The Toba supereruption, in what is now Indonesia, took place 74,000 years ago, and is the largest volcanic eruption of the past million yers. It ejected so much material that it blocked sunlight for years. Humans were spread through the world by then, but they left no documentation. Genetic studies hint that human population plunged around that time, but we don't yet have the evidence to ascribe their dwindling numbers to Toba. How could we get such evidence? 

Jayde N. Hirniak is an anthropologist studying just that. The materials thrown from a volcano are known a tephra, and the kind of tephra that is thrown the furthest is cryptotephra. It's not called that because it is legendary, but because it is so small that it's hard to find. Cryptotephra is microscopic shards of glass. Its exact chemical makeup can identify which eruption it came from. Hirniak looks for cryptotephra at archaeological sites that may have been active during the Toba event. The archaeological evidence could tell us whether that society collapsed afterward, or moved away, or changed some other way. Read up on what this research has found so far at the Conversation. -via Strange Company 

(Image credit: USGS Volcanic Hazards Program, CC BY 4.0) 

We dream about time travel, because it would be so cool to travel back and right some of the wrongs of our history. Or forward, so we can know what to expect in the future. But being able to do those things warps our understanding of time itself and can lead to an existential crisis. Dorkly places this discussion in a video game, which is pretty safe because it has a goddess book, a guitar as a weapon, goblins, and other implausible elements. But the questions about time travel are universal. If you must go back in time to save the world, did the world really ever need saving? If you then return to your time, you would be the only one to know what could have been. Or were you always predestined to travel back in time and do whatever you did? We've heard this discussion before, but rock-eating Greg and other Greg make it funny.  

This story is only three minutes; the rest is an ad. 

You might actually be familiar with Ol' Rip the Horned Toad and not realize it. In 1897, the people of Eastland County, Texas, placed a time capsule in the cornerstone of the courthouse. County clerk Ernest Wood placed a horned toad into the time capsule to test the common idea that these creatures could survive years in hibernation. Now, be aware that a horned toad, also called a horny toad, is not a toad at all, nor is it a frog, but a Texas horned lizard. That distinction didn't reach everyone. 

More than 30 years later, in early 1928, the time capsule was retrieved and opened. The horned toad was still alive! Named Ol' Rip after the character Rip Van Winkle, the horned toad was taken on tours, featured in movies, and even presented to the US president before he died a year later. Even then, Ol' Rip's fame endured, as his remains were stolen, twice. 

But what really made Ol' Rip a legend for the ages was that he inspired Looney Tunes writer Michael Maltese to craft a story about Ol' Rip, now definitely a frog, in a 1955 cartoon titled One Froggy Evening. The frog in the cartoon wasn't named, and was later christened Michigan J. Frog. The entire cartoon is available online (thanks, rcxb!), and your memory will be jogged by this clip. You didn't realize that cartoon was inspired by a (supposedly) true story, did you?

Read the story of Ol' Rip the Horned Toad at Wikipedia. -via a comment at Metafilter 

(Image credit: ToddKent) 

It's a typical story. A bathroom leak leads to an emergency repair, and that's when you notice all the other parts of the room that are crumbling with age or not working as well as they should. This bathroom needs a complete remodel! Can you do it yourself? Maybe, but it's going to be a major learning experience. The video No Project Without Drama is described as "A bathroom renovation in five acts, with plenty of sweat, pain, and pride" (according to Google Translate). This is the way the emotions during such a project would be rendered on a theatrical stage. If you've ever remodeled a bathroom, or any room for that matter, you will understand the turmoil. 

Sure, it's ad, from German fixture company Hornbach. I'm planning a bathroom remodel myself, but it certainly won't be DIY, and I'm dreading taking the first steps. I know it will be highly dramatic, even when someone else is doing the work. -via Nag on the Lake 

(Image credit: LazyAmbassador2521)

Some pets, mainly the small ones, can find a hiding place you would least suspect and you won't find them for hours. Some take advantage of their natural camouflage and can hide in plain sight. But most dogs and cats haven't got a clue about hiding from you. Some use the logic, "If I can't see you, then you can't see me." Others believe that if their face is hidden, that's good enough. It could be wishful thinking, or maybe they just figure their humans are idiots. This dog thinks he's found the perfect hiding place, but he can't help but keep an eye on the humans he's playing hide and seek with. Sure, puppy, we're impressed.

(Image credit: DontFearZombies) 

Have a laugh with images of 50 pets hiding from the lawnmower, the vet, or thunder, or just playing around and thinking they're invisible in a ranked gallery at Bored Panda. 

The village of Sainte-Mère-Église lies near the northern coast of France. Their picturesque church is hundreds of years old. Look closely at the image above, and you'll see something strange on the side of the bell tower. That's a mannequin, affixed to the outside of the church, to commemorate the D-Day invasion. See, Sainte-Mère-Église was the first town liberated by the Allies. 

On June 6, 1944, Allied forces converged on the beaches of Normandy, while paratroopers dropped a bit further inland. Private John Steele was one of those paratroopers, an American in the 82nd Airborne Division. His unit's mission was to capture bridges near Sainte-Mère-Église, but German forces were attacking, so they deployed early. That put them directly over the town instead of in the fields surrounding it. German occupiers shot paratroopers as they descended, and Steele was shot in the foot. It was quite a while before he reached the ground, though, as his parachute became entangled on a sculpture on the church building. Steele was a sitting duck in that position, so he did the only thing he could- he played dead, for hours, before the Germans came to retrieve his presumably dead body. Read the story of John Steele and the church at Sainte-Mère-Église at Amusing Planet. 

(Image credit: Elliesram13) 

I've suffered through salmonella twice, and believe me, you don't want to deal with it. Both times it was severe enough to make me go see a doctor even without health insurance. I don't know where I got it the first time, but the second time was when my refrigerator condenser quit working and I didn't know it because the motor continued to run. Anyway, salmonella is a nasty bacteria that will flatten you for several miserable days. 

Sure, I ate raw cookie dough as much as anyone as a kid, but that was when our eggs came from small producers. The risk is greater these days, but thorough cooking kills salmonella. If you must eat soft cooked eggs, you should use pasteurized eggs. Meat must be cooked to the recommended internal temperature. And produce should be thoroughly rinsed. Rinsing won't kill salmonella bacteria, but it will reduce the number of pathogens. This TED-Ed lesson on what salmonella does to your body should keep you from taking chances with your food.  

Sometimes, in the middle of a summer night, sea creatures come up and offer themselves to the shore in the bay near Mobile, Alabama. It doesn't happen often, and it's impossible to predict until just before it happens. When it does, local residents call their friends to wake them up, and grab buckets and wheelbarrows to haul away all the fish, crabs, and shrimp available for the taking. They call this event the "jubilee," and it only happens in two places in the world- a bay in Japan and along a 15-mile stretch of Mobile Bay. Old timers recall jubilees in which they gathered enough seafood to feed a family for a year. They also recall what it's like to see their neighbors in their sleepwear. 

The Mobile Bay Jubilee is not a legend, nor is it magic. It's a rare natural phenomenon that occurs due to a precise alignment of ocean conditions, weather, tides, and the geography of the bay. Read an explanation of how it happens, and the local traditions that have grown around the Mobile Bay Jubilee at Atlas Obscura. Or you can listen to it in podcast form. 

There are men who feel the need to take charge of a difficult situation solely in order to make that situation easier for the ones he loves. It doesn't always work out. A family on a camping trip rushes to a small rural clinic after a deadly snake has bitten both their children. Why, yes, this is in Australia, how did you know? Anyway, the doctor knows this is a tiger snake, and time is of the essence. Then the situation goes from bad to worse. Do you recall the movie Sophie's Choice? This is something like that, yet nothing at all like that. Let's just say the family dynamics get really awkward.

The short film Favourites by Nick Russell and Nick Musgrove has won several awards on the film festival circuit, but I'm not going to tell you in which category. That would be a spoiler. -via Nag on the Lake 

In the medieval era, people in east Asia were eating with chopsticks, and people in Europe were eating with their hands. In between them in Constantinople, people of the upper class were eating with a strange utensil called a fork. Previously only used for cooking and serving, forks on the dining table spread throughout Byzantium. This was seen as bizarre by Europeans, and you can understand why when they looked like the implements shown above. Sure, Europeans used knives and spoons when called for, but eating with a fork was barbaric. 

Forks were introduce to Europe through Italy. A Byzantine princess married a Venetian Doge and ate dinner with a fork. A theologian blamed her early death on her insistence on using the utensil. But some Italians noticed that a fork would make eating pasta easier. Imagine eating spaghetti or lasagna with your fingers! Still, the spread of fork use took an awful long time, because people have always been peculiar about the right way and the wrong way to eat. Read about the controversial fork and how it made its way across Europe at the Conversation. -via Damn Interesting 

(Image credit: Marie-Lan Nguyen) 

Watch out, Kurzgesagt is going to explain where babies come from, in neon graphic cellular detail. It ain't easy. An embryo does whatever is necessary to establish dominance over the mother's body. It suppresses her immune system, lest it attack the foreign body. It floods her body with weird hormones that change her body and cells she will carry for the rest of her life. An established fetus will take all the resources it needs from the mother, leaving her body lacking, so she must scramble to keep herself going nutritionally. In that, it is like a parasite or a tumor that will drain and possibly kill its host in order to survive. Yet the prize at the end of it can make it all worth the effort. In the last few years, I've had a front row seat to two pregnancies in my own daughter, and can attest to how hard it is to see your baby girl go through the utter havoc a normal pregnancy put her body through. Yet she happily repeated the process.

This video is only 10:40; the rest is promotional.     

This house for sale in Daphne, Alabama, appears quite reasonable for a two-bedroom, two bath house at first glance. The price is more than twice what it should be, but the market will take care of that. However, the listing illustrates how not to stage images when you want to sell a home. Let's take a look inside. 

This is not so much a living room as it is a gallery of possessions. It's mostly religious iconography, but your eye is drawn to the warthog wearing a top hat. There might be a floor under all those rugs. How about a bedroom?

Oh dear. To be fair, the kitchen isn't bad, as if no one ever used it. And the one bathroom we see is decent, if a little busy. If you were serious about buying a 107-year-old house in Alabama, you might look harder and see the awesome fireplace, the clawfoot tub, and some nice wooden antique furniture you can barely see. But you have to really look hard, and if you do, you'll also see the stained walls that need repair, and then you'll have to wonder about all the other sins that are hidden under all this stuff. See 32 pictures at the real estate listing. As this listing goes viral but doesn't yield any offers in the next few months, the furnishings might be removed. -via Zillow Gone Wild 

Most of us never think about punctuation when we read books or internet articles or short texts. But when someone sends you a longer, more involved message and they don't use punctuation, then you start to appreciate it. Punctuation is there to make written text seem more like a natural monologue or conversation. Believe it or not, when writing with letters was first developed, there weren't even spaces between words, much less marks to indicate how the words should sound! Sure, few people knew how to read, but when someone read that written text out loud, how it was done made a difference in how the listener understood the original writer. As more people learned to read, those marks had to be standardized, although they varied by language.   

Dr. Erica Brozovsky (previously at Neatorama) tells the story of how different kinds of punctuation came to be, how they evolved into their modern forms, and why. And aren't you glad they did!  

The autumnal equinox was today, and summer is officially over. That means it's time for Fat Bear Week!

Brown bears in Alaska emerge from hibernation and spend all summer eating delectable salmon and anything else they can find. Their goal is to pack on plenty of pounds to last them through the next winter's hibernation. The bears of Brooks River in Katmai National Park in Alaska are once again in competition with each other during Fat Bear Week. Wild Bears cannot be weighed, so bear fans can help identify who put on the most weight by voting for who you think is the fattest bear. Yes, some bears that have been around for a while have an advantage of a built-in fan base. The real reason for the contest is to raise awareness of these wonderful wild creatures. We've heard that the salmon run was particularly good this year, so the bears should be plenty fat!  

Read the biography of each of the twelve bears in this year's tournament, and be ready to vote in the first round on Tuesday, 9AM-6PM Pacific time (noon-9PM Eastern). There will be a new head-to-head matchup each day through September 30th. 

Meanwhile, you can watch the bears hunt salmon at Brooks Falls on the live webcam. -via Metafilter 

We see audacious prison escapes in movies and think, that can't happen in real life. Strangely, it happens, and sometimes in ways too unbelievable for the movies. Successful prison breaks often require collaboration with outside accomplices. Or with those who are supposed to keep you inside, or at least their carelessness or incompetence. It can also require long term planning, patience, and luck.

However, breaking out of prison doesn't mean you are exactly free. Most prison escapees are apprehended sooner or later while on the run, which leads to the subgroup of prisoners who managed to escape over and over. You have to wonder how someone with an escape on their record isn't under better security, but the most talented escapees have several in their history. Honest Jack Sheppard (illustrated above) flew the coop four times! John Dillinger managed multiple prison breaks because he had a network of people willing to help him. And even Ted Bundy pulled off two of them. Read about eight of the most spectacular prison breaks at Mental Floss. 

(Image credit: J. Sketch)