The Soviet Union was always secretive, but during the Cold War the outside world got hardly any information on what was going on behind the Iron Curtain. Only after the USSR collapsed in 1991 did we learn about the particulars of the Soviet nuclear program, including entire cities that were forbidden territory and kept classified even from their near neighbors. Sure, most of the US didn't know what was going on in Oak Ridge or Los Alamos during World War II, but the Americans working in those places knew it wasn't going to be a life sentence. City 40, on the other hand, was like a high-class, luxurious prison for nuclear scientists, technicians, and their families. Weird things happened in City 40, including a nuclear disaster and a story of alien adoption during those secret years. Now known as Ozersk, the city is clearly identified on Russian maps published after the Soviet Union dissolved. -via Digg

The world's largest veterinary clinic is Salam Veterinary Group in Buraydah, Saudi Arabia. The facility covers 71,500 square meters (769,620 square feet), employees around 300 veterinarians, and can house up to 8,000 animals at once. The complex contains an equine hospital, a camel hospital, pet clinics, a wildlife center, and a research center. They also have branch offices and mobile units used for farm visits. The clinic was already huge when it was established in 2020 before it expanded in 2022 in order to achieve the Guinness World Record.

This clinic offers services you won't find elsewhere, like embryo transfer for specialized camel breeding, infertility treatment, paternity testing, and drug screening for banned substances. I can't find out much about their wildlife services, but you have to wonder if they provide veterinary care for Saudis who keep tigers and other exotic animals. You might notice that the header at their website in English reads backwards. That's because Arabic is read from left to right. Still, any way you look at it, this is a big hospital.  

(Unrelated image credit: Prof. Mortel)

What kind of government would you prefer to live under? There are many that have been tried, with varying levels of success, depending on your standing in the hierarchy. The Paint Explainer (previously at Neatorama) goes through 21 words we use to describe how governments work. These terms are not mutually exclusive; most countries can be described legitimately as a combination of two or more types. When people are criticizing a government, they can use any number of these terms. In fact, you can make up a word and put the Greek suffix "cracy" on it to describe a government. And you'll have to study history to find examples of these terms, and how they can change over time. This comment has a list of the terms, in case you want to look one up and read more. They have a sponsor now; the skippable ad runs from about 5:25 to 6:40. -via Laughing Squid

There are several pairs of Dorothy's ruby slippers that still exist from the production of the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz. You might recall that a pair had been stolen from a museum in 2005 and recovered by the FBI in 2018. In 2023, 76-year-old Terry Martin was arrested for the theft. Now we have new details about Martin, such as why he stole the shoes. He thought they were encrusted with real rubies. An accomplice has now been arrested, and we learn more about what those shoes have been through- ultraviolet treatment, burial, and finally a return to their rightful owner. The story also involves a threat of revenge porn.

Also, we learn about the future plans for the shoes. After going on exhibit at various locations, they will be put up for auction in December. Of the half-dozen or so authentic ruby slippers, these are the ones with the most notorious history, and will probably fetch a pretty penny. Read what we know about the case by now at The History Blog. -via Strange Company  

(Image credit: dbking)

In the new short film The Spider Within: A Spider-Verse Story, Miles Morales is struggling with the pressures of being a teenager in the modern world, juggling family, friends, school work, and his future, combined with the stress of fighting crime and injustice as Spider-Man. His depression turns into anxiety and then to paranoia and a panic attack as he confronts the demon that is himself. Luckily, he doesn't have to deal with all this alone.   

Sony Pictures Animation made this video to bring attention to the Kevin Love Fund which encourages those with mental health struggles to seek help. They even have a mental health lesson plan to go along with this video. The film is also a part of The Hero Within series of videos reaching out to those who may need help. Director Jarelle Dampier and Kevin Love talk about the initiative in another video. -via Geeks Are Sexy

By now you've heard about the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore after it was struck by a cargo ship Tuesday morning, leading to the deaths of six men working on the bridge. Large modern bridges that carry lots of traffic are engineering marvels, except when they aren't, or when they are hit by ships bigger than they were designed to resist, or when big storms or earthquakes hit. The picture above shows Howard Clifford running away from his abandoned car as the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapsed on November 7, 1940. We previously posted a video of that harrowing bridge failure. The suspension bridge twisted under the force of 40 mph winds until it couldn't maintain its integrity any longer.

Smithsonian brings us some information on the Baltimore bridge accident, plus seven other horrific bridge collapses from history. A couple of them were destroyed twice, and a few are accompanied by video of the destruction.

(Image source: UW Digital Collections)

Getting on an elevator with your boss can be stressful, but it's much worse when your boss has the power of life and death over you. You just want to fade into the background, but this stormtrooper named TK-FNG is the only one there besides Darth Vader. And to make things worse, Vader has the hiccups. Can he keep his cool all the way to his floor? This would have been much easier back in the day when stormtroopers were clones who didn't have the time nor the background to develop human emotions and anxieties.

You also have to wonder what the implications of a case of hiccups would be for a guy who uses an artificial beathing apparatus. But you can't just ask him.

This Star Wars short film is brought to you by AFK. Peter Haynes created this video as part of his For The Empire series, in which TK-FNG is a recurring character. You can see all the episodes here.

Aaron Cohen has been running Jason Kottke's blog while he's on vacation. Cohen also owns an ice cream shop. Here he presents us with an example of confusing design. The image is of a freezer knob. If you wanted to make the freezer colder, would you turn the knob clockwise or counterclockwise? The arrow is pointing to the right (clockwise). Does that mean that you should turn the knob in this direction to make the freezer colder, or does it mean that these smaller numbers on the right are where you should set the knob for a colder temperature? In other words, which is colder, a setting of 1 or a setting of 6? I have the same knob on my refrigerator, and since both ideas occurred to me, I just left it sitting where it's always been.

It's like when someone asks you to turn the air conditioning up. Do they mean to make the A/C work harder to make the room cooler, or do they mean turn the thermostat up, which would be warmer? In that case, you can just ask them what they mean. Let us know your opinion in the poll, and maybe some HVAC pro will set us straight in the comments.

There are two kinds of people in this world- those who never listen to the lyrics of their favorite songs, and those who know all the lyrics but misinterpret what they mean. That's why "The One I Love" by R.E.M. is on many wedding playlists despite it being about an abusive relationship, and why Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." is used as a patriotic anthem despite it being a complaint about a guy's awful life. A song is always more than its title, but that's the thing people remember. Do you know what Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is about? No, because the title has nothing to do with the lyrics, as far as we can tell.

The meaning of some songs is misinterpreted because the word "love" stands out, so it must be a love song. Or there's a rumor about a hidden meaning that's completely untrue. Or it's such a dance bop that it couldn't possibly say anything deep or philosophical. Sometimes one misheard lyric gives the song an entirely new, but unintentional, meaning. And there are even cases where the singer and the liner notes disagree over what the lyrics really are. Read up on nine popular songs for which the lyrics are either ignored or misinterpreted at Mental Floss. You can also listen to the article in video form.

Ryan Gosling memorably sang the song "I'm just Ken" from the movie Barbie at the Oscar awards ceremony earlier this month. Viewers loved it. Sadly, Gosling did not win for Best Supporting Actor, but he did rule the internet for a few days afterward. The performance sparked a sense of deja vu for The Kiffness (previously at Neatorama) because it reminded him of the singing bulldog that went viral five years ago. Therefore, he couldn't resist editing together a mashup of the two. So who does it better- Walter Geoffrey's French bulldog or the movie star? Neither are professional singers, and that's okay, but personally, I can't help but be drawn to the bulldog's performance. It's just so emotional! -via Geeks Are Sexy

A woman in the UK spotted what she thought was an abandoned baby hedgehog. She carefully scooped it up, put it in a box with a dish of food and a hot water bottle, and hoped it would survive the night. In the morning, she took the box to the Lower Moss Wood Nature Reserve and Wildlife Hospital in Cheshire. There, staff identified the hedgehog as a bobble. When I first saw the headline of this story, I had to read it because I didn't know what kind of animal a bobble is.

A "bobble" is a puffy decoration for a hat, what Americans would call a pom-pom or a topknot. The staff at the wildlife hospital had a good laugh and said that the woman did the right thing. Hedgehogs aren't normally seen out in the daytime, and if this had been a hedgehog, it was surely in distress. They suggested naming this species "hedgebobble." It looks more like a tribble to me. -via Metafilter

We know that the Chicxulub asteroid impact 66 million years ago causes massive changes in earth's condition that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Or do we? More recent research leads to a possible second culprit, the Deccan Traps, a system of volcanos now in western India. Their activity a few million years before the asteroid showed up caused massive climate change, carbon dioxide poisoning, and acid rain, which may have been the death knell of the dinosaurs and a lot of other species. If this was the case, then the Chicxulub impact could have been just the cherry on top of the mass extinction event that began earlier. We don't yet know, because dating scarce fossils and geological evidence is hard, especially when you are trying to measure a timeline many millions of years ago, not to mention estimating populations of species based on what we know. Scientists have their opinions, and can argue about it for days. Kurzgesagt explains the Deccan Traps and how it would have impacted life on earth before the asteroid showed up.

Unless your glasses have thick, dark rims, you might want to skip buying sheets or bed covers with a busy pattern. Redditor hexafocal looked for his glasses for three hours before he found them -a task we all know is harder when you aren't wearing your glasses. He posted this image to the subreddit AccidentalCamouflage to show us how hard it was to find them. I had to enlarge the picture twice to find them, and I'm wearing my glasses! This is one reason I keep an older pair around for emergency use. To be fair, hexafocal would have found them faster if he'd remembered that he left them on the bed, then at least he could have felt around with his hands. If you decide to give up the hunt, here they are with the ever helpful red circle. Even then, you might need to put on your glasses to see them. -via Digg

I don't know a lot about figure skating, but 19-year-old Ilia Malinin of Reston, Virginia, is very good. They tell us that it is nigh impossible to jump in the air and spin around four times, but he does it over and over, six times in all in this routine that won him the world championship in figure skating Saturday night in Montreal. On top of that, this routine received the highest score ever in the sport. Malinin comes by his talent honestly, by having two champion skaters as parents and training since he was six. It still stings to see someone born in 2004 becoming the world champion of anything, but that's the way time works. Malinin's performance is only five minutes; the rest of the video is replays and everyone talking about how great it was. -via Digg

The nature of reality is explored in the movie The Matrix, which turns 25 years old this month. Do we really know what reality is, or are we forever doomed to think of reality as only what we experience? It's not a new question, as it was posited in a story related in Plato's Republic. Along with a setup in which peoples' experience is limited, both stories have characters who prefer their limited life to reality because it's more comforting.

Back in 1999, The Matrix seemed far fetched, but in the 25 years since then, we've seen the rise of the world wide web, and then social media, and then smart phones. Each development drew millions more people into the artificial world of the internet, until it that world became our major source of communication, social life, entertainment, news, and for some of us, even employment. There's no doubt that the internet has improved the lives of many millions of people, but it also seems to be replacing the world around us. As the reality of our screens take over our time, is the world of The Matrix slowly creeping up on us? Maybe not so slowly. Read about the question of experience vs. reality and how our modern world resembles The Matrix in an article reposted from The Wall Street Journal. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Jamie Zawinski)