Check out this bug with the long neck! It's not only long, but it's jointed in the middle. This is the giraffe weevil  (Trachelophorus giraffa), native to Madagascar and only studied since 2008. So why the long neck? Only the males have this long neck, and they use it for mating dances and fighting over short-necked females of the species, although such fights are rarely deadly. In that they resemble their namesakes, but African mammal giraffes also use their long necks to reach food at the tops of trees. The giraffe weevils live in the trees they eat, a species called the giraffe beetle tree for some reason.

Giraffe weevils have a cousin native to New Zealand, but only the Madagascar species has a bright red carapace covering their wings. The insects are sold as souvenirs in Madagascar, and are sometimes used in art. See more of these long-necked bugs at Ark in Space.

(Image credit: Axel Strauß)

There has never been a photograph taken of the Milky Way galaxy. It would take centuries to get a probe far away enough to capture its shape. Yet we have artist's renderings of the galaxy like the one above. How can we possibly know the galaxy's shape when we are inside of it? The truth is that we don't know, but we are learning more about it all the time. The premise we start with is what we can observe. What we see in the skies as the Milky Way is a band of distant stars, which are the nearest of the hundreds of billions of stars in the galaxy. That suggests the galaxy is disc-shaped. While we can't see our own galaxy as a whole, we can see other galaxies, and those that are disc-shaped tend to have arms moving in a spiral. So we can assume that the Milky Way also has arms in a spiral. But that is old news.

With ever more powerful space imaging technology, we are making discoveries that give us a better idea of what the Milky Way looks like. The movement of the stars we know suggest what is hidden behind them by space dust and signal interference. Radio signals penetrate that dust and can map hydrogen gas between stars. There have been many breakthroughs that reveal the size, shape, and texture of the galaxy without us ever seeing what we are studying. Read about the technology that shows us more and more of what we cannot see at Sky at Night magazine. -via Damn Interesting

(Image credit: Nick Risinger)

You know Maurice Sendak as the author and illustrator of the children's book Where the Wild Things Are. But his first paying job as an illustrator came in 1947, when he was still in high school. Sendak had a reputation in the Brooklyn school as a talented artist, and when his physics teacher Hyman Ruchlis wrote a book explaining nuclear science, a hot topic due to the bombs that ended World War II, he asked Sendak to illustrate it. For his efforts, Sendak received a thousand-dollar advance, 1% of royalties, a title-page credit, and a passing grade in physics. He drove a hard bargain. 

Atomics for the Millions explained how nuclear science works, from the basic concept of atoms to weapons to the future of nuclear energy. Sendak's illustrations broke down those concepts into metaphors that the general public of 1947 would understand. Sendak later expressed his disappointment in his early work, but the images are quite charming. See more of these images from the now-public domain book Atomics for the Millions at Physics Today. -via Ars Technica

For about five years in the mid-1960s, beach movies flooded the market. This started as Hollywood discovered that teenagers will go to the movie theater, and that marketing directly to them will sell a lot of tickets. the first such movie was Beach Party in 1963. The film was a romance starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello that featured a lot of dancing, surfing, fighting, and cool teenagers thumbing their noses at adults. While critically panned, the film was a financial success for American International Pictures (AIP) and led to six sequels which more or less recycled the same plot. Other studios jumped on the beach movie bandwagon, and around 30 such films were produced in the next five years. The beach movie fell out of favor due to over-saturation, but it started Hollywood on a mission to capture the lucrative teen audience, which continues to this day. The video is only 8:06 long; the rest is an ad. -via Messy Nessy Chic

Sami was born at the Osijek Zoo in what is now Croatia in 1979. In January of 1988, he was taken to the Belgrade Zoo and lodged in a much smaller chimpanzee enclosure that was like a cage. Sami did not like his new surroundings, and escaped as soon as he could, in February of 1988. Twice. The first time, zoo director Vuk Bojović talked him into returning to his new home. But Sami made another attempt, and this time he wasn't going to surrender so easily.

Meanwhile, Sami's escapes made the news and he became a sensation in Yugoslavia. Remember, this was in 1988, as there was growing unrest in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc nations, illustrated by the shipyard strikes in Gdańsk, Poland, and protests against the Berlin Wall in East and West Germany. Sami became a symbol of the urge to escape from repression, and was safer to talk about because he was a real news story, but he wasn't human. Sami's quest for freedom is commemorated in the statue you see above, installed at the Belgrade Zoo, now in Serbia. Read Sami's story and see pictures of his rooftop negotiations with Bojović during both escapes, at Rare Historical Photos. -via Nag on the Lake

(Image credit: Iricigor)

An 80-year-old woman with dementia left her home in rural Utah to walk her dog. She was unaware of the passage of time, and her family became frightened when she failed to return home. They enlisted the help of authorities to find her. It was three days before they located the woman, but that might not have happened at all if it weren't for a search and rescue dog named Kip, and for the woman's loyal pet who stayed with her all that time, fending off wildlife and keeping her warm at night. His barks weren't just for protection, they also acted as a beacon for those searching for her.

The woman was really happy to see the rescuers. Not because they found her, because she didn't recall being lost. Rather, she was excited about taking a ride in a helicopter. I would imagine her canine companion got steak that night. That's a good dog.

The Missouri Department of Conservation received a call about an injured bald eagle in distress in the Wilson’s Creek National Battlefield near Springfield, Missouri. The eagle, unable to fly, was captured and taken in for rehabilitation. When no injuries could be found, the eagle was x-rayed by the Dickerson Park Zoo. No broken bones or tumors were found in the x-rays, but there was a distinct outline of a bony paw in the eagle's stomach. It is believed to have belonged to a raccoon. So the eagle wasn't hurt, he was just heavy after engorging himself with roadkill. He had been floundering around because he had overeaten and was "too fat to fly."

The story is going viral because this particular bald eagle managed to emulate one of the most prevalent American stereotypes. However, after a good rest, the eagle was released at the spot he was found, and managed to fly away under his own steam. You can see his x-rays at the Facebook post.  -via reddit

(Image source: Wilson's Creek National Battlefield)

Mosquitos kill more human beings than any other animal on earth, by transmitting diseases directly into our bloodstreams. Therefore, a lot of research has gone into how these bugs find humans to bite. Do they smell us? Find us by sight? Feel our body temperature? Or is it something more foreign to us, like the carbon dioxide in our breath? It's all of these, and even more. In fact, mosquitos don't go after humans until they sense at least two identifiers. But they have plenty of identifiers, including the infrared signals our bodies emit.

These infrared signals are not the same of the mosquito sensing body heat. They have to be within about a foot of our skin to feel the heat we produce, but can sense infrared much further away. And it's not the same as seeing the rest of the visible spectrum, because mosquito eyes cannot see infrared. A new study tells us that mosquitos have sensory organs at the tips of their antenna that pick up infrared signals. And, like their other senses, infrared detection does not draw a mosquito to bite us in the absence of other types of stimuli. As you can see from the graphic above, wearing loose-fitting clothing helps to mask the sense of infrared because that radiation can dissipate between our skin and the fabric. Read about the experiments that revealed a mosquito's ability to sense infrared at Phys Org.  -via Damn Interesting

(Image credit: DeBeaubien and Chandel et al.)

Did you know there are people on eBay selling antique toilet paper? Well, maybe not antique, but you can get unopened packages from decades ago. Why would someone buy them? To prove what we have all suspected- that toilet paper has shrunk considerably over time. I have a shelf where I store extra toilet paper rolls, and for years I could only stacked them one roll high. Now I can stack two, because they are narrower. Mark Dent bought a four-pack of Charmin made in 1992 and found there were 170 sheets per roll in 1992, and new "double" rolls have 154. But in the early 1970s, single-ply Charmin had 650 sheets on a roll!

Of course, that's not the only way to measure toilet paper. Further research shows us a four-roll pack weighs about half what it once weighed. And you already know about the prices. Yes, we have high-quality toilet paper these days, but the materials used to make it come with such price volatility that it's just easier for companies to keep prices high than to deal with market fluctuations. Read about the great toilet paper shrinkage, and the reasons behind it at the Hustle. -via Nag on the Lake

(Image credit: Elya)

Tony Zhou of Every Frame a Painting (previously at Neatorama) has been missing in action for years (doing real work), and we've missed his insightful look at the details of filmmaking. We are glad to see he is back, in what he calls a limited edition of his series on filmmaking, with a look at a classic type of scene called the sustained two-shot.

The sustained two-shot was common back in the days when film was more expensive than an actor's time. Now, actors don't have to perform minutes of dialogue perfectly all the way through a scene, because filmmakers use multiple camera angles and have the opportunity to edit several takes together to get the scene. But that's only the beginning of how filmmaking has changed over time, and why the sustained two-shot isn't seen much anymore. One simple film technique carries a rich history, and Zhou makes it way more interesting than you would imagine.

Major League catcher Danny Jansen goes into the record books permanently today as the first MLB player to play for both sides in a single game. He started the game as a Toronto Blue Jay, and will finish it as member of the Boston Red Sox. The two teams went against each other on June 26th, but the game was called for rain. Then the Red Sox traded three minor-leaguers for Jansen on the 27th. The postponed game resumes today at the exact point it was called off in June. That was, strangely, as Jansen was at bat, with one strike. Today, he will be behind the plate catching. The Jays are expected to use a pinch-hitter in his place. The lineup for both teams has changed considerably since June, but Jansen is the only one on both teams' rosters. It's the first time this has happened in Major League Baseball's regular season, and will be a trivia question from now on.

Also, because this game will go down in the record books as occurring on June 26th, three players might be listed as having played an MLB game weeks before their MLB debut. If Joey Loperfido gets in the game, he will be recorded as having played two games for different teams on June 26th, since he played for the Astros against the Rockies on that date. And if you like weird sports stats like that, there are more in the comments at Metafilter.

It was a beautiful sunny day in Athens, Alabama, when Little Johnny wrote to Santa Claus asking for a trampoline. Santa, wanting to get ahead on his Christmas chores, immediately complied. Then after a minute decided the trampoline didn't look all that good in the front yard; the driveway would be better. Johnny, who is old enough to write a letter on his own and therefore too old to believe in Santa Claus, thanked his puzzled parents profusely.

This actually happened last Thursday, and the bizarre incident was captured on Brooke and Zachary Stagg's doorbell camera from across the street. There doesn't appear to be any heavy weather brewing, but it was a bit windy. The wind speed was measured at 39 miles per hour at the airport in nearby Huntsville. Despite the viral video, we don't know if there was any damage done to the roof or the trampoline, or whatever was in its path. We do know that you're supposed to anchor a trampoline to avoid just this sort of thing. -via Laughing Squid

Göbekli Tepe in Turkey is an archaeological site that has confounded scientists for years. It dates back 12,000 years, longer than any other permanent human settlement yet found, and contains carved symbolism that we are just beginning to interpret. Various "V" shapes inscribed at the site could be a solar calendar that indicates the people there kept up with 12 lunar cycles and 11 extra days for a 365-day year. The summer solstice is marked with a special V. This would put annual timekeeping thousands of years earlier than we previously thought. The residents of Göbekli Tepe were very aware of the precise changes in the sky, the sun, moon, and stars, over long periods of time at the very dawn of civilization. They even factored in the wobble of the earth's axis, and how that affects the appearance of constellations.  

Scientists suspect that the calendar may have been inspired by a swarm of comet fragments that hit the earth 13,000 years ago. The event ushered in a 1,200-year ice age. As earth emerged from that ice age, people began living in permanent communities. These events may also have inspired the development of agriculture, religion, and writing. Read about the solar calendar at Göbekli Tepe at EurekaAlert!  -via My Modern Met

(Image credit: Dr. Martin Sweatman)

For sale: a 10,000-square-foot mansion on the Hudson River in Manhattan. Built in 1902, the Gilded Age building has five stories, five bedrooms, seven baths, two kitchens, and a separate full basement apartment. The landmark is named River Mansion. I was excited to see a tour, but then... oh my eyes! The decor is so ugly! Each room seems to be more of an abomination than the previous one. Apparently it was used as an art project, with a couple of dozen modern designers taking on a room each. The architectural details are nice, but the cost of getting these rooms back to a sensible and maybe even somewhat period-accurate look would be considerable. The good news is that the price has dropped from the $24 million this guy mentions to just under $10 million. That's only $63K a month. You could rent out the rooms to a dozen or so desperate New Yorkers and make that back in no time. Or we can wait and watch the price drop again. -via Nag on the Lake 

On August 25, 1944, 80 years ago today, Paris was liberated from the Germans who had occupied France for four years. But the city could have seen a completely different end to the war. As Allied troops moved east across France, Hitler was driven into a frenzy, and declared he wanted to see Paris burned to the ground before it fell into Allied hands. What Hitler didn't know was that General Eisenhower had drawn plans to bypass the city as they drove the Germans to the east because the Allies were low on fuel. On August 19, the Allies plus Free French fighters from the liberated territory were only 150 miles from Paris, so the French Resistance suddenly rose up and revolted against their occupiers. The German Army was low on men, and the Resistance was low on ammunition, but like the Allied fuel supply, none of this information was shared with the enemy.

But one secret was. A German officer who was stalling on Hitler's orders to burn Paris made a calculated risk to bring Eisenhower and his troops into the city. Read the details of the last-ditch efforts of the French Resistance and what happened to keep Paris from being destroyed at Smithsonian.

(Image credit: Jack Downey, U.S. Office of War Information)