Sure, Sir Isaac Newton was quite a scientist, what with inventing calculus and discovering gravity and all, but he was also a devout Christian. And an alchemist. In Newton's day, the lines between those disciplines weren't so clearly drawn. Newton studied the Bible diligently, and wrote theological treatises on prophesy. He did a deep dive into the book of Daniel for clues on the end times, and calculated that the world would end in 2060 -or sometimes thereabouts. Here's an excerpt from a 1704 letter on the subject.

So then the time times & half a time are 42 months or 1260 days or three years & an half, recconing twelve months to a yeare & 30 days to a month as was done in the Calendar of the primitive year. And the days of short lived Beasts being put for the years of lived [sic] kingdoms, the period of 1260 days, if dated from the complete conquest of the three kings A.C. 800, will end A.C. 2060. It may end later, but I see no reason for its ending sooner.

His later studies gave a wider latitude to the date. Of course, scientists consider this all hogwash. The Bible does, too. Read about Newton's calculations for the end of the world and the notes he left behind at Open Culture. -via Damn Interesting

As they do every year, Game On! Minnesota waits until the end of the high school hockey season to announce the best head of hair on the players of Minnesota. These young athletes spend all year selecting their style, growing their locks, and getting their one second on TV just right, hoping to make the Minnesota State High School All Hockey Hair Team. That moment has arrived, and the competition this year is referred to as "Flowchella." The title of this video ended with "presented by Duke Cannon," and I thought we were going to find out the name of the guy who does this every year. But no, that's just the sponsor. Anyway, if you're new to this, you don't have to know anything about hockey at all to enjoy this championship. And you'll learn a few things about Minnesota. -via Metafilter

See the all-hockey hair teams from previous years.

The manufacture of organic, eco-friendly, biodegradable products is not strictly a modern-day idea. Henry Ford himself looked into the possibilities of replacing steel with an agriculturally-derived plastic made of soybeans, hemp, wheat, and other crops. His purpose was not environmental sustainability, though. A car made of plant-based plastic would be cheaper than steel, would reduce the weight of a car to increase fuel efficiency, and what his engineers came up with was surprisingly tough.

Ford's prototype plastic car was unveiled in 1941. It had a tubular steel frame that acted as roll bars, was covered in tough and resilient plant-based plastic, and ran on fuel made from hemp. Ford was eager to get the car off the ground as he suspected the availability of steel would be an issue due to World War II. He was right about that, but it turned out to be impossible to manufacture an alternative car when the government forbade all automobile production and shifted manufacturing to military vehicles and weapons. By the time the war ended, Ford was in ailing health and soon retired. Interest in the plastic car faded.

Recent coverage of Ford's plastic car mainly focuses on the hemp aspect, but he had quite a few agricultural products in mind. However, the exact formula for the plastic no longer exists. There are several ideas for what it might have contained, but no one knows for sure. Read about the plant-based plastic car that might have been at Amusing Planet.

(Image credit: Flickr user John Lloyd)

Boba Fett had a thankless job as a Tatooine crime lord who only wanted to do the right thing, sort of. What he really wants is to relive the joys of the second best day of his life. Specifically, that day he and the Sand People heard an ice cream truck out in the desert. You know what they say, money can't buy happiness, but it can buy ice cream, and that's kind of the same.   

Auralnauts continues to be the premiere producer of Star Wars parodies because they see the most ridiculous possibilities in the galaxy far, far away while still refusing to denigrate the actual source material. The result is just plain fun. -via Laughing Squid

The super viral game Wordle is a lot of fun, but you can only play once a day. Lucky for us, there are plenty of clones and variations you can try while waiting for the new Wordle. Try some, and pick out your favorites to bookmark. If you happen to be a geography nerd like me, you might enjoy these daily puzzles that challenge your knowledge of the world.    

Worldle gives you the shape of the nation, so if you recognize it, you're done in one. If you guess wrong, it will tell you how many kilometers away the right country is. Drawbacks: It only gives you six guesses. It has only one puzzle per day. And it includes territories that you may not have heard of.

Globle gives you a world globe to work with. A guess will tell you whether you are anywhere near the answer by color, but not by direction or exact distance. You won't get any other clues, so it's a matter of triangulation. If there is a limit on guesses, I haven't found it yet. Drawbacks: There is only one puzzle a day. I eventually knew where to go, but had to pull up a map in another window to name countries (which might help with Worldle, too).

 -via Metafilter

A surprising number of mammal species have a penis bone, or baculum, a bone that doesn't attach to the rest of the skeleton. Many primates have a baculum, even apes, but not humans. There are many reasons that a baculum would be beneficial, all having to do with mating and reproduction, which explains why ancient species developed one and passed it along to the mammals who use it today. Since our near-relatives still have a baculum, it follows that humans must have discarded it somewhere along the evolutionary line. But why?

Scientists still don't know the definitive answer, but the general theory is that we no longer needed it. Men of today would argue about that, considering how much money is spent to fight erectile dysfunction. The latest hypothesis is more about the behavior of women, specifically monogamy, or at least relatively temporary monogamy. Read about the baculum and why humans don't have one at Inverse. -via Damn Interesting

Go.Adventure Arenal Park in La Fortuna, Costa Rica, offers zip-lining through the rainforest to tourists. Sunday was an adventure that no one foresaw. A young boy was the last of eight tourists to go down the line, with park owner and guide Flavio Leiton Ramos following him closely with a camera. Ramos tells him not to use the brakes, but the kid did, and rightly so, when he bumped into a sloth! How did a sloth get onto the zip-line? The other riders did not see it, and it would be quite a leap from the nearest tree branches. In any case, the sloth didn't zip away- he took his own sweet time, as sloths do, to climb down the line on his own. They had to wait about 15 minutes for the zip-line to be cleared before Ramos and the child could continue. A good time was had by all. -via Boing Boing

We are used to the spectacle of women's bodies being objectified in beauty pageants, but they are held for men, too. The Mister Global pageant is held annually in Thailand, and after a two-year pandemic hiatus, the 2022 Mister Global pageant was held yesterday. The most interesting part of the competition is the parade of national costumes, which are supposed to represent a contestant's home country while making him look as good as possible. The contestant from Vietnam is shown at the top; and Spain is below.

And then there's the USA.   



The new Mister Global is Miguel Ángel Lucas Carrasco from Spain. See all the national costumes in a gallery at Buzzfeed. Or you can watch the parade from the pageant in this video. -via Metafilter

(All photos credit: David Ryo via Mister Global at Facebook)

In case you didn't know, the same company that makes Michelin tires is the company that rates restaurants with Michelin stars. How this came about is a rather interesting story. Adam Ragusea explains the history of the French company, which was once so all-encompassing that it had its hand in everything to do with travel. When that hand withdrew from many of those interests, two very different namesakes remained. That's why the tire company also rates the finest restaurants in the world. -via Digg

In every film production, a lot more was filmed than ever makes it into the final production. A lot of that editing is for time, some for pacing, and some to make a simpler narrative. Often, all three are involved in what gets dropped. Picking and choosing what is discarded and what is kept shapes the film in ways the writers and actors, and even the directors don't see coming. It is only long afterward that we might see how the inclusion of some deleted scenes might have changed the plot. Some deleted scenes could have changed the entire universe of that story, including sequels. If we had known Pepper Potts was pregnant during Captain America: Civil War, would it have changed everything? Well, no, actually, as she eventually married Tony Stark and they had a child anyway. But it would have shifted the story chronologically. Another deleted scene could have changed quite a few movies.

If Palpatine were considered to be Anakin's father, then Kylo Ren would have been his direct descendant, a great grandson. That would have made the entire "Rey is my granddaughter" plot line unnecessary (which it was anyway) in The Rise of Skywalker. After all, "manipulating the Force" was how Palpatine got a clone son anyway. Plus, that would have made Rey and Ren cousins. Ew. Read of 13 more deleted scenes and how they would have changed movies (or TV series) at Cracked.   

Here is a list without context. Can you figure out what these things have in common? In other words, what is this a list of?

    the formula for the making of Wrigley's chewing gum
    the recipe for Purina Dog Chow
    the city records of Chicago and Los Angeles
    most of the Walt Disney films, including all of the original prints from the Mickey Mouse Club
    109,000 old MGM movies
    the wedding dress of a lady from Wichita
    fur pelts
    a collection of antique newspapers dating back to 1659
    copies of Bibles in 1700 languages and dialects
    a couple of jars of pickled frogs

After the first two items, you think "corporate secrets!" But no, Bibles and fur pelts wouldn't work. Things that have been lost? If the city records of Chicago and L.A. has been lost, we would have heard about it. No matter what I came up with, the fur pelts and the frogs kept stumping me. The answer is revealed at Weird Universe, along with some extra information on the subject. -via Nag on the Lake

The annual Crufts dog show was held last weekend in Birmingham, UK. While the show was full of very good dogs, the most viral of all the performances was that of a tiny chihuahua named Joya who performed the Swan Lake ballet with handler Karin Baumann in the Heelwork To Music competition. Who knew chihuahuas could be ballerinas? This little dog memorized thousands of moves for a three-minute performance.

Baumann and Joya's actual performance at Crufts is in this video, which was taken from quite some distance. The video above is of the same routine at a show from last fall, because it is much easier to see. Joya didn't win the ribbon at Crufts, but she won our hearts -and the internet- with her perfect yet hilarious dance. That's a good dog. -via reddit

See the winner of that competition and more Crufts results at Supa Fluffy.

History repeats itself, almost exactly a year later. You might recall that in March of 2021, the Evergreen container ship Ever Given became stuck in the Suez Canal for a week and backed up shipping traffic from everywhere on earth.

Now another container ship owned by Evergreen Marine has run aground in Chesapeake Bay near Baltimore. The ship named Ever Forward was departing when it became stuck on Sunday night.

2/ Looking at charts, #EVERFORWARD may have slightly deviated from dredged navigation channel into shallower waters after departing Baltimore.

And got stuck.

She's apparently not blocking the navigation channel, but is quite close to it. pic.twitter.com/K6obJIzXr0

— John Scott-Railton (@jsrailton) March 15, 2022

High tide was earlier this evening, but it doesn't rise enough in that area to float a stuck ship. If this kind of thing keeps up, someone will eventually need to look into Evergreen's pilot training program. You can keep up with the Ever Forward's predicament and current location at Marine Traffic. -via Fark  

(Image credit: US Coast Guard)

In the early 19th century, hieroglyphics inscribed on the walls of the Temple of Karnak near Luxor, Egypt, were translated and found to be a peace treaty between Pharaoh Ramesses II and the "Great King of Khatti," later identified as Hattušiliš III. Another copy of the same treaty is inscribed on the temple of Ramesses II in Thebes. The treaty was ratified in 1258 BC, making it the world's oldest treaty discovered so far. It's become known as the Treaty of Kadesh.

Archaeologists determined that Khatti meant the Hittites, from modern-day Turkey. The treaty was quite an accomplishment, as the Egyptians had been battling the Hittites over the lands of the eastern Mediterranean for two centuries. In 1906, excavations in the Hittite capital of Hattusa revealed 10,000 clay tablets with cuneiform writing. Three of those tablets contained the exact wording of the treaty with Egypt, in the Akkadian language. This was a profound discovery of an ancient document between two nations in two written languages that agreed with each other in the most  important details.     

The treaties laid out the points of agreement from each kingdom to stop fighting, return political refugees and criminals to their home country, and assist each other in suppressing rebellions. Furthermore they pledged to support each other militarily in case of attack from other nations going forward. The treaty ends with a curse upon anyone breaking the treaty. Read about the war between Egypt and the Hittites and the amazing treaty that ended it at Amusing Planet. -via Strange Company 

(Image credit: Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg))

March 13 was the beginning of Daylight Saving Time (as you well know by now), and March 15 is the Ides of March. In between, we celebrate Pi Day! March the 14th is celebrated as such because the American way of writing the date is 3/14, which is as close as we'll get to 3.14159265359...∞ as a date notation. The British method doesn't work because there aren't enough months. Pi Day is a day to appreciate the mathematical constant that defines a circle. Coincidentally, it's also Albert Einstein's birthday. But most people will only celebrate by enjoying some pie.

The key lime pie above was posted at reddit specifically for Pi Day, as you can see from the price and the sell-by date. I am sure someone bought it by Sunday. Who am I kidding- the person who took the picture bought the pie!

Don't forget to wear your Pi Day shirt from the NeatoShop today. If you don't already have one, what better time to order one for next year, because they are 20% off for a limited time!

For your traditional Pi Day feast, get a pizza pie and rearrange the toppings into the π symbol. Follow that with a sweet dessert pie, as long as it's round. If you make your own, you can use the π symbol on the crust, but if you buy one, you may find them on sale today. Here's a list of Pi Day pizza and pie bargains and discounts. Most are only good today, so hurry and get yours! But be assured that Pi Day will come "round" again next year.