Miss Cellania's Links

The Medical Dangers of Kissing.

Trevor Noah puts into words the anxiety we feel when we think about how Donald Trump will run the U.S. as chief executive officer.

The Development of the Proper Medicine Cabinet. (via Metafilter)

100 Years of Artists’ Maps of New York City. (via Nag on the Lake)

A Hypnotic, Interactive Map Predicts Migration as Animals Become Climate Refugees. If they find a better environment, it might not last forever.

Ohio State University Tweeted 'Run Hide Fight' when an attacker struck on Monday. Here's what that means.

24 Stunning Wedding Cakes. It seems almost a shame to eat them.

The Rapidly Accelerating Backwards Creep of Oscar Season. Awards season had already started, before some of the movies in contention are even released.

A wildfire in the Great Smoky Mountains has forced an evacuation of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. Three people have already lost their lives.

The misleading myth of the 'Middle Ages.' That era needs a new, more meaningful name.

Miss Cellania's Links

Welcome to the Big House. Some interesting facts about prisons and jails -and the difference between them.

The 2016 Gävle Goat Was Destroyed in Record Time. It didn't even survive an entire day this year.

The good news is that Nike finally has the self-lacing sneakers predicted in Back to the Future 2. The bad news is that they'll cost you $720 dollars a pair.

21 of the strangest weapons people have tried to take through airport security. These are the ones the TSA found and confiscated.

This 104-year-old blogger is keeping the dying art alive. Dagny Carlsson does it out of love, and has gained many fans.

Hey, How Did You Get That Scar? Answers guaranteed to made rude people wish they hadn't asked.

Lin-Manuel Miranda Got Real Drunk And Retold The Story Of The Fallout Of Hamilton’s Affair. The whole Drunk History episode on Alexander Hamilton will be on TV tonight.

The World’s Most Repeated TV Program.

People are making themselves miserable by trying too hard to be happy.

Untangling the History of Christmas Lights.

Monday, November 28, 2016

Messing with Mother Nature: 5 Cautionary Tales

I've written several articles about invasive species and the problems that come when humans try to "improve" nature in one way or another. The unintended consequences of human intervention can wreck the delicate balance of nature. Here are five stories in a classic mental_floss article I wrote in 2008. One explains how spraying mosquitoes with DDT led to dropping cats out of planes.

Miss Cellania's Links

The Dog Frisbee Pioneer. Ashley Whippet set the standard.

Married to the Mob: Dames and Molls who hung with Mafia Wise Guys.

How to make your own Dumpster Fire Christmas Ornament. Jennifer Brooks gives us entertaining commentary even if you don't want to make one. (via Metafilter)

A Photographic Chronicle of America's Working Poor.

A Very Serious Discussion of Which Disney Princes Are Best in Bed.

We Tracked Down A Fake-News Creator In The Suburbs. Here's What We Learned

Christmas Movies and TV Show Schedule 2016. Keep this one bookmarked for the next month and three days.

How Jo Cox’s Murder Exposed The Difficulties Of Reporting On Violent Acts In 2016. Whether a killer is a "crazed loner" or a "terrorist" often depends on the color of his skin.

Sexual Violence Might Reshape the Female Brain. Research on stress in rats seems to point in that direction. 

How to write an A+ term paper, in 11 easy steps. Become a lean, mean, efficient student machine.

Sunday, November 27, 2016

The Seven Deadly Sins



Studio C presents a warning against succumbing to any of the seven deadly sins (pride, envy, wrath, gluttony, greed, lust, and sloth). Each are illustrated in this sumptuous video. They obviously have their favorite of the seven. Can you guess which one it is? (via Viral Viral Videos)

10 Gloriously Geeky Quilts





What fandom do you like to sleep under? There's a deep overlap of gamers, science fiction fans, comic book aficionados, and quilters. They are all creative people! Quilters don't even have to be fans of geeky entertainment, because they will go the extra mile to lovingly design and create a handmade gift for someone who is. Here are some of the awesome quilts that people have made to illustrate various fandoms, in a list I compiled for mental_floss.  

Water Review

If you look closely, you'll see that this video is thirteen minutes long. Thirteen minutes. (via Buzzfeed)

Friday, November 25, 2016

SEAGULLS! (Stop It Now)



A year ago, the folks at Bad Lip Reading did a musical version of The Empire Strikes Back. It featured about twenty seconds of Yoda singing a nonsense song. Now they've expanded that short sequence into a full-length song, and its just as silly. Or even more. The chorus is rather catchy, though. This could be an earworm. I hope not! (via Tastefully Offensive)

The Most Aussie Interview Ever



That's the way this news report is being described all over. It's got everything: crime, drunk driving, a chase scene, and a local hero running around without clothing looking out for his mates, plus Today host Karl Stefanovic to give his reaction. All delivered with that unmistakable accent. But where's the swearing? Daniel McConnell, who chased the Brisbane hit-and-run driver in the above video, most likely had some colorful language of his own that night. (via reddit)  

The Sweet and Not-So-Sweet History of Saccharin

When it was first introduced to the public, saccharin seemed to be a miracle. The substance is about 300 times as sweet as sugar, and it doesn't have any calories. What’s not to love about that? But the story of saccharin is not all sweet. Read how it came about in an article I wrote for mental_floss.

Miss Cellania's Links

Marilyn Monroe's First Marriage. Eddie Deezen tells the story.

The most Australian TV interview ever.

Christophe Guinet, also known as Monsieur Plant, planted houseplants in obsolete or nonfunctional Apple computers and peripherals, mainly the various models of Macintosh. But why are they all plugged in? (via Design Boom)

The 17 Most Influential Science Fiction Books. (via the Presurfer)

The new movie Moana is a Sweet and Soulful Charmer. This Disney film makes full use of the talents behind it.

Spending Money on Experiences, Not Things, Increases Gratitude and Altruism. That's in addition to experiences making us happier.

8 Great D.B. Cooper Pop Culture Moments. Since the skyjacker was never found, he could pop up anywhere.

Every Single James Bond Movie, Ranked. Your opinion may vary, of course.

A Brief History of Black Friday. Making Christmas shopping a competitive sport for over 100 years. 

Despotism



Encyclopaedia Britannica Films produced this 1946 educational film to warn us about the signs that your community is sliding into despotism.
The two chief characteristics of despotism -- restricted respect and concentrated power -- are defined and illustrated. Two of the conditions which have historically promoted the growth of despotism are explained and exemplified. These are a slanted economic distribution and a strict control of the agencies of communication. 
(via Boing Boing)

Dad Tries to Copy Daughter's Gymnastic Moves



Alex Mills is a 9-year-old gymnast in Melbourne, Australia, who's been training for three years now. Her Dad Ash decided he wanted to try it, too. Watch him try out the stunts she practices. You think you know what this video will show you, but stick with it and be surprised. It helps that Ash, a 41-year-old professional window washer, is a pretty athletic fellow to start with. Since Alex practices 30 hours a week, this is a way for them to have some fun together. You can see more of Ash and Alex at Instagram. (via Metafilter)



Five Other Thanksgiving Holidays

Families and friend gather together on Thanksgiving Day to eat and give thanks for the blessings we have. It's a truly American holiday. But as much as we appreciate the Pilgrims' contribution to our holiday calendar, they are far from the first to set aside a holiday to give thanks for a bountiful harvest. Here are some other thanks-giving holidays from around the world, in a classic mental_floss article I wrote back in 2008.


Photograph: Joseph Steinberg

Thanksgiving Dinner in the Movies



If you think Thanksgiving dinner with your dysfunctional family is grim, here's a reminder of how much worse it could be. Like in the movies. Jacob T. Swinney of Fandor Keyframe collected some examples from Hollywood to show that gathering the relatives together for a holiday meal isn't always pretty. You might be better off working or serving at the local soup kitchen. Or maybe you could just let those resentments go and enjoy the feast. (via Laughing Squid

Miss Cellania's Links

The Invention of News. Journalism is easier when someone goes ahead and writes a press release.

The average Thanksgiving dinner is around 2,500 calories. They used large servings to calculate that, so go ahead and have a second helping.



The Murderer Who Came on the Mayflower. (Thanks, Aliza!)

Indians, Slaves, and Mass Murder: The Hidden History.

The science of survival in Antarctica. A series of four videos tells us how people live and work down there non the cold.

Visit the Kansas farm that accidentally became the digital center of the U.S. When you live at the default location, all kinds of horrible things happen.

The Catholic Church has a new phone app for making a confession. It's named The Catholic App, but many are already calling is Sinder.

President Obama had a 'corny-copia' of bad dad jokes at this year's turkey pardon. With two months to retirement, you can blame him for having a little fun.

Why We Eat What We Eat On Thanksgiving. Mainly because our traditional dishes are just so darn delicious.

Mobile Moderator



Restore civility to the holiday dinner table with Mobile Moderator! Guaranteed to be …expensive. I'll take Anderson Cooper. (via Tastefully Offensive)

OK Go Video Filmed in Mere Seconds



OK Go is a band known for their imaginative music videos. It's like, "The song is OK, but go watch the video." Their latest is called "The One Moment." The band explains what's going on in the video:
The first three quarters of the video, from the beginning of the song until I pick up the umbrella at the a cappella breakdown, unfold over 4.2 seconds of real time. Then I lip sync in real time for about 16 seconds (we thought it was important to have a moment of human contact at this point in the song, so we returned to the realm of human experience) and we return to slow motion for the final chorus paint scene, which took a little longer than 3 seconds in real time.
There are 318 things happening here, at different rates that synch up with the tune. Even if you're not impressed by the concept, you'll love all the splashing, explosions, and breakage. Read more about how it was done at the band's website. (via Digg)

An Honest Trailer for Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer



Screen Junkies gets a jump on Christmas by going back more than 50 years to bring us an Honest Trailer for the 1964 Rankin-Bass TV special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  We've all seen it so many times that we may find it hard to put ourselves in the place of the audience who saw it for the first time all those years ago. What was whimsical then is downright alarming now. The TV show was based on the 1949 Johnny Marks song, which was based on a 1939 Montgomery Ward advertising campaign. In order to stretch the two-minute song into an hour story, they had to add a lot of strange characters and a coming-of-age plot line. That's the focus of this Honest Trailer. (via Uproxx)

Tweet of the Day



My mother flew back from Florida yesterday, and then drove a couple of hours from the airport. She confirmed that everyone and their brother was traveling. Well, everyone except for my kids, who will both be spending their first Thanksgiving away from home. (via Boing Boing)

Character in the Selfie Age



Some people bemoan the "selfie generation," but taking selfies is just a manifestation of a trend that's been going on for decades (although one could argue it started centuries ago). The glorification of the individual over the community has just become more evident with the rise of the internet. Being liked, or at least known, is more desirable than being good.

Okay, we know the problem, but what can we do about it? The audio of this video is an excerpt from a talk that New York Times columnist David Brooks gave at the RSA (The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) in London last year. The visuals were added by animator Rodolphe Jouxtel. -via Digg

Miss Cellania's Links

Pop-Up Medical Thermometer Woes. That turkey gadget may have other uses -or maybe not.

Butterball's Strangest Calls. (via Digg)

Ozzy Man Reviews has started keeping up with the weather forecast in Mexico. NSFW language. (via reddit)

10 Tricks Retailers Will Try To Use On Black Friday.

Meet the women who hate feminism.

A catchy little remix that puts a song on Negan's lips. A special for Walking Dead fans only. 

Probing the Undersea Dead Zone Known as the Hot Tub of Despair. It's so salty that nothing we know about can live there.

How The 2016 Election Blew Up In Facebook’s Face. It helped to build the echo chambers that preached to the choir.

The Father of Modern French Cuisine Wrote a Very Misguided Thanksgiving Cookbook. The holiday is about American food and tradition.

The Not-So-Ancient History of 10 Thanksgiving Dishes. Even though the Pilgrims didn't serve them, they are still traditional on many tables today.

The History of the Rubber Duck



I don't recall whether I had a rubber duck to play with in the bath when I was little, but I certainly took one to college with me -and found that college dorms do not have bathtubs. No matter, I kept that rubber duck and still have it today. But how far back do those cute rubber ducks go? Further than you may think. Simon Whistler of Today I Found Out gives us the complete history of rubber duck bath toys, from the development of vulcanized rubber to the Sesame Street song "Rubber Duckie" and beyond.

World Record Basketball Toss



These guys traveled all the way to Switzerland to throw basketballs. But it paid off when they landed a basket from 493 feet above and set a new world record. Australian trick shot artists Brett Stanford, Derek Herron, and Scott Gaunson, together known as How Ridiculous, took turns tossing a ball from the top of Mauvoisin Dam in Valais, Switzerland in September. Herron had the third shot, and it went in the basket at the bottom of the dam! How Ridiculous had actually held the world record twice before for the highest basketball shot, but were outdone by Side Perfect last year. Now that they've reclaimed the title, it will be hard for anyone else to find a place to even attempt to break it. Read more about the stunt at the Guinness World Records site. (via The Daily Dot)

Miss Cellania's Links

The Transfermium Wars. It's Dubna vs. Berkeley in the science lab version of the Cold War.

“It smelled like death”: An oral history of the Double Dare obstacle course. It had nothing to do with the game, but kids loved the mess it made.

Family Thanksgiving with Giada De Laurentiis. She has the secret solution for having to listen to family squabbles.

What Is the World's Weirdest Language? Maybe it's PirahĂŁ, which can be can be spoken, whistled, or sung.

Before the Turkey, There Was the Peacock. European harvest feasts had their own big, colorful, tasty bird.

Thanksgiving as a Kid vs. Thanksgiving as an Adult.

Supposed prophecy predicting Donald Trump goes viral. Stanford philosopher Richard Rorty wrote it in 1998. (via reddit)

Pima Animal Care of Tucson, Arizona, has teamed up with Catalina Springs Memory Care nursing home to care for orphaned kittens. See more pictures at Facebook. (via Fark)  

17th-Century Dioramas Made from Real Human Body Parts.

Your Filter Bubble is Destroying Democracy. Blame the algorithms, but we must do something.

M.A.M.O.N.



Ale Damiani made the short film M.A.M.O.N. (Monitor Against Mexicans Over Nationwide) about Trump's plans to build a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico and deport undocumented aliens. Besides that, there's some awesome effects in this. It's got a giant robot, an implied catapult, a heart transplant, and a heroic chicken. And more. It's a political science fiction comedy, I guess. (via Digg)


Tweet of the Day



Our president will have to grow a thicker skin, don't you think? (via The Washington Post

Miss Cellania's Links

Really Dead, or Just Mostly Dead?

Dude isn’t even president yet and he’s demanding apologies because the cast of a Broadway show politely asked Pence not to trample all over their rights.

Ranking the First Six Seasons of American Horror Story.

The 2016 Bad Sex in Fiction Nominees. The winner will be announced November 30.

11 Ways We Spend Our Hard-Earned Cash That Make No Sense.

5 Things You Didn't Know About Alan Shepard. The first American in space had plenty of tales to tell.

12 Disney Movies That Have Horrifying Origin Stories. Fairy tales were once horror stories.

Hilarious Photos of Jumping Cats Not Giving a Damn. Photographer Daniel Gebhart de Koekkoek says he spent weeks gaining the cats' trust, but it still looks like he threw them.


Mike Pence’s Hateful Laws Almost Kept Me From My Dying Wife

7 Intriguing Turkey Recipes From the 1800s. You won't want to try them yourself, but they're fascinating to speculate on.

Sunday, November 20, 2016

Manly Ways to Prepare Turkey

Yes, I had an article about how to prepare turkey just a couple of weeks ago, but here's a classic mental floss article from Thanksgiving of 2008. It wasn't so much a helpful how-to as it was a joke about how to get the man of the house to help with the Thanksgiving feast. Check out Manly Ways to Prepare Turkey.

The New President



It's about time for president-elect Trump to reveal all those plans he said he had for making American great again. This is the opening from last night's Saturday Night Live.

Saturday, November 19, 2016

A Priest and an Imam



Their beliefs are very different, but they have a lot in common. And they are friends. Yeah, it's an ad. But ad agencies have the budget to do great things.

Too bad they have a technical error. The idea here is that the two men bought gifts for each other. It has been pointed out to me that you can't use the one-click purchasing button at Amazon and have something sent to someone else. It will come to your primary address. So existing Amazon Prime customers will see this just as old people buying things for themselves. (via reddit)

Police Car Mishap



A Des Moines cop gets his squad car stuck on the railroad tracks. This is a classic. Joe will never hear the end of it. (via reddit)

Friday, November 18, 2016

Fantastic Beasts of the TSA



JK Rowling's prequel to the Harry Potter saga, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, is in theaters now. In it, Newt Scamander travels to the US with a suitcase full of smuggled magical beasts. It was easier to smuggle things in the 1920s. On The Late Late Show with James Corden, actor Eddie Redmayne tries the same thing in 2016, but the TSA is not going to make things easy for him.  Times have changed, but human nature stays the same. When security is looking for one thing, such as more than three ounces of liquid in your carryon, they will probably miss everything else. (via Tastefully Offensive)

Miss Cellania's Links

The Solo Jazz Cup. We did not know who was responsible until an investigation was launched.

The 7 Wonders of the Solar System. And three honorable mentions.

The funniest unwanted advances you'll see this week. (via reddit)

Star-shaped Pill Unfurls in Your Tummy.

The Wrecked German U-boat that Washed up on Hastings Beach. It was wildly popular tourist attraction for a few months.

16 Of The Strangest Things People Have Actually Done In Their Sleep. They will make you feel less weird about your own sleepwalking experiences.

The Welcome Teen Movie Complexity of The Edge of Seventeen. The main character is not perfect, but the actress who plays her is pretty close.

George Washington’s Disappearing Sash. He quit wearing it, and we quit looking for it for a long time.

The tragic beauty of Europe's vanishing forest. The Bialowieza Forest is falling prey to beetles.

Thursday, November 17, 2016

Miss Cellania's Links

The Oddest Job Elvis Presley Ever Had. You're not going to guess this one.

All of the fantastic beasts in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. A glossary to help through the movie and the four planned sequels.

Why driverless cars will be safer than human drivers. They've got more "eyes" and they don't use them to read texts while driving.

Mom's Drawings to Her Daughter Have an Empowering Message. Quotes from women of history go into her lunchbox every day.

The Missing History of RavensbrĂĽck, The Nazi Concentration Camp for Women. Its secrets are coming to light 75 years later.


The Japanese Museum of Rocks That Look Like Faces. You'll recognize the one that looks like Elvis right off. (via John Walkenbach)

The Forgotten Victorian Craze for Collecting Seaweed.

The Delicious History of the Nation's Oldest Chinese-American Restaurant.

Cat smells another cat's fart and responds. Including an explanation. (via Metafilter)

Will There Ever Be a Movie With a $1 Billion Budget?

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Miss Cellania's Links

A Smattering of Yawns. Scientific research on yawning.

Stories of the poison known as "gu" go back centuries in China. The poison itself is made by combining the venom of various dangerous creatures in a unique way.

The white working class got their anti-elite victory. Now what?

Did you ever find porn in the woods?

More delicious Obama-Biden jokes.

A beautiful story about a little kid and his elderly neighbor.

17 Iconic Movie Scenes That Were Actually Improvised. Trusting the input of talented people can make magic happen.

The Harry Potter Movie Series That Could Have Been. Early ideas that were scrapped would have made the movies very different.

10 Historical Words That Don't Mean What You Think. Or at least they didn't mean that when they were first coined.

Trevor Noah compares and contrasts American politics with South African politics. The similarities are eerie. I mean scary. 



Tuesday, November 15, 2016

An Honest Trailer for Finding Dory



The Pixar animated film Finding Dory is the biggest movie of 2016 so far, and was released on Blu-Ray and DVD today. So its time for Screen Junkies to release their Honest Trailer, too. It focuses on the movie being a sequel and a cash grab for Disney which rehashes the earlier movie Finding Nemo. But since Finding Dory follows the Pixar formula for tugging at our heartstrings, by the end of the critique even the narrator is blubbering. Despite the five-minute run time, the Honest Trailer is only 3.5 minutes long.

Miss Cellania's Links

“Houston, We Have Another Problem” That time a malfunctioning toilet ruined Thanksgiving on the space shuttle.

A Brief History of the Cheese Curl, Junk Food’s Happiest Accident. It's closer than you think to "human chow."

Meet Terrible Ted, the Professional Wrestling Bear Who Went to Jail. He was a sideshow act that would never be tolerated today. 

A man in Cornwall took his dog for one last walk on the beach. Hundreds of people (and their dogs) joined him for support.

The brief yet meaningful life of beer bubbles. A physicist explains how they work and why they are so important.


How One Man Created Nationwide Panic Over A Coffee Cup.

8 Extraordinary Examples of Constrained Writing.

Cristian Ramirez is an Army veteran and a video producer at Cracked. For Veterans Day on Friday, he went on a mission to see how many free meals he could actually eat.   

See the American Revolution Through the Eyes of King George III.

8 Thanksgiving Flowcharts. Because you need something on which to blame your poor decisions.

Monday, November 14, 2016

9 Thanksgiving Cupcakes

You might not think of cupcakes as a traditional Thanksgiving dish, but you can incorporate the traditional tastes of the holiday season into individual cakes that are tempting to everyone at your table. Meet nine of the best in a list I posted at mental_floss. Your guests will thank you.


The Origin of Thanksgiving Foods



One of the reasons we eat what we do for Thanksgiving is to celebrate the uniquely American foods that the Pilgrims discovered when they came to Massachusetts and learned to grow from the Native Americans who helped them. At their first Thanksgiving feast, they ate lots of seafood and venison, but what we concentrate on for the holiday are the foods that Europeans didn't have at the time: turkey, cranberries, corn, potatoes, pumpkin, pecans, etc. Joe Hanson of It's Okay To Be Smart looks at those American foods and how they were cultivated for centuries before Europeans arrived. American foods are something worth celebrating! (via Tastefully Offensive)


Synchronized Cat Jumping



The takeoff gets an 8/10, but the awkward landing was something they'd never prepared for. It takes this team a minute to analyze the situation and devise a workaround. The judges might give them points for their poker faces, or even for not falling under the circumstances. Not exactly a winning performance, but an entertaining one. The cats might eventually get over the embarrassment if they don't find out that their performance was being recorded. Don't tell them. (via Metafilter)

It Rolls Downhill


I think you know what's meant by "It" in the post title. This happens more often at work than in the family, but it can happen anywhere. You are the victim of someone's bad mood, but instead of making things worse for yourself by snapping back at the perpetrator, which would only cause you more problems, you pass it on down to someone else who can't fight back. Remember this comic from Lunarbaboon the next time you are tempted to take it out on someone.

You Name It



Suede the Remix God took a tiny bit of Shirley Caesar's gospel song "Hold My Mule" and made a Thanksgiving anthem out of it! This will make you look forward to pigging out with the family next week. Oh, you probably want to hear the entire song right now, so here is Shirley Caesar with "Hold My Mule."



(via Uproxx)


Miss Cellania's Links

The First Food Writer. Introducing Clementine Paddleford.

The White House’s Pete Souza Has Shot Nearly 2M Photos of Obama. Here are 55 of His Favorites. (via reddit)

Star Wars Rogue One Snowflake Patterns by Anthony Herrera. (via Geeks Are Sexy)

Why you can't help but act your age. Research into aging suggests we may want to lie to ourselves about our exact age. (via Digg)

Obama-Biden jokes are the best.

Beautiful Aerial Photographs of Magnificent Coastlines Around the World. Photographer Gabriel Scanu never leaves home without his drone camera.

9 Easy 3-Ingredient Appetizers To Make For Thanksgiving. Snacks to keep everyone busy while the turkey is cooking.

11 Movies & TV Shows About Taking Political Action.  In some of them it's so subtle you might miss it.

Facebook spent Friday telling users they’re dead. Yeah, it was a glitch, but that kind of thing could give someone a heart attack.

Why extreme weather is the new normal. It's a trend that been building for some time.

Buster the Boxer



This is it, the annual John Lewis Christmas ad. Bridget's dad is getting her Christmas gift ready while her mom distracts her on Christmas Eve. This is not as heart-wrenching as some we've seen in the past. Instead, it's downright funny! And even better, it's full of animals, particularly a sweet boxer named Buster. There's more of the ad campaign at John Lewis, and a 360 video here.

But what's this? It's another boxer, this one named Buzz, who enjoys watching the ad.

  

I think it's clear that Buzz wants a trampoline for Christmas. (via Tastefully Offensive)

Delta Lady



It saddens me to hear that Leon Russell has passed away. He was 74. This performance is from 1970.

Mystery of the Pulsating Spider



In this video, what looks like a disembodied snake head is actually the carapace of a spider. Consider that a double trigger warning if you are terrified of watching either. It gets even weirder, though. Spider photographer Nicky Bay noticed something odd about a bird dropping spider he was watching. The spider's organs or fluid or something was moving underneath its skin! So he zoomed in and got a really close look. We don't know what the purpose for this is, but Bay has some theories. It could also be just normal digestion going on, but why would evolution make this so visible when most insects need to blend in with their background? (via Metafilter

Election Night on SNL



Dave Chappelle returned to sketch comedy last night on Saturday Night Live, and did an election night scenario. Chris Rock made a special appearance. It's not all that funny, but the satire is spot on. (via Uproxx)