If you knew about an isolated mountain lake that was ringed with a whole bunch of human skeletons that no one had retrieved, you might think about avoiding that area, lest you become one of them. But that's not quite the case at Roopkund Lake, also called Mystery Lake or Skeleton Lake, at 16,470 feet of elevation in northern India. Plenty of Himalayan hikers have visited the site, and rearranged the skulls and bones found there.
An ancient tale tells of a royal entourage on a pilgrimage that was caught in a hailstorm near the lake and were all killed. But scientists have found evidence that whatever disaster befell those people happened more than once, and hundreds of years apart. Not only that, the dead of Roopkund Lake came from different corners of the earth! What happened to them? And where were they going? Savannah Geary of SciShow tells us what we now know and what we don't know about the Roopkund Lake skeletons. There's a 45-second skippable ad at 4:05.
Only a couple of hundred years ago, people weren't sure why birds disappeared in the winter (or the summer, depending on where you are). The idea that birds flew away and came back was common, but where did they go? Other theories were that they hibernated, possibly underwater, or as Aristotle mused, maybe they turned into another species. One Harvard scholar suggested that birds flew to the moon for the months they were missing. And people believed him, because they didn't know how far away the moon is. What they needed was a way to track where a particular bird had been.
Then in 1822, someone in northern Germany shot a stork. The stork was retrieved and was found to have a 31-inch arrow in its neck! We don't know how long the bird survived carrying the arrow, but it was sent to the University of Rostock for study. There it was determined that the arrow originated in central Africa, proof that the stork had flown more than 1,800 miles with an arrow in its neck. Over time, other birds were discovered flying with arrows from faraway places, and scientists confirmed the theory of bird migration. Eventually, we started tagging birds with less painful identifiers. Read about this discovery and how it changed ornithology at Xatakaon. -via Metafilter
(Image credit: Zoologische Sammlung der Universität Rostock)
Cosplayer @shellzyeah_cosplay wore this fantastic costume at the 2023 DragonCon. It perfectly blends the madness of the Barbie movie with magnificence of the 1988 Tim Burton film Beetlejuice. I've seen this movie about 167 times and it keeps getting funnier every single time I see it.
For humans, polar bears are perhaps the most dangerous of all ursines. That's why Churchill, Manitoba has a special-built jail for them and residents leave their car doors unlocked.
The Noregian archipelago of Svalbard, which is frozen year-round is home to many polar bears. As a result, carrying a rifle while outside of a settlement is not only lawful, but mandatory.
This gentleman in the village of Pyramiden was caught by surprise by a polar bear. He fired off a round from his rifle at the bear, which still charged him. The man fled on foot until he got onto a snowmobile. Nonetheless, the bear kept up the chase. It's not a bad strategy for a polar bear, as the species can run at up to 25 MPH.
-via kira
Law professor Eugene Volokh notes that Magistrate Judge Ray Kent ordered a firm named Dragon Lawyers to cease filing documents with an enormous watermark of a suit-wearing dragon on every page of its documentation.
Each page of plaintiff's complaint appears on an e-filing which is dominated by a large multi-colored cartoon dragon dressed in a suit, presumably because she is represented by the law firm of "Dragon Lawyers PC © Award Winning Lawyers". See Compl. (ECF No. 1). Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(f)(1) allows a court to "strike from a pleading an insufficient defense or any redundant, immaterial, impertinent, or scandalous matter." Use of this dragon cartoon logo is not only distracting, it is juvenile and impertinent. The Court is not a cartoon.
-via Jarvis
Birds are dangerous for planes, and vice versa. Up until the last decade or so, most airports killed owls and other birds that took up residence near airports. But Boston's Logan Airport was the exception. Snowy owls live in the Arctic most of the time, but migrate south during the coldest months of winter. They often ended up at the airport in Boston, where they could find plenty of mice and rats to eat, as well as other birds.
In 1981, Norman Smith began trapping and relocating the airport owls instead of exterminating them. He's been doing this ever since, and the idea has spread to other airports, especially for birds that are threatened or endangered. Logan Airport has relocated more than 900 snowy owls since Smith came on the scene, and he vows to continue saving these birds as well as the planes for as long as he can. -via Nag on the Lake
The company Open Bionics has debuted a new kind of prosthetic hand that not only has a wider range of motion and control, it can even work when detached from the prosthetic arm! The Hero Pro arm is super lightweight and water resistant. Each arm is 3D printed to fit the user, and the arm is loaded with sensors that take their cues as the user flexes their forearm muscles. These signals are interpreted and sent wirelessly to the hand to perform fine motions like "zipping a jacket, scrolling on a phone, or holding a guitar pick."
Singer and internet personality Tilley Lockey has been working with Open Bionics for ten years. She lost her hands to meningitis when she was a toddler, and has used and critiqued the company's advancements in prosthetics. Recently, she showed off her new Hero Pro arms on the British TV show This Morning. While we applaud the improved functionality of the hand, we can't get over how cool it is to control a hand when it isn't even attached to your arm. Read about Lockey and her new Hero Pro arms at My Modern Met. -via Damn Interesting
Fruits and ice cream are the staples of most parfaits. But we can count on Japanese cuisine to expand the boundaries of our palates to include other creatively-added ingredients. Sora News 24 sent a reporter to the Karafuneya Cafe inside a train station in Osaka to confirm rumors of a new type of parfait: one that includes fried chicken.
The cafe chain had already made headlines a decade ago with its fried shrimp parfait. Its fried chicken (karaage), which sells for about $9.70 USD has crispy fried chicken that is served warm. It contrasts nicely with the much colder ice cream and the sweet fruits.
What do accomplished cosplayers do to take their costumes to the next level? Make them stand out with glitter and shine! One can imagine this cosplayer wore numerous stormtrooper uniforms, and possibly other Star Wars costumes before adding rhinestones to every surface. Or is it sequins? I imagine rhinestones would be pretty heavy, but that won't stop the most dedicated. The stormtrooper was front and center at Laval Comiccon this past weekend in Laval, Quebec.
They weren't the only one reflecting the light at the con, either. Snow White poses with the Evil Queen, who was totally covered in sequins as she offers her stepdaughter a poisoned apple. There were also superheroes, fantasy and science fiction characters, and clever mashups dressed to the nines at Laval Comiccon, and Geeks Are Sexy was there to document the best costumes. See them in a this gallery, and cick on each one to bring up the full-size version.
Captain America: Brave New World is the fourth movie of the Captain America series from Marvel, unless you count the TV miniseries The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which was, of course, on TV. But you have to have seen the TV show to understand who this new Captain America is. Harrison Ford is in this one, typecast as the US president. And the Red Hulk. Brave New World hit theaters in February, and needed a box office take of hundreds of millions to cover production and marketing costs. The movie opened strong, and then petered out as word of mouth got around. Reviews were mixed, and Brave New World seemed like another formulaic MCU movie. It may yet break even, as Captain America: Brave New World will be available on Ultra HD Blu-ray, Blu-ray, and DVD on May 13. Meanwhile, Screen Junkies would like to help you decide whether to watch it or not with this Honest Trailer.
The price of gold has risen steadily in the past year, with a noticeable jump in mid-April. Perhaps this rise has driven attention to a viral video from China showing a machine similar to an ATM.
You can deposit gold into it. The machine, which is located in a mall in Shanghai, melts the gold, assays it, and gives you credit for its value, minus a small fee, depositing the money in your bank account.
-via Trung Phan, who jokes about the value of scraping gold out of old VCRs.
I've just discovered this amazing Scottish musician named Ruairdh Maclean (the most Scottish of all possible names) who has gained internet fame for his remixes of popular songs. He attributes "Dueling Banjos" to his native fishing village in northern Scotland, although I think the song originates with a South Carolinian named Arthur Smith.
Maclean has also covered "Ring of Fire" popularized by Johnny Cash, "Delilah" as sung by Tom Jones, as well as classics of Celtic music, such as "Jean's Reel."
I've got to say that AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" works very well for the accordion.
-via Battle Byrd
Blowing out the candles on a birthday cake is a grand tradition to celebrate the passage of life and hopes for its future. But it's also somewhat unsanitary. It's done with the breath of the celebrant and therefore contaminates the cake with the blower's germs.
In 2014, Brian Donnelly of East Northport, NY received a patent for a series of shields that cover different sized cakes with perforated shields that allow for the passage of candles while providing some protection for the cakes.
Donnelly provided six different designs to reflect a variety of cakes, including circular cakes, layer cakes, cupcakes, and pies.
-via Weird Universe
We love watching outtakes from film sets, which often are a collection of actors flubbing their lines and then laughing about it. This happened on the set of The Usual Suspects, during the lineup scene. The laughter wasn't in the script, and in fact the actors were supposed to stand stoically through the scene. But Benicio del Toro kept farting during take after take, and the cast couldn't keep a straight face. So the laughter was included in the scene, which became quite memorable. More often, on set injuries ended up producing genuine fear or anguish, and the footage was deemed the best take on a particular scene, which happened in The Two Towers, Django Unchained, Die Hard, and Tora! Tora! Tora!
Other on-set flubs and accidents were inspirations for an improved scenes in your favorite movies, and Buzzfeed has collected 37 examples that ranged from a purring cat to exploding planes.
While test driving a Mercedes in Georgia, the driver heard a strange sound coming from the car. There was nothing wrong with the car, but it was meowing. The driver pulled into Royalty Auto Service where mechanic Sherwood Cook located the culprit- a tiny kitten (this was Sherwood, Jr. There's also a Sherwood III and Sherwood IV on the staff). The kitten wasn't easy to get to. They had to put the car on a lift to reach her! Meanwhile, Sherwood fell in love with the kitten, and declared that she would be part of the staff as well. After all, his grandchildren are already on the roster without actually having to work, why not a kitten, too? Besides, she's seen parts of a car that you and I never will. She was checked out by a veterinarian and given a new name- Mercedes.
