Month: September 2016

Meteorologists observe more than just rainfall and temperatures. Weather records dating all the way back to the 19th century show measurements that don’t even seem possible, like the world’s largest snowflake. Others, like the world’s biggest hail, are mind-blowing just for their sheer size. Here are 15 weather records you might not know about: 

1. EARLIEST HURRICANE 

An unnamed hurricane in 1938 formed in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on January 1, making it the earliest-ever hurricane in the calendar year. In 2016, Hurricane Alex nabbed the second-place spot, reaching hurricane strength on January 14. 

2. WIDEST TORNADO

In 2004, a tornado in Hallam, Nebraska reached almost 2.5 miles in diameter at its widest. 

3. LARGEST HAILSTONE

The largest recorded hailstone to fall in the United States dropped on Vivian, South Dakota in 2010. It was 8 inches in diameter. Because it melted a little before authorities could measure it, it was likely even bigger when it initially hit the ground. The previous record for largest hailstone belonged to a 7-inch monster in Aurora, Nebraska in 2003. 

4. HEAVIEST HAILSTONE 

The heaviest hailstones in the world fell in 1986 in Bangladesh. The deadly, grapefruit-sized ice balls weighed in at 2.25 pounds. By contrast, the 8-inch hailstone that fell in South Dakota in 2010 weighed 1.94 pounds. 

5. HEAVIEST SNOWFALL IN LOS ANGELES

On January 10 and 11, 1949, Los Angeles saw its most intense blanketing of snow on record: a whopping 0.3 inches near the city’s center. While the amount sounds tiny, the sun-soaked city wasn’t prepared for even a small downfall, and Los Angeles briefly ground to a halt. 

6. LARGEST SNOWFLAKE 

The world’s biggest snowflake was reportedly observed in Montana in January 1887, when a rancher described seeing a 15-inch-wide flake. This record is hard to verify since there wasn’t anyone else there to see it, and you can’t really stick a snowflake in the freezer (especially not in 19th century Montana).  

7. FIRST TWIN SNOW CRYSTALS 

As it happens, two snowflakes can be alike. The first recorded identical snow crystals were discovered at an atmospheric research center in Colorado in 1988. The twin crystals, examined under a microscope, came from a Wisconsin storm.

8. FOGGIEST PLACE ON EARTH 

Enjoy the mystery and romance of fog? Head to Grand Banks of Newfoundland. When the warm waters of the Gulf Stream collide with the chilly waters of the Labrador Current, they create a stunning amount of fog. The area sees fog for more than 200 days a year. 

9. MOST RAINFALL IN ONE MINUTE 

The 4th of July, 1956 in Unionville, Maryland was a wet one. An estimated 1.23 inches of rain fell in just a minute. 

10. FARTHEST-TRAVELING TORNADO 

In 1925, the “Tri-State Tornado” traveled 219 miles from Ellington, Missouri to Princeton, Indiana over the course of 3.5 hours. 

11. LONGEST DISTANCE A TORNADO HAS CARRIED AN OBJECT

In April 1991, a tornado carried a cancelled personal check from Stockton, Kansas to Winnetoon, Nebraska, a total of 223 miles. 

12. HIGHEST WAVE 

The highest wave ever observed by a ship was 60.7 feet tall. It was spotted by a British research vessel in the North Atlantic west of Scotland in 2000. 

13. SMALLEST HURRICANE EYE 

When it reached Darwin, Australia during Christmas of 1974, Cyclone Tracy had an eye 4 miles across. Tropical storm eyes are typically between 20 and 40 miles across. 

14. LONGEST-LASTING TROPICAL STORM 

Hurricane John (1994) formed during an El Niño year and lasted from August 11 to September 10. It traveled 7165 miles across the Pacific, making it also the farthest-traveling tropical cyclone that has ever been observed. Because it formed in the eastern Pacific and traveled to the western Pacific and then returned to the east, it was both a hurricane and a typhoon. Though it was a Category 5 hurricane at its peak, it caused little damage because it barely brushed land.

15. FIERCEST WIND

In 1996, Barrow Island in Australia experienced a 253-mile-per-hour gust. Guessing that that kind of breeze might require stronger measures than just holding onto your hat.  

You can’t always predict what the weather will bring, but with GEICO’s customer service, you know what you’re getting: Friendly, knowledgeable help that makes saving money on car insurance a breeze. 

Today’s hottest cat celebrities are doing it all. Lil Bub released her first album last year, and Grumpy Cat is a bestselling author at the age of four. As RocketNews24 reports, Mash is the latest web-famous cat to expand his brand with a new collection of furry, high-fashion shoes.

The photogenic Exotic Shorthair is widely beloved in Japan with over 182,000 followers on Instagram. Now fans of the feline can update their wardrobe with footwear inspired by Mash himself. The shoes from the Japanese fashion brand Randa feature tufts of beige and brown fur, and each comes with a paw print on the bottom of the sole. The most distinctive piece from the line is the Fur Pumps, a fluff-trimmed shoe with a tiny, plush Mash head positioned above the heel.

The shoes range in price from $100 to $150 and will be available to purchase online this October. Fashionistas with their hearts set on the heel bearing Mash’s smushed mug will hopefully be in Japan around that time, as RocketNews24 reports they’ll only be sold in 16 select stores nationwide.

All images: Randa/PR Times

[h/t Rocket News 24]

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Not everyone has what it takes to be a model, but wildlife photographers face a different problem entirely—their subjects don’t even know they’re posing. As such, sometimes the experts behind the camera need to employ some tricks of the trade, and as National Geographic reveals in the video below, that sometimes means pulling out a pricey fragrance.

In the short movie “How to Catch a Tiger with Joel Sartore,” NatGeo photographer Joel Sartore attempts to get the perfect shot of a South China tiger at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Filmmaker Morgan Heim documents the struggle, which results in the use of a Prada perfume after two-and-a-half hours of failing to capture the attention of the uninterested wildcat.

Turns out, zookeepers often use fragrances to keep all kinds of large felines happy and healthy. Eau de toilettes—along with spices and essential oils—often serve as sensory enrichment for wildcats in controlled environments who are less exposed to a variety of olfactory experiences. In the wild, researchers use perfumes to lure the animals, with mixed results, though they’ve proved to be helpful in drawing the cats to hair traps or snares, which collect follicle samples when animals rub against them. With the hair, scientists are able to perform DNA tests, which can aid all sorts of research.

It’s not just perfume either: in 2010, Wildlife Conservation Society researchers at the Bronx Zoo in New York identified Calvin Klein’s Obsession for Men as one of the more popular scents among its cheetahs. (It wasn’t the favorite among cats in the wild; they declined to reveal which scent was.)

Louise Ginman, the Unit Supervisor for Carnivores at Taronga Zoo in Sydney, Australia told Scientific American that they’d found lions and tigers to be the most receptive—snow leopards were as well—and that Obsession for Men was indeed one of the favorites.

Pat Thomas, a general curator at the Bronx Zoo, described fragrance testing to National Geographic, in which the big cats behaved a lot like your kitty does after breaking into the catnip: “Some would encourage this really powerful cheek rubbing behavior where these big cats would literally wrap their paws around a tree and just vigorously rub up and down. Sometimes they would start drooling, their eyes would half close, almost like they were going into a trance.”

Scientific American reports that the big cats’ attraction to fragrances isn’t just about them having high-end taste—it’s because of a chemical compound in perfumes called civetone, which was originally taken directly from civets but is now produced synthetically.

See how the power of perfume makes for a stellar snapshot—like the one here from Sartore—in the NatGeo video down below.

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Every four years, athletes from around the world compete in more than 50 sports at the Winter and Summer Olympics. But not every sport is fit for the Olympic stage. Here are a few non-traditional international matchups.

1. THE WORLD BEARD AND MOUSTACHE CHAMPIONSHIP

Long hair, don’t care! Competitors come from all over the world to show off the beards, mustaches, and whiskers they’ve been cultivating for years at the World Beard and Moustache Championship. The international contest is divided into 17 categories, including everything from Hungarian Moustache to Garibaldi beard. While the time and place of the 2016 world championship has yet to be announced, this year’s U.S. championship took place on September 3 at the historic Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.

2. WORLD COW-MILKING CHAMPIONSHIP

It’s udder chaos at the World Cow-milking Championship in Malonno, Brescia, Italy. The contest, set for October 16 this year, challenges teams of two (one human and one cow) to produce as much milk as possible in the shortest amount of time—without the help of machines. This year’s participants will take on undefeated champ Gianmario Ghirardi who got 8.7 liters of milk from his cow Mirka in just two minutes in 2014.

3. WORLD SUDOKU CHAMPIONSHIP

Every year, the World Puzzle Federation welcomes more than 200 brainteaser fans from over 25 countries to the World Sudoku Championship, held in a different nation each time. This year’s competition—a part of the World Puzzle Championship, which includes games like Kakuro, Mastermind, Battleships, Complex Mazes, Word Search, and others—will take place in Senec, Slovakia, from October 16 to 23. There’s no prize money, instead all contenders compete for two days for the honor of being Top 3 in individual, teams, contestants over 50, contestants under 18, or newcomers.

Word to the wise: The registration deadline has expired, but you can still enter by October 10 if you’re a member of your local World Puzzle Federation chapter and you’re willing to fork over an extra 15 percent in participation fees. You can train with a few sample puzzles here [PDF].

4. MOBILE PHONE THROWING WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

Ever been so annoyed with your phone that you want to chuck it? The Finns have harnessed that frustration and made mobile phone-throwing into what the organizers of this competition call a “light and modern Finnish sport.” If you have some experience flinging a phone as far as you can, you can try out for the annual Mobile Phone Throwing World Championships in Savonlinna, Finland. But leave your smartphone at home. Contestants are only allowed to pick from the assortment of mobile devices provided by the organizers. The next championship—which features four categories, Junior, Freestyle, Original, and Teams Originals—will be on March 11, 2017.

5. AIR GUITAR WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

You don’t have to be a musician, but you do have to look like one to stand a chance in the Air Guitar World Championships held in Oulu, Finland. During the 21st annual championships that were recently held from August 24 to 26, the winners of the National Air Guitar Championships in 10 countries competed on a bigger stage, in front of 8000 fans. This year, New Yorker Matt “Airistotle” Burns came out on top. “It’s a crazy thing to have your dreams come true,” he told The New York Post.

6. WORLD BOGSNORKELLING CHAMPIONSHIPS

The World Bogsnorkelling Championships take place every August at the Waen Rhydd peat bog in Llanwrtyd Wells, Wales. Bogsnorkelling, or bog snorkeling, is a race in which participants run, swim, and fight their way through a trench that’s located in a peat bog. While competitors don flippers and snorkels, they aren’t allowed to use normal swimming strokes. Read an account of the experience here.

7. WIFE CARRYING WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP

The Wife Carrying World Championship take place every summer in Sonkajärvi Finland. Each team consists of a man carrying a “wife.” While the “wife” does not have to be his wife, or even a married woman, she must be at least 17 years old and weigh a minimum of 108 pounds. (Otherwise, her partner is required to also carry weights.)

Participants in this race, measuring less than a mile, tackle obstacles—and are mandated by the rules to have fun. Winners are declared in the under 40 and 40-and-over categories, plus there are prizes for the best costumes, most entertaining couple, and strongest carrier. Then there’s the relay race, in which three men hand off one wife to each other.

8. WORLD CHAMPION SQUIRREL COOK OFF

Have a recipe for squirrel meat that you’re particularly proud of? You might want to enter next year’s annual World Champion Squirrel Cook Off in Bentonville, Arkansas. In the contest, two- or three-person teams have 2.5 hours to cook a main dish in which at least 80 percent of the meat is squirrel as well as a side dish. There are cash prizes for the best dishes, and proceeds help support several charities.

9. WORLD POOH STICKS CHAMPIONSHIPS

The annual World Pooh Sticks Championships—sponsored by the Rotary Club Oxford Spires—took place in June this year in Witney, Oxfordshire, UK. Not sure what’s involved? Oh, bother.

Poohsticks, or Pooh Sticks, is a game from the Winnie-the-Pooh books by A.A. Milne in which everyone drops a stick into a body of running water upstream from a bridge. Then, the participants race to the bridge to see whose stick emerges on the far side of the bridge first. The game is rather low on the competitive scale, but that only makes it easier for children of different ages to participate.

10. WORLD STONE SKIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS

It takes a good arm and lots of practice to take the prize at the World Stone Skimming Championships at Easdale Island, Argyll, Scotland. Winners are decided on the length of the throw before the stone sinks. To be counted, each contender’s stone must skip at least three times. The contest—which always takes place on the last Sunday in September—is limited to the first 350 people who register, because the contest must be completely finished before the last ferry leaves the island.

11. SWAMP SOCCER WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

Participants get down and dirty at the Swamp Soccer World Championships, where football is played in a swamp or bog. (It’s similar to the American sport of mud wrestling.) While the sport originated in Finland, there are now swamp soccer leagues in several countries. The championship tournament takes place in Vuorisuo, Finland, every June.

12. WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP GURNING

Every year on the third weekend in September, the Egremont Crab Fair in Cumbria, England, hosts the World Championship Gurning, a competition where participants compete in “gurning” or “making faces.” You don’t need to pre-register, just show up and make your best face. Check out the 2015 competitors here.

13. WORLD CONKER CHAMPIONSHIPS

Conkers is a British game in which two people tie horse chestnuts to a string and swing them at each other until one of the chestnuts breaks, leaving the other as the winner. The simple children’s game is elevated to serious status at the World Conker Championships in Southwick, Northamptonshire, UK. It’s always on the second Sunday in October (October 9 this year) and cost contenders about $13 to enter or about $5 to watch, which goes to charity.

14. WORLD TAXIDERMY & FISH CARVING CHAMPIONSHIPS

Fish carving isn’t what you think it is. At least not at the World Taxidermy & Fish Carving Championships. At the competition, which takes place in May every two years, participants show off their skills in taxidermy and fish carving, an art competition in which people carve images of fish from wood. In categories for both amateurs and professionals, taxidermists battle for $30,000 in cash awards, while carvers vie for over $3000.

The next World Show is set for May 16 to 20, 2017, in Peoria, Illinois.

15. HIDE AND SEEK (OR NASCONDINO) WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP

Ready or not, here they come. On September 3 and 4, more than 60 teams of five battled it out in the 7th Annual Hide and Seek World Championships in Italian ghost town Consonno. But the competition doesn’t exactly follow the rules you remember from childhood.

All of the 64 teams are split into four groups. During each round, all of the teams send a member to hide while a neutral searching team counts to 60 seconds. Then, each hidden member has 10 minutes to make it to a mattress placed in the middle of the field without being spotted by a finder. The first contender to make it to the mattress gets 16 points, the second person gets 15 points, and so on. If a participant doesn’t make it there before the 10 minutes up, the team isn’t awarded any points.

Over the course of his three-decade acting career, Nicolas Cage has become famous for his strange screeches, screams, and over-the-top performances of rage, emerging over time as something of a connoisseur of anger. Now one website dares to ask the question: Can you rage like Nicolas Cage?

AV Club reports that an interactive website called The Nic Cage Rage Page lets visitors see how their screams compare to those of Nicolas Cage. Simply hit a button and begin yelling into your computer to see if your rage matches up with that of cinema’s angriest man.

“Nicolas Cage defies definition. He defies logic. He can be an over the top caricature, yet painfully human at the same time,” Jane.Works, the company behind the website, explains. “But one thing he can always do is scream. No one screams like Nic Cage. It’s part feral beast, part existential crisis. Something so contradictory, yet so pure.”

[h/t AV Club]

Fans of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” can now escape into a virtual reality version of the classic song. The Verge reports that Queen, Google Play, and Enosis VR have teamed up to produce The Bohemian Rhapsody Experience, which blends motion-capture animation and archival footage to bring the song to life.

Google calls The Bohemian Rhapsody Experience, which is currently available on Google Play, “a journey through frontman Freddie Mercury’s subconscious mind.” The VR app not only allows viewers to explore a surreal landscape, but uses a spatialized version of the song that changes as viewers move around. It includes animated renderings of band members and concert footage, as well as more abstract and fantastical imagery.

Queen guitarist and VR enthusiast Brian May claims the surreal, imaginative lyrics of “Bohemian Rhapsody” are perfectly in tune with the concept of virtual reality.

“‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is unusual isn’t it? Because even 40 years later or whatever it is, it still sounds innovative,” May says in the video below. “But the framework is Freddie’s incredible imagination.”

[h/t The Verge]

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If the piano isn’t the coolest musical instrument, it’s definitely one of the most versatile. From classical music halls to jazz clubs to rock ‘n’ roll bars, the piano has popped up just about everywhere people have made music over the last 300 years. It can sound heartbreakingly sad or annoyingly jaunty, and while most kids who are forced to take lessons quit before they reach Carnegie Hall, it’s rare to find an adult who can’t at least bash out “Chopsticks.” What follows are 15 of the awesomest pianos on the planet. You can’t play them all, but you can go see ’em, and that might be the next best thing.

1. MOZART’S LAST PIANO

Housed at the Mozarteum museum in Salzburg, the piano Wolfgang Mozart used during the final 10 years of his illustrious life is only 3 feet wide, 7 feet long, and 187 pounds. And it’s a good thing—Mozart would schlep his piano to concert halls all over Vienna rather than relying on them to have one for his use. He wrote with it, too, using the instrument to compose many of the 600-plus pieces he finished before his death in 1791 at the age of 35.

2. BUILT LOUD FOR BEETHOVEN

Given to Ludwig van Beethoven in 1826, a year before his death, the piano on display at his namesake museum in Bonn, Germany, was quadruple-strung and therefore believed to be especially loud. Extra volume would’ve been nice, on account of Beethoven’s deafness, but scholars believe the instrument wasn’t actually louder than other pianos. By the final years of his life, the legendary composer had mostly stopped tickling the ivories, so this thing didn’t get much use. But it’s a beauty nevertheless.

3. CHOPIN’S FINAL PIANO

In 2010, on the 200th anniversary of his birth, Polish composer Frédéric Chopin was honored with his very own museum in his hometown of Warsaw. Items displayed there include a plaster death mask and, more happily, the final piano the Romantic composer wrote with before his death in 1849. It was built by Ignace Pleyel, one of the era’s most respected piano makers.

4. BRAHMS’S TEACHING TOOL

It’s hip to be square—at least if we’re talking about the piano Johannes Brahms used to give lessons from 1861 to 1862. Built by Hamburg piano maker Baumgardten & Heins in approximately 1859, this square-shaped instrument is among the prized possessions at The Brahms Museum in Hamburg, the German icon’s hometown.

5. LENNON’S FAVORITE UPRIGHT

Even in a city brimming with Beatles artifacts, the so-called “John Lennon piano,” now on view at the Beatles Story museum in Liverpool, is pretty special. Lennon played the instrument—outfitted with special tacks to produce a more percussive sound—on his Walls and Bridges and Double Fantasy albums. It was a constant part of his post-Beatle life in NYC, and he reportedly had it moved to every studio where he was recording. He even played it on December 8, 1980, the day he was gunned down outside his apartment building.

6. DIG THOSE RHINESTONES, LIBERACE

Liberace wasn’t big on subtlety. The late Vegas showman was way into sparkles, though, and that’s what makes the nine-foot Baldwin on display at the Piano Mill in Rockland, Massachusetts, so special. This thing dazzles with 200 pounds of Austrian rhinestones, all of which survived a 2015 roof collapse at the Piano Mill showroom. This thing’s so glitzy, it’s indestructible.

7. A KEYBOARD FIT FOR THE KING

In 1955, notorious momma’s boy Elvis Presley bought his mother a grand piano he played regularly at Graceland. After she died a few years later, it went into storage, but then the King’s wife, Priscilla, had it decked out with a 24-karat gold leaf finish to celebrate the couple’s one-year wedding anniversary in 1968. Last year, Hard Rock picked up the jaw-dropping piece at auction and announced plans to display it—most likely in Tampa, where there’s plenty of other rock ‘n’ roll memorabilia to justify the trip.

8. GOOD GOLLY, THAT’S A NICE PIANO

A sign at the Tubman Museum in Macon, Georgia, reads, “Do Not Attempt to Play Little Richard’s Piano. He Will Know.” It’s best to obey that rule—no modern musician can light up the keys the way flamboyant ’50s rock legend “Little” Richard Penniman did back in the day, when he played the instrument at Anne’s Tic Toc Lounge in his hometown.

9. IT’S BIG, ALRIGHT

Tom Hanks got to play with lots of cool toys in the 1988 coming-of-age comedy Big, but the raddest of them all was the 16-foot, three-octave “walking piano” that he and Robert Loggia deftly danced across at FAO Schwartz, hitting most of the right notes to “Chopsticks” and “Heart and Soul.” The giant keyboard was made specially for the film, and you can see it without making a wish on a Zoltar machine. It resides at Philadelphia’s Please Touch museum.

10. AND SPEAKING OF BIG PIANOS …

When he was 15 years old, Adrian Mann of Timaru, New Zealand, started work on a piano that now stands as the world’s longest. Measuring 7.5 meters (nearly 25 feet), the homemade instrument has popped up at various museums, and it’s even been used in concerts. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear Sir Elton John has taken Mann up on his offer to stop by and give the thing a try. (But if he ever does, he should totally play “Tiny Dancer.”)

11. A WONDER-FUL PIECE

After releasing his 1962 debut album on Motown’s Tamla label at age 12, Stevie Wonder enrolled at the Michigan School for the Blind, where the preternaturally talented R&B star added classical to his musical repertoire. The grand piano he learned on now lives at the Michigan History Museum in Lansing, where Wonder says he wrote his classic “My Cherie Amour.”

12. MOTOWN MEMORIES

Another great reason to visit Michigan is the Motown Museum in Detroit, where you’ll find an 1877 Steinway used on many of the label’s iconic ’60s recordings. By 2011, the piano had deteriorated to the point where it was no longer playable, but thankfully Paul McCartney stepped in to refurbish the instrument. It’s now on display in “Hitsville, U.S.A.”

13. A PIANO FOR POTUS

If President Obama ever gets the urge to accompany his singing with a little piano, he’s got a fine one at his disposal. Given to the White House in 1938, when Franklin D. Roosevelt was the guy getting his mail there, the 300,000th piano produced by Steinway & Co. boasts a Honduran mahogany frame, legs shaped like American eagles, and gold leaf decoration highlighting “the five musical forms indigenous of America.”

14. AGE AIN’T NOTHING BUT A NUMBER

Among the treasures at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City is the world’s oldest surviving piano, built by none other than Bartolomeo Cristofori, the Italian man credited with inventing the instrument. This particular piano dates back to 1720; according to the Met, it was 75 years before anyone improved on Cristofori’s hammer mechanism.

15. A FLOOD OF EMOTIONS

A deafening silence surely surrounds the piano greeting visitors to the Louisiana State Museum’s “Living With Hurricanes: Katrina and Beyond” exhibition. The baby grand belonged to local musical icon Antoine “Fats” Domino until Katrina’s floodwaters ravaged the Lower Ninth Ward in 2005, leaving the instrument turned on its side and utterly wrecked. Fortunately, Fats survived the storm, as did another Steinway that was restored in 2013.

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