Last year, the town of Fair Haven, Vermont, elected a goat as their mayor. Lincoln, a female Nubian goat, is the town's first mayor, as Fair Haven is run by a city manager. The election was a promotion to raise funds for a playground. But Lincoln's term is only one year, so she is up for election again, and is being challenged by a police dog.

After he had to clean up the mayor's crap, literally, during her inauguration last year, Police Chief Bill Humphries is hoping for a change in leadership on Town Meeting Day.

Lincoln the Goat, who won Fair Haven's first mayoral election ever by a landslide in 2019 has her first challenger: K-9 Officer Sammy.

And Officer Sammy promises to cut the crap.  

Sammy, a female German Shepherd, boasts a distinguished career with the Fair Haven Police Department. However, a third party has entered the race, with a kinder, gentler, background as a therapy dog. The election will take place during a town meeting in March. Read up on the race at the Burlington Free Press. -via Boing Boing

(Image credit: Town of Fair Haven)

Meet Eugene Blair, one of Well Fargo's bravest coach guards...he never backed down from a challenge. Many would try to rob his coaches, but they quickly found he'd not only stand his ground and return fire...but track them down after they'd fled the scene.

Well heralded and recognized for his bravery, he was assigned riskier guard duties that would include sizable sums of money. With that, it attracted those who wanted to take it, including outlaws such as Gentleman Jack and the infamous “Big Jack” Davis. The outlaws found out the hard way Blair was not a man to be trifled with.

One route included guard duty to the outlaw Richard “Idaho Bill” Sloan, and when Blair heard his friends would try to free him, Eugene told Sloan, "Bill, I’ve heard that your friends are going to get you away from me between here and Carson if they can. Likely enough they will, but it’s fair to tell you that it’ll never do you any good, for I shall shoot you dead at the first break they make. It’s as well to have the matter understood between us."

Blair garnered such a reputation that Wells Fargo decided his career should end, being singled out by name and fear that someone would kill him in revenge. That, coupled with poor health from riding the coaches in poor weather, saw him retire from the stagecoach messenger business.

He married, had a child, but a wagon accident and consumption took its toll on Eugene. He died June in 1884 at the age of 37. Wells Fargo paid for Blair’s funeral and had a tombstone erected on his grave in the Old Auburn Cemetery, California.

“I have no regret for killing or maiming a highwayman, but I should never forgive myself for firing on an innocent man.”

Since we were kids, we were warned by our parents not to eat too many sweets, as it can promote cavities in our teeth. But it seems that that’s not the only bad thing that sugary food and drinks promote. According to a research from Aarhus University, they also promote periodontal or gum diseases.

The results have been obtained in connection with a critical review of the literature over the past fifty years, and have just been published in the international scientific journal Journal of Oral Microbiology.

"Sugar hasn't traditionally been associated with the development of periodontal diseases. It's true that back in the 1970s two American researchers suggested that a diet which was high in carbohydrates could be a common risk factor for both dental diseases and inflammatory diseases such as diabetes, obesity and heart disease, but this knowledge was largely forgotten again," says Professor, Dr. Odont. Bente Nyvad from the Department of Dentistry and Oral Health at Aarhus University, who has headed the research.

More information about this study over at EurekAlert.

(Image Credit: Pixabay)

Smallpox is a deadly disease which killed over 300 million people in the 19th century. Thankfully, it was declared to be eradicated in the United States in the 1950s, and globally in 1980. This brings a question, however: With the infectious disease declared gone, do the risks of the smallpox vaccination finally outweigh the benefits? Is smallpox vaccination still justified in the country? For many specialists, it is no longer justified.

Routine smallpox vaccinations in the United States ended by 1972 and globally by 1980, when the disease was declared eradicated. But the world isn’t totally safe from smallpox. Russian and U.S. labs keep samples of the disease-causing virus for research, and weaponized versions may exist.

In 2003, the U.S. government pushed to restart vaccinations for health workers and first responders as a precaution against potential bioterrorist attacks. That effort failed, partly because people feared the possibility of health complications from the vaccine. But U.S. officials have stockpiled smallpox vaccines, along with the first smallpox treatment, which was approved for use in 2018.

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Liquid nitrogen cryogenic strength test underway ☃️ pic.twitter.com/qRPBLInqm0

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 29, 2020

Going into space and traveling to other celestial bodies will certainly be dangerous. To at least reduce the possibility of mishaps, scientists make sure that the things they send in space are really durable. They test the toughness of these things here on Earth, and that’s just what SpaceX did.

Late last Tuesday (January 28), aerospace company SpaceX tested a prototype of their Starship Mars-colonization spacecraft. They ended up blowing the spacecraft’s lid off.

During a cryogenic strength test at the company's South Texas facility near the village of Boca Chica, SpaceX filled the prototype's 30-foot (9 meters) test tank with ultracold liquid nitrogen and pressurized the tank until it "popped." This video was captured by Spadre.com, a tourism information site for the nearby South Padre Island that offers live camera views of SpaceX's Starship work.

While the destructive test may not look like good news for the private spaceflight company, this event actually represents a major milestone for Starship. It demonstrated that the fuel tank can withstand the pressure it would experience on future human missions to the moon and Mars.

At least we’re sure that they did not do this test in vain.

See the video over at Space.com.

(Image Credit: Elon Musk/ Twitter)

Colorless, tasteless, and odorless. Such are the features of a naturally occurring element in the mineral deposits of Earth. This element is arsenic.

When water goes through underground aquifers, it usually dissolves inorganic substances from these mineral deposits, and one of these is arsenic. While it might sound safe to drink arsenic-contaminated water (after all, arsenic is colorless, tasteless, and odorless), it actually is very dangerous. Prolonged exposure to this kind of water can cause many diseases as well as many types of cancer, which could result in death.

Unfortunately, many regions don’t have the necessary equipment to treat their water through conventional means, and so they don’t have a choice but to use arsenic-contaminated water, which expose them to the risks mentioned above.

The crisis of widespread arsenic contamination, particularly in rural South Asia, has been described as the largest mass poisoning in human history.

Researchers, fortunately, have finally found a way to filter arsenic-contaminated water in a cheap way: by using rust.

More details about this over at PHYS.org.

(Image Credit: Tomihanhdorf/ Wikimedia Commons)

Who knew that the SpaceX and Tesla CEO could make music?

Earlier this week, Elon Musk stated that he wrote a song titled “Don’t doubt yer vibe”. The song is said to be released on “Emo G Records”. Apparently, he was not joking about it; he really did it. The song was released this Friday.

Musk also tweeted photos of himself in the studio actually recording the track, and shared that the process of putting together the song was maybe harder than he’d anticipated.

Listen to the song over at Soundcloud.

Stay cool, Elon.

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: TechCrunch)

The quirky rhythmic action game Patapon 2 will be coming back as a remastered game in the PS4. Patapon 2 will be available with 4K graphics, and compatible with a 4K display. The game can still be enjoyed in 1080p resolutions and an HD device for the regular PS4 owners. Patapon 2 retains the same gameplay, a player must command the Patapon troops to march, attack, defend, and use magic to the beat of the level’s music. The remastered Patapon 2 will be released on January 31, 2020. 

(via IGN)

image via IGN

Remember the billionaire who opened a matchmaking documentary to search for a girlfriend to accompany him in his trip to the moon? Well, it seems that he doesn’t need a girlfriend anymore. Yusaka Maezawa has canceled the matchmaking documentary, “Full Moon Lovers”, saying that he had mixed feelings about participating in the show, as Geek.com detailed:

“Due to personal reasons, I have informed AbemaTV … with my decision to no longer participate in the matchmaking documentary, hence requested for the cancellation of the show,” Maezawa wrote in a tweet.

“Despite my genuine and honest determination toward the show, there was a part of me that still had mixed feelings about my participation,” he explained.

Single ladies aged 20 or older—with a bright, positive personality, the desire to live life to the fullest, a wish for world peace, and an interest in going to space—were encouraged to apply online by Jan. 17.

“To think that 27,722 women, with earnest intentions and courage, had used their precious time to apply makes me feel extremely remorseful to conclude and inform everyone with this selfish decision of mine,” Maezawa said.

“I understand that I have disappointed many people—the applicants and all the staff from AbemaTV who were involved in the production—and I apologize to everyone for my unfavorable actions,” he continued. “I am truly sorry from the bottom of my heart.”

image via Geek.com

If you have a spare perfume, a zoo in Norfolk England will be very glad to take it off your hands. Banham Zoo has announced that it is soliciting fragrance donations. This is because the ocelots, jaguars, and cheetahs are enamored with the intoxicating scents of perfumes, and they are running out of their supply. Don’t worry that the large cats won’t like your perfume, as they are apparently open to different fragrances, as Time detailed: 

The draw of a good perfume for both domestic cats but also wild cats is well-documented in various research projects. It can be positively enchanting for the big cats.

Chalk it up to the civetone, a natural perfume ingredient that comes from the animal civet (a small nocturnal animal) that labs can manufacture now, according to the Bronx Zoo’s testing.

“The keepers at Banham have noticed their stocks of old perfumes are running low and are hoping that visitors to the zoo might also want to drop off any old or unwanted scents when they visit,” as the announcement puts it.

“Our big cats definitely react positively when scents are used as part of their enrichment program. For some reason Calvin Klein perfume is a huge hit with all big cats but in all honesty, any perfumes work well and we do like to offer them a variety of different smells,” animal manager Mike Woolham said in the announcement.

image via wikimedia commons

Who knew Bikini Bottom was such a dangerous place? YouTuber Carnage-Boy mixed the audio from the 1917 trailer with video footage from Spongebob Squarepants to create this masterpiece. If you want to compare the two trailers, they are together here. The movie 1917 is up for ten Oscars. -via reddit

Secret Bay, off the coast of Mabini in the Philippines, has a secret that you have to dive way down to find. Bayani Cardenas, a hydrologist at the University of Texas at Austin’s Jackson School of Geosciences, took a dive when he heard the water was bubbling. The bubbles at the top were nothing compared to what he encountered at the sea floor.

Some bubbles came a few at a time, in little hiccups, while others twirled like streamers. “At first, you see maybe a bubble spring every 50 feet or something, and then 150 feet down, you see a whole curtain from a distance,” Cardenas says. In some patches, he adds, the bubbles were “just gushing.” The researchers went down nearly 200 feet.

Cardenas and his team named the area Soda Springs. Read what causes all that effervescence, and see videos at Atlas Obscura. 
 
(Image credit: University of Texas Jackson School of Geosciences)

Between 2005 and 2010, George Lucas worked to develop a TV series in the Star Wars universe. Star Wars: Underworld was shelved in 2010 because of the production costs, but 50 episodes were written. According to Wookieepedia:

Star Wars: Underworld is said to be set primarily in the Coruscant underworld (which was briefly glimpsed during Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones), in the time period between Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope.[11] It is during this period that the Galactic Empire rises to ultimate power throughout the galaxy.[12] In 2005, George Lucas told Celebration III audiences that the show would not focus on any characters from the films, but that some of them could appear;[13] "A lot of the issues from the films are connected, but you won't necessarily see a lot of the people that are connected."[14] He later described the show as "bare-bones" and "action-heavy,"[15] and explained that it would depict what the inhabitants of the Star Wars galaxy do for entertainment.[16]

The five-minute scene above, which is following by some behind-the-scenes clips, is enough to make me rather curious about what else still exists on film. -via Digg

By 2007, the NFL had tried all kinds of over-the-top productions for the Super Bowl halftime show, but rarely did the television audience feel engaged, much less impressed. But that year, they had booked Prince. Prince had his own ideas about the 12-minute show. He skipped some of his own hits to play covers. He didn't want to do interviews. And he didn't want to have a backup plan. And then game day came with rain, which had never happened in Miami on Super Bowl Sunday.

[Vocalist] Shelby J.: Not just a drizzle. Not just a light rain. It was like a monsoon.

[Prince's manager/assistant Ruth] Arzate: I was like, “Oh shit.”

Shelby J.: We’re thinking, “Are we gonna change some stuff? … Are we gonna wear tennis shoes now?” Prince was like, “Don’t change nothing.” And that was part of him teaching us and me personally to be fearless.

Arzate: I knew that the executives were concerned about the rain and about electrocution and they were like, “We can always pretend that you’re singing” and have everything off and just play the track. And Prince was like, “I’m Prince, I’m gonna play live.”

The rain continued through halftime, and the result was the greatest Super Bowl halftime show ever. Read the story of that show, from the people who were involved, at the Ringer. -via Metafilter

Ze Frank takes another sideways turn from his True Facts series and presents a test to determine if you are in fact, human, and you have retained your humanity in spite of a dull office job. He released this as the weekend approached, in order to cause minimum depression. This video contains a more-than-a-minute ad in the middle, but it's easy to skip. I learned a couple things from this. I learned that some ball-point pens come with a plastic guard, which I have never seen in my life. I am also reminded once again of how fortunate I am to be able to work from home.