Brice and Irina Bader live on the road. They remodeled their Land Rover Defender and transformed the truck into their home on wheels. All the inside space that would be open for human use is squeezed shut while traveling, but when they stop, just the push of a few buttons expands the back into a living area in about 43 seconds. No space is wasted. The shower folds out, the toilet is rolled out from underneath a seat, and the bed is stored against the ceiling when not in use. The Baders are trying to turn their transformed vehicle into a marketing opportunity, so you can see all the features here.  -via Laughing Squid

The annual Airline Quality Ratings Report from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University is out, ranking nine US airlines based on data from 2018. It also compares each airline's performance in 2018 with previous years.

In the new report, each airline is given a ranking based on its rate of mishandled baggage, on-time arrivals, involuntary denied boardings (or being bumped), and customer complaints from 2018. In other words, if they messed up, it’s probably reflected in the report and didn’t help their ranking.

And which airline was the biggest offender? Well, you may have your least favorites, but you might need to reconsider a flight on Frontier and American Airlines, both of which ranked poorly in on-time performance, baggage, and customer satisfaction.

You can see the list at Lifehacker, and read the full report here. -via Digg

(Image credit: Alex Steffler)

We often think of the people of the medieval era as filthy. In reality, all social classes did the best they could to stay clean within the limitations of the time. Everyday people made note to wash their hands frequently, bathe regularly, and change their underwear (with the exception of the clergy). Staying clean wasn't easy without the running water, sewage systems, and pest control products we enjoy today. Worse, even the most educated physicians of the day didn't understand how worms and other parasites infected people. But the battle raged on.  

According to much popular late-medieval belief, lice and other parasites were generated ‘out of the filthy and unclean skin’. The best way to avoid them was frequent washing and changing of clothes. Most medieval combs had broad teeth for combing the hair, but also fine teeth for removing lice and dirt. In 825, an Irish clergyman visited Iceland and was amazed by the light summer nights, when ‘whatever task a man wishes to perform, even picking lice from his shirt, he can manage as well as in clear daylight’. In the 13th-century Saga of the People of Laxardal, the outlaw Stigandi is betrayed by a woman who offers to search his hair for lice, only to report him to the authorities when he falls asleep. When the Inquisition came to Montaillou in the early 14th century, several deponents mentioned delousing in their testimonies. Pierre Clergue, the priest, was regularly deloused by his mistresses, both in public and in private; one of them also publicly deloused the priest’s mother.

There were other remedies that produced lesser results, but they were tried anyway. Read how medieval folks dealt with parasites at Aeon. That part about the clergy is explained, too.  -via Damn Interesting

History classes tend to just skim along the top of major world events, but there's a wealth of stories buried underneath. And a bunch of people who made enormous contributions to the world and got little credit.

Sometimes they were swept aside by other headlines, some of them never sought the limelight, and sometimes others just plain took credit for what they did.

There are 26 amazing people in this list from Cracked, although longtime Neatorama readers may be familiar with some of them, because we love to look under the surface of history.

When confronted with the choice of stairs or an escalator, most people choose the escalator. But what happens if you make the stairs fun? Sylvia Park Mall in Aukland covered a staircase with electronic piano keys to give a reward to people who used them. The results were, let's say, fun! -via TYWKIWDBI

The Easter butter lamb, or Baranek wielkanocny, is a tradition among Polish, Russian, and Slovenian Catholics. It's a butter sculpture in the shape of a lamb, placed on the table during the Easter feast.

Today, the tradition is most popular in communities where there is a strong Polish population, like Milwaukee and in of parts Michigan, which has the third largest Polish population, after Illinois and New York. Buffalo, in particular, is famous for its butter lambs, where an unlikely icon almost single-handedly introduced the city to the tradition.

In the 1960s, Dorothy Malczewski (nicknamed Ma Malczewski) debuted the Malczewski Butter Lambs company at a local grocery store called the Broadway Market, where the lambs are still sold today.

Malczewski butter lambs come with a signature design: a red flag planted on its back that reads “alleluia” (or Hallelujah) and a red ribbon tied around its neck, that actually symbolizes the blood of Christ. The little lamb might be cute, but that doesn't mean it's not rich in religious symbolism.  

Read more about the traditional butter lamb at Food & Wine. You can find them in groceries and delis in larger cities, or you can order a mold to shape your butter, or sculpt your own butter lamb with these instructions. See a gallery of various butter lambs here.

Animated cartoon characters gotta eat, you know. Or maybe they don't have to, but they do. What might surprise you is how often they do, and how attractive that food is. By the time you're finished with the supercut of cartoon meals, you'll have a hankering for something good you've just seen. This video is only 3:45 long- the rest is an ad.  -via Laughing Squid

A year ago, medical students at the Oregon Health and Science University went into an anatomy class to dissect human cadavers. One team of students was having a problem identifying organs in the body of Rose Marie Bentley, who died at the age of 99. They called over their professor for help.

But as the students and their professors were soon to find out, Bentley was special, so special she deserved her own unique spot in medical literature and history books.

The reason? A condition called situs inversus with levocardia, in which most vital organs are reversed -- almost like a mirror inside the body. That, along with a host of other weird but wonderful abnormalities, made Bentley a sort of medical unicorn.

"I think the odds of finding another person like her may be as remote as one in 50 million," said assistant professor Cameron Walker, who teaches the Foundations of Clinical Anatomy class at Oregon Health and Science University. "I don't think any of us will ever forget it, honestly."

The reason Bentley's condition is so rare is that the heart defects that occur with situs inversus with levocardia are usually deadly. Only 5% to 13% of those who have it live past the age of five. Bentley, on the other hand, lived almost a century without knowing her organs were backward. Outside of chronic heartburn, she lived a healthy life. At the same time, she considered it important to contribute to medical knowledge by donating her body to science. Read about Rose Marie Bentley and her unique body at CNN.

(Image credit: Oregon Health and Science University)

When cats live a feral life, it's no simple matter to change them into cuddly pets. It helps when you catch them early. In this video from the rescue organization Flatbush Cats, we see the careful and painstaking process of turning Franny from a wild animal into a sweetheart. -Thanks, WTM!   

The Walking Dead just wrapped up season nine with a much-altered cast and time frame, under the direction of new show runner Angela Kang. The spinoff series Fear the Walking Dead, also much-altered from the original, will return on June 2, with another character crossing over from The Walking Dead. In addition, there is a plan for three feature-length AMC movies starring Andrew Lincoln as Rick Grimes. But that's not all. A third series set in the zombie apocalypse will debut in 2020, seemingly aimed at a younger audience.

According to the network, the series “will feature two young female protagonists and focus on the first generation to come-of-age in the apocalypse as we know it. Some will become heroes. Some will become villains. In the end, all of them will be changed forever. Grown-up and cemented in their identities, both good and bad.”

No word yet on whether any existing characters will appear in the new series, but production is set to start this summer in Virginia.  -via Uproxx

Benjamin Lay was one of the earliest and most radical abolitionists in America. He angered the established Quaker culture of Philadelphia so much that he is barely acknowledged in history books, but he made quite a splash in his day- literally. In 1738, he went to the Yearly Meeting of Philadelphia Quakers prepared for a storm. Lay dressed in a military uniform and carried a sword, which he covered with an overcoat. He hid an animal bladder filled with red juice inside a book.

Quakers have no formal ministers, so congregants speak as the spirit moves them. Lay was a man of large and unruly spirit. In a thundering voice that belied his stature, he announced that slaveholding was the greatest sin in the world. He threw off his overcoat to reveal his military uniform. The crowd gasped. He raised the book above his head, unsheathed his sword, and declared: ‘God will take vengeance on those who oppress their fellow creatures.’ He ran his sword through the book. The bladder exploded in a gush of blood, spattering the slaveholders sitting nearby. A group of Quaker men grabbed up Lay – he did not resist – and threw him out of the meeting house into the street. The soldier of God had delivered a chilling prophecy: slaveowning would destroy the Quaker faith.

Lay came into his opinions honestly. He spent years as a sailor traveling the world, and then settled in Barbados, where he witnessed the horror of slavery up close. Read about the life of the lesser-known abolitionist and little person Benjamin Lay at Aeon. -via Metafilter

Fans of the TV show The Office know that the British version and the American version are both funny, but have differences that reflect their cultures. What you might not know is that there have been multiple versions of the show in many countries. How successful they are/were depended on how well the workplace comedy was altered to reflect each nation's existing workplace culture. For example, trying to faithfully replicate the original British show didn't work in Sweden, where offices are different, but they still have plenty of issues that could have been used for comedy.

At this very moment, people across Sweden are waging unrelenting passive-aggressive wars against one another for long-forgotten slights, but the characters in Kontoret are simply aggressive. In the pilot, the manager must choose which employee to make redundant, but Sweden has legislation regulating exactly how this is to be decided. And though the Swedish workplace is constructed by the fact that all we do in Sweden is have babies—with people going to endless parent-teacher meetings during work hours, taking days off to care for their sick children (which counts as paid leave, if your kids are under the age of twelve), and working around a family schedule more than an office schedule—none of the characters in Kontoret seem to have children. It’s very clear that the people involved in making the show have, indeed, had few regular jobs.

It’s disappointing, because Swedes are such gloriously awkward people. We require absurdly vast personal space, our men seem incapable of holding conversation for longer than three sentences, and while we pretend we are pro-equality, sexism and racism lurk just under the surface. Alcohol is so expensive that people treat buying a round like putting down a deposit on a house, and calculator apps emerge as soon as a bill is produced. We are incredibly socially conformist and we like to pretend that areas of Stockholm are like Brooklyn (there are, to be clear, no areas of Stockholm that are anything like any areas in Brooklyn). There is so much to make fun of! But what we get instead is a character pretending to have cerebral palsy.

Kontoret improved in the second season, but it wasn't enough to save the series. While many of these adaptations are no longer in production, they are available in reruns or on video. Read about adaptations of The Office in languages other than English and how they compare to the original at Popula.  -via Digg

LEGO blocks are not only a great toy and an inspirational building material, they are an art medium. LEGO artists have recreated artistic masterpieces with LEGO pieces in many different styles, using three basic methods. The subject of the work can be built in 3D with LEGO blocks, as in Nathan Sawaya's version of Grant Wood's American Gothic shown above. Or different colored LEGO blocks can be used as pixels, as in Marco Sodano's rendition of Van Gogh's Self-Portrait (see the rest of his series here). 



The third method is to use customized minifigs as the subjects of an artwork, as in Ki Young Lee's recreation of Leonardo Da Vinci's The Last Supper.  


   
Some creative people can combine all those methods as needed. Bored Panda has a gallery of 38 famlous masterpieces recreated in LEGO art.

Ozzy Man is renowned for his over-the-top expletive-laden play-by-play commentary on anything and everything. Here, he follows the action in clips of several popular cat fight videos. Yes, the language is NSFW, but the f-bombs are relatively few and far between, compared to his other offerings. You have to watch the actual cat fights to see the comedy in this project.  -via Everlasting Blort 

An ultrasound scan on a 35-week-old fetus found an anomaly that doctors thoughts was a liver cyst. More study showed that the space actually contained a tiny, second fetus, a twin that had been engulfed by her larger sister, and was feeding from her abdomen by an umbilical cord. This is a rare condition called "fetus-in-fetu."   

Embryos start off as flat discs, which, at around the fourth week of gestation, fold in various directions to form “shapes that can eventually form body structures and organs,” explains Rachel Feltman of Popular Science. Because identical twin embryos grow in close proximity, very rarely one can get folded into the other during this biological process; according to New Scientist’s Alice Klein, this may be more likely to happen if the absorbed twin has an existing defect.

There have been cases of fetus-in-fetu not discovered until adulthood, but those were cases in which the parasitic fetus stopped growing. For the Colombian baby, doctors decided to perform a C-section at 37 weeks, because they were afraid the second fetus would continue growing and crush the larger baby's internal organs. Read about the case at Smithsonian.

(Unrelated image credit: Andrés Nieto Porras)