Depending on a country's estate laws, a person who dies intestate will usually have their properties inherited by the closest of kin. So, someone who dies without children will have their property given to the spouse, parents, or the nearest relative. However, the intestacy rules in England and Wales are different due to the rules set out in the Administration of Estates Act 1925 and the legal principle of bona vacantia.

Bona vacantia simply means "ownerless goods", which is what happens to a person's estate if they die without a will, and without any close kin. Relatives who are further away than first cousins cannot be considered heirs. So, in England and Wales, the law states that the bona vacantia part of an intestate person's estate will go to the crown.

Now, here's where things are a bit more interesting with King Charles III. Usually, the Treasury solicitor handles the collection of these estates. However, there is a stipulation under the Administration of Estates Act 1925 that states that the estates of residents of County Palatine in Lancaster, which includes part of northern England, shall be inherited by the Duke of Lancaster, who is currently King Charles III.

The same thing is true for the county of Cornwall, the estates of which pass on to the Duke of Cornwall, who is coincidentally also the Prince of Wales, Prince William.

Generally, the heirless estates of Lancashire and Cornwall would go to charity, but some are questioning whether this rule is fair in the first place. While the majority of England's heirless estates goes to the state, those in the two duchies above go directly to King Charles and Prince William. So, in the public's best interest, it would be best to write a will while they're ahead.

(Image credit: Dan/Unsplash)

We are often amazed when we watch people achieve extraordinary feats on television, particularly those who win large prizes on game shows by exhibiting unbelievable breadth of knowledge or skill. However, it is equally heartbreaking to find out that some of those shows are actually rigged.

In the back of our minds, we sometimes wonder whether reality shows are candid or scripted. Oftentimes, we exercise a healthy dose of skepticism toward these shows as we know how studios and networks need good ratings to get sponsorships and advertising revenues.

But for brief moments, there's a suspension of disbelief that occurs as we watch these reality shows, and we think maybe these are real. There has been a history of cheating or rigging in game shows, starting with the scandals around Charles van Doren and the game show Twenty One.

This prompted an intervention by the FCC and the passing of a law by Congress that prohibited networks from fixing outcomes on game shows. That resulted in ratings plummeting and the general public distrust of game shows, until a renaissance brought about by shows like Survivor in the 2000s. But even then, game shows seemed to have reverted to their old rigging ways.

Now, although allegations had surfaced about how Survivor producers had interfered in the first season of the show, and that they approached contestants about whom to vote, no investigations had been made by the FCC as the charges were dropped and the two parties involved reached a private settlement.

Meanwhile, another show, Our Little Genius, has been alleged of rigging as well, but producers seem to be preempting any investigation from being done by simply not airing episodes. Will the FCC once again intervene?

(Video credit: Vox)

At some point in human history, clothes began to become layered, with undergarments as the base covering and other types of clothes on top of them. Depending on the era, societies and cultures had their own conventions and fashion trends when it came to the style and design of their underwear.

The earliest evidence that people had worn underwear seem to be that of the Badarian culture who had lived from around 5000 to 4000 BC. They had used linen and leather as materials, with linen being typically used in daily life, and leather being used by women during their period.

Ancient Romans also used underwear, and what type of underwear they wore seemed to indicate their social status. Loincloths were either made of wool or silk, depending on a person's class. Romans would wear what is called a subligaculum, like a pair of shorts, underneath their togas, while women would also wear a strophium, the ancient Roman equivalent of a bra.

In the Middle Ages, those loincloths evolved into a pair of pants called braies, which had a flap called a codpiece, which is like a zipper during those days. Apart from that, they would wear a chemise, an undershirt worn by both men and women, and tucked either into the men's braies or the women's petticoats.

From the 19th century on, underwear designs had begun to veer toward what we have today, as the availability of cotton made mass production much easier. In 1913, the first modern bra was invented by Mary Phelps Jacob and in 1935, the first jockey briefs were sold by Coopers Inc.

For more details on how underwear evolved throughout history, check it out on The Collector.

(Image credit: Esteban Bernal/Unsplash)

What do you call someone from Wyoming? I mean, just for the fact that they are from Wyoming? They are a Wyomingite, which is new to me. The term that we give to people from a certain place is called a demonym. It has nothing to do with demons, but is a combination of deme, the root of demographic, and nym, meaning name. Massachusettsan and Connecticuter were new to me also, possibly because I've never been to those states. See the map larger here. Can you spot the one state whose demonym has nothing to do with the name of the state? The demonyms are taken from Wikipedia's List of demonyms for US states and territories. Aside from the official demonyms, the list also has common nicknames for those people, and some interesting information. For example, we often say Hawaiian when we mean someone from Hawaii, but that word is reserved for people of Native Hawaiian descent, while the official demonym for someone from Hawaii is Hawaii Resident. -via TYWKIWDBI

(Image credit: HMElza)

I honestly thought we'd settled this two years ago, but apparently people are still arguing about whether Die Hard should be classified as a Christmas movie. I mean really, if Miracle on 34th Street can be a Thanksgiving movie, a Christmas movie, and a courtroom drama all at once, why can't Die Hard be a Christmas film and an action movie? Sure, it's a matter of opinion, but those who think it's not a Christmas movie are wrong.

Disney+ UK recruited Alfie Boe and The Kingdom Choir to sing an anthem explaining all the reasons why Die Hard should be part of our Christmas movie marathons from now until the end of time. It is set to the tune of "Ode to Joy" from Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 9. -via Geeks Are Sexy

Het is weer #Sintpannekoek! pic.twitter.com/15ykTgOl1V

— Marijke (@Rijkie87) November 29, 2015

If you were in the Netherlands two days ago, you may have noticed that some people wore pancakes on their heads, but you sensibly decided not to get involved and instead that nothing was out of the ordinary.

Now, back in the safety of Not the Netherlands, you can find out why the Dutch were engaging in this practice. The Independent explains that November 29 is Saint Pancake (Sint Pannekoek) Day.

This is a fairly recent tradition that dates back to only 1986, when cartoonist Jan Kruis published a comic of a character described as a Twelfth Century monk who came to be known as Saint Pancake. On his feast day, celebrants wear pancakes on their heads.

Since that time, Dutch fans of the comic have worn pancakes on their heads on November 29, and the practice has become a tradition across the country.

-via Dave Barry

illusory yellow pic.twitter.com/xIxX6eHMcq

— Akiyoshi Kitaoka (@AkiyoshiKitaoka) November 30, 2023

Japanese experimental psychologist Akiyoshi Kitaoka (previously at Neatorama) consistently fools our eyes with his optical illusions. In this graphic, you see three circles: cyan, magenta, and yellow. But there is no yellow. You can zoom in or use an eyedropper tool to check, but Nicolas Jacob already did that for us.  

What we perceive as a yellow circle are white stripes, the same as in the background of the graphic. What's different is that the yellow circle area is made up of black stripes instead of the blue stripes that the rest of the graphic has. In subtractive color mixing, the perception of color is produced by the absorption of light by other colors. Yellow is produced by the absence of blue, so the black and white stripes on a field that is otherwise blue-striped produces the illusion of yellow. Notice the green area of overlap is made of cyan and black. Color is in the eye of the beholder. Or is it? -via Boing Boing 

In 2015, the world went crazy for Mad Max: Fury Road. The fourth film in the Mad Max franchise was nominated for ten Academy Awards and won six. Nine years later, we get another look at George Miller's post-apocalyptic world with Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. It's a prequel that tells the origin story of Imperator Furiosa, this time played by Anya Taylor-Joy. Chris Hemsworth co-stars. The movie is directed by George Miller, with several of his collaborators from Fury Road returning for the prequel.

You might be surprised that the kidnapping of young Furiosa is set at 45 years after the collapse, years before she meets Max, who was a young adult during the collapse. But considering how this world has been altered and retconned since the first Mad Max movie in 1979, you shouldn't think about it too much. Like Fury Road, Furiosa tells a story that has nothing to do with the real world. Miller is still working on another sequel centered around Mad Max himself. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga will open on May 23rd in Australia and May 24th in the US. It will also be shown in IMAX theaters. -via Metafilter

Do you ever find yourself gesturing with your hands as you talk on the phone to someone who can't see you? It seems so natural that we don't think about it. Is that something we learned, or something that just comes with language? Lauren Gawne is a linguist who studies gestures in different cultures. She tells us that people who have never been able to see use gestures when they speak, and will gesture even when speaking to another blind person.

Further, blind people will use the same kinds of gestures that other people with the same language use.  but that doesn't always work across different languages. A study of blind people who speak English or Turkish showed that speakers of both languages use the same gestures that sighted people speaking the same language use, but the gestures that matched other English speakers are not the same gestures that (blind and sighted) people speaking Turkish used. Since these gestures were not learned by watching, there must be something about the language that naturally includes gestures. -via Metafilter, where you'll find more links.

(Image credit: Derrick Coetzee)

Every year, Janelle Shane of AI Weirdness tries to get a neural network to generate a new Advent calendar, and every year the latest AI programs show how they do not yet understand Christmas. The last one we posted was in 2021, and you must admit it is getting better, but still hilariously misses the mark. Above is just a portion of the interactive calendar. I don't know why it's labeled 2022; that might be human error. But that error is nothing compared to snov phidde, fendli, and gedowmad.

Shane tried time and time again to get ChatGPT4 and DALL-E3 to cooperate with each other to generate Christmas icons and scenes with labels, with varying results. One attempt gave us something labeled SNO GLOIE, with a picture of a Starbucks holiday cup. A snowflake cookie ornament was labelled GINGERBOMAN, which has to be someone's name. More elaborate Christmas scenes were generated that look nice and Christmassy at first glance, but contains horrors when you take a closer look. See them and more at AI Weirdness.   

The Japanese geisha is an artist and entertainer, but the word does not mean just any artist or entertainer. The culture and profession of geisha is limited to a very strict and meticulous system developed over a couple of hundred years, in which geisha provided entertainment for parties and events for wealthy people who wanted to impress their guests. The misconception of geisha as sex workers came from the aftermath of World War II, when Western soldiers brought much-needed cash to Japan and sex workers passed themselves off as geisha to attract them. That doesn't mean that real geisha weren't mistreated or abused, and indeed they encountered plenty of sexual harassment. It also doesn't mean there weren't some geisha who used sex to enhance their status or enrich themselves, but it wasn't part of the system as intended.

Learning the profession of geisha takes years of strict education and training, which each woman is expected to pay for in full when she begins her career. Each step in the process has its own duties, curriculum, and expectations, as well as rules for her appearance. In the 19th century, families would sell their young daughters to a geisha house at around age six, and the geisha house would become their family as well as their employer. Now, becoming a geisha is voluntary, and training starts at age 15. But the draw is not what it used to be. There are only around a thousand trained geisha left in all of Japan today, where there were once tens of thousands. Read about the system of geisha and how it's changed at History Collection.  -via Nag on the Lake

(Image credit: OSU Special Collections and Archives)  

The former secretary of state Henry Kissinger has recently passed away at the age of 100. Vilified by many but also awarded the Nobel Peace Prize which was jointly offered to him and Lê Đức Thọ for the Paris Peace Accords. However, Lê Đức Thọ declined the award, while Kissinger donated the prize money to charity, and later returned the medal.

Despite the Nobel Peace Prize, many people criticized him and Nixon for protracting the Vietnam War, causing the unnecessary deaths of thousands of Americans. He was also criticized for the bombing of Cambodia which some have attributed as an impetus for the Khmer Rouge's rise to power. He also had a hand in US relations with China, the Soviet Union, Israel, and its neighboring Arab nations.

He has been known as a notorious "ladies' man" being seen with different actresses during his younger days. However, these rumors were later dispelled by people who knew him and were close to him. Later in his life, he managed a global consulting business.

Many still want him to be called to account for actions and decisions during his time as Secretary of State, and he had to be careful about traveling to certain countries so as not to be summoned by judges and asked questions about those policies.

(Image credit: Marsha Miller/Wikimedia Commons)

Caligula was only 25 years old when he became the emperor of Rome, the son of the general and politician Germanicus and Agrippina, the granddaughter of Augustus Caesar. Conflict with Tiberius, Germanicus' uncle, resulted in Caligula being the only male survivor of the family. After Tiberius' death, Caligula ascended the throne.

The annals of history record Caligula as being a madman, and his four-year reign filled with scandalous affairs. However, one perspective suggests that these rumors were mere smear campaigns to discredit the young emperor. Seeing how Caligula was not on good terms with the Senate and the historians who had been part of it, it lends credence to that point of view.

Some of the rumors about Caligula involved an incestuous relationship with one of his sisters, hinted at by the historian Suetonius. However, this rumor had been refuted by other historians like Tacitus and Philo of Alexandria, who shrugged it off as a baseless rumor. Another tall tale was how Caligula supposedly made his horse Incitatus the consul of Rome. But this story may have simply been a prank that the emperor pulled on the Senate to rouse them.

It's possible that the Senate's hatred for Caligula and their authority over writing history made it such that the records showed that Caligula's reign was one of insanity. Furthermore, the rumors about his sexual perversity along with the stories of his madness were a means to show poor government, giving people a reason to depose him.

In the end, Caligula's strained relationship with the Senate became his undoing as they plotted to assassinate him, and succeeded. Afterwards, his uncle, Claudius, was elected by the Praetorian Guard. For more infamous tales about Caligula, check it out on The Collector.

(Image credit: British Museum)

High cholesterol levels can lead to heart disease, stroke, and other chronic ailments which mostly require a lifetime of medication for maintenance. It's costly and very limiting for individuals as someone who has hypercholesterolemia will have to restrict themselves from eating foods that increase levels of bad cholesterol. It's a great piece of news then, that a new clinical trial of a CRISPR-based treatment has been found to successfully cut cholesterol levels by up to 55 percent.

The trial involved ten people who had been determined to be genetically prone to hypercholesterolemia, by infusing the gene editing tools directly into the bloodstream, contrary to other typical CRISPR treatments, wherein scientists extract cells, edit them, and then reinsert them into the patient.

It may sound like a risky procedure, but Verve Therapeutics, the biotech company responsible for the trial, mitigated the risks of side effects by pairing the gene editing tools with nanoparticles. What this new treatment aims to do is to target the liver protein PCSK9 so that LDL levels can be maintained.

Although the results were astonishing, the trial was not without a hitch. One of the participants of the trial died from cardiac arrest. However, a review board indicated that the cause of death was likely due to underlying conditions.

Another patient suffered a heart attack, which might have been due to the treatment. But the patient had not disclosed having intermittent chest pains which would have excluded him from the trial. It's not completely perfect yet, but this first human trial bodes well for the future of CRISPR treatments of hypercholesterolemia, and possibly other conditions like sickle cell disease.

(Image credit: Scientific Animations/Wikimedia Commons)

The invisible hand refers to the market forces that influence behaviors and decisions within a free market economy. It explains how the market moves toward equilibrium, balancing out demand and supply, and how individuals, who are making economic choices in their own interest, are contributing to that effect.

Disney has been struggling recently with poor performances of its latest releases in the box office, with both The Marvels and Wish flopping. How the invisible hand factors into Disney's woes is reflected in a statement out of their annual SEC report saying how the company has been misaligned with the public and consumers' tastes and preferences.

At the end of the day, Disney is a large corporation that seeks to profit from their products, which are primarily driven by the content they create, and how these resonate with consumers. Despite their efforts in trying to jump into the bandwagon, the market doesn't seem to buy into it, and now they are faced with trying to stem the bleeding.

For the remainder of this year, Disney Studios still has three upcoming films which will round out its 2023 slate. Perhaps the next films that consumers are anticipating are Inside Out 2 and Deadpool 3, which are both scheduled for summer next year. Whether these will help Disney "realign themselves with the public" is something we have to wait and see. In any case, a happy 300th birthday to Adam Smith.

(Image credit: Elijah Chen/Unsplash)