In Switzerland, about 250 or so new words are added to the vocabulary of sign language each year. One new sign stood out as so clever and useful that the Swiss Deaf Association has dubbed it the Sign of the Year. The sign for "Donald Trump" is pictured here.

“The deciding factor was the sign’s simplicity, i.e. mimicking Trump’s extraordinary thatch of hair,” said Christian Gremaud, who led the organisation’s campaign. “And also the fact that the sign has really established itself in just a short period of time across Switzerland.”

It is the first time the Swiss Deaf Association has awarded a sign of the year.

The association explained that names or terms in the media are at first spelt out using a finger alphabet, but once the word establishes itself, deaf people come up with a sign for it. Like spoken words, if it proves popular or useful, it spreads.

Other signs in the running for the title included "Netflix," "vegan," and "deportation." -Thanks, Vic Leeds!

(Image credit: Swiss Deaf Association)

The shoes that Judy Garland wore in The Wizard of Oz are on display at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. They are covered with red sequins, with bows covered in red glass and beads. But after 80 years, the color has faded, and the sequins are brittle. Earlier this year, the museum raised $300,000 online to fund a careful cleaning and the construction of a special display case that will protect them from light damage. The shoes at the Smithsonian don't even come from the same pair -they are different sizes! That's because MGM had several pairs made for the movie production. In 1970, MGM cleared out its warehouse, and sent costume worker Kent Warner to salvage one pair for posterity.

On a dusty shelf, he found what he was looking for—a collection of ruby slippers that Judy Garland wore for her portrayal of Dorothy Gale for the filming of the 1939 Wizard of Oz. These were the famous shoes that only needed to be tapped three times and that touched so many hearts with their magical theme—“There’s no place like home.”

There were several sets of ruby slippers on the shelf, plus a curly-toed test pair. Warner had been told to destroy all but one. The single remaining pair were to be offered for sale at the seminal multi-day MGM Studios auction, where 350,000 costumes were to be sold, including the loin cloth worn by Johnny Weissmuller in Tarzan and Gene Kelly’s sailor hat from the 1949 film On the Town.

Warner picked out a pair of ruby slippers for the sale. But on the sly, he stuffed the others in a bag and walked them off the lot.

So what happened to the other slippers? Find out in an article at Smithsonian.

Montreal’s attempt to beat Rockefeller Center results in ‘ugly’ Christmas tree only Charlie Brown could love https://t.co/jQJXNWY1Pn pic.twitter.com/rlwTAyZpnF

— TorontoStar (@TorontoStar) December 17, 2016

The tree company Sapin MTL presented Montreal city officials with a great idea: put up a municipal tree that was bigger than the one at Rockefeller Center. They selected a lovely tree that was 24 meters high, which was taller than any tree Rockfeller Center ever had. But then the 2016 New York tree was revealed to be 28.6 meters tall. Unwilling to give up the idea of a taller tree, the tree company scrambled to find one taller. They didn't have many to select from, and the one they erected turned out to be quite disappointing.  

Facing a Nov. 30 deadline for unveiling the tree, the Sapin crew had to hurry. The tree was harvested, placed on a special flatbed truck and brought to Montreal under police escort within 72 hours. But a tight schedule and a tight budget meant that some corners were cut — and so was the tree.

Somehow, the tree that reached the closed-off section of St. Catherine Street where the market is held measured just 26.8 metres tall, 1.8 metres short of the one in Rockefeller Center. Pelletier’s brother Philippe, another principal in the company, said a bit sheepishly Friday that they had simply settled for the tallest tree they could find in time.

And there was no time or money to give it the extensive arboreal spa treatment that the New York tree gets; all the workers could do was reattach, sometimes rather obviously, a few of the larger branches that had broken off in shipping.

As for the decorations, Jean-David Pelletier said his company’s responsibility ended once the tree was in its bare steel stand on St. Catherine Street.

The tree ended up with ornaments that sport the Canadian Tire logo. The trunk is crooked, Some branches are missing, and the top is flat. But the tree has its own Twitter account, called Ugly Tree Montreal. 

«C’est un est* de coton» : #Labeaume n’aime vraiment pas le sapin de #montreal https://t.co/eVVTD1LWqM? #Montrealchristmastree #Sapinlaid

— Ugly Tree Montreal (@UglyTreeMTL) December 10, 2016

Most of the Tweets are in English. -via Fark

The Maritime Bhangra Group of Halifax, Nova Scotia, found a way to put some fun in shoveling snow. We don't see much snow actually being shoveled here, but their Sikh moves are so hot the snow will melt by itself in no time.

(YouTube link)

They have a good time, and raise money for the ALS Society. -via reddit

Stanley Jacobs is a plastic surgeon whose hobby is Egyptology. He's studied many an ancient document, but one called the Edwin Smith Papyrus spoke to him in particular. It's 5,000 years old, and describes the surgical procedures of Egypt at the time.

A plastic surgeon himself, he found that most of the cases were about “really good reconstruction after traumatic injury, of the nose, the neck, the spinal cord,” and that its techniques were surprisingly well thought out for a millennia-old book. What really intrigued him, though, was a recipe at the back of the book, titled “Transforming an Old Man Into a Youth.”

This section of the papyrus is a long and complicated set of instructions for making what is, essentially, a face cream. The original translator of the papyrus, the Egyptologist James Breasted, hadn’t been much impressed by it, writing that the recipe “proves to be nothing more than a face paste believed to be efficacious in removing wrinkles.”

As a doctor who spends a lot of time thinking about skin, beauty, and age, though, Jacobs wasn’t so quick to discount it. “I realized that if they’re that serious about their surgical treatments, they’re probably serious about this,” he says.

The face cream recipe was difficult to translate, because one ingredient was called by a word nobody seemed to know. But Jacobs keep looking, and the answers he got led to other questions, which led to a possible new/old way to care for skin. Read the story of Jacobs and the ancient face cream at Atlas Obscura.

Poor Ampersand. The character was born with an identity crisis. All he ever wanted to do was join things together. Grant Snider of Incidental Comics created this story, which appeared in the Southampton Review. You can buy a print of this, or any of his comics, at his shop.

See also: More comics by Grant Snider.

Every year, thousands of people participate in reddit's Secret Santa gift exchange. The gifts are always fun, but every year one lucky recipient gets a gift from Bill Gates. This year, that honor went to Aerrix, who was left "speechless" by what she received, but still managed to talk about it. Gates has participated in the Secret Santa exchange since at least 2013. This year, 118,000 redditors were in the pool. So what did Aerrix get?

Aerrix walked away from the exchange with a significant haul. Take a minute or two of meditation before reading this list, however—it's a doozy: two pairs of The Legend of Zelda mittens, one for her and one for her dog Claire; one Minecraft-edition Xbox One; three special-edition wireless Xbox One controllers; the Halo 5: Guardians and Rise of the Tomb Raider games for Xbox One; one year's worth of Xbox Live gold membership cards; and a Zelda blanket.

"I love my Xbox and thought you might like one too -Bill," Gates wrote on a sticky note attached to the Xbox One packaging. And that was that.

Haha, just kidding. There's literally still half the list left: one pair of Harry Potter slippers; Kevin Belton's Big Flavors of New Orleans cookbook; a life-size paper replica of the Master Sword from The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword; DVDs of The Martian, The End of the Tour, and Believe: The Eddie Izzard Story; a Nintendo NES Classic edition; a donation in her name to Code.org, a computer science nonprofit for women and minority communities; and a Zelda-themed picture frame made of Perler beads, which contained an edited photo of Aerrix, her husband, her dog, and Gates, all wearing Santa hats.

A good time was had by all -especially Aerrix.

Life arose on earth over three billion years ago, and for a long time, there were only one-celled organisms. These prokaryotes diverged and evolved in many ways, but making the leap from one cell to many cells (eukaryotes) was a paradigm shift that led to every living thing on earth that's big enough for us to see -including us. How did that happen? Before we could sequence genes, the prevailing theory was a gradual development as cells mutated, diverged, and evolved. However, recent genetic research has led credence to the idea that the first two-celled organism was a merger that only happened once.

The alternative—let’s call it the “sudden-origin” camp—is very different. It dispenses with slow, Darwinian progress and says that eukaryotes were born through the abrupt and dramatic union of two prokaryotes. One was a bacterium. The other was part of the other great lineage of prokaryotes: the archaea. (More about them later.) These two microbes look superficially alike, but they are as different in their biochemistry as PCs and Macs are in their operating systems. By merging, they created, in effect, the starting point for the first eukaryotes.

Bill Martin and Miklós Müller put forward one of the earliest versions of this idea in 1998. They called it the hydrogen hypothesis. It involved an ancient archaeon that, like many modern members, drew energy by bonding hydrogen and carbon dioxide to make methane. It partnered with a bacterium that produced hydrogen and carbon dioxide, which the archaeon could then use. Over time, they became inseparable, and the bacterium became a mitochondrion.

There are many variants of this hypothesis, which differ in the reasons for the merger and the exact identities of the archaeon and the bacterium that were involved. But they are all united by one critical feature setting them apart from the gradual-origin ideas: They all say that the host cell was still a bona fide prokaryote. It was an archaeon, through and through. It had not started to grow in size. It did not have a nucleus. It was not on the path to becoming a eukaryote; it set off down that path because it merged with a bacterium. As Martin puts it, “The inventions came later.”

The theory that an archaeon and a bacterium merged to make eukaryotes would give us a new tree of life that doesn't always fork. I couldn't help but picture this comic when reading about a singular event that changed everything. Ed Yong explains the developments that led to this idea at Nautilus. -via Digg

(Image credit: Gracia Lam)

In Australia, a traditional Christmas treat takes the cake… out of fruitcake and puts those candied fruits in a Down Under version of Rice Krispie treats! Watch how to make the delicacy called White Christmas.

(YouTube link)

Fruitcake may be maligned stateside, but its Australian second cousin—known as a White Christmas—is so beloved, most Aussies have likely cooked up a batch in their childhood (there’s no baking required). Essentially, a White Christmas is a coconut Rice Krispies square studded with candied cherries and raisins. The reason why you don’t find the dish in America is because the essential ingredient, hydrogenated coconut oil (Copha is the household brand) is difficult to source in the U.S. This recipe substitutes white chocolate in place of coconut oil. Note: Rice bubbles = Rice Krispies.

The recipe in the video from from Steve's Kitchen is in the YouTube description. White Christmas is only one of the dishes described in a an article at the A.V. Club called 7 global Christmas food traditions Americans should adopt.

The folks at How It Should Have Ended (HISHE) made a video about Star Wars (Episode IV) way back in 2007. It was their breakthrough video. Nine years later, they've gone back with more ideas and gags to bring us a special edition, sort of like when George Lucas made so many "improvements" in his movies for re-release. Except HISHE expanded the idea greatly instead of just tweaking the special effects.

(YouTube link)

Oh, maybe I should mention there are plenty of spoilers here if you didn't watch that movie in 1977 or in the almost 40 years since. -via Geeks Are Sexy

Roger from Cracked is back with an Honest Ad about playing the lottery. Sure, we all dream about what we would do with those millions of dollars, but the truth is that the odds are not in your favor. Too bad it's the only retirement plan many people have.

(YouTube link)

And what's worse, even if you do win it's not all lollipops and roses. Your relatives think you've won a million dollars, while you actually end up with about enough to pay off your house. Congratulations. -via Laughing Squid

The British Medical Journal has released their annual Christmas issue, which contains a slate of satirical articles, many of them free-to-read. Subjects range from Is caviar a risk factor for being a millionaire? to A millennial discharge summary. Here is a portion of that report:

22 year old male with 12,000 Instagram followers (bot ratio 15%) "checked in" to the emergency department on Friday night complaining of "OMG

A&E documented a one-inch second degree burn to the right palm and multiple superficial burns on fingers arising from a spontaneously combusting smartphone.

Exposure to the ignition source was apparently prolonged as the patient took the time to extract his other smartphone, record a brief video, snap a selfie, select a filter, and post it to social media. Online history included labile opinions, frequent group brunches, and liking to excess.

Burn was cooled, disinfected, and dressed in A&E, and patient was admitted to the ward after threatening to leave a negative review on TripAdvisor.

Of course, the story didn't end with his admission. Enjoy the dry British humor of the Christmas issue here.  -via Metafilter 

On Monday, a man walked into a bank in Malvern, Pennsylvania, and presented a robbery note to the teller. It said he was armed and demanded money. He left with several thousand dollars. But police were able to catch up with him.

• He had taken a cab to and from the robbery, and the taxi driver identified him from a photograph.  
• He left a gym bag with $2,700 in the cab. The bag has a tag with his name on it.
• He also left the sweatshirt he had been wearing, as identified by the teller.
• And his wallet, containing his ID.
• Also his discharge papers from a drug-and-alcohol rehab center, with a piece torn off that matched the note he gave to the teller.  

On Tuesday, police arrested 25-year-old Jamal Goodwin of Philadelphia, who was found with heroin, cocaine, and about $1,000 on him. Robbery and theft were only the beginning of charges lodged against him.

(Unrelated image credit: Flickr user raymondclarkeimages)

When I was a kid, I loved the fresh Christmas trees my parents put up, but I also wished that we could have a lovely space-age aluminum tree like the one my grandparents used, all nice and shiny, illuminated with a rotating light disc. It's one of the Christmas traditions that seem ancient now, but only began after World War II. Sarah Archer is the author of a new book, Mid-Century Christmas: Holiday Fads, Fancies, and Fun from 1945 to 1970. She explains where those those aluminum trees came from.

The company that produced the most aluminum for the war effort was Alcoa, but there were also some smaller companies, too, many of which were based in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, of all places, which was one of the big aluminum capitals of North America. Like a lot of mid-century Christmas items, including the acrylic rubber that coats Christmas lights cords, aluminum trees came from thinking about repurposing a material produced for the military. The aluminum strips that were used to make the trees were originally designed for something called chaff, which was sprinkled over enemy territories to scramble radar because the little pieces of metal would diffuse the signal.

Many 1950s aluminum tree producers used Alcoa branding. The exterior of the box would say, “We proudly use Alcoa aluminum.” You could put ornaments on these trees, but one of the challenges of decorating them was not getting electrocuted, which was mentioned prominently in the how-to pamphlet that came with the tree. Because it was not safe to put electric lights on the metal, the companies distributing the trees would sell a rotating lamp that would shine different-colored lights on the tree to bathe it in magenta or purple.

That's not the only Christmas tradition that arose from the postwar Cold War era. Read about how our modern Christmas celebrations were shaped at Collectors Weekly.

These two women were driving around, looking for a candle shop in what looks to be an industrial area in Pelham, Alabama. The dash cam is on, although it is upside-down. Be sure to stick around for the punch line. 

(YouTube link)

When I saw this a couple of days ago, there was some question as to whether the audio had been added to the video after the fact. HuffPo tells us that the clip was featured on America's Funniest Home Videos and the two women were interviewed on the show. And you can see the hazard on Google Street View.