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2015/11/27

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Fiery Words: Charles Dickens and Spontaneous Combustion

Posted: 27 Nov 2015 05:00 AM PST

How Charles Dickens fueled a world of spontaneous combustion truthers.

The first thing they noticed was the smell—like someone frying rancid meat. The two men sat in their flat in central London, awaiting their midnight appointment with the old, alcoholic Mr. Krook, who lived downstairs. As they chatted uneasily, ominous sights and smells kept distracting them. Black soot swirled through the room. A pungent yellow grease stained the windowsill. And that smell!

At last, after midnight, they descended the stairs. Mr. Krook’s shop—crammed with dirty rags, bottles, bones, and other hoarded trash—was unpleasant even in daytime. But tonight they sensed something positively evil. Outside Krook’s bedroom near the back of the shop, a cat leaped out and snarled. When they entered Krook’s room, the odor choked them. Grease stained the walls and ceiling as if it were painted on. Krook’s coat and cap lay on a chair; a bottle of gin sat on the table. But the only sign of life was the cat, still hissing. The men swung their lantern around, looking for Krook, who was nowhere to be seen.

Then they saw the pile of ash on the floor. They stared for a moment, before turning and running. They burst onto the street, shouting for help. But it was too late: Old Krook was gone, a victim of spontaneous combustion.

When Charles Dickens published this scene in December 1852—an installment from his serialized novel Bleak House—most readers swallowed it as fact. After all, Dickens wrote realistic stories, and he took great pains to render scientific matters like smallpox infections and neurological disorders accurately. So even though Krook was fictional, the public trusted that Dickens had portrayed spontaneous combustion with his customary precision.

Most of the public, anyway. A few readers were outraged by the scene. After all, scientists had been laboring to debunk old nonsense like clairvoyance, mesmerism, and the idea that people sometimes burst into flames. And key discoveries about heat, electricity, and other phenomena provided strong support for their view, showing that the human body, far from being otherworldly, was subject to all physical laws of nature. But the science was still behind. And there were enough mysteries for old wives’ tales to retain a foothold. This only made both sides more desperate to prove their case, and within two weeks skeptics began challenging Dickens in print, inciting one of the strangest controversies in literary history.

Leading the charge was George Lewes, a Victorian-era Richard Dawkins—always ready to attack superstitions. Lewes had studied physiology as a young man, so he understood the body. He also had a foot in the literary world as a critic and playwright and as George Eliot’s longtime lover. In fact, he counted Dickens as a friend.

But you wouldn’t know that from Lewes’s response to the story. Writing in the newspaper The Leader, he acknowledged that artists have a license to bend the truth, but protested that novelists can’t just ignore the laws of physics. “The[se] circumstances are beyond the limits of acceptable fiction,” he wrote, “and give credence to a scientific impossibility.” He accused Dickens of cheap sensationalism and “of giving currency to a vulgar error.”

Dickens swung back. Since he published a new installment of Bleak House each month, he had time to slip a rejoinder into the next episode. As the action picks back up with the inquest into Krook’s death, Dickens mocks his critics as eggheads too blind to see plain evidence: “Some of these authorities (of course the wisest) hold with indignation that the deceased had no business to die in the alleged manner,” Dickens wrote. To them, “going out of the world by any such by-way [was] wholly unjustifiable and personally offensive.” But common sense eventually triumphs, and the coroner in the story declares, “These are mysteries we can’t account for!”

In private letters to Lewes, Dickens continued his defense, mentioning several historical cases of spontaneous combustion throughout history. He leaned especially hard on the case of an Italian countess who had reportedly combusted in 1731. She bathed in camphorated spirits of wine (a mixture of brandy and camphor); the morning after one such bath, her maid walked into her room to find the bed unslept on. As with Mr. Krook, soot hung suspended in the air, along with a yellow haze of oil on the windows. The maid found the countess’s legs—just her legs—standing several feet from the bed. A pile of ashes sat between them, along with her charred skull. Nothing else seemed amiss, except for two melted candles nearby. And because a priest had recorded this tale, Dickens considered it trustworthy.

He wasn’t the only author to write about spontaneous combustion. Mark Twain, Herman Melville, and Washington Irving all had characters erupt as well. Much like the “nonfiction” accounts they drew from, most of the victims were old, sedentary alcoholics. Their torsos always burned completely, but their extremities often survived intact. Eerier still, beyond the occasional scorch mark on the floor, the flames never consumed anything but the victim’s body. The strangest part? Dickens and others did have some science backing them up.

Spontaneous combustion was linked to one of the most important discoveries in medical history, one that revolutionized our understanding of how the body worked—the discovery of oxygen. After chemists isolated oxygen for the first time in the late 1700s, they noticed that it played a role in both burning and breathing. With that, many scientists declared that breathing was nothing but slow combustion—a constant burning—inside us.

If slow fires burned inside us all the time, why couldn’t they suddenly flare up? Especially in alcoholics, whose very organs were dripping with gin or rum. (Plus, not to put too fine a point on it, we all pass flammable gases several times each day.) As for what sets the fires off, perhaps it was fevers or raging hot tempers.

Lewes, however, wouldn’t back down. He dismissed Dickens’s sources as “humorous, but not convincing,” noting that several were more than a century old. It didn’t help that Dickens enlisted the support of a celebrity doctor who promoted the fad pseudoscience of phrenology as well. Lewes also pointed out, rightly, that no factual accounts of spontaneous combustion had been written by eyewitnesses: They were all collected secondhand, from a cousin’s friend or a landlord’s brother-in-law.

Most damning of all, Lewes cited recent experiments in physiology that revealed how the liver metabolizes booze, breaking it down for elimination. As a result, the organs of an alcoholic aren’t soaking in alcohol. Even if they were, science had shown that the body is roughly 75 percent water, so it couldn’t catch on fire by itself. Not to mention, it was obvious to doctors by then that fevers don’t burn nearly hot enough to ignite anything.

Not surprisingly, Dickens dug in. His relationship with science had always been ambivalent: He couldn’t deny the marvels that science had wrought, but he was fundamentally romantic and thought science killed the imagination and undermined Christian life. He also detested society’s growing dependence on data and reductionism. Artistically, Dickens considered the scene with Krook so central to the novel (which involves a ruinous court case that consumes the lives and fortunes of everyone involved) that he couldn’t stand it being picked apart. And the more defensive Dickens got, the more disgusted Lewes became. They bickered for 10 months, before mutually dropping the matter when the final installment of Bleak House appeared in September 1853.

History, of course, has judged Lewes the winner here: Outside of the tabloids, no human being has ever spontaneously combusted. In reality, practically every “spontaneous combustion” case has found the person to be near a fire source like candles or cigarettes. They likely accidentally lit themselves on fire, and clothing, fat tissue, methane gas, and (if it’s built up from alcoholism) acetone kindled the unfortunate blaze. Still, Lewes and other scientists didn’t understand as much as they assumed. For instance, they believed that the combustion of energy inside us took place inside the lungs and not, as we now know, inside cells themselves.

Dickens’s popularity no doubt delayed the death of spontaneous combustion in the popular mind. (One medical text was still discussing claims of spontaneous combustion as late as 1928.) But Dickens was certainly right about one thing: that in human affairs, spontaneous combustion does happen. Friendships and reputations can ignite instantly and leave little in their wake. Dickens and Lewes eventually patched things up and seemingly never spoke of the matter again. But for much of 1853 the fires burned awfully hot.

_______________________

The article above, written by Sam Kean, is reprinted with permission from the December 2014 issue of mental_floss magazine.Get a subscription to mental_floss and never miss an issue!

Be sure to visit mental_floss' website and blog for more fun stuff!

Teaching Economics with Dr. Seuss

Posted: 27 Nov 2015 04:00 AM PST

Comparative advantage is an economic model which holds that individuals, companies, and entire nations leverage particular advantages in productivity in order to increase profits. A Dictionary of Economics and Commerce defines it as the:

. . . measure of relative efficiency of resource use when the opportunity cost of production is taken into consideration. It is the basis of the specialization or division of labor and international trade.

Kenny Fennell explained it in a macroeconomics course paper modeled after the Dr. Seuss's famous book One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish. In Fennell's tale, the Gox, Mr. Gump, and Mike excel at particular skills. They thrive economically because they specialize in those skills instead of attempting to master each other's. You can read the entire story here.

-via Marginal Revolution

Dangerous To Go Alone - The Phrase That Began Decades Of Adventure

Posted: 27 Nov 2015 03:00 AM PST


Dangerous To Go Alone by Twenty27 Designs

It's the line that would come to define a franchise, the words uttered by an old man in a cave before he gave up his sword so that Link may save Hyrule. When gamers were first told that it was dangerous to go alone we had no idea what that meant, but now that we've helped Link traverse scary dungeons, fight giant boss monsters and harness the power of the Triforce we know that old man wasn't lying! Still, a little opposition goes a long way in the making of a legend, and with the love of Zelda to keep him warm at night Link need never feel alone as he's making the world a safer place with sword and shield.

Celebrate a gaming legacy with this Dangerous To Go Alone t-shirt by Twenty27 Designs, it's a colorful way to show your love for that legend named Link!

Visit Twenty27 Designs's Facebook fan page and Tumblr, then head on over to his NeatoShop for more gamer-iffic designs:

Starry FallThe Timey Wimey MachineStarry Night's WatchThe Exorcists

View more designs by Twenty27 Designs | More Video Game T-shirts | New T-Shirts

Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!

Kitty Durante

Posted: 27 Nov 2015 03:00 AM PST

Poor kitty! This big red nose isn’t to guide Santa’s sleigh (although that might work). Redditor marklyon’s cat was stung by a bee. He was taken to a vet, and he’s fine now. But he sported a resemblance to W.C. Fields for a while. The cat was also compared to a clown, Karl Malden, Gerard Depardieu, Squidward, and Jimmy Durante.  

Can of Coke Sounds Just Like Chewbacca

Posted: 27 Nov 2015 02:00 AM PST


(Video Link)

Chewbacca is everywhere! He watches you when use the toilet and comments appropriately. Now he's in Johannes Hansen's can of Coca-Cola. When pushed across a desk at the right speed, Chewie waxes poetically. 

-via Twisted Sifter

A Collection of Funny Tweets About Exercise

Posted: 27 Nov 2015 01:00 AM PST


One sees it every year on Thanksgiving. We might be driving to our dinner destination or hitting an after-dinner gathering, and behold, there they are: the runners. Out for a run before or after their carb-heavy, calorie-laden sugar fest.

Many concepts are prefaced by "there are two kinds of people in this world." This is one of them. There are the pre- or post-Thanksgiving dinner, guilt-filled exercisers, and there are the pre-dinner, pie-drooling people who, post meal, are the "relax with some couch love and TV embracement" crowd. 

It's not hard to discern what types most of these people are who tweeted funny quips about exercise. See all of them here; it's worth a smile. 




Would You Like to Have Fit Buns?

Posted: 27 Nov 2015 12:00 AM PST

The Ukrainian ad agency MEX developed this clever packaging design for bread. Normally eating a lot of bread won't lead to six-pack abs, but these boxes of protein-fortified bread include coupons for a local fitness center.

The campaign was a huge success. Bakeries sold 2,996 packages in the first month. 658 people used the coupons to take a trial exercise session, of whom 217 signed up for memberships.

You can see the full ad here.

-via Oxot

Chicken Commandeers the Roomba

Posted: 26 Nov 2015 11:00 PM PST


YouTube Link

According to Australian Catherine Bremner, when she left home recently, she returned to find her hen James (named by her three sons) making quite the scene in her home. James had strutted inside while she was away, accidentally switched on her Roomba, and went for a ride around her living room. That's either one compulsively clean chicken or one who's completely adventurous. Either way, someone get this chicken a reality show. Via Arbroath

NeatoShop's Black Friday Sale: Save Up to 25% Off ALL T-Shirts

Posted: 26 Nov 2015 10:30 PM PST

w00t! NeatoShop's Black Friday Sale is finally here! Save up to 25% off ALL T-shirts on our store. This is the lowest prices we'll offer on the store, so take advantage of the sale and get those T-shirts you've always wanted for yourself and your loved ones!

But first, why buy the shirts from us?

Did you know that many of our competitors actually don't print their own T-shirts? Instead they job that out to third party contract printers thousands of miles away. These printers are paid per piece regardless of quality, so they're not keen on making sure everything's top notch.

Not so with us: we print what we sell. That's how we can make sure you get the highest quality T-shirt that you deserve. See: Side-by-side comparison of NeatoShop print quality

Ready to get your Black Friday specials? Visit the NeatoShop today!

Alan Moore's Bizarre And Brilliant Star Wars Comics From The 1980s

Posted: 26 Nov 2015 10:00 PM PST

Alan Moore's mind works in ways we mere humans cannot begin to comprehend, so when he's given a cast of characters to play with that are both iconic and beloved he's bound to take their storylines in a bold new direction.

Back in the 1980s Alan was given the chance to write stories for five issues of various Star Wars comics, and as you'd expect his unique vision took the franchise to some strange new places.

With titles like "Tilotny Throws A Shape" and "Rust Never Sleeps" you know the mind of Moore is going to deliver a Star Wars story that's anything but standard:

Two stormtroopers stand outside Dhol's palace, guarding the strategic duel. Unfortunately for them, Clat the Shamer makes an appearance, tasked with the vanquishing of Lord Vader. His weapon of choice? Empathy! A sentient being with the ability to manipulate human thought, Clat disposes of Vader's guards by reaching inside their minds and excavating painstaking memories of their darkest, most diabolical deeds. These hellish flashbacks are too brutal to bear, prompting STORMTROOPER SUICIDE—one of them commits an act of samurai-like Seppuku via his lightsaber (!).

Ben McCool from Tech Times posted a fun to read synopsis of each issue here, including publication info and panels from the comics, that show how far, far away simply wasn't far enough for Alan Moore!

-Via Boing Boing

Pre-Fame Roles of Celebrities

Posted: 26 Nov 2015 09:00 PM PST

We've all watched an older movie and had that moment of "OMG, I didn't realize so-and-so was in that." That's why I love this great Flavorwire article featuring 50 actors in some of their early, pre-fame movie roles. From ZooeyDeschanel in Almost Famous to Laurence Fishburne in Apocalypse Now, it's funny how many stars are in big-name movies without actually being remembered for those roles. Of course, even those that you remember in those roles are fun to remember.

What We Are Thankful For

Posted: 26 Nov 2015 08:00 PM PST

Superheroes have a lot to be thankful for on this holiday of gratitude. Especially Superman. He has been so blessed with superpowers! Still, listing all those things he is thankful for could be misconstrued as bragging. Well, maybe not misconstrued, because he is obviously bragging. But he does that a lot in the comic BatsVSupes. Thanksgiving is just another excuse. As for Batman, he’s thankful for whatever little appreciation he can get. -via Geeks Are Sexy

Gorgeous, Nature-Inspired Resin Jewelry Filled With Real Petals, Gold Flakes

Posted: 26 Nov 2015 07:00 PM PST



If I have one nearly embarrassing obsession, it's pretty jewelry. Whether of the costume variety or the genuine article, it's no matter as long as it's beautiful. I've fallen for these pieces by Lyuda, whose Etsy store is called LivinLovin. These bracelets, earrings and rings are made of natural flower petals and buds encased in resin, and flecked with gold to lend interest and sparkle.

I featured another Etsy shop early this year that also encases natural materials in resin, but Lyuda's pieces are different in that they're more delicate, shimmery, and with decidedly feminine touches. 

At these reasonable prices, checking out the inventory at Lyuda's Etsy Shop can give you one more thing to be thankful for: getting a holiday gift quite likely to put a smile on a beloved woman in your life. -Via Design Taxi

  

Megavengers Ultraman - The Faces Of Hardcore Console Gaming

Posted: 26 Nov 2015 06:00 PM PST


Megavengers Ultraman by LavaLamp

Back in those classic 8-bit days of console gaming there was a game released based on the Avengers that ended up looking a lot like a game from the Mega Man franchise. Heroes like Cap, Black Widow and Iron Man were reduced to one trick marvels, while that cybernetic mastermind Ultron stood in the center waiting for players to fight their way to his lair. Despite their simple' names the Megavengers were ridiculously hard to beat, just like the real Avengers. But those who put in the time and effort were rewarded with a face-to-grill encounter with Ultron that usually lasted about ten seconds before the player was defeated and had to start the game over again from the beginning. Man, old school gaming was fun!

Add some geeky game to your wardrobe with this Megavengers Ultraman t-shirt by LavaLamp, it's sure to bring a smile to the faces of both Avengers fans and those who remember how hard it was to play a console game back in the day.

Visit LavaLamp's Facebook fan page, official website, Twitter and Tumblr, then head on over to his NeatoShop for more geek-tastic designs:

Breaking Bob HeisenburgerPeachRick Vs. The MultiverseRick And Porty

View more designs by LavaLamp | More Video Game T-shirts | New T-Shirts

Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!

Carving the Turkey with a Lightsaber

Posted: 26 Nov 2015 06:00 PM PST

Put that knife away. There's a smarter, quicker way of cutting a turkey. But don't pass the lightsaber to your drunk uncle. He'll just cut off one of your hands like at last Thanksgiving.


(Video Link)

Daniel Hashimoto, a visual effects artist with Dreamworks, puts his son James in extraordinary adventures. In the past, Action Movie Kid has unwrapped a Christmas hippo and become a superhero. For Thanksgiving, James is spending a quiet day at home with his family.

-via Tastefully Offensive

Who Will Die on Sunday’s <i>The Walking Dead</i>?

Posted: 26 Nov 2015 05:00 PM PST

The first half of season six of The Walking Dead will end after this Sunday’s episode, and the show won’t be back until Valentine’s Day. Those who follow the show are speculating on whether and which main character will get killed, so as we have done before, we’ll take your predictions as a poll. There may or may not be spoilers in the list of currently surviving characters, so skip past this post if you don't want to know. Continue reading for spoilers.

Only a few minor characters have been killed this season so far. The longest-running was Nicholas. Then there was Mrs. Neudermeyer, who had to smoke outside (sorry) and wanted a pasta maker. A few Alexandrians were introduced and knocked off immediately. And we thought Glenn certainly bit the dust, but no. Take a look at the remaining major characters and select who you think will die. You can pick more than one. I debated adding the Wolf that Morgan is keeping, because he's a goner one way or another- we just don't know how much damage he'll do on the way out. So I left him off.

POLL: Who will die on the mid-season 6 finale of The Walking Dead?

  • Rick
  • Carl
  • Daryl
  • Carol
  • Glenn
  • Maggie
  • Michonne
  • Judith
  • Sasha
  • Abraham
  • Rosita
  • Eugene
  • Gabriel
  • Aaron
  • Eric
  • Morgan
  • Deanna
  • Spencer
  • Olivia
  • Jessie
  • Ron
  • Sam
  • Enid
  • Heath
  • Scott
  • Denise

Giant Claw Machine Pulls Bikes out of Amsterdam's Canals

Posted: 26 Nov 2015 04:00 PM PST


(Video Link)

Amsterdam is a city of bicycles and a city of canals. As a result, many bikes end up in the canals. Lots of other junk does, too, including shopping carts, cars, and other detritus.

Crane boats operate continuously to keep the canals clear for traffic. This video by Isabelle Harder shows one such crane boat at work, dredging a canal and dumping bikes and other metal objects on a barge for recycling. 

-via Laughing Squid

Brits Label US Maps

Posted: 26 Nov 2015 03:00 PM PST

For the third year in a row, Buzzfeed asked the UK for a Thanksgiving gift: British people trying to label the states on U.S. maps. Honestly, Brits know a lot about the U.S., but when they are confronted with a map asking for fifty labels, it’s suddenly difficult and confusing. I’m surprised they did as well as they did. Most of the folks who tried it labeled all the states whether they knew them or not, which is priceless. In the map above, I live in the state of “not here.” See all 21 maps.

10 Thanksgiving Guinness World Records

Posted: 26 Nov 2015 02:00 PM PST


(Photo: New Bremen Pumpkinfest)

In 2010, the New Bremen Giant Pumpkin Growers worked feverishly at a pumpkin festival in New Bremen, Ohio to assemble and bake a pumpkin pie that Guinness Word Records certified as the largest in the world. This magnificent dessert weighed 3,699 pounds and measured 20 feet across.

This is 1 of 10 extraordinary Guinness World Records for Thanksgiving. These include the heaviest turkey (86 pounds) and the fastest time to carve a turkey (3 minutes, 19 seconds).

How to Draw a Turkey

Posted: 26 Nov 2015 01:00 PM PST



Author, cartoonist and illustrator Gemma Correll is a Brit who admits at her Tumblr site that this is the first Thanksgiving she's ever spent here in the United States. Thus, she gets down to brass tacks  or brass turkeys as it were  and practices that rite of passage in traditional American Thanksgiving grade school crafts: tracing the hand to make a turkey shape. Yet, clever as always, Gemma has come up with some alternative versions. See her additional suggestions above.

Happiest of Thanksgivings to you, Neatorama readers!

Shoes Made of Pineapple Leather

Posted: 26 Nov 2015 12:00 PM PST

(Photo: Crane)

Every year, farmers in the Philippines grow millions of pineapples, which include pineapple leaves as well as the edible fruit. Carmen Hijosa, an industrial designer, visited the Philippines and found that many people there used the discarded fibers from pineapple leaves to make fabric sacks, among other products. But for the most part, pineapple leaves were a wasted byproduct of the harvest.

Hijosa was on a quest to find a sustainable alternative to leather. She found her answer in pineapple leaves. After 7 years of work, she invented Pinatex--a leather substitute made out of pineapple leaf fibers. Like other fabrics, it can be used for bags, furniture, and even shoes, such as these prototype Pumas.

You can read more at Crane (auto-start video).

-via Unconsumption

Sweet, Beautifully Animated Short Film is a Charmer

Posted: 26 Nov 2015 11:00 AM PST


Vimeo Link

This lovely animated short called "Lost Property" by  is a delight to the eyes and heart. The film packs charm and skillfully conveys a sweet story in a few minutes. It's worth the time of anyone who checks it out, but in particular, lovers of animated short films are sure to be smitten. Via i09

The Beloved Pioneer Bread that Smells Like Feet and Breaks Food Safety Rules

Posted: 26 Nov 2015 10:00 AM PST

You may have some older relatives that get all nostalgic about salt-rising bread. You don’t see it much anymore, because it’s hard to make and not all that popular among anyone who wasn’t raised with it. The smell is described like either cheese or dirty socks. But those who love it really love it. Salt-rising bread doesn’t even have salt in it, and no one is sure how the name came about. It was made by pioneering American women who didn’t have access to yeast, and who didn’t always have sourdough starter ready. They made salt-rising bread rise with environmental bacteria. Yes, they did.

In the early 20th century, this lengthy, yeast-less process also became an interest of microbiologists. In 1914, Richard N. Hart noted in his book Leavening Agents that salt-rising bread “seems to fail in a well-sterilized room," and alludes to the experiments of Henry A. Kohman, who discovered that salt-rising dough lacked yeast completely “but literally swarmed with bacteria.”

In 1910 Kohman was funded by the aforementioned bread-obsessed Kansas Governor, Walter R. Stubbs, to learn how bakers may reliably make it, and concluded that a variety of anaerobic bacteria allowed the bread to rise. In 1923, microbiologist Stuart A. Koser began to suspect the mix might include bacteria found in human intestines and wounds.

The experiments Kohman did after that might make you a little queasy, but the fact is that not a single case of food poisoning has been attributed to salt-rising bread. Read what we know about this classic bread, including instructions for making your own starter, at Atlas Obscura.   

(Image credit: Flickr user Wonderland Kitchen)

Cat Rescues Woman Bitten by Venomous Snake

Posted: 26 Nov 2015 09:00 AM PST


(Photo: Denise Thynne)

Man's best friend may be a dog, but this woman loves her cat especially well right now.

Denise Thynne, 66, of Mirani, Queensland, Australia went out into her yard to water her roses. When she reached down to pick up her hose, a snake lunged out of the bushes and bit her.

It was a red-bellied black snake. It might have tried for a second bite, but it didn't get the chance. Thynne's cat, Skitzo, leaped into action. ABC News reports:

"She came out stalking and it looked like she was mesmerising it and then she just went in for the kill," Ms Thynne said.

"I turned the snake over and saw the red belly and thought 'oh that's not a very friendly one'."

Recall that this incident took place in Australia, the country where nature is most determined to kill you. Thynne is highly experienced at getting bitten by snakes:

Ms Thynne said she was well versed in what to do, as it was the fourth time she had been bitten by a snake.

She is not keen on a fifth experience.

"I'm a bit of a pro at this snake business," she said.

"My mum always said it'll be a snake that kills me, so yeah, I'm not really planning on one [a fifth experience], but who knows.

-via Nothing to Do with Aborath

Dream Big - Alien Aspirations

Posted: 26 Nov 2015 08:00 AM PST


Dream Big by Ursulalopez

Life is an experiment in making something of yourself, but in order to become someone big you first have to dream big. Do you think the king of kaiju was born a giant beast capable of stomping Tokyo into dust? He started out small time just like the rest of us, without a bad reputation or an appetite for destruction, but in time he and his rep grew. People didn't know what to make of Lilo's furry alien friend when he arrived on the islands either, but just as people came to know and fear Godzilla so too will they someday run and hide when Stitch comes to town...

Share an extraterrestrial message of hope with this Dream Big t-shirt by Ursulalopez, it's big time cute and sure to spread terror smiles wherever you go!

Visit Ursulalopez's Facebook fan page and official website, then head on over to her NeatoShop for more delightfully geeky designs:

Through The StageBad Girls Go To ArkhamA Hero SelfPortraitTokyo 3

View more designs by Ursulalopez | More Cartoon T-shirts | New T-Shirts

Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!

Seventeen People Who Ruined Thanksgiving

Posted: 26 Nov 2015 08:00 AM PST

Preparing a Thanksgiving meal can be quite an ordeal, especially when you've decided to cook the entire thing by yourself, but recipe writers and those pretty little pictures on the box are mighty encouraging.

(Image Link)

Maybe they should put a picture of an utterly failed attempt on the box as well, to warn the would-be cook about what they're getting into.

But Thanksgiving dinner is about more than just desserts- it's about side dishes that are as sweet as dessert, that is, when you don't burn them to a crisp.

(Image Link)

Making a cake look pretty can be a bit difficult, and sides actually require the cook to check the oven every once in a while, but the turkey is foolproof, right? Therefore barbecuing the bird should be especially easy, and a real time saver.

(Image Link)

It'll save time alright, because you'll just end up pitching the bird in the trash and ordering a pizza!

See 17 People Who Accidentally Ruined Thanksgiving here

The Gävle Goat is Back!

Posted: 26 Nov 2015 07:00 AM PST

Sweden is celebrating the beginning of the Christmas season in the traditional way -with the Gävle Goat! Every year since 1966 the people of Gävle, Sweden, erect a huge straw goat for Christmas. We’ve covered the ups and downs of the goat over the years, when it sometimes comes to a bad end. 

The goat for 2015 is up, and the goat’s Twitter account (in both Swedish and English) has been activated. How long will it last? You can keep tabs on the goat with a live camera feed. -via Metafilter

Why Does Germany Have So Many Different Names?

Posted: 26 Nov 2015 06:00 AM PST


(Video Link)

In the English language, we call the country Germany. In French, it's Allemange. In Danish, it's Tyskland. In German, it's the nation of Deutschland.

Why do the European languages have so many different-sounding names for one country? Akira Okrent, a linguist, and Sean O'Neill, an artist, explain in this video how Germany's neighbors created widely divergent names for it.

-via Blame It on the Voices

Let’s Talk Turkey

Posted: 26 Nov 2015 05:00 AM PST

A few facts about turkey, from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Attack of the Factoids

Ben Franklin despised eagles and lobbied hard to name the turkey our national bird. (He lost.)

There are about 4.5 million wild turkeys living free in the United States. They can fly 55 mph and run 25 mph. Domesticated turkeys, however, have been bred to be so overweight and front-heavy that they can’t build up any significant speed, loft, or distance.

For more than 100 years Massachusetts had no wild turkeys. But thanks to a reintroduction program in nearby New York in the 1970s, more than 20,000 now roam the state.

Most American ice-cream trucks play a song called “Turkey in the Straw.” (British trucks play “Greensleeves.”)

Big Bird’s costume includes about 6,000 turkey feathers dyed yellow.

The first in-flight meal: turkey and vegetables, served aboard the luxury 16-passenger Russian Ilia Mouriametz biplanes in 1914. The meals stopped later that year when the large airplanes were converted into heavy bombers for World War I. 

First Swanson’s TV Dinner, released in 1954: turkey, cornbread dressing, frozen peas, and sweet potatoes.

Turkeys originated in Mexico. Introduced to Spain in the 1500s, Turkish merchants sold the birds all over Europe (one theory as to how they got their name). The turkeys we eat today are descendants of those European birds.

The Pilgrims were familiar with turkeys before reaching the New World— they brought them in 1620.

See also: Let's Talk Turkey

Bonus: Here are some excuses the kids at your Thanksgiving feast may use for being picky about what they eat.

Turophobia: Fear of cheese.

Lachanophobia: Fear of vegetables.

Alliumphobia: Fear of garlic.

Mycophobia: Fear of mushrooms.

Arachibutyrophobia: Fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth.

Carnophobia: Fear of meat.

Ichthyophobia: Fear of fish.

Oenophobia: Fear of wine.

Cibophobia: Fear of eating.

(YouTube link)

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The article above is reprinted with permission from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Attack of the Factoids. Weighing in at over 400 pages, it's a fact-a-palooza of obscure information.

Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts. If you like Neatorama, you'll love the Bathroom Reader Institute's books - go ahead and check 'em out!

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