Beware of wonderful family vacations and the desires they can inspire. A 12-year-old Australian boy had run away from home several times in his quest to return to Bali, where his family had spent some presumably enjoyable time. He was caught over and over, until 2018, when he managed to book a flight and abscond with his passport and his mother's credit card.

After his parents thought he had gone to school, Drew packed a bag, hopped on his scooter, and proceeded to the train station. He skipped over the check-in kiosk at the Sydney airport because, as he terrifyingly explained later, they "ask too many questions." The one time he was questioned in Perth, he showed them his student ID to prove his advanced age of 12, and everything went swimmingly from there.

Drew went from Sydney to Perth to Indonesia before finally landing in Bali, where he claimed he was meeting his mom. He checked into the All Seasons Hotel, explaining that he was waiting for his sister, and then chilled in Bali for four days. He rented a motorbike, tried beer for the first time, and generally acted out Home Alone: Island Edition before his mom showed up and totally harshed his mellow.

Read the rest of that story and those of four other cases where children caused complete chaos in the article 5 Temper Tantrums That Spiraled Out of Control at Cracked.

(Image credit: TMFalkner)

Nathan Yau made an interactive tool that will guess your name. You enter your sex and decade of birth, and then type the first letter. Not only will the tool guess your name, but you also get a percentage of its confidence in the guesses. If the algorithm doesn't guess right, try a second letter to refine the results.

This is based on data from the Social Security Administration, up to 2018. It’s relatively comprehensive, but there are a few limitations. First, it’s data for the United States, so the numbers don’t really apply elsewhere. Second, the SSA doesn’t include names with fewer than five people in a year, so the chart doesn’t cover more unique names. Third, there were no Social Security Numbers before 1935, so the name counts are fuzzier for years before that.

This thing guessed both my first and middle name (which begin with the same letter) on the very first try. So I entered data on my entire family and was astonished at how common our names were for their time, grandparents included. Only when I got to my paternal grandfather, who was born in 1901, did the real name not appear at the very top of the guesses. It was third. Check it out yourself at Flowing Data.  -via Digg

From Flashbak comes a fascinating promotional comic dating back to sometime in the 1970s (WorldCat gives a publication date of 1960, but WorldCat is not always accurate with bibliographic data).

The comic, which was excavated by the ever-fascinating website Comics with Problems, shows Ronald McDonald rounding up juvenile delinquents while out on crime patrol. He delivers them, one by one, to scouting organizations that fit their age and gender. The kids are happier, healthier, and more socially connected as a result.

A houseplant is supposed to be simple, a little bit of nature brought inside. Some people get attached to their plants, because they are living things that one takes care of. But when a plant dies, it's a sad occasion that may induce mourning. Is that normal? Yes, and common, too. While it's not as devastating as losing a pet or a family member, the death of a plant can produce a profound sense of loss that may be confusing.

“When it comes to a plant dying, the mourning usually is more about self-criticism over one's ability to do things right,” says Marina Resa, a psychotherapist based in Los Angeles who specializes in pet bereavement, among other things. “There's an assumption that caring for a plant should be easy, so the shame can run deep, particularly when a plant dies that is said to be ‘impossible to kill,’ such a cactus or succulent.”

When a plant you’ve owned for a long time dies, the mourning process might be even more difficult, Resa added. That plant has “seen” things, after all. It’s lived life alongside you, providing beauty and comfort in times of stress. And now, instead of furthering your connection to the natural world — a blessing that doesn't come easy in the digital age — you’ve dried it out.

As a longtime gardener, I no longer mourn the death of one plant, but I fondly recall the rubber tree I kept going for 30 years, and regret the flowers that won't flourish under my care. Read more about what's involved in our relationships with houseplants at Mashable.

(Image credit: Vicky Leta/Mashable)

The brave hero saving a virtuous woman from an evil villain has forever been a classic story, from ancient mythology to modern Hollywood movies. It sets up the woman as both victim and prize, weak but on a pedestal. The heyday of such stories is set in the medieval period, where chivalrous knights proved themselves by risking their lives for a woman's honor. Knights were real historical figures, and chivalry and honor were important to them, right? And considering we have contemporary accounts of actual events from that time, you'd think we'd find some real stories of knights rescuing damsels in distress. But as Daven Hiskey found in his research, the historical record is pretty dismal for damsels.

On that note, looking at various instances of kidnapped women, we figured surely at least one kidnapped woman of noble birth in history had some officially knighted individual dash off to save her, right? She’s literally surrounded by these sorts of men, some of whom would be relations and presumably interested in her safety and well-being.

Well, it turns out while woman of wealth and nobility were shockingly often abducted throughout Medieval times, it doesn’t seem as if they could rely on knights to come to their rescue, or often anyone at all. In cases where something was done, rather than rushing off swords drawn, it would seem, as would be more likely today, resolving the kidnappings was almost always done through negotiations with the kidnapper or through the court systems and the law, or both.

More specifically, during Medieval times in the Western world, women of means, whether of the nobility or otherwise in possession of not inconsiderable valuables, were in particular danger from a random guy coming along and kidnapping and forcibly marrying her. This might be done by simply raping her, and thus consummating the union, or in some cases to make it all more official, finding a willing priest to marry the couple against the woman’s wishes and then raping her to seal the deal.

You'll find quite a few documented examples of medieval women being treated shabbily, with no hope of rescue by a chivalrous knight, at Today I Found Out.

(Image credit: Andy Dolman)

Colonization of the Moon and other planets has been a trend not just in science fiction, but also in scientific research. 

Living on places other than Earth truly is a fascinating idea. In order to dwell in extraterrestrial places, however, we will need special equipment to survive in their conditions. We also need special vehicles to traverse the terrain of these aforementioned bodies in space.

Lexus had its design team make concepts of vehicles for moon mobility. Check them out over at Ars Technica.

(Image Credit: Lexus/ Ars Technica)

In the year 1054, astronomers witnessed a violent birth of a celestial object — the Crab Nebula. Cataloged as M1, which is the first on Charles Messier’s famous list of things that are not comets, the Crab Nebula continues to expand up to this day at a rate of 1,000 kilometers per second.

Over the past decade, its expansion has been documented in this stunning time-lapse movie. In each year from 2008 to 2017, an image was produced with the same telescope and camera from a remote observatory in Austria. Combined in the time-lapse movie, the 10 images represent 32 hours of total integration time. The sharp, processed frames even reveal the dynamic energetic emission within the incredible expanding Crab. The Crab Nebula lies about 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Taurus.

(Video Credit: APOD Videos/ YouTube)

One of the earliest scientific facts that I learned when I was a child was the normal body temperature, which is 98.6°F (or 37°C). A new study in eLife, however, seems to show that this number is outdated.

The figure was probably accurate in 1851, when German doctor Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich found it to be the average armpit temperature of 25,000 patients. Times have changed, though, according to the recent paper: the average American now seems to run more than a degree F lower.

Stanford University researchers looked at data from Civil War soldiers and veterans and two more recent cohorts to confirm that body temperatures among American men averaged around 98.6 degrees F back then but have steadily fallen over time and that temperatures among women have fallen as well. Their data find an average for men and women of 97.5 degrees F.

Senior author Julie Parsonnet states that the research suggests that in the process of altering our surroundings, we have also altered ourselves. She states that ““We’ve changed in height, weight—and we’re colder.”

More details about this over at Scientific American.

(Image Credit: Pixabay)

Tardigrades, also known as “water bears,” are arguably the toughest creatures in the universe that we currently know. In response to environmental stressors, these microscopic creatures are capable of entering a state of suspended animation, which brings their metabolic activities almost to a stop. With this death-like state, they can survive for years even in extreme environments, including the vacuum of space. Scientists, however, have found something that even these tiny water bears can’t survive: long-term exposure to high temperatures.

“We had found their Achilles’ heel,” researcher Ricardo Neves, from the University of Copenhagen, told Newsweek. “Tardigrades are definitely not the almost indestructible organism as advertised in so many popular science websites.”

This is a worrisome matter for the tardigrades as the world is slowly becoming hotter.

More details over at Futurism.

(Image Credit: Schokraie E, Warnken U, Hotz-Wagenblatt A, Grohme MA, Hengherr S, et al. (2012)/ Wikimedia Commons)

Back then, many of our ancestors died from malaria, tuberculosis, bacteria-laced wounds that never healed, and many other communicable diseases — diseases caused by infectious agents that can be transmitted between people, or from animals to human beings. Now, thanks to vaccines and antibiotics, only a few people die from communicable diseases. Most of us either avoid them or get treated for them.

In the present, most of us die from noncommunicable diseases like cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, and other chronic illnesses. According to the World Health Organization, these noncommunicable diseases account for over 70% of deaths globally.

By definition, noncommunicable diseases are thought to arise from a combination of genetic, environmental and lifestyle factors rather than being transmitted by bacteria, fungi or viruses. In recent years, however, scientists have realized that the collection of microbes crawling in and on the human body — known as the microbiome — has a large influence on our health. Could it be that noncommunicable diseases can actually pass between people via the mighty microbiome? 

Some scientists think the answer is yes.

Check out Live Science for more details about this study.

(Image Credit: qimono/ Pixabay)

Back when I was in grade school, the PSP was a trend, and almost every kid in town wanted one. During that time, I only had a Gameboy DS, and to be honest, I liked the PSP graphics more, as well as the variety of games that you can play. Over the course of time, however, the popularity of the PSP decreased, and the distribution of the aforementioned game console officially ended in 2014, after a decade since it was released.

Popular Mechanics gives us its list of the 25 best games of the PlayStation Portable. Check it out over at the site.

(Image Credit: Pixabay)

Students who use digital technology excessively are less motivated to engage with their studies, according to research conducted at Swansea University and the University of Milan. The said students also are more anxious about tests. The effect is made worse by increased feelings of loneliness which were produced through the use of digital technology. Yikes!

Two hundred and eighty-five university students, enrolled on a range of health-related degree courses, participated in the study. They were assessed for their use of digital technology, their study skills and motivation, anxiety, and loneliness. The study found a negative relationship between internet addiction and motivation to study. Students reporting more internet addiction also found it harder to organise their learning productively, and were more anxious about their upcoming tests. The study also found that internet addiction was associated with loneliness, and that this loneliness made study harder.

According to Phil Reed, a professor at Swansea University, the findings suggest that “students with high levels of internet addiction may be particularly at risk from lower motivations to study, and, hence, lower actual academic performance”.

More details about this over at Neuroscience News.

(Image Credit: Pixabay)

The Google dictionary defines beauty sleep as “sleep considered to be sufficient to keep one looking young and beautiful.” Of course, we know that we age, so we can’t stay young over time. However, this doesn’t mean that beauty sleep is not really helpful. Biologists from the University of Manchester explain for the first time the reason why having a good sleep at night prepares us for the next day.

Details about the study over at ScienceDaily.

(Image Credit: Pixabay)

We have important news regarding Cyberpunk 2077’s release date we’d like to share with you today. pic.twitter.com/aWdtR0grYV

— CD PROJEKT RED (@CDPROJEKTRED) January 16, 2020

2020 is going to be a thrilling year for video games, and that does not come as a surprise as two brand new consoles, the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X are scheduled for the end of the year. Before these new consoles arrive, game publishers are eager to release their last wave of big games which squeeze every last drop out of these current boxes.

...The lineup was getting stacked to the point of daunting, which is why we’re honestly more relieved than disappointed about the various game delays that got announced this week.

It is reassuring to know that some of the games were delayed for the reason of, according to their respective developers, giving the players a more satisfying experience of the games.

Check out every video game that got delayed this week over at Geek.com.

(Image Credit: CD PROJEKT RED/ Twitter)

The title makes this sound like any silly internet quiz, but this is from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and they know birds. You'll be given 15 questions about your personality, which you can answer along a spectrum. Then your answers will be correlated to one of 22 North American bird species. Here's my result:

Result: You Are a Red-tailed Hawk!

You’re smart and curious, strong and determined. Your voice is so magnificent that you could make a living in Hollywood. You understand strategy, and sometimes work with a partner, but overall most of the time you are happy to be alone.

I guess that's fairly accurate. The results page will also tell you more about the bird itself. Try your hand at the quiz at the Cornell site. Scroll down from your results to see all the other birds you could have been if you had answered differently. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Rhododendrites)