The following is an article from the book Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Salutes the Armed Forces.

The British Army's fancy scarlet tunic looked sharp, but was agonizingly uncomfortable in the heat. The soldier's warm-weather option was a dazzling white uniform -spiffy but impractical for daily use. How to solve the problem?

JUST WILD ABOUT HARRY

Legend has it that a British colonial officer dabbled with the idea of creating his own lightweight, light-colored clothing to wear while he was stationed in India. What began as an off-duty ensemble evolved into military attire when it proved to be more comfortable and sensible than the existing uniform.

That officer was Lieutenant Harry Lumsden, the son of a British colonal. After schooling in England and Scotland, by age 17 Lumsden was serving in the infantry in India. In 1846, when he was just 25, he was tapped for the duty that would lead to his greatest claim to fame.

Serving in Peshawar in what was then northwestern India (now Pakistan on the Afghanistan border), Lumsden was given the task of forming the Corps of Guides, a new regiment of infantry and cavalry soldiers. The 300 handpicked men were to serve as guides and scouts as well as fighting forces. Irregular cavalry regiments such as the Corps of Guides were allowed to wear what they wanted, within reason. Lumsden had an idea about what that should be. He'd been experimenting with loose-fitting cotton garments patterned after the local men's attire and dyed a muddy tan color, which hid the dirt and made the wearer less conspicuous in the dusty landscape of the battlefield. Locals dubbed the duds khaki, from the Hindi and Urdu word khak, meaning dust. Fellow British soldiers started calling the Corps of Guides the "mudlarks" because of the muddy color of their uniforms.

DUSTING OFF SOME FACTS ABOUT KHAKIS

Lumsden achieved that characteristic mud color by dunking the fabric in mud. In another version of the tale, he took his clothes to the local bazaar and had them colored with a dye made from the local mazari palm. When khaki caught on, Lumsden tried unsuccessfully to obtain drab uniform fabric from England. So he had the dying done locally, either by soldiers themselves or by civilians. While other regiments scoffed at the mudlarks initially, they soon adopted khaki as well, especially during the Indian Rebellion of 1857, which took place primarily during the summer months. Even then, the troops were left to color their own garments using mazari, coffee, tea, or even tobacco juice.

The Amazing Spider-Man #692 is the 50th anniversary issue of the Spider-Man comic books. To honor the occasion, Spider-Man, whose alter ego Peter Parker is now a scientist in his 30's, gets a teenage sidekick. It' a big step that shows how far the character has grown from his roots as a shy teenager that readers could identify with.

Peter was a nerdy loner who was nervous around girls and hid his insecurities not only with a real mask, but also by cracking jokes. For angst-ridden and self-centered boys who often feel as though the cosmos align just to make their lives suck, it was an easy sell. The campaign slogan for Spider-Man, “With great power comes great responsibility,” is heavy, but also what moms tell their kids about taking out the trash.

Spider-Man has always been young. The core myth of a teen geek with superhuman abilities, learning to sacrifice for the greater good while wearing the best costume in comics, has endured. He’s been amazing, spectacular, astonishing, sensational, and whatever other superlative you tack on. But he’s never really been middle age.

Now he is. Spidey might not have a unitard-stretching gut or arthritic knees, but he hit the half-century mark this month. And in Marvel Comics’ anniversary issue, he gets a sidekick. Can we still enjoy Peter’s coming-of-age struggles with responsibility when we know he’s been through it for decades? The webhead may finally have met his ultimate foe: age.

Read an analysis of what reaching 50 years might mean for Spidey at The Daily Beast. Link

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Savanna is a hand-raised seven-week-old cheetah cub with an awesome punk hairdo at the Cincinnati Zoo. The zoo is documenting her life from all angles as she grows up to be one of the fastest animals on earth. See more of Savanna at Buzzfeed. Link

What happens when a crime is committed and the suspect blames it on an identical twin? The fact that they look alike throws a monkey wrench into eyewitness accounts, and their DNA is identical, too. Often such cases -and there are plenty of real-life cases- end up with no one convicted. But that might change with new advanced chemical tests that delve even further into a twins genetic makeup.

A new kind of genetic evidence may come to play a role in these cases. Epigenetics refers to chemical modifications to DNA that may change how genes are expressed. A study released earlier this year showed that the epigenetic profiles of identical twins differ at birth, presumably because of small differences in the twins’ uterine environments. While no prosecutor has yet used epigenetic evidence to distinguish a guilty twin from his innocent sibling, the findings should put would-be criminal twins on notice.

Being an identical twin was never a "get out of jail free card," anyway. Don't do the crime, because science will eventually catch up with you. Link -via Smithsonian

(Image credit: Flickr user Angela Vincent)

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This domino event visits every corner of the world, recreating flags, landmarks, and icons of different nations. It looks like a pretty impressiv but standard topple you see at world-class domino events, until you get to about 90 seconds in, and see the huge wall of dominoes slowly falling. You have to think about the care and effort that went into it. It set a world record.

The longest domino wall was 30 m (98 ft 5 in) long and consisted of 31,405 dominoes. It was erected and toppled by Sinners Domino Production (Germany) at the Wilhelm-Lückert-Gymnasium in Büdingen, Germany, on 6 July 2012.  

The big pyramid set a world record, too. This installation contained 127,141 dominies. You will be mesmerized by the destruction. -via I Am Bored

They say an optimist looks at a glass and says it's half full, while a pessimist would say it's half empty. So how would you classify the person who labeled this? A super-pessimist! -via Arbroath

The squid named Galiteuthis armata isn't particularly big, but it has a feature that gives it star billing in your nightmares. There are rows of sharp hooks on the ends of its tentacles. This is one squid you don't want to anger! See more pictures, including a close-up of those spikes, at Deep Sea News. Link -via Ed Yong

(Image credit: Miriam Goldstein)

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He has no rod or reel, but he certainly has the right bait! -via Say OMG

You have to feel sorry for redditor MechaArif. He had a birthday with a party and a nine-year-old ate the entire birthday cake.

It was my birthday and my friends and family were over, which included my distant cousin and her 9 year old overweight son. We just got done with the pizza and were about to go eat the cake when we walk in on the 9 year old (who i'll call Jake). Jake had eaten all the cake and had frosting on his hands and around his mouth. Of course right then Jake's mom comes in and says stuff like "It's not his fault" and "why is the cake out anyway?". Right then I told her "Get out, NOW." and she said that she wouldn't because AND I QUOTE, "It's not ONLY your birthday MechaArif, it's all of ours too." after that my mom stepped in and told her she needed to leave. Luckily we had a second cake and ate that instead. Unluckily for me it had no frosting, but unluckily for her she's not getting any Christmas presents. So here I am after my party, venting this on Reddit.

His story is the first in a huge thread where he invited people to tell the stories of parents who defended the most outrageous behavior from their children. After reading some of the stories (reading them all would take quite a while), tell us if there have been anything similar in your experience. I can't recall any parent ever defending a child's bad behavior to me, but then I haven't worked among the public in many years. Link

(Image credit: Flickr user Solo)

People ask the question every once in a while, "What would happen if everyone on Earth jumped at the same time?" Sometimes they are specific in saying everyone on one side of the Earth. The short answer is: nothing. But Randall Munroe at xkcd explains that while the Earth wouldn't move, there are a lot of other things that would happen as a result of this stunt. Link -via Bad Astronomy

Live your life like Hunter S, Thompson did, and you could find yourself arrested, wealthy, loved by fans, insane, lauded as a genius, or dead. Who wants to take those chances? It's much safer to pretend you're Hunter S. Thompson with the board game modeled on his best-known book, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It comes with fake drugs and explores their effects and interactions. Take a look inside the game developed by Jonathan Baldwin at InventorSpot. Link

Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the surface of the moon, has died. He gave the world a quote on that occasion on July 20, 1969, that will live in history:  "That is one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind." Armstrong's family released a statement through NASA. Here is a small portion:

Neil Armstrong was also a reluctant American hero who always believed he was just doing his job. He served his Nation proudly, as a navy fighter pilot, test pilot, and astronaut. He also found success back home in his native Ohio in business and academia, and became a community leader in Cincinnati.  

He remained an advocate of aviation and exploration throughout his life and never lost his boyhood wonder of these pursuits.  

As much as Neil cherished his privacy, he always appreciated the expressions of good will from people around the world and from all walks of life.  

While we mourn the loss of a very good man, we also celebrate his remarkable life and hope that it serves as an example to young people around the world to work hard to make their dreams come true, to be willing to explore and push the limits, and to selflessly serve a cause greater than themselves.

The cause of death was complications after a cardiovascular procedure. Armstrong was 82. Link -via mental_floss

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Those of a certain age will recall "gag boxes," which are little jokes hidden inside a small box. You gave (or just showed) them to people like a greeting card. Irving Fishlove, founder of H. Fishlove and Co. novelties, popularized the little boxes in the 1920s and '30s. Collector's Weekly talks to novelty collectors Mardi and Stan Timm about gag boxes.

Collectors Weekly: What’s with the toilets?

Mardi: Toilets were Irving Fishlove’s thing. Well, anything to do with elimination, really. Fishlove focused on toilets when, in 1924, TootsieToy started making doll-house furniture using a new injection-molding process. One of the items they made was a toilet.

When Fishlove looked at that toilet, he didn’t see doll-house furniture. He saw funny. And so he started making all kinds of gags using this little toilet. The beauty of it was that Fishlove could use the same toilet in any gag box. His strategy was pretty ingenious, actually. He would just order tons of these toilets for gag boxes. All he had to do was change the wording on the box. For example, we have one that looks like a stop sign in a stand, and it says, “Parking Limit 30 Minutes.” And when you open it up, there’s a toilet inside.

Of course, gag boxes weren't limited to toilets -any joke would do, as you'll learn in the interview, along with plenty of pictures to illustrate the concept. Link

Look! Look! Up there! It's a leaderboard! The new feature at the top of the page shows you important things you should read here at Neatorama: open contests you can enter and win, exclusive articles, and particularly hot posts that may have aged off the front page. How handy! Try it out: just click on any of the pictures to go to the post it describes. Use the arrows on either end to find more featured items. With the leaderboard here at all times, this weekend column might be shorter or possibly unnecessary, but you know we'll always find a way to give you the information you need. Here's what went on this past week.

Monday was a special date in history, so Jill Harness wrote Celebrating The Life & Birthday of H. P. Lovecraft.

Our pop culture historian Eddie Deezen had two articles this week: Goldfinger: the Bond Movie That Was Banned in Israel, and The Embarrassing Magical Mystery Tour Party.

Alex put together the explanations of The World's Most Complex Borders.

The Resistance of Astronomers to New Paradigms was a funny personal story dressed up in science from the Annals of Improbable Research.

Uncle John's Bathroom Reader gave us Artificially Sweetened: The Story of Canned Laughter.

And 9 Weapons That Failed Spectacularly (and 1 That Possibly Didn’t) came from mental_floss magazine.

In the What Is It? game, the little hatchet-looking thing is actually a cigar box opener. The notch is for removing nails. The first commenter who knew that was just a guess, who wins a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! The real clue was at the What Is It? blog, where you'd read that it was only a few inches long. The funniest answer was from GlenW, who said, "Years after George Washington became famous for chopping down that cherry tree his less known cousin Hank started making and selling these as souvenirs to tourists at The White House during Washington's presidency." For that, he also wins a t-shirt! Find out the answers to all the mystery items of the week at the What Is It? blog, and stay tuned for the next What Is It? game at Neatorama.

Pinterest is a popular image-based social network you should try out. Whether you are a new or established Pinterest user, you can win great prizes in the Neatorama 'Pin To Win' Contest! You'll find the contest instructions in the post. Good luck!

The post that got the most comments was 10 Millenials Say Thanks But No Thanks to Cars and Houses. The only other posts that got any comments to speak of at all were the contests. Are you intimidated by the new comment system? Have you put off registering a Neatorama account? You needn't be afraid. We won't spam you. The registration system is only to keep the spammers and abusive commenters out. YOU are certainly welcome in! And sooner or later we are going to roll out rewards for commenters, and you'll want to be ready when that happens! The instructions for, and the benefits of, registering with Neatorama are right here.

So, are your kids back at school yet? Schedules vary so much across the United States. The great thing about online shopping is that web stores cater to a worldwide customer base. At the NeatoShop, you'll find kid's school items, office stuff, and geeky gifts all year 'round, so if you want something really special and personal for your kids to take to  school, you can find it at the NeatoShop.

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Now, this is real improvisational theater, with a twist. Kids are given a vague scenario, such as "pretend to be a salesman and a customer" in this case. Then adults act out what came up. There's a series of these Kid Snippet videos by BoredShortsTV. Link -via Metafilter