This is a compilation of familiar viral cat videos with a new soundtrack. Be on the lookout for the one cat who can actually form words. For some reason, I was trying to identify the movie in which Schwarzenegger made this particular noise, but I gave up on that pretty quickly. As one internet sage put it: "This is simultaneously both the stupidest and the greatest thing I've ever seen." After this video goes viral, you'll want to be on the lookout for the Werner Herzog version. Or maybe William Shatner. And this, kids, is the kind of thing that made the internet so popular in the 1990s, before we even had social media. -via Metafilter

David Bennett was 57 years old, and suffering from heart failure, among several other health problems. He was not a candidate for a heart transplant because he had a history of not following doctor's orders. In January, he had been in a hospital bed for two months when he received an experimental procedure of last resort: a transplant heart from a pig, an operation that had been in the works, but had never been performed on a human. The heart came from a pig that had been genetically modified with human genes to be more compatible. The pig heart started pumping, and Bennett survived the surgery. But he died 60 days later.

Why did Bennett die? The surgery was deemed successful, but if “cardiac xenotransplantation” is to ever be useful, post-surgical complications must be identified and addressed. Doctors still haven't pinpointed the cause of death, but they have four possibilities that are described and explored at Smithsonian. ​

(Image credit: University of Maryland School of Medicine)

For the past three years, you can barely surf the internet for a day without seeing the "Woman Yelling at Cat" meme. It's a convenient and engaging two-image combination to amusingly illustrate any statement with a comeback. We've posted the story of Smudge the cat. Now we get a chance to hear the story of the woman, Taylor Armstrong, who tells us what led to the image of her yelling on the reality TV series The Real Housewives of Beverley Hills. Warning: it involves domestic abuse. Armstrong is out of that relationship, but how does she feel about the meme?



It's good to know that even though the original experience was traumatic, you can feel okay about using the meme that it spawned. Meanwhile, Smudge is doing fine, and still sitting at the table, and occasionally doing that face. He still no like vegetals. -via Digg

and I’m here, to remind you of the grass you left when you went away… 😂 https://t.co/3ISMFESryx

— Alanis Morissette (@Alanis) July 10, 2022

Lawn care companies are out in force this summer. There are so many of them that they've come up with memorable names, like "Lawn and Order" to stand out against the crowd. But one that just has a name on their equipment trailers captured the attention of just the right people. When Alanis Morrisette saw it, the puns just wrote themselves. Everyone had a take on Morrisette's biggest songs "You Oughta Know," "Ironic," and "One Hand in My Pocket") that could be used in the lawn care business.  

It's some free mulch when you've already paid

— underscore (@the_under_score) July 10, 2022

Weird Al jumped in to protect his territory. Maybe he was already in the process of writing a parody song.

Hey! Stay in your lane! https://t.co/9wPAuWYUNy

— Al Yankovic (@alyankovic) July 11, 2022

He's not the only celebrity to jump in.

Holy shit. Wonder Woman is teaming up with @ThatKevinSmith's God on a 90's remix song @alyankovic style, and I can't think of anything better right now.

— William Ware (@jitterypillow41) July 11, 2022

All Morrisette songs are fair game for lawn care puns here.

Omggg snort laughed

— ILuv2Dance 🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@ILuv2Dance) July 12, 2022

Even her name!

This is the content I'm here for
Well done

— Colleen Buck (@cjupiterr) July 11, 2022

Oh, there's plenty more in this ever-growing Twitter thread. -via a comment at Jezebel

The decommissioned Sheep Mountain Fire Lookout in Bighorn National Forest, Wyoming, is not exactly a tower, but it doesn't have to be because it's already high up on the mountain. It was constructed of rock by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1950, so you can bet it will be there for hundreds of years to come. But what makes this lookout so special is that it is available to rent overnight for camping. Yeah, it's real camping, with no plumbing or electricity, but it has a set of bunkbeds, a "single vault toilet" (outhouse), and you don't have to pitch a tent. But the biggest draw of the lookout is the spectacular view. It's so far away from city lights that you'll see stars like you've never seen before. See more pictures of the lookout facility and the view at TYWKIWDBI.

The odds are that any time you encounter a snake, it just wants to get away from you. Let it. But if you happen to step on a venomous snake, it may bite you in self-defense. Don't panic! Most of the people bitten by a venomous snake will survive, but you will need medical attention. Here are a few things you should know for the time being. Most importantly, you need to forget all those self-treatments you've seen in Western movies. They are just for movies. Get the real lowdown on how to respond to a snakebite from Tech Insider. -via Nag on the Lake
 

Jim Thorpe is often considered the greatest athlete ever. Born in 1887, he became a standout athlete in college football. Then he won the decathlon and pentathlon competitions at the Olympics in Stockholm in 1912. However, in 1913, the International Olympic Committee stripped him of his medals because he had spent two summers playing minor league baseball during college, for which he was paid as little as $2 a game. There were strict amateur guidelines in effect at the time, although many assumed that racism played a part, as Thorpe was a Native American. The IOC had not followed its own rules that said a disqualification must be made within 30 days of competition. Thorpe went on to play professional baseball, football, and basketball (all in the same years), and also worked as a coach.

In 1982, the IOC reinstated Thorpe's Olympic victories, but listed him as a co-winner along with the second-place athletes in both events. On Friday, the 110th anniversary of the 1912 decathlon, the IOC voted to correct the record and designate Thorpe as the sole gold medalist in the 1912 Olympic decathlon and pentathlon events. The change is the result of a painstaking two-year campaign that you can read about at AP. -via Digg

Illustrator Gergely Dudás often makes puzzles featuring crowds of characters and something hidden among them. This week he saw the new movie Minions: The Rise of Gru and enjoyed it, so he drew a puzzle featuring a legion of minions -and three bananas. Can you find the bananas?   

This was also probably the most time I've spent drawing one puzzle, it took me like three or four days! But I'm really happy with how it turned out, hope You'll like it too!

It'a also the first time he used existing characters for one his puzzles. You can check out more of them at his Instagram gallery. Oh yeah, when you feel stumped, you can swipe right to see the answers. -via Boing Boing

Last month, in the comments under the Honest Trailer for Goodfellas, I found that I am not the only fan of My Blue Heaven around here. There are three of us! If you haven't seen the film, learning how it came about will only make you want to see it more. My Blue Heaven is about a mafia figure named Vincent Antonelli (Steve Martin) who goes into the witness protection program. In his new town, he runs into other mob informants who are chafing under the blandness of suburban life. So they dip back into a life of crime on their own.

My Blue Heaven could be called a sequel to Goodfellas, except that it hit theaters a month before the Scorsese film, the lead character is not named Henry Hill, and it's a comedy. But it is a sequel, as Henry Hill's story ended in Goodfellas at the point it begins in My Blue Heaven. Steve Martin wanted to play the part of the FBI agent (ultimately played by Rick Moranis), but author Nora Ephron wanted him to play the local DA (Joan Cusack). We can't imagine Martin playing any other role besides Vinnie Antonelli, in which he out-caricatured any stereotype in Goodfellas and made the movie his own. Read how accurate My Blue Heaven was to Henry Hill's life and how it ended up as a comedy at Mental Floss.

Watch Justine cook a meal the way it would have been prepared 200 years ago. She's making steak pie, mustard greens, and macaroni and cheese, but with no stove, no electricity, and no running water. Since she is used to cooking in a fireplace, she has a few pieces of specialized equipment to make it possible. While this video is serene and relaxing, I would suggest going under the settings and speeding it up to 1.5x or maybe even 2x normal speed. There is no voiceover, so the speed doesn't matter -until you get to the end, where they show the original printed receipts (recipes). The macaroni and cheese especially is rather timeless in its ingredients, but heating a lid in the fire to make a broiler seems like a lot of trouble to us modern folks. This does appear to be a simple but yummy meal. -via Laughing Squid

During World War II, the Université de Montréal set up a secret nuclear laboratory to do experiments for the Allies and to produce plutonium for a nuclear bomb. After the atomic bombings that ended the war, Chalk River Laboratories went public, announcing they would do peacetime experiments. They also supplied uranium and plutonium to the US military for tests. The state-of-the-art 20-watt reactor was a mecca for nuclear scientists from all over the world. But compared to today's nuclear laboratories, there were quite a few opportunities for trouble.

On December 12, 1952, a lab worker reset two buttons by mistake and initiated a sequence of events, fueled by panic and confusion, that led to the world's first nuclear reactor core meltdown. When it was over, 4.5 million liters of contaminated water flooded the facility. The cleanup took 800 employees plus military personnel from both Canada and the US. The meltdown wasn't kept a secret, but the press downplayed the damage -and the danger. By 1957, a newer 200-megawatt reactor was built nearby. In 1958, another accident occurred when a crane tried to remove damaged fuel rods which melted and caught fire. This time, 1100 people took part in the cleanup.

A couple of decades later, those who worked during the cleanup operations were suffering from cancer at much higher rates than the general public, but it took until last year to get an agreement for compensation. Read about these two Canadian accidents and their fallout (meant both figuratively and literally) at The Walrus.  -via Damn Interesting

(Image credit: Canadian Nuclear Laboratories)

This cartoon by Joel Haver never says the word Charmin, but you know who these bears are, even if they don't look like bears at all. They look like rotoscoped people. But that's all beside the point. The family has their purpose, and that's toilet paper. And don't even think about doing something else! This scene is a family sitcom moment featuring a ridiculous but strangely successful advertising premise, and it gradually turns into a pun fest. Warning: bathroom humor. -via reddit

Just in time for World Chimpanzee Day, Mattel has unveiled the latest Barbie doll in the Barbie Inspiring Women Collection, modeled after primatologist Dr. Jane Goodall. Goodall is world-renowned for her work in studying and advocating for chimpanzees since 1960. The Mattel company worked with the Jane Goodall Institute to make the doll come alive. It is the first in the series to be made with 90% recycled plastic, and is shipped in a sustainably manufactured box.

The Jane Goodall doll is quite recognizable, as she wears khaki shorts, carries a notebook, and sports her iconic ponytail. It also comes with a figure of David Greybeard, the first chimpanzee that trusted Goodall in her early work in Gombe National Park in Tanzania. Goodall is pleased with the doll, saying she has always wanted a Barbie in her likeness because the doll was so girly-girly in her youth and she thought girls needed choices. The Jane Goodall Barbie doll is now available for $35. -via Mental Floss

History and science combine to tell the story of how trade exploded when Europeans began crossing the Atlantic to the Americas. We know diseases were traded, with pathogens such as smallpox and measles killing millions of Native Americans who had no immunity to them. It's been conventional wisdom that syphilis traveled the other direction, and the sexually transmitted disease began to infect Europe. But a closer look at the historical record points to the existence of syphilis in Europe hundreds of years before Columbus sailed to the New World.

Paleopathologists have studied remains of European people who displayed the effects of syphilis going back to the 6th century. However, the presence of the bacterium Treponema pallidum cannot be pinpointed. But a new theory that venereal syphilis ran rampant among royalty and the wealthy while non-venereal syphilis plagued the poor finds evidence in, of all things, medieval art. One particular symptom of the disease was depicted in religious artworks, and was apparently well-known enough to be ascribed to sinners and evildoers. Read how this theory comes together at the Conversation.

You know how some of your favorite songs are so familiar that you appreciate them even when played in a completely different way, like a bluegrass version of a Queen song or Guns 'n' Roses played on an accordion? Or anything by Postmodern Jukebox? Then you're going to love this!

Moyun is a Chinese guzheng player who is noted for never showing her face (yes, that's a mask). Here she treats us to a full version of   AC/DC's song "Thunderstruck" on a 21-string guzheng. She covers the guitar, bass, drums, and vocal parts with just two hands and one musical instrument. Moyun has videos of other rock covers, Chinese songs, anime themes, and video game music at her YouTube channel. -via Geeks Are Sexy