Month: September 2016

When it comes to speaking another language, you have to learn more than just vocabulary. All languages have aphorisms that just don’t translate neatly into other cultures, even if you know what the words technically mean.

To that end, the insurance comparison site GoCompare.com put together this handy infographic of how people talk about money around the world. Because whether you’re traveling to Sweden or Bulgaria, you should know how to call someone stingy.

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It was a disaster of mankind’s own making. By the 1930s, chronic overfarming in the Great Plains had devastated the native grasses that had held topsoils in place. As the plants were uprooted, the dirt dried and loosened, setting the stage for an environmental catastrophe.

In 1931, a drought hit the region—it would last eight years—and the exposed soil was blown away by a series of gigantic dust storms. Mountain-sized dirt clouds became a common sight all over Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico. Nobody who lived there had ever experienced anything like it: skies were blackened, barnyards were buried, and millions of farmers became homeless refugees. As the crisis raged on, people piped up with some wild ideas about how to finally put an end to this “dust bowl.” Here are five of the most peculiar suggestions.

1. PAVE OVER THE GREAT PLAINS.

Many well-meaning citizens assumed that if they could just cover up the loose dirt somehow, it would stop getting blown around so much. New Jersey’s Barber Asphalt Company reached out to the federal government and offered to pave over the afflicted area. Their price? Five dollars per acre. Sounds like a bargain—until you consider the fact that the dust bowl had engulfed around 100 million acres. Meanwhile, a Pittsburgh steel manufacturer wanted to install wire netting over multiple counties, and a company known as Sisalkraft proposed blanketing the ground with its rugged brand of waterproof paper. A similar idea involved laying concrete down over every field in the region and leaving a few holes for future crops.

2. COVER THE TERRAIN WITH BROKEN-DOWN CARS.

One North Carolinian’s suggestion ideally would have killed two birds with one stone. As environmental historian Donald Worster writes in his book Dust Bowl: The Southern Plains in the 1930s, “Mrs. M.L. Yearby of Durham, North Carolina saw an opportunity to beautify her own state by shipping its junked autos out to the plains to anchor the blowing fields.”

3. BOMB THE SKY.

Explosives expert Tex Thornton tried ending the drought with dynamite. In a sales pitch given to the citizens of Dalhart, Texas, he explained that if the explosive was launched skywards and detonated aerially, immediate rainfall would follow. Embracing Thornton’s idea, the town gave him $300 to cover his expenses. Judgment day came on May 1, 1935, when the would-be hero set up shop by a local lake. Thousands of curious onlookers watched from afar as Thornton tied balloons to his dynamite sticks, which had been fitted with timed fuses.

Things quickly went awry once a violent dust storm arrived on the scene. The high winds made it too dangerous for Thornton to even think about releasing the explosives, especially now that a crowd was present. So in a last-ditch effort to deliver the goods, he buried his dynamite and set it off under the ground. Thornton’s Plan B backfired spectacularly: The blast just propelled extra dirt into the dusty atmosphere.

After a few more attempts, rain did come to Dalhart—as well as in regions too far away to be affected by his explosions. A victorious Thornton left Dalhart supposedly saying, “I’m mighty glad that the people of Dalhart and the Panhandle got moisture—and if I had anything to do with it, I’m doubly glad.”

4. USE DEAD REPTILES AS YARD DECOR.

Contemporary folklore claimed that if you hung a deceased snake belly-up over a fence post, it would rain the next morning. When all else failed, some farmers actually tried this during the dust bowl years. Ironically, live snakes would have been far more useful to them. Back then, famished jackrabbits regularly turned up in droves to devour the few crops that were still being grown on the Great Plains. In western Kansas, the situation was so bad that citizens responded by organizing what became known as “jackrabbit drives.” Those involved formed huge lines and marched side-by-side for miles on end. Using their own bodies, they’d corral every rabbit in sight into an enclosure and club them to death. Yet if the species’ natural predators—like certain snakes—had been a bit more common, this drastic measure might not have been necessary. Who knows?

5. BRING THE RAIN WITH A FAUX MILITARY BATTLE.

Many of the more intense showdowns in the American Civil War, including Gettysburg, were followed by severe rainfall. This and other accounts over the years helped give rise to the once widespread belief that artillery caused downpours—a notion that was still fairly pervasive in the 1930s (and was broadly the same hypothesis that Thornton was working with).

One soldier from Denver petitioned the federal government for $20 million worth of ammunition, after which he would round up 40,000 members of the Civilian Conservation Corps for a couple of phony battles. After some non-lethal cannon fire, the rains would return—or at least, that was the plan. “Try it, if it works, send me a check for $5000 for services rendered,” wrote the soldier.

The Wave, a favorite of crowds at professional sports arenas, was first recorded at an Oakland baseball game in 1981. It has gone on to delight and disgruntle sports fans at virtually every baseball game since. It’s such a widespread phenomenon that it has even become the subject of scientific inquiry, as Vocativ recently reported.

A Hungarian biological physicist named Illes Farkas studied The Wave (also known as the Mexican Wave, since it made a notable appearance at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico City) as part of a study published in a 2002 edition of the prestigious journal Nature. He was primarily interested in the way the social phenomenon mimics how particles behave, and to analyze crowd behavior, his team used models originally created to study cardiac tissue.

Please enjoy this very important analysis of how The Wave usually works, according to Farkas’s study: (Note that meters have been changed to feet.)

“The wave usually rolls in a clockwise direction and typically moves at a speed of about [39 feet] (or 20 seats) per second and has a width of about [19 to 39 feet] (corresponding to an average width of 15 seats). It is generated by no more than a few dozen people standing up simultaneously, and subsequently expands through the entire crowd as it acquires a stable, near-linear shape.”

Now you know that if you really want to start The Wave, you’re going to have to convince a few dozen people to do it with you. Science says so.

[h/t Vocativ]

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Artist Jeff Koons—whose sculpture Balloon Dog sold for $58.4 million in late 2013, setting a world record for highest price paid for a living artist’s work—has debuted a new statue in Sacramento, ARTnews reports.

ARTnewsmag: Here’s a photo of Jeff Koons’s newly installed sculpture in Sacramento, California … pic.twitter.com/Y6V36NQmmh

— Studio 7 y 60 (@Studio7may60) September 27, 2016

Koons officially unveiled the permanent installation on Monday, September 26. It’s a special edition of the artist’s Coloring Book sculpture—an 18-foot work created from a mirror and polished stainless steel, covered in a light wash of color. It was commissioned for a plaza outside the Golden 1 Center, a brand-new indoor multipurpose venue in downtown Sacramento. (The Center will host an open house October 1, and will serve as home arena for the Sacramento Kings NBA basketball team.)

So far, Koons has created five versions of Coloring Book, which was inspired by the character of Piglet from Winnie the Pooh. They’ve been displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Royal Academy of Arts in London, among other venues. Sacramento’s Coloring Book is uniquely colored, and it’s also the first in the series to be installed in a public area, Sactown Magazine reports.

It’s also a testament to Sacramento’s commitment toward investing in public art. But that doesn’t mean everyone loves the statue, CBS Sacramento says. Some people have criticized its steep price ($8 million), and others say that the city should have commissioned a local artist instead of an international one.

[h/t ARTnews]

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In 1982, an unwelcome visitor arrived in the Black Sea. An oil tanker traveling from the American Atlantic dumped its ballast water into the sea, releasing a flood of warty comb jelly stowaways along with it. The alien invaders have since ravaged the area’s native fish populations, and now New Scientist reports that they’ve become a threat along the northern Adriatic coast.

Warty comb jellies (Mnemiopsis leidyi) have been seen in the Adriatic sea since 2005, but this summer marked the first time they’ve been present in such great numbers. Davor Lučić of the Institute for Marine and Coastal Research in Dubrovnik, Croatia told New Scientist that the clusters get as dense as 500 jellies per square meter in some spots. That estimate is based on fully-matured specimens—the number of juveniles is likely even higher.

The swarms have been documented along the Adriatic coast from Slovenia to Pesaro, Italy. Lagoons in northern Italy have been clogged with the creatures since July. The animals pose no direct threat to people, but their appetite has already proven disastrous to whatever ecosystem they invade.

A few of the warty comb jelly’s meals of choice include fish eggs, fish larvae, and zooplankton. Zooplankton also happens to be the main food source for many commercial fish in the area. Less than a decade after the introduction of the comb jelly into the Black Sea, local anchovy and sardine fisheries were devastated. The seafood industry had lost billions by the mid-’90s.

Now, there’s threat of a repeat catastrophe in the Adriatic Sea. The mass emergence of the species coincides with anchovy spawning season, a crucial time for one of the sea’s most commercially significant fish. Some scientists are looking on the bright side: the Adriatic is more open and less polluted than the Black Sea, and its local fauna is more diverse. This makes the native populations better equipped to survive the invasion. Additionally, Mnemiopsis leidyi isn’t the sea’s only uninvited guest. Another comb jelly, Beroe ctenophore, has also invaded the waters, and scientists hope the aliens might contribute to one another’s demise.

Mnemiopsis likely entered the Adriatic through a ship’s ballast, the same Trojan horse it rode into the Black Sea. This problem isn’t limited to invasive jellies: A list of destructive species from ants to mussels have been introduced to new environments this way. A global treaty that aims to put an end to the issue will go into effect next year.

[h/t New Scientist]

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By their very nature, explorers often push the boundaries of survival in the name of glory, so it’s not a great surprise that many have gone missing in the course of their adventures. Over the years, the quest to uncover the truth of what happened to them has captivated the public, historians, and journalists alike, leading to numerous theories and some surprising finds.

1. GASPAR AND MIGUEL CORTE-REAL // LOST BROTHERS

The youngest of three Portuguese brothers, Gaspar Corte-Real was a keen explorer who undertook an expedition to Greenland in 1500. He embarked on a second expedition in 1501 with his older brother Miguel, in which they claimed Greenland for the crown before apparently sailing on to reach Newfoundland or Labrador. At that point, Gaspar sent two of his three ships back to Portugal, including the one captained by his brother. Gaspar’s ship continued its explorations, but was never seen again.

In 1502, Miguel Corte-Real, learning of his brother’s disappearance, led a search party to the area where Gaspar was believed lost, but he found nothing, and his ship too went missing. The oldest Corte-Real brother, Vasco Annes, begged the king to let him mount a further search party to find his lost brothers, but the king refused—perhaps unwilling to risk the embarrassment of losing a third Corte-Real.

The disappearances have remained a mystery for centuries. But in the 1910s, Edmund Burke Delabarre, a psychology professor at Brown University, put forward a new theory about the inscriptions on the famous Dighton Rock in Massachusetts. The rock is covered with petroglyphs that were first noted way back in 1680, and since then scholars have proposed numerous theories about who carved them and why. Delabarre suggested that the inscription was in fact abbreviated Latin, and reads: “I, Miguel Cortereal, 1511. In this place, by the will of God, I became a chief of the Indians.” This astounding theory implies that the explorer may have continued his travels into America and survived at least nine years in the New World. If his inscription is to be believed, made quite a success of his new life.

2. JEAN-FRANCOIS DE GALAUP // DISAPPEARED AT SEA

Jean-Francois de Galaup, Comte de la Pérouse, was an accomplished sea captain. In 1785, inspired by the successes of Captain James Cook, the French king Louis XVI sent La Pérouse on an expedition to explore the Pacific. The party was made up of two ships—La Boussole and L’Astrolabe—manned by 225 crewmembers. The voyage was expected to last four years. La Pérouse kept scrupulous records of his findings during the trip, mapping coastlines, taking specimens, and making observations of the peoples and places he encountered. (Thankfully, he sent his journals back to France, where they were preserved for posterity and later published to great success.) Having successfully sailed through the Pacific, taking in Japan, the Philippines, and Tonga, La Pérouse arrived at Botany Bay in Australia and was witnessed by British settlers sailing out of the bay in March 1788, the last sighting of the expedition. By 1791, when no communication had been received from Pérouse for some time, a search party was dispatched from France—but no trace of the expedition was found.

The puzzle seemed to be solved in 1826 when an Irish sailor, Peter Dillon, came across something intriguing while exploring the Solomon Islands. The locals had a number of European swords, which Dillon thought might have belonged to La Pérouse, and told of sighting two large ships that had broken up on the reefs there. In 1964 the wreck of La Boussole was at last discovered on the reefs of Vanikoro in the Solomon Islands, confirming that this indeed was where the expedition had reached its sad end.

3. NAOMI UEMURA // LOST ON MOUNT MCKINLEY

Modern explorer and adventurer Naomi Uemura was part of the first Japanese team to scale Mount Everest in 1970. He would have been the first Japanese to reach the summit if his impeccable manners hadn’t made him relinquish the lead to allow his elder, Teruo Matsuura, the honor of going first. Uemura completed many amazing feats during his lifetime, including climbing the five highest mountains on each of the world’s continents solo, trekking across the Arctic to become the first person to reach the North Pole solo, and rafting down the Amazon. In February 1984, Uemura set off to scale Mount McKinley in Alaska in an attempt to become the first person to achieve a solo winter climb of the treacherous peak. Uemura reached the peak, but that is all we know, as he never made it off the mountain. Rescue parties searched for the adventurer, but all that was found was some equipment and his diary hidden in a snow cave. To date his body has not been found, and the exact circumstances of his tragic death remain a mystery.

4. PERCY FAWCETT // FRUITLESS QUEST FOR THE LOST CITY OF Z

In the last 90 years, some 13 expeditions and over 100 people have perished in futile attempts to discover the fate of British explorer Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett. Fawcett was the very epitome of a dashing explorer: he had a distinguished military career before following his sense of adventure to help create maps of the vast and uncharted Amazon jungle. During the 1920s Fawcett departed on a number of ambitious expeditions in an attempt to locate the fabled lost city of El Dorado, which he dubbed the city of “Z.”

In 1925 Fawcett set off into the Mato Grosso region of Brazil with his eldest son, Jack, and his son’s best friend, Raleigh Rimell. The trio plowed into the jungle, covering up to 15 miles in a day in their zeal to find the rumored riches of the lost city. By May 29 the group sent their natives guides back with their latest letters, including one to Fawcett’s wife, Nina, in which he wrote: “You need have no fear of any failure.” This missive was the last heard of Fawcett and after two years with no sign, the Royal Geographical Society sent the first of many search parties. That no trace was found of Fawcett only served to keep the many rumors surrounding his fate alive. Researchers have come forward with many different theories: he had “gone native” and was living among a remote tribe; he had succumbed to malaria or a jaguar attack; he had deliberately disappeared in order to set up a mystical commune. But perhaps the most believable version of his fate was obtained by journalist David Grann, who retraced Fawcett’s steps in 2005 and discovered the Kalapalo Indians had an oral history indicating that Fawcett had ignored their advice and walked right into the domain of a hostile tribe who, in all likelihood, killed him.

5. GEORGE BASS // FORCED INTO SLAVERY?

George Bass was an English surgeon who, inspired by tales of Pacific exploration, took to the seas as a ship’s surgeon. He undertook many expeditions, but the one for which he is most remembered is his voyage to Australia with Matthew Flinders in the 1790s. The pair mapped large swathes of the Australian coast, and Bass identified the body of water between Australia and Tasmania that was later named the Bass Strait in his honor. Despite his success as an explorer, Bass felt under-appreciated and became envious of the merchants who were making their fortunes shipping goods from Europe to the new settlements in Australia. Consequently, he abandoned his cartography and set himself up as a trader. Unfortunately he was a little late to the party and when he returned to Australia, his ship laden with goods, he discovered many others had beaten him to the punch and the market was saturated with British products. Undeterred in 1803, he decided to try his luck in South America and set sail with his bounteous cargo. Bass and his ship were never seen again, and their fate remains an enigma. Rumors persisted that Bass made it to Chile or Peru, where he was captured by the Spaniards and forced to work in the mines there as a slave until his death.

6. GEORGE MALLORY // LOST ON EVEREST

George Mallory was a British explorer and mountaineer who captured the public’s imagination after he was asked why he wanted to climb Everest and he responded: “Because it’s there.” As one of the foremost mountaineers of his day, Mallory was an obvious choice to take part in the first British expeditions to the as-yet-unconquered Everest throughout the early 1920s—well before the benefit of modern materials, technology, and weather forecasting.

In June 1924, George Mallory and fellow mountaineer Andrew Irvine set off for an attempt on the summit. Another member of the expedition glimpsed them climbing at over 26,800 feet, but that was the last time they were seen alive. That the pair perished in their attempt was certain, but debate raged over whether they had become the first to reach the summit and died on their way down, or if they died having never reached the top. Various pieces of the puzzle emerged over time—in the 1930s, Irvine’s ice axe was discovered at 27,700 feet, and in 1991 a 1920s oxygen canister was found. Finally, in 1999, an expedition discovered Mallory’s frozen body on the mountainside, clearly the victim of a terrible fall. The climbers carefully buried the body where they found it, but sadly no trace was ever found of Andrew Irvine. It was hoped that Mallory’s camera might be found, an artifact that might prove for certain if he made it to the summit, but unfortunately the camera remains missing. Tantalizingly, Mallory had stated that he was going to carry a photograph of his wife and leave it at the summit, and when Mallory’s body was found the photograph was not there, providing yet another clue that perhaps this great mountaineer had conquered the world’s tallest mountain.

7. SIR JOHN FRANKLIN // LOST IN THE FROZEN WASTES

One of the foremost explorers of the Victorian era was Sir John Franklin, who had captained a number of expeditions to the Arctic in search of the Northwest passage. Franklin succeeded in mapping large areas of coastline, identifying many new botanical specimens and furthering our knowledge of the unforgiving Arctic weather during his first two expeditions. Some 20 years after he had retired, Franklin was tempted back to make one final effort to find the Northwest Passage. In 1845, when Franklin was 60 years old, he set off with 129 crewmembers in HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. The ships made it to Baffin Island, where they were sighted by a whaling ship, but after that the ships were seen no more.

With no word from the expedition, numerous rescue missions were sent out to try and discover their fate. Finally, in 1859, after a tip-off from local Inuit hunters, a team led by Francis McClintock found objects and remains from the group on King William Island. It became clear that the two ships had become hopelessly trapped in the sea ice. A note was found which indicated that the ships had finally been abandoned in April 1848, having been stuck fast in the ice since September 1846. The note also revealed that Franklin had died in June 1847, though no cause was given. Scientific analysis of the mummified remains of some of the sailors indicated they may have died from lead poisoning, likely caused by the lead used to seal their canned food. Historians argue that those who did not die from contaminated supplies probably perished in the freezing conditions as they tried to march across the ice to safety. In September 2016, archaeologists announced the discovery of the wrecked remains of HMS Terror off the coast of King William Island, which historians hope will provide yet more clues about the terrible fate of the stranded crew and their desperate struggle for survival.

8. LUDWIG LEICHHARDT // PUZZLING LACK OF CLUES

In 1848, German scientist and explorer Ludwig Leichhardt led an attempt to cross Australia’s desert interior from east to west. Leichhardt was already an explorer of some renown, having completed two earlier expeditions across Australia—on one occasion, he had been given up for dead after he spent 18 months in the Australian interior, only to show up very much alive and with copious notes and discoveries. Leichhardt set off for his final mission accompanied by seven companions, 50 bullocks, 20 mules, seven horses, and a huge amount of supplies and equipment. Despite all of that, the only trace ever found of the missing expedition was a small brass plaque inscribed with Leichhardt’s name and the year 1848, which had been attached to his rifle. The lack of any further evidence of the bodies or equipment from the expedition has proved an enduring mystery, and things aren’t made any clearer by the fact that no one is sure which route they took or how far through Australia’s vast interior they got.

An 1852 search party reported that they had found an abandoned campsite with a tree with the letter L carved into it, a mark Leichhardt reportedly frequently left to indicate his route. Over the years a number of further searches uncovered more trees inscribed with an L, but their disparate locations did little to solve the riddle of the progress and fate of the explorers. The public was so intrigued by the mysterious disappearance that numerous rumors were published in the newspapers, inevitably leading to sensationalist stories of the group dying of thirst, being murdered by Aboriginals, or even of Leichhardt surviving into old age living in the bush. However until some concrete evidence or remains are discovered it is likely that the truth will remain elusive.

This little log cabin is the perfect retreat from your other retreat. The library in the woods, spotted by Mashable, was designed by Studio Padron and SMITH for the backyard of a vacation home in upstate New York. 

It’s a tiny book lover’s retreat filled with more books than furniture. Called the Hemmelig Rom (“secret room” in Norwegian), it was constructed using leftover wood from the construction of the main house. 

“The strategy for the cottage centered on preserving and transforming a material that would otherwise have become construction waste,” architect Brandon Padron told Dezeen.

The logs were cut and left out to dry for several years before the secluded black shack was assembled. Similar to a Lincoln Log creation, the lumber is arranged in a jigsaw fashion so that gaps between the logs form built-in bookshelves. A wood-burning stove heats the hut, which contains only a bed for guests and an armchair for reading. Hermits only, please. 

[h/t Mashable]

All images by Jason Koxvold

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Home renovations can turn up some strange things, but a family in the UK found something slightly more alarming than mold or a leaky roof. The Pipewell, England residents discovered a 3-foot-wide nest made by wasps that had taken up permanent residence in the attic of their new home, the BBC reports.

According to the Northampton Chronicle & Echo, a property that had sat unoccupied for years was once home to some 10,000 wasp squatters. Undisturbed by human activity, the wasps constructed a massive sphere connected to the outside by a long, “intricate” tunnel.

The discovery was made by exterminators who had been called in to treat a woodworm infestation and subsequently discovered a much bigger issue when the homeowner asked them to have a look at the massive orb in the attic. While not quite world record material—that honor belongs to a New Zealand nest found in 1963 measuring 12 feet long and 5 feet in diameter—it was still enough to cause a temporary case of buyer’s remorse.

Gary Wilkinson, who owns the pest control business Pest Professionals, told the Chronicle that the nest was an impressive feat of insect engineering.

“Although you wouldn’t want it in your own loft, you have to say it’s a very impressive and in its own way a very beautiful thing,” he said.

[h/t BBC]

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