Exotic, amazing, and totally untrue tales from faraway lands come through many paths. Locals like to troll visitors with scary stories, like that of the snipe or drop bear. Returning travelers like to impress people by becoming brave witnesses to things they heard. Some storytellers have an agenda, like proving their superiority over uncivilized cultures. And news outlets sometimes prioritize a good story over the truth. Sometimes legends arise due to a combination of these factors. And that's how we got the Man-Eating Tree of Madagascar. 

On April 28, 1874, the New York World published an account of German botanist Karl Leche about a tree in Madagascar that resembled an eight-foot pineapple. The Mkodo tribe showed him a ceremony in which a woman was sacrificed to the tree by forcing her to drink its poison nectar, after which the tree's upper tendrils encased her. When Leche returned later, all that was left of the woman was her skull at the base of the tree. 

The problems with the story are 1. there is no evidence of the existence of Karl Leche, 2. there is no Mkodo tribe in Madagascar, and 3. no one ever saw the tree after that. But the story spread like crazy, and stuck around. This happened after insectivorous plants were discovered. There was a 19th-century queen of Madagascar who eliminated her rivals and invading foreigners by forcing them to drink poison. And, perhaps most importantly, most readers knew very little about Madagascar. Read how the legend of the man-eating tree came about at American Strangeness. -via Strange Company 

The headstone for the grave of Joan Wytte in Cornwall, UK, is quite intriguing. Her birth date, death date, and burial date are in three different centuries! And the last line is quite sad- "no longer abused." Who was Joan Wytte? 

It turns out there is no documentary evidence of a woman named Joan Wytte, and the name "Joan" was often given to Cornish women who were considered a village wise woman. In other words, a witch. Forensic evidence shows the woman buried underneath this stone was around 38 years old at the time of her death, short, and undernourished. She died in the Bodmin jail in 1813, and we know a lot more about her existence after that. Her body was supposed to go to an anatomist, but he didn't bother to actually collect it, so she stayed at the jail, and her bones were used in a seance. Then a doctor took possession of the skeleton, and later sold it to the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in the 1950s, although the actual museum didn't open until years later. Read what we know about the woman whose restless remains were finally interred with dignity 185 years after she died. -via reddit 

(Image credit: Capricorn007_) 

You know what Christmas needs? More chaos and destruction! In this bizarre animated sequence the Grinch gets lost on his way to Whoville and somehow ends up in the United States. Instead of correcting his mistake, he instead decides to ruin Christmas here. But since he's not familiar with the huge and powerful transportation and logistics systems in America, he takes quite a beating- to a ridiculous degree. He discovers that his nefarious schemes are no match for the country's over-the-top Christmas spirit. Yet instead of a genuine change of heart, the Grinch realizes that it is in his own best interest to leave Christmas alone. It's the American way. 

This involves teleportation, time travel, and the suspension of the laws of physics, which is what cartoons are for. It's the kind of nonsense you'd expect from Landon Fernald of Landon’s Animation Wheelhouse (previously at Neatorama). He hand-animated all the scenes in Blender, and did the music as well. -via The Awesomer 

The Rockettes are currently performing in the annual Christmas Spectacular show at Radio City Music Hall, just like they did when you were a kid. Christmas is their busiest season, when they perform in five shows a day from Thanksgiving into the new year, after weeks of rehearsals. I had always thought the Rockettes' name was somehow connected to the name Rockefeller, but I was wrong. The troupe, then called the Missouri Rockets, was formed in St. Louis in the 1920s as an opening act for movies. A theater owner saw them and bought the troupe in 1925 and moved them to New York, where they again performed before movie showings, but their name was now the Rockettes. They were kicking up their heels before Radio City Music Hall ever opened. 

The Rockettes have become a tradition in New York and on TV. They've performed in the Christmas Spectacular since 1933, and in the Macy's parade since 1957. Read about the Rockette's history, what they do, and what it's like to be one of them, at Smithsonian. Videos are included. 

An article at The Takeout explains why pancakes from a diner taste so much better than homemade pancakes. It's because they have specialized equipment and lots of experience. Restaurants cannot afford to have their pancakes turn out differently from one customer to the next, and they don't have the time for a do-over. They offer some tips for making your pancakes more like those you'd find in a restaurant. 

But when the article was linked at Metafilter, the response was swift and adamant. Diner pancakes do not taste better than homemade; they are simply more consistent. And it depends on what you really want in a pancake- thick and fluffy or thin and crepe-y, but most of all, inexpensive. Besides sharing tips on how to improve your pancake and waffle technique, Mefites shared their recipes, including those with a variety of unusual flours, buttermilk, bananas, yeast, malted milk powder, and instant oatmeal, plus some traditional recipes that have always worked for them. There's also a recipe for a berry goo topping. Check them all out in the comments. 

(Image credit: Lajmmoore) 

In Britain, you are considered an adult when you turn 18. In America, that's true for only some things, like voting and signing contracts. You can drive at 16 (or younger in some states), but you can't buy alcohol or tobacco until you are 21, and some companies will not rent a car to anyone under 25. I once explained to a foreign visitor that Americans let their kids have jobs, date, and drive in high school to make sure a parent is available to help them learn those skills. The alcohol and tobacco laws were a response from the government to too many people dying.  

Laurence Brown, who celebrates his birthday on Christmas Eve, also covers the difference between other adult things like traveling, taxes, home ownership, and hosting holiday parties in this video about how the United States is an outlier in transitioning to whatever passes for an adult life. There's a 75-second skippable ad at 1:55. 

We've been following the adventures of Jonathan Stanley (redditor kakalacky_guy, previously at Neatorama) and his family for years, by way of his humorous Christmas cards. Here is a his card for 2025, titled “The Great Backyard Ice Rink Disaster of 2025.” The kids have transformed the driveway into a hockey rink by flooding it with water. The oldest is operating a Zamboni fashioned from the lawn mower. The daughter's goalie gear is also homemade. Dad, in the same sweater he's worn for twelve years, lacks skates so he's fallen. Mom's coffee has escaped its cup. The power cord for the lights has been skated over. You can see more details by greatly enlarging this photo at reddit. 

Kakalacky_guy has been producing these Photoshopped cards since 2014, when there were only two kids (although they seemed like a half-dozen back then). He calls them "honest Christmas cards" because they illustrate the chaos of life with three children. Click to the right and see all the previous Christmas cards.  -via reddit 

John C. Worsley is the master of goofy musical Star Trek videos, and always has something special for Christmas (previously at Neatorama). For 2025, he's focused on Jeffrey Combs for the supercut "Here Comes Jeffrey Combs." Who is Jeffrey Combs? He's an actor and voiceover artist who has become the go-to guy in the Star Trek universe. Combs has played nine aliens (and one human) so far on Star Trek - some of them recurring characters, including the Vorta clone Weyoun and the Ferengi character Brunt in the series Strar TreK: Deep Space Nine. On Star Trek: Enterprise, he was Andorian military officer Schran. He also appeared on Star TreK: Voyager and Star Trek: Lower Decks. Combs has even worked on a Star Trek video game! You need to be a real Trekkie to know all that, but you don't have to have a photographic memory of all the players to enjoy the cleverness of this song. -via Metafilter 

A type of cancer called diffuse midline glioma (DMG) grows on the brain, specifically on the thalamus, brainstem, or spinal cord. Surgery in those areas is impossible because it's so dangerous, and patients diagnosed with DMG have a 1% survival rate. But a breakthrough is giving these patients more time.

The new drug Modeyso was developed with the aid of fireflies. Dr. Joshua Allen has been exploring how our bodies' own immune system fights cancers, and inserted the firefly gene for bioluminescence into human genes known to fight cancer to study their behavior. When the body's cells become cancerous, these genes are activated and made cancers glow and easier to see. The study of how such genes are activated led to the new drug. Some DMG patients that were given nine to twelve months to live have survived months or even years longer after the new treatment. Read how all that came about at Popular Science. -via Damn Interesting 

The song "Baby It's Cold Outside" was written in 1944 as a romantic comedy duet. In the 21st century, it has come to be seen as creepy because the man is trying to prevent a woman from leaving his company. That's not cool. 

The country-western duo The Doohickeys rewrote the song by changing only the male lines to make it more appropriate for modern sensibilities. So she's in 1944 and he's in 2025- talk about an age gap! In this version, it becomes obvious that the woman really wants to stay, but she is using the expected performative phrases to protect her reputation as "hard to get" or a "good girl." The clues as to her age don't translate well across the years, because in 1944 it was more common for a woman to live with her parents until she married, no matter her age. What she really wants out of the evening is ambiguous, because back in the day, the difference between romance and sex wasn't explicitly discussed in polite society. It's no wonder signals were so often crossed. "Clear and enthusiastic consent" may not lend itself to jokes as well, but it's a better way. 

What makes a party a disaster? I once threw a party in which more than a dozen attendees were arrested, and I was evicted, as well as two neighbors. They're still talking about that one more than 40 years later. But it wasn't as bad as the event President Francisco Macías Nguema of Equatorial Guinea threw for Christmas in 1969. He invited 150 of his political opponents to a football stadium, and his guards (who some say were dressed as Santa Claus) shot and killed them all.   

Other world leaders threw or attended Christmas parties that turned out to be disasters of one sort or another. Sometimes people got killed, while others were just embarrassing. Winston Churchill invited himself to a White House Christmas party in 1941. The King of Sweden's Christmas banquet in 1317 was the last time anyone ever saw his brothers. And then there was Jimmy Carter's hemorrhoids. Read about all these Christmas parties and more at Mental Floss. 

Every year, DJ Earworm takes the 25 biggest songs that peaked in popularity in the United States during the calendar year and mixes them all together for his "United States of Pop." There is a track list at the YouTube page, although they can't be listed in order as the biggest ones pop in and out through the mashup. As has been the case for the last ten years or so, they all seem to fall into the same dance beat. 

Despite relative disappointment with Taylor Swift's album The Life of a Showgirl, it ended up on several top albums of the year lists and landed two songs in this mashup: "The Fate of Ophelia" and "Opalite." Other artists who have two songs represented here are Benson Boone, Morgan Wallen, and Tate McRrae. The cast from the movie K-Pop Demon Hunters also had two songs make the top 25, although they were credited to different combinations of artists. 

So you've already seen all the holiday classic movies this month, and you've re-watched the more recent slew of Christmas comedies. You've even seen a couple of Hallmark Christmas romances, and can't take any more of that. But it's Christmas week, and you want to wring all the festive spirit possible out of your screen time. At the same time, it would be comforting to just go back to bingeing on one of your beloved science fiction or fantasy series like you do the rest of the year. Oh, those geeky franchises have plenty of holiday cheer, if you know where to look. 

Yes, Christmas exists in science fiction. It may be called something else, but we know Christmas when we see it. Holiday episodes exist in space, in time travel, and in other dimensions. Ars Technica has a list of recommendations for holiday episodes of TV series and some movies that you may have forgotten about. Check out what they have to offer, and you could plan a Christmas watch party with like-minded friends before you celebrate with the family. They don't tell you where to find these Christmas treats, but the exact name of the episode will help you search for them online. 

The Monterrey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) has many projects, but we love to see them observing strange and rare creatures in the deeper parts of the ocean. Their research ships use Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) to go deeper than divers can to send back amazing video of sea life in its native environment. In this video, they show off the most spectacular footage their robots sent back in 2025. These animals, seen between 2400 and 3100 feet below the surface, are as follows:

0:00 Shiny loosejaw (Aristostomias scintillans)
0:08 Crown siphonophore (Stephanomia amphytridis)
0:16 Longhorn decorator crab (Chorilia longipes)
0:23 Owlfish (family Bathylagidae)
0:31 Slender siphonophore  (Bargmannia elongata)
0:40 Octopus squid (Octopoteuthis deletron)
0:46 Market squid (Doryteuthis opalescens)
0:54 Roughtail skate (Bathyraja trachura) 
0:58 Giant siphonophore (Praya dubia)
1:02 Banded piglet squid (Helicocranchia pfefferi)
1:13 Armored sea cucumber (Psolus squamatus)
1:18 Swordtail squid (Chiroteuthis calyx)
1:24 Bumpy jelly (Stellamedusa ventana)
1:32 Pacific sergestid shrimp (Eusergestes similis)
1:45 Sablefish (Anoplopoma fimbria)
2:04 Striated sea elephant (Firoloida desmarestia) 
2:11 Sea anemone (order Actiniaria)
2:19 Pacific blackdragon (Idiacanthus antrostomus)
2:22 Clown siphonophore (Lychnagalma utricularia)
2:30 Fingered goblet sponge (Heterochone calyx)
2:34 Dandelion siphonophore and Pacific sergestid shrimp (Dromalia alexandri and Eusergestes similis)
2:42 Black-eyed squid eating a northern lampfish (Gonatus onyx eating Stenobrachius leucopsarus)
2:53 Longhand hermit crab (Pagurus tanneri) 
3:00 Silky jelly (Colobonema sericeum)
3:05 Bloody-belly comb jelly (Lampocteis cruentiventer)
3:13 Peacock squid (Taonius sp.)
3:17 Sablefish (Anoplopoma fimbria)
3:21 California firefly squid (Abraliopsis felis)
3:36 Neon jelly (Tetrorchis erythrogaster)
3:44 Lewis’s moon snail (Neverita lewisii)
3:51 Shiny loosejaw (Aristostomias scintillans)
3:59 Crown siphonophore (Stephanomia amphytridis)

You can also hover over the progress bar at the bottom of the video to see the names. I would recommend watching this in full screen mode. 

On November 26, Italian photographer Valter Binotto was able to capture two rare TLEs (transient luminous events) in one photograph. TLEs are so fleeting, lasting only milliseconds, that even if you saw them with your eyes they might not register. In other words, they are the epitome of the phrase "don't blink or you'll miss it." These are electrical discharges that happen in the upper atmosphere high above thunderstorms, and reach almost to the edge of space. 

What you see here is an elve, a ghostly red ring displayed high above the Alps near the town of Possagno. An elve is a group of glowing nitrogen molecules. The red, many-legged flashes of light are a cluster of sprites, or positive lightning discharging to the ground. Capturing both types of TLEs in one photograph is a once-in-a-lifetime accomplishment. Binotto has photographed TLEs before, but never two kinds in one photo. Read more about this rare photograph at Space.com.  -via Metafilter