Vital. Maligned. Mysterious. How well do you really know the potato?

During the 16th century, Europeans fell in love with a number of exotic plants from the New World. But the potato wasn't one of them. It would take two centuries and a spectacular PR campaign for people to even consider eating the ugly vegetable. But once the potato took root, it determined the fortunes of nations as no other crop has ever done before.

STARCH RIVALS

Spanish explorers brought potatoes back from South America in the 1500s. They'd been introduced to the veggie by the Incas, who grew hundreds of varieties of spuds. But the tuber had few takers in Europe. Since God hadn't mentioned potatoes in the Bible, the clergy preached that the starch was the Devil's handiwork. Also, because the gnarly potato can look like a leper's hand, rumors quickly spread that potatoes caused leprosy. Needless to say, the talk did little to boost the vegetable's popularity.

While most Europeans wouldn't touch the potato, they didn't mind growing them to feed their livestock. Then something strange happened. During a series of failed harvests in the early 1700s, farmers watched in horror as many of their favorite crops died; meanwhile, the potato flourished. Rulers across Western Europe took note and began actively encouraging their people to cultivate potatoes, going so far as to hand out free seeds, along with pamphlets abut how to grow them. The Austrian government took a more straightforward approach: They threatened peasants with 40 lashes if they refused to convert to the potato.



Some countries began to embrace the crop, but France remained a holdout. Finally, in the midst of a terrible famine in 1770, the government got so desperate that it offered a prize to anyone who could find a food capable of curbing the problem. Agriculturalist and pharmacist Antoine-Augustin Parmentier won the essay contest for his rousing defense of the potato. Parmentier believed that the humble starch could prevent the masses from starving to death, and both the scientific community and the monarchy endorsed his ideas. But it would take more than a prize-winning essay to sway France's working class and its aristocracy, neither of which trusted the suspicious-looking, leprous root.

SPUD MAGNET

Parmentier was determined to save his countrymen, even if it meant tricking them into giving the potato a try. In 1785, he organized a series of promotional stunts to win public opinion. At a royal banquet, he served potato dishes to King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette and presented them with potato flowers; the king pinned a flower to his lapel and the queen wore a garland in her hair. The occasion instantly sparked a passion for potatoes among the nobility, who were slaves to royal fashion.

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Carly received a cat balloon, complete with feet, for her birthday. Her cat Bert didn't like it. Bert make his feelings pretty clear. -via Buzzfeed

New York Times photojournalist Joao Silva was embedded with the U.S. military in Afghanistan when a land mine blew his legs off last year. Earlier this month, he made his first trip back to New York and gave a speech at the Bronx Documentary Center, in which he explained what happened.

I heard the mechanic click. I knew: this is not good. And I found myself lying face-down on the ground, engulfed in a cloud of dust, with the very clear knowledge that this has just happened and this is not good. I could see my legs were gone, and everybody around me was dazed. I was like, “Guys, I need help here.” And they turned around and saw me on the ground. They immediately sprang into action. I got dragged out of the kill zone, for safety reasons, to a patch of ground a few yards away.

Immediately, there were medics working on me. I picked up a camera, shot a few frames. The frames weren’t very good, quite frankly, but I was trying to record. I knew it wasn’t good, but I felt alive. Adrenaline kicked in. I was compos mentis; I was on top of things. So, I made some pictures. I dropped the camera, then I moved to Plan B, which was to pick up the satellite phone. I called my wife, Vivian, and told her, “My legs are gone, but I think I’m going to live.” Incidentally, I’m a father of two. I passed the telephone on to the correspondent so she could continue the conversation and keep Vivian calm.

Silva also talks about his recovery, the importance of photojournalism in dangerous places, and what he's learned about the lingering effects of war. A gallery of his photographs accompany the article. Link -via The Daily What

(Image credit: Joao Silva for the New York Times)

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It's uncanny how much your parents change as you grow up. Can I get an "amen"? -via Breakfast Links

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Seismic measurements recorded on August 23rd during the earthquake centered in Virginia show how the shock wave traveled across the USA. If you didn't feel it, it was because the movements measured are very small.

What you’re seeing here are vertical displacement measurements from an array of detectors that are part of the USArray/EarthScope facility (you can read more about the array and the animation on the IRIS website). These are very sensitive instruments; note the scale on the lower graph showing the motion is only about 40 microns top-to-bottom! That’s less than the thickness of a human hair.

Read more at Bad Astronomy Blog. Link -via Metafilter

Redditor reyvehn told the story of the day he worked a beer stand at an air show, and someone from the military contingent sent a TALON Naval EOD bot up to the stand with a $5 bill in its claw. So he replaced the money with a Bud Lite and snapped a picture. And of course, someone had to say it:

...and then the bartender says, "We don't get many robots in here," and the robot says, "at five bucks a beer, I'm not surprised!"

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This video is a fast-moving historical fashion show with dancing! The Viral Factory produced it for the grand opening of Westfield Stratford City on September 13th, which I believe is a shopping center, although it's kind of hard to tell from the website. Music by Tristin Norwell. Link -Thanks, Vincenzo!

How much do you know about barbed wire? The very idea of barbed wire fences has a fascinating history. Railroads and farmers put up fences, and ranchers, who were used to open spaces to drive their cattle, tore them down. Manufacturers were making lots of money selling barbed wire, and each had a different barb design.

While cattle ranchers sparred with farmers, the legal system was tangled by lawsuits over barbed-wire patents. Almost from the moment Jacob Haish and Joseph Glidden filed their first patents for barbed wire in 1874, the two men were squaring off in court. That same year, a hardware-store owner named Isaac Ellwood bought a 50-percent share in Glidden’s patent for $265. By the time the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Glidden’s favor in 1892 (his “Winner” design is used on most fences today), hundreds of patents for as many designs of barbed wire had been filed, and many more unpatented variations were on the market.

Now those rare early designs are highly sought by collectors. Yes, there are barbed wire collectors, as well as barbed wire clubs, museums, and conventions, as you'll see in this article at Collectors Weekly. Link -Thanks, Lisa and Ben!

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Caffeine does strange things to people, and apparently to birds! This cockatiel is so excited about a cup of coffee that he dances to the tune of a stirring spoon. -via Arbroath

Who knew lizards came in so many different colors? While most animals are happy to take on the colors of their environment for camouflage purposes, different species of lizards dress in colors designed to stand out from the crowd during mating season. Luckily, photographers see them as well. See 20 different colorful lizards posing for their pictures at Environmental Graffiti. http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/news-most-colorful-lizards-earth

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One cat traps another in a box. Then a lion walks up. -via reddit

It's nice work if you can get it. Last year, Ed Casabian began moving around New York City, living in a different neighborhood every week. He writes about his experiences, and is booked up through October already.

I’d like to stay with people of different ages, races, religions, sexual orientations and economic situations. I’d like to hit the five boroughs (Staten Island eludes me but its on the calendar!). I’m trying to do 52 neighborhoods. I’m at around 40 right now depending on how you define them. Ultimately though, I’m looking for different perspectives and ideas. So far, I have stayed with some of my best friends, friends of friends, relatives of friends, former coworkers, complete strangers through some of the recent press I have received. It has been difficult, scary, interesting, and exciting. Most of all, it has been immensely rewarding, which is what I expected when this idea first popped into my head.

Casabian was granted a SoundCloud Community Fellowship to underwrite his adventures. Link -via Laughing Squid

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In the French animation Mortys, death is a working mother. Business is disrupted when her child schemes to get more of her time. Mortys is a graduation short film co-directed by Gaelle Lebegue, Mathieu Vidal, Aurelien Ronceray-Peslin et Nicolas Villeneuve, and produced by the ESMA. -via I Am Bored

Once again, it's time for our collaboration with the always amusing What Is It? Blog! Do you know what the object in this picture is?

Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many as you'd like. Post no URLs or weblinks, as doing so will forfeit your entry. Two winners: the first correct guess and the funniest (albeit ultimately wrong) guess will each win a T-shirt from the NeatoShop.

Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize, okay? May we suggest the Science T-Shirt, Funny T-Shirt and Artist-Designed T-Shirts?

Check out the What Is It? Blog for additional pictures. Good luck!

Update: The object pictured is an ice chipper. Craig Clayton was the first of many with the correct answer, so he wins a t-shirt from the NeatoShop. The funniest answer came from Maxx McIlhargey, who said it was a toothpick for crocodiles, used by wildlife conservationists to get the drug runner bones from between the crocodile's teeth from a distance. He did not select a shirt.

Here we are, at the intersection of video game and board game. Elisabeth Redel made a Monopoly game for her boyfriend fashioned after the video game Fallout! The streets are locations from the game instead of Atlantic City. Even the cards are Fallout-oriented. See more pictures at Geeks Are Sexy. Link