The Sycamore Gap Tree was planted in the late 19th century next to Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland, England. The tree became famous when it was featured in the 1991 movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. It became a popular tourist attraction and has been called "the most photographed tree in England." The sycamore even won the England Tree of the Year award in 2016. Then in September of 2023, someone cut it down in the middle of the night. 

The British were enraged, and the story made international news. Eventually, Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers were arrested for the offense, which was charged as "criminal damage." The case was elevated to the High Court due to the publicity, but it seemed strange because that court normally deals with only the most heinous crimes, and many of those involved couldn't really see what this offense was. The trial was a circus, the defendants weren't at all believable, and some elements of the crime seemed to come directly from Grimm's Fairy Tales. Read about the bizarre aftermath of the death of a tree at Harpers.  -via Nag on the Lake 

(Image credit: Gordon Leggett) 

Brothers and sisters can be best friends or serious rivals, often both in a single day. Families do their best to make their children get along, because they'll be related for life. It doesn't work that way in all families, and can be quite opposite in some non-human families. 

Living species have varying reproductive strategies. Plants and insects produce as many offspring as possible because most of them will not survive. Mammals produce fewer offspring, but devote lots of time and energy to keeping them alive. Then there are some species, like certain fishes and birds, that nurture their young while not getting too attached to them. They depend on sibling rivalry to cull the herd, so to speak, and keep only the fittest as their surviving progeny. MinuteEarth introduces us to some species that actually encourage offspring to kill each other. It seems a cruel strategy, but nature is only interested in what works. The video is only 2:25; the rest is an ad. 

Look at the eyes on this kitten! She can't be real, can she? Dorito is a five-month-old black kitten in Minnesota who looks like she's been Photoshopped or is a product of AI. But she is very much real, and has those hypnotic eyes as a result of illness. Her swollen eyes are a rare symptom of feline infectious peritonitis (FIP). 

Dorito and her sister Cheeto were found behind a dumpster and came into the care of the Bitty Kitty Brigade. Both kittens were ill, but Dorito's eyes began to swell as they were treated. A veterinary ophthalmologist diagnosed her with FIP and she has undergone treatment. She is now disease-free and the pressure in her eyes is back to normal, but no one knows if they will ever return to a normal size. Dorito and Cheeto have been adopted by their foster family. Dorito has limited eyesight, and requires eyedrops because she can't fully close her eyes even when sleeping. See more of Dorito, including videos. -via Fark 

(Image credit: The Bitty Kitty Brigade) 

The trend these days is away from having a bar of soap in your shower or on your bathroom sink, and more toward a bottle of liquid soap or shower gel. Younger people see a communal bar of soap as dirty, with an ick factor of imagining other people touching it. However, soap in a solid bar is more environmentally-friendly, less expensive, and lasts longer. Plenty of liquid soap users don't think about any of these factors because using liquid soap out of a pump bottle is just what's done in the modern world. 

Dan Kois will defend bar soap until the end. He writes about the history of soap, including his personal history with Irish Spring, and the advantages of a simple bar in your bathroom. In preparing for this extensive essay, he even engaged a microbiology lab in testing the bacteria on soap and the poufs people use with liquid soap. Read all about the simple bar of soap and why we should be bringing it back at Slate. Here's an alternative link if that one doesn't work. 

(Image credit: Dwight Burdette) 

Most people become disgusted when they find a foreign object in their food, and even more so when that object is alive. Musician Simon Curtis, on the other hand, didn't lose it when he found a frog in his lettuce. Making a simple salad in the middle of the night turned out to be an adventure he never expected. He kept the frog in the lettuce container because it was too cold to put it outside. Well, Tony, as he named the frog, didn't want to stay in the plastic box. He didn't just get out of the box, he wandered from room to room exploring his new home, and getting pretty dirty in the process. You have to admire Tony's adventurous spirit, but you also don't want to step on a frog just walking through the house. Simon went from simply not wanting the frog to die to showering his new pet with everything a little frog could want in life. Tony lucked out!

How often do you fart? Is that more or less than the average healthy human? Who knows? Scientists aren't quite sure, yet, but that could change with new technology. Brantley Hall of the University of Maryland led a team in developing a special device to answer the question. It attaches to your underwear and then detects certain gases that indicate flatulence. They named the device "Smart Underwear," even though you have to provide your own underwear. One could imagine they had plenty of other possible names that were rejected. "Fart Finder" comes to mind. 

They've tested the device on volunteers, first to see if it worked at all, then to see if the device will detect changes in the amount of farting when the person's diet is changed. Smart Underwear seems to work just fine, and Hall has applied for a patent. So far, they've found a wide variation in the number of farts per day and the amount of gas expelled, and hope to expand their experiments among the population. They are particularly looking for outliers, meaning people who fart very little or an awful lot. Read more about fart research and what they've found so far at Scientific American. -via Damn Interesting 

The original Toy Story hits theaters in 1995, so an entire generation has grown up and produced their own children since then. But there have been three main story sequels and few spin-off films too, so everyone knows the toys in Toy Story. They've learned to deal with children growing up and leaving them behind, only to find new children to play with. But what happens when a child decides regular toys aren't fun anymore because they now have an iPad? Excuse me, this device is a "Lilypad" in the new movie Toy Story 5. Can the toys tear Bonnie away from her screen long enough to play with them anymore? You know Woody, Buzz, and the gang will come up with a scheme or two to make that happen. This trailer offers several contenders for the most memorable quote from a movie that isn't even here yet. Toy Story 5 will open nationwide on June 19. 

This unassuming building in Millmont, Pennsylvania, looks like nothing more than a garage specializing in oil changes. But it's listed as a single family residence with four bedrooms, four bathrooms, and 5,800 square feet of living space -and nine acres of land. You can't see it because most of it is underground. This home has regular utilities, but also a backup generator, fuel storage, well water with a water filtration system, air filtration, and multiple heat pumps. Continue reading to see more.

The eyes of the world were drawn to an Olympic preliminary qualifying round in the women's cross-country skiing event in Tésero, Italy, on Wednesday. A large dog joined in the race and was even caught on Omega's official timekeeping camera as he crossed the finish line. Local news outlets and social media lit up at the appearance of what looked like a wolf running the race. But this wolf was wearing a collar. 

The dog was identified as a Czechoslovakian wolfdog named Nazgul, who belongs to a family who runs a local bed and breakfast. His owners speculated that Nazgul wanted to follow his family as they left for a different Olympic event, and he broke out of the house. While the wolfdog surprised and unnerved some of the competitors, his presence did not affect the results of the heat, since the qualifying skiers had already crossed the finish line. That's a good dog.    

The city of Hampi is in the Indian state of Karnataka, and its ruins are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Five hundred years ago, Hampi was the biggest city in India, and the second largest city in the world, but today relatively few people outside of India are familiar with it. One of its stone ruins is pictured above- what kind of building was this? It's magnificently ornate, and huge. Check the size of the people standing in front. Why were these entrances so big, and why were there so many of them? Make your guess before you read the next paragraph. 

This structure was built by a ruler of the powerful Karnata Kingdom as a literal barn. It's the stable where the kingdom's war elephants were kept. That explains why the openings are so large and numerous, but the stone architecture and the ornate decorations speak to a deliberate declaration of power and wealth. When the kingdom was defeated and Hampi burned to the ground in 1565, only the sturdiest stone structures survived. Read up on the Hampi elephant stable and see plenty of pictures at Kuriositas.  

(Image credit: Arun Shetty) 

The annual Spring Festival Gala is a "must see" TV experience in China, broadcast on the eve of the Lunar New year. This year's show featured dancing by humanoid robots developed by several Chinese robotics firms. The robots danced, flipped, jumped, and performed martial arts moves. Only one fell, and that turned out to be a programmed stunt. The robots, which are about four feet tall, were joined by a group of children dancing onstage, which was impressive due to the danger it implied. The robots relied on their programming and would not have been able to make any adjustments for the human dancers. But the choreography went off flawlessly.  

This performance was designed to impress the world, while Western roboticists emphasize that dancing robots don't need to have situational awareness in order to adapt to changing conditions like industrial robots would. But they can sure put on a show! -via Laughing Squid 

If you picture two teenagers passing time in a dark basement, leisurely experimenting with chemicals, you might think of the 1970s. I can pull up many memories of just that scenario. You wouldn't be surprised that they had fluorescent paint down there. The very first fluorescent paint, in fact. 

But all this happened in the 1930s, and they weren't hanging out in the basement because they were hiding anything. Bob and Joe Switzer knew a few things about color, chemicals, and light, but even they were surprised at what they developed in their home darkroom. They ended up starting their own company to market DayGlo paint, and eventually struck a partnership with the Sherwin-Williams paint company. DayGlo paint found its way into home products, art, and construction. It was only later that other teenagers used it to illuminate dark basements. Read the story of how that all started at Smithsonian. -via Damn Interesting 

Seven years after the last feature film, Star Wars is coming back to theaters, with The Mandalorian and Grogu. The film takes the place of season four of the TV show The Mandalorian that had already been planned out, but was delayed by the pandemic and the writer's strike. Grogu (who we all came to know as "baby Yoda") is still cute, still young, but appears slightly older and more in touch with the Force. We get to see Pedro Pascal and Sigourney Weaver. And a line from Din Djarin sets up his fierce devotion to Grogu and his fears for the future. There's very little plot revealed in the trailer, which is probably a good thing. There's fighting, and spaceships, so what else do you need to know? You'll find a very detailed breakdown of what we learn from this trailer at Gizmodo. The Mandalorian and Grogu will open in theaters, including IMAX theaters, on May 22. 

Can you recreate a color from memory? If you were shown a color, could you go back to it without a paint name or hexidecimal number? In the Color Memory Game you will be shown a color for five seconds. Then you get a screen with a color that may or may not be anywhere near the original color, and three slider bars to change the hue, saturation, and brightness to get back to the original color. You have five colors per game, but you may have to play through once or twice to get your brain in gear. When you get your result for each color, you'll also get a snarky comment on your abilities. 

At the beginning, you have a choice to play as a single or multiplayer, and a choice between easy or hard mode. I didn't even attempt the hard mode, because my scores weren't all that great on easy mode. But you'll have fun trying! -via Metafilter 

We all know that being overweight is bad for our health, but Kurzgesagt tells us why in detail down to the molecular level. And it's not just one thing, but an entire constellation of effects that excess fat can have on us. Carrying more weight than is healthy will screw up every organ in your body sooner or later. If you think of a hundred ways to die, 95 of them are liable to be due to excess fat. It's pretty scary, especially right after you've splurged on a fast food meal. However, it's better to understand what's going on than to just suffer and die in ignorance, even while eating cheesecake. 

The horror is somewhat assuaged by the googly eyes on our cells and organs when they are under stress, and by the forces of evolution that are illustrated by opossums. This video is only 9:12; the rest is an ad.