Some are born great, some acheive greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. But Macie Davis-Southerland has greatness growing upon her.

Specifically, it's growing on her left arm.

In 2012, while in high school, Davis-Southerland discovered that one particular hair on her arm was longer than the others. She developed a plan: she would grow this hair until it secured for her a Guinness World Record.

Over the years, the hair sometimes fell out or was pulled out. But Davis-Southerland strove for victory and regrew it. Now she has secured the Guinness World Record for the longest arm hair on a woman. The hair measures 7.24 inches long.

NBC News reports that Bella Lin of San Francisco was 12, she noticed that her pet guinea pigs kept disappearing from her backyard. She was unsatisfied with traditional "prison-barred" cages, so she decided to design and build her own.

The result is the GuineaLoft system. The cages have 2-tiered bottoms to make them easier to clean, as well as transparent plastic walls that snap together to make them easy move and see through.

Lin scrounged up $2,000 of her own money to launch this business and sell her cages on Amazon. Last year, she earned $410,000 from the business.

Lin is reinvesting all of her earnings into the company while applying to colleges and planning on a trip to the factory in China that manufactures her cages. This is only the beginning of her entrepreneurial ventures.

-via Debby Witt

In the 1974 film The Godfather Part II, young Vito Andolini from Corleone, Sicily is processed by immigration officials at Ellis Island. A clerk who doesn't speak Italian writes his name down as "Vito Corleone", thus changing the name of this fictional family for all time.

I remember learning in middle school that it was common for these immigration officials to change the names of immigrants because they didn't understand them or to intentionally Anglicize them to encourage assimilation.

That is an urban legend.

Rosemary Meszaros, a government documents librarian, and Katherine Pennavaria, a genealogical librarian, published an article in 2018 in the scholarly journal Documents to the People that argues that the documentary records simply don't support the notion that immigration clerks changed immigrants' names.

Immigration to the United States at the time was carefully controlled and recorded. Ellis Island officials used written records established before the immigrants even arrived on American shores. They knew who was on which ships and checked in immigrants against pre-established manifests.

Don't believe everything you learn in school.

-via Marginal Revolution

Rutherford B. Hayes was elected President of the United States in the very controversial 1876 election in which he squeezed into the White House after a razor-thin margin in the electoral college. He was fairly successful in office, but declined to run for a second term and retired from active politics. Hayes is well-remembered in his hometown of Delaware, Ohio (I've been there), but has largely receded from the American historical memory.

But not in Paraguay.

This small country in South America was once much larger until Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay ganged up on it to deprive it of almost half of its territory. Perhaps as much as two-thirds of the Paraguayan population died in the war.

In the postwar settlement, Argentina and Paraguay asked the United States to arbitrate their border dispute. President Hayes ruled in favor of Paraguay, for which the surviving Paraguayans were very grateful.

Even today, Paraguay remembers President Hayes. Atlas Obscura tells us that there's a museum, the Villa Hayes, in Presidente Hayes, which is one of the 17 departments (districts) that comprise the modern nation of Paraguay.

Photo: Visit Paraguay

Look at the people around you. Do any of them have ring fingers longer than their index fingers? If so, run for your life.

The actual scientific article is more nuanced, of course. Researchers with the Centre de Recherche Charles-Le Moyne in Quebec examined 44 people for finger lengths to consider the hypothesis that longer ring fingers are associated with high testosterone exposure during fetal development.

Such people generally had higher incidences of mental toughness, antisocial personality disorder, amphetamine abuse and, most importantly, dark triad traits--narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy.

The authors note that the small sample size is a limitation to the validity of the study, so consider contributing to the research yourself in the comments.

-via Dave Barry | Photo: Pogrebnoj-Alexandroff

Atlas Obscura informs us that if we ski along particular slopes of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains outside of Taos, New Mexico, we may encounter birdhouse-sized boxes attached to particular trees. Inside each one is a martini.

These are martini trees. The practice of attaching martinis to rural trees began during the winter of 1958 through 1959 when a lady on the slopes of a ski resort sent a young man off in search of a martini to calm her jittery nerves. He returned with one served in a porrón, a traditional Spanish wine pitcher with a long spout. It worked well to calm the woman, so resort owner Ernie Blake set up several martinis in boxes around his facility. By the 1980s, the practice had spread throughout the region.

Photo: AdventureJay

The tabloid news service TMZ reports that two nights ago, famed wrestler Hulk Hogan rescued a teenage girl from a car crash in which the vehicle had flipped upside down.

Hogan's wife, Sky Daily, posted on social media that the accident happened right in front of them in Tampa, Florida. Hogan ran to the wrecked car, punctured the airbag with a pen, and then pulled the teenager from the car. No one was injured in the crash, although the girl was emotionally shaken.

Only a few photos of the event are available. Sadly, none of them show Hogan ripping his shirt off after performing the rescue.

All Terrain Wheelchair I built for my wife
byu/AkmJ0e inredneckengineering

At the magnificent subreddit /r/redneckengineering, /u/AkmJ0e exemplifies the improvosational talents of that community with this all-terrain wheelchair that he built for his wife.

It's built over a zero-turn mower that allows it to instantly turn in any direction. The track is a single snowmobile track that he cut in half and attached to rims from an old trailer.

As you can see, she can go anywhere in it. /u/AkmJ0e is thinking about attaching a snowblower to give her something to do as she's traversing their property. It already has a winch under the seat so she can haul firewood.

We are selling our baby trebuchet. We only used it a couple of times. PM me for a quote. pic.twitter.com/uJnf0TLDsM

— Bojan Tunguz (@tunguz) January 12, 2024

Mr. Tunguz no longer needs the baby yeeter, as he has completed this stage of parenting. Nonetheless, he labels the device incorrectly. Twitter used to have a community note attached to this post:

Medical-X is a company in the Netherlands that produces technologically advanced medical testing and training equipment. Edgaget visited the company's booth at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas where the Adam-X doll was on display.

Adam-X is, like Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation, fully functional. He has "working genitalia", which is, of course, essential for proper CPR training. He can produce either urine or blood depending upon the situation.

Above the belt, Adam-X offers other simulated responses, including flushed cheeks, dilated pupils, a swollen tongue, pressurized blood vessels, deflated lungs, and extremities that turn blue if you don't save him quickly enough. He's the ultimate tool for simulated medical emergencies.

-via paige

Lulu Lotus is a children's book author and illustrator from Canada. Her books focus on teaching children the importance of being kind to each other and animals. They do not -so far- teach children how to whistle with their noses.

Nose whistling is skill that Ms. Lotus has carefully honed like a blade since childhood. She used it while growing up to play pranks on her teachers. From the above video, you can see why: when she whistles, there is no change in her facial expressions. It's a silent, ninja-like art.

Guinness World Records has declared her nose whistle, which measures at 44.1 decibels, the loudest in the world. That is approximately as loud as a bird call.

-via Born in Space

today, after almost 2 years of leaving a yam on the walmart customer service desk nearly every week, i was approached by 2 managers who cornered me as i was headed to checkout. without any other introduction, they looked me in the eyes and whispered …. “why yams…” (1/5) https://t.co/sSRDailekX pic.twitter.com/6sIu14chdP

— ˚₊‧꒰ა clione chan ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ (@boople__snoot) January 11, 2024

Twitter user @boople_snoot is an artist, cosplayer and . . . some other things that I can't figure out. Her profile uses the terms "cybertard" and "jestercore". Anyway, @boople_snoot is, shall we say, not conventional.

This eccentricity shows in her ongoing project to prank workers at her local Walmart. Normally, I'm not a fan of "pranking" people that one doesn't know, especially when they're working. But this prank is truly harmless. In involves just leaving a packaged yam on the customer service desk.

This eventually led to a confrontation with managers at the Walmart.

Oddity Central introduces us to the astonishing career of Carmen Dell'Orefice. Although there are fashion models who are older than her, they began their careers later in life. Ms. Dell'Orefice, on the other hand, was discovered at the age of 13, began working at 15, and has continued as a fashion model until the present. She's the longest-working runway model.

How does she look so young at 92? Last year, she told The Sun that she eats right, starting the day with only water, lemon juice, and a priobiotic yogurt. Dell'Orefice also walks regularly for exercise and uses little makeup to ensure that her skin can breathe. Let us follow her example and perhaps we will more like her and less like Yoda as we age.

Photo: Carmen Dell'Orefice

Commander Deanna Troi, a main character on Star Trek: The Next Generation, was known for her sex appeal. One of her early, decidedly casual uniforms, showed a fair amount of cleavage until Captain Jellico brought her up to regulation standard. And in one famous scene, actress Marina Sirtis was most definitely not wearing a bra.

Gene Roddenberry, who created both Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation was a man that, shall we say, was in touch with his libido. When developing The Next Generation, he wanted Troi to have four breasts instead of the more commonly encountered two.

Patrick Stewart mentioned this fact in his recently-published memoir Making It So. I've confirmed it in the 1994 book Star Trek Where No One Has Gone Before: A History in Pictures. The great Dorothy Fontana herself had to talk Roddenberry out of the idea (110).

Winslow Dumaine, a comedian, writer, and artist in Chicago, tweeted that he recently made a pilgrimage to the famous Chicago Rat Hole.

This is one of the Windy City's most famous tourist attractions, second only to the Art Institute of Chicago for drawing crowds.

The origins of Chicago Rat Hole are shrouded in mystery. Legend holds that while the concrete for this sidewalk at 1918 West Roscoe Street was being poured, a rat fell in, forever marking the sidewalk with an imprint of its own body. Other Chicagoans contend that it was a squirrel, not a rat.

Either way, people come to the site to reverently venerate the departed rodent. In this way, by connecting to the past and a sense of place, they center themselves for work of the present and future.

UPDATE 1/9/24: Dumaine's tweet has gone viral and how a local news station is reporting on the Chicago Rat Hole.