The seventh edition of The Official Scrabble Players Dictionary will be available later this month. Last updated in 2018, it contains around 500 new words that have come into common usage. All the new words are in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, which is updated constantly. You may or may not be familiar with them. Here's a few interesting examples.

adulting
deadname
dox
dumpster (formerly a brand name)
eggcorn
embiggen
fauxhawk
hygge
subtweet
unfollow
unsub
yeehaw (they admit this is not new)
zonkey
zoomer

If you play Scrabble, you've probably already tried to use these words, and you could get away with it if no one in the room had an official Scrabble Dictionary. Until you get your new copy, you can refer any protesters to this post. A lot of words have been deleted from the new edition, mainly racial and ethnic slurs and otherwise offensive words. As always, the Scrabble tournament edition is somewhat different. See more of the new words in an AP article. -via Metafilter

Passports can be weird. Some of them are proof of citizenship, while others are just proof of residency. They are mainly a well-vetted proof of identification, issued by national governments. Except when they are issued by groups that aren't national governments. The legality of these non-national passports varies, and so do their value. Not all of them are accepted for crossing borders, at least not by all countries. In a few cases, whether a border agent will accept one of these non-governmental passports depends on how the agent feels that day. Then there are some such passports that are not only very valid, but also confer extra benefits, like those issued by the United Nations and Interpol. The video length is 4:50; the rest is an ad. -via Digg

Tino Cardasis recorded a lecture when he was in college. His economics professor was making a point using the beef industry as an example. Cardasis later edited the video to include only the times he said "beef." That was 125 times, which isn't all that often in a 90-minute lecture, but it hits differently if that's all you hear. The video has been around for a few years, but the first time I saw it was in Annie? Rauwerda?'s viral Tweet from a few days ago. She was in the same class, and was surprised to see Cardasis' edit a few weeks after the lecture. Cardasis says that yes, the professor has seen it.

He told me he saw it when it first blew up. When I graduated he said he shows it every year

— Tino Cardasis (@CardasisTino) November 14, 2022

The video is an example of semantic satiation, in which the listener hears the same word too many times and it loses all meaning, and even starts to sound weird. It's also an example of how creative people can make something special out of nothing. -via Metafilter

This post contains spoilers for a 34-year-old film.

It's become a traditional sign of the approaching holidays: online arguments about whether the film Die Hard is a Christmas movie. As if anyone is arguing otherwise. There is no better proof than the popularity of the Die Hard Advent Calendar. This is a laser-cut 11.5-inch model of Nakatomi Tower made of birch wood. It illustrates Hans Gruber (portrayed by Alan Rickman) falling to his death one floor at a time as you advance him day-by-day. Gruber's body has a magnet attached to a metal strip on the tower.  

Three years ago, redditor lammage01 constructed a whimsical Advent calendar depicting that memorable scene at the climax of Die Hard. The villain advanced down a floor each day when you pull a tab.

Firefighter and woodworker Brandt Builds, a big Die Hard fan, was intrigued by the concept. He went to work refining it, developed the magnet idea, and designed his own Nakatomi Tower. He launched the product last year at his Etsy shop, LeatherheadLaserWork. Now he sells the Advent calendar (in plain and color versions) along with Christmas tree ornaments of Gruber, John McClane, and Nakatomi Tower. The Advent calendar went viral in October, and other vendors have suddenly copied the design. You can find it cheaper, but Brunt's hand-made calendars are the original. You can even get it personalized. Advent begins on November 27, so get your orders in!

The United Nations has dubbed tomorrow "The Day of Eight Billion." On November 15, 2022, the world population will cross eight billion people. The UN is not looking at this milestone as a catastrophe- the reason why the population is that high is that people are living longer on average, and fewer children are dying. This interactive video graphic illustrates the change in death rates. Russia is a notable outlier.

The number of people living in extreme poverty has also fallen, from from 44% in 1974 to 10%. Read more statistics about the current world population. But there are still challenges, as the world is currently reeling from pandemic, war, and climate change. 

We marked the population reaching seven billion only eleven years ago. However, the rate of growth has actually slowed down from previous decades. At this rate we can expect to reach nine billion in 2037, fifteen years from now. -via Metafilter

When stars run out of fuel, they collapse, burst into supernovas, then become very dense neutron stars. Under most circumstances, the supernova explosion obliterates any planets or blows them into deep space. But thanks to the radio waves some pulsar neutron stars emit, five planets have been detected that still revolve around collapsed neutron stars.

Three of these stars are the first exoplanets ever discovered, back in 1991. They are named Phobetor, Draugr,  and Poltergeist, and all three orbit the collapsed star called Lich, 2,300 light years  from Earth. They are thought to have formed after Lich went supernova. A large planet called Methuselah does a dance with a white dwarf star in the star cluster Messier M4, as they both revolve around a shared gravitational center. It is thought that Methuselah once orbited a different star and was captured by the white dwarf pulsar. Then there's the densest planet ever discovered, which may be made of diamond, and is believed to be itself a remnant of a star. This planet is designated PSR J1719−1438b, but is informally called Diamond World. It now revolves with a pulsar 4,000 light years from Earth.

That only scratches the surface of how weird these planets are. Read what we've learned about them at The Conversation. -via Geeks Are Sexy

(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

With the cost of food these days, you may be reluctant to try something new, lest it go to waste if you don't like it. The internet is here to help! The website Apple Rankings rates 58 different variety of apples and ranks them on a 100-point scale. The factors that go into each rating are: taste, crispness, skin, flesh, juiciness, density, beauty, branding/consistency, and cost/availability. These factors are weighed equally except for taste, which counts twice a much as the other factors. You can look up your favorite apples, or a new variety you want to try, by name, or see the list of ranked apples here. Each apple has its own page with a complete breakdown of its qualities or lack of, plus additional information, links, and comments. This site makes it clear that I haven't tried enough apple varieties, or else I don't remember my impression of them.

Apple Rankings is the brainchild of Brian Frange, a writer and comedian who is known for his rants about apples. With the website, he's putting his money where his mouth is, both literally and figuratively. He is the one to blame if you don't agree with his apple rankings. Also keep in mind he is a comedy writer. -via Boing Boing

(Image credit: Dllu)

A boy referred to as Michael was 14 years old when he confided in his parents that he was the son of the devil and had urges to kill people. They were shocked by his sudden mental illness, and took him to the local psychiatric ward. Over the next year, Michael was convinced he was a cat, a bird, a devil, or the comic book character Swamp Thing. He was also convinced that the family's cat was talking to him, trying to control him, or kill him, or convince him to kill his sibling. He talked to his action figures. Doctors tried psychotherapy and a pharmacy of drugs, with no improvement. After other mental illnesses were tested and discarded, Michael was ultimately diagnosed with schizophrenia, which isn't curable, but can be managed with drugs. But no drugs helped Michael's symptoms. Several months in a premiere psychiatric center in another state didn't help.

Meanwhile, Michael's father set out to research his son's illness on his own. Combing through psychiatric literature and studies, he found a syndrome that fit Michael's symptoms. It had only been identified and described a year before Michael's break from reality. But it seemed so odd- could Michael's illness be caused by an undiagnosed bacterial infection?

The family had already spent more than a year and some $400,000 seeking help for their son, who was no better off. Because the syndrome was so "new" and because of entrenched medical biases, it took some time to locate a clinic that might believe the father's theory. Read the gripping story of the kid who became Swamp Boy at Now This News. -via Nag on the Lake

(Image credit: Mado Peña)

Many of the dishes we traditionally serve at Thanksgiving were not consumed by the Pilgrims in 1621 (I have researched this). For example, they didn't have sweet potatoes, but since they are indigenous New World vegetables, they work well in our Thanksgiving feast. But how did we ever come up with sweet potato casserole with toasted marshmallows on top? It makes for a strangely sweet side dish, especially since we already have sugar-laden cranberry sauce.

It turns out this recipe is another of the many examples of food manufacturers creating recipes to use their products. The first mass producer of marshmallows joined Campbell's soup and Jell-O gelatin in concocting cook books showing ways to use their product, in 1917. This even predates s'mores. But it still makes the recipe more than a hundred years old, and in the United States, that's plenty long enough to make a tradition. Read the history of marshmallow-topped sweet potatoes at Mental Floss.

There had never been a set of surviving elephant twins born in the US. But two weeks ago, at the Rosamond Gifford Zoo in Syracuse, New York, an Asian elephant named Mali gave birth to two male elephants, who are thriving well enough to announce the miracle event. Mali produced the first baby elephant at 2 AM on October 24th. That calf was 220 pounds and appeared to be healthy. Then at almost noon, zoo staff were stunned when she had another calf, which weighed 237 pounds and was noticeably weak. They didn't know that Mali had been carrying twins.



Mali is taking good care of the twins, although zoo staff is supplementing the second calf with elephant formula. Their prognosis is good at this time. Mali's placenta was taken to a research lab in order to study EEHV, a herpes virus endemic to elephants that is a leading cause of death in young pachyderms. Mali lost two earlier offspring to the disease in 2020. -via ZooBorns

Brett Berk borrowed a 2023 Cadillac Escalade with two purposes in mind. He was taking a week-long vacation, and he was going to review the car's hands-free highway driving system. That system is mind-blowing, but the real story happened when Berk stopped to fill the car. He automatically put a whole tank full of unleaded gasoline in. They drove along for another 250 miles before the car conked out and he discovered that it required diesel fuel. You can imagine how he felt at the realization, but he was also puzzled at how it survived as long as it did. GM engineer John Barta explains what will happen when you put gasoline into a diesel vehicle.

“Diesel actually lubricates the pump,” Barta said. “Gasoline is basically a solvent. So when you remove that lubricant, and then wash it away, you end up with a significant amount of wear in that pump.” After just a few miles in this state, draining and flushing the entire fuel system is necessary.

Without the usual lubrication, metal shavings start to gunk up the entire engine. Read about that experience, and what the damage was. Keep in mind that Berk showed a great amount of courage in admitting his mistake online.  

(Image credit: Cadillac)

If it's worth nearly $4600 for you to be super-fashionable this winter, Nordstrom is selling this lovely Oversize Down Cape Coat from designer Rick Owens. The puffy quilted down jacket will reach your knees, but the "cape" is two narrow sleeves that drag the ground behind you. These sleeves have an opening you use for your arms that doesn't quite cover your elbow. Even on a tall model in six-inch heels, they drag the ground. How would you keep them clean? Easy- anyone who can spend this much on a coat that doesn't cover your arms can hire someone to carry that cape behind you. Or stay inside. Otherwise, it's dry-clean only. The reviews at the product site are a hoot, and the comments at Fark include images of various pop culture characters (aliens and robots) that have super long arms and could use this coat. It's also reminiscent of the wavy-arm guy outside your local car dealer. -via Fark

You look like you could use some mindless fun for a few minutues. Yokohama creator saharan of the website iomo made a web toy that blows bubbles for you. No soap to buy and no sticky mess! You'll get a fan, a bubble wand, and a pin in case you want to burst some or all of your bubbles. All of these things can be manipulated. If your bubbles gets past the pin, they will tend to clump together, but you can manipulate the bubbles and clumps to separate or join them. If you leave them long enough, the clumps will rearrange and combine to form larger bubbles, just like they do in the real world. I recycled my bubbles by feeding them through the fan!

If you enjoyed that, you'll also like the jelly web toy, and splashing in the water. This is just the thing to while away a cold day inside this weekend. -via Metafilter

If you put the proper amount of sugar and spices in it, no one will know there are carrots in your carrot cake. Or zucchini in your zucchini bread. But you might be shocked if you found out that delicious chocolate cake you just ate was made with sauerkraut. The recipe for sauerkraut cake has been published many times, at least once under the title Don't Ask Cake. That one leaned on the habit of cooks serving the cake first and then daring the guests to identify the secret ingredient. Who came up with the idea of putting sauerkraut in chocolate cake? There's one origin story that reminds me of how we were served sauerkraut at least twice a week at my school cafeteria, but it may well be apocryphal. Bakers have long used vegetables, like carrots, to boost a cake's nutrition, and acids such as vinegar were used to make a cake rise before baking powder was invented. The history of sauerkraut itself is just as murky. We get both in an article at Atlas Obscura, as well as a recipe for sauerkraut cake, which they say is really tasty. In a good way.

The world illustrated in the movie Black Panther: Wakanda Forever centers on the fictional nation of Wakanda, which has a Pan-African culture that takes its cues from many parts of the continent. The story, as well as that of the previous movie Black Panther, is a work of Afrofuturism, in which elements of African culture that were destroyed by colonialism are recovered and celebrated. The new movie adds another lost culture to the mix. While the underwater society called Talokan brings to mind the lost city of Atlantis, the particular vision of this culture is derived from Mesoamerica: the Maya, Toltec, and Aztec civilizations of Central America and Mexico before the conquistadors arrived in 1502. Read how Black Panther: Wakanda Forever celebrates lost cultures on both sides of the Atlantic at The Conversation. -via Geeks Are Sexy

The Talokan society and their leader Namor are based on the Marvel Comics character Sub-Mariner of Atlantis, based on Greek mythology. The movie version is changed to Talokan to move away from the colonial implications of the Atlantis legend, and to move Mesoamerican influences in. Read the specific ways Talokan is based on Mesoamerican civilizations at Smithsonian. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is now playing at a theater near you.