Meet Flaco, Blasco Paterno Castello, Mael Bovey, Jordy, Andrea de Angelis, and Keti Vasadze. These guys are members of the Buldoz Project Crew, Swiss skiers who do "snowless skiing." Oh yeah, they ski on snow, but also down snowless hills, streams, stairs, and any other incline they can find. You may have heard of dry slope skiing, which is done on prepared slopes with artificial surfaces that mimic snow, which is great for off-season practice, but this is a whole different level. Buldoz goes to places where skates, skateboards, and bicycles are prohibited, but the signs don't say anything about skis because who in their right mind would try it? Yes, they injure themselves. This is a hardcore sport. 

Oh, and before you complain about too much music and not enough information, you should be aware that this is a music video from The Foo Fighters. The song is "Of All People," from their new album Your Favorite Toy. -via the Awesomer 

With recent outbreaks of hantavirus and Ebola virus, and the continuing trauma of COVID, the last thing we need is a another disease to worry about. You need not worry about encephalitis lethargica, because it appears to have come and gone already. In fact, the last known person to have survived the disease died in 2002. However, between 1917 and 1930, it was terrifying. 

People started suffering from a mysterious constellation of symptoms, ranging from tremors to fatigue to drooling. Many slept for days at a time or became paralyzed with locked-in syndrome, in which there's complete awareness, but the body cannot respond. Doctors figured out encephalitis lethargica was based in the brain, hence the name. But they never figured out what caused it. The disease infected around a million people across Europe and Northern America. Half of those who suffered from it died, and many of the survivors had lingering effects, or declined mentally or physically from a resurgence many years later. Read about the mysterious epidemic of encephalitis lethargica at Mental Floss.  -via Strange Company 
  

Rowan J. Coleman is a YouTuber who examines in detail how science fiction television shows and films are composed and acted. In the past, we've seen his explanations of how William Shatner, Patrick Stewart, and the stars of Babylon 5 were highly effective in their roles.

I was devoted to the Original Series as a child and followed closely The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise in adolescence and adulthood, so they seem normal.

Discovery, Strange New Worlds, and Starfleet Academy seem, to adapt a phrase from Douglas Adams, against the natural order of things. Leaving the storytelling aside, I find these series aesthetically grating as the sets are very dark and excessively large.

But the visual language of these series, sometimes referred to as "NuTrek", is a departure from previous series and films in ways more subtle than lighting and set design. Coleman analyzes how camera motion and shot setup in particular set NuTrek apart from its predecessors.

What do kids say when you ask them what they want to be when they grow up? When I saw the premise of this video, I immediately thought "Astronaut! President!" This reflects the historical era I grew up in, and I well remember being set straight that girls cannot be either. But this graphic video covers children ages 8-12 from 1920 through 2026, and things change. It begins with "cowboy" being the most popular answer, and reflects what children are exposed to over time. Watch how fast "pilot" ascends to the top early on. World War II promotes "soldier." "Astronaut" debuts in 1958 and quickly becomes the go-to profession, although "spy" is pretty popular during the Cold War. "Pro Athlete" takes the top as the Apollo program ends. "Programmer" debuts in 1985. "Dinosaur Expert" hits the list in 1992, a year before Jurassic Park, but the same year that PBS's miniseries The Dinosaurs! aired. "YouTuber" joined in 2007, only two years after the platform launched, and became the real aspiration for children going forward.  
    
Pay attention to what's simmering under the top. "Nurse" and "teacher" were consistently on the list until the 1970s, because little girls assumed those were the only professions open to them. I'm surprised "movie star" stayed so low throughout the period. Also keep in mind that the very question assumes that a grownup will be defined by their job, which is a very American thing. -via Born in Space 
  
    

Warner Bros. animation and Tubi have announced a new project, in which Scooby-Doo goes anime. The series will be called Yokoso Scooby-Doo!, which means Welcome, Scooby-Doo. The premise is that Shaggy and Scooby go to Japan for some kind of food event, and accidentally unleash a pantheon of Japanese ghosts and folklore monsters. Fred, Daphne, and Velma will not be a part of the story, but Shaggy and Scooby find new friends like gadget whiz Takumi, magical pixie dream girl Yume, and Scooby's uncle Daisuke-Doo. And they have the Mystery Machine, too!

Lending credence to the legitimacy of the project, actors Frank Welker (the longtime voice of Scooby-Doo) and Matthew Lillard (who played Shaggy in the films) are signed to voice the main characters. The one available image gives hope that the anime will reproduce the joyful nonsense of the original series. The series is slated to become available in 2027. Read more about Yokoso Scooby-Doo! at Cracked.

Miska is a snow leopard living at the Melbourne Zoo. In January, she gave birth to a litter of four cubs, two males and two females. When she decided the cubs were old enough to leave the nursery and go outside, zoo videographers were there to record the cuteness. The chubby, fluffy cubs tried running, jumping, and playing in the big new world as best as their little legs could, while Miska kept an eye on them just in case they needed help. This milestone was also the right time for the cubs to get their first veterinary check, in which they were weighed, vaccinated, and thoroughly examined. They all seem quite healthy, if a bit confused. One stood out as being extra spicy over the indignity.  

If you want to see them being born, you'll find that video at Laughing Squid. The cubs have since grown more agile and willing to pounce on each other -and their mom- as you can see at Facebook. 

Everyone knows the tallest man ever recorded was Robert Wadlow, who grew to 8' 11". But you should also learn the story of the man who held the record previously, at an estimated 8' 9". His name was John Rogan, and his height was estimated because the weight of his bones left him unable to stand or walk before he reached his full height.   

Rogan was born in Tennessee in 1867 to formerly-enslaved parents. His height was unremarkable until he was twelve, when his bones began to lengthen rapidly, keeping him painfully bedridden for a couple of years. The most likely cause was a benign tumor on the adrenal glands, exacerbated by ankylosis that fused Rogan's joints and left him unable to walk by adulthood. 

Rogan had plenty of opportunities to join a sideshow, but he refused to be put on display, and was wary of those who wanted to study him. He wanted to live a normal life with his family and support himself with honest work. Since Rogan couldn't work on the family farm, he built a cart pulled by goats, and worked as a porter hauling luggage for railroad passengers. After his death, the family took extraordinary measures to ensure his grave couldn't be robbed for his remains to be put on display. Read the story of John Rogan at Utterly Interesting. 

Sheila Wallis is a British artist noted for her highly realistic yet also imaginative paintins and drawings that include portraits, nude figure studies, and watercolors.

She came to my attention on Instagram for her illuminated illustrations that include the use of gilding.

Rabies is an awful virus that doesn't work the way most viruses do. Once the symptoms start, it's fatal, and it's a particularly unpleasant death. You lose the ability to swallow, which is why the phrases "foaming at the mouth" and "hydrophobia" are associated with rabies. That's because the virus spreads through saliva, and successful viruses cause symptoms that enable them to spread to new hosts. The good news is that you can be vaccinated for rabies after exposure, and MinuteEarth will explain why that's so. 

You might think, well, why don't we just vaccinate everyone against rabies? My daughter is a veterinarian, and had to be vaccinated. It cost her $900. That's cheap compared to the cost of treatment after exposure. But for some reason, we can get our dogs and cats vaccinated for $30 or so. And that's turned out to be the best way to keep rabies under control in the modern world.

Victoria Dauberville is a French ballerina and choreographer who performed professionally for many years in Belgium and France. Last year, while on a cruise to the Antarctic on Le Boréal, she had the opportunity to perform on an unusual stage: the bulbous bow of the ship.

Unlike the theater on the fourth deck of this cruise ship, the bulbous bow is only accessible with a zodiac boat. Dauberville wore a classical dancing costume and slippers to dance with grace on the slippery surface while surrounded by ice-filled waters and frozen air. The video recording of this event promptly went viral.

-via NEXTA

San Francisco figures prominently in the Star Trek universe. The city's first appearance in the science fiction franchise was in 1893 in The Next Generation episode "Time's Arrow." Kirk and companions borrowed a couple humpback whales there in 1986 in Star Trek IV.

By 2024, though, this fictional San Francisco had become a complete dump as it was consumed by crime and poverty.

After World War III ended in 2053, San Francisco experienced a great revival as it became the capital of the United Earth and the headquarters of Starfleet. When the Federation formed, San Francisco became the de facto capital of the Federation government, as well as the Starfleet which served as the military arm of that government.

To commemorate the great role of the city in Star Trek, the public library system is offering user cards that show a starship flying over the Golden Gate Bridge.

-via Henry Wu

The Aboriginal people of Australia love their dogs as much as anyone, and a dingo's grave in Kinchega National Park in New South Wales shows that one dog was particularly revered more than 900 years ago. The grave was accidentally unearthed around the turn of the 21st century during road construction. This dingo was buried by the ancestors of the Barkindji people with the same care they would bury a human. But that's not all- they came back generation after generation to leave river mussels at the grave, as if they were providing food to an ancestor, for 500 years after the burial! 

An examination of the skeleton shows that the dog had been injured a few times and healed. It suffered broken bones and only survived due to the care of its human family. After thorough examination, the remains were returned to Barkindji elders for re-internment. You have to wonder if this dingo was a hero dog of some sort, or whether it was just so loved that its story was told to later generations with an admonition to tend to the grave. Read more about the honored dog's burial at Smithsonian.    

(Image credit: Amy Way/Australian Museum) 

Redditor /u/CornishShaman shares this photo of their library's beautiful new storytime chair. It's a custom sculpture commissioned specifically for Penzance, a town in Cornwall.

Free Range Designs, a Welsh furniture workshop created by Paul Bullen, composed it. Although the craftsmen there produce other pieces of furniture, their unique storytelling chairs have attracted the most attention.

The Penzance Library is in Cornwall, so its chair reflects the deep well that is Cornish folklore. Featured prominently are the Mermaid of Zennor, the Giant of Marazion, local pixies, and, of course, the Pirates of Penzance. The fish are pilchards (Sardinia pilchardus), a herring species that has been fished in Cornwall for centuries.

I've never seriously studied Greek mythology, so I was completely unfamiliar with Typhon. This mythological monster was made of snakes and lava and had no father, so of course he was bad news. He was so powerful that he was a serious rival for Zeus, who had to put Typhon in his place. That doesn't mean Zeus killed him, but it does explain volcanos, thunderstorms, and tsunamis. However, the stories of Typhon vary depending on who wrote them. 

Dr. Emily Zarka (previously at Neatorama) explains who Typhon was supposed to be. He's not described as a god, but was powerful enough to challenge Zeus for the title of supreme being. He and his wife Echidna spawned plenty of other mythological monsters that somewhat resemble real and usually scary animals. His later obscurity among laypeople like me may have to do with how he was dispatched relatively early in the Greek mythology saga. 

When Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, some citizens were vaporized, some escaped, and many were killed and then buried under rock, ash, and lava. Over the years, the soft tissues rotted away, leaving human-shaped voids in the rock. In the 19th  century, Giuseppe Fiorelli developed a method of preserving those voids by filling them with plaster, giving us at least the shape of the victims. But what's inside the plaster? A recent discovery revealed that one man may have been a doctor, because he was killed carrying a bag. CT scans and X-rays found a locking device inside the plaster, coins, and metal instruments of the kind that Roman doctors used. 

But even more interesting is the discovery of how the plaster casts have been messed with over the more than hundred years since they were made. Scientists used the same type of scans to check whether there are bones present in the plaster. They discovered that some of the plaster casts had been reinforced with steel rods for stability, and bones have been removed! Some even had artistic work done to make them more interesting. Read about these discoveries at Ars Technica.  -via Boing Boing