- The Extremely F*#!ing Chaotic Saga of the World’s Most Notorious Police Impersonator - ”A Florida funeral escort who took his road-safety duties a little too seriously became a widely ridiculed Internet sensation—and landed in hot water with actual law enforcement. But that’s only the start of the strange and twisted ballad of Jeremy Dewitte.”
- Can Our Brains Be Taken Over? - The fungi are coming for you: ”Several real-life pathogens can change a host’s behavior against their will. Here’s what we know about these zombie-like infections.”
- An elite Bronze Age man who underwent brain surgery 3,500 years ago may have suffered from leprosy, archaeologists believe - ”While excavating a tomb from an ancient Bronze Age city, archeologists were surprised to discover the remains of a man who appeared to undergo brain surgery thousands of years ago.” It's remarkable how long ago drilling holes in your head became a thing.
- Two Alaska Airlines 737s suffer tail strikes within minutes of each other - ”On 26 January, two Alaska Airlines 737s suffered tail strikes on departure within just a few minutes of each other… That raised alarms for Bret Peyton, Alaska’s on-duty director of operations, who ordered all Alaska flights not yet airborne to remain on the ground until the cause of the incidents was known.” They used to say that software couldn't damage hardware…
- The Courtyard - Cabel Sasser finds a peaceful sanctuary in his neighbourhood: ”To the maximally cash-focused greed-fueled remote-money developer of today, courtyards mean wasted, non-revenue-generating square footage… To someone living in this building, this courtyard rock garden became a canvas.”
- ‘I am a pugilist, and that is an artist.’ – A Biographical Sketch of the Gentlemen’s Instructor, John Plantagenet Green (Part I), ‘I’ll shoot you in the eye with my fist.’ – A Biographical Sketch of the Gentlemen’s Instructor, John Plantagenet Green (Part II) - The saga of an eloquent Victorian boxer: ”In cross-examination, Mr T. Cole said the witness had described himself as an artist, and asked him what he was an artist in. Green: In these (holding up his fists). I am a pugilist, and that is an artist. Cole: An artist in black eyes? Green: Yes; I paint them black.”
- Museum of Radiation and Radioactivity - HT to Doctor Strangelove for this excellent collection: ”The purpose of the Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU) Museum of Radiation and Radioactivity is to chronicle the scientific and commercial history of radioactivity and radiation. It has been deemed the official repository for historical radiological instruments by the Health Physics Society, and the Society has been generous in its financial support for the purchase of items.”
- We’re Living in an Age of Small Creatures - Riley Black asks where the giant creatures have gone: ”340-pound penguins were once normal—and maybe they will be again someday.”
- Urban myths: the navvies’ castle pubs of Camden - Peter Watts on a myth surrounding certain pubs: ”It was while working on Time Out’s annual pub guide in around 2000 that I heard the tale of the Camden castles. A reviewer claimed that there were once four Camden pubs with castle in their name – the Edinboro, Windsor, Dublin and Pembroke – and these had originally been built for navvies digging Regent’s Canal. The gist was that each national group – Scots, English, Irish, Welsh – was assigned a pub to keep them happy, or more precisely to stop them from scrapping with one another… It’s a great yarn, but if it seems too good to be true, it’s because it is.”
- Nuclear Tourism: When atomic tests were a tourist attraction in Las Vegas, 1950s - HT to ladymuck for this literal blast from the past: ”Las Vegas is known as the city of lights and, at one time, that light was the glow of an atomic detonation in the Nevada desert. Starting in 1951, the US Army began testing nuclear ordnances just 65 miles from Sin City. At night, the glow of the bombs lit up the sky, and mushroom clouds could be spotted rising over the horizon during the day.”
Happy invoicing!
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