If you're feeling hot, maybe you can take a dip into the ocean with us! John Green has a ton of interesting tidbits about the waters that cover most of our planet. Who was the first to cross the ocean in a hot air balloon? Who named the Pacific Ocean? How far south do Arctic icebergs get? Can we live under the water? Find out in the latest episode of the Mental Floss List Show.
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The stories of supernatural happenings in the Harz mountains of Germany, and in particular the highest peak called the Brocken, have been around forever. Harry Price found those beliefs ridiculous. The skeptic Price had studied the supernatural for some time, and even owned a book of old German spells and rituals, which got him invited to the Brocken in 1932 to create some magic.
Price’s attempt at a magical ritual atop the Brocken came about thanks in part to the writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Goethe famously had an interest in the occult, and visited the Brocken peak, hiking a path that is still memorialized as the Goethe Way. Inspired by the mysterious atmosphere of the Harz region, Goethe set portions of his most famous play, Faust, there, including the surreal walpurgisnacht scene where the devil Mephistopheles leads Faust around the Brocken, observing witches and even a gorgon. “Paganism died hard in the Harz country,” Price would later write.
In 1932, the region was celebrating the centennial anniversary of the Goethe’s death, and that's why Price went to the Brocken, along with fellow philosopher C.E.M. Joad, to perform a magic ritual that was supposed to change a goat into a boy. He had to take a fair maiden and a goat, too, along with a bunch of journalists and spectators. Read the story of that ritual and how it turned out at Atlas Obscura.
(Image credit: German Federal Archives)
Ginny Di and her friends Tara Westmor and Lexi Dali sing Sam Cooke's "What a Wonderful World" with new lyrics from the world of Harry Potter! In the song, they are students at Hogwarts, telling us what they don't know much about. You know, alchemy, spells, etc.
So all in all, it's a Harry Potter love long. The lyrics are at the YouTube page. -via Geeks Are Sexy
You don't have to break the bank to enjoy a great steak, but you do have to treat your meat purchase right to get the best flavor. How much you spend determines the cooking method, and there are things you van do to make a relatively cheap steak truly delicious.
Of course, if you insist on buying the bottom-of-the-barrel meat at your local butcher's counter, you might be better off to make stew or something. -via Digg
Have you ever heard of Gudetama? He's a character developed by Sanrio, the folks who brought us Hello Kitty. Believe it or not, Gudetama is an egg yolk, and he's unbelievably popular in Japan.
It just goes to show that there are no stupid concepts anymore. Gudetama's popularity is a convergence of many factors, many of them exclusive to Japan, as explained by Vox. -via Viral Viral Videos
Ivan Garland and his family run Garland Sugar Shack, a small maple syrup manufacturing business in Vars, Ontario. In this video, they show us how the syrup is collected, processed, and packaged.
The entire video is charming and strangely soothing. Oh yeah, and interesting, too. -via reddit
These guys were just having a great time biking through the Malinô Brdo bike park in Slovakia, when a bear decided to assert his territorial rights.
You know the answer to "How fast can you (run, drive, ride)?" is "It depends on what is chasing me." These cyclists could have set a record if they needed to. -via Viral Viral Videos
Wouldn't it be sad if we always listened to common sense in order to keep ourselves from being hurt? Think of how much joy we'd miss out on just to avoid bad feelings. Then again, if it weren't for the bad times, we'd never appreciate good times. Love always involves an eventual loss, but that's what gives us the incentive to enjoy showering affection on our loved ones while we have them. This is the latest from Lunarbaboon.
Mississippi's first insane asylum was established in 1855 in Jackson, thanks to the advocacy of Dorothea Dix. It was a step up from having no services for the mentally ill at all, but it wasn't great. Like many asylums, the Mississippi State Lunatic Asylum became a warehouse for people forgotten by their families, sheltered from the outside world, but not offered much in the way of treatment. The asylum got a new location in 1935, and the original location became a part of the University of Mississippi with new buildings erected on the grounds.
In 2013, construction for a road revealed 66 coffins. The following year, while building a parking garage, ground-penetrating radar showed more than 1000 coffins buried beneath the site. According to estimates, up to 7000 bodies may lie beneath the Medical Center’s grounds.
What to do with all these burials? Exhuming and reburying each body would cost an estimated $21 million. There is a plan that combines scientific and historical interest in the case and the dignity of letting the dead rest where they are. Read about that plan at Mental Floss.
Sometimes you teach a young student scientific theory and they run with it …into the history books. Not only do students need to do experiments to show what they've learned, they often think outside the box, and bring enthusiasm to experiments that lead them into unknown territory. And sometimes it's just good observational skills and luck.
Kevin Terris couldn’t have asked for better luck during a field trip he took as a 17-year-old. While scanning the ground for fossils at Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah, the student spotted a baby dinosaur skull poking out of the dirt. Once the rest of the remains were uncovered, paleontologists concluded they belonged to the smallest and youngest duck-billed Parasaurolophus dinosaur ever recorded. They nicknamed the specimen “Joe.”
Terris and his classmates visited the dig site as part of a paleontology program at their California high school. The field had already been surveyed by experts when the students arrived, which makes the discovery even more impressive. After receiving his high school diploma, Terris went on to study geology in college. Joe, meanwhile, is on display at the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology in Claremont, California, after providing important insight into the development of duck-billed dinosaurs.
Read about six other times elementary, middle school, and high school students made scientific or engineering breakthroughs at Mental Floss.
(Image credit: Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology)
None of the many villains in Batman's wacky universe is as long-lived or appealing as the Joker. He was there from Batman #1 and remain his biggest nemesis today. Batman fans love the bad guy who is crazy enough to do anything and then come back again (no matter how many times he gets killed).
Find out more trivia tidbits about the Joker at TVOM.
The readers of Cracked have come up with a useful collection of rules that you probably did not learn from your parents, because most of them solve problems no one had twenty or thirty years ago. Oh, sure, you learned etiquette from your mom, but you didn't learn about swiping photographs on someone else's smartphone.
Or how to gauge the best time to jump on a new piece of software. There are also rules about dressing, taking care of cats, planning an outing, and other rules of thumb that make perfect sense. Check them all out at Cracked. http://www.cracked.com/pictofacts-691-21-rules-thumb-every-adult-should-know/
Tom Scott is in the United States, telling us about odd places again. He's explaining why so many movie location backgrounds look the same -it's money, of course. This is Hollywood's Thirty-Mile Zone.
Now I won't be able to watch a movie without trying to peg the background of other movies I've seen. Thanks, Scott. -via Geeks Are Sexy
Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website or at Facebook.
Ethel Mertz had three different middle names in I Love Lucy. She was (in various episodes) Ethel Mae, Ethel Roberta and Eethel Louise Potter before marrying her husband Fred Hobart Mertz. Lucy's maiden name was Lucille Esmeralda McGillicuddy. Ricky's full name was Ricardo Alberto Fernando Ricardo y de Acha.
Clark Kent's middle name has been variously given as Joseph, Jerome and Jonathan. (Shades of Ethel Mertz!) Jimmy Olsen's full name? James Bartholomew Olsen.
Tarzan's real name is John Clayton, Lord Greystoke.
The Sweathogs of Welcome Back, Kotter were Arnold Dingfelder Horshack, Freddie Percy Washington, and Juan Luis Pedro Felipe de Huevas Epstein. Vinnie Barbarino was just plain Vinnie Barbarino.
Comic artist Iguanamouth got a request from a user named insecurepumpkin to draw an alligator protecting a pumpkin (Yeah, if you were an insecure pumpkin, it would be nice to be protected by an alligator). And so this comic was born. Oh, this is just the beginning of the story. You'll find the whole saga of the alligator hatching a pumpkin at her Tumblr site. Believe me, it's worth the trip. -via Metafilter
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