An essential part of the process of turning cream into butter is continous, vigorous motion. That's similar to the up and down motion of long distance running. Runner's World reports that some runners are multitasking effectively by strapping on packs of milk.
In a demonstration video, runner Libby Cope and her boyfriend ran five and a half miles with a mixture of cream and sea salt. After removing the excess water at the end, she had usable and tasty butter.
Berne, the capital city of Switzerland, has an eye-catching coat of arms. According to the legend, the duke who founded the city in the Thirteenth Century caught a bear while the land was being cleared. This bear became the symbol of the city.
The heraldic bear is black with red claws, tongue, and penis. It is this last detail that recently attracted scrutiny.
According to Swiss Info, local politician Thomas Brönnimann proposed that the cantonal government remove the penis from the coat of arms in order to better represent the local population. The government, citing that the penis has been visible for at least 600 years, rejected this proposal.
-via TYWKIWDBI
British builder Tommy Lynch woke up one morning after sleeping for 14 hours straight. A friend woke him up after being concerned that Lynch had slept so long, and found that Lynch was blue. That wasn't anything to do with his mood, but because his skin had turned an alarming shade of blue! They went directly to a hospital, where Lynch was given oxygen while being examined.
The first thing you think of when someone turns blue is a lack of oxygen. But Lynch didn't seem to have trouble breathing, despite his anxiety over his blue skin. You might assume it was due to colloidal silver, which was touted as a cure-all a few years ago, and turned some people's skin blue. Lynch had not been using colloidal silver. The cause of his malady was discovered in the emergency department, quite by accident. Read his story at People magazine. -via Fark
https://t.co/lpMXnhXomb pic.twitter.com/57hS3Svlr8
— Columbus Library (@columbuslibrary) March 9, 2026
Chris Kempczinski, the CEO of McDonald's, produced a viral video when he taste-tested a "product" (his term) on camera while apparently trying to ingest as little of it as possible. That video sparked a trend of other fast food CEOs eating their burgers on camera. It's become a media trend.
The public library system of Columbus, Ohio got into the game when its social media manager said that their CEO would eat a hardcover book if the tweet got at least 10,000 likes. Lauren Hagen, the CEO of the Columbus Metropolitan Library, was a good sport about it.
This story takes a bit of explaining.
Wintzell's Oyster House in downtown Mobile, Alabama is a local icon of fine Gulf coast cuisine. It has long had a sign offering free oysters to any man who is 80 years old if that man is accompanied by his father.
Fox 10 News reports that Jimmy Rush, 80, became the first person to secure this prized dinner when he walked into the restaurant with his father, Jim Rush, who is 99 years old.
Father and son began eating at this restaurant in 1972. They decided that, one day, they would dine for free when the son was old enough.
In the event that you haven't seen any of the nominees for Best Picture at the 2026 Academy Awards, you might learn enough about them from the annual Honest Trailer to form some kind of opinion on who should win. Don't laugh, I have seen exactly none of them, but I probably will catch a few in the next couple of years on TV. Whether I will make that effort at all depends on who wins and what Screen Junkies can tell us about them. The only one that has been recommended to me is Sinners, but they are all rated pretty highly.
There's plenty of fun in the Honest Trailer. I'm going to put "Thousand Island stare" in my backpack to pull out at the proper time. That's golden. The best part is at the end, where they make a supercut showing how all these movies are the same, or at least incorporate all the same elements. The 98th Academy Awards will be bestowed this Sunday night.
We have long been fascinated with falling cats and their ability to land on their feet. So much so that we've dropped an astonishing number of cats in the name of science over the centuries. Even after the development of high-speed photography, experts disagree on how they do it, but there are several theories, including the “tuck and turn” model, the “falling figure skater” explanation, and the “bend and twist” method. My favorite is the "propeller tail" concept.
Recent research gives credence to the tuck and turn theory. The study began with a truly terrifying phrase in which each word is worse then the one before, until you get to the end: "A team of Japanese scientists removed the spines from five donated cat cadavers," and placed them in a twisting device. The researchers then moved on to live cats, but they neither had their spines removed nor were they put into a twisting device- they were just dropped, which is bad enough. The cats landed on their feet, and showed a marked preference in turning to their right. Learn more about this important research at Ars Technica. -via Damn Interesting
(Image credit: Yasuo Higurashi et al., 2026)
The 1927 German silent movie Metropolis gave audiences of a hundred years ago a fantasy glimpse a hundred years into the future. So what does Fritz Lang's vision mean in the world of 2026? The movie was groundbreaking in its special effects, and influenced all science fiction films that came afterward, and indeed filmmaking itself. The plot was more political, and wasn't all that impressive to viewers of the time. Reviews were mixed, and H.G. Wells called it "silly." Yet modern audiences recognize historical events that came afterward in the movie's elements.
The influence of Metropolis on later science fiction films is undeniable. It gave us the classic humanoid robot, cities with flying vehicles, and the mad scientist, not to mention innovative filmmaking techniques still used today. We'd all know that already, if we were inclined to sit through several hours of a black and white movie with no voices. DW History and Culture takes us through the history of Metropolis and why it still relevant today. -via Laughing Squid
Two million years ago, the area of France that became Le Puy-en-Velay was a huge lake with a volcano. As molten rock rose through the volcano, it cooled, shattered, collapsed, fused, grew, and became a volcanic plug. Over time, the volcano eroded away and the lake dried, leaving the volcanic plug looming above the town of Le Puy.
In 951 AD, Bishop Godescalc wanted to celebrate his return from a pilgrimage by building a shrine atop the plug. At the same time, Local cathedral dean Truannas also wanted a chapel up there, in gratitude that the village survived a plague. Together, they oversaw the beginnings of Saint Michel d'Aiguilhe, or St. Michael of the Needle. The only way to get to the chapel is by climbing 268 stairs, yet plenty of people do it. It's no wonder they added living quarters for the serving priest. Read about Saint Michel d'Aiguilhe and see plenty of pictures at Kuriositas.
(Image credit: PMRMaeyaert)
A couple of other platforms I use (not Neatorama) are always asking me to use AI to write a blog post. That seems infinitely silly because if I typed up what I wanted it to write, the post is therefore written. That's understandable because I am a blogger. But social media and even my email service wants me to use AI, and I just don't wanna. I know how to write a letter to communicate. Ryan George explains what could go wrong, and it's a lot.
No, I don't like artificial intelligence, and I don't like reading what AI has written. However, there are some uses for AI writing that may actually be helpful. A relative in the medical field has some AI program translate her notes into a report that a client can understand. Sure, she could write it herself; she's quite literate, but AI saves her time. Still, she reads the finished product for accuracy before sharing it.
Through much of human history, men have been confounded by women. Men were (are often are still) seen as the default, and women as an inscrutable variant. So if something were wrong, or even just different about women, it must have something to do with their uterus. The word "hysteria" came from the Greek word for womb, hystera, and the malady called hysteria meant a uterus that moved about in the body, wreaking havoc on the other organs.
Doctors knew so much about hysteria that they put on public demonstrations of women displaying it with fainting and seizures, and came up with all sorts of remedies. Later on it was dubbed a mental illness, and became a catch-all diagnosis for women who experienced pain or "inappropriate" emotions. However, the symptoms of hysteria are easily explained by either real physical ailments men rarely suffered, society's unrealistic expectations for women's behavior, or a mental illness that would be likely be further explored in a man. Read the history of hysteria at Mental Floss.
(Image credit: André Brouillet)
On April 6, 1917, the United States entered the Great War with a very small army and limited equipment. How would the Yank endure and ultimately prevail over the challenges of Twentieth Century warfare?
Helmets were in common use among the soldiers of the different nations. Different designs were considered, including the Model Number 8, pictured above. This was built by the Ford Motor Company and designed by Bashford Dean.
Dean's career began in zoology, but his interest eventually focused on historical armor. At the time that the US entered the war, he was the Curator of Arms and Armor at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Dean accepted a commission as a major in the Army and set about designing, from his historical knowledge, helmets for American soldiers. They included this model inspired by Fifteenth Century Italian armor.
It did not see widespread use.
-via Jalopnik
Etsy seller GremlynRugs (content warning: artistic nudity) makes tufted rugs that you could walk on or hang decoratively. But please don't actually eat them! This piece looks like a grilled cheese sandwich cut and then stretched apart with cheesy goodness overflowing the edges. But it's all fabric.
-via The Awesomer
Would you like to login to this online interface? We'll just need for you to download an app, create a new account with a highly complex password, submit a DNA sample, and participate in a retinal scan.
Actor and comedian Russell Parry illustrates the ordeals of passing online scrutiny to verify our identities.
Content warning: foul language.
Funniest thing happened at Comic Con today. I was walking around as Deadpool (per usual) and a Foggy Nelson cosplayer with a She-Hulk tap me on the shoulder to serve me these papers.
— Pids (@justpids) March 8, 2026
I love it LOL pic.twitter.com/vCj5Z3TAuD
The Emerald City Comic Con is currently underway in Seattle. X user @justpids is cosplaying as Deadpool. He's now facing consequences for his crimes with the assistance of Jennifer Walters--the main character from She-Hulk: Attorney at Law--in her professional capacity. Wade has been summoned to appear before a US District Court to answer for first-degree murder and breaking the fourth wall.
