Ze Frank was surprised with an invitation to join the advisory board of the Senkenberg Ocean Species Alliance (SOSA), based in Frankfurt, Germany. To find out if this was legit or just a prank, he went to Germany, and surprise! He's on the advisory board of a research center that studies and names new species of mollusks. They obviously realized that an American who makes fun of ocean creatures draws a lot of attention to them. So of course, Ze Frank repays the gesture by making fun of the institution, its scientists, mollusks in general, and Germany as a whole. In the meantime, we learn about how taxonomy works and how long it takes for a new species to be named. Some of the folks he roasted in this video came into the comments to show they are good sports. Of course they are, or they wouldn't have contacted Ze in the first place. The result is that today, a lot more people know what SOSA is and what they do, even if they never hear the end of a crayon's worth of argon or jiggly DNA. Watch out, Ze, you'll be inundated by requests to join other scientific boards now.

(Image credit: MartinVeselka)

Houska Castle is in the city of Blatce in the Czech Republic (Czechia). It was built sometime between the years of 1253 and 1278 under the reign of Ottokar II of Bohemia as a sort of headquarters for the administration of his estates. No one lived there for a few hundred years until it was renovated in the 16th century. Why would such a castle be built in the middle of nowhere, on a mountain side where there was no water supply? And why were the fortification walls built facing inward, so that defenders could shoot into the compound?

(Image credit: ŠJů (cs:ŠJů))

Because the castle was built over a "bottomless" pit, said to be the gateway to hell. Legend tells us monsters, demons, and human-animal hybrids emerged from the pit. Anyone that ventured into it came back aged and traumatized, if they came out at all. The castle was meant to keep the demons enclosed. The castle's chapel is directly over the pit.

(Image credit: Tadehruska)

During World War II, the castle was occupied by the Wehrmacht, who are said to have conducted occult experiments there. There are tales of ghosts still roaming the castle. If you want a thrill while you're in the Czech Republic, you can visit Houska Castle, although getting there won't be simple. It's still in the middle of nowhere. -via Cracked

Posy is a Dutch musician who has wide ranging interests and hobbies. Last year he introduced us to motion extraction. Posy has a camera that takes macro video images with an overly sensitive focus. In this video, he shows us some of the everyday objects in his home in very closeup mode. You might be able to guess some of them, but certainly not all. Surfaces that we normally think of as smooth are anything but at the macro level. The wandering focus gives these objects a surreal and artistic, if confusing, quality. Posy's narration is what's really entertaining here. He doesn't have interesting facts about what we are seeing, but he shares our marvel at the way they look with his lovely European accent. You can tell he's having fun with the camera. Until he gets bored. To be honest, it's rather charming to listen to a video producer who has the same reactions his audience has. The music is really nice, too. -via Kottke

Christmas is a festive, loving time, but a story about it wouldn't last long without a villain to create conflict, or at least a dilemma. Slashfilm has taken on the challenge of collecting Christmas movie villains and ranking them, counting up to the best villain. They lay out the rules they made up for themselves when considering a villain for the list, and even acknowledge that they eliminated the actual best villain ever in a Christmas movie, although the reasoning behind his absence isn't all that clear. Maybe it's the eternal squabbling about what is and isn't a Christmas movie.  

Oh yes, Old Man Potter (Lionel Barrymore) from It's a Wonderful Life is there, but he's not ranked all that high. The explanation is that Potter completely gets away with his crime, and that's not quite acceptable to the audience. I disagree; I think it makes the fantasy scenario more realistic in our modern world. At any rate, you might disagree with the choices for the list, but you probably won't have an argument about numbers 1 and 2 on the list of the ten best Christmas villains at Slashfilm.

The last video we posted from the What If? series looked at the feasibility of light reaching from the earth to the moon. It ended up with a disaster, actually blowing the moon out of its orbit. After the video was posted, the question stayed with Randall Munroe and Henry Reich. Munroe couldn't stop thinking about even more power, and what that would do. After all, there are more powerful beams than mere visible light. He's talking about gamma rays, the kind of things that pull stars apart. Not that we have gamma ray weapons here on earth, besides the flashes produced by nuclear explosions, but this is a thought experiment. If we could harness such power, it would be in line with the planet-killing beams from the Death Star or Starkiller Base. Once we've fashioned this hypothetical death ray, we could cause all kinds of destruction. Yay! -via Damn Interesting

You've heard of Sasquatch and Mothman, yet there are other cryptids told of in the hills of Appalachia that may go by various local names, but are referred to collectively as the "white things" (pronounced "white thangs"). What they have in common is that they are big, white, hairy, and will scare the crap out of anyone who sees them. Some are described as humanoid, yet much larger than any human, with horns. Others walk on four legs and have claws. From the accounts of sightings, they rarely do much damage beyond terrifying the observer and fortifying the story.

You may get the idea that the white things are a combination of fear, the power of suggestion, and alcohol or drugs. Or maybe they are albino versions of scary animals that make the mountains their home, such as bears, bobcats, or even deer. Even the occasional stray white cow would be terrifying in a dark forest at night. Someone who is predisposed to fearing the white things they've heard of would become a true believer if they encountered such wildlife, especially if they've had a few. But the stories continue. Read up on sightings of the white things of Appalachia at Mental Floss.

(Image credit: pocolover1957)

It's that time of year when the producers of various dictionaries let us know about trends in language. The Oxford University Press, who produces the Oxford Dictionary, has decided that "brain rot" is their word of the year for 2024, despite the fact that it's two words. Brain rot means the deterioration of someone's intellect or mental health due to overconsumption of mindless entertainment, mostly on the internet. Oxford noticed that the use of the term has grown by 230% over the past year. The word of the year was determined by an online poll of six finalists presented by Oxford. The term brain rot is not new, however. Henry David Thoreau used it in his 1854 book Walden.

The Oxford Dictionary word of the year is not the last word, though (pun in tended). The Cambridge Dictionary’s word of the year for 2024 is "manifest." Dictionary.com’s Word of the Year for 2024 is "demure." And Collins Dictionary’s word of the year is "brat." Maybe we should look these words up in the dictionary.

Images in Clinical Medicine: Phytophotodermatitis https://t.co/KIhf4tnlip#Dermatology pic.twitter.com/lUsLYISpPG

— NEJM (@NEJM) December 2, 2024

A man in Texas sought medical help for a severe rash, actually a burn, on his hands. The burn eventually produced blisters, and it took several months for him to fully heal. He was diagnosed with phytophotodermatitis, a condition in which chemicals from certain plants interact with the skin and makes one extremely vulnerable to sunburn. The man had manually squeezed a bunch of limes and then went to a soccer game without sunscreen. The traces of juice on his hands altered his skin to react with UV light, causing serious sun damage.

The plant chemicals that can do this are called furocoumarins, which exist famously in hogweed, but also in many plants we eat. Read about phytophotodermatitis, and learn which foods can cause it, so you'll know to wash your hands thoroughly after preparing them. And always apply sunscreen before attending outdoor events.

Minnesotastan cites the same study and reposted a case from 2013 with much more explicit pictures of the worst effects of phytophotodermatitis. You've been warned.

This video begins by posing the question: Does earth exist in the Star Wars universe? Of course it does, although you have to dig into Star Wars lore a bit to find the evidence. A broader question is: Where does the Star Wars universe end and where does our familiar world begin? The simple answer is Disney World, but that's not satisfying, either. We are told that the events of Star Wars take place long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away, so the light (and/or video signals of some sort) from that galaxy might just now be reaching us here on earth. But that's just one theory.

The Art Of Storytelling explains some of requirements of a shared universe, and how some similarities between that fantasy world and our own can be tolerated while others cannot. The many Star Wars properties range from the quite plausible (Andor) to the ridiculous (The Rise of Skywalker), so you can pick your poison. Egregious errors in Star Wars stories make it difficult to fantasize about the reality of that galaxy so far, far away. For those who like to think that the events of Star Wars could be real, those errors can induce rage. And outside of the political realm, no one feels rage like an avid Star Wars fan. -via Laughing Squid

Kate Wagner goes to town on a $3.5 million home in New Jersey that can't make up its mind what style it's supposed to be. The 5-bedroom, 6.5-bathroom house was custom-built to evoke opulence, but the finished product looks like a checklist of things the owner wanted from a wide range of architectural history. Many of these details really can't quite be pulled off with modern building techniques. The interior decorating is even worse, as you can see from the image above. Wagner likens living in this house to a constant performance of living. While the rooms are adequately furnished, the very size of those rooms demands subdivision into areas of activity, so that the overall effect is almost institutional, no matter how swanky. She calls one bathroom "the Sistine Chapel of McMansion bathrooms" for the ornate ceiling, pool-sized tub, and seating for spectators. Read a detailed breakdown of how it all went so wrong at McMansion Hell.

Every year, a group of friends in Ventura, California, get together to do a costumed photo shoot to document their facial hair growth during "No Shave November" (previously at Neatorama). The campaign is for cancer awareness, but these guys have made it their own since 2013. Now they have enough images to produce a calendar! The Christmas-themed picture this year kinda seals that deal. You may also note that the sixth friend, who dropped out in 2014 except for his head seen on a pike in 2019, is back for 2024. Redditor C1eve1and101 posted the entire gallery of the annual photos today. You will need to greatly enlarge the pics there to see all the details.

This year, the guys all got tattoos on their thighs commemorating a previous year's photo. Then they got dressed up as Christmas characters: Frosty the Snowman, the Nutcracker, Buddy the elf, Santa Claus, Rudolph, and a candy cane. They also recorded footage of the photo session, which Michael Lubin (the candy cane) edited into a joyous video.

About a month ago, you may have seen a viral video of a dog atop the Great Pyramid of Egypt. It was an amazing moment, and people wondered how the dog got up there and why, and worried about how he could get down. The video left everyone with the wrong impression, but not in the ways that you would expect.

No, the dog atop the pyramid is not faked. His name is Apollo. He is a stray, but Apollo is famous among the locals in Giza for pulling this stunt anytime he pleases. He climbed down from the heights on his own just fine. And it's not the Great Pyramid; it's the Pyramid of Khafre, the second largest pyramid in Giza at 448 feet tall. Also, the paraglider you see in a selfie shot is not the paraglider who took the footage. The man you see added himself before he posted the video to Instagram.

Still, Apollo is a real canine climber. Read his story and the facts behind the viral video at the New York Times. -via Nag on the Lake

I’m all styled up and ready for a goatwalk this sunday 🎉 And as a gentlegoat - the older, the more stylish! My inauguration kicks off on sunday at 4 PM, swedish time! Remember that bags are not allowed in front of the stage. You can watch it live at the link in bio! pic.twitter.com/JwoLOAti5G

— Gävlebocken (@Gavlebocken) November 29, 2024

Every year, the Gävle Goat is inaugurated on the first Sunday of Advent and marks the beginning of the Christmas season for the residents of the Swedish town. The gigantic goat, made of straw, is a representation of the Swedish Yule goat. The first goat was erected in 1966 for the purpose of drawing tourists to Gävle, but it's not so much the goat itself that Gävlebocken is known for, but the constant threat of arson. The 1966 goat was burned down, and that vandalism has become sort of a tradition, no matter how securely it is guarded. Of the 58 goats that have graced Gävle over the years, 42 have been burned down. Last year's goat was not burned, but suffered destruction from jackdaws who pecked at the straw to reach the remnants of wheat until you could see through it.

You can follow the status of the Gävle goat on the live webcam. You can read more about the history of the goat, accounts of its destruction in years past, editorials about the pros and cons of burning it down, and even find videos of the burning goat, in a link-heavy post at Metafilter. That's where I nicked the title of this post.  

In 2020 when it was hard to find toilet paper in stores, bidets became all the rage in private homes in the US. That wouldn't be possible without the technology that allows the device to be attached to an existing toilet. For hundreds of years, a bidet was something that Americans didn't use, and rarely spoke of, to the point that many people had never encountered one and did not know what they were used for, or how. Bidets were around in Europe long before plumbing was available, although they were only purchased by the upper class and sex workers. Once running water became common, bidets spread through the continent and other parts of the world. By then, Americans had either forgotten them, or considered bidets too foreign or too low class, due to their association with prostitutes.

Eventually, the US got indoor plumbing, but rarely installed bidets. Consider the above picture, from a 1912 ad for bathroom fixtures. We have a shower, sink, bathtub, what looks to be a sitz bath, and a foot-washing sink. You could clean a half-dozen children in there at once! But the toilet is in a separate alcove, with no bidet in sight. The manufacturer obviously thought of everything but a bidet. Or else they didn't think Americans would buy one, even as they tried to sell permanent sitz baths.

At any rate, the preceding paragraph is a departure from the actual history of the bidet, which you can read at Messy Nessy Chic.

(Top image credit: Antekbojar)

Normally, when someone wants to make an animated sequence these days, they just use computer software made for that purpose. If you want to go old school, you can draw individual frames, and people will be amazed at your persistence. Duncan McCabe took a much more difficult route, literally, to make a 24-second cartoon of a dancing figure.

Strava is a geolocation service that tracks where you've been on a map. The app is used by runners, hikers, cyclists, and even pilots to see their routes. Just making a recognizable shape is an accomplishment. McCabe planned his running to produce this cartoon figure, and changed it to make the figure dance. He selected maps from sequential runs he made from January to October of this year to produce a flipbook-style animation. Each run was about 10 kilometers, and took around an hour. Not the simplest way to dance, but the end result is pretty cool! In case you are wondering, yes, Strava has contacted McCabe about using the video. -via Born in Space