Every December, various dictionary publishers pronounce the trendiest word of the past year to be the Word of the Year. Whether we will still be using these words five years from now is anyone's guess. 

Merriam-Webster often selects normal familiar words that represent what people were talking about. Recent selections were authentic, vaccine, and they, except in 2022 when they chose gaslighting. For 2025, they continue this trend by selecting a familiar word that has gained a new meaning. It is slop, which has come to refer to useless junk that floods the internet in order to draw clicks and cash. Their definition is “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.” We all need to learn how to recognize AI slop, but the process can be disappointing. 

The Oxford Dictionary selected brain rot as their word of the year last year. For 2025, they chose another internet term, rage bait, defined as "Online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative, or offensive, typically posted in order to increase traffic to or engagement with a particular web page or social media account." In other words, they're just trying to make you mad. We used to call it trolling. 

Dictionary.com went in a slightly different direction with their Word of the Year for 2025, selecting 67 (pronounced six-seven). How do they define it? They say, "we’re all still trying to figure out exactly what it means." They offer several theories, but it boils down to young people enjoying saying something that outsiders don't understand. You can call it generational trolling. 

Each of these dictionaries also have a list of runners-up, including words like conclave, performative, broligarchy, tariff, and biohack. You can read about those by going to the above links. 

(Image: an example of AI slop, from Wikimedia Commons) 

Remember the story of The Ugly Duckling? If you ever wondered what happened to the subject of that tale, this song will continue the story after he rides off into the sunset. Except here, he remains a duck instead of a swan. Except he's more than a just duck- he's a cowboy! Or rather, a Western gunslinger, because there's no cows in sight. Okay, he's a duck gunslinger who goes by the name Bird Cowboy. A story doesn't have to make sense when it's this much fun. 

It's a Western tale of a solitary hero with plenty of action and a little romance. The rhyming scheme and cadence are familiar for a cowboy ballad, like that of "A Boy Named Sue" or "One Piece at a Time." You can almost hear Johnny Cash singing this. But it's from Mummy Joe, and the illustrations are both silly and adorable. -via Everlasting Blort 

The Hanford Site in Washington state was built in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project as a facility to refine plutonium for atomic bombs. Plutonium production continued there until 1971. The nuclear waste produced at the Hanford Site was sealed into metal containers built to last for 20 years and buried. Twenty years seemed like a long time, but the first nuclear bombs were deployed 80 years ago. Over time, the Hanford Site and the town named Richland that grew up around it became one of the world's most contaminated sites. 

On the one hand, the nuclear waste was out of sight and out of mind. On the other hand, no one really knew what to do with it. So what is going on at the Hanford Site today? They are making glass. Not commercial glass, but glass specifically to contain nuclear waste. Nuclear waste is retrieved a little at a time and mixed with silica, then heated to forge glass logs. After the logs are cooled, those that contain low-level nuclear material are re-buried and the higher-level nuclear logs are shipped off to another nuclear waste facility. Read about the process of cleaning up nuclear waste by vitrification at New Atlas. 

Then you have to wonder what happens in 100,000 years when those glass logs are discovered and teated as buried treasure. -via Damn Interesting 

(Image credit: Washington State Department of Ecology) 

The challenge is to concentrate as many Christmas lights into a small space as possible, or so it seems. Why else would you decorate a tiny room with no furniture? Watch as Justin strings lights in a closet and adds extra Christmas enhancements. You know he fell off those ridiculous homemade stilts at least once. And how many plug-ins can one electrical outlet hold? When the big moment comes, you expect a fire instead of Christmas lights. Watch the video before you continue reading.

Minnesota may be the land of 10,000 lakes, but at one time it was also covered with magnificent forests with dozens of species of trees that were several hundred years old. Then the lumber boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries swept through, giving us tons of building material and the legend of Paul Bunyan. Today, only 2% of Minnesota's original old-growth pine forests remain. One of those forests is called the Lost Forty.

What saved the Lost Forty? It was a surveyor's error. That particular tract was labeled as being a lake, and therefore ignored by lumber companies. You might call it a matter of not seeing the forest because of all the trees, but once a classification is committed to paper, a large lumber distributor wouldn't take the risk of harvesting those trees. The upshot is that the Lost Forty kept its trees, some up to 120 feet tall and more than 300 years old. By the time the land survey was corrected, the lumber boom was over, and the name the Lost Forty was in use. But then, another error was discovered, and it turns out the tract was actually not 40 acres, but 144 acres! That land is now part of the Chippewa National Forest. Read about the Lost Forty and see some lovely pictures at Amusing Planet. 

(Image credit: Lorie Shaull) 

Nice Peter and Epic LLOYD of Epic Rap Battles of History (previously at Neatorama) only release a new video maybe once or twice a year now, but they put a lot of thought into each one. Not only is this one clever, it's so fast-paced that you'll need to see it more than once to reap all the highly-accurate historical details in the rap, and then again to catch all the visual details. It pits two of the world's most renowned warriors against each other. 

Simo Häyhä (previously at Neatorama) was a Finnish sniper who racked up more than 500 kills in the Winter War of 1938. He became known to the Russians as the White Death. You don't know dread until the snow begins speaking Finnish. Baron Manfred von Richthofen (previously at Neatorama) was a German flying ace credited with 80 air battle victories in World War I, now known as the Red Baron. And they can both throw flyting words. 

The Red Baron has a lasting reputation that allows them to include references to pizza, Snoopy, and Meet the Fokkers. Finnish commenters helpfully explained a few terms used here. "Sisu" is a Finnish term for determination, grit, and courage. "Paskapää" means shithead. This video contains NSFW language. -via Boing Boing 

History is full of fascinating stories, and you'd do well to find something you didn't know by sticking your finger in a random page of a world history book. But which book? And how many books do you need to find a subject that will strike your interest? The online Globe of History makes this game a lot easier. 

What you'll see is a world globe full of dots. Each dot has a story or biography that you can pull up and read in short form. You can focus on a particular part of the world, or a certain era of history by adjusting the parameters of the timeline at the bottom. This screenshot is adjusted for the time period of 1150 CE to 1550 CE. Playing with the globe, I read about the Battle of Batibo that occurred in 2017 in Cameroon. Then how the saddle was developed in Kazakhstan around 700 BCE. Then how the Roman Empire invaded Britain in 55 BCE. You may have to zoom in to separate the dots (so many wars!) or rotate the globe. The earlier time periods are limited by the availability of written records, so you won't see much in the New World in the BCE era, but what is there is fascinating. Each historical entry has a link to Wikipedia and YouTube for further exploration.  -via Nag on the Lake 

Valerie Musser knows bearded dragons- she has five of them! She sometimes dresses them up and poses them in miniature kitchen scenes for fun, as you can see at Instagram.

Winny came as a rescue when she was abandoned in front of a pet shop. She may have been considered a defective dragon, as a veterinary workup determined she has muscular dystrophy. Not only that, but Winny was malnourished and full of eggs! Would she survive long enough to lay those eggs? Good food and loving care in her new home helped, but Musser still kept her fingers crossed. And Winny came through like a champ! 

Even though all the bearded dragons are treated like royalty, Musser has made extra accommodations for Winny's health. At Facebook, you can follow Winny's progress and see how a bath mat helps her walk without sliding, and an improvised vibrating device helps her digestion. Winny has found the perfect family and is living each day to the fullest. 

Black Death refers to a pandemic of bubonic plague that swept Europe in the mid 14th century, killing up to half the population. The disease, carried by fleas on rats, had been around for thousands of years, and the virulence of the pandemic of 1346-1353 is ascribed to high populations living in close confines during the medieval period. But how did it get to Europe? 

New research shows that it was likely related to a volcanic eruption in 1345. We don't have historical records of such an eruption, but written accounts from Europe and Asia in the years following report dark clouds and crop failures. We know this can be caused by volcanic ash circling the earth. Also, Arctic and Antarctic ice cores have dated a layer of sulphur to around 1345. Tree ring data also shows the ash clouds' effect on climate in those years. The result was that Italy had to import massive amounts of grain from Central Asia to keep the population from starving, and that's where the Black Death began to flourish. Read how a volcanic eruption somewhere in the world led to the resetting of Europe at LiveScience. -via Strange Company 

Actor, comedian, singer, and dancer Dick Van Dyke was born on December 13, 1925, which means he is turning 100 years old today. Van Dyke began his career in the military, then went on to radio and nightclubs, and became famous for his performance in the 1960 Broadway musical Bye Bye Birdie, for which he won a Tony Award. That got him the starring role in The Dick Van Dyke Show from 1961 to '66 -and three Emmy Awards. He was cast as the male lead in the 1964 movie Mary Poppins, which garnered Van Dyke global fame and a Grammy Award for his performance on the movie's soundtrack album. Those roles were followed by a series of movies and TV shows, and more work on Broadway. Van Dyke spent eight years starring in the TV series Diagnosis: Murder. 

Other notable facts from Van Dyke's life include how he dropped out of high school to join the military as a pilot during World War II. He was rejected by the Army Air Force for being underweight until they accepted him as an entertainer. Van Dyke also wrote several books, including one for children based on his experience as a Sunday school teacher. There are other lesser-known facts about Dick Van Dyke's life and career you can read about here. 

Truck drivers spent a lot of time on US highways, and they have the opportunity to leave reviews of those roads with organizations that crunch the numbers. The Overdrive Highway Report Card keeps track of the worst roads as ranked by truckers, and Trucker Path publishes rankings from truckers to share information about things like parking availability, truck stops, and fuel prices. The four worst ranked highways include two in Louisiana! They are lambasted for bad pavement, minimal maintenance, number of accidents, and congestion. Those are features that are of concern to all drivers. 

The five best highway routes for truckers take into account industry-specific features like parking availability and truck stops, but they would not have been ranked so high if they didn't also have good pavement and fewer accidents. The number one best highway gets bonus points for also taking you to a string of famous monuments and attractions, which is a spoiler for those who have been there. Find out how the best and worst ranked highways in America got their reputations at Jalopnik. 

(Image credit: formulanone) 

Before you go to bed on Christmas Eve, don't forget to leave out milk and cookies as a treat for Santa Claus when he stops by! And maybe some carrots for his reindeer. You might get the idea that the jolly old elf will be so stuffed with cookies that he can't move by the time he ends his rounds, but no. Milk and cookies are pretty much an American custom. Families in other countries share their own traditional gifts for Santa.

In European countries, there's almost always an alcoholic drink left for Santa, as well as traditional sweets, except for a few places that leave letters for Santa instead. The further you go south, the heartier the food gets. Some countries in Africa leave a full filling meal of meat and seafood stew. Or barbecue. Remember, below the equator, Christmas comes in the middle of summer, and traditional treats often follow what's in season. Treats are left for livestock, too because Santa is pulled by animals that are not reindeer in many countries. See a roundup of traditional treats left for Santa Claus in nations around the world at Mental Floss. 

We are often warned not to take health advice from just anyone on the internet, because there a lot of folks out there trying to make money from telling you how you are doing something wrong. That goes for sleep positions as much as anything else, and there is no shortage of "experts" who will tell you how to do it, whether they are really experts or not. So which is really the optimal position to sleep in? And can you train yourself to do it the "right" way?

First off, remember that humanity has managed to survive for hundreds of thousands of years without worrying about sleep positions. But according to science, the most optimal sleep position depends on who you are and the state of your current health. Even then, it's most likely only going to make a small difference. Dr. Rachel Salas, a neurologist who specializes in sleep medicine, explains the differences in sleep positions.    

I ran into this "fun fact," and found it so absurd I just had to look it up. Far from debunking a funny meme, I found that the story of the 1901 book Makt myrkranna, or Powers of Darkness, was even stranger and more complicated than this. The Wikipedia entry on the book details how it differs from Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula, despite its reputation as the direct translation. It was only in 2014 that a Dutch scholar noticed how different the two novels were. 

But after Makt myrkranna was translated into English just a few years ago, it came to light that the source of the story wasn't Bram Stoker, or at least not directly. It was a Swedish story titled Mörkrets makter (Powers of Darkness) that was first published as a magazine serial in 1899-1900. The Swedish Powers of Darkness was somewhat closer to Dracula, and had been assumed to be based on Stoker's unpublished notes and early drafts. The story had been changed considerably from that of Dracula, and had a political slant. Still, the Icelandic "translation" by Valdimar Ásmundsson was much shorter, stylistically different, and had more emphasis on action and sex. 

Scholars are still translating and studying each version to determine what the sources were, how Dracula changed so much, and why it took a hundred years for anyone to realize that the books told a different story.  

Eight of the best mechanical minds in Japan collaborated to assemble the Great Ball Contraption at the 2025 Japan Brickfest. The goal is to design the most elegant and mesmerizing methods of moving tiny basketballs and soccer balls a few inches further down the line. The result is 49 LEGO modules that, when strung together, created a circle of the room more than 31 meters long!

The elements of this contraption include elevators using genius handoffs; robots that resemble birds, dinosaurs, and, uh, robots; and gear assemblies that look like some kind of voodoo is going on. There's even one sequence in which a ball must be thrown through a basketball basket to proceed. Don't miss the colorful valley, designed to be pretty and move impressively. You might also notice a domino machine that doesn't seem to have anything to do with moving the balls, but it's pretty clever anyway.  -via The Awesomer