They say that, like opinions, everyone has one of these. But anuses are rare in the fossil record. Anuses generally do not survive the ravages of time. But, the New York Post reports, paleontologists found a fossilized anus dating back 300 million years.

They found the anus in a Thuringian Forest in Germany. It belonged to a reptile and was, properly speaking, a cloaca--a multipurpose orifice that, unlike your anus, can be used for urinating, laying eggs, and mating as well as defecating.

The reptile was about 3.5 inches long and has been named by scientists Cabarzichnus pulchrus. I'm not sure what Cabarzichnus means, but pulchrus means "beautiful." And it is lovely, don't you think?

-via Jarvis Best | Photo: Lorenzo Marchetti/Natural History Museum

I posted four years ago about a motorcycle produced for the British Army during World War II. The Welbike was sufficiently small that it could be air-dropped with paratroopers, who could then use the motorbikes to travel far faster than they would be able to on foot.

The 98cc-powered minibike continued in production after the war as the Corgi. When exported to the US from the UK, it was named the Papoose under the Indian brand. Various amenities added to it, such as a headlight, added to the weight but also made the bike more useful.

This particular beauty, lovingly preserved for decades, recently sold on Bring a Trailer.

-via Jalopnik

I love this simple but ingenious idea. Feuerwasser, a company in Austria, manufactures outdoor bathing products, including hot tubs. The heat source is the most natural and primal of combustibles: wood.

The company now offers a stainless steel shower set up with a wood-fired boiler for the water. Imagine beginning your day with the tactile contrast of hot water and chill winds as the sunlight and water bathe your body.

It would probably make me want to serenade my neighbors. As this is an Austrian product, yodeling would be appropriate. Yodeling is also a Texan tradition, so it transplants well.

-via Nag on the Lake

The Boston-based company Frigid Dynamics is the developer of the E-XC, which consists of a pair of motorized skis. These electric-powered machines have treads in the back that push the skier along the powder at high speed.

A set of these machines can propel a user up to 20 miles per hour for 10 miles. They can climb grades as steep as 20°. Users control them with a wireless device in one hand and a ski pole in the other.

Imagine this invention in the hands (or, rather, on the feet) of mountain rescue personnel or ski troops.

-via Toxel

Design Boom introduces to us this delicious handbag made by Esenes Worldwide, a fashion house in New York City. Control your hunger because it's not edible unless you're really committed. The company is selling 150 of these unusual purses priced at $150 each.

The leather has been carefully shaped while hot to give it the same wringled and irregular texture of a dumpling. Each bag is thus unique in its precise shape. A fabric lining creates the impression of a vegetable filling. It can conceal, as Esenes's video proves, actual dumplings. So the bag can serve as a novel lunch box.

In the olden days, library checkouts were completed without computer intervention with the use of cards that were signed by patrons and stamped with due dates by library staff. For over a decade, artist Heidi Pitre, who is based in Kansas City, has taken these old cards and used them for art projects. For her series titled "Permanent Record", Pitre has painted and inked scenes and images on the cards.

Many of the books are classics now painted with scenes from the stories (including a somewhat unsettling depiction of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita) or illustrations befitting how-to books. To a large extent, Pitre explains to KCUR News, what she draws is determined by what book titles fortune delivers into her hands.

-via reddit

Libraries are, traditionally, zones throbbing with romance and sensual passions. If the fires of eros burn within you, head to your local public library.*

Fittingly, seven couples at branches of the Anne Arundel County Public Library system in Maryland married each other on Valentine's Day. WBALTV 11 News says that the library system began hosting weddings last year.

There was a mass event at three different branches of that library system on Saturday. You can see photos of the happy couples and library staff on Instagram.

-via reddit

*My wife and I met at my library and I proposed to her at her library.

The Petosky District Library, a public library system in Petosky, Michigan, is taking advantage of winter weather to make a temporary Little Free Library.

The books are, appropriately, in zip-lock bags to protect them from moisture and, presumably, freezer burn.

Sabin, Minnesota outside of Fargo is a sleepy town of 619 people in the heart of wheat country. By the railroad tracks is an old grain elevator. What's inside is unexpected: a luxurious 4-bedroom, 3-bathroom home. It's for sale.

CrackerMilk is a sketch comedy troupe in Brisbane, Australia. In this video, a police officer encounters mimes engaging in increasingly disturbing criminal behavior. The mean streets of Brisbane are tragically unsafe due to these monsters in face paint.

This is not surprising. Mimes are properly despised and tormented in any morally self-governing society.

Content warning: foul language.

A portal to hell has opened: A place in Belarus has been discovered where they make "kurachino" — cappuccino inside a rotisserie chicken.

Is it a unique idea or a food perversion? pic.twitter.com/fNH3kSaSa8

— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) February 12, 2026

Is this real? I mean, it could be AI. Everything is these days.* But there's no reason why we couldn't pour a freshly-made cappuccino into a whole rotisserie chicken. Nor is there any reason why I shouldn't do it.

Right now.

NEXTA, which I gather is a news network operated by Belarusian exiles in Poland, asks "Is this a unique idea or a food perversion?" The question is a false choice.

*Did you think that "Miss Cellania" is an actual human? Did you think that "Kentucky" is a real place?

When I learned that the oldest member of the American Olympic team is 54 years old, I asked myself who was the oldest Olympic athlete ever.

It was Oscar Swahn, who represented Sweden at the age of 72 at the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium. This was Swahn's third attendance, having also participated in the Olympic games in 1908 and 1912 (the 1916 games were cancelled due to an international dispute occurring during that year).

Swahn was a crack shot with a rifle. He participated in the men's double-shot 100 meter running deer event. That meant firing two shots at a moving deer-shaped target 100 yards away. In a team version of this event, Swahn won the silver medal in 1920.

Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before!

These are the words that William Shatner says at the beginning of Star Trek. The rhetorical origins of these words is complex, as is the textual history.

X personality Subcommander Tal shares earlier drafts of the narration by Bob Justman, John D.F. Black, and Gene Roddenberry. They reflect different visions of what the story, originally conceived of as a "wagon train to the stars" would become. Personally, I'm glad that Captain Kirk engaged in little commercial inspection and customs enforcement.

People in Louisville, Kentucky are calling this dog "Lassie" because they don't know his real name. Lassie fits, though, because the dog is a hero like the fictional female Collie. WLKY News reports that police searched a neighborhood for a missing 3-year old boy. The weather was cold and the boy was insufficiently dressed for it, so officers had a strong sense of urgency.

A local dog, whose ownership is uncertain, attracted the attention of one officer, who followed the dog into a home lot where a SUV was parked. The child had locked himself inside. Police freed him and took the child to safety.

A pet tortoise escaped a fire in Southern California after a heat lamp fell and ignited the shed where she lives.⁣

Security camera footage shows the tortoise, named Leo, moving to safety as flames spread behind her. Leo’s owner was not home at the time, but neighbors were able… pic.twitter.com/pADeOkR5TN

— AccuWeather (@accuweather) February 10, 2026

People magazine reports that on February 8, the home of Leo, a female sulcata tortoise, caught on fire when her heatlamp malfunctioned. Her human, Hyeri Tom, was away at a Super Bowl party when the incident took place.

Surveillance camera footage shows Leo sprinting away from the flames to safety. Neighbors noticed the fire and put it out.