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The making of me and you Just input your date of birth, sex at birth, height and weight, and choose the metric or imperial units that make most sense to you. And instantly find out: The chemical ingredients that make up you, and what your body is worth; How many atoms you are made of, and what can be made with them; How much wee, poo, sperm or eggs you have produced so far; And so much more.
posted by joedan at 9:05 PM PST - 44 comments

12 hours of air conditioner sound [SLYT].
posted by MoonOrb at 8:29 PM PST - 20 comments

Giant octopus kite. That is all.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 7:36 PM PST - 25 comments

Birds demonstrate how to dance to different types of electronic music, and part 2, featuring more of the same.
posted by DoctorFedora at 7:00 PM PST - 30 comments

Pop quiz, hotshot. The last King of England who went by the name of Edward was Edward VIII (1936). So, how many King Edwards has England had?

Ha. Fooled you. It's eleven.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:38 PM PST - 39 comments

"While no one and everyone was watching, Chyna was making calculated moves to close in on her own empire with a precision and finesse that not even the Kardashians saw coming. This wasn’t a PR breakthrough. It was a coup. And so the Kardashians, a family often accused of stealing black men, black features, and black culture, got beat at their own game by a black woman. And not just any black woman, but a video vixen who was never supposed to see the inside of the country clubs the Kardashians frequented growing up." [more inside]
posted by sallybrown at 6:38 PM PST - 28 comments

No brush stroke, no accidental blotch of paint, no hidden nuance of a great painting by van Gogh or Monet can hide from the ultra-high resolution Google Art Camera.
posted by ColdChef at 6:35 PM PST - 12 comments

What is actually happening with San Francisco rental prices?

From mefi's own urban planning, history, infrastructure, transit and walkability obsessed blogger, Eric Fischer. [more inside]
posted by latkes at 5:58 PM PST - 75 comments

"Mercy VR is an interactive web based DJ set inspired by "virtual reality" which is a cutting edge torture technique used by the united states military. the music is based on our performance at that.party in march 2016" EXPERIENCE MERCY VR ON THE WEB [more inside]
posted by churl at 5:56 PM PST - 2 comments

Octopus eggs hatching [more inside]
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 5:42 PM PST - 14 comments

People living with dementia do not expect web designers to cure the symptoms, and many people recognize that it isn’t always possible to apply each dementia-friendly web design lesson when building a site. But the combined use of some of these lessons can help many people live well with their conditions. It is important to remember that dementia presents in many different forms, its symptoms are varied, and many of these symptoms are also common to other degenerative illnesses, in particular, conditions which hinder the social inclusion of the elderly.

[more inside]
posted by jenkinsEar at 3:48 PM PST - 26 comments

In the Netherlands, Empty Prisons Become Homes for Refugees In an interesting take on reusing and recycling, a government agency in the Netherlands has opened empty prisons to accommodate the influx of migrants seeking asylum.
posted by Michele in California at 2:32 PM PST - 18 comments

Cinema Palettes is a Twitter account that takes frames from films old, new and those to come and then breaks down the color palette of that frame.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI at 2:32 PM PST - 7 comments

The AMS has received 425 reports so far about a fireball event over Northeastern US on May 17th 2016 around 12:50am EDT (4:50 UT). The fireball was seen primarily from Maine but witnesses from Vermont, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Ontario (Canada) and Québec (Canada) also reported the event.
posted by rtha at 2:28 PM PST - 56 comments

Dictyostelium discoideum - dicty to its friends - has long been recognized as the world's most fascinating slime mold. A (previously) has a good introduction from a decade ago. You might be fascinated by their life cycle, which goes from individual cells, to animal-like slug, to plant-like fruiting body. You might be fascinated by their starvation-prompted altruism, in which most cells give up their lives so that a few can reproduce, and cheaters are punished. You might be fascinated by the way they farm and protect their crops. (Or maybe the farmed bacteria are farming them; it's hard to tell.) Or you might be fascinated by a brand new study about the DNA nets they use to trap and kill pathogens.
posted by clawsoon at 12:51 PM PST - 17 comments

A brief exploration of the last remaining - and still potentially lethal - stockpiles of Variola vera a.k.a. the smallpox virus, from award-winning documentary filmmaker Errol Morris. The last naturally occurring case was that of Ali Maow Maalin's in 1977 Somalia, two years before WHO certified its global eradication. The last recorded death due to the disease, however, occurred in 1978 Birmingham: University of Birmingham medical school photographer Janet Parker, whose death put the city in quarantined lockdown.
posted by Doktor Zed at 12:41 PM PST - 16 comments

In case you were wondering about [a conspicuous lack of] the Koch Brothers' involvement in the 2016 US political elections, here is the inside scoop. [more inside]
posted by Johann Georg Faust at 12:12 PM PST - 46 comments

Mount Washington Observatory posts video of man being blown away by 109 mph wind [slyt]. "Weather Observers Mike Dorfman and Tom Padham took a brief break this morning to enjoy the windy and wintry conditions on the observation deck." [more inside]
posted by argonauta at 11:51 AM PST - 37 comments

You're a fortune teller living in the Roman Empire. People keep asking you the same damn questions day after day, and it's hard to always come up with new answers. So you invest in a copy of the Oracles of Astrampsychus, a dice-based prophecy kit, containing 92 common questions and over a thousand possible answers. And here they are.
posted by theodolite at 11:03 AM PST - 35 comments

Seemingly bored with a staid but descriptive and well-recognized name, Siemens Healthcare has rebranded to Siemens Healthineers. The cringeworthy new name is "...intended to underline its pioneering spirit, Siemens said in a statement." The name was unveiled in a cheesy public event, complete with an anodyne theme-song led by spandex-clad dancers. [more inside]
posted by Existential Dread at 10:53 AM PST - 79 comments

"To be young, brown, and woke...THIS is our future, they are the ones who will pave the way." Latina Rebels founder Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodriguez is collecting photos of beautiful and inspirational graduation caps under the hashtag #LatinxGradCaps on Twitter and Instagram.
posted by amnesia and magnets at 9:37 AM PST - 7 comments

Guy Clark, 1941-2016. (Houston Chronicle Obituary). One of the most admired songwriters of his generation, a giant of Texas music, a master luthier, a beloved friend to and deep influence on many other musicians, and the loving husband of the gifted Susanna Clark. (See them interviewed together in 2004.) [more inside]
posted by spitbull at 9:10 AM PST - 44 comments

"I'm proud to say that moments ago, I introduced legislation, Bill C-16 ... that would ensure that Canadians will be free to identify themselves and to express their gender as they wish while being protected against discrimination and hate, because as Canadians, we should feel free and safe to be ourselves," said Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould in Ottawa. [more inside]
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:48 AM PST - 48 comments

Eskimeaux is a music project started in 2009, led by Gabriel Smith, co-founder of The Epoch, a brooklyn-based community of creators. [more inside]
posted by Annika Cicada at 8:28 AM PST - 10 comments

The flail (in particular, the one-handed version with a spiked head) is an iconic medieval weapon -- but it might not have ever been used in combat, despite the paintings and your old D&D rulebooks. Unlike most of the Internet, the discussion in the comments is worth reading.
posted by Etrigan at 7:56 AM PST - 101 comments

What it says on the tin (SL Business Insider)
posted by lharmon at 7:35 AM PST - 5 comments

Since parenting is not a 9-5 job, Hey Kids service is available for you and your child 24 hours a day. Hey Kids features short programmes interlude by clips of favorite Children’s Songs and Finger Families. The schedule is active, engaging and fun, and geared to promote interaction. Hey Kids broadcasts soft music and gently moving visuals designed to help soothe waking babies and create a calm atmosphere in the home.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:34 AM PST - 9 comments

When he first started working with Imagine Dragons, music producer Alex da Kid was looking for some inspiration for the Broadway musical, "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark."

"I thought they would be great to help me come up with ideas for U2," the Grammy-nominated English producer said.

There was just one problem: The demos they recorded were too good.

--The songs that became Imagine Dragons' Night Visions are probably about Spider-Man.
posted by almostmanda at 7:17 AM PST - 30 comments

The Changing American Diet, 1970-2013, in infographic form.
posted by Miko at 6:24 AM PST - 63 comments

Kullervo: Tolkien's fascination with Finland JRR Tolkien first discovered the tale [Kullervo's Tale] as a schoolboy in Birmingham. His father had died when he was a young child, and his mother passed away when he was 12, so he had been an orphan himself for some years when he came across the Finnish epic Kalevala - and within it the tale of Kullervo - during his final year at school. It had a huge impact.
The Finnish Epic Kalevala previously and previously.
posted by infini at 5:27 AM PST - 8 comments

It’s easy to mistake the beta rebellion for a youthful, but otherwise undifferentiated, variation on the bad old tradition of patriarchy. Yet the phenomenon bears the unmistakable signs of a new, net-bred brand of misogyny. [...] But how, exactly, does "hegemonic masculinity" accurately sum up a scene explicitly identifying as beta male? [violence].

[more inside]
posted by postcommunism at 5:24 AM PST - 73 comments

Sugar can be caramelized without melting. It then substitutes for white sugar without otherwise changing recipes. SLSeriouseats
posted by daisyace at 3:41 AM PST - 148 comments

From "American Mountains" to "American Conditions", language maven Arika Okrent (previously) looks at what some of what other countries, languages and cultures slap the label "American" onto.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:30 AM PST - 69 comments

In the summer of 1888 Bertha Benz, accompanied by her two teenage sons, was the first person to drive an automobile any significant distance. As a publicity stunt she drove her husband's experimental, three wheeled, benzene fueled, internal combustion powered, Benz Patent Motor Car Model III to visit her parents. The all day road trip took them 106 kilometres from the workshop in Mannheim to her families home in Pforzheim. And then a few days later back again by a different route so as to expose the automobile to as many people as possible. Along the way she filled up at apothecaries; the first of which bills itself as the world's first filling station and is still doing business today as a pharmacy.
posted by Mitheral at 12:10 AM PST - 6 comments