Miss Cellania's Blog Posts
Listverse has some unexplained mysteries that I had never heard of. Gelatin raining from the sky? Faces appearing and disappearing after they were photographed? A boy who can make rain fall? And there's the case of the boat named the Carroll A. Deering.
These can't all be hoaxes -or can they? Link -via I Am Bored
Approximately 50 years after the mysterious disappearance of the crew of the Mary Celeste, a similar event occurred when the schooner Carroll A. Deering was spotted around the coast of North Carolina on January 31, 1921. When rescue ships finally reached her, theydiscovered , to their shock that the Deering’s entire crew was missing. Though evidence in the galley suggested that food was being prepared for the following day, nothing else was found of the crew. Eerily enough, no personal effects, no ship logs, no traces were left behind, much like the case of the Mary Celeste.
These can't all be hoaxes -or can they? Link -via I Am Bored
Sometimes you can see something in the shape of an animal's spots, but have you ever seen a cat shape on the back of a cat? Link -via The Daily What
I had no idea Megadeth song titles could be confused for Lifetime channel movie titles, but that's the challenge of today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss. I am an expert on neither, so I only scored 60%. You will do better! Link
Every once in a while, people encounter things on their radio, TV, or interstellar wave detectors that no one can explain. Is it a secret military message? A prankster hacking just to see if it can be done? Aliens trying to contact us? Cracked has five cases that still haven't been settled. Take, for example, the case of UVB-76.
Link
It is an irritating, electronic noise, not unlike the sound of a truck horn played through a cheese grater. It is broadcast over a certain frequency, constantly, and has been since at least 1982. But the weird part isn't the tone, but what happens when it stops.
In its 20-something year run, the sound has been interrupted only three times, the earliest known time being Christmas Eve in 1997. Each time a voice comes on and lists several Russian names and numbers before returning to the foghorn. The most recent occurrence was 2006, a mere three years before the time of this writing. It is clearly becoming more active after remaining quiet during the Cold War.
Link
What if Shakespearean costumes were designed by an artist who drew superheroes? That would never happen, right?
Jack Kirby {wiki} was the creator of such characters as Captain America, The Fantastic Four, and the X-Men. But he went to work designing not only the costumes but also a poster for the student production. His sketches, and some pictures of the actual costumes, are posted at the Kirby Museum. Link -via Metafilter
In 1969, Sheldon Feldner contacted Marvel Comics, asking if one of Marvel's artists would be interested in designing costumes for a production of William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar by the University Theatre Company at Santa Cruz at the newly-built Cowell College of the University of California at Santa Cruz.
As luck would have it, the Kirby family had recently moved to California, and Stan Lee recommended that Feldner contact Jack Kirby.
Jack Kirby {wiki} was the creator of such characters as Captain America, The Fantastic Four, and the X-Men. But he went to work designing not only the costumes but also a poster for the student production. His sketches, and some pictures of the actual costumes, are posted at the Kirby Museum. Link -via Metafilter
Linda De Croock was injured in a traffic accident 25 years ago that left her with a crushed windpipe. Since then, her throat has been held open by metal stents until a new procedure in organ transplant gave her a new trachea. Dr. Pierre Delaere and his team at the University Hospital in Leuven, Belgium transplanted the windpipe twice to acclimate the patient to the new organ.
Dr. Delaere waited a year after the successful surgery before reporting on it to the New England Journal of Medicine. They hope this technique will help other transplant patients live without anti-rejection drugs. Link -via Discover Magazine
(image credit: AP)
The windpipe was taken from a dead man and implanted in her forearm where her own tissue grew around the cartilage scaffold. When the organ came to be transplanted to her throat, her body did not consider it foreign and accepted it.
It is thought to be the first time an organ as large as a windpipe has been implanted into the recipient's body to develop before the final transplant.
Ms de Croock did not have to take anti-rejection drugs, which meant she was not at risk of complications such as a higher likelihood of cancer.
Dr. Delaere waited a year after the successful surgery before reporting on it to the New England Journal of Medicine. They hope this technique will help other transplant patients live without anti-rejection drugs. Link -via Discover Magazine
(image credit: AP)
This looks like a pile of river stones, but this mat is soft and warm to put your feet on. The hand-felted "stones" are made of wool! Link -via Unique Daily
Why buy a new gadget or chemical when something you have in the kitchen will do just as well? Lifehacker listed ten of their favorite kitchen repurposing tricks. For example, I get plenty of Kool-Aid splashed in the dishwasher, but I didn't know the lemon flavor (without the sugar) can be a cleaning agent.
Link -via Interesting Pile
It kind of makes one concerned about the thought of actually drinking something like Kool-Aid lemonade, but the citric acid in one drink packet is enough to clean the lime stains and calcium deposits that build up over time in the dishwasher.
Link -via Interesting Pile
They call it "The Eighth Continent", and this bathing experience starts at only $50,000 from the ME! Bath® company. You get a combination of glacier water and Hawaiian deep-sea water. Add Arabian Sidr Honey, Peruvian Pink Salt, Illipe Butter from Borneo, Murumuru Butter from the Amazon, Kokum Butter from India, Israeli Jojoba Oil, and 24-karat gold. The final price depends on whether you want to have this bath in a spa or in your home. http://themostexpensivebath.com/-via J-Walk Blog
(image credit: Flickr user dieselbug2007)
(image credit: Flickr user dieselbug2007)
Cracked has composed a list of eleven argument defenses you might encounter on all kinds of forums. I believe I've seen every one of these in action. Link -via Digg
(YouTube link)Another of the many ways Queen's classic Bohemian Rhapsody is performed, this time by Hayseed Dixie, from their new album Killer Grass. Link -via Arbroath
Blockbuster movies are often released in several nations at once, and we are used to selecting from several languages on DVDs by now. How much work goes into making other languages work in film? Slate explains how they do it.
The mechanics of the process are also explained, as well as tricks some voice actors use to tweak their performance. Link
The foreign actors' voices have to match the age, texture, and comedic sense of the original. For a big celebrity such as Johnny Depp or Jim Carrey, a single actor in each country will dub all of the star's films. Koichi Yamadera, for instance, is the official Jim Carrey of Japan. Studios also sometimes employ local celebrities, like when Disney hired the French singer Charles Aznavour to do the voice of Ed Asner's protagonist in the movie Up. On rare occasions, the original actor will do the dubbing himself. Viggo Mortensen speaks Spanish, so he did a Spanish dub for Hidalgo. For the Castilian dub of G-Force, Penélope Cruz was unavailable, so her sister, Monica Cruz, got the job instead.
The mechanics of the process are also explained, as well as tricks some voice actors use to tweak their performance. Link
A kitten was stuck on a concrete ledge high above the ground in Spokane, Washington. 60-year-old Kay Leclaire passed by jogging and heard the cat cry for help. So she decided to climb up and get him. The trapped kitten lucked out, since Leclaire is a champion climber who has scaled Mount Everest and holds a record as the oldest woman to climb the highest peaks on all seven continents. The kitten was adopted almost immediately after his rescue. http://www.komonews.com/news/local/81611402.html -via Fark
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