The following article is from Uncle John’s Factastic Bathroom Reader.

(Image credit: Sgt Ian Forsyth RLC/MOD)

Throughout most of history, if you lost a limb, the replacement of choice was a wooden peg (which only looked cool if you were a pirate). But that all changed after a young soldier lost a leg in the Civil War and refused to take his injury lying down.

WALKING TALL

“You’ll dance again, but it’s going to take a year.” That’s the kind of thing that Dr. Mac Hanger III tells a lot of his patients. As one of the world’s leading prosthetists, it’s his job to fit amputees with new limbs and help them acclimate to them. For example: Hanger helped several maimed victims of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings get their lives back. Losing a limb once meant losing your quality of life, but that’s not so anymore. “People really become different people,” Hanger says. “You lose a leg, but you gain a lot of wisdom and strength.” He should know, because that’s exactly what happened to his great-great-grandfather, J. E. Hanger. And that’s how the modern prosthetics industry was born.

CASUALTY OF WAR

On June 3, 1861, the first land battle of the Civil War took place in Philippi, Virginia. Early that morning, an 18-year-old Confederate soldier named James Edward Hanger was standing guard outside a stable where his fellow soldiers were sleeping. Private Hanger had enlisted only two days earlier. He’d dropped out of engineering school to join his brothers in the Confederate Army. But his career as a soldier would be short-lived. Just after dawn, Hanger heard gunfire, so he ran inside the stable to get his horse. Just then a six-pound cannonball tore through the barn and struck his left leg.

With only a bit of skin keeping his lower leg attached, Hanger crawled to a corner of the barn to hide… and passed out. The next thing he knew, Union soldiers had him on a table, and he was writhing in pain. Unable to save the leg, two field surgeons spent an hour with a jagged saw cutting through Hanger’s skin, muscle, and bone a few inches above his knee. The surgeon then cauterized the wound with a hot iron. The excruciating amputation saved Hanger’s life. But what kind of life would that be?

Many articles and comics you see posted online would have you believe the world is divided into two camps- extroverts and introverts.

But I constantly find myself sitting square in the middle of the two worlds, happy to go out and celebrate life with friends one day then homebound and dreading human interaction the next.

So, in order to better understand these two halves of my whole, I like to read about what makes an introvert or extrovert tick, hoping to merge the two into a nice, normal version of me.

Which is why I found Dr. Carmella's Guide To Understanding The Introverted by RomanJones so enlightening, because his hamster ball theory is spot on and easy to describe to your fellow introverts.

So next time you feel like human interaction is leeching all of your energy you'll know why, and those who don't fall on the introvert side of the spectrum will know how to properly deal with their "reclusive" friends and family members.

-Via Co.Create

It can be hard for parents to tell how their kids are going to turn out, and what kind of person they're going to be, when they're really young.

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But when they do something that shows they truly care, and their actions prove they've been listening to our life lessons all along, they make their parents proud.

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Generous, caring and thoughtful kids serve as a good example to the other children they meet, demonstrating how kids can make a difference in the world if they work at it.

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Of course some, like this 9-year-old who makes small, portable shelters for homeless people, will work a lot harder than others, but don't let your little ones get discouraged.

Because as long as they're thinking about the welfare of others they're on the right track!

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See Good Parenting Summed Up In 15+ Pics here

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Laura Gilbertson has multiple sclerosis, so her husband Carl wanted to give her something extra special for their 10th anniversary. He arranged a flashmob made up of singers from the Liverpool Media Academy to serenade her with Bruno Mars’ “Just the Way You Are.” Try to get through this without crying, I dare you. -via Uproxx

(Photo: Robert Bejil)

What gets your heart pumping and your head banging? It's definitely not lyrics that include words such as "committee" and "approximately."

Iain, a data scientist, blogs at Degenerate State. He conducted a statistical study that determined which words are most and least likely to be associated with heavy metal music. You can see his computational methods and detailed results here.

-via Ace of Spades HQ

Beware of the possible consequences before you give personal information to a stranger. Everyone’s got needs, even if it’s just for attention. This is a classic comic from John McNamee at Pie Comic.

Which adjectives come to mind when you think of a live action Futurama fan film?

If you said campy, cartoony and a little bit creepy then you've won first prize! So whaddya win?

A chance to watch the trailer for an amazing looking Futurama fan film by Cinema Relics called Fan-O-Rama!

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Is it just me or does Dr. Farnsworth look like an ancient ninja turtle?

-Via io9

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Jade Stoner, 7 years old, was killed in a car accident. Seeing through her agony, her mother Debbie Stoner donated her daughter's organs.

Jade's heart went to Nellie-Ma Evans, a baby born with cardiomyopathy. She wouldn't have survived without a heart transpant.

That transplant was successful. Nellie-Ma is now 11 years old. Debbie Stoner recently met her. She placed her ear on Nellie-Ma's chest and listened to the sound of her daughter's heart, still beating 10 years later. Stoner described the experience to the Telegraph (auto-start):

"The first time I’d heard Jade’s heart beating was when I was pregnant with her at my ultrasound scan and it sounded just as strong," Mrs Stoner said.

"I knew her heart was no longer Jade’s because she’s no longer with us but it was a part of her.

"Although I lost the most precious thing in my life, she is continuing to live on, in a way."

(Photo: Imperial College London)

Do you remember Patrick, the proctology exam simulation dummy? He wowed the world with his almost lifelike representation of the human rectum. But in the intervening year, scientists and engineers have made even greater advances in the field of human rectal simulation.

Researchers at Imperial College London have developed a robotic rectum that feels almost exactly like the real thing. It provides responsive haptic feedback so that as the medical student searches for and examines the prostate, the flesh-like rectum responds appropriately.

Additionally, this robotic rectum is programmable. Not all rectums are alike and doctors have to get used to the feel of different rectums. This one can provide that same variety of experiences. Quartz reports:

Doctors learn what a cancerous prostate feels like through experience. The trouble is that people don’t easily volunteer for such a probing. In the UK, there’s just one registered “rectal teaching assistant,” as volunteers are known. […]

Rectums come in all shapes and sizes, so the device presented at the Eurohaptics conference this week can be programmed, allowing the anatomy to be altered each time. The current simulation is based on scans of the UK’s only rectal teaching assistant.

-via David Thompson

This fella would be the coolest Olympian in the history of the Olympics #Droddy pic.twitter.com/XuBMJYkpHk

— Tyler Elbrecht (@TBoneULM) July 2, 2016

Noah Droddy was captain of his track team in college, but didn’t stick with it afterward. That was three years ago. Now the 25-year-old considers himself a track fan, and even bought tickets to watch the Olympic track events in Rio. But then he got a chance to train with a prestigious coach, sponsored by a running club that was looking for out-of-the ordinary athletes. And he qualified for the US Olympic trials in the 10K,  by the skin of his teeth. That race was last weekend. Droddy had never run in front of so many people. He said he’d never even seen that many people.

In the lineup of clean-shaven, big-brand-sponsored distance stars hoping to make the U.S. Olympic team on a Friday night in Eugene, Oregon, the Joe Dirt doppelganger with bouncing locks and a killer ’stache didn’t fit.

Naturally, social media fell in love.

He was called a “hero,” “majestic,” the “most American athlete to ever live.” Someone suggested bald eagles be photoshopped behind him. Another said he must have lost his way while heading to a house party.

Droddy did not win the race, nor did he make the Olympic team. But he became a social media darling, and says he hasn’t paid for his own beer since that day. 

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The Boss was performing "Waitin' on a Sunny Day" at a concert in Oslo, Norway. A 4-year old girl named Hope was in the front row, thoroughly enjoying the music. She caught his attention. Springsteen invited Hope on stage and sang to her, then let her give a solo performance.

When they were done, he lifted Hope onto one of his shoulders and carried her around. Before she left, Springsteen gave Hope his harmonica. I hope that he wrote her a tardy note, too!

-via Tastefully Offensive

Levi Bettwieser acquired this amazing time capsule from East Chicago, Indiana. A photographer known only as Paul had snapped pictures of American life during the 1950s--fully 1,200 rolls of pictures. Then he wrapped the rolls in tin foil and athletic tape, then labelled these packages with photographic details, such as light modifiers and the cameras used. These packages were placed in cigar boxes, which were in turn packed carefully inside more tape, foil, and newspaper.

The mysterious Paul created a time capsule, then disappeared.

Levi Bettwieser is now slowly and carefully excavating the find. He calls his efforts the Rescued Film Project.

-via My Modern Met

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Yesterday, everyone’s mind was blown by the cylinder illusion by Kokichi Sugihara, which won second place in the Illusion of the Year competition. So who won first place? That would be Mathew T. Harrison and Gideon P. Caplovitz of the University of Nevada Reno. Their illusion is called “Motion Integration Unleashed: New Tricks for an Old Dog.” While it’s not as puzzling as the cylinders, this one becomes mind-blowing at about 24 seconds in. The twenty top-rated illusions are linked at the Illusion of the Year site. They’re all good.

A man in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada was having trouble finding a job because he had a brain injury. Lowe's, a hardware store chain, offered him a job--and then signed on his servce dog, too!

(Photos: Lowe's Canada)

His name is Blue. Like other Lowe's employees, he walks around in a uniform vest. Lowe's made a custom one for Blue.

I'm not surprised. Lowe's is a very dog-friendly company. My parents visit their local store often and usually bring their dog along. He gets excited and starts barking whenever they drive into the Lowe's parking lot.

-via Ace of Spades HQ

Vancouver fire prevention service van catches fire
Vancouver Fire Department Assistant Chief https://t.co/XXcuGiiadR pic.twitter.com/S1AjgWrKt5

— FireRanger (@mt_fireranger) June 15, 2016

The Vancouver Fire Department responded to a call of a vehicle on fire Monday afternoon. the fire was quickly extinguished, but the van is expected to be totaled.

The van belonged to Vancouver Fire, which describes itself as “B.C.’s largest, longest-established fire protection, fire safety and commercial security and monitoring company.”

Investigators are looking into what caused the fire, but it is not considered suspicious at this time.

Vancouver Fire Department Assistant Chief Ron Coulson said there was likely some fire prevention equipment in the van at the time of the blaze.

The cause of the fire has not yet been determined. -via Arbroath