A Jimmy Fallon Ride Is Coming to Universal Studios

Image credit: 

Talk show hosts have never gotten their due when it comes to theme park attractions, mainly because that would make no sense whatsoever. But Universal Studios Orlando is banking on Jimmy Fallon to change all that. The park is planning a ride based on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and they’ve just posted a sneak preview on their official blog.

Race Through New York Starring Jimmy Fallon will take passengers on a virtual tour behind the scenes of the show, from wandering the halls backstage to encountering mascot Hashtag the Panda. Visitors can also sit behind a replica Tonight Show desk and pretend to lob softball questions at guests plugging terrible movies. From there, you’ll be shuffled to a “flying theatre” that will find itself in a race through the city against Fallon.

The attraction—which will also feature a historical look back at 62 years of the talk show—will replace the simulated tornado ride Twister: Ride It Out. It’s set to open in spring 2017.

[h/t /Film]


November 2, 2016 – 12:30pm

110316 newsletter

Newsletter Subject: 
The Rarest Pasta on Earth (And What Happens to the President’s Twitter Account When He Leaves Office?)
Featured Story: 
Newsletter Item for (88149): Only Three Women Still Make the Rarest Pasta on Earth
From the Editors: 
Newsletter Item for (88149): Only Three Women Still Make the Rarest Pasta on Earth
Newsletter Item for (88190): How to Keep Your Cords Wrapped So They Never Tangle
Newsletter Item for (88037): 15 Hairy, Obscure Words Related to Beards and Mustaches
Newsletter Item for (87474): The Time Chuck Norris Taught Eva Gabor Karate
Newsletter Item for (87676): 10 Intentionally Deformed Skulls From Around the World
Newsletter Item for (88193): What Happens to the President’s Twitter Account When He Leaves Office?
The Grid: 
Everything New On Netflix This Month
High-Tech Pen Doubles as a Laser Measuring Tool
Instagram Set to Roll Out Shoppable Photo Tags
Kittens Can Recognize Mother's Voice, Study Finds
Fun Fact Text: 

The maned wolf is not actually a wolf (or fox, for that matter). 

Fun Fact Image: 
Fun Fact Url: 
http://mentalfloss.com/article/87334/10-leggy-facts-about-maned-wolf
Use Grid Ad: 
Scheduled Send: 
Fun Fact Caption: 
iStock
More Info Text: 

12 Oversized Facts About JNCO Jeans

Image credit: 

In 1998, Fortune magazine declared, “If you can’t pronounce ‘JNCO,’ you’re hopelessly out of touch.” JNCOs—which today stands for “Judge None, Choose One,” according to its website, but at one point stood for “Journey of the Chosen Ones,” or maybe even the slightly less rebellious “Jeans Co.”—were quintessentially ’90s jeans, worn largely (at least at first) by skaters and nonconformists and known for mega-wide leg openings. Though the clothing line enjoyed only fleeting relevance, the clownish silhouettes have been immortalized through regular nostalgia-fueled posts and Onion punchlines. And did we mention, the brand is back with new investors? Here are a few things you might not have known about JNCOs.

1. THE AMERICAN-INSPIRED BRAND WAS FOUNDED BY TWO FRENCH MEN.

JNCO was founded in 1985 by Haim and Yaakov Revah, two media-shy brothers from France who go by “Milo” and “Jacques,” respectively. Together, the two operated Revatex, the Los Angeles parent company which began producing mostly private-label apparel for retail chains before eventually introducing JNCOs to the public in 1993. Los Angeles served as an appropriate location for its launch: According to The Los Angeles Times, JNCO was born out of Milo’s love for the city’s culture—particularly, that of its wide-pant-wearing Latino population he encountered in east Los Angeles neighborhoods. Though the Revahs were born in Morocco and raised in France, they always expressed an interest in American culture. Milo told The Times that among his favorite pastimes was watching reruns of Starsky and Hutch and Charlie’s Angels.

2. JNCO ACTIVELY REJECTED “CONVENTIONALISM” THROUGHOUT THE ’90s.

From the start, JNCO’s mission, according to its website, was to “Challenge conventionalism. Explore the unfamiliar. Honor individuality.” One could argue that JNCO was unwavering on the first part of its mission throughout the ’90s, defining itself in opposition to mainstream brands like Levi’s. JNCO’s target demographic was made abundantly clear through its sponsorships of extreme-sports events, aiming for surfers and skateboarders between 12 and 20 years old. In a 1998 Fortune article, writer Nina Munk speculated that ads taken out in magazines like Electric Ink and Thrasher were there to bait “cool young (mainly white) men.” The article also mentioned that Revatex would often hand out free clothes to ’90s tastemakers, including extreme athletes Todd “Wild Man” Lyons and Sean Mallard, as well as members of Limp Bizkit and prominent DJs in the rave scene.

3. FOLLOWING THE BANKRUPTCY OF ITS MAIN RETAILER, JNCO EMBRACED A “SUBURBAN” BRAND.

Getty Images

In 1994, JNCO’s main retailer, the Joppa, Maryland-based jeans chain Merry-Go-Round, filed for bankruptcy; two years later, it liquidated all of its stores. The Revahs, who had withdrawn all JNCOs merchandise from Merry-Go-Round before the stores liquidated, recruited Steven Sternberg to help rebrand the jeans. Sternberg, a New York retail guru who had made waves working with B.U.M. Equipment—another Los Angeles-based clothing line popular among mall dwellers—told them that “this is not an urban line.” He suggested the company should, instead, align itself with surf and skate brands like Billabong and Quiksilver. “We would not sell to stores that carried FUBU or Cross Colours,” Sternberg told Racked. “We retooled JNCO from being an urban line to being strictly a suburban line.”

4. IN 1997, 10 PERCENT OF PACSUN’S BUSINESS WAS FROM JNCO JEANS.

Thomas Hawk, Flickr // CC BY-NC 2.0

Its suburban branding in place, JNCO found a fruitful partner in Anaheim’s on-the-rise retailer Pacific Sunwear (PacSun). “This [PacSun] management team has great ability to anticipate what’s hot,” a Baltimore stock analyst told The Wall Street Journal in 1996. The analyst was, of course, speaking of the retailer’s recent partnership with JNCO jeans—a move which a later financial report would show was just as lucrative for JNCO as it was for the Anaheim retailer. ”People can go anywhere to buy Levi’s,” Carl Womack, Pacific Sunwear’s chief financial officer, told The New York Times in 1997. ”Fashion-oriented kids don’t come to us for that. The only way we can distinguish ourselves is with smaller brands. JNCO has gone from almost none of our business to about 10 percent over a period of a year.”

5. THE SECRET TO JNCO’S (SHORT-LIVED) SUCCESS WAS ITS HANDS-ON PROMOTION.

Asked what the secret to their success was in 1997, Tam Miller, vice president of sales and marketing, told The New York Times that it was all about close contact with the customer base. “We pay very close attention to everything they say. In my neighborhood, there is a skating ramp and I go there and bring samples all the time. When I go home, all the kids run around and ask, ‘What’s new?'” Other accounts confirm this statement to be true: 30-year-old Joseph Janus, who had joined JNCO as director of advertising and marketing, was spotted at a New York rock club, evangelizing to teens with his seemingly relatable jeans and baseball cap. He’d even asked kids to take off their pants and trade them in for JNCOs, according to Ad Age.

6. THERE WAS A TIME WHEN JNCO’S FUTURE LOOKED FAR BRIGHTER THAN LEVI’S.

Getty Images

In a 1997 New York Times article, 18-year-old college student Sam Norris named Guess, Tommy Hilfiger, and JNCOs as his favorite jeans—and declared Levi’s officially uncool. “Levi’s are sort of, I don’t know, outdated or something,” he told the paper. Levi Strauss had announced mass layoffs (around 1000 employees, in the Times‘ estimation) due to slowly growing sales and rising costs. All the while, JNCO’s sales were at an all-time high: In 1997, the privately held company’s sales were estimated by Ad Age to be between $40 million and $100 million; by 1998—at its peak—JNCO recorded sales of $186.9 million.

7. THEY WERE BANNED FROM ORANGE COUNTY SCHOOLS.

The Los Angeles Times reported in 1998 that Orange County schools were banning wide-leg jeans, putting JNCO and Kikwear on the list of verboten legwear. Administrators told the newspaper that they were fearful of students tripping over the baggy pants, as well as using the extra “yardage” to hide weapons. Some students at the time of the article being published believed the administrative move had subtext—that the pants signified gang affiliation. “They think it’s gangster,” one student said. “It doesn’t matter what you wear. If you look at someone wrong or they don’t like you, they’re still going to go after you.”

8. COUNTERFEIT JNCO JEANS WERE A HUGE PROBLEM IN CHICAGO.

JNCO, Facebook

Revatex and PacSun weren’t the only ones profiting off of the rise of wide-legged jeans in the ’90s. By the mid-’90s, Chicago counterfeiters were taking advantage of the fad, according to The Chicago Tribune. Revatex executives who had flown to Chicago to expand their JNCO market discovered that many stores were already selling pants claiming to be JNCOs. The company was left with no choice but to hire a private-investigation firm to help them take the fakes off the market. “There are literally times when you can’t market your products in some cities because counterfeiters have already marketed it,” Karl Manders, a chief executive officer who worked with Revatex in their counterfeit battle, told The Tribune.

9. THE SALES OF JNCO JEANS “SAGGED BADLY” IN 1999.

While JNCO had earned its denim crown from 1995 and 1998—with sales climbing from $36 million to $186.9 million—its numbers suffered in the following year. Racked reports that in 1999, sales dipped to $100 million. Consequently, parent company Revatex shut down its Los Angeles facility, leaving 250 workers jobless.

That same year, The New York Times published the deep-dive “Levi’s Blues,” an investigation into the many lives of the classic denim company. It featured a 16-year-old from Las Vegas, New Mexico who explained that “JNCO [was] more last year”: “Now it’s more Polo and Tommy Hilfiger and Boss,” he said. The writer Hal Espen went on to note that the sales of JNCO jeans had been “sagging badly”:

“As my informants at Villa Linda Mall [in Santa Fe, New Mexico] told me, really baggy, the thuggish thing, is fading out, and boys and girls are embracing more of a preppy look. ‘Not really a slim, tapered leg,’ one boy told me, ‘but not going for humongous, either.’ Perhaps it’s another paradigm shift. That would be cool, wouldn’t it?”

10. HOT TOPIC DEEMED JNCOs “UNCOOL.”

Getty Images

Cindy Levitt, merchandise manager for Hot Topic, told The Los Angeles Times in 2000 that JNCOs were a little too mainstream for her store’s clientele. “You still see JNCO at raves,” she said. “But it’s a little uncool for our customer. It’s at too many doors in the mall.” Levitt was speaking to JNCOs growing presence among “pedestrian” shops like J.C. Penney—where, in 1998, JNCO was the top-selling brand among young men—as well as PacSun, Ron Jon Surf Shop and The Buckle.

11. THE WIDEST LEG OPENING ON A PAIR OF JNCO JEANS IS CURRENTLY LISTED AT 50 INCHES.

One of JNCO’s popular styles in the ’90s was the outrageously proportioned “Crime Scenes” jean. According to the clothing label’s official (revived) website, “wearing less than 50[-inch] leg openings would be a crime against fashion, and we won’t let that happen.” For comparison, their waist sizes only go up to 47 inches.

12. THEY’RE BACK (AND NOT QUITE HOW YOU REMEMBER THEM).

Thanks to the Chinese trading company Guotai Litian—which bought JNCO for seven figures—as well as the cyclical nature of fashion, JNCOs relaunched as an all-purpose denim company last year. This time around, the “unconventional” line looks a little less … unconventional. While signature wide-legged jeans are still available through the “Heritage collection” in 20 to 23 inches, the company is cashing in on current trends, too—specifically in athleisure. Also, as Joseph Cohen, director of strategic planning at Guotai USA told TODAY, the new line has a different target demographic in mind: “between 20 and 40 years old.”


November 2, 2016 – 12:00pm

New iPhone Update Offers David Bowie-Themed Emojis

Image credit: 

Apple’s new emoji set pays homage to the late rock star David Bowie. As Rolling Stone reports, Apple’s upcoming iOS 10.2 update will feature tiny male and female singers resembling the glam rock singer as he appeared the cover of his classic 1973 album, Aladdin Sane.

The Bowie-inspired emojis have technicolor spiked hair, a miniature microphone, and multi-colored lightning bolts painted across their faces. They join an assortment of other new professional emojis including a judge, a teacher, a firefighter, and an astronaut, offered in both male and female options.

In addition to the aforementioned career-inspired images, the iOS 10.2 emoji keyboard will feature new animals like owls, rhinos, and lizards; foods like pancakes, eggs, and avocados; and gestures like face palms, crossed fingers, and even a disembodied hand taking a selfie. It’s currently only available in beta form, but you can view the full selection of new and updated emojis over at Emojipedia.

[h/t Rolling Stone]


November 2, 2016 – 11:45am

Experience a 1920s Fossil Expedition With This 360-Degree Video

Image credit: 

Internet Archive Book Images via Wikimedia Commons

From microscopic fossils to giant squids, each episode of the series Shelf Life takes a look at one of the 33 million items in the American Museum of Natural History’s collection. After launching on YouTube in 2014, the series is back for its second season, and this time, the museum is presenting some of its rarely seen artifacts in a way they’ve never been viewed before.

In the video below, viewers can experience a 1920s fossil expedition in 360 degrees. Mike Novacek narrates the story of Roy Chapman Andrews, the leader of the legendary Gobi Desert excavations and one of the American Museum of Natural History’s most prolific explorers. Between 1922 and 1930, Andrews and his team made several landmark discoveries in the field of paleontology, including the first nest of dinosaur eggs ever unearthed. Many of those fossils are still housed in the museum today. Toward the end of the clip, viewers can “step into” the museum’s modern collections and browse artifacts by tilting their phone or dragging their mouse across the screen.

The video was edited together from still images and film reels dug out from the museum’s library. To create the 360-degree effect from 100-year-old footage, AMNH producer Erin Chapman and VR director Jason Drakeford used techniques like matte-painting, 360 environment creation, and live-action 360 shoots. The result is an immersive look at some of the most important expeditions in the museum’s history.

To see more recent discoveries made in the Gobi Desert, you can check out AMNH’s 13th episode of Shelf Life here.


November 2, 2016 – 11:30am

Amazon Rolls Out Black Friday-Worthy Tool Deals Early

Image credit: 
amazon / istock

If you’ve been thinking of upgrading your workshop’s tool selection, you need to see Amazon’s Countdown to Black Friday deals. Whatever brand you’re looking for, Amazon is offering bargain prices on a wide variety of power and hand tools for a limited time. And you can never have too many tools. A few of the best that caught our eye:

$25 OFF $100 ON SELECT MAKITA TOOLS

As long as the items in your order are shipped from and sold by Amazon, the retailer is knocking $25 off your tab at checkout. The sale includes over 3600 items, so whatever you’re looking for, you should be able to find it.

Our Pick: If you’re in the market for a circular saw, the Makita 5007MGA is a nice buy at $142.99 after the discount. One member of the Smart Shopping Team is kicking himself for spending much more on it at a hardware store two weeks ago. 

$25 OFF $100 ON SELECT BOSCH TOOLS 

Amazon is offering a similar deal on select Bosch cordless tools, with similarly great options.

Our Pick: If you are considering upgrading your drill, the Bosch CLPK27-120 set is a handy choice to have around the house and a great buy at $134 after the discount. It includes a 12-volt drill/driver, an impact driver, two batteries, and a case. If you’re asking yourself, “Do I really need an impact driver?” let us assure you the answer is yes. We own this 12V Bosch model, and although it’s lightweight and easy on the hands, it makes driving screws a breeze compared to a regular drill/driver. 

NEW LOWER PRICES ON SELECT DREMEL PRODUCTS

Whether you’re cutting, grinding, polishing, or engraving, a Dremel rotary tool can be a godsend as you try to finish a project.

Our Pick: With the Dremel 4000 down to $79.99 with a case, four attachments, and 34 accessories, you can get a solid start on exploring the wonderful world of rotary tools.

OTHER BARGAINS

Amazon is also cutting prices on nearly 3300 Dewalt products, a wide variety of Irwin tools (some great deals on pliers here), and dozens of Black+Decker items. You’re sure to find something that needs to be in your tool chest.  


November 2, 2016 – 12:44pm

Charles Lyne, a British filmmaker, raised $8486…

Charles Lyne, a British filmmaker, raised $8486 to force two people to watch a 10 hour 7 minute movie of paint drying. Those two people were employees of the BBFC, responsible for classifying movies, and the stunt was done to protest the BBFC’s power of censorship.

UCLA Scientists Use Ultrasound to ‘Jump-Start’ a Coma Patient’s Brain

Image credit: 
Martin Monti/UCLA

Researchers at UCLA are the first to use a new, noninvasive ultrasound technique to “jump-start” the brain of a recovering coma patient from a minimally conscious state to fully conscious.

As reported in the medical journal Brain Stimulation, the 25-year-old man recently suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI) in a car accident. “The first week [after a TBI] is spent keeping the patient alive and ensuring that the brain doesn’t undergo any further damage,” Martin Monti, head of the research and associate professor of psychology and neurosurgery at UCLA, tells mental_floss.

Patients who show signs of recovery usually do so within two weeks post-injury. “That’s the interesting moment, because they’re coming out [of the coma], but it’s unclear if they’re truly recovering cognitive function or not,” says Monti. This is when an intervention can do the most good.

Their intervention happened to be a matter of good timing; Monti’s colleague Alexander Bystritsky, a UCLA professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences, had recently pioneered a technique called low-intensity focused ultrasound pulsation, and co-founded Brainsonix, the company that makes the device used in the trial. Traditional ultrasound “scatters a beam of sound widely,” and bounces back an image (such as when looking at the image of a fetus in utero). The Brainsonix device, approximately the size of a coffee cup saucer, generates a small, focused “sphere” of energy in the form of sound waves. It can target a small area of the brain, and does not bounce back any images. Monti hoped that this targeted approach might be able to help coma patients recover more quickly.

“We are just using it to inject energy into the brain,” says Monti. Specifically, he sent that energy into the region of the deep brain known as the thalamus. Composed of a pair of tiny, egg-shaped structures, the thalamus is a sort of broadcast station, Monti says. “All the information that is coming from the world to your brain goes through the thalamus,” Monti says, calling it a “central hub for all information.” The cortex and the thalamus “sort of talk back to each other, which is very mysterious. But we know it has to do with complex behavior—those kinds of things you can do only if you’re conscious.”

At the time of treatment, their patient was showing signs of being minimally conscious. He could track movement with his eyes and occasionally attempt to reach for things, but little more. “Don’t think he was conscious like you and I are,” Monti says. The researchers placed the device by the side of his head, and activated it 10 times for 30 seconds each, over the course of a 10-minute period.

The day after the treatment, the patient was not only tracking and trying to reach for objects, Monti says, “he was trying to use a spoon,” and could recognize objects and differentiate between them. “He also started verbalizing and would respond to things by blinking his eyes.”

Three days after treatment, the patient demonstrated that he fully understood the words spoken to him, “and he clearly understood what was happening around him,” Monti says. He answered questions by shaking or nodding his head. He even gave his doctor a requested fist bump.

Five days after treatment, the patient’s father reported that he was trying to walk, and at his six-month assessment, he was walking and talking. “He himself said that he felt he was 80 percent back,” Monti says.

While the experiment is promising, there remains a big question. “Maybe we just serendipitously stimulated [the patient] on the day he was about to spontaneously emerge [from his coma],” Monti says. “Maybe our stimulation didn’t do anything. It’s perfectly possible that had we sang to him, the same thing would have happened.” Repeated trials will be necessary to see if the ultrasound is actually what made the man’s swift recovery possible.

Moreover, Monti is unclear if this treatment can help those who are truly in a vegetative state, as coma patients tend to “recover at the beginning, and then stabilize over time,” he says. Of this patient, Monti makes clear, “We didn’t switch him from unconsciousness to conscious.” The patient was already minimally conscious.

Monti and his team plan to test the technique on several patients this fall at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, in partnership with the UCLA Brain Injury Research Center. If in future trials the ultrasound technique can be used to truly awaken a coma patient who is not at all conscious, “then we’ll know it really was us,” he says.

Despite these caveats, Monti allows himself to dream of future therapies derived from this technique, opening up a whole new realm of treatment for traumatic brain injuries. Right now, many brain issues require invasive surgery like deep brain stimulation. Monti thinks this form of ultrasound might be the first step toward an alternative. “Imagine this little helmet that you could put on the head of any patients [in comas] and just buzz them a little bit—without having to do any surgery. It would be amazing.”


November 2, 2016 – 11:00am