A couple in Ninghai, Zhejiang province, China, left their 2-year-old daughter Qiqi asleep in their fifth-floor apartment Thursday evening. When Qiqi woke up, working men on the street below saw her at the window. They rushed to catch her as she fell. Two of the men were injured in the rescue, but the child sustained only a scratch. Link -via reddit
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This cat likes Bob Seger -so much that he puts on a lip-synch performance! (Try your best not to laugh, but don't hurt yourself.) Note: the video is only about half as long as it appears to be. -via Tastefully Offensive
Vaught’s Practical Character Reader was a textbook on phrenology by L. A. Vaught, published in 1902. In it, diagrams of human heads are presented showing the difference between desirable characters and undesirables according to the shape of the head. Various regions of the brain are assigned to different traits, so you can learn to judge people on your own. From the preface:
The purpose of this book is to acquaint all with the elements of human nature and enable them to read these elements in all men, women and children in all countries. At least fifty thousand careful examinations have been made to prove the truthfulness of the nature and location of these elements. More than a million observations have been made to confirm the examinations. Therefore, it is given the world to be depended upon. Taken in its entirety it is absolutely reliable. Its facts can be completely demonstrated by all who will take the unprejudiced pains to do so. It is ready for use. It is practical. Use it.
See lots more of these illustrations at Public Domain review. Link -via Everlasting Blort
A horse named Rowdy was found stuck inside a tire on a farm in Belington, West Virginia. The oversized tire had been used to hold water for livestock, but no one knows exactly how Rowdy got himself into it.
Tonya Long, one of Rowdy's owners who was on the scene, believes that Rowdy got trapped after an altercation with some of the other horses.
Several people came to his rescue, including members of the Belington City Police and the Belington Volunteer Fire Department.
It took time to free Rowdy, but after some rest and a check-up with a veterinarian, he was said to be doing well.
This 16mm antiwar short starring Mickey Mouse was produced by Lee Savage (father of Mythbusters Adam Savage) and Milton Glaser (who designed the I ♥ New York logo) for the Angry Arts Festival in 1968. It was never sanctioned by Disney, but they weren't sued over it, either. The film was lost for decades, but resurfaced online recently. Warning: may be disturbing for children. Find out more about it in an interview with Glaser at Buzzfeed. Link
At the end of the school year, Hingham (Massachusetts) Middle School principal Roger Boddie retired after 36 years in education. The faculty, students, and staff prepared a surprise tribute for Mr. Boddie, but they first distracted him by sending him to narrate a video project about the new construction on campus. The performance touched him, as it will you. -via Viral Viral Videos
Bryan Fry has suffered 26 venomous snakebites -all in the name of science!
(Image credit: VenomDoc)
Bryan Fry can still hear the dit-dit-dit of the lizard's teeth scraping across the bones of his hand. The lace monitor -a formidable reptile that grows up to nearly 7 feet long- was one of more then 250 lizards and venomous snakes living at his mountainside property near Melbourne. The bite split the knuckles of Fry's first two fingers, severing tendons and nerve bundles. On the ambulance ride to the hospital, it took two towels to stop the bleeding. "I had to explain why, at 7AM on a cold rainy morning, I was presenting with a monitor lizard bite," he recalls.
Fry, a zoologist at the University of Queensland, Australia, is obsessed with the world's most venomous animals, and he's not afraid to risk his life to study the evolution of their chemical weapons -including acting as landlord to hundreds of dangerous creatures. When the university ran out of space to house the animals, Fry built enclosures fort the lizards and snakes on his own property. After all, a monitor bite or two is nothing for a man who talks about venom and stings as easily as an oenophile describes wine.
(Image credit: VenomDoc)
The bite of a horned sea snake? That's "the feeling you get from an intense workout magnified a hundred times and lasting for a month." Getting stung by an estuary stingray? "Truly beyond belief, like hot metal dipped in acid." What about a Stephen's banded snake, whose venom depletes the body of fibrinogen, a protein that's essential for clotting? "There's nothing quite like bleeding out of your nose, mouth, and ass from an anticoagulant snakebite and being terrified that the same thing is happening in your brain," says Fry. "That's a unique experience that I don't recommend."
The Royal Horticultural Society in Surrey, England, announced that its specimen of the plant Puya chilensis is ready to bloom, after being cultivated for 15 years. The flower is expected to last about a week once it blossoms in a few days. The Chilean plant is not as innocuous as it appears at first glance.
In the Andes it uses its sharp spines to snare and trap sheep and other animals, which slowly starve to death.
The animals then decay at the base of the plant, acting as a fertiliser.
The RHS feeds its specimen on liquid fertiliser.
If you are in Surrey, please keep your sheep away from the greenhouse for the next couple of weeks. Link -via Fark
Easy as pie, warm as toast, cool as a cucumber. Designer Christine Kawasaki-Chan created and photographed food similies in actual food! See the rest of them at laughing Squid. Link
Has this ever happened to you? If you have kids, you can reconstruct what led to this picture. A child wants that delicious dessert in the refrigerator. He is too short to reach it, because it was "put out of his reach." So he stands on the lower refrigerator shelves, which eventually collapse. An adult, hearing the crash, runs in from the other room and immediately takes a picture. This was posted by the young man's uncle, redditor moe2395. Link
Tennessee, Idaho, Minnesota -to us, they are just place names, but in the Native American languages they were derived from, they meant something. Even names like York and Carolina that were imported from Europe once meant something concrete. Cartographers Stephan Hormes and Silke Peust of The Atlas of True Names created a map of the US that translate all the state names, and the larger cities, into their original meanings. Most describe the land or people who once lived there, but some are quite amusing, like Chicago, which translates to Stink Onions, and New Mexico, seen here as New Navel of the Moon (which, of course, means Mexico is the Navel of the Moon). How accurate are they? In 7th grade state history class, I was taught that Kentucky means "bloody battleground," but here it is labeled Meadowland. The exact origin is undetermined. See the zoomable interactive map at Slate. Link
You would have to be excited to have Hollywood make a movie of your life. But then sometimes the finished product doesn't live up to the expectations of the subject. Some for good reason -they were made to be "the bad guy." Ike Turner was not pleased about the way he was portrayed in What's Love Got To Do With It.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Turner announced his plans to hold a press conference in order to win back his good name and that he would be writing his own autobiography, entitled That’s What Love’s Got to Do With It. “The only time I ever punched Tina with my fist was the last fight we had,” Turner admitted. “I hit her after she kneed me in the chest. Prior to that, our fights, or our little slaps, or whatever they were, were all just about attitude. Me and Tina never fought about other women or about her not keeping house or her not taking care of the kids. It was always because she was looking sad and wouldn't tell me what was wrong with her. She would take that attitude with her on to the stage and that would really depress me. So after the show, I'd end up slapping her or something. But then we'd be okay.”
Read the rest of his story, and those of nine others who were unhappy with their biopics at mental_floss. Link
(Image credit: Heinrich Klaffs)
As part of the "Summer Bummer" series from mental floss, John Green quickly takes us through a list of 41 peculiar, ironic, or notorious deaths. Notice how many of these cases say "supposedly…" I recognize quite a few of these from stories we've told here at Neatorama. -via mental_floss
Kathy and her boyfriend went to a wedding in Hamilton, Ontario. Not knowing the wedding couple that well, they presented a basket of food items as a gift. After the wedding, the bride texted Kathy to ask for a receipt because one of the couple was gluten-intolerant. Then it got weird.
“I want to thank you for coming to the wedding Friday,” it begins.
“I’m not sure if it’s the first wedding you have been to, but for your next wedding … people give envelopes. I lost out on $200 covering you and your dates plate . … and got fluffy whip and sour patch kids in return. Just a heads-up for the future.”
Kathy was shocked but then made the mistake of engaging in an email exchange about the incident.
Gift-givers: “… to ask for a receipt is unfathomable. In fact it was incredibly disrespectful. It was the rudest gesture I have encountered, or even heard of.”
Newlyweds: “Weddings are to make money for your future … not to pay for peoples meals. Do more research. People haven’t gave gifts since like 50 years ago! You ate steak, chicken, booze, and a beautiful venue.”
Gift-givers: “It’s obvious you have the etiquette of a twig, I couldn’t care less of what you think about the gift you received, “normal” people would welcome anything given, you wanna have a party, you pay for it, DON’T expect me to.”
Newlyweds: “You should have been cut from the list … I knew we were gunna get a bag of peanuts. I was right.”
Kathy then turned to a local Facebook group to see who was in the wrong. The consensus they received was that the gift was lame, but the bride was unbelievably rude for complaining about it. The bride maintains that she was shafted as Kathy and her boyfriend were one of only two guests that didn't give them at least $150 in cash, as was expected in their culture. Oh, there's more to the story you can read in the Hamilton Spectator. What do you think? I was raised to believe that gifts are never expected, required, or requested, but always appreciated, no matter how small. Link -via Fark
(Imzage credit: Barry Gray/The Hamilton Spectator)
Now it's time for our collaboration with the awesome What Is It? Blog! What is this thing? You don't have to know to win!
Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many as you'd like. You might know the true answer, but we're going to select two winners who come up with the funniest, most outlandish guesses to win a T-shirt from the NeatoShop. However...
Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize, okay? May we suggest the Science T-Shirt, Funny T-Shirt and Artist-Designed T-Shirts?
Check out more pictures of this thing at the What Is It? Blog. Good luck!
Update: the mystery object turned out to be a German Tarantella razor blade sharpener. Read more about it at the What Is It? blog. We had a whole slew of really creative guesses! Among the best, ladybugs said it's "an ocular prosthesis gouger for those too squeemish to remove a glass eye with their fingers." That's good for a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! And Gothixhalo guessed it to be "a viewer for old naughty films from the early 20th century. It helps to keep things private for you to view the old films through it." That sounds like a winner, too! Thanks to everyone who played, and watch for the next edition of the game from Neatorama and the What Is It? blog!
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