Misconceptions spread like wildfire on the internet, where you don't know who's an expert and who isn't. But many misconceptions about death go back hundreds or event thousands of years, because it's a subject that we tend to avoid discussing seriously. For example, you've probably been told at one point or another that fingernails and beards can continue growing after death. That's just not true, but there are some reasons people started to think so, and those people managed to tell a lot of other people. However, it is true that dead bodies can fart. That's the straight dope from people who have reason to know that, and not just from that Daniel Radcliffe movie. Mental Floss takes on eight common misconceptions about death to not only set the record straight, but explain why those wrong ideas persist. You can read them it in a list, or listen to a video at the same link.  

(Image credit: T. Bjørnstad)

The US Army has been rolling out a novel idea- getting the input of soldiers in developing new tools and equipment, because who else knows better how they will be used in the field? This part of military modernization is called touch points. One of the new projects grown from this is the Army Tactical Brassiere (ATB) program. Until last year, women in the military were expected to get their own underwear, and plenty of companies targeted them for sales. Now they are developing a military bra with specifications to make a soldier's work safer and easier.

ATB development began with seeking input from female Soldiers on what type of functionality and preferences should be considered during initial prototype design. Given that the ATB is a tactical rather than sportswear item, it will need to integrate well with equipment and body armor, providing enhanced protection and performance in addition to an ideal fit. This means that designers are evaluating options such as the inclusion of flame-retardant fabrics and expertly layered compression, structural and protective materials while also taking into account the importance of accurate sizing, reliable comfort, moisture management and breathability.

Project leader Ashley Cushon stresses the importance of those last four factors because it would "reduce the cognitive burden on the female Soldier." That's no laughing matter, because men in the military never have to think about whether their breasts are chafing under exertion or whether they will be blamed for too much male gaze. If the army can achieve all they want in a bra, they'd better make a ton of them because civilian women will want them, too. There are currently four types of bra in development that may be approved in the fall. -via Boing Boing

(Image credit: US Army)

Is corn a conspiracy? 😂 🌽 #recesstherapy pic.twitter.com/S9hcIYJvnn

— Recess Therapy (@recess_therapy) August 4, 2022

I wish I could love anything the way this kid loves corn. Julian Shapiro-Barnum of Recess Therapy interviewed a young man at some festival enjoying a cob of grilled corn on a stick. We don't get the boy's name, but he seems to be around seven years old, judging by his teeth. He is not only adorable, but also quick-witted and has a sense of humor. This video is guaranteed to put a smile on your face. Have a corntastic day! -via reddit

Believe it or not, Stonehenge was private property for an awfully long time. That goes back to British royalty, when a king could take what he wanted and do with it as he pleased. Henry VIII did just that, confiscating Stonehenge from an abbey in 1540 and then giving it to the Earl of Hertford. It was then passed around until an owner died with no heirs in 1915, and it went to auction. A lawyer named Cecil Chubb went to the auction house because his wife wanted either curtains or dining chairs for their house, depending on who is telling the story. But he came home with neither. Instead, he bought Stonehenge.

The ancient monument and 30 acres of land didn't draw all that many bids, and Chubb was afraid that a foreigner would purchase the site, so he outbid a farmer who needed pasture land, and bought the entire lot for £6,600! That was a lot of money in 1915, but imagine what the site would go for today, as both a plum piece of property and a historical treasure. Chubb's wife was not happy, but this impulse buy is the reason people can visit Stonehenge today. Read the story of that fateful purchase at Amusing Planet. -via Strange Company

(Image source: Library of Congress)

Mark Hamill is both Luke Skywalker and a talented voice actor (not to mention an all-around mensch). Doing voices goes way back for him. As a teenager, he worked at a Jack in the Box and thought it would be cool to use a crazy clown voice to take drive-through orders. Management didn't like that, and fired him. Now 50 years later, that same outlet invited him back, and he's still up to his old tricks. This time he can get away with it, though, because he is Luke Skywalker. And the Joker. Sure, it's an ad for Jack in the Box, but the people who drove through for lunch were first confused and then tickled pink. A good time was had by all.  -via Laughing Squid

When you think of the power of sound in war, the first thing that comes to mind is Joshua's Hebrew army blowing their horns until the walls of Jericho fell. There are many more examples from better-documented wars of sound used against an enemy. The Greeks brought elephants into battle against the Romans, and the trumpeting of the elephants frightened the Roman's horses so much they threw their riders. So the Romans came back, bringing squealing pigs, which frightened the elephants. An advancing army is only as good as what they are riding on. Then there's the case of the escaped prisoner who trained pipers to play music that would make the enemy's horses dance. Asian marauders from the northern steppes designed arrows that would scream as they flew to terrified their targets. Oh yeah, and there's the intimidating Maori haka. Read a rundown of the creative ways sound has been used in war at The Conversation. -via Damn Interesting      

(Image source: The British Library)

Thank you so much @NPR and @wynneellyn for sharing this poorly drawn cats love story with the world! @GrantSchroeder and @emmaf1878 I wish you all the best! And please send me Cheddar pictures as soon as you find your orange cat!! https://t.co/8WRPc94JQE

— poorly drawn cats (@poorlycatdraw) August 4, 2022

Poorly Drawn Cats is a Twitter account in which Brazilian artist Heloísa Nora draws other people's cats. The pictures aren't poorly drawn, just minimalist and often funny. In 2019, Grant Schroeder commissioned Nora to draw his kitten Luna. When the picture was posted, Emma Ferguson of Liverpool, UK, noticed it because she had a kitten named Luna as well. She went to Shroeder's Twitter account and saw a picture of him with Luna. So she followed him. He noticed, and followed her. Soon they were messaging each other and began a long-distance relationship. They met once when Schroeder flew to England, but then were separated by the pandemic for a year. They finally got married a couple of weeks ago. Nora made another drawing in honor of the occasion.

poorly drawn cats made this for emma and i and it’s truly the most gorgeous beautiful piece of art i’ve ever seen pic.twitter.com/vrcoaITBFE

— grant (@GrantSchroeder) July 28, 2022

The couple now live in Liverpool with two cats. Schroeder's Luna stayed in Oregon with his parents and Ferguson's Luna has passed on. They are looking forward to getting another cat. -via Fark

How much do you know about amoebas? Not nearly as much as you're about to find out from Ze Frank. This video was shot completely under a microscope, and it will blow your mind. The amoeba Dictyostelium act like normal single-celled microbes as long as there is plenty of food to eat and no sexy amoebas around they aren't related to. But under the right circumstances, amoebas will form colonies and turn into a slug and then into a plant or fungus or something. Or at least that's how they act. It's very weird, and very well worth dealing with an in-video ad plus YouTube ads. At the end, we get a frightening scenario that only happens when two amoebas love each other very much and decide to take over the world. Plus all the double entendres you'd expect from Ze Frank.

For thousands of years, Australians have avoided swimming off the northern coast between November and May because of Irukandji syndrome. It's the sting of a creature then unknown, which leads to prolonged pain so severe that the victims often beg for the sweet release of death. And sometimes death comes anyway.

Australia has more than its share of deadly creatures, and a jellyfish was suspected of delivering Irukandji syndrome. The box jellyfish and the Portuguese man o' war have painful stings, but nothing like this. The creature responsible for such misery wasn't identified until 1961 by Dr. Jack Handyside Barnes. He managed to capture some tiny transparent jellies that had never been studied before.

But was this tiny creature really the cause of Irukandji Syndrome? While most scientists would have started by analyzing the venom’s chemical composition or testing the creature’s sting on an animal, Barnes had other ideas, skipping straight to human experimentation. As for the test subjects, this included Barnes himself, of course, along with local lifeguard Chilla Ross and, controversially, Barnes’ own 9-year-old son, Nick.

The experience of being stung by the jellyfish that was eventually named Carukia barnesi in his honor caused Barnes to spend the rest of his life trying to mitigate its effects. We don't know what lasting trauma the experiment had on his son. Read about the jellyfish and the doctor who found it at Today I Found Out.  

(Image credit: GondwanaGirl)

Guns 'n' Roses released their first album, Appetite for Destruction, in July of 1987, making it 35 years old. You might think it couldn't have been that long ago, and your memory is somewhat correct. The album sat in stores for a year before it took off and became #1 and stayed on the charts for six more months. Radio wouldn't play it because most of the songs contained f-bombs, stores wrapped the offensive original cover art in brown paper, and MTV wouldn't play the video for "Welcome to the Jungle." Geffen records founder David Geffen had to negotiate with the channel to get a single play.

Geffen and the network came to a compromise: They’d play the video at 4 a.m. EST and 1 a.m. PST, when they thought no one would be watching. However, the opposite happened: MTV’s switchboard lit up. “Every kid in America is calling them requesting this video,” Al Coury, Geffen’s head of promotion at the time, told Zutaut. From that point on, MTV added the video to their regular rotation, which helped increase record sales.

Read the story behind the iconic album and some of the hit songs it spawned at Mental Floss. Yeah, there are videos.

Dave Larson loves his dad. Orville Larson of Rosholt, Wisconsin, is 90 years old and in hospice care. Dave posted an invitation at a community Facebook group for people to come by and give his dad an experience he'd really appreciate.

He had a love of old cars and motorcycles. In his younger years he raced motorcycles and has many trophies.  Him and his late wife, Mona, traveled all over the States on a bike even. We were wondering if we could get some riders together to meet this coming Sunday downtown Rosholt at 3 pm this Sunday July 31st and go past his place in town slowly. We will have him up and sitting at the end of his driveway for him to watch.  Please help us make this a great day for our Dad. Ha also loves old cars, so if you have one please feel free to join in.

Larson expected maybe 20 people to come by, but almost 400 vintage motorcycles and cars showed up!




Orville Larson was very moved by the parade, and even got to ride in a sidecar before it was over. A good time was had by all. -via Fark

(Image credit: Dave Larson)

The small, quiet, Hungarian village of Nagyrev had no doctor or clinic or even a midwife. In 1911, Zsuzsanna Fazekas arrived and offered midwife services, and so she became the village's only medical practitioner. No one knew much about her, but she ministered to the women of Nagyrev for years, and gained their trust. Fazekas listened to their problems with their husbands, and she knew how to perform abortions. In a time and place in which marriages were arranged and divorce was almost impossible, she could help the women of Nagyrev with a supply of arsenic.

Fazekas' reputation quietly spread until women from the surrounding villages began coming to seek her advice. When Fazekas' activities came to the attention of authorities in 1929, the extent of her crimes was astonishing. There may have been as many as 300 deaths. Read about Zsuzsanna Fazekas and the Angel Makers of Nagyrev at Amusing Planet.

Four native speakers allow us to compare words in English, German, Dutch, and Afrikaans, all languages that descended from old German. Yes, Afrikaans is an offshoot of Dutch, but it's still in the same family. The words are very similar, but that doesn't mean that you'll be able to follow a string of them in conversation outside of a language you know. It seems to me that English is the outlier in these words, but that may be because I am a native English speaker and do not know any of the other languages. Or it may be because English has incorporated so many words from other language families. As it is, the biggest complaint about this video is the use of an American flag for the English language. Do you think they should have used the Canadian flag or the New Zealand flag? The speaker is definitely American. -via reddit

Fancy Feast canned cat food is like crack for cats. It has taught my cats how to tell time. And now Fancy Feast wants us humans to experience the joy its products give our feline friends. The cat food company is teaming up with New York City trattoria Gatto Bianco to serve a special Fancy Feast-inspired dinner for two nights. To people. But only a few people, as the trattoria only has four tables, and only eight couples will be served on August 11 and 12. The promotion is to introduce the company's new line of cat food flavors called "Medleys."   

But since the restaurant is so limited, Fancy Feast has released the recipes for the dinner for everyone to try at home. The options are salmon and vegetables, beef short ribs and mashed potatoes, and two desserts. The recipes were developed by Fancy Feast's in-house chef Amanda Hassner and restaurateur Casare Casella. Spoiler: cat food will not be found among the ingredients in these recipes. -via Metafilter

Well, whaddaya know, Tom Scott is in the United States, which means a lot more videos to come that will feature some Neatoramanaut's home town. He sends us a report of a strange geyser in Soda Springs, Idaho. It's not a natural geyser, but an accidental side effect of drilling a well to supply a city pool. And it shoots seltzer water into the air! I guess you've have to expect that kind of thing in a town named Soda Springs, which sits on top of a reservoir of carbonated water. No one there feels the need to buy a SodaStream. At any rate, the geyser at Soda Springs erupts more regularly than Old Faithful, but that's not natural, either. The story of Soda Springs is a strange tale of a natural wonder regulated by human intervention.

As an aside, there's a shot at one minute into the video of some buildings, and one building in the middle has an extention that looks like a cartoon chicken to me. Can you see it? Or is that just me?