Neatorama

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• The Civilian Woman Who Fought World War II in India
• The Unsuccessful WWII Plot to Fight the Japanese With Radioactive Foxes
• Great Masterpieces On Tiny Leaves
• Guy Helps Baby Monkey To Reunite With Her Mother
• This Guy Loves Urban Fossils
• 3D Reconstruction Reveals The Face Of Mummified Egyptian Child
• A Tour of the <i>Fresh Prince</i> House
• Fat Bear Week 2020
• An Honest Trailer for <i>Firefly</i>
• How To Hear Sounds Halfway Around The World
• Comparing Two $350 Laptops
• What If People Did Everything Aggressively?
• Hundreds of Elephants Dropped Dead In Botswana
• The Former PlayStation Vice President Couldn’t Even Pre-Order A PS5
• Looty, the Famous Pekingese

The Civilian Woman Who Fought World War II in India Posted: 29 Sep 2020 09:32 PM PDT Ursula Graham Bower went to visit her brother in India in 1937. While there, the British citizen fell in love with the indigenous Naga people of northern India, and went to live among them. By 1942, the Japanese were making incursions into the area, and the British government which had mostly ignored the Naga now needed their help.     The British turned to Bower, asking her to use her Naga connections to monitor Japanese troop movement and rescue downed Allied pilots. Bower went further and mustered a 150 man strong guerrilla force who liked the imperialists who mostly ignored them more than the imperialists pressing the Naga into brutal forced labor. Armed primarily with old muskets, they mainly aided refugees escaping Burma, but also harassed Japanese troops to the point where a bounty was placed on the head of a woman with no formal military training leading male warriors who typically frowned on women in the war workplace. In 1944 the Japanese suffered a backbreaking defeat at Kohima, a battle won with the help of Naga intelligence, and retreated. Bower pivoted to teaching Allied troops jungle survival skills and, in doing so, even found the husband her mother had been hoping for, marrying a British officer in a Naga wedding ceremony. Read how Bower rose to the occasion, and three other stories from World War II you've never heard before, including Germany's worst defeat by the Soviets, an Italian fascist who became a Spanish diplomat to aid escaping Jews, and a strangely successful Nazi escape artist at Cracked.

The Unsuccessful WWII Plot to Fight the Japanese With Radioactive Foxes Posted: 29 Sep 2020 09:31 PM PDT Brainstorming sessions are designed to be a way for people to throw out ideas, no matter how outlandish, in the hopes that some kernel within them can be adapted and modified into something useful. When it came to ideas on how to win World War II, those brainstorming sessions could get out of hand, and ideas that lacked the devil's advocacy could actually go into production. One such idea from Ed Salinger of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) proposed to harness the concept of kitsune, the folklore of shapeshifting trickster foxes, to scare the Japanese with a literal portent of doom. The whole idea rested on the assumption that Japanese people of the 1940s were superstitious and gullible enough to fall for it. When it came to the question of how to create fake kitsune, the OSS dreamt up a gaggle of ideas. First, OSS personnel fashioned fox-shaped balloons to fly over Japanese villages and scare the citizens below. They also asked a whistle company to create an instrument that simulated fox sounds. In a memo to the OSS Planning Staff, Salinger said, "These whistles can be used in combat and a sufficient number of these should create an eerie sound of the kind calculated to meet the Japanese superstition." In addition to the balloons and whistles, the OSS hired another company to create artificial fox odors. Salinger thought that Japanese citizens would somehow recognize this scent—just as he thought that they would recognize a rare fox sound—and cower in fear. But despite Salinger's best efforts, the balloons, whistles, and odors were abandoned as impractical before being deployed. Instead, the OSS reverted to Salinger's original plan: Catch live foxes in China and Australia, spray-paint them with glowing paint, and release them throughout Japanese villages. What could possibly go wrong? When Operation Fantasia went into production, they found out. Read about the effort the US put into fabricating supernatural foxes at Smithsonian. (Image credit: Utagawa Kuniyoshi)

Great Masterpieces On Tiny Leaves Posted: 29 Sep 2020 09:31 PM PDT Lito has been living all of his life with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). He knew that he had to search for a medium with which he could channel his abnormally high levels of concentration, focus, and obsessiveness. And it seems that the 34-year-old artist found that outlet through the Japanese art of kirie (which means "cut paper"). Earlier this year in January he began experimenting, not with paper, but with leaves. And the results are nothing short of magnificent. Check out Lito's works over at Spoon & Tamago. (Image Credit: Lito/ Spoon & Tamago)

Guy Helps Baby Monkey To Reunite With Her Mother Posted: 29 Sep 2020 09:30 PM PDT When he was walking near his home in Brazil, Igor Venâncio noticed some kids gathered in the street. Upon checking what the commotion was all about, he saw that the kids gathered around a tiny baby marmoset (a type of monkey native to the region), who lay helpless on the ground. The next thing he noticed was the baby's worried mom, who watched from a branch overhead. Suspecting that the baby's mother was hesitant to retrieve her because of the crowd, Venâncio asked the children to give her space. But still, Mom seemed reluctant to approach. So, Venâncio decided to arrange the reunion himself. "Acting on instinct, I took the baby to her parent," Venâncio told The Dodo. "A car or a cat could have passed by, and maybe it wouldn't have been a happy ending." Check out the wholesome clip over at the site. (Image Credit: Igor Venâncio/ The Dodo)

This Guy Loves Urban Fossils Posted: 29 Sep 2020 09:30 PM PDT Paw prints and bird tracks that have been carved in concrete are some of the cute little things that you will see in your life. These prints can be found in roads, sidewalks, and in construction sites. For Carl Mehling, however, they are more than cute; these are moments in time that were immortalized as the concrete dried. When [he] was a second-grader in Queens, his mom walked him to school past a leaf in the sidewalk. "I regarded it as a fossil, and was scheming about getting a hammer and busting it out," he says. Now, Mehling is a senior museum specialist in paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York—and he's still obsessed with the world around his shoes. When he's in the field looking for fossils, or in the woods hunting for mushrooms, he says, "my eyes are always slammed against the ground." He started zeroing in on concrete prints a decade or so ago, when a friend was looking to incorporate some into the endpapers of a book. That "flipped my switch," Mehling says. "I just never stopped." And so find and photograph urban fossils he did. Learn more about his story over at Atlas Obscura. (Image Credit: Carl Mehling/ Atlas Obscura)

3D Reconstruction Reveals The Face Of Mummified Egyptian Child Posted: 29 Sep 2020 07:55 PM PDT A 3D facial reconstruction of an Egyptian boy was revealed by European researchers. The boy was estimated to have been mummified during the first century A.D., and the digital reconstruction resembles a lifelike portrait of the deceased that was buried along with his remains. These "mummy portraits" that were used for comparison to the reconstruction was a popular practice among certain strata of Roman Egyptian society, as the Smithsonian details:  Compared with the ancient funerary artwork, the modern reconstruction shows "considerable similarities"—albeit with one notable exception, as the team notes in the journal PLOS One. Analysis of the skeleton's bones and teeth suggests the boy was roughly 3 to 4 years old at the time of his death. But the researchers point out that "on a subjective level, the portrait appears slightly 'older,'" likely due to its lithe depiction of the child's nose and mouth. This more mature representation "may have been the results of an artistic convention of that time," lead author Andreas Nerlich, a pathologist at the Academic Clinic Munich-Bogenhausen in Germany, tells Live Science. Similarities between the boy's portrait and the digital reconstruction may help answer a question that has lingered since British archaeologist W.M. Flinders Petrie discovered a trove of mummy portraits in Egypt's Fayum region in the late 1880s: Who do the artworks represent? Image via the Smithsonian

A Tour of the <i>Fresh Prince</i> House Posted: 29 Sep 2020 02:57 PM PDT To celebrate the 30th anniversary of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, the house where the Banks family lived was made available to rent out through Airbnb. Will Smith took the opportunity to go visit it himself, and he took along DJ Jazzy Jeff (Jeff Townes), too. The house is set up to appeal specifically to Fresh Prince fans, but it was a nostalgic trip, too. They are eventually joined by other cast members, with the notable exception of Uncle Phil (the late James Avery). You may as well watch the tour, since the actual Airbnb listing is booked for the foreseeable future. -via Digg

Fat Bear Week 2020 Posted: 29 Sep 2020 02:56 PM PDT For the 6th year, Katmai National Park and Preserve is staging Fat Bear Week, a tournament to crown the bear with the most successful weight gain of the year. While unhealthy for humans, a substantial layer of fat is crucial for sustaining bears through their winter hibernation. Meet the contenders from the bears that live in Katmai, and place your votes in each matchup between September 30 and October 6. Last year's winner Holly is in the running, although not expected to win as she's been raising her cub this summer. But she's a fan favorite, so Holly is in the bracket, as well as her daughter. -via Metafilter See also: Fat Bear Week 2018 and 2019.

An Honest Trailer for <i>Firefly</i> Posted: 29 Sep 2020 02:56 PM PDT Firefly was a 2002 Joss Whedon TV series that was canceled after only 11 of its 14 episodes were aired. However, later analysis blamed Fox TV for the series' low viewership, as they aired the episodes out of order and promoted it as a comedy, which confused viewers. But Firefly became quite popular when it was released on home video, garnering critical accolades and a growing fandom. It was a case of Fox letting a gem slip through their hands for no good reason, when it could have been a long running series. But was Firefly good? As this Honest Trailer shows, it followed a formula, but it was a formula that works.

How To Hear Sounds Halfway Around The World Posted: 29 Sep 2020 02:27 PM PDT How could scientists in the UK hear an underwater explosion 19,000 kilometers away in Australia? It's not an experiment you could reproduce in a pool, even a very large one, because the speed of sound is more variable than you may think, and so are the conditions in different parts of the ocean. MinuteEarth explains. I won't guarantee you'll understand it all, but it does remind us that the world is a very weird place, and there's always more to learn about it. -via Digg

Comparing Two $350 Laptops Posted: 29 Sep 2020 12:15 PM PDT When it comes to a buying laptop, the rule of thumb is don't go cheap. This means that you really have to save money in order to buy a decent laptop, but it is guaranteed that it will be worth it in the long run. But maybe this time it's different. It seems that there are some laptops now that are pretty cheap but powerful enough. And when I say cheap, it's not just under the $700-range, but also under the $400-range. Ars Technica compares two of Walmart's finest laptops that are within this range — the $378 Acer Swift 1 and the $350 Gateway GWTN141-2. Both of these are serviceable if cheap laptops, but the Gateway, despite being the less expensive model, will be the clear winner for most people. It's more powerful, more repairable, more upgrade-able, and in our testing, a bit more reliable as well. Check out their comparison over at the site. (Image Credit: Jim Salter/ Ars Technica)

What If People Did Everything Aggressively? Posted: 29 Sep 2020 12:15 PM PDT Here's a writing prompt for you: an alternate universe where we humans did everything in an aggressive manner, whether it's opening a door, or putting the trash bag into the trash bin. But if you can't imagine that type of universe, then Daniel LaBelle can show how that looks like through this short video. (Image Credit: Daniel LaBelle/ YouTube)

Hundreds of Elephants Dropped Dead In Botswana Posted: 29 Sep 2020 12:15 PM PDT Botswana — A few months ago, as they flew over the Okavango Panhandle, conservationists saw a horrifying sight. Around 356 elephants lay lifeless on the ground. Poachers were not to blame for this one, as the tusks of these elephants were still intact. So what caused their deaths? As much as the government wanted to investigate the case, it could not because of the pandemic. "Elephants began dying in huge numbers in early May and the government would normally respond within days to an event of this scale," director of conservation group National Park Rescue, Mark Hiley, told the Associated Press in July. "Yet here we are, months later, with no testing completed and with no more information than we had at the start." Hiley also called it "one of the biggest disasters to impact elephants this century, and right in the middle of one of Africa's top tourism destinations." More than two months later, investigations reveal that the mysterious deaths were caused by cyanobacteria, toxic microscopic algae found in larger bodies of blue-green water, the BBC reports. But Hiley states that they are still investigating as to why the elephants were the only ones affected, and why it was in that area only. (Image Credit: Yathin S Krishnappa/ Wikimedia Commons)

The Former PlayStation Vice President Couldn’t Even Pre-Order A PS5 Posted: 29 Sep 2020 12:15 PM PDT It is only reasonable to think that past and present employees of Sony Interactive Entertainment could be prioritized when they order the video game consoles that they develop, but it seems that that isn't the case. They are treated just the same as those who aren't part of the company. Taking to Twitter to share his sadness was Adam Boyes, PlayStation's former VP, who found himself unable to pre-order the console. Former PlayStation head of global second-party games Gio Corsi replied to the tweet saying he hadn't managed to get his hands on one either adding that the two could 'sad together'. Someone else responded to the tweet saying that they were 'p*ssed off' Boyes didn't get a free console after all he did for Sony. Boyes replied to the guy, 'They don't owe me anything, my dude. I loved my time there, and my time there is over.' Love how he's just cool about it. (Image Credit: Adam Boyes/ Twitter)

Looty, the Famous Pekingese Posted: 29 Sep 2020 12:15 PM PDT This painting of a Pekingese dog was produced by artrist Friedrich Wilhelm Keyl in 1861. While we don't know for sure whether the dog was male of female, we know its name was Looty. At the time, Pekingese dogs were found in China, where they were bred for their small size and their resemblance to lions. When Anglo-French invaders stormed, looted, and burned the Summer Palace during the Second Opium War in 1860, they found five of these Pekingese dogs guarding the corpse of a lady who had committed suicide upon hearing the pillaging taking place outside. The dogs were brought back to England, the tiniest of them—historians note she weighed around three pounds—was gifted to Queen Victoria, who renamed her "Looty" in reference to the spoils of war. The renaming sealed her fate as a stolen object of intense fascination. To modern ears, the name sounds like a confession of a crime, but the British Empire was downright proud of taking treasures from conquered lands. Read about Looty and what she came to symbolize at Artsy. -via Nag on the Lake

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