We recognize Saturn by its magnificent rings, but other planets have smaller and less visible rings, and earth may have had them, too, at one time. Three scientists from Monash University in Australia just published a study explaining how. They studied impact craters from the Ordovician period, around 466 million years ago. Mapping where the earth's tectonic plates would have been at the time, they found that all these craters were within 30 degrees of the equator, while most of earth's dry land was further away. They believe a large asteroid came close to the earth, and was pulverized when it hit the atmosphere. The debris formed rings around the planet that lasted for millions of years, but fell to earth gradually and caused those Ordovician craters.

This theory would also explain the ice age called the Hirnantian Icehouse, which happened near the end of the Ordovician period and was the coldest earth has been in half a billion years. It was a mass extinction event that saw the disappearance of 85% of the earth's marine species. A shadow caused by rings of debris in space would have kept sunlight from reaching the surface. Read a further explanation of these findings in a press release from Monash University. -via Gizmodo

(Image credit: Grebenkov)

We were once afraid of bacteria, but then we found out that there are beneficial bacteria that battle harmful bacteria. In fact, we carry around plenty of bacteria that help our digestive systems work, which we call the human biome. And when we developed antibiotics, we no longer had to be so afraid of even harmful bacteria. But viruses are different, and we have no medicines to kill them, just vaccines to prevent their diseases. A lot of science later, we know there are tons of viruses that won't harm us, because they specialize in harming bacteria. Now we know that human bodies are teeming with viruses all the time, which is called the human virome. Like the biome, these colonies of viruses are crucial to our survival. Kurzgesagt explains how your virome works by performing several functions that make our immune system and other systems work the way they should.

The A.V. Club is beginning a series on "women of action" in movies, and the first subject is Sarah Conner, as portrayed by Linda Hamilton. When you think of her as an action hero, you think of that moment we first saw the character in the 1991 movie Terminator 2: Judgement Day and marveled at the muscles she'd developed since The Terminator. She'd also become a fearless tactician and a weapons expert. But Caroline Siede argues that she was just as much of an action figure in the original 1984 film. It's in the first film that we see her transform from an everyday woman negotiating the dangers of modern life to a critical part of a time-travel loop, and having to fight her way through it.

Sarah Conner was more than just an action hero. She was a badass, but also had flaws, fears, and a personality that made her a more rounded and relatable character than the male characters around her. And we can't forget that she was not the main character in either movie, just the most memorable. Read a look into the character of Sarah Conner at the A.V. Club.

Sarah Andersen once illustrated how the cat distribution system works. But there are plenty of variations.

He'd never had a cat before, and didn't really want one, but she volunteered to foster a cat for the New York City rescue Flatbush Cats (previously at Neatorama). The first cat they were assigned was a mother cat that came with three kittens. Fostering cats for a rescue organization is a wonderful thing to do, but it often ends in failure. "Failure" in this case means that they don't manage to be a temporary family because they have to keep the cats. That's why organizations are always on the lookout for more volunteer foster parents. In this case, two of the kittens, Viola and Mandolin, are now permanent pets, and their non-cat dad is now a cat person. Viola and Mandolin are very much loved, as you can see at their Instagram gallery. 

After more than 20 years, the International Space Station (ISS) will be retired in 2030. What will take its place? China already has a space station in orbit, and you've probably heard of NASA's Lunar Gateway, a space station that will orbit the moon as part of the Artemis missions. But there are plans for many other space stations in the pipeline, some with launch dates coming up relatively soon. Four of them are big, public projects from NASA, Russia's Roscosmos, India's ISR, and China's CNSA. There are also quite a few space station projects from private companies that are dedicating billions of dollars to getting their branch offices in space. These private companies include Vast, Axiom Space, Gravitics, Blue Origin, Sierra Space, Voyager Space, and Airbus. My guess is that Airbus is the only one you've heard of. Some of these projects are collaborations between companies or between companies and public agencies, while others are working on grants from NASA. Russia and China are collaborating on a project for both a lunar space station and a moon base. Read about ten of these upcoming space station projects at Freethink. -via Big Think

(Image credit: NASA/Alberto Bertolin)

Every year, Forest & Bird in New Zealand hosts the Bird of the Year (Te Manu Rongonui o Te Tau) competition to draw attention to the country's many and varied birds, particularly those that are endangered. Last year, the organization celebrated its 100th anniversary by crowning the Bird of the Century. However, a campaign by talk show host John Oliver pushed the number of votes to seven times the normal number, and left a bad taste in the mouths of kiwis. In 2021, the winner was not even a bird. In 2020, the competition became a global scandal when it was racked by voter fraud.

The 2024 competition has been concluded, and no voting scandal has been reported this year. The winner, backed by several New Zealand groups, is the hoiho, a rare, yellow-eyed penguin that also won in 2019 when it became the contest's first seabird winner. The endangered hoiho has experienced a steep drop in population over the 15 years, and there are only 168 pairs of hoiho left. Read about this endangered penguin at Smithsonian.

(Image credit: Kimberley Collins)

Skyscrapers with curved glass look really cool, but they can hide a dangerous feature- solar convergence, also known as the solar death ray. Any kid who ever tried to start a fire with a magnifying glass understands that bending the sun's rays into one spot magnifies the heat. This famously happened with two skyscrapers, Vdara Hotel & Spa in Las Vegas, and the skyscraper at 20 Fenchurch Street in London. Both have concave glass that converge sunbeams into deadly spots that vary depending on the position of the sun. The confounding part of the story is that both buildings were designed by the same architect, Rafael Viñoly. You can label the first building as a screwup, but designing a second building with the same problem should be a criminal offense. Yet Viñoly defended his design, at one point even claiming that when the Fenchurch Street building was erected, no one knew London would have more sunny days in the future. This video is only eight minutes long; the rest is an ad. -via Digg

Mri photo of my brain yes this is real
byu/brooklynlikestories ininterestingasfuck

Redditor brooklynlikestories shared a scan of her brain. She explained that she had a series of strokes before she was born. Doctors thought she would be never be able to walk or talk, and might even require a breathing tube. But, as one commenter put it, patients don't always read the text book. She has epilepsy, but otherwise lives a normal life. When people asked about her deficits, she says she isn't good at math and has bad eyesight, but that describes most of the world.

This is an example of neuroplasticity, a brain's capacity for rewiring itself as needed after an injury. Neurons make new connections and move functions from the damaged area to another part of the brain. It can happen at any age, but is more likely when the brain is young and still developing. In the comments, people shared dozens of stories of babies with brain damage who went on to graduate college because their brains compensated for the early injury. Several redditors also shared their own MRI scans that showed missing pieces. Continue reading to see them.

Simba is a border collie and Bonnie is a spaniel, and they are smart dogs. They belong to British dog trainer Olga Jones, and they have been trained so well that they have achieve several Guinness World Records this year! Simba holds the records for the most coins deposited into a bottle by a dog in one minute, the fastest time to traverse between five standing bars by a dog, the most clothes hung on a washing line by a dog in one minute, and the most bottles deposited into a recycling bin by a dog in one minute. Simba and Bonnie together hold the record for the fastest time to complete 10 side leapfrog jumps by two dogs.

You might think that these records were established only because these two dogs are very good at these tricks, because that's what I thought, too. Guinness entries usually include the previous record holder, and there aren't any for these records. But don't let that detract from what good dogs these two are. You'll enjoy watching them show off what they've learned. I was a little concerned with Simba picking up coins with his mouth. Don't try that with your dog. -via Laughing Squid

Motion pictures really got their start in the late 19th century, even though the concept already existed in the zoetrope. Motion pictures on film were developed before the projector or movie theater were widely available, but there were other ways to watch movies. In 1891, Thomas Edison and William Kennedy Laurie Dickson invented a machine called the Kinetoscope, a box that a single person could look into and see light flashing through a series of images on celluloid film. Herman Casler invented the Mutoscope in 1894. The Mutoscope was also an arcade-size box that the viewer peered into, but the viewer turned a crank and controlled the speed, and the images were printed on paper. In other words, it worked like a flipbook.  

The Mutoscope was less expensive and did not depend on a power source, so arcades and amusement parks bought them like crazy, spurring Edison to sue the Mutoscope company. Customers didn't care, they flocked to both machines to see a moving picture for the price of a coin, especially the naughty ones. Strangely, while we know the name Kinetoscope, hardly anyone remembers the name Mutoscope, despite the fact that they lasted much longer than Edison's box with the more modern celluloid film. Read about these two machines and their history at Messy Nessy Chic.

(Image credit: United States Farm Security Administration)

Learning to hold a decent conversation with someone you don't know all that well takes practice. It's harder than ever when we are still emerging from a few years of pandemic isolation and have spent those years online or on the phone. If I were to put on my Mom hat, I would advise someone to stop thinking about yourself or the impression you're making, because no one cares. Focus on what the other person is saying, show interest, and make them feel like what they are saying is funny, important, or at least worth knowing. They will love you for it, and you'll find out if this person is someone you can get along with. But that doesn't really get into the nuts and bolts of keeping a conversation going. YouTuber brinyheart goes into more detail from the perspective of a young adult who hasn't yet mastered the skills of making conversation. Remember, practice makes perfect!  -via The Awesomer

You really don't know how many things other people have said that you've memorized and pull out when the time is right. We often forget who said it, but we remember what was said. Niklas Göke compiled the most famous quotes of all time. They are not ranked, except for the top ten, but are categorized to help you find them or understand them. You'll get the ten biggest quotes from philosophers, military leaders, politicians, religious leaders, scientists, musicians, actors, and business people. There are also quote from songs, movies, and books. And you'll find sections on quotes that are misattributed, those that are truly anonymous, and the quotes we use the most. The title of the article tells us there are 365 quotes, but there are 30 bonus quotes at the end, for a total of 395.  

Göke has an extensive introduction explaining the lists, and then gives us a linked table of contents. If you want to jump right into the quotes, start here. Even if you skip around, you can't help but be inspired by what you find. -via Kottke

Gottfried Mind was a 18th-19th-century Swiss artist who specialized in drawing cats and is sometimes referred to as "the Raphael of cats." Mind spent most of his adult life as an employee of Sigmund Freudenberger's studio. He colored Freudenberger's etchings and delivered them to customers. After Freudenberger's death Mind remained with the artist's widow, producing his own artworks. This was because Mind wasn't equipped to run his own life unsupervised.  

Mind was diagnosed with various conditions, mostly after his death. He was referred to as a "cretin imbecile," which at the time were scientific terms for intellectual disabilities. "Cretin" in particular referred to disabled children born in the high elevations of the Alps suffering from congenital iodine deficiency syndrome, which is further explained in a previous post. A much later diagnosis calls Mind an autistic savant due to his singular focus on his art. At any rate, he was given the title of "the Swiss cretin" posthumously as well as "the Raphael of cats." His art went on to influence painters of worldwide renoun. Read about Gottfried Mind and see more of his works at The Public Domain Review. -via Nag on the Lake

If you love maps and jigsaw puzzles, Scrambled Maps is right up your alley, so to speak. You'll be given a city map grid, like the one shown above, and your mission is to move the blocks around to make the map correct. I toyed with matching the most colorful geographic features, and after a cup of coffee I realized that I should read those tiny street names, and that made all the difference. The most frustrating part was having to move eight or more blocks together to reorient them, but that wasn't difficult. Yeah, I solved it. Spoiler below.

Show solved map

Cat Sith? It looks like we found out where George Lucas got his name for the villains in Star Wars. But the name is really Cat-sìth in Scottish folklore. Just another way that black cats have been shortchanged through history. Cracked gives us a list of myths and legends to prime us up for Halloween, but I think it's a combination of previous lists because the trivia falls into four categories: myths and folklore from around the world, places that are said to be haunted, celebrity supernatural encounters, and facts about Halloween. The folklore is the most interesting, because I learned about some scary creatures I'd never heard of before.   

I had to look up an Aitvaras. It sounds like a way to explain away stolen goods in your home. These creatures go by other names in other countries, but the rooster laying an egg is universal, which may lead you to believe the legend started as a prank to make fun of people who don't know that roosters don't lay eggs.  

The Ashiaraiyashik referred to here is actually Ashiarai yashiki, a Japanese ghost featured in a legend from the Edo Period. I can't believe they didn't illustrate this with a Terry Gilliam foot. See all 31 pictofacts in a list that will pump you up for Halloween at Cracked.