You know Davy Crockett as a bear hunter, congressman, king of the wild frontier, and hero of the Alamo. His image is instantly recognizable in his coonskin cap and fringed buckskin, played by Fess Parker in a Disney TV series -or was that Daniel Boone? The 1954-55 Disney miniseries Davy Crockett was later released theatrically as two movies and caused a mid-century Crockett craze among young Baby Boomers. While that's where the contemporary image of Crockett came from, he was quite famous in the 19th century as well, because he was a storyteller who knew how to draw publicity. 

You might be surprised to learn that Crockett never went by the name Davy, served three non-consecutive terms as a congressman from Tennessee, and only spent the last year of his life in Texas. He wore a coonskin cap only after people began to expect it. And he was only 49 when he died defending the Alamo under circumstances that historians still argue about. Crockett really was a bear hunter, because bears can provide a lot of food for a hungry farm family. Crockett's life was chronicled by friends, allies, and enemies, so there's a lot of varied opinions on the man. Read what you might not know about David Crockett at Smithsonian. 

A talk box is a musical effects device that you most likely recall from the 1976 Peter Frampton song "Do You Feel Like We Do?" although its been used in a lot of music since it was developed in the 1930s. It makes the singer sound like he/she is singing through an electronic instrument. But that's not the way it works at all, and it's more difficult than you knew. 

In this video, musician Lorenz Rhode sings through a talk box in a song he wrote about using a talk box. You get the idea that a lot of this is him improvising and free-associating, but it's a genuinely catchy tune. He explains that the sound is not coming from your voice at all, but from the musical instrument that's attached to the talk box, in this case a keyboard. The singer is mouthing the words, shaping the instrument's sound into words, but not using his vocal cords at all. It's hard to do, but it also allows you to breathe while holding a note. -via Laughing Squid 

The Rocky Horror Picture Show was released on August 14, 1975 in the UK and on September 25, 1975, in the US. The movie is a science fiction horror comedy musical with a ton of sexual innuendo (but no nudity) starring Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Barry Bostwick, and Meat Loaf. I didn't see it until early 1977, when it was established as a midnight movie in college towns. The Rocky Horror Picture Show seemed shocking and downright deviant to mainstream audiences, but it was a lot of fun and had plenty of catchy songs. It also had quite a few awkward pauses in the dialogue, which led to the custom of audience responses. Over time, going to the movie became an full-on participation event, with thrown props, cosplay, and even shadow casting, in which costumed characters perform the parts along with the movie. It's no wonder it became the biggest cult movie of all time. It never left theaters, even during the pandemic.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show and its audience traditions spurred the formation of fan clubs and communities of people who appreciated the film's subversiveness and sense of fun. Those who felt excluded from the wider culture found kindred spirits among Rocky Horror fans -and that's been going on for 50 years now. Read more about the legacy of the longest-running theatrical film ever at Ars Technica. 

When I finally achieved getting a yoyo to return to my hand consistently, I was rather proud of myself. If I had attempted anything like this, I would have hit myself in the face a couple of times and ended up with a ball of permanently tangled string binding my fingers, all in less than 30 seconds. This is Hajime Miura (previously at Neatorama) performing in the 3A event at the World YoYo Contest held in Prague, Czech Republic, last week. If you have a hard time following his moves, you can listen to the crowd full of yoyo fans to tell which moves are most impressive.  

Yeah, he won. It's not the first time, either. Miura has now won his eighth world championship- and he's only 22 years old! This year's performance is kind of a comeback for Miura, who placed fourth in the category last year. He won both the 3A and 4A championship in 2018. Yoyo enthusiasts have been following Miura since he started winning competitions as a child, back in 2012. -via Memo of the Air 

Phineas Gage was 25 years old and had a job working on a railroad in 1848. As he was tamping down explosives, they went off and sent the iron tamping rod through his head, from the jaw through the top of his skull. Gage lost vision in one eye, but surprisingly recovered and survived for another 13 years. Scientists who studied Gage's case learned enough to begin removing brain tumors and performing lobotomies. But Gage had trouble holding a job because of changes in his personality. He would drink, fight, gamble, and consort with prostitutes. Scientists called this "disinhibition," and attributed it to his brain injury. It became a theory that his damaged frontal lobe was the center of inhibition that kept most people from doing things they shouldn't. Gage became patient zero for the science of personality by brain mapping. 

Another case of a personality change after a brain injury involves Eadweard Muybridge. Muybridge became both eccentric and creatively productive after a brain injury, but he also shot and killed a guy. Was this frontal lobe disinhibition? The case of Muybridge is not so clear-cut, because it was much better documented. That brings up the question of whether Gage's personality really did change. The actual evidence is scant, and what is there could be explained by the life-changing trauma of his accident. And Gage's and Muybridge's behaviors were ultimately judged by different scales. Read about science's new look at the case of Phineas Gage at Aeon, or here if you're out of free articles.   -via Metafilter 

(Image credit: Originally from the collection of Jack and Beverly Wilgus, and now in the Warren Anatomical Museum, Harvard Medical School) 

As you might guess, the portmanteau "scamageddon" refers to the end of the world brought about by folks who con you out of your money. It seems like this is happening now, but to truly be world-ending, it would come from extraterrestrials.In this scenario, Steve Buscemi plays the supreme leader of an invading force using scams against Earthlings, with all the pomp and circumstance that a sci-fi movie would require. But in their plans of domination, they didn't count on a security network that blocks their efforts. Yeah, it's a dumb idea, because what would aliens do with our money, after all? This story would require a suspension of disbelief if it weren't a total comedy. Forget plausibility, because this alien is a ridiculous stereotype, and so are the weird minions (Zelunians?) who worship him, and his incompetent henchmen. -via The Awesomer 

If you didn't learn to cook before you left your parents' home, you may have had to consult a video to learn the proper way to dice an onion. While methods vary, it's usually a straightforward operation. However, if you are a math nerd, you might worry about the uniformity of the onion pieces you are left with. Since an onion consists of round layers, and chefs cut them straight down from top to bottom to maximize both speed and safety, the pieces from the side of the onion tend to be slightly larger than the rest. 

To make the most uniformly diced onion pieces, you need to reduce the standard deviation in the size of the pieces. Radial cuts makes sense for this, but it does nothing for the safety of the knife wielder. And using math, we find that it actually increases the standard deviation in size because of the smaller pieces in the middle. There is another cutting technique that will reduce that standard deviation, and you can learn all about it at The Pudding. Personally, I find no correlation between the consistency of onion pieces and the enjoyment of the finished dish, but your mileage may vary.  -via kottke, who mainly admired the onion font in the article.   

When I was a kid, my grandmother wore her hair in tight curls with bluing, cat-eye glasses, and stockings rolled to her knees. And dentures. I thought she was ancient, but she was younger then than I am now. It's not your imagination- people did indeed look older in those days. The easiest way to see the effect is in TV shows. You can watch an old episode of All in the Family and assume that Archie Bunker was in his 60s, but actor Carroll O'Conner was in his 40s when portraying him. In the 1984 movie Cocoon, Wilford Brimley played a character in a retirement home, but he was only 49. YouTuber TV Guess-O-Matic goes over some of the main reasons people used to look older. The comparison of Lucille Ball and Jennifer Anniston seems a bit of a stretch, because if you swap the hairstyles, the difference in appearance just disappears. It's the same with The Golden Girls, because their hairstyles made them look much older than they were (and Estelle Getty required plenty of makeup to look old). -via Laughing Squid 

Roger Williams was a very accomplished man. He was a Puritan clergyman who emigrated from England in 1631 to what is now Massachusetts. But his strange ideas about religious freedom and the separation of church and state, not to mention his belief in the humanity of Native Americans, got him kicked out, so he founded both Rhode Island and the First Baptist Church. 

Williams died in 1683 and was buried on his own property in Providence, next to his wife, who had died a few years before. In 1860 when the graves of Roger Williams and his wife were dug up in preparation for a monument to be erected, a very peculiar situation was found. There were no remains of the couple found except for a braid of Mrs. Williams' hair (and a few teeth, according to Wikipedia). What was found was an apple tree root. The tree had been planted many years after Williams' death, and the root had grown through the grave. The root was found to have taken a shape as if it had grown around a human skeleton, even though there were no bones. That root was preserved, and can still be seen today. Read about the tree that ate Williams at American Strangeness. -via Strange Company 

(Image credit: Rhododendrites) 

I've read that cat food manufacturers struggle with having to walk a fine line between making cat food smelly enough to attract our feline pets, but not smelly enough to make their owners sick when opening the can. Cats love smelly foods, and what's stinkier than surströmming, the Swedish fermented fish famous for its strong smell? Viral internet videos make it clear that just opening the can can make humans lose their lunch. Etiquette requires you open a can of surströmming outside. 

This guy asked his cat Pusic (previously at Neatorama), who we have called Russia's most pampered cat, and his year-old sister Mila if they would like some surströmming. The two cats are curious, bordering on excited, but will they eat it? The average house cat naturally loves fish, but fermented fish in a can is something outside their wheelhouse. Too bad we don't get to see the human's reaction. 

What do you know about Vincent van Gogh? Most people would say he painted The Starry Night and cut off his own ear. The artist was a complicated man who suffered from mental illness and died at age 37 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1890. Ever since then, people have been trying to untangle what was wrong with Van Gogh. 

In addition to a very unhealthy lifestyle, Van Gogh had pica, an unnatural compulsion to consume things that are not food. He ate paint, particularly the yellow paint he used so much, plus the paint thinner turpentine. These dangerous substances can cause brain damage, but no one knows for sure whether the cravings were his primary problem, or just another in a pantheon of mental illnesses. Van Gogh himself didn't know why he ate paint. One theory is that he had a biochemical craving for terpenes, the chemicals that give plants their distinctive aromas. Read about pica, terpenes, and Van Gogh's obsession that may have led to his death at Big Think. -via Metafilter 

(Image credit: Vincent van Gogh/GoldenArtists) 
   

We recently showed you a robot soccer game in which small humanoid robots competed (poorly) using artificial intelligence. In this robot kickboxing tournament held in China, the action is much more exciting. These are Unitree G1 EDU model robots, which can be operated by a remote control, by voice commands, or by motion sensing. In these fights, they are using remote controls. The robots are quicker and better balanced than the AI robots playing soccer- and a little taller, although not yet human sized. Most impressively, they also have the ability to get back up when they are knocked down (cue "Tubthumping"). They even show a little personality in their fighting style, which might be hard to replicate in AI. In this video, their main vulnerability seems to be a tendency to get lost when they aren't facing the right direction. Read more about robot kickboxing at Cnet. -via Geeks Are Sexy 

A photographer from the Atelier d'Ora in Vienna took the photo above in December of 1916, on the occasion of the coronation of Karl I, Emperor of Austria, as the King of Hungary. It was a grand affair, as we can see by the sumptuous finery worn by the ladies. But it seems strange that the photographer would take portraits of a pair of shoes! Three such photos exist, focusing tight upon the footwear that appears to be made of silk brocade laced with satin ribbons, and the rich lace petticoat adorned with fabric flowers. And all that would scarcely be seen at all under the fur-trimmed gown worn over top. 

The images were labeled as those of Countess Erdödy. There were three Countess Erdödys at the coronation. There was Countess Johanna "Jenny" Margareta Margit Maria Gobertina Erdödy and her sister, Countess Franziska Violet Maria Gobertina Erdödy, and their mother, Countess Erdödy, the American Julia Hanby Scott who married Count Gyorgy Maria Gobert Erdödy de Monyorókerék et Monoszló. We have portraits of the two younger countesses at the coronation, and they are not wearing fur-trimmed gowns. So this must be the feet of their mother.  

Read what we know about these "shoe portraits" at Gods and Foolish Grandeur. In the comments we learn about the photographers of Atelier d'Ora, although we don't know which one was so fascinated with the countess's shoes and took these pictures. -via Everlasting Blort 

Alcohol is the most familiar and widespread drug we have. People have been consuming alcohol for thousands of years for many reasons. In small amounts, it makes you feel good, acts as a social lubricant, and can make you forget your miseries for a while. People are willing to commit crimes to get alcohol, as Prohibition taught us. But what does alcohol do to our bodies?

We know the dangers of operating heavy machinery while drunk. That wasn't a problem until we developed heavy machinery, like cars. We also know what chronic alcoholism does to families. And heavy drinking or long-term drinking will cause liver failure. But that's just one organ. Alcohol affects every organ in your body, including the brain. At some point, that damage can become permanent and even deadly. And that's before we even get to alcohol's addicting qualities. Kurzgesagt goes through all the things that alcohol does, and it's rather scary. 

What do you get when you combine dodgeball with Asteroids? Or maybe it would be more descriptive to compare this game with "bullet time" in the Matrix movies. Anyway, in Dodge This, you (the green ball) have to avoid being hit by red bullets. The bullets are traveling fairly slowly for bullets, but they are coming from all directions. Whoever is shooting at you is not particularly well-aimed, either. You could survive a half-minute or so by not moving at all. But once you are hit, the game is over. The scoring system can easily confuse people who aren't paying close attention, because when it says you are "top 94%," that's actually really bad. 

From what I've heard, this is much harder on a touch screen than for those of us with a mouse. My advice is to stay away from the edges, because you never know where gunfire will originate. Ultimately, your score depends on how long you survive. Therefore, your maximum score depends on when you are obliged to stop and do something important. -via Metafilter