Twenty years ago, we started playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, to see how everyone in Hollywood is connected to actor Kevin Bacon by either appearing in a movie with him, or appearing in a movie with someone who did. But it was not a new idea. The phenomenon of the Erdős number was first mentioned in print in 1969! Paul Erdős, who died in 1996, was the world's most prolific mathematician, publishing more than 1500 papers on mathematics. Collaborators whose name appears on those papers have an Erdős number of one, and anyone who produces a science paper with those people gain an Erdős number of two. Thousands of mathematicians have an Erdős number of two or lower, but a quarter million mathematicians have numbers. And you don't even have to be a mathematician to have this number. Elon Musk has an Erdős number of four, and Natalie Portman has a five.

Paul Erdős could publish so many math papers because he constantly thought about math and never did anything else. He never married or had children, had no hobbies, never learned to drive, and had no permanent residence. Erdős would move in with another mathematician to collaborate, but was a horrid houseguest with his singular drive to do math. Read about the brilliant but strange mathematician at Scientific American.  -via Strange Company

(Image credit: Kmhkmh)

Earlier this month, we looked at the relative number of victims of various pandemics in history. Now let's find out more about those diseases. What illnesses were people most afraid of during different historical eras? There was leprosy, influenza, bubonic plague, syphilis, smallpox, cholera, tuberculosis, and COVID-19, but none of those existed by themselves, and even these diseases were sometimes misdiagnosed because there was always something else out there that wanted to kill you. And these deadly illnesses became epidemics because of close living conditions and poor sanitation in crowded cities. Our own sociability became a mass transit system for bacteria and viruses. Enhanced travel took diseases to other communities all around the world. If you worry about getting sick, just be thankful for modern science. Back when we couldn't figure out what was causing these diseases, much less prevent or treat them, your odds for surviving them were downright dismal.

Newborns can't tell us what's wrong, all they can do is tell us that something is wrong, and it's up to us to figure it out. Sometimes that's terrifyingly difficult. A case reported this week in the New England Journal of Medicine concerns an eight-week-old boy who wouldn't stop crying. The pediatrician couldn't find anything wrong, but after a week of crying, the baby became weaker until he couldn't nurse. He was rushed to the emergency room. There he underwent a battery of tests, x-rays, blood tests, an MRI, and even a spinal tap. They couldn't find the source of the illness, but suspected an infection and started a round of antibiotics. Then he stopped breathing and had to be intubated.

The good news is that the baby is fine now. The story of how doctors went about finding the cause of his plight by the process of elimination is gripping, and the diagnosis of a relatively rare illness is eye-opening. The baby spent three weeks in the hospital after coming close to death. Dr. House would have solved it instantly within an hour, but we all know that was fiction. Read a hair-raising account of the medical mystery at Ars Technica. 

(Unrelated image credit: Inferis)

This melancholy and poignant mixed media art film by a team headed by Pipou Phuong Nguyen was made in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Pink Floyd album Dark Side of the Moon last year. The music is Pink Floyd's "The Great Gig in the Sky." The cartoon itself may be a little abstract, so the description lays out the story.

In a world blurring reality and imagination, Syd, a little 8-year-old boy faces his mother’s impending demise. Desperate to hide from the grasp of Death, they embark on an imagined hide-and-seek game, morphing into Earth’s creatures. Death plays along as their relentless predator.

The images are lovely, rendered in different animation styles for each sequence. But you already know who wins in the end. -via Laughing Squid

Johannesburg, South Africa, was founded as a mining town after gold was discovered there in 1884. Boom towns sprung up quickly around the area, but one soon became more boom than town. The Johannesburg suburb of Braamfontein received a trainload of dynamite in February 1896. With no room in the warehouses, the eight railroad cars containing 2,300 cases of dynamite were shunted off to a side track. What happened three days later when they were starting to unload the cars will never be known for sure, because all the witnesses were killed, but it is thought that a switcher locomotive collided with the cargo cars. It wouldn't have to be a big collision, but the resulting explosion sure was.

The explosion could be felt 200 kilometers away. It left a crater 60 meters (250 feet) long. The image above shows how the railroad tracks were curled up at the end of the crater, with wrecked buildings in the background. More than 70 people were killed and 3,000 were left homeless when their houses were flattened. The investigation afterward couldn't piece together the exact events of that day, but it uncovered many egregious safety violations in the everyday handling of dynamite in the mining industry. Read the story of the Braamfontein explosion and see more pictures at Amusing Planet. 

In any society, or even in small communities, there are a very few people who are totally selfless, and quite a bit more who never think of anyone but themselves. Most of us fall somewhere between those extremes. But are humans inherently selfish, and have to learn to think of others? Or have we evolved to consider the greater good for the well-being of the family and community? Are the things we do for others really about the expected reciprocation or the eventual benefit to ourselves in some way? We know that the easiest way to be happy is to help others, but does that in itself make generosity transactional? Philosophers have struggled with these questions for quite some time. But for our personal lives, if we are concerned about being selfish, there are some ways to change one's attitude and become more tuned into the needs of others. This TED-Ed lesson from Mark Hopwood addresses selfishness from various angles.

The Mary Celeste was both a real sailing ship and the subject of an 1884 short story by Arthur Conan Doyle (although he spelled it Marie Celeste). The fictional story soon overshadowed the historical event it was based on. In 1872, Captain Benjamin Briggs set sail on the Mary Celeste from New York headed to Italy. He had with him his wife, his young daughter, and seven hand-picked crew members, plus 1701 barrels of alcohol in the cargo hold. A month later, the ship was spotted off the coast of the Azores. There was no one aboard. The ship's one lifeboat and some navigational tools were missing, but the crew's personal effects, the cargo, and the ship's provisions were still aboard. The last entry in the ship's log, from nine days earlier, gave no clues. No trace of the ten people were ever found. While there are several theories about what happened, no conclusion has ever been determined.      

The fate of the Mary Celeste's crew is just one of 15 unsolved mysteries you can read about at Mental Floss.

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons)

The draw of the short film The Court Jester is how accurately Pauly Shore impersonates fitness guru Richard Simmons, but the real story is about David, a hapless segment producer on The Ellen Show who is only noticed when he screws up. That can do things to your self-esteem. But you know, self-esteem is what Richard Simmons is all about. The story is set during a real Simmons appearance on The Ellen Show.

The short by Jake Lewis premiered in Park City, Utah, last weekend during the ongoing Sundance Film Festival, although the screening was not officially part of the festival. This happened just after Netflix announced they are doing a full-length biopic about Simmons starring Pauly Shore, which Simmons insists he did not give permission for and is not involved with. Simmons, 75, retired from public life in 2014 and wishes to remain private. He has not yet responded to The Court Jester. -via Laughing Squid

As far as historical artifacts go, dentures are a bit strange, but there are collectors who would give their eye teeth for these, so to speak. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill began losing his teeth in his 20s and had many upper partials made over his lifetime. One particular set that was made just as World War II began is up for auction. They are among the false teeth Churchill used when giving inspirational speeches such as the "We Shall Fight on the Beaches" speech. The denture is mounted in gold and is expected to sell for £5,000-£8,000 ($6,000-10,000).

The dentures were designed by Churchill's longtime dentist Sir Wilfred Fish. Yes, Churchill was responsible for Fish's knighthood. Churchill needed his dentures repaired or replaced often, partially because of his temper. He was known to thrown them when he got angry. The dentures were made by Fish's dental technician Derek Cudlipp, whose son sold them in 2010 for £15,200. While this auction estimate is lower, it's hard to put a price on a piece of history. What the auction winner will do with them is anyone's guess. Read more about Churchill and his false teeth at Smithsonian.

The "middle finger salute" is possibly the most widely-used rude gesture we have. It is often associated with road rage incidents, and is handy for instantly turning an argument into a fist fight, no pun intended. But where did it come from? Like many things we take for granted today, it originated with the ancient Greeks.

But 2,500 years ago, the meaning and usage of the middle finger was a bit different. The finger position was a straightforward phallic symbol that could be used for a number of communications. The gesture could be an insult, but was often a proposition or a part of a dirty joke. Greek playwright Aristophanes used it in several of his plays. The attitude was often more playful and ribald than challenging. According to ancient references, it was sometimes used to poke someone, with clear implications.

While the gesture itself is very old, referring to it as "flipping the bird" is much more recent. Get the lowdown on how the middle finger became both obscene and enduring at CNN. Be aware that the article is NSFW, unless you work at CNN. -via Fark

(Image credit: Clemens Stockner)

Give artificial intelligence a creepy idea and the algorithm will make it even creepier than intended. This 1950s-style newsreel tells us about a new amusement park. We expect the overdressed nuclear family having a good time with costumed cartoon characters, but this park has some extra features we're just glad the real world didn't think of back when lawsuits were less of a restraint. Just keep telling yourself it's all fictional. But you know, it might make a good horror movie in the right hands. Not that I'd want to visit Pooky Park, even in the cinema.

Honestly, be warned that this animation is weird and ridiculous and might be disturbing. The basic idea will remind you of the original TV series Squid Game and the uncanny rendering will remind you of the video for the song "Black Hole Sun." At least that's how it struck me. YouTuber Meme Dream Machine is to blame for this abomination. -via Laughing Squid

It's happened many times that an idea of how our world came to be the way it is arose just because someone thought it made sense. Ideas without any evidence are often proved wrong later, but once a theory is widespread, it's hard to take it back. Nineteenth-century lawyer and zoologist Philip Sclater published important work about the animals found in the different regions of the earth. But he was puzzled by lemurs, fossils of which were found in both Madagascar and in India. How does one explain that? Well, there must have been a land bridge at some time in the past. Sclater proposed that there was once a continent in the Indian Ocean he called Lemuria. That sunken continent (sometimes transferred to the pacific Ocean under the name Mu) captured the imagination of all sorts of people, and led to legends, fictional stories, and at least one religion that survives today.

The existence of Lemuria (called Kumari Kandam in Tamil) was disproven by plate tectonics later on. And in a final twist, the lemurs found in India were explained away as well. Read about the rise and fall of the continent of Lemuria at Atlas Obscura. 

(Image credit: Pradeep.doodh)

Biopics and movies about historical events can be wonderful jumping-off points for learning about history, but you can't just depend on them for your history education. Sadly, the blockbuster film version may be the only exposure many folks have to certain historical moments. Historical events are a great well of inspiration for movies, since they are truly original ideas at the time they happened, and the stories cannot be accused of plagiarism or piggybacking. But when a filmmaker takes on a historical project, they still have to fit the story into a feature film length, which means leaving out a lot of context, condensing long sequences, and sometimes taking shortcuts by making up scenes to get an idea across quickly. Nerdstalgic takes us on a tour of the ways true stories get changed for cinema. Those changes don't ruin a good movie, but as far as historical accuracy, we should be aware of them. -via Digg

This image of a Crab-eating macaque in Thailand won Suliman Alatiqi the Best in Show award in the 2023 Ocean Art Underwater Photo Contest. Alatiqi spent two weeks diving near the Phi Phi Islands, and gained the trust of one particular clan of macaques before he could get up close and personal with them. The photograph won first place in the Portrait category as well.

The contest announced first through fourth place winners and honorable mentions in 14 categories. New rules this year restricted the use of AI in post processing for the 12 primary categories to ensure that the photos are 100% real, but also introduced two new categories without such rules, Underwater Digital Art and Underwater Fashion, where such editing can run free. All the photos are amazing, but I was particularly drawn to this one.  

Gabriel Jensen placed fourth in the Portrait category with this image of two fishes. The doctorfish seems to be posing for the picture, as if he's getting his smile right for a selfie, but he's also being eaten by a lizardfish! Jensen likened the image to the "this is fine" meme. Nature is brutal.

See all the winners at the contest website, with links to the story behind each. -via Everlasting Blort

We really don't know much about the real Arthur, but if he was real, he wasn't a king but rather a fourth-century warrior who was a hero to the Britons. As time goes by, heroes get elevated, in this case to a king and a legend. The story of Arthur was written and re-written over centuries to include other well-known legends, such as that of the round table, the knights who each had their own powers like MCU characters, the Holy Grail, the affair between Lancelot and Guinevere, and most of all, that sword. There are actually two swords, Excalibur and Caliburn, one from a stone and the other from the Lady in the Lake, even though strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. All of these stories may have come from some grain of truth that turned into a good story and then became folded into the Arthurian saga as it was resurrected again and again. Arthurian legends are like Katamari Damacy, the game where the further you roll, the more stuff you pick up along the way. You can't keep a good story down.