As we gather together with family for the annual Thanksgiving feast, some of us are filled with trepidation over tensions between family members and the possibility of spoiling the occasion. After all, there are reasons we live so far away from each other and don't get together more often. Some families took that tension to extreme.

For example, a man named Dipendra went to a family party and killed his mother, father, brother, sister, plus his uncles and aunts and a cousin. He killed nine people that evening, and therefore became the king of Nepal because his was the royal family. However, Dipendra spent his entire reign in a coma because he also tried to kill himself. His surviving uncle then became the last king of Nepal because having a monarchy wasn't going so well.

Cracked tells us of five incidents when a family feast was the setting for murder. Three were mass killings, and the other two were single murders committed men who had caused plenty of other deaths. We hope your Thanksgiving with the family will be much more peaceful.

(Image credit: Nabin K. Sapkota)

The relative dearth of Thanksgiving movies meant that Laurence Brown grew up in Britain only knowing about Thanksgiving from the film Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. The actual celebration plays a very small part in that movie, since it's from the point of view of a man just trying to get home on time. So is it any wonder that Brown was completely mistaken on what it's all about?

It's about the food. More specifically, it's about the bountiful American harvest, so the traditional dishes contain foods not all that common in Britain. With the exception of an irritating stock photo of cranberry sauce served atop mashed potatoes (which is just plain wrong), the food greatly impresses newcomers to the US. I should know, because many years there's someone at my table eating their first American Thanksgiving dinner. If someone ever tells you the US doesn't have a native cuisine, invite them to enjoy turkey, cornbread stuffing, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, and their choice of pecan or pumpkin pie.  

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The general public had no real grasp of the concept of species going extinct until 1796, and even then, their reaction was not what anyone today would expect. During the Victorian era, news that a bird species was in danger of going extinct made everyone want their own specimen. After all, rarity implies value, and no ornithologist or collector wanted to miss out on a chance to display a stuffed great auk, passenger pigeon, or ivory-billed woodpecker. Rare and exotic birds were also shot to provide feathers for ladies' hats. These actions drove species already suffering from lack of habitat into dangerously low numbers.  

Cornell ornithology professor Arthur Allen was horrified at such behavior. He preferred to study living birds and help them to thrive. In 1924 he spent months in Florida looking for the rare ivory-billed woodpecker. Allen finally located a mating pair, but while he waited for the birds to nest, poachers took them. It was eleven more years before he found another ivory-billed woodpecker and took the photo you see above. Allen spent the rest of his life working to change the scientific study of endangered species from the philosophy of "collect them while you can" to protecting such birds. Read the story of how Allen changed science forever at Smithsonian.   

(Image credit: Arthur A. Allen, watercolored by Jerry A. Payne)

If you are completely sick of Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You" already this year (thanks to overexposure in previous years), give this video a listen anyway, because the tune is barely recognizable. It's there, but it's buried under the distinctive styles of Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Bela Bartók. No Bach, no Liszt, and no Chopin, but don't shoot the piano player- he's only human. Pianist Josep Castanyer Alonso illustrates what these musical geniuses would do if they made modern-day covers of hit songs. The video is annotated so you can learn the terms for what is happening, even when he has to make up those terms on the spot. Still, you know if these composers were around today and had recording contracts, the record company would insist that they add some jingle bells just in case the listener couldn't recognize that the song is supposed to be Christmas song.  -via Metafilter

In 1971, an airline passenger going by Dan Cooper showed a stewardess that he had a bomb and demanded $200,000, four parachutes, and a private flight. His demands were met, and during the second flight with only Cooper and the flight crew, he jumped out of the plane somewhere between Seattle, Washington, and Portland, Oregon. He was never seen again. For 50 years, it was the only unsolved skyjacking in America.

Strangely, only five months later, Richard Floyd McCoy II pulled off an almost-identical skyjacking in Utah, in which he absconded with $500,000. McCoy was arrested soon after and convicted of the crime. He escaped from prison and was shot by FBI agents. McCoy has always been a suspect in the D. B. Cooper case, but was thought to have been too young to be the same person. Until now. Pilot and YouTuber Dan Gryder has been researching the case for decades, and in 2022 found a parachute on McCoy's property that could be the uniquely-modified parachute Cooper used when he bailed out of the plane.

Gryder was alerted to the existence of the parachute by McCoy's children, Richard II and Chanté. They were small children when the skyjackings occurred, and always suspected their father was the mysterious D. B. Cooper, but kept quiet until the death of their mother in 2020. The parachute is now in the custody of the FBI, which officially closed the investigation in 2016. It may soon be officially reopened. Read about the family's claims and the new evidence in a two part series at Cowboy State Daily, part one and part two. -Thanks, WTM!

(Images credit: FBI/public domain)

Traffic Management in the Gobi Desert. 行人停，骆驼行。 pic.twitter.com/kaQEW2xgEN

— Ambassador Nicholas Burns (@USAmbChina) October 13, 2024

R. Nicholas Burns, the current US ambassador to China, shares these photos of a traffic signal in the Gobi Desert. CNN reports that government officials in Gansu province installed them three years ago to make it clear when camels should and should not cross the road.

They're unusual and have thus become a popular destination for tourists, who take advantage of the large camelid population to hire rides. Keeping those tourists safe from camel collisions is a priority for the government, hence the traffic signals.

-via Super Punch

CTV News in Vancouver reports that people in the town of McBride, British Columbia have spotted a deer wearing what appears to be a high visibility vest--the kind of vest that hunters wear to avoid being mistaken for deer.

It's uncertain how the deer ended up wearing the vest, although the best explanation is that someone managed to wrestle the deer into it. This activity is, wildlife officials warn, very dangerous to both the humans and the deer. They hope to be able to locate the deer, tranquilize it, and the remove the jacket safely.

-via Dave Barry | Photo: Andrea Arnold

We've seen digital artists take vintage photographs and give them the stereoscopic treatment, in which a 3D effect is achieved by making the elements move slightly, more so for the objects in the foreground. This is not that at all. What happens in these postcard images is the kind of thing you'd expect from a Terry Gilliam animation, in that you don't know what is going to happen at all. It's pure nonsense, but there are no giant feet crushing landscapes. However, what they did to that lighthouse seems pretty destructive.

The vintage postcards are from the Isle of Wight, a popular vacation destination in the English Channel. The video was made by Justin Mason, also known as Drivelsieve, and is actually a followup to an earlier compilation video he did using the same subject. It's just as silly.

Mason began his series of animated Isle of Wight postcards ten years ago. You can see the entire series in this playlist. -via Nag on the Lake

The article, promising a recipe for Long Island cheese pumpkin pie, starts off telling us it was never a commercial hit. I immediately thought the name was to blame. Who wants to eat a pumpkin pie with cheese in it? But maybe it's cream cheese, which might be good. Then I find out that the pie is made from a "cheese pumpkin," which isn't grown nearly as much as other varieties. Of course not, who wants a pumpkin that tastes like cheese? But that's not how the pumpkin got that name -it was named that because its shape and color makes it resemble a wheel of cheese.

The article is not so much about pumpkin pie, but for those dreaming of next year's garden. The reason the cheese pumpkin didn't become commercially successful is because its shape kept it from rolling through a mechanized harvesting process as easily as round pumpkins. They taste wonderful, and can be grown in a variety of environments, including the Mojave desert. While a cheese pumpkin is the same species as the pumpkin puree you get in a can, this heirloom variety is infinitely adaptable, especially when you save the seeds and grow subsequent generations. Cheese pumpkins are becoming popular with backyard gardeners who cook their own pumpkins. Read about cheese pumpkins, and find a recipe for Long Island cheese pumpkin pie, at Atlas Obscura. There is no cheese in it, just as there is no tea in Long Island tea.  

(Image credit: Badagnani)

Think of this facility as optimized for multitasking. If you're already going to make one mistake, why not make a second one at the same time?

Chuck's on the Avenue is a locally-famous liquor store in New Orleans. It occupies a prominent place in the city's celebrations. Now, the New York Post reports, you can book it as a wedding venue. On November 16, a couple got married next to the beer cooler. An ordained minister/Elvis Presley impersonator presided over the ceremony. A brass band provided Dixieland jazz music and a little girl threw beads instead of flowers.

It was thus a supremely New Orleans event. You can book your own happy wedding here.

-via Dave Barry

Chemists at universities in England not Italy are responsible for developing nanopasta--the world's thinnest spaghetti. It's not just a minutely fine thread of material but, specifically, white flour so it's technically pasta by, at least, English standards.

The nanopasta measures 370 nanometers across. A nanometer is one billionth of a meter. You can read the science-y bits in the article published a few months ago in Nanoscale Advances. Their process is called electrospinning, which I gather means using electrical current to create fibers small enough that you wouldn't be able to roll it out on your cutting board.

-via Dave Barry | Images: Nanoscale Advances

Rango was an animated Western comedy that came out in 2011. The title character was a chameleon who accidentally wound up in the desert and took on the persona of a tough guy to get by. While the movie did well, it didn't become a classic, cult or otherwise, so Rango seems a strange choice for a mashup. But mashup artist eli_handle_b․wav saw the possibilities. He set Rango into the virtual Old West of the video game Red Dead Redemption 2, where the chameleon seems right at home. That's a bit of a turn from playing a fish out of water, so to speak, in his original movie. These outlaws don't seem to have a problem with a 6-foot lizard in their midst. Rango manages to fall right into the Van der Linde gang, although he may regret that. The setup is beyond absurd, and the editing is smooth and impressive. -via Geeks Are Sexy

You may associate virtual meetings and conference calls with Skype, Zoom, or Webex. But the task of gathering together large numbers of people to communicate with each other across vast distances long predates our century.

IEEE Spectrum reports that the large conference call dates back to 1916, which 5,100 engineers in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, New York, Philadelphia, Salt Lake City, and San Francisco gathered in live discussions that took place across telephone lines. There were even breakout sessions when local groups met privately to discuss particular topics.

The revolutionary nature of this event was widely understood at the time. President Wilson sent a telegram of congratulations, which was read to the participants. After musical performances, a keynote speaker addressed the virtual gathering and then the engineers conducted a formal business meeting.

-via Nag on the Lake | Image: IEEE

You’re not allowed to stop and watch the Las Vegas Formula One Grand Prix without a ticket and stopping in a pedestrian walking zone or on a bridge with a view will get you a ticket, a fine or worse trouble. A few locals and tourists are circumventing this by utilizing the… pic.twitter.com/u8d35JdDkF

— Jen G. (@vegasstarfish) November 24, 2024

The Las Vegas Grand Prix is an elite racing event. Tickets are extremely expensive but 306,000 people paid to watch it, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports.

Vegas Starfish, a Las Vegas tourism guru, reports that other enterprising people found a way to watch the race up close for free. All that was necessary was that they ride escalators continuously without stopping, making laps next to a good viewing position.

Robin Duska is a volunteer at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, working on cataloging the museum's bird specimens. She discovered a snow bunting labeled as being found on May 29, 1872, by Emil Bessels. Duska did the research and found that Bessels was a physician who served as the science officer on the Polaris expedition, an 1871 quest to be the first to reach the North Pole. The expedition was led by Charles Francis Hall, who did not survive the unsuccessful trip. When the crew of the Polaris returned home in 1873 (without the ship, which had been crushed by ice), there were questions about Hall's death.

Was Hall murdered? Dr. Bessels had declared the cause of death a stroke, and an investigation agreed. Hall had been buried in the permafrost of Greenland. Then an autopsy in 1969 showed that Hall had ingested arsenic. Did Hall have any enemies aboard ship? Yes, many, as the crew was full of drunks, deserters, and men who didn't want to go to the North Pole. But Hall's biggest enemy was Bessels. Not only did they disagree about the expedition, they were both wooing the same woman back in Washington, a prominent young sculptor named Vinnie Ream. What does any of this have to do with a bird buried in the archives of a museum? Read about the latest clue in a possible murder mystery at The London Times.   -via Strange Company