A 97-year-old woman owes her life to her cat Tiger. Sophie Thomas of Clare County, Michigan was caring for her lawn when a pack of dogs approached.
Thomas says, “All of a sudden these four pitbulls came marching in and they surrounded me. They kept going around and around. One of them kind of lunged for me and I hit him on the head and he backed off. Then another came towards me and I was scared stiff. I gave him a wack. All of a sudden, my cat jumped in the middle of it."
The cat ran towards the garage and the dogs chased after giving Ms. Thomas just enough time to run inside. Fearing the worse for her pet, she waited, and washed her wounds in the sink. That’s when she spotted Tiger at the door. Thinking back she says she owes the cat her life.
Thomas says, "I always thank god that my cat came because she was the one that really helped me out."
Ms. Thomas suffered minor injuries. The dogs are in quarantine for ten days. Link (with video) -via Arbroath
Wouldn't you love to know someone like the inventors in our movies and books -someone who can come up with gadgets, materials, and machines to solve your problems? Of course, in some stories inventors cause the problem themselves! Gizmodo takes a look at these geniuses from movies, TV, and literature and why we love them. My vote goes to Doc Brown from Back to the Future, who invented
The flux capacitor, the core component of a machine that allowed Brown to travel through time. Brown came up with the idea of the capacitor on November 5, 1955, and worked tirelessly for the next 30 years developing it into a working time machine. The capacitor, which requires 1.21 Gigawatts of electrical power to function, was first implemented in a customized DeLorean and later, or maybe earlier?, in a 19th century train.
"First used in a Greek translation of 5th century BC Carthaginian explorer Hanno's account of a voyage to West Africa. He reported encountering a tribe of wild hairy people, whose females were, according to a local interpreter, called gorillas. In 1847 the American missionary and scientist Thomas Savage adopted the word as the species name of the great ape and by the 1850s it had passed into general use." (From Dictionary of Word Origins, by John Ayto)
"Ferret comes from the Latin furritus, for 'little thief,' which probably alludes to the fact that ferrets, which are related to pole cats, like to steal hens' eggs. Its name also developed into a verb, to ferret out, meaning 'to dig out or bring something to light.'" (From Cool Cats, Top Dogs, and Other Beastly Expressions, by Christine Ammer)
SKUNK
"Because the little striped animal could squirt his foul yellow spray up to 12 feet, American Indians called him segankw, or segonku, the Algonquin dialect word meaning simply 'he who squirts'. Early pioneers corrupted the hard-to-pronounce Algonquin word to skunk, and that way it has remained ever since." (From Animal Crackers, by Robert Hendrickson)
HOUND
"Before the Norman conquest of England, French hunters bred a keen-nosed dog that they called the St. Hubert. One of their rulers, William, took a pack to England and hunted deer-following the dogs on foot. Saxons had never before seen a dog fierce enough to seize its prey, so they named William's animals hunts, meaning 'seizure'. Altered over time to hound, it was long applied to all hunting dogs. Then the meaning narrowed to stand for breeds that follow their quarry by scent." (From Why You Say It, by Webb Garrison)
"It was once wrongly believed that the leopard was a cross between a 'leo' (a lion) and a 'pard' (a white panther)-hence the name 'leopard.'" (From Why Do We Say It?, by Nigel Rees)
PYTHON
"According to Greek legend, the god Apollo's earliest adventure was the single-handed slaying of Python, a flame-breathing dragon who blocked his way to Pytho (now Delphi), the site he had chosen for an oracle. From the name of this monster derives the name of the large snake of Asia, Africa, and Australia, the python." (From Thou Improper, Thou Uncommon Noun, by Willard R. Espy)
CARDINAL
"One would think that such an attractive creature would have given its name to many things, but in fact it is the other way around. The bird's name comes from the red-robed official of the Roman Catholic Church, who in turn was named for being so important-that is, from the adjective cardinal, from the Latin cardo, meaning 'hinge' or 'pivot'. Anything cardinal was so important that events depended (hinged or pivoted) on it." (From It's Raining Cats and Dogs, by Christine Ammer)
MOOSE
"Captain John Smith, one of the original leaders at Jamestown, wrote accounts of the colony and life in Virginia, in which he defined the creatures as Moos, a beast bigger than a stagge. Moos was from Natick (Indian) dialect and probably derived from moosu, 'he trims, he shaves,' a reference to the way the animal rips the bark and lower branches from trees while feeding." (From The Chronology of Words and Phrases, by Linda and Roger Flavell)
"This long-legged pink wading bird is named for the people of Flanders, the Flemings, as they were called. Flemings were widely known for their lively personalities, their flushed complexions, and their love of bright clothing. Spaniard explorers in the New World thought it was a great joke naming the bird flamingo, which means 'a Fleming' in Spanish." (From Facts on File Encyclopedia of Words and Phrase Origins, by Robert Hendrickson)
Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts.
Even though I remind you of all our exclusive articles every weekend, there are times when you might say, "I wonder what Neatorama did before I started reading it." Or you might say, "Hey, Neatorama did an article on that way back when -let me find it!" To make that easy for you, we have updated and revamped our "best of" page so you can browse by year and month and by pictures. Take a look!
From Uncle John's Bathroom Reader, we got The Biggest Cult Movie of All Time. If you don't know what movie that is, you obviously missed the article!
We saw how four fast food companies changed logos without changing their recognition factor in The Evolution of Fast Food Logos.
NeatoBambino scored an interview with Dallas Clayton, author of An Awesome Book and gave away three copies of the children's book.
David Israel interviewed Yael Hersonski about her critically acclaimed debut A Film Unfinished. The interview and clips from the movie are in the post Nazi Propaganda Footage Discovered.
Mental-floss gave us fun facts about walruses in I Am the Walrus.
This week we said goodbye to NeatoGeek. It was fun while it lasted. The good news is that John Farrier will continue to contribute his geeky sci-fi items here at the main blog. Meanwhile, you can check out the many items previously posted at NeatoGeek.
A spur-of-the-moment weekend competition asked you to caption the video entitled Birthday Cat is Unimpressed. Congratulations to to Nick who won a t-shirt from the NeatoShop with this gem: “I told them all i wanted was a cheezburger.”
Neatorama teamed up with mental_floss for another How Did You Know? contest which began Tuesday with the contest details. We already have some winners, but the contest won't end until the ultimate challenge is presented and solved on Monday, so watch for that coming up at mental_floss!
Over at Facebook, David runs random contests where you can win more prizes from Neatorama, like this one that only required you to pick a shirt. Just one more reason you'll want to keep up with our social networking feed, at Facebook and a Twitter as well.
Twenty-seven-year-old Johno Lee, a British veteran of the war in Afghanistan, applied for and was denied a disabled parking permit three times. Meanwhile, he racked up £800 in fines for parking in reserved spots so he could unload his wheelchair.
Lance-corporal Lee, from Coddington, said when he first applied to Nottinghamshire County Council for a blue badge he was advised he was young and ‘may get better.’
His right leg was amputated below the knee after he was caught up in an explosion in Helmand Province in 2008.
He said: “I replied that they possibly didn’t quite understand the situation and that I thought it unlikely that my leg would grow back.
After the local newspaper the Newark Advertiser heard of his story, a reporter contacted officials who are now looking into the matter. The fines already levied against Lee have been rescinded. Link -via Arbroath
A woman traveling from Thailand to Iran checked a bag before boarding her flight in Bangkok. When the bag was scanned, the x-ray images showed something suspicious. Inside the bag of stuffed toy tigers was one eight-week-old live tiger cub!
Officers from the Livestock Development Department and the National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department were then called in to open the bag for inspection and discovered the tranquilized cub.
Investigations are underway to determine if the cub was wild caught or captive-bred, where it came from and the suspect’s intended final destination.
The cub is being cared for at the Rescue Center of the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation. DNA samples will be sent to the tiger enclosure at Khaopratab Wildlife Rescue Center in Ratchaburi Province, to determine which subspecies the cub belongs to, which will help determine its origin.
Shine a laser through a drop of water and you can project the image of its flora and fauna on your wall or ceiling. Really. The cat sure enjoyed it!
After witnessing the image of a mosquito in a laser beam outside, I decided to investigate the phenomenon further. I started by locating scuzzy water. Ponds lacking, I decided to take water out of the bowl of my 6 year old spider plant. I then filled a syringe and hung it above a laser so that a drop of water, almost ready to fall, was in the beam path. Below is the incredibly complex apparatus involving a book, sticky-tac, a random bottle, a 250mW laser, and a syringe.
See the setup described in the quote at Teravolt. Link -via reddit
The original link, which has currently blown its bandwidth.
The toilet is one of those things we take for granted, until it breaks down or we go somewhere without them. How did our modern comfort system come about? Toilet plumbing is older than you think!
Ancient cultures were surprisingly adept at moving water around in a way that kept people from having to walk through pools of their own feces. (That was really more of a Medieval European thing.) Cultures as far back as 3000 BC were flushing away their problems—so who you callin' primitive? Members of the Harrappa civilization in what is now India had toilets in their homes that drained into subterranean clay chambers. The residents of Skara Brae, a 31st century BC settlement in what's now Scotland, were even clever enough to use a draining system that exploited a nearby river to automatically sweep out their dirty business.
None of these systems were anything like the flush toilet -that came later. Read all about it at Gizmodo. Link
These adorable cubs are Pallas's cats {wiki}. The "jumpy" behavior is typical for the species. You can see the litter recorded at various ages at the Wildlife Heritage Fund's YouTube channel. Link -via Buzzfeed
If you are going to help yourself to a five-finger discount, the worst of all possible times to do it would be during the “Shop with a Cop” event. But that's exactly what happened Wednesday in Clackamas, Oregon. Portland police were at Fred Meyer to help children shop for back-to-school items when security personnel caught 20-year-old Shane Alexander and 30-year-old Jason Vantress allegedly filling their backpacks with store merchandise.
"They were a little freaked out when they saw all the cops at first, but then decided the police would be too distracted, helping kids to notice them," said police Spokesman Pete Simpson.
Police officers assisted security in making the arrests.
Otherwise, the back-to-school event was a big success. Link -via Fark
Every year you get "the list" of supplies your kids need for school. Crayons, glue, stapler, 3-ring binders... where did all this stuff come from? Rob Lammle gives us the origins of these back-to-school gadgets and supplies that schools can no longer do without. For example, the lunchbox:
In the early part of the 20th Century, most kids packed their school lunch in an empty cookie, biscuit, or tobacco tin. In 1935, a company called Aladdin tried to create a market for specialized lunch boxes by putting Mickey Mouse on the cover of their tin box. But even The Mouse couldn’t convince kids to buy en masse. Aladdin didn’t give up, though, and they had their first bonafide lunchtime hit in 1950 when they released the Hopalong Cassidy lunch box to young baby boomers. Available in red or blue, the box and thermos combination featured a crudely drawn picture of the popular TV and radio cowboy on one side.
Read more about lunch boxes and other school items at mental_floss. Link
After enjoying the blog Cake Wrecks, you may be concerned about buying a decorated cake.
Loyal Henchpersons, it has come to my attention that some of you are now concerned about ordering a cake. You feel there's no hope; that you're doomed to receiving a Wreck no matter what precautions you take. And for some strange reason, I feel a little responsible for this.
Well, good news, cake consumers: I'm here to restore your confidence! That's right: we're going to take a little field trip over to the local grocer's bakery. C'mon.
What they found didn't exactly inspire confidence that the words you want on your cake will come out the way you want. Link
Have you ever wished your car had eyelashes? Now it can! Carlashes attach to your car with tape and won't damage the paint. It will give your car that totally unnecessary feminine look. Link -via The Daily What
Every year, twins from all over the country gather in Twinsburg, Ohio to celebrate what sets them apart from those born by themselves. National Geographic was there earlier this month to document the festivities, in text and in five photo galleries, plus a memory game where you try to match sets of twins who attended the festival. Link
(Image credit: J. Kyle Keener/National Geographic)
