Genetic testing companies are doing great business- people are even paying to have genetic studies done on their dogs. This is a boon to researchers, as a new study used 6,000 such canine genetic profiles with permission of the dog owners. Adam Boyko and Aaron Sams of Embark Veterinary, Inc. were able to pinpoint the source of blue eyes in Siberian huskies.  

The expansive analysis revealed that blue eyes in Siberian huskies appear to be associated with a duplication on what is known as canine chromosome 18, which is located near a gene called ALX4. This gene plays an important role in mammalian eye development, leading the researchers to suspect that the duplication “may alter expression of ALX4, which may lead to repression of genes involved in eye pigmentation,” Aaron Sams of Embark tells Inverse’s Sarah Sloat.

The genetic variation was also linked to blue eyes in non-merle Australian shepherds. Just one copy of the mutated sequence was enough to give dogs either two blue eyes, or one blue and one brown eye, a phenomenon known as “heterochromia.” It would seem, however, that duplication on chromosome 18 is not the only factor influencing blue eye color: Some dogs that had the mutation did not have blue eyes.

When a scientist asks why, the answer is a gene mutation that they can pinpoint. The rest of us want to know why that mutation became dominant for the breed as a whole. Maybe we'll find out eventually. Read more about the research at Smithsonian.

How impossibly random could a Halloween costume be? That's what I thought, until someone pointed out that this is a reference to Kevin's Famous Chili from the TV series The Office. It doesn't say that on the package, because this is a parody of unlicensed costumes. -via reddit

Some personal news: CVS gave me a 5’8” receipt today pic.twitter.com/75dPvFQvDK

— Emma Keane (@eckeane) October 3, 2018

The drugstore chain CVS is famous for its long paper receipts. They have become an internet meme, as people proudly pose for pictures with receipts that are longer than they are tall. How did that happen? A lot of it has to do with customer tracking. When you sign up for a rewards program at any business, software enables the store to track your purchases and target you for advertising. At CVS, this is called the ExtraCare program, which will save you money on certain items, but comes with a lot more advertising.  

Receipts aren’t just proof of purchase anymore; they’re a forum for stores to tell you things. That still seems true. My receipts offered me information about other, even more rewarding rewards programs I could join. The told me about satisfaction surveys I could take where I might win $1,000, or $3,000, depending on the drugstore. They updated me on my rewards points. They explained how rewards points work. It was like a satisfying chat with a very rewards-points-oriented friend.

All this information lengthens your receipts, which CVS embraced more than most stores. Rachel Sugar experimented with different stores, keeping track of her receipts when using reward programs and bypassing them. Read what she found, as well as the history of the CVS receipt meme, at Vox. 

If you've ever played Fallout, you probably thought about how nice it would be to use Fast Travel in real life. Getting anywhere you want in a hurry may seem like a great superpower to have... until there's a glitch. That's the way real life is like a video game- there's always the possibility of a glitch. The stakes are higher in real life. -via reddit

Hollywood produces around 600 new movies every year. The movie industry stretches back more than 100 years. And all those movies had props. So it stands to reason that quite a few of those props have surprising, funny, or at least interesting stories.

Some of those stories may be familiar to film buffs or Neatorama readers, but others will be new to you. Even if you've never heard of the film, you'll now remember the prop.

 
See all 20 props and the weird trivia behind them at Cracked.  

Fitness model Cassey Ho lets us in on a little secret. She shows us "how to do the IG fitness girl butt twist."

Harvard THUD is a small percussion ensemble from -you guessed it- Harvard University. THUD stands for The Harvard University Drummers. They use both conventional percussion instruments and everyday items like dishes to create music. Listen to them perform Journey's classic song on Boomwhackers. I bet it sounds nice on bells, too. -via Laughing Squid

The obituary for Rick Stein of Wilmington, Delaware, tells us that he was 71, and that his memorial service will be held on November 9. That's about all the concrete information it has. The rest is a mystery. For example, it appears that everyone who knew him thought they knew what he did for a living, but none of their stories match. His daughter thought he owned several restaurants. His brother said he was a jeweler and an oriental rug dealer. Other relatives were sure he was a writer, but couldn't agree whether he was a political satirist, sports columnist, or a YouTube star.

When told of his uncle's disappearance, Edward Stein said he was baffled since he believed Stein worked as a trail guide in Rocky Mountain National Park. "He took me on a hike up the Lily Peak Trail back in the 90s. He knew every berry, bush and tree on that trail." Nephew James Stein of Los Angeles claimed his uncle was an A&R consultant for Bad Boy records and ran a chain of legal recreational marijuana dispensaries in Colorado called Casablunta. Niece Courtney Stein, a former Hollywood agent, said her uncle had worked as a contributing writer for Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm and was currently consulting on a new series with Larry David.

People who knew Stein have reported his occupation as everything from gourmet chef and sommelier to botanist, electrician, mechanic and even spy novelist.

No one knows when or where Stein died, either. Investigators say he was piloting a plane that disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean. Others say he died in a hospital. And some have a suspicion that he didn't die at all. Read more in the obituary at Delaware Online. The messages left with the obituary are full of people who recall meeting Stein under outrageously fictional circumstances. -via Digg

Update: The obituary was written by Stein's daughter.

What is this? You'll never be able to guess. It's a foveola, the central region of the retina, in the back of your eye, magnified to 40 times its size. This amazing image by Hanen Khabou won 6th place in the 44th annual Nikon Small World Microphotography Competition. Photographers, scientists, imaging experts, and amateurs around the world submit their best images of the microscopic world we rarely get to see, and the 2018 winners have been selected. Continue reading to see the top ten.

Doctor Who is a British science fiction TV series that's been running off and on since 1963. I must admit that I never really understood what it was about until Screen Junkies dropped this Honest Trailer. The show will never die, because it is set in a world that can be altered in any way for any reason, like changing the genre of the story from science fiction to comedy to romance, or to expand or contract to adjust to a changing production budget. And they've well demonstrated that cast changes will not affect the show's longevity. In fact, there's so much to say that Screen Junkies had to make two Honest Trailers to cover the series. While the top video covers the 2005-present era, here's the one for Doctor Who in its early days, 1963-1989.

I'm not sure I understand the show more now, but I'm pretty sure I want my own dalek.

The persistence of the legendary Sasquatch has quite a history. The stories of a giant ape exist pretty close to the line between plausibility and implausibility. After all, there was a prehistoric giant ape called Giganthropithecus. Some extinct species overlapped with humans enough to become part of our oral history. And when you don't know exactly what that big, hairy animal that you're running from is, it's easy to think of a terrifying legend.     

Many Native American cultures have written and oral legends that tell of a primate-type creature roaming the continent's forests. In these tales, the animals are sometimes more human-like and, other times, more ape-like. In the mythology of the Kwakiutl tribe that once heavily populated the western coast of British Columbia, Dzunukwa is a big, hairy female that lives deep in the mountainous forests.

According to the legend, she spends most of her time protecting her children and sleeping, hence why she’s rarely seen. In fact, the name “Sasquatch” comes from Halkomelem, a language spoken by several First Nation peoples that occupied the upper Northwest into British Columbia.

In California, there are century-old pictographs drawn by the Yokuts that appear to show a family of big giant creatures with long, shaggy hair. Called “Mayak datat” by the tribe, the image bears a resemblance to the commonly-held vision of Bigfoot.

Those stories continued with historical incidents, like a brawl with a group of prospectors (possibly drunk) in 1924, a grizzly bear known as "Bigfoot," huge footprints found in 1958, and the Patterson-Gimlin film footage of 1967. Some have been exposed as hoaxes, others have alternate plausible explanations, and many we just don't know enough about. Read about all of these incidents and more in a Sasquatch timeline at Popular Mechanics.

(Image credit: Alexander Migl)

New York Comic Con has come and gone, but the best cosplayers who attended have been photographed for our pleasure. As you can see, Venom was a very popular character this year, but the con was full of eye-catching characters from comic books, movies, fantasy, and video games. See a gallery of the best at Geeks Are Sexy.

(Image credit: Flickr user Mike Cicchetti)

The Voyager 2 spacecraft was launched 41 years ago, and is now 11 billion miles from Earth. While that itself is amazing, it is even more staggering that the spacecraft is still sending back data, decades after the communication system was expected to fail. Voyager 2 measures cosmic rays. A recent increase in the number of cosmic rays detected indicate that the spacecraft is reaching the edge of the heliosphere, the limit of our sun's solar wind.

It’s believed that the heliosphere blocks a lot of these rays from reaching our solar system, but as you travel closer to the edge and the barrier starts to thin out, more cosmic rays become detectable. Voyager 2’s increased measurements suggest that it’s inching closer to the heliopause, and could soon enter the interstellar medium.

And if we’re going off of history, the craft could be crossing the threshold any day now. In 2012, Voyager 1 experienced a similar spike in cosmic rays about three months before it passed through the heliopause, becoming the first craft to invade interstellar space.

The exact location of Voyager 2 is a guess based on the data it sends. Read more about the milestone at Discover magazine.  -via reddit

You can keep up with the status of both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 at NASA.

(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Two men in southern France couldn't wait to strap on their skis and go schussing down the mountain. It's only October and there's no snow yet, but a deep layer of fallen leaves can be just as slippery! This makes for a cool video, but it can honestly damage your skis badly. Maybe they are developing methods for the coming years, when rising temperatures will change the skiing industry. -via Laughing Squid

It's not unusual for food companies to bring out seasonal flavors for Christmas, but they are usually flavors of other foods associated with the holidays, like peppermint or egg nog or pumpkin spice. Iceland is offering a new flavor of crisps this holiday season- that of a Christmas tree. Okay, in case you're confused, Iceland refers not to the country, but to a British grocery store chain. Crisps are what we Americans know as potato chips. But the Christmas tree flavor is real. The chips are called “Luxury Christmas Tree Flavour Salted Hand-Cooked Crisps,” and the Christmas tree is a pine.

The crisps use the oil from real pine needles to help get that unique Christmas tree flavor. Some point out that pine nuts are a popular add to salads and soups and dishes like pesto—but how far does that piney love go? Enough to look at a Christmas tree and think, “delicious”? Maybe if these crisps had been released in November or something, but on October 8, they’re a little difficult to fathom.

Bon apetit!