Humans consuming other humans has taken many strange forms over history. It doesn't always involve murder, and sometimes it's the last resort for survival, but it always strikes us as creepy. You'll learn some thing you never knew before in this TED-Ed lesson, including the etymological connection between the words "Caribbean" and "cannibal." Incidentally, "kuru" is a prion disease, along the lines of Creutzfeldt–Jakob and mad cow disease. -via Digg

Sebastian Leuzinger and Martin Bader from the Auckland University of Technology discovered a kauri tree stump in New Zealand that appeared to have survived all of its leaves and branches, and most of its trunk, being cut off. Analysis showed that the stump was circulating water inside, but only at night and on rainy days. It is drawing water and nutrients from the roots of other nearby trees, benefitting from the intact trees' ability to photosynthesize. The phenomenon is not unknown, but Leuzinger and Bader were in a position to study it and write a research paper.  

These grafts happen when a tree detects biocompatible root tissue nearby, enabling “hydraulic coupling.” In this case, the grafts likely formed prior to the stump losing its green foliage, but the researchers aren’t entirely sure.

For the stump, the advantages of this arrangement are obvious—it gets to stay alive despite not being able to produce carbohydrates. But as the authors point out in the study, this arrangement may actually be symbiotic in nature.

Possible adaptive reasons for the support might include increased access to resources enabled by extensive shared root systems, or maybe protection against erosion. But wouldn't we like to think that the stump is being supported by its own children, who are happy to help out a disabled family member out of love? Read more about the stump that wouldn't die at Gizmodo.

(Image credit: Sebastian Leuzinger)

The random manner in which the world appears to work can strangely make all the parts of your life interconnect in ways you never dreamed. Sometimes when you think about what your life would be like if only x hadn't happened, or if you had made a different decision at some point, you can't even imagine all the other parts of life that would have been affected. Eric had that experience with his dog Nova, which is why this story from Pursuit of Wonder is called the Nova Effect. -via Laughing Squid 

The Reef Cavern - Pub/Entertainment from Garden #shedoftheyear

The British do love their sheds. So much so, that the Cuprinol Shed of The Year award (previously at Neatorama) was launched to find the best and most creative sheds. Voting is now open in the Shed of The Year competition for 2019.

Three finalists have been selected in seven categories: Pubs/Entertainment, Nature's Haven, Cabin, Unique, Workshops, Budget, and Unexpected. You can cast your vote in each category until August 29 at the competition website. Click on the pictures at the link to bring up more images and the story of each shed. Or see them all on one page in a gallery at The Guardian. -via Metafilter

Last year, we showed you Ravi Zupa's matchbox art featuring drunk cats. Now he has another set, this time featuring dogs! They aren't drunk, but they display anthropomorphic personality traits that will make you grin. The matchboxes are for sale, or you can get larger posters of the designs without matches.

 

See a demonstration of Zupa's four-color printing process at Bored Panda. See more of Zupa's art at Instagram.

The slapstick trope of a person slipping on a banana peel is seen in everything from silent films to modern cartoons. By now, part of the comedy is how ubiquitous yet unlikely that scenario is. But the joke is rooted in reality, as banana peels were once a bona fide danger, especially in New York City. In the late 19th century, importers figured out how to bring bananas to the US before they rotted. The fruit became a sensation. Street vendors sold them individually, touting the banana's skin as a natural "sanitary wrapper," which buyers would discard in the street. For political reasons, the city was not up to keeping those streets clean.  

Accounts and photos from the time are stunning. New Yorkers threw their trash in the street, where no one picked it up, leading the city to release wild pigs to eat the refuse. Dead animals lingered in gutters for days. In this environment, discarded banana peels rotted into slippery messes and mottled into a camouflaging brown.

Orange peels and potato skins caused slips and falls too, but pedestrians feared bananas, which scientists have since confirmed rank among the slipperiest of fruits. Letters to the editor demanded harsh penalties for discarding peels. Theodore Roosevelt, then New York City’s chief of police, declared war on banana peels, and gave a public address to his captains and sergeants on “the bad habits of the banana skin, dwelling particularly on its tendency to toss people into the air and bring them down with terrific force on the hard pavement.”

Newspaper accounts from the time confirm injuries and even deaths from banana peels. Read about the scourge of slippery banana peels and the campaign to end the risk at Atlas Obscura.

Minnesotastan recently pointed out that Captain America in his classic suit looks more like Captain Puerto Rico with the single star. The superhero costume has changed, and I had to ask who he was when I saw Infinity War. So how should Captain America look?



A crafty cosplayer named Casey (redditor hotglueburns) made a splash at San Diego Comic Con when he arrived as Captain Native America. Casey is Osage and Oglala and knows about hot glue. He said,

I really appreciate all the comments! And I have to say, the overwhelming response I have received so far, is about the lack of representation in media. It was one of my main motivations in making the costume... I ended up having so many great conversations about this at the convention. And It meant a lot to have people coming and actually asking for hugs because they were genuinely so happy to see my costume. Really rewarding and inspiring experience for sure.  

See more of Captain Native America and Casey's other projects at Instagram. -via reddit

(Top image source: TemporaryTrip)

After Tim Burton and Michael Keaton brought Batman to the big screen in 1989, they did it again in 1992 with Batman Returns. The difference is that ty2hyq was more about the villains: the Penguin, Catwoman, and a host of other evildoers. Screen Junkies appears to really like the movie, but as always, they can find plenty of weirdness to highlight in this Honest Trailer. -via Geeks Are Sexy 

It's hard to resist wanting to pet a cute and fuzzy feline, and many cats bask in the attention. But we've all known cats who will let you pet them, and suddenly turn and bite you. That doesn't mean the cat is psychotic. It's a communication thing: the cat has had enough, and you haven't taken the subtle hints. Getting a cat involves two, and it's not all about you, the petter.  

The key to success is to focus on providing the cat with as much choice and control during interactions as possible. For example, the choice to indicate whether they want to be petted or not, and control over where we touch them, and how long for.

Due to our tactile nature and love of cute things, this approach may not come instinctively to many of us. And it will likely require a little self-restraint. But it could well pay off, as research shows interactions with cats are likely to last longer when the cat, rather than the human, initiates them.

Read more on how the cat sees your attempts at affection and how they communicate their feelings about it at the Conversation. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Sean Davis)

Yellowstone National Park may technically belong to the American people, but to the wildlife there, it's home. And you don't negotiate with a bison who might weight 1800 pounds. Despite warnings, tourists often mingle with bison at Yellowstone, which is never a good idea. The incident above happened on Monday.  -via Boing Boing

When the Apollo program sent astronauts on moon missions that lasted a week or more, every 12-year-old wondered the same thing- how do you poop in space? We didn't get much in the way of answers, as NASA was fully aware of the public sensibilities of the time. But they had to deal with human body functions along with all the other technicalities of space travel. The system they worked out was difficult, time-consuming, and unpleasant. NASA's history site explains.

The fecal collection system presented am even more distasteful set of problems. The collection process required a great dead of skill to preclude escape of feces from the collection bag and consequent soiling of the crew, their clothing, or cabin surfaces. The fecal collection process was, moreover, extremely time consuming because of the level of difficulty involved with use of the system. An Apollo 7 astronaut estimated the time required to correctly accomplish the process at 45 minutes. Good placement of fecal bags was difficult to attain; this was further complicated by the fact that the flap at the back of the constant wear garment created an opening that was too small for easy placement of the bags.

How bad could it be? Jason Torchinsky decided to find out. Unable to attain an original collection bag, he built one to specifications and tested it out himself. You can read the review at Jalopnik, but be aware the language is graphic, and the description is not for the faint of heart.  -via Digg

Alexandre Dubosc (previously at Neatorama) makes delightful zoetrope animations out of chocolate cake. His latest creation is called Freequences. The motion shows us bits of chocolate cascading down the layers of the cake, creating visual music as it goes. Sweet! -via Nag on the Lake

Scituate, Massachusetts, is home to around 18,000 people, half of whom claim Irish ancestry. This makes it the "most Irish" town in the US. The reason behind that goes back to an Irish immigrant who recognized a natural resource in the ocean that folks from other places did not.  

Around 1847, Daniel Ward was sailing off the coast of Boston when he spotted gold—at least in seaweed form. An immigrant from Ireland, Ward had been working as a fisherman when he saw red algae beneath the ocean surface that he recognized as carrageen, or Irish moss. Back home in Ireland, the Irish harvested this seaweed for uses like making pudding and clarifying beer. Ward immediately saw an opportunity to tap into this unknown resource in his new country, and soon abandoned fishing to settle on the beaches of a small coastal town called Scituate, midway between Boston and Plymouth.

Prior to Ward’s arrival, Scituate was unpopulated by the Irish. This proved to be an advantage, since the locals—mostly farmers and fishermen—had no interest in Irish moss and thus welcomed Ward and his friend, Miles O’Brian, and their entrepreneurial endeavor. As Ward began building the industry, Irish immigrants fleeing the Potato Famine from 1845 to 1849 caught word about the opportunity overseas and came to Scituate to take part in this growing business. “By 1870 there were close to 100 Irish families... [and] by the early 1900s other Irish families that maybe weren’t harvesting the moss, but had relatives that were, knew about the town and moved here,” says Dave Ball, president of the Scituate Historical Society. “You can trace the roots of the whole influx back to Irish mossing.”

So what is it about Irish moss that makes it so valuable? It already had several industrial uses, and more were developed as the Scituate moss industry grew. Read about Irish moss and the Irish town it built at Smithsonian.

(Image credit: The Scituate Historical Society)

It's finally here- the first trailer for the Mister Rogers movie starring Tom Hanks. In real life, Fred Rogers was always exactly like the Mister Rogers he played on TV, and he had pure, beautiful reasons for doing what he did. Those who grew uop watching him will want to see the movie just to relive who he was. The problem that's exposed the trailer is that both Tom Hanks and Fred Rogers are so famous that putting them together creates a feeling of walking through the uncanny valley. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood opens nationwide in November. -via Geeks Are Sexy  

When Apollo 11 touched down on the moon in July of 1969, the Space Race was won. At the time, the USSR's space missions were kept secret, and the US didn't know their plans and progress until after the fact, so there was some suspense about Russians beating us to the moon. The Soviet Union never landed on the moon. As time went by, many of us assumed that the risk and expense of coming in second was not worth it to the USSR, but that's only a small part of the story. As the long-buried stories of the Soviet space program have been revealed, we've learned that they were never even close to beating the US to the moon.  

The documents from April 1963 testify how the Soviet engineers just completed an analysis of 26 different scenarios for the lunar expedition and were only able to narrow them down to four diverse architectures, which still needed more detailed studies before the final plan could be picked. In retrospect, it's stunning to see how far from the final architecture, these four finalist scenarios had been with the plan's less-than-feasible hopes for multiple launches of super-rockets, yet-to-be-tried docking procedures, and ambitious refueling in Earth’s orbit.

For comparison, in the middle of 1962, fathers of the Apollo project had already favored the rendezvous in the lunar orbit as the key element of the flight scenario and a single-launch architecture, thus clearing the way for a fast-paced development of the Saturn V rocket for the Apollo missions.

Even at this early paper phase—when serious investments of money and materiel had not been required from the Kremlin—the Soviet engineers were almost a year behind the U.S., and it went only downhill from there for the Soviets.

But the Soviets carried on, to the point of testing the N-1 rocket, built to go to the moon, in the summer of 1969. Read how that spelled the end of the Soviet moon mission at Popular Mechanics. -via Digg