Almost everyone gestures while talking, at least in some situations, some people more than others. Tom Scott explains the many different ways we use gestures, and the many reasons we do it.

Happy Hanukkah to all those who celebrate it on Earth! #HappyHanukkah pic.twitter.com/FKC2M5iXni

— Jessica Meir (@Astro_Jessica) December 23, 2019

As Hanukkah began at sundown on Sunday, NASA astronaut Jessica Meir sent a photographic greeting to earth via Twitter. She's been aboard the ISS since September, and had planned ahead well enough to take a pair of festive socks for the occasion. That may be the extent of her celebration, considering the restrictions of space.

But lighting fires in outer space can be especially challenging, considering that flames can react to the absence of gravity in an uncontrolled manner.

Perhaps for this reason, for her messageMeir opted for a picture of her feet wrapped in a pair of entertaining socks featuring pink menorahs and green stars of David on a blue background. And she did follow the tradition of placing the menorah close to the window, since behind her feet, the earth is visible thousands of kilometers away.

In case you are wondering what a lit candle looks like in space, you can see that. Also, since there are around eight "sundowns" per day on the space station, Meir began the holiday using her home coordinates. Meanwhile, a Twitter user in Jerusalem is wearing astronaut socks.

Happy Hanukkah from Jerusalem pic.twitter.com/zSLmwzZTPg

— Yiftah Curiel (@yiftahc) December 23, 2019

-via reddit

A reader asked: "Could you get in trouble legally if you murdered someone in space? Asking for a friend." The answer is yes. But from there it gets a bit complicated.

To begin with, while you might think it can’t actually be possible to commit a crime in space because no country seemingly has jurisdiction there, you’d be wrong. Much like the myth that you can do whatever you want in international waters because no country holds sway, it turns out, among other agreements and rules, International laws are a thing.

On that note, while aboard a given vessel, the ship you’re on officially hails and is registered from some nation or group of nations (like the European Union) and the laws from said entities are binding aboard it in most cases while it’s out at sea. This is outlined in the United Nations Convention for the Law of the Sea, “every State shall effectively exercise its jurisdiction and control in administrative, technical and social matters over ships flying its flag.”

While obviously there isn’t exactly a court case history to back this up, the general consensus is that the same basic idea will hold true for ships in space, and certain agreements to date concerning space ships do seem to bear that out, as well as help give a partial framework for judges to work with.

Where it gets complicated is when you mix the nationalities of missions, as in the various countries that use the International Space Station, or when NASA sends astronauts up on Russian spaceships. Murder is murder everywhere, but some countries have laws that others don't. There is a framework for space jurisdiction, but it might upend horribly the first time someone is accused of espionage. And what about an international colony on Mars? Read what rules govern space flight as of now at Today I Found Out.

(Image credit: NASA)

When you travel "home" for the holidays, that often means visiting older relatives, who would like you to to take a look at what's wrong with their computer, phone, TV, or other tech devices. Geeks make jokes about this constantly, so when I saw the headline as written above, I thought this might be a comedy list on how you can mess those things up so they'll never ask for your expertise again. No, this is a serious list that would be seriously useful in getting things situated at Grandma's house. It would also be a great New Year's list for yourself, as you have put off some of those tech maintenance tasks for too long. Start 2020 fresh and secure with the tech tasks listed at Gizmodo. 

(Image credit: John Schnobrich on Unsplash)

Artist Jenny Jinya is an illustrator who also does comics. She wrote a graphic tale about black cats that went viral, and now had added a new chapter that will tug at your heartstrings. Read the entire story on one page at Jinya's site. And if you enjoyed that one, you can also read a story about a little dog who's a good boy. Bring a hankie. -via Bored Panda

The phenomenon known as the Fata Morgana mirage causes seafarers to see things that don't exist on the horizon. It's not due to seasickness or hunger or the relentless boredom of sailing driving one mad, but those things probably didn't help. It's a real illusion caused by the way light works with the atmosphere and the sea.

In 1818, when British explorer John Ross entered Lancaster Sound while seeking the Northwest Passage, he saw a mountain blocking his ship’s course and decided to sail no further. Ross named the mountain range the Croker Mountains, but a later expedition showed that they did not exist. In 1906, American explorer Robert Peary viewed a vast land northwest of Ellesmere Island and named it Crocker Land after his patron George Crocker. A couple of years later, Donald MacMillan went in search of the island and for five days chased the frozen apparition in vain before realizing that like Peary what he was seeing was an illusion.

A conspiracy theorist might see meaning in the similarity of the names, but these are just a couple of the big mistakes caused by the mirage. Read an explanation of how the Fata Morgana mirage works at Amusing Planet.

(Image credit: Flickr user Juris Seņņikovs)

You know the bares bones story of how Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer came to be. First it was a story in a promotional booklet given to kids by Montgomery Ward in 1939. Then it became a simple song written by Johnny Marks and sung by Gene Autry in 1949. And then in 1964, the story was again fleshed out, this time for a TV special that is still broadcast 55 years later. But there's more to the story. Johnny Marks had a hard getting anyone interested in his Christmas song about a reindeer.

It was off to a slow start. Marks had pitched a demo for his new song but the biggest stars weren’t interested. Both Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby turned him down before Marks got a foot in the door with Gene Autry. The “Singing Cowboy” himself didn’t actually like the song, but his wife loved it, and she talked her husband into recording it as the B-side to another Christmas single he was recording for Columbia Records. By the end of the year, Marks’ little ditty about a flying red-nosed reindeer named Rudolph was the biggest song in the country.

Crosby released a new version the following year. Then Sinatra, and then the Supremes and the Temptations. By 1980, more than 500 different renditions had been commercially released. By the end of the century, it was the biggest Christmas song ever written, and so closely identified with the holiday that it is hard for subsequent generations to imagine the holiday without it. No one since Charles Dickens had so profoundly altered the mythology of Christmas itself.

Read how the different iterations of Rudolph and his red nose captured the public's imagination at HuffPo.

(Image credit: Rankin Bass)

Christmas, and the midwinter festivals that preceded it, have been around a very long time, so there is no end to the superstitions surrounding the holiday. The turning point of winter at the solstice was traditionally the start of a new year in northern climates, and therefore people did everything they could to ensure food, fortune, and fertility for the coming year. And it being winter, they had plenty of time stuck inside to come up with the "rules." Here is a small sampling.

Societal pressure to be happy and in love at Christmas is nothing new, consequently there is a glut of love divination superstitions for this time of year, strangely all aimed at women. For example, young women who go out and hit pigs with a stick at Christmas can tell the age of their husbands-to-be, presumably if they can avoid being arrested for trespassing and pig-bothering in the meantime. The first pig to squeal determines the age: old pig, old husband; young pig, young husband; no squeal, no husband.

If there’s a hen house next to the pig sty, knock on its door between 11pm and midnight. If the rooster answers, you’ll be married; if the knocking is followed by silence, you’ll not marry. Probably best to check there’s a rooster in there first, and make sure it is before midnight, as farm animals are briefly gifted with the power of speech at this time – naturally it’s fatal for a human to hear them.

There are also superstitions surrounding decorations, Christmas food, and gifts, at Folklore Thursday. -via Strange Company

Have you ever wondered what your auto mechanic is doing when it's too cold for anyone to bother bringing their car in? This must have been inspired by the jingling sounds of wrenches dropped by accident on the concrete floor. After you watch it once, go back and watch it again at 1.5x speed. Yeah, his wrenches are just a little bit out of tune, but the warm wishes are perfect. -via reddit

What could be more festive than a cake iced with an image of Rudolph, Santa's lead reindeer? While that may sound like a fine idea, you must first know how to draw a reindeer. It's slightly more difficult than a couple of eyes, a red nose, and some antlers. None of those things are as easy as you might think to render in pen and paper, much less icing. I'm sure there are cake decorators up to the task, but you won't find any of those decorators in a roundup of disastrous attempts at Cake Wrecks. 

Norwegian artist Caroline Eriksson brought us the amazing gingerbread xenomorph last year, and a gingerbread Optimus Prime a few years ago. You also might remember her gingerbread Smaug and gingerbread Darth Vader. This year, she's outdone herself with this  gingerbread Groot! The sculpture is full size, and is made of gingerbread cookie slabs held together with sugar syrup built over a wire mesh structure. It took a week of planning, and another four weeks to build it. You can see some of the process in pictures here.  -via Geeks Are Sexy

You know what they say about unintended consequences, or the best laid plans, or something like that. There's always someone who will find a way around them- or sometimes a lot of someones. Auto emissions are especially dangerous in high-population cities, like Delhi. A plan was hatched to reduce the number of vehicles in use: autos with odd-numbered license plates and even-numbered plates would be allowed on the roads on alternating days.  

In theory, this should force people to either carpool or suck it up and use public transportation. But in practice, it just made them buy more cars to get around the rule. According to a study by an Indian university, air pollution went down in Delhi the first time the rule was tried, but on the second attempt it increased by 23%. Not coincidentally, the number of cars on the roads went up too. There's no way the authorities could have known the scheme would have this effect ... unless they'd looked at Mexico City, where precisely this had already happened.

Read the rest of that story and five others that are even more insane (and may be disturbing) at Cracked.

(Image credit: NOMAD)

The traditional Santa Claus character in Russia is called Ded Moroz, which means “Grandfather Frost.” He brings gifts for good children in the dead of winter, but varies somewhat from other versions of Santa. Ded Moroz wasn't even all that popular in Russia until the late 19th century, and even then was considered pagan by the Russian Orthodox church. But Ded Moroz got a boost after the Communist Revolution of 1917, when the new Soviet government went about dismantling the practice of Christianity, including Christmas.

In this context, Ded Moroz’s pre-Christian roots were an asset. The Soviet leadership never said this explicitly, but it seems likely that they permitted and even encouraged Ded Moroz because he was, theoretically, Russian, born and bred. Depictions of Ded Moroz changed with the times during the Soviet era. For the Space Race, he was sometimes shown driving a spaceship rather than a troika. At other times he was depicted as a muscular, hard-working, semi-shirtless emblem of Communist industry.

After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, religious practice became legal again. But that put those who were theoretically Christian in a very weird position with regard to Christmas. They were able to celebrate Christmas, but they had never done it before. In fact, their parents, grandparents, and even great-grandparents had likely never celebrated Christmas. And Christianity in Russia still largely means the Eastern Orthodox Church, which carries its own complicated baggage.  

Read the history of Ded Moroz at Atlas Obscura.

(Bottom image credit: RIA Novosti archive, image #541790/Alexander Makarov/CC-BY-SA 3.0) 

Every year, reddit hosts a Christmas gift exchange among users, sending gifts flying across the world to strangers. Thousands participate, including Bill Gates. So every year, one lucky participant is shocked, surprised, and delighted to find that Gates is their secret Santa. This year is was redditor szor. She told the story in a video, and also in text.   

Diane, It’s Tuesday, December 17 at 10:00 p.m. and I’m full-force in my getting-ready-for-bed routine. I check my phone one last time and I spy an email alert informing me that my RedditGifts Secret Santa package has shipped! I log in and am a bit taken aback that the package is being FedEx overnighted – sounds expensive. I also noticed that it was being shipped from Washington state, and as a seasoned RedditGifter, I remark to my husband, “Huh, wouldn’t it be something if my Santa was Bill Gates? LOLOLOLOL!” Cue bedtime.

Diane, It’s morning on December 18. The work holiday party is today, so I’m expecting a pretty lax day. I check the shipping page to make sure the package is still on track, and something curious catches my eye- 81 pounds. 81 POUNDS. 81. POUNDS. MY PACKAGE IS BEING OVERNIGHTED ACROSS 8 SHIPMENT ZONES AND IT WEIGHS 81 POUNDS. This is when it hits me that this is something truly special. It’s only 9:30 a.m. and I can’t just ditch to go home to accept this surely gigantic package.

The package did not fit into her car, nor her husband's car, so they had to open it at the FedEx office, to the delight of the staff. Gates always checks the reddit history of the person he draws as well as their gift preferences, so that the gifts are personal and meaningful. Read what szor received in the gift exchange forum. -via reddit

Department stores will try any promotion to get people inside to do their Christmas shopping. After all, that's how we got the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. Wannamaker's, one of the earliest department stores in America, had a foolproof Christmas promotion in 1897. They had a "bargain day for cats," in which they displayed and sold the hot Christmas gift of the year, angora cats, priced from $10 to $40.  

According to an article in the Buffalo Evening News, each cat had a pet name tagged onto his or her cage, such as Peggy, Tammany, Romeo, Hamlet, Juliet, Maggy, Jack and Jill, and Fedora. Above the cats’ wire cages hung smaller cages filled with singing birds. A cat doctor was in constant attendance to ensure their well-being.

“What is the price of Tammany?” one news reporter asked the cat clerk. “Tammany’s sold,” the clerk replied. “He brought $20, and we can’t keep supplied with Tammany cats.”

The clerk continued, “Here’s Peggy. She’s marked $10, but if you want her I will let her go for $9.99. Jack and Jill together are worth $30, but as an inducement we will sell them for $29.99.”

The cat clerk had a sense of humor. The news reporter had $29.99, which he gave the clerk to purchase Jack and Jill.

It must have worked, as Wannamaker's repeated the promotion in 1898 and 1899. Read about the craze for Christmas angora cats at The Hatching Cat.  -via Strange Company