Earlier this month, NASA launched a constellation of small satellites that will transform hurricane forecasting and enable new insights into storm formation and activity. Called the Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System (CYGNSS), eight spacecraft, each the size of a carry-on suitcase, are flying over the tropics to measure and map ocean winds. Because of their altitude, heavy rain and storm surges are no obstacles to the satellites, and when hurricanes form, the spacecraft will be able to peer through walls of water into the storm’s core and continue to collect data—something no space-based system has ever done before.

“CYGNSS is a tool that will provide us 24/7 coverage of the tropical cyclone zone. It will improve our knowledge of how hurricanes grow so that we can better prepare and protect people in the path of each hurricane as it comes,” Christine Bonniksen, CYGNSS program executive with the Science Mission Directorate’s Earth Science Division at NASA Headquarters, tells mental_floss.

THE RAIN BARRIER HAS BLOCKED OUR VIEW

Over the past several decades, there has been a steady improvement in storm track forecasting—or where storms will hit—and the National Hurricane Center’s error rate is half of what it was 20 years ago. The same cannot be said for storm intensity forecasting—how strong these storms will be. “If you look at the record for their intensity forecast, there has been very, very little improvement in the last 20 years,” said Chris Ruf, the principal investigator on the CYGNSS mission and a scientist at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. One of the primary reasons for this is that today’s satellites are unable to measure what’s going on in the inner core of hurricanes. “This has been identified for many years as a primary lacking ingredient in the numerical forecasts that are used by the National Hurricane Center. They wish they had information on the inner core of the storms and they don’t.”

Storm cores have so far been impenetrable because current wind-observing spacecraft cannot see through rain. This is because their on-board instruments emit signals at an 8-millimeter wavelength—about the same size as a large raindrop. When the signals encounter rain, they are simply scattered and absorbed. (Hurricane paths depend on environmental factors outside of the storm, which is why this rain shroud has not been an impediment to predicting where storms will hit.)

Additionally, it takes about three days for current systems to collect data to build a map of global wind speeds and precipitation. This is a big problem if you’re trying to track the rapid intensification of tropical storms and hurricanes, which can happen in a matter of hours. So until now, scientists have had to rely on so-called “Hurricane Hunter” aircraft to fly into the storm to perform wind speed reconnaissance.

THE CYGNSS SOLUTION

CYGNSS changes all of this by using GPS satellite signals, which were designed to penetrate heavy rains. GPS operates at a 19-centimeter wavelength—more than long enough to avoid rain interaction. When GPS satellite signals hit the ocean, they reflect back into space and are received by CYGNSS observatories. Think about the way the Moon reflects on a placid lake: When the lake is calm, the Moon’s image is sharp. When the wind blows, the water roughens and the image diffuses. CYGNSS relies on a similar principle, reading the clarity of the GPS signals to reveal the characteristics of the wind. It measures the strength of the GPS signal as it scatters off the ocean surface to determine wind speed.

The eight CYGNSS observatory spacecraft operate evenly in a single orbital plane around the Earth. Each satellite has a payload called a Delay Doppler Mapping Instrument, a GPS receiver capable of tracking four different GPS signals simultaneously. Two antennas look down at reflected GPS signal and take measurements of the diffuse scattering, and from those derive the wind speed and activity. Meanwhile, one antenna looks up and receives a direct GPS satellite signal for geolocation. In essence, each 65-pound satellite is doing the work of four Hurricane Hunter airplanes. Collectively, CYGNSS is like a squadron of 32 such planes flying continuously over the tropics taking simultaneous measurements.

The system gives a total refresh of the entire tropical wind distribution map every seven hours, even under heavy precipitation. In a hurricane or tropical storm—including in areas with the highest wind speeds and the most powerful surges—CYGNSS can immediately answer questions about the storm size, intensity, and the reach of its strong winds. Moreover, because the satellite constellation has such expansive coverage of the Earth, it can collect massive amounts of data on the entire storm environment. There are three different data downlink points around the world, and the data can be downloaded from the satellites within the hour—an unprecedented timeframe.

HOW THE LAUNCH WENT DOWN

CYGNSS launched on the morning of December 15, 2016 from Cape Canaveral with the help of a Pegasus rocket, an air launch system. The rocket was mounted to the bottom of an L-1011 airplane called Stargazer that took off from a runway, just like any other plane you’ve ever seen. At 39,000 feet above the Atlantic Ocean, the plane released the Pegasus rocket, which ignited five seconds later and powered its way into space. The fairings hatched away and the deployment vehicle separated, and the eight small satellites released themselves in pairs over 30-second intervals. Ten minutes after separation, their solar arrays deployed. They then moved into position in orbit and began operation.

By 4:12 pm ET that same day, the CYGNSS team had successfully made contact with all eight satellites. “It is an amazingly rewarding feeling to spend such an intense and focused time working on CYGNSS and then, in a matter of just a few hours, have the entire constellation suddenly come to life,” Ruf said in a brief mission update. “I am excited (and a little exhausted) and really looking forward to diving into the engineering data in the coming days, and then into the science data in the weeks to follow.”

This is NASA’s flagship Earth Venture–class mission, which is a new NASA program designed for low-cost, high-technology suborbital (think aircraft and balloons) and orbital (CYGNSS) projects. Two previous missions of this class were aircraft designed for atmospheric research and communications. This is the first spaceborne Earth Venture endeavor. Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado runs CYGNSS mission operations, and science operations are run from the University of Michigan. The primary $160 million mission will run for two years—enough time to fill in blank spots in the hurricane dataset, get a grip on how storm cores intensify, and hopefully refine the forecast models that lives depend on.  

In this video, Adam Savage builds Totoro, the titular character from My Neighbor Totoro. Because Totoro is huge, Savage designs the costume to be lightweight and collapsible. And furry. And adorable. Aw, heck, this is just delightful, have a look at what 14 hours’ work can make:

Just as much fun is watching Savage wander New York Comic Con incognito, inside his Totoro costume. He has a camera built into the costume, in Totoro’s leaf hat. (Indeed, that’s the only way he can see out of the costume; there’s no eye hole! He’s watching a camera monitor inside the costume.)

The best part? His tiny umbrella.

There are plenty of ways to ring in the new year—a Netflix binge being one of them. The streaming network is welcoming in 2017 with a ton of contemporary classics, including The Shining, Caddyshack, E.T., Boogie Nights, and a host of Superman movies. Here’s everything new coming to Netflix in January.

January 1

Around the World in 80 Days (2004)

After Innocence

Bee Movie

Boogie Nights

Braveheart

Caddyshack

Collateral Damage

Dreamcatcher

El Dorado

E.T. the Extra Terrestrial

HALO Legends

Hugo

Justin Bieber: Never Say Never

License to Drive

Nancy Drew

Ocean’s Twelve

Real Detective (Season 1)

Superman Returns

Superman II

Superman III

Superman IV

Superman: The Movie

The Parent Trap (1961)

The Shining

The Perfect Physique

The Rat Race (2012)

To Be A Miss

Trudell

V for Vendetta

Vanilla Sky

January 3

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Season 11)

Jen Kirkman: Just Keep Livin’?

January 6

Coin Heist

Degrassi: Next Class (Season 3)

Growing Up Coy

Mar de Plastico (Season 1)

One Day at a Time (Season 1)

Tarzan and Jane (Season 1)

January 7

Alpha and Omega 7

Miss Sharon Jones

Under the Shadow

January 9

Best and Most Beautiful Things

Ratchet and Clank

January 10

As I Open My Eyes

Best Friends Whenever

Happily Married

Jim Gaffigan: Cinco

We’re Lalaloopsy (Season 1)

January 11

Disney’s Alice Through The Looking Glass

January 13

A Series of Unfortunate Events (Season 1)

Aquarius

Casablancas: The Man Who Loved Women

Clinical

Historia de un clan (Season 1)

It Follows

The Investigator: A British Crime Story (Season 1)

January 14

Camp X-Ray

Cardboard Boxer

Estar O No Estar

January 15

A Beautiful Now

Hostage to the Devil

Señora Acero (Season 3)

Twisted Trunk, Big Fat Body

Wartime Portraits (Season 1)

January 16

Flash of Genius

Halloweed

Rezort

January 17

Fatima

Neal Brennan: 3 Mics 

Roger Corman’s Death Race 2050

January 19

Good Kids

January 20

Frontier (Season 1)

Papa

Take the 10

Voltron: Legendary Defender (Season 2)

January 21

Bates Motel (Season 4)

Grami’s Circus Show (Season 2)

January 24

Cristela Alonzo: Lower Classy

Gad Gone Wild

Hieronymus Bosch, Touched by the Devil 

Kill Command

Terrace House: Aloha State (Season 1: Part 1)

January 25

Era el cielo

January 27

Home: Adventures with Tip & Oh (Season 2)

iBOY

Kazoops! (Season 2)

Shadows of Truth

Sharknado: The 4th Awakens

January 28

Ripper Street (Season 4)

January 30

Antibirth

Swing State

January 31

Bill Burr Stand Up Special

It’s that time again when we’re busy buying, wrapping, and giving them. Sometimes we call them gifts, sometimes presents. Is there a difference?

The words come to us from different language families. Gift comes from the old Germanic root for “to give.” It referred to an act of giving, and then, to the thing being given. In Old English it meant the dowry given to a bride’s parents. Present comes from the French for “to present.” A present is the thing presented or bestowed. They were both in use for the idea of something undergoing a transfer of possession without expectation of payment from the 13th century onward.

The words gift and present are well-matched synonyms that mean essentially the same thing, but even well-matched synonyms have their own connotations and distinctive patterns of use. Gift applies to a wider range of situations. Gifts can be talents. You can have the gift of gab, or a musical gift. Gifts can be intangibles. There is the gift of understanding or the gift of a quiet day. We generally don’t use present for things like this. Presents are more concrete. A bit more, well, present. If your whole family gave donations to your college fund for your birthday would you say “I got a lot of presents”? It doesn’t exactly sound wrong, but since you never hold these donations in your hand, gifts seems to fit better.

Gift can also be an attributive noun, acting like an adjective to modify another noun. What do you call the type of shop where you can buy presents for people? A gift shop. What do you call the basket of presents that you can have sent to all your employees? A gift basket. Present doesn’t work well in this role of describing other nouns. We have gift boxes, gift cards, and gift wrap, not present boxes, present cards, and present wrap.

Gift appears to be more frequent than present, though it is difficult to get accurate counts, because if you compare occurrences of the noun present with the noun gift, you include that other noun present, meaning the here and now. However, the plural noun presents captures only the word we want. Gifts outnumbers presents in the Corpus of Contemporary American English by four to one.

Still, according to my personal sense of the words, present—though it may not be as common—is more casual sounding than gift. I expect a child to ask Santa for lots and lots of presents, not many, many gifts. But whether it’s gifts or presents you prefer, I wish you many and lots this year, of both the tangible and intangible kind.

Have you got a Big Question you’d like us to answer? If so, let us know by emailing us at bigquestions@mentalfloss.com.

You’ve probably seen A Christmas Story enough times that you never really need to watch it again. But watch it you will. And enjoy it, too. Even though you know every twist and turn it will take for our young hero Ralphie to finally get his hands on his much-desired Red Ryder Carbine-Action 200-Shot Range Model Air Rifle. (An item he repeats 28 times throughout the film’s 94-minute running time; you could make an eggnog drinking game out of that.) 

This Christmas, when you inevitably tune into catch at least one airing of Bob Clark’s holiday classic during TBS’ 24-hour marathon, we’ve got a way for you to watch A Christmas Story in a whole new light: by keeping your eyes—and ears—peeled for these 25 blink-and-you’ll-miss-‘em gaffes, anachronisms, and other fun facts that make watching the classic film an entirely new experience. 

1. RALPHIE DOESN’T KNOW HOW TO SPELL “CHRISTMAS.”

At least it doesn’t appear that way when he gets his Christmas theme—or shall we call it a Chistmas theme—back from Mrs. Shields, who also didn’t notice that the “R” is missing from the word.

2. JEAN SHEPHERD MAKES AN ON-SCREEN APPEARANCE.

If the voice of the man who brusquely informs Ralphie and Randy that the line to sit on Santa’s lap begins about two miles further back than they had anticipated sounds familiar, that’s because it’s the voice of the narrator, a.k.a. Adult Ralphie, who also happens to be Jean Shepherd, the man upon whose short stories the film itself is based. The woman behind Shepherd is his wife, Leigh Brown.

3. BOB CLARK JOINS IN THE CAMEO FUN.

Not to be outdone, director Bob Clark pops up in front of the camera, too, as Ralphie’s neighbor, Swede. He’s the guy who seems awfully curious about how Ralphie’s dad managed to snag himself a leg lamp. When The Old Man Parker informs him that it’s a Major Award, Swede responds: “Shucks, I wouldn’t know that. It looks like a lamp.”

4. RALPHIE’S DAD IS NEVER GIVEN A NAME.

Over the years, a gaggle of sharp-eared A Christmas Story fans have pointed out that in Bob Clark’s scene, Ralphie’s dad is given a name: Hal. This is because they believed that in the brief exchange between the two neighbors, Swede asks of the leg lamp, “Damn Hal, you say you won it?” But a quick confer with the film’s original screenplay confirms that Swede’s actual query is, “Damn, hell, you say you won it?”

5. SPEAKING OF THE LEG LAMP…

The continuity folks must have been taking a coffee break during the unveiling of the leg lamp. Watch closely as the amount of packing debris covering The Old Man’s back and head changes from shot to shot. In one shot, his back is covered in the stuff; cut back and there’s nothing there.

6. IS THE LEG LAMP REALLY A LAMP?

In addition to being stumped by the word “fragile,” The Old Man—and the rest of the family—is initially confused as to what the leg’s purpose is. Is it a statue? (“Yeah, statue!”) One can’t blame them, as there’s no electrical cord to be seen. It’s just a leg. Yet, once the lampshade is discovered, the Parker clan is magically able to plug that titillating little fixture right in. 

7. ONE FINAL THING ABOUT THE LEG LAMP…

After witnessing the moment that Ralphie explains would become “a family controversy for years”—the breaking of the leg lamp—Mrs. Parker balks at her husband’s accusation that she would be jealous of a plastic lamp. But just moments before the “accident” in question, we hear the sound of breaking glass. And lots of it. Plastic doesn’t sound (or break) like that.

8. IS IT TORONTO OR IS IT INDIANA?

Though the film is set in Hohman, Indiana—a fictionalized town based on Shepherd’s hometown of Hammond, Indiana—parts of the film were shot in Toronto. This becomes apparent in some of the outdoor scenes, such as when the family is shopping for a Christmas tree, as one of the Toronto Transit Commission’s signature red trolley cars zooms by.

9. BOLTS VERSUS NUTS.

We all remember Ralphie’s reaction when his attempt to help his father fix a flat tire goes terribly awry. But here’s a fun fact that only true motorheads would pick up on: In the scene, Ralphie’s dad implores him to hold the hubcap horizontally so that he can put the “nuts” in it. But the 1938 Oldsmobile that he’s driving actually uses removable bolts. A fact that Shepherd confirms in his narration of the scene when he recalls that, “For one brief moment I saw all the bolts silhouetted against the lights of the traffic—and then they were gone.” Oh, fudge!

10. SCOTT SCHWARTZ IS NOT SCHWARTZ. BUT HE IS.

Ralphie’s two best friends are Schwartz, played by R.D. Robb, and Flick, played by Scott Schwartz. As if this tale of two Schwartzes weren’t confusing enough, when Ralphie tells his mom that it’s Schwartz who taught him how to drop the F-bomb, Mrs. Parker immediately calls the boy’s mother. But the voice we hear of fictional Schwartz taking a whooping is actually the voice of Scott Schwartz. Got it?

11. SCHWARTZ’S WHEREABOUTS.

Immediately following his unceremonious (and totally false) ratting out of his buddy, Ralphie remembers how “three blocks away, Schwartz was getting his.” In the original story, that may have very well been the case. But the film’s production called for Schwartz’s home to be just a few doors down from Ralphie’s, as we see as the kids walk to school together. Not three blocks away.

12. RALPHIE’S NOT A VERY GOOD LISTENER.

Ralphie felt understandably ripped off when, after weeks of waiting for his Little Orphan Annie decoder ring, the first message he decoded was simply an advertisement for Ovaltine. But he’s lucky he could decipher the message at all, because a few of the numbers that he wrote down don’t match the numbers that announcer Pierre Andre broadcast, most notably the last one; Pierre said 25, Ralphie wrote 11.

13. UPPERCASE OR LOWERCASE?

Perhaps it’s that very error above that made it necessary for Ralphie to decode Annie’s message on at least two pieces of paper. How do we know that? Check out the difference in the “E” in the word “Be.” In the earlier shot, it’s an uppercase E; in the final message, the letter is lowercase. We’re on to you, Ralphie. 

14. FOR A SPORTS FAN, OLD MAN PARKER DOESN’T KNOW SPORTS.

Though the exact year of A Christmas Story’s setting is never stated, many of its context clues—including the makes and models of the cars we see and the popularity of The Wizard of Oz and Little Orphan Annie—put its year around 1939 or 1940. Yet in the beginning of the film, Mr. Parker becomes irate after reading in the paper that the White Sox “traded Bullfrog.” But the White Sox never traded Bill “Bullfrog” Dietrich, though they did release him on September 18, 1946, which would make this comment six years premature. He also refers to the Chicago Bears as the “Terror of the Midway,” when in fact their nickname is “Monsters of the Midway.”

15. THE CASE OF THE MYSTERIOUS LEVERS.

Old Man Parker seems to have a lot of non-human enemies—his car, the Bumpus hounds, and a seemingly possessed furnace among them. In one scene, The Old Man yells upstairs for someone to open the damper, which Mom does rather reluctantly. But watch closely when the camera cuts back to the levers, which are in the opposite position as Mom set them just seconds earlier.

16. DIVERSITY AS AN ANACHRONISM.

By the time A Christmas Story was released in 1983, racial segregation in Indiana public schools was a thing 34 years in the past. But if Ralphie’s story takes place any time before 1949, he would not have had any African American classmates, as he does in the film.

17. THE ROTATING BANANA.

Hoping to score some extra points with his teacher, Ralphie presents Mrs. Shields with the world’s largest fruit basket. It’s so large, in fact, that its individual pieces of fruit seem to have a mind of their own. Watch the way the banana shifts position each time the camera cuts back to Ralphie.

18. A DRAWER FULL OF UNIMAGINABLE MISCHIEF.

Ralphie and his classmates are a troublemaking lot. And when they decide to launch a classroom-wide prank in which they’re all wearing a set of false teeth, Mrs. Shields is well-prepared. She’s got a drawer full of pranks past, including a pair of chattering teeth … a gag gift that wasn’t actually invented until 1949.

19. SPEAKING OF TOOTHY ANACHRONISMS…

In his attempts to make Ralphie’s life a living hell, we get an up-close view of the braces worn by Scut the bully. They’re the kind that are directly bonded to the front of his teeth, a process that wasn’t invented until the 1970s. Until then, metal braces were wrapped around the teeth.

20. THREE-BARREL HINGED GLASSES WEREN’T A THING EITHER.

After nearly shooting his eye out on Christmas morning, Ralphie steps on his own glasses, revealing them to use a three-barrel hinge connector, which would not have been possible until the 1980s.

21. RALPHIE SHOOTS THREE TIMES, HITS FOUR.

When Ralphie is forced to defend his family against the rascally Black Bart (in his own imagination), he shoots three bad guys before his nemesis Bart escapes. But when the pile of bad guys is shown with their eyes X’ed out, there are four of them.

22. A VERY BING CHRISTMAS.

On Christmas morning, the Parkers kick back with that most classic of Christmas albums—Bing Crosby’s Merry Christmas—in the background. As cherished a tradition as that may be, the album wasn’t released until 1945.

23. A BOWLING BALL FOR CHRISTMAS.

Old Man Parker is thrilled when his wife gifts him with a shiny new blue bowling ball for Christmas. There’s just one problem: colored bowling balls weren’t introduced until the 1960s. 

24. MELINDA DILLION GETS TOP BILLING.

Getting top billing must have been quite a thrill for actress Melinda Dillon… until the actual credits rolled and her name was spelled incorrectly!

25. FLASH GORDON GETS CREDIT, TOO.

Keep watching the end credits roll and you’ll see Flash Gordon and Ming the Merciless among the names that scroll by. Though it never made the final cut, the credits for an additional fantasy sequence in which Ralphie and his trusty firearm help Flash Gordon face off against Ming remain.

Every winter, Jewish people around the world spend eight nights lighting candles, eating latkes, and spinning dreidels. But beyond the menorahs and fried food, what’s Hanukkah really about? Here are 11 festive facts about Hanukkah.

1. DON’T WORRY ABOUT SPELLING IT WRONG.

The Hebrew word Hanukkah means dedication, and the holiday is colloquially called the Festival of Lights. But you’ve probably seen the word spelled a variety of ways, from Hanukkah to Hannuka to Chanukah. Because the word is transliterated from Hebrew, there’s not an exact English equivalent for the sounds made by the Hebrew characters. So technically, you could spell it khahnoocca and you wouldn’t necessarily be wrong, but most people would probably be confused.

2. IT CELEBRATES A MILITARY VICTORY AND MIRACLE.

During the eight nights of Hanukkah, Jews light a candle to pay tribute to a miracle that occurred back in 165 BCE. The Maccabees, an army of Jewish rebels, conquered the Syrian-Greeks, who had outlawed Jewish practices and defiled the holy Temple in Jerusalem by putting an altar of Zeus in it and sacrificing pigs. The Maccabees then rededicated and reclaimed the Temple, and although they only had enough oil to light a lamp for one day, the oil miraculously lasted for eight days.

3. IT’S NOT THE BIGGEST JEWISH HOLIDAY.

The Torah makes no mention of Hanukkah, and the Jewish religion places much more importance on holidays such as Passover and Rosh Hashanah. But because Hanukkah usually occurs in December, around Christmas time and winter break when people of many religions are celebrating the season, Jews living in the United States in the early 20th century began placing more importance on the holiday. Today, Jews around the world (even in Israel) have followed suit, and Hanukkah is more important than it once was.

4. THE FOOD ISN’T THE HEALTHIEST.

Traditional Christmas foods include fruitcake, gingerbread, ham, and candy canes, and Hanukkah has its own set of customary foods. To celebrate the holiday, Jews fry foods in oil to acknowledge the miracle of the oil. They may chow down on latkes (potato pancakes), sufganiyot (jelly doughnuts), kugel (noodle or potato casserole), and gelt (chocolate coins).

5. THE LETTERS ON A DREIDEL FORM AN ACRONYM.

At Hanukkah, kids play with dreidels, which are small spinning tops. Tradition says that before the Maccabees revolted, Jews weren’t legally allowed to read the Torah, so they would study the holy text while pretending to gamble with spinning dreidels. Each of the four sides of a dreidel has a Hebrew character: Nun, Gimel, Hay or Shin. The four letters are said to stand for the phrase “Nes Gadol Hayah Sham”—meaning “A great miracle happened there”—which refers to the miraculous, long-lasting oil.

6. THE DATES CHANGE EACH YEAR.

Because the holiday is based on the Hebrew calendar, there’s no set Gregorian date range for Hanukkah. While it always starts on the 25th day of the Hebrew month Kislev, that date can correspond to anywhere from late November to late December. This year, Hanukkah is particularly late, beginning on the evening of December 24 and going through January 1.

7. SOMETIMES HANUKKAH COINCIDES WITH THANKSGIVING.

In 2013, Hanukkah overlapped with Thanksgiving, giving rise to countless Thanksgivukkah memes and jokes about cranberry-filled sufganiyot and sweet potato latkes. Sadly, the next Thanksgivukkah won’t occur until 2070, when the first night of Hanukkah will coincide with a particularly late Thanksgiving dinner.

8. SOME JEWS GIVE MONEY RATHER THAN GIFTS.

Traditionally, Jews celebrated Hanukkah by giving their kids and relatives gelt (money) rather than wrapped gifts. But because holiday gift giving plays a big role for both Christians and secular people, many Jews now give and receive Hanukkah presents instead of money. To acknowledge tradition, though, most Jews give children gelt in the form of chocolate coins wrapped in gold or silver foil.

9. YOU’LL NEED TO LIGHT 44 CANDLES.

Hanukkah menorahs—which some Jews prefer to call a chanukiah, to differentiate it from the true menorah at the Temple—have nine branches, eight for each night plus a helper candle called a shamash that lights the others. Jews light the candles in the menorah from left to right, lighting a new candle, candles for the previous days, and the helper candle each night. You’ll need to use a whopping 44 candles to celebrate Hanukkah since you light two candles the first night, three the second night, four the third night, and so on.

10. YOU CAN BUY SCENTED CANDLES FOR YOUR HANUKKAH MENORAH.

A big part of Hanukkah is lighting candles, but some Jews opt for a less conventional approach. Besides buying candles in different color and non-toxic varieties, there are also scented candles available for Hanukkah menorahs. If you want to make your home smell like vanilla, raspberry, or even sufganiyot, there’s a scented candle for you.

11. HANUKKAH SONGS AREN’T REALLY A THING.

Christmas songs start playing on the radio long before Thanksgiving, but although you might know a few Hanukkah songs, music isn’t a huge part of the Jewish holiday. Well-known songs such as “I Have a Little Dreidel” and “Hanukkah, Oh Hanukkah” are mainly for children, and songs like Adam Sandler’s “The Chanukah Song” are mostly for laughs.

All photos via iStock.

Toss your New Year’s resolutions to eat healthy and lay off the booze out the window. Rogue Ales, the Oregon-based brewery, is releasing a candy-flavored beer.

The Hazelutely Choctabulous might be a mouthful to order, but according to the company, the mixture of two of Rogue’s beers has been a fan-favorite at the brewery’s pub for a while now, so they’re making the secret menu item available to the rest of the country. It’s a dark beer with nutty notes and a chocolate truffle finish that tastes like a nutty chocolate candy bar. It’s a little unusual because unlike most chocolate beers, it’s not a straight stout—it’s a combination of Rogue’s chocolate stout and its brown ale, Hazelnut Brown Nectar. The combo ale will be available starting in January 2017.

Until then, there are plenty of chocolate-y beers to try elsewhere. Many breweries make chocolate stouts, including Rogue—which makes its double chocolate stout with Dutch bittersweet chocolate. While you can find other chocolate stouts from Harpoon and Evil Twin, some breweries try for more unique twists on the style. Starting in 2012, Dogfish Head began making Chocolate Lobster Porter, and during the fall, Coney Island makes a chocolate pumpkin ale. Sadly, those two brews are only available seasonally.

Frank Howarth is a woodworker and filmmaker. He is also apparently a traitor to the Galactic Empire!

On May 4, 2016, Howarth posted this video detailing the plans for a wood turned bamboo Death Star, complete with superlaser dish and trench. Now, lest you think this is just a woodworking video (which would be fine), tune in for the Star Wars in-jokes, including a fancy CGI Death Star hologram (around 2:40). This is incredible. Behold:

Best YouTube comment: “You’ve turned wood to the dark side. The emperor will be pleased.”

* = May the 4th be with you.

WHITE HOUSE STAFF PRANKS PRESIDENT OBAMA

President Barack Obama remarked to People magazine that he found the decorative snowmen arranged around the White House yard to be creepy. Staffers took that information and used it to prank their boss. They moved the four snowmen from the Rose Garden to the outside of the Oval Office—where they were positioned to stare into the windows. The president took the prank in stride, even posing for a photo of the snowmen startling him.

£700,000 WORTH OF COKE FOUND IN PEPSI

British Border Force officers went through a truck that was delivering Pepsi from Bulgaria. It was inspected before leaving a ferry from the Netherlands to Kent, UK. Among the cases of canned Pepsi, they found 17 kilograms of cocaine, with a street value of around £700,000. The truck driver, who has dual Macedonian/Bulgarian citizenship, was arrested and released on bail.

KOALA REQUESTS GROOMING

Last Saturday morning, Bruce Atkinson of Apollo Bay, Victoria, Australia, found a koala on his porch. He noticed it was covered with burrs. Atkinson offered the creature a bowl of water, but the koala swatted it out of his hands. So Atkinson got a pair of gloves and a brush.

He carefully approached the koala and let it sniff at the hair brush before attempting to brush the prickles out.

“I just gently poked the brush at some of the burrs,” he said.

“Within seconds it decided, ‘this is alright, I’ll have more of this.'”

Mr Atkinson said he was amazed at how benign the previously aggressive koala became once it was having its fur brushed.

He said he was able to remove most of the burrs and then collected some gum leaves for the koala, which hung around his house for the rest of the day.

For a koala, he turned out to be pretty good at communicating his needs to the human. Atkinson posted a video of the de-burring operation at the Otway Community Facebook group.

ALABAMA SANTA CLAUS WINS FIGHT TO KEEP LICENSE PLATE

A license plates that says “HO” might be offensive because of its slang connotations, while the phrase “Ho-Ho-Ho” automatically makes one think of Santa Claus’s jolly laugh. So what does “Ho Ho” imply? Alabama resident Dave Reid, who looks like Santa Claus, has had two “Hos” on his license plate for six years. But this year, the DMV rejected his vanity plate request. Reid took the story to the local media, and the backlash prompted state officials to relent and renew the vanity plates for Reid’s 1999 Toyota 4Runner.

MONTREAL’S UGLY CHRISTMAS TREE

Montreal’s attempt to beat Rockefeller Center results in ‘ugly’ Christmas tree only Charlie Brown could love https://t.co/jQJXNWY1Pn pic.twitter.com/rlwTAyZpnF

— TorontoStar (@TorontoStar) December 17, 2016

Montreal’s municipal Christmas tree has its own Twitter account, but it’s not because the city is proud. The tree is skinny, the trunk is crooked, the top is flat, and the decorations are logos for Canadian Tire. The initial idea was for the city to erect a tree taller than the one at Rockefeller Center in New York. Tree company Sapin MTL found a lovely tree at 24 meters, taller than any New York tree had been. But then Rockefeller Center put up a Christmas tree that was a record 28.6 meters tall—so the Montreal tree company had to find a taller one fast.

Facing a Nov. 30 deadline for unveiling the tree, the Sapin crew had to hurry. The tree was harvested, placed on a special flatbed truck and brought to Montreal under police escort within 72 hours. But a tight schedule and a tight budget meant that some corners were cut — and so was the tree.

Somehow, the tree that reached the closed-off section of St. Catherine Street where the market is held measured just 26.8 metres tall, 1.8 metres short of the one in Rockefeller Center. Pelletier’s brother Philippe, another principal in the company, said a bit sheepishly Friday that they had simply settled for the tallest tree they could find in time.

After the initial shock, the people of Montreal are coming around to embracing their distinctive tree, missing branches and all.

For some people, youth is just a warm-up. In the video above, mental_floss List Show host John Green names 27 amazing accomplishments of people over the age of 80, both historic and current. Ranging from athletes and artists to scholars, politicians, and postmen, they’re proof that you’re never too old to achieve big things—even if it’s simply going on a water skiing trip to Mexico to celebrate your 100th birthday.

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