Jane Goodall has studied chimpanzees in Africa since 1960. She arrived in Tanganyika with no training but a lot of enthusiasm for the work ahead. Fifty years later, she is still working for the benefit of the chimpanzees she loves. National Geographic has an extensive retrospective of her life and work in the new issue, with plenty of photographs as well. Link-Thanks, Marilyn Terrell!
In addition, NatGeo has digitized and archived all the articles they've done on Jane Goodall and her work since 1960. Link
(Image credit: Hugo Van Lawick/National Geographic)
It's time to stay on that couch and make something of your life! Just follow these step-by-step instructions, and you'll be slacking your way to financial freedom in no time.
Get a Boss' Salary for an Intern's Work, like Edward McSweegan
1. GET A PLUM JOB
After earning a PhD and working his way up the corporate ladder, microbiologist Edward McSweegan was promoted to managing Lyme disease research grants for the National Institute of Health (NIH). But the job came with plenty of politics.
2. UPSET THE WRONG PEOPLE
When advocacy groups claimed that a "chronic" form of Lyme disease existed and that it required lifelong antibiotic treatments, McSweegan, like many public health experts, disagreed. He just wasn't diplomatic about it. In 1995, he publicly called one of the groups "wacko", much to NIH's chagrin.
3. END UP WITH NOTHING BUT FREE TIME
The statement earned McSweegan a two-week suspension. It did not, however, earn him a pink slip. Instead, his bosses took away the work he had been doing and never gave him anything to replace it with. For seven years, the scientist effectively became a gofer-fetching coffee and forwarding emails. The only thing that didn't change: his salary. That entire time, McSweegan continued to rake in $100,000 a year.
SLACKER WARNING! Don't publicize your plight
If you're sick of coasting and want to find real work in your inbox, do as McSweegan did. In 2003, the bored scientist finally snapped. He took his story to the media, where he publicly asked his bosses for something to do besides write mystery novels on taxpayer time. That year, McSweegan was finally given new grants to administer-a job he still does to this day.
Get Paid Long After You've Left Your Job, like Bobby Bonilla
1. BE REALLY GOOD AT SPORT
This is the tricky part. First, become a heavily-recruited, all-star baseball player like Bobby Bonilla.
2. NOW, DO YOUR JOB POORLY
In 1992, Bonilla became the highest-paid player in baseball when the New York Mets signed him to a $29 million, five-year contract. It wasn't the best idea. For the next three years, the Mets had a dismal record, and Bonilla became the poster child for their ineptitude. Of course, his behavior didn't help. He once called the press box during a game to complain about a call the umpire had just made against him. Another time, he offered a critical journalist "a tour of the Bronx"-as a threat. In 1995, the Mets traded him away.
3. IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED, FAIL AGAIN
Four years later, the Mets made the baffling decision to rehire Bonilla, who proceeded to follow up his disastrous early-1990s stint with an equally tragic end to the decade. This time, it only took the Mets one year to oust him. The catch? According to Bonilla's contract, the team stilled owed him $5.9 million.
4. WAIT FOR SOMEBODY ELSE TO MAKE A BAD DECISION
Rather than pay Bonilla off or allow him to keep playing, the Mets made a convoluted deal. Bonilla would leave the team, and his salary would be deferred for ten years. In exchange, he'd earn 8 percent interest annually-bringing the total sum to nearly $30 million, which he'll get in annual payments of $1.19 million from 2011 until 2035. What were the Mets thinking? Hard to say. Pundits speculate that the team was simply short on cash. Delaying the payout allowed management to free up funds, meaning they could recruit players they actually wanted.
Earn Someone Else's Subsidies, like Suburban "Farmers"
1. BUY THE RIGHT HOUSE
Actually, that's pretty much it. Federal farm subsidies are paid out to help keep farmers in business. The intention is to stabilize farmers' income to counteract erratic weather and fluctuations on commodity prices. Unfortunately, the subsidies are notoriously mismanaged. In 2006, the Washington Post investigated the lax attitude surrounding the allocations of these funds. Surprisingly, the most egregious offenders were suburban McMansion dwellers. Reporters found that the cash payouts remained tied to the land-long after that land stopped being used for farming. The journalists also found realtors and developers advertising the subsidies as a selling point on lots and houses. In 2005, one area of Texas brought in $37 million in rice farm subsidies-most of it going to either non-farmers or farmers who no longer grew rice at all.
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The above article by Maggie Koerth-Baker is reprinted with permission from the Scatterbrained section of the September-October 2010 issue of mental_floss magazine.
Be sure to visit mental_floss' entertaining website and blog for more fun stuff!
StoryCorps interviewed retired NYC firefighter John Vigiano about his two sons, one a policeman, the other a firefighter, who both died on September 11, 2001. The audio is less than three minutes. Link -via mental_floss' newsletter
This ad appeared in 1952. I don't know how many of these units they actually sold, but I've had a few apartments that would have worked better with all the appliances set into a five-square-foot space. It would also have been nice to have a couple of clones to do the work. Link -via J-Walk Blog
A truck hauling 30,000 pounds of squid dumped its load into a broccoli field Tuesday near Soledad, California.
The driver, a 71-year-old Oxnard man, was uninjured in the crash and no other vehicles were involved, the California Highway Patrol said.
The truck was traveling south on Highway 101, south of Los Coches Road, when the driver allowed the truck and trailer to go off the road, overturning on a dirt frontage road adjacent to the highway, CHP officers said.
As the truck and trailer flipped, the load of squid spilled onto the frontage road and into a broccoli field.
The highway was not blocked, but everyone involved in the cleanup probably lost their appetite. Link -via Arbroath
You know this is going to be funny. Allie Brosch tells about the time she had oral surgery the same day as a friend's birthday party. Part of the account reminds me of the viral video David After Dentist, except of course things get much worse. Link
Cthulhu as a pitchman? Maybe he just wants to show off his abs. Still, be warned of the "unspeakable horror" to come. From the folks at Gods Playing Poker. Link-Thanks, Michael!
Scientists at Brown University have grown an ovary in a Petri dish, using donated cells. The organ is more than a tissue culture; it is a working organ composed of three specific types of tissue which each have their own functions.
“An ovary is composed of three main cell types, and this is the first time that anyone has created a 3-D tissue structure with triple cell line,” says Sandra Carson, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Brown University.
Carson, the study’s senior author, says the ovary not only provides a living laboratory for investigating fundamental questions about how healthy ovaries work, but also can act as a testbed for seeing how problems, such as exposure to toxins or other chemicals, can disrupt egg maturation and health.
But does it function like an ovary should?
The big test, however, was whether the structure could function like an ovary—namely to mature eggs. In experiments the structure was able to nurture eggs from the “early antral follicle” stage to full maturity.
The artificial ovary does not produce its own eggs, but might be a way to store and grow immature eggs harvested from women who must undergo cancer therapy, for instance. For now, the organ will be used for fertility research. Link -via Holy Kaw!
Bewitched was an American television series that ran from 1964 to 1972. The premise was that a witch (Samantha Stephens) married an advertising executive (Darrin Stephens), but in order to blend in with "mortals", Samantha had to keep her supernatural powers secret. However, neither she nor Darrin could control her wacky relatives -particularly Samantha's magically meddling mother Endora! In most episodes their cover was nearly blown, but the couple explained away the most ridiculous situations as a "demonstration" of a creative new advertising campaign.
1. The biggest controversy on Bewitched was the sudden switch in Darrins. Dick York played Darrin from 1964 to 1969, when Dick Sargent slipped into the role with no explanation. Dick York had suffered a back injury while filming a movie in 1959. Continued pain left him addicted to prescription painkillers, which damaged his health as years went by. By 1969, he was suffering blackouts on the set. In January York was rushed from the set to the hospital and never returned to Bewitched. After he left the show, he was flat on his back for a year. York also suffered financial losses from bad investments and he and his wife cleaned houses for a living at one point. By 1980 he kicked the drugs and began acting again. York died of emphysema in 1992.
2. Ratings for Bewitched fell in its final three years, which many blamed on the Darrin switch. It wasn't Dick Sargent's fault; people just didn't like the change from a more familiar face. In fact, Dick Sargent could have very well been the original Darrin! He auditioned for the show in 1964 and was actually offered the job, even before Elizabeth Montgomery was cast as Samantha. However, he had to decline as he was under contract to Universal Studios, which wanted him for the series Broadside.
3. A few new phrases were born from Bewitched. Darrin Syndrome is the term for replacing the actor of a main character with no explanation. This situation is sometimes called The Other Darrin. It happens a lot, but in the case of the character Becky in the series Roseanne, there were constant jokes about the switch. In one episode, the family watched Bewitched on TV and actress Sarah Chalke (the second Becky) remarked that she preferred the second Darrin. Of course.
4. Darrin was not the only character played by two actors in Bewitched. Among others, the neighbor Gladys Kravitz was portrayed by Alice Pearce at first, then by Sandra Gould. However, Gladys Kravitz Syndrome has nothing to do with TV casting. It's a term used when people are just too nosy about the lives of their neighbors.
5. The characters on Bewitched drank so much alcohol that a fan website created a database of the drinking incidents with locations and episode numbers.
6. Elizabeth Montgomery, who played Samantha, also played her deliciously mischievous cousin Serena in several episodes. She was not credited for the role, as producers figured it would be obvious. The role was credited to "Pandora Spocks", who didn't exist but received fan mail from viewers who didn't get the joke. Spocks eventually received her own biography from a fan site.
7. The real house used in the 1959 movie Gidget was copied, but reversed, to build the set for Bewitched. The patio and living rooms were copied from those used in the 1963 movie Gidget Goes to Rome. The exterior set used for the home of nosy neighbor Gladys Kravitz later became the home of The Partridge Family.
8. The Stephens had two children during the run of the series, but they were not ratings gimmicks. Elizabeth Montgomery produced two children, her second and third, as she played Samantha in Bewitched, and both pregnancies were written into the show. Her son Robert Asher was born in 1965 as daughter Tabitha appeared in the series, and daughter Rebecca Asher was born in 1969 as Adam Stephens was born in the series.
9. In the last year of the series, Bewitched was cursed with terrible time slots. Already showing its age, the series' ratings fell faster than ever in 1971-72 when it was scheduled against the very popular Carol Burnett Show and then moved opposite the powerhouse series All in the Family.
10. Elizabeth Montgomery cherished her privacy, and felt no need to make her vital statistics public. When she died in 1995, her age was published as 57, although she was actually 62. She had married Robert Foxworth a couple of years before her death, but few knew about it, so some obituaries said she was single. Her death certificate said "Elizabeth A. Montgomery", but her actual middle name was Victoria.
The video that was here has been pulled because of employment concerns for the climber featured. Read more about it at The Online Engineer.
This helmet-cam video is not for anyone with an extreme fear of heights. Engineers climb a 1,768 foot broadcast tower. In my previous career in radio, I used to watch guys do this, but could never understand their bravery, except for that one guy who drank a pint of whiskey to get up the nerve. -via Metafilter
The artist who goes by the name freakingawesome created a typography poster entitled Zombies. It contains the names of 978 zombie movies, books, and video games. At the link, you can click the image to enlarge it (several times if needed) and read them to find your favorites. http://freakingaweso.me/zombies.php
It's the Fill in the Bubble Frenzy with boy genius Mal and his talking dog Chad! What is he saying in this empty speech bubble? Tell us and you might win any T-shirt available in the NeatoShop -take a look around, pick one out and tell us what shirt you’d like with your submission in the comments. If you don't specify a t-shirt with your entry, you forfeit the prize. Enter as many times as you like (text only, please), but leave only one entry per comment. For inspiration, check out Mal and Chad’s comic strip adventures by Stephen McCranie at malandchad.com. Good luck!
Update: We have a winner! Congratulations to Skully, who said, Let's do the ol' "There's someone on the wing!" gag. Skully did not select a t-shirt, however.
Garry and Joan Marsh of Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, England adopted a ten-week-old kitten from the local animal shelter and named her Polly. Three days later, they noticed the word "cat" on her left flank.
Mr Marsh, a teacher, said: ‘We were commenting on how symmetrical her tabby patterns seemed when Joan suddenly noticed the letters.
‘Once somebody points it out, it is obvious – the word stands out a mile.’
See more pictures at the Daily Mail. Link -via Arbroath
A secret corps of photographers and filmmakers documented US nuclear testing in the 1940s through the '60s. The "atomic moviemakers", officially known as the Lookout Mountain Laboratory, established in 1947, made at least 6,500 films for the government.
Two new atomic documentaries, “Countdown to Zero” and “Nuclear Tipping Point,” feature archival images of the blasts. Both argue that the threat of atomic terrorism is on the rise and call for the strengthening of nuclear safeguards and, ultimately, the elimination of global arsenals.
As for the atomic cameramen, there aren’t that many left. “Quite a few have died from cancer,” George Yoshitake, 82, one of the survivors, said of his peers in an interview. “No doubt it was related to the testing.”
