The People Who Collect Crocodile Hairballs

Crocodiles eat plenty of other animals. They can digest bones and feathers and meat, but they cannot digest hair, so any fur from a mammal meal just sits inside their digestive systems until they hack it up, and that can be years. The hairballs, or bezoars, can be relatively fresh and hairy, or they could be smooth like a stone if they've been tumbled around inside a croc for a long time. One bezoar that was analyzed found hair from flying fox, wild pig, Papuan wild dog, possum, cuscus ...and more than one human. John Lever owns a crocodile farm in Queensland, Australia, and says he doesn't have many hairballs because his crocs are fed meat that has been skinned, but he tells the story about the time he got a deal on rabbit parts, and ended up with clogged plumbing because of the rabbit fur.

Yes, people actually collect crocodile bezoars. Finding one in the wild is a special time, because you know a crocodile is near. They can be as big as a football, which means the croc is quite huge. There is a drawback in that guests often find them disgusting. Read about the men who collect crocodile hairballs at ABC News Australia. -via Damn Interesting

(Image credit: Mark Norman)


30 Pies, Costumes, and Math Jokes for Pi Day

Did you manage to eat a pie today? It's Pi Day, the perfect day for it. Americans write March 14th as 3/14, so it's pi, the irrational number that gives us the circle, and it's also Albert Einstein's Birthday. Einstein features in some of the memes of the day, like advertising pie for sale and a baby who is an Einstein lookalike, but the greatest pies you can imagine are being shown around the 'net today. The pie above was made by redditor Itzjacki with a pi symbol, but it's not a circle. That's because pie are square. But if you're going for a work of art, you need to turn to Jessica Clark-Bojin, also known as thepieous, who made the awesome pi pie below.



For sheer work involved, you can't beat this apple pie filled with apples cut into the shapes of numbers by nerdynummies. It must have been difficult to arrange them in the right order.



You'll see plenty more pies made for Pie Day, and some pies that are impressive even without any reference to the number, plus a wide range of Pi Day celebrations of all kinds in a ranked list at Bored Panda.    


Bucket of Bolts, Spotted Ass Ape, and Other Lead Assembly Ships

The plane pictured above doesn't quite look like an essential World War II military plane. The B-24D Liberator started out as a bomber out of Algeria named Thar She Blows Again, then was transferred and renamed Bucket of Bolts. After sustaining a lot of damage, she was converted to a lead assembly ship named First Sergeant. Lead assembly ships, also called Judas goats (meaning goats that were trained to lead herds to the slaughter), were planes that assembled and led squadrons of bombers on their way to their targets. At some point, they would turn back for home. These planes were bombers past their prime, often too disabled for bombing missions, painted with bright colors, polka dots, and stripes to be extra visible to the planes they were leading. In addition to goats, they were compared to rodeo clowns, and they looked the part.

Read about the lead assembly planes of World War II and see a gallery of photographs at Vintage Wings of Canada. Seeing the photographs together will remind you of a circus, but these are planes that worked past their retirement to ensure victory. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: U.S. Army Air Force)


Ollie Tells His Story



Ollie loves Jane, and would do anything for her. Life was good, but changed when the Covid-19 pandemic struck. Jane was home all the time, and Ollie was happy to have Jane at home all the time. But that didn't keep her from getting sick, and everything changed again. Ollie tells the story from his canine point of view. You might need a hankie for this one.

Sadiel Gomez made this film for a student assignment, and it ended up in ten film festivals, where Ollie won awards. He used his own dog Charlie as the star, and found out how difficult it is to work with animals. Charlie did real well in the end, making us fall for Ollie. -via Laughing Squid


The Balloon That Flew Too High

In the 1930s, there was a balloon race of a sorts. Auguste Piccard managed to ride a hydrogen balloon to the stratosphere in 1931 and '32, reaching a record altitude of 53,153 feet on his second flight. In a precursor to the space race, both the US and the Soviet Union decided they could do that, too, and even higher. They formed three teams, one from the American military, one from the Soviet Air Force, and one from Osoaviakhim, a Soviet paramilitary training organization. In September of 1933, the Soviet Air Force reached an altitude of 60,698 feet in the USSR-1. In November, the Century of Progress balloon from the Americans ascended to an altitude of 61,237 feet. That left the Osoaviakhim team, whose flight was postponed to January 1934. That coincided with the 17th Congress of the Communist Party, so Stalin made a big deal out of the flight of the balloon called Osoaviakhim-1. They were counting on it exceeding the record of the American balloon.

However, Osoaviakhim-1 had a lot of design problems. But if you know anything about the Stalinist era, you know that didn't make a bit of difference in whether it flew or not. On the one hand, the Osoaviakhim-1 beat both the American and Soviet altitude records. On the other hand, none of the three men aboard survived. Read an account of what happened when the Osoaviakhim-1 reached the stratosphere, as best as it could be reconstructed, at Amusing Planet.

(Image credit: About KOMANDE STRATOSTATA)


Have a Cup of Raktajino, the Klingon Coffee

Klingons may be "foul-smelling barbarians," but they sure know how to make coffee. The Klingon coffee known as raktajino became a staple on the Enterprise during the time of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager. Captain Sisko was particularly addicted to the highly-caffeinated raktajino.

John DiMarco (previously at Neatorama) made a supercut of Starfleet personnel ordering or discussing raktajino over the course of several seasons. It will leave you craving a cuppa Klingon coffee, or else give you the caffeine jitters. I particularly enjoyed the sequence that involved time travel, as Odo and his DS9 companions encounter Klingons they do not recognize because they are made up in the low-budget Star Trek: The Original Series fashion. That's the kind of touch that makes us love Star Trek so much. By the way, those iconic cups they are drinking out of are available from many vendors online. -via Geeks Are Sexy


Frozen Dead Guy Moves to The Shining Hotel

We've posted before about Frozen Dead Guy Days, a festival held in Colorado every year in honor of Bredo Morstoel, who has been frozen since his death in 1989. Since 1993, he has been kept on ice in Nederland, Colorado, which threw the festival every year from 2002 until the pandemic. The festival in 2023 was canceled by city authorities because it had grown out of hand.

But Frozen Dead Guy Days is back for 2024, and will be held on Saturday, March 16, in Estes Park, Colorado. Morstoel's body has been moved there to a permanent home in the ice house of the historic Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, the inn that inspired Stephen King to write The Shining. But that's not all that's new. The ice house has been transformed into a museum. It is now the the International Cryonics Museum. It is the only museum dedicated to cryonics, the science of "long-term, ultra-cold storage of human remains for possible future organ banking and transplantation of viable organs, up to and including the brain."

Since there are plenty of tourists visiting the Stanley Hotel every year, and a larger town to accommodate festival crowds, the organizers are hoping that Frozen Dead Guy Days has now found a permanent home in Estes Park, and Morstoel can once again begin receiving visitors. Read about Morstoel, the festival, and the new museum at Smithsonian. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: 1progressivedem1


The Price of a Live Band in 1969

The booking agency Commercial Entertainments was founded in 1964 in London and they are still going strong. Back in 1969, if you wanted to hire a band in England, they would send you a roster of their best acts available, with prices. Looking at who you could have hired back then, you might wish for a time machine, as long as you could take your wallet with you. Imagine hiring Fleetwood Mac to play at your party for £500! Of course, the exchange rate was different then, so you'd have to pay around $1200 American. And that was years before Stevie Nicks and Lindsay Buckingham joined the band. Besides, they were the most expensive band on the list. You could settle for Pink Floyd at only £250, or if you were really strapped for cash, Deep Purple for £125. They most likely wouldn't have performed "Smoke on the Water" as it was recorded three years later, but they would certainly have ended the show with "Hush," which was a hit the year before, but not in the UK. -via Nag on the Lake


Judas Priest Mixes with Michael Jackson in This Clever Mashup

The lyrics of the Judas Priest song "You've Got Another Thing Comin'" mesh well with Michael Jackson's classic "Billie Jean." Bill McClintock's latest music mashup is actually a redo. He tells us he uploaded this in 2019, but got a takedown notice because it used clips the music video for "Billie Jean." Since then, he's re-edited the video and improved the song with the guitar solo from Steely Dan's "Do It Again" by Denny Dias. Now it's perfect. He calls this song "Billie Jean's Got Another Thing Comin'" by Judas Jackson.

When the Judas Priest song was new in 1982, I had a problem saying the title right, because I'm old school and always knew the expression as "If you think ____, you've got another think coming." Mainly because that's what it was until then. I was corrected many times, but now either word is considered acceptable by those who accept such things.


Police-Style Kiddie Rides Uphold the Law

Pull over, exit your vehicle, and keep your hands where officers can see them. The Kiddie Ride Police Patrol has noted your suspicious behavior.

Arctic, a Dutch performing troupe that engages in public pranks, created this pair of mobile kiddie rides for use in freelance law enforcement. The officers have plenty of euros to drop in their machines, so don't even try to escape.

Watch these hard-faced, tough-minded cops patrol festivals and ensure that the mean streets stay safe for ordinary, law-abiding people in these dangerous times. They're especially wary of intoxicated people and perform sobriety tests on passersby who appear to have drunk a bit too much.

-via The Awesomer


The Mysterious Tale of the Woman Pope

If you're not Catholic, you probably don't keep up with historical popes, and have never heard of Pope Joan, the only female pope. But if you are Catholic, it's also likely you've never heard of Pope Joan. As the story goes, Joan was a talented woman who disguised herself as a man and fooled everyone long enough to rise through the ranks and be appointed as the head of the church, under the name Pope John VIII. She reigned for more than two years between 855 and 857. Her priestly vestments, even more elaborate as pontiff, hid her body from even those closest to her. At least one man knew of her true identity, though. Joan's reign came to an abrupt end when she gave birth while walking through the streets of Rome in a procession! Joan died shortly afterward, and accounts vary on what happened to the child.

But did it ever really happen? Joan, or John, does not appear in the official history of the papacy at all. If the story was true, there were plenty of reasons for the church to strike her from all records. But in fact, the first written account only appeared hundreds of years later. Still, it's also a great story to pass along. Plus, it is thought of as an allegory, a warning for women to stay in their place. Most historians believe the tale of Pope Joan to be completely made up, but it won't go away, even after a thousand years. Read about Pope Joan at Messy Nessy Chic.


The "Wet Putty" Finish Trend in Automobiles

Hank Green is going off on car colors, but the confusion is deeper than the color of a car. He sees something that's different, yet he can't describe it nor can he put a name to it, because it's a matter of perception on an unconscious level. Not being able to describe the phenomena made it difficult to look up, but he managed to do it. Tracking down the type of car color that's becoming more prevalent led him to learn about Nardo Gray and finally "wet putty" paint. While his eyes knew it when he saw it, he had to search to figure out how a color could look flat while still being shiny. It has to do with the sparkle. Most of us aren't aware of the metal flake in the paint on our cars because it's just so normal. But take it away, and our brains would certainly notice the difference, even if we couldn't quite put our finger on it. Then again, if you are the type of person who never washes their car, you might not notice any difference at all. -via Kottke


The Mad Stone, a Sure-Fire Cure for Rabies

Before we got a vaccine against it in 1884, rabies was a particularly terrifying disease. Cases were few and far between, compared to, say, tuberculosis, but one might survive TB, which was not the case with rabies. And the illness leading to a rabies death was horrifically unpleasant. Maybe that's why people turned to mad stones, which were said to be a sure-fire cure.

Only a few healing professional had mad stones, which were said to be bezoars, or hairballs, containing limestone and healing minerals taken from the bodies of animals (although many were not). The use of a mad stone followed a long and arcane method known by but a few. Did they work? Supposedly, since everyone heard stories of people who survived rabies with these stones, including Abraham Lincoln's son. The practitioners didn't broadcast the stories of people who were not cured. And considering that dogs will bite people even when they aren't infected with rabies, you can draw your own conclusions. Read about the miraculous mad stones at Atlas Obscura.

(Image source: Wellcome Collection)


The Enslaved Child Who Brought Us Vanilla

The Age of Exploration gave us spices and flavorings found all over the world, and untold wealth for those who were able to produce them. One such flavoring was vanilla, which grew only in Mexico because the plant was pollinated by only one species of bee, which was only found in Mexico. When French entrepreneurs exported the plant to their island territories of Réunion and Mauritius, they found the plants grew well, but did not pollinate. Hand pollination was a laborious task that required a microscope, a skilled hand, and about 20 minutes for each plant. It wouldn't work for a plantation.

That is, until a 12-year-old enslaved worker named Edmond, who later took the surname Albius, worked it out himself in 1841. Plantation owner Ferréol Bellier-Beaumont said Edmond was his "constant companion" in the vanilla orchard. Edmond knew each vanilla flower had both male and female reproductive sacs, which were separated by a thin membrane to prevent self-pollination. He took a small stick, the size of a toothpick, and pierced that membrane, allowing the anther sac and the stigma to meet, and for good measure, squeezed them together. The self-pollinated flowers produced vanilla pods the next year, and his method is still in use almost 200 years later.

What did Edmond get for his breakthrough? It wasn't his freedom. Read about Edmond Albius and the vanilla industry he saved at Nautilus. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Ton Rulkens)


Highest Price Ever Paid for a Lego Piece

When my daughters were young, I learned that if they went to a birthday party for a boy I didn't know well, a Bionicle was always a good gift. I did not know they were made by Lego. The toy line ran from 2001 to 2010, and again from 2015-2017. Bionicles were fictional characters, a type of action figure you built with small pieces that fit together. For a giveaway in 2001, the company manufactured 30 Kanohi Hau masks, which were special because they granted magic protective powers to Bionicles. The masks were an inch tall and made of 14-karat gold. Only 25 were given to the public.

Somehow, one of these rare Lego pieces ended up in a Goodwill store in Pennsylvania, donated in a bag of jewelry by someone who didn't know how rare they are. They listed the Kanohi Hau mask on the store website for $14.95, but quickly got offers up to $1,000 for it! They pulled the mask from the website and scrambled to find out what they had. The piece went up for auction in February and sold for $18,101!  

See, it pays to know what's in your toy box. Read about the journey of the $18K Lego piece at Smithsonian.

(Image credit: Goodwill) 






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