Every year since 1966, the residents of Gävle, Sweden, erect a giant yule goat made of straw to celebrate the season. The Gävle Goat has proven to be a huge tourist draw, and an entire festival grew up around it. In recent years, it has been broadcast worldwide on a live webcam. But the goat is always in danger. In about one out of every three years, someone has managed to burn the goat down before the new year. The expected arson has been less frequent in the 21st century because of serious security protocols. But the goat is still vulnerable to other methods of destruction. In 2023, the Gävle Goat was eaten by birds! 

In 2025, it appeared as if the goat was going to make it to New Year's Day, but fate intervened. Storm Johannes brought winds up to 40 miles per hour to Sweden, and the goat was no match for them. It collapsed to the ground early Saturday afternoon. Thus, 2025 will be another disastrous entry into the history the world's unluckiest Christmas decoration.   

Every year, Barry Petchesky (previously at Neatorama) sifts through the records of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's database of emergency room visits, looking for cases of foreign objects stuck in body orifices that require medical attention. 2025 is the 13th year of his report, and he has suspended reporting on things that were stuck in ears, noses, and throats. No one paid much attention to those anyway. But the internet is intrigued with the objects that had to be medically retrieved from penises, vaginas, and rectums. Some cases on the list come with notes taken verbatim from the medical reports, for example, "INSERTED TWO DIAMOND RINGS IN HER VAGINA WHILE AT A PARTY IN FEAR THEY WOULD BE STOLEN." Yes, there are a couple of tales of slipping and falling in the shower, and even more of patients not remembering how it happened. The entire post should be considered NSFW. Read all three lists at Defector. 

Earlier this year, New York City banned cell phones in classrooms through high school. The results are mostly positive. Teachers report that students are more likely to get to class on time. The downside is that they really don't know that they are on time, because many don't know how to read the analog clock found in every room. These same students were taught how to tell time in the first and second grades, but since then they've relied on their phones to display the time digitally. 

It's a phenomenon we've all heard about from time to time, but the NYC school story shines a light on how widespread it is. Students who don't understand analog clocks don't understand the terms "a quarter 'til," "top of the hour," or "incoming fire at ten o'clock," much less "clockwise." Such phrases often reveal a misunderstanding of fractions. I read about a student declaring that "a quarter 'til three" meant 2:35 because a quarter was 25. But how can 35 be three-quarters? A misunderstanding of round clocks may also interfere with the understanding of 360° geometry or compasses, not to mention number systems outside base ten. 

There are those who would argue that people no longer need to understand analog clocks because there are digital clocks everywhere, and the phrases we use for time and direction are outdated. What do you think? 

-via Fark 

(Image credit: Julian Herzog) 

In 2023, millions of fans went to stadiums to see Taylor Swift's Eras tour. Most of the fans were young ladies, many of them too young to drive to concerts. Tickets were very expensive, and often out of reach for entire families. So the fathers of fans who were lucky enough to get tickets took their daughters to the arena, and then waited in the parking lot for hours to take them home. With so many other men in the same boat, they had a community of sorts in the parking lot. After all, they have a few things in common. 

Hearing the music through their children, some of these dads are Taylor Swift fans themselves, and some are not, but they all love their daughters. Paul Scheer noticed the parking lot phenomenon and spent several evenings outside Swift's concerts in Los Angeles talking to these dads, 50 of them, to see who they were and how they felt about what they were doing. You might need to grab a hankie. -via Metafilter 

Lucky for us, modern commercial food production is governed by laws on food safety and regulations ensuring fair trade practices. For the most part. But it wasn't always so, and some iconic brands have sad or cutthroat origin stories. You know John Pemberton developed Coca-Cola and named it after its ingredients, but did you know he started using cocaine to treat his own morphine addiction? Okra is not native to the US, and was smuggled in. Fanta was developed during World War II when Germany lost their American suppliers and had to use garbage from local food processors to made soda. The story of the first pink lemonade is either cute or gross, depending on which story you believe. Several companies blatantly ripped off the competition and won through the magic of marketing, leaving the originals in the dust. Read the more nefarious (and sometimes gruesome) parts of the origin stories of 12 familiar foods at The Takeout. 

(Image credit: angrit) 

In 1989, Star Trek: The Next Generation introduced us to the Borg, a collective of cyborgs that work together as one unit to capture and assimilate the universe's beings and technology for their own purpose- which is to capture and assimilate others. They are seemingly soulless, more powerful than Starfleet, and growing bigger and more powerful all the time. A truly frightening nemesis. 

The more our heroes learn about the Borg, the more frightening they became. In later episodes, the philosophical question of individualism, free will, and the hive mind are explored. However, over time and multiple appearances in later movies and series of the Star Trek universe, the Borg lost their horror because they were always ultimately thwarted. We also got to know a few individual Borg drones, and they became sympathetic. The Borg never succeeded in permanently assimilating any of the main characters, although they came frighteningly close. This video is 20 minutes long, but it's from The Art of Storytelling, so you know it's going to be riveting. -via Laughing Squid 

Exotic, amazing, and totally untrue tales from faraway lands come through many paths. Locals like to troll visitors with scary stories, like that of the snipe or drop bear. Returning travelers like to impress people by becoming brave witnesses to things they heard. Some storytellers have an agenda, like proving their superiority over uncivilized cultures. And news outlets sometimes prioritize a good story over the truth. Sometimes legends arise due to a combination of these factors. And that's how we got the Man-Eating Tree of Madagascar. 

On April 28, 1874, the New York World published an account of German botanist Karl Leche about a tree in Madagascar that resembled an eight-foot pineapple. The Mkodo tribe showed him a ceremony in which a woman was sacrificed to the tree by forcing her to drink its poison nectar, after which the tree's upper tendrils encased her. When Leche returned later, all that was left of the woman was her skull at the base of the tree. 

The problems with the story are 1. there is no evidence of the existence of Karl Leche, 2. there is no Mkodo tribe in Madagascar, and 3. no one ever saw the tree after that. But the story spread like crazy, and stuck around. This happened after insectivorous plants were discovered. There was a 19th-century queen of Madagascar who eliminated her rivals and invading foreigners by forcing them to drink poison. And, perhaps most importantly, most readers knew very little about Madagascar. Read how the legend of the man-eating tree came about at American Strangeness. -via Strange Company 

The headstone for the grave of Joan Wytte in Cornwall, UK, is quite intriguing. Her birth date, death date, and burial date are in three different centuries! And the last line is quite sad- "no longer abused." Who was Joan Wytte? 

It turns out there is no documentary evidence of a woman named Joan Wytte, and the name "Joan" was often given to Cornish women who were considered a village wise woman. In other words, a witch. Forensic evidence shows the woman buried underneath this stone was around 38 years old at the time of her death, short, and undernourished. She died in the Bodmin jail in 1813, and we know a lot more about her existence after that. Her body was supposed to go to an anatomist, but he didn't bother to actually collect it, so she stayed at the jail, and her bones were used in a seance. Then a doctor took possession of the skeleton, and later sold it to the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in the 1950s, although the actual museum didn't open until years later. Read what we know about the woman whose restless remains were finally interred with dignity 185 years after she died. -via reddit 

(Image credit: Capricorn007_) 

You know what Christmas needs? More chaos and destruction! In this bizarre animated sequence the Grinch gets lost on his way to Whoville and somehow ends up in the United States. Instead of correcting his mistake, he instead decides to ruin Christmas here. But since he's not familiar with the huge and powerful transportation and logistics systems in America, he takes quite a beating- to a ridiculous degree. He discovers that his nefarious schemes are no match for the country's over-the-top Christmas spirit. Yet instead of a genuine change of heart, the Grinch realizes that it is in his own best interest to leave Christmas alone. It's the American way. 

This involves teleportation, time travel, and the suspension of the laws of physics, which is what cartoons are for. It's the kind of nonsense you'd expect from Landon Fernald of Landon’s Animation Wheelhouse (previously at Neatorama). He hand-animated all the scenes in Blender, and did the music as well. -via The Awesomer 

The Rockettes are currently performing in the annual Christmas Spectacular show at Radio City Music Hall, just like they did when you were a kid. Christmas is their busiest season, when they perform in five shows a day from Thanksgiving into the new year, after weeks of rehearsals. I had always thought the Rockettes' name was somehow connected to the name Rockefeller, but I was wrong. The troupe, then called the Missouri Rockets, was formed in St. Louis in the 1920s as an opening act for movies. A theater owner saw them and bought the troupe in 1925 and moved them to New York, where they again performed before movie showings, but their name was now the Rockettes. They were kicking up their heels before Radio City Music Hall ever opened. 

The Rockettes have become a tradition in New York and on TV. They've performed in the Christmas Spectacular since 1933, and in the Macy's parade since 1957. Read about the Rockette's history, what they do, and what it's like to be one of them, at Smithsonian. Videos are included. 

An article at The Takeout explains why pancakes from a diner taste so much better than homemade pancakes. It's because they have specialized equipment and lots of experience. Restaurants cannot afford to have their pancakes turn out differently from one customer to the next, and they don't have the time for a do-over. They offer some tips for making your pancakes more like those you'd find in a restaurant. 

But when the article was linked at Metafilter, the response was swift and adamant. Diner pancakes do not taste better than homemade; they are simply more consistent. And it depends on what you really want in a pancake- thick and fluffy or thin and crepe-y, but most of all, inexpensive. Besides sharing tips on how to improve your pancake and waffle technique, Mefites shared their recipes, including those with a variety of unusual flours, buttermilk, bananas, yeast, malted milk powder, and instant oatmeal, plus some traditional recipes that have always worked for them. There's also a recipe for a berry goo topping. Check them all out in the comments. 

(Image credit: Lajmmoore) 

In Britain, you are considered an adult when you turn 18. In America, that's true for only some things, like voting and signing contracts. You can drive at 16 (or younger in some states), but you can't buy alcohol or tobacco until you are 21, and some companies will not rent a car to anyone under 25. I once explained to a foreign visitor that Americans let their kids have jobs, date, and drive in high school to make sure a parent is available to help them learn those skills. The alcohol and tobacco laws were a response from the government to too many people dying.  

Laurence Brown, who celebrates his birthday on Christmas Eve, also covers the difference between other adult things like traveling, taxes, home ownership, and hosting holiday parties in this video about how the United States is an outlier in transitioning to whatever passes for an adult life. There's a 75-second skippable ad at 1:55. 

We've been following the adventures of Jonathan Stanley (redditor kakalacky_guy, previously at Neatorama) and his family for years, by way of his humorous Christmas cards. Here is a his card for 2025, titled “The Great Backyard Ice Rink Disaster of 2025.” The kids have transformed the driveway into a hockey rink by flooding it with water. The oldest is operating a Zamboni fashioned from the lawn mower. The daughter's goalie gear is also homemade. Dad, in the same sweater he's worn for twelve years, lacks skates so he's fallen. Mom's coffee has escaped its cup. The power cord for the lights has been skated over. You can see more details by greatly enlarging this photo at reddit. 

Kakalacky_guy has been producing these Photoshopped cards since 2014, when there were only two kids (although they seemed like a half-dozen back then). He calls them "honest Christmas cards" because they illustrate the chaos of life with three children. Click to the right and see all the previous Christmas cards.  -via reddit 

John C. Worsley is the master of goofy musical Star Trek videos, and always has something special for Christmas (previously at Neatorama). For 2025, he's focused on Jeffrey Combs for the supercut "Here Comes Jeffrey Combs." Who is Jeffrey Combs? He's an actor and voiceover artist who has become the go-to guy in the Star Trek universe. Combs has played nine aliens (and one human) so far on Star Trek - some of them recurring characters, including the Vorta clone Weyoun and the Ferengi character Brunt in the series Strar TreK: Deep Space Nine. On Star Trek: Enterprise, he was Andorian military officer Schran. He also appeared on Star TreK: Voyager and Star Trek: Lower Decks. Combs has even worked on a Star Trek video game! You need to be a real Trekkie to know all that, but you don't have to have a photographic memory of all the players to enjoy the cleverness of this song. -via Metafilter 

A type of cancer called diffuse midline glioma (DMG) grows on the brain, specifically on the thalamus, brainstem, or spinal cord. Surgery in those areas is impossible because it's so dangerous, and patients diagnosed with DMG have a 1% survival rate. But a breakthrough is giving these patients more time.

The new drug Modeyso was developed with the aid of fireflies. Dr. Joshua Allen has been exploring how our bodies' own immune system fights cancers, and inserted the firefly gene for bioluminescence into human genes known to fight cancer to study their behavior. When the body's cells become cancerous, these genes are activated and made cancers glow and easier to see. The study of how such genes are activated led to the new drug. Some DMG patients that were given nine to twelve months to live have survived months or even years longer after the new treatment. Read how all that came about at Popular Science. -via Damn Interesting