From the always creative Firebox studio comes this uniquely festive holiday candle. It looks like an egg. But as the wick burns, it reveals a baby velociraptor inside. As baby emerges from his shell, keep in close contact to make sure that he imprints on you as the leader. It’s like having a human child that will someday kill and eat you.
-via Dangerous Minds
(Photo: David Ball)
But that may change. A British government task force is looking through 44,000 pieces of legislation, some dating back to the 13th Century, to identify obsolete laws for Parliament to eliminate. Among them are laws about wearing armor inside the Houses of Parliament and beating rugs outside. Stephen Castle writes in the New York Times:
Over the centuries, rules have piled up to penalize those who fire a cannon within 300 yards of a dwelling and those who beat a carpet in the street — unless the item can be classified as a doormat and it is beaten before 8 a.m.
The commission has also debunked many popular myths about laws that are allegedly still on the books:
The commission has found no evidence, for example, of any law stating that, in the city of Liverpool, it is illegal for a woman to be topless in public except while working as a clerk in a tropical fish store.
Nor is it true that a man may urinate in public, providing he does so against the rear-passenger-side wheel of his vehicle, with his right hand placed upon it.
-via Popehat
(Photo: American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists)
This beautiful maternal scene suggests that little frogs are erupting out of a larger frog, like the chestbursters in Alien. Your warm fuzzies of the day are courtesy of the Cryptobatarchus boulengeri, a frog species that lives near freshwater sources from California to Colombia. Mommy Cryptobatarchus likes to carry her babies on her back until they're ready to leave home.
-via Super Punch
(Photo: John Lambert Pearson)
Do you miss the days when we lived in trees, ate fresh fruit, and slept whenever we wanted? We can't go back to last week, but we can make lifestyle choices now. Perhaps they will be informed by the results of a new study published in Evolutionary Anthropology. The authors discovered that among all primates, humans sleep the least. Esther Inglis-Arkell explains at Gizmodo:
[...] humans get about seven hours of sleep per night. That’s less than half the time that animals like mouse lemurs devote to sleeping. Some primates sleep up to 17 hours a day. And it holds true in both highly technological societies and those that steer clear of technology and keep to cycles of natural light.
We do, however, dream more than other primates:
When humans do sleep, they’re in REM (random eye movement) sleep for about 25% of the time. REM sleep is associated with dreams. Although other primates may dream, researchers estimate that they spend only about five percent of their time in REM sleep.
Why are we different? Perhaps in our evolutionary development, we found that sleep deprived us of social interaction and exposed us to threats:
According to the study authors, once humans moved from the trees to the ground, there were probably three main selective pressures keeping them awake: “increased predation risk in terrestrial environments, threats from intergroup conflict, and benefits arising from increased social interaction.”
Security camera footage from the Metro, the public light rail service in Paris, shows a crime and an act of kindness in rapid succession.
One man, who is very intoxicated, has passed out while waiting for a train to arrive. A pickpocket robs him, then wanders off. The victim, apparently unaware of what's happened to him, stands up and staggers forward, falling onto the train tracks.
The train stops to drop off and pick up passengers. The train hasn't hit the fallen man yet, but it will run right over him as soon as it starts up again. So the pickpocket alerts passersby and together they haul the victim safely off the tracks.
Why did he do it? Police officer Emmanuelle Oster told The Local that people are a mix of good and evil:
"Inside every thief there’s a human being, and in every innocent bystander there could be a bastard.”
-via Lost at E Minor
Scott Neumyer, a writer for 22 Words and brilliant dessert engineer, has revolutionarized the pie experience. This is not a cherpumple or a piecaken, which is 3 pies baked into separate layers of a cake, but a true pie turducken.
Neumyer baked five concentric pies. From the outside in, they are apple, cherry, peach, blueberry, and cream cheese. He sealed them inside overlapping pie crusts. After baking and eating the result, he proclaimed it "the greatest pie of all time."
This is not boasting by Neumyer. As William F. Buckley, Jr. said, "It is not a sign of arrogance for the king to rule. That is what he is there for." The turducken of pies is now our king.
Yes, rats in New York City love pizza. But a rat of discerning taste need not limit himself to whatever pizza is available around the corner. No other city offers as many dining options as New York--especially when it comes to pizza.
So New York magazine left pizzas from four prominent pizzerias around the city and recorded the responses from local rats. Lombardi's Neapolitan-style was by far the most popular choice.
Like the silly episode “Rascals,” where Captain Picard turns into a 12-year old boy, “Deck the Holodeck” is one of the most underappreciated episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Yes, it’s a bit absurd. But only Scrooges who can’t get into the Christmas spirit fail to enjoy this gem from Season 3. My favorite scene is when Riker attempts to sing “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” to Worf after translating it into Klingon.
This is 1 of 7 oft-forgotten Christmas television episodes rounded up by Clickhole. They include the Law & Order: SVU episode in which the detectives rush to solve two molestation cases before Christmas arrives and the infamous eggnog episode of House M.D.
Arya, a Corgi who lives in Los Angeles, is super excited about the premier of Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. To celebrate this glorious event in geek history, she dressed up as an X-wing fighter pilot. You’ll all clear, Arya. Take your shot.
-via Landa Calrissian
Patricia Nascimento is a French woman who lives in southern Portugal. She loves to cook desserts, especially French pastries. She made this beautiful and delicious-looking bread (translation) by carefully blending two doughs flavored and colored with vanilla and cocoa.
First she prepared the cocoa dough, then refrigerated it. She arranged that dough in long cylinders, then arranged those cylinders in the vanilla dough. When she cut across the baked loaf, the result was a leopard skin pattern.
Nascimento recommends eating this bread with Nutella—a notion that I enthusiastically endorse.
-via Messy Nessy Chic
(Photo by unknown, via fuzzywumpus1)
The American capacity for mass production, shipping, and distribution was one of the major reasons why the Allies won World War II. Among the wonders to move quickly from American factories to the front lines were hundreds of thousands of jeeps. These trucks were simple to use and maintain. They could go anywhere and be adapted for multiple roles.
Stateside factories shipped jeeps in enormous crates—one per jeep. When an assembly line of trained US Army mechanics was ready, it could assemble a jeep in 3 minutes. You can read a copy of the instructions used by soldiers in 1943 at the Military Vehicle Preservation Association.
-via Messy Nessy Chic
When a cat is distracted, such as while he’s eating or Instagramming, slip a cucumber next to him, just beyond his peripheral vision. He will consistently startle violently.
This works for people, too.
-via Gifsboom
(Photo via David Coplan-Castillo)
You’ll never grow old and die in Never Never Land. You’re no good to him dead.
These two unknown cosplayers are perfectly styled as our favorite bounty hunters who will gladly return Captain Hook to Jabba the Hutt.
-via Cosplay in America
(Photo: US National Archives and Records Administration)
Hideki Tojo was the Prime Minister of Japan during World War II. After Japan surrendered, the Allies tried him for war crimes. During his trial in 1946, he requested a set of dentures so that he could speak clearly.
E.J. Mallory, an American dentist, was responsible for providing dental care to the accused war criminals awaiting trial at the Sugamo Prison in Tokyo. Remembering that it was Tojo who ordered the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Mallory decided mock Tojo in his own way. He wrote "Remember Pearl Harbor" in Morse code on the false teeth that he made for Tojo.
It was, alas, too good a prank to keep secret. Mallory told a colleague, who told other people, and soon word reached the American news media. Mallory and another dentist knew they could get in trouble for the engraving. So they drove to the prison in the middle of the night, woke up Tojo, took his teeth, and ground the marks out.
You can read more about Mallory's teeth for Tojo in a 1995 article from the Associated Press.
-via American Digest
Dave wanted to propose to his girlfriend Jenna in a special way. Yes, he did take the traditional route of offering her a lightsaber. But he also went further: he took her on a special Lord of the Rings-themed trip to New Zealand and brought along this custom-built lightsaber to seal the deal.
