In the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, we saw Space Station V, a rotating wheel in space that contained a luxury hotel for space travelers. The rotation provided enough force to simulate gravity and allow people to operate almost normally.

Digital artist Erik Wernquist imagined such a structure and designed the SSPO Esperanta, a sort of space cruise ship for interplanetary tourists. It has a radius of 450 meters and spins at one revolution per minute, generating artificial gravity at half that of earth. In the short film ONE REVOLUTION PER MINUTE, he shows us the views from the Esperanta, with available light moving all around every minute. It would be quite disorienting, but still beautiful. He admits that a spacecraft with this many windows is impractical, not to mention far beyond any earth budget, but it's an art film that explores those lights and shadows, so just consider it fictional. -via TYWKIWDBI 

Star Trek has grown into a beloved franchise with millions of fans, but when Gene Roddenberry's original series aired from 1966 to 1969, it had a notoriously small budget. This led to some very creative decisions, like inventing the transporter, because using a shuttle was both expensive and time-consuming. It also led to some really cheap-looking aliens, although with the dearth of science fiction on TV at the time, we didn't mind. This extreme parsimony was evident on the set, too. The futuristic interiors had chairs that were bought off the shelf at furniture stores, sometimes slightly altered, but recognizable. Later Star Trek series and movies with bigger budgets were able to get designer seats, but are often still recognized by trekkies who know furniture.

Four of those fans have built a database of commercially-available Star Trek chairs. Each of the 163 identified chairs are listed by category, with its movie or episode, history, and availability. For example, the chair shown above from "The Trouble with Tribbles" is the Chromcraft Sculpta Unicorn. The same design was later used in Star Trek: Discovery.  

Ex Astris Scientia is also asking for help in identifying more chairs. If you are inclined to buy seating based on the story you can tell about it, you'll want to take a look. Who knows, you might already have one of these designs in your home!  -via Everlasting Blort 

Zoos often purchase or exchange animals with each other in order to keep their populations stable, provide proper space for the creatures, and to promote genetic diversity in their progeny. In this case, the North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro had to relocate their flock of 15 Chilean flamingos to make way for a demolition and construction project. They were shipped to the Greenville Zoo in South Carolina. In cardboard boxes. So you can consider the above an "unboxing video."

This is no aberration, but the optimum method for shipping flamingos, or "best practices." They are big birds that only weigh about four pounds each. Cardboard is safer for them and their delicate wings than a crate or a metal cage would be, and they had plenty of airflow. The birds were given a health check as they were unpacked, and appear to be settling in just fine in their new home. -via Fark

The Martin Scorsese film Killers of the Flower Moon opens nationwide today. The film has received glowing reviews and is a shoe-in for Oscar nominations. It's a Scorsese crime movie, but also a love story, based on real events. But it could have been very different.

Native American representation in film has been abysmal since the beginning of film. Knowing that Killers of the Flower Moon would be widely seen, a group of Osage leaders invited Scorsese to meet with them and hear their views on how the movie should address their concerns regarding historical accuracy and perspective. They included James Roan Gray, great-grandson of Henry Roan, a victim of the Osage murders and the ex-husband of main character Mollie Burkhart. After the meeting, Scorsese rewrote the entire script to change the focus of the story. When he returned to Oklahoma after the pandemic lockdown, the Osage were ready to provide actors, language instructors, craftspeople, and consultants for the movie. Jim Gray talked to Smithsonian's Chris Klimek about his family history, the Osage influence on Killers of the Flower Moon, and other topics like the Trail of Tears and the Tulsa Race Massacre. You can read it or listen in podcast form at Smithsonian.  

Wanna play a game? CGP Grey (previously at Neatorama) presents an online version of Rock, Paper, Scissors in which you play against him. The premise is that statistically speaking, if a million people play, then someone somewhere is going to win all the rounds. It will happen, because the video is only a day old and is already three-quarters of the way to a million views. Grey has six million subscribers. Be aware that a draw means you lose. Of course, has has no way to know if you're being honest about your score, but that's honestly beside the point.

When you get into the game and see how it's constructed, you will be more impressed with the work he put into it than with your own success. It's an idea Grey has contemplated for years and just got around to doing. From the comments, a lot of people had fun playing this straight, but once they are eliminated, they go back and cheat just to see where the game goes, and had even more fun doing that. It's a real internet rabbit hole no matter how far you take it. And you'll learn a few things about statistics and probability along the way.

In the 18th century, a criminal could be hanged for any number of crimes, and from that fact sprung a gruesome type of good luck charm- the hand of an executed criminal. It was important that the hand taken was the one that actually committed the crime, and detailed instructions for preparing the hand were published in 1722. The hand had to be carefully dried with salt and nitre, and then exposed to the sun until fully dessicated. The resulting "hand of glory" could be used to cure illness when placed on the affected body part, such as a goiter.

If the hand had previously belonged to a murderer, it had special powers, but only in conjunction with fat taken from the same murderer. Since we can assume that this would be difficult to procure, an authentic hand of glory was a rarity. When a murderer's hand of glory was used as a candleholder, burning a candle made from the human fat, the holder had the power to put people to sleep, making a household burglary or other crime a simple affair.  

Hands used in such a manner have been documented in drawings in historical writing, but only one hand has been found and identified. It has been in the possession of the Whitby Museum since 1935. Read about the hand of glory and see a picture of the only one to still exist at Angel Buckley's blog. -via Strange Company

In the Douglas Adams story The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a supercomputer named Deep Thought is programmed to determine the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. The computer works on this problem for 7.5 million years and finally spits out the answer: 42. But after all that time, no one could remember the question.

However, in the 45 years since Adams told us about the amazing computer feat, we may have figured out the question. The problem is that there are several, five in fact, fundamental questions about the universe in which the answer is indeed 42. Two are mathematical, two are astronomical, and one has to do with physics. Which one was Deep Thought deep in thought about? We may never know, but we have some good contenders. Each of the five questions are explained in detail at Big Think. -via Real Clear Science

(Image credit: Ben Gibson/Big Think)

It wasn't easy being a beekeeper in the medieval Europe, but the honey that bees produced was exceptionally expensive and worth the effort. Instead of beehives with removable frames, bees were kept in woven baskets called skeps. Harvesting the honey meant scooping everything out of the skep, which destroyed the colony. So skeps were small, which encouraged the bees to swarm, looking for a new home when their numbers outgrew the skep. When that happened, beekeepers had to be ready to gather them up and lodge them in a new skep. That process involved throwing dust on the bees, banging metal objects together (called tanging), and reciting magical incantations. These were called swarm charms.

That's a lot of work to reproduce a hive, but it worked more often than not. Beekeepers were loathe to experiment to determine what part of that process actually did the job, as they didn't want to risk failure. Modern beekeepers say it was probably the dust, although things are much easier now that we've learned to identify and relocate queen bees. Read about swarm charms and the difficult medieval practice of beekeeping at Atlas Obscura.

The Sydney Opera House was officially opened on October 20, 1973. Every step to getting the building completed was fraught with controversy. Danish architect Jørn Utzon's design was rescued from the rejection bin and eventually became his greatest work, leading to a Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2003. Yet fights with Sydney authorities led him to quit the project before it was completed. The initial reaction from the public was mixed, with some calling it breathtakingly beautiful while others dubbed it ridiculous and referred to it as a dish rack. In the years since, it has become a beloved landmark and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Sydney Opera House hosts more than 1500 performances for more than a million people every year.   

To celebrate the Sydney Opera House's 50th anniversary, they posted a music video with a song written and performed by Tim Minchin called "Play It Safe." The video features a long list of those who have performed at the opera house (listed at the YouTube page). The lyrics belie the venue's actual mission to bravely stretch the limits of creativity by taking risks and to expand the very idea of art and performance. -via Metafilter

In 1984, Wes Craven launched the career of Freddy Krueger, the most terrifying movie monster ever, in the film A Nightmare on Elm Street. The reason he was so scary is that he invaded a victim's dreams while they were sleeping, when they were most vulnerable and unable to fight back. But the people Krueger killed in their dreams were also dead in real life. A brilliant idea for a horror film, yet it was inspired by real life events.

In the late 1970s and the '80s, a mysterious series of deaths occurred among young, healthy people in their sleep. All but one of the 117 documented victims were men, and the vast majority were Hmong refugees from Laos. They had no underlying illness, and their autopsies revealed no cause of death. The syndrome was named SUNDS for "sudden, unexpected, nocturnal death." The victims had horrific experiences during the Vietnam War, but why did they suddenly die years later, in a land where they were safe? Read about SUNDS, what we've learned about it in the years since, and how the epidemic inspired Wes Craven to create Freddy Krueger, at Mental Floss.

The athletic store Distance in Paris has a strange promotion in the run-up to the Olympics next summer. In the "Rob It To Get It" campaign, they say go ahead and shoplift from them- you can keep the merchandise if you can outrun the store's security guard. The twist is that the security guard is French Olympic sprinter Méba-Mickaël Zézé. In this compilation video, he caught 74 would-be thieves, while two people got away.

The stunt makes Zézé look really good. But what does it say about theft? If it wasn't completely staged, this had to be a low-key, limited time offer. There doesn't seem to be any consequences for attempted theft, and probably was pretty hard on Zézé while it lasted. Besides, they will never see those two potential champion runners again, unless they try again. Also, any American will unlock the secret to this stunt in about ten seconds. All you need is more than one thief making a break for it at the same time, running in different directions. -via Digg

There is an unnamed grocery store in rural Norway, near the border with Sweden, that apears to be haunted. For years, employees have experienced unexplained phenomena such as electrical malfunctions, shadowy figures, and broken flower pots. People who worked there questioned their own sanity, but eventually customers started noticing things, too. When a customer was hit with a flying potato, the news got out and paranormal investigators descended. So far there is no explanation for the eerie happenings. Well, no logical explanation, anyway- three ghosts have been identified.

Lars Birger Davan came to the store by accident and learned of its history. He is a doctoral candidate in sociology at Oslo Metropolitan University, and began to study the store. No, not the ghosts' mischief, but the employees' response to it. It turns out that experiencing paranormal activity can be very isolating, because people are afraid others will think them crazy. It's actually a relief to know that other people are observing the same things. Read about the haunted grocery and the people who must deal with it at Atlas Obscura.  

(Image credit: Lars Birger Davan)

Why did we ever think that robots had to resemble humans? Because that's what the science fiction novels told us. True, the earliest idea of a robot was a machine to replace a person and do a person's work. But as we came up with more and more uses for a robot, our ideas changed. Soft, flexible robots are more useful for getting around in uneven terrain, and tiny robots can go places and do things humans could never do.

The ultimate soft, flexible robot would be a liquid, right? Interesting Engineering introduces us to one. This robot is semi-liquid, made of polymers, borax, and alcohol, and embedded with neodymium particles throughout so it can be controlled by magnets. The slime is a non-Newtonian fluid that can become solid and then liquid again depending on conditions. It can squeeze through the tightest cracks and stretch to amazing lengths. This slime robot may have innumerable medical applications. It's not pretty, but that doesn't matter when you need it to go get that battery your toddler swallowed. -via Geeks Are Sexy

For the 49th year in a row, Nikon is recognizing outstanding microphotography (or photomicrography, if you prefer) in its Nikon Small World competition. The highest honor goes to Hassanain Qambari and Jayden Dickson of the Lion's Eye Institute in Perth, Australia, taking the image above. What you are looking at is the optic nerve of a rodent. Fluorescent dye shows the astrocytes in yellow, the contractile proteins in red, and the retinal vasculature in green. Got that? All the winning images are breathtakingly beautiful. The one that really drew my eye was the third-place image by Malgorzata Lisowska of Mazowieckie, Poland.

These are breast cancer cells at 40x magnification. The image involved brightfield lighting and image stacking, but I can't help but wonder whether there was some manipulation going on. Or is it just serendipitous pareidolia? See the top 20 images ranked with their descriptions in this gallery. Check out the honorable mentions, too. -via Digg

Some photographs are so intriguing that you see them over and over your entire life. The one above that became known as Lunch Atop A Skyscraper can give you the willies just looking at it. The picture itself was staged, but the subjects were real steelworkers building a skyscraper in 1932. The building in New York City is now known as 30 Rockefeller Plaza. In 1932, the men were lucky to have jobs at all, but their cavalier attitude as to the height they could have fallen from impressed us all.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but the story behind this one doesn't take all that long to read. You'll also find out about that picture of Princess Diana dancing with John Travolta, the Blue Marble, and the iconic image of Albert Einstein sticking his tongue out along with four other unforgettable photos, at Mental Floss.