Month: January 2017

At least we have this: 38 of our most anticipated movies of 2017. Some of them aren’t even sequels!
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The Real Estate Deal of a Lifetime. This reverse mortgage worked out spectacularly well for the seller.
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The Ancient Romans Punished Dad-Killers In a Really Weird Way. Patricide was such a heinous crime that even the killer’s dead body was to be reviled.
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This man put a GoPro on his guide dog to show how people treat those who are blind. Most people are kind, but the 1% stand out.
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The 8 Best Secret Fast Food Off-Menu Items. As imagined by Funny or Die.  
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What Is the Best Scientific Paper Ever Published? If you are measuring significance per word, here’s your answer.
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Wedding Planners Share 3 Red Flags That a Couple May Be in Trouble. A little attitude adjustment can help things work out.
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10 Obscure Electronic Musical Instruments. Have you ever seen one played?

Everyone loves a good blooper reel—especially when it includes screw-ups, overlooked gaffes, and embarrassing behind-the-scenes moments from one of history’s most beloved (and highest-grossing) media franchises. In the video above, the TV and film trivia whizzes from YouTube channel Screen Rant list 10 blunders from the Star Wars movies that you may have missed. Clearly, the Force isn’t always with actors (or directors, producers, and crew members).

[h/t Screen Rant]

Banner image: Getty Images

Northern California’s famed Pioneer Cabin Tree, a giant sequoia in Calaveras Big Trees State Park that was carved out to form a tunnel big enough to drive through, fell down during a recent rainstorm, according to the San Francisco Chronicle’s SFGATE. The tree had been a tourist destination for more than a century.

In the late 19th century, the owners of the Calaveras North Grove carved out the tunnel in the tree in response to a similar tree tunnel in Yosemite that was drawing visitors away from Calaveras. The tree was chosen because a large fire scar already prevented a tree top from growing [PDF]. At one point, the park even allowed cars to drive through the tree, but recently only hikers have been allowed to pass through its trunk.

The tree toppled over around 2 p.m. local time on Sunday, January 8 during a heavy rainstorm. Sequoias have shallow roots, and the trail around it was completely flooded, likely resulting in its fall. The tree “shattered” on impact, according to a park volunteer who witnessed the incident.

It’s not that unusual for giant sequoias to fall over unexpectedly, especially in soggy ground. In 2011, two giant sequoia trees, each around 1500 years old, fell over along the Trail of 100 Giants in Sequoia National Forest, destroying that section of the trail. The Yosemite tunnel tree that sparked the carve-out of the Calaveras tree in the 1880s, the Wawona Tunnel Tree, collapsed in 1969. The Los Angeles Times reports that most old sequoias die by falling, especially when wet soil combines with their extreme weight to tip over an already-leaning tree. The Pioneer Cabin Tree had been leaning for several years prior to its fall.

[h/t SFGATE]

Erik Sass is covering the events of the war exactly 100 years after they happened. This is the 262nd installment in the series. 

January 9, 1917: Germany’s Fateful Gamble

The most fateful decision of the First World War was made on January 9, 1917, at a top-secret meeting of Germany’s civil and military leaders at Pless Castle in Silesia in Eastern Germany. Here, at the urging of chief of the general staff Paul von Hindenburg and his close collaborator, first quartermaster Erich Ludendorff, Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg reluctantly agreed to the resumption of unrestricted U-boat warfare – a gamble that would decide the outcome of the war.

As 1917 began, Germany’s strategic options were narrowing. The plan of the previous chief of the general staff, Erich von Falkenhayn, to bleed France white at Verdun had succeeded in causing massive casualties but failed to split the Allies or knock France out of the war, as hoped. Germany’s main allies, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, were both on the defensive, requiring more and more assistance to simply survive, and the simultaneous Allied offensives at the Somme and in Galicia had sorely taxed German manpower and material.

Meanwhile Germany’s vast industrial machine was gradually being stretched to the limit, while shortages of food and fuel stirred growing discontent in the civilian population. The indecisive Battle of Jutland in May 1916 left the Allied naval blockade undisturbed, and Britain’s adoption of conscription was putting several million new soldiers in the field. 

But Hindenburg and Ludendorff believed that victory was still within reach, provided Germany acted boldly and swiftly. Indeed the Allies also found themselves overstretched, as France reached the limits of her own manpower following Verdun and the Russians suddenly found themselves responsible for shoring up Romania, or what was left of it. Further, as before Germany enjoyed the advantage of a central position, allowing it to move forces between various fronts and perhaps defeat its enemies “in detail,” or one at a time.

In order to exploit these opportunities, in 1917 Hindenburg and Ludendorff contemplated yet another shift in focus, this time from west to east (reversing Falkhenhayn’s earlier switch from east to west). On the Western Front, they planned a surprise withdrawal from the Somme to massive, newly constructed fortifications at the Siegfried Line – known to the Allies as the Hindenburg Line – shortening the front by around 25 miles and freeing up two whole armies for service elsewhere. 

By going on the defensive on the Western Front, they hoped, Germany would be able to deliver a knockout blow to Italy, Russia, or both; Russia in particular was already teetering on the edge of revolution, and the incompetent tsarist regime just needed a final push before it collapsed.

However Hindenburg and Ludendorff realized that simply shortening the Western Front and digging in wouldn’t be enough: they also had to ratchet up the pressure on Britain in order to keep the British from launching a new offensive like the Somme, and maybe even knock them out of the war. To accomplish this they pinned their hopes on a new (but no longer secret) weapon: the submarine.

“Germany Is Playing Her Last Card” 

Germany had already tried unrestricted U-boat warfare twice, unleashing a growing fleet of submarines on Allied and neutral shipping, with permission to sink unarmed merchant ships without warning. But on both occasions these campaigns were eventually suspended (first in the summer of 1915, then again in the spring of 1916) in the face of protests from neutral countries, especially the United States of America, over civilian casualties. 

The threat of war with the U.S. had forced Berlin to back down twice, but by early 1917 Germany’s leaders were willing to take the risk. A number of factors contributed to this shift, including the general sense that time was working against Germany, as well as public demands for retaliation in kind against the “Starvation Blockade” maintained by the British Royal Navy. The steady growth of Germany’s U-boat fleet also held out the promise of a decisive result. 

Most important, however, were Britain’s growing dependence on U.S. imports to sustain its war effort, a vulnerability which could be exploited by attacks on shipping, and the resulting enmity of Germany’s new military leaders, Hindenburg and Ludendorff, towards the U.S.

According to the U.S. ambassador to Berlin, James Gerard, in the fall of 1916 Ludendorff was on the record as stating that “he did not believe America could do more damage to Germany than she had done if the countries were actually at war, and that he considered that, practically, America and Germany were engaged in hostilities.” With the ascendancy of Hindenburg and Ludendorff over Germany’s civilian government – in effect a bloodless military coup countenanced by Kaiser Wilhelm II – the balance of political power in Berlin shifted towards open confrontation.

The minutes of the meeting on January 9, 1917, make clear that Bethmann-Hollweg was now playing second fiddle to Hindenburg and Ludendorff, public heroes who enjoyed the backing of the fickle monarch. Germany’s leaders also allowed themselves to be swayed by optimistic thinking, in the form of cheery projections from the Admiralty about how quickly British morale and war-making capacity could be destroyed through unrestricted sinkings. 

Net.lib.byu.edu, Click to enlarge

Admiral Henning von Holtzendorff, who headed the Admiralty’s analytical division, calculated that Germany’s growing U-boat fleet could sink 500,000-600,000 tons of British shipping per month at first – a forecast that proved remarkably accurate. However Holtzendorff erred in his assumptions about the impact that this would have on Britain’s total available shipping, as the British could requisition neutral shipping and order more replacements from American shipyards. The German Admiralty also failed to anticipate Allied tactics for convoying merchant ships (they believed convoys were ineffective, and if anything would make it easier for submarines to find targets). Finally, the German high command underestimated Britain’s ability to increase domestic production by finding manufacturing substitutes, implement rationing, and bring new farmland under cultivation; although ordinary British people certainly suffered from shortages and chaffed at rationing, the U-boat campaign fell far short of “starving Britain to her knees.”

Equally important to the German (mis)calculations was the belief that America, as a mercantile but not mercenary nation, was basically unwilling to fight, due both to her traditional isolation and what they viewed as the social and cultural incoherence of the American population, resulting from the large proportion of immigrants (including millions of German descent, whom they assumed would not be loyal to their adopted land).

In short they predicted that the undisciplined, polyglot American rabble would resist conscription and European-style mass mobilization. Instead, any declaration of war would be mostly symbolic, or as Bethmann-Hollweg summarized the military leaders’ argument: “America’s assistance, in case she enters the war, will consist in the delivery of food supplies to England, financial support, delivery of airplanes and the dispatching of corps of volunteers.” And its armed forces were so pathetically small that even if America did fight, Hindenburg and Ludendorff assured the civilians, Germany could win the war before it had a chance to mobilize enough men to make a difference in Europe. 

It’s worth pointing out that even at this critical stage, not everyone was convinced. Indeed Bethmann-Hollweg sounded a skeptical note during the meeting, observing, “Admiral von Holtzendorff assumes that we will have England on her knees by the next harvest… Of course, it must be admitted that those prospects are not capable of being demonstrated by proof.” Nevertheless he bowed to the general’s convictions, thus completing the submission of Germany’s civilian government to its military.

When the decision was publicized at the end of the month, everyone understood that Germany’s fate was riding on the outcome. Evelyn Blucher, an Englishwoman married to a German aristocrat living in Berlin, confided in her diary: “We all know and feel that Germany is playing her last card; with what results, no one can possibly foretell.” Unrestricted U-boat warfare would resume on February 1, 1917.

See the previous installment or all entries.

Despite the constant interaction made possible by internet connectivity, people still use words differently depending on where they live. You’ve seen the maps of where we say pop vs. soda, and y’all vs. you guys. Now you can make your own maps to explore the regional variation of words with the Great American Word Mapper at Quartz.

The addictively usable tool, designed by Nikhil Sonnad, builds on the work of researchers Jack Grieve, Andrea Nini, and Diansheng Guo. It uses geolocation and statistical clustering techniques to map some of the top 100,000 words used on Twitter in 2014.

You can look at names, sports teams, slang, naughty words, or anything you might expect to see used on Twitter (in 2014). It’s incredibly fun to play with. Here are a few comparisons I did.

See what other people have found and shared on Twitter.

Check out the Great American Word Mapper yourself at Quartz.

 
Bird poop has been a favored fertilizer for centuries—and, it turns out, is an excellent preserver of human flesh. These two factors came together in the 19th century as the global trade in guano, the excrement of seabirds (or bats), took off, leading to some unexpected travelers coming along for the ride—and raking in the cash.

Guano contains essential nutrients for plant growth and naturally accumulates near nesting areas. Its Miracle-Gro properties were prized and regulated by the Incas (the word wanu is Quechua in origin), but it wasn’t until 1802 that the European world learned of this resource through the writings of Prussian naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, who traveled extensively along the west coast of South America.

By the 1840s, Europe and the U.S. were importing guano for fertilizer. When it was discovered the poop could also make gunpowder, a veritable guano mania began. Guano was soon going for about $76 per ton, and the U.S. imported over 100,000 tons of it in 1861 [PDF]. That’s about $250 million in today’s dollars.

In the race to control the world’s guano deposits and secure bird poo futures for its people, the U.S. created the Guano Islands Act in 1856, allowing any U.S. citizen to claim guano-covered islands. Control over guano resources became part of the justification for the Chincha Islands War (1864–1866) between Spain and Peru and Chile, as well as for the War of the Pacific (1879–1883), in which Chile stole Peru’s guano.

In the midst of this fervor for feces, guano miners were hard at work chipping away at the hardened mounds of poo on islands in the Pacific, Caribbean, and Atlantic. Strangely, on some of these islands, among the guano they also found mummified humans.

The most well-known guano mummy is that of Christopher Delano. On the island of Ichaboe, a teeny speck of land off Namibia, a crew of guano miners found a canvas hammock containing a human body under about 6 feet of guano, with a wooden plaque saying “Christopher Delano, 1721.” A cheery pamphlet from 1854 describes his mummified corpse and its travels: “But for the hair and teeth, which were quite perfect, [it] appeared a mass resembling stone, all the natural and component parts, of the body being changed by the process of petrifaction … [and] composed chiefly of lime and ammonia.”

In spite of the quite scientific understanding at the time of both natural and artificial mummification (thanks to early interest in ancient Egypt), even with the knowledge of the formation of adipocere, or “grave wax,” on recently interred corpses, the perception of what guano could do appears to have been wrong. Delano was not “changed into a mass of lime and ammonia.” We know now that in the short term, guano can help seal dead bodies, creating an oxygen-poor and salt-rich environment that is good for preservation. In a warm, arid climate like Namibia, the guano helped dry Delano’s body and shield it from scavengers.

Captain Wethers, who commanded the crew, brought the mummy from Ichaboe to Liverpool, where it traveled to the British Museum. From there, poor Delano went on a tour of Great Britain and Ireland, where he brought in more than $150,000—the equivalent of about $4 million today.

Upon examination of Delano, British and French scientists determined that he was European and not African, and the amount of wear on his teeth suggested he was in his mid to late 30s when he died. His right shoulder is elevated and contracted, and his open mouth revealed “a death of agony” (though it’s not unusual to see a gaping jaw on a mummy). His cause of death? Likely a spear wound to his right shoulder.

The writer of the 1854 pamphlet took liberties with the sparse facts available: “About 1721, the Island of Ichaboe had been the resort of nests of Pirates…. In all human probability, the most satisfactory conjecture that can be arrived at is that the unfortunate Christopher Delano was a Spaniard, joined in some piratical enterprises, and leagued with a gang of desperadoes, from one of whom, while visiting the Island of Ichaboe, he most probably received his death wound in some bacchanalism origies [sic] or sudden quarrel.”

With this amazing manufactured backstory, Delano’s body was brought to Philadelphia and exhibited before being shipped to France by the mid-1860s. Although billed as the “only one in the world” and “the solitary known example in the Universe of its kind,” it was only a matter of time—and feverish digging—before more mummies preserved by bird poop materialized. Just a few years after Delano was discovered, the British ship Octavia also docked in Liverpool with a load of guano—and the mummies of a man, woman, and child from Peru [PDF]. Like Delano, they were eventually exhibited at the British Museum in London.

In 1868, British natural historian Francis Buckland noted that he saw yet another guano mummy in a “penny show” in Edinburgh; according to the show’s handbill, the body was brought from Possession Island off the west coast of Africa by Captain Dunlop’s ship Echo. The mummy was well preserved, with an oaken board that was carved “Peter Creed, 1790.” Buckland spoke with the owner, who reportedly announced that the mummy “is as good as a pension to me,” earning him today’s equivalent of $2000 in under two weeks. The owner was aware of the Delano corpse, which at that point he claimed had disintegrated due to its travels, but mused “he ain’t no use as a scientific mummy now; the more’s the luck for me as long as my Peter Creed holds together.” (Given England’s humidity, though, it is doubtful that his Mr. Creed survived for very long.)

By the early 20th century, the guano trade had tapered off. Industrialized countries found new sources of fertilizer, and it turns out that guano was not a very good source of saltpeter for gunpowder. Many islands and atolls had been completely stripped, but the legacy remains: Many remain in U.S. possession after being claimed for their guano 150 years ago. Seven of these make up the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument, the world’s largest marine reserve. As for the islands that produced Delano and Creed, these today support Cape gannets and endangered African penguins, and wildlife conservationists still often visit to monitor these populations.

While guano mummies are occasionally discovered in these areas, today new finds are largely made by archaeologists excavating prehistoric caves sites in arid locations like Nevada, New Mexico, and Durango, Mexico. Still, with the popularity of bat guano as an organic fertilizer on the rise today, it’s likely more poop-preserved mummies may yet turn up.

After a blizzard strikes, car-reliant commuters typically hunker down at home to avoid slippery roads. But according to physicians, plenty of danger lurks in their driveways. In 2012, more than 34,000 people visited the ER with snow removal-related medical problems, which range from back and shoulder injuries to heart attacks and strokes.

Experts say that snowbound homeowners underestimate the physical difficulty of digging out their driveways. The wintry chore is a moderate physical workout in disguise, and many homeowners simply aren’t in great shape. If you regularly skip the gym, you’re more likely to hurt yourself while wielding a heavy shovel.

Doctors advise people with a history of heart problems or other medical conditions to avoid shoveling—but for the rest of us, a gadget called the Snow Wolf might make the chore a little less arduous. As Good Housekeeping reports, it’s a long-handled, lever-like shovel attached to a large wheel that lets you clear a path in a single pass.

According to Snow Wolf’s manufacturers, experts at the University of Massachusetts independently studied the invention and found that the wheeled shovel lowered test subjects’ risk for lower back injuries by around 85 percent (and reduced overall physical exertion by as much as 80 percent) when compared to regular shovels. That being said, the Snow Wolf’s $180 sticker price makes it much more expensive than a standard snow shovel—but some may argue that a healthy heart or a pain-free back is priceless.

[h/t Good Housekeeping]

Surgeons in search of one patient’s appendix found a little more than they bargained for. The teenager’s ovaries bore two large cysts, one of which contained a miniature skull and a “well-formed” brain. The surgeons described their findings in the journal Neuropathology.

The 16-year-old girl had been diagnosed with acute appendicitis and was brought in for emergency surgery. But after cutting into her abdomen, the doctors found more problems: two cystic tumors, one roughly the size of a golf ball and the other as big as a baseball. They took note of the cysts’ location and size, then completed the girl’s appendectomy and stitched her back up. Remarkably, she recovered just fine and reported no symptoms. 

Three months later, they opened her up again, this time to remove the tumors. Inside the large cyst were more gruesome surprises: clumps of hair, a thin, skull-like plate of bone, and a surprisingly organized brain-like object.

The thought of a tumor full of hair or bone is hardly unheard of, although it is fairly unsettling. These teratomas (from the Greek téras, or monster) are what happens when reproductive cells go rogue. Under healthy circumstances, they’ll deploy and become an embryo, differentiating into various body parts, such as bones, organs, teeth, and hair. But sometimes they just start growing, all on their own, making monstrous spare parts nobody needs or wants. Teratomas are typically found on or near a person’s reproductive organs, and they’re usually harmless (aside from the nightmares).

The most common teratoma contents are hair, teeth, and tissue that would, in a real embryo, one day become part of the central nervous system. 

What makes this case different is the sophistication of the brain tissue inside the teratoma. The teeny organ was pretty far along, and had even separated into parts similar to those found in a fully developed brain. 

The surgeons patched the patient up again and sent her on her way. Three years later, they attempted to check up to see how she was doing, but she didn’t respond. We can’t really blame her. 

Much like computers, smartphones can start to slow down after years, or even months, of use. However, there are some ways to keep your iOS and Android devices running as good as new until you have to upgrade. Here are eight simple ways to speed up your smartphone.

1. UPDATE YOUR OPERATING SYSTEM.

If your smartphone is running slower than usual, then your operating system (or OS) might not be up-to-date. Having the latest version of iOS or Android on your phone is the best way to ensure it works at its zippiest. Just make sure your phone is connected to Wi-Fi and backed up before you update your phone’s software, and make sure that your phone can handle it. Newer operating systems might not be optimized for older or lower-cost phones.

iPhone: Go to “Settings,” then “General,” and then “Software Update.”

Android: Go to “Settings,” and then “About Phone.” Tap “System Updates” or “Software Updates” at the top of the screen to check if you have any Android updates.

2. REDUCE MOTION AND ANIMATION.

Animations might look cool when transitioning from one app to another, but they can really slow down your phone, as they use up space and resources. Disabling animations on both Androids and iPhones can be tricky, but it’s worth it to make your device run faster.

iPhone: On iPhones, there is a setting to reduce motion by going to “Settings,” then “General,” and then “Accessibility.” If you have yet to update to iOS 9.3.2 (there are probably a few of you out there) there is a convoluted way of disabling all animations, but that bug was patched in later updates.

Android: Your phone has to be in developer mode to disable animations. To do so, go to “Settings,” then “About Phone.” Find  “Build Number” and continuously tap the option until you’re granted “Developer Mode.” Go back to “Settings” and “Developer Options” to find “Window Animation Scale,” “Transition Animation Scale,” and “Animator Duration Scale.” Set all three options to “Off.” Then you might need to restart your phone (although this has been known to create glitches, so be careful).

3. GET RID OF WIDGETS.

If you’re an Android user, stop using widgets on your home screens. While widgets are useful for quickly giving you info at a glance, they are serious data hogs. Many widgets constantly refresh in the background to find new information and updates, so if you don’t need it, you should probably delete it.

4. STOP USING LIVE WALLPAPER.

Live wallpaper is a fun feature to show off your new smartphone, but much like widgets, they eat up a lot of memory and battery life. Over time, live wallpaper will slow down your phone and kill its efficiency. If you have a high-end Android with an AMOLED display and want to speed up your phone and save some battery life at the same time, use solid color wallpaper, preferably all-black, to reduce pixel activity and divert resources elsewhere.

5. AUTOMATICALLY CLEAR MESSAGES AFTER 30 DAYS.

One place few people ever think of clearing space is in iMessage and other text messaging apps. If you have more than 1GB of text messages slowing down your phone, it’s probably a good time to clear them out to make your device run faster. Luckily for iPhone users, you can set iMessage to clear old messages every 30 days. It’s recommended that you archive your text messages to iCloud if you still want to keep them.

Go to “Settings,” then “Messages,” and finally “Keep Messages” to pick the 30 days option.

Unfortunately, there is no such option for Android devices, so you’re going to have to delete messages in bulk manually (although there is an option under “Settings” to delete old messages when storage gets low).

6. ENABLE WI-FI ASSIST.

When you’re using a spotty Wi-Fi signal, Wi-Fi Assist for iPhone can help you transition to data without missing a beat. It’s built into iOS 9 and higher (for most devices) and it’s pretty useful when you can’t keep a strong enough Wi-Fi connection. It also helps your iPhone’s performance and battery life, so it doesn’t constantly look for a good signal when you’re out of range.

Go to “Setting,” and then “Cellular,” and toggle “Wi-Fi Assist” to on. It’s smart enough to not turn on for big downloads, but it’s still a good idea to keep track of your data usage as some users have complained of unexpected overages.

7. ADJUST BACKGROUND APP REFRESH SETTINGS.

A lot of email, weather, and location apps work in the background, even if you’re not using them—and they’re constantly and automatically refreshing without you even noticing. However, you can adjust and tweak all of your apps so that they only refresh to get new information when you choose.

iPhone: First it’s a good idea to turn off “Find My iPhone” by going to “Settings,” then “iCloud,” and turn off “Find My iPhone.” Then go back to “Settings,” and then “General.” Pick “Background App Refresh” and turn off any app that you don’t need to speed up your iPhone.

Android: Go to “Settings,” and then “Data Usage.” Tap the menu icon and find “Restrict Background Data.” Now your Android device will only refresh its apps when you think it’s necessary.

8. INITIATE A FULL RESET AND FACTORY RESET.

When all else fails and all the tips above didn’t make your smartphone work any faster, then your only choice is to initiate a full or factory reset. This will restore your phone to the first day you bought it with a clean OS, but with all the current firmware updates. But be warned: a factory reset will wipe out all of your photos, music, text messages, apps, and any important files you might have on your smartphone. It will also get rid of all the junk that’s bogging your phone down too, but you’re going to have to start over again. It’s highly recommended that you backup and encrypt all of your data before you choose to reset your iPhone or Android device.

iPhone: Go to “Settings,” then “General,” and then “Reset.” Tap “Erase All Content and Settings” and confirm with your password. You can also perform a Factory Reset with iTunes under the “Restore Phone” tab when you plug your iPhone into your computer.

Android: Go to “Settings,” then “Backup and Reset,” and tap “Factory Data Reset.” Tap “Reset Phone” and confirm with your password. Finally, tap “Erase Everything” and your Android device will reboot to the condition when you first took it out of its box.