Young people get a screwed-up idea of what true love is supposed to be like from watching movies. Great movie romances are an idealized fantasy that end when the film does, and the success of the relationship is whatever the filmmaker wants it to be. Real life is not so much like a movie romance, or even a rom-com, but more like a straight up comedy. Therapist Omar Torres looks at some pop culture couples and gives us his verdict on how realistic they are. -via Digg

Filmmakers have to walk a fine line when depicting science in their movies or TV shows: the concepts must be believable without getting in the way of entertainment. And that's after coming to grips with how real science fits in or contradicts the plot. Many films employ science advisors who try to keep the production from looking insanely ignorant- because whether the writers, producers, and directors know the relevant science or not, many people in the audience will. Theoretical physicist Sean Carroll has worked with Marvel on several of their superhero films.

Much of a science advisor’s work boils down to small changes in the dialogue, but occasionally their input leads to more significant cuts. When working on Thor (2011), Carroll advised against one scene that depicted a character pushing another off a disc-shaped planet. “The problem is there’s no gravitational pull to pull you off the edge of the planet,” he says. “So scientifically that doesn’t quite make sense.” (On a disc-shaped planet, gravity would actually be working to pull you back to the center.)

Read more about the work of Hollywood science advisors at Mental Floss.

People in Idaho sometimes refer to Jeremy Morris as Clark Griswold, the character from Christmas Vacation who decked his home with 25,000 lights. But Morris goes infinitely further. His Christmas light display involves over 200,000 lights- plus musicians, costumed characters, and a camel named Dolly. Clark Griswold didn't do that.  

And Griswold didn't end up in a nearly four-year-long legal nightmare with his neighbors.

This is what happens when a Christmas movie plot unfolds in North Idaho: It's a story that involves armed "patriots," secret recordings, Fox News, claims of anti-Christian bigotry, reports of vandalism, a lawsuit, a countersuit, depositions and even — a la Miracle on 34th Street — Santa Claus on the witness stand.

And, finally, a verdict: An Idaho jury unanimously concluded last month that Morris's homeowners association had discriminated against his Christian religion.

Lest you think that the HOA was being particularly HOA-ish, you'll need to know that Morris had moved to the new neighborhood to avoid the trouble he'd had over his 2014 Christmas display. He had even bigger plans for 2015. The legal battle that followed was played out on national media outlets. Read the story of Morris and his Christmas crusade at Inlander.  -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Mark Addy)

It's been a year since we saw the guys from 5MadMovieMakers' first Thomas the Tank Engine Stunts,  but the wait is worth it for this sequence of mesmerizing slides, drifts, jumps, and even flips. Who knew we adults could get such pleasure out of a wooden train set!  -via reddit

Chef René Verdon, third from left.

Both President John Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy came from wealthy, educated, and well-traveled families. They brought a sense of cosmopolitan style to the White House. The public was ready for a First Family that was almost aristocracy: the privations of World War II had faded, the economy was booming, and people were traveling out of the US more than ever. It was only natural that the White House would hire an acclaimed French chef, René Verdon.

The young, bright Kennedys embodied these trends, and the public’s fascination with Jacqueline spilled over into her culinary habits. Verdon’s state-luncheon debut for the British Prime Minister was even splashed across the front page of the New York Times. That day, Verdon served trout cooked in Chablis, a roast fillet of beef au jus, artichoke bottoms, and a dessert called désir d’avril (April Desire), comprised of a raspberry and chocolate-filled meringue shell.

But on November 22, 1963, Kennedy was assassinated. That same day, Lyndon Johnson assumed the presidency. He also became René Verdon’s boss. From the start, the Texan and the Frenchman did not see eye to eye, and both small details and significant decisions about White House cuisine fueled their squabbles.

Johnson embodied a down-home Texas style. His tastes ran to Tex-Mex and barbecue, and he didn't see why they couldn't save money by using frozen vegetables. The president's displeasure with his French chef reached a head one day and Vernon never looked back. Read about how things turned around in the White House kitchen at Atlas Obscura. 

When one decides one doesn't want to be married anymore, there's divorce, and there's murder, and then there's the incomprehensible tangled web woven by John Blair Wills. Wills fell in love with a girl at first sight, but her mother wouldn't consent to marriage because Mary Ann Maxwell was only twelve. Five years later, Wills married her, but soon lost his passion for his young wife, who had given birth to a daughter and was hospitalized with milk fever in 1856. When she returned home, John Wills wanted nothing to do with her.     

He coldly told the poor girl that he did not want her, and that she was not actually his wife, as he had been married to a woman called Ann Good since 1851.  This terrible and shaming news would have devastated Mary Ann, not only because she would be judged as someone guilty of fornication, and living in sin, but also because her poor child was illegitimate.  Helpfully John Blair Wills suggested a solution, namely that the best thing she could do was to marry his brother James Fenton—he of the moustaches—who seemed to be quite fond of her.  To prove that there was no reason for them not to marry, John produced his and Ann’s marriage certificate from 1851.  Although some might think that Mary Ann was sullied, she was still a free woman, and, as James was a widower, they could make a bad situation better.

Things only became more complicated after that, as Wills was lying about his other marriage. Circumstances eventually led to three cases of bigamy within the family! Read how all this happened at London Overlooked.  -via Strange Company

You have to admit that smartphone use is way too common in the real world, and rare in movies. That makes our biggest movies totally unrealistic. So what? We don't go to movies to see the real world; we go to movie to escape the real world. Evan Puschak, the Nerwriter, analyzed the top movies of 2018 to determine how much and how smart phones are used in them, and found some interesting results. The "why" is pretty simple, if you ask me. While many of us use smart phones all day long, we don't really care to watch other people do it. That's not interesting. And if you think smart phone use is rare, Puschak also looks into the appearances of social media, too. -via Laughing Squid

We know the story of the first powered heavier-than-air flying machine: Wilbur and Orville Wright, brothers who owned a bicycle shop in Ohio, flew their experimental airplane on December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Orville was the pilot on the first successful flight because he won the coin toss, but the two developed the plane together. Documentary evidence, chronicled in a new book, tell a different story. Wilbur, older than Orville by four years, was the aeronautical engineer who designed the airplane. So how did our common knowledge of the first flight go so wrong?   

Orville was Wilbur’s student and helpmate. But he was also the keeper of history. The Wright brothers’ story was the product of death, a friendship and a biography that would set the stage for every future chronicle. Fred C. Kelly published The Wright Brothers: A Biography Authorized by Orville Wright in 1943. Wilbur Wright died in 1912 from typhoid fever. Orville would live until 1948, the survivor who gave access to some family letters and documents to Kelly, a friend who adhered to the dictate that Orville must approve every page of the biography. The book is ultimately Orville’s version of events, which was that the brothers deserved equal credit for the invention of the airplane. (Indeed, Orville’s name appears in the biography 337 times to Wilbur’s 267.)

Wilbur Wright was the man who really invented controlled flight, though it is nearly heretical to say so. Orville, though a gifted mechanic, never had the genius to make the leap from theory to application.

Wilbur Wright dreamed of flying since he was 17, laid up with the broken jaw that kept him from college. Read how Wilbur drove the progress of flight and brought his little brother along for the ride at Smithsonian.

The crew members of the International Space Station have a new friend- a robot, delivered this past summer. CIMON is a small, 3D-printed robot that resembles a cross between Wilson the volleyball from Castaway and HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey. It moves by the action of two internal fans, and communicates by artificial intelligence.

CIMON, short for Crew Interactive MObile companioN, is the first interactive flight companion to take part in an ISS mission. The $6 million, basketball-sized robot was built by Airbus under a contract awarded by the German Aerospace Center (DLR). The purpose of the project is to see if an artificially intelligent bot can improve crew efficiency and morale during longer missions, including a possible mission to Mars.

In this video from the European Space Agency, CIMON shows off its stuff to German astronaut Alexander Gerst, but around the four minute mark, it starts acting like a stubborn toddler. Well, he is pretty young. Read more about CIMON at Gizmodo.

Have you ever heard of parrot fever? It sounds like a craze in which everyone wants a parrot, but it is the common name for an illness that was considered pretty serious in 1930. Some parrot owners fell ill with symptoms that resembled typhoid, but was not.  

This was a serious problem. Parrot fever is a very real disease—and an unpleasant one at that. Caused by the bacteria Chlamydia psittaci, parrot fever (or psittacosis) can be contracted after coming into close contact with infected parrots, pigeons, ducks, gulls, chickens, turkeys, and dozens of other bird species. The symptoms resemble pneumonia or typhoid fever, with victims suffering from extremely low white blood cell counts, high fevers, pounding headaches, and respiratory problems. Today the disease can be treated with antibiotics, but in 1930, 20 percent of victims were expected to die.

The story of parrot fever, however, would prove to spread much faster than the disease itself.

We still don't know how many actual cases of parrot fever befell Americans in 1930, but we know that President Herbert Hoover banned parrots from entering the country, and many existing pets paid a steep price. Read about the parrot panic of 1930 at Mental Floss.

(Image credit: Heitor Augusto Pereira)

Maru loves being outside, but he acts as if those colorful leaves are some kind of litter he doesn't really want to step on. Hana? She doesn't care; she'll crunch right through them. Oh look! The cats have their own tree house! Of course they do.

The minimalist maps of the New York subway system are a triumph of design. They aren't meant to be accurate like a surface map, but to be easy to read and useful for commuters and tourists alike. Jake Berman of Fifty Three Studio harnessed that style to diagram the plots of your favorite movies, TV shows, and plays.



Here's a closer look at one map that you might be able to read. Berman has plot maps for many of the Star Wars tales, including The Star Wars Holiday Special. Firefly and Serenity, too.

Prints of these maps are available for sale at Berman's website and at Etsy. Hint: it's easiest to enlarge the photos at Etsy. Berman also sells prints of his real world maps. -via Laughing Squid

Lions are bigger and more powerful than hyenas, but there is strength in numbers. In this outtake from The Lion King (actually a clip from Dynasties from BBC Earth), a lion is caught out on his own and is surrounded by a pack of hyenas. Not only are they circling him, but they are laughing at him. If there were dialogue, it would be provided by Jeremy Irons and Whoopie Goldberg.  -via Digg

Spiders are not mammals. They're not even vertebrates. Yet one species of jumping spider nurses its young with protein-rich secretions comparable to milk until they reach adulthood. Meet Toxeus magnus, a jumping spider that mimics the appearance of an ant, and which displays a suspiciously mammalian method of raising spiderlings.

Zhanqi Chen, a postdoc at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’s Center for Integrative Conservation, and his colleagues began to investigate parental behavior in T. magnus after noticing that the spiders’ breeding nests consisted of either several adults or a single adult female and her young—an observation that suggested that the mothers engaged in long-term care. Upon further investigation, the researchers made a puzzling finding: Baby spiders steadily grew bigger despite never leaving their nests, and their mothers did not appear to be bringing them any food.

There were several potential explanations for where the offsprings’ nutrition came from, Chen says, such as trophic eggs (unfertilized eggs stockpiled for food) or regurgitation (when a parent vomits up food they ate to feed its young). But the team’s observations led them to another, unexpected possibility. While recording data on the growing spiders’ body sizes one evening, Chen spotted some spiderlings attached to their mother’s body—it looked to him just like a mammal latching on to its mother’s breast. “I had many hypotheses, but this one was not included,” Chen tells The Scientist. “At that point, I was so excited, I couldn’t sleep.”

Analysis showed that the milk contains fat, sugar, and four times the protein of cow's milk. One's immediate thoughts go to the possibility of seeing spider milk in stores, next to the almond milk and goat's milk. However, that would take a lot of spiders, and the world's tiniest milking machines. Read more about the discovery at The Scientist. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Zhanqi Chen)

The Jewish a cappella group Six13 (previously at Neatorama) has released the video for their 2018 Chanukah anthem. It's a holiday parody of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" that retells the story of the Maccabean Revolt and details some traditional Chanukah customs. Chanukah (or Hanukkah) begins on December 2 and runs through December 10 this year. -via Boing Boing