At some point, we were all gullible children. When I was about 4 years old, I was led to believe that my cousin's doll was like the possessed one from the movies (Chucky), and I couldn't use the bathroom for a time because they put it in front of the bathroom door. Cracked lists 28 things that their members misunderstood when they were children. Here are some of my favorites from that list.

This first one is fairly harmless. If someone older tells you something, we as children are susceptible to believe them (see anecdote above). In this person's case, I would say no harm, no foul. One might even think that butterflies and moths are one and the same thing, just by how similar they appear. Like a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde kind of thing.

This person shared they used to do one of Goku's moves from Dragon Ball Z. I think that most of us at some point tried to imitate the things that we see on movies or television and thought were cool. The comment was hilarious though, because doing that in the open does look like children performing a ritual, if you can imagine it.

I think everyone can relate to this one about chewing gum. They tell you it will either be left undigested and stay inside forever, or in the case of bubble gum, that it will blow up in your stomach. Still, I think it's quite unhealthy to swallow chewing gum, so we shouldn't do it.

And this one just cracked me up. They do oddly look alike!

(Images credit: Cracked; Artem Kniaz/Unsplash)

It was created by 80s Nostalgia on Threads, which is an Instagram app that somewhat functions like the old Twitter or Tumblr. The game is called "Choose Your Own Threadsventure" and presents to the player an image for a scenario and options to choose from. From there, the player clicks on the link based on the option they chose, and another scenario pops up.

This goes on until the player is able to "solve" the game and get to the finish line. It's a fairly quick and simple game, but there's hope for a more elaborate one as the creator requested for suggestions from other users about the next game to design. Many people seem to have enjoyed the text-based adventure game as the poll resulted in a win for "another text game" to be made.

It has been three weeks since the first game was released and the creator has only started to gather suggestions a day ago, so it might be a while before the next game comes out. But this might actually turn into a really nice project. On another note, 80s Nostalgia is actually a website from the 80s that's still live to this day. -via Laughing Squid

(Image credit: 80s Nostalgia/Threads)

It's not really a competition, more like a caveat about the creatures that pose a threat to humans still. We're not including bacteria or viruses here, but there are several on this list that carry those organisms that cause deadly diseases. Stats Panda has conveniently provided us with an infographic summarizing the data from World Atlas.

Mosquitoes are still the deadliest creatures to human beings, with an average of 1 million human deaths caused each year. Of course, with the many diseases that different types of mosquitoes bring, it's no wonder why. Dengue fever is perhaps the most common one where I live, but mosquitoes also bring malaria, which is estimated to cause at least 500,000 deaths each year. There's also Zika, chikungunya, and lymphatic filariasis.

The next on the list, unsurprisingly, are humans. We won't get much into this as we know how humans can be. Then, there are snakes with 50,000 deaths caused per year. Despite the presence of antivenom, snake bits have still caused many fatalities especially in rural areas, whose remote locations prevent them from gaining access to medical facilities.

Number four is quite a surprising one: dogs. Rabies are the main cause. Fifth is a tie between two nasty bugs - the tsetse flies and assassin bugs - and a snail.

Usually, flies don't bite. But the tsetse, which means "fly" in Tswana, a Bantu language of southern Africa, actually bites and causes African trypanosomiasis, or the sleeping sickness disease. And, the assassin bug, which just from the name should send tingles down our spines, causes the Chagas disease or also called American trypanosomiasis. Freshwater snails, on the other hand, carry parasites that cause schistosomiasis.

At the bottom of the list are sharks which kill an average of 10 people per year. -via Digg

(Image credit: Stats Panda/Instagram, Substack)

Since the advent of herbicides in the 1940s, many farmers have opted to use chemicals to ward pests off of their crops. Nowadays, we know the harmful effects of herbicides to our health. But, nobody wants to go back to the labor-intensive and grueling method of hand-weeding because it's too tedious and time-consuming, not to mention, agonizing for farmers to do. There's a new alternative which solves these problems: robots.

Manufacturers from Denmark and the United States have shipped several of their farming droids to fields in Australia to help them removing the weeds around their crops. They are designed to cut off the weeds using knives and wires, with the help of GPS and cameras to direct them where to go.

Qualipac, a farming enterprise with several locations in Queensland, Australia, has recently imported the machines because they wanted to cut down on herbicide use, as well as reducing their spending on weed control. Troy Qualischefski, the owner and director of Qualipac, says these robots will help them do the trick.

Currently, they are testing out two robots: the FarmDroid FD20 from Denmark and the Stout Smart Cultivator from the US. The difference between the two is that the Danish robot is a self-driving robot that weeds and seeds using GPS, while the American one is attached to a tractor and does the weeding through cameras and AI.

You might be thinking, how do these robots distinguish between weeds and crops? Sal Espinoza of Stout answers that by saying that these machines were trained to understand the different varieties of crops they will see on the field. So, even if you were to put a bowl of salad in front of it, it would recognize that as lettuce.

Of course, at the moment, these farmbots will not completely eliminate herbicide use. But, in time, companies like Stout and Hort Innovation hope that these new technologies will reduce the industry's reliance on chemicals to almost zero. -via MetaFilter

(Image credit: Swarm Farm Robotics)

It's common among Christians to include a nativity scene in their Christmas decorations, depicting Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus. Many also include the shepherds, the three wise men, and/or an angel, along with camels and livestock. While the basics are there, thesenativity sets aren't the same all over the world. In some Latin American countries, it's not unusual to see devils included in a nativity scene, representing the demons who tried to keep the shepherds from reaching the Christ child. In Scandinavia, various trolls and folklore fairies find their way into the scene, depending on the local lore. Amish nativity scenes are presented without faces, for traditional religious reasons. Read about all these at Atlas Obscura.

Not included in the article (but it should have been) are the caganers of Catalonia in Spain. No one knows how that tradition started.

(Image source: Courtesy The Marian Library, University of Dayton)

This is the image that captured photographer Tara Lilly the title of International Wedding Photographer of the Year for 2023. Mikaela and Mitch got married in the great outdoors of Whistler, British Columbia. A bird called the whiskey jack landed on Mikaela's head just as Mitch was beginning to say his vows. She cried, "I'm Snow White!" and the picture was taken. The serendipitous moment was not planned, but the photo was nevertheless beautifully shot. A good time was had by all.

The winners in the various category competitions are also stunning, and reflect a real sense of adventure among brides and grooms. One couple are both marine biologists, and had portraits made underwater. Another couple climbed a sheer rock face in formal wear, and still another couple went rappelling at night to capture the stars behind them. And the photographers went along. See the winners in the various categories in this gallery, and click through to see the finalists for those categories.  -via Nag on the Lake

Ulysses S. Grant led the Union Army to victory in the Civil war, and later became president. Grant was raised in an abolitionist family, but wasn't forced to attend church and remained mostly apolitical before the war. That background didn't seem to be at all strained when he married Julia Dent, who was a slave owner like her father before her, in 1848. Since Julia was a 19th-century woman, that meant that U.S. Grant was technically a slave owner. No matter who officially "owned" a household of enslaved people, Grant benefitted from their labor at his father-in-law's farm called White Haven in Missouri, where the family lived. Grant had no particular qualms against the institution of slavery, up until late in the war, when he saw it was a dying institution.  

The people that Julia kept as slaves were under conflicting legal status. The Emancipation Proclamation was issued in 1863, but it only pertained to enslaved people in the Confederate states. Slave states like Missouri and Kentucky that remained in the Union were not included. Julia was under the impression that they had been freed as well, but kept them with her anyway. The enslaved people were apparently under the impression they were still enslaved. In 1864, Julia's longtime nursemaid, Jules, disappeared while traveling with Julia in Kentucky, and crossed the icy Ohio River into Indiana and freedom. The Grant's slaveholding days were numbered. Read about U.S. Grant, his wife Julia, and the people they enslaved at Smithsonian.

That was the question posed by an anonymous reader to the folks at Grammarphobia. This person noticed how, in old movies (pre-1950s), people used to say that they would be stopping at a hotel, but these days, we would usually say that we will be staying at a hotel. So, he sent in the question.

Apparently, the use of "stopping" has not yet been phased out as the team at Grammarphobia found someone who had actually used the expression quite recently. A British tourist had posted something to that effect on TripAdvisor. It's not grammatically incorrect, just unusual perhaps these days.

According to their research, the usage of both expressions were fairly equal until the 1940s, when "staying" saw more widespread usage. Why that was the case was perhaps out of the scope of the question, but one can only surmise that "stopping" just doesn't have the same feel as "staying" does.

However, there was an article in The New York Times which used "stopping" to mean "staying" but as a pun. It read, "Stopping at the Savoy", which was a reference to Edgar Sampson's "Stompin' at the Savoy". Language is quite fluid, and it changes along with those who use it. Maybe the expression just fell out of use. -via Strange Co

(Image credit: Ishan/Unsplash)

I'm sure everybody has at least watched a video or read an article about tips on getting good sleep, or advice on how to cure insomnia. I read articles which talked about tricks that supposedly helped anyone to sleep anytime anywhere. It's something that the military used, according to those articles. But what exactly does science say about good sleep and how to get it? Well, theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder gives us a rundown in the video above.

There are a few myths that we need to bust about getting good sleep or being able to fall asleep. The fact is there's no trick, hack, or shortcut to sleeping. There's no sleeping position, stress point, nerve ending, or whatever that could induce sleeping faster or more effectively. There's just no scientific evidence to support such claims.

Sleeping pills and melatonin might work but they're only temporary. There's still no substitute for natural sleep. The fact of the matter is our lifestyle, habits, and environment are the major contributing factors to whether we get good sleep or not.

Furthermore, although it is often recommended that we get, on average, eight hours of sleep each day, the amount of sleep necessary to function properly is different from person to person, as is the method of getting to sleep.

Perhaps one key advice I took from the video is that, when you find that you can't sleep, toughing it out and staying in bed is not the best way to address it. Getting out of bed might be more beneficial in inducing you to fall asleep. That and more dos and don'ts of good sleep from Back Reaction.

(Video credit: Sabine Hossenfelder/Youtube)

Public toilets often have a negative reputation of being dingy and uncomfortable. But there are some places in the world where the condition of public toilets are decent and acceptable. And then there are public toilets with majestic views of surrounding nature and an aesthetically appealing architectural design that will just leave you in awe. Norway's Uredd Rest Area tops that list.

Ureddplassen, as it is known locally, is located near the coast, with scenic views of the Fugleøya Island and the Lofoten Islands across the open sea. The Norwegian government strategically placed it along the Norwegian Scenic Route Helgelandskysten and has become a landmark for people to take a rest stop and enjoy the beauty of nature while on the road.

Apart from the sleek wave-like (or to some eyes, mammoth-like) design, marble benches have also been placed just outside and one can even come closer to the water through some amphitheater steps built nearby. The name Uredd had been inspired by the Norwegian "Uredd" submarine in World War II, which means "fearless". There's also a WWII memorial at the site, to remember the 42 sailors who lost their lives during the war. -via Everlasting Blort

(Video credit: Atlas Obscura)

Stanley Schtinter, an artist and the author of a new book titled Last Movies, was curious to find out what film famous people had seen before they died. What spurred this project on was Schtinter's fascination about the former Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, who had been assassinated in 1986 as he was leaving a movie theater in Stockholm. He watched The Mozart Brothers by Suzanne Osten, who had coincidentally offered Palme a role in the film.

It was these coincidences perhaps, that led Schtinter down this path. For example, what ties JFK and Elvis Presley together? Well, the book answers that. Apparently, they both saw a Bond film before their unfortunate deaths. JFK watched From Russia With Love, while Elvis Presley watched The Spy Who Loved Me.

Another fascinating but eerie coincidence recorded in the book is the film that director Rainer Werner Fassbinder saw. It was 20,000 Years in Sing Sing. Coincidentally, the day he died was the same date shown on a telegram in the film. It was dated June 10, 1932 and Fassbinder died June 10, 1982.

Other famous people included in the book were Franz Kafka, Charlie Chaplin, and Stanley Kubrick. They too have an unseeming connection which the book unfurled. Kafka watched Chaplin's The Kid, and Chaplin watched Kubrick's Barry Lyndon before he died. Finally, Kubrick watched a trailer of his own film, Eyes Wide Shut.

The book has not yet hit the shelves but preorders are currently being accepted. -via Nag on the Lake

(Image credit: Mason Kimbarovsky/Unsplash)

Benjamin Breen of Res Obscura has been researching the different uses of AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude (from Anthropic), and as an enthusiast of demonology manuals, he decided to challenge the LLMs to translate a page out of the 16th century book titled Disquisitionum Magicarum Libri Sex (lit. "Book Six of the Discourse on Magic") by Jesuit theologian Martin Delrio.

He made the endeavor much easier on himself by simply feeding the AI with an OCR-rendered image to extract the text and copied that onto the prompt. What follows is a rough translation of the passage, but intelligible to a certain extent. It may not be accurate but it can aid researchers, for example, in getting a quick idea of the essence of materials which they cannot translate on their own.

Claude apparently does a better job at translating than ChatGPT. However, he still concludes the same thing many others have said before, AI tools are merely tools and not replacements. What they can do is simply make the process faster and more efficient for us who would rather put our time and effort into more critical aspects of our work.

(Image credit: Bavarian State Library/Google Books)

Since Spotify has this annual tradition of curating the top songs that users have played throughout the year, and presenting it in a "Best Of" collection format, they have transformed the data they have collected into an interactive map which shows you which songs are the most played songs in different cities around the world. They call it Wrapped Mapped.

Each year, Spotify summarizes users' listening activity which they can share with other people. Users can also check to see if their favorite songs and artists have made it onto the most streamed list on Spotify.

With Wrapped Mapped, the idea is that the music we listen to can sometimes be shaped by the communities where we belong. This map enables users to check what music trends are happening in places outside of their local communities. Perhaps, they might find other people who share the same music interests in the other side of the world. Thus, allowing them to become connected through their love of a particular song or artist.

Not all cities are included on the map. Spotify lists the top five songs in most of the largest cities in the US, and for other parts of the world, they simply collate data for whole countries.

For example, in Los Angeles, Eslabon Armado and Peso Pluma's Ella Baila Sola tops the list with SZA's Kill Bill closely following. On the other hand, the UK has Dave and Central Cee's Sprinter at the number one spot, while Miley Cyrus' Flowers comes in second. It may not be an exhaustive list, but it's a good start if Spotify is planning to make it an annual thing as well. It's also a fun way to browse new music or to see which songs and artists were the most streamed in various parts of the world. -via Google Maps Mania

(Image credit: Spotify)

Even if you've never seen the holiday staple The Nutcracker, you recognize the music by Tchaikovsky. Every community that stages the ballet gives an opportunity to dozens of young dancers to perform on stage with real ballet dancers. But the production went through some hard times when it was new. The story is based on a rather dark tale written by E.T.A. Hoffmann in 1816. Some of the more tragic and thought-provoking details were dropped before the story became a ballet. Tchaikovsky hated composing the music. He was constrained by the choreographer's demands and considered the work dull. When the ballet debuted in 1892, it got mixed reviews from critics and audience members. The story was nonsensical, and there were too many children in it! But over the years, people came around, and those things became a big part of its charm. Read some facts about the history of The Nutcracker at Mental Floss.

When you watch a movie in a language you don't speak, do you look for a dubbed version, or do you turn on the subtitles? It makes a difference, because teams who dub movies into another language translate it completely separately from the teams who type up subtitles, which are also used as closed captions. Dialogue in dubbed movies makes an attempt to match the lip movements of the actors. Or sometimes they don't try all that hard, as you've no doubt noticed in some really cheaply made films. And then there's the problem of translating puns, which aren't funny if you just interpret it word by word, or even grammatically, if the context doesn't make sense in another culture. If you listen to a dubbed movie and turn on the captions, too, you might notice a lot of differences, which will cause you to lose the plot quickly. The last minute of this video is an ad.