In 2011, the Gut Aiderbichl animal rescue organization in Austria rescued several chimpanzees which had been caged in an indoor laboratory for up to 30 years. Some, having been born there, had never seen the outside world.
Gut Aiderbichl prepared an open air environment for the chimpanzees, then moved them to a cage adjoining it. When it was ready, they opened a door between the two. The curious chimpanzees began to explore a bright new world. It’s not the wilderness to which they can never return, but it is a better life. You can follow their progress here.
The man wanted to record himself playing a guitar (badly). He wanted the cat to vacate the chair. This was reasonable. But throwing and shoving the cat was not. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, the cat promptly dished out some feline justice.
A dumpster in New Haven, Connecticut caught on fire. Like any sensible person, Tom Lavery whipped out his phone to take a selfie video. This distracted Lavery and his friend from what was going on around them. The inevitable result followed.
When we were in preschool, we were in an enchanted paradise and we didn’t even know it. It was a simple, joyful life back then: finger painting, crayons, Play-Doh, crafts, storytime, snacktime, and naptime. You can experience it again at Preschool Mastermind, a preschool for adults in New York City. It’s a project founded by Michelle Joni, who is pictured above. ABC News reports:
"I realized all the implications of what we learn in preschool," said founder Michelle Joni, who said she went to school for childhood education and always wanted to be a preschool teacher. "People come here and get in touch with their inner child. It's magical."
"One person's here because they want to learn not to be so serious," she said. "Another's here to learn to be more confident." But some are there just to have fun. […]
Next week there's a field trip. Then the last week of class is "parent day" when the students bring two adults of their choice to class. One woman is actually bringing her parents.
Comic book artist Stjepan Sejic is a great resource for comic book readers. He frequently explains why certain tropes in comic books take place even though they don’t make sense. For example, last year, he explained why women’s body armor can be so skimpy, yet totally effective.
You don’t have to go to the grocery store to get a potato. Oh, there are other ways of getting potatoes. But what if you want only one potato? Then you need to talk to the people at Mail A Spud, a business that claims to let you mail a whole 8-ounce Russet potato to someone you love. There’s no packaging—just a potato covered with stamps to cover the cost of shipping.
In the early Fifth Century, the Romans left Britain permanently. This left the Britons vulnerable, so the Anglo-Saxon tribes invaded. The somewhat Romanized British peoples fought back, giving birth to the legend of King Arthur. But they were ultimately defeated and much of Great Britain fell under the rule of these Germanic nations.
Then, in 1066, the Normans came and gradually ended Anglo-Saxon independence. It’s been almost a millennium since William the Bastard landed on the beach near Hastings. But according to genetic researchers at Oxford University, many of the British peoples remained in place. They took DNA samples of 2,039 people whose grandparents were born within 80 kilometers of each other. When compared, the researchers found that genetic clusters form around the same general areas of the old Anglo-Saxon and Celtic kingdoms. Sarah Knapton writes for the Daily Telegraph:
A hummingbird can hover in place in a strong wind, remaining stationary even when the wind speed constantly varies as much as 15%. In contrast, the typical aerial drone can stay steady only when the wind speed varies up to 7%.
Researchers at Harvard and RMIT University in Melbourne wanted to understand why in order to improve drone design. So they placed hummingbirds in a wind tunnel. They found that hummingbirds, which beat their wings 40 times a second, can vary the angle and position of their wings and tails to a wide degree and implement these changes within a single wingbeat. You can read more about this study at the New York Times (warning: auto-start video).
On most nights, when it’s time for bed, I get down on all fours and my daughters climb on my back. They ride the Bedtime Train to their room. We don’t have a Daddle, but the girls still enjoy it.
Kids love to climb, especially over people they love. Atsushi Shiraishi, a design student at Tama Art University, invented this tool to make it even more fun. It’s called the Athle Titti, which is a combination of the Japanese words for athletic and father. You can see more photos of it at Spoon & Tamago.
Aladdin was not the genie’s first master. It’s unlikely that the movie shows the first time that he suggested that a master set him free. He must have had a previous master who refused. This master is never mentioned anywhere, but Andrew Bridgman and Paul Westover of Dorkly have inferred that he must exist. He’s one of 5 Disney characters that necessarily exist, including the clam that forms Ariel’s bra and the fashion expert who suggested that Cruella de Vil get a dog-skin coat.
The famous Lucky the Leprechaun now sits atop the Marshmallow Throne. But he never rests easy. It was by no means guaranteed that he would forever be the public face of Lucky Charms cereal. In 1975, General Mills experimented with a different mascot: Waldo the Wizard. He was a cheerful, absent-minded wizard who liked children.
Test audiences responded favorably to Waldo--they even liked him better than Lucky. Monte Olmstead writes for the General Mills blog:
“Waldo’s endearing quality was his forgetfulness linked with wordplay. Kids like to see human qualities in characters,” says Alan Snedeker, who created Waldo while working for New York ad agency Dancer Fitzgerald Sample from 1964 to 1985.
While Lucky’s catchphrase was, “They’re magically delicious,” Waldo called Lucky Charms “ibbledebibbledelicious.”
And in every commercial, Waldo lost his box of Lucky Charms and had to find it.
In market tests in New England, Waldo and another one of his creations beat Lucky hands down. Lucky was vulnerable. “My work beat Lucky twice in tests,” Snedeker says.
In 1975, the two Lucky Charms cereal mascots coexisted – Waldo in New England and Lucky in the rest of the U.S. In some of the television spots, Snedeker says he made Lucky “more friendly,” which may have led to Waldo’s demise.
“In making Lucky nicer, I probably killed Waldo,” he admits.
After less than a year, Lucky returned. Goodbye, Waldo.
It's possible to use human urine to generate electricity and the flow of inventions that have resulted from this discovery has increased over recent years. Here's one clever application. The Bristol BioEnergy Centre in the UK has developed a small, portable emergency signal that can be powered by peeing on it. It's shaped like a pyramid and is covered with a membrane for processing the urine. Polly Wilson of Chemistry World reports:
An external waterproofing layer made from three layers of a conductive latex solution avoids any unpleasant leaks and also doubles as the cathode. Electricity producing bacteria in the form of dormant biofilms quickly revive when fed urine, even after long periods of desiccation and cold storage. These clever constructs ensure the membrane and electrodes are in close proximity, and generate enough power to power a transceiver just 35 minutes after activation. A feat that biochemist Gajanan Ghodake, of Dongguk University in South Korea, finds ‘quite astounding’. And two cells connected in series broadcast radio signals through a transceiver at roughly 6 minute intervals for 24 hours; a potentially lifesaving signal for an explorer in trouble.
In 1983, the great comic actor Rowan Atkinson brought us Blackadder, a serial about a witty man surrounded by idiots throughout English history. It begins with depicting Atkinson as a scheming member of the royal court in the Fifteenth Century. Then he was a member of the court of Elizabeth I, then a butler to the Prince Regent during the Napoleonic Wars, and an army officer during World War I.
Blackadder is truly great comedy. If you haven't seen it, you should do so.
The story tells of two boys, Cathro and de Rohan uncovering a cunning plan for the French to invade England with the help of Simon Blackadder–a devious spy who pretends to be a smuggler to cover his nefarious activities. […]
He was thirty-five when the story unfolds, and had been an active participant in the great French Revolution, when he had been an associate of Marat and Robespierre–and had been “a fanatical informer and assassin of the aristocrats”. Blackadder is described as being consumed by “a fearful and continuous hatred” of England, and he threw himself into the war between English and the French, campaigning with Napoleon in Italy. But as he soon discovered, Blackadder made a better spy than soldier.
Every gorgon occasionally wants a day off to go the ballfield and see a game. But the jumbotron isn't for you. And don't even try to get featured on the kiss cam.
Your child is transitioning from human to centaur. There's no point arguing that species is biologically determined. The child feels centaur and thus is. Accept and validate the child's identity. Dr. Pinder Chipps, a therapist and happy father of two centaurs, can show you how with his book endorsed by Star Trek's George Takei.
The mysterious blogger Obvious Plant creates highly realistic signs and leaves them in stores. As a result, he offers you funny but fake product reviews and extremely specific but helpful bookstore sections. In his most recent prank, he created book jackets for self-help books on basic adult life skills, human sacrifice, and the experience of parenting a new centaur.
