While the New Year holiday really doesn't signal anything more significant than a new calendar, it's a symbolic time of reset and renewal, of looking back and looking forward, like the two-faced Roman god Janus, for which January is named. As such, there are plenty of superstitions connected with the New Year holiday. Many of these involve food! In my neck of the woods, hog jowl, black-eyed peas, and cooked greens are served for luck in the new year, but I alter that to pork chops, black-eyed peas, and broccoli. Each dish represents something good that will happen if you eat it. There are plenty of other food superstitions from all over the globe associated with good fortune for the new year. If we call them traditions instead of superstitions, we can just enjoy them for what they are. Read about eleven traditional good luck dishes for New Year's Eve and New Year's Day and what each is supposed to mean at Thrillist.

When Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians played "Auld Lang Syne" at the Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown Manhattan while ringing in the New Year of 1930, it wasn't planned as anything other than a nostalgic song out of their regular repertoire. While the song had a tenuous connection to the show's sponsor, that idea wasn't set in stone. It was just a tune that they sometimes used to end their set. They had no plans to repeat it every year. But it eventually became "the" song of the New Year holiday.  

"Auld Lang Syne" might not have become the tradition that it is if it weren't for the fact that the University of Virginia liked the Canadian orchestra, and hired them for various campus events and celebrations. And the fact that the band would party with the UVA fraternities afterward. Read what happened and how those parties contributed to our holiday traditions at Atlas Obscura.

We've been waiting all year for it (and he's been teasing it for a month), and now it's finally here! Louis Plamondon, YouTuber Sleepy Skunk, has unveiled his 2022 movie mashup just barely before the New Year holiday. The annual video is a cleverly-edited collage of the year's biggest films, with clips taken from movie trailers. This year's video comes in three sections, beginning with epic shots of set pieces, followed by a section of visual music beats, and ending with the emotional moments designed to pull on your heartstrings. The list of movies used is here. How many of these movies have you seen?

See also: Sleepy Skunk's previous movie mashups.

Some creatures are carnivores and eat animals, others are herbivores and eat plants, and some, including humans, are omnivores and will eat both. But until now, we haven't identified an organism that eats viruses. Of course, we ingest viruses, along with bacteria and other microbes. But scientists have now observed a species that ate viruses in the absence of other nutrients and thrived! That makes them "virovores."

In an experiment, various pond water microbes were isolated, introduced to purified water, and fed Chlorovirus, a common virus that infects algae. The plankton genus Halteria multiplied to 15 times its population, while the Chlorovirus population was reduced. In a control sample without the virus, Halteria didn't grow at all. That doesn't mean that Halteria is unique. There may be many species that feed on viruses that we don't know about yet. Read about the discovery of virovores at New Atlas. -via Damn Interesting

(Image credit: Don Loarie)

Ruth Handler designed an adult fashion doll for little girls to play with. Her name was Barbie, and she hit the market in 1959. The Barbie doll became a hit, and soon Handler decided she should have a boyfriend. Mattel went to work on a doll named Ken, after Handler's son. But there was a problem. The dolls were meant to be dressed and undressed, because they were fashion dolls. Barbie appeared anatomically correct (if unrealistic) for an adult woman. What would Ken look like undressed?

No one wanted to give Ken realistic genitalia, but Handler wanted him to have a "bulge" in his pelvis. The male executives at Mattel were horrified and resisted the idea. The doll would not be anatomically correct without one, and it would look weird even with clothing on. But how big would such a bulge be? Would a bulge traumatize little girls, or would the lack of one be worse? After all, little girls have fathers and brothers. And Mattel executives knew that the first thing a child does to a fashion doll is to undress it. Maybe they could paint permanent underwear on Ken. Read about the fight over Ken's crotch and how he ended up the way he is at Business Insider. -via Digg

Floating high above our world, there's a network of satellites that are watching us. They relay information from and to earth, and to each other. They enable our global phone, TV, and internet systems. They geolocate us and allow GPS to send us on our way. And since they appear to stay in the same place all the time, they must have very specific orbits. Geosynchronous orbits and geostationary orbits are not exactly the same, but they are both rather weird. They would not be possible if our planet were the slightest bit different from the way it is. In other words, if we lived on Jupiter or Venus, we couldn't have satellite TV. Imagine that. Minute Physics tells us why.

If you've got some free time between holidays, you might want to read, or at least skim through, a list of some things we learned in 2022 on a wide-ranging number of subjects, like animals, artificial intelligence, art, archaeology (wait, is this list in alphabetical order?), music, space, celebrities, health (I guess not), pets, chemistry, food, history, and more. You need to know about how a new Guinness World record was set for a mass gathering of vampires, how monkeys use tools for masturbation, and how a poll to name a Uranus probe didn't result in "Uranus Probe."    

Mental Floss has put together a mega-list recapping the tidbits of knowledge that crawled across the internet in 2022. You can listen to it the Mental Floss List Show video, but it's 52 minutes long. Lucky for us, they also give us the text version, so you can skip the stuff you already know, if that's what you prefer.   

A bristlecone pine in California is the oldest living thing on earth. The tree named Methuselah is estimated to be around 5,000 years old! How in the world does a tree last that long? It comes down to adaptation to environmental stresses, plus luck in the extremity of those environmental stresses. Minute Earth explains how Methuselah is perfectly adapted to deal with the things that normally kill trees. Then there are humans, like the one who killed Methuselah's neighbor Prometheus. In that case, Methuselah was defenseless, but also just plain lucky. This video is only two and a half minutes long, the rest is a promotion.   

There are plenty of lists detailing the events of 2022, and ranking the movies, albums, celebrities, and other things that made a splash during the year. If you happen to cover, or be an expert in, something that's a bit off the beaten path, there's no reason you can't make your own year-end list of what you know. And so we have a list of 2022's most memorable public latrines offered by Canada's national parks and historic sites. The federal agency Parks Canada puts in a lot of work to make sure visitors are able to go when they need to go. The facilities are designed to serve while blending in with the natural world.  

Canadian travel writer Jennifer Bain has visited all the parks, which are large and natural, meaning there isn't modern plumbing available everywhere. The particular benefits of each outhouse is honestly described. They are all functional, which is most important, but they all have something that makes them interesting, like a clever design, a wonderful view, or surprising features like motion-sensor lights. The roundup is a lot more interesting than you would imagine, and it may even entice you to visit some of these parks. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Jennifer Bain)

Through most of the history of the United States, the Supreme Court has kept a low profile compared to the other branches of the federal government. With lifetime appointments, the justices do not have to make a public spectacle of themselves to be re-elected, nor do they have to please constituents. The individual justices can be as private as they want. If you look into their backgrounds, you may find some reasons they wanted to stay private. After all, Supreme Court Justices are people just like the rest of us, with all the messiness that comes with that.

One justice actually went to prison while he was on the Supreme Court. Another had a nervous breakdown over a case. Two justices actually dated each other, although that was long before they served together on the court. One was almost framed for drug possession while another was targeted for murder. Read five stories of weird happenings involving Supreme Court Justices from history at Cracked.

Miss Ukraine has turned up to the Miss Universe competition as a Sister of Battle pic.twitter.com/UtCkCGzaFe

— Ben Sledge (@BenSledge) December 23, 2022

It's not often that a national costume at the Miss Universe pageant can be described as "badass." The Sisters of Battle in the Tweet refers to a religious order in the lore of the video game Warhammer. It's an apt reference. The actual name of the costume is "Warrior of Light," worn by Miss Ukraine 2022 Viktoria Apanasenko.

Lesia Patoka designed the costume, which was built over a four-month period, sometimes by candlelight, with sirens wailing in the background. Ukraine is in the eleventh month of full-on war since Russia attacked Kyiv on February 24.

"It is the personification of inner strength, courage, determination and will flowing in our veins. War cannot break our strength and will not discolor our hearts. Ukraine will bloom like a phoenix even in a fire. It shines with bright rays of kindness and faith," Viktoria shared on social media.

The Miss Universe 2022 pageant will be held in New Orleans on January 14th. -via Fark

TRUE ANGEL IN BUFFALO 💯 A THREAD: A local woman received a call on Christmas Eve, “Hi, you don't know me but I have your brother.” The woman’s brother’s name is Joey. He is 64 years old and mentally disabled. pic.twitter.com/iAVQTsf2xH

— Kimberly LaRussa (@KimberlyLaRussa) December 26, 2022

The horrific winter storm last weekend brought nearly four feet of snow to parts of western New York state. The death toll in the Buffalo area stands at 27, but it would have been higher if people hadn't opened their doors to strangers. Among the many stories of rescue and hospitality, that of Sha'Kyra Aughtry stands out. She heard a man crying outside, and her boyfriend Trent brought him into their house. They believe he may have been trying to walk home from his workplace. Joey was suffering from frostbite. Besides taking care of him, Aughtry was able to contact Joey's family and eventually arranged transport to a hospital. She even accompanied him so he wouldn't be frightened. We don't know Joey's prognosis, but he is being cared for in the hospital's burn unit. You can read the story at the Twitter thread or the Threadreader version. -via Metafilter, where you'll find links to more stories about people stepping up to help those stranded by the weather.

Pioneers in 3D printing are always looking for ways that it can be used to make life better or easier for the rest of us. One innovation is to recreate a realistic but artificial human body, or a partial body, as an exact copy of a particular surgical patient. A medical scanner maps out the size, shape, and positions of organs, and then a copy is manufactured, as demonstrated here by the company Lazarus 3D. That's for surgeons to practice on, to avoid that moment when they cut a person open and find surprises. It's a sort of dress rehearsal for the actual surgery. The robotic surgery part is not really crucial to the rest of the story, but it's pretty neat anyway. Tom Scott volunteered his body for the demonstration, and the scan revealed he luckily didn't need surgery, so they added a cyst just so we could watch them remove it.

I made it. Merry Christmas. pic.twitter.com/NI85iDhDNw

— Gävlebocken (@Gavlebocken) December 25, 2022

The Gävle Goat (previously at Neatorama) is an annual tradition in the town of Gävle, Sweden. It is a giant sculpture of a goat made of straw, erected early in December every year since 1966. In 38 of those years, someone has burned it down which is a 67% arson rate! In some years, it burned almost immediately after the goat was erected. But this year's goat has beaten the odds and survived through Christmas. Protecting the goat is not easy- there are security guards and a live webcam, plus serious consequences for arsonists who are caught. Last year's arsonist was sentenced to six months in jail, although most perpetrators were never caught. While getting through Christmas without being roasted is a good sign, the Gävle Goat is not considered a historic "survivor" until December 31st. The Herald Scotland has the goat's story and a timeline of the goat's fate for each year so far. This story may be updated within a few days.

Update 1/1/23: The goat has survived!

We spend too much time being scared of dying in a plane crash or being eaten by a shark, when those things are exceedingly rare. It's prudent to be cautious of traffic accidents, which are a too-common way to die prematurely, but that's a relatively modern problem. Over the course of human history, most deaths come from the natural world. We've been pretty good at battling some of those causes of death, extending the average life span into an old age when death is inevitable, while other causes are maddeningly constant and present a long-term commitment that we just can't seem to agree on. Minute Earth details the most common causes of death in human history, one era at a time. Along the way, they tease us about "three other big killers," which are eventually revealed and may or may not surprise you. But they are the things we haven't been able to conquer yet.