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Toronto researchers cross the blood-brain barrier for the first time. Dr. Todd Mainprize used a focused ultrasound technique, developed with collaborator Dr. Kullervo Hynynen and others, to non-invasively cross the blood-brain barrier to selectively and directly deliver a chemotherapeutic drug to a glioma. (Globe & Mail x 2). "Mainprize says the method could be used for all sorts of brain conditions besides cancer. "There are possibilities of delivering new chemicals and therapies for depression, Alzheimer's disease, stem cells," he said." (CTV) [more inside]
posted by cotton dress sock at 11:26 PM PST - 11 comments

Palliative care practitioner BJ Miller on redesigning our relationship with death. BJ Miller and the Zen Hospice Project previously.
posted by lumensimus at 9:58 PM PST - 9 comments

Forget about circus. Forget about glittering costumes, caged animals and clowns with their old hat jokes. Circus can be alternative…

This is the vision of Ukrainian director Taras Pozdnyakov with his Kiev-based circus project Raw Art, "post-circus," a response to the large-scale blockbusters, such as Cirque du Soleil and Franco Dragone. Acts focus on individual and small group performances, such as the award-winning structure-free gymnastic performance by the brothers Iroshnikov, and solo performances by Sergey Timofeev and Alexander Koblikov. There is a trio of jugglers, choreographed jumprope routines, ring work and much more on YouTube and Vimeo.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:33 PM PST - 9 comments

Sony has announced that it will stop its production of Betamax video tapes in March of next year. [more inside]
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 4:17 PM PST - 85 comments

"Americans fighting over what is printed on a coffee cup designed by a billion-dollar company to promote conformity sounds like cold German satire: While the world rages on and problems like starvation, a massive refugee crisis, and homelessness remain unfixed, people in America — including an American presidential candidate — are arguing over a red beverage container." Starbucks’s red cup controversy, explained (Alex Abad-Santos, Vox)
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome at 4:16 PM PST - 241 comments

The long battle between the US government and the folks who own the property next door to Area 51.
posted by Chrysostom at 3:50 PM PST - 18 comments

On June 18, 1947 on a Pan Am flight from Calcutta to New York, an engine stopped working. While the pilot attempted to land the plane, the 25-year-old co-pilot unbuckled himself, and went into the main cabin to help the passengers...
posted by schmod at 2:50 PM PST - 68 comments

How Richard Scarry updated his children’s book to be more progressive and inclusive: photos comparing and contrasting two editions of Richard Scarry's Best Word Book Ever and documenting shifts between 1963 and 1991.
posted by eagle-bear at 2:24 PM PST - 55 comments

When the stones finally made it to the Bronx warehouse, Hearst realized he had yet another administrative catastrophe on his hands—the workers repacked the stones without returning them to their original wooden crates. The crates had departed from Spain with an identifying number and a compass direction on each crate, so that the 10,571 pieces of monastery could be reconstructed. Now that blueprint was completely, irrevocably gone. Hearst was the overwhelmed owner of what Time magazine christened “the biggest jigsaw puzzle in history.” -- In The Early 1900s, Robber Barons Bought Dozens Of Centuries-Old European Buildings. Where Is Medieval America Now?.
posted by steinwald at 2:02 PM PST - 7 comments

Watch this five year old change (with a little help) a wheel bearing on his dad's Toyota.
posted by pjern at 1:14 PM PST - 19 comments

An anthem for a hero for our age. An anthem... for Rowsdower.
Also from the same guy, songs for The Pumaman and Mitchell, and Idiot Control Now. [more inside]
posted by JHarris at 12:34 PM PST - 50 comments

Even though I’ve sold out Madison Square Garden as a standup comedian and have appeared in several films and a TV series, when my phone rings, the roles I’m offered are often defined by ethnicity and often require accents. ~ Aziz Ansari on Acting, Race and Hollywood [SLNYT]
posted by melissasaurus at 11:55 AM PST - 192 comments

Allen Toussaint, the legendary songwriter and pianist, has died. [more inside]
posted by cardioid at 11:37 AM PST - 58 comments

The "National Religious Liberties Conference", sponsored by radical evangelical pastor Kevin Swanson, with featured speaker Phillip Kayser, was primarily focused on how homosexuality was destroying god-fearing people everywhere, and how gays should be executed if they don't repent and stop being so gay. Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee and Bobby Jindal cuddled up with Mr. Swanson in their quest to outcrazy the other candidates, which is a difficult task, let's be honest. Rachel Maddow (skip to minute 6:00) is the first (and so far, only) national media journalist to cover the story and show footage of the event.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 11:33 AM PST - 58 comments

"Spätzle are a kind of soft egg noodle found in the cuisines of southern Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Hungary, Alsace and South Tyrol. Traditionally, Spätzle are made by scraping long, thin strips of dough off a wooden (sometimes wet) chopping board (Spätzlebrett) into boiling salted water where they cook until they rise to the surface... Spätzle typically accompany meat dishes prepared with an abundant sauce or gravy, such as Zwiebelrostbraten, Sauerbraten or Rouladen. In Hungary spätzle often are used in soup..." [more inside]
posted by growabrain at 11:10 AM PST - 70 comments

What the numbers say as a neighborhood gentrifies. New research is finding that gentrification, contrary to popular belief, doesn't actually force poorer residents to leave areas at atypical rates—though that doesn't mean the changes don't have negative consequences.Relatively reliable data over a period of 12 years.
posted by rmhsinc at 10:51 AM PST - 39 comments

"Most stores in South Korea are "one size fits all," and that one size is small, as in designer sample size small. Finding clothes larger than a U.S. women’s size 6 is challenging, especially since the starting point for "plus-size," or extra-large, is a Korean size 66, the rough equivalent of a U.S. women’s 8."
posted by Ragini at 10:50 AM PST - 16 comments

Beatrix Kiddo, age 7. The badassedessed junior ninja routine you'll see all year. Stay for the end. [SLFBvid]
posted by gottabefunky at 10:21 AM PST - 25 comments

Sleep With Me is a bedtime story for insomniacs, designed to get more and more boring as you listen. This is the story of Drew Ackerman's strange but popular podcast, whose raison d'être is literally to bore you to sleep with carefully constructed, rambling monologues. (Episodes occasionally mildly NSFW)
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 10:05 AM PST - 41 comments

Playwright Katori Hall responds to a production of her play, The Mountaintop where the role of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had been double-cast the role of King with a black actor and a white one.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:55 AM PST - 18 comments

Known only as The Grindmother, she is a 67 year-old Canadian woman who has taken up grindcore music and her demonic wailing will peel the paint off your walls. Why the Grindmother is the greatest thing to happen to grindcore in 2015. [more inside]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:27 AM PST - 41 comments

Over these last two years, I've come to suspect that my cat has gotten better, more comprehensive planning around her eventual death than most people do.
posted by dersins at 8:58 AM PST - 41 comments

A longtime legend in the piercing community has it that during the Victorian Era, young women from England were briefly caught up in the fad of having their nipples pierced. It was all the rage, and then it went out of style. It’s one of those stories, like Julius Caesar’s own pierced nipples, or King Tut’s stretched lobes, that seems made up, or at least padded with potential exaggeration. It’s the sort of thing that raises eyebrows, challenges how we think about Victorian Culture (The same people who supposedly covered their table’s legs because they too closely resembled female ankles were getting their nipples done?) and just plain seems impossible. Except it’s all true and then some.
posted by sciatrix at 8:50 AM PST - 60 comments

Industrial production destroyed both the taste and the nutritional value of wheat. One scientist believes he can undo the damage. [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 7:57 AM PST - 115 comments

The World Anti-Doping Agency, which monitors the fight against performance-enhancing drugs in sports, has released its 323-page report detailing the endemic use of PEDs in Russia, enabled and encouraged by the Russian government via the Ministry of Sport and the Federal Security Service. [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 7:55 AM PST - 30 comments

The Novella Is Not The Novel’s Daughter: An Argument in Notes by Lindsey Drager [Michigan Quarterly Review] [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 7:29 AM PST - 37 comments

It's hour six of Mathew Knowles’s day-long seminar "The Entertainment Industry: How do I get in?", and he is yelling across the theater at an usher who just told him new microphones are "on the way." "If this were a Beyoncé show and you said it was ‘on the way,’ your ass would be on the way," he shouts at her from the stage. It’s not the best burn, but we get the gist. The room is silent until another usher appears with two fresh microphones so the audience Q&A can get going. Weirdly, it takes a few minutes before the crowd loosens up.

--Learning to Be Beyoncé From Her Terrible Father: Inside Mathew Knowles's entertainment industry seminar
posted by almostmanda at 4:47 AM PST - 36 comments

We've already discussed part one and part two of Wait But Why's epic interview with Elon Musk, he has finished the series at part four with a bonus audio section. Enjoy!

Part One - Elon Musk: The World’s Raddest Man
Part Two - How Tesla Will Change The World
Part Three - How (and Why) SpaceX Will Colonize Mars
Bonus Audio - SpaceX Audio Stuff (podcast and audio book)
Part Four - The Cook and the Chef: Musk’s Secret Sauce [more inside]
posted by ellieBOA at 12:57 AM PST - 113 comments

Arika Okrent (previously and previously and previously) is known here as MentalFloss.com's language maven, usually looking at linguistic history, like English language words that only survive as parts of idioms and a group trying to revive the Lakota language. But her latest short piece clearly deals with the Future of Language: Emojis. And how the depiction of emojis for certain emotions vary between different devices/systems, sppecifically Apple/iOS, Google/Android and Samsung's proprietary sub-system for the Galaxy S5. [more inside]
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:23 AM PST - 27 comments