The ideal librarian uniform is refined, dignified, and allows for easy body movements for our profession's complex martial arts moves.* Hence the design worn by librarians during the Nineteenth Century at the National Library of Spain in Madrid.

-via Super Punch | Photo: Marike van Roon

*Thus we are pants-free.

Robert Bush set up a camera trap at a log that had fallen across a creek in Pennsylvania. This is  supercut of the different animals who used it as a bridge over a year. You'll see a bird abusing his fish dinner, a beaver contemplating the site's potential, a bear returning again and again, and a bobcat posing for the camera, among lots of other critters. -via reddit

Being in the shower calms our minds and helps us process the things inside our brains. There we can do lots of things, such as sing, do a monologue, evaluate the day, and even dance if we feel like it. In that place, we also come to realize things that didn’t cross our minds before, and, in case you didn’t know, there’s a place in the Internet for these sudden epiphanies that come across our minds when we’re in the shower, and that place is the subreddit aptly called “Shower Thoughts.”

The HuffPost compiles for us the best posts on this subreddit for this week. Check them out over at the site.

Care to share any shower thoughts?

(Image Credit: u/leftmostpuddle/ Reddit)

A study about snacking trends among kids in the United States says that kids snack about three times a day, and 27% of their daily calories come from these snacks. This study also states that in recent years, the largest increases in consumption have been in salty snacks and candies. Sweetened beverages, as well as desserts, however, still remain as major sources of calories when it comes to snacks. For a parent, this statistics can be a bit alarming.

What your kids choose to snack on is important, and it can make or break a morning, afternoon or evening. A healthy snack will fuel a child's mind and body, and fill in important nutrient gaps such as calcium and fiber. Snacks devoid of nutrition and loaded with sugars can lead to fatigue, cravings, weight gain and tooth decay.

As a mom and a nutritionist, Lisa Brayer always searches for healthy, but delicious and kid-friendly, snacks for her children. She offers us her list of easy-to-make nutritious snacks that you can make for them.

I recommend making them with your children. It's not only a fun activity to do together. It's also a simple way to get your kids interested in healthy, tasty foods.

Check out her list over at CNN.

(Image Credit: esigie/ Pixabay)

A beehive eight feet in length was discovered and removed from an apartment by Virginia Wildlife Management and Control. The said beehive was large enough to support 100,000-150,000 bees. However, the owner of the animal control company, Rich Perry, stated that the beehive was not fully occupied.

It was also stated that the hive was able to produce about 80 to 100 pounds of honey. Unfortunately, only about 15 to 20 pounds were recovered.

Perry said it was extremely unusual to find such a large hive inside a building. He said the hive of Italian bees was likely to be at least 2 years old. He said the bees probably got in through holes in the siding and found a home between rafters and sheet rock.

The company said it has a “no kill” policy with bees. But he said the company could not find the queen after an extensive search and that the hive could not be saved.

Thankful that no bees were killed during the operation.

How big was the biggest beehive that you’ve seen in your entire life?

(Image Credit: Virginia Wildlife Management and Control via AP)

This guy in Denmark emailed government representatives, embassies, consulates, UN offices, and tourism departments around the world and asked for a flag. My rule of thumb is to skip sharing any video that is more than ten minutes unless it is particularly interesting, and this one certainly made the cut. You will love seeing the responses he got and the swag he received, along with the many flags from all over. The moral of the story is, if you ask nicely, people are pretty cool. -via reddit

When introducing a potato into the alimentary canal, it is essential to use the correct orifice, as it can be processed through only one direction.

Nonetheless, doctors are concerned that some people may be using potatoes anally as a home remedy for hemorrhoids, an affliction also known as piles. Wales Online reports:

Dr Diana Gall, of leading online medical service Doctor-4-U, said: “Piles can be an irritating condition and sufferers are sometimes too embarrassed to seek professional helping, turning to old wives’ tales instead.

“There is no medical evidence that putting frozen potatoes inside the anus can help cure piles, so I would urge caution to anyone thinking of doing it.

“Piles often go away on their own after a few days, but there are some tried and trusted ways to keep them at bay.

-via Debby Witt | Photo: Pxhere

The Riverview Cemetery in Trenton, New Jersey, features a unique gravestone designed around The Raven. Each stanza carries the same rhyme: door, implore, more, Lenore, and of course, nevermore. The tombstone, right beside that grave of a New Jersey governor, includes those rhymes   

This tombstone is a tribute to Edgar Allan Poe, incorporating elements of the master of the macabre’s most famous poem, “The Raven.” Almost 140 years of weathering on the limestone tablet have made its features are difficult, but not impossible, to decipher. It’s definitely carved in the shape of a door, complete with a jamb, molding, knob and keyhole. The word “Nevermore” is almost undetectable, yet undeniably present across the top of the stone door’s frame. Above the stone once rested a sculpted bust of Pallas Athene (the Greek goddess of wisdom) with a raven perched atop her head (as described in Poe’s verse). It is plain to see the figure was indeed mounted there until fairly recently, but by talking to the superintendent, we learned that the statuette had been stolen in the late 1990s. We were also told that at one time the door even had a marble doorknob, but due to acid rain and deterioration, the knob broke off or withered away.

Though not at first visible to the naked eye, the name “Lenore” became more pronounced on the stone door’s nameplate after we gently rubbed away several years of growth and dark green moss.

One might think that the grave must belong to someone named Lenore, or maybe a close friend or relative of Edgar Allan Poe. Neither is true. Truman F. Betts, MD is buried there. Whether or not he was a fan of Poe or his poem, what we do know about Betts is pretty melancholy. Read about him and his poetic gravestone at Weird N.J. -via Strange Company

Simon Rich brings us a short story about two pirates, Black Bones the Wicked and his first mate Rotten Pete the Scoundrel. They aren't quite Long John Silver or even Captain Jack Sparrow. They mutinied and took over the ship Delicious, intending to use her to find treasure all over the world. The ship's captain rued the day he hired these men as crew members.

In any case, we made him walk the plank, along with all his hoity-toity educated officers. And that’s when I took out me treasure map. I’d won it in a dice game against Blackjack the Crazy, and it gave us directions to all the buried gold in the known world. I nailed it to the mainmast, where every man could see it, and we all stood around it for a while, staring at it in the boiling midday sun. And after some time, I cleared me throat and said, “So, does anyone here be knowing how to read?” And there were some groans and cursing, and I realized maybe it had been a mistake to be killing all the educated officers.  

The real story starts when the pirates find they have a stowaway on the ship. You can read the whole thing at The New Yorker. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Faye Moorhouse)

Saba Juancho E Yrausquin Airport on the Caribbean island Saba has the world's shortest commercial runway, only 400 meters (1,312 ft). Only small prop planes are allowed to land there -no jets. So what's the worst that could happen? Swiss001 used a flight simulator to make some test runs on Saba, with results that range from surprisingly okay to disastrous, made quite amusing from his commentary and the fact that no one dies in a flight simulator. -via Digg

Many homes have some kind of work of art that consists of only a piece of pleasant text, like "Live, Laugh, Love." But look closer... this is not that at all.

When burying nuclear waste, scientists must consider the possibility that future civilizations may uncover it. A lot of thought went into how to warn those future people about the dangers, which you can read about in the previous Neatorama post Ray Cats, Artificial Moons and the Atomic Priesthood. For civilizations still able to read English, a report from Sandia Laboratories offered this suggestion:

   This place is a message... and part of a system of messages... pay attention to it!

    Sending this message was important to us. We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture.

    This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here.

    What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.

    The danger is in a particular location... it increases towards a center... the center of danger is here... of a particular size and shape, and below us.

    The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours.

    The danger is to the body, and it can kill.

    The form of the danger is an emanation of energy.

    The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.

Is that ominous or what? Boy Toy Wonder made this decorative sign, or at least found it. Nuclear engineer Katie Mummah was excited to find it, since she thought she'd have to make her own. There are others almost like it, some you can even buy.  -via Boing Boing

February 29th only comes around once every four years, so it's a pretty special day for some people. Those would be the people who were born on February 29th, and only have a real birthday date four times by the time they get their driver's license. But there are traditions celebrated the world over for this rare date. The most common is that February 29 is the one day that women can propose marriage to men.

Where did the tradition begin? Supposedly Ireland in the 5th century. Saint Brigid of Kildare, arguing that women were languishing away waiting for their shy beaux to pluck up the nerve to pop the question, asked Saint Patrick to give a day they might do the deed themselves. A little haggling was involved, with Saint Patrick first suggesting every seven years, but eventually the Leap Year was settled on. According to folklore, Saint Brigid then immediately proposed marriage to the Irish saint.

As the Irish nun would have been around nine or ten years old when St. Patrick died in 461 A.D, this story is a little dubious, but no less charming for it.

Yes, it's an outdated concept, but there are specific traditions centered around the idea, including fines levied against men who turned down such a proposal in various European countries. Read about those traditions, plus what they eat in Taiwan, what they drink in London, and what they publish in France on February 29, at Buzzfeed.

“Build your own story!” “Create your own path!” “Your choices matter!” These are the usual promotional words that you’ll see in video games which have multiple endings. But at some point in that game, there will come a time that, no matter what you do, the outcome will be the same. Your choices make no difference.

In this funny skit by Viva La Dirt League, the player tries his best to save the man about to be beheaded, to no avail.

(Video Credit: Viva La Dirt League/ YouTube)

In order to help our bodies generate heat when we’re cold, we involuntarily shiver. Surprisingly, shivering also has a secondary good effect on our bodies — it burns calories, and potentially fat. With that in mind, a question emerges: can we lose weight by shivering?

It almost sounds like a pitch from an informercial, but it's true: one study from 2014 found that just 15 minutes of shivering might provide similar fat-burning benefits as a full hour of moderate exercise. Our instinctive response to the cold helps stimulate a key hormone called irisin that helps the body produce a specific type of fat conducive to weight loss.

However, being cold does not necessarily translate to losing weight, and if you’re thinking of just shivering your way to weight loss instead of working out, it won’t have the same long-lasting effects on your metabolism compared to “regular trips to the gym”.

More details about this over at Discover.

(Image Credit: JillWellington/ Pixabay)

Across Japan, the number of people confirmed to be infected with the coronavirus have kept surging, exceeding over 200, with some students included. This is aside from the over 700 people infected in the cruise ship Diamond Princess.

In an effort to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus among children in every region in Japan…

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday asked all elementary, junior high and high schools nationwide to close from Monday through the students’ spring break, which typically ends in early April.

“The government attaches the top priority to the health and safety of children, among others,” he said.

Later Thursday, the health and welfare ministry said Abe’s request does not apply to day care centers for children and after-school facilities for elementary school students.

More details about this news over at The Japan Times.

How thoughtful of the Prime Minister. I hope that the virus will no longer spread.

(Image Credit: KYODO/ The Japan Times)