January 2017 – Page 6

filed under: shopping

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amazon / istock

As a recurring feature, our team combs the Web and shares some amazing Amazon deals we’ve turned up. Here’s what caught our eye today, January 30.

Mental Floss has affiliate relationships with certain retailers, including Amazon, and may receive a small percentage of any sale. But we only get commission on items you buy and don’t return, so we’re only happy if you’re happy. Good luck deal hunting!

January 30, 2017 – 12:28pm

January 30, 2017

In 1938, 150 women chained themselves to cherry…

In 1938, 150 women chained themselves to cherry trees in Washington DC in protest of plans to cut the trees down to clear space for the Jefferson Memorial. The protest ended when they had to use the bathroom. 20

January 30, 2017

East China Sea parts every year and exposes…

East China Sea parts every year and exposes a narrow 2.9km long strip of land allowing thousands of people to cross from Jindo island to Modo island of Korea. This land is exposed about an hour each day for approximately 4 days every year. 10

January 30, 2017

While at the toilet, president Carter hit a secret…

While at the toilet, president Carter hit a secret “panic button” thinking it was a flush toilet button and Secret Service responded by bursting into the room while the president was still zipping up his trousers. 10

January 30, 2017

Target Canada was so poorly planned that Canadian…

Target Canada was so poorly planned that Canadian consumers would continue to cross the border and shop at Target stores in the United States. 10

January 29, 2017

This Museum Wants to Match You With Your Ancient Statue Doppelgänger

Michele Debczak

filed under: art, History, museums

Image credit:

Musée de la civilisation

In addition to supporting the arts and broadening your horizons, a trip to a museum is an opportunity to find your millennia-old look-alike hiding in an exhibit. If you haven’t been lucky enough to make such a discovery on your own, the Musée de la civilisation in Quebec City wants to help you find your match. The museum’s new project, “My 2000-Year-Old Double,” pairs people’s faces with their ancient Greco-Roman or Egyptian sculpture counterparts.

To make the matches, modern photographs are run through a facial recognition software program called Betaface API. After analyzing 123 facial landmark points, the API creates a template based on those features and searches for sculpture templates that compare. Similar technology has been implemented in emotion-reading apps, ATM security systems, and home robots.

The 60 possible doppelgängers are sampled from the Greco-Roman and Egyptian collections of the Musée d’art et d’histoire de Genève and the Fondation Gandur pour l’Art. Thirty winning sets of twins will be selected from public submissions and displayed at the Musée de la civilisation from October 24, 2018 to October 27, 2019. Photos for the exhibit will be captured by François Brunelle, the Quebec photographer known for his work with doubles.

Anyone is free to upload a picture to receive his or her match and be considered for the exhibit. We recommend heeding the museum’s tips for taking an effective photo before you enter.

January 29, 2017 – 4:00pm

January 29, 2017

10 Fun Facts About Cereal

Breakfast cereal is a big business. Take a walk through any supermarket and you are quite likely to find an entire aisle dedicated to breakfast cereal. There does not seem to be any end to the ideas manufacturers come up with to create new cereal blends. Breakfast cereals have been around as long as most of us can remember, and it’s a pretty good bet that practically everyone in the western world has at least tried one at some point in their life. Like most other things in life, breakfast cereal has it’s wild side, and there are more than

The post 10 Fun Facts About Cereal appeared first on Factual Facts.

January 29, 2017

12 Shocking Secrets Spilled to Oprah

Stacy Conradt

filed under: Lists, Pop Culture, tv

Image credit:

Getty Images

Even after ending her 25-year reign as the Queen of Daytime TV, Oprah Winfrey has remained one of the world’s most famous television personalities. One of her most enduring legacies? Her ability to get high-profile celebrities to discuss their darkest secrets to an audience of millions. Here are 12 stunners that came to light under her sympathetic gaze.

1. WHITNEY HOUSTON ADMITS THAT SHE DIDN’T THINK CRACK WAS SO WACK.

After denying a drug problem in a 2002 interview with Diane Sawyer—the source of her infamous “crack is wack” declaration—Whitney Houston came clean to Oprah seven years later. She said her drug of choice was marijuana mixed with rock cocaine, a.k.a. crack.

2. MICHAEL JACKSON REVEALS THAT HE’S SUFFERING FROM VITILIGO.

After years of public speculation that he was bleaching his skin for cosmetic reasons, Michael Jackson finally explained in 1993 that he was actually suffering from vitiligo, a disease that causes depigmentation of the skin. During the most-watched interview in television history, the King of Pop also confessed that he had, in fact, had plastic surgery—but not as much as everyone assumed.

3. LANCE ARMSTRONG ADMITS TO DOPING ALLEGATIONS.

Seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong’s fall from grace was swift after he finally admitted, after more than a decade of denials, that he had taken banned substances during all of his cycling victories. During his 2013 sit-down with Oprah, he said he felt a need to protect his “mythic” level image, and he got caught up in the momentum of the lies.

4. RIHANNA CALLS CHRIS BROWN THE LOVE OF HER LIFE.

When photos surfaced of how badly Chris Brown beat Rihanna after a pre-Grammy party in 2009, the public turned against him. Over time, though, it became clear that Rihanna was still seeing her attacker. In an interview with Oprah three years later, she stunned the world by saying she was, indeed, still in love with him. Soon afterward, she began posting pictures on Instagram and Twitter of the two of them hanging out in intimate settings.

5. DAVID LETTERMAN TALKS ABOUT HIS SEX SCANDAL AND HIS STRUGGLES WITH DEPRESSION.

For years, Letterman and Winfrey had a long-rumored (though seemingly low-level) feud brewing. They’ve since buried that hatchet, so much so that in 2013, Dave talked candidly to Oprah about the sex scandal that rocked his marriage and career in 2009. He also opened up about a six-month period of depression where he found it difficult to even get out of bed.

6. MACKENZIE PHILLIPS CONFESSES TO HAVING SEX WITH HER FATHER OVER THE COURSE OF MANY YEARS.

In 2009, Mackenzie Phillips, former child star of One Day at a Time, went on Oprah to talk about her autobiography. She read an excerpt from the book about her father—musician John Phillips of The Mamas and the Papaps—raping her when she was a teenager, and said that she continued to have sex with him for years afterward, including after she was married.

7. JAMES FREY ADMITS HE MADE UP KEY PORTIONS OF HIS MEMOIR.

After getting the coveted Oprah’s Book Club bump, author James Frey was outed as a fraud when The Smoking Gun discovered his memoir about addiction and recovery, A Million Little Pieces, was largely fiction. Oprah, as you might imagine, was displeased. She invited him back on the show to explain himself—or, more accurately, to rip him a new one for deceiving her and her legions of followers.

8. LISA MARIE PRESLEY TALKS ABOUT HER MARRIAGE TO MICHAEL JACKSON.

In a sit-down after her 2009 ex-husband’s death, Lisa Marie Presley chatted about the authenticity of their mid-’90s marriage, which many people had viewed as a staged relationship for years. She also talked about how she thought there was possibly suspicious drug use going on while the two were married, which she didn’t notice until shortly before she filed for divorce.

9. MO’NIQUE’S BROTHER ADMITS TO MOLESTING HER AS A CHILD.

Getty

Although comedian and actress Mo’Nique was outspoken about the childhood sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her older brother (saying she fueled that anger into her Oscar-winning role in Precious), Gerald Imes continually denied it. Until his talk with Oprah in 2010, that is.

“I’m here today to first acknowledge what I’ve been in denial for for 37 years, and that is I did assault and inappropriately touch my sister in manners that were not comfortable for her,” Imes said. “And for that, I apologize and am humbly sorry.”

10. TELEVANGELIST TED HAGGARD CONFESSES TO AN AFFAIR AND DRUG USE.

Pastor Ted Haggard via Facebook

Ted Haggard was once one of the country’s foremost evangelical leaders and was known to advise George W. Bush on a regular basis. So it was quite the shock when he went on Oprah and announced that all of the rumors were true—he had cheated on his wife with a male escort and was also dabbling with drugs.

11. A FRESH-FROM-PRISON MARION JONES TALKS ABOUT HER STEROID USE.

After spending six months in prison for lying to federal agents about using performance-enhancing drugs, the five-time Olympic medalist insisted to Oprah that she didn’t knowingly lie.

12. STEPHEN COLBERT OPENS UP ABOUT THE DEATH OF HIS FATHER AND TWO BROTHERS.

The public was used to seeing “Stephen Colbert,” the late night comedic pundit character. But when Oprah talked to the real Stephen Colbert, he opened up about the Eastern Airlines crash in 1974 that killed his father and two of his older brothers when he was just 10 years old.

A version of this story originally ran in 2013.

January 25, 2017 – 3:17pm

January 29, 2017

11 Health Benefits of Juicing

Juicing is not new, and the health benefits associated with it have been known for many years. With more focus on good nutrition and natural health alternatives these days, more and more people are paying attention to juicing. Although there is a bit of work associated with juicing, if you do it yourself, in the long run, it makes it easy to get the maximum health benefits from a number of nutritious fruits and vegetables at the same time. There are tried-and-true juice recipes that have been used by millions, and also the possibility of coming up with your very

The post 11 Health Benefits of Juicing appeared first on Factual Facts.

January 29, 2017

The Great Astronomy Hoax of 1835

Doug Wallack

filed under: History

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On August 25, 1835, readers of the New York newspaper The Sun were enthralled by reports of life on the moon. An astronomer who had built a huge telescope reported lunar bison, moonscape meadows, and bipedal beavers. Readers ate it up, boosting The Sun‘s circulation—too bad it was a hoax.

January 29, 2017 – 1:00pm

Month: January 2017

Amazon Is Running Some Can’t-Miss Monday Deals

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In 1938, 150 women chained themselves to cherry…

East China Sea parts every year and exposes…

While at the toilet, president Carter hit a secret…

Target Canada was so poorly planned that Canadian…

This Museum Wants to Match You With Your Ancient Statue Doppelgänger

10 Fun Facts About Cereal

12 Shocking Secrets Spilled to Oprah

1. WHITNEY HOUSTON ADMITS THAT SHE DIDN’T THINK CRACK WAS SO WACK.

2. MICHAEL JACKSON REVEALS THAT HE’S SUFFERING FROM VITILIGO.

3. LANCE ARMSTRONG ADMITS TO DOPING ALLEGATIONS.

4. RIHANNA CALLS CHRIS BROWN THE LOVE OF HER LIFE.

5. DAVID LETTERMAN TALKS ABOUT HIS SEX SCANDAL AND HIS STRUGGLES WITH DEPRESSION.

6. MACKENZIE PHILLIPS CONFESSES TO HAVING SEX WITH HER FATHER OVER THE COURSE OF MANY YEARS.

7. JAMES FREY ADMITS HE MADE UP KEY PORTIONS OF HIS MEMOIR.

8. LISA MARIE PRESLEY TALKS ABOUT HER MARRIAGE TO MICHAEL JACKSON.

9. MO’NIQUE’S BROTHER ADMITS TO MOLESTING HER AS A CHILD.

10. TELEVANGELIST TED HAGGARD CONFESSES TO AN AFFAIR AND DRUG USE.

11. A FRESH-FROM-PRISON MARION JONES TALKS ABOUT HER STEROID USE.

12. STEPHEN COLBERT OPENS UP ABOUT THE DEATH OF HIS FATHER AND TWO BROTHERS.

11 Health Benefits of Juicing

The Great Astronomy Hoax of 1835