The TV show Mythbusters tested James Cameron's version of Titanic. Never mind that the movie was a work of fiction, this is important stuff! The issue came up when, 15 years after the movie was released, the internet questioned why Jack died instead of climbing onto the floating piece of wood with Rose, which appeared to be large enough for both of them. Cameron explained it was a matter of buoyancy rather than room. Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman put that assertion to the test. The result? They could have both survived -under very specific circumstances you'll have to read about to follow.
Cameron’s good-humored response: “I think you guys are missing the point here. The script says Jack died. He has to die. So maybe we screwed up and the board should have been a little tiny bit smaller, but the dude’s goin’ down.”
We were introduced to the adorable lemon beagle Maymo a few months ago. But it's not all hearts and flowers when you're raising a rambunctious puppy! -thanks, J!
When you ponder how you're going to spend your time on earth, it's useful to at least temporarily ignore the fact that money runs -and ruins- everything. Oh, it's a lovely fantasy, but also useful in helping you to figure out what's most important. This wisdom comes from the late British professor Alan Watts. -via The Daily What
You can argue all night about who deserved and didn't deserve the Nobel Peace Prize for just about any year. But if you restrict the debate to science prizes, you'll find research that turned out to do more harm than good, experiments and conclusions that were just plain wrong, and scientists who turned out to be bad news all around. Take the case of Johannes Andreas Grib Fibiger, who won the 1926 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
In 1907, this Danish scientist found that he could induce abnormal cell growth in rats by feeding them cockroaches that were infected with a species of worm he called Spiroptera neoplastica. Fibiger concluded that the worms caused cancer. To appreciate how significant the discovery seemed at the time, it’s important to understand that many doctors were furiously hunting a single cause of cancer. Some thought the disease was programmed into the body in embryonic cells. Others believed inanimate external factors triggered uncontrolled cell division. (English physician Percivall Pott observed in the 18th century that chimney sweeps were shockingly likely to suffer scrotal cancer.) The infectious theory was also quite popular, and its adherents pushed hard for recognition of Fibiger’s breakthrough. He received 16 Nobel Prize nominations beginning in 1922.
Did he deserve the Nobel? Well, hey, did you ever hear that worms cause cancer? Read his story and those of several other prize winners at Slate. Link
Among the legends of ancient Rome is that of a sibyl who lived in a cave that was the portal to the underworld. In 1958, a cave was discovered on the north shore of the Bay of Naples among the ruins of Baiæ that may have given rise to this legend. It opens to a passageway that is heated by an active volcano. Robert Paget and Keith Jones spent years removing rubble, exploring the cave's layout, mapping, and speculating on its purpose.
But only when the men went deeper into the hillside did the greatest mystery of the tunnels revealed itself. There, hidden at the bottom of a much steeper passage, and behind a second S-bend that prevented anyone approaching from seeing it until the final moment, ran an underground stream. A small “landing stage” projected out into the sulfurous waters, which ran from left to right across the tunnel and disappeared into the darkness. And the river itself was hot to the touch–in places it approached boiling point.
Conditions at this low point in the tunnel complex certainly were stygian. The temperature had risen to 120 degrees Fahrenheit; the air stank of sulfur. It was a relief to force a way across the stream and up a steep ascending passage on the other side, which eventually opened into an antechamber, oriented this time to the helical sunset, that Paget dubbed the “hidden sanctuary.” From there, more hidden staircases ascended to the surface to emerge behind the ruins of water tanks that had fed the spas at the ancient temple complex.
Could anyone be blamed for believing this underground complex to be the gates of hell? Read more about it at Past Imperfect. Link -via Metafilter
Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website.
Ask most movie fans. "What was the first 'talkie'?" and the most frequent reply has always been The Jazz Singer (1927) starring Al Jolson. This is a "sort of" correct answer, but not really.
The earliest sound movies were made by synchronizing motion pictures to phonograph records. In 1926 (a year before The Jazz Singer), Warner Brother re-released the previous silent film Don Juan. Don Juan was shown with a soundtrack recording done by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
Warner Brothers also released the first actual all-talking, feature-length motion picture in 1928. It was called Lights of New York. The following year, Twentieth-Century Fox released In Old Arizona, the first all-talkie feature with sound recorded directly on the film
The Jazz Singer was actually a silent movie with poorly synchronized musical numbers and a few sentences of spoken words. One of the main reasons The Jazz Singer is such a legendary film is because of its star: the immortal Al Jolson. Jolson was, by all accounts, the Elvis Presley of his time. At the time of The Jazz Singer's release, Jolson was one of the biggest stars in show business. (As a sidebar, Jolson did make several films after The Jazz Singer, but none came close to it in popularity or historical significance.)
Many current movie fans are familiar, at least somewhat, with Jolson and his show business legacy, but he had few current-day fans. This is mainly because Jolson's schtick was the "blackface" act, which is, to contemporary movie fans, silly and disgusting. "Blackface," which is captured for posterity in many films of the first half of the 20th century, is a sad reminder to most people of the ridicule and mistreatment of African-Americans. Such a thing would be unimaginable today.
Jolson didn't always use blackface in his act, but because most people of today only know him by The Jazz Singer, his reputation today is that of, while maybe not racist, still, a symbol of a very backward time. Also, Jolson's singing style, unlike that of Elvis, Frank Sinatra, or Dean Martin, does not hold up well. His songs seem rather hockey and schmaltzy. His singing style is clipped and choppy, not melodic. His dance moves also look rather silly and dated -as you see here:
The new season of The Walking Dead starts this coming Sunday, and Halloween is creeping up on us, too! Time to make your mark by leaving little cartoon zombies on your notes, correspondence, and desk blotter. Mark Anderson of Andertoons makes it easy for you with a tutorial on drawing a cartoon zombie. He's kinda cute! Link
Lucasfilm collaborated with its publishing partners to present Star Wars Reads Day this past Saturday, to promote reading in children. Events were held at bookstores all over. Geeks Are Sexy covered the event at Little Shop of Stories in Decatur, Georgia. Those who attended included members of the 501st and Rebel Legions, fans in costume (both children and adults), and celebrity Ashley Eckstein, who is the voice of Ahsoka in Star Wars: The Clone Wars and also designs Star Wars clothing for Her Universe. Link to story. Link to interview.
To mark the occasion of Thanksgiving, as it is celebrated in Canada today, Cake Wrecks takes a critical look at the difference between Canadian turkeys and U.S. turkeys. Of course, the comparison is done with cakes.
First and foremost, Canadian turkeys carry all their tail feathers on their heads.
The movie Seven Psychopaths with be in theaters October 12th. If the real film starred these cats, I'd go see it! You can see the trailer with the actual actors here, but the only purpose in doing so would be to see what actor is voicing which cat. -via Daily of the Day
These unauthorized signs may be classified as vandalism, but their presence encourages everyone to pay more attention to the signs, wouldn't you think? See more of these at imgur. Link -via reddit
You've seen 3D printers, but you've not seen anything like this! A recently uncovered video shows a ultra-secret machine that is the prototype for Starfleet's replicator. It can make anything! Watch it produce furniture, shoes, canned goods, fruits and vegetables, home insulation, even tampons! This will surely revolutionize the manufacturing industry. -via Kottke
January in Geneva! The winter destination of choice for the high-energy physicist. Only the most discriminating mind can appreciate the delicate shadings of the gray skies, the nuances of a weather pattern that daily promises rain but delivers instead a damp so intense you can hear the moss grow. Day's end brings the spectacle of Geneva's night life: on the Rhone's Left Bank neon spells out the names of Switzerland's glorious national heroes: Patek-Philippe, Rolex, Piaget, Baume et Mercier, while along the avenues sounds the pounding, sensuous rhythm of doors being shut and bolted so the streets can be properly empty by 8:30.
In the face of all these distractions, the physicist seeks refuge among his peers and inevitably finds himself at mealtimes jostling happily along amid thousands of colleagues, staff and miscellaneous hangers-on, at the Main Cafeteria at CERN [Centre European des Recherches Nucleaires].
Such a Deal
This reviewer sampled the CERN cuisine on a recent Thursday at lunchtime. My overall impression is that this must be one of the best deals in lab food anywhere, and this in spite of the comparatively steep prices, which for the daily menu of entree plus two vegetables run from 7 to 11 Swiss francs depending on the choice of entree.
There is a wide choice of meal types: an ample salad bar, with breads available of the high European standard; two hot meal counters; and of course the prepared-sandwich case for the scientist on the go. Beverages include the usual juices, bottled water, coffee from do-it-yourself espresso machines, and taps from which the customer can serve him/herself several types of beer and a selection of wines including chianti, Cotes du Rhone, a Spanish rose, and for the white wine connoisseur, a Chasselas de Peissy. A dessert table that would do credit to a two-star hotel presents a bewildering array of pastries, but owing to the fact that I was sponging off someone who seemed disinclined to proceed beyond the cheese course, I was unable to sample any of them.
In the confusion of handling trays while surreptitiously scanning the crowd for Nobellists, my companion and I ended up with nearly identical meals: the veal, a tomato and Brussels sprouts for me, the veal, a tomato and noodles for him. What can be said about veal? Or, for that matter, noodles? Each of us got yogurt; I had a glass of the rather undistinguished chianti, and we adjourned later to one of the other two rooms for our excellent espressos, all for just under SFr 30.
This is a medium pizza at Big Lou's Pizza in San Antonio. They also serve a large, which is 62" in diameter. This photograph made an instant reddit star out of Luke, the guy on the right. He was impressed with the dinner. Link
