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2016/01/29

Neatorama

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Who’s a Good Dog?

Posted: 29 Jan 2016 05:00 AM PST

Did you notice a theme developing in our feature banner at the top of the blog this week? We had dogs with degrees, research on dogs barking, Marilyn Monroe’s dogs, and even corn dogs. And now that we’ve made it to the end of Dog Week at Neatorama, it’s time for something just plain silly. We are going to examine the phenomena of The Good Dog. Who’s a good dog? We ask our dogs that all the time, and them, being dogs, just have no idea. 

Maybe it’s not fair to pose such a difficult question. The Pain Train shows how confusing it may be, and all a poor dog can do is take a wild guess.


 
The dog doesn’t know the answer. And because you’re asking, maybe you don’t know the answer, either.



Cyanide & Happiness just flat out answered the question for the dog, although not in the way that the poor puppy would want.



Some dogs just don’t want to be good, according to Pictures in Boxes.

But even if you answered and told your dog that yes, he’s a good dog, that can still be confusing. Don't call her a good boy if she's a girl. If you're not sure, "good dog" will do.



If a dog really wants to find out who’s a good dog, he can use this handy flow chart from College Humor. 

This adorable dog at Three Panel Soul is pondering that question deeply. He didn’t realize it was a question that could ever be answered.



Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal delves into the philosophical mind behind your dogs inscrutable face. This one appears to be a nihilist.



Why do we confuse dogs with difficult questions? They are good dogs, and don’t deserve such headaches.

Hair Dyeing Interpretations of Famous Works of Art

Posted: 29 Jan 2016 04:00 AM PST

There's a starry night waving through the locks of this woman’s hair. I think that Van Gogh would approve of this beautiful take on his most famous painting.

Ursula Goff makes amazing images by coloring her hair. Lately, she’s been dying in patterns to imitate famous works of art, including pieces by Andy Warhol, Sandro Botticelli, and Edvard Munch. She provides an art education in the process, too. With each hairstyling, she provides a detailed explanation of the meaning and significance of the particular work of art.

Andy Warhol's Marilyn Diptych

The Scream by Edvard Munch

The Kiss by Gustav Klimt

The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli

-via Fashionably Geek

Cat is Obsessed with Balloon

Posted: 29 Jan 2016 03:00 AM PST

Evie has a balloon,and it’s her favorite thing ever! She carries it around with her all the time. Maybe it’s her security balloon!

(YouTube link)

And like any small child with a balloon, she goes into a panic when it gets away from her. There’s a bit of tension in this story, but things work out in the end, and Evie gets her balloon back. -via Tastefully Offensive

Snow Transforms This Polish General into Darth Vader

Posted: 29 Jan 2016 02:00 AM PST

(Photos: Miaso Wejherowo)

Jakub Wejher was a nobleman who led Polish armies in several wars throughout the Seventeenth Century. He founded the town of Wejherowo, which is now graced with a statue to honor him.

When covered with snow, his long hair looks like Darth Vader's helmet and his cape, shaded in the night, looks like that of the Sith lord.

A few weeks ago, though, Count Jakub had not yet given in to the dark side.

-via Nerd Approved

Don’t Worry, Kitty!

Posted: 29 Jan 2016 01:00 AM PST

This adorable kitten looks aghast, but he’s okay. That’s just the way his eyes look all the time! Bum was brought into the San Diego Humane Society’s Kitten Nursery and was adopted by employee Courtney Morman. Bum is all grown up now, and helps Morman with the other kittens she cares for. Morman gave Bum his own Instagram account because so many people love his worried eyes. You can see plenty of pictures of him there.

This Beautiful Photo of the New York City Blizzard Looks Like an Impressionist Painting

Posted: 29 Jan 2016 12:00 AM PST

I’m glad that Christopher Jobson of Colossal spotted this unusually stunning photo. Michele Palazzo dared the hazards of the Jonas Winter Storm to capture the impact of Nature on New York City. The city’s wedge-shaped Flatiron Building looks like the prow of a ship slicing into a raging sea. The snow flooding the air gives the appearance an impressionistic texture.

You can see more of Palazzo’s photos of the storm here.

-via Robb Allen

Friday The 13th - Smokey And The Slasher

Posted: 28 Jan 2016 11:00 PM PST


Friday The 13th by Qetza

When Cube and Tucker agreed to make another Friday movie they had no idea that the director was thinking of taking the series in a whole new direction by setting the film on a dark and stormy Friday the 13th. They started running lines and breaking the ice with the other actors, but Chris was starting to get paranoid about the lack of funny looking supporting characters and nervous about the buckets of blood they kept wheeling in. Cube told Smokey to lay off the joints, but Chris couldn't shake that scared feeling, which turned in to a full blown freakout when he saw Jason Voorhees walk onto the lot...

Scare up some smiles with this Friday The 13th t-shirt by Qetza, it's a dark comedic masterpiece that's sure to make your fellow fans scream with laughter!

Visit Qetza's Facebook fan page, official website, Tumblr and Twitter, then head on over to his NeatoShop for more dark and geeky designs:

Eye Of HorusCrawling ChaosArt Deco OwlCarol

View more designs by Qetza | More Funny 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!

Inside Jayne Mansfield's Mansion, the "Pink Palace"

Posted: 28 Jan 2016 11:00 PM PST



In November 1957, shortly before her marriage to actor/bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay and just ten years before her death in a car accident, actress Jayne Mansfield bought a 40-room Mediterranean-style mansion at 10100 Sunset Boulevard in the Holmby Hills neighborhood of Western Los Angeles.

Jayne was intent on making the mansion, mostly paid for by an inheritance from her maternal grandfather, her own. She had the house painted pink, adorned it with statuary of Cupids, added pink fluorescent lights, installed a pink heart-shaped bathtub and a fountain filled with pink champagne, and put (in some rooms) pink wall-to-wall carpeting. She called her manse the "Pink Palace." After writing to manufacturers and requesting free samples of furniture and deorations, Mansfield received $150,000 in free merchandise with which to decorate ($1,263,803 in 2016 dollars). After she and Hargitay married, he helped her with the mansion, installing a pool. 

Eventually, Hargitay and Mansfield split, the mansion was sold and she went on to marry and divorce again before her death in 1967. The Palace was owned by Ringo Starr, Cass Elliot and Engelbert Humperdinck before it was demolished in November of 2002. 

See a video of Mansfield and Hargitay poolside at the Pink Palace and additional pictures of the mansion at Messy Nessy Chic. 

Images: Allan Grant / Life 

Hot New Thing: Yoga with Bunnies

Posted: 28 Jan 2016 10:00 PM PST

Out: yoga with cats and dogs. In: yoga with rabbits! Metro News reports that Sunberry Fitness in Richmond, British Columbia, recently held classes in which people performed yoga while rabbits hopped around the studio.

The studio offered these classes in conjunction with Bandaids for Bunnies, a local rabbit rescue charity. Their goal was to offer a new yoga experience and get some of the rabbits adopted into good homes. The first two classes sold out and there’s a waiting list for future classes.


(Video Link)

-via Stuff

Snack Books

Posted: 28 Jan 2016 09:00 PM PST

The Twitter hashtag #snackbooks is a challenge from Barnes & Noble to come up with the best literary food puns. The titles flew thick and fast, and Twitter user @darth lent his artistic skills to illustrating covers for some of them.

These titles will make you want to curl up with a good bag of Doritos. See a collection of the best titles at Buzzfeed.

Fifty Bad Prom Photos That Will Put the Awkwardness of Yours into Perspective

Posted: 28 Jan 2016 08:00 PM PST

Do you ever glance at your prom photos if, say, your family takes the liberty of pulling out embarrassing photos, and regret what you wore? Or the way that your hair looked too unnaturally wispy or crunchy with hair spray? Unfortunate jewelry or, worse, matching your date's clothing colors? Here are fifty chances to put those slight regrets into perspective. 

Sure, maybe your tux wasn't the best, but at least you weren't pulling the full fedora-to-toe Boy George. Perhaps you wore pink pumps, but at least they weren't Keds. You skipped prom altogether? Consider it a perfect guarantee that you won't show up in a collection like this. See it in entirety here.

Images: All selected from a grouping at Vintage Everyday

Albert Goering, Brother of a Nazi and Hero of the Holocaust

Posted: 28 Jan 2016 07:00 PM PST

Hermann Goering (left) was a devoted Nazi, an early supporter of Adolf Hitler, and eventually the senior commander of the Luftwaffe, Nazi Germany’s air force. He was a war criminal of the highest order and well on his way to a proper hanging before he killed himself with a secret cyanide pill.

His brother, Albert (right), was quite different. In fact, at great risk to his own life, Albert Goering rescued dozens of Jews from concentration camps. Here’s how the Daily Mail describes one of his many daring escapades during the Holocaust:

Albert, it emerged, had not only lobbied his brother to release individual prisoners from Dachau, but also forged Hermann’s signature on documents that allowed anti-Nazi activists and Jews to escape Hitler’s henchmen.

He took company trucks and drove away inmates as ‘forced labourers’ before parking in secluded areas and allowing them to escape.

Albert Goering was nearly tried as a war criminal due to his family connections. It was only at the intervention of the Jews that he rescued that he was able to escape prosecution. Albert went on to die in 1966 in obscurity. But now Yad Vashem, the Israeli organization that honors gentiles who rescued Jews during the Holocaust, may honor with the title of Righteous among the Nations.

-via Ace of Spades HQ

What If You Only Drank Soda?

Posted: 28 Jan 2016 06:00 PM PST

What if you drank soda every time you took a drink? This seems like a strange question, as I know quite a few people who drink nothing but soda pop. We know it’s not good, but how downright bad a lot of carbonated soft drinks are for you is scary.

(YouTube link)

AsapSCIENCE gives us the rundown of the detrimental effects too much soda can have on you. Whether this kind of information will do any good is unclear, as people who drink too much soda have been told that it’s bad for them all their lives. What do you drink all day? -via Geeks Are Sexy

Want to Expel Evil or Amplify Music in Your Home? Try Horse Skulls under the Floor

Posted: 28 Jan 2016 05:00 PM PST

(Photo: WerDu)

Step right up and let me tell you about the latest all-purpose, cure-everything household tool: the horse skull.

Colm Moriarty is an Irish archaeologist. When he was a young boy, his aunt’s home was renovated. Moriarty remembers that the workmen found two horse skulls beneath the floor of the old house. The purpose of their presence was a mystery.

Now Moriarty has a good idea why they were there. He recently excavated two medieval houses near Dublin. He found horse skulls beneath the floor. Why are they there? Sonja Hukantaival, a doctoral student who is writing her dissertation on materials left in household foundations, thinks that the horse skulls served two purposes. The skulls were used in witchcraft to protect or inflict curses and their hollow chambers helped the acoustic qualities of the home. Matt Soniak writes at Atlas Obscura:

Like the horse shoes that some people keep in their homes, the horse skull was thought to bring luck and expel evil. A horse skull foundation deposit, Hukantaival explains, would have ensured fertility, health and a good crop, and guarded against sickness, death, fire and lightning. In the folklore of some countries, like Finland, horse skulls and other foundation deposits were also said to protect against witchcraft when placed at the borders of a house. They could also be used in an act of witchcraft instead of protection against it, Hukantaival says, a deposit secretly placed under someone else’s house would curse the building or steal luck from it.

The other explanation is that they were part of a macabre sound system. The cavities in the skulls amplify and echo ambient noise, and archaeologists think that in some places they were buried under floors to improve the sound when people danced, sang or played music. In the British Isles and southern Scandinavia, presumed “acoustic skulls” have been found in home and churches. In Scandinavia, they also often turn up under threshing barns, where, Hukantaival says, “it was considered important that the sound of threshing carried far.”

-via Marilyn Terrell

Fourteen Prank Pics To Get You In The Mood For Some Trickery

Posted: 28 Jan 2016 04:00 PM PST

(Image Link)

Prankery can turn a dreary winters day into a hysterical chuckle fest full of sneaky tricks and impish laughter, and although the target of the prank may not appreciate the joke everybody else usually gets a good laugh out of it all.

(Image Link)

However,  it's important to keep your pranking within acceptable boundaries, to avoid causing bodily harm or emotional pain, but that still leaves lots of room to mess with people's minds.

(Image Link)

And if you simply can't find a new way to prank 'em all you can always go with a tried and true standard in the world of pranking- attaching an air horn to a toilet seat.

(Image Link)

Of course, you may want to conceal the air horn a bit better than this person did because you know what they say about paybacks...

See These 14 Pranks Are Pretty Incredible And Should Absolutely Be Copied here

An Oral History Of The Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster

Posted: 28 Jan 2016 03:00 PM PST

Thirty years ago today, January 28, 1986, the world watched as the space shuttle Challenger took off from Cape Canaveral in Florida, after several delays, on a mission that included the first Teacher in Space. The flight crew was the most diverse that NASA had ever deployed: two women, an African American, an Asian American, a Jewish American, both scientists and test pilots, military and civilian. The flight lasted 73 seconds, the the shuttle disintegrated as we watched on TV. All seven crew members were lost.

That was the day we were all reminded that while space flight may have become routine, it still wasn’t without risk. Popular Mechanics interviewed more than two dozen people who were involved in the Challenger launch in some way: NASA employees, contractors, astronauts, journalists, family members, investigators, and observers, to assemble an oral history of what happened that day and the aftermath.

See more pictures of the Challenger mission, and the biographies of each astronaut.

(Image credit: NASA)

The DeLorean Is Going Back into Production

Posted: 28 Jan 2016 02:45 PM PST

(Image: Universal Pictures)

John DeLorean’s DMC-12 was in production from only 1981 through 1983. The Back to the Future film trilogy made it famous. Now, more than 30 years after the last DMC-12 rolled off the assembly line, it’s back. The DeLorean Motor Company, which has been rebuilding and restoring the old cars from its small facility in Humble, Texas will resume production.

Internally, the car will be different. To Marty McFly, it would look like something from the future. The Dallas Morning News describes it:

John Espey, vice president of DeLorean Motor, said the replicas will be substantially upgraded from the cars in the ‘80s – including the engine

The company is in discussions with a couple of manufacturers to use a modern, emissions-certified V-6 with “300 to 400 horsepower,” Espey said.

The cars will also get better brakes, upgraded interiors and amenities such as Bluetooth, navigation systems and heated seats.

New DMC-12s will be available starting in 2017 and be priced at less than $100,000.

-via Ace of Spades HQ

Ten of the Baddest Fictional Movie Weapons

Posted: 28 Jan 2016 02:00 PM PST

What makes a weapon "bad" (meaning good) in cinema? Is it destructive power, the skill behind it, or how cool it looks being used? When a weapon is completely made up, it can be all of those things! If you can't decide on a favorite, or remember all the fictional weapons you've seen, check out the list of the ten baddest fictional movie weapons at TVOM, with descriptions and video evidence. There’s even an hour-long video of lightsaber battles included for your enjoyment.

Couple Find Strange Black "Walking" Fish In New Zealand Bay

Posted: 28 Jan 2016 01:00 PM PST

People come across odd animals all the time, posting the photographic evidence online and sparking a wave of discussion about what the heck that animal in the pic actually is.

Most of the time these critters end up being nothing more than deformed or otherwise genetically defective, but sometimes their discovery is actually an important biological breakthrough.

A couple in New Zealand found a strange black fish while snorkeling in the Bay of Islands near Auckland, the fish seemingly "walking" along the ocean floor.

They caught the fish and sent it to researcher Andrew Stewart from the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa so he could study it and tell them what they'd found.

Andrew came to the conclusion that the bizarre black fish is actually a rare variation of the striated frogfish, but Andrew was amazed by the fish's jet black coloration considering they're normally brightly colored and boldly striped.

(YouTube Link)

Now the black sheep of the frogfish world is part of the Te Papa collection, where they'll study it to discover whether the black coloration is an evolutionary adaptation or merely a mutation.

-Via Boing Boing

Cupcake Team - Saving The World Before Snack Time

Posted: 28 Jan 2016 12:00 PM PST


Cupcake Team by Nick Palazzo

When the bakery is in trouble, and everyone with a sweet tooth has been turned into a skinny zombie, humanity will have to turn to the delicious treats they once devoured for help- the cupcake team. They're the moist yet motley crew of delicious misfits saving the world before snack time- Choco the mad chocolate cup bomber, Patchy the hybrid cupcake golem, Sickly Sweet the colorful treat that eats the eaters, and Mocha, the brains of the operation and one cool cuppie. Together they're rising to the occasion, frosting the fiends who threaten snackery and preparing for an all out assault on the evil empire known as Weight Watchers...

Add some tasty humor to your geeky wardrobe with this Cupcake Team t-shirt by Nick Palazzo, it's sweet and sick in all the right ways!

Visit Nick Palazzo's Facebook fan page, official website and Twitter, then head on over to his NeatoShop for more deliciously geeky designs:

Ice Cream SundaeCupidMonkey TongueCoffee Break

View more designs by Nick Palazzo | More Funny 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!

Taking a Phone Poll in Iowa

Posted: 28 Jan 2016 12:00 PM PST

Because so many candidates announced their intentions very early for the 2016 presidential election, the run-up to the Iowa caucuses has taken a particularly long time. It’s got to be a hard, thankless job to call voters in Iowa to ask about their political opinions. Those folks have been bothered for months already. Seth Myers tried calling a few folks -probably a lot more than made it into the final mix- to see how they’re holding up under the onslaught.

(YouTube link)

Myers did find a few who were not only willing to talk, but were pretty funny. The funniest of all was his own mother. The Iowa caucus will be held on Monday, February first. Once that’s done, the time between other states’ primaries will be shorter and the voters of those states less scrutinized. -via Uproxx

The 8 Different Types Of Star Wars Fans

Posted: 28 Jan 2016 11:00 AM PST

There have been Star Wars fans as long as I've been alive, and yet growing up as part of the nerd tribe means being introduced to all the different kinds of Star Wars fans that exist within this franchise centric fan base.

I've always considered myself to be a bit of a casual fan, I've played all the video games and a few editions of the tabletop roleplaying game but I don't know the name of every alien race or which planet every character calls home.

But according to this comic strip created by Andy Kluthe for Dorkly I'm actually an Original Trilogy Purist with a bit of an Extended Canon-ites streak when we're in the middle of an Edge Of The Empire campaign.

See The 8 Types Of Star Wars Fans here

Simon's Cat Logic: Crazy Time

Posted: 28 Jan 2016 10:00 AM PST

Simon Tofield, the animator behind Simon’s Cat, talks with Nicky Trevorrow, a cat behavior expert at Cats Protection about why our furballs do the odd things they do, specifically the sudden craziness. You’ve seen your cat switch off his senses and explode in a flurry of activity like a scalded haint. That’s crazy time.

(YouTube link)

Better yet, Trevorrow gives us tips on how to help cats release that energy in a more productive way. Tofield is beginning a new series of videos called Cat Logic. Future episodes will explore other cat behaviors that seem incomprehensible to we mere humans. -via Tastefully Offensive

Ten Priceless Facts About <i>Antiques Roadshow</i>

Posted: 28 Jan 2016 09:00 AM PST

If you don't care about precious objects from our past you'll see the Antiques Roadshow as dull and uninteresting, but those who enjoy hearing about how cool old stuff was made and why that stuff is so valuable today find every episode to be priceless.

Many fans in the U.S. have been watching the show from the very beginning, because the American version began in 1997, but the UK version started the craze way back in 1979.

People line up by the hundreds when the Antiques Roadshow comes to town hoping their "valuable" stuff lands them a spot on the show, but only about 0.2 percent of the hopeful make it on the air.

Those who have been lucky enough to land a spot have struck it rich more than a few times, but an Oklahoma man's 18th-century Chinese cups still top the list as highest appraisal ever, the cups worth around $1.5 million.

Read 10 Things You Didn't Know About "Antiques Roadshow" here

Barbie’s Got A Brand New Bod

Posted: 28 Jan 2016 08:00 AM PST

Starting today, shoppers at Barbie.com will be able to select Barbie dolls with four different body types. There’s the original Barbie we all know, and the new styles: curvy, tall, and petite. The dolls are also available in seven skin tones, 22 eye colors, and 24 hair styles. Barbie dolls have drawn criticism for their unrealistic dimensions for almost 60 years now. As the 21st century dawned, research showed that Barbie’s unnatural thinness indeed affected young girls’ body image. But the real turnaround came when sales began to drop a few years ago.

As much as Mattel has tried to market her as a feminist, Barbie’s famous figure has always overshadowed her business outfits. At her core, she’s just a body, not a character, a canvas upon which society can pro-ject its anxieties about body image. “Barbie has all this baggage,” says Jess Weiner, a branding expert and consultant who has worked with Dove, Disney and Mattel to create empowering messaging for girls. “Her status as an empowered woman has been lost.”

With all that in mind, Kim Culmone, head of design, posed a challenge to her team:

If you could design Barbie today, how would you make her a reflection of the times? Out of that came changing Barbie’s face to have less makeup and look younger, giving her articulated ankles so she could wear flats as well as heels, giving her new skin tones to add diversity and then of course changing the body. While curvy Barbie’s hips, thighs and calves are visibly larger than before, from the waist up she is less Jessica Rabbit than she is pear-shaped. Mattel refuses to discuss the actual proportions of the new dolls or how it came to decide on them.

The rollout is planned to be gradual. The new Barbie shapes require different clothes for each model, and there are now two shoe sizes. With all the new products, stocking stores will be slow as the company negotiates shelf space. For now, they are only available online. Read more about Barbie’s changeover at Time.

(Image credit: Barbie.com)

What the Blues Can Teach You About Life, Art and Everything In-Between

Posted: 28 Jan 2016 07:00 AM PST

Recording artist and music professor Mike Errico delves into what "the blues" are. The term is culturally loaded, and yet traces it roots from all over. We know the term "Rhythm & Blues," but it was coined as a replacement for "race music," not as a definitive description of black music. The blues can also be heard in a cowboy’s harmonica, the tortured country songs of Patsy Cline, and in the Klezmer tunes of European Jews. To lay the foundation, Errico starts with the nuts-and-bolts of music by explaining notes and scales.

To me, blue notes exist in the cracks between these scale tones. To stretch the “house” metaphor, they are the notes that sulk under the staircase, sit on the roof all night, and compulsively check under the bed for monsters. You know these notes intuitively, not because you know the scales, necessarily, but because you’re human: You grew up in this house, and you know how it feels. These are the notes that give music an ache, an empathy, and the kind of grind that makes you scrunch up your face, draw up your shoulders and stretch your open hands skyward. I’m sure you know the feeling. If not, we may have to check your pulse.

How does that happen? Again, bringing it back to the scale tones, it happens by playing something that exists slightly outside the lines drawn by whatever scale you happen to be in. Warning: Being outside those lines does not mean that everything is blue and achy and humanly beautiful — some of it is God-awful, out of tune, and face-scrunching in the GAH, how long has this milk been in the fridge!? sense of the term.

Using our 12-tone approach, “blue notes” are most commonly a lowered third, fifth, or seventh. In some cases, they’re technically “wrong,” in that they don’t belong in a given scale, but even so, musicians know that any sound can work with any framework, if it’s handled right.

Handling that framework right takes not only talent, but authenticity. Ultimately, singing the blues is a very personal way of communicating. Read an excerpt of Errico’s class lecture on the blues (with examples) at Observer. -via Digg

How To Keep Your Cool After Bombing Your Trumpet Recital

Posted: 28 Jan 2016 06:00 AM PST

P.T. Barnum is quoted as saying "Always leave them wanting more"- when you have the audience wrapped around your finger and dying to see what you're going to do next you should bow, say thanks and split.

But this motto can also be applied to performers who are bombing, because if they can do something to win the audience back before exiting the stage the crowd will go wild.

(YouTube Link)

The kid in this video may have just moonwalked his way into the hearts of America, and I've never seen somebody turn the crowd's attitude around so quickly after bombing so badly! Maybe he should try his hand at stand up comedy?

-Via FAIL Blog

Where Did That Corn Dog Come From?

Posted: 28 Jan 2016 05:00 AM PST

To make the county fair staple, you need ingredients from all over the globe.

(Image credit: Twodollarwhore)

1. EGGS

Most eggs come from Leghorn hens. According to Steve Ettlinger’s Twinkie, Deconstructed, they’re cracked in specialty plants like Papetti’s in New Jersey, which breaks nearly 7 million a day! Once liquefied, the eggs are hosed into trucks and shipped off.

2. CORN SYRUP

Yellow #2 dent field corn puts the “corn” in your corn dog. Corn syrup is made in huge batches: First, 40,000 bushels of corn are soaked in seven-story tanks of hot water for two days. Corn starch is separated from the wet-milled kernels, centrifuged, and washed up to 14 times! Most of the starch is used to make cardboard, but the rest is placed in a vat with hydrochloric acid and heated into corn syrup.

3. SMOKE FLAVORING

Liquid smoke comes from actual smoke! To make it, wood chips or sawdust are burned and the vapor is captured and condensed into a liquid. After the dogs are cooked, they get a quick shower in it.

4. CELLULOSE*

For nearly 6,000 years, people have used animal intestines to encase sausages. But chances are, your frank was wrapped in trees. Wood chips are steamed, saturated in a stew of caustic sodium sulfide, cooked, and screened into wood pulp. The result is cellulose, popular for paper, textiles, and hot dog casings (which are stripped off after the dog is factory cooked).

5. THIAMINE MONONITRATE (B1)

Although B1 is found in brown rice husks, it’s usually synthesized from petrochemicals derived from coal tar. (It’s easier and cheaper to synthetically create vitamins than to extract them from plants.) Most B1 companies keep the details secret.

6. RIBOFLAVIN (B2)

Your corn dog’s riboflavin comes from either bacteria, yeast, or fungi. Thirty percent of the world’s B2 is made from the fungus Ashbya gossypii. These microbes are dunked in a broth of fermenting fats and carbs, and enzymes secrete B2. Then the vitamin is extracted, crystallized, and powdered.

7. NIACIN (B3)

Niacin comes from Switzerland—and petroleum. Swiss petrochemical plants “crack” petroleum into methane, ethylene, and other gases. The methane is concocted into nitric acid, while the ethylene is converted into acetaldehyde. Brewed together with some ammonia sprinkled in, the two make niacin, which enriches flour and safeguards consumers from diseases like pellagra.

8. FOLIC ACID (B9)

Most of the world’s B9 is made in China from a soup of petrochemicals or fermented tapioca starches. The acid is purified with zinc and magnesium (mined from open pits in Australia or China) and powdered.

9. PHOSPHORIC ACID*

Phosphate rocks in Idaho are surface mined and baked to 2,500°F. Then they’re tumbled into a nine-story furnace and liquefied at 11,000°F—the intensity of the sun. Phosphoric acid is made by spraying water onto the gas that escapes.

10. SODIUM BICARBONATE

Gas companies remove CO2 from natural gas and truck it to processors, who clean, compress, and liquefy the gas. The carbon dioxide is added to a slurry of soda ash to make sodium bicarbonate: that is, baking soda.

11. BAKING POWDER

Limestone—the calcified skeletons of ancient sea critters—is mined deep under Idaho. It’s crushed and heated to about 2,000°F to make lime. Meanwhile, in Wyoming, trona—ancient lake mud—is mined, crushed, and filtered into soda ash, which is used for glassmaking. When both are mixed with phosphoric acid, you get two main compounds in baking powder: sodium acid pyrophosphate and monocalcium phosphate.

12. TRIMMINGS

Unless it’s marked “all beef,” that wiener may contain a whole barnyard: cows, pigs, turkeys, and chickens! Franks can contain tongues, snouts, and lips, but “these components should not exceed 15 to 20 percent of sausage formulation,” says the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. (The FAO also requires franks to be free of gristle, sinews, bone, and cartilage). Edible offal aside, most of the dog is made of trimmings—the skeletal meat left over after the prime cuts are made. These are ground up like hamburger meat and then blended into a pudding-like batter with all the air vacuumed out. The gloop is then pumped into casings.

13. WHEY

A cheap replacement for eggs and milk, whey often comes from Wisconsin cheese factories. To make cheese, a culture of bacteria is added to milk to make it sour. Enzymes thicken the mix; after two hours, the resulting curds are pressed into cheese. The residual liquid whey is siphoned off, dried, and powdered.

14. BLEACH*

The U.S. makes 26 billion pounds of chlorine each year—some of which is used to bleach flour. To make chlorine, saltwater is exposed to a strong electrical current. The jolt separates the sodium, and the resulting chlorine is purified, compressed, and liquefied. Then it’s shipped in bulletproof tanks to flour mills, where it’s stirred in to balance the powder’s pH. (This keeps future batches of bread light and fluffy.)

15. POTASSIUM LACTATE

The potassium in your corn dog—and your fertilizer—is unearthed in Canada, from 3,000 feet underground. There, potash is mined and baked in a kiln to make pearl ash. This is mixed with slaked lime to create potassium hydroxide, which is added to a soup of lactic acid—derived from sugar cane or beets. The result is potassium lactate, an additive used to extend the shelf life of meat.

16. IRON

The iron we eat comes from oil wells and ore mines. Refineries extract sulfur from “sour” crude oil and convert it into sulfuric acid. The acid is shipped to steel mills, where freshly made steel is “pickled” in an acid bath. As iron saturates the acid, crystals of iron sulfate sink—these are powdered and mixed into flour to protect eaters from deficiency-related ailments like anemia.

17. STICKS*

Your corn dog stick started as a Canadian white birch tree. The tree, which has pale peeling bark, is flavorless and odorless—perfect for popsicle sticks, toothpicks, and chopsticks. The wood is flattened into thin, paperlike scrolls and sticks are punched out with a die-cut machine.

*You do not consume this; it's merely part of the corn-dog-making process.

_______________________

The article above by Lucas Reilly 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!

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