(YouTube link)

A new supercut featuring 172 movies. Turn on the closed captioning (CC button) to read the movie titles. -via the Presurfer

Brian and Cece McCarthy of Pleasanton, California, were vacationing with their son Dylan at Lake Tahoe when thier car was stolen. They woke to suspicious sounds in the night, and saw from the window of their cabin that there was a bear in their car!

After the black bear climbed completely inside the car it apparently couldn’t get out. In its struggle, the bear hit the gear shift and the car rolled away for a wild, albeit short, ride down the McCarthy’s driveway, over several boulders, only stopping when it slammed into a neighbor’s front porch.

“All of the sudden we look out the window again and the car is gone, the bear is down the driveway – we have this steep driveway coming out of our cabin – he’s down the driveway across the street,” said Cece McCarthy.

The car was ripped open on impact, and the bear escaped. The Prius was a total loss, and a sheriff's deputy wrote the incident down as "a bear burglary." Link -via Arbroath

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Mama's tired, but Junior wants to play! It just goes to show there's not all that much difference between humans and other species. This footage was taken at the Berlin Zoo. -via The Daily What

Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website.

The "evil twin" is a very old plot device in many forms of entertainment.

Edgar Allan Poe used the device in the short story William Wilson. The story (almost a perfect pattern to the much later "evil twins" of television) deals with two twin, one moral, one amoral. The evil twin keeps doing his bad deeds and the good twin is good and ethical -and, of course, the evil twin gets the good twin into lots of trouble. In a bizarre Poe twist, the evil twin happens to have the same name as the good twin (William Wilson) and he was born on the same day (January 19th -Poe's birthday).

Evil twins were portrayed in the movies such as 1939's The Man in the Iron Mask (based on the Alexander Dumas novel) and Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator (1940) in which Charlie plays a nice Jewish barber, who has history's ultimate "evil twin" Adenoid Hynkel (an obvious satire of Adolph Hitler).

Comic books have probably had more different and varied evil twins than any other entertainment genre, with Superman, Batman, Robin, The Flash, Wonder Woman, and almost every other classic superhero (or superheroine) worth their salt being plagued by their own "evil twin."

OK, in doing research regarding TV's evil twin characters, I really didn't find that much material out there, so, I not only looked over the limited data available, but I racked my own memory of all the many "evil twins" on all the countless TV shows I have seen over the past 40 or so years.

As far as I know, I believe the very first ever "evil twin" in TV series history was seen on The Adventures of Superman, a series I never missed as a kid, starring George Reeves, my first ever hero. In 1953, Reeves played a dual role (he actually played three different roles, if you count Superman and Clark Kent as two) of a criminal named "Boulder," who dressed up as Superman (complete with a bullet-proof vest) and extorts money from local merchants (I mean, who is going to turn down Superman?). Reeves, a brilliant and talented actor, never relished playing the role of Superman, and supposedly this was one of his favorite episodes.

"Evil twins" weren't all that prevalent in the 1950s, but in the '60s they were to skyrocket and achieve their greatest fame. In a 1960 episode of the popular Western Bonanza, called "The Outlaws," the "evil twin that is portrayed in an episode that is a stretch" first comes to light. The odds against anyone having an actual "evil twin" who is not related to them in any way are, of course, pretty steep. But in this episode, two outlaw brothers who look exactly like both Hoss and Little Joe (Dan Blocker and Michael Landon) and use the old "switch identities" routine on the Cartwright brothers.

There has never been a machine that can keep going indefinitely, or that produces more energy than it consumes. That never stopped people from trying to invent one. Dark Roasted Blend has a collection of dozens of designs that reached for the title of perpetual motion, from antiquity to modern times. The water wheel shown is turned by the gravity of falling water, but the other side of the wheel pumps the water back up -or at least that was the plan. Link

The National Football League begins its new season on Thursday. Today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss will determine how psyched up you are! Football fans: can you name the starting quarterbacks for all 32 NFL teams playing this weekend? Some of them may surprise you. You have five minutes -and mental_floss even gives you a starting hint. Good luck! Link

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Glen Milner produced this short film about the ritualized life of a modern-day Geisha in the city of Kyoto, Japan. -via Nag on the Lake

Christopher Anspach of Newton, Iowa, was sentenced to serve ten days in jail after he pleaded guilty to not returning books and other media to the Newton Public Library. He checked out the items earlier this year and failed to respond when library staff tried to contact him several times. They then turned to matter over to police.

Anspach pleaded guilty August 31 to a misdemeanor theft count in connection with his failure to return 27 separate items (books and other media) that library brass valued at $770.67. Along with being ordered to pay restitution to the library, Anspach was fined $625.

Anspach, a Pizza Hut employee, is currently serving his sentence at the Jasper County jail.

There is no word on what happened to the library materials. Link -via Arbroath

Insects are so numerous and so varied that are an evolutionary success story. Much of this success is attributed to an insect's wings, which can do so many things besides fly. Different bugs use their wings to communicate, attract a mate, hide, protect themselves, and more. Wired has a gallery of close-up views of the special things wings can do. For example: the butterfly pictured doesn't need camouflage, since its wings are so transparent as to render it invisible to predators. Link

(Image credit: Flickr user Maki Aoyama)

Around 100 villagers in the Philippines worked together Sunday to bind and retrieve a monstrous 6 meter long crocodile that has been terrorizing the community for months. The crocodile is an endangered species, and will be relocated to an ecotourism park.

The crocodile — weighing 2,370 pounds (1,075 kilograms) and estimated to be at least 50 years old — is the biggest caught alive in the Philippines in recent years. Wildlife officials were trying to confirm whether it was the largest such catch in the world, said Theresa Mundita Lim of the government's Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau.

It was captured alive after a three-week hunt in Bunawan township in Agusan del Sur province, where villagers have been terrified. A child was killed two years ago in the township by a crocodile that was not caught, and a croc is suspected of killing a fisherman missing since July. Villagers witnessed a crocodile killing a water buffalo last month.

However, Wildlife official Ronnie Sumiller says there still may be an even larger crocodile in the area, based on eyewitness reports. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jnB_VJ8Pz1FTe_pBAlOHunRS6L9g?docId=ff8bcc646d2945b094bf619a3c97a001 -via The Daily What

(Image credit: AP)

It's once again time for our collaboration with the always amusing What Is It? Blog. Can you guess what the pictured item is? Can you make up something interesting?

Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many guesses as you'd like in separate comments. Post no URLs or weblinks, as doing so will forfeit your entry. Two winners: the first correct guess and the funniest (albeit ultimately wrong) guess will win T-shirt from the NeatoShop.

Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize, okay? May we suggest the Science T-Shirt, Funny T-Shirt and Artist-Designed T-Shirts?

For more clues, check out the What Is It? Blog. Good luck!

Update: the object pictured is a cobbler's tool for stretching and holding leather when making a shoe. Quite a few people guessed it was a clamp, but Winslow was the first to mention shoes, so he wins a t-shirt! Amanderpanderer had the funniest answer, amirite? "All ladies know this...it's a speculum. Gynocologists seem to think it works best when it's put in the freezer for a few minutes first." For that, she also wins a t-shirt from the NeatoShop.

by Seth Jarndyl, Improbable Research staff

What is the lengthiest spoken oath regularly required of witnesses in a formal legal trial? I believe the answer is: 374 words, in the legal courts of Burma (now Myanmar), until at least the middle of the nineteenth century.

That, anyway, is the longest I have found in examining legal documents and historical reports from the nations of the world over the past five hundred years. If anyone knows of, and can document, a longer oath, I would of course be pleased to hear of it.

The Burmese Oath

A English translation of the oath appears in Kenneth R.H. Mackenzie’s 1853 book Burmah and the Burmese, published in London. Mackenzie writes:

Witnesses, both in the civil and criminal causes, are sometimes examined upon oath, though not always. The oath is written in a small book of pa1m-leaves, and is held over the head of the witness. Foreigners, however, take their own oaths.

Mackenzie calls the small book The Book of Imprecations, but says that “the Burmese call it, the Book of the Oath.” It includes some sentiments for any witness who would testify untruthfully:

May all those who, in consequence of bribery from either party, do not speak the truth, incur the eight dangers and the ten punishments. May they be infected with all sorts of diseases.

Moreover, may they be destroyed by elephants, bitten and slain by serpents, killed and devoured by the devils and giants, the tigers, and other ferocious animals of the forest. May whoever asserts a falsehood be swallowed by the earth, may he perish by sudden death, may a thunderbolt from heaven slay him—the thunderbolt which is one of the arms of the Nat Deva.

Savoring the colorful research of an under-publicized researcher
compiled by Alice Shirrell Kaswell and Stephen Drew

This issue’s under-publicized scientist is Nicolas Guéguen, who finds significance, or at least fascination, in the goad of small things. He does what might be called voyeuristic microscopy, watching how people react to mundanely noticeable sights and sounds and touching. Many of the experiments involve young female confederates who are shaped or perfumed or who lay a hand upon strangers in particular ways. Generally, the test subjects who respond most vigorously are men.

Based at the University of Bretagne-Sud, France, Professor Guéguen has been pumping out publications since the year 2000. He honors the academic custom of referring to himself, in print, with the royal “we.”

His experiments probe a range of human behavior.

A study called “Women’s Bust Size and Men’s Courtship Solicitation,” ¹ describes how Professor Guéguen tested “the effect of a woman’s breast size on approaches made by males. We hypothesized that an increase in breast size would be associated with an increase in approaches by men.” The study ends with an 827-word assertion that “Our hypothesis was confirmed.”



A related experiment produced a study called “Bust Size and Hitchhiking: A Field Study.”² There Professor Guéguen reports that “1200 male and female French motorists were tested in a hitchhiking situation. A 20-year-old female confederate wore a bra which permitted variation in the size of cup to vary her breast size. She stood by the side of a road frequented by hitchhikers and held out her thumb to catch a ride. Increasing the bra-size of the female hitchhiker was significantly associated with an increase in number of male drivers, but not female drivers, who stopped to offer a ride.”

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Ashley Hackshaw (with help from her 4-year-old daughter) used 2,000 buttons to create a portrait of artist Frida Kahlo. Watch the process in this time-lapse video. Link -Thanks, Ashley!

No, it's not a fox at all, but a maned wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus), the largest canid in South America. The maned wolf is actually neither a wolf nor a fox, but is a canid with its own genus. With those long legs, this dog can grow to be three feet tall! See more pictures at The Featured Creature. Link -via TYWKIWDBI

(Image credit: Wikipedia user Sarefo)