If you know anything about Adolphe Sax, you know that he invented the saxophone. But while he was a talented and innovative instrument developer, the rest of the Sax's life was quite extraordinary as well. Taken as a whole, you get the idea that the very universe was against him. As a child, he survived dangerous falls, burns, poison, explosion, drowning, and even managed to swallow a needle and recover. He outshone all the competition in an annual musical instrument competition for years, but the judges refused to pronounce him the winner. So he went to Paris and outfitted the French military band with new instruments of his own design.  

This was the last straw- when Sax, a Belgian no less, secured the contract to supply the French military, his rivals decided to literally form an organization who might as well have called themselves the “Anti-Sax Club”, but in the end went with- L’Association générale des ouvriers en instruments demusique (the United Association of Instrument Makers). This was an organization to which the most prominent and talented instrument maker in France at the time was most definitely not welcome to join.

Their principal order of business throughout Sax’s lifetime seemed to be to try to ruin Sax in any way they could. To begin with, adopting the age old practice of “If you can’t beat ’em, sue ’em”, a long running tactic by the organization was simply to tie up Sax’s resources, time, and energy in any way possible in court.

After that, Sax was beset with lawsuits, infringement, arson, an assassination attempt, bankruptcy, and cancer. Yet he persevered. Read how Sax took on the world at Today I Found Out.

The year 1969 was pretty momentous, giving us Apollo 11, Woodstock, Chappaquiddick, Stonewall, and the Manson Family murders, the last of which features prominently in the new Quentin Tarantino movie Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Those of us of a certain age followed the murder investigation in the news and/or read the brutal, salacious, and just plain weird details in the book Helter Skelter. Younger people might wonder what cult leader Charles Manson had to do with the fame factory of Hollywood.

Manson had connections to a number of wealthy and influential people in Los Angeles. Through Dennis Wilson, he became acquainted with record producer Terry Melcher, son of actress Doris Day and boyfriend of model and actress Candice Bergen. At one point, the daughter of actress Angela Lansbury was a Family hanger-on, and though she wasn’t an official member, she used her mother’s credit cards to buy the Family’s food and clothing.

Melcher and Bergen lived at the house (10050 Cielo Drive) that Tate would eventually rent with her husband, director Roman Polanski, and Guinn posits that the house represented Manson’s rejection by the musical establishment—he’d courted Melcher as a patron, and even hosted the producer at Spahn Ranch, where Melcher politely listened to Manson and the Family perform. Manson pinned a great deal of hope on his connections with Wilson and Melcher, and it’s widely believed that once it became clear the two men weren’t going to significantly advance his music career (though Wilson did convince the Beach Boys to re-work and record a version of Manson’s song “Cease to Exist,” which they renamed “Never Learn Not to Love,” it was considered a flop), Manson became increasingly focused on violence.

One can only wonder if it would have made any difference if Manson were more musically talented. Read an overview of the Manson Family murders at Smithsonian.

"Tiny bombs in your blood" may sound like a description of a deadly disease, but it's perfectly normal. This is about your immune system, or more specifically, the "complement system," a complex network of proteins that interact in amazing ways to protect us from infection. The teamwork displayed by these proteins is nothing short of astounding, and it all happens on a scale that even microscopes struggle to see.

Americans have turned a television promotion into an institution, a tradition, and almost a holiday. Yes, it's Shark Week once again on the Discovery Channel, back for its 31st edition. If you haven't been keeping up all this time, you might want to learn a few new things about Shark Week.

2. The very first Shark Week nearly doubled Discovery's ratings.

Shark Week made its debut on July 17, 1988 with the special Caged in Fear. A total of 10 shark-themed shows aired that year over the course of the inaugural Shark Week, which was an immediate hit. The channel’s ratings nearly doubled their normal primetime average.

3. Shark Week has a lot of celebrity fans.

Shark Week has become a highly anticipated television obsession for viewers around the world, including more than a few A-list names. Tracy Morgan’s 30 Rock character, Tracy Jordan, famously advised Kenneth the Page to “live every week like it’s Shark Week.” In 2010, Stephen Colbert called Shark Week “one of the two holiest of holidays.” Over the years, several other celebrities

Learn more tidbits about Shark Week at Mental Floss.

(Image credit: Sharkcrew)

John Burroughs, Harvey Firestone, Henry Ford, and Thomas Edison went on several road trips together in the early 20th century. While they were friends, the trips were not "just" friends going on an outing. Vox takes a look at the "Vagabonds" on the road. The story goes to 6:45, the rest is comments from previous videos and other chatter.  
 

Oyster Paddy's Tavern was a Pittsburgh landmark for a short time, notorious for its sketchy clientele. Opened sometime around 1875, the bar thrived until liquor licenses were required, which owner Hugh O'Donnell (also known as Oyster Paddy) would never get. So he retired, the building was eventually torn down, and O'Donnell fell ill with cancer.  

On the morning of Friday, June 22, 1906, workmen employed by Howard Bros. Contractors were excavating a foundation for a new skyscraper when they uncovered a pair of human skeletons two feet beneath the kitchen of a derelict building which had once been Oyster Paddy's Tavern. The initial supposition was that the workers had uncovered the remains of two Indians, but anyone who was old enough to remember the saloon-- and its infamous patrons-- during its heyday prior to the passage of the Brooks License Law of 1887 were highly skeptical of this explanation.

Back then, when taverns were largely unregulated, Paddy's regulars included some of the hardest, meanest men to ever haunt the Steel City waterfront.

Oyster Paddy's Tavern was only open a little more than ten years, but during that time, a number of plausible perpetrators and victims hung out there. While the bodies were never identified, you can read about the investigation and some of the many crimes linked to the tavern at Pennsylvania Oddities. -via Strange Company

In a new stop-motion animation by omozoc (previously at Neatorama), a young woman make too much noise late at night, and her mother gets revenge by targeting the daughter's prize possessions. Don't let the fact that the daughter is wearing mom jeans distract you- I think omozoc is playing both parts. -via Laughing Squid

To celebrate National Tattoo Day, which was on July 17, the New York Public Library posted a gallery of literary tattoos found among their staff members. Some have books inked on their skin, and one has a card catalog drawer! Others are inspirational quotes from books, and Emily Pullen has Matilda.

When I got this tattoo, it was pretty clear that I'd be a book dork forever. Several years later, I wrote an essay about Matilda that helped me get into grad school for library science. Needless to say, she's been a source of inspiration for as long as I've known her.

See the other literary tats from the New York Public Library crew at the NYPL blog. -via Metafilter

Doug Lindsay was about to begin his senior year in college when he became so weak that he had to drop out. It was a rare and mysterious condition that his mother and aunt also suffered, but no one knew what caused it, or how to treat it. As doctor after doctor said they couldn't help him, he realized he would have to do it himself. Lindsay studied endocrinology and found some tantalizing clues, but he knew he would need scientific help. So he went to the American Autonomic Society's annual conference, where there were plenty of scientists.

Lindsay arrived at the conference in a wheelchair, wearing a suit and tie, and presented himself as a Jesuit-trained scientist. He tried to comport himself like a grad student or a junior colleague to the scholars in the audience, not like a patient.

He was just a scientist living an experiment in his own body. During his talk, Lindsay argued that a certain drug might help him.

Several of the scientists disagreed with Lindsay's hypotheses about his ailment. But that wasn't unexpected. He didn't even have a bachelor's degree and he was telling doctors from Harvard University, the National Institutes of Health and the Cleveland Clinic something their medical training told them was impossible.

"They didn't patronize me. They treated me like a scientist," Lindsay said. "I was entering into a world of science I couldn't participate in because I was at home and couldn't be a grad student."

Dr. H. Cecil Coghlan, a medical professor at the University of Alabama-Birmingham, approached Lindsay after his presentation. Coghlan said he thought Lindsay was on to something.

At last, Lindsay had a medical ally.

In partnership with Dr. Coghlan, Lindsay underwent drug therapy that helped somewhat. Then he led physicians to a diagnosis, and worked out a surgical cure. Now Lindsay is a medical consultant, helping to identify and treat rare diseases. Read Doug Lindsay's extraordinary story at CNN. -via reddit

Spiders are a common fear, and it's not at all uncommon to imagine one lurking in your toilet, where your tender spots are exposed to things you can't see. That fear would be more prevalent in the days before indoor plumbing, when toilets were an easy shelter for wildlife. Thomas Morris uncovered an 1839 medical case from Pensacola, Florida, that might give you nightmares.

On the 7th of August last, Mr. Q. of this place, while in the privy, perceived himself to be stung by a spider on the glans penis. The pain, which was not great at the moment, continued to increase till 1 P. M., an hour after the accident, when it had become extreme, and I was called to see the patient. I found him lying upon a cot, and writhing under the most acute suffering.

Oh, it gets worse. Calling a doctor for such a malady was a mistake, because common treatments of the time were no help at all, and only added to the poor patient's misery. Fortunately, the patient survived, but probably never sought medical help again. Read the story at Thomas Morris. -via Strange Company

(Image credit: Trougnouf (Benoit Brummer))

Yada Ornsomjit lives in Thailand with her four French bulldogs. Recently, three of them were replaced by alien space dogs, or else they were exposed to a high dose of gamma rays like Bruce Banner. The green dogs had gotten into the cupboard where they found a bag of green food coloring, while one very good boy apparently just watched. -via Boing Boing

The Hell Ultra is not the most prestigious ultramarathon, and certainly does not draw crowds of spectators or participants, much less sponsors. It is a grueling 298-mile (480 km) race that passes through the Himalayan mountains on a course that reaches 17,500 feet in altitude. Participants must climb more than 30,000 feet over several inclines. And if you don't finish in 120 hours, you're disqualified. In four annual races, only one person has ever finished.

Once you’ve been on it, the Leh-Manali “Highway” becomes a hilarious misnomer. It’s little more than a 1.5-lane road that is often not a road at all, but rather a smattering of craters, the results of snowmelt and near-constant landslides. Drivers lucky enough not to be obliterated by falling boulders often have to wait in miles-long traffic jams until soldiers clear debris. Sitting alongside Sindhu on the way to Leh, I watched as he swerved around a gigantic rock in the middle of the road as if he was casually navigating a roundabout. Later, we waited to cross a strip of mountain that soldiers had recently flattened. Just to the left, all that remained of the road was a jagged edge of asphalt, not thick enough for a single tire.

Sometimes, the road is actually a river. The highway is only open for six months in a good year, because the rest of the time it’s so choked with snow that it’s impossible for cars to pass. As the snow melts, water floods over stretches of road with such depth and force that, well, things can go very wrong. This year, Sindhu parked at the bank of one such river as a family on the opposite side shoved their half-submerged Hyundai back onto dry land. As temperatures drop, melted snow puddles in potholes and freezes into pools of black ice. Just a short slide away are the crumbling edges of a railless road where, down below, you can spot rusted truck bones, a reminder of the cost of impatience, imprecision, and bad luck.

Follow several of the seven participants of the 2019 Hell Ultra and see what they went through at Deadspin. -via Digg

The science of nutrition changes constantly, but people crave simple guidance. Parents especially want to know how to teach their children good nutrition. The food pyramid is probably familiar to you from school, but it was far from perfect. In fact, the pyramid underwent its own evolution, and was eventually discarded. Simon Whistler of Today I Found Out tells us why.  

Folklore is the body of wisdom and stories that are handed down from generation to generation. We don't do much of the oral tradition anymore, but we still create mythic stories, and show them in movie theaters. One of our modern mythic heroes is Mad Max Rockatansky. The first Mad Max movie was his origin story. The first sequel, The Road Warrior, established the franchise as a smash hit and the next two sequels found their formula. The character fits well into our cultural pantheon of heroes.

So if Max Rockatansky is a folkloric or mythic hero, what type of hero is he? What’s noticeable is that in all three sequels he appears at times of crisis. In Mad Max II the oil refinery is under daily attack by the forces of the Great Humungus. In Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome Max’s presence allows the children to escape to the abandoned city, and in Fury Road Max’s presence is the catalyst for Furiosa to lead the people from Immortan Joe’s control.

The most obvious folklore parallel is the king in the mountain motif. In the Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson system, the king in the mountain is folktale type 766. The most common motifs involve the legendary hero sleeping, often in a cave or chamber, waiting for the time when the nation needs them once more.

There's lots more about Mad Max as an example of a modern folklore hero at Folklore Thursday. -via Strange Company

The engineers at Houston Mechatronics developed an autonomous submarine that transforms into a humanoid robot. Or rather, the upper half of a humanoid robot, so I guess you could call it a robotic mermaid. The results are so cool that they spent most of the introductory video trying to convince us -and probably themselves- that there are practical reasons for doing this. It is Really Useful, and not just a cool thing they did because they all grew up watching Transformers. Read more specifics about Aquanaut at IEEE Spectrum. -via Boing Boing