The fine line between male and female intelligence. 😂

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— Figen (@TheFigen_) August 19, 2024

This is a pretty simple party game. The object is to have everyone on the team pass through a hoop without letting go of each other's hands. Which team can do it the fastest? These folks divided up into teams by sex, and the women blew the men away in their efficiency. Some claim that it's because the women are smaller than the men. Sure, I'd like to see all these men trying to walk through this hoop in a hurry. Others argue that at least one of the women has seen this trick before. That could be true, too, but it really boils down to the fact that men tend to think they already know something or can figure it out on their own, while women tend to be more collaborative in solving problems.

We don't know where this party is, but the source Tweet is in Turkish, so that would be a good guess. Or maybe not, since the people in the video are speaking Spanish (thanks, TheBigSleep). And now you have a good idea for a game at your next party, but you'll let the other team go first.   -Thanks WTM!

Update: This is the Gonzales family from Miami, during a Valentines Day party. Read more about this episode here. The original video is at TikTok.

For a time, we could believe what we saw in photographs. That's not always the case now, and before photography, we relied on paintings. However, if you were to study the history of English livestock by looking at paintings, you would be amazed at the shape of those animals. Were these cows really shaped like rectangles, or were they painted by artists who weren't familiar with cows?

The answer is neither. Wealthy livestock breeders commissioned those paintings, and the artists gave their customers what they wanted. Farmers were busy experimenting with breeding stock and with various diets to produce ever-larger animals. A portrait that showed the ultimate in beef would help them sell cattle. The fact that they aren't at all realistic didn't stop the practice. There are consistent inconsistencies in these rectangular cows, such as a beefy, taut brisket on the creature's chest, when a realistic full brisket would be lumpy with extra skin. As they were painted, the brisket became another corner of the rectangle.

And it wasn't just cows, either. Portraits of pigs made them look round and unrealistically enormous, while sheep were large ovals with tiny heads and spindly legs. Read about this art phenomenon and see a gallery of rectangular cows and other livestock portraits at Rare Historical Photos.  -via Everlasting Blort

David Friedman of Ironic Sans (previously at Neatorama) has launched a new daily word puzzle called Gisnep (try to guess how it got that name). To puzzle aficionados, it's very similar to a dropquote or quotefall puzzle. You fill in the letters of a quote by using ta selection of letters for that column shown above the puzzle. This online version also has the source of the quote at the bottom that may help you as you gradually fill it in. Another online innovation is the timer, which might annoy you, so Friedman promises to add a function to turn it off. But the speed of solving this is what you brag about how you compete with other players. The most helpful online function is the "check" button that tells you where you are wrong at any point.

So far, you can only play one puzzle a day. I solved today's puzzle in 5:15, and I'm looking forward to beating that time tomorrow. As of now, you can't play old puzzles, but that will change soon. Try Gisnep out for yourself here. -via Metafilter

Visitors from Europe are always amazed that public restrooms in the US offer so little privacy. The doors on the toilets don't go down to the floor, and usually have notable gaps around the door all the way up. Anyone who is inclined to look can see you doing your business in there. Lucky for us, most people are not inclined to look because that's both rude and creepy. We tell them it's because authorities or business owners want to know if people are in there doing drugs or sleeping or something they shouldn't. But that's not the original reason toilet stalls were designed this way. The first US very public toilet stall design came from architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and his reason for it was a surprise to me.

Yes, we can turn around and ask Brits why their bathroom sinks have separate hot and cold water faucets, which is inconvenient and can be dangerous. We also want to know why public toilets don't have lids, and why the seats have a gap in the front. Read up in the arcane reasons behind these and more burning bathroom questions at Cracked.   

(Image credit: MarkBuckawicki)

Tornados are not just an American phenomenal; they happen all over the world. But there are more of them in the US than any other country, and more in Texas than any other state with an average of 124 a year. There are written accounts of twisters and their damage going back to the 1550s when a tornado sank several ships in Malta. Extrapolating from the reports, modern meteorologists estimate the damage at T7 level, meaning a tornado powerful enough to knock over a locomotive, if there had been such a thing in the 1550s.

The deadliest tornado in US history moved through Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana on March 18, 1925. It was called the Tri-State Tornado, and it left 695 people dead and more than two thousand injured. Its path of destruction went for 220 miles, and left entire towns flattened. But the deadliest tornado anywhere killed 1300 people in Bangladesh in 1989. Tornados tend to kill more people in Bangladesh because of population density and the quality of building construction. Read about all these and more, a total of ten particularly devastating tornados and their aftermaths, in a list at Mental Floss.

(Image credit: Jackson County Historical Society, Murphysboro, Illinois)

The saber-toothed tiger (Smilodon fatalis) was a cat that went extinct about 12,000 years ago. It got its nickname (and probably the species name fatalis) from its fangs that could grow up to seven inches long. But it was still a cat, a mammal, and started out life suckling milk from its mother. Picture that, and also picture that cub growing its saber teeth. It's not easy being a mom.

Like other cats, S. fatalis first grew baby teeth, which were replaced by a set of adult teeth. A fossil discovery from the La Brea Tar Pits shows us that the super-long fangs erupted while the baby teeth were still in use, long before a cub could hunt prey on its own. The image above shows the baby fangs are not pushed out by the adult teeth, but erupted alongside them, meaning that a saber-tooth tiger cub had four saber teeth for some time.

A separate study of S. fatalis fossils found in Ecuador gives us evidence that these cats had an extended period of maternal care compared with modern big cats. Modern lions stay with their mother for about a year, while the saber-toothed cubs ventured out on their own at about two years. This is based on the time that the last molars erupted, which are important in chewing meat. Before those molars come in, cubs get nutrition from their mother's milk. So when the kids drive you crazy, you can be glad you're not a saber-toothed tiger mother. Read more about this research at Smithsonian.

(Image credit: Jack Tseng)

The future is here ...in our dreams. Imagine planning a family vacation trip to the moon! Or, of course it would be more affordable for just two, especially if you really, really wanted to impress someone. This video shows what we might have today if we had unlimited space program budgets and none of the corner cutting that has lead to well-known space disasters. The airline pictured is labeled Pan-Am to make it clear that this is a retro fantasy and not something that NASA has planned or even imagined. YouTuber yukon09 made this animation in the game Kerbel Space Program using imagery inspired by the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Both the aesthetic and the music are retro-futuristic as if this adventure were from the 1970s, showing a future we have not yet achieved all these years later. The song is "4:00 AM" by Taeko Onuki from 1978. -via The Awesomer

The annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest invites aspiring writers to enter the first sentence of the worst novel ever written. Except that novel has not been written; only the first sentence is required. The contest honors the legacy of novelist Sir Edward George Bulwer-Lytton (pictured above) who famously began one of his books with "It was a dark and stormy night..." which continued with a paragraph-long run-on sentence that made little sense. We've been covering this contest for years. The 2024 Grand Prize went to Lawrence Person of Austin, Texas, for this entry.

She had a body that reached out and slapped my face like a five-pound ham-hock tossed from a speeding truck.

That certainly draws a picture for us, although not an alluring one. Person's reaction to winning the award was, "Top of the world, ma. Top of the world…" There are also winners in various categories and plenty of Dishonorable Mentions that you should read at the winner's gallery. -via Metafilter

When I saw the title of this video, I thought, "This has to be about ambergris." Ambergris is a waxy substance produced in the gut of a sperm whale that was once used to make perfumes, preservatives, and medicines, and it was rare and expensive. But this TED-Ed video is not about ambergris at all, just everyday whale poop. You might think that a huge whale dump would be an ocean pollutant, but nature knows better. Whales do the ocean a solid by pooping at the surface, and then leaving the area to eat. That's only natural, but it's also fuels the way the marine ecosystem works. Many species, including whales, have evolved to take advantage of the cycle. If we remove even one part of this system, the delicate balance of nature could falter and maybe even fail. David Biello explains the value of whale excreta, even when it's just poop.

In our modern education system, children are frequently tested, and some are labeled as "gifted," meaning they score high on IQ tests or are performing above their peers in classroom work. Over the last few decades, many schools have implemented special programs for gifted children. But do they really help them? Studies show that gifted children actually have different brains, which may leave them talented in learning, but affect other parts of their personalities. Different studies show that highly intelligent students may actually do better in life if their parents don't realize how gifted they are. The label itself comes with high expectations that few children can live up to. A student who internalizes those expectations may grow averse to trying anything in which they may have a chance of failing. And any failure can be devastating after a childhood full of classroom success. Another problem for students who sail through elementary and high school without having to study is their surprise struggle when they get to college or graduate school without the study skills others have developed. No wonder many children labeled as gifted in elementary school end up feeling like failures as adults. Read about the dangers of being a gifted child at Vox.  -via Damn Interesting

(Image credit: Michelle Kwon for Vox)

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— no context memes (@weirddalle) August 17, 2024

A new social media account called LinkedIn Lyrics just began at TikTok a couple of weeks ago and on Instagram three days ago. The premise is that names from LinkedIn accounts can be used for any song lyrics, and they are even better for songs that you cannot really decipher just by hearing, like Pearl Jam's "Yellow Ledbetter," heard above. Check out "Otherside" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Just as good as the Pearl Jam one. Credit to @linkedin.lyrics on TikTok pic.twitter.com/WBEUsKVmGI

— garntd (Garrett) (@garntd) August 16, 2024

The LinkedIn Lyrics account uses the slogan "We turn resumes into remixes." I'll have to keep my eye out for any songs using my LinkedIn name (Miss Cellania), which really ought to be useful for something like this. Not that I'm looking for a job or anything, but LinkedIn makes it near-impossible to delete an account, or at least that's the way it was the last time I tried. You can hear plenty more of these short music videos at the LinkedIn Lyrics page at Instagram, and even more at TikTok. -via Laughing Squid and Boing Boing

British cuisine was saved by South Asian immigrants who made Indian takeaway the national dish. In the past few years, though, katsu curry has emerged as the kingdom's hottest food craze, to the extent that McDonald's and Burger King have tried incorporating it into their menus, as well as long established restaurants. Katsu curry is a Japanese dish made of breaded and fried meat cutlets served with a curry sauce. The strange part of the story is that katsu curry was introduced to Japan in the late 19th century by the British navy! Really. The dish was promoted by the imperial Japanese government to bring more nutrition to its citizens by encouraging the consumption of red meat. "Curry" is just a name for a sauce that's flavored with Indian spices, and the exact ingredients vary widely. The curry sauce introduced to Japan hid the unfamiliar smell and flavor of beef, pork, or mutton, and became a popular dish in Japan. More than 100 years later, it has returned to Britain.

Still, those who know will tell you that while British katsu curry is pretty good, it is not the same as katsu curry in Japan, nor most curries in India. When foods make their way around the world (and back again, in this case), they are changed and adapted to local tastes. Read the story of katsu curry and how it became a favorite in the UK today. -via Metafiter

(Image credit: Andy Li)

We've heard (and reported) stories of people being buried alive, and even more so, the fear of being buried alive. We can assume that most of the cases in which a person was buried while not yet dead were never discovered. Some cases were discovered too late, and the burial caused their real death. Then there is the story of Essie Dunbar, who was pronounced dead after a seizure in 1915. Dunbar's funeral was delayed because her sister had to travel quite far, and even then she was too late to witness the burial when she finally arrived. The woman convinced the funeral party to exhume the coffin so she could see her sister one last time. Yes, Dunbar was found to be alive, but the discovery caused chaos instead of joy, as some of the funeral party thought she was now a ghost or zombie of some sort.

There is little documentation of Essie Dunbar's first burial, but it appears to have been an accepted account at the time in North Carolina. It's not the only story of premature burial, and there are others with both happy and gruesome endings in an article at History Defined. -via Nag on the Lake

(Image source: National Archives)

The lunar cycle is 29 days, and so is the average menstrual cycle, so somewhere along the way, people got the idea that the moon's phases controlled menstrual cycles. This is nonsense. If that were the case, there would be a run on menstrual products at the same time every month, papers would be written, and everyone would know about it. Besides, there is only one moon, but billions of women, with only an average cycle of 29 days. In reality, women vary in both cycle length and regularity.  

See, correlation is not necessarily causation. But scientific studies tell us that a different celestial body may actually have an effect on menstrual cycles. Whether this has any significance for women's health or fertility is another question entirely, but at least we get a glimpse into sea urchin gonads from the folks at SciShow. This video has a 50-second skippable ad at 2:22. -via Geeks Are Sexy

The villain in a fictional story is usually motivated by greed, for money or power or both. In horror films, they can be motivated by revenge or inhuman instincts. But with the rise of science fiction over the last 200 years, the addition of science to the mix created the character of the mad scientist. Not only does he have a thirst for power, he also has the education and the creativity to make it happen ...with science! Scientists with no moral inhibitions can produce horrors this world cannot imagine, which makes for a great story.

Dr. Frankenstein, Dr. Moreau, Dr. Caligari, Dr. No, Dr. Seth Brundle, Dr. John Hammond, they all wanted to "play God" in one way or another, with no regard for the consequences. What could be scarier? And is it any wonder that this archetype returns again and again? But over time, the projects these mad scientists carry out have become more and more plausible, in a reflection of what real scientists have developed. This only makes them scarier, as we can see how our world can fall victim of a highly intelligent yet unethical force. Atlas Obscura looks at the mad scientist and how the character has evolved over time.