(Image credit: Chris Coman)

A staircase is a way for people to walk to a different height. They can be pretty, but they don't need to be clever, cool, or artful. They need to be safe! Just ask anyone who's ever fallen down a flight. The stairs above are carpeted, but there was no need to use a striped pattern that changes direction randomly. You can't just shut your eyes and hold the handrail, either, since the stairs themselves change direction close to the landing. Or do they? A staircase is the last place you want optical illusions. Other stairs can be dangerous because they lack handrails for the sake of style, or they won't accommodate your feet. Then there are ancient staircases that were built to access places that are just too steep.

(Image credit: Felipe Muniz)

Sure, the angle probably makes these look worse than they really are, but I would be holding onto the chain rail for dear life. Bored Panda has a ranked list of 50 such confusing, scary, wacky, and/or dangerous stairs. Nice to look at, but you don't want to use them.  

This music video mashup is silly and completely generated by artificial intelligence, but it's also intriguing. Miami Vice introduced the rest of the country to stylish cops in pastel suits who clubbed along the coast of Miami. Here we have familiar Star Wars characters doing the same thing without even a thought of overthrowing the Empire. They're not only young, but most of them are quite hot. Not Yoda, of course, he's just cool. When you recall the saturated neon colors and glowing skin of the real Miami Vice series, the AI sheen makes sense here. The algorithm's abilities to render familiar faces out of pure fantasy is a bit unnerving. There's one scene at about 3:06 where I couldn't decide whether the man was Mark Hamill or Hayden Christiansen. The face is a blend of both, which makes sense in the Star Wars universe. It's only a matter of time before this kind of thing takes over feature films. 

America has had women doctors since Elizabeth Blackwell got her medical degree in 1849. Yet by 1910, women made up only 6% of medical doctors, and were mostly limited to serving women and children. In 1917, America was dealing with two supposedly unrelated forces: World War I and the women's suffrage movement. The National American Woman Suffrage Association organized group of American doctors under the title Women’s Oversea Hospitals (WOH), who brought those two forces together when they went to Europe to help in the war effort. Neither the US Army nor the Red Cross would sponsor such a trip, but the French were desperate for medical help and invited them. 

These doctors wanted to serve their country and help those suffering from the war, but they also wanted to prove that women should have the right to vote. They also wanted experience in surgery, which was largely restricted at home. The French doctors had little respect for the WOH, and wanted them to only treat women and children. But soon after the first group arrived, the local hospital was inundated with war wounded, and WOH doctors quickly learned how to amputate limbs and dress horrific wounds. They were eventually commissioned into the French military. Even after the Armistice, WOH stayed to care for POWs, refugees, and the wounded. Read about the doctors of WOH, their wartime experience, and their legacy at Smithsonian.  

We post a lot about endangered species and how we should protect them and their habitats. We've also posted a lot about invasive species that cause us problems. Coyotes are neither of those. They are native to the US, and they are thriving. Actually, the coyote population is exploding. These wiley canines have expanded their range and have adapted to life around humans. Killing a coyote is actually liable to produce more coyotes! This is because of a quirk in coyote culture (which is more than just ordering from an ACME catalog) and biology. Wildlife biologist Cameron Duke of Minute Earth explains how that happens. The upshot is that it is impossible to exterminate coyotes. Not that we'd really want to, but we'd like to keep them under some control before they outnumber us. This video is only 2:16, since they get right to the point, and the rest is advertising. 

Those who compare American English and British English will tell you that a pound is unit of weight in America and a unit of money in Britain. Those are not completely separate, though. The British pound is short for pound sterling, in which a sterling was a penny, and 240 of them weighed a pound. That doesn't apply today, however. Before the revolution, Americans were often using the Spanish pieces of eight, or pesos, as local currency while trading with the British in pounds. After the revolution, Americans wanted to inaugurate a truly new form of currency, and that's why we have the dollar. But where did the word "dollar" come from? 

Believe it or not, it comes from the Kingdom of Bohemia, or more precisely, the Saint Joachim Valley in a part of Bohemia that is now Czechia, with a history that goes back to the year 1500. The word didn't travel to the United States in a straight line, though. Read the history and the reasoning behind the word "dollar" at The Saturday Evening Post. -via Damn Interesting 

(Image credit: National Numismatic Collection, National Museum of American History) 

My parents, who didn't forbid soda pop but never had it in the house either, used to call Yoo-hoo "chocolate water." They said if you want chocolate milk, we'll mix up some. They didn't understand the pull of a branded cold glass bottle in the grocery store. Or maybe they did. Anyway, I don't recall ever drinking a Yoo-hoo, despite the fact that it's very popular where I am from. Or at least it was until Mountain Dew was crowned as the top drink. 

The main idea behind Yoo-hoo was that it resembled chocolate milk without having to be refrigerated. Sure, stores put it in the cold drink section, but that was right before you bought it. That eliminated the possibility of making it with fresh milk. Yet people loved it- from baseball players to the pope. Weird History Food goes through the history of Yoo-hoo and reveals what's really in that bottle. -via Geeks Are Sexy 

There are millions of different species of fungi (or funguses; both are correct), but only a small fraction of those have been identified, described, and named. The naming seems to be the most hilarious part of identifying a fungus. Scientists give them proper Latin species names, but mushrooms, the kind of fungus we are most familiar with, are given common names by regular people that usually have something to do with the way they look. That's how we got funguses that are named black witch's butter, bleeding tooth, dung cannon, octopus stinkhorn, chicken of the woods, and the lovely gem-studded puffball. My mistake- chicken of the woods is named for the way it tastes. Guess which of these is pictured above. 

The name of the dung cannon fungus (Pilobolus crystallinus) is intriguing. It's called cannon because it launches its spores at an astonishing speed, but why dung? A little digging reveals that the spores are ingested by animals who eat plants, and the fungus grows in their digestive systems, soon to be expelled. It's just one of 15 really strange funguses you can read about at Mental Floss. 

(Image credit: Bernypisa) 

The development of language gave early societies a whole new layer of reality apart from just what we saw around us. That is clearer than ever with the internet, since we now fling words around the world that are completely separated from our actual bodies and environments. So its no wonder that we have imbued words with magical powers ever since words were a new thing. 

Spells, incantations, and magic words are all used for storytelling, religion, and a lot of entertainment, as well as everyday communication. The fact that we have words to communicate with is fairly astonishing in itself, so it's no wonder that words can be thought of as supernatural. After all, they do affect reality. Words can inspire, charm, or hurt people, and they can't be taken back. Words make up vows, testimony, propaganda, education, memories, laws, and history, and all those are pretty important. Dr. Erica Brozovsky of Other Words (previously at Neatorama) goes through the history of magic words, and then explains how words are still used for their power to change reality.

A hundred years ago, silent movies in America included intertitle cards to help the audience keep up with what was going on. In Japan, movies had live narrators that stood at the side of the stage and described the action and dialogue in real time. These performers were called benshi, and they were more than just narrators. Some become quite famous for bringing movies to life with their clear and emotional voices. The art of benshi was a direct descendant of narration that Japane had been using for kabuki theater and puppet shows for hundreds of years. Benshi didn't always narrate a film as it was intended, and sometimes embellished or downright changed the story to please the audience. When sound came to cinema, most professional benshi were out of a job, but the best continued as translators of foreign films. Subtitles spelled the end of the golden age of benshi. But there are still practitioners who learned from the best and keep the art of benshi alive in theaters that show the few remaining Japanese silent film classics. Read the story of benshi at Atlas Obscura.  

The image above is from the 1926 art film A Page of Madness, which figures heavily in the article. You can see the full movie at YouTube. 

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons) 

Imagine spending most of your life with an albatross a plastic lid stuck around your neck. A black bear cub in Michigan was spotted on a trail cam in 2023 with the lid. There are regulations for barrel lids to prevent just this sort of thing. A search at the time proved fruitless. Over the next two years, he grew and surprisingly carried on normal life wearing the lid. In May, a local landowner saw the bear and called the Department for Natural Resources, who responded quickly. According to Vice, the bear was lured into a humane cylindrical trap, then tranquilized while the lid was cut away. The bear weighed 110 pounds, which is normal for a two-year-old bear, but he had a bald spot around his neck, which is understandable. He wandered back into the woods, now marked with an ear tag that shouldn't interfere with bear business the way a huge lid would. -via Damn Interesting 

Do you recall Jimmy Nicol? Probably not, but for ten days in 1964, he was a Beatle. Just before embarking on their 1964 world tour, Ringo Starr was hospitalized with tonsillitis, and Brian Epstein had to decide whether to cancel the tour. Instead, he enlisted Nicol, a London drummer who had recorded Beatles covers and knew the songs. Nicol had played in several bands and was also a session drummer. Beginning on June 4th, he played eight concerts with the Beatles in Denmark, Netherlands, Hong Kong, and Australia. Nicol was offered £2,500 per performance and a £2,500 bonus. 

As a working musician, Nicol thought he knew what it was to be a celebrity, but he didn't know what he was getting into. Suddenly, women were throwing themselves at him, the Beatles were out-drinking him, and police were escorting him to brothels. Yet when he ventured out alone, no one knew who he was. Ten days later, Ringo rejoined the band and Nicol caught a flight back to obscurity all alone. The experience changed him. Although he continued to play music, nothing could compare to his experience with the Beatles. Nicol never tried to capitalize on his brief stint with the Beatles, and in later years he avoided all media attention. Read Jimmy Nicol's story at Wikipedia.  -via Messy Nessy Chic 

(Image credit: VARA) 

Your Fourth of July picnic will surely have a watermelon, but what if a storm suddenly blows in? Greg Leyh of Lightning On Demand is an electrical engineer with a voice made for The Muppet Show. His talents do not extend to summoning lightning, but he has a 40 kilojoule high voltage capacitor bank that he wanted to test, and a watermelon is a visually interesting way to do it. In this video, he sends 160 megawatts of electricity through the melon just to see what happens. 

If you just want to see the electrical strike, skip to the three-minute mark. The electrocution is shown in slow motion and then in a close-up so you can see how the interior of the melon lights up as the electricity hits. Then melon guts and water are gloriously flung to the horizon, or as Leyh says, "The melon has achieved a high state of division." In other words, he blew it up real good. -via Born in Space 

A new kind of early human known as Denisovan was discovered in 2010, and we only had a couple of finger bone fragments. Later on, more fossils were identified as Denisovan, but they were still meager pieces of bone. Most of what we know about them comes from genetic studies, which is how we know that they interbred with both Neanderthals and modern humans. But now, a mostly-complete skull unearthed in China 90 years ago has been identified as a Denisovan. Chinese researchers, who have only had the skull for three years now, called the species Homo longi, or Dragon man. 

Recent tests on the remains of the inner ear bones and the plaque from the skull's teeth reveal proteins consistent with Denisovan DNA. It's hard to get complete DNA from a 146,000-year-old fossil. Experts who reviewed the science paper disagree on whether the evidence is enough proof, but if it is, the skull gives us a framework to determine what Denisovans looked like -or at least this one, who was a large man. Read more about the discovery of what another ancient human relative looked like at Smithsonian. 

(Image credit: © N. Tamura) 

The Toxic Avenger was an over-the-top horror comedy that came out in 1984. It's about a poor schlub who falls into a vat of toxic waste and becomes a horribly disfigured mutant with super strength. The movie was way too gross and violent for a mass audience, but those who enjoyed the comedy made it into a midnight movie staple. The original Toxic Avenger spawned five sequels and a TV series

Now the seventh movie in the series is ready to go as a remake of the 1984 original. The new version of The Toxic Avenger stars Peter Dinklage in the title role, plus Jacob Tremblay, Taylour Paige, Julia Davis, Jonny Coyne, Elijah Wood, and Kevin Bacon. It was first seen at a few film festivals in 2023, but could not find a distributor willing to take on the film for wide release. Cineverse took up the task earlier this year, and The Toxic Avenger will hit theaters on August 29th. This trailer is gross and violent and contains NSFW language.  

At the turn of the 20th century, New York City was so crowded that there could be several elementary schools in one city block. The students were the children of poor immigrants, often malnourished and suffering from lack of medical care. An astonishing number of them had no ambition to progress to high school, since they were destined to get menial jobs as soon as they were big enough to work. Adeline E. Simpson, principal of Public School 110 Florence Nightingale in Manhattan, was determined to change the fate of her students. One of her quests was to improve their health so they could flourish in their studies. The Chief Inspector for the Schools, Dr. John J. Cronin, was all for better health care for students, but wanted to hone in on one medical procedure that could give the most bang for the buck, and prove to city authorities and parents that better medical care led to better student outcomes. 

Although poorly understood at the time, adenoids are a part of the body's lymph system in the back of the throat that become inflamed during infection. This leads to clogged sinuses, poor breathing, and lack of sleep. On June 21, 1906, Cronin and a crew of doctors and nurses came to PS 110 and removed the adenoids of 83 students who had returned permission slips in a mass surgery session. Some of the children went home still bleeding from the procedure. 

A few days later, the entire neighborhood was convinced that the school was slitting their student's throats. This news didn't seem all that improbable for the Jewish immigrant community, because such abuses were why many of them had come to the US. Enraged activists and some inaccurate journalism spurred thousands of parents to rush to the schools to demand their children. The schools went into defense mode as an angry mob raged outside. Read about the school riot of 1906 at Damn Interesting.