Phineas Gage was 25 years old and had a job working on a railroad in 1848. As he was tamping down explosives, they went off and sent the iron tamping rod through his head, from the jaw through the top of his skull. Gage lost vision in one eye, but surprisingly recovered and survived for another 13 years. Scientists who studied Gage's case learned enough to begin removing brain tumors and performing lobotomies. But Gage had trouble holding a job because of changes in his personality. He would drink, fight, gamble, and consort with prostitutes. Scientists called this "disinhibition," and attributed it to his brain injury. It became a theory that his damaged frontal lobe was the center of inhibition that kept most people from doing things they shouldn't. Gage became patient zero for the science of personality by brain mapping. 

Another case of a personality change after a brain injury involves Eadweard Muybridge. Muybridge became both eccentric and creatively productive after a brain injury, but he also shot and killed a guy. Was this frontal lobe disinhibition? The case of Muybridge is not so clear-cut, because it was much better documented. That brings up the question of whether Gage's personality really did change. The actual evidence is scant, and what is there could be explained by the life-changing trauma of his accident. And Gage's and Muybridge's behaviors were ultimately judged by different scales. Read about science's new look at the case of Phineas Gage at Aeon, or here if you're out of free articles.   -via Metafilter 

(Image credit: Originally from the collection of Jack and Beverly Wilgus, and now in the Warren Anatomical Museum, Harvard Medical School) 

As you might guess, the portmanteau "scamageddon" refers to the end of the world brought about by folks who con you out of your money. It seems like this is happening now, but to truly be world-ending, it would come from extraterrestrials.In this scenario, Steve Buscemi plays the supreme leader of an invading force using scams against Earthlings, with all the pomp and circumstance that a sci-fi movie would require. But in their plans of domination, they didn't count on a security network that blocks their efforts. Yeah, it's a dumb idea, because what would aliens do with our money, after all? This story would require a suspension of disbelief if it weren't a total comedy. Forget plausibility, because this alien is a ridiculous stereotype, and so are the weird minions (Zelunians?) who worship him, and his incompetent henchmen. -via The Awesomer 

If you didn't learn to cook before you left your parents' home, you may have had to consult a video to learn the proper way to dice an onion. While methods vary, it's usually a straightforward operation. However, if you are a math nerd, you might worry about the uniformity of the onion pieces you are left with. Since an onion consists of round layers, and chefs cut them straight down from top to bottom to maximize both speed and safety, the pieces from the side of the onion tend to be slightly larger than the rest. 

To make the most uniformly diced onion pieces, you need to reduce the standard deviation in the size of the pieces. Radial cuts makes sense for this, but it does nothing for the safety of the knife wielder. And using math, we find that it actually increases the standard deviation in size because of the smaller pieces in the middle. There is another cutting technique that will reduce that standard deviation, and you can learn all about it at The Pudding. Personally, I find no correlation between the consistency of onion pieces and the enjoyment of the finished dish, but your mileage may vary.  -via kottke, who mainly admired the onion font in the article.   

When I was a kid, my grandmother wore her hair in tight curls with bluing, cat-eye glasses, and stockings rolled to her knees. And dentures. I thought she was ancient, but she was younger then than I am now. It's not your imagination- people did indeed look older in those days. The easiest way to see the effect is in TV shows. You can watch an old episode of All in the Family and assume that Archie Bunker was in his 60s, but actor Carroll O'Conner was in his 40s when portraying him. In the 1984 movie Cocoon, Wilford Brimley played a character in a retirement home, but he was only 49. YouTuber TV Guess-O-Matic goes over some of the main reasons people used to look older. The comparison of Lucille Ball and Jennifer Anniston seems a bit of a stretch, because if you swap the hairstyles, the difference in appearance just disappears. It's the same with The Golden Girls, because their hairstyles made them look much older than they were (and Estelle Getty required plenty of makeup to look old). -via Laughing Squid 

Roger Williams was a very accomplished man. He was a Puritan clergyman who emigrated from England in 1631 to what is now Massachusetts. But his strange ideas about religious freedom and the separation of church and state, not to mention his belief in the humanity of Native Americans, got him kicked out, so he founded both Rhode Island and the First Baptist Church. 

Williams died in 1683 and was buried on his own property in Providence, next to his wife, who had died a few years before. In 1860 when the graves of Roger Williams and his wife were dug up in preparation for a monument to be erected, a very peculiar situation was found. There were no remains of the couple found except for a braid of Mrs. Williams' hair (and a few teeth, according to Wikipedia). What was found was an apple tree root. The tree had been planted many years after Williams' death, and the root had grown through the grave. The root was found to have taken a shape as if it had grown around a human skeleton, even though there were no bones. That root was preserved, and can still be seen today. Read about the tree that ate Williams at American Strangeness. -via Strange Company 

(Image credit: Rhododendrites) 

I've read that cat food manufacturers struggle with having to walk a fine line between making cat food smelly enough to attract our feline pets, but not smelly enough to make their owners sick when opening the can. Cats love smelly foods, and what's stinkier than surströmming, the Swedish fermented fish famous for its strong smell? Viral internet videos make it clear that just opening the can can make humans lose their lunch. Etiquette requires you open a can of surströmming outside. 

This guy asked his cat Pusic (previously at Neatorama), who we have called Russia's most pampered cat, and his year-old sister Mila if they would like some surströmming. The two cats are curious, bordering on excited, but will they eat it? The average house cat naturally loves fish, but fermented fish in a can is something outside their wheelhouse. Too bad we don't get to see the human's reaction. 

What do you know about Vincent van Gogh? Most people would say he painted The Starry Night and cut off his own ear. The artist was a complicated man who suffered from mental illness and died at age 37 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1890. Ever since then, people have been trying to untangle what was wrong with Van Gogh. 

In addition to a very unhealthy lifestyle, Van Gogh had pica, an unnatural compulsion to consume things that are not food. He ate paint, particularly the yellow paint he used so much, plus the paint thinner turpentine. These dangerous substances can cause brain damage, but no one knows for sure whether the cravings were his primary problem, or just another in a pantheon of mental illnesses. Van Gogh himself didn't know why he ate paint. One theory is that he had a biochemical craving for terpenes, the chemicals that give plants their distinctive aromas. Read about pica, terpenes, and Van Gogh's obsession that may have led to his death at Big Think. -via Metafilter 

(Image credit: Vincent van Gogh/GoldenArtists) 
   

We recently showed you a robot soccer game in which small humanoid robots competed (poorly) using artificial intelligence. In this robot kickboxing tournament held in China, the action is much more exciting. These are Unitree G1 EDU model robots, which can be operated by a remote control, by voice commands, or by motion sensing. In these fights, they are using remote controls. The robots are quicker and better balanced than the AI robots playing soccer- and a little taller, although not yet human sized. Most impressively, they also have the ability to get back up when they are knocked down (cue "Tubthumping"). They even show a little personality in their fighting style, which might be hard to replicate in AI. In this video, their main vulnerability seems to be a tendency to get lost when they aren't facing the right direction. Read more about robot kickboxing at Cnet. -via Geeks Are Sexy 

A photographer from the Atelier d'Ora in Vienna took the photo above in December of 1916, on the occasion of the coronation of Karl I, Emperor of Austria, as the King of Hungary. It was a grand affair, as we can see by the sumptuous finery worn by the ladies. But it seems strange that the photographer would take portraits of a pair of shoes! Three such photos exist, focusing tight upon the footwear that appears to be made of silk brocade laced with satin ribbons, and the rich lace petticoat adorned with fabric flowers. And all that would scarcely be seen at all under the fur-trimmed gown worn over top. 

The images were labeled as those of Countess Erdödy. There were three Countess Erdödys at the coronation. There was Countess Johanna "Jenny" Margareta Margit Maria Gobertina Erdödy and her sister, Countess Franziska Violet Maria Gobertina Erdödy, and their mother, Countess Erdödy, the American Julia Hanby Scott who married Count Gyorgy Maria Gobert Erdödy de Monyorókerék et Monoszló. We have portraits of the two younger countesses at the coronation, and they are not wearing fur-trimmed gowns. So this must be the feet of their mother.  

Read what we know about these "shoe portraits" at Gods and Foolish Grandeur. In the comments we learn about the photographers of Atelier d'Ora, although we don't know which one was so fascinated with the countess's shoes and took these pictures. -via Everlasting Blort 

Alcohol is the most familiar and widespread drug we have. People have been consuming alcohol for thousands of years for many reasons. In small amounts, it makes you feel good, acts as a social lubricant, and can make you forget your miseries for a while. People are willing to commit crimes to get alcohol, as Prohibition taught us. But what does alcohol do to our bodies?

We know the dangers of operating heavy machinery while drunk. That wasn't a problem until we developed heavy machinery, like cars. We also know what chronic alcoholism does to families. And heavy drinking or long-term drinking will cause liver failure. But that's just one organ. Alcohol affects every organ in your body, including the brain. At some point, that damage can become permanent and even deadly. And that's before we even get to alcohol's addicting qualities. Kurzgesagt goes through all the things that alcohol does, and it's rather scary. 

What do you get when you combine dodgeball with Asteroids? Or maybe it would be more descriptive to compare this game with "bullet time" in the Matrix movies. Anyway, in Dodge This, you (the green ball) have to avoid being hit by red bullets. The bullets are traveling fairly slowly for bullets, but they are coming from all directions. Whoever is shooting at you is not particularly well-aimed, either. You could survive a half-minute or so by not moving at all. But once you are hit, the game is over. The scoring system can easily confuse people who aren't paying close attention, because when it says you are "top 94%," that's actually really bad. 

From what I've heard, this is much harder on a touch screen than for those of us with a mouse. My advice is to stay away from the edges, because you never know where gunfire will originate. Ultimately, your score depends on how long you survive. Therefore, your maximum score depends on when you are obliged to stop and do something important. -via Metafilter 

If you've been following Neatorama for any length of time, you are surely familiar with artist Theo Jansen's enormous Strandbeest wind-powered kinetic sculptures. Every time I see one, I always feel sorry for the way he has to chase them down when the wind is blowing and they are walking fast. Yeah, their legs are way longer than his! But now he's got that problem worked out. Not only can he keep his creations on a leash, but he doesn't even have to run to keep up with him. The solution is a chair Jansen calls the Caterpillar. It glides smoothly across the sand on rolling, uh, "wheels" that resemble tank treads. And it's powered by the much bigger Strandbeest that is pulling it along. 

Jansen says the Caterpillar device will eventually find itself incorporated into a Strandbeest. That sounds pretty neat, but I don't think it would be nearly as cool to watch as seeing his previous works of art walking down the beach on their many legs. -via Geeks Are Sexy 

We do everything with our hands, some of it dangerous, so it's no surprise that the US sees around 45,000 finger or thumb amputations every year. It was a breakthrough when reattachment was developed, but that's not always possible. Alternatively, some of those fingers are replaced by amputating a patient's toe! Moreover, a study in the journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery tells us that the long-term outcomes for replacing fingers with toes is better than reattaching the original finger. The survey compared outcomes of 75 patients with 126 toe transfers to 52 patients with 96 digit replantations five years later, and found the toe transfer patients had significantly better hand function. The loss of a toe or two did not significantly affect foot function.

You have to feel for the folks who lost two or more fingers. Then you might wonder why toe replacement works better on average. The study doesn't go into it, but it may be that a deliberate toe amputation done in the same surgical procedure is fresher and less damaged than a retrieved finger. Read more at Discover magazine, or here if you're out of free articles. -via Damn Interesting 

(Image credit: sole_lover) 

Is there such a thing as having too many ducks? Tara Poole lives in Victoria, Australia, and has ducks and chickens. While she was raising her own set of domestic ducklings, someone from a wildlife group who knew Poole contacted her about taking in a clutch of abandoned ducklings. These were Australian wood ducks, a wild species that proved to be quite different from barnyard ducks. The ducklings apparently imprinted on Poole and her husband. They hung out with the domestic ducks and learned to swim. The wood ducks started flying all at the same time, and Poole expected them to fly the coop eventually. But the wood ducks decided farm life was good enough. Instead of heading into the wild, the now-grown ducks follow their humans around everywhere and cuddle with Tara. They even critique her fashion choices! It's a good thing she loves ducks, because she is stuck with them.   

Homemade ice cream used to be made by churning your ingredients while they are surrounded by ice an salt. It took forever and made your arms hurt. Modern ice cream makers use electricity, but you don't really need them if you know a few things about ice cream. The secret to good ice cream is that the ice crystals that form in it while it's freezing are too small to be detected in your mouth, leaving only delicious creaminess. Churning breaks up those crystals, but the right ingredients will keep them from growing in the first place. Swetha Sivakumar explains why sweetened condensed milk and whipped cream tend to inhibit the growth of large ice crystals, making them perfect for no-churn ice cream. Those two ingredients, with flavoring added, are all you need. However, the kind of flavoring you add makes a difference, since additives will vary in their own crystal-growing tendencies. Read how to make your own ice cream without all the churning at Serious Eats. You will still need a freezer.

(Image credit: Serious Eats/Qi Ai)