Meet Muff. According to a woman who runs a wildlife rehab with her mother, Muff was found “orphaned, cold, and floating down a rushing river by some friendly kayakers who decided to bring him to [them].” For the past two months, the woman and her mom brought Muff back to full health, and since beavers need at least two years of rehab, Muff will be staying with them for a little longer.

This video is of the beaver making little noises that sound similar to a human baby. He is not in danger or scared, just simply making little noises, as they do.

Cute!

(Image Credit: ViralHog/ YouTube)

The Trolley Problem is an ethical dilemma. A train is heading down the tracks toward five people. If you do nothing, those five people will die. If you switch the tracks, the train will kill only one person. What do you do?

Exploring this conundrum is what Dr. E. J. Masicampo, a social psychologist at Wake Forest University, does for a living. He enlisted the assistance of his two-year old son Nicholas, who offers a unique and fresh solution that had never occurred to me before.

-via Born in Space

If you’re the type who drinks coffee during work, then it’s likely that you prefer to have a warm cup of coffee by your side as you work. Novelty gift maker Just Mustard might just have the thing for you: a mug warmer that looks like a giant Oreo cookie.

But while the device looks like the iconic cookie made by Nabisco, the embossing says “Mustard.”

This mug warmer, which is USB-powered, is available over at Amazon for only $18.

Yum!

(Image Credit: Just Mustard/ Technabob)

Now isn't that a pretty sight?

Etsy seller Anna Robinson of Wales paints Bob Ross-inspired landscapes and other images on jeans. People will definitely appreciate the fine arts as you strut down the street in these pants, enjoying every detail of the scenic view you offer.

-via So Super Awesome

(Image source: wrud4d)

When you take your child to a photographer's studio, they spend the time necessary to get pictures you're happy with. On picture day at school, a photographer sets up and may have 500 kids to photograph before the day is over. There will be children who don't know how to smile on command, or don't feel like doing so. There will be children who are used to mugging for selfies. And there will be children who wear the same color as the green screen behind them. But you have to have a sense of humor about it. The parents of the boy pictured above still have the photo framed and on display twenty years later. In the images below, a little girl puts out her very best effort, but doesn't quite have it down.

See 40 priceless school pictures that didn't come out as expected at Bored Panda.

Back in 2015, researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) spotted three of these weird sea creatures in the underwater canyons of Puerto Rico, near the seabed of roughly 13,000 feet (over 3,960 meters).

Their bodies are small — about the size of a golf tee (just over 2 inches, or 6 centimeters, long) — but they're vibrant; when the creatures move and pulse, rows of tiny hair-like cilia refract light into a prism of shining colors.

Recently, the researchers identified these blobs as a new species of carnivorous comb jellies, with the scientific name Duobrachium sparksae.

While their wee bodies and shimmering cilia are traits commonly shared among the 100-plus known ctenophore species, the Puerto Rican party blobs still represent an exciting first in marine biology. According to the researchers, this is the first underwater species NOAA researchers have ever described from pictures alone; the team had no access to physical samples for their new study.

Learn more about them over at Live Science.

Nature sure is weird.

(Image Credit: NOAA/ Live Science)

Astronauts are human, too. And because they’re human, they are not immune to enjoying a good drink, and that is why some of them smuggle alcohol aboard the International Space Station. Astronauts are good at smuggling that kind of stuff, too.

According to a new book, a lot of astronauts have done the same thing. Routinely! According to a phenomenal rundown of the history of booze in space on Supercluster, astronauts are saucing in orbit all the time. For example:

“NASA will tell you there is no alcohol aboard the ISS,” NASA astronaut Clayton Anderson told [2019’s “Alcohol in Space” author Chris Carberry]. “As a person who lived there for five months, I’ll tell you that’s bogus.”

But it’s not just for fun that they smuggle alcohol in space.

For one thing, learning about the way booze behaves, at a chemical level, in a zero-g environment informs the scientific development of it down here (and there have been several cargo payloads containing alcohol used for experiments that’ve already made it into orbit).

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: Openpics/ Pixabay)

Dinosaurs were reptiles, and so we often think of them as big lizards, soaking up the sun in tropical or at least temperate regions. But scientists are always learning more about dinosaurs, and find them more varied and adaptable than we ever suspected before. It turns out that dinosaurs lived in plenty of pretty cold areas.

The finds are coming fast and furious. A tiny jaw found in Alaska’s ancient rock record, and written about in July, indicates that dinosaurs nested in these places and stayed year-round. In 2018, paleontologists published a study describing how microscopic details of polar dinosaur bones show that some dinosaurs slowed their growth during harsh seasons to get by with less. The ongoing identification of new species, not found anywhere else, highlighted how some dinosaurs adapted to the cold. Each thread comes together to underscore how wonderfully flexible dinosaur species were, adapting to some of the harshest habitats of their time.

Read about the study of dinosaur environments and how they coped with cold weather at Smithsonian.

If you’re someone who always has to explain something to someone, then this class might be helpful to you. If I were to take a guess, this class is like debate class or course, but way friendlier.

Well, what do you think?

Image via Engrish.com

Or maybe it's the same monolith that inexplicably appeared, then disappeared, in Utah last week. The construction of this monolith on Pine Mountain in Atascadero, California is definitely cruder, suggesting that's an imitation of the original alien object. Atascadero News describes it:

The three-sided obelisk appeared to be made of stainless steel, 10-feet tall and 18 inches wide. The object was welded together at each corner, with rivets attaching the side panels to a likely steel frame inside. The top of the monument did not show any weld marks, and it appears to be hollow at the top, and possibly bottom.

Unlike its Utah sibling, the Atascadero obelisk was not attached to the ground, and could be knocked over with a firm push. The Atascadero News estimates it weighs about 200 pounds.

The material appeared to be stainless steel, similar to a hood above the stove in a commercial kitchen.

So it's more likely to be from pranksters rather than our actual alien visitors.

-via Celine D. Ryan | Photo: Atascadero News

In the world of lizards, males who have flashier colors are more likely to attract mates. Having flashy colors, however, is a double-edged sword; aside from being able to attract females, flashier male lizards are also more likely to attract predators. A study, which was published in the journal Evolutionary Ecology, proved this phenomenon.

To attract females' notice, male anoles have dewlaps: colorful extendable flaps of skin under their chins. In most species of anole, dewlaps evolved to be as noticeable as possible within the environment, given an environment's predominant colors and lighting conditions.

[...]

While some water anoles have dramatic red-orange flaps, others have more muted colors, more of a dull brownish-red.

[...]

To prove that flashier males face greater risks of being attacked, the researchers created clay models with colored dewlaps—some bright, some more muted…

Learn more about this study over at PHYS.org.

(Image Credit: J. Montemarano/ PHYS.org)

During the Civil War and Reconstruction Era, the Manning family was beset with tragedy after tragedy. They lived in the town of Holly Springs, Mississippi. In 1875, the couple, Van and Mittie Manning, watched as a second child, Mittie, died in front of them

The mother, Mary Mitting, went insane with grief. Atlas Obscura describes the unusual grave they erected for the little girl:

When it came time to bury her second child, Mary had a breakdown. She refused to allow Van or anyone else to place her daughter into the ground. A compromise was made and Mittie Manning was buried in a sarcophagus above ground. 

However, this did not fully console Mary, who wanted to be able to see the face of her daughter. In the marble slab that covered the tomb, a sliding window was installed, allowing Mary to see her daughter. 

According to some local legends, as Mittie’s body began to decompose, Mary became insane from grief and refused to leave the grave. Eventually, Van was forced to bury Mittie underground. The original slab, with its window, was left in place.

Photos: HauntedHolly

There's someone for everyone, and Satan finds his true love in this ad for Match.com. Not only is it grimly hilarious, it's full of easter eggs. Her profile pic is a murder hornet. The actress appears to have subtle fangs. They're from the same home town! Check out the end zone lettering in the empty stadium. The fine print on the treadmill sign. The asteroids. It's perfect. This ad was written and directed by Ryan Reynolds and features a newly-recorded version of Taylor Swift's 2008 hit "Love Story." -via Today

Update: Part two is now available.

For Christmas 2020, mashup artist extraordinaire Bill McClintock combined Slayer's "South of Heaven" with Wham!'s "Last Christmas" into a song he calls "South of Christmas" by Slam! There's also a cameo appearance by Rammstein and McClintock himself with a festive guitar solo. The best edit in the song comes at about 3:20. Try not to laugh.

In 1934, Edward Powys Mathers, a crossword puzzle designer, published Cain's Jawbone. It's a mystery novel sorted onto 100 separate pages. It's also a puzzle, as the pages arrive in no particular order. The goal of the puzzle is to put the pages in the correct order. There are 32 million possible sorting orders, but only one is correct.

For the third time, someone has solved the puzzle. That accolade goes to British comedian John Finnemore, who took up the task during lockdown. Public Radio International reports:

“Originally I had a look at it and decided that it was too difficult for me and there was no point. So I just put it back on the shelf,” Finnemore says. “Then the pandemic came knocking...and suddenly said, ‘You know all that time you wanted, to do that thing? Well, here you go, knock yourself out, you’ve got as much time as you want.’” [...]

If you’re looking to undertake the puzzle yourself, Finnemore has some advice: use Google.

“It’s full of really obscure references to literature and geography and all sorts of things...You need to know about licensing laws in 1930s London, like, where, in London, you were allowed to buy a drink without a sandwich and where you could only have one with food after 10,” he said. “The history of prisons comes into it, geography...there’s references to people who turn out to be tennis players in the 1930s and when they played a particular match.”

-via Oddity Central | Photo: Ryan Baumann