First things first: hopefully there’s no eruption that will sweep our recreated menu under all the lava, right? All jokes aside, recreating something would be difficult if we don’t even know what we’re actually going to recreate, right? Thankfully, archaeologists at the Archaeological Park of Pompeii have found some information from excavating an ancient food shop, called a thermopolium, located at the western edge of the unexcavated northeastern section of Pompeii. Atlas Obscura has more details: 

To recreate a meal that comes close to what may have been served here, one can begin by looking at the archaeological remains found inside. This includes the imagery in the frescoes painted on the service counter and the contents of the amphorae and the dolia. One dolium contained the bones of duck, swine, goat, and fish, as well as shells from land snails. The duck bones in particular correspond to the fresco of two mallards painted on the front of the counter, perhaps as a pictorial menu for the illiterate majority at the time. While some scholars have proposed that these faunal remains may imply that first-century Pompeiians consumed stews or soups composed of a motley of creatures, aside from a few Apician patinae, this would be an anomaly in ancient Roman cooking. As dolia were primarily used for dry and liquid food storage, and not for cooking, it is possible that the bones and shells found in the dolium represented food waste from an in-house butchery, food preparation that took place behind the counter, or post-consumption food waste left behind by the customers.

It is also possible that these remains were evidence of something else entirely: What if these shells and bones were destined for a master stock that was used in the dishes being served in the establishment? After all, this thermopolium was situated near a fountain and water tower, providing access that would facilitate making a bulk broth on a daily basis. References to such dishes appear across historic texts: In the first century BC, Republican statesman Cicero complains of the “reek and fume” of stew-houses in his biting invective Against Piso, while Athenaeus of Naucratis, a third-century Greco-Egyptian writer, refers to food in the “common messes” as “nothing but broth and chunks of meat.” Second-century historian Dio Cassius even recounts an occasion when Emperor Claudius “abolished the taverns where [the populace] were wont to gather and drink, and commanded that no boiled meat or hot water should be sold.”

Image via Atlas Obscura 

How did people ever wear this giant Mayan mask? Maybe the mask was just for display purposes. Imagine the heavy weight of actually trying it on! The 2,000-year-old mask, revealed at an archaeological site in Yucatan, Mexico, depicts the face of an unknown deity. The artifact was sculpted from stucco, a building material, as Live Science details: 

The discovery was made in 2017 at the archaeological site of Ucanha, near the modern-day city of Motul, and since then researchers with Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) have worked painstakingly to restore it.

Stucco masks like this one "represent the faces of individuals with particular features that can be associated with deities or with characters of prominent social status," INAH said in a statement.  

Image via Live Science

Well, here’s our chance to prove that swearing isn’t that bad, apparently. Studies have shown that swearing may be a sign of verbal superiority, and can indicate honesty, intelligence, and creativity! CNN lists the benefits of saying vulgar words as proven by science:

Well-educated people with plenty of words at their disposal, a 2015 study found, were better at coming up with curse words than those who were less verbally fluent.

Participants were asked to list as many words that start with F, A or S in one minute. Another minute was devoted to coming up with curse words that start with those three letters. The study found those who came up with the most F, A and S words also produced the most swear words.

That's a sign of intelligence "to the degree that language is correlated with intelligence," said Jay, who authored the study. "People that are good at language are good at generating a swearing vocabulary."

Swearing can also be associated with social intelligence, Jay added.

"Having the strategies to know where and when it's appropriate to swear, and when it's not," Jay said, "is a social cognitive skill like picking the right clothes for the right occasion. That's a pretty sophisticated social tool."

If you want to read more about it, check the full article here. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to show the benefits of swearing to the old people in my life! 

Image via CNN

The Brood X, also known as the Great Eastern Brood, is a species of periodical cicada that will re-emerge after 17 years of living underground. Don’t worry, these large winged creatures are mostly harmless, although their buzz isn’t that pleasant to the ears. The cicadas will show up this spring in 15 states in the US:  

“The end of May through June, it can get pretty loud – if you are in an area where they are numerous, there can be hundreds of thousands, or millions, of them,” said Howard Russell, an entomologist (insect scientist) at Michigan State University.

One of the largest broods of periodical cicadas in the nation, Brood X will emerge this spring in 15 states: Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, as well as Washington D.C.

Unlike greenish, annual cicadas, periodical cicadas are known for their black bodies and bold, red eyes. Their mass, in-unison emergence every 17 years is one of nature’s great mysteries.  

But the bugs haven’t been in hibernation since their last mass appearance in 2004.

“They are always there, that’s what people don’t realize,” said John Cooley, an entomologist at the University of Connecticut who studies periodical cicadas.

Image via USA Today 

To stay healthy and in shape, it is recommended that we take 10,000 steps a day. That may seem like an awful lot of walking and running, but when you do it by dancing, it's more fun and just as healthful. The Swedish nonprofit Generation Pep recruited 9-year-old French dancer Lilyana Ilunga to demonstrate how those steps add up in a joyful dance sequence. -via Nag on the Lake

This bonkers ad is rather amusing as a parody of both supermarket ads and deep fake technology. But it's not really a fake ad. It's a teaser for a new immersive art installation now open in Las Vegas from Meow Wolf (previously at Neatorama). Omega Mart is a combination of theme park, virtual reality game, art museum, and shopping. It's an experience in weirdness, let's say. -via reddit

Jim Haynes, who died earlier this month, was an American in Paris who was famous for inviting strangers to dinner at his home. Starting in the late 1970's, he operated an open-house policy at his home every Sunday evening for more than 40 years. Up to 120 guests would be milling about his home. An estimated 150,000 people have come over the years. The guests came from all walks of life and countries.

But, Jim wasn't just a generous host. He lived a remarkable life. Born in Louisiana in 1933, he had lived in Venezuela as a teenager; founded the alternative culture centre Arts Lab in London, where he mixed with David Bowie, John Lennon and Yoko Ono; ran a sexual liberation magazine in Amsterdam, and all before becoming a university lecturer in sexual politics in Paris, his home since 1969. Jim also established in Edinburgh, Scotland the first paperback bookshop, co-founded the Traverse Theatre and helped kickstart the Fringe festival.

He even wrote guidebooks for couchsurfing in countries behind the Iron Curtain. Instead of the standard descriptions of sights and hotel listings, the format was like an address book, including the contact details for hundreds of in-country hosts. The idea was that if people could not easily see the Western world themselves, he would bring it to them via travellers. It was "couchsurfing", but offline.

Read more of Jim's amazing story at BBC.

Image Credit: Jesper Haynes

Image Credit: Michael Kurcfeld

You might ask yourself if a movie that makes a "best of" list can be a cult film at all. Why yes, in the internet age it's quite likely. Once upon a time, a box office failure would only live on in late night TV, but with home video and online group chat, any movie can have a second life by finding its audience.

To kick things off: a ranking. This ranking was assembled through the votes of Ringer staff members. And though there is no official definition for a cult movie—most times, you know it when you see it—voters were asked to consider only films that (a) were not successful at the box office, (b) were not widely and initially praised by critics, and (c) gained popularity only after they left theaters, whether by word of mouth, midnight screenings, or home-video success.

A cult movie may be the "so bad its funny" kind, but most of the films on this list were ignored by first-run audiences for other reasons, like not being the feel-good feature audiences expected, or being too confusing to appreciate in a single viewing. Still, there are points to argue, for example, you can't really call Monty Python and the Holy Grail a box office failure. Check out the list and the reasons why each movie became a cult film at The Ringer. -via Boing Boing

(Image credit: Adam Villacin)

When governments need money, they often go for a new tax wherever the money is. That makes sense, even when it is flagrantly unfair or even corrupt. But sometimes a tax can be used as a method for changing behavior, which was the impetus for a Russian tax on beards a few hundred years ago.

It’s often claimed that King Henry VIII of England introduced a tax on beards, despite there being no records to prove it. Russia’s Peter the Great, however, did place a tax on his bearded subjects. In 1698, in a bid to bring Russia up to speed with Western Europe’s trend for cleaner shaves, he imposed an annual beard tax. His poorer subjects were allowed to wear a beard for just two kopeks a year, while wealthy citizens had to pay 100 rubles. Bearded tax-dodgers could be forcibly shaved by the police, while those who paid the tax were given a copper token to carry, which proved that their beard was fully paid for.

Whatever the reason, there have been some pretty strange taxes imposed on various societies throughout history. Read about taxes imposed on single men, political enemies, and urine, among other things at Mental Floss.

Korakuen is a chain of ramen restaurants in Japan. Last year, the company offered customers bowls of chocolatey ramen noodles for Valentine's Day. It plans to do so again this year. In addition to traditional chocolate, it will also offer a white chocolate ramen, both of which are from the famous Lotte candy company. Sora News 24 reports that each bowl will cost about $6.20 and broth refills will cost about $0.96.

Photo: PR Times

Tim Storms holds Guinness World Records for the lowest vocal note by a man and the greatest vocal range of a man. That's 10 octaves from G -7 to G/G#5!

His singing voice is unearthly beautiful. In this recording, he sings the Gospel classic "I've Got to Walk that Lonesome Road" by J.D. Summer.

This interview about Storms's work demonstrates how that low singing voice plays into conversation. Storms also does voiceover work, in which he offers renditions of Tony the Tiger, Tigger, Winnie the Pooh, and Darth Vader.

-via Twisted Sifter

Two and a half years ago, we posted the lovely story of a guy who found a cat and her four newborn kittens under his bed. British filmmaker Paris Zarcilla was astonished, and soon fell in love. He promised to protect them, and he's kept that promise by keeping all five cats. He named the mother Forever, and the kittens Pancake, Ronin, Mac, and Dobby. Zarcilla posts regular updates on the cats' antics at Twitter, and you can catch up on their story so far at Bored Panda.

Every year, one book wins the Diagram Prize for the oddest book title of the year. The year 2020 is the 42nd such competition, and a Canadian author has won for the first time. That would be anthropologist Gregory Forth of the University of Alberta.

A Dog Pissing at the Edge of a Path showed a remarkably clean pair of paws to the rest of the field, notching up 49% of the public vote—26 percentage points clear of second-place finisher, Introducing the Medieval Ass.   

Horace Bent, The Bookseller legendary diarist and The Diagram Prize administrator, said: “There has been little to shout about in a difficult year, but A Dog Pissing at the Edge of a Path is something to cherish, as long as you stay a good metre or two away and, perhaps, wear some stout wellies. Congratulations to Gregory Forth and McGill-Queen’s University Press: I am sure the champagne—or I guess something else—will certainly be flowing as they celebrate A Dog Pissing’s hard-earned victory."   

The book is about animal metaphors in Indonesia. Other titles in the shortlist were Classical Antiquity in Heavy Metal Music, Lawnmowers: An Illustrated History, The Slaughter of Farmed Animals: Practical Ways of Enhancing Animal Welfare, and How to Make Love to a Despot. Read more on the award at The Bookseller. -via Kottke

Johann David Steingruber (1702-1787) was an architect in what is now Germany. In 1773, he published this alphabet book which used letters as outlines for building shapes. Although some letters, such as T, turn into buildings very easily, others, such as P, R, and Z, look delightfully eccentric.

A more fanciful architectural alphabet from 1753 can be found here. Perhaps the two approaches could be combined into single buildings.

-via Kottke

Meet the Longopac, a garbage bag that is able to extend its utility while cutting down waste. The bag, created by Swedish company Paxzo, is 410 feet in length. The ‘endless’ part comes from the fact that upon placing the Longopac into a garbage bin, you can fill it up however much you desire and cut it off at the top, tie it shut, and throw it out. Input Magazine has more details: 

"The bags are manufactured from three-ply polyethylene-low material consumption and [offer] high strength. Independent life cycle analysis shows less than 1/3 koldioxid compared to traditional bags. [The bags are also] lower weight and [their] more compact packing gives less transport cost."

If you ask us, it looks like a mix between a one-size-fits-any condom in bag form and Saran wrap, and we love it.

Paxxo calls their creation "endlessly clever" and while we can't vouch for that, it's definitely a creative spin on the average garbage-bag-and-can setup. Because though we try to only take out the trash when it's full... sometimes that's just not feasible. Sometimes we dispose of something foul or food scraps that can't be composted and will be foul soon enough, and we have to throw the bag out even if's only half full.

Image via Input Magazine