As the medical professions developed, doctors and surgeons arose from different traditions and had their separate practices. Doctors were educated, they studied physiology and philosophy, and they developed theories on disease and medicines. Surgeons, who were also barbers, studied under other barber-surgeons as apprentices, and cut hair, shaved beards, pulled teeth, drained abscesses, amputated limbs, and generally altered your body for you as needed.  

Still, you can almost see the appeal, right? While the pretentious, aloof physician was off hanging out in some noble family’s castle, developing harebrained theories on which of the four humors causes gout, you could go see a possibly illiterate barber-surgeon — someone nonetheless able, with hands-on anatomical know-how, to pop your shoulder back into its socket for a minor fee. With the healthcare system being what it is in the United States, this sounds way better than a trip to the emergency room. Just head down the block and look for a barber pole, the white and red of which suggests the blood and bandages of the barber-surgeon’s profession, and ask them to stitch you up. Hell, you could get your mustache and sideburns styled, too. You’ve earned it!  

In fact, there is some indications of a return to barbers and hairdressers as limited medical practitioners, as they are already intimate with their clients' bodies and are far less expensive than doctors. Read about barber-surgeons at Mel magazine. 

(Image credit: Wellcome Images)

We might be tempted to think of a poor singer as being tone deaf, but there are many reasons people don't sing well. Tone deafness is just one of them. The Music Lab at Harvard University's department of psychology has a test for tone deafness that doesn't involve singing at all -just your ability to discriminate tones that you hear. Sure, it's gathering data for a study, but it's also fun. You can try it yourself here. You'll be given a series of tones, and you must choose whether the last note goes up or down on the musical scale. The test also displays your reaction time, but try not to get distracted by that. After the first few, you might start to think it's easy. That's when you encounter one that sounds exactly the same as the previous notes, but there is no button to push for "same." I got 27 out of 32 right, which is at the 45th percentile. I'll blame that on some age-related hearing loss and the fact that I have a cold right now. -via Metafilter

In 1976, on the occasion of the US bicentennial, The Grand Prairie Daily News asked readers what America would look like in 2076 for the tricentennial celebration. That's less than 60 years away now, and their visions of the future seems as out-of-reach as ever. The picture above imagines The Jetsons come to life, but many of the responses warn of the dangers of war and pollution. That's not surprising, because in 1976, pollution was the most evident environmental threat, and we had just finished with the second longest and second most divisive war in American history. Read the letters that predicted life in 2076 at Flashbak.  -Thanks, WTM!

(Image credit: Lisa Gilvar)

Women who remember what it's like to be pregnant gasp in wonder at this video. How does she balance herself, much less dance en pointe, so close to giving birth? It helps if you are in tip-top shape and know what you are doing -otherwise, don't try this at home. This is prima ballerina Maia Makhateli of the National Opera & Ballet of the Netherlands. A couple of years ago, she recorded several clips of herself dancing while pregnant. Not too long after this video was taken, she gave birth to her son Luka.



See more of Makhateli on stage and off, at Instagram.  -via Buzzfeed

People try to be helpful, bless them, but often go about it in the most unintentionally destructive way. Sometimes these are concrete events, like directing your parking job. Others are when people try to cheer you up with platitudes.

Imagining that things could be worse is not only unhelpful, but it trivializes your current feelings, as if you have no right to feel bad. Often it's best just to be there and listen. Cracked has 19 pictofacts on things people do when they're trying to be helpful that end up making the situation worse.

Jelle Bakker is back with his MarbleLympics, an elimination tournament featuring teams of marbles! The marvelously intricate marble runs constructed for the various events are extremely impressive -there's even an underwater course! However, over time, you'll find yourself strangely invested in the fortunes of little lumps of glass with team names like Crazy Cat's Eyes, Balls of Chaos, the Raspberry Racers, Team Momo, the Chocolatiers, and the Green Ducks. Don't miss the fight in the stands! You can follow further rounds of the MarbleLympics at Bakker's YouTube channel, starting in April. -via Digg

When Jesse and Audrey got married, they didn't want their wedding to be too conventional. The ceremony (in which their mothers were flower girls) was followed by a reception that featured arcade games, movie theater candy, awards, and 18 cakes that the guests decorated. But what really stood out was the dress code.

We thought it was sad that most women only get to wear their wedding dress once, so we invited all the women coming to our non-traditional wedding to wear their old wedding dresses again! My wife is the one sitting front and center - she designed her own dress and was inspired by Cinderella and Elsa.

Audrey said the dressmaker was "a bit horrified" to think that this wedding gown would later be used for cosplay. The guests who didn't wear wedding dresses were asked to wear black and/or white or a costume!


See a gallery of pictures from the wedding at imgur. -via reddit

A ball of yarn gets a corporate office job in this new short from Pixar. She tries her very best to fit in with the bro culture, but it ain't easy. Is acceptance from these guys really worth it?

The plant named Monstera deliciosa presents a conundrum: how can a plant be a monster and delicious, too? In this case, Monstera means monstrous size, but deliciosa means just what you'd think. The fruit of this plant, also called ceriman, or the Swiss cheese plant (due to the holes in the leaves), among other names, can be dangerous when it is not fully ripe. That's when the fruit is full of oxalic acid which can cause severe skin and throat irritation.

When fully ripe, the monstera offers a wonderful combination of strong tropical flavors like pineapple, coconut, and banana. In its native countries of Mexico, Guatemala, Panama, and Costa Rica, it is typically eaten on its own or prepared into jams. Chefs also whip up monstera-based desserts, either pairing the fruit with a dash of light cream or incorporating it into fruit cups or ice cream.

Unlocking that flavorful potential—and avoiding any painful toxicity—is all a matter of timing.

So how do you know when the fruit is safe? That's a complicated process that is covered by several paragraphs and a video at Gastro Obscura.

(Image credit: Annon201)

British explorer Robert Falcon Scott wanted to lead the first expedition to the South Pole. In January of 1912, he made it to the Pole, but Norwegian Roald Amundsen's team left evidence that they had been there in December of 1911. While Amundsen returned to his base camp with all the men and some of the dogs, Scott's team never made it back. Was it poor planning or unreliable support? While those factors contributed to the disaster, luck played a part. That year saw very unusual weather in Antartica they couldn't have foreseen.

Read more about Robert Falcon Scott's Terra Nova expedition.

Which condiments, syrups, and sauces do you really need to keep in the refrigerator? Your bottle of ketchup says "refrigerate after opening," but diners leave ketchup on their tables all day long. Americans keep mustard in the refrigerator, while Europeans do not. The rule of thumb is that the spicier a condiment is, the less it needs refrigeration, but ingredients vary even within those classifications. Sometimes the instruction to refrigerate is a matter of safety, while for other items, it's a matter of quality control. And there are some items you haven't thought about. We know honey stays safe in the cabinet, but what about maple syrup?

As the website of Ben’s Maple Syrup in New England points out, while the sugar in the syrup means that it doesn’t really need to be refrigerated, “refrigerating maple syrup will retard the growth of mold. If a container of unrefrigerated maple syrup is not checked often, enough mold may grow in the syrup, to ruin the flavor of the syrup.” Ben’s then advises just scraping the mold off the top of the syrup. Or, if that grosses you out, just leave the bottle in the fridge.

That’s for pure maple syrup. What about the Aunt Jemima stuff? “That doesn’t count; that’s just corn syrup,” Dresser scoffs. Okay, Marie Kondo-ing that bottle as well.

I dunno, I once had a bottle of corn syrup go moldy in the cabinet because I only use it at Christmas. Still, the American habit of putting condiments in the refrigerator may have something to do with available space, since our refrigerators are bigger than those in the rest of the world. The Takeout has a rundown of which condiments really should be refrigerated and which ones you can leave out on the counter or the table, which might encourage you to use them more often.  -via Digg

(Image credit: Dvortygirl)

When I saw the title of this video, I thought of Badfinger, the band that had a Beatles sound because some of their hits were produced by Paul McCartney and George Harrison. But this is the story of Klaatu, a band that came out of nowhere (actually Toronto) and didn't put their names or photographs on their album. The band members were just shy (and no doubt influenced by the Beatles), but their manager harnessed the mystery for publicity purposes. The lack of real information fed rumors that the band were the Fab Four incognito, so everyone started looking for clues. Polyphonic tells the story of Klaatu. -via Laughing Squid

What's left of the British Empire is no longer a monarchy, technically. The government is run as a democracy, although the British have retained the royal family anyway, and the Queen has many duties. They are mostly ceremonial, but she (or any other reigning monarch) has quite a bit of power enshrined in law. As a matter of custom, she rarely meddles in the working of Parliament. But she could if she wanted to.

As the current monarch of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and a bunch of other countries that have her on their money, the Queen enjoys something known as sovereign immunity. In a nutshell, sovereign, or crown immunity as it is sometimes known, means that the Queen is for all intents and purposes above the law. So does this mean that the Queen could just up and kill somebody if she felt like it, all the while getting off scot free? In theory, yes, absolutely.

Queen Elizabeth holds both sovereign immunity and diplomatic immunity. But that's only the first layer of immunity the Queen enjoys. There's an entire maze of laws and customs that would prohibit law enforcement from taking any action against the Queen, which you can read about at Today I Found Out.

(Image credit: dbking)

Wanna go to Mars? Well, do you think someone should do it? We know we can get there, because we've sent robots. Right now, getting back is a problem, but we'll figure that out eventually. As it is, the first people to go to Mars might have to live the rest of their lives there. And those lives won't be easy. Still, it's the next step in exploring the rest of the universe. Kurzgesagt explains what living on Mars would be like. -via reddit

Depending on your age, you might know Howie Mandel best as a judge on America's Got Talent, or as the host of the game show Deal or No Deal, or from his frenetic early standup comedy, or when he took his Little Bobby character into animation for the show Bobby's World. Personally, I best recall him as Dr. Wayne Fiscus on St. Elsewhere for six years in the 1980s. You've probably seen the comedy bit where he put a rubber glove over his head and blew it up at one time or another. That's the trick that made Mandel stand out among the crowd of young comedians of the time and launched his long TV career.

Different people have different reference points for Howie Mandel, but regardless of generation, everyone seems to know about Mandel’s pathological fear of germs. That fear is so great, in fact, that the man who invented Purell sent the first tubs of it to Howie Mandel. Over the years, he used so much of it that he began to get warts because he’d rid his hands of all bacteria, both good and bad, leaving them with no immunity. Mandel is so afraid of germs, in fact, that he won’t shake hands with anyone, which makes his choice of career as game show host and formerly a talk show host an odd one. It’s led to some awkward and uncomfortable moments in his career.

Read about those awkward moments, and get the story of how his fear of germs led to the glove bit at Uproxx. It's really strange.

(Image credit: Alan Light)