A big part of our modern world is only possible due to the development of plastic. However, our reliance on the material is biting us in the butt. What was once a miracle of manufacturing is now filling our landfills, oceans, and our very bodies. Kurzgesagt gives us a history of plastic and a look at the various ways we've backed ourselves into a corner with what we've made. -via Geeks Are Sexy
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While superheroes have taken over the biggest movie blockbusters, they still appear in comic books regularly. If you read superhero comics as a kid, but gave them up later, you might be interested in coming back to the fold ...if only they weren't so serious and full of doom and gloom. Here's a tip: they aren't. Comic book writers have been incorporating more and more comedy into their superheroes over the years. Some heroes are known for their comedy, while others are just funny enough to lighten the mood in a dark story. And they go way beyond Deadpool and Spider-Man, to include classic characters that haven't yet made the big time, new superheroes with a sense of humor, and familiar faces with a funny side you never saw before. They put the "comic" back in comic books! The Daily Dot has a rundown of 13 superheroes with a humorous side, and a guide to begin enjoying them.
YouTuber Awkward Adolescent gives us an amazingly detailed review of a sidewalk in Palmer, Alaska. A few trees in the neighborhood would go a long way to fixing the wind problem. The quality of engineering in sidewalks is something you never think about if you drive everywhere. But if you regularly walk anywhere, or even if you just walk through your neighborhood once, you'll have opinions about the usability, safety, and aesthetics of the varying sidewalks on your route. I live next to a municipal walking trail that feeds into several walking neighborhoods, where the sidewalks can be a hundred years old or brand new. How they treat your feet becomes important when you try to get in a mile or two of exercise. There's a discussion at reddit that goes deep into the factors that make a good sidewalk. -via Digg
Cheetahs are notoriously hard to breed in captivity, but that only causes serious breeding programs to work harder to meet the cats' needs. For some institutions, that work is paying off. A cheetah named Kyan at the Taronga Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo, Australia, gave birth to a litter of six cubs on June 6.
“This Kyan’s fourth litter,” said Cheetah Supervisor Jennifer Conaghan. “Kyan is showing very positive maternal behaviour. Having so many cubs at one time is her biggest challenge, but she is being a very attentive and patient mother.”
“Two to four (cubs) is the average litter size for Cheetah, so six is pretty extraordinary. This is the largest litter we’ve had at Taronga Western Plains Zoo, with 20 litters produced here to date,” said Jennifer.
Taronga's cheetah population rose to 17 with the addition of the new cubs. They will be kept in seclusion with their mother for another two months before facing zoo visitors. See a couple of short videos of the cubs in action at Mashable.
(Image credit: Jennifer Conaghan)
There are statues of various American presidents all over, with George Washington and Abraham Lincoln leading the pack. But you've probably never seen the sexy young shirtless Lincoln depicted in the statue shown here, which stands at the US Courthouse in Los Angeles.
Artist James Hansen entered this design into a Public Works contest in 1940 and won $7200. He used the money to buy a car which he then wrecked the next week, presumably because he was distracted thinking about Abe’s abs.
Another copy of the statue exists, in the D.C. Office of Public Records.
Presidential statues can go wrong because of artistic trends that don't stand up over time, or unexpected problems in production, or the artist's lack of talent, or deliberate disrespect. See 13 unexpectedly weird statues of presidents in a list at Plodding Through Presidents. -via Strange Company
(Image credit: Flickr user Michael)
One of the many minor quibbles with Star Wars is how lightsabers work. Lasers don't go to a certain length and then stop! But in a fictional world there are very good reasons to have them work that way. A laser with an unlimited length would present so many problems, they would be unusable. This skit from Corridor illustrates just a few of those difficulties. -via Tastefully Offensive
The Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder were a romanticized version of her childhood memories, written for children. As with many people, the good times stand out the most when recalls their childhood. The real hardships associated with pioneer living were glossed over, considered too harsh for young readers, or possibly too ordinary to stand out in Wilder's mind. The reality was that getting by was no picnic for settlers of the American heartland.
Pioneer food was often stodgy, plain, or altogether absent. While Laura’s family is concerned throughout the book with packing away stores to make it through harsh winters, Wilder tends to gloss over the risk of famine or even death. In summertime or fall, pioneers might feast on bear meat (Laura’s favorite), buffalo, venison, elk, and antelope, unconstrained by the big game laws of the Old World. But in winter, when nothing grew or could be hunted, pioneers were vulnerable.
Families like the Ingalls family had it especially tough. As historian Erin E. Pedigo observes, Pa’s “dreams of wide open space with few neighbors and accumulated wealth from working the land were far bigger than his abilities,” and his family paid the price. Out on the open frontier, or deep in the woods, there was no market economy or community to fall back on during difficult months.
Read how the Little House books put a happy face on a harsh life at Atlas Obscura.
This little cat is named Giselle, but she's called Potato, and she goes by realstumpycat on Instagram. She is blind and has multiple deformities due to inbreeding among dwarf Munchkin cats. The breeder turned her over to the Massachusetts SPCA, where she was adopted by a cat lover named Holly who has experience with special needs cats. Holly tells us more about Potato's ailments.
In addition to her skeletal deformities, her organs are to big, her rib cage is way to small and her head is to big which adds weight to her spine.. Her heart is being protected by her tiny rib cage but her lungs are squished and makes it difficult for her to breath.. Things like car rides and even picking her up stresses her out a lot and make her breathing even worse.. Although she has become very playful, she gets tired quickly and needs to rest her lungs.. She has been treated since the day she was surrendered by her amazing pain specialist, Dr. Moses.. This is the woman that agreed to give this girl a fighting chance at a better life and I thank her for all her honesty and compassion for Mrs Potato Cat.. We have a medication routine with her feedings and she is on 2 meds daily so she is not uncomfortable currently.. We have spent a lot of time trying to get an idea of all her ailments so we can be prepared as things change over her lifetime.. She was also blind from birth most likely, she knows no different and it’s doesn’t bother her at all!
Despite her abnormalities, Potato is as cute as can be, and gets along fine with the other household cats. You can see more of Potato at Instagram. -via Laughing Squid
Two people seemed suspicious to the Reddi Mart store owners in Spruce Grove, Alberta, on Monday. One RCMP officer showed up to question the couple, and then all hell broke loose. The one constable and the store owner were busy with the guy, so the woman tried to escape the building, but security cameras are everywhere, and more police arrived. They were both eventually charged with using a stolen credit card plus multiple crimes caught in this video. You can read the news story here. -via Slate, who helpfully added music to the original footage.
Kate Wagner at McMansion Hell is doing a series called 50 States of McMansion Hell, where she looks at terrible architecture of the various states of the union. In Texas, she had way too many to select from (2000, she said), and so is giving the state a two part roundup, with eight homes in the first post. That will be followed by another eight and a tournament bracket for readers to vote for the "Most Terrible in Texas." Check back next week for part two, or you can look for a post on your state by using this tag http://mcmansionhell.com/tagged/texas and changing the last word to your state. -via Boing Boing
The kitten just got back from the vet, still a bit groggy from being under the influence. He's just been neutered! What's even worse, he tells the cat what happened. No doubt the cat has forgotten all about when it happened to him long ago. This is the latest Simon's Cat short from Simon Tofield.
In the US, the American Revolution is taught as a David and Goliath story of a small ragtag army of colonists taking on the British Empire and winning our freedom. That's not wrong, but we did have a lot of help. You have to wonder why the French, the Spanish, and the Dutch were so interested in American independence. The answer is clearer when you pull the lens back to see the conflict on a global scale.
In a global context, the American Revolution was largely a war about trade and economic influence—not ideology. France and Spain, like Britain, were monarchies with even less fondness for democracy. The Dutch Republic was primarily interested in free trade. The leaders of all three countries wanted to increase their nations’ trade and economic authority, and to accomplish that, they were willing to go to war with their biggest competitor—Great Britain.
To the French, Spanish and Dutch governments, this was not a war about liberty: It was all about power and profit. If American colonists won their independence, that would cause harm to British interests and open new trade opportunities in North America and elsewhere for those who allied themselves with the colonists.
An exhibit at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, The American Revolution: A World War, looks at the American Revolution through the eyes of the other world powers of the time. Read an overview at Smithsonian.
So many annoying habits are things that drivers complain about, but also do themselves and they aren't even aware of it. Then there are some habits that you might not even realize are bothering the drivers around you. When driving, you should always be aware of your surroundings, that's a given, but you should also be aware of the problems you are causing for other drivers. The one that drives me up the wall the most is that one where someone pulls out in front of you and drives slowly, even when there was no one at all behind you. Why couldn't they wait a second and a half for you to pass? -via Digg
The disappearing trick blew this cat's mind. She's not going to give up until she finds out where that hooman went! At first, you assume that the cat is trying to figure out the illusion, but after she keeps it up, you think maybe she's genuinely worried about his absence. Meanwhile, these dogs don't care at all. -via Laughing Squid
A lunar eclipse on July 27 is guaranteed to be memorable, and eclipse fever is already taking hold -just not in North America. As you can see from this map, the eclipse will be visible to most people in the world, with the US, Canada, and Mexico particularly excluded. Of course, we'll be able to livestream it.
If that’s enough to get you excited, (or if you’re in any other part of the world), the eclipse is certainly noteworthy. At about 105 minutes duration, it’s the longest lunar eclipse of the century. The cause is the same reason that lunar eclipses don’t occur every full moon: The moon’s orbital plane moves up and down. This time around, the moon will pass near the darkest part of Earth’s shadow—if you imagine the shadow as a big circle, the moon’s path will nearly cut the circle in half.
Read more about the upcoming lunar eclipse at Gizmodo.
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