Hertha Ayrton was multitalented mathematician and engineer who filed 26 patents, but ran up against prejudice against women scientists all her life. She married her electical engineering professor, who was in awe of her genius. William Ayrton distanced himself from Hetha's projects, lest he be given credit for what she did, yet that happened quite a few times anyway. She came up with enormously useful breakthroughs and inventions.

In 1893, Hertha took over a project from William investigating the cause of an irritating hissing noise coming from the electric arc, which powered lamps in London at the time. The lamps consisted of two carbon rods with a charge running between them that produced an arc of light in the space between the rods. Hertha was the first to figure out that this loud hissing was due to the oxidation of the carbon electrodes. If you simply enclosed the whole contraption in a bulb so that it was not exposed to open air, the hissing stopped.

Hertha’s remarkable work on the electric arc won the attention and admiration of contemporary scientists. She was the first woman invited to give a paper at the Institution of Electrical Engineers in 1899 and became the first woman elected to membership of that Institution. She spoke about her findings at the International Congress of Women in London and at the Electrical Congress in Paris. Her appearances convinced the British Association for the Advancement of Science to include women on scientific committees.

But even with all this success, she still faced barriers. In 1901, her paper on the electric arc was presented to the Royal Society by a man standing in for her, since women were not allowed admission. In 1902, her name was put forth for admission to the Royal Society but was rejected by a majority of votes because, simply, they were “of the opinion that married women are not eligible as fellows of the Royal Society.”

This decision held even after, in 1906, Hertha became the first woman — and only the second woman to date — to be awarded the Hughes Medal for outstanding research in the field of energy.

Naturally, Ayrton became a suffragist, and even led Marie Curie to come out of her laboratory long enough to support the cause. Read about Hertha Ayrton at Massive Science. Curiously, the article does not say much about her fan invented to clear WWI trenches, but you can read about it here. -via Damn Interesting

In a restaurant in canada last night I was served pudding on, and I wish I was joking, an ancient VHS copy of The Bodyguard pic.twitter.com/53oQfXDlNw

— P.S.Burton (@PSBurton) August 8, 2019

It's been a few years since we discussed the trend of restaurants serving food on something other than plates. Since then, restaurants have been trying to outdo each other in ridiculous methods of presenting your meal. They include a sink, the cook's hand, the diner's hand, rocks, a mousetrap, antlers, and food served right on the tablecloth. How about some broccoli served on a bed of barbed wire?

(Image credit: oldfashioned24)

I don't even know if you'd call four pieces a "serving," but there may have been some already eaten. Anyway, you'll find a ranked list of the most egregious ways restaurants serve food to patrons at Bored Panda.

In 1897, Bram Stoker's novel Dracula introduced the world to the perfect villain, the terrifying vampire who defined horror monsters for more than a century -so far. Countless studies examine the various inspirations for the character of Dracula, many of them leading to Vlad the Impaler, although the historic Romanian ruler added little to the novel besides his name. Another inspiration came from Stoker's mother, whose childhood memories include a cholera outbreak in her hometown of Sligo in Ireland. The 1832 outbreak killed more than 10% of the town's population, but that wasn't the most horrifying detail. Marion McGarry of the Sligo Stoker Society explains.  

McGarry says Stoker was inspired by a grisly account of that epidemic written by his mother, Charlotte Thornley, who hid from the plague in her home before she fled Sligo with her family. Thornley’s essay remained unpublished and buried in a Dublin archive until the Society studied the text and, last year, had it widely circulated.

“Bram as an adult asked his mother to write down her memories of the epidemic for him, and he supplemented this using his own historic research of Sligo’s epidemic,” says McGarry. “Scratching beneath the surface (of this essay), I found parallels with Dracula. [For instance,] Charlotte says cholera enters port towns having traveled by ship, and can travel overland as a mist—just like Dracula, who infects people with his unknown contagion.”

The strongest link McGarry found, though, was between Dracula’s liminal state—being simultaneously dead and conscious—and Thornley’s description of cholera victims who were buried alive. Stoker was morbidly fascinated by this detail. So much so that the working title for his novel was The Undead, before his publisher later changed it to Dracula.

Read more on the connection between Sligo's cholera outbreak and Stoker's vampire at Atlas Obscura.
 
(Image credit: Nick)

Tucker the golden retriever is confronted with an entire roast chicken. How long can he resist taking a bite? Okay, how long can he resist a bite after he knows how it tastes? Longer than I expected. Remember this golden from an obedience challenge a few years ago. But no matter what, Tucker is a good boy. -via Digg

For a couple of years during the Great Depression, people in Chicago could find a free meal at a soup kitchen run by notorious gang boss Al Capone. By then, Capone had racked up millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains, so the cost of his charity was a relative trifle, but it made all the difference in the lives of Chicago residents who had no money for food. And the goodwill generated among everyday people made it harder for the police to investigate his crimes.  

Capone’s charity had no name, just a sign over the door that advertised “Free Soup, Coffee & Doughnuts for the Unemployed.” Inside, women in white aprons served an average of 2200 people a day with a smile and no questions asked. Breakfast was hot coffee and sweet rolls. Both lunch and dinner consisted of soup and bread. Every 24 hours, diners devoured 350 loaves of bread and 100 dozen rolls. They washed down their meals with 30 pounds of coffee sweetened with 50 pounds of sugar. The whole operation cost $300 per day.

The soup kitchen didn’t advertise its connection to Capone, but the mobster-benefactor’s name was connected to it in stories printed in local newspapers like the Chicago Tribune and The Rock Island Argus. Those who were down on their luck, though, apparently had few qualms about eating from the hand of Chicago’s worst crime boss. Often the line to get in to the kitchen was so long that it wound past the door of the city’s police headquarters, where Capone was considered Public Enemy #1, according to Harper’s Magazine. The line was particularly lengthy when Capone’s soup kitchen hosted a Thanksgiving meal of cranberry sauce and beef stew for 5000 hungry Chicagoans. (Why beef and not turkey? After 1000 turkeys were stolen from a nearby department store, Capone feared he’d be blamed for the theft and made a last-minute menu change.)

Read the story of Capone's soup kitchen at Mental Floss.

(Image credit: The National Archives)

We've seen a lot of Rube Goldberg contraptions over the years, but this one is special for quite a few reasons. YouTuber Creezy spent a month building it and another month getting all the components working. When it all works, it's a thing of beauty. First you notice how stunningly elaborate the course is. He uses everything from a whiffle ball to concrete blocks. Then you notice what an awesomely beautiful backyard he has. Then you marvel at the camera work. It's not a drone, but a 360° GoPro MAX that captures all the glorious chaos, straight to the relatively unimpressive end. -via Twisted Sifter

An 87-year-old woman in Firenze, Italy, was at her wit's end when her caregiver did not show up on Saturday. She is unable to cook, and by that evening was pretty hungry. She called 113, the Italian emergency number, and told police her situation. The Florence Police Department sent a patrol to check on her.

After being opened by a neighbor, the two policemen who ran to the scene, Antonio and Giuseppe, entered the woman's house and, after understanding her needs, immediately set to work: they accompanied the elderly woman to the kitchen, they set the table and prepared tomato ravioli for her to eat dinner.

Now, who do I have to call to get Antonio and Giuseppe to cook for me? -via reddit

Can you imagine the movie Beverly Hills Cop with no comedy? That was a distinct possibility before Eddie Murphy took over the role from Sylvester Stallone. Casting actors in a movie is crucial for its success, and it's hard to imagine an iconic film any other way after we've all seen the finished product. But in their early stages, many productions could have gone a very different way.

See 12 casting choices that changed in a pictofacts post at Cracked. And then imagine how those movies might have been different.

It's road construction season! On the first of June, I found that the interstate, the old highway, and the railroad on my daily commute are all undergoing maintenance, repair, and/or expansion. Only time will tell which will take the longest, but I would bet money that the railroad is the first project finished. What exactly are they doing on the roads every day, and why does it take so long? There are a lot of important factors involved in building a safe road that will last long enough to justify its expense. Practical Engineering gives us an overview of the nuts and bolts of road construction projects. -via Digg

We think of Antarctica as a barren place devoid of plant life due to all the snow and ice, but the continent is actually home to several species of plants: algae, mosses, lichens, and even grass. Sure, only one percent of Antarctica is warm enough for plants to grow, but it's a big continent. Scientists are turning their attention to algae that grows on snow. It seems weird, but it works.

Algae communities tend to be relatively abundant along the coastline of the Antarctic Peninsula during the austral summer months of December through February, when the average temperature is just above freezing. The green algae included in the study favor wet, slushy snow, because the microorganisms need liquid water to reproduce, says Davey. They also thrive near penguin colonies, bird nesting sites, and seal hangouts, as animal poop offers nourishing nitrogen and phosphate for the blooms.

You know what they say, "Watch out where the penguins go; don't you eat that green snow." Or something like that. Anyway, Antarctica also has pink, orange, and red algae that grow on snow. Read about that algae and how it fits into the delicate ecosystem in Antarctica at Atlas Obscura.

(Image credit: Matt Davey)

This is Kitzia, and she appears to be quite upset. In fact, "angry cat" would be a better description than grumpy cat. But Kitzia isn't angry at all. That's just her face, and it always looks like that. Her owner, photographer Viktoriia Otdielnova, says Kitzia is a friendly and loving cat. But if she were to become angry, how would anyone know?



Read more about Kitzia at Bored Panda, and follow her life at Instagram.

There is a little part of Spain that is completely surrounded by France. The town of Llívia and its 1,600 or so residents are Spanish, yet they are inside France, which gives them a certain independence and the attitude that comes with it. That strange geography came about more than 300 years ago because of how the exact words of a border agreement was defined.

Llívia was an important Roman settlement and the ancient capital of Cerdanya up until the early Middle Ages. In 1659, after more than two decades of war, France and Spain reached a peace agreement called the Treaty of the Pyrenees, according to the terms of which all Spanish “villages” north of the Pyrenees were to be handed over to France. But Spain held on to Llívia, pointing out a technicality that Llívia was a town and not a village, and thus cheated France out of it. The surrounding villages became part of the French kingdom, but Llívia stayed in Spain and became an enclave of France. The five-square-mile municipality is now connected to the rest of Spain by a narrow, two-lane “neutral” road, the N-154, which is administered by both France and Spain with a rotation of six months each.

There are benefits to being separated from Spain, such as in the 2017 Catalonian referendum, when Spanish authorities disrupted the voting in most of Catalonia, but could not reach Llívia. But there are difficulties, too, including dealing with the bureaucracy of two nations. Read about Llívia at Amusing Planet.

(Image credit: Flickr user ANSELM PALLÀS)

Now that June is here, Screen Junkies continues its Blockbuster Summer series from last summer. In 1996, the disaster movie Twister ended up as the second-highest grossing film of the year (after Independence Day). Now, Screen Junkies uses an Honest Trailer to revisit the predictable and formulaic yet action-packed Twister. You just can't beat non-stop destruction and flying cows.

The International Photography Awards has anounced the winners of their latest competition, which used the theme OneShot: Movement. The Photographer of the Year Award, the highest honor in the competition, goes to Anne Mason-Hoerter of Germany for the above image, titled Wild Carrots.

Multiple scan data combined with digital camera data of a Wild Carrot, scientific name being Daucus carota. My photographic process involves first taking the plant apart and then scanning each piece. I then combine those images with images I have taken with my cameras. I wanted to reproduce the unseen movement of plants at night. There are over 50 single images and took over a month to complete.

See first, second, and third place winners in the categories of Fine Art, Nature, People, Street Photography, and Technology/Machine, plus honorable mentions, at the winners page. -via Digg

It's possible, or even probable, that you haven't heard of the movie The Wretched. You might be surprised to know that it is the number one film in the US, and has been for five weekends straight! The teen horror film was made on a minuscule budget by independent studio IFC, which is taking advantage of the fact that most theaters have been closed and blockbuster summer films from the big Hollywood studios have been postponed. IFC has stuck to their release schedule, and their movies play in drive-in theaters with almost no promotion.

“There’s a window of opportunity for success, and IFC is taking that risk and innovating,” said Jeff Bock, a box office analyst with Exhibitor Relations. “A studio like Warner Bros. can’t take chances like that because they’d lose money, even if drive-ins were packed. There’s not much expected for a film like ‘The Wretched.’ If it gets to $1 million, it’s like another studio getting to $100 million.”

It’s taken some recalibration and innovation to get near those box office receipts. Smaller studios rely heavily on mom-and-pop movie theaters, whose owners come to learn and help cultivate the taste of their clientele, to get the word out about a new movie. They can’t afford the same robust marketing spends as Marvel or James Bond films. For promotional efforts tied to “The Wreched,” IFC leaned heavily into the old-school nature of outdoor moviegoing. But they’ve found that chatter throughout the community continues to be one of the surest ways to spread the gospel.

Read more about The Wretched and how independent movies are having a moment during 2020 at Variety. -via Metafilter