Shomphole Wilderness Camp is a private getaway to nature in Kenya's Rift Valley. Wildlife photographer Will Burrard-Lucas (previously at Neatorama) is one of their favorite visitors. He teamed up with camp management to build a watering hole for wildlife in the very dry valley. For Burrard-Lucas, it was an opportunity to make taking pictures of animals easier for himself and for other visiting photographers.

The process involved not only digging a pond, but running five kilometers of pipe to supply the water. They also erected a relatively luxurious hide for photographers, with beds and a toilet, so they can observe creatures who came by without being seen. There is also carefully-designed lighting for nighttime water hole photography. When the project was ready, it didn't take long for wildlife to show up. Read about the project and enjoy the lovely images that resulted at Burrard-Lucas' blog. -via Digg

Imagine taking the most terrifying novel of existential horror that was made into a classic movie monster franchise, and make it into ... no big deal. Here, Dr. Frankenstein encounters the corpse he put together and reanimated and they just have an everyday conversation. Trent Lenkarski and Joel Haver (previously at Neatorama) appear to have turned the camera on while they were free-associating and then rotoscoped it into a Frankenstein movie. This was for some Halloween project, which Lenkarski admits is late. That's the wages of procrastination. It's still worth your time for the recipes. -via reddit

#IdahoDidYouKnow In 1928, Idaho became the first state in the nation to feature a graphic on a license plate by proudly displaying an impressive Idaho potato that filled the entire plate. pic.twitter.com/g1ii2TGWfB

— Idaho Commerce (@IdahoCommerce) July 16, 2019

Every state wants to have a distinctive license plate design for their vehicles. Trying to be different, however, can backfire, as several states have learned the hard way. In 1928, Idaho decided to feature a potato, the state's biggest cash crop, on their plates. A large, long, tan potato was embossed right on the otherwise green plate with the numbers inside. Idaho residents thought it was ugly, and they didn't feel like advertising potatoes on their cars, so the design only lasted a year. Tourists kept stealing them anyway. Strangely, they tried such advertising again, going with the slogan "world famous potatoes" in 1948, and since 1957, they've said "famous potatoes."

This is just one of several stories about license plate failures from different states you can read about at Smithsonian.

Not included: last year's Ohio plate design.

We've all learned an amazing amount about viruses, immunity, and vaccines over the last two years, thanks to COVID-19. Even if you are are up-to-date with the latest COVID vaccine, you still need to get a flu shot, because influenza mutates like any widespread virus, and different strains come around every year. Some years the flu shot is more effective than others, because they are designed to battle whichever strain our health experts predict will be big that year, and they aren't always right. Keep in mind that "just the flu" is not a thing, because influenza is highly contagious and it's dangerous for many people. But what if we were to develop a flu shot that fights any possible strain of influenza? Immunologists are working on different ways to tackle flu viruses no matter how they have mutated, as explained in this TED-Ed lesson. And now any time I hear the word hemagglutinin, I will think of Napoleon Bonaparte. -via Geeks Are Sexy

Some time in the 1980s, an unknown artist started leaving tiles embedded in asphalt roads. These tiles were later determined to be made of mostly linoleum and tar, and they were first left in Philadelphia, then in cities across the US, and in four South American cities. There are hundreds of these Toynbee Tiles, as they are called, with cryptic word jumbles on them like the one you see above. The words are thought to have derived mainly from the works of historian Arnold Toynbee and from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. What do they mean? And who put them there?

We don't know when the tiles were laid, if they are still being made, or how many there are that haven't been discovered. As for the artist, there have been investigations over the years, and a full-length documentary has been made about the search. There are a lot of clues, but no definitive answer yet. Read about the Toynbee Tiles and the mystery that surrounds them at Messy Nessy Chic.

(Image credit: Justin Duerr via Toynbee Idea)

If you think a mortgage is onerous today, the terms of early mortgages were downright frightful. While the concept has its origins in Persia thousands of years ago, the Romans refined it and took the idea to Britain. There, the terms for borrowing to buy land were varied and always in favor of the creditor. In some cases, the lender would use the collateral property to generate income which paid for the loan. In other cases, the borrower made payments. Whether the borrower got any use of the land at all during this time was on a case-by-case basis, so land loans were often more like a layaway program. But if the lender decided to demand full payment at any time, the borrower might be completely out of luck and lose his entire investment! It's no wonder mortgages weren't all that popular until they were further refined in the United States. Read the history of the mortgage at The Conversation.  -via Damn Interesting

You've heard of the Irish goodbye, which is where you leave a party without telling anyone. It's not really Irish, and it was most likely universally developed to avoid the Midwest goodbye. In this skit from Charlie Berens (previously at Neatorama), the Midwest goodbye starts with "Welp, I spose..." and morphs into a never-ending horror of epic proportions.

Use this as a lesson. If you are planning to visit the Midwest for the holidays, it's always good to be prepared for what you will encounter. If conversation starts to lag during a gathering, all you have to do is act like you're leaving, and suddenly everyone has something important to tell you about. But you have to time it just right- always indicate your exit at least an hour before you need to be somewhere else. Now, if someone insists you take home some leftover glorified rice, I can't help you. -via reddit

Us surface dwellers don't usually have to think twice about what lurks below, but what would we find if we did? https://t.co/MeKzzePDng

— Atlas Obscura (@atlasobscura) November 4, 2022

When London's sewer system was built in the mid-19th century, it was a infrastructure wonder, leaving the city cleaner and safer, and was designed to accommodate the city's growth. Then the city grew much larger than anyone predicted, and modern living presents problems for a sewer system that no one could have foreseen. The monster in the sewer these days is the fatberg. When calcium-rich water meets fats or oil (including some soaps), it will solidify. A chunk gets caught on a corroded pipe or a piece of trash, and other chunks join it. The growing fatberg captures wet wipes, menstrual products, and other items of trash as it grows. Eventually, the mass will restrict or totally clog even the largest sewer pipes.

On any given night, there may be hundreds of workers battling dozens of fatbergs in London's sewers. They use high-power water jets, vacuums, shovels, pickaxes, and sometimes even their hands. It's dirty, dark, and dangerous work, but someone's gotta do it. Read about the ongoing battle against fatbergs at Atlas Obscura.

Alright. Okay. My long-dead grandpa Milt’s unfinished stained glass menorah piece. It’s been in my basement workshop for literal years now. I keep not tackling the job of picking up where he left off. I want to get past that block. pic.twitter.com/wMUOfItsDt

— Corvidae of Reckoning (@joshmillard) October 18, 2022

Artist Josh Millard started exploring the art of stained glass in recent years. When his parents heard, they asked if he'd like to have his late grandfather's stained glass supplies. Millard didn't even know his grandfather did stained glass, but Milt Millard had apparently taken it up later in life. In those supplies was an unfinished project- a large menorah. Millard thought about it for three years, and then plunged into finishing it.

This project was intimidating to me for a few reasons: the unusual creative and ethical prospect of finishing someone's work posthumously; the feeling that any attempt to finish the work would involve first the irreversible decision to destroy a (however damaged and unfinished) existing family artifact; and the sheer logistical complexity of picking up someone else's design and fabrication mid-stream.

But Dad liked the idea of me finishing it.  And I imagine Grandpa would have as well.  And preserving it indefinitely in bad shape in my basement where no one would ever see it again wasn't really much of a life for the existing artifact.

So the only difficulties left were: literally everything else.  All the logistical and creative problems of adapting someone's unfinished work.  

Millard Tweeted the project as it went along. His account is much more than a DIY project. Along the way, he grapples with handling and manipulating a fragile family artifact and design decisions for a two-person collaboration in which one artist is silent. Altogether, it makes a beautiful story. And the finished work is beautiful, too.

 

You can follow the process of completing the menorah at Twitter or more easily at Threadreader. -via Metafilter

Ask any historian, and they will tell you that the first time something important happens, we often don't know how important it is, and that make proper documentation for posterity a hit-or-miss situation. The US copyright office is part of the Library Of Congress. They have known for quite some time that their earliest record of a motion picture copyright was in 1893. But since no movie had been copyrighted before, there was nothing in the surviving documentation to show what movie it was. The copyright was for "Kinetoscopic Records." But was that the title of the film? What was the movie about? Did it still exist?

Film scholar Claudy Op den Kamp finally solved that mystery in 2022 by painstakingly searching through boxes and boxes of records. One envelope held the key: the first copyrighted movie was Edison’s The Blacksmith Shop, shown above. It was filmed by W.K.L. Dickson, the head photographer at Edison's studio. The story of that film, how and why it was copyrighted, and how the mystery was solved is told at the Library of Congress blog. -via Strange Company

It's the way science works: just when we think you have it figured out, evidence arises that forces us to reconsider how things are. Or were, in this case. The ability to sequence DNA from human remains from thousands of years ago has turned our theories of human migration and evolution on its head. It hasn't been all that long since we learned that modern humans carry traces of DNA from Neanderthals. Genetic analysis had also led to the discovery of new but extinct human species like the Denisovans, first found in 2010. Denisovan DNA has only been identified in remains from Siberia, Tibet, and Laos. Until now.

A study has uncovered traces of both Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA in ancient human remains in Brazil and Panama. One individual from Panama also showed markers of Australasian descent. The genetics do not indicate these people were Neanderthals or Denisovans, but were descended from modern humans who carried some DNA from the other human species. These discoveries are unique in that Denisovan DNA has not been found in other genetic samples sequenced from North and South American remains. The current theory that the Americas were populated by people migrating down from the Bering Strait is not disproven by the new findings, but it opens the possibility that migration from Beringia may not be the only way humans arrived. Read more about the new discoveries at Gizmodo.

(Image credit: Henry Lavalle, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco and Ana Nascimento, Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco)

In the movie Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1, Dobby the house elf died in Harry's arms on the beach. That heartbreaking scene was filmed at Freshwater West Beach in Pembrokeshire, Wales. Harry Potter fans came to the beach to pay their respects to the character, and someone erected a gravestone that says "Here lies Dobby, the free elf." Over time, fans began leaving objects at the "grave," mostly socks. Dobby was freed from his indentured servitude when he was given a sock, which he wore for the rest of his life.

After a consultation with the public, National Trust Cymru say Dobby's grave can stay on Pembrokeshire's Freshwater West. But they're asking visitors to leave no trace after paint chips and socks have been damaging the natural environment here. pic.twitter.com/Ydea3WRmqr

— Charanpreet Khaira (@CharanpreetBBC) November 1, 2022

However, Freshwater West Beach is part of a nature preserve, and the number of Dobby tributes started to get out of hand. National Trust Wales conducted an eight-month review of the site and decided that the shrine can stay, as long as it doesn't grow any bigger. Fans have been asked to please stop leaving socks, painted rocks, and other objects which may damage the environment. They ask that fans "only take photos when visiting the memorial to help protect the wider landscape.”

(Image credit: Tim Difford)

Linus Åkesson is a Swedish musician and programmer, although he has many other interests. He built a musical instrument he calls the Commodordion. With a name like that, you might think it's an accordion built out of a commode, but no. It's built out of a Commodore 64! Two of them, in fact.  

In the first five minutes, Åkesson explains what it is and plays some music for us, if that's all you want to watch. Then we have a montage of the bellows-building process, then he explains how he wired up and programmed the electronics. If that's not enough, you can read about the project in detail at his blog.

Åkesson has built several other strange musical instruments llike the sixtyforgan and the C64 Theremin. You get the idea that anyone in Sweden who is trying to get rid of old Commodores knows that Åkesson will make good use of them. -via Metafilter

It is thought that Vikings brought the first sheep to Iceland more than a thousand years ago, and up until recently, there were more sheep than people in the country. These are free-range sheep. They are turned out in the spring to wander as they please across the highlands, grazing on abundant grass. Then in September, they are gathered up and brought back to civilization, a process that can take up to a week. Then its time for the annual rettir, in which the sheep are sorted and counted. And no one falls asleep doing it!  

All local sheep farmers gather for the sorting, after which they will take their sheep home for the winter. This gives the event an air of a festival, a time for socializing and sharing the work. There are even traditional foods for the rettir, and it's been turned into a tourist draw, too. Smithsonian shares the process of the annual rettir and its traditions so we can enjoy it without traveling to Iceland.

Remember how we were gobsmocked by the Mars rover Opportunity, which was expected to work on the red planet for about 90 days, but ended up working for more than 14 years? It was not the first NASA mission to wildly exceed expectations. We had already seen one probe crash land on an asteroid. It wasn't designed to land at all, and the impact was a suicide attempt. But it survived the crash and continued to work for two more weeks!

In 1996, NASA launched an unmanned probe to go study an asteroid. We didn't know much about asteroids at the time, but that would change. The probe was named NEAR-Shoemaker, which stood for Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous, and after planetary geologist Eugene Shoemaker. The targeted asteroid was 433 Eros. NEAR-Shoemaker was the first probe to ever orbit an asteroid, and that was after it had already performed some unexpected side missions. Hank Green of SciShow has the story of NEAR-Shoemaker's space exploits. -via Damn Interesting