Let's talk about expletives, without using expletives. If you want to use them, get your swear jar ready. Tom Scott is not so much talking about swear words themselves, but the habit of slipping a swear word into a middle of another word, which you hear everywhere these days, but is not exactly new. That kind of English construction doesn't have rules you learn in school, but there are rules anyway.

It's been 50 years now since we learned the Beatles were breaking up. The biggest band in the world who cranked out hits for years would cease to be, although it took a bit of reading between the lines to figure that out. Both Lennon and McCartney were doing solo albums, and McCartney included an interview in his marketing, in which his intention to leave the Beatles was leaked.   

Was McCartney’s “announcement” official? His album appeared on April 17, and its press packet included a mock interview. In it, McCartney is asked, “Are you planning a new album or single with the Beatles?”

His response? “No.”

But he didn’t say whether the separation might prove permanent. The Daily Mirror nonetheless framed its headline conclusively: “Paul Quits the Beatles.”

While the world was shocked, the band had been moving toward breakup for some time. Paul's single word blew up the group's agreement to keep their troubles under wraps, and only made tensions between them worse. And they still had an album coming out the next month. Read the story of the Beatles' breakup and how it finally became public at Smithsonian.

Check out this beautiful *giant* siphonophore Apolemia recorded on #NingalooCanyons expedition. It seems likely that this specimen is the largest ever recorded, and in strange UFO-like feeding posture. Thanks @Caseywdunn for info @wamuseum @GeoscienceAus @CurtinUni @Scripps_Ocean pic.twitter.com/QirkIWDu6S

— Schmidt Ocean (@SchmidtOcean) April 6, 2020

Researchers aboard the Schmidt Ocean Institute's RV Falkor used an ROV to survey the ocean floor off the western coast of Australia. They spotted this massive sinophore lying in a spiral shape.

"It seems likely that this specimen is the largest ever recorded, and in strange UFO-like feeding posture," the institute wrote. Schmidt Ocean estimated the siphonophore's outer ring at 49 feet (15 meters) in diameter.  

While the siphonophore, which is related to jellyfish, looks like it's all one animal, it's actually a collection of parts.

A little math tells us that the outer ring could be as long as 150 feet, which means the entire length could make it the longest animal on earth. A single creature that evolved in that shape would be too vulnerable to survive, but since it's a colony, made up of many individual clones, it may just be a uniquely long-lived specimen. Jellyfish scientist Rebecca Helm tells us about the sinophore genus Apolemia. 

...they'll send the nutrients through a long digestive tract that travels down the whole colony, so that every other clone can use the nutrients. In this way, this siphonophore may remain still and feed for a long time, and I mean LONG...

— Open Ocean Exploration (@RebeccaRHelm) April 6, 2020

Find out more about this kind of creature in her informative Twitter thread. -via Digg

Barbershops, hair stylists, and nail salons may be closed, but hair continues to grow. After about a month without maintenance, many people are taking things into their own hands, with hilarious results. Radio personality LuluyLala, above, tried a lip wax and burned herself. That sounds painful, but she had enough of a sense of humor to share it. So do plenty of people who tried to cut their own hair, or trusted the task to someone they are quarantined with.  

Hubby needed a trim and we figured, why not? How bad a job could I possibly do? #coronacut #thehorror pic.twitter.com/oRCRZOcgj8

— LeAnne Cantrell (@kidsensela) April 6, 2020

See a bunch more of these, or to be specific, 30 Of The Best Quarantine Beauty Fails at Bored Panda.

Vickie Jones was a talented singer who is perhaps most famous for being arrested for impersonating Aretha Franklin. During the day, Jones sang with her church choir, and at night she sang under her assumed name in seedy bars for money, because she was a single mother with four children to support. And she was good at it. Jones was a fan of Aretha Franklin, and covered some of Franklin’s hit songs in her nightclub act. One night, James Brown impersonator Lavell Hardy heard Jones sing and was impressed by how much she sounded like Aretha.

Hardy later approached Jones and told her that he was slated to tour with the actual Aretha Franklin in Florida, and that he wanted to book Jones as an opening act in the shows. Jones initially refused Hardy’s offer, not because she didn’t believe him, but rather because she quite literally didn’t have enough money for bus fair to get to Florida. However, after Hardy explained that Jones would be paid $1,000 (about $8,000 today) for a stretch of six nights of performing with the Queen of Soul, she took out a loan with a local money lender for the price of a bus ticket.

When Jones arrived in Florida without a penny to her name, however, Hardy explained he’d been lying and that she wouldn’t be opening for Franklin at all, but would be pretending to be her. An irate Jones told Hardy that she’d do no such thing… The problem was she was now stuck in Florida without money to get home. At this point, beyond dangling the promise of a lot of money if she went along with it, Hardy also allegedly told her that he’d kill her and toss her body in the ocean if she refused to comply with his request.

Driving a hard bargain, Jones accepted his offer, and Hardy subsequently went about approaching a number of small Florida club owners claiming to represent Franklin. These owners were understandably unconvinced that the very young Hardy represented THE Aretha Franklin, with some going so far to laugh in his face.

However, some were convinced to pay for an Aretha Franklin show, and Hardy made plenty of money- which he did not share with Jones. Neither did he allow her out of his sight unless she was locked in her hotel room. Read about the travails of the Aretha Franklin clone Vickie Jones at Today I Found Out.

Life is tough for world leaders. You can be good at your job and respected by your constituents, and the internet will still find a way to make you look ridiculous. In this case, Justin Trudeau gave a press conference in which he explained the benefits of face masks by saying it prevented you from “speaking moistly.”

“(A mask) protects others more than it protects you, because it prevents you from breathing or speaking moistly on them,” said Trudeau. He quickly followed up by saying: “what a terrible image,” after he realized the visceral reaction people have to that word.

The turn of phrase was odd enough that it became in instant meme. Brock Tyler Auto-Tuned it into a viral song that’s a guaranteed ear worm. If you are averse to Auto-Tuned politicians, Adam Carter made a nice acoustic version. Good luck getting this tune out of your head. -via Metafilter

To stay busy and creative, UK wedding photographer Chris Wallace staged and shot a wedding of LEGO minifigs! Besides photos of the ceremony itseld, he included many of the staged and edited poses that couples request, like the couple floating through the air and one where the rain falls around them.

See a collection of images from the wedding shoot at PetaPixel. -via Boing Boing

This guy scooped up a jar of pond water to see what would grow in it. He ended up seeing some amazing things, and we are thankful he had a microscope to help him show us. If you're interested, he did a second video to follow up on his new pets.



-via Digg

England is well-known for street names that seem NSFW, especially in American English. Those street names may be centuries old, and they sometimes mean something quite different from what they sound like. The name could be a descendant of Old English words, or just a geographical feature that doesn't translate well. Some, however, were originally meant as exactly what they sound like now.

The British often celebrate their rude street names, though understanding why they’re rude requires a schoolboy’s knowledge of slang. For a people considered demure, their vocabulary of filthy words is truly impressive. In 2016, the UK’s Office of Communications, a government agency that regulates offensive language on radio and television, published the results of a survey asking British people which words they considered the most offensive. The study only confirmed that British and American English are two different languages. I could hardly understand why many of the words were dirty at all, from the mild (“git”?) to the medium (what are “bint” and “munter,” and why are they about the same level of rudeness as “tits”?). But I could see why busloads of tourists detoured to take pictures in front of signs for Cracknuts Lane, St. Gregory’s Back Alley, Slutshole Road, and Cockshut Lane. An Oxford resident complained that he finds his street name most awkward when he is sitting with “official people,” and they ask, “you know, where do you live?” His answer? “Crotch Crescent.”

Find out which rude street names are meant that way, and which are completely innocent at LitHub. -via Damn Interesting

(Image credit: Duncan Harris)

Easter is a religious holiday, but like other holidays, the secular side of the celebration is full of traditions handed down and evolved from pagan rituals, in this case, celebrating the arrival of spring. Among those customs is the appearance of skeletal horse.

In East Lancashire, a long time ago, the streets were plagued by a kind of hobby-horse made from the skull of a dead horse, with bottle-bottoms for eyes and nails for teeth. The contraption was worn over the head and had a lever to snap its jaws. This ‘horse’ (which resembles the Welsh Mari Lywd) was nicknamed Old Ball, after the common name for a carthorse. Sackcloth or cow-skin hid the operator, who would snap the monster’s jaws to make women scream and terrify their children. Several people suffered defensive injuries to their hands.

Read about a bunch of old, odd, and sometimes violent Easter customs at Folklore Thursday. -via Strange Company

(Image credit: R. fiend)

A historic 75th anniversary is coming up that few even realize today. April 25, 1945 was the day that the Eastern Front met the Western Front in World War II. The Americans were waiting at the Elbe River in Germany, and when the Red Army reached the shore on the other side, they jumped into boats to cross over and meet the Americans. That meeting meant that the German forces had essentially been split into two.

Meanwhile the jubilation among the troops would have made you believe that the war was already won. The soldiers embraced each other, and exchanged buttons, stars and patches from each other’s uniforms. Officers exchanged their service weapons.

After the war, as relations between the former allies soured and descended into Cold War, Elbe Day became a powerful symbol of unity between the East and the West, reminding people that even the fiercest enemies are capable of peace and friendship.

Read about Elbe Day and what it meant at Amusing Planet.

The garden at Claude Monet's home in Giverny, France, inspired some of the most beautiful paintings ever. It is still kept filled with flowers as it was during the artist's lifetime. But not everyone can get to Giverny to see it, so why not take a three-minute look on video? -via Everlasting Blort

This image shows an emergency room display of fishing lures that have been removed from people. It doesn't show the ones that got away, meaning the ones that the patients insisted on keeping. Redditor ReeveStodgers shared a lovely story of when that happened to her.

-via TYWKIWDBI

Troll dolls were all over the place in the 1960s. They were both ugly and cute, and came in a price range everyone could afford. Fifty years later, they made the silver screen. But where did they come from?

The story of troll dolls began in the small town of Gjøl, Denmark, during the economic precarity that followed World War II. According to board game designer Tim Walsh’s 2005 book Timeless Toys, Thomas Dam (1915-1989) was a baker whose livelihood vanished when the local flour factory shuttered. Struggling to support his young family, Dam shoveled snow for cash while formulating a new plan for earning a living. Early in the morning, or at night when he returned, Dam would sit near the fireplace, carving bits of wood while he thought. He often carved funny creatures to entertain his children, and eventually, his wife persuaded him to try selling the figurines. Dam packed up as many as he could carry and traveled to Aalborg, the nearest city, where he planned to knock on doors. He came home empty-handed, having successfully sold them all.

As Dam’s figurines found fans in Aalborg, customers began commissioning bigger projects. Before long, Dam became a working sculptor whose reputation eventually exceeded Denmark’s borders. In 1956, a Swedish department store hired him to create a large sculpture of Santa Claus, kicking off the chain of events that nudged Dam to fully embrace toy making.

That Santa Claus was not the original troll doll, but it figured prominently in the story. Dam eventually named his toy company Dam Things, which charmed the English-speaking world. Read about the origin and phenomenal popularity of troll dolls at Smithsonian.

Bichopalo is an artist based in Valencia, Spain. He makes gorgeous retro-futuristic musical instruments out of a variety of natural and manmade objects. The combinations are a delight to see, and they sound nice, too. This machine above is called “THE PLANTYFLUTESIZER”.

Still in progress, I can’t really tell how many hours, days and months I've spent working on this. The entire structure is a combination of different instruments but the main one is a sort of sequencer with 8 notes limit that can be combinated on different patterns. An electric impulse actives a motor with an arm connected that hits a sensor running a pre-recorded note.
There’s a lot to speak about this but on this particular post the real rockstars are my little partners: Pico and Verdi.
This two little fellas have been with me from a while, making me laught and giving me incredible presents every single day.

The second one is called "invisible forces." See more of Bichopalo's work at Instagram. -via Boing Boing