Aiden Wilkins is only nine years old, but he is already a college student. He demonstrated remarkable intelligence while still a toddler, began high school at the age of seven, and is now enrolled in a neuroscience course at Ursinus College in eastern Pennsylvania.
The CBS News affiliate in Philadelphia reports that Aiden is taking this class as part of his long-term goal to become a pediatric neurosurgeon. Although he enjoys typical childhood interests like soccer and video games, Aiden's sights are already set on the very adult challenge of medical school. So far, he's aiming at Johns Hopkins and Princeton.
Weird Universe tells us that Joseph Pilates (1883-1967), the developer of the popular exercise program that bears his name, invented numerous pieces of exercise equipment. He had a holistic approach to fitness, which prudently included sleep.
In 1930, after immigrating from Germany to the United States, Pilates invented and patented a spring-less bed that has a v-shaped inner frame and mattress. Pilates argued that the human spine tends to curve inward when posture is not deliberately maintained. It is necessary to discipline the spine into proper alignment with a flat, hard bed. The V-shape permits the arms and legs to provide some support and therefore allow the sleeper to relax fully into this cradle.
Gabriel Bonnin is a YouTuber who developed the "Singer Sound System." This is an electric hurdy-gurdy that he powers by treading on a Singer manual sewing machine. He says that it's integrated with four microphones that allow him to manipulate the sound quality while using it.
Yes, Star Trek aired for the first time 59 years ago today.
To mark the occasion, YouTube Rowan J. Coleman continued his expositions on science fiction (including Patrick Stewart and Babylon 5) with a vigorous defense of William Shatner as he appeared in the original Star Trek. I agree with Coleman that Shatner has been unfairly maligned as a bad actor.
He plays his role quite well, especially the physicality of his characterization. Kirk has a young, vigorous personality. I'd like to see Coleman continue this series with a comparison of an actor of the same area depicting a similar role: Jeffrey Hunter.
The Guardian reports that Warsaw, Poland recently opened a new light rail station in the Targówek district. This new station includes amenities intended to increase use of the metro system, including a small branch of the public library system. The 150 square meter library has 16,000 books available for browsing and checkout, a comfortable seating area, and a hydroponic garden.
Recreational reading is not a widespread practice in Poland, partially due to the legacy of the destruction of most of the country's libraries during World War II. The National Library of Poland hopes that this new public library location will encourage commuters to read full-length books instead of browsing on their phones while commuting.
The Snake Pit in northern Idaho dates back to either 1879 or 1880. It's a bit unclear because the wild frontier in those days was, well, wild. The menu includes specialties of the West, including Rocky Mountain Oysters. That means deep fried bull testicles served "as long as the bulls cooperate." An order of them comes with blue cheese or spicy ranch for dipping.
The Snake Pit is the oldest restaurant in Idaho still in operation. The Takeout has researched such eateries in all fifty states. For my own Texas, that's Scholz Garten in downtown Austin. This classic German Texan eatery dates back to 1866.
Black Geeks of Dragon Con shared this photo of a cosplayer at the most recent Dragon Con in Atlanta. Stevie Wonder Woman is as beautiful as Aphrodite, wiser than Athena, swifter than Mercury, and as smooth as Marvin Gaye.
The Takeout shares photos, descriptions, and stories behind twelve foods that are commonly served at funerals and wakes or given to grieving people. These include corpse cakes, which actually rose on the bodies of the dead before burial, a Pennsylvania Dutch pie made of raisins, and kollyva, which is a Greek cake decorated symbolically.
Pictured above is a Texas funeral cake, which is a type of Texas sheet cake. It's made with buttermilk and covered with crumbled pecans. The icing is typically but not always baked on to present a glossy top. It's a straightforward recipe for people who cannot dedicate a lot of headspace to cooking.
Stepping on LEGO blocks is a staple of webcomics and parental humor. It is one of those universal experiences for people with young children around. Gabrielle Wall, though, does it competitively. Watch her clear 100 meters in under 26 seconds. Notice that she uses a wide running stance. She developed it specifically for this event so that she can keep traction over the loose bricks.
As previously noted, the precise day in which World War II ended is nebulous. August 15 is normally celebrated as V-J Day, although it was on September 2 that Japanese officials boarded the USS Missouri to sign the instrument of surrender. Although some committed Japanese soldiers disputed it, we can reasonably say that World War II ended precisely 80 ago.
The US Naval Institute shares the above photo of a special card distributed to people who were on board the Missouri at the time of the surrender. Captain Stuart Murray, the commanding officer of that ship, burned the unused cards and threw the printing plates in the sea to ensure that no one could claim an honor that was not theirs.
The USS Constitution--one of the original six frigates commissioned for the nascent United States Navy--is technically still in active service. "Old Ironsides" earned her name during an engagement of the War of 1812 when British cannonballs bounced off her hull, leading one sailor to suggest that her sides were made of iron, not wood.
But they are indeed made of wood. Specifically, the Constitution consists primarily of White Oak. To ensure that the frigate remains in suitable condition should the Royal Navy ever again need a a good thrashing, the US Navy maintains a forest with mature White Oaks.
The Naval Support Activity of Crane, Indiana consists of 64,000 acres of forest, including the finest White Oak in the United States. The White Oak preserve is appropriately named "Constitution Grove."
The Long Walk is a film adaptation of an early novel by Stephen King. The depicts a contest in which people must walk continuously along a road at a speed of at least three miles per hour. Anyone who stops is killed. The last walker and sole survivor of the contest gets anything he wants as a reward.
Entertainment Weekly reports that the Culver Theater in Los Angeles is holding a special screening. Each audience member walks on a treadmill for the full duration of the film. Anyone who stops for any reason during the movie will be "removed" by theater staff.
Today, I found on reddit an interesting thread in which Trekkies share odd facts about Star Trek.* One of them is that the late physicist Stephen Hawking is the only person to depict himself on any Star Trek series. This was in a holodeck scene in the Next Generation episode "Descent."
Arguably, though, Hawking was not portraying himself, but a holographic version of himself. The Deep Space Nine character Vic Fontaine, who was a hologram, as distinguished from his Mirror Universe counterpart, who corporeal. So although Vic Fontaine is not a person, there is, in established canon, a distinction between a person and a holographic variant of that person.
The Voyager episode "Future's End," in which selected crew members travel to 1996, or the film The Voyage Home, in which the original cast travel to 1986, would have given Hawking the best opportunity for him to actually portray himself within the Star Trek universe.
*I will not, of course, share information from such a list without doing some basic fact-checking. Memory Alpha, which is a tightly-edited wiki, confirms that Stephen Hawking is the only person to portray himself on Star Trek. And I'm at a loss to think of who else, outside of stock footage, would qualify.
You can do more than just eat beer soft serve ice cream at the Minnesota State Fair. You can also attend an art show using crops as the medium. Minnesota Public Radio reports that 451 people entered works, my favorite of which is this piece by Susan Du. It's a parody of Francisco Goya's famous painting Saturn Devouring His Son.
Many of the submitted works are seed mosaic parodies of other famous works of art, notably Magritte's Ceci N'Est Pas Une Pipe. Others are reminisces of icons of Minnesotan life. You can view them at Minnesota Public Radio.
