Christina Meador was to be the maid of honor at her sister's wedding. The bride, Deanna Adams, told her she could wear anything she wanted to. So she showed up to the nuptials in a T-rex costume!

“When you’re maid of honor and told you can wear anything you choose … I regret nothing,” wrote Christina Meador alongside a Facebook photo of her wearing a T-Rex costume last month.

The photo — which shows her towering over the bridal party in the costume — has since gone viral with more than 35,000 shares on social media.

Adams didn't mind, and said she meant it when she said Meador could wear anything she wanted. A good time was had by all. -via Fark

(Image source: Christina A. Meador)

Something went wrong when downloading your requested image file. The perfect duplicate of one of the ornate and richly-detailed still lives of the Dutch masters was garbled in transmission.

This is the work of Filipino artist Olan Ventura. It's one of several acrylic paintings that tweak a classical style for a digital age. He perfectly shapes and blends his paints so that subjects appear to dissolve into incoherence.

-via Colossal | Photo Yavuz Gallery

Before Stephen King's 1986 novel It was a film in 2017, it was a TV miniseries in 1990. Those who were born later and saw It on home video probably never realized it was full of big name TV stars of the day. Anyway, the theatrical film released a couple of years ago had the advantage of an R rating and digital special effects, so even though the 1990 version was a hit that became a classic, it suffers by comparison, as you'll see in this Honest Trailer.

Now that DNA analysis of long-dead animals is possible, scientists found that fossils of bison that have been collected turn out to be about 75% male. A majority of males has been found in fossils of mammoths and brown bears as well. Why is that? Before reading the article, I came up with two possibilities, extrapolated from what I know of humans. First, young males tend to take more risks, and would be more likely to end up as young healthy fossil specimens. Second, I don't know if osteoporosis was a thing among prehistoric animals, but if so, it could have rendered female bones less likely to be preserved. The first idea occurred to the scientists studying the anomaly.

Bison herds usually consist of one dominant male surrounded by a gaggle of females. Less dominant males leave the herd to find a herd of their own or form bachelor groups.

“A lot of those males are going to be roaming around the landscape and they're going to do silly stuff. They have on average more dangerous behaviours or they would be exposed to more predators,” says Llamas.

The upshot of these foolhardy males galumphing all over the place is that when palaeontologists come along millennia later looking for fossils, the chance of finding a male is greater.

On the other hand, when you find a female, it’s likely to be clustered with other females. The research team identified just a handful of such sites.

The research team posed other possibilities, some having to do with math, but osteoporosis is not mentioned. While there is no definitive answer yet, you can read about the research at Cosmos magazine. -via Damn Interesting

(Image credit: Stefan Didam)

An attempt to trap a mouse goes horribly wrong.

If California has In-n-Out, and New York has Shake Shack, then the Lone Star State, Texas, has Whataburger. Thanks to a video that appeared on Facebook this weekend, however, you might want to think twice before going to the burger chain to eat their midnight bacon and cheese Whataburger with fries.

In the video, a person behind the counter begins turning over the containers in an attempt to trap the mouse. But mice, as you might know if you've ever had one, are sneaky, and instead of being caught, the mouse takes a big, brave leap… straight into the deep fryer. Screams of "oh my god" and "deep-fried rat!" follow. The people behind the counter talk about trying to scoop out the mouse, but a Whataburger employee doesn't seem to know how to turn the fryer off.

Lewis's video has gone fully viral, having earned over 2 million views on Facebook, plus reposts on Twitter and various news publications. "The entire restaurant has since been cleaned and sanitized. We addressed this situation as quickly as possible, reinforcing procedures with our Family Members," Whataburger wrote in a statement, per KVUE. "While we’ll continue to be very diligent, it’s important to know there was no history of this type incident at this unit and there is no ongoing issue."

The Bastrop branch was pest control notified and temporarily closed, but it has since been re-opened.

(Image Credit: Brushawn Lewis/ Facebook)

Over 200 people across the U.S have come down with a mysterious illness that seems to be linked with vaping. Perhaps it is our body’s way of telling us the potential serious health risks of using e-cigarettes.

As of August 27, there were 215 cases of severe respiratory disease in 25 states since late June, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported Friday. All patients reported using e-cigarette products. But while officials believe their illness is associated with vaping, they haven’t been able to single out which ingredient or device may be causing the problem.

So far, the patients have a few things in common. They suffered from respiratory symptoms, including coughing, shortness of breath, chest pain, and difficulty breathing. Some have gotten seriously ill, even winding up in intensive care units on oxygen support through ventilators or intubation. Most are in their late teens and 20s with no underlying health issues. Many cases also involved vaping THC-containing liquids (though it’s not clear whether that was from cannabis e-cigs or nicotine e-cigs), and the CDC singled out black market products as another potential commonality.

More details of this news over at Vox.

(Image Credit: lindsayfox/ Pixabay)

Social network company Facebook will no longer scan the faces of new users by default. Facebook will now ask for permission first. Existing users of the site who did not get the site’s face recognition system will be alerted about it.

Facebook notes: “If you do not currently have the face recognition setting and do nothing, we will not use face recognition to recognize you or suggest tags.” In short, it’s not on by default for these users. Good!

Despite the social network company’s efforts to convey its updated policy clearly, however, there are still some users who may be left uninformed.

For those users, Facebook’s face recognition feature may be enabled without them realizing it. And that’s not good, because Facebook’s face recognition practices have bothered some privacy-conscious users…

Facebook’s interest in scanning faces—with and without asking for permission first—goes way back. The technology originally appeared at the end of 2010 as Tag Suggestions. The tag suggestions feature was turned on by default for users in most countries, and if you never turned it off manually, then its broader replacement—the face recognition option—may be (or has already been) enabled for you as well.

So why isn’t Facebook just asking every user explicitly, now, if they want the feature on or off? A spokesperson told Fast Company, “In the US and [other countries] where Tag Suggestions was available, we respected people’s Tag Suggestions settings choice.”

Have you turned your face recognitions off? I believe it’s time we did.

(Image Credit: Simon/ Pixabay)

You should bookmark the Trebek Affirmation Soundboard, because it's just what you need when things haven't been going right, or you're a little down and need a pick-me-up. Alex Trebek, the voice of authority and the host of Jeopardy! is there to give you a little boost. Just choose your topic and select your amount, and let Trebek tell you what you need to hear. -via Metafilter

We've shown you some strange and even dangerous local festivals from around the world, but this one takes the cake. In the town of Nejapa in El Salvador, people celebrate Bolas de Fuego every August 31st by flinging fireballs at each other!

The Fireball Festival commemorates a landmark volcanic eruption in 1922, which, according to legend, was actually a battle between local patron saint San Jeronimo and the Devil. As a tribute to this divine clash between good and evil, Nejapa becomes an unregulated battleground for two warring groups, who marinate balls of cloth in kerosene, light them on fire, and hurl them at one another at close range while flanking crowds cheer them on.

The participants wear gloves and clothing soaked in water. Bystanders are encouraged to wear wet clothing and carry water as well, since someone always gets hurt. -via Kottke

Five hundred years ago, chocolate first arrived in the European shores in the form of cocoa beans. After pillaging the Mayan and the Aztec empires of Central America, where the cocoa beans have been cultivated and used to create various forms of chocolate for over 3,000 years, Hernan Cortes and his conquistadors brought the spiced treat with them over to the ports of Spain.

In honor of this trans-Atlantic transfer, the Barcelona Confectionery Guild has set up the Chocolate Museum to tell the story of chocolate and its modernization. Although the history section of the museum is in no way perfect, visitors get a general trajectory of chocolate’s evolution, moving from bitter water to the stunningly detailed sculptures that fill the museum. By using the statues to visibly depict modern chocolate innovation, the arc of the history of chocolate feels fairly complete.

Upon entrance to the museum, guests are greeted by a massive white chocolate ape named Snowy, along with their own chocolate bar as part of their admission. As they munch on the confectioner’s chocolate, guests walk past glass-encased sculptures made entirely of chocolate. The sculptures include some famous cultural icons such as Minnie Mouse and Louis Armstrong. However, the bulk of work focuses on Spanish architecture, proudly featuring Sagrada Familia, one of Gaudi’s famous houses, and creatures from Parc Guell.

What a sweet way to tell history!

(Image Credit: SpirosK / Flickr / Atlas Obscura)

A new case report came out this week with news of a UK teenager having a diet of potato chips and other junk foods, which led to very undesirable health consequences. Doctors have described how the teen’s disordered “fussy” eating “led to chronic nutritional deficiencies that left him with a variety of symptoms, including permanent partial blindness.”

According to the case report, published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine, the boy had visited his family doctor at age 14 with complaints of fatigue. He seemed otherwise healthy and wasn’t taking any medications, but he described himself as a “fussy eater” and tests showed that he was low in vitamin B12 and had anemia. He was prescribed injections of B12 and was given advice on how to eat a proper diet.

A year later, though, he developed hearing loss and was sent to another doctor. Soon after, he started having vision problems as well. But tests at the time, including brain scans and standard eye exams, didn’t reveal any underlying physical causes. Over the next two years, his vision continued to worsen, and by the time he saw an eye specialist, he was diagnosed with damage to his optic nerves.

Again, tests looking for a possible explanation like a hereditary disease came up short—but a more sensitive test found that he was still low in vitamin B12. And when they asked about his diet, he revealed that since he was a kid in grade school, he had flat out avoided foods with “certain textures” and almost exclusively ate chips, white bread, processed ham and sausage; he had also stopped taking vitamin B12 shots. Further tests showed that he was deficient in copper, selenium, and vitamin D too, and his bones were unusually weak with low mineral density.

Check out more details about this saddening news over at Gizmodo.

What are your thoughts on this one?

(Image Credit: FotoshopTofs/ Pixabay)

#WATCH Himachal Pradesh: A car crosses a makeshift bridge made of iron poles after heavy rainfall in the region damaged the road, in Drekari area of Chamba district. (22-08) pic.twitter.com/3XrHekeKqc

— ANI (@ANI) August 26, 2019

No road? No problem!

Watch how this daredevil Indian driver drove his car across a washed-out road in Himachal Pradesh, northern India, using iron poles that were laid out and taped together. Nerves of steel or simply madness?

China is currently experiencing its lowest marriage rate in 11 years due to lack of interest in marriage among the young people, especially women. Aside from this, there is a huge imbalance between the sexes, men being 30M more than the population of women. And most women focus more on their careers than building families.

In 2015, the government ended its decades-long one-child-only policy after realizing that a marriageless and childless society will not sustain the People’s Republic. In line with this is the government’s effort to become more intentional in promoting marriage among the citizens. They launched a matchmaking train to help young men and women fall in love.

Last August 10, there were 1,000 singles that boarded the train. Ice breakers and fun activities during the trip helped them to know each other better, with the goal of developing romantic relationships.

"These activities are more creative than matchmaking. The train is like a bridge, bringing people from different places together, to get to know each other during the journey," said Huang Song, one of the participants on the Love-Pursuit Train. "Even if you don't find the right one for you, you can still make a lot of friends on the train."

So far, the love train is working and the two-day train trip has brought together hundreds of people, and some even got married.

Photo by China Daily

In a society where access and affordability of medicines are real challenges, can biohackers be considered as “heroes” for social justice in health? Are there other creative solutions?

This article discusses the reality of how extremely expensive medical research and clinical trials are. It also introduces how biohackers, a group of independent biologists, are proudly pirating a cheap version of a million-dollar gene therapy. We are now forcibly faced with the question: are they medicine’s Robin Hood or a threat to safety? What about concerns regarding Bioethics?

Read more about this pressing concern at Technology Review.

Image Credit: Bruceblaus / Victor Tangermann

Some people call it “August Anxiety”, some call it “Summertime Sadness” - this feeling of real sadness and uneasiness in anticipation of the end of summer is real and is felt by many. August is the last third of summer, and we really don’t want to curl up into a ball of anxiety when we can enjoy summer to its fullest. Debra Kissen, PhD, explains to Refinery29 that there are things that we can do to re-wire our brain to handle August differently: 

The core skill that you need to develop in order to combat August anxiety is simply mindfulness, she says.  "Gently notice that thought of future distress, and without judgment, just return back to the present moment," 

It's also worthwhile to find ways to be present, whether that's spending time in nature or literally just watching TV without scrolling your phone at the same time. "It's so much harder and harder to be present, because real-life distractions keep injecting themselves," Dr. Kissen says. "Our minds are so used to being given this pace of information that it doesn’t know how to slow down." And if that still doesn't help, the next best thing you can do for the rest of the month is commiserate with other people and blast the Lana Del Ray.

image credit: via wikimedia commons