The Miami Herald reports that a Sri Lankan man was caught at an airport in Bangkok, Thailand attempting to smuggle three snakes in his underpants through a security screening. The trouser snakes turned out to be ball pythons, a protected species. Removing them from Thailand requires special permits.

This particular man has an extensive history of wildlife smuggling. He's also been accused of attempting to move "wolves, meerkats, black cockatoos, sugar gliders, porcupines, ball pythons, iguanas, frogs, salamanders and turtles" illegally. I have no information about whether he tried to sneak these animals in his underwear, too.

-via Dave Barry | Image: Thailand Department of National Parks, Wildlife, and Plan Conservation

You might recall back in 2021 that a woman from Mali had nine babies at once. Halima Cissé was flown to Casablanca, Morocco, and delivered four boys and five girls by Cesarian section, ten weeks before what would have been a normal due date. There had been a couple of cases of nonuplets born before, but none in which even one baby survived. Cissé's infants, who weighed between 1.1 and 2.2 pounds, were kept in a hospital nursery for months, and the family was joined by her husband Abdelkader Arby and older daughter Souda. They returned to Mali 18 months later. The Guinness Book of World Records awarded Cissé the world record for the most children delivered at a single birth to survive, surpassing Octomom's record.   



On May 4, Kadidia, Fatouma, Hawa, Adama, Oumou, Mohammed VI, Oumar, Elhadji, and Bah all turned four years old, and are thriving. People magazine has posted pictures of the family for the occasion. -via Fark 

I recall reading about the Marvel movie Thunderbolts* last year, mainly about why they had an asterisk in the title. It completely slipped by me that the movie opened in May. As the final installment of MCU's Phase Five, it was expected to be a hit. Alas, no. Thunderbolts* received generally favorable reviews, but it has yet to make enough money to cover its massive production and marketing costs. The premise is that a group of misfit antiheroes, i.e. criminals, band together to save the world and become heroes. Marvel seems to be aiming for the heroics of an Avengers movie meshed with the humor of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. However, the too-large cast of characters wasn't likable enough to pull it off. Screen Junkies goes all in on pulling Thunderbolts* apart in this Honest Trailer. 

By the way, the asterisk is supposed to go to the footnote *The New Avengers. Good luck with that.  

In 1929, Germany was still struggling with the political and economic mess left by World War I. Friedrich Ritter was a Berlin physician who wanted to get away from it all and live a simple, natural life. So he left his wife and went to Floreana, an uninhabited volcanic island in the Galapagos. He took a patient with him, Dore Strauch, who he was in love with. Strauch suffered from multiple sclerosis, but gamely went to build a new life on the island. The couple sent letters back to Germany by passing ships, and some were published. Those letters made island living seem like paradise, and Ritter and Strauch were joined by Heinz and Margret Wittmer and their teenage son. The Wittmers set up their own household and gave birth to another son while living on Floreana. In 1932, a third household arrived- Eloise Wehrborn de Wagner-Bosquet, who claimed to be a Baroness, and her two younger lovers.

The Baroness lived closer to the sea, and talked of a plan to open a hotel on Floreana. That never happened, but she greeted passing ships and collected everyone's mail. They suspected she intercepted supplies, too. The three households on Floreana were never close, but they were the only people living on the island. The cordial equilibrium they had built began to break down, particularly when the inhabitants began to disappear. Read the incredible, mysterious, and true story of the settlers of Floreana at Danny Dutch. 

Olivia is experienced in fostering pregnant cats, but Pizza was a really hard case. She was feral and pregnant, and didn't trust anyone. That can be a dangerous combination, so Olivia kept away from Pizza as much as she could, lest she get her fingers bitten off. Pizza did not approve of anyone handling her kittens for even a minute. But like many cats, Pizza was won over by lots of time and a life of luxury. She was only unfriendly as long as it took to get her kittens weaned. Once she came out of her shell, she set her eyes on Olivia's big orange cat! Well, you can't separate a bonded pair, so the ferocious feral foster cat became a forever cat in Olivia's household. You can see more of the foster cat household at Olivia's Instagram gallery. It's titled House of Six Cats, but you'll find a lot more than six! 

Marie Curie coined the term radioactive, and with her husband Pierre discovered radium and polonium. The couple worked in a shed that became covered with radioactive dust, but they didn't mind. They even went out there at night to admire the glowing bottles of radioactive chemicals. After Pierre's death. Marie worked in a laboratory in Paris (now a museum) for twenty years until her death in 1934. She handled radium with her bare hands, because it wasn't thought of as particularly dangerous. In fact, in those days, radium was seen as a miracle of sorts, used in cosmetics, drinks, remedies, and glow-in-the-dark paint. 

The atomic age made us all more aware of the dangers. In the 1980s, Marie Curie's lab was decontaminated. The surfaces were all scrubbed, and the cabinets sent to a nuclear waste site. In the 1990s, the Curies were exhumed and reburied in lead coffins due to radioactivity. In 2020, the Curies' granddaughter had her family heirlooms tested for radioactivity. The results led her to send her grandmother's cupboard to a nuclear waste facility. Recently, a team was allowed to search for radioactive fingerprints remaining in Marie Curie's laboratory. There they found the places she had touched, still emitting radioactivity as the materials had sunk into the wood. Read about the radioactive Marie Curie at BBC Future. -via Curious About Everything 

(Image: unknown, colorized by VictoriaKC) 

There is nothing that signals "middle class" and "middle aged" than getting absolutely giddy about having  a dumpster at your home, even if it is temporary. The Holderness Family (previously at Neatorama) got that opportunity and were so thrilled they wrote and performed a song about it. It's really dumb, but I understand it. 

There comes a time for homeowners when they realize they don't need all that stuff they've accumulated. Giving nice things away is easy, but the trash can be difficult. My sanitation department will not pick up anything but regulation-sized trash bags on their weekly run. They will pick up junk, but you have to call to schedule it, and you hate to do that for one thing (in some places it costs extra), so that stuff just piles up little by little, and even if you have a lot, you have to get it to the curb yourself. Your trash people probably have rules that make getting rid of big or heavy stuff kind of hard. So the sudden appearance of a dumpster is an opportunity to purge your life of all kinds of detritus. And if that ever happens to you, you'll have a song to sing! 

Estonian gentleman Illimar Lepik Von Wirén tweets that a grocery store was built around a glacial boulder. This is a grocery store that is part of the Viimsi Shopping Center in the town of Haabneeme. Another photo of the rock suggests that it provides a space for a shopping cart-shaped sculpture.

Estonia has many "erratic boulders" left over from previous ice ages. They have government protection.

Photo: Nordecon

Like all decent and right-thinking people, I enjoy pineapple on pizza. Bubba Pizza, a pizzeria chain in Australia, agrees and affirms my lifestyle with pineapple on pizza. The chain's bold, experimental thinking embraces other culinary possibilities. Not all of them work out, such as the failed kimchi pepperoni pizza. But the research continues.

In March, Bubba Pizza's research cooks considered that, since pineapple does so well on pizza, perhaps another citrus fruit would, too. This summer, the New York Post reports, the chain is offering pizzas with orange slices and ham. Online reaction has been lively, although, oddly enough, not universally positive.

-via YoDanno

We are wrapping up what is probably the biggest weekend of the year for our friends at Geeks Are Sexy. It was Montreal Comiccon! The Palais des congrès hosted thousands of comic book superheroes, TV and movie characters, literary figures, gaming icons, fairy tale princesses, pop stars, and clever mashups. Organizers said a record number of people showed up, surpassing the expected 65,000 attendees. Above you see Deadpool offering Lady Deadpool a gift. She appears quite touched, although she already has plenty of bling. 

Giralt and Ciri from The Witcher went all out for authenticity. We would assume the Palais des congrès was air conditioned, but the ride there was probably pretty hot. Quebec temperatures hit 90°F (32C) today. 

These pirates are from Epic Cosplay Expérience, who turn into pirates for fun and to feed children a healthy breakfast. Read more about them in this post. See a lot more images of cosplayers from the 2025 Montreal Comiccon in a gallery at Geeks Are Sexy.  

George Johnson is an architect in Minneapolis. He and his wife have lived in their 1915 home for 25 years. Recently, he decided to replace the siding, and when it was removed, the wall underneath revealed a full-size red and green Gold Medal Flour sign! Further work found that there was another such sign on the back of the house. Johnson found out his house was actually built in 1912, and was a grocery store on the next lot over. In 1915, it was moved to its present location and converted into a house. 

Johnson wants to keep the historic signs, displaying the ad on the front of the house, and covering it on the south facing back side to protect it from the sun. He is working with the Minnesota Historical Society and General Mills, owners of the iconic Minneapolis Gold Medal Flour brand, to make it happen. See more pictures in this post. -via reddit 

When a museum is online, that means it's not only free, but accessible to people all over the world. That's what MOBOTOYS is. Check out the extensive collection of 20th century toys that move, light up, and play music or speak, thanks to the household batteries that became available around the turn of the century. These toys highlight the intricacies of mechanical design, and range from simple cars that go and animals that bang drums to a full telephone switchboard with an operator plugging calls through. Each exhibit has photographs, packaging details (when available), the toy's history and provenance, and a video to show how it works. Many of the videos have a closeup view of the mechanics at work inside. 

The museum is operated by Kelly Kegley, who takes his rather flamboyant ride out in Seattle "just to have fun and make people smile." The toys are from his private collection. -via Metafilter 

This is a real intercollegiate soccer tournament, but instead of athletes, the schools deploy their robotics teams. The ROBO League Football Tournament was held in Beijing on June 28th. The 3-on-3 game above is between Tsinghua University and the Beijing Information & Science Technology University. The robots, built by Booster Robotics, seem a little hesitant, like they are nervous playing in front of a crowd. When the referees appear, you notice the robots are only three feet tall, and it then makes sense- they are playing as children! Or at least that's what they look like to us. They make goals, but there is no celebrating, no swinging kicks with followthrough, and barely any defense. The players spend their time and effort trying to identify the ball and follow it without falling down. There are no Terminators here. 

In previous robotics soccer games, the robots were guided by remote control. Here, remote control is disabled when the players take the field. Their movements are all programmed by artificial intelligence, which is where the real competition between the teams comes in. This video is just the highlights; you can see more and longer videos at Laughing Squid. 

British author Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) is perhaps most famous for his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray and his play The Importance of Being Earnest. Hugely popular but controversial in Victorian society, Wilde's career and reputation collapsed when he was convicted of gross indecency in 1895 and sentenced to two years in prison. He died in poverty three years after his release.

The Guardian reports that when Wilde was convicted the Board of Trustees of the British Library, then known as the British Museum Reading Room, revoked Wilde's access to that celebrated nexus of intellectual discourse. On October 16, on the occasion of Wilde's birthday, the British Library will restore Wilde's access--posthumously, of course.

-via reddit

If someone were to ask you what Superman stands for, what would you say?

Truth and justice.
Truth, justice, and freedom.
Truth, justice, and the American way.
Truth, justice and other stuff.
Truth, justice and peace for all mankind.
Truth, justice and a better tomorrow.

This is not a poll, and it's actually a trick question. The fact is that every one of those phrases has been associated with Superman at one time or another. The phrase "truth, justice, and the American way" is the one we are most likely to recall, as it was in the opening of the 1950s TV show starring George Reeves. It was coined in 1942, years after the Man of Steel's debut, to reflect America's entry into World War II. But it was never used in comic books until 1991. Read how Superman's motto has evolved over his 87 years (although he still doesn't look a day over 30) at Smithsonian.