Hay fever used to be an illness associated with aristocrats, but now it's pretty widespread. Cases of asthma, eczema, and food allergies have risen exponentially in the last few decades. But not for the Amish. While 8-10% of children have asthma, that rate is only 1-2% for Amish children. About half the general population is allergic to something, but a recent pinprick study shows only 7% of Amish children have those same common allergies. 

American children who grow up on farms have lower allergy rates than urban and suburban children, but the Amish rates are still much lower. In fact, when childhood allergies in Amish children were compared to Hutterite children, also raised on farms with similar ancestry, the Hutterite children had an allergy rate six times higher. Read what scientists have learned about allergy development -or non-development- in Amish children and how it could lead to better allergy relief for the rest of us.  -via Damn Interesting 

(Image credit: Gadjoboy) 

If you thought cats were manipulative, you obviously haven't had a ferret. I haven't owned a ferret, either, but I've heard enough stories from family members. Ferrets are known for their amazing flexibility and never-ending energy. They can fill your home with chaos, if you like that sort of thing. And underneath all that frantic activity, ferrets are pretty clever in getting what they want. YouTuber William Snekspeare got two ferrets, and before he knew what happened, he had five ferrets. Only then did he figure out how conniving they can be. They each have their separate personalities: Princess hates pork, Steve likes pork, and Toast plays video games, and they are all smarter than they look. William tries to keep their behavior under control, but they managed to turn the tables on him with their wits until it became clear who's the boss of the house. It ain't William. -via Geeks Are Sexy 

In 1979, a stuck valve led to a loss of water in a nuclear facility and ended in a partial meltdown at Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station in Pennsylvania. Coincidentally, the movie The China Syndrome had opened 12 days earlier. It concerned a journalist who witnessed a stuck gauge leading to loss of water in a commercial nuclear power plant. I saw the movie after the Three Mile Island incident hit the news, and I recall a scene when someone described a nuclear meltdown as being able to flatten an area the size of Pennsylvania -and the whole audience giggled nervously. 

Younger people today would be forgiven for thinking that The China Syndrome was made about the Three Mile Island incident. But in 1979, the real disaster drove more people to see the movie, and it explained the danger better than the news did. Public support for nuclear power plunged, and the increase in nuclear power plants stopped in its tracks, with only a few projects being completed in the next thirty years. The China Syndrome wasn't the only film that swayed public opinion or otherwise changed history- read about seven such movies at Mental Floss. 

People who have pools or dumpsters know how dangerous they are for small animals- they can fall in, but it's hard to get out. A board added as a ramp can fix the problem. The city of Amsterdam in the Netherlands is tackling the problem in a grand way, by installing kitty steps in the city's concrete canals. When they determined that 19 cats had drowned in the last six months because they could not escape, the city council allocated €100,000 to build the wooden ramps. This is what they will look like. 

The escape ramps are officially called "wildlife exit sites," since cats aren't the only animals that have trouble escaping the canals. The first step is to determine where cats have been drowning, so that the most effective locations can be targeted. Amsterdam cares about its kitties. 

-via Metafilter, where I also learned about Amsterdam's Cat Boat, Animal Ambulance, and Cat Cabinet museum. 

(Image credit: Massimo Catarinella) 

Yesterday, British rock star Ozzy Osbourne passed away at the age of 76.

Here in Texas, we remember him for a particular incident which is emblematic of our state. The excellent history X account Traces of Texas describes it.

In 1982, while thoroughly intoxicated, Osbourne urinated on the Cenotaph, a monument to the Alamo martyrs which stands in front of the old chapel. He was arrested and, after his performance the following night, banned from performing in San Antonio for a decade.

Osbourne returned in 1992, profusely apologized for his act of defilement, donated $10,000 to the Daughters of the Republic of Texas (which maintains the site), and performed for two nights.

David Crockett famously said, "You can all go to hell and I'll go to Texas," before leaving Tennessee on his final journey into glory. Texas is a home of second chances and starting over. Ozzy Osbourne received his second chance and redemption for an impulsive act just a few yards from where Crockett fell. The official Instagram account for the Alamo mourns his passing with respect and kindness.

Photo: Focka used under Creative Commons license

In an alternate version of the near future, a space station research lab orbiting Mars has a catastrophic accident. A crew member manages to survive in an escape pod, but what then? She can't establish communication with earth, and doesn't have the capacity to return home on her own. That might remind you of The Martian, but this science fiction story is different. The prospect of drifting through space all alone until you die is pretty terrifying, but things can always get worse. You'll know exactly the moment that this sci-fi tale suddenly turns into a horror story. 

Alone by Nicholas Acosta is the latest release from Dust. It seems shorter than it is, because it moves fast and leaves you wondering- and happy that you watched it long before bedtime. Not only will you wonder what happens after the short film ends, but also why three people got acting credits. -via Geeks Are Sexy 

The 1980 film The Shining has terrorized audiences for 45 years now. It was co-written and directed by Stanley Kubrick, loosely based on a story by Stephen King, and starred Jack Nicholson, so how could it not? But film buffs pointed out the parts that didn't make sense, and audiences were confused trying to keep up with what was happening. Even the cast and crew were filled with questions, to which Kubrick responded that the movie didn't have to make sense. Over the years, various philosophical interpretations of The Shining have been presented, but that didn't help the original audiences in 1980.

Warner Bros. didn't like how confusing the film was. After The Shining opened in New York and Los Angeles, the studio asked for the final scene to be cut because it was confusing to the audience. Kubrick didn't object, because he knew the audience would be confused enough without it, which is how he intended to film to be. From the description of the deleted ending, it sounds as if it would have resolved the story a little better. Read what the original ending of The Shining told us at Dangerous Minds. -via Nag on the Lake 

Occasionally, women must go to great lengths to stave off the romantic efforts of men. This is true for animals as well as humans. ABC News reports that a recent study found that the females of a species of frog will actually pretend to be dead when approached by males.

The males, the article notes, are not particularly choosy. They very interested in mating with any and every available female. The females are more selective and so must fend off the advances of many males during mating season. Sometimes they give off vocalizations that create the impression that they are actually male. But the most innovative tactic is playing dead--what the scientists call "tonic immobility."

-via Dave Barry | Photo: Richard Bartz

The new movie Fantastic Four: First Steps opens this weekend, and Marvel, as a well as Marvel fans, are holding their breath hoping it will be good. The Fantastic Four comic book characters haven't had a great run at the box office; in fact this is the fourth attempt at making a Fantastic Four movie. The first was back in 1994, when Roger Corman and Bernd Eichinger produced The Fantastic Four, which was never released and indeed was only made so that Eichinger could retain the film rights to the characters. Their budget was only $1 million, but if anyone could squeeze a superhero film out of such a budget, it was Roger Corman. Enjoy the nonsensical plot, lack of action scenes, and cheap production values in this Honest Trailer. 

The Fantastic Four of 1994 answers the question "How bad could it be?" and makes all the subsequent Fantastic Four movies look good by comparison. The story of the production is wild- the actors used their own money to promote the film, trailers were shown, and a premiere event was set. Then it all suddenly stopped. One version of the story has it that Eichinger never intended to release the film. But Eichinger said that Marvel Studios founder Avi Arad heard about the impending release and paid him $2 million for all prints of the movie to be destroyed. However, if you enjoyed this Honest Trailer, you can watch the full movie at YouTube. 

And this weekend, look for the four principle actors from the 1994 movie as they appear in cameos in Fantastic Four: First Steps. 

It is a truth universally acknowledged that, as an art form, television reached its zenith in 90s science fiction. YouTuber Rowan J. Coleman clearly understands the greatness of these narratives, as we have previously seen in his analysis of the subtle perfection of Patrick Stewart as Captain Picard.

Here, Coleman breaks down how, in particular scenes, two actors contributed to the glorious story of Babylon 5, which piloted in 1993 and and concluded in 1998. In this franchise, Andreas Katsulas depicted G'Kar and and Peter Jurasik took the role of Londo Mollari. These two men, through heavy makeup, used precise gestures, facial expressions, and intonations to bring to the screen flawed heroes that fascinated a generation.

When you talk about "really weird TV," it could honestly be argued that many quite popular shows are really weird, but you can't really argue with success. This is about shows that were so strange they failed almost immediately. When cable TV exploded in the early 1980s, there was suddenly an awful lot of TV channels that were running 24 hours a day. They needed original content, so any and all ideas were considered. Some shows lasted a few years, while others were yanked after the first comments rolled in. 

In a list like this, you would expect to see My Mother the Car and Heil Honey I'm Home! since they are so well known for being bad. But there are plenty of series that were so poorly-conceived they didn't receive even negative attention, or were pulled from the schedule before you got a chance to hear about them. Those are the most interesting entries in the list of 31 of the strangest shows to ever air on TV at Cracked.  

Babcock Ranch is a housing development about 20 miles inland of Fort Myers, Florida. Hurricanes are part of live along the Gulf coast, so avoiding flooding is a priority for home builders and buyers. Babcock Ranch is built with this objective in mind.

This Wall Street Journal video illustrates how the urban planners discarded the traditional grid model for streets to focus on water drainage. Their design includes large ponds that are connected through subterranean pipes and can be emptied prior to the arrival of a storm. Streets are intentionally built low so that they can serve as auxilarly drainage channels. Although this may leave residents isolated during a hurricane, it will increase the likelihood of preserving their houses.

-via Kottke

The animated sitcom The Simpsons is dubbed into quite a few languages for airing around the world. We can assume that most of what they say has the same meaning in another language, but there are specific nonsense phrases we Americans associate with the show. YouTuber MrNostalgik gives us nine of those languages at a time to show us how some of those catchphrases get translated. You'd think Homer's "Doh!" would be the same around the world, but no. Bart uses ¡Ay, caramba! as an interjection because it's a language he doesn't speak. So does the Spanish version use the same phrase? The Mexican version does, but the cartoon shown in Spain goes not. In each country, these phrases can be copied or they can be switched out for a locally-understood phrase that has the same comedic effect. Here's more:



You can read more about non-English versions of The Simpsons at Wikipedia. -via Laughing Squid 

In the 1985 movie Pee-wee's Big Adventure, Pee-wee Herman goes on a quest to retrieve his stolen bicycle. He had been told it was in the basement of the Alamo, but after traveling to Texas, he finds that there's no basement at the Alamo. Now the Alamo Mission in San Antonio finally has the bike, just in time to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the movie's release on August 9th. To celebrate the anniversary and the acquisition, the Alamo will host a public screening of Pee-wee's Big Adventure. 

The iconic red and white Schwinn bicycle used in the movie's filming will go on temporary display later this year inside the Ralston Family Collection Center, and will be a part of the new Alamo Visitor Center and Museum opening in the fall of 2027. Paul Reubens would have been proud. Read more about the new acquisition at Texas Public Radio. -via Boing Boing 

Bill McClintock is a genius music mixer. Most of his mashups have been clever combinations of two main songs from completely different musical genres with a random guitar solo thrown in. His last mashup experimented with using more songs that are somewhat related to each other. This time he's gone all in on moody, even apocalyptic, songs from the past 50 years, with a mix he calls "Killing in the Name of a Terrible Holy Lie." No, it's not sunshine and roses, but as far as I can tell, it's SFW. The selected tunes are rock, various kinds of metal, pop, and even rap, but they all mesh so well you'll only know the transitions if you know the songs. Here are the songs he used:

Nine Inch Nails - Terrible Lie
Rage Against the Machine - Killing in the Name
Dio - Holy Diver
Soundgarden - Outshined
Judas Priest - Hot Rockin'
KISS - All Hell's Breakin' Loose
Pantera - 5 Minutes Alone
Black Sabbath - Into the Void
Billy Squier - The Stroke
Judas Priest - You've Got Another Thing Comin'
Alice in Chains - Them Bones
Metallica - Sad But True 

Check out McClintock's previous music mashups at Neatorama.