It’s the reality webseries you’ve been waiting for! Keeping Up With The Cowdashians follows the adventures of five big-bottomed bovine beauties as they go about their days on a farm in Northunberland, UK. Producer Sam Wass of the Great British Meat Company says it’s a way to promote locally-sourced meat and poke fun at reality TV.

In the first show “Ooo-arr the Cowdashians” we are introduced to the five sisters at their home in Hadrian’s hills – Wallsteads Farm – and the farmer charged with keeping them in check, Alastair Patterson.

“I don’t know what kind of drama people are looking for with reality TV, but if they want to watch videos of cows eating grass, wandering around and dropping cow pats then they’re in for a treat,” Alastair said.

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Above is a trailer for episode two, which you can catch at the show’s website when it debuts. Episode one is available there now.  -via Uproxx

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Why would a town change its name? There are plenty of reasons, as you’ll find out in this week’s mental_floss List Show. Maybe the incentive was money or infrastructure. Maybe the old name was offensive, or confusing, or associated with something unpleasant. The change could be to honor someone or something the town is known for. Or maybe they just wanted something a little more prestigious. Some of these 25 towns all have their own reasons, some weirder than others.  

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Um, why would you pour molten aluminum into a watermelon? Because you can? Will it explode? The Backyard Scientist shows us what happens (in his backyard, of course), and it’s neater than you might expect. Now, what other things can we pour molten aluminum into? (via Viral Viral Videos)

The folks at Tiny Kittens have set up a webcam for a cat named Eve. She gave birth to a litter of five two days ago.  

Abandoned and pregnant, Eve took refuge under someone's porch until a kind neighbor brought her to us. Her babies were born in safety and will be raised with love, making Eve one of the lucky ones! She and her babies will be spayed/neutered and adopted into loving homes when they are old enough.

You can watch the family streaming live here, but if they aren’t doing anything, there are also a couple of videos you can enjoy. Squee! -via Metafilter

Although I rarely stay at a hotel that has any amenities at all, one that I dread seeing is the mini-bar -especially when the kids were young. I first encountered a mini-bar in China. Our travel agent advised us to just replace anything taken with an identical item before checking out, but that’s hard to do when hotel employees come in several times a day to check it. And don’t get me started on the refrigerators and snack trays equipped with motion sensors! But it seems the hotel mini-bar is fading away. At first, it was a great idea for business travelers with expense accounts, but even they are more cautious about spending three times the retail price for a drink in today’s economy. Read about the rise and fall of the hotel mini-bar at Pricenomics. -via Digg  

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This graduation cake might make a little sense only if the recipient were receiving a PhD in 19th-century English History. But if he or she was first in the class, the spelling is valedictorian. That took me a second to see, long enough to make me laugh at the cake from the archives at Cake Wrecks. It’s part of a round up of 21 Graduation Cakes That Do Not Get A Passing Grade at Buzzfeed. Let’s hope the class of 2015 brings us more cakes to laugh at, as long as it’s someone else paying for them.

Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website or at Facebook.

(Image credit: Flickr user ITU Pictures)

* The first Emmy award was awarded in 1949. It went to Shirley Dinsdale, a ventriloquist. She was voted Most Outstanding Television Personality.

* The name “Emmy" is a feminization of the nickname “Immy,” an abbreviation of the image orthicon tube, which is part of a TV camera.

* In 1971, George C. Scott turned down his Oscar for the movie Patton, complaining that the Oscars were a petty popularity contest. But that same year, Scott accepted an Emmy award for his role in the Hallmark Hall of Fame special The Price.

* Kelsey Grammar is the only actor to be nominated for the same character in three different series. His Frasier Crane character was nominated for Wings (once), Cheers (twice), and Frasier (10 nominations, four wins).

* In 1987, The Facts of Life was nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Hairdressing.

* Baywatch (1989-2001) is the longest-running series (12 years) to never be nominated for an Emmy. It broke the previous record of 11 years, held by Married... with Children.

* In 1958, in a bid to differentiate the characters they play on TV, the Academy created two new categories: Best Continuing Performance in a Series by a Person Who Essentially Plays Herself and it's male counterpart. The idea was to coronate Lucille Ball in I Love Lucy, but the plan backfired and Dinah Shore won instead. (In 1959, Jack Benny became the last person to win this award.)

Let’s Play: The Shining is an Atari-style video game by Pippin Barr. Drive up to the Overlook Hotel, take a walk through the maze, bounce things off the wall because you’re bored, deal with writer’s block, ride your Big Wheel down the corridors, and defend yourself against an axe murderer.

I can’t say the gameplay is all that exciting, but it’s certainly faithful to the film. You can read about the game development in a couple of posts at Pippin Barr’s blog. -via Daily of the Day

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Pecan, the well-dressed cat, rings a bell and receives treats for his efforts. You can see who’s training who here.

watergirlmv: I’ve trained my cat to ring a bell!

Pecan: I’ve got it made. All I have to do is ring this bell, and watergirlmv gives me a bite to eat!  Even when she says we’re done, I can keep ringing it to get more. I sure trained her well!

 -via Tastefully Offensive

When you’ve already got flavors that people can’t get enough of, combining them in one bag may be the wave of the future. Doritos Roulette is mostly regular nacho cheese-flavored chips, but one out of every six chips is a super spicy hot version. And you can’t tell which is which by looking at them. You buy a bag; you take your chances. The company has been test-marketing Doritos Roulette in different places: they debuted in Mexico in 2012, and have been sold in Canada since last year. Doritos plans a limited run of about 12 weeks in the U.S.

Frito-Lay execs are hopeful that Roulette will do especially well in small bag formats sold at convenience stores and purchased by males around the age of 19. By contrast, the limited-edition is not geared for big family gatherings, like a picnic. "I don't think you want grandma to reach in and grab the wrong chip," Mr. Klein said.

Consider that good advice. Doritos Roulette is in stores now. They will cost you: the suggested retail price for the 9.5 ounce bags is $4.29 and $1.49 for the little 3 ounce bags. -via Geeks Are Sexy

This is the sign that welcomes you to the small town of Rennie, Manitoba. The village authorities who came up with this certainly had a sense of humor -and aspirations of someday having something worth bragging about. The people of some small towns are really good at poking fun at themselves, making you want to visit for that reason alone. Years ago, I commuted between Jackson and Paris, Tennessee, every day for a few weeks, which is a good hour’s drive each way. I’d pass the sign welcoming drivers to the town of Henry that said, “If you lived in Henry, you’d be home now.” It always made me think about moving to Henry, even though you could barely tell there was a town there. Oddee has a roundup of a dozen such memorable signs that riff on the town’s name, personality, or even its (lack of) size. -via mental_floss

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Once again, Cookie Monster is learning about good nutrition and staying focused by indulging in a movie parody. It’s called called “The Aveggies- Age of Bon Bon.”

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The Aveggies include Captain Americauliflower, Dr. Brownie, Onion Man, Black Bean Widow, Mighty Corn, and Zuchin-eye. Can it get sillier? Watch and see! -via The Daily Dot

Jeff Cremer of the Tambopata Research Center in the Peruvian Amazon (previously at Neatorama) tells us about a weird caterpillar with four appendages that resemble tentacles sticking from its abdomen. Entomologist Aaron Pomerantz noticed it when he yelled to his team members, which caused the caterpillar to unfurl its coiled tentacles. Because it reacted to noise, he made more noise. He ended up yelling at a caterpillar for an hour.

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After a little research, I found that this caterpillar is in the moth family Geometridae and is in the genus Nematocampa. Also referred to as ‘horned-spanworms’ or ‘filament bearers’, these peculiar caterpillars can be found in North America and the Neotropics.

Read more about this caterpillar and possible reasons for its behavior at Rainforest Expeditions. Also check out their new Rainforest Journey educational program for kids.

(Image credit: Aaron Pomerantz. Video by Aaron Pomerantz and Steven Senisi.)

The following is an article from The Annals of Improbable Research.

Improbable, stimulating investigations
compiled by Marc Abrahams, Improbable Research staff

Energy Expenditure during Sexual Activity in Young Healthy Couples

Detail from the study “Energy Expenditure During Sexual Activity in Young Healthy Couples.”

“Energy Expenditure During Sexual Activity in Young Healthy Couples,” Julie Frappier, Isabelle Toupin, Joseph J. Levy, Mylene Aubertin-Leheudre, and Antony D. Karelis, PLoS ONE, vol. 8, no. 10, 2013, e79342. The authors, at the Université de Montréal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, report:

The study population consisted of twenty-one heterosexual couples (age: 22.6 ± 2.8 years old) from the Montreal region. Free living energy expenditure during sexual activity and the endurance exercise was measured using the portable mini SenseWear armband....

The present study indicates that energy expenditure during sexual activity appears to be approximately 85 kCal or 3.6 kCal/min and seems to be performed at a moderate intensity (5.8 METS) in young healthy men and women. These results suggest that sexual activity may potentially be considered, at times, as a significant exercise.
 

The $123,860,432 Erections

A couple of weeks ago, we learned about cemeteries that go out of business. That’s what happened to New Jersey’s oldest cemetery, the Historic Jersey City and Harsimus Cemetery, founded in 1831. It had been full for many years, and eventually the board members died out, leaving a history of fiscal mismanagement and neglect. Nature has begun to reclaim a large portion of the graveyard long before that. In 2008, Eileen Markenstein led a group of volunteers determined to clean up the cemetery. Then things got weird.

On the floor of a wardrobe in the cottage, Markenstein found a metal canister. Inside was the original map of the cemetery from 1831. They had been clearing away the dense undergrowth plot by plot, lane by lane, but the map showed that the graveyard continued up the hill to the west, where now there was only dense forest.

One day, clearing undergrowth, a volunteer stumbled upon a stone step. Like a modern Cair Paravel from Narnia, the stone staircase led up the hill and ended in an old rusted iron door set into the hillside. Breaking open the old door and stepping inside out of the clear Jersey sunlight, they found an antechamber. It had been undisturbed for over 100 years. Torchlight showed a series of tunnels disappearing into the hillside, snaking left and right.

The week after this discovery, Markenstein went to see her doctor complaining of crushing chest pains. She was rushed to hospital where, for 21 days, she underwent tests but no one could find out what was wrong with her. Finally, a doctor asked her if she’d been anywhere unusual recently. Well, she replied, as it happens I have. No wonder the medical staff struggled to diagnose Markenstein—she was suffering from an ailment more commonly found during the 19th century. Markenstein had pleurisy.

Remarkably, what they found is still there, buried away in the Jersey hillside virtually unknown and undiscovered. I went to explore it for Atlas Obscura.

The underground edifice was a military bunker that was later used to store the deceased when the ground was too frozen to dig graves. Some of them are still there, along with military artifacts dating back to the War of 1812. Read the story of the rise and fall of the the Historic Jersey City and Harsimus Cemetery and the unearthing of its secrets at Atlas Obscura.