Through most of history, people developed regional accents from talking to the people around them. Then movies and TV helped to flatten those accents as people were exposed to the way Hollywood talks. Then we got the internet, which shattered the shared media landscape, and allowed like-minded people around the world to find each other. So now instead of accent being a matter of geography, it is a more likely a matter of media choice.

In this world, there arose a way of speaking that is termed the "lifestyle influencer accent," which is designed to create intimacy and engagement for SEO purposes. A subset of this accent is the "lip filler accent," which is when people speak as if they have had their lips filled even if they haven't. The procedure changes the way someone moves their mouth and affects their speech. In that online world, word pronunciation spreads virally, and people who are too young, or too broke, to get lip fillers, end up sounding like the people who've had it done. Read how the lip filler accent came about and what it means for English linguistics. -via Nag on the Lake 

We've posted about some really strange airports before, but that's mainly because they are scary. The geography of the world doesn't adapt to the needs of air travelers, yet people want to flly to remote places. Ercan International Airport in Cyprus, on the other hand, is weird merely because it's caught in a political no man's land. The history of Cyprus is like a lot of other country's histories: ruled by the Greeks, the Romans, the Ottoman Empire, the British Empire, then left to their own devices, which can open up ancient rivalries and prejudices. In Cyprus, independence led to a split between the ethnic Greeks and the ethnic Turks, and the formation of Northern Cyprus, which is not recognized as a country by the UN. That designation puts the Ercan International Airport in a weird spot, as Half as Interesting explains. The video is only six minutes; the rest is promotional.   

In the winter of 1393, the young French king Charles VI (previously at Neatorama), who was known to be mentally ill, became convinced that he was made of glass and ordered iron rods sewn into his clothing in order to protect him from breaking. His was the first documented case of what became known as the "glass delusion." Over the next several centuries, there would be plenty of others. The glass delusion varied, as some thought their bodies were glass pitchers or lamps, some felt they were encased in glass, and some believed they had glass inside of them. They were all terrified of being shattered.  

Then the glass delusion died out in the 19th century. Some believe it came about because glass was the most technologically magic material available during those years, and this delusion was later replaced by the scarier materials of the modern world. Read up on the rise and fall of the glass delusion at the Public Domain Review.  -via Messy Nessy Chic 

Despite the fact that they will soon rise up and kill us all, this robot is pretty darned neat. It has only two legs, but it moves amazingly well, just like a certain roadrunner cartoon character we are all familiar with. Roadrunner uses its powered wheels to move in dual mode, inline mode, and even balances on one wheel. It never needs to turn around, because forward, backward, and sideways are human constructs. Then it can lock its wheels and just walk like a human, which includes navigating stairs and ramps. Can Roadrunner dance? Of course! It wouldn't be a robot demonstration without a little dancing. 

You might wonder what good all this is. Besides the research in kinetic movement, this kind of locomotion would come in handy for wheelchairs and bomb disposal units that need to negotiate rough terrain. Unfortunately, its first real use would more likely be offensive battle. -via Born in Space 

Accounts of how sperm whales give birth are pretty rare, and video from the event is even rarer. But in 2023, a research boat in the Caribbean studying whale communication noticed some odd calling between whales and grabbed their camera drones for deployment. What they found was astonishing, and was published in two scientific journals yesterday. 

The actual birth took about half an hour. Then the whales took turns, in groups of two or three, lifting the newborn above the water with their bodies, for several hours until the calf was able to swim on its own. These were whales known to the researchers, and they identified them as the calf's grandmother, sisters, and aunts, plus a second family of sperm whales. Most of those involved were female. After the blessed event, the researchers went back and analyzed the sounds made, which is why the papers are only published now. See video clips of the whales supporting the newborn calf at AP news. 

The Gregory Brothers and friends sing a little song about the Maspeth neighborhood of Queens, New York. They call it the "Bermuda Triangle" of the city, because there is a 60th Street, 60th Avenue, 60th Lane, 60th Road, 60th Place, 60th Court, and 60th Drive. No wonder you can't find anything, including a way out. It's a catchy song. 

But why is Maspeth like this? It's not like Peachtree in Atlanta, where everyone wants to live or work on Peachtree. The wacky numbering system goes back to the turn of the 20th century, when New York City annexed Queens. The city wanted to lay a logical grid of numbered street names like they did in Manhattan, but the geography of Queens was not amenable to the logic of the system. Streets run along longitude lines, and avenues run along latitude lines. But Queens already had plenty of streets. There's a real explanation for the streets named 60th in Maspeth, and good luck understanding it. -via Laughing Squid

The Roman Empire mined gold in Spain by digging shafts and tunnels deep into the mountains. This yielded gold, but not as much as what came after. At the same time, they built aqueducts and diverted mountain runoff water to the hilltops. When they had enough water, they would flood the shafts and tunnels until the pressure split the mountain open! The fallen rock could then be sifted for gold. The technique was called ruina montium, or the wrecking of mountains. The tons of gold they recovered ended up stamped with Caesar's likeness, and the mountains still show the scars 2,000 years later. 

The mountains shown above are Las Médulas in northwestern Spain, where the mining technique and the aqueducts still remain. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Read about the wrecking of the mountains and what it left behind, with plenty of pictures, at Amusing Planet. 


(Image credit: Udri/CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

There are two main reasons to buy Peeps. Either you are filling an Easter basket for the kids, or you have a great idea for a funny diorama and don't want to mold clay figures. But around Easter, they are sitting there in a store, five or ten in a box, at a rather low price, and your mouth waters at the anticipation of a sugar rush. By the time you get to the third one, you're full of regret. 

But did you know that before 1955 Peeps had wings? They were works of confectionary art that really looked like cartoon chicks. But that's neither scalable nor affordable. The family that runs the Just Born company were inventors as well as confectioners, and they figured out how to get Peeps made in a hurry at mass scale- but they had to lose the wings. That made Peeps what they are today- an Easter tradition made of sugar and air that you can either eat or keep from year to year.  

Does it ever feel to you that time is accelerating as you age? It happens to all of us. My mother used to say that life is a like a roll of toilet paper- it goes faster as you get closer to the end. The web toy Another Day highlights this time distortion by calculating how old the pop culture of your life really is. The first episode of South Park is closer to the moon landing than to today. The release of Toy Story is closer to the attack on Pearl Harbor than to today. The birth of Wikipedia is now closer to the release of Star Wars than to today. Well, pop culture sticks around, and if it's good, several generations will enjoy it. But you can put your own birthday into the calculator and feel really old.  

Oh dear. I may have to go lie down for a while. The relevant discussion at Metafilter might make you feel even older. 

Passover is the Jewish festival that celebrates the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt. It begins at sunset on April 1st and continues through sunset on April 9th, and just in time we get the traditional song parody from the Jewish a cappella group Six 13 (previously at Neatorma). This year, it's a medley of Michael Jackson hits with new lyrics that explain the history that led to the holiday and the traditions of the Passover seder, from the wine to the bitter herbs, all created with nothing but the human voice. 

The songs included in this video are "Billie Jean," "Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’," "Beat It," "Smooth Criminal." and "Man in the Mirror." I would have included at least one song from The Jackson Five, but those songs are older than any member of the group. Maybe next year. Send this song to anyone you know who is celebrating Passover and wish them Chag Pesach Sameach! 

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, no one could find Luke Skywalker because the star map was missing the part that contained his planet in The Force Awakens. The Sith planet Exegol was hidden unless you had a specific compass in The Rise of Skywalker. Similar plot points were found in Attack of the Clones, Star Wars: Ahsoka, and in Skeleton Crew. Fans got tired of plots revolving around missing planets no one could find, and it became a joke. 

But of all the Star Wars tropes, this one is the most scientifically accurate. Here on earth, astronomers make maps of the stars, but there is no one organization that is tasked with keeping them accurate. The latest are stored in bits and pieces on computers that are reliant on technology that goes obsolete quickly. And the facilities that make and store maps are dependent on funding, usually from governments that can change. Add on top of that the fact that objects in space move over time. Learn how the silliest trope in Star Wars is quite believable to folks who know stars at Inverse.  

The latest question in the What If series (previously at Neatorama) concerns digging a deep hole in the ground. Our parents told us if we dug deep enough, we would come out on the other side of the earth in China. However, if you started in the United States and dug straight down, you'd end up in the Indian Ocean, west of Australia. Be that as it may, you can't dig through the earth's core, because it's too hot. And it gets too hot way long before you get near the core.  

But in this scenario, heat isn't the only factor working against you. Randall Munroe also explains the difficulty of trying to dig such a hole, such as the logistocs and energy expenditure of removing the dirt once you get too deep to throw it, and the air pressure underground. That doesn't mean that people haven't tried it. You might recall this somewhat disturbing video of the deepest holes humans have dug. 

In the late 1980s, I became addicted to Taco Bell's Meximelts. It was a simple food, beef, tomatoes, and lots of cheese wrapped in a soft tortilla. You could eat them while driving, and best of all, they were only 79 cents. My family bought Meximelts in large numbers for about thirty years, but when the price reached $4 each, I quit buying them. Apparently, so did everyone else, and they fell off the menu in 2019. The chain figured no one wanted them, but it was the price that did the Meximelt in. Now I get soft tacos with no lettuce for $1.49 and pretend they are Meximelts.

The Meximelt is just one of the once-popular Taco Bell items that are no longer on the menu for one reason or another. Read about ten of these discontinued items at Mental Floss, and let us know which one you want to bring back.  

(Image credit: Michael Rivera) 

The legend of the Bell Witch is still told in Tennessee, and tourists can visit the Bell Witch Cave in Adams, Tennessee, which doesn't really figure into the story but has a replica of the Bell house and some artifacts from the family. John Bell and his family started undergoing paranormal experiences in 1817. Most of the incidents were poltergeist activity, although the word was not yet used in America at that time. The hauntings went on for years. The family kept the weird phenomena to themselves for months, and when the word got out, other families reported similar events. 

The hauntings continued until John Bell, the patriarch of the family, died under mysterious circumstances in 1820. Bell had married his wife Lucy when she was 12 years old (he was 32). They moved to Tennessee after Bell beat a murder rap in North Carolina. The family eventually had nine children and a solid reputation in Tennessee. But the witch threatened Bell constantly, and some reports said his health was failing the entire three years of the hauntings. Or was he poisoned? Dr. Emily Zarka tells the tale of the Bell Witch. 

Picher, Oklahoma, was once a booming mining town of 20,000 people. The Eagle-Picher Company mined zinc and lead there for over a hundred years, but today it's a ghost town. The mine closed in 1967 and in 1983 Picher was declared a Superfund site, with dangerous levels of lead found in the city's residents. Underground mining left its buildings unstable. And a tornado wiped out 150 of the remaining homes in 2008. The government paid people to move away, and Picher city services ceased in 2009. Louise Story, who is on a quest to visit all 50 states, visited the eerie ghost town with her son, driving by the abandoned homes with the windows rolled up because of the toxic lead-filled air.  

But they also visited Commerce, Oklahoma, less than five miles away, the boyhood home of Mickey Mantle. Story told her son about how his father, Mutt Mantle, and his grandfather Charlie trained him to be a switch hitter baseball star from an early age. It was only afterward, with a little research, that the stories she told of the two Oklahoma towns became connected. Read that story at Atlas Obscura. 

(Image credit: peggydavis66)