Neatorama

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• Astronomy Events to Look For in 2022
• AI Is Learning How To Manipulate Us
• World’s Underground Fungi To Be Mapped For The First Time
• Mosaic Depictions Of The Iliad Found Under A UK Field
• Games Killed In 2021
• The World's Weirdest Drinking Games
• Food Hero Invents New Type of Pasta
• Things Removed from Body Orifices in 2021
• Squirrelzilla: Grey Squirrels in Maine are Especially Chonky This Year
• John Madden: How a Career-Ending Knee Injury Actually Led to Him Becoming a Legendary Football Coach
• Playing My Guitar and Your Guitar, Too
• An Impressive Short Story: The Black Patch
• Man Finds Frog in his Lettuce; Now has a Pet Frog

Astronomy Events to Look For in 2022 Posted: 29 Dec 2021 08:49 PM PST If you didn't get a new calendar for Christmas, you're probably going to buy one this week. And while you're jotting down birthdays and anniversaries on it, you might also want to mark the eclipses and planetary alignments that will occur in 2022. There will be two, count 'em, two total lunar eclipses available to viewers in the US. The first one, on the night of May 15-16, will be visible from all 48 contiguous states -unless the clouds move in where you are. The second, on November 8, will occur at night the west coast and during daylight on the east coast. There will also be an alignment of six planets on June 24, which is an excuse to buy a telescope or at least find a community event with telescopes. Read more about these events, and see the entire schedule for meteor showers and full moons, at WABC.  -via Fark

AI Is Learning How To Manipulate Us Posted: 29 Dec 2021 07:09 PM PST This is scary. Artificial intelligence (AI) can be taught how to persuade people to make decisions that benefit its creators or owners. This technological marvel can only do so through huge amounts of data from other people obtained by private companies. AI can convince people to do a lot of things, such as buying something, sharing a post, or even voting for a candidate!  In a study conducted by a team of experts from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia's federal scientific and research agency, it was discovered that AI could locate and exploit weaknesses in human decision-making, and use that to guide people toward certain decisions. "The implications of this research are potentially quite staggering," Amir Dezfouli, an expert in machine learning at CSIRO and lead researcher on the study, said in a press release.   Image credit: Hannah Wei

World’s Underground Fungi To Be Mapped For The First Time Posted: 29 Dec 2021 07:06 PM PST Networks of underground fungi will be mapped to protect these systems from damage. These networks use carbon to build their systems in the soil, which connect to plant roots and act as 'highways' for the exchange of carbon from the roots for nutrients. Also known as the 'circulatory system of the planet,' these fungal networks can extend for many miles without being noticed.  These networks are under threat because of agriculture, urbanization, pollution, water scarcity, and changes to the climate. To protect fungi, which are vital to soil fertility, the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN), will collect 10,000 samples of these fungi around the world to understand these underground networks for better conservation efforts.  Image credit: Biosphoto/Alamy

Mosaic Depictions Of The Iliad Found Under A UK Field Posted: 29 Dec 2021 07:05 PM PST A resident from Rutland, England noticed an unusual glimpse of pottery on the ground of their family farm during his walk. After getting a spade, the man, Jim Irvine, dug a shallow trench to see what was there. According to the team of experts who excavated the site after Irvine, the ceramic tiles were a Roman mosaic depicting scenes from theIliad. The artwork is the first of its kind that was found in the United Kingdom. "This is certainly the most exciting Roman mosaic discovery in the U.K. in the last century," says  University of Leicester Archaeological Services Project ManagerJohn Thomas in astatement. "It gives us fresh perspectives on the attitudes of people at the time, their links to classical literature, and it also tells us an enormous amount about the individual who commissioned this piece."   Image credit: University of Leicester Archaeological Services

Games Killed In 2021 Posted: 29 Dec 2021 07:05 PM PST Gamers have been treated to new games, unexpected ports and remasters, and surprising sequels for well-known franchises. While this is good news, there's also bad news for the gaming world this year, with the complete removal and delisting of old games by publishers uninterested in keeping up with the maintenance. This means that players can no longer find or purchase these games on official sites. Kotaku lists the games or franchises that were removed, delisted, pulled offline, and/or straight-up murdered throughout the year. Check their full piece here. Image credit: Rockstar Games

The World's Weirdest Drinking Games Posted: 29 Dec 2021 12:19 PM PST Drinking games have been with us since ancient times, because they are a somewhat socially acceptable way of getting completely wasted without having to admit that's what you intended in the fist place. An added bonus is seeing your friends get way drunker than they intended. And with New Year's Eve coming up, you might want some ideas for giving an international flavor to your party. The scariest drinking game I could think of is darts, but that really falls under the heading of "pub sport." Almost as dangerous is the German drinking game called Hammerschlagen. You start the game off by having players hammer a nail into a tree stump until it stands on its own. Then each person raises the hammer above their head and tries to smash the nail all the way in … using the edge end. Every time you fail, you must drink. Good thing that alcohol increases your dexterity and coordination (it's why police give you awards for driving after having a few); otherwise, some might consider this game irresponsible and dangerous. Read up on 15 drinking games from various areas of history and geography at Cracked. Do not attempt any of these games unless you have made arrangements for a designated driver or overnight accommodations.

Food Hero Invents New Type of Pasta Posted: 29 Dec 2021 08:48 AM PST Many pasta shapes developed organically over the centuries as cooks modified preexisting designs to fit new needs. But that's not the approach that Dan Pashman took. He decided to start from scratch after studying the best qualities of pasta. The result of his research is the cascatelli. Cascatelli is, appropriate for its shape, the Italian word for waterfall. Core77 describes how this design simultaneously fulfills several pasta objectives. The ruffled half-tube on one surface creates a lot of surface area for sauce to adhere to. The elongated edge allows the user to easily stab it with a fork. The right angles on the underside create maximum resistance to teeth, establishing what Pashman calls the ideal "toothsinkability." And the overall variations in textures and thicknesses provide a high contrast in textures. What I haven't been able to learn from Pashman is the ideal sauce for cascatelli. What would you use?

Things Removed from Body Orifices in 2021 Posted: 29 Dec 2021 06:17 AM PST The annual list of foreign objects that required medical intervention to remove from human bodies is out. Honestly, finding our previous posts for such lists was as easy as searching for the word "orifices" (they are now tagged). Every year, Barry Petchesky gathers medical reports from all over as detailed in the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s database of emergency room visits to compile the list, which is broken down by orifice from the top down. All details are verbatim from the report. Here's a sample from the throat section, which is always dominated by children. “INHALED A SEWING NEEDLE IN A PLASTIC TUBE WITH A STRING ATTACHED WHEN TRYING TO USE IT AS A BLOWDART” “PER MOM SHE WAS LOOKING FOR HER CAR REMOTE & SAID OUT LOUD ‘WHERE IS THE BATTERY THAT GOES IN HERE’  PT REPLIED, ‘I ATE IT’” “SWALLOWED A PENNY BECAUSE SHE SAYS SHE IS A ‘HUMAN PIGGY BANK’” The reports of objects stuck in other orifices get cringier as they go, so be warned that some of the cases may cause sympathetic pain or bring up mental images that are NSFW. The 2021 list is here. -via Fark

Squirrelzilla: Grey Squirrels in Maine are Especially Chonky This Year Posted: 28 Dec 2021 11:53 PM PST 🐿️ Meet the squirrelzilla: Grey squirrels in Maine are so huge that they're now terrorizing the neighborhood dogs. ☕ That coffee mug you never use would like to have a word about your disrespectful attitude. BRB I'm rotating my coffee mugs now. 🤖 Now these are the pop culture action figures we all wish we got for Christmas. 🎵 Gregorian monks chant the Halo theme music in a medieval castle. 🏠 At 16 square feet, the Quay House is the smallest house in Great Britain. Still feels larger than my first college apartment, I'm sure. 🖼️ 9-year-old girl found out how museums work and decided to donate her "most precious" rock to the Poole Museum in Dorset, UK, so the museum proudly put it on display. 🛸 From theNeatoShop: The world's neatest Sci-Fi T-shirts you can buy. We've got many more neat posts over at our new network of sites: Supafluffy, Laughosaurus, Pop Culturista, Infinite 1UP, Homes & Hues and Pictojam. Please check 'em out! Image: Beth Ditkoff

John Madden: How a Career-Ending Knee Injury Actually Led to Him Becoming a Legendary Football Coach Posted: 28 Dec 2021 10:56 PM PST Thanks, Coach pic.twitter.com/wnv8W1pIjJ — EA SPORTS (@EASPORTS) December 29, 2021 When one door closes, another opens - and for John Madden, the door that closed was a knee injury that practically ended his pro football career in his first year as a professional player. But rather than calling it a career-ending injury, perhaps it's better to call it a career-starting injury, as it actually ended up starting Madden in his journey to become one of history's greatest coaches.  John Madden passed away recently at the age of 85. You may know him as a Hall of Fame American football coach, Emmy-winning sportscaster, or through his video games series Madden NFL but you probably didn't know that the start of Madden's football career wasn't an auspicious one. In 1959, in his first year as a pro football player for the Philadelphia Eagles, Madden suffered a devastating knee injury during practice. His doctor told him that he wouldn't play that year, but maybe he could play the next. That didn't sound very confidence inspiring to Madden, but he dutifully went through his physical therapy sessions with the team's staff, which were held early in the morning so he could be out of the way when the players showed up to train. It was during those early mornings that the then 23-year-old rookie Madden noticed that quarterback Norm Van Brocklin would come into the dark locker room to watch game films that he played on an old movie projector. Van Brocklin would watch and study the games for hours, and Madden would sit quietly in the back of the room to watch him watch the games. One morning, Van Brocklin noticed the red-headed Madden and said, "Hey, Red. Come up here and watch it with me." From then on, Madden would sit with the future Hall of Famer quarterback, and learn from him how to analyze the game of football at a deeper level. The next year, Madden's knee was still not fully healed so he went back to school to get his teaching credential. To earn some extra money while pursuing his degree, Madden took a job as a student-teacher at San Luis Obispo Junior High School. The high school was looking for an assistant football coach, so Madden's first coaching experience was actually to teach 50 high school kids how to play football! Reference: Madden: A Biography by Bryan Burwell and Pat Summerall

Playing My Guitar and Your Guitar, Too Posted: 28 Dec 2021 03:02 PM PST In this video, guitarist Dave Simpson of the Dave Simpson Trio is strumming his own guitar, but fretting the bass. Bass player Carina Powell/CiCi Bass is picking her bass, but fretting Simpson's guitar. While they are playing basically the same tune, the sensation of two very different instruments in different hands is quite jarring to a musician, but they pull it off well. They switch left hands back to their own instruments before the video is over, to show us what they're best at. It's cool to watch, and cool to imagine what it feels like. -via Laughing Squid

An Impressive Short Story: The Black Patch Posted: 28 Dec 2021 10:55 AM PST The history of human organ transplants is a series of small steps. Skin transplants have been around a long time, but the first successful replacement body organ was a transplant of thyroid tissue in 1883. The possibility of moving organs from one person to another opened up a whole world of speculative fiction. Randolph Hartley wrote a short story for Life magazine’s short story contest in 1915 called "The Black Patch." In the hundred years since, we've become used to organ transplants, but the premise that unfolds here is still gripping. It opens with: I wear a black patch over my left eye. It has aroused the curiosity of many; no one has suspected the horror that it hides. One has to wonder if Hartley won that contest, and what tale could have possibly bested it. You can read the entire story (it's not long) at Futility Closet. -via Nag on the Lake (Image credit: FOTO:FORTEPAN/Saly Noémi)

Man Finds Frog in his Lettuce; Now has a Pet Frog Posted: 28 Dec 2021 10:52 AM PST I found the cutest little frog in the bottom of my romaine lettuce tonight- it’s too cold to set him outside (27 degrees), but he’s been living in the lettuce in the fridge for several days now- does anyone know what I should do so that he doesn’t die? pic.twitter.com/usaCIEWaLv — Simon Curtis (@simoncurtis) December 21, 2021 Simon Curtis bought a box of lettuce. It was in his refrigerator for several days before he got to the bottom of it and found a tiny green tree frog in the container! Now, a lot of people would get squicked out and complain to the store, but this frog was alive. And adorable. Curtis didn't want to set the frog outside, because the temperature was below freezing, so he turned to Twitter for advice. He kept the frog in the original container, but added moisture and a water dish, and kept him in the kitchen. He named the frog Tony, and found out Tony is somewhat of an escape artist. Curtis kept his Twitter followers updated on all of Tony's shenanigans, and every day fell more in love with the frog.  Tired of constantly looking for Tony, Curtis got a terrarium to give him a bigger, more secure home. After consulting wildlife experts, Curtis decided that he now has a pet frog. You can read the entire saga as it unfolded on Twitter just before Christmas, at Bored Panda.

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