"Shrapnel" is a war term for broken pieces of a bomb or mortar that rip through a human body at a high speed and cause all kinds of damage. It sounds like it evolved from "scrap," but it actually comes from Lieutenant-General Henry Scrope Shrapnel of the British Army. Oh, was Shrapnel the first person to be wounded by shrapnel? No, he more or less invented it. 

In 1784, Shrapnel began experimenting with making artillery infinitely more damaging (on his own time and his own dime), and invented a cannonball that was also a bomb filled with round bullets, or shot. The bomb's fuse was timed to explode when the projectile neared its target. He called it a "spherical case shot," but soldiers called it a "Shrapnel shell." They rained havoc on uncounted personnel during World War I. 

As artillery was improved and became even more deadly, the Shrapnel shell was discontinued. But the pieces of shell that ripped through soldiers' bodies became known as shrapnel, and the term stuck. -Thanks, WTM! 

In years past, farmers in the Landes department of southwestern France moved through marshlands on stilts that kept them dry and able to see greater distances. The performing group Lous Cadetouns preserves that tradition through dances. These carefully choreographed events involve top tier athletes moving acrobatically and synchronized to create engagingly graceful displays.

-via The Awesomer

Since its introduction in 1978, the Milton Bradley board game Hungry Hungry Hippos has terrorized two generations of children. Who among us has not woken from nightmares, drenched in sweat and vomit, after revisiting childhood days spent playing the game?

Now we can return to the horror by watching the upcoming film Hungry by Aura Entertainment. It shows a group of tourists on a tour of a Louisiana swamp. Unbeknownst to them, there is a new apex predator in the waters.

I hope that the world's most famous hippopotamus, Moo Deng, was able to secure at least a cameo role in this film.

-via Gizmodo

The Texians' dreams of independence from the tyrrany of Santa Anna seemed hopeless. The well-organized and equipped Mexican army had shattered the formations of the Texian settlers who were in full flight.

General Sam Houston led a retreat of his small force almost to the border with the United States. The Texians, who numbered only 910 men, were running out of room to retreat further. They were also out of patience and eager to strike at their enemies.

Don't call a plumber! All you need to unclog a stubborn drain is something you already have around the house ...eggs! Lots and lots of eggs. By the time you get to the end of this tutorial, you'll start to fear an egg shortage. Or maybe this guy has his own chicken coop and few neighbors to give eggs to. But at least, you'll be slightly entertained.  

The YouTube channel HowToBasic (previously at Neatorama) most often gives us recipes, with similar results, but this time they went in another direction. This has to be a riff on those ads you see about why you should put oil in your toilet or aluminum foil on your door knobs. I still don't know those things because I am well aware that if I click on the ad, I'll be led down a 45-page primrose path of more ads. At least this video gets to the point quickly. -via Boing Boing

Thirty years ago yesterday, the movie Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie opened in theaters. You might not remember it at all, because it went to video after a short theater run that made a million dollars against a $5 million production budget. What happened? 

In the '90s, getting into theaters was the ultimate goal for any entertainment franchise. MST3K had been on TV for eight years, and had built a following of loyal fans. Why not make the leap to the big screen? But then they had to deal with Hollywood producers, who wanted all the jokes to appeal to a mainstream audience, and MST3K's success was due to the show being completely out of the mainstream. There were other factors that make the movie difficult that you can read at Inverse. Despite the lost money, the movie wasn't really a disaster, and fans now consider it a pretty good TV episode.

The Golden Age of Hollywood came about when synchronized dialogue came to theaters and there were five big studios cranking out fantasies for the masses. One of the benefits of the industry being centered in southern California was the access to many types of locations. In 1927, Paramount Studios developed this location map showing what California landscapes could be used for faraway movie settings. No need to send a cast and crew overseas to recreate the Sahara Desert or a South Sea island! The audiences wouldn't know the difference, since they'd never been to those places.   

But do these locations really resemble what they portrayed? Peter Atwood found photographs of the California spots labeled on the map and constructed another map with them. How plausible they are depends on how familiar you are with the real location. The picture of "Kentucky" looks like nothing I've seen in the state; your mileage may vary. Of course, in the 21st century, movie budgets often allow for shipping an entire production overseas, which can actually be cheaper than filming in California. See the two maps together here. -via kottke 

Police bodycam videos are a genre on YouTube with many channels devoted to showing the real life drama experienced by law enforcement officers and the people they encounter. I waste too much time watching them.

Many police departments, including that of New York City, maintain mounted patrols. Despite advances in technology, horses remain useful for managing particular environments, including city streets.

This video shows an officer's body camera as the mounted officer chases down an alleged purse snatcher. You can view the complete footage here. The suspect is a parolee out on a murder conviction.

We don't know the name of the officer, but ABC 7 News says that the horse is named Kelly.

This is Orhan Avci, who is the head of the Huzur Party of the region around Karliova in the eastern part of the country. I've seen him described as a Turkish politician and a Kurdish politician in Turkey. I don't know anything about him or his political party, but I do know that he's going places.

I mean, look at that 'stache. But be careful doing so. To borrow a phrase from Jerry Seinfield, get a sense of it and then look away.

When the World Beard & Mustache Championships are held, Avci should consider entering and dancing away with the grand prize.

-via NEXTA

A chimpanzee is sent on a long deep space mission to find a habitable planet for earthlings to colonize. The fact that the astronaut is a chimp is a nod to our human habit of outsourcing our most mundane and dangerous work. The astronaut and the mission are both named HOPE-65, and she's from a long line of chimps specially trained for this kind of task. We can assume there is no question of ever coming back, no matter what she finds. We don't know how the all previous missions went, but this one found a planet, with oxygen, water, and life! The real question is- is this really a suitable planet for colonization by humans? 

HOPE-65 is a 2026 senior film project from the French art school Brassart-Grenoble, specifically the students in the 3D animation and video effects department. You can read more about the film at Kuriositas.  -via Nag on the Lake 

The remains of a Neanderthal infant were found in a cave in Israel, dating back more than 50,000 years. The skeleton, named Amud 7, was surprisingly complete, and yielded some surprising findings. The growth of the teeth showed that only two had erupted, making the child around six months old at death. But the size of the brain case and the limb bones indicated a child that would be around 12-14 months old! The bones of Amud 7 were compared with known specimens of Neanderthal children who were somewhat older at death, and the conclusion is that Neanderthal children grew at an astonishing rate in the first year. 

The energy demands of such growth imply that nutrition was abundant where they lived. Neanderthals began eating solid food at about six months, just like ancient and modern homo sapiens. We don't yet know if Neanderthal children may have started walking at a much earlier age. But is this "abnormal" in the line of human development? It's possible that the line that became homo sapiens is the outlier in that human infancy is longer than it could have been. Read more about Neanderthal babies at ZME Science. -via Damn Interesting 

(Image credit: AI/ZME Science)  

When I first moved to my current home, my neighbors were up in arms because my ten-year-old was out in the creek turning rocks over to find crawfish. Didn't I know that's not safe? Honestly, I wouldn't have expected anything less from her. Many people who grew up as free-range children lament the regimented lifestyles of today's youngsters, because it can result in anxious young adults ill-equipped to navigate the world. But we won't be going back to those days. Back then, there was safety in numbers, and now you can't even find other children except at school and play dates. Kids still need time, freedom, and risk to develop competence and confidence. So what can we do? 

One thing we can do is replicate some of the elements of free play and exploration with designed spaces that are less sterile and obvious and more open to imagination. Children want to try things they've never done before, and it helps if they get to figure it out themselves. This TED-Ed lesson looks at some of the factors that go into slightly risky play that helps children develop their own agency. The downside is that these kinds of playgrounds will inevitably cost money to use.  

In 1971, Apollo 14 became the third mission to land on the surface of the Moon. Alan Shephard and Edgar Mitchell reached the lunar surface while Stuart Roosa remained in orbit. To move scientific equipment around the Moon, NASA commissioned the creation of two-wheeled handcart called the Mobile Equipment Transporter (MET).

Jalopnik notes that the two tires on the MET were the first air-filled tires to reach the Moon. Goodyear considered possible options for the airless, rock-strewn terrain and settled on smooth, tread-less tires filled with nitrogen.

Shephard and Mitchell used the MET to cover two miles across the Moon. But the cart was so cumbersome that they quickly decided to just carry it, which was manageable in gravity 17% that of Earth's.

When you think of immigration, you have to consider why someone would want to move to a different nation, which almost always involves the promise of a better life. The nations of the world vary greatly in population, from city-states like Singapore and Vatican City to giants like China and India, so a map or list using percentages can be surprising. Brilliant Maps sorted all this out, and their results seem to show that people tend to move to smaller countries. This is a bit deceiving, since one person moving to a tiny country shifts the percentage more than one person moving to a huge nation. But you may still be surprised. There is one country on earth that is 100% populated by people born elsewhere, and you might be able to guess which it is. There's also one country that has no immigrants. The United States is nowhere near the top nor the bottom.

The image above showing the nations with more than 30% immigrants has two sizable countries. In Saudi Arabia, native-born citizens are supported by oil money through the government, so they hire people from other countries to do the work (smaller oil states do likewise). Australia just seems like a great place to live, despite the deadly wildlife.   

Besides the maps, there is an accompanying list of countries ranked by the percentage of immigrants, which also tells you where people want to live if they have the opportunity, the guts, and the wherewithal. -via Nag on the Lake 

The Garpenberg Zinc Mine in Sweden stretches to 1,120 meters (3,675 feet) below sea level, and even further from the earth's surface. The company that owns the mine, Boliden, thought "Hey! let's host a foot race down there!" And the idea of the World's Deepest Marathon was born. It happened last October, when 55 runners took off, wearing helmets with lanterns, and ran 26 miles in the darkness. The temperature stayed at 75°F and the humidity was at 72%. No electronic devices were allowed, so they ran in silence as well as darkness. To make 26 miles, they ran from one end of the mine to the other and back, eleven times. 

James Mason hadn't run a marathon in ten years, but he was intrigued by the idea and entered. He had never been inside a mine, though. The race was very different, because there was no music, and no scenery- just gray walls every inch. Mason was amazed to find himself crossing the final finish line first! He tells us about his experience at The Guardian. -via Metafilter