Each military service has their own camouflage patterns, which are often copyrighted. The US Army's is called the Universal Camouflage Pattern. When it was developed, they skipped over the testing phase and went straight to using it in the field, which is where its flaws started showing up (pun intended). The reasons behind why some camouflage colors and patterns work and others don't involves the science of perception, which is explained here in a video from Half as Interesting. The camouflage part only takes five minutes; the rest is an ad. -via Digg

Way back in history, the king (or queen) owned the country and had absolute power over the people. His word was the law. Today, we still have kings, but European nations are ruled by parliaments or other bodies and abide by written law. The journey from absolute monarchy to the rule of law was gradual, which caused some problems. When Queen Elizabeth I died with no heir, it wasn't exactly all that clear ahead of time that King James VI of Scotland would become the English king. Even if that were a sure thing, it would take time to notify him and arrange a formal coronation. So there was an "interregnum," a period of about four months in which England appeared to have no official monarch.

As for the rule of law during the interregnum, it was less Camelot and more of The Purge. Quite a few people interpreted the absence of a monarch to mean the absence of law. And indeed, during other transfers of power, a general pardon was granted as part of coronation festivities. Clans along the Anglo-Scottish border stole sheep and cattle from their rivals. English citizens who objected to a foreign king vandalized state property. Catholics came out of hiding and re-consecrated their altars.

However, the idea of automatic succession had been firmly established for hundreds of years. While the rule of law had yet to be established as fully separate from the monarch, England was not "monarchless" during the interregnum. Even before he knew it, King James was technically king of England. Those who took advantage of the supposedly lawless period between monarchs did not get off scot-free (a phrase which has nothing to do with the King of Scotland). Read about this confusing time in legal history at Legal History Miscellany. -vis Strange Company

 



Every year, we get a new map of the most popular Halloween candy in each state. But fictional candy is even more fun. Janelle Shane of AI Weirdness gave a prompt for each state to an algorithm, such as "Product photo of the most popular halloween candy in Alabama" and snagged a picture of what machine learning has learned.

Shane soon found out that Halloween candy always seemed to mean some form of candy corn. So she changed some of the prompts  to mention "candy bar" and in some she made the state more prominent. That made some states (Tennessee and Wyoming stand out) seem to generate their own individual candy. In fact, it appears that all states did, since no candy was the most popular in more than one state.

Otherwise, we can assume that the algorithm learned that candy titles are usually random words or nonsense words. Which makes for some funny, if unappetizing, candy. Just like in the real world. Check out all the Halloween candies for 50 states and some territories at AI Weirdness. It's a bonus post attached to a previous post about Halloween candy, in which the generated candies are more familiar clones of existing sweets. -via Nag on the Lake

A mountain climber was making his way down the rock ridge of Mt. Nishidake near Chichibu City, Saitama Prefecture, Japan, with an attached GoPro camera. He didn't see the bears, but mama bear saw him descending toward her cub, so she went into attack mode and surprised him from behind. The climber, who does not give his name, immediately began screaming, kicking, and using a Hammer Fist. It could have ended much worse, but the mama bear fell and ran to her cub. The climber, now full of adrenaline, climbed back up to put some distance between himself and the bear, and to get a better view of where she might have gone. This happened on October first. He may still be there. -via reddit

Henry Paget held several titles: he was the 2nd Earl of Uxbridge, the 1st Marquess of Anglesey, and during the Battle of Waterloo, he was a cavalry commander. He also held several military ranks afterward, but it was at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 that Paget's leg was injured so badly that it was amputated.

Paget stayed at the house of Monsieur Hyacinthe Joseph Marie Paris during his surgery and recovery. Paris asked if he could have the amputated leg so he could bury it, and Paget consented. The leg was buried in a wooden box with an inscribed tombstone marking the spot.

Paget later used a wooden leg that was state-of-the-art at the time, with tendons and an articulated knee, so innovative that its maker applied for a patent. The discarded leg, however, became a tourist attraction in Belgium. This situation did not sit well with Paget or his descendants, and the controversy over the leg lasted until 1934! Read about Paget's right legs, both his first one and his wooden one, at Amusing Planet. 
 
If the name sounds familiar, this Henry Paget was the great-grandfather of another Henry Paget previously featured at Neatorama.

(Image credit: Constantinus Fidelio Coene)

The birds have declared war on earthbound animals, threatening them and making life miserable by bombing them with poop. They've even harnessed a rooster to provide more ammunition! The situation couldn't be more dire. The humans don't know what to do, and the dog is useless as usual, so it's up to the cats to save the day. You might not know it, but our feline friends have fighter jets at their disposal. Go figure.

This war movie from Aaron's Animals (previously at Neatorama) is incredibly elaborate and richly-designed, yet still as ridiculously stupid as cats flying fighter jets should be. It's got action, comedy, romance, and rooster poop. What else could you ask for?

In the 1970s, NBC was presented with an idea for merging a cop show with a medical show by focusing on forensic pathology. The show would revolve around a young, attractive medical examiner who solved crimes from the morgue. The premise of Quincy, M.E. was somewhat changed when the production snagged the very popular Jack Klugman for the role of Dr. Quincy. Klugman himself had a vision for the show. He wanted it to focus on people and their problems more than chase scenes and shooting. Klugman won that battle, which is one reason why Quincy M.E. scripts were 50% longer than that of a typical cop show.

Over time, the series focused more on little-known social justice issues, such as child porn and elder abuse. A 1981 episode titled "Seldom Silent, Never Heard" was inspired by Adam Seligman, a man who suffered from Tourette’s syndrome and testified before Congress about the difficulty of obtaining effective medicine. The episode introduced viewers to the idea of "orphan drugs," medicines that pharmaceutical companies didn't want to invest in because there were too few people affected to make a profit. Read the story of how Quincy -and Klugman- rallied popular opinion to pass the Orphan Drugs Act of 1983. -via Metafilter

Remember the uproar about red dye #2? It was banned in the US because in high doses, it can cause cancer in rats. But that was small potatoes compared to other colors that lead to real deaths among real people in history. Humans have always treasured bright, true, and lasting pigments to give color to... well, everything. It's only been relatively recently that their chemical nature became closely studied and regulated. Before that, way too many people died because of our search for pretty colors. This TED-Ed lesson looks at white, green, and orange and how deadly they once were. -via Nag on the Lake

David Bingham writes about cemeteries and the stories behind the people buried in them at the blog The London Dead. He admits he usually skips the more recent gravestones, as he prefers to dig up history, so to speak. But during one visit to Highgate East Cemetery in London, where relatively wealthy people are buried, Bingham noticed an intriguing headstone for a woman who died in 2019. It said, "This is life." That's a definite head scratcher. So he looked at others and found that the way many people want to be remembered (or really were remembered by the person who ordered the stone) were stories in themselves. Sally Hunter, who died in 2015, has a grave marker saying "LAWYER should have been a marine biologist". He hunted down the stories behind that and other epitaphs, such as the man who had five words describing his life, including "nudist," but couldn't find out anything at all about the man buried under the gravestone you see here. -via Strange Company

King Tut, who ruled Egypt over 3,000 years ago, captured America's imagination in the 1970s when the exhibit called The Treasures of Tutankhamun toured the US and showed off the golden artifacts he was buried with. The impression we've had ever since was that King Tut lived a glorious life of immeasurable wealth. While he was a wealthy king, he suffered from birth defects and poor health, then died while most likely still in his teens.

The tomb of Tutankhamun was discovered in 1922. His embalmed remains got their first x-rays in 1968. A full CT scan of his body was performed in 2006. They reveal that Tut suffered a cleft palate and a club foot, possibly due to generations of inbreeding. He also had malaria and a broken leg. An article at Mental Floss looks at the speculation on what his cause of death may have been, and there are plenty of possibilities.

(Image credit: EditorfromMars)

'Dead Men's Bones' cookies are just one way that the island nation remembers the dead. Check out the recipe here.https://t.co/KrD4Fmkgce

— Atlas Obscura (@atlasobscura) October 12, 2022

Malta, the island nation in the Mediterranean, marks November as the Month of the Dead. One of the traditions associated with the Month of the Dead is a cookie called Għadam tal-mejtin, which translates to Dead Man's Bones. Thanks to the influence of Halloween, these cookies start showing up in Maltese bakeries in late October.

They are more than bone-shaped. The outer layer is a sweet vanilla cookie with a consistency that you're used to in regular shortbread cookies. Inside, however, is the "marrow." It is a chewy yet crumbly dough made of almond flour with spices like cardamom and cloves. The baked cookie is often decorated with icing. Għadam tal-mejtin is more than a treat; it serves as a memento mori, a reminder that we are all destined to die one day. That reminder spurs people to remember and honor those that have gone on before them.

That said, who wouldn't want to try one of these cookies? You'll find the story of Għadam tal-mejtin, plus a recipe so that you can make your own, at Atlas Obscura.

Tourists captured the action in Kruger National Park when a honey badger found himself surrounded by three leopards. But you know honey badgers don't care. This one is not even trying to get away. He'll show those leopards a thing or two!

Two of these leopards are pretty young. They found the honey badger, and had some idea that they would make their mom proud with a kill. Then their mom joined in to supervise. Mom probably figured it would be a good lesson for those two young 'uns to find out what a honey badger is all about. As the badger walks away, you can imagine it saying, "and don't make me come back!" That will teach them to take on the world's most fearless animal!  -via Metafilter

The 2022 winners in the Nikon Small World microphotography competition have been unveiled. The first place winner is the photo above by Grigorii Timin and Dr. Michel Milinkovitch of the University of Geneva. This little hand belongs to an embryo developing into a Madagascar giant day gecko. The gecko embryo was stained with fluorescent dye and the image was made by stitching together multiple high-resolution microscopic images. The whole hand is about three millimeters long. Unless you call it a foot, but even then it's only three millimeters long.



Second place went to Dr. Caleb Dawson of the The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne for this image of "breast tissue showing contractile myoepithelial cells wrapped around milk-producing alveoli."



The third place winner is the above image of the blood vessels inside a mouse's intestines. Satu Paavonsalo and Dr. Sinem Karaman of the University of Helsinki managed to make them pretty.

See all the top winners in this gallery, along with other galleries for Honorable Mentions and Images of Distinction.

The excitement is growing during the annual Fat Bear Week tournament. On Sunday, a semifinal matchup between two previous champions, Holly 435 and Bear 747, ended in what seemed like a victory for Holly. However, those administering the tournament thought something smelled fishy, and it wasn't all that salmon that the brown bears of Katmai National Park have been eating all summer.

It appears someone has decided to spam the Fat Bear Week poll, but fortunately it is easy for us to tell which votes are fraudulent. We have discarded the fake votes and today’s official totals are:

747: 37,940
435: 30,430

— Katmai National Park (@KatmaiNPS) October 10, 2022

The tournament bracket was adjusted, and Bear 747, who is as big as a 747, advanced to the final round. He's so big that he's been referred to as Bear Force One by fans. Jezebel laments the decline of fairness when even Fat Bear Week can be corrupted by cheaters. But they are even more offended that in the first eight years of the tournament, only four bears have won the tournament, despite Katmai National Park being the home of 2,200 bears. Well duh, some bears are just naturally talented at putting on weight.

The championship round is today, and voting is open until 9PM Eastern and 6PM Pacific. Cast your vote here for either Bear Force One 747 or Bear 901. Both are extremely fat now. -via Fark

Update: Bear 747, aka Bear Force One, has won the title of fattest bear!

(Image credit: National Park Service)

The 1993 Disney film Hocus Pocus was too silly to be a horror film, too sexy to be a children's movie, and too feminine to be a Three Stooges comedy. After bombing in its theatrical run, it became a cult classic through annual airings on cable TV. And now that Hocus Pocus 2 is streaming on Disney+, Screen Junkies has gotten around to making an Honest Trailer to warn us against it 30 years too late. Still, the Honest Trailer is well worth six minutes of your life, especially if, like me, you've never seen Hocus Pocus.