The guy from MinutePhysics has another YouTube channel: this one called MinuteEarth. In this episode, he tackles the limits of the Earth's altitude. -via Digg
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When Elizabeth Blackwell applied to medical colleges in 1847, they rejected her left and right because she was a woman, and no woman had ever earned a medical degree from an American institution of higher learning. It was a ridiculous idea to even think about accepting her. So ridiculous that it happened! One school wanted to make a point, which backfired.
The Geneva Medical College, however, did not give Elizabeth an upfront yes or no. They put the issue up for vote under the stipulation that if but one student voted against her, she would not be admitted. This reads a little like an attempt to show her how very unwelcome she was, and possibly to humiliate her even further. What student in his right mind would vote for a woman to have access to a medical school?
The students, however, believed it to be a ludicrous joke and decided to have some fun: all one-hundred fifty men voted for Elizabeth.
It was as if the world had been tipped - a female student was to be allowed into the all-male medical domain!
Still, actually attending school in such an atmosphere was not easy. Blackwell graduated with a medical degree in 1849 and changed the course of medical history. Read more at ScienceZest. Link -via Ed Yong
Phineas Gage is the famous name behind a horrifying incident in which Gage survived a large tamping iron that impaled him through the skull. Mind Hacks looks at the evolving artwork that explains his injury. Although the incident occurred in 1848, Gage lived until 1860.
The first such picture was constructed with nothing more than pen and ink. Gage’s doctor John Harlow sketched his skull which Harlow had acquired after the patient’s death.
This Gage is forever fleshless, the iron stuck mid-flight, the shattered skull frozen as it fragments.
Harlow’s sketch is the original and the originator. The first impression of Gage’s immortal soul.
Gage rested as this rough sketch for over 100 years but he would rise again.
Since then, scientists have constructed more and more bizarre images to illustrate the devastation to Gage's brain. See them, with explanations, in a post at Mind Hacks. Link -via Not Exactly Rocket Science
Chance Miller recorded this incident of an octopus -a fairly big octopus- making its way back to sea by squeezing through a tiny hole. -via Daily Picks and Flicks
In Italy, the custom of celebrating Easter with eggs and candy has evolved into the custom of giving gifts tucked inside chocolate eggs. There are mass-produced chocolate eggs with treats inside for children, and beautiful artisanal eggs made by chocolatiers, that are either wrapped in fancy paper and ribbons, or decorated with intricate edible art right on the chocolate. And the gifts can be customized.
In mass-produced eggs, the hidden prize is often a simple trinket, such as a key chain. But artisanal chocolatiers also abound — and many will make customized eggs for clients with a personalized gift hidden within. And the gift-giving can get quite elaborate.
"Engagement rings and car keys are typical gifts," says Maurizio Proietti, a second-generation chocolate maker and owner of Rome's La Bottega del Cioccolato, naming some of the gifts he's been asked to conceal. "Two tickets to a tropical island — that was something unusual."
The surprise inside, adds Minchilli, depends on whom it's for. "A typical gift would be a charm for a necklace or bracelet," she tells The Salt. "But if it's for your wife, you might get a very small egg with gold earrings inside. A child might get a small toy."
Read about the chocolate eggs of Italy at NPR. Link
(Image credit: Flickr user blese)
Manhattan jeweler William Barthman and employee Frank Homm embedded a clock in the sidewalk in front of the jewelry store in 1899. The original clock was a proto-digital clock that displayed the hour and minutes without a dial -and when Homm died, it didn't want to work correctly anymore. It's been replaced with a dial clock, and has changed over time, but there is still a clock in the sidewalk at the corner of Broadway And Maiden Lane. Read about the history of the famous clock and see a video at Hodinkee. Link -via the Presurfer
The following is an article from Uncle John's 24-Karat Gold Bathroom Reader.
They don't have used clothing stores in space, so what's an astronaut to do when his space suit wears out? Here's the story of the space suit that talked back after it was thrown over the side.
THE WELL-DRESSED ASTRONAUT
If you're like Uncle John, you like to wear your old jeans, t-shirts, and sweatshirts until they're tattered and riddled with holes. You can get away with that on Earth, but not in space: The spacesuits that NASA astronauts and Russian cosmonauts use can't be worn until they're full of holes, because their not having holes is what keeps the astronauts alive. Millions of dollars are spent designing and building the suits used on the International Space Station, yet most are used only a dozen times before they need to be completely refurbished or retired from service.
Then what? During the space shuttle era, NASA spacesuits could be returned to Earth aboard the shuttle and overhauled; now they're discarded the same way that the Russian Orlan spacesuits are: via the unmanned Progress spacecraft that resupply the ISS three or four times a year. After supplies are unloaded from the Progress capsule, it's stuffed with space garbage from the ISS: empty food containers, dirty clothes (the ISS doesn't have a washing machine), old spacesuits, and other refuse. Then the capsule is set adrift in orbit, where it will eventually burn up as it re-enters Earth's atmosphere. The shooting star you saw the other night? It might have been a flaming ISS garbage can.
TALKING TRASH
On more than one occasion, the astronauts have used the space suits themselves as trash cans, cramming them full of garbage, hauling them out the airlock, and shoving them off the back of the ISS into space. In 2004 a Russian research team led by engineer Segei Samburov took the concept a little further: Since anything tossed out of the ISS will orbit the Earth for a few months until it re-enters the atmosphere, they decided to turn an old Orlan spacesuit into a cheap communications satellite by outfitting it with a microprocessor and an amateur ("ham") radio walkie-talkie.
The Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris has more than its share of celebrities: Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde are the first that come to mind. But there is a strange story behind the monument pictured here that you may not know. In 1875, three balloonists ascended to 28,000 feet in the Zenith to study atmospheric conditions …and to break the altitude record. Joseph Croce-Spinelli and Théodore Sivel did not survive the lack of oxygen. Gaston Tissandier, the sole survivor, came to as the balloon was plunging to earth.
The Zenith crash landed in Ciron, France, and Sivel and Croce-Spinelli were found with their faces blackened and their mouths filled with blood. They were widely celebrated as heroes who gave their lives for progressing aviation. A May 2, 1875 New York Times article declared them as "martyrs to science." A monument was erected in Ciron where the Zenith had fallen and the elaborate grave sculpted by Alphonse Dumilatre was installed in Père Lachaise Cemetery as a memorial to the two French balloonists. Gaston Tissandier is also buried in the Paris cemetery, although he lived until 1899. Now fallen leaves gather around Croce-Spinelli and Sivel's linked arms and sometimes someone places a rose in one of their extended hands as they continue to slumber from the sleep they drowned into from such great heights.
Read the entire story and see more pictures at Atlas Obscura. Link
(Image credit: Allison Meier)
Venezuelan tattoo artist Yomico Morena is a master of the trompe l'oeil tattoo. His ink creates the illusion of wounds or the inner workings of the body, in addition to portraiture and other types of tattoos. See more of his work at Unreality. Link
Season three of the AMC series The Walking Dead is ending with the climactic showdown between two human communities Sunday night. At least we think that's going to happen, unless they save the real battle for season four (NO! Please no). Buzzfeed gives their odds on the likeliness of each character dying before the battle is over.
Michonne 5%
Carl 5%
Tyreese 5%
Rick 10%
Andrea 15%
Sasha 25%
Maggie 30%
Carol 35%
Glenn 40%
Daryl 50%
Beth 65%
Hershel 75%
Milton 80%
Philip 95%
Their reasoning for each character's fate is explained. Which ones would you bet on biting the dust, kicking the bucket, buying the farm, or turning into zombies? Link
Thirty-seven years ago, I took a train trip from Kansas City to Oklahoma City (and back) and decided that was the best way to travel ever. Sadly, there are fewer passenger trains and routes now, so fewer people ride, and that means fewer luxury amenities, too. But we have pictures of the golden age of rail travel.
Throughout the Victorian period and the early part of the 20th century, railways were a source of great civic pride and prestige for both private citizens and the companies controlling them. And while newer networks tend to be more environmentally friendly than their forebears, the march of progress and modernisation has brought utilitarian trains and often soulless, unimaginative architecture. This article looks at 20 classic railway scenes across the world, spanning the past 180 years.
Relive those glory days at Urban Ghosts. Link
(Image credit: Flickr user State Records NSW)
The Estonian band Winny Puhh performs in a qualifying round for the 2013 Eurovision competition. The song is called "Meiecundimees üks Korsakov läks eile Lätti." The lyrics are about someone who went to Latvia and broke many bones. However, the music is repetitive and incidental to the show. As one Mefite put it, "have you ever played a banjo so hard that gravity stopped working." If you think the upside-down drumming is weird, wait until the rest of the band gets into the act -even if you have to turn the sound down to get there. Oh, the band came in third for Estonia, and will not advance to the Eurovision tournament. -via Metafilter
The more you know about the naked mole rat, the weirder this animal gets. They live a very long time, which almost seems like a punishment with the lifestyle that comes with living naked underground. This video is the latest in Ze Frank's True Facts series. -via Laughing Squid
An unnamed pizza restaurant in Sweden came under fire for unapproved food preparation devices after a customer found a screw in his kebab. The restaurant staff blamed it on the salad tongs. Then it turns out that loose screws had been found in food before.
But the plot thickened when the customer alerted the local council's environmental office (miljökontoret). Inspectors discovered that the restaurant owners were using a cement mixer that had been painted blue for making salad dressing and sauces.
The owners were unable to explain what had happened with the pieces of paint that had flaked away and fallen off the machine.
"When I took over the restaurant, the previous owner told me that everything had been approved," the owner told DN, adding that he was new to the restaurant business and unaware of the rules.
On the health inspector's advice, the restaurant owner bought a brand-new food mixer the same day. Link -via Arbroath
(Image credit: Grainger)
Easter doesn't often happen this early, and for me, it ends a week that began with snow! Be on the lookout for sale prices on eggs, candy, lilies, and ham today. And while you're celebrating Easter or Passover, don't forget that Monday brings us April Fool's Day, and if you're not on the lookout, you could be subject to pranks from your co-workers. Hint: beware of leftover Easter eggs. Any time you can take a break from Easter or Passover preparations and celebrations this weekend, take some time to catch up on what we've been doing at Neatorama this past week.
Eddie Deezen let us in on A Few Things You Might Not Have Known About Abraham Lincoln.
We learned about the man behind the Star Wars music in John Williams: Scoring the Force, courtesy of Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.
The Annals of Improbable Research brought us To Sea, and Not to See. Is a fish's changing camouflage in its skin, or in your perception?
The 10 Most Interesting Numbers in American Culture (Plus or Minus a Few) came from mental_floss magazine.
We had two brainteasers this week from Uncle John's Bathroom Reader, one on An Unusual Paragraph and the other on a Shooting Incident.
In the What Is It? game this week, the mystery item is a brewer's lamp. Ladybugs knew the correct answer, and wins a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! The funniest answer came from pismonque, who said "A gaff hook for landing narwhals with a built-in rotary tusk sharpener, used by Inuits in their groom-and-release program, an eco-friendly alternative to cultural whaling practices." So pismonque wins a t-shirt from the NeatoShop, too! Thanks to everyone who participated, and look for the next What Is It game coming soon to Neatorama! See the answers to all of this week's mysteries at the What Is It? blog.
Alex has been giving away t-shirts like crazy! We had a contest this week in which NeatoMail subscribers could enter the day before the contest was posted on the blog called the Choose Your Own NeatoShop Funny T-Shirt Giveaway. Congratulations to the five winners, three of which were NeatoMail subscribers. Alex also gave a heads up on the next contest called Choose Your Own Doctor Who Prize, which will be exclusively for NeatoMail subscribers. If you're not a subscriber yet, just follow the directions here and you'll be ready when the contest starts! Oh, and you might want to browse through the Dr. Who items at the NeatoShop to see what's up for grabs.
The post that was most commented-on (besides the giveaways) was A Few Things You Might Not Have Known About Abraham Lincoln. Following that was Dream Job: Full-Time Barbecue Editor and Climbing the Pyramids. You can still join in on those conversations!
The most popular post of the week was Tattooine Photographed, followed by Cinemart Pop Culture Mash Ups by Fernando Degrossi and Brainteaser: Shooting Incident.
Trying to determine which post has the most ♥s is not that easy, but I gave it a try this week. Then I was distracted by one that had a lot of ♥s. In a sad update to the story of Katelyn Norman, the teenager who wanted to live long enough to attend her prom, the 14-year-old passed away yesterday morning.
Usability Tip of the Week: Take a look at the menu bar across the top of the page. We now have links to all of Neatorama's subblogs! There are a lot of them now, so some are included in the drop down menu labeled "more." If we have one that a friend of yours would particularly like, you should send them a link.
And if that isn't enough Neatorama for you, we have extra content and fun at our Facebook page, Twitter feed, and Pinterest board. And mobile users: Flipboard makes it easy to keep up with Neatorama!
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