If you listen to StoryCorps on NPR's Morning Edition, or have watched the videos posted here at Neatorama, you know how they affect you. I start to tear up as soon as that music starts, because I know a heartbreaking or heartwarming story is coming. StoryCorps knows how you feel, and they’ve started a campaign to see how you feel, called Cry Day Friday. You’re invited to snap a picture of your “cry face” after you listen to a StoryCorps segment during Friday's broadcast, and post it to Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram with the hashtag #crydayFriday. And you can check out other cry faces- there are already plenty of them.
In case you aren’t familiar with StoryCorps stories, you can listen to past stories from their archives, or watch one of their videos. StoryCorps is dedicated to archiving and sharing family stories from all kinds of people. -Thanks, Krisi!
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In Macedonia, there’s a rock formation called the Stone Dolls of Kuklica. They look like a crowd of people standing (although much larger). The legend behind the stones goes like this:
Once upon a time, long, long ago, a village girl was anxiously awaiting her wedding, which was scheduled for the afternoon. Having prepared everything days in advance, the girl wasn’t sure how to fill the morning hours. She’d heard about another wedding in the neighboring village and decided to see the happy couple who were sharing her special day…
Imagine her surprise upon discovering her groom-to-be, marrying another woman! Furious, she interrupted the wedding, and her betrothed sputtered, trying to explain. He loved both women, but for different reasons: one for her beauty and one for her wealth. In the end, he’d decided to marry the uglier, richer woman. The pretty young girl, betrayed, spat out a horrible curse, instantly turning the groom, his new wife, the priest, the wedding guests, and even herself into stone.
But there’s a perfectly logical, if not quite as magic, explanation for the formation. Still, you can pick out which stone pillar was the bride, groom, and the officiant, as well as their wedding party and guests. Take a tour of the the Stone Dolls of Kuklica with Jürgen Horn and Mike Powell; they’ve got plenty of pictures and video, at For 91 Days.
News flash: subatomic particles are really small. That’s why we had to build a 17-mile tunnel under two countries to look for it. Scientists are only human, after all. This is the latest from Randall Munroe at xkcd. Head over there to see the hover text that always accompanies the comics.
Thomas has a very rare blood type, known as Rhnull. Rh negative blood is only missing the Rh D factor, while Rhnull blood is missing all 61 Rh antigens. There are only 43 people in the world known to have Rhnull blood. Thomas, and others with very rare blood types, are encouraged to donate blood so that it will be available for others with rare blood types who need it, but the logistics of distributing rare blood globally are extremely difficult. For example, a woman with a rare blood type in Nigeria needed heart surgery. The surgery wasn’t available in Nigeria. It would be too expensive in the U.S. The United Arab Emirates could do it, but the country had no blood of her type, and prohibits imported blood. Cameroon could do the surgery, but had no blood to match. Finally, the logistics were worked out to fly in six bags of blood from English donors. The surgery was successful.
The difficulty of shipping blood across international borders is such that it’s easier for donors like Thomas to travel internationally than to ship blood. But donors cannot be paid, even for their travel expenses. And what if the donors, who the world depends on, ever need blood themselves?
Over tea, he described the impact of his blood on his life. As a child he couldn’t go to summer camp because his parents feared he might have an accident. As an adult he takes reasonable precautions: he drives carefully and doesn’t travel to countries without modern hospitals. He keeps a card from the French National Immunohematology Reference Laboratory in Paris, confirming his Rhnull blood type, in his wallet in case he is ever hospitalised. But one thing that is in his blood – and that of almost everyone growing up in the shadow of the Alps – is skiing. Abstaining seems to have been an option he never even considered.
Read about some extremely rare blood types, and the people who live with them, in a fascinating article at Mosaic. -via Metafilter
What’s the scariest monster you can think of? That’s right, online trolls! And to add to the horror, they now have their own Broadway-style musical number, courtesy of AVbytes. As you’d expect, they are fairly proud of the chaos, discord, and misery they leave across the web. The lyrics to this song are posted at the YouTube page. You can enjoy the song, but remember, don't feed the trolls! -via Laughing Squid
Yes, it’s as easy as planting a circle, or possibly a box shape, on the floor. This photo sequence by Guremike has inspired many others to trap their cats in circles. When this and another of Guremike’s sequences was posted at reddit, everyone had to try it out, with varying results. Bored Panda has other examples from the reddit thread and from their readers. But that’s not all: a new subreddit was created just to hold all the experimental cat traps: Cat Circles. Continue reading to see even more trapped cats.
Last year, Roy Hutain created an internet sensation when he created an LED Stickman Costume for his toddler daughter Zoey. This year, Zoey is a year older and the costume is more elaborate. Her “Glowy Zoey” LED costume changes color in response to sound, and has Minnie Mouse ears for her trip to Disneyland! This version is a prototype, but you can buy the basic Stickman Costume at Glowy Zoey. -via Tastefully Offensive
Just in time for Halloween, we’ve got some teeny tiny horrors that would make your skin crawl… if they were large enough to see, that is! We're talking about the images in the category of Creepy Crawlies from the Nikon Small World 2014 microphotography competition. Go on, take a peek, they won't hurt you!
This Thursday, October 23rd, 2014, the moon will pass in front of the sun without totally blocking it out. This partial solar eclipse will be visible to almost everyone in the United States and Canada.
On the left is an animation showing the view from above the Earth, looking down on the U.S. during the eclipse. The curved line sweeping around clockwise is the terminator, the day/night line. The big gray distorted circle is the physical shadow of the Moon. You can see that over time it moves roughly eastward and southward, the combination of its motion and the Earth’s spin. If you live anywhere inside the path of that shadow, you’ll see an eclipse. The closer you are to the center of the shadow, the more of the Sun will be blocked.
Phil Plait has more on the eclipse, and some safety advice on how to observe it at Bad Astronomy. It looks like I’ll be able to see it, just before the sun sets over the western horizon.
The Fresh Prince of Bel Air was broadcast from 1990 to 1996, and featured the catchiest opening theme of its era. When you look at the acclaim its star Will Smith has achieved in the field of acting -25 feature films so far- it’s hard to believe he was ever a greenhorn. But going into the sitcom in 1990, no one could predict what would happen in the future. Here's a little of what did happen then:
1. Will Smith only agreed to star in the show because he was in serious debt to the IRS.
Smith gained widespread fame as the rapper The Fresh Prince, and with that fame came a significant jump in income. Unfortunately, Smith didn't manage his money wisely or pay enough in income taxes, and he owed the government a whopping $2.8 million. The IRS seized most of his belongings, including his income. The Fresh Prince almost declared bankruptcy—until producer Quincy Jones picked him to star in a new series, and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air was born.
2. And he had to pay up.
The IRS forced Smith to pay them 70 percent of his salary over the first three seasons.
3. He was almost a total novice.
Smith only had one other TV production under his belt—as a t-shirt salesman on an ABC after school special—when he accepted a role on The Fresh Prince, and is embarrassed by his earliest performances on the show. He had never been formally trained as an actor, and—in some cases—his lack of experience was painfully obvious. "I was trying so hard," he said. "I would memorize the entire script, then I'd be lipping everybody's lines while they were talking. When I watch those episodes, it's disgusting. My performances were horrible."
There are a lot more great tidbits in the list of 20 Things You Might Not Know About The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air at mental_floss, such as Geoffrey’s full name, the inspiration for the Carlton dance, and the show’s various guest stars.
The Key of Awesome brings us an update to the classic song “The Monster Mash,” with Frank lamenting the current state of monster movies. Too violent, too shocking, too gross! Modern horror characters show up at the party, including Hannibal Lecter, Freddy Krueger, and the Human Centipede. Concerning that last one, the video contains NSFW language and subject matter. -via Tastefully Offensive
People worry that Barbie dolls with their unreal figures present an unattainable ideal for a woman’s appearance, which can be stifling to a young girls’s ego. But the kids who really play with Barbies are typically between 3 and 7 years old. I can totally relate to this. Relatives would buy my daughters Barbies left and right, and my kids would cut their hair, paint them, draw tattoos on them, amputate a few limbs, and they even made one into a male because they didn’t have enough Ken dolls. This story is from John McNamee at Pie Comic.
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is an adorable little mollusk with one eye, two shoes, and a can-do attitude. He’s the creation of Dean Fleischer-Camp and Jenny Slate, who debuted on the internet in 2010. Marcel returned with a second video a year later, and finally in 2014, we have a new Marcel video. If you don’t recall the first two, or you remember how much you liked them, you can continue reading to see the other Marcel videos.
The music video for Roy Kafri’s song “Mayokero” is a little different. The album covers do the singing! Well, some of the covers sing, others are beatboxing. The video was directed by Vania Heymann, who gave us the interactive Video for "Like A Rolling Stone" and The Walking Contest. -Thanks, Daniel Koren!
The TV series American Horror Story: Freak Show is premiering tonight in Britain on Fox UK. To promote the show, Miss Cakehead was commissioned to bake up some ghoulish goodies! She worked with food artist Jacqui Kelly to create "freaky fairground treats," like deep-fried rat on a stick, toffee apples with teeth, hot dogs with severed fingers in them, doughnuts filled with spiders, and toffee popcorn infested with creepy-crawlies. Ew!
Get a better look at each of these dreadful delights at Miss Cakehead’s website.
(Images credit: Justin Ramsden)