The illusion shown above is called "The Phantom Queen." It took a lot of work to make it perfect, but that work paid off as the illusion by Matt Pritchard was crowned the Best Illusion of the Year in the annual contest held by the Neural Correlate Society. Check out the illusion that won second place below. Don't read the description until after you've seen the video.  



Michael A. Cohen of Amherst College/MIT created "The Changing Room Illusion" to illustrate how we don't notice changes if they are gradual enough. Yeah, like watching kids grow up.

Those who have been following this contest over the years may be surprised that Japanese mathematician Kokichi Sugihara did not win the top prize this year, as he has so many times before. Sugihara hasn't retired; one of his illusions made the top ten. You can see all the top ten finalists for the 2021 competition at the contest site. -via Gizmodo

Anytime you go to Twitter and see Betty White trending, you get a feeling in the pit of your stomach. Then you see that she's trending for something she said or because her birthday is coming up. But today the feeling was real. Betty White has passed away, just a few weeks before she would have turned 100 years old. White began her career in radio at a very young age, and became a television icon, starring in Hollywood on Television, Life with Elizabeth, The Betty White Show, Password (and other game shows), The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Mama's Family, The Golden Girls, The Bold and the Beautiful, Boston Legal, and Hot in Cleveland, plus a host of other appearances. You can see a retrospective of her career in pictures here.

this betty white scene from golden girls still never fails to make me happy, 30+ years later. betty improvised most of the story and bea and rue couldn’t help but lose their composure and slip out of character. RIP to a comedy queen. pic.twitter.com/uQ0N9jTWE9

— joe (@jxeker) December 31, 2021

Tributes are popping up all over the web. Betty White was 99.

No one wants to hear about an engine failing when you're flying. What could possibly go wrong? But within the first minute of this video, we are assured that it's not all that serious. It's a good thing that commercial aircraft have two engines! Here they explain a little more about aircraft engines, but as far as the question in the title goes, it all depends on the aircraft. At least it can fly far enough to get to an airport and land. Now, if you're flying with a single-engine plane, you've got plenty to fret about if you lose an engine. -via Digg

The New Year holiday is unique in that it revolves around time itself. All we are really celebrating is a change of date or a new calendar, but we've made it symbolically a holiday of hope and renewal. Not that there's anything wrong with that. One of the traditions of celebrating on New Years Eve is counting down the seconds until the clock strikes midnight. Before the 20th century, bells would ring at midnight and  celebrants would cheer, but the actual countdown is more recent than you might suspect. The first New Years Eve countdown was on radio in 1957, and it was only in 1979 that the crowd at Times Square began to chant along with the countdown!

No one ever really thought about counting down the seconds to an event until nuclear detonations and the space race came along. Those two subjects illustrate how countdowns ranged from despair to celebration in their history. Read how the New Year countdown evolved and became a tradition at Smithsonian.

When your goth phase isn't just a phase, but a total lifestyle, you might think about buying a house in Lincoln, Illinois. It has two bedrooms and two baths, on a quiet street in a nice neighborhood, room for the kids to play, and it's black. All black. And not just the outside.

The living room, kitchen, bedrooms, bathrooms, and laundry room are black. There are a few gray appliances and some white accents, but that's just to keep you from getting lost. There's a freestanding three-car garage, and it's black, too.

Honestly, even if you love the look, this could be dangerous for someone whose eyesight is not as sharp as it used to be. There should be a warning against anyone prone to seasonal affective disorder as well. But I also imagine that it would be easy to invite people over, since everyone in town knows where the black house is. See a lot more pictures of this real estate listing at Zillow. -via Fark

This horse head is now in the the custody of the Sanxingdui Museum in Guanghan City, Sichuan Province, China. It was excavated from the Sanxingdui archaeological site, and is estimated to be over 3,000 years old. But it looks quite modern, doesn't it? In fact, it looks downright familiar. What does it remind you of? Commenters at reddit suggested Donkey from Shrek, Quickdraw McGraw, and Marty the Zebra. I personally thought of Jar Jar Binks, but I've seen way too much Star Wars. The consensus is that ancient Chinese craftsmen were really into Disney/Pixar characters. Or maybe our modern age animations are just another step in a long lineage of amusing art. It's not the only stylized Sanxingdui relic that resembles modern pop culture characters.

In Alaska, you may have some special needs that you need a special pickup truck for. Instead of buying a whole new vehicle, there's usually a way to make what you need. Now, This particular design must have a purpose. You think? It's possible that this is the only way they could figure out how to get it on the road again after some unfortunate accident. It's well worth waiting through the first ten seconds to catch a first glimpse, but that will not prepare you for the majesty of the entire truck. This vehicle was spotted in Wasilla in October. The guy filming should have chased it down, because everyone wants to ask, "Why?" -via Digg

If you didn't get a new calendar for Christmas, you're probably going to buy one this week. And while you're jotting down birthdays and anniversaries on it, you might also want to mark the eclipses and planetary alignments that will occur in 2022.

There will be two, count 'em, two total lunar eclipses available to viewers in the US. The first one, on the night of May 15-16, will be visible from all 48 contiguous states -unless the clouds move in where you are. The second, on November 8, will occur at night the west coast and during daylight on the east coast. There will also be an alignment of six planets on June 24, which is an excuse to buy a telescope or at least find a community event with telescopes. Read more about these events, and see the entire schedule for meteor showers and full moons, at WABC.  -via Fark

Drinking games have been with us since ancient times, because they are a somewhat socially acceptable way of getting completely wasted without having to admit that's what you intended in the fist place. An added bonus is seeing your friends get way drunker than they intended. And with New Year's Eve coming up, you might want some ideas for giving an international flavor to your party. The scariest drinking game I could think of is darts, but that really falls under the heading of "pub sport." Almost as dangerous is the German drinking game called Hammerschlagen.

You start the game off by having players hammer a nail into a tree stump until it stands on its own. Then each person raises the hammer above their head and tries to smash the nail all the way in … using the edge end. Every time you fail, you must drink.

Good thing that alcohol increases your dexterity and coordination (it's why police give you awards for driving after having a few); otherwise, some might consider this game irresponsible and dangerous.

Read up on 15 drinking games from various areas of history and geography at Cracked. Do not attempt any of these games unless you have made arrangements for a designated driver or overnight accommodations.  

The annual list of foreign objects that required medical intervention to remove from human bodies is out. Honestly, finding our previous posts for such lists was as easy as searching for the word "orifices" (they are now tagged). Every year, Barry Petchesky gathers medical reports from all over as detailed in the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s database of emergency room visits to compile the list, which is broken down by orifice from the top down. All details are verbatim from the report. Here's a sample from the throat section, which is always dominated by children.

“INHALED A SEWING NEEDLE IN A PLASTIC TUBE WITH A STRING ATTACHED WHEN TRYING TO USE IT AS A BLOWDART”

“PER MOM SHE WAS LOOKING FOR HER CAR REMOTE & SAID OUT LOUD ‘WHERE IS THE BATTERY THAT GOES IN HERE’  PT REPLIED, ‘I ATE IT’”

“SWALLOWED A PENNY BECAUSE SHE SAYS SHE IS A ‘HUMAN PIGGY BANK’”

The reports of objects stuck in other orifices get cringier as they go, so be warned that some of the cases may cause sympathetic pain or bring up mental images that are NSFW. The 2021 list is here. -via Fark

In this video, guitarist Dave Simpson of the Dave Simpson Trio is strumming his own guitar, but fretting the bass. Bass player Carina Powell/CiCi Bass is picking her bass, but fretting Simpson's guitar. While they are playing basically the same tune, the sensation of two very different instruments in different hands is quite jarring to a musician, but they pull it off well. They switch left hands back to their own instruments before the video is over, to show us what they're best at. It's cool to watch, and cool to imagine what it feels like. -via Laughing Squid

The history of human organ transplants is a series of small steps. Skin transplants have been around a long time, but the first successful replacement body organ was a transplant of thyroid tissue in 1883. The possibility of moving organs from one person to another opened up a whole world of speculative fiction. Randolph Hartley wrote a short story for Life magazine’s short story contest in 1915 called "The Black Patch." In the hundred years since, we've become used to organ transplants, but the premise that unfolds here is still gripping. It opens with:

I wear a black patch over my left eye. It has aroused the curiosity of many; no one has suspected the horror that it hides.

One has to wonder if Hartley won that contest, and what tale could have possibly bested it. You can read the entire story (it's not long) at Futility Closet. -via Nag on the Lake

(Image credit: FOTO:FORTEPAN/Saly Noémi)

I found the cutest little frog in the bottom of my romaine lettuce tonight- it’s too cold to set him outside (27 degrees), but he’s been living in the lettuce in the fridge for several days now- does anyone know what I should do so that he doesn’t die? pic.twitter.com/usaCIEWaLv

— Simon Curtis (@simoncurtis) December 21, 2021

Simon Curtis bought a box of lettuce. It was in his refrigerator for several days before he got to the bottom of it and found a tiny green tree frog in the container! Now, a lot of people would get squicked out and complain to the store, but this frog was alive. And adorable. Curtis didn't want to set the frog outside, because the temperature was below freezing, so he turned to Twitter for advice.

He kept the frog in the original container, but added moisture and a water dish, and kept him in the kitchen. He named the frog Tony, and found out Tony is somewhat of an escape artist. Curtis kept his Twitter followers updated on all of Tony's shenanigans, and every day fell more in love with the frog.  Tired of constantly looking for Tony, Curtis got a terrarium to give him a bigger, more secure home. After consulting wildlife experts, Curtis decided that he now has a pet frog.

You can read the entire saga as it unfolded on Twitter just before Christmas, at Bored Panda.

Language changes fast, especially in the internet age. But it had always changed. While we have words our ancestors never imagined, we have also lost words. We know how to be ruthless, but at one time we could be full of ruth. We recognize when something is unwieldy, but would we recognize a thing that is wieldy? Lexicographer and etymologist Susie Dent thinks there are plenty of words that need to be brought back, especially positive words.

If we could be full of "ruth," that would mean we are full of compassion. Another great word is "confelicity," which means taking joy in someone else's happiness. Or how about old words that are just funny, like "cacklefarts" for eggs? There are plenty of lost words in English, and in other languages, which deserve to be brought out and used properly. Read about more of them at The Guardian.  -via Metafilter

Did you know that the word "scientist" didn't exist before 1834? At the time, the term used was "man of science," and that couldn't apply to Mary Somerville, who was a woman. "Mathematician" didn't quite work, either, although she was a mathematician and for a long time taught mathematics to children, along with her studies and raising her own four children. Somerville was brilliant in so many scientific subjects that the word "scientist" was coined to describe her.

Somerville was born in 1780, a time when women weren't given much of an education. She was schooled in art and music, but her parents objected to her fascination with Euclid, which they thought would drive her insane. It did not, and she taught herself higher mathematics. In 1834, she published a book called On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences, which described how astronomy, mathematics, physics, geology, and chemistry fit together to explain the world around us. It wasn't her first impressive science book, but it cemented her status as a "scientist." Read the short version of Mary Somerville's amazing life at the Marginalian. -via Damn Interesting