The crew of the EV Nautilus used the Hercules ROV to spy on a Deepstaria jellyfish. In reaction to the Hercules drawing near, the jelly went into defensive mode and put on a show for the watching scientists.

Deepstaria is as mysterious as it is rare, a shapeshifter whose body exists somewhere on a spectrum between enormous trash bag and ghostly lampshade. Last week, these researchers used a remotely operated vehicle to capture a video of the freaky jelly.

The jellyfish in the video is roughly the size of a trash can. This deep-sea jelly lacks tentacles, and appears in the shape of a thin, membrane-like bell. Up close, you can see a geometric mesh pattern made up of canals that provide structural support and deliver nutrients to the body. In 2015, Wired referred to it as a “floating blanket.”

The jelly also has a living isopod inside, but scientists aren't sure if it's a parasite or a symbiote, since we really don't know all that much about Deepstaria. -via Boing Boing

Back in 2017, an unusually large fatberg was discovered in the sewers beneath London, specifically in the Whitechapel area. The battle to break up and remove the fatberg was such a distinctive chapter in London sewer history that Thames Water has memorialized it with a manhole cover! While it looks like any other sewer entrance from a distance, the metal is embossed with "The Whitechapel Fatberg was defeated here in 2017." See more of the unique manhole cover at Londonist.  -via Nag on the Lake

Here are some good ideas for handling an angry cat for medical purposes. You might think this is a real veterinary training video, because it resembles so many of them (this one in particular), but that notion is cleared up pretty quickly. Still, for realism, the "cat" deserves an Oscar. If you can stop laughing long enough, you might even learn something here. -via reddit

A new historical marker went up last month in eastern North Carolina, commemorating the first documented practicing Jewish person to set foot in North America. Joachim Gans arrived in the New World as part of the first Roanoke Colony, an experiment conceived and supported (although not well) by Sir Walter Raleigh.   

How did a German-speaking Jew end up in the first English colony in the Americas? Gans grew up in 16th-century Prague, then the center of innovation in mining and metallurgy. England was still a relatively poor and backward European country, desperate for help in extracting copper and tin. Growing tensions with the Spanish Empire would soon would lead to war, and the English needed cannon to arm their merchant ships and navy. Jews had been banned since 1290, but a courtier of Elizabeth I secured Gans a kind of Tudor H-1B visa. Soon after, Sir Walter Raleigh sought a credible scientist to join England’s first venture to colonize the Americas on what is now the North Carolina coast. In Gans, Raleigh saw the perfect candidate for the specialized job of sourcing and analyzing metals.

Gans arrived on Roanoke Island in 1585, along with a motley crew of more than 100 men that included French, Portuguese, Belgian, Irish and Scottish men as well as English soldiers and merchants. The Prague Jew, who made no secret of his religious background, quickly constructed a state-of-the-art chemistry lab outfitted with Bavarian crucibles and a high-temperature furnace. He tested metals brought to him by local Algonquian-speaking tribes and tramped through the swamps in search of mineral deposits. Though he failed to find gold, , as Raleigh had hoped, there is evidence he isolated iron, silver, and copper in his experiments. That was promising news for an England eager to access metal deposits.

Gans returned to England with the other colonists in 1586, and was not part of the famous Lost Colony of Roanoke that arrived in 1587. However, there is a sad coda to his story that you'll learn in an article about Joachim Gans (and historical markers) at Smithsonian.

(Image credit: courtesy of Brindley Beach vacations)

Mandy Pursley is a professional cosplayer and amputee who went viral for her new Cinderella costume. She made it herself, plus the Prince's costume (worn by her husband Ryan), and commissioned a glass arm to complete the fairy tale look. She tells the story behind the costume at Facebook. 

After a medical fiasco kept me from competing at a costume competition this summer, I was going to keep these photos under wraps for another year to try again. But a friend asked me today if I had any pictures I could share with a little girl who was born with one arm, and I realized that we never know what the future may hold...but we can still bring joy to people today!

This whole project was done with a lot of love. When my daughter was studying Cinderella stories at school last year, I realized that even though there were so many beautiful tales from around the world, there were still no princesses who looked like ME! When I was growing up with a physical difference, I never saw girls like myself represented in the media, so it took me a long time to realize that what makes us different can also be the thing that makes us strong, beautiful, and unapologetically unique.

So what do you do when you can't find a princess like you? You make up your own! I spent countless hours sewing Cinderella's ballgown and her Prince's uniform. And my fairy godfather Gilbert Lozano brought everything together with the most amazing glass arm (glass slippers are SO last year!

This costume is dedicated to all the little girls learning to navigate the world with their "lucky fins" or other challenges. I hope you know you are beautiful, and that you are UNSTOPPABLE!!! Write your own story, and be your own kind of princess.

Pursley has been inundated by messages from young princesses and their families who consider her a role model and inspiration. See the gallery of Cinderella and Prince Charming at Facebook. And don't worry about the glass arm. In the original story, the slippers didn't change at midnight like the coach and everything else, and Pursley treats the glass arm like the work of art that it is. -via The Daily Dot 

Spinning toys are almost universal, although they take slightly different forms in different cultures. The 1969 short film Tops takes us on a mesmerizing tour of spinning tops from all over. It was produced by designers Charles and Ray Eames, who are more famous for their office chair. The soundtrack is by composer Elmer Bernstein.  -via Kottke

Sean Bean has played many a villain in his career, who one would expect to die before the movie is over. But even when he plays a hero, he often kicks the bucket before the final act. After more than two dozen deaths, it's getting quite old, and Bean has announced he will no longer take the roles of the doomed. But it's not because of his ego.   

“I’ve turned down stuff. I’ve said, ‘They know my character’s going to die because I’m in it!’” Bean told The Sun. “I just had to cut that out and start surviving, otherwise it was all a bit predictable.”

So if he's rejecting roles to avoid spoilers, won't we now have spoilers anyway, because we know he won't play a character who dies? It's all so confusing. You can read more at Indiewire. -via Mental Floss

The medical drama ER premiered 25 years ago this past week. It ran for 15 seasons, but in the beginning, it was difficult to get a TV network interested in the concept. It was based on writings by bestselling author Michael Crichton, backed by Steven Spielberg, and it was a medical drama. Why wouldn't every network want to jump on it? According to producer John Wells, it was because it was too real- the patients often died, as they do in real hospitals.

Long before “prestige drama” was a thing, ER had all the qualities of one. It was created by one of the world’s most popular authors, shepherded by Hollywood’s most powerful director, and bolstered by a diverse cast filled with stars, up-and-comers, and a future Academy Award–winning leading man. The series featured complex characters and through its story lines boldly tackled dozens of issues of the day, including racism, AIDS, substance use disorders, and domestic violence. Its influence can still be seen in the hundreds of uncompromising hour-long shows that have followed.

“The audience is intelligent,” Wells says. “And particularly video literate, in that they’ve seen hundreds and hundreds of hours of storytelling and they can follow. You do not have to talk down to your audience. And in fact, if you don’t talk down to your audience, they appreciate it and reward you.”

There were other factors that made ER a unique show in the landscape of 1990s television. Read a history of the show at The Ringer.

Thousands of people worked in the North Tower of the World Trade Center, and someone had to feed them. That task fell to restauranteur Joe Baum, who opened the iconic Four Seasons restaurant in 1959. In the early 1970s, he had a grand vision for a series of eateries in the World Trade Center, capped by a spectacular complex of fine dining on the 107th floor. Baum had high hopes for the restaurant that would became known as Windows on the World.

In 1970, he told the New York Times he was planning 20 restaurants in the WTC, mostly housed in the concourse, which was beneath its open plaza, as well as private cafeterias for the Port Authority, the United States Customs House, and New York State employees. He also said that the restaurants included a “luncheon club” on top of the North Tower, with exclusive access for its one thousand members during the day. At night, the restaurant would be open to the public, which could use the World Trade Center’s 2,000-car underground garage for free.

“This will not be a tourist trap,” Baum said, perhaps a defensive impulse that the Times reporter ran with when he highlighted the irony that the creator of the Four Seasons was now setting up snack bars — which he very much was: about 60 of them and other small-food operations throughout the complex.

But Baum positioned his task as just as impressive as any of his previous grandiose projects. He emphasized the international flavor of the restaurant, which people would want to go to, he suggested, before heading uptown to the theater. As for feeding the masses, he was thinking big, conjuring carefully planned eating aeries that would form “vertical neighborhoods... little cities, each with a life of its own.”

From 1976 to 2001, Windows on the World was the ultimate place to see New York City from above. The new book The Most Spectacular Restaurant in the World tells the story of the restaurant, particularly its last day on September 11, 2001. Read an excerpt that goes back to the restaurant's beginnings at Eater. -via Nag on the Lake

The fifth film featuring Sylvester Stallone as Vietnam vet John Rambo, Rambo: Last Blood, opened this weekend. The most successful of the franchise so far is Rambo: First Blood Part Two, the 1985 film in which Rambo returns to Vietname to rescue American POWs that were secretly held after the US pulled out of the country. More than 40 years later, there is no evidence that any POWs remain in Vietnam, but that doesn't convince those who still believe. Where did that conspiracy theory begin? It began when support for the war faded among the American public.

As the many fictions necessary to sustain the war were exposed, Nixon and company needed a new approach — and a new lie. In a press conference on May 19, 1969, Defense Secretary Melvin Laird announced the existence of around 1,300 American soldiers now deemed “missing in action,” around half of whom were believed to be prisoners of war. The unaccounted for would now publically be described as “POW/MIA,” implying that any serviceperson missing in Vietnam could also be a prisoner of war. This transformed the war from a political issue into a humanitarian one, trading public support for sympathy. It didn’t matter why we were there in the first place: our boys were there, and by God were we going to do anything to get our boys home.

Suddenly, the public image of Vietnam looked very different. The very real footage of brutalized Vietnamese bodies, wailing children, and napalmed villages was traded for a fantasy — all of the violence that had been done in Uncle Sam’s name was now being done to him. The POW issue soon became a cause celebre.

That continued after the war, as many people were convinced that there were more prisoners being held after hundreds were released by the new Vietnamese government. After all, more than a thousand US troops are still unaccounted for (compared to more than 72,000 still listed as "missing" from World War II). Former Green Beret and Special Forces operative James Gordon “Bo” Gritz emerged as the leading proponents of the idea that POWS were still being held in Vietnam. In 1982, he actually led a raid on Laos to free those prisoners. Gritz's adventure in Laos became the template for the second Rambo movie, Rambo: First Blood Part II, although the plot was changed to have a successful ending. Read about the POW/MIA myth and its consequences at the Outline. -via Digg

In this song parody, YouTuber Liechee uses Carly Rae Jepson's song "Call Me Maybe" to tell the story of The Little Mermaid. It's not only a clever and funny idea (if a little dated), but the song and video turned out right nice. -via Geeks Are Sexy

(Image credit: Flickr user Fon Zhou)

In the 12th century, the people of Fujian province in China developed an architectural wonder to protect their communities from bandits and warfare. A tulou is a fortified apartment home for several hundred people with a central courtyard and outer walls up to six feet thick! The floors are cantilevered to maximize living space while preserving the common courtyard.  

Most tulous are either circular or rectangular in shape.  As a result of the walls and their sheer size the result was a mini-city which was also wind-proofed and extremely well ventilated: the tulous are an oasis of coolness in the hot summer months and the insulation provided by the walls means that they retain warmth in the winter.

There was also another significant advantage of these vast structures.  Whether it was planned originally or not, the tulous are able to stand up to high magnitude earthquakes – the major contributor to their centuries of longevity.

(Image credit: Flickr user Squashimono)

The Fujian Tulou is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Some of the tulous are still occupied, while others are used for reunions by families who retain property rights. Read about tulous and see plenty of pictures at Kuriositas.

Chad Riden's grandma turned 101 years old. When her children ordered the birthday cake, they said she would be one hundred and one. So the decorator wrote a hundred, then a one. Here she is, trying to look upset, but you know she's suppressing a giggle.

A discussion on the wording of numbers tells us that you shouldn't use the word "and" because the numerals would be 100.1 or maybe 100.01 which some say is taught in school, but I'd never heard of that before. In this case, you can be sure that the decorator just wasn't thinking. If it were a proper cake phrase, the numeral would be 101st. You might imagine what would have happened if they'd have asked for "Happy one hundred and first birthday."    

-via reddit

The original plan was to gather millions people to overwhelm security and get inside Area 51, the military's secret facility in Nevada. The goal was to find the extraterrestrials that are supposedly hidden inside. Two million people signed up for the event via Facebook. The reality was that several dozen people camped out in Rachel, Nevada, and then approached the gates of Area 51 long before daylight.

The only person to be arrested was a man caught urinating near the entrance and a woman was detained for an undisclosed reason, Associated Press reported.

Jeffrey Gonzalez was there and shot a video of the confrontation.

According to Gonzalez, who runs ParanormalCentral.net, about a hundred stormers arrived at one of the gates for the U.S. Air Force base known as Area 51, and they were greeted by several members of law enforcement who were amicable and even joked about the strange moment.

“It was history. This was the first of its kind as far as storming Area 51,” Gonzalez told Gizmodo. “We stormed it. Well...” he trailed off and shrugged his shoulders, but conceded, “I was part of history last night.”

The like-minded individuals who gathered in the Nevada desert included some who sported space suits or tinfoil hats, and were almost matched by the number of security personnel and journalists. Read a short account of the raid and see the video at Gizmodo. A good time was had by all.  

The autumnal equinox falls on September 23 this year, which is the traditional time to balance an egg on its end, so you may as well learn to do it properly. It's not an important tradition, like changing the batteries in your smoke detector, and is in fact rooted in folklore.  

Legend has it that balancing an egg on its end was so difficult that you effectively needed planetary alignment to make it happen. Thus, the myth was born that balancing an egg was only possible on the equinox.

Fortunately, it’s completely bogus.

It's also not that hard to do if you know how. From The Art of Manliness, we get complete instructions on how to balance an egg on its end, any day of the year. Go here to see the rest of the instructional graphic. You can use this on Monday to perpetuate the myth and impress the kids, or just use it any other day to bust the myth and still impress the kids.  

(Image credit: Ted Slampyak)