The classic werewolf of the Middles Ages was either a vicious, murderous person or a real beast that killed people, and in the popular mind became a shapeshifter who was both. They had to be in league with the devil! But the case of Thiess of Kaltenbrun turned that notion on its head.

Thiess was living in Livonia (modern day Latvia) in the late 17th century. He was a local character, known for healing and giving blessings, and he readily admitted he was a werewolf. Our knowledge of him comes from court records, as he was hauled in more than once over suspicions of crime. Thiess explained to the court that werewolves work in the service of God and are opposed the devil, and they worked to eliminate witches, who were evil. Thiess would steal crops from the devil to support his neighbors. The judges were baffled. On one hand, they didn't care since werewolf activities had nothing to do with the case at hand, but was Thiess guilty of blasphemy, or demonic activities, or was he just nuts? Read about the werewolf known as Thiess of Kaltenbrun at Amusing Planet.  -via Strange Company 

(Image credit: Mont Sudbury) 

Research into Alzheimer's disease has focused on toxic proteins like amyloid-beta and tau, because that's what scientists have found when examining brains of patients after death. It's much more difficult to study patient's brains as the disease progresses. But research in mice has opened up a tantalizing new possibility. 

We think of dopamine as the "pleasure chemical" that makes us feel good. Sure, but it also helps us to record memories in the brain. Dopamine is essential in the entorhinal cortex, where it serves as a gateway for encoding experiences into memory. In mice with an induced condition similar to Alzheimer's, scientists have found a deficit of dopamine in the entorhinal cortex. We don't yet know why this deficit occurs, but the introduction of dopamine helps to restore normal activity. This best part is that we have a drug already, Levodopa, that performs this task, and it's being used for Parkinson's disease. Read about this research and what it could mean at Neuroscience News. -via Damn Interesting 

(Cropped image credit: Park SW, Jang HJ, Kim M, Kwag J) 

Everything you encounter in your daily life has a history, but there are some kinds of history that they just skip over in school history classes. For example, what did people do before modern toilets were invented? In my neck of the woods, they used outhouses. That was the case in most places, but it became a problem when people started living close to each other in cities. Various systems for sewage disposal were installed by the Greeks, the Romans, and then the Europeans, but it was slow and only came about when a city's waste disposal problems became intolerable. 

It was the same in the history of toilet design. There were great leaps that didn't spread and were even sometimes forgotten, possibly because no one really wanted to talk about the problem. Besides, having a flush toilet is kind of useless when you don't have a water delivery system or a sewage system, and that kind of infrastructure was a major undertaking, whether in cities or in rural areas. Rural folks developed cisterns, water towers, and septic tanks while they waited for real utilities. And once we had running water, not only could we use real flush toilets, but also sinks, bathtubs, and showers! This brief history will make you thankful you have those things. -via Laughing Squid 

This photo dating from 1955 shows special slip-on sandals that loggers wore to protect mess hall floors during meal breaks. Lumberjack boots had spikes on the bottom, thus imperiling indoor surfaces.

-via Things from the Past

Photo: Potlatch Lumber Company/University of Idaho Digital Collections

Ten years ago, we linked a story about Shakespeare's grave. A TV production used ground-penetrating radar to get an image of the Bard's remains, and concluded that the skull was missing. Since then, historians have looked back to a 1879 account of what may have happened in the literary magazine Argosy. The story, which included names and dates of real people, told how Dr. Frank Chambers dug up the grave and stole Shakespeare's skull in 1794.  

Chambers was a young surgeon who had, like other medical men of his day, hired grave robbers to supply cadavers for anatomical study. He had also heard that Horace Walpole had offered to pay dearly for Shakespeare's skull. However, once the deed was done, Walpole only wanted to borrow it. Chambers, unable to find another buyer, paid one of his grave robbers to return the skull, but later found that he never carried out the task. The Argosy story was dismissed as a hoax by historical and literary experts of the time, yet it was far from the end of the story. Read that account and what happened afterward at Narratively. -via Strange Company 

Hunter and Jenna Perrin were in their home in Temecula--a city south of Los Angeles--when they received an automatic notification from their security camera system. This was followed by a knock on the door. NBC 4 News reports that a hot air balloon with thirteen people had landed in the small backyard of the suburban home.

The pilot had determined that the balloon was about to run out of fuel and had to make an emergency landing. He achieved an ideal landing, as the balloon didn't hit the house, any trees, or the fence. In fact, there was no property damage at all and no injuries.

-via David Thompson

Squid was born with a deformity in his back legs. He lucked out when he came into the care of Drs. Lauren and Daniel Anthony, married veterinarians in Frisco, Texas. They took the kitten in and made splints of different kinds to keep his legs straight while he learned to walk properly. But he needed more, specifically a moveable brace to keep his hips aligned. There are such things, but none small enough for a kitten, so the docs had to make their own- out of LEGO pieces! They explained at Instagram that "he has a flexural tendon deformity of his hocks. The Lego exoskeleton is helping to prevent abduction of the hips!" You might or might not understand that, but we are happy that they do. Squid is an active kitten, and his legs are getting stronger and beginning to move correctly with this kind of therapy (he also uses an underwater treadmill). I guess it's true that you can make anything if you have enough LEGO pieces. 

One way for airlines to reduce costs and maximize profits is to reconfigure seating to pack the largest number of passengers possible into a plane. That's how they got so small and uncomfortable. Alejandro Núñez Vicente has been working on this idea for years, and came up with the Chaise Longue, a configuration that stacks every other row of seats higher so that rows can be closer together while allowing for some legroom and reclining seat backs. His first design met with internet backlash. Vicente went back to the drawing board and took the feedback into consideration. 

Several versions later, Vincente has unveiled the “ultimate, final statement” of the Chaise Longue, shown above. It addresses the earlier criticisms, such as no room for carry-on bags, but still has a few problems. 

1. The seats aren't totally accessible, so a wheelchair row had to be added to the front of the cabin. 

2. While they address comfort, the seats no longer save room in existing economy classes, so a new, more expensive class of economy seating will have to be launched. 

3. The design has yet to be approved by the FAA, which requires that passengers be able to exit a plane in 90 seconds. 

Read about Vincente's double-stack seat designs and how they've changed, at the Autopian. 

(Image credit: Chaise Longue) 

Rivers are the water paths that rain and snow follow from higher elevations to lower elevations until they reach the ocean. Sometimes they end in a lake or another river, but gravity ensures that water flows to a lower level, like sea level. The Colorado River, on the other hand, flows from the Rocky Mountains in Colorado through several states and then just disappears. Oh, it used to flow into the Pacific Ocean, but that was before people moved to the western US and wanted to live there a grow crops despite the fact that it's a desert. 

Half as Interesting takes us on a tour of the Colorado River and what happens to all that pristine snow melt along the way. As of now, the river almost reaches the west coast before it's completely used up, but as more and more people and industry settle along its route, it may grow shorter and shorter. The video is eight minutes long; the rest is an ad. 

Canadians take maple syrup seriously. To be legally labeled as maple syrup, the product has to be 100% maple syrup. Otherwise, it is called table syrup. And no one in Canada takes maple syrup more seriously than Quebec. So it was a major scandal when maple syrup from producer Steve Bourdeau was found to contain 50% cane sugar! This is the first case of widespread maple fraud in Quebec, which has a serious inspection system. Bourdeau claims that any adulteration was done outside of his business, as he has bought syrup from Ontario. But cans of Érablière Steve Bourdeau are still being sold in stores, with their labels covered with different names. Bourdeau dismisses this as unimportant, because they will be sold out soon. It's also alleged that he is repackaging adulterated syrup that has been returned. 

The Québec Maple Syrup Producers federation has been looking into Bordeau's business for some time. The adulteration was uncovered when a journalist thought his maple syrup didn't taste right and had it analyzed. This may seem weird to Americans, who use maple-flavored corn syrup on pancakes and just assume that any product that is suspiciously affordable has been adulterated, but now we know that we can trust maple syrup from Quebec to be stringently pure -unless it has Bordeau's name on it. You'll find more links about this ongoing scandal at Metafilter.  

(Image credit: Dvortygirl) 

Michael Billington, a theater critic for The Guardian, ranks from worst to best all of the plays of William Shakespeare. He identifies 35 of them, but scholars dispute that number, raising higher or lower due to the Bard's collaboration with author writers. The Two Noble Kinsmen, for example, co-written with John Fletcher, is sometimes described as a Fletcher play because that man may have composed the majority of it.

Several years ago, I read and watched all of Shakespeare's plays. There is good reason why some, such as Macbeth, are considered classics and others, such as Timon of Athens, are rarely staged.

Billington's lower ranks are not surprising (although I would place The Merchant of Venice much higher), his selection for #1 is.

-via Kottke

Two guys who go by the name Taste Buds came up with the most enjoyable (to produce) YouTube series imaginable. They embarked on a quest to try the food of every country in the world, without leaving New York City! They pick countries pretty much at random and go to a different restaurant every week. Does New York City have a restaurant from all of the 195 nations on their list? They've found 21 so far, and we haven't seen any evidence that they've ever picked a country that's not represented by some eatery. 

At each restaurant, they explain their project and get the VIP treatment. They ask questions about the cuisine while they eat their way through several dishes and quite a few drinks. It would take a week to recover from such excess. I'm quite envious. The last time I was in New York, I managed to eat from a non-American cuisine for every meal, but it was only for a few days (I've done the same in Washington, DC). Now I'm craving Hungarian goulash, but I'll have to make it myself.   

You can see videos from all 21 restaurants so far at YouTube. -via Laughing Squid 

If you know anything about General Hideki Tojo, it's that he commanded the Japanese military during World War II. He rose through the ranks to become commander of the army, and also served as Japan's prime minister from October 1941 to July 1944. Tojo was thrown out of office a year before the war ended, and was retired in Setagaya, Tokyo, when Americans came to arrest him in on September 11, 1945. 

Tojo didn't plan to give them the satisfaction. He shot himself in the chest as they approached his house. But the bullet missed his heart, and Tojo was saved by the ultimate indignity- blood transfusions from American donors. The general was then kept in prison for months and went on trial for war crimes, which lasted another three months. During this time, Tojo received complete medical care, including dentures to replace his rotten teeth. He refused a full set, since he knew he would ultimately be executed, but the dentures he received included another indignity from the Americans, in the form of a Morse code message embedded in them. Read about his life, arrest, and the words that Americans put in Tojo's mouth at Utterly Interesting. 

(Image credit: SMU Central University Libraries) 

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most deadly cancers, with a 13% survival rate at five years. But the ability of scientists to custom-design therapeutic vaccines using mRNA technology may change that. A trial from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center enrolled 16 patients with pancreatic cancer. After surgery, material from their individual tumors was studied to design an mRNA vaccine specifically for them, which could teach their bodies to recognize the exact cancerous cells that made up the tumor, wherever they occurred in the body. The vaccines were used alongside standard treatments of immunotherapy and chemotherapy. Of those 16 patients, half showed responses to the vaccines by producing more of certain kinds of T-cells. 

Six years later, only two of the eight patients whose bodies did not respond to the vaccines are still alive. But seven of the eight who produced more T-cells have survived! This is a remarkable finding, since cancer cells are the body's own cells, and finding the slight difference between what the immune system should attack and what it should not is a major undertaking. Even more fine-tuning of the customized vaccines may raise the success rate. As it is, those involved want to expand trials to more patients. Read more about this research at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. -via kottke   

(Image credit: Miguel Tremblay) 

The long-awaited Coyote vs Acme is finally going to see the light of day. Based on a 1990 story, the film is a combination of animation and live action, and it's a courtroom drama. The Coyote, after untold disappointments in their products, is suing the Acme corporation. As you might guess, not all the action takes place in the courtroom, because it wouldn't be the Coyote we know without a lot of destructive chaos. 

Warner Bros. seemed to be against this film from the start. First, they put limitations on their cartoon characters. Then they declined to move ahead with the movie. Years later, they approved a different script. Coyote vs Acme was completed, and got great reviews from anyone at previews or test screenings. However, in 2023, Warner Bros. announced it would not be released, drawing a lot of backlash from fans. They later said it could be released if the producers could find another distributor, but they also demanded too much money from anyone willing. Finally, in 2025, Ketchup Entertainment got a deal. Coyote vs Acme will open in theaters on August 28.  -via Metafilter