A guy shoots and misses the goal, but where this that basketball go? It bounced through 24 different movies! Maybe that doesn’t sound cool, but just wait until you see the scenes that the French collective HOTU selected to showcase a wayward ball. It all hangs together beautifully. You’ll recognize most of the films, but in case you don’t, they are listed in the end credits, and at Sploid.
Miss Cellania's Blog Posts
Star Wars and its sequels were great 1970s movies. And with a little editing, they could have been a stereotypical 1970s TV series! We already have the perfect song, which makes me wonder why no one ever thought of this one before. Robert Jones edited this so we could get all nostalgic about both Star Wars and The Greatest American Hero. -Thanks, Robert!
A will is often formally read long after the funeral, and gives the writer an opportunity for one last audience that is guaranteed to pay attention. Some wills are shocking, maybe in their generosity, their favoritism or snubs, or for their just plain strangeness. In this week's mental_floss video, John Green talks about some of the more unusual wills in history, which includes some funeral instructions as well as wills. They can be quite amusing as long as you aren’t one of the presumptive heirs.
When Jamie Russell wrote Book of the Dead: The Complete History of Zombie Cinema, we had yet to cycle into the current zombie craze. The book has been updated and revised, and Russell gave an interview to HuffPo that was turned into an extensive list of interesting facets of the zombie movie genre. Here’s a snippet on how malleable this kind of monster is:
The zombie myth regularly updates and adapts to the times. Whatever we're most deeply afraid of, the zombie can embody with their reanimated bodies.
R: "What's interesting about the zombie myth is just how much it evolves. If you go back to the original Haitian myth, the fear of the zombie isn't so much a fear of death, it's a fear that death might not be a release from slavery. The worst thing as a slave is imagining, 'After my death I might still be reanimated to continue working in the cane fields, that there is no escape.' And that changes once [the myth] comes to America and that idea of the zombie then becoming an image of death itself is something very powerful."
Although the zombie originally started as a fear of eternal slavery, the zombie can constantly update to take on contemporary issues.
R: "It's a very malleable and flexible monster. It's very good at reflecting. Horror is generally very good at reflecting the kind of anxieties and fears of the audience that's watching it at the time. [But] the zombie in particular, as it evolves so much over time, really reflecting different fears in different eras in really interesting ways. So certainly for the original readers of 'The Magic Island' it was very much a fascination in fear about Haiti, this island that america at the time had invaded and was occupying and it was a military occupation. For those early stories it was that. Later it became American race relations in society ... What I love about this monster, is that it is very good barometer of the times in which the movies are being produced."
Despite the list title and format, the article is more like a condensed history, full of facts, anecdotes, and analysis. Read the whole thing at HuffPo.
Scientific research can read like a horror story when the subject is parasites. There are numerous parasite species that not only feed on their victims, but actually start to control their victim’s behavior for their own ends. In effect, the parasite is exerting mind control to turn the victim into a zombie slave. That’s a standard horror film plot right there. Carl Zimmer wrote the cover article for the new issue of National Geographic magazine, in which he gives us plenty of creepy examples from nature.
Frederic Libersat of Ben-Gurion University and his colleagues, for example, are dissecting the sinister attacks of the jewel wasp, Ampulex compressa. The wasp stings a cockroach, transforming it into a passive zombie. The wasp can then walk its drugged victim into a burrow by the roach’s antenna, like a dog on a leash. The roach is perfectly capable of movement. It just lacks any motivation to move on its own behalf. The wasp lays an egg on the roach’s underside, and the roach simply stands there as the wasp larva emerges from the egg and digs into its abdomen.
What is the secret hold that the wasp has over its victim? Libersat and his colleagues have found that the wasp delicately snakes its stinger into the roach’s brain, sensing its way to the regions that initiate movements. The wasp douses the neurons with a cocktail of neurotransmitters, which work like psychoactive drugs. Libersat’s experiments suggest that they tamp down the activity of neurons that normally respond to danger by prompting the cockroach to escape.
This is just one of many species that take over their victim’s brain, instincts, and behavior. Read about more of these parasites, as well as the research about them, in the NatGeo article Mindsuckers. -via Carl Zimmer
Finally, a truly modern horror movie! Except it’s not a movie, it’s a string of Facebook posts, which will make it easy to follow for those who live on Facebook. Like many horror films, the plot is inconsequential, or at least overly familiar: teenagers gather in a spooky place that hides something bent on killing them.
How does it turn out? If I were to guess without peeking, I would suppose that the cute girl with the most previous acting credits is the sole survivor. Read your way through a horror movie, Facebook-style, at Mandatory. It is conveniently flipped so the posts read from top to bottom. -Thanks, Daniel!
The Perceval family of Glen Iris, Victoria, Australia, sold their home at auction for $2,060,000. But before the final paperwork was done, they got a better offer: real estate agent Glen Coutinho said the new offer asked for the inclusion of the Perceval’s cat Tiffany.
Mr Coutinho, of RT Edgar, said that a child of one of the bidders had fallen in love with Tiffany during the inspections of the home.
“Tiffany decided she would sit on the couch,” Fran Perceval told the Herald Sun.
“People would come through, and she’d observe them and be patted.
“She loved all the attention — she does look a bit ornamental,” she said.
Ms Perceval had even jokingly suggested to Mr Coutinho that Tiffany could be included in the sale, because after all “she believes the house is her property”.
But then the bidder offered to buy the home for $2.2 million — as long as Tiffany was included in the deal.
The Percevals did the math, and since the cat is worth an extra $140,000 to the buyer, Tiffany will stay in her home with the new owners. The cat actually belongs to the Perceval’s 19-year-old son Sam, who stands to get a cut of the profits. Would you give up your cat for that kind of cash? Keep in mind that the new owners would be devoted to her, and the cat gets the house, so to speak. It’s possible that the “cat clause” might be a way to get around the terms of the original auction, but I am not well-versed in Australian real estate laws. -via reddit
(Image credit: News Corp Australia)
The U.S. III Marine Expeditionary Force faces off with the Republic of Korea Army Band in a drum battle. Korea wins the coin toss, but the U.S. returns the fire with a ferocious display of intimidation tactics. A good time was had by all. If only all global conflicts could be resolved in this manner. Dancing sure beats becoming collateral damage for civilians! -via Digg
Stella knows that there’s nothing more fun for a dog than a ball to chase and a big pile of leaves to jump in. And it’s all the better when the ball is in the big pile of leaves! Oh yeah, jumping in the pile of leaves is the best part of chasing a ball, as you can tell by that tail wag, even when the rest of Stella is buried. That’s a good dog. -via Buzzfeed
Remember all the fun you had as a kid with your Spirograph, making lovely creations that your folks never considered “artful” enough to keep? You can have that fun again anytime you like, with no ink blotches, torn paper, or plastic pieces to step on! Software developer Nathan Friend has an online version of the classic Spirograph called Inspirograph, that may well suck up the next few hours of your time. If you don't know what you want, look through the gallery for inspiration. -via Metafilter
How big of a home can you rent for $1,000? It depends on where you want to live. In New York City, you can get maybe a room with a sink, if you’re lucky. Where I live, you can have my 11-room +3 bath house for $1,000 a month, and I’ll take that rent money and buy three other houses with it. But you could probably find a better rental for your money. -via Digg
What would you wear for a Halloween costume if you didn’t have a century of pop culture characters to select from? Masquerades are nothing new, but long ago there was a whole different group of characters to dress up as. However, if you emulated the fancy dress balls of the 19th century, you might have to explain to people who you are impersonating, and then explain who that person was. The exception is the skeleton show here, which is eternal. Enjoy some obscure but wickedly elaborate costumes from the 1884 book Male Character Costumes, a Guide to Gentlemen's Costume Suitable for Fancy Dress Balls and Private Theatricals at mental_floss.
You know what they say: A hardworking person will do the job, but a lazy person will figure out an easier way to do it. That goes for hamsters, too! This little guy figured out how to get that wheel to go ‘round and ‘round without getting out of bed, so to speak. -via Daily Picks and Flicks
Is there any image that Nathan Shields cannot recreate in his preferred medium of pancake batter? His latest project was making pancakes that resemble the characters from The Walking Dead!
It takes a steady hand, a feel for the proper shades of each image, and perfect batter. And some zombie jam to sweeten the finished product! Shields teamed up with pancake artist Kevin Blankenship to make these pancakes and enjoyed them while watching the season premiere Sunday night. -via Laughing Squid
The following is an article from The Annals of Improbable Research.
by Richard Stephens
Schoole of Psychology
Keele University, Keele, Staffordshire, UK
Calvin Coolidge (right) and Mrs. Coolidge (left) in 1923, two days after Calvin Coolidge became President of the United States. The black arm band is a symbol of official mourning for his predecessor, Warren Harding, who had died in office.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Few American citizens (other than psychologists) know that Calvin Coolidge, their former president, is associated with the Coolidge Effect. Coolidge has a reputation for being dour and terse, and little else.
FURTHER NOTE: Richard Stephens, together with John Atkins, and Andrew Kingston, was awarded the 2010 Ig Nobel Prize for peace, for confirming the widely held belief that swearing relieves pain. They described their research in the study “Swearing as a Response to Pain,” published in the journal Neuroreport, vol. 20 , no. 12, 2009, pp. 1056-60.
John Calvin Coolidge Jr. was the 30th United States president, holding office from 1923 to 1929. He came to prominence as the Governor of Massachusetts when he ended the 1919 Boston police strike by publicly supporting his Police Commissioner’s orders for three quarters of the police force to be sacked. Coolidge’s presidency steered the US through the period of unprecedented economic growth that became known as the roaring twenties. A renowned leader whose reputation has remained strong to this day, one of Coolidge’s more obscure legacies was the lending of his name to a psychobiological phenomenon – thanks to a singularly trivial event.
The story goes that President Coolidge and his wife were being shown around a farm. For some reason they became separated, viewing different parts of the farm at different times. At the chicken yard, Mrs Coolidge observed a rooster mating very actively and asked how often this occurred. She was surprised to hear it was dozens of times a day and joked that the staff should tell the president when he came by. When the president’s party later arrived, the farm staff duly recounted his wife’s observations concerning the rooster. President Coolidge demonstrated a keen sharpness of mind when he asked the simple but revealing question of whether the cock was mating with the same hen every time. On hearing to the contrary the President suggested the staff might mention that to Mrs. Coolidge.
The Coolidge Effect, named after the 30th President of the United States, is concerned not with industrial relations, economics or outstanding leadership. Rather, it concerns an aspect of sexual behaviour. Specifically speaking, it denotes the observation, which holds for many species, that males will be more eager to mate with a new female, as opposed to one that is familiar. In technical terms, males have been found to display a shorter refractory period (that is, the time between one copulating session and the next) if a new partner becomes available. The research underlying the Coolidge Effect was written up by scientists from the University of California in a paper published in 1963.1
Email This Post to a Friend