When we develop vaccines against viruses, those vaccines go through animal trials, safety trials, and then challenge trials before going into widespread real-world trials. Healthy young volunteers are always needed for challenge trials, and they get paid for their work. But that work involves getting a vaccine, then later being deliberately infected with the virus to test their immune responses. That means quarantining and plenty of tests. A testing center in London called FluCamp pays pretty well for your time, so if you are young and healthy and not otherwise employed, you might be tempted to catch a disease for the benefit of medical science ...and a few thousand pounds. Tom Scott visits FluCamp, but he doesn't stay long.  

They say an army travels on its stomach. It's true, and if you cut off the enemy's supply lines, they will suffer enormously. Soldiers at war required a lot more calories than the average person, and lack of it will result in fatigue, inability to think and respond, and disease. The logistics of supplying an army with adequate food is an ongoing experiment, and the entire world has benefitted from military food research. Food preservation methods such as canning and freeze-drying were developed to feed an army. In fact, about half the products we see in grocery stores owe some of their manufacturing process to military development.

That food research in the US is done at Natick Labs, not far from Boston. This is where the US Army is looking for new ways to make food portable, preserved, and palatable. This is where MREs were invented, and where they are still working on making them more varied and tasty. It was here they developed the technology to heat field rations without fire or electricity. And a pizza that would taste good after three years without refrigeration. They design food for different scenarios, like what can be mass-produced in a military kitchen, what can be shipped to remote areas, and what soldiers can carry with them. The latter has given us a new development called the Close Combat Assault Ration, in which the maximum amount of calories is stuffed into the smallest package possible, almost like astronaut food from the Apollo program, except these taste good. Read about the research and technology that goes into military food at Atlas Obscura.

You'll also enjoy reading the associated posts The Evolution of American Military Food, Food Innovations That Came from War, and Feeding Armies Through History from Atlas Obscura.

Humankind seems to be undergoing an epidemic of a general feeling of impending disaster. Is this a viewpoint that comes from comparative experience, or does it come from just taking a look around at the world? The new song from Sparks, "Nothing is as Good as They Say It Is," is told from the viewpoint of a newborn baby who encounters (waves hands around generally) all this and decides this is not a good place, and wants to go back to the womb less than a day after birth. Besides the depressing implications, or more so specifically because of them, it's rather funny. Really, can you blame a baby for being appalled at our modern world? Don't we all feel that way sometimes? The song is accompanied by a parade of cute crying babies in the video, but thankfully we don't hear their protests. The tune is a real banger. "Nothing is as Good as They Say It Is" is from Sparks' new album The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte, to be released May 26. -via Boing Boing

Who has the absolute best protest slogans? Professional writers, that's who! The Writers Guild of America went on strike a couple of weeks ago, stalling TV shows and cutting daily talk shows completely off. But these writers are still entertaining us with their signs. Many of them reference great lines from shows that have stuck with us for years. That's they way to signal your value to the masses, if not to the production companies responsible for their contracts. See 15 of the most clever signs from the writer's strike at Insider.  -via Digg

In the TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation, the android Data had a cat named Spot. This was ridiculous on its face, that there would be a cat on a starship, and that the only person attached to the cat would be an android. But Spot was usually a comic foil, allowing Data to show some awkward attempts at emotion. Usually it was Data who was confused about relationships, but when it came to Spot, no one else wanted anything to do with the cat. In this supercut by John DiMarco (previously at Neatorama) we see all of Spot's appearance. You can't help but notice that Spot is obviously a parade of different cats. It starts slow, but gets funnier toward the middle. Actor Brent Spiner has said more than once that Spot was the worst actor he had ever worked with. -via Laughing Squid

All workplaces have safety warnings, but nowadays they are rarely illustrated with anything besides simple icons. The Dutch took a different track. Between the 1920s and the 1960s, work safety posters were designed by well-known artists who tried for a clean and inviting look, but nevertheless instilled horror at the sight of possible mutilation and death that could result in not being careful and following safety procedures. The poster above was designed by Herman Heijenbrock in 1928. Yes, he could have made it bloodier, but it gets the point across as it is.

In this 1940 poster by Endre Lukács, disaster hasn't struck yet, but you see it in your mind's eye anyway. Other posters warn of the dangers of high voltage lines (hoogspanning), carbon monoxide, spitting, neglecting your safety harness, petting a cat without gloves, and carrying large pots of food while wearing high heels. See a collection of fetching 20th-century Dutch safety posters from a Dutch archive at 50 Watts. And more of them here. -via Kottke

The image is certainly artful, but is it real? An egret seems to step from one world into a completely different world. But it's neither Photoshopped not is it artificial intelligence, just a nicely-composed photo. Photographer Kenichi Ohno took the picture at a nearby marsh. It went viral after he was awarded an Honorable Mention in the Nature in Japan photo contest from the All-Japan Association of Photographic Societies, because so many people couldn't figure out how it was done. Is the background blue or is it yellow? Why not both?

If you can't see what's happening in the picture, here's a clue. The yellow is a wall. The wall reflects onto the water. There is no sky in the picture. If you still can't see it, there's further explanation and a handy chart at My Modern Met that will make it all clear, plus the story of Ohno's illusion image. -via Fark 

Last Tuesday, police in Boone, North Carolina, had to chase a driver who fled a traffic stop. The suspect led the cops on a chase, then stopped, got out of his vehicle, and fled into the countryside. The police didn't see which way he ran, so they started searching the area. A news release from the Town of Boone Police Department on Facebook details what happened next.

As officers began to search the area they received some unexpected, but welcomed assistance from some local cows. Apparently cows do not want suspected criminals loitering in their pasture and quickly assisted our officers by leading them directly to where the suspect was hiding. The cows communicated with the officers as best they could and finally just had the officers follow them to the suspect’s location.

The Facebook post goes on to thank the cows and speculates on the feasibility of forming a Bovine Tracking Unit for the force. The suspect, 34-year-old Joshua Minton, faces charges of driving on a revoked license and several counts involving fleeing. -via reddit 

(Image credit: Town of Boone Police Department)

Louie Zong asked people to send him a video of them singing one note so that he could construct a song. He got more response than he expected, and then went to work building computer files with the notes so that he could play them like a musical instrument. You might say, hey any MIDI keyboard will do that, but these are still real people singing real notes. It was a lot of work. But the kicker is that when he put them together into this song, he matched all the videos up for the music video. And that was definitely a lot more work. Zong says he has many more songs made with his one-note video musical instrument, but this is the first that has the actual videos of people singing. It will take him a while to construct others, but he says he will do that, featuring more people, in case you want to bookmark his YouTube channel.  -via Boing Boing

Ensio Tiira really didn't want to be part of the French Foreign Legion anymore. In 1953, the 24-year-old Finnish recruit found himself on a ship headed to French Indochina to fight the communists. Tiira and Swedish fellow Legionnaire Fred Ericsson planned to escape before the ship reached its destination. When they calculated they were near the shore of Sumatra, they threw a life raft overboard and leapt after it in the dark of night.

But no matter how much they paddled, they did not find land. And they were surrounded by sharks. They ran out of fresh water and food on their second day adrift. It was two weeks before any rain brought fresh drinking water, but it was too late for Ericsson. Tiira held on for twice that long before he was found. Read about Ensio Tiira's ordeal at sea and how he was rescued at Singular Discoveries. -via Strange Company

The very short new song from Tenacious D (Jack Black and Kyle Gass) is called "Video Games." It's their first new original song in five years. The song is about giving up playing video games, except for... all the video games. Each of the "except fors" has a valid excuse, like it's not a game, it's an experience, it's an adult thing, etc. The lyrics are here. Meanwhile, in the wacky animated video, Black becomes character after character from all kinds of video games you'll recognize as he sings. It's a subject that hits close to home for Black, who has been a dedicated gamer all his life, and recently voiced Bowser in the animated film The Super Mario Bros. Movie. This video contains NSFW language, violence, blood, non-explicit cartoon nudity, and none of it should be taken seriously at all. -via Laughing Squid

Anyone who has ever tried to moderate content on the internet knows how hard it is. When you allow strangers to post or comment on your website, you have to keep an eye on what they say. If it is your responsibility to encourage free and open exchange of ideas, while at the same time protecting your site from becoming a cesspool of threats, harassment, spam, or odious content, you have to make some hard decisions. The biggest sites have a content policy as a guide.

In the game Moderator Mayhem, you are confronted with many decisions on whether to keep or toss content on a fictional social media network. Some comments are easy, but many are edge cases and you may need to consult the content policy to decide. It can still be difficult. But whatever your score is, you'll learn about the process of content moderation and what professional moderators are up against. Read more about the purpose of the game.  -via Metafilter

This video is framed with the joke that tourists go to Austria and want to see kangaroos. There are no kangaroos in Austria. However, as you zoom about Vienna in this video, you might catch a glimpse of one here or there. But pretty soon you forget all about kangaroos because this animated hyperlapse focuses on the beautiful and historic city of Vienna. It's way more impressive than kangaroo chasing.

Kirill Neiezhmakov created this delightful video, and also posted a list and description of the Viennese locations in the video at the YouTube page. You really should watch this in full-screen mode, because it's just lovely. Oh, by the way, you just might find that kangaroo at the Schönbrunn Zoo.  -via Nag on the Lake

Route 66 from Chicago to Los Angeles was long the main highway to the western United States. Approved in 1926 (and completed in 1938), Route 66 was the path Dust Bowl victims used to escape to California. It was the subject of many a college road trip, or the path to start a new life somewhere on the West Coast. In 1946, Nat King Cole recorded a song that ensured everyone knew Route 66. There was even a TV show called Route 66 in the 1960s. But in the 1980s, the interstate highway system bypassed and replaced Route 66. A lot of it fell into ruin.

But now, ahead of the road's 100th anniversary, some states are working on repairing and preserving their portions of Route 66 to bring it back to its mid-century glory. Many of the famous gas stations, hotels, and tourist stops along the way are also staging a comeback. If you've always wanted to recreate those road trips of yesteryear on a historic highway that takes you through scenery you can see, your opportunity is coming. Read about the state of Route 66's revival and Smithsonian.

(Image credit: US Department of Transportation)

A guy finds a purse with some change in it, and it leads him into an adventure in consumerism that resembles a snowball rolling downhill, until he is literally in over his head. It's a cute and clever animation, and if you look beneath the surface, it brings up many familiar aphorisms about money. Don't buy something just because someone wants to sell it to you. A great deal may end up costing you dearly. Possessions only weigh you down. Spending can become a habit you eventually can't afford. I'm sure there are more.

Animator Aaron Hughes made this with thousands of hand-drawn images on financial pages. The finished animation Five Cents won the South by Southwest Animated Short Audience Award last year. -via Everlasting Blort