Way before electricity, city officials saw the benefit to lighting up the street so that people could find their way around. When electricity was in its infancy, some towns took the easy way- instead of replacing hundreds of gas lamps, why not just built one tower, or several for bigger cities, and make them very tall? Electricity produced enough light for people to get around, even from a very tall tower. As far as the electrical mechanism goes, they were primitive, but they worked. Eventually, cheaper, safer, and more efficient electric streetlights were developed, and these "moonlight towers" were replaced. Except in Austin, Texas. Austin decided to keep the towers as part of the city's personality, although they have been restored and rebuilt. The city still has 29 of their original 31 towers. Tom Scott gives us a rundown on the towers, how they worked, and what they look like today. 

The UK Biobank study is a long-running study of 467,354 people in the United Kingdom who have been documenting their eating habits, among other data, since 2006. A new study took data from that large population and studied those who changed their eating habits at different ages, particularly those who switched from processed foods to a healthier, more natural diet.

The results showed that people who switched from unhealthy eating habits to healthier regimens added up to ten years to their lives. Those who had average diets to begin with showed gains as well, although they were lesser because those people were healthier to begin with. The age at which one began eating a healthy diet made a difference, but even people who began eating better in their seventies showed longevity gains of four to five years.

The healthy diet is described as one without sugary drinks and processed meats, and "rich in whole grains, nuts, fruits, vegetables, and moderate amounts of fish." Read more about this study and the results at ScienceAlert. -via Real Clear Science 

(Image: www.Pixel.la Free Stock Photos) 

Twin brothers Pat and Sean Kelly are musicians and DJs for private events in Philadelphia. When you mix music on the fly, you get a feeling for what works together, and an awful lot of songs work together. You know sometimes you get a song stuck in your head, and it reminds you of another song that uses the same chord progression, and then that song is stuck in there as well. Take this to the limit and you've got magic, especially if you've got a brother to sing with. They call this medley "My Brain at 3:59am – A Mashup." Twenty songs in one minute, divided by two singers, means each song gets about six seconds, but that's long enough for you to know what song it is, and now you've got an entire mashup stuck in your head. If you hear any songs you don't know, there's a list of them at Boing Boing.   

Futility Closet tells the true tale of four men who went adrift in the Pacific for 49 days in 1960. Soviet barge T-36 originated in the Kuril Archipelago on the eastern end of the USSR. When a hurricane hit, the barge battled to avoid being thrown up on land. After the eye of the storm passed, the barge crew battled against being blown out to sea, and ran out of fuel doing so. The radio was ruined. A search was launched, but when some debris from the barge was found, Soviet officials declared the barge and crew had sunk.

The four sailors, ages 20-22, had a three-day supply of food and hardly any fresh water, so they were reduced to drinking the rusty water used for engine cooling and eating leather. They were picked up 49 days later by the US aircraft carrier Kearsarge, which was traveling from Japan to San Francisco. If this story intrigues you, you can read an expanded version with photographs at Wikipedia. -via Nag on the Lake

(Image credit: USS Kearsarge crew)

While Boston Dynamics keeps working on Atlas, their humanoid robot, and Spot, the quadruped that actually does real world jobs, Disney is concentrating on building robots for their entertainment value. Does it surprise anyone that they are the ones giving us real life droids? A few weeks ago, they took their new droids out for a test run at the Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge theme park at Disneyland in California. These bipedal self-learning robots don't look all that useful for the real world, but they are impossibly adorable and are ready to show off their personalities, which is perfect for the immersive fantasy of Disneyland. They look like a cross between an AT-ST and Wall-E. See what else they can do.



Look for the souvenir toy version coming back from the theme parks soon, and in stores by next Christmas. Disney is also working on non-Star Wars free-roaming characters with soft, expressive faces for their other theme parks. -via Metafilter

On Star Trek: The Original Series, "fascinating" is a word Mr. Spock used when confronted by something unexpected. How often did that happen in the series? More than once an episode, at least. Merriam-Webster defines the word fascinating as "extremely interesting or charming, captivating." I doubt Spock would use it to mean charming, but since the character is supposedly immune to human emotions (which wasn't quite true), we will assume he finds all things extremely interesting.  

Here we have incidents that Spock found fascinating from all three seasons of the original Star Trek series, plus Star Trek: The Animated Series, the Star Trek movies, and Star Trek: The Next Generation. The use of the word is not confined to Spock, because others picked up the habit from him, too. This is another Trek supercut from John DiMarco. See some others in our previous posts. -via Geeks Are Sexy

Louis Sherry owned one of the finest restaurant in New York City during the Gilded Age, when Sherry's would compete with Delmonico's across the street to impress millionaires and others of the city's upper crust. Sometimes this involved stunts that would make the newspapers as well as the gossip circuit. None was more spectacular than the time Sherry served a dinner party on horseback. In his grand white ballroom, on the second floor. A classic tale of conspicuous consumption. 

In 1903, millionaire C.K.G. Billings, a horse racing enthusiast, built an elegant new stable and wanted to celebrate its grand opening with his closest friends. Thirty-six guests, all men, showed up in formalwear at Sherry's on the appointed night, and were led to the ballroom, which contained 36 horses! Each horse was outfitted with a silver tray attached to the saddle as a dining table for each guest, with champagne in the saddle bags. The dinner included caviar, turtle soup, rack of lamb, and flaming peaches. The horses must have stayed calm during the serving of the flaming peaches, because no mention of panic made it into the papers, although the term "freak dinners" was used. Read about the banquet on horseback at The Bowery Boys. -via Strange Company 

Red Side made an illustrated comparison of how fast various birds can move, on foot or flying. They start with the slowest birds which are overtaken by faster ones, one by one. I felt sorry for the penguin, who leads things off as the slowest walker, but never gets to show us how fast he can swim. The information is interesting, and you have to appreciate the research that went into this. But the animation itself is way more fascinating. Where are all these birds going? Why are they all going as fast as they can? Is something chasing them? Some are rather awkward even as they are speeding by other species. I found myself waiting for the roadrunner to show up, wondering if a coyote would be watching. The running birds seem to have no knees, and the ostrich has hips hidden way up in its backbone, which makes this frantic chase seem all the more hilarious. Oh yeah, the epic music will have you wondering if there's some kind of reward at the end of this race. -via Nag on the Lake

Drug lord Pablo Escobar had a menagerie of exotic animals on his seven-square-mile Colombian estate called Hacienda Nápoles. When he was killed in 1993, most of the animals died or were taken to zoos. Escobar's collection of hippos, however, were just left in place. These animals are huge, ill-tempered, and dangerous, and they seemed to be getting along fine on their own. Thirty years later, the herd has grown to around 170 hippos, and they've been declared an invasive species in Colombia.

The Colombian government has announced a plan to try to control the hippo population, which could grow to a thousand animals by 2035 if left unchecked. They plan to capture some, kill some, and sterilize some. And now you're thinking the same thing I did when I read the headline: just how do you sterilize a hippopotamus? Not only are they huge, ill-tempered, and dangerous, they also have very thick skin and tend to stay in the water. Read about the plan to sterilize the hippos at Smithsonian.

(Image credit: Paul Maritz) 

In the 19th and early 20th century, people would walk backwards long distances in order to gain publicity or set a world record. It was akin to flagpole sitting- useless, but a way to make yourself famous. But maybe they were on to something. Studies of human physiology show that walking backwards, or "retro walking," has benefits for our health.

The main risk of walking backwards is the inability to see where you are going, but that can be overcome with a mirror, a partner, or a peeking technique. The actual act of walking -or running- backward is easier on the hip and knee joints because the range of motion is smaller. Also, you are using muscles that you normally wouldn't in forward locomotion, like back muscles. Walking backward has been shown to reduce pain in the lower back and strengthen hamstrings. The backward motion also causes you to land on the balls of your feet instead of the heel. The brain benefits, too, by using different brain areas to control the incongruous task. Read about the physical and mental benefits of walking backward at BBC Future.  -via Strange Company

(Image credit: Roberto Ferrari)

The 2023 Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards have been bestowed upon the funniest nature pictures of the year. Congratulations to Australian photographer Jason Moore, who was named the overall winner for his photograph titled Air Guitar Roo. The same photo won Alex Walker’s Serian Creatures of the Land Award. For his efforts, Moore wins a photo safari for two in Kenya, two camera bags, and a nice trophy. Not to mention global publicity and bragging rights. Let the Photoshopped memes begin! 

Jacek Stankiewicz of Poland won two awards with this picture he calls Dispute. It took the Junior category award plus the Affinity Photo 2 People's Choice Award. He figured the juvenile bird was either arguing with his parents, or else tattling on a sibling. See all the category winners and ten Highly Commended photos (I particularly like the Monday morning owl) in the winners gallery. 

The fairly new term "Anthropocene" refers to a proposed geologic epoch in which man made his mark on the earth. We are in that epoch right now, but when did it start? That's up for discussion. There are arguments that man began changing the world with the development of agriculture, but was that enough change to make a real difference? Was it the Industrial Revolution? Or maybe the first atomic bomb? No consensus has yet been reached.

There is a proposal to use Crawford lake in Ontario as a reference point for the beginning of the Anthropocene -or at least for studying and documenting it. It's a small lake, but it has some very specific and interesting properties that make it uniquely suitable for such a reference point. Besides it being perfectly suited for the purpose, it's already in a conservation area designated as an Ontario Area of Natural and Scientific Interest. Savannah Geary of Sci Show explains, and makes us want to visit Crawford Lake.

Once upon a time, a person's home was wherever they built it, and the places that didn't have homes were considered shared land. Then came the concept of purchasing private property and land grants and deeds, and poor people were out of luck. But in that transition period, people came up with schemes to work around that. One was the concept of tŷ unnos, a Welsh term meaning "house built in one night." It became a tradition that if one were to build an entire home in one night before the sun came up, they would own that house, plus however much land they could toss an axe to.

Young people would plan their adventures in building for a long time, making some components and gathering construction materials. Then on the planned night, all their friends and family would begin building when the sun set. These crude structures were merely four walls with a door and a roof, with a chimney because a fire was necessary. After the household was established, the tŷ unnos would be replaced by something more substantial. This tradition was not limited to Wales, though. A similar scheme existed under different names in Ireland, Italy, France, and in Turkey. Read about tŷ unnos and how that worked at Amusing Planet. 

(Image credit: Steve Daniels)

When the US president goes anywhere, the security involved is a logistics nightmare involving hundreds of people. You deal with that when there's a diplomatic reason for travel, but when the Commander in Chief needs a weekend to relax and refresh or a summer vacation, it's a lot easier to have a spot already in place with permanent security. Security is important, but that spot also has to be nice enough so that the president will want to stay there. That's how Camp David was born in the 1930s. The facility is also perfect for hosting meetings with other heads of state for the same reasons, especially for extended meetings like peace talks. Half as Interesting explains the history of Camp David, plus the measures taken to keep it feeling like a luxury resort to its guests while maintaining security that makes a supermax prison look weak. It's a delicate balancing act, but someone has to do it.  

Once upon a time, one requirement for an FCC broadcast license was a certain amount of airtime dedicated to serving the public. TV networks fulfilled this requirement by bringing us the news, 15 minutes of it, at 6 PM. When that was expanded to 30 minutes in September of 1963, all the ad slots were sold immediately. But the networks maintained that TV news was a loss, as it was expensive to run a journalism department that did nothing else. Then on November 22, 1963, 60 years ago today, President John F.Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.

All the networks ran coverage of the assassination, the aftermath, and the funeral non-stop for days, with no ad breaks. That cost the networks millions of dollars in lost ad revenue, but it garnered them the goodwill of the public, and even more important, got everyone to tune into the nightly news and other news shows that were gradually added. TV networks still let us think that the news was a public service and a financial loss for years afterward, even as each new news show became more profitable. Read how the business of news broadcasting was a moneymaker long before we knew at the Conversation.  -via Damn Interesting  

(Image credit: Walt Cisco, Dallas Morning News)