Which American president has been portrayed on film the most? Slate combed through IMDb to provide this list, which only counts actors playing the role of a president -no cameos or archival footage. However, several presidents are played as they were at a time before reaching the White House. Washington and Lincoln are no surprises, but George W. Bush and Barack Obama have been characters in way more films than you'd expect in the short amount of time since their inaugurations! Link -via mental_floss
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Photographer Miyoko Ihara documented the 12-year relationship between her grandmother Misa and her cat in the book Misao the Big Mama and Fukumaru the Cat. The two are inseparable and do everything together. See more wonderful pictures of them at Buzzfeed. Link
(Image credit: Miyoko Ihara)
This little girl has a happy family that comes with some strange obstacles she shares with other European children. From the website:
I live in a loving family with two dads. Sadly only a few countries in the European Union currently recognise my family. This means that I am unable to move around as I want with my parents and I also risk living with one of my dads being invisible from the State. Both situations are putting me and thousands of other children in same-sex families in unnecessary vulnerable situations as we are treated differently than children in families with a mum and a dad. For example, when I started in school, only one of my dads could sign my papers for my teachers. They did not accept that from my other dad. Also, when we were on holiday and I broke my arm, in the hospital the doctors would only talk to one of my dads and he was the only one who could visit me. My other dad had to wait outside as the hospital did not accept that I have two daddies.
Learn more at Invisible Parents. Link -via the Presurfer
You may have followed, or seen a report of, the guy who used a pregnancy test on himself and it turned out positive. A friend posted it to reddit as a funny rage comic, and a commenter warned that it might be a sign of cancer. The guy saw a doctor, a small tumor was found, and his life was saved, as this very rare form of cancer is usually not detected early. The pregnancy test reacted to human chorionic gonadotropin, or HCG.
Yes, HCG in men can be a sign of a rare (and dangerous) form of testicular cancer — choriocarcinoma. This is a cancer made up of syncytiotroblastic cells, said Katherine McGlynn, a senior investigator with the National Cancer Institutes. The tumor secretes HCG because that's what syncytiotroblasts do. They secrete HCG. And they don't particularly care whether they're secreting it into a man or a woman.
But how do they get into a guy, to begin with? That's where things get really weird. The truth is that nobody is entirely certain, McGlynn told me. But there are a couple of theories. One possibility is that these syncytiotroblasts that turn cancerous were leftovers — remnants of the time when that guy was just a ball of 70-100 cells. One way or another, they persisted in his body and then started to grow out of control.
Read more about the science behind this coincidence. Link
(Image credit: Flickr user Amber McNamara)
On Tuesday, the majority of the voting citizens of Puerto Rico who indicated they wanted a change in status said they would like the island to become the 51st state of the United States. That's a long way from statehood, but it is a step. The immediate question arose as to what a flag with 51 stars would look like. Redditors were eager to suggest designs, the best of which you can find at The Daily Dot. My favorite is the Pac-Man flag, which sadly, was later determined to have only 50 stars. Link
(As commenter
Since airlines now charge extra to take luggage on flights, everyone's looking for a way to get rid of the suitcase. How about wearing this ugly, bulky vest/dress with enough pockets to stash all your stuff? The folks at the security checkpoint will hate you, but the airlines can't charge you for a checked bag! Link
Remember Hank, the Maine coon cat who ran for the U.S. Senate seat in Virginia? His biggest human competitors were Tim Kaine and George Allen. Kaine won the election with 1.9 million votes to Allen's 1.7 million. But what if the race had been closer? Hank the cat pulled in thousands of write-in votes, making him a possible third-place finisher!
Virginia doesn’t list the names of write-in candidates, but it does show the number of write-in votes by county. So we don’t know for sure if Hank came in third, but it’s a growing possibility.
Matthew O’Leary, the campaign manager for Hank, tells Constitution Daily that his candidate has 6,832 votes as of Thursday morning, not counting absentee and provisional ballots.
O’Leary says it is the highest total for a write-in U.S. Senate candidate in Virginia since 2002, which would likely indicate that Hank finished third behind Kaine and Allen, when the election board releases that data.
O’Leary hopes to have a final vote count on Tuesday, November 13, when Virginia’s precincts have to file certified results. He also will contact each of Virginia’s 134 precincts to request write-in results.
Even if he had won the race, Hank would be ineligible to hold the office. He's only ten years old. Link -via Buzzfeed
The breathless cadence of a professional auctioneer is fascinating, and sometimes barely decipherable (tobacco auctioneers are an extreme example). Why do they fill the air with nonstop patter -and so fast?
They talk like that to hypnotize the bidders. Auctioneers don't just talk fast—they chant in a rhythmic monotone so as to lull onlookers into a conditioned pattern of call and response, as if they were playing a game of "Simon says." The speed is also intended to give the buyers a sense of urgency: Bid now or lose out. And it doesn't hurt the bottom line, either. Auctioneers typically take home from 10 to 20 percent of the sale price. Selling more items in less time means they make more money.
Well, that may answer the question, but you can also read about the finer points of auctioneering and how you can learn the routine yourself, at Slate. Link -via mental_floss
Meysi, a terrier crossbreed who lives in Poland, is only about the size of a soda can. She is 7 centimeters tall, 12 centimeters long, and weighs 250 grams (about nine ounces). Meysi is only four months old, so any world record will have to wait until she is at least one year old. But have you ever seen such a tiny dog? See some videos of Meysi at Laughing Squid. Link
(Image credit: Anna Pohl)
Hey, how about a science-themed Christmas tree this year? Or you might know a scientist or student who'd enjoy having a Petri dish ornament! Artist Michele Banks makes and sells them, but don't worry about dangerous cultures of microbes; the stuff growing inside is really paint. Some are extremely realistic, others not so much: she even has one that appears to be growing kittens! See them all at the Etsy store Artologica. Link -via Boing Boing
Previously: Michele Banks artworks.
How Eddie Bernays got you to buy books, wear hairnets, and eat bacon for breakfast.
One could argue that the birth of modern public relations is really the story of bacon and eggs. Prior to the 1920s, breakfast was toast and a cup of coffee. When a company called Beech-Nut Packing wanted to boost its bacon sales, they called PR man Edwards Bernays.
Bernays didn't place ads in magazines or post billboards with catchy slogans. Instead, he commissioned a research study on the eating habits of Americans. A doctor concluded that, because the body loses energy during the night, a robust breakfast is healthier than a light one. Bernays saw to it that thousands of physicians got the report, along with a publicity packet touting bacon and eggs as a hearty way to start the day. Pretty soon, doctors were recommending it to their patients, and the all-American breakfast was born.
Syphilis and Propaganda
Edwards Bernays was born in Vienna to Jewish parents and immigrated to the United States with his family when he was an infant. The elder Bernays had been a wealthy farmer, and he hoped his son would follow in his footsteps. So, he enrolled young Eddie in Cornell's esteemed College of Agriculture. Eddie complied, albeit unwillingly. A child of the Manhattan brownstone, he'd grown accustomed to the bustling pace of the big city. Upon receiving his degree in 1912, the only thing Eddie seemed certain of was that farm life was not for him. And that's when fate intervened.
One day while boarding the Ninth Avenue trolley on Manhattan, Eddie crossed paths with an old friend named Fred Robinson. Robinson offered Bernays a job managing two monthly journals, the Medical Review of Reviews and the Dietetic and Hygienic Gazette. Eddie accepted, although he knew little about publishing or medicine. Fortunately, none of that mattered a few months later, when he used the journals to publish a review of the play Damaged Goods. That may not sound like a big deal, but Damaged Goods was about a man who had syphilis. Sex was such a taboo subject at the time that New York censors had previously shut down George Bernard Shaw's Mrs. Warren's Profession because it dealt with prostitution. Regardless, Eddie published a rave review and even offered to help produce the show. But the real trick was convincing censors to look the other way.
Video mashup group Electic Method shows what can happen as Disney buys the Star Wars franchise. Add some light sabers, iconic lines, and paternity issues to Disney movies …oh, yeah, Disney characters already have plenty of paternity issues. The Star Wars characters will fit right in. -via Laughing Squid
The Japanese military invaded American soil in 1942 when a force of 500 men overtook the Aleutian Islands of Attu and Kiska in Alaska. They captured a Navy weather crew stationed there and occupied the islands, which are the westernmost parts of the USA.
It is now known as The Forgotten Battle but the invasion caused widespread outrage in 1942. Pearl Harbor was still a fresh memory, having been attacked on December 7 of the previous year.
Now, a Japanese military force had stepped foot on American soil – and the 500 had grown to over 5,000 men. Although Kiska and neighboring Attu (which had been overrun two days previously) were part of the distant Aleutian Islands they were, nevertheless, American. Plans were immediately drawn up to retake the island, known as the Aleutian Campaign. The campaign would not succeed for over a year and would claim many American lives.
Today, Kiska is a National Historic Landmark, and abandoned vehicles, weapons, and ordnance still litter the island. Signs warn of unexploded bombs and other hazards. Read about the Aleutian Campaign and see pictures of Kiska from both World War II and today at Kuriositas. Link -via the Presurfer
(Image credit: Flickr user Buzz Hoffman)
Tumblr user mrstater recaptioned the illustrations of Eric Carle from the children's book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? to align with the icons of the TV series Game of Thrones. Link -via Geeks Are Sexy
Where I live, directions to place you've never been usually comes with the caveat "You can't miss it." That phrase is a real downer, because when you hear it, you're doomed to become lost. Then when I find the place I'm looking for, I always wonder why they didn't tell me about the big sign that would have made it all clear. Why can't people give directions that someone can follow?
The reason we find it hard to give good directions is because of the "curse of knowledge", a psychological quirk whereby, once we have learnt something, we find it hard to appreciate how the world looks to someone who doesn't know it yet. We don’t just want people to walk a mile in our shoes, we assume they already know the route. Once we know the way to a place we don't need directions, and descriptions like "its the left about halfway along" or "the one with the little red door" seem to make full and complete sense.
But if you've never been to a place before, you need more than a description of a place; you need an exact definition, or a precise formula for finding it. The curse of knowledge is the reason why, when I had to search for a friend's tent in a field, their advice of "it's the blue one" seemed perfectly sensible to them and was completely useless for me, as I stood there staring blankly at hundreds of blue tents.
The secret to put yourself in the place of a person who doesn't have the knowledge you have -but that's not easy to do. Read more at BBC Future. Link -via Digg
(Image credit: Flickr user dvs)
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