy dogs of World War I at Amusing Planet. -via Strange Company

We know from the movies that there's no basement under the Alamo, but the Lincoln Memorial in Washington is a different story. Construction on the memorial started in 1914, which began with digging 40 feet into the soft, reclaimed ground to lay a foundation. That foundation consisted of columns three stories tall to support the edifice above. The area is known as the Lincoln Undercroft.  

The underground cathedral of concrete pillars was then simply forgotten about until renovations in 1975. According to the Washington Post, in preparation for the Bicentennial, the memorial’s bathrooms were renovated, and the construction crews started peering into the building’s foundation. They brought along their friends, some of whom belonged to the National Speleological Society. The cellar was deemed a cave, complete with stalactites and its own ecosystem (insects, rodents, etc).

One other interesting find was historical graffiti from way back in 1914. Steven Schorr got to explore the Undercroft as a part of a digital preservation project, and described to NBC how “down in the basement of the Lincoln Memorial, they actually have things written on some of the pillars. The builders actually drew cartoons and they have them covered in Plexiglas.”

The basement was closed to the public again in 1989. Take a video tour, or you can visit the Lincoln Undercroft yourself in 2022, when it reopens for the memorial's centennial celebration. -via Metafilter

(Image source: Library of Congress)

Icelandic photographer Garðar Ólafs has plenty of images of the new volcano at Geldingadalir, but this is spectacular. He got a view from overhead during the eruption with a drone! Sadly, the drone gave its life for this image, but it will always be remembered for its sacrifice.

Ólafs has been at Fagradalsfjall for a couple of weeks now capturing the birth of the new volcano. He says, under another image:

The Eruption 🌋 1100° lava blasting from the earth forming new land, no words can describe how it feels to experience this in person, the sounds, energy and heat from this is on another level! 🇮🇸

-via Fark

Astronomers and data scientists have discovered a 35-year-old fart while poring over the signals sent back by the Voyager 2 space probe as it traveled past Uranus in 1986. We  now know that V-ger flew through a plasmoid, a magnetic bubble that carried a piece of the planet's atmosphere into space.

This data was only just 60 seconds of Voyager 2’s 45-hour fly by. A proverbial needle in a haystack. Gershman added, “But if you plotted it in 3D, it would look like a cylinder…”. Comparing results to other planetary passes, this cylindrical shape is at least 127,000 miles long and 250,000 miles across. They think the plasmoid is made of ionized particles, mostly ionized hydrogen.

While some planets have twisted magnetic fields, Uranus’ field were smooth-closed-magnetic loops. Such loops they say are formed when a spinning planet flings small amounts of it’s atmosphere into space.

You can read more about the discovery here, or just file this away as a nomination for the headline of the year.  -via reddit

(Image credit: NASA)

At first glance, you might think that this hen is keeping her chicks under her wings to protect them. But get close to her and try lifting her for a pleasant surprise. Those under her wings are not her chicks; those are her kittens.

Cute!

Via Laughing Squid

Why are we humans obsessed with butts? I think that is a question worth pondering about for hundreds or even thousands of years. But while all of us think about this puzzling question, here is a gallery of bread butts provided to us by Sad and Useless.

BUN appetit!

(Image Credit: Sad and Useless)