It's not your imagination or faulty memory -large public fireworks displays used to have bigger bursts that went higher in the sky. Over the past few decades, professional pyrotechs have been compelled to make the shells smaller, which correlates with lower altitude. Doug Taylor, the president of Zambelli Fireworks, explains.

“What’s happened is, the size shell that you can shoot in a particular location has decreased,” Taylor explains. Just as shell width correlates to height, so too does height correlate with regulation. Old regulations dictated that you needed 70 feet of area cleared for every inch of shell fired around a launch area. The new industry standard is 100 feet. So when you play that out, practically, a large 12-inch shell needs 1,200 feet (or nearly a quarter of a mile) cleared in every direction to be considered safe.

Taylor tells me that fireworks sites nationwide have been shrinking with both urbanization and suburban sprawl.  

But that's not necessarily a bad thing. The shows make up for the decreased height with a more dense display.

“Rather than one 8-inch shell, I could probably put 12 3-inch shells up for the same price,” Taylor says. “We like that for several reasons. Larger shells are more dangerous because they have more explosive power in them. But the truth is, people in this country especially like density in their fireworks show.”

The drawback is that instead of watching them from your home, you are more likely to have to drive to the fireworks site. Read more about modern fireworks displays at FastCo Design. Link

(Image credit: Flickr use Jeff Golden)

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

Ever hear this one? The old urban legend that the Declaration of Independence was written on hemp (marijuana) paper)? Well, some urban legends are true, and some are false, but this is an urban legend that is pretty much true. Not 100% completely, but true enough.

The truth derives from the fact that until 1883, 75% to 90% of all paper in the world was made from cannabis hemp fiber. The hemp plant is a very versatile plant, which could (and still does) make many different things. It is used in shampoos, fabrics, and medical drugs (medicinal marijuana and Marinol). It is also used to make rope and makes an alternative fuel. But paper is the material it was most widely used for.

The paper made out of hemp is of much greater quality than that made out of cotton, and it lasts longer. A few hundred years ago, Bibles, maps, paper money, stocks and bonds, and newspapers were all written on hemp paper. In those days, they couldn't make paper from trees like they do today.

(Image credit: Flickr user kat_geb)

The famous writings written on hemp paper include:

Last week, my husband and I got sandwiches from McDonalds. I ordered the Bacon Cheese Quarter Pounder, and he ordered the Bacon Habanero Ranch Quarter Pounder. They were exactly the same price, but his had lettuce and tomato in addition to the habanero ranch sauce (they also mislabeled them, so I ate his). He was a little put out that two sandwiches of the same price had such different compositions, meaning he wanted the lettuce and tomato. But now we have a handy chart that explains exactly what is on (or in) every item on the McDonalds menu. No more surprises! The full size chart is at Bloomberg Businessweek. Link -via Digg

W00t! It's time for another collaboration with the ever-excellent What Is It? Blog. Can you guess what this odd item is used for?

Place your guess in the comment section. One guess per comment, though you can enter as many guesses as you'd like. Please do not post any web link or URL - doing so will void your entry. You have until the answer is revealed on the What Is It? Blog tomorrow.

Two prizes: the first correct guess and the funniest yet wrong one will win a T-Shirt from the NeatoShop.

IMPORTANT: Please write your prize selection alongside your guess, so visit the NeatoShop and take a look around. If you don't write your prize selection, then you don't get the prize. I think you'll like the selection of funny t-shirts and science t-shirts -or even t-shirts of your favorite blogs and websites.

Update: believe it or not, the odd thingamabob is a device for singing the last remaining feathers off a plucked chicken. DrWhat was the first person who knew that answer, and wins a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! The funniest answer came from Ian Goldstein, who said, "It's an old victorian codpiece. Notice how it can open for either your night out with the town's ha'penny trollop, or to check yourself for the Clap afterwards." That story wins a shirt, too! See the answers to all this week's mystery items at the What Is It? blog.

We've seen real women transform themselves to look like Barbie dolls. But what if a Barbie doll were changed to look like a real woman? Artist Nickolay Lamm did just that, by creating a doll with the proportions of a typical 19-year-old woman (according to CDC figures). As you can see, she is shorter, has a neck that's not scary-long, and comes with a woman's posterior. See more pictures at The Feed. Link -via Daily of the Day

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John Green has something informative to say about each of the United States of America. Listen carefully for something about your state, because they go pretty fast! -via mental_floss

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A knight goes on an epic quest that has all the elements you'd expect, without wasting two hours like a feature film. In fact, it's quite brief! From Lee Daniels at LeeDanielsART. -Thanks, Brother Bill!

Previously from Lee Daniels: Jungle Brawl.

Lonesome George, the very last Pinta Island Tortoise, will soon take his place with other famous animals, preserved by taxidermy and on display for all to see. George was thought to be over 100 years old when he died last summer. Since then, he's been frozen, and is now in the hands of taxidermists at New York City's American Museum of Natural History.

"Doing taxidermy on a tortoise is much like working on an elephant," said George Dante, the lead taxidermist on the project. "There's no fur, so we have to work to preserve the skin, maintaining its natural color and texture as much as possible, sculpting the wrinkles so they are anatomically accurate. There's very little room for error."

In the final product, which will take six to seven months to complete, only the eyes will be "unnatural."

"Everything else you see is what you'd see looking at the live animal," said Chris Raxworthy, the museum's curator of herpetology. Even the pose must be just so, he said, "to be accurate and to capture the spirit of George. We want to demonstrate the neat features he had—a long neck and unique shell morphology that let him stretch way up, an adaptation that would have helped him to reach food on a dry island like Pinta."

The New York museum will have George for an unspecified time, but he will eventually be returned to the Galapagos Islands. Meanwhile, scientists have renewed hope that descendants of Pinta Island tortoises can still be found or bred from closely-related tortoise species. Read more about this research at NatGeo News. Link

Previously: more about Lonesome George.

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Nikita the kitten investigates this infernal machine …or it is a giant insect? Bobo, being a little older, takes it as just more nonsense from his owner. -via Tastefully Offensive


See more videos of Bobo and Nikita.

The Battle of Gettysburg took place 150 years ago, and is considered by many to be the turning point of the Civil War. By marrying the magic of cartography and technology, we can put ourselves in the places of General George Meade of the Union army and Confederate general Robert E. Lee as they planned their respective movements around the limitations of the era and the terrain. Anne Kelly Knowles explains the map features.

Our team, which includes myself, researcher Dan Miller and cartographer Alex Tait, have done just that. Alex recreated the 1863 terrain based on a superb map of the battlefield from 1874 and present-day digital data. Dan and I captured troop positions from historical maps. Our interactive map shows Union and Confederate troop movements over the course of the battle, July 1 – 3, 1863. Panoramic views from strategic viewpoints show what commanders could – and could not – see at decisive moments, and what Union soldiers faced at the beginning of Pickett’s Charge. You will also find “viewshed” maps created with GIS (Geographic Information Systems). These maps show more fully what was hidden from view at those key moments.

The maps are controlled by a timeline, so you can pull up troop positions at different points in the battle. Link -via Kottke

New York is no stranger to radical change, as evidenced by its street grid, subway system, and even the size of Manhattan Island. But those infrastructure changes seem tame compared to the ones that were never implemented. Imagine filling in the Hudson River!

In March, 1934, Modern Mechanix featured the daring plan of Norman Sper, “noted publicist and engineering scholar” (maybe publicist meant something different back then?), who envisioned adding ten square miles of land to Manhattan by infilling the mighty Hudson River. Sper proposed creating a massive, multi-layered grid that would connect New Jersey to Manhattan, solving problems like housing and transit which, according to the editors, “are threatening to devour the city's civilization like a Frankenstein monster.”

At the time, other engineers agreed it could be done. However, the estimated cost would have been $17 billion in 2013 dollars. This plan is only one of six that were seriously proposed for New York City, posted at Gizmodo. Link -via the Presurfer

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The puppeteer/dancer who goes by the single name Christopher welcomes us to Las Vegas in style with his new Elvis video. You might recall his recent Dancing Queen video. Continue reading to see the most notable of his earlier puppet performances. -via Laughing Squid

Take one letter away from a classic book title and change its entire meaning. That simple concept is funny on its own, but send it to Twitter member redpandarth™ (who loves a good pun) and he will photoshop it into a illustrated cover. Some of the best are gathered at Buzzfeed. Link

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Just when you thought SyFy movies couldn't get any more ridiculous (remember Sharkopus?), here comes Sharknado! Mash up a scary natural disaster with a scary predator and you get a tornado that sucks up sharks from the ocean and rains them over the landscape. Really.

Up in the sky. It’s a bird. It’s a plane. No, it’s a … shark! A supersized storm sucks sharks from the ocean and hurls them onto land in the new Syfy Original Movie Sharknado, premiering Thursday, July 11 at 9PM (ET/PT).

I can't wait. Link

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Despite the slightly misleading title, you might be able to see where this short but well-made animated video is going. It was created by students of the Platige Academy in Warsaw, Poland. -via Geeks Are Sexy