After six epic films and a spinoff TV series, do audiences want more stories mined from J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings? Sure they do! A new film centered around the character Gollum is in the works, and should be in theaters in 2026. There are tons of people who will go see any movie having anything to do with The Lord of the Rings, especially one written and produced by Peter Jackson. The movie, tentatively titled Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, will be directed by Gollum himself, Andy Serkis.

But is Gollum the best character to hang a spinoff film on? We know it will be a prequel, because we've already seen Gollum's end. That in itself restricts what can be done with the character. Yes, Smeagol will be involved, too, as we'll get a closeup of the metamorphosis that Gollum goes through. But is there anything new to be revealed there? Are we capable of rooting for Gollum? These and other questions are explored in depth by The Art Of Storytelling (previously at Neatorama). He has a way of explaining the nuts and bolts of telling a story that we recognize intuitively, but never really thought about.

An Ancient Egyptian text states;

I am one that becomes two,
I am two that becomes four,
I am four that becomes eight,
Then I am One again.

The Great Pyramid has 8 sides of which can only be seen during the Spring & Autumnal Equinoxes.

As Above So Below
🔺️🔺️🔺️🌓 #equinox pic.twitter.com/uwJTwBIZhH

— RN Vooght 𓁀𓀳 𓁢 𓂀 (@VooghtRN) March 20, 2023

We are used to thinking of the pyramids of Egypt as having four perfect identical sides, but did you know that actually have eight? Each of the four sides is ever-so-slightly indented so that the structure is subtly the shape of a star. All three pyramids at Giza are concave octagonal pyramids. The Great Pyramid appeared to be merely four-sided when it was completed, due to a covering of casing stones designed to align the sides. But most of those casing stones were lost when a massive earthquake hit in the year 1303.  

The concavity of the pyramid sides wasn't evident until we had aerial photography to capture the pyramids from above. A study from Akio Kato at the Kanagawa University in Japan determined that the indentation is 11 degrees, and the anomaly added much-needed stability to the pyramids. It's one of the reasons we still have them today. Smaller pyramids have been identified as possible prototypes, or tests, for the structural integrity of the Giza pyramids. Read more about the concave octagonal pyramids of Giza and why they were built that way. -via Strange Company

The word "Christmas" was uttered in the Star Trek universe, but only on very rare occasions, and this project doesn't use any TV footage. But "Kahn!" was said an awful lot in the 1982 movie Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. So when you listen to this supercut, substitute "Christmas" for "Kahn!" and you'll be able to follow along just fine.

John C. Worsley (previously at Neatorama) has released his annual holiday supercut featuring the beloved characters of Star Trek. He titled this year's entry Holiday Trek: The Motion Pictures (Captain Please Come Home). The video clips are from the feature films that followed the short-lived original series and cemented Star Trek's enduring fandom. The song that provides the backbone of this lunacy is the 1963 holiday staple "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" by Darlene Love. The "singers" are credited as James T. Kirk and the Original Crew, The Nexus, and The Next Genettes. Trek fans will understand.

The evolution of vampire movies seems to have followed two parallel tracks. The 1931 movie Dracula made Bela Lugosi the archetype vampire image for a series of Universal films and pop culture characters like Count Chocula that followed. The 1922 silent film Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror used the same source material and spawned two remakes, the latest of which will open nationwide on Christmas Day, plus a movie about the making of the original movie.

The 1922 Nosferatu was the first production of the new German movie company Prana-Film, and as such, they spent as much money promoting the film as they did making it. The first newspaper reviews of the film were more about the party thrown after the premiere than about the film itself. The company soon went bankrupt, and it's a miracle that we have any existing copies of the film at all. That can't be said about earlier films based on the novel Dracula. Read up on the production of Nosferatu in a trivia list at Mental Floss. The most bizarre story is about the 1979 Werner Herzog remake, the one with all the rats.

There are special people who go to a pet shelter and ask about the cat (or dog) who has been there the longest. The reasons vary, but it's often just because they are older than other adoptable pets. Luna was just such a cat, plus her background was tragic. She had spent her twelve years with a cat hoarder who kept her in a cage. Luna had some health problems, too, as a result of her confined lifestyle. Living in a shelter was better, but she was still in a cage by necessity.

Julie Nashawaty makes a living taking care of other people's pets. For her own household, she only adopts senior cats. She decided to take a chance on Luna, since she looked at the situation from the cat's point of view. Luna needed to learn what a normal life was. There's a saying that "pets are only with us for a short while, but we are with them for their whole life." For Luna, that meant what was left of her life, and Julie knew that she deserved something better than what she'd already experienced, even if it was only for a short time. You'll see in this video that Luna was worth taking a chance.

Wildlife photographer Milko Marchetti is the top winner at this year's Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards for taking this picture of the back end of a squirrel. Titled "Stuck Squirrel," it only appears to be stuck. Marchetti caught the photo at just the right instant as the squirrel was diving into its nest. The photographer, knowing how the image came about, didn't see the humor in it, but when everyone he showed it to laughed, he decided to enter it into the annual competition.

Click to the right on the image above to see winners in the various categories of the competition. You'll see a fox with the zoomies, kissing owls, and a fish chasing an eagle. Read the stories behind these pictures and the photographers who captured them at just the right time in the winner's gallery, which also includes the highly commended photographs. My favorite of those is the cheetah playing hide and seek. See even more in the finalists' gallery.

The 1970s were hardcore. Australia is always hardcore. Tigers are hardcore, too. Between 1970 and 1985, Bacchus Marsh Lion Safari Park, north of Melbourne, pioneered the idea of driving through a reserve filled with wildlife, including lions, tigers, and other big cats. They learned safety protocols the hard way, but the park was never profitable enough to follow them. Nor were the big cats happy to be there. It's a recipe for disaster, and the safari park grew an unwanted reputation.

In the short documentary Strange Beasts, Ron Prendergast tells us of his days as a young zookeeper who was attacked by a tiger at the park -twice. His injuries were horrific, but the psychological scars were even worse. The film is presented in mixed media, with archival footage, re-enactments, animation, and Prendergast himself with a eerily poetic look back at those days. Strange Beasts was directed by his son, Darcy Predergast.  -via Nag on the Lake

Once World War II ended, the United States and the Soviet Union became locked in a competition to move beyond earth. The US had more German scientists, but the Soviets achieved many firsts: the first satellite in orbit, the first man in space, the first woman in space, the first space walk, etc. The USSR planned to land men on the moon in 1967, but that didn't happen, and the Soviet space program went awry in many ways. The US got to the moon first in 1969.

So what happened? The Soviets relied heavily on one man, Sergei Korolev. Korolev was a brilliant rocket scientist who spent the war in Stalin's Gulag, but was freed when it became clear that the US was recruiting Germany's premiere rocket scientists. Korolev designed the best rockets, and quickly. But after his death in 1966, it became clear to his organization that they had relied too much on the one guy who knew what he was doing. Read about Sergei Korolev and what he did for the Soviet space program at Big Think. 

(Image credit: Музей космонавтики/Главархив Москвы)

For decades, people have been drawn to Mexican Coca-Cola because it is made with cane sugar, while US Coke is made with high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Those who know swear that Mexican Coke tastes better. The difference benefitted the Coca-Cola company because some people are willing to pay a premium price for Mexican Coke, while most Americans drank whatever Coke was available, and it was made with cheaper ingredients. But a 2011 paper claimed that there is no difference in the sugar content between the two Cokes. Has the company been lying to us? George Zaidan of Reactions decided to do his own sugar content tests to find out. His confounding results required more research.   

Sucrose, glucose, and fructose are all sugars, but they are chemically different. Sucrose, or table sugar, is made from sugar cane. Many of our processed foods are made with HFCS, which is a mixture of two simple sugars, glucose and fructose. And since HFCS is made from subsidized corn, it is much cheaper than cane sugar. But as we will find out in this video, cane sugar, or sucrose, has its own secrets that make everything clear in the end.

Next up, why does the sodium content vary so much between the two drinks? -via Damn Interesting

Microwave ovens have been around for more than 50 years now. They come in all configurations, and people have different habits in using them. Do you try to get to it before the the time expires to avoid that annoying bell? Some folks hit the stop button just before the timer runs out, while others just open the door, assuming no microwaves will escape. I hear this is not good, especially for older microwaves, and can wear out the mechanism that stops the cooking when the doors opens. And there are some people who just open the door, leave it open, and never clear the remaining time. Namely, my younger daughter.

Whichever kind of microwave user you are, there's a browser game that might be very satisfying. Microwave is simple. There are four seconds left in the cooking time. Your goal is to open the microwave door as close to zero as possible without letting the bell go off. Your score will depend on it. The highest score is 10,000, and the sooner you open the door, the lower the score will be. There are plenty of reports of people achieving 10,000, but rarely on the first try. Others are still trying. -via Kottke

It's not quite as difficult as it used to be to get into the Guinness Book of World Records, because the categories have gotten very specific. Also, I would imagine the book has gotten very heavy. On November 26, Sky Elements Drone Shows (previously at Neatorama) teamed up with UVify to stage a Christmas display over Mansfield, Texas. A portion of the show was deemed worthy of a Guinness World Record for "largest aerial display of a gingerbread village image displayed by multirotors/drones" with 4,981 drones. It's so new that Guinness doesn't have a listing for it yet, but they do have pages of world records involving aerial drone displays, many of them from Sky Elements Drone Shows.

But world records aside, the Christmas light show featuring almost 5,000 drones was quite beautiful, from the massive turkey (this was before Thanksgiving) to Santa Claus waving to all. -via Laughing Squid

Every sitcom in the 1980s tried to present a Christmas episode, but there's only so many ways to get festive and heartwarming and still subvert expectations to make the audience laugh. The series Married... with Children went there with a rather gruesome premise that aired on December 20, 1987, totally played for laughs. In the episode "You Better Watch Out," a mall sales promotion went wrong, and a skydiver dressed as Santa Claus crashes to his death in the Bundy's backyard. Ed is obliged to dress up as Santa himself to distract a crowd of children who witnessed the fall so that the coroner can remove the body. You can see the episode at YouTube. It aired with a rare parental guidance warning.  

What you might not know is that the inspiration for the episode was a real Christmas skydiving disaster that happened in 1932. In that incident, no one actually died, but many children were left traumatized by witnessing Santa Claus falling from the sky and crash landing. Read how that came about at Cracked.

Sometimes chemical reactions are so cool that you don't need to fully understand them to be fascinated by them. Here's an experiment in physics and chemistry that will blow your mind. There aren't many metals that are liquid at room temperature. Besides mercury, there's an alloy called galinstan that's composed of gallium, indium, and tin. It has such a low melting point that it can be used as a substitute for mercury, which is quite toxic.

James Orgill of The Action Lab (previously at Neatorama) explains some of the properties that make galinstan so darn cool. It reacts with other chemicals in a way that animates it like the metal blobs are living things. But because these reactions are purely chemical and physical, they can be controlled. Can he make a blob of galinstan find its way through a maze? You bet! There's a skippable ad from 4:48 to 6:16. -via Damn Interesting

The South Korean TV series Squid Game took the world by storm in 2021. The drama features a clandestine game show in which 456 desperate people compete for one enormous cash prize. The catch is (spoiler alert) that the 455 people who don't win will be eliminated by death. It's a bloody dystopian commentary on wealth inequality and unchecked capitalism. Season two begins December 26th.

In a promotion rivaled only by the real game show Squid Game: The Challenge in missing the point, McDonald's Australia is offering a special meal and a contest based on the show. Macca's Squid Game Meal is not exactly a Happy Meal, but it comes in a decorated box and includes ten Chicken McNuggets, fries, a drink, and dalgona candy, a Korean treat stamped with shapes like those featured in season one of Squid Game, plus one stamped with McDonald's arches. If you can nibble your way to the arch shape, you'll be entered into a drawing for a Squid Game tracksuit. The promotion runs from December 11 to January 7 in Australia only. Only Aussies will be able to chomp down on McNuggets while thinking about those 455 people who didn't make it out of the game. -via Boing Boing

(Image credit: McDonald's)

In 2002, Danny Boyle and Alex Garland brought us 28 Days Later, which introduced zombies that moved swiftly and were therefore even more dangerous. In 2007, we got the sequel 28 Weeks Later. You may have been under the impression that the trilogy was complete then, but it turns out that the 2000 film 28 Days has nothing to do with zombies. At any rate, the third movie in the series is coming to theaters. 28 Years Later will be released on June 20, 2025.

In the trailer above, the soundtrack stands out as particularly intriguing. It is a famous recording, a 1915 recitation of the Rudyard Kipling poem "Boots" read by actor Taylor Holmes. The poem is about the forced marches of British soldiers across southern Africa during the Second Boer War, its cadence echoing the psychological torture of the march. Read more about the poem and find more links at Metafilter.