Fans of abandoned places and urban exploration are in for a treat, with a look at an aircraft graveyard at Vozdvizhenka air base in the Primorsky Krai region of eastern Russia, just 40 miles from the Chinese border. There is no security to stop urban explorers, just the aircraft sitting unused, with grass growing under them and nature doing its best to reclaim the base. See more pictures at UrbanGhosts. Link

(Image credit: Flickr user Maks Maydachenco)

How a coffee shortage killed the Confederacy.

Even in the midst of the Civil war, there was still one thing that the North and the South shared -a serious addiction to caffeine. In that respect, the Union clearly had an advantage. Not only did the North have more than two-thirds of the population and control most of the heavy industry, railroads, and financial reserves in the country, it hoarded supplies of the highly-addictive little bean, leaving the Confederacy to wage its own war against java deprivation.

COFFEE: IT'S WHATS FOR BREAKFAST, LUNCH, AND DINNER

Throughout the Civiil War, coffee was a as prevalent in battlefields as it is in offices today. In fact, the Union army was fueled by the stuff to the point that, if there was no time to boil water, the Boys in Blue would chew on whole beans as they marched. And at night, Union campsites were dotted with tiny fires, each boiling a pot of coffee like a million miniature Starbucks.



Beyond caffeine cravings, Union troops loved their coffee because it was, literally, the best thing on the menu. Before the advent of helpful (and tasty!) artificial preservatives, a marching soldier's rations were neither varied nor particularly appetizing. Typically, they consisted of salted meat, unleavened bread (accurately christened "hardtack"), and a little sugar and salt. It didn't help that Union supply chains were riddled with corrupt food contractors who charged the government top dollar for rotten, stale, and insect-ridden foodstuffs. Coffee, however, was almost always fresh because it was delivered in whole-bean form  -making it difficult for even the most dishonest supplier to skimp on quality. Not that they didn't try, of course. In fact, officials began requesting coffee as whole beans after some crooked contractors tried to up their per pound profits by slipping sand and dirt into packages of ground coffee.

In 1861, hoping to cut down on the time soldiers spent roasting and grinding beans, the army switched to a concentrated proto-instant coffee. The new concoction, called "essence of coffee," was made by boiling prepared coffee, milk, and sugar into a thick gloop, which soldiers then reconstituted by mixing it with water. The product reportedly tasted every bit as bad as you'd imagine, and thanks to the corrupt dairymen who sold the army spoiled milk, it also tended to cause diarrhea. Needless to say, the Union army was soon back on the bean.

SOUTHERN DISCOMFORT

Noxious as essence of coffee was, Confederate soldiers would have gladly downed a cup or two. But, because of a Union naval blockade, coffee (along with weapons, machinery, medicine, and other vital materials) was in short supply in the South. Before the war, a pound of beans would have set you back 20 cents in Yankee dough. Once prewar stockpiles ran out, however, the same amount was running as high as $60 in Confederate money. (Despite the undervalued currency, that was still a lot.)

There was some coffee that made it into the Confederacy -usually carried by steam-powered blockade-runner ships. But, for the most part, Southerners had to rely on coffee substitutes, including various forms of roasted corn, rye, okra seeds, sweet potatoes, acorns, and peanuts. Unfortunately, all these imitations lacked potency, tasted awful, and upset the bowels. The only slightly better alternative was tea made from the leaves of the native yaupon shrub. The good news was that it contained caffeine; the bad news was that it was incredibly difficult to digest. Luckily, there was one surefire way for Southern folk to get their coffee -by making peace with the Union. Soldiers on the front lines often called informal truces so Rebels could swap tobacco for Yankee coffee then dash back to the camps before they were reported missing.



DRINK TO YOUR HEALTH

In the latter stages of the war, coffee beans that actually did make it to the South proved too valuable to be used by civilians or soldiers. In 1863, Samuel Moore, the surgeon general of the Confederacy, prohibited coffee use for anyone other than patients for whom its stimulant effect would prove beneficial. Lacking some of the basic necessities, however, hospital administrators often traded any java they received for medicines that would do more than just give a wounded man a caffeine buzz.

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The above article by David A. Norris is reprinted with permission from the March-April 2006 issue of mental_floss magazine. Get a subscription to mental_floss and never miss an issue!

Be sure to visit mental_floss' entertaining website and blog for more fun stuff!

Aren't these cookies adorable? Too pretty to eat! Darla at Bakingdom made these in honor of the 45th anniversary of the premiere of Star Trek: The Original Series on September 8, 1966. Along with her tribute to the show, she also posted the process of designing each cookie to look like a crew member, pictures of the baking process, and close-up views of each character's cookie. Link -via Boing Boing

Sunday is the ten-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania. Since then, children have grown up, wars have been fought, and new buildings are rising in New York City. But we will never forget the victims. In 2005, the folks at StoryCorps began recording the stories of people affected by the events of September 11, 2001 for a project called the September 11th Initiative.

We’ve recorded over 1,100 September 11th Initiative interviews to-date. Inviting family members, friends, and coworkers to share and record memories of their loved ones offers a meaningful way to memorialize and celebrate the lives that were lost or impacted by the events of September 11th. In September 2008, we were invited to the Pentagon to collect over 30 stories in two days from office staff and family members of the victims of the Pentagon attack.

Three of these stories have been illustrated in video. Continue reading to see all of them.

This image was selected as the Astronomy Picture of the Day last weekend. It was taken by the Cassini probe in 2006 from the shadow of Saturn.

First, the night side of Saturn is seen to be partly lit by light reflected from its own majestic ring system. Next, the rings themselves appear dark when silhouetted against Saturn, but quite bright when viewed away from Saturn, slightly scattering sunlight, in this exaggerated color image. Saturn's rings light up so much that new rings were discovered, although they are hard to see in the image. Seen in spectacular detail, however, is Saturn's E ring, the ring created by the newly discovered ice-fountains of the moon Enceladus and the outermost ring visible above. Far in the distance, at the left, just above the bright main rings, is the almost ignorable pale blue dot of Earth.

You should take a look at the larger version at NASA. Link -via Laughing Squid

(Image credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA)

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The new Guinness World Record Book is coming out next week. One of the new record holders is Harbor, a Black and Tan Coonhound, who has the longest ears of any living dog. His left ear measures 12.25 inches (31.1 cm) and his right ear is 13.5 inches (34.3 cm) long! -via the Presurfer

Maybe the linked post should be titled "The most Beautiful Pictures of Sand Dunes," since their beauty is well-captured by a variety of talented photographers in the deserts of Africa, Saudi Arabia, Asia, South America, and even the U.S. The photo shown here was taken in the Sossusvlei Desert in Namibia. See the entire collection at Environmental Graffiti. Link

(Image credit: olivier PEYRE)

Believe it or not -tomorrow will mark 45 years since we first saw the USS Enterprise. The original Star Trek series premiered on NBC September 8th, 1966. I case you've ever wondered who ended up with the starship we saw in the opening credits, it's in good hands at the Smithsonian Institution.

The model's principal designer, Walter "Matt" Jefferies, worked with concepts provided by “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry. In the early stages of production, Paramount Studios constructed a rough 4-inch balsa and cardboard prototype. A 3-foot "pilot" model of solid wood was then built by model-maker Richard C. Datin under subcontract to the Howard Anderson Co. The 3-foot model resulted in the final 11-foot model shown here. This model is constructed of poplar wood, vacu-formed plastic, rolled sheet-metal tubes and plastic.

The model is on display at the National Air and Space Museum. Link

A recipe for Deep-fried Bubblegum won the 2011 State Fair of Texas Seventh Annual Big Tex Choice Awards. But it's not really bubblegum -because that wouldn't be food.

Well, to be fair, it’s just called deep-fried bubblegum, it’s really “a marshmallow dipped with bubble gum extract then dipped in pink bubble gum flavored batter and lightly fried”. According to a KDFW News video out of Dallas-Fort Worth, chef Justin Martinez concocted the treat from an employee’s suggestion and spent two months perfecting it. He explains that the marshmallow gives the consistency of chewing fried bubblegum.

You'd have to be an extreme bubblegum fan to even try this. Link

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A new supercut featuring 172 movies. Turn on the closed captioning (CC button) to read the movie titles. -via the Presurfer

Brian and Cece McCarthy of Pleasanton, California, were vacationing with their son Dylan at Lake Tahoe when thier car was stolen. They woke to suspicious sounds in the night, and saw from the window of their cabin that there was a bear in their car!

After the black bear climbed completely inside the car it apparently couldn’t get out. In its struggle, the bear hit the gear shift and the car rolled away for a wild, albeit short, ride down the McCarthy’s driveway, over several boulders, only stopping when it slammed into a neighbor’s front porch.

“All of the sudden we look out the window again and the car is gone, the bear is down the driveway – we have this steep driveway coming out of our cabin – he’s down the driveway across the street,” said Cece McCarthy.

The car was ripped open on impact, and the bear escaped. The Prius was a total loss, and a sheriff's deputy wrote the incident down as "a bear burglary." Link -via Arbroath

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Mama's tired, but Junior wants to play! It just goes to show there's not all that much difference between humans and other species. This footage was taken at the Berlin Zoo. -via The Daily What

Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website.

The "evil twin" is a very old plot device in many forms of entertainment.

Edgar Allan Poe used the device in the short story William Wilson. The story (almost a perfect pattern to the much later "evil twins" of television) deals with two twin, one moral, one amoral. The evil twin keeps doing his bad deeds and the good twin is good and ethical -and, of course, the evil twin gets the good twin into lots of trouble. In a bizarre Poe twist, the evil twin happens to have the same name as the good twin (William Wilson) and he was born on the same day (January 19th -Poe's birthday).

Evil twins were portrayed in the movies such as 1939's The Man in the Iron Mask (based on the Alexander Dumas novel) and Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator (1940) in which Charlie plays a nice Jewish barber, who has history's ultimate "evil twin" Adenoid Hynkel (an obvious satire of Adolph Hitler).

Comic books have probably had more different and varied evil twins than any other entertainment genre, with Superman, Batman, Robin, The Flash, Wonder Woman, and almost every other classic superhero (or superheroine) worth their salt being plagued by their own "evil twin."

OK, in doing research regarding TV's evil twin characters, I really didn't find that much material out there, so, I not only looked over the limited data available, but I racked my own memory of all the many "evil twins" on all the countless TV shows I have seen over the past 40 or so years.

As far as I know, I believe the very first ever "evil twin" in TV series history was seen on The Adventures of Superman, a series I never missed as a kid, starring George Reeves, my first ever hero. In 1953, Reeves played a dual role (he actually played three different roles, if you count Superman and Clark Kent as two) of a criminal named "Boulder," who dressed up as Superman (complete with a bullet-proof vest) and extorts money from local merchants (I mean, who is going to turn down Superman?). Reeves, a brilliant and talented actor, never relished playing the role of Superman, and supposedly this was one of his favorite episodes.

"Evil twins" weren't all that prevalent in the 1950s, but in the '60s they were to skyrocket and achieve their greatest fame. In a 1960 episode of the popular Western Bonanza, called "The Outlaws," the "evil twin that is portrayed in an episode that is a stretch" first comes to light. The odds against anyone having an actual "evil twin" who is not related to them in any way are, of course, pretty steep. But in this episode, two outlaw brothers who look exactly like both Hoss and Little Joe (Dan Blocker and Michael Landon) and use the old "switch identities" routine on the Cartwright brothers.

There has never been a machine that can keep going indefinitely, or that produces more energy than it consumes. That never stopped people from trying to invent one. Dark Roasted Blend has a collection of dozens of designs that reached for the title of perpetual motion, from antiquity to modern times. The water wheel shown is turned by the gravity of falling water, but the other side of the wheel pumps the water back up -or at least that was the plan. Link

The National Football League begins its new season on Thursday. Today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss will determine how psyched up you are! Football fans: can you name the starting quarterbacks for all 32 NFL teams playing this weekend? Some of them may surprise you. You have five minutes -and mental_floss even gives you a starting hint. Good luck! Link