According to Grandpa, any wild mammal that invades your home or garden is a rodent, often lovingly referred to as a “varmint.” This turns out to be not quite so. We know that mice, rats, and hamsters are rodents, but other animals that resemble mice or rats may or may not belong to the order Rodentia. Find out about quite a few of these animals in this article I posted at mental_floss.
A guy on the highway saw a young driver texting, so he called the police and then started his video camera. That recording was given to the police, and stands as a testament to why you don’t text while driving. NSFW audio.
Five for Fighting, the story of the Sullivan brothers, who served together in the US Navy in World War II.
A gallery of soldiers coming home. There's something in my eye...
How Arlington National Cemetery Came to Be.
Is it true that women prefer men in uniform?
How We’ve Commemorated the Civil War.
In 1955, the Atomic Energy Commission started getting complaints from local citizens about nuclear testing. The government responded by publishing a cartoon booklet that made a nuclear blast seem like a family picnic. (via Gorilla Mask)
They say you can’t tell the players without a program! When a story is an “epic saga” or a long-running series, some kind of guide will help immensely. Plot lines turn on family secrets, and fresh material is injected by the introduction of yet another relative. And sometimes, complicated bloodlines meet as characters marry each other (since a wedding and new babies will always boost ratings). To help you along, TV, movie, and literature geeks will chart out those relationships in family trees. See eleven of them in this article I posted at mental_floss.
Acrobat Tiny Kline crosses the rooftops between buildings in Times Square hanging by her teeth in 1932.
Seven Little Girl Cats.
Mental_floss blog editor Jason English told me his daughter wanted a cuckoo clock, but she wanted one with a dog instead of a cuckoo. I began to wonder why clocks use cuckoo birds to identify the hour. As it turns out, there are quite a variety of ways clocks will announce the hour. See some of them in this article I posted at mental_floss.
Otto Rahn was one of the inspirations for the character of Indiana Jones, despite the fact that he was a Nazi. His real life story would be just as exciting as a movie, if so many details weren’t shrouded in mystery.
You go to a college baseball game and the rain starts. While waiting, the players entertain the crowds with a series of silly skits that are more entertaining than the game.
A zoetrope is a mechanical device that creates the illusion of moving pictures, based on a spinning cylinder in which slits are cut. You look through the slits at a picture on the other side, and the strobe effect of looking through the sequence of slits frames the sequential pictures on the inside. It was invented in about 180AD. That’s a long time ago! The modern way to do it is to use strobe lights or camera shutters to recreate the effect of looking through slits, but however you do it, a zoetrope is still magical. See a variety of them in action in this video collection I posted at mental_floss.
How do serial killers get their nicknames? An unidentified serial killer in Long Island doesn’t have a snappy moniker yet -or at least he hasn’t claimed one.
Like most memes, you’ve either seen it everywhere you go on the internet, or you are totally unaware of it -until now. Nyan Cat (also called Pop Tart Cat) is an 8-bit animation produced by the artist at LOL-COMICS who goes by the name prguitarman. The cat was published on April 2, 2011 and became an instant hit. The original image is accompanied by an endless loop of music, and in fact has a timer included. The first video version is closing on ten million views now, so you can imagine how many people have visited the Nyan Cat page -and the many spinoffs and tributes. Read all about it in this article I posted at mental_floss.
Drop some Mentos into a plastic soda bottle to make a homemade rocket -what could possibly go wrong? It might not work, or it just might work.
The Lazarus File. A 1986 murder was solved 23 years later as DNA technology caught up with an unlikely suspect. (via Metafilter)
The Periodic Table of the Elements is a wonderful aid in understanding chemistry, if you understand the reasons the elements are sorted the way they are. The table itself is a model of information classification. No wonder folks want to use this structure to classify other types of information -although science geeks can see right away whether the artist really understands the original table. That said, we can all enjoy periodic tables of items other than elements, as you'll see in this list I posted, the latest in a long-running series at mental_floss.
A recovering Star Wars fan goes through the five stages of grief. There’s hope that eventually all fans will reach the level of acceptance. (via Buzzfeed)
“No matter what happens at the site, DO NOT CRY.” A Japanese medical worker kept a diary after the earthquake, now available in English. (via Metafilter)
Some things we all know are true appear to contradict each other, and even though we are aware of the facts, we cannot always know what will happen when these concepts come together. One such concept is that of the buttered cat. In most cases of scientific conundrums, experiments are used to find the answer. When there is a cat involved, getting the required cooperation from the test subject makes this all but impossible. But I’m getting ahead of myself. First, let’s understand the paradox of the buttered cat, which is explained in this article I wrote for mental_floss.
A jumping spider’s mating dance only needs the proper music to make it perfect! You can find out more about the spider at NPR.Marc-AndrĂ© Hamelin plays his composition "Valse Irritation". He transcribed the Nokia ringtone. He is known to play it in concerts when he hears a cellphone go off.
You wouldn't have known it before the age of the internet, but yarn crafts can be very geeky. Knitting and crocheting are examples of digital art, so to speak, as the patterns are strings of information rendered in bits. Some craftsters are science fiction fans as well, which gives us some great crochet projects to enjoy, as you'll see in this list I posted at mental_floss.
When We Tested Nuclear Bombs. See a series of photographs from the 2,000 nuclear tests performed since 1945. (via Metafilter)
The Situation Room Meme: The Shortest Route From Bin Laden to Lulz. See what clever Photoshoppers have done to a tense moment at the White House during the bin Laden raid.
Disney produced a documentary promoting nuclear power in 1957 called Our Friend the Atom. It has been shown in countless high school science classes since then. The 53-minute film is available in segments on YouTube, if you’d like to watch the whole thing. One part that stuck with us is the demonstration of a chain reaction using ping pong balls on mousetraps. After seeing it, many budding scientists worked to recreate it. Not because it was educational, but because it was so cool. See seven of those experiments in a video collection I posted at mental_floss.
Food is often used to illustrate shapes, and recipes are used to introduce children to measurement and proportions. But if you really care about your mathematics -and your food- there are ways to take the marriage of math and food it to the next level, as you'll see in this article I posted at mental_floss.
A Mother’s Prayer for Her Child by Tina Fey. Amen.
I know… the last thing that someone emotionally ranting on Facebook needs is someone to call them out on spelling errors, but sometimes the opportunity to make a joke is just too tempting. Text is NSFW, especially the tragically hilarious last one. (via Metafilter)
The winners of the Webby Awards have been announced. In rather few categories did the award and the people’s choice go to the same website, which is a double honor.
After posting several lists of niche blogs, I found out that “niche blog” is a term used by web publishers to refer to a blog that is created to market advertising to a specific audience. That’s not what I was thinking at all! The blogs I love to pass on to you are those with a very specific subject matter, so specific that you have to be impressed at the bounty of content they provide. There might be one in this list I posted at mental_floss that you’ll fall in love with and want to follow.
More internet reactions to bin Laden's death.
What is Beneath the Temple Mount? An archaeologist shares the wonder of digging under the crossroad of three world religions.