Maru and Hana (previously at Neatorama) have a new kitten! Miri the young calico was rescued from a roadside gutter (what we would call a ditch) and brought to mugumogu for adoption. Miri is settling in just fine, and will soon find out what it's like to go from the gutter to internet stardom.

In Miri's first video, she starts out shy and reticent, then eats, and finally becomes comfortable enough to chase her own tail and play with her new mama's finger. Maru, now 13 years old, is as inscrutable as ever when meeting the new family member, but he does have something to say about her. It isn't long before Maru begins to teach Miri the ins and outs of their perfect cat-centric home, as you see in the above video. -via Metafilter

Eleven countries declared the year 1882-1883 as the “International Polar Year,” to encourage and highlight exploration of the far north. Those nations launched 14 expeditions to the Arctic, one of which was the Greely Expedition. Led by former Union officer Adolphus Greely, the expedition consisted of 25 men who set up a science observation station at Ellesmere Island near northern Greenland.  

Things seemed to be going well, but the ship route to Ellesmere was only accessible for a short time during the summer. The rest of the time, ice blocked the passage, and ships ran a substantial risk of being trapped and broken if they tried to pass at the wrong interval. The expedition’s success depended on ships being able to reach the party with supplies and refreshed rations each August. One ship was due to re-supply the team in August 1882, and another would bring them home the following summer. Neither ship arrived—one could not pass the ice, and another sank after being crushed.

Depending on one shipment of supplies per year is a disastrous plan, especially before instant global communications. Read about the rescue of the Greely Expedition, a story sparked by the discovery of a caribou sleeping bag that P.T. Barnum saved from the incident, at Atlas Obscura.

There are angry ladies all over Yankee Candle’s site reporting that none of the candles they just got had any smell at all. I wonder if they’re feeling a little hot and nothing has much taste for the last couple days too.

— Terri Nelson (@TerriDrawsStuff) November 24, 2020

The earliest symptoms of COVID-19 we heard of were cough and fever. Then word spread that many victims reported a loss of their sense of smell. All these months later, symptoms vary widely, from none to severe, and the disease affects people in so many ways that many are infected without even knowing it. So is it any surprise that people who purchase scented Yankee Candles may be upset that they can't smell them?

Kate Petrova saw the Tweet by Terri Nelson and went to work crunching the numbers.

Could it be because of the COVID-related loss of smell? To investigate, I plotted the reviews of the 3 most popular unscented candles on Amazon*, and the difference was quite striking 3/n

*One thing to note: fewer reviews are available for unscented candles than for scented ones pic.twitter.com/D9NdknJJAU

— Kate Petrova (@kate_ptrv) November 27, 2020

Petrova has more graphs that show a striking correlation between complaints over scentless candles and the spread of COVID in the US. Read the rest at Twitter or at Threadreader. -via Metafilter

Here's a finding that provides fascinating clues for ...further study. Archaeologists have found tools used by both Neanderthals and early modern humans, and a deep dive into their thumbs sheds light on how they used those tools. Scientists from the University of Kent measured the shape of thumb bones, specifically the bone connected to the wrist, on a microscopic level to determine the most common grip used by Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. 

"The joint at the base of the thumb of the Neanderthal fossils is flatter with a smaller contact surface between the bones, which is better suited to an extended thumb positioned alongside the side of the hand," Bardo says. "This thumb posture suggests the regular use of power ‘squeeze’ grips, which is the grip we use when we hold tools with handles, like a hammer."

On the other hand, human "joint surfaces are generally larger and more curved," a shape which lends itself well to "gripping objects between the pads of the finger and thumb, known as a precision grip," Bardo explains.

It's not that the Neanderthals couldn't use precision grips, but rather they would have found them difficult. Instead, they adapted better to power grips for handling tools.

How did the different grips affect the two species' everyday lives? We don't know. Did the difference between grips contribute to the Neanderthals' downfall? We don't know that, either. It may have been a tiny adaptation that made less of a difference than, say, war. But it opens up a field of study that may provide answers down the line regarding the ascendence of Homo sapiens and the extinction of
Homo neanderthalensis. Read more about the study at Inverse. -via Damn Interesting

(Image credit: Ameline Bardo)

It wasn't just the Greeks; everywhere we look there are ancient writings that mention all kinds of colors, but not blue. Figuring out why takes us on a journey through time and culture and the relationship between language and observation. -via The Mary Sue

Railroad tycoon Charles Crocker bought a lot in San Francisco in 1878 and built a big mansion. He wanted to own the entire city block, and managed to buy up all the neighbor's lots except for one holdout: Nicholas Yung. Yung saw no reason to move, and refused to sell his corner property. Well, he finally engaged in negotiations, but asked for a price Crocker wasn't willing to pay -even though it was less than other property owners were getting.

Crocker ordered his workmen to construct a three-sided wood fence around Yung's house. The fence rose forty feet into the sky completely boxing up the German immigrant’s house, depriving him of sunlight and sir. The Yungs felt as if they were living at the bottom of a well. The plants in their garden wilted, and they had to use candles even in daytime.

Yung threatened to build a giant coffin on his roof above the height of the fence, emblazoned on the side turned toward his aristocratic neighbors with a skull and cross-bones, to serve as an advertisement of his business but mostly to remind Crocker of his own mortality. The story of the feud was picked up by the media and the fence soon became one of the city’s most popular attraction. People started taking the California Street cable car just to look at the fence that rose malevolently above Yung’s modest home. The fence was so tall it had to braced with big timbers and cost Crocker $3,000.

The feud went on for a quarter century and outlasted both Crocker and Yung. Read what happened and the ultimate fate of the Crocker mansion at Amusing Planet.

(Image credit: Eadweard Muybridge)

Melissa Trierweiler started posting funny stories about Disney Princesses back in 2014. She illustrates these tales with her Disney dolls. Now there are 153 episodes at her site The Official Princess Club that explore the weirdness of putting these characters together. The royal couples don't understand how Anna and Kristof can be engaged when the rest of them just met and immediately married. Anna can't resist freezing the glass of water Ariel is swimming in. Tiana can't use the kitchen utensils because they are Belle's friends. Cinderella vacuums the Magic Carpet against his will. And no one can figure out why John Smith is half the size of Pocahontas. See a roundup of 30 representative episodes from over the years at Bored Panda. Or read them all at The Official Princess Club.

Just as we saw in the Indiana Jones movies, the original Nazi party was quite interested in acquiring significant religious relics. Specifically, Heinrich Himmler, who headed the SS, wanted to procure the Holy Grail. Himmler read Otto Rahn's book in which he posited the theory that the Cathars had possession of the grail in the 13th century and managed to hide it. Rahn had been researching the grail for several years at that point. Himmler summoned the archaeologist to work for him, and even made him a member of the SS.   

A small, sensitive and bookish man, Rahn never quite fit in with the boorish, bullnecked bullies of the SS. He was also a heavy drinker, openly liberal in his political views, and gay. In a letter to a friend he wrote shortly before entering Himmler’s service, he remarked sadly that: “It is impossible for a tolerant and generous person to stay for long in this country, which used to be my wonderful homeland.”

In Otto Rahn & The Quest for the Holy Grail, author Nigel Graddon posits that Rahn never had any sympathy for the Nazis and saw them only as a source of research funding and financial support. On one occasion, when spotted by an old acquaintance in his black SS uniform, complete with ceremonial dagger and swastika armband, Rahn reportedly just shrugged and sighed: “One must eat.”

Otto Rahm is sometimes cited as one of the many inspirations for the Indiana Jones character. Read the real story at Military History Now. -via Strange Company

(Image credit: Unbekannt, darf unter Nennung des obigen Links weiter verwendet werden, siehe)

In December, Inglewood Drive in Toronto becomes "Kringlewood" because almost everyone puts up a giant inflatable Santa Claus. That started in 2013, as the neighborhood embraced the absurdity of giant inflatable holiday decorations. You see them everywhere, but where do they come from?  

Most of the oversized blow-up decorations you see staked and inflated on holidays like Halloween and Christmas are from a company called Gemmy. (Last year, the company estimated they owned 90-95% of the market share.) They’re the same business behind the Big Mouth Billy Bass, the singing animatronic fish that took the country by storm around the turn of the millennium — a truly viral moment before we called things “viral moments” (just be glad that caroling fish and TikTok didn’t intersect). As the Wall Street Journal reported in 2006, Gemmy had moved on to inflatable decorations after positing that regular consumers would get a kick out of owning versions of the “gorillas and dinosaurs that retailers sometimes use to announce grand openings and sales.” They were right.

Even back then, the Journal made note of the immense size (four to 12 feet tall) and relatively high price (up to $300) of the inflatable decorations, but you get the sense in the article that the popularity was among the kind of people who set their Christmas lights to music; and certainly those who take pride in their annual festive displays — I’m thinking Tim Taylor in the sitcom Home Improvement here — go through phases and trends like any hobbyist. But slowly, surely, these inflatables started spreading to more conventional households, the kind who had traditionally just pulled out the same box of string lights and garland every year.

Read about the rise of Christmas inflatables at Inside Hook. -via Digg

The McDonald's McRib, a sandwich that has 70 ingredients but no rib meat, was first introduced in 1981 and wasn't much of a hit. But in the years since, it has established a cult following, and when it returns to the menu sporadically, those fans come out of the woodwork. That scheme is both accidental and deliberate, and understanding it requires a lesson in McDonald's business model, supply-chain logistics, and marketing.  

This brings us to the McRib- a confluence of several people’s work and an accident of history. To wit, it exists because McDonald’s underestimated the demand for Chicken McNuggets and needed an additional item to offer to balance things out a bit.

The goal of a restaurant like McDonald’s, when adding a menu item, is either to bring in new customers that would not have eaten at a McDonald’s or to get existing customers to choose a higher margin item than they would have otherwise ordered. To do this, McDonald’s will test and then roll out new foods.

When a menu item is successful, like the Big Mac or Chicken McNuggets, McDonald’s needs a steady stream of ingredients to support the demand. It must also be at a price that leaves them a large enough margin to justify the work involved.

Enter the Chicken McNugget, which was a hit, but they couldn’t source enough chicken to meet demand. To the extent that new patrons were lost because they were turned away when they didn’t want a burger, McDonald’s was facing an opportunity cost. It needed to find an alternative dish that this new group liked or loved as well. To solve this, they turned to their new Executive Chef Rene’ Arend.

That explains how McRib got its start, but the story of its continuing return and disappearance is explained at Today I Found Out. Hint: it's not random; it just appears that way to customers.

(Image credit: Evan-Amos)

David's father is a fan of the movie The Terminator. He even has a poster up in his home office. But David isn't allowed to watch The Terminator, because it might scare him. In this webcomic story from Doogie Horner, David finally sees the movie.

But it doesn't end there. When parents pre-screen a movie, they try to determine whether it's appropriate for their particular children because it may contain disturbing violence or sexual scenes beyond their understanding. We also need to pay attention to the message a particular movie sends and how we ourselves react to it. That said, David's story is pretty heartwarming.  -via Metafilter

Most folks (outside of Switzerland) say that Bern is the capital of Switzerland. But it's not, really, it's just the place where federal offices are, because they have to go somewhere. Switzerland actually has no capital city, and that's okay, as there's no global rule that nations must have one. This video is only five minutes long; the rest is an ad.  -via Laughing Squid

Something is rotten in Denmark. Earlier this month, a mutated strain of coronavirus was detected in the mink population, Danish authorities decided to cull the nation's 15 million farmed mink, to avoid the mutant strain becoming established in humans, which might make a vaccine less effective. So far, 10 million mink have been slaughtered, killed in a hurry and buried in shallow pits. But they aren't staying buried.

“As the bodies decay, gases can be formed,” Thomas Kristensen, a national police spokesman, told the state broadcaster DR. “This causes the whole thing to expand a little. In this way, in the worst cases, the mink get pushed out of the ground.”

The sight of mink bodies re-emerging from the ground created concern, especially in areas where the burials are close to water supplies.

“the year of the zombie mutant killer mink” yep that just about sums 2020 up 😬

— Alan Wylie (@wylie_alan) November 26, 2020

Somewhere, someone just got five in a row on their 2020 bingo card. Read more on the story at The Guardian. -via Boing Boing

(Image credit: Peter Trimming)

Made-for-TV Christmas movies have filled the schedule at the Hallmark Channel and Lifetime for a couple months now, but it's time for the premieres of the 2020 crop. Get ready for 82 new ways to wallow in Christmas and eat up the hours spent at home. Yes, they are formulaic, but 2020 is the year to indulge in safe guilty pleasures. 

You know that thing people say about Taco Bell? That the whole menu is just five ingredients (tortillas, cheese, meat, beans, sauce) remixed and rearranged in infinite combinations? Made-for-TV Christmas is the Taco Bell of entertainment genres. Take the same haggard tropes — the struggling inns, the small towns, the career women who must be cured of their unladylike ambitions by falling in love with boring men — and just switch the names and actors around, and it’s a tradition that works year after year.

The list of synopses (and trailers) at Vulture is divided into themes, since several movies share the same setup, plots, or attempts to stand out. There are three movies centered on blogging (as if that's interesting), nine with a land developer as the villain (because how else will you save the school/wilderness/historic landmark?), six with "scavenger hunt" as a plot device, and four (count 'em, FOUR) movies with LGBTQ themes. And a partridge in a pear tree somewhere, I'm sure. Happy wallowing!

(Image credit: zannaland)

"Video Games" is a nostalgic and bittersweet song from the album Mixtape for the Milky Way by jeremy messersmith. The papercraft video was animated by fellow video game fan Eric Power.

Working on this video was a true joy. I've been playing video games since the mid 80's when I first got a hold of an Atari. Since then, they have been a part of many cherished memories with friends as well as solo adventures. When we were talking about the making of this video, I asked jeremy if we should make up our own games or straight up feature the ones we grew up with. We decided to just go for it and each made lists of some of our favorites. This proved to be a very difficult curation, as my intention was not just to show a random selection of games, but to also choose moments within those games that had a particular significance to us while also going hand in hand with the song. I hope you all enjoy!

-via Metafilter