Wherever there is snow, there are snowball fights. They may be widely separated by time and distance, but when the snow blankets the ground, people want to play with it. Even a child with no elders instructing them will figure out that snow can be molded into a relatively soft ball for a short time, just perfect for throwing at someone.

Snowball fights are fun enough to be the subject of art, beginning around 1400 AD. These early artworks used snowball fights to depict the month of December or January in calendars, called The Book of Hours at the time. Snowball fights have also been used for comedy and political cartoons, and even to illustrate real fights that had some importance. See a gallery of 47 snowball fights depicted in art from all over the world (except the tropics) at The Public Domain review. You'll also get anecdotes about some of the more important snowball fights in history.  -via Nag on the Lake  

Years ago, my sister and mom started an “ugly ornament” exchange each Xmas, where they’d try to find the ugliest ornaments they could and give one to each other. It’s been hysterical to see what they come up with each year. I present to you a thread... starting with a TV Dinner. pic.twitter.com/UuV2O5sqmJ

— Julia Mordaunt (@juliamordaunt) December 11, 2020

Every family that celebrates Christmas puts their own spin on the usual traditions, or else starts their own. Years later, these an be cherished family memories, even when they are ridiculous. Julia Mordaunt tells us how her family's ugly ornament exchange got started.

And this is why I love my family so much! I highly recommend the tradition ! It brings our family a ton of laughs each year (like cry laughing) and lots of joy each year. Smoking pot helps too. And the fact that they keep them on their trees each year is amazing. Happy holidays!

— Julia Mordaunt (@juliamordaunt) December 12, 2020

If you look hard enough, you'll find that anything and everything can be made into a Christmas tree ornament. A zebra in a fancy skirt. A hippo wearing high heels. Over the years, these ornaments grew into collections for both the mother and the sister. Putting up the tree is a source of giggles for each ornament unpacked. And you can bet it's a real conversation-starter when guests come over. See all the ornaments in a ranked gallery at Bored Panda. You might even like some of them.  

William Clause and his wife Henrietta had a son in 1888. William had a sense of humor, so he named his son Santa. We have proof. Santa Clause lived in Saline County, Missouri, and worked as a plumber and a minister at the Church of God. He and his wife eventually had nine children, none of them named Santa.

Being a good man and the victim of nominative determinism, Clause spent at least a month every year writing letters, answering the mail that came to Santa Claus from good little boys and girls. He kept this up throughout his life, even when the postage bill meant hardship. Church and community members donated funds to help Clause keep the letters coming, as you can read about in a 1939 writeup in the Great Falls Tribune, in which they omitted the "e" in his last name. That was also the year that Clause decided to give up his clean-shaven look for the season and grow a beard so he could be a real Santa Claus for the children.

You can read about other men who filled Santa's boots at Find-a-Grave. -Thanks, WTM!  

In the past few days, reddit has seen a slew of images posted of meals from various institutions in an attempt to one-up each other either as to how wonderful they are (school lunches in Asian countries) or how awful they are (US military meals). Redditor blackthorn3111 appears to have taken the prize when he posted this pitcher picture with the title "I see your dinner and raise you a jug of water from the tap on USS Nimitz."

This seems a bit alarming, as the USS Nimitz is a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. But there's a perfectly logical explanation. Redditor nanan00's comment rose to the top.  

Someone put a bottle of fluorescent dye for leak detection in the water.

This stuff is safe to drink but will make you pee neon green for a day or two... We use it for hydro testing pressure vessels and I have seen it used to test water lines.

That changed everything. Suddenly everyone wants a drink. There are plenty of resources on the web for fluorescent dye for leak detection, but if you plan to dye your water, you better make sure it is formulated for drinking water systems instead of, say, automotive or industrial use.

If you are going to study science at a university, sooner or later you will be assigned to clean out an old laboratory. That's what happened to archaeologist Tyler Murchie at McMaster University. A freezer he cleared out had soil samples taken from the Canadian permafrost around ten years ago that had never been analyzed. Murchie was looking for a new project, and became the lead author on the DNA findings in the soil samples.  

It was thought that woolly mammoths in Canada had died out around 13,000 years ago. But the frozen soil samples contained both plant matter that was carbon-dated to around 5,000 years ago and animal DNA, including that of woolly mammoths. That puts mammoths in Canada 8,000 years later than previously known. The samples also contain DNA from ancient horses and steppe bison. Read more about the findings at Smithsonian, or the science paper in the journal Nature Communications.

The Nobel banquet (Nobelfesten) is held annually on December 10 at Stockholm's City Hall. It is surely the most prestigious dinner party in the world, with toasts, speeches, entertainment, and three courses of food delivered with much fanfare to Swedish royalty and Nobel laureates. Both the 2020 and 2021 Nobel banquets were postponed due to COVID-19, and we hope that the Nobel Prize winners who missed out will be invited to future banquets.

A tradition began with the first Nobel banquet in 1901 of serving ice cream as the third course. Over time, the presentation of the dessert accompanied by sparklers became a tradition. Distinguished scientists from all over the world fondly recall the thrill of being served glace Nobel. In 1999, the ice cream tradition came to an end when the Nobel committee decided to let chefs expand the dessert menu. However, the dessert course is still presented by a parade of servers under the light of sparklers. More than 20 years later, ice cream is still associated with the Nobel Prizes, and Stockholm restaurants, including one in the basement of City Hall, serve glace Nobel.

But if you can't get to Stockholm, Atlas Obscura has a recipe so that you can make a version of Nobel ice cream in your own home.

Journalist and anchorman Brian Williams signed off for the final time last night after 28 years with NBC. You can see his farewell from last night's episode of The 11th Hour on MSNBC. We wish him the best in his retirement.

Over the years, Jimmy Fallon's crew at The Tonight Show has had at lot of fun with Williams' news footage, editing him word by word into popular rap songs (you might remember a few of these from years ago). Williams' particular delivery lends itself well to these projects. In honor of Williams' retirement, here's a compilation of seven of these edits. In my opinion, the best is "Bust a Move" by Young MC, which occurs about halfway through this video. Alex's favorite rap song, "Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix-a-Lot is in there, too. But the others are glorious as well. This is technically SFW because the naughty words are bleeped. -via Digg

There are so many traditions surrounding the Christmas holiday that it's sometimes hard to keep up. My kids would regularly bemoan that I "forgot" some tradition that turned out to be just something I did last year on a whim. To them, anything done at Christmas was tradition. When you factor in the many countries that celebrate Christmas over a thousand years or so, you'll find that not all Christmas traditions were fun, festive, or philanthropic. Some that we've managed to drop were malicious, dangerous, or downright disgusting. For example, in the Middle Ages, wealthy folks would show off by serving a peacock for Christmas dinner.

“The colorful, plumed bird was often baked into a pie, or roasted with its head and tail still intact. Adding to the flamboyant display, the peacock’s feathers were reattached (or the skinned bird was placed back inside its intact skin), and its tail feathers were fully fanned out. Peacocks likely looked impressive on a banquet table, but the meat reportedly tasted terrible.”

Conspicuous consumption wasn't always pleasant. Read more about the peacocks and five other Christmas customs that we'd just as soon stay away from at Mental Floss.  -via Strange Company

Is there anything sadder than a T-rex in a Christmas sweater? Look at those tiny little arms; he can't take it off! But he doesn't seem to mind. The Natural History Museum in London dressed their animatronic T-rex in a jumbo size Christmas sweater, custom made of all recycled materials, meaning previously-used yarn and plastic bottles. Because you know the dinosaur species cared about the environment as much as they cared about Christmas. It's even got a turtleneck to keep him extra warm. Let's take a look at how the museum staff managed to dress this thing.   



The unique sweater design features four dinosaurs in festive green: T-rex, triceratops, stegosaurus, and diplodocus, walking among Christmas trees and snowflakes. You can buy the sweater from the museum's gift shop. Proceeds go to support the museum. They only have human sizes, however, so you'll have to knit one yourself to keep your own T-rex warm this winter.

Airlines fly over the North Pole all the time. I once flew to Hong Kong by going over the Arctic Circle, which looks really weird on a mercator map. But there are no commercial airline flights that go over the South Pole. Half as Interesting explains why.  

Note: this is about commercial airlines flying over the South Pole. Yes, Antarctica has airports, but you can't expect them to have mechanics and parts for your Airbus, much less accommodations for passengers. If you are a scientist at McMurdo and need to go to the South Pole, you will probably be taking a military plane. If you ask me, that's beats a dogsled any day. This video is only five minutes long; the rest is an ad. -via Digg

The kings of Europe's past owned suits of armor whether they ever participated in battle or not. England's king Henry VIII had several over his reign, what with the weight gain and all. The rest of the suit of armor that went with the helmet shown above is no longer, but you have to wonder if it was as strange as the surviving helmet. This whole-head helmet, or armet, would not have been any good in battle. The horns and spectacles would have caught on anything, especially an enemy's lance. And the intricate eye design would have obstructed his vision. It actually more resembles a court jester than a warrior. So why did Henry want such a mask?

It wasn't Henry's choice. This was a diplomatic gift bestowed upon the king by Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I in 1514. The meaning behind the gift has been the subject of much debate in the 500 years since, but you can read more about what we do know at Amusing Planet.

If you were in New Zealand and wanted to get home to the United States, you would normally fly across the Pacific Ocean. But what if a war broke out that also crossed the Pacific? That happened to the crew of a Pan Am flight in December of 1941 when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. The Boeing 314 Clipper flying boat was a marvel of modern technology, and the US government didn't want it to fall into enemy hands. The crew was instructed to change to Plan A, which involved flying west to reach New York City as best as they could, with no identification and no radio communication.

And so they did. This involved borrowing money and landing wherever they could to refuel without clearance. Once they had to use automobile gasoline because their stop had no aviation fuel. Another time they spotted an enemy submarine. And they were shot at in Saudi Arabia. Then there was that leg from Congo to Brazil that took 20 hours non-stop, which no Pan Am flight had ever attempted. Read the story of the flight crew that took the long way home at Jalopnik. -via Fark

I you found that story intriguing, you might want to also read this longer article about it. There really should be a movie about it.

(Image credit: Tudor Washington Collins/Auckland Museum)

Felix Klieser was born without arms. He uses his feet for everything, including his chosen profession -playing the French horn. Klieser fell in love with the sound of the horn when he was just a toddler and has practiced diligently ever since. He turned professional after attending music school. Klieser is now Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra’s artist in residence. He will perform with the British orchestra for the next two years at least. Klieser holds his horn on a tripod and does the keys with his left foot. He says he can't imagine how others do it with hands. -via Laughing Squid

Reindeer’s eyes are golden in the summer, but turn a deep blue in the winter to capture more light making them the only mammal that does this. pic.twitter.com/IlPAPqD7ob

— Lars-Johan Larsson (@LarsJohanL) December 6, 2021

Is it true? I had to look it up. Yes, reindeer have developed a system for changing their eye color in order to see better during the dark winter months in the Arctic and cold northern regions. But it has nothing to do with the animal's irises, except for pupil dilation. A reindeer's irises are always brown, but you see much less of the iris in winter when the eyes are always dilated.

The part that changes color is actually on the back of the eyeball, a layer called the tapetum lucidum that lies underneath the retina. This layer reflects light back out of the eye. In summer, it is golden colored. In winter it turns blue, which reduces the amount of light reflected back out of the eye and enables the reindeer to see in low light. However, some vision sharpness may be sacrificed.

What causes the change is the light itself. When the sun goes away, the pupils dilate, which causes a pressure change in the eye. The collagen fibers that make up the tapetum lucidum become rearranged and the tissue turns blue. Now isn't that a neat adaptation for winter? Read more about reindeer eyes at LiveScience.  -via Nag on the Lake

What people search for on the internet tells us a lot about the state of humankind. The year 2021 was crammed with topics people wanted more information about, as if we all started paying attention after a year of dealing with the pandemic. Much of it points to people trying to determine what's important in life. However, there's some fun stuff in there. "Bernie Sander's mittens" was the top-searched meme in the US. There are some surprises, too. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who depends on Google to spell something right, but "How to pronounce Michael Jackson" is a little shocking.  

Google has calculated the most searched-for terms for 2021 and has compiled the results. US results are here. You can also see a timeline of search trends over the course of 2021, which you can change to dig deeper into categories listed at the top. Click on the images to read more about a topic.