What would life be like in a world without the internet? A video from Uproxx is a modern-day parody of It's a Wonderful Life, with a twist. Yeah, your world would be slower, friendlier, more personal …but it wouldn't automatically make you a better person. Link
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A Russian hit man celebrates the first full day of spring by assassinating snowmen. That's symbolism we can all get behind! Starring Christian Busath with the song "Higher" by Scott & Brendo. -Thanks, Dallin Smith!
Just look at it! The Bulleit Frontier Whiskey Woody-Tailgate Trailer from Neiman Marcus will make you the king of tailgate parties.
Designed by interior designer Brad Ford, it's impressive on the outside, but what's on the inside truly astounds: sleek leather furnishings and details from Moore & Giles, rich wood finishings (handcrafted from reclaimed Bulleit Bourbon casks), elegant glassware, and a top-notch entertainment system, including a flat-screen TV, Blu-ray Disc™ player, and a state-of-the-art sound system, plus a one-year supply of Bulleit Bourbon and Bulleit Rye*. You park, open the hatch, and slide out the bar—cocktails anyone?
The price? Only $150,000. And 10% of that goes to amFAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research. Link -via Nag on the Lake
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children switch from whole milk to a lower fat milk at age two. The conventional wisdom is that getting children used to reduced fat milk will help keep them at a healthy weight. Skim, 1%, or 2% milk has fewer calories per cup. It just makes sense, doesn't it?
So here's where things gets confusing. A new study of preschool-aged children published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood, a sister publication of the British Medical Journal, finds that low-fat milk was associated with higher weight.
That's right, kids drinking low-fat milk tended to be heavier.
"We were quite surprised" by the findings, Dr. Mark DeBoer told me in an email. He and his co-author, Dr. Rebecca Scharf, both of the University of Virginia, had hypothesized just the opposite.
But they found the relationship between skim-milk drinkers and higher body weights held up across all racial/ethnic and socioeconomic groups. DeBoer says their data also show that low-fat milk did not restrain weight gain in preschoolers over time.
This is not the first study to show such results, but the authors call for further research, as this study did not take into account what types of food the children were consuming or their total caloric intake. And scientists say sugary drinks make a bigger difference in overall child obesity. Link
(Image credit: Flickr user David Goehring)
Traveling to NCAA tournament games can be a real party for students. No, not for the basketball players: they spend their days in press conferences and practice, and their nights resting up for the next game. But that's not the case for the non-athletes who are along for the ride.
Class is in session at my university this week, but I won't be there. I'll be a part of March Madness, but I'm not a basketball player. I'm a member of my school's band, which makes me a member of the "spirit squad"—the peppy umbrella term that also encompasses our school's cheerleaders and mascot. As such, I am taking an all-expenses-paid trip courtesy of the NCAA. Chartered planes, hotels, and per diem are all provided by an organization founded "as a way to protect student-athletes," even though, during March Madness, we aren't much of either.
We don't sit in a Holiday Inn doing homework until game day. We're on vacation. We stay in resorts; we get sunset views; we share our hotels with famous actors and musicians; we stay in places that give out free wine without carding us. Spirit squads for higher-seeded teams receive relatively luxurious accommodations in prime, downtown locations. Those for lower-seeded teams sometimes wind up in the boonies near the airport. My school has never been a heavy favorite, but my hotels have been unbelievable. I can only dream of what Gonzaga's hotel will look like this year.
It's a racket—the little one that blooms within the big one. No one's an amateur during March Madness.
Read about one student's experiences traveling to NCAA tournament games. When his/her school is not in the Big Dance, there's a possibility the band will be hired for another school that needs one. Link -via Digg
Tuesday morning, police in Kalamazoo, Michigan, spoke to a man who told them he hit a small deer and had it in his trunk. Michigan law allows motorists who hit and kill a deer to keep it for meat, as long as they get it properly tagged with a a state deer kill permit. When officers opened the trunk for inspection, the deer took off. It was most definitely not an ex-deer. The incident was captured on the police car's dashcam. Link -via Arbroath
Let's see, how many dangerous modern electrical toys can we combine into one stunt? These guys at the 2012 Western Winter Teslathon enclosed a quadrotor (or quadrocopter) in a Faraday cage and flew it between two Tesla coils for a electrifying light show. See another video from the same night at Laughing Squid. Link
During the early 1940s, 70,000 people worked at the secret faciiity in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, doing the work of the Manhattan Project that would lead to the first atomic bomb. Most of the workers were women, recruited as civil servants to aid the war effort. And they didn't know anything about the job they were doing until they started doing it.
The civil servant was given only one clue where she would be going: a train ticket to Knoxville, Tennessee. She packed her best clothes, wore a new pair of shoes, and gave herself entirely to the project at hand: don’t ask questions, don’t talk unnecessarily, do your part to win the war. She arrived at a place that was more of a camp than a town, half-built prefabricated houses, an administration center, three reactors, and a foot of mud sure to suck off any shoe that stepped in it. On the books, she had arrived at the Clinton Engineer Works, a refinery plant for “Tubealloy.” Off the books, she had arrived at Site X of the Manhattan Project, where uranium would be enriched before it was shipped to Site Y in Los Alamos for use in “The Gadget.”
Brain Pickings bring us excerpts from the book The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II by Denise Kiernan, with pictures of Oak Ridge during the war. Link
(Image credit: Ed Westcott courtesy American Museum of Science and Energy, Oak Ridge)
This is what happens when you can't decide whether to have a hamburger or a hot dog. The Sausage Double Beef Burger gives you two hamburger patties topped with two sausages on one bun! The kicker is: it's only available at McDonalds in China. For now. Link
Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website.
"Cheesecake" to describe a a sexy, attractive woman flaunting her appeal is nowadays a rather archaic term. Likewise "beefcake" in reference to a "hunk" with rippling muscles, now also seems rather outdated. Not that sex appeal itself is in any way passé, it's just that new terms and expressions come along into each succeeding generation describing the relative appeal and attractiveness of males and females. Let's take a look at the origins of two classic terms of sex appeal: cheesecake and beefcake.
Curiously, the term "cheesecake," in connection with a beautiful woman, seems like a fairly recent term. It has a kind of a 1920s or '30s sound to it. But no, cheesecake was used in Britain in the 1660s! Even then, the term was used to describe overly sexy or promiscuous women.
It can be found in Poems and Songs Relating to the Late Times, published in 1662. Shortly after Oliver Cromwell died, it was used to regret the occasion of Cromwell driving certain ladies (of questionable repute) out of the town:
But ah! It goes against our hearts,
To lose our cheesecake and our tarts.
(Catchy, huh?)
But a more influential usage was inaugurated more than 250 years later. Fast forward to 1912, when James Kane, a photographer, was working for The New York Journal. One day James was posing an attractive young woman when a breeze blew her skirt up. When more leg than usual came on display, Mr. Kane (who reputedly loved cheesecake) exclaimed, "Wow! This is better than cheesecake!"
And a universal metaphor was born.
The question is: what is it? It's time for our collaboration with the fascinating What Is It? Blog! Do you know what the object in this picture is? You can win even if you don't know!
Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many as you'd like. Post no URLs or weblinks, as doing so will forfeit your entry. Two winners: the first correct guess and the funniest (albeit ultimately wrong) guess will each win a T-shirt from the NeatoShop.
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 the What Is It? Blog for more clues and pictures of the mystery object. Good luck!
Update: the pictured tool is a spoke wrench, suitable for holding pieces of wire or as a spoke-grip for screwing up the spokes of suspension wheels, such as are used in bicycles and other light vehicles. Steve Pauk knew what it was, and wins a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! The funniest answer of the week was from Paul D., who said it was a Higgs Boson. We've been looking all over for that, haven't we? Paul also wins a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! Thanks to all who participated, even if you just gave a heart. See the answers to all the mystery items of the week at the What is It? blog.
If TV host Fred Rogers hadn't died ten years ago, he would have been 85 today. In honor of the occasion, mental_floss presents 35 Facts About Mr. Fred Rogers. I honestly did not think I could sit through so many facts, because a) I never watched the show and b) I've read lists of facts about him many times. However, this is full of stories about Mr. Rogers that you probably haven't heard before. Even if you have, they are worth remembering.
You've probably seen the viral picture of a drippy faucet night light that was, unfortunately, one-of-a-kind. But you can make your own, and this project from Instructables member boston09 doesn't even require an electrical outlet, because it's a battery-operated LED! The glowing "drip" is made from a pacifier nipple. All the steps are at Instructables. Link -via Boing Boing
A series of thefts in the rural area around Penryn in England have authorities concerned. At one farm, seven bales of hay and straw, a sack of carrots, and a wheelbarrow were taken. In the second theft at a different farm, 14 bales of hay, a pressure washer, and various power tools were stolen.
“I think we are looking for a horse,” said Detective Constable Rick Milburn from Falmouth Police Station.
“Anyone with any knowledge of anyone who has recently acquired a horse or is trying to establish a living space for a horse, we are asking them to contact us with any information.”
Now, what would a horse want power tools for? Link -via Arbroath
(Image credit: Flickr user Corey Harmon)
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