In 1898, Mrs. Ida Deane of Dover, Delaware, threw a dinner party. Her sister, Mrs. Mary Dunning, brought a box of chocolates to share. Before the night was over, Mrs. Deane, her sister, and three other guests were very ill. Within three days all five were dead. The other guests, who had not eaten the candy, were just fine. An examination of the candy revealed it was loaded with arsenic. Mrs. Dunning didn't make or buy the chocolates; they were in a package she received by mail the same day of the dinner party. There was no name on the package, but a note was included that said,

With love to yourself and your baby, Mrs. C

The postmark was from San Francisco. Who could have sent the package, and why? Mrs. Dunning was clearly the target, and we don't know if she knew the sender- or even thought she did. If she hadn't been so generous, she would have been the only one killed. If she hadn't been so trusting, she wouldn't have been killed, either. Mrs. Deane and Mrs. Dunning were daughters of a prominent former congressman. Both left husbands behind, but only one husband drew suspicion -and he had an alibi. Read about the investigation and the murder trial that ensued at Murder by Gaslight. -via Strange Company

Now this is weird. There are dinosaur footprints at Gettysburg, the historic Civil War battlefield in Pennsylvania. What's even weirder, their footprints are on a bridge built in 1937! There's a perfectly reasonable explanation, told to us by the Adams County Historical Society at Gettysburg. This story isn't exactly a secret, but thousands of people pass that way to check out the historical site and have no idea. It's something neat you'll need to remember and check out if you go there in the future.

Ever since the debut of "flushable" wet wipes, they've been causing environmental problems. While they are designed to be flushed, and will not clog up a toilet, these wipes often cause problems downstream, where they absorb grease and oil and form "fatbergs" that clog up sewage systems. And even rivers. A mass of wet wipes has collected on the side of the river Thames in London, forming an island the size of two tennis courts. It's so massive that, according to the Times, it has changed the course of the river.

Many kinds of wet wipes contain plastic material, so even when they finally disintegrate, they can leave microplastics in the environment, affecting both wildlife and the water supply. Members of Parliament have urged residents not to flush wipes down the toilet, and they are considering a ban on wet wipes that contain plastic. Meanwhile, they are urging manufacturers to spell out more clearly how they should be disposed of. You can read more on this story at Business Insider. -via Fark

(Image credit: Edwardx)

Have you ever stopped to think about how much smarter and how much more you know now than, say, 20 years ago? You might congratulate yourself on learning some stuff, but what about if we turned that question on its head- think about how dumb you are now compared to what you will know 20 years in the future. That's not quite so easy to grasp, possibly because can't grasp what's in our future. Or it just may be our lack of intellectual humility. We all have some difficulty admitting that we may not know everything, or that we might be wrong about something or other. While we may understand the concept of the Dunning-Kruger effect, we don't see it in ourselves. And we all suffer from it at some time, in some ways, although we may never be aware of it.

Intellectual humility is the mindset that tells us we always have more to learn, as long as we are open to the possibility, and are willing to visit the idea that other viewpoints may be valuable. It could be the one trait that allows us to get smarter than we are. -via Digg

In 1995, Saturday Night Live saw a mass exodus in its cast. Most of the departures were voluntary, but Adam Sandler and Chris Farley were fired with no notice. Sandler, who had been with SNL for five years, had been laying out his plans for what he would do going forward on the show when he learned the truth. Farley went on to make movies, but then tragically died in 1997. Adam Sandler has been making movies ever since, and has brought in billions in box office dollars. He is now considered a talented dramatic actor as well as a comedy legend. What appeared to be a blow for Sandler's career at the time turned out to be a blessing in disguise. But was it the right thing for Saturday Night Live? Who knows what would have happened if things had gone differently. Nerdstalgic takes us back to 1995 for the story. -via Digg

Nigerian Ife head: Why UK police are holding a priceless sculpture Foto: Charly Levin de Grazia Hoffman Original Ife bronze heads, of which only some 20 survive, are thought to be about 700 years old. https://t.co/xmzovVLy7c BBC News - World

— Café negrito por favor (@cafecitonegrito) June 26, 2022

The bronze head shown above is a 700-year-old treasure of the Ife culture, part of the Yoruba Kingdom in what is now Nigeria. There are only 20 of these heads known to still exist. In 2017, one was presented to Woolley and Wallis auctioneers in London. The agent for the auction house said it would be worth around £20 million ($24.5 million), if it weren't stolen property.

The Jos Museum in Jos, Nigeria, had this head in their collection until 1987, when a gang of thieves made off with nine of the museum's most prized treasures. Most are still missing. However, this Ife head resurfaced in 2007 when an antiques collector bought it in Belgium at a confiscated art auction held by the Belgian police! The Belgians have no explanation for how that happened. The Ife head disappeared again until it turned up in London ten years later. Woolley and Wallace took the sculpture to British police, who have had custody of the head for five years now.

Nigerian authorities want to know why they can't have their bronze sculpture back. The sticking point seems to be the antiques collector, who insists he bought the head legally, and wants to be paid, at first €5 million, but now will settle for €39,000. Nigeria does not want to pay for its own stolen property. The ball appears to be in Britain's hands, but five years later there is no progress in the case. Read the weird story of the stolen head at BBC News.  -via Strange Company

How do you send a bookmobile around to places where there are no roads? In the 1930s, eastern Kentucky was full of tiny towns, coal camps, and isolated homesteads, but very few drivable roads to connect them. There were also few libraries, and they had few books. The Great Depression only made conditions worse. To fight illiteracy and help the small rural schools, the WPA launched a New Deal program called the Pack Horse Library Initiative, to deliver books to the most inaccessible Appalachian hollows by librarians or other "book women" riding horses or mules. These librarians and other volunteers had to supply their own horse, but they were paid a dollar a day, which was more than most people in the area were making at the time. They went above and beyond the call of duty, not only delivering books, but reading aloud and teaching classes. Local libraries and volunteers provided the books, and even made some books to share with people who otherwise wouldn't have any exposure to literature of any kind. -via Nag on the Lake   

You probably never thought about how old the sport of water skiing is, but it couldn't have been much of a sport before personal motor boats were a thing. The man who invented water skiing was Ralph Samuelson, an avid snow skier, who wondered if it would be possible to ski on water. He was only 18, but this is exactly the kind of thing 18-year-old men do. He tried using snow skis and various homemade boards on Lake Pepin, and finally had to design and build his own water skis. He then had to work out the best procedure for getting on top of the water by trial and error.  

After many attempts, Samuelson was able to stand up on water skis in July 2, 1922, behind a boat his brother was piloting. The site of that accomplishment on Lake Pepin, and the town of Lake City, Minnesota, are also the locations of this weekend's 100th anniversary commemoration of the birth of water skiing. Sadly, Ralph Samuelson didn't patent water skis, and someone else did a few years later. But his place in water sports history is safe. Read about how water skiing came about 100 years ago at Smithsonian.

(Image credit: Scinauticando.com)

Roy and Moss are Norwegian forest cats living in Switzerland. The puzzle they are confronted with is designed for dogs, but can be fun for cats, too, if they don't claw the treats out from the top or stick their face down in it like Roy does. I would imagine most cats would knock the whole thing over in a few minutes, and then fight with each other over the treats. But Moss, on the left, stumbles upon the solution once, then seems to remember it for a second attempt. The third level is baffling, though, as that handle is on Roy's side, and the cat is too polite to invade his brother's space. But he finally figures it out. You can almost see the gears going around in the cats' heads. Well, at least Moss's head. Roy is happy to let his brother do the heavy thinking. See more of Roy and Moss at Instagram.  

The Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella, or in English, the Perfume and Pharmaceutical Officine of Santa Maria Novella in Florance, Italy, is the oldest pharmacy still in business. It was established by the monks of the city who were growing and experimenting with medicinal herbs in the 13th century. One grateful and wealthy patient built them a chapel which became their laboratory for making medicines. In 1612, it opened to the public to sell concoctions like Seven Thieves Vinegar to ward off plague, ladybug liqueur, and the world's first alcohol-base perfumes.

The apothecary is still open to the public, but it's also a museum because it has changed little since the 16th century. You can still buy  Seven Thieves Vinegar under the name Aceto Aromatico. The pharmacy has other locations, too, and even a website to sell their products. Read a short history of the Santa Maria Novella pharmacy at Messy Nessy Chic.

We knew that Auralnauts was planning a series about Larry, a previously obscure Star Wars character who looks a lot like Ewan McGregor. It appears they made their fundraising goal, because episode one is here! The first three minutes are a less-than explanatory montage setting up the story. Then Larry explains his party background to Luke Skywalker. They managed to take clips from many different Star Wars films plus Obi-Wan Kenobi and make it a lot of fun. The first episode mainly deals with Larry trying to borrow some cash. Auralnauts say there will be six episodes in all, just like Disney+'s Obi-Wan Kenobi miniseries. -via reddit

We have regular banks for storing our money. We have blood banks and milk banks to distribute life saving bodily fluids. We have sperm banks. The latest idea for storage that might be of benefit to one's health is a poop bank. It has become more common to treat digestive problems caused by the bacteria Clostridioides difficile (C. diff) by cleaning out a patient's digestive biome with antibiotics, and then performing a fecal transplant to establish a new colony of digestive bacteria. But there's the possibility that another person's bacterial colony might not be best for our bodies. A new science paper from researchers at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital posit that it may be time to establish the option of storing one's own poop when they are young and healthy for possible autologous transplant is and when they ever need it. They call it a stool bank. In fact, there's already one in the US.

Yeah, there are quite a few unknowns. What conditions should a, er, stool deposit be kept under for years? Would the essential bacteria survive freezing, drying, or long term storage at all? How much energy would such a project require? And would it be only available to the wealthy, like umbilical cord blood, eggs, or frozen heads? Read more about the concept of a stool bank at Gizmodo. 

(Image credit: Flickr user mary hodder)

In Altoona, Pennsylvania, they serve pizza in squares with each portion holding a slice of salami and a square of American cheese. St. Louis pizza is made on unleavened bread and topped with Provel cheese instead of mozzarella. Colorado's giant pizzas are sweetened with honey. We hear a lot about New York style and Chicago style pizzas, but many places have their own pizza traditions, which you might think are weird or which you might want to plan a road trip around. Each style has a story behind it, even if that story is lost to time. Check out six different pizza styles that go against the grain of the chains, and where to get them, at Atlas Obscura.

We don't know which is the "last" of anything until quite a bit of time passes afterward. The last human born will be someone we will never know about, because that means the human race will die out. Kurzgesagt doesn't have all the answers, but presents some important ideas in a thought experiment. There are a lot of variables in even speculating about a species dying out, especially the one species doing the speculating. We are currently doing our best to destroy our earth, but we are also exploring the idea of living on other worlds. We may slowly (or quickly) evolve into something that is a bit different, but more likely to survive.

While it may be depressing to think about the end of humanity, the best case scenarios are unimaginably far into the future. Kurzgesagt is actually quite optimistic about our future, if we can make it through the next couple hundred years. The subject is only ten and a half minutes long, the rest is promotional.