Author and editor Peter F. Neumeyer exchanged letters with author and illustrator Edward Gorey over a 13-month period in 1968 and 1969. Now that correspondence has been turned into a book called Floating Worlds: The Letters of Edward Gorey and Peter F. Neumeyer. Of course, Gorey included illustrations with his letters, even on the envelopes! You can see more of these wonderfully decorated envelopes at Brain Pickings. Link -via @atlasobscura

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Stewie is a Maine Coon cat, but I suspect there may be a bit of lynx or bobcat in his ancestral lineage, dontcha think? In August of 2010, Stewie was measured at 48.5 inches long, good enough for a world record. His owners are Americans Robin Hendrickson and Erik Brandsness. -via Buzzfeed

In a peer-reviewed publication of the British Medical Journal, there's a “proposal for phylogenic plastic bag clip classification”. The reasoning behind the need for classification is because so many bread clips are ingested and then are hard for x-rays to pick up. The actual proposal is paywalled, but Laughing Squid has several fascinating graphics from the paper. Link

We've brought you the stories of how some famous logos have *evolved, but what about the future? At Stock Logos, we see how some logos become simpler over time, and that trend is projected into the future. Of course, some of these companies are projected to encounter, um, "circumstances." Link -via Boing Boing

*Previously: Tech, Car, Hollywood, Food, Beer, and Fast Food.

The politics that led to World War I are important, but difficult to teach in American schools because the events are distant in both time and place. To capture the interest of students, teachers often tell the story of how assassin Gavrilo Princip would not have been in shooting range of Franz Ferdinand that fateful day in 1914 if he hadn't stopped to buy a sandwich about the time the Archduke coincidentally passed by. Mike Dash first heard the story from his history-student daughter, and decided to investigate.

I was astonished by the story, too, though not because of the strangeness of the coincidence. It bothered me, because the details are new (you’ll struggle to find a telling of the tale that dates to before 2003), and because it simply doesn’t ring true. That’s not because the modern version isn’t broadly faithful to the facts; it’s not even utterly implausible that Princip might have stopped off at Schiller’s for a bite to eat. No, the problem is that the story is suspiciously neat–and that the sandwich is a quintessentially Anglo-American convenience food. The dish was named in the 1760s for John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, who was in the habit of requesting his meat placed between two slices of toast so he could lunch at his desk. But it took time for the idea to cross the Channel, and I find it hard to believe the sandwich would have featured on a Bosnian menu as early as 1914.

Dash found the surprising origin of the story, which gives us a glimpse of how, and why, our understanding of history tends to change over time. Read the entire account at the Smithsonian history blog Past Imperfect. Link

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The metaphors we use for the world of computers are kind of weird, as illustrated in ths video. The first word is the only part that might be NSFW. -via Buzzfeed

Sunny Wieler's GPS led him on a mysterious detour in which he saw 150 scarecrows doing the things townspeople normally do. They were busy competing for the title of best scarecrow! The All Ireland Scarecrow Championship is part of the annual ‘Howya’ Festival in the town of Durrow, Ireland. See more scarecrows at Stone Art Blog. Link -via the Presurfer

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Roxy is a Staffordshire bull terrier who suffers from diabetes and requires daily insulin shots. The Scottish SPCA wondered if she would ever be adopted into a permanent home. But Catherine and Graham Hendry didn't consider the shots a burden because their 8-year-old twin daughters, Louise and Katie, also have type 1 diabetes and must take daily shots as well.

The dog and girls now all have their injections together.

The Hendry family had spotted a newspaper appeal about Roxy and decided to visit her at the charity's animal rescue and rehoming centre at Drumoak, where she had been since July.

Mrs Hendry said: "We originally saw an appeal for Roxy in our local paper about six weeks ago but our staffy, Buzz, had recently passed away and we felt it was too soon.

"Then we saw another appeal a few weeks later and thought it must be fate. We decided to go and see her that day and just fell in love with her.

Link -via Arbroath

Once upon a time, there was an adorable little girl in Brazil who had trouble eating because she had a cleft lip and palate. She was a happy child, but she hid behind her stuffed toy because she knew she looked funny. Then a team of strange people from Operation Smile came and recorded her on video, and also let her look at herself in the video monitor.

The next day, as she was recovering from surgery, the people brought the video camera again, and let her see her face in the monitor. And it was so different that you'll want to have a handkerchief ready when you see the video at NeatoBambino. http://www.neatorama.com/neatobambino/2011/09/20/girl-with-cleft-lip-sees-herself-for-the-first-time-after-surgery/

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Ty Mattson constructed an alternate show intro for the Showtime series Dexter that is reminiscent of Saul Bass' movie titles from the '60s. Groovy! The video is based on a series of posters Mattson created, which you can see at his site. Link -Thanks, Ty!

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The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think.

The 21st annual Ig Nobel Prizes will be awarded on Thursday, September 29th. The tickets to the ceremony at Sanders Theater at Harvard University are sold out, but the presentations will be streamed live at YouTube. Also, if you want to organize a viewing party, the folks at Improbable Research will be glad to help you coordinate it. The theme this year is "CHEMISTRY," which is why the promo video features chemist Daniel Rosenberg, who will perform at the event. Link

Swedish archaeologists have pulled a trove of 8,000-year-old human skulls from a peat bog that was formerly a lake near Motala, Sweden.

The rituals at Kanaljorden were conducted on a massive stone pavement constructed on the bottom of a shallow lake (currently a peat fen). Some crania were fairly intact while others were found as isolated fragments. The more intact ones represent eleven individuals, both men and women, ranging in age between infants and middle age. Two of the skulls have had wooden stakes inserted all the way from the base to the top. In another case a woman's temple bone was found inside the skull of another woman. Besides human skulls, the finds also include a small number of post-cranial human bones and bones from animals, as well as artefacts of stone, wood, bone and antler.

The skull depositions at Kanaljorden are clearly ritual in character. The next step is to find out if the human bones are relics of dearly departed that were handled in a complex secondary burial ritual, or trophies of defeated enemies. The archaeologists hope that the ongoing laboratory analysis [stable isotopes] will give clues as to whether the bones are the remains of locals or people with a distant geographic origin, and if they represent a family group or persons unrelated to each other.

Read more at Aadvarchaeology. Link

(Image credit: Anna Arnberg)

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This ball rolls around, light up, and acts like it has a mind of its own, which makes it the perfect cat toy. It does not have a mind of its own -it's you, controlling it by Bluetooth! You can even control it and take video of its antics at the same time. $130 is kinda pricy for a cat toy, though, and it's not even on the market yet. What it does to a cat's pupils is priceless! Link -via Buzzfeed

A lot of people look down their noses at processed American cheese, but deep down inside, a lot of us see it as a combination of comfort food and convenience food. Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could make it at home?

But what exactly is American cheese? I suppose it’s that exact question that gives it such a bad rap. The American cheese that you find on supermarket shelves isn’t cheese made in the traditional way (milk that’s formed into curds and pressed). Instead, it’s either a blend of cheese and additives, or it’s a highly processed mixture of ingredients such as water, milk, milkfat, milk protein, whey, food coloring, flavorings, and emulsifiers.  I wanted to get as close as possible to the taste and texture of American cheese using only pantry ingredients and a food processor.

By making your own American cheese, not only will you know exactly what went into it, but also you can add in flavorings such as black pepper, roasted red peppers… you name it. As I concocted my version of American cheese in the test kitchen, not only did I draw a crowd of curious onlookers, I caused all of the snooty foodies to run for the hills. That’s okay, because I’d take any kind of American cheese over head cheese any day.

The process of making your own doesn't look too difficult, with directions from Yvonne Ruperti at America's Test Kitchen. Link -via the Presurfer

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How do you make a Nerf gun fight into something special? Special effects, that's how! -Thanks, Chris M!