The 2004 movie National Treasure made no sense whatsoever, but it was an action film that starred Nicolas Cage. As Screen Junkies points out, it also checks off all the necessary formula points for a blockbuster hit, so it didn't have to make sense. Now, if you really liked National Treasure, you could pretend that it was a satire of action movies that pretended to be deep, but if you were honest about it, you'd just say it was fun ride.

Pictured above is a Native Alaskan participating in a high kicking contest from 1950. The object is to kick a leather ball hanging from several feet off the air. The ball is gradually raised until only the winner is able to reach it. The Smithsonian Institution describes the legend that led to this sport:

High-kick competitions were once part of Kivgiq, the Messenger Feast. As each man entered the qargi he tried to kick an inflated animal bladder or ball suspended from the ceiling. An Iñupiaq story tells of a young woman who owned two balls; the larger was the sun, and the smaller the moon. The sun ball fell (or in one version was dropped by Raven) and burst open, bringing light to the world. The circular designs seen on this ball represent the sun and commemorate this ancient story.

-via Weird Universe | Photo: University of Alaska at Fairbanks Archives

This past June, Mie University in central Japan graduated its first ninja. That's right, Genichi Mitsuhashi, who is pictured above, holds a master's degree in that field. He's chopping wood because farm work was part of a ninja's lifestyle. The Japan Times quotes him:

“I read that ninjas worked as farmers in the morning and trained in martial arts in the afternoon,” he said.

So Mitsuhashi grew vegetables and worked on his martial arts techniques, in addition to copious ninja study in the classroom.

About three students per year enroll in this program, which was created in 2017. It is focused on the history of ninjas, not the practical skills of ninjas. That didn't stop Mitsuhashi from studying on his own, though.

-via My Modern Met | Photo: AFP/JIJI

The Green-Wood Cemetery is a cemetery located in Brooklyn, New York City. It is the resting place of many famous artists and musicians like Leonard Bernstein and Jean-Michel Basquiat. But of all the many famous figures buried in this 478-acre cemetery, they are not who get the most visits. Rather, many people visit this place not to pay tribute to men, but to a humble dog named Rex.

Rex was the faithful companion of John E. Stow, one of NYC's leading fruit merchants who died in 1884. Green-Wood’s files from the 19th century include a note that refers to the placement of a “bronze likeness of a dog,” next to Stow’s grave. However, it’s unclear if Rex is actually buried there. “I think people like to believe that there is a dog interred there and there very well might be,” Stacy Locke, Communications Manager at Green-Wood Cemetery says. “But it’s hard to say.”

But it seems that it doesn’t matter whether Rex is buried there or not. It doesn't change the fact that he was, is, and always will be a good boy.

Over the past months, people have gone by the cemetery just to leave sticks on Rex’s gravestone.

If you’re in NYC, you can find Rex’s memorial at Green-Wood Cemetery, Lot 2925, Section 81.

Wholesome.

(Image Credit: terrawindham/ Twitter)

Yemen’s ancient city of Shibam, a UNESCO World Heritage site, has a big chance of collapse. The ancient city, also called the ‘Manhattan of the desert,’ faces collapse from disrepair. If continued to be left unrepaired, the city’s hundreds of sun-dried mud-brick towers that are almost seven stories high may be gone forever, as Barrons detailed: 

"The city looks like it was hit by a disaster -- without precedent," said Abdulwahab Jaber, a local official in the town, 480 kilometres (300 miles) east of the capital Sanaa.

Jaber said at least four towers have been completely destroyed and 15 others damaged in recent floods, which have killed scores of people across Yemen.

Hassan Aidid, head of the General Organisation for the Preservation of Historic Cities in Yemen, said that the roofs and the exterior of the mud towers had sustained the most damage.

"Residents of the city have been unable to restore them because of the war and the difficult situation in which they live," Aidid told AFP.

Yemen is gripped by a war between Iran-backed Huthi rebels -- who control the capital -- and a beleaguered government supported by a Saudi-led military coalition.

Shibam is controlled by the internationally-recognised government, but while it has largely been spared direct conflict, it has not escaped the effects of the war.

The fighting has almost completely halted public spending.

The city, with its densely-packed tower houses and alleyways often too narrow for cars, was put on the UNESCO heritage list in 1982 -- but in 2015 it was also added to the "List of World Heritage in Danger

Image via Barrons 

We know that platypuses are weird enough that even scientists are baffled by their existence, but can these egg-laying mammals get any weirder? It turns out they can. When scientists put platypuses under UV light, they discovered that these mammals glow green and blue.

Under visible light a platypus’s extremely dense fur — which insulates and protects them in cold water — is a drab brown, so the trippy glow revealed under UV light on a stuffed museum specimen was a big surprise. 

Biofluorescence — absorbing and re-emitting light as a different color — is widespread in fish, amphibians, birds and reptiles. But the trait is much rarer in mammals, and this is the first evidence of biofluorescence in egg-laying mammals, also known as monotremes, scientists reported in a new study.

Learn more about why platypuses are strange over at Live Science.

(Image Credit: Mammalia 2020; 10.1515/mammalia-2020-0027/ Live Science)

The Ruhr Valley in Germany has been mined for coal for 170 years. Over that time, they took so much material out from underground that the surface sank, and now the valley is completely dependent on Emschergenossenschaft pumps to keep the area from flooding. The most surprising thing about the pump system is that the coal companies are paying for them! Tom Scott has the story.

How long does it take an amendment to become part of the the US Constitution? However long it takes to be ratified by three-fourths of the states (that's 38 as of now)  ...unless there is a deadline attached to the amendment when it comes out of Congress. There was no deadline attached to "Article Two" when it was proposed by James Madison in 1789. It simply said,

No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.

It makes sense to restrict politicians from giving themselves raises whenever they want, but the states didn't seem to care. After all, state politicians had hopes of someday becoming members of Congress themselves. Read how Article Two eventually became the 27th Amendment, a whopping 203 years after it was first proposed, at Damn Interesting.

Beauty is subjective, of course. You might look at Romanesco, a vegetable that looks like the prettier cousin of broccoli and cauliflower with its geometric patterns. Romanesco, also known as Roman cauliflower, has a flowering head that grows in a naturally occurring fractal, as 10Best details: 

For those of you who slept through that week of math class, fractals are geometric figures or curves that repeat themselves at progressively smaller and smaller scale, even as each piece maintains the same form as the whole. If you can’t quite wrap your rusty mind around that high school concept, just take a peek at the twisty, spiny protrusions of a Romanesco, which spin off into logarithmic Fibonacci spirals.

Romanesco’s season in the sun is quite brief. Because it's grown in a few key parts of the world – namely Italy and part of the eastern United States – a select, lucky few are treated to multiple Romanesco seasons.

And speaking of enjoyment, you might be wondering what it tastes like. Romanesco is described as possessing a somewhat earthy taste that meshes elegantly with other flavors like garlic, white wine and even chili peppers. Like broccoli, Romanesco can be eaten raw, but also holds up well under various cooking methods like stir frying or roasting in an oven. As the florets heat up, they can become surprisingly sweet, making Romanesco a perfect addition to curries and other spicy dishes.

Image via 10Best 

Maia Surdam is a historian who runs a bakery. As such, she is delighted to bring back recipes from history. In 2016, she spurred a revival of the Election Cake, a traditional American recipe for an enormous cake shared at the polls in the early days of the United States, by selling them from her OWL Bakery in Asheville, North Carolina. The original was found in the first American cookbook, American Cookery, published in 1796.  

American Cookery’s recipe calls for 14 pounds of sugar, 12 pounds of raisins, and oodles of spices, along with both wine and brandy for flavor. These rich ingredients, expensive and rare when the book was published, speak to how Election Day used to be celebrated. Early Americans, flocking to town from their rural homesteads to cast their ballots, treated the occasion like a party, with the alcohol and food to match. Women, who at the time were denied the vote, provided refreshments to voters in the form of a dense, buttery cake, flexing political power in the only way allowed to them.

Election Cake, presumably a smaller version, was a hit during the 2016 presidential election. This year, you can make the recipe yourself, although it might be a little late for election day if you soak the fruit in booze for the recommended time. But hey, the holidays are coming! Read the history of Election Cake and get the recipe at Atlas Obscura.

(Image credit: Anne Ewbank)  

If you're the child of a Hollywood star, or a cousin or sibling, you might get to skip casting calls and auditions and go to work on set just like that. If your parent is a director or producer, you've got a very good chance for at least a small part. But sometimes there are practical reasons, like playing the younger version of your star parent. Or even your star sibling.

Wow. You have to wonder if Laverne Cox having a twin brother inspired the sequence, or was it just luck that she came up with the perfect person to play the part. See other Hollywood relatives in roles you may not know about at Cracked.

It would seem that living in green spaces is very beneficial for us. In a study published in 2014, it was stated that living in green spaces could improve one’s mental health. Now, a new study seems to suggest that the people living in such areas are also less likely to smoke, and smokers who live here are more likely to quit their vice.

The study is the first to demonstrate that access to neighbourhood greenspace is linked to lower rates of current smoking, and that this is due to higher rates of smoking cessation rather than lower uptake in these areas.

[...]

In addition, among people who had smoked at some point during their lives, those living in greener neighbourhoods were up to 12% more likely to have successfully quit smoking.

The authors suggest that improving access to greenspace may constitute an overlooked public health strategy for reducing smoking prevalence, especially given that smoking uptake and cessation are affected by stress.

Learn more details about the study over at EurekAlert.

(Image Credit: diego_torres/ Pixabay)

Have you ever wondered how animals choose their leaders in their respective groups? For us humans, we get to choose our leaders through elections, but how about them? How do these creatures build their social hierarchies? IFL Science tells us how chickens, bees, baboons, and African wild dogs establish social order.

Read more about this over at the site.

(Image Credit: klimkin/ Pixabay)

Can your neighbor sue you if you decide to follow his herd of cows, record bits of audio from them, and use this audio for a song? Reddit user ProfessionalTom seems to have been very curious when he asked this question at the discussion website.

“I plan on using these sounds in my tracks. He saw me following the herd and recording a plethora of samples of his cows,” Tom writes.

“When he asked me what it is for, I said I will use them in a song. He laughed and didn't seem to mind. His son was there though, and he knows my artist name.

“Now I wonder whether they can take over my song if they change their minds because it contains sounds of their cows.

Many Reddit users were quick to answer Tom’s question, and most of them said that his neighbor wouldn’t be able to sue him.

“How would he prove that the recording uses the sound of his cows, specifically?” he asks (fair point). “Do they sound more distinctive than other cows? There’s no claim to be made here whatsoever; you made the recording and it belongs to you.”

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: Peggy_Marco/ Pixabay)

… and other restaurants and independent food outlets as well.

The fast food chain that usually throws shade at McDonald’s states that they “never thought [they’d] be asking you to do this.”

Is it just me or is it really weird to see Burger King like this? I have to say, however, that this is easily one of the most wholesome things to happen this year.

Well, what do you think?

(Image Credit: Burger King UK on Facebook)