by Mike Adams
Department of Biology
Eastern Connecticut State University
Willimantic, Connecticut

It has long been theorized that the week prior to an exam is an extremely dangerous time for the relatives of college students. Ever since I began my teaching career, I heard vague comments, incomplete references and unfinished remarks, all alluding to the “Dead Grandmother Problem.”

Few colleagues would ever be explicit in their description of what they knew, but I quickly discovered that anyone who was involved in teaching at the college level would react to any mention of the concept. In my travels I found that a similar phenomenon is known in other countries. In Eng- land it is called the “Graveyard Grannies” problem, in France the “Chere Grand’mere,” while in Bulgaria it is inexplicably known as “The Toadstool Waxing Plan” (I may have had some problems here with the translation. Since the revolution this may have changed anyway.) Although the problem may be international in scope it is here in the USA that it reaches its culmination, so it is only fitting that the first warnings originate here also.

The basic problem can be stated very simply:

A student’s grandmother is far more likely to die suddenly just before the student takes an exam, than at any other time of year.

While this idea has long been a matter of conjecture or merely a part of the folklore of college teaching, I can now confirm that the phenomenon is real. For over twenty years I have collected data on this supposed relationship, and have not only confirmed what most faculty had suspected, but also found some additional aspects of this process that are of potential importance to the future of the country. The results presented in this report provide a chilling picture and should waken the profession and the general public to a serious health and sociological problem before it is too late.

On April 3rd, 1973, 38 years ago today, Martin Cooper made a phone call while walking down the street in New York City. At the time, he was the general manager of Motorola's communications division. He had promoted the idea that phone numbers shouldn't be tethered to a place, but to people. And they should be able to take their phones with them, anywhere they went.

When Martin Cooper made that first cell phone call, he did not make it to another cell phone. People didn't have them yet -- who could he call?

No, he made the cell phone call to a land line -- specifically, to the land line of his chief competitor at Bell Labs. Motorola had beaten Bell to become the first company to make personal cell phones work. Cooper, you might say, rubbed it in. Think how the Bell Labs research engineer must have felt when he heard Cooper calling him from the noisy streets of Manhattan.

That first cell phone was so big that it was often described as resembling a shoe, or a brick. It weighed 2½ pounds. Cooper would joke to friends and colleagues that the calls from that phone would have to be short in duration: Who had the strength to hold it to an ear for very long?

Cooper, now 82 years old, still works in communications. And he carries his cell phone with him everywhere -but not the 1973 model. Link -via reddit

The following is an article from the book Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Plunges Into History Again.

How a lady and her hat scandalized Paris.

In 1905, a painting shown in Paris shocked the public. Critics reviled it; religious and conservative moralists made speeches against it. The artist who painted it was vilified as a "wild beast" and a victimizer of women. But the painting could hardly be called pornographic. It wasn't even a nude; it was only a portrait of a fully-clothed woman with a hat.

THE EXHIBIT

While a group of nontraditional painters prepared for a fall exhibit in Paris, their president, Monsieur Jourdain, urged them not to show Woman with a Hat. Jourdain considered himself a forward thinker who fought against the narrow-minded traditions of France's powerful art establishment. But he also knew trouble when he saw it. He warned the group that this modernistic work, by a struggling artist named Henri Matisse, would ruin their exhibition.

THE WILD BEASTS

When Le Salon des Independents opened its doors and Parisians got their first look at Woman with a Hat, they either howled with laughter or gaped in horrified shock. The entire exhibition was derided. Matisse's painting became the star clown in a three-ring joke. The verdict of the public, and most of the art critics, came in loud and clear. Woman with a Hat was outrageous "barbouillage et gribouillage" (smears and scribbles). It was called barbaric. It was an insult to women as well as to art. Matisse and the rest were nothing but fauves ...wild beasts.

THE PAINTING

Woman with a Hat was a portrait of Matisse's wife, Amelie, wearing an enormous, feathered hat. Critics thought the painting looked strangely unfinished and crude. What shocked them most were those odd, clashing colors that decorated the feathers of Madame Matisse's hat and illuminated her face. Parisians might be sophisticated, but this painting confused and repelled them. Amelie Matisse was a respectable brunette, but in the portrait she sported brick red hair, an unnatural slash of dark green creasing her forehead, and mint green shading on the bridge of her nose. How could a man paint his wife in such a fashion? Rumors began to fly that all was not well in the marriage of Henri and Amelie.

THE PAINTER

For Henri Matisse, the scandal was just another dark episode in a painful struggle. Born in Bohain, a poor unlovely, industrial town in northern France, Henri was already a lawyer when he dismayed his working-class parents by deciding that art was his life's true calling. Painting never came easily to Matisse; he studied constantly. When he failed to break into the prestigious mainstream of French art, his family labeled him an embarrassment with no talent. But Henri, as uncertain and depressed as he was, had bigger worries than rejection. By 1905, he was 35, a married man with three children -and he was broke.

He'd pinned his hoped on the 1905 exhibition. A hardworking perfectionist, Matisse believed that at last he was bringing something new and valuable to art -the joy of bright color. He painted Woman with a Hat to communicate his emotions and, he hoped, the soul of his subject. Matisse didn't portray the true colors of nature because he was determined to paint the colors of his heart.

THE MODEL

Amelie Matisse was a rebel with a cause, and her cause was her hubby's genius. Madame Matisse might not know art, but she knew Henri; whatever he did had to be great. Born in Toulouse in southwestern France, Amelie took Henri to he birthplace. When she showed her husband -a child of the cold, gray north- the hot colors of the south, she changed their lives, and the future of painting, forever.

Henri kept going back to the exhibit, fretting over the jeers and insults. But Amelie stayed at home. She never lost faith in Woman with a Hat. The world must change; she would not! And sure enough, slowly, the world changed.

THE BUYERS

Two American art lovers, Gertrude Stein and her brother, Leo, visited the exhibition again and again, mostly to see Woman with a Hat. They knew it was a complete break with tradition, but while others were horrified, they were impressed. A week before the exhibition closed, Leo offered to buy the painting for 200 francs. Henri could hardly wait to get rid of the unlucky canvas. His morale and his funds were very low. But Madame Matisse held out for 500 francs. The extra 200 francs would buy their daughter's clothing for the winter. She told her husband to sit tight.

Amelie's faith in the painting proved justified. Woman with a Hat became a turning point for Matisse. Leo Stein not only paid the 500, but he and Gertrude also promoted Henri Matisse among the people they knew (along with another artistic upstart named Pablo Picasso).

THE LEGACY

The artists of Le Salon des Independents eventually took on the term wild beast with pride, calling themselves the fauve movement. The fuss over Woman with a Hat made Matisse famous as well as notorious, and he became a leader of the French avant-garde. In time, the world became excited by Matisse's revolutionary vision of art. Critic praised him as the creator of modern painting, the liberator of color. In fact, Matisse was so famous and so well loved, that some young artists found him too respectable, too bourgeois.

As for Madame Matisse, she later said that she was at her best in crisis, "when the house burns down." It never surprised her that the world came around to her point of view. Years after her death, visitors at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art still cluster around her portrait, the delightful Woman with a Hat.

______________________________

The article above is reprinted with permission from Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges Into History Again.

The book is a compendium of entertaining information chock-full of facts on a plethora of history topics. Uncle John's first plunge into history was a smash hit - over half a million copies sold! And this sequel gives you more colorful characters, cultural milestones, historical hindsight, groundbreaking events, and scintillating sagas.

Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts. Check out their website here: Bathroom Reader Institute

Some of these cases are more bizarre than others. People can fake illness, and can be pretty good at fooling family, friends, and medical practitioners. But the story of Mary Toft was totally over the edge.

Toft captured the imagination of England when she "gave birth" to several rabbits and parts of other animals in the presence of numerous physicians and skeptics. The charade went on for months, perpetuated by daily newspapers, which were still a novelty. And back then, every newspaper resembled the Weekly World News, in which Bigfoot attacks are every bit as newsworthy as local politics.

It's true that physicians confirmed the story, although they were under political pressure to do so. Read this story and more at Cracked. Link

The Surfing Trooper escaped the Empire to surf around the world. Last he was seen in the waves of Bali but what will be his next destinations? For sure he will post a lot of pictures from his journey on his blog. Have you seen him?

Link

It's time for the Name That Weird Invention! contest. Steven M. Johnson comes up with all sorts of crazy ideas in his Museum of Possibilities posts. What should we name this one? The commenters suggesting the funniest and wittiest names will win a free T-shirt from the NeatoShop. Put on your thinking cap and leave an entry in the comments.

Contest rules: one entry per comment, though you can enter as many as you like. Please make a selection of the T-shirt you want (may we suggest the Science T-shirt, Funny T-shirt, and Artist-designed T-shirt categories?) alongside your entry. If you don't select a shirt, then you forfeit the prize. Good luck!

Update: First prize for naming it and a t-shirt goes to Scott-O, who calls it Asscender. Second prize is awarded to ed4linda for calling it the SUC: Sport Utility Compact-o-van. However, ed4linda did not select a t-shirt.

During April and May, Steven will be off writing a book describing his techniques for thinking up whimsical product concepts, and will not be submitting images to Neatorama.com. The Name That Wierd Invention contest will resume Monday, May 30.

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Felice Cohen lives in a Manhattan "microstudio" that measures 12' x7'. My home office on the back porch is twice that! She pays $700 a month rent and considers it a bargain. That's because the average apartment rent in this Upper West Side neighborhood is $3,600. Link -via Metafilter

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Being an only child is not so bad when you have a dog to play with. But watch out for a dog who rolls dice this well -he will beat you to the finish! -via Arbroath

You may think the reason we don't have cats as doctors is because they don't have opposable thumbs or medical degrees, but there are plenty of other reasons, which you can see at Medium Large. Link -via Maximum Verbosity

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This extremely elaborate three-minute Japanese ad for a cell phone is way more entertaining than it should be. A wooden ball plays Bach's Cantata 147 in a forest just by rolling down a track designed by Kenjiro Matsuo. No splicing or video magic -this is the actual music played by a contraption that Rube Goldberg or any musician would be proud of. Link

Dr. ZDogg and Dr. Harry are physicians and comedians who bring you medical advice that you can laugh at, or entertainment that might save your life. They've produced several musical videos on subjects ranging from a doctor's workday to STDs. One in particular instructs men on how to check for testicular cancer. The video made me laugh out loud alone in the room, but is just slightly too adult to embed here.

I awoke one morning from a vivid fever dream in which the heavenly spirit of Michael Jackson appeared to me in the form of a sequined glove lovingly grasping a perfectly smooth oblong jade stone. On closer inspection, the stone had a small flaw that slowly, menacingly enlarged, until the entire dreamspace filled with its malignant presence. MJ’s distinctive voice intoned, “They’re ignorant, Dr. Dogg, they must be taught. Touch these young males in a way that I am no longer able to. Hee hee…OOOH!”

My dream-self shifted uneasily, and before the King of Pop could finish I awoke to find myself drenched in sweat, one hand “down there,” instinctively curled in a primitive protective gesture. It was this very fever sweat, noted so crudely by Dr. Harry in his screed above, that dampened the axillae of my garment. Having rushed to his home to convey the high mission given us, I couldn’t contain my enthusiasm at the prospect of shielding the young from such a cancerous scourge.

You have to see it for yourself. And guys, be sure to check yourselves every month. http://zdoggmd.com/2010/11/manhood-in-the-mirror/ -Thanks, Zubin!

Even though we are already into April, March Madness wraps up tonight and Monday as Kentucky, UConn, VCU, and Butler battle it out in the Final Four. While waiting for the games, you'll certainly want to spend the weekend catching up on everything going on at Neatorama!

Jill Harness posted a collection of the best Hilarious Paper Street Signs on Wednesday.

She also had a roundup of The Eleven Most Terrible Kid's Toys Ever.

History is stranger than fiction, as you'll see in The Strange Fate of Big Nose George, courtesy of Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.

From the Annals of Improbable Research, we learned about The Travels of the Lorenz Butterfly.

Mental_floss gave us The History of Dairy Products, which is spelled g-o-a-t.

This week, Neatorama's literature blog Bitlit proudly introduced a new book: The Cube by Nat Karody. The first two chapters are already up. You might want to subscribe to Bitlit's RSS feed so you won't miss any new installments as they are posted.

At NeatoBambino, we saw the return of the Decipher The Doodle Contest. We have a lot of funny and imaginative entries already, and will announce the winners the contest will remain open for a couple more days if you want to enter!

Steven Johnson came up with a great drawing for the Name That Weird Invention contest this week! First place goes to amanderpanderer, who called it “Petal Stool…you know, for putting women up on.” Ha! Second place to Mysfyt for “The Sit and Stay-Man (Petal Powered).” Both win t-shirts from the NeatoShop!

In this week's What Is It? game, the first correct answer came from Blake. This is a truth window {wiki}, built into a wall of a house to show what the wall is made of (straw, in this case). Read more about them at the What Is It? blog. The funniest answer came from Iago, who said it was Rumpelstiltskin’s personal wall safe. Ha! Both winners get t-shirts from the NeatoShop. But you really should read all the comments because we had a ton of funny answers!

Once you've read what we have to offer for this week, you can delve into the archives for our past exclusive articles at The Best of Neatorama, or check out other links around the web with the NeatoHub. And thanks for spending some of your time with us!

Look, something's wrong with Neatorama! Not to worry, that's just the Hurrdurr version. You can make any website look like this by going through HURRDURR.IT, new from the folks at Urlesque, which is going by the name Hurrlesque today. http://hurrdurr.it/

[caption id="attachment_44063" align="aligncenter" width="350" caption="Even the Wicked Witch is no match for the Scarecrow!"][/caption]

Amazon sells the Contech Electronics CRO101 Scarecrow Motion-Activated Sprinkler. The normal purpose of such a device is to scare pets and wildlife (and maybe kids) away from your lawn or garden. However, many folks have their own ideas of how it should be used, as you'll see in the seven pages of customer-submitted images. http://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-media/product-gallery/B000071NUS/ref=cm_ciu_pdp_images_all -via b3ta

"Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door." Sure, it's an old saw, but it's also literally true.

Between 1838, when the United States Patent Office opened its doors, and 1996, the year that Jack Hope wrote a story about the device for American Heritage magazine, more than 4,400 mousetrap patents were awarded in dozens of different subclasses, including "Electrocuting and Explosive," "Swinging Striker," "Choking or Squeezing," and 36 others. That's an average of more than two dozen patents every year for more than 150 years. What makes that number more spectacular is that 95 percent of those patents were given to amateur, or first-time inventors.

That's more patents than have been awarded for any other device, according to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History (NMAH), which is currently celebrating the mousetrap by displaying several different designs on the first floor of the museum in one of several long glass cases that greet visitors, both new and returning, when they enter the building.

Nicholas Jackson writes in The Atlantic about various mousetrap designs and how they represent the entrepreneurial spirit. Included is a gallery of some of the more interesting mousetrap patents recorded over the years. Link -via Look at This