If you sometimes feel like putting your grass walkers away and slip into something from the sea side, here’s a pair of fish flip flops that should be right up your alley.
The biggest mystery by Agatha Christie may turn out to be her own unexplained disappearance. Here's the story of how the best-selling "Queen of Crime" author may have set up her own murder to frame her cheating husband ...
Agatha Christie started writing detective stories to show up her sister, Madge. They were discussing Sherlock Holmes one day, when Agatha said she'd like to try her hand at writing one. "I don't think you could do it," said Madge. "They are very difficult to do. I've thought about it."
Since then, Christie has become one of the most popular detective science fiction writers of all time, selling over 2 billion copies of her books in 104 languages.
Still, one of the most sensational and mysterious events in her life was her own 11-day disappearance in December 1926. Although her defender believe Agatha was suffering from some kind of amnesia, all available evidence suggest that she used her expertise as a mystery writer to set her husband as the prime suspect in a murder case - with herself as the supposed victim.
HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED
On a chilly December night, Agatha's car was found at the bottom of a chalk pit some distance from her home. Although it was cold, her fur coat was still in the car. There was no driver in sight, and the car was turned off - indicating that someone had pushed it into the pit. Police suspected foul play.
THE SUSPECT
Agatha's husband, Colonel Archibald Christie, was immediately questioned by the police. Where had he been that night? At a dinner party. What was the occasion? The Colonel, abashed, admitted that it was a party to announce his engagement to his new love, Nancy Neele. Had he and Agatha been getting along? No. In fact, he had recently told her that he was having an affair and wanted a divorce. They'd even had a screaming battle about his infidelity the morning before she disappeared.
The questions took a harder edge. Was he at the party all evening? No, he admitted. while at the party, he had received a call from his wife, who'd threatened to come and make a scene. He drove home to try to placate her, but when he arrived, no one was there. So he went back to the party. The detectives let the Colonel go, but told him not to leave town.
FINDING AGATHA
A massive search began for the missing celebrity. Two thousand volunteers searched 40 square miles of countryside, while the police dragged nearby rivers and lakes looking for her body.
But Agatha was still alive. She had fled to the far side of England and checked into a hotel in Harrogate under the name Mrs. Neele (the name of her husband's true love). And after 11 days of intense publicity, hotel employees (who had seen a reward offered in the paper) recognized her and called the police. They informed the Colonel, and he rushed to Harrogate to be with his wife. The next day, the Christies sneaked out of the hotel's back door to escape the press.
A CASE OF AMNESIA?
Two physicians were called in to examine Agatha, and shortly afterward, Archibald Christie announced to the press that his wife had amnesia and remembered nothing of the previous 11 days. She had no idea why her car was miles away from her home, how it got into the pit, how she got from one end of England to the other, or where she got the large sum of money she used to rent her hotel room ... and buy an expensive new wardrobe.
Skeptical, the press accused Agatha of playing an elaborate hoax - a hoax that cost taxpayers thousands of dollars, and police and volunteers hours of needless labor. The novelist's extreme dislike of publicity throughout her life can perhaps be traced back not just to her natural shyness, but to the overdose of attention she received at the time.
AFTERMATH
Agatha claimed that her very unusual case of "amnesia" obscured the complete truth for her for the rest of her life. According to her authorized biography, under psychotherapy, she regained some of her memories of staying in the hotel. But she never discussed the incident publicly, even in an autobiography that she wrote for publication after her death.
Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts.
This is awesome: Dailymotion user Weird_Weird_Science has uploaded some of the most entertaining science-y video clips I’ve ever watched. This one is "Zoom into Steel," where the narrator describes what’s happening with the composition of steel with ever increasing magnification.
If you don’t, it’s OK, because this face does not exist. It’s an age-enhanced childhood picture showing what Michael Jackson would look like now if he’d never had cosmetic surgery or other physical alterations. The picture was made to accompany a Daily Mail article on Jackson as he turns 50 years old today. Link -via mental_floss
People often say “x is worth its weight in gold”, but what does that really mean? Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories takes a look at the price per pound of things you’d never think of measuring or comparing, like coins and paper money, printer ink, peacock feathers, human blood, the LZR Racer swimsuit, and a Maine Coon cat, as well as gold itself. Link
The Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon is not the only television marathon happening this Labor Day Weekend. Interesting Pile has a list of the marathons various television networks will be running. Take your pick! I’m not familiar with all of them, but it seems the oldest is Star Trek: The Next Generation. Link (via Fark)
I collect antique cobalt glass, and I would love to have this old poison bottle! It’s part of the The Antique Poison Bottle Hall of Fame, where you’ll find all kinds of poison bottles submitted by owners from all over. Link -via Everlasting Blort
Why are flies so hard to swat? Professor Michael Dickinson of Caltech, who spent two decades studying the neurobiology and biomechanics of locomotion in the annoying bugs (for real!) knew the answer:
He took high-speed digital video of fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) when faced with a swatter, revealing how the creature’s pinpoint sized brain is hard wired to turn the looming shadow into an appropriate pattern of leg and body motion to prime it for a speedy getaway.
Long before the fly leaps, its tiny brain calculates the location of the impending threat, comes up with an escape plan, and plonks its legs in an optimal position to hop out of the way in the opposite direction.
All of this is executed within about 100 thousandths of a second after the fly first spots the swatter, says the study in the journal Current Biology with graduate student Gwyneth Card.
Prof Dickinson also revealed the scientific way to improve your success rate in swatting flies. The video clip of the fly avoiding the swatter is strangely mesmerizing: Link (the clip automatically started in my browser, be forewarned)
Heated car seats are nice and toasty for your bottom, but it may prove be too toasty for men’s sperms:
Optimal sperm production requires a temperature 1 to 2 °C below the core body temperature of 37 °C. This is one reason why the testicles hang outside the main part of the body. To test whether heated car seats might be raising scrotal temperatures above this threshold, Andreas Jung at the University of Giessen in Germany and his colleagues fitted temperature sensors to the scrotums of 30 healthy men, who then sat on a heated car seat for 90 minutes.
An hour in, and scrotal temperature had already risen to an average of 37.3 °C, with a maximum temperature in one man of 39.7 °C. [...] Although that’s only a slight increase due to the heated seats, Jung notes that it may nevertheless be enough to damage the sperm production process.
Is there such a thing as being too perfect? Apparently so, at least in dentistry where perfectly symmetrical and overly white teeth actually make you less beautiful:
Dr. Jeff Golub-Evans, a dentist on the Upper East Side, encourages patients to allow him to slightly rotate a tooth, or to vary the length of teeth. “What I’ve found is that if someone has perfectly symmetrical features and you put perfectly symmetrical teeth on that face, you ruin their face,” he said.
Shanghai police will try a new tactic to stop people from jaywalking: public humiliation!
Shanghai police will post photos and videos of jaywalkers in newspapers and on TV in a bid to shame them out of breaking traffic rules, local media reported on Thursday.
Offending pedestrians, moped riders and cyclists would be snapped at selected intersections and their images put in regular columns and on special television programs set up by police, the Shanghai Daily said. [...]
Jaywalking is a way of life in major Chinese cities, where crossing roads legally can be a hair-raising battle of nerves with oncoming cars disinclined to give way to pedestrians.
Traffic police recorded 7.78 million jaywalking violations at Shanghai intersections in the first eight months of 2008, the paper said.
The Slorker blog has a really neat post about 36 Views of Mount Fuji, the artwork of Katsushika Hokusai. The first in the series of the early 1800s woodblock prints, titled The Great Wave off Kanagawa, is the most popular.
Katsushika Hokusai is an interesting character. One of Japan’s leading experts on Chinese painting during the Edo period, he began painting by the age of 6 and was known by at least 30 names during his lifetime. He was keen on experimental displays of art: once at the competition held by the Shogun, he painted a blue curve on paper while chasing a chicken with red paint on its feet across it. He described it as a landscape showing a river with red maple leaves floating on it. He won.
He was also instrumental in the creation of the modern manga comics you see, having created the Hokusai Manga (random illustrations of animals, religious figures, and everyday people) in 1811 as a way to make money and attract students. [...]
Hokusai died in 1849 at 89 years old. On his deathbed, he said, “If only Heaven will give me just another ten years… Just another five more years, then I could become a real painter.”
That’s a full-size and driveable replica of Luke Skywalker’s Landspeeder from Star Wars, built by Daniel Deutsch in his own garage:
We built this fiberglass replica landspeeder last spring from the ground up on a custom aluminum chassis. The electric drive system is capable of a top speed around 25 mph. The speeder is the same size as the original, and can travel several miles on a single battery charge.
Check out the “damaged” paint job on the Landspeeder. Excellent! Link - Thanks Richard Young!
First they started charging for meals, pillows, and blankets. Now, one airline is taking an extreme step to save fuel by … removing life vests to lighten the planes:
An official with Air Canada’s regional carrier Jazz says the airline is removing life vests from all its planes to save weight and fuel.
Jazz spokeswoman Manon Stuart said Thursday that Transport Canada regulations allow airlines to use flotation devices instead of life vests, provided the planes remain within 50 miles of shore.
Safety cards in the seat pockets of Jazz aircraft now direct passengers to use the seat cushions as flotation devices.
They may look like tough hellraisers, but these tattooed bikers are just big softies. Here’s the story of Rescue Ink and their quest to save abused animals:
THEY met on the local hot rod scene. They saw one another at tattoo conventions around the area, comparing bikes. They looked like heavies, a band of Hells Angels, with nicknames equally tough: Mike Tattoo, Big Ant, Johnny O, Batso, Sal, Angel, Des.
They meant no harm. Clad in leather, inked to the hilt in skulls and dragons, with images of bloodied barbed wire looped about their necks, they shared something else — a peculiar tenderness for animals, and the intensity needed to act on the animals’ behalf when people abuse them.
“I’m a vegetarian,” said Mike Tattoo (real name Mike Ostrosky), a former bodybuilding champion with a shaved head, great arms covered in art and a probing clarity in his blue eyes. “And Big Ant has in his backyard three guinea pigs, a couple of rabbits, birds, cats — and fish everywhere. But just because a person has tattoos, they wouldn’t come running with us.”
Kevin Kelly has been saving styrofoam packing for five years and decided to make a robot out of it. Behold, the Styrobot! Check it out: Link - Thanks Ben!
The Dead Sea, actually a salt lake between Israel, the West Bank, and Jordan, is dying and scientist are trying to find out a way to make the Dead Sea, … well, live again:
[The Dead Sea] relies on many small tributaries, but its main supplier of water is the Jordan River. Population growth in the region means more and more water is being diverted from its path towards the Dead Sea to other uses such as irrigation and drinking water. Evaporation, which makes the sea special by keeping salinity high, is also putting the Sea at risk, and the hot, arid climate and practices such as mineral extraction only exacerbate the rate of evaporation. Without an ample supply of water from the Jordan, the water level is dropping at an alarming rate (an estimated 1 meter per year).
As the shoreline recedes, sinkholes and mud are left behind. The scenic beauty of the area is scarred; getting to the water proves more and more difficult; tourism suffers. If this trend continues, the allure of the Dead Sea will be lost for future generations.
Ty.rannosaur.us blog has an intriguing post about 10 dictators that plundered their countries. For example, take Jean-Bédel Bokassa of the Central African Republic in the 1970s:
Bokassa never bothered to funnel billions into foreign accounts, rather he made himself emperor of the Central African Republic in the ’70s under the claim that it would look good for the nation. A huge fan of Napoleon, he almost bankrupted the nation by spending $20 million on a 48-hour coronation ceremony that required 100 limos, 130 thoroughbred horses, a 120 piece orchestra, and 65,000 bottles of champagne complete with waiters from Paris. His diamond encrusted crown cost $5 million alone. He was ousted 5 years later after he had 100 school children massacred over the type of uniforms they should wear. But all of that was ok, because in his final years he revealed himself to be the 13th Apostle.
What method of pancake personalization works best - laser etching or screenprinting? Instructables user lamedust answers this obviously super-important question for us:
Pancakes… Delicious pancakes. Imagine sitting around the kitchen table enjoying a tasty stack of pancakes? Nice, no? Well now imagine them personalized with any image you can create. Personalized pancakes are the future of pancake eating technology.
I’ve been interested in pancake personalization for a while and have devised a few methods:
I admit I’m now curious: are strawberries and steak a good food combination? Do you eat them at the same time or are the strawberries just for dessert?
Diana Wolf of mental_floss asked "When you think of 7-Eleven, the Chrysler Building, and Budweiser, what country comes to mind? "
If you answer the United States, of course - then you’re in for a big surprise. The icons this country holds dear are not owned by Americans. Case in point, Budweiser’s maker Anheuser-Busch:
1. Anheuser-Busch, Inc. You’ve likely seen the Anheuser-Busch commercials that were shown during the Olympics. You know, the ones that are oozing with everything American – football, tailgating, the Statue of Liberty, riding motorcycles, playing in a garage band, and, of course, a fat slice of apple pie. In case you didn’t get the hint, they’re reminding you that their All American Ale is still All American. But it’s not American at all! Earlier this year, Anheuser Busch Inc was bought by InBev, the Belgian brewer. The deal, soon to close, will make the new combined company “Anheuser Busch InBev” the largest beer company in the world.
Read more about the 10 (un)American Icons at mental_floss: Link
Rising food prices in Cambodia has a particularly strange consequence: it makes rat meat more popular as inflation has put the price of other meat out of the reach of poor people!
Spicy field rat dishes with garlic thrown in have become particularly popular at a time when beef costs 20,000 riel a kg.
Officials said rats were fleeing to higher ground from flooded areas of the lower Mekong Delta, making it easier for villagers to catch them.
"Many children are happy making some money from selling the animals to the markets, but they keep some for their family," Ly Marong, an agriculture official, said by telephone from the Koh Thom district on the border with Vietnam.
Dr. John Brigande of the Oregon Hearing Research Center in Portland and colleagues succeeded in regrowing hair cells in the inner ear through gene therapy. Their technique may one day cure deafness from aging, disease and listening to overly loud music:
Named for the hair-like projections on their surfaces, hair cells form a ribbon of vibration sensors along the length of the cochlea, the organ of the inner ear that detects sound.
Receiving vibrations through the eardrum and bones of the middle ear, hair cells convert them to electrical signals carried to the brain.
People, like all mammals, are not able to regenerate hair cells when they are damaged or lost. Dr Brigande and colleagues show in Nature that by implanting a gene that regulates hair cell growth, Atoh1, into the mouse inner ear while the mouse is still in the womb, new hair cells are made.
Many Deaf people born without hearing, however, may not want their deafness cured:
He said that some deaf people will reject the offer of gene therapy. "If a person is born without hearing, they are "Deaf" and that is a unique culture into itself. Many Deaf individuals highly value their deafness and do not wish to be hearing.
Students in Kunming, China, are getting new school uniforms … that are decked out in ads! The stylish orange jackets are covered with the logos of Marlboro, Ferrari, Vodafone and Shell:
The parents were shocked to see that their children now looked like they were part of a Formula One pit crew, but in China there is little the parents can say or do about the situation.
The kids don’t seem to mind the logo placements and even if they did get a little stressed out, they now know which brand of cigarette will help calm their nerves.
This is going to be controversial, but bear with me for a second. Kevin Myers of the Irish Independent News of Ireland wrote an opinion piece baitingly titled "Africa is giving nothing to anyone - apart from AIDS."
In it, Kevin wrote how Ethiopia (and other basket case African countries) are actually hurt in the long run - not helped - by the Western generosities:
[Other countries] — one way or another — virtually all giving aid to or investing in Africa, whereas Africa, with its vast savannahs and its lush pastures, is giving almost nothing to anyone, apart from AIDS.
Meanwhile, Africa’s peoples are outstripping their resources, and causing catastrophic ecological degradation. By 2050, the population of Ethiopia will be 177 million: The equivalent of France, Germany and Benelux today, but located on the parched and increasingly protein-free wastelands of the Great Rift Valley.
So, how much sense does it make for us actively to increase the adult population of what is already a vastly over-populated, environmentally devastated and economically dependent country?
How much morality is there in saving an Ethiopian child from starvation today, for it to survive to a life of brutal circumcision, poverty, hunger, violence and sexual abuse, resulting in another half-dozen such wide-eyed children, with comparably jolly little lives ahead of them? Of course, it might make you feel better, which is a prime reason for so much charity. But that is not good enough.
For self-serving generosity has been one of the curses of Africa. It has sustained political systems which would otherwise have collapsed. It prolonged the Eritrean-Ethiopian war by nearly a decade.
So. Are we doing Africa a favor by helping it feed its starving population, or are we actually prolonging their suffering? Link
Brother Cesare Bonizzi is a 62 year old Capuchin monk and former missionary from Italy. He attended a Metallica concert 15 years ago and found himself hooked on heavy metal:
“I was overwhelmed and amazed by the sheer energy of it.”
He performs regularly with his own heavy metal band and he’s just released his second album.
Cesare insists that he’s not trying to convert listeners to Catholicism through his music. Instead, he claims, through his music he is teaching listeners about life. [BBC Story & Video] [YouTube video]
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Agatha Christie started writing detective stories to show up her sister, Madge. They were discussing Sherlock Holmes one day, when Agatha said she'd like to try her hand at writing one. "I don't think you could do it," said Madge. "They are very difficult to do. I've thought about it."
A massive search began for the missing celebrity. Two thousand volunteers searched 40 square miles of countryside, while the police dragged nearby rivers and lakes looking for her body.
The Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon is not the only television marathon happening this Labor Day Weekend. Interesting Pile has a list of the marathons various television networks will be running. Take your pick! I’m not familiar with all of them, but it seems the oldest is Star Trek: The Next Generation. 
Why are flies so hard to swat? Professor Michael Dickinson of Caltech, who spent two decades studying the neurobiology and biomechanics of locomotion in the annoying bugs (for real!) knew the answer:
Heated car seats are nice and toasty for your bottom, but it may prove be too toasty for men’s sperms:
Is there such a thing as being too perfect? Apparently so, at least in dentistry where perfectly symmetrical and overly white teeth actually make you less beautiful:
Shanghai police will try a new tactic to stop people from jaywalking: public humiliation!
First they started charging for meals, pillows, and blankets. Now, one airline is taking an extreme step to save fuel by … removing life vests to lighten the planes:
They may look like tough hellraisers, but these tattooed bikers are just big softies. Here’s the story of Rescue Ink and their quest to save abused animals:
The Dead Sea, actually a salt lake between Israel, the West Bank, and Jordan, is dying and scientist are trying to find out a way to make the Dead Sea, … well, live again:
Ty.rannosaur.us blog has an intriguing post about 10 dictators that plundered their countries. For example, take Jean-Bédel Bokassa of the Central African Republic in the 1970s:
What method of pancake personalization works best - laser etching or screenprinting? Instructables user lamedust answers this obviously super-important question for us:
Diana Wolf of mental_floss asked "When you think of 7-Eleven, the Chrysler Building, and Budweiser, what country comes to mind? "
Rising food prices in Cambodia has a particularly strange consequence: it makes rat meat more popular as inflation has put the price of other meat out of the reach of poor people!
Students in Kunming, China, are getting new school uniforms … that are decked out in ads! The stylish orange jackets are covered with the logos of Marlboro, Ferrari, Vodafone and Shell:
This is going to be controversial, but bear with me for a second. Kevin Myers of the Irish Independent News of Ireland wrote an opinion piece baitingly titled "Africa is giving nothing to anyone - apart from AIDS."
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