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As a kid, I watched a ton of AMC, back in the pre-”Mad Men” and -”Walking Dead” days when the channel only played old movies, and was commercial-free to boot. And, oh, how I hated Bette Davis because whenever one of her movies was on, that meant it was probably a drama about dramatic adult things, and all my 10-year-old self wanted was some Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis slapstick or a happy-go-lucky Technicolor musical. However, my kid self likely would’ve been into Davis’ “Now, Voyager“because I was and still am a sucker for a magical makeover movie…
Nipple-darkening tattoos in Britain, double eyelid surgery in South Korea, and now mustache implants in Turkey. I’m not going out of my way to turn this blog into Stuff Mom Never Told You About Faddish Cosmetic Surgeries, I swear. But how could I resist spreading the word about how men are apparently “flocking” to Turkey to get mustache implants? Answer: I couldn’t.
Who invented the cupcake?
by Cristen Conger | April 19, 2013
Cobbling together a history of cupcakes was about as challenging as eating one without getting frosting all over my face, as the origin story of America’s Favorite Handheld Dessert is a murky one. Speaking to Scientific American, food historian Andrew Smith said cupcakes first popped up in an American cookbook a couple years prior in 1826, although earlier recipes dated back to the 1850s in England. Meanwhile, Krystina Cupcake Castella, author of “Crazy About Cupcakes” writes that the word first appeared in print in 1828 in Eliza Leslie’s “75 Receipts for Pastry, Cakes and Sweetmeats.” Leslie was a Victorian-era Betty Crocker who may have picked up the cupcake “receipt” in England where she grew up…
Whether good, bad, or ugly, female political candidates’ looks making the news hurts their electability. A survey jointly sponsored by Name It. Change It., the Women’s Media Center and She Should Run found that whenever the media report on the appearance of women running for office, the outcome is negative — no matter whether news items praise or critique. Based on the responses of 1,500 likely male and female voters, including an oversample of 100 women, the survey revealed that the appearance reporting hurt the women candidates the most in the areas of “being in touch, being likeable, confident, effective and qualified.”
In anticipation of Saint Patrick’s Day, our minds inevitably turn the little people of Irish folklore.
But as Julie and I discuss in this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, diminutive magical fairy folk pop up in folk traditions around the world – as do the Lilliputian hallucinations that produce such fantastic visions.
So listen in and I’ll help you bone up on Irish myth and then we’ll introduce you to the science behind those paranormal leprechaun encounters.
Blind men will see again.
Gaunt beings will gather around death beds.
Little people will frolic in the woods.
Brogurt, Yogurt For Bros
by Cristen Conger | February 26, 2013
In 2001, Dannon attempted the seemingly impossible: turn yogurt into a “man food.” Speaking to The New York Times about its new ad campaign clearly aimed at a male demographic then-marketing president Eric Leventhal said, “Yogurt is not just a woman thing.” And so its new manly commercials showed gritty construction workers….doing a choreographed dance while stirring their yogurt in time? Real tough stuff.
There’s far more to military camouflage than painting a tank green. As Julie and I discuss in this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, camouflage design incorporates both the neuroscience of how we perceive the world as well as the art of cubism and textile design.
To the right you’ll find an excellent example of the dazzle ship camouflage that we discuss in the episode. This photo takes us back to November 1918, as airmen and seamen cheer King George V from the aircraft carrier ‘Argus’ on his visit to the Fleet.
Today was day two of E3. It was also the day game four of the Stanley Cup finals was happening at the Staples Center (RIGHT NEXT to the LA Convention Center that hosts E3) AND the day that the president was coming to Beverly Hills. In short, Los Angeles became mayhem. THAT was fun. Leaving […]
I have yet to play the hit role-playing game “Skyrim,” but more than a few tales of gamer obsession leave me hesitant to test its waters. After all, do I really have time for a game that’s “better than real life?” And what am I to make of the gamer who filled his home with the beheaded female corpses?
I enjoy a good blood-soaked video game romp as well as the next guy, but stuff like this really makes me ponder the effects of violent video games on the human psyche. Just consider this recent Indiana University School of Medicine study, which suggests violent video games alter brain areas involved in inhibition and emotional modulation.
Do people really just go up in flames? Do grannies really flare up like roman candles in their rockers and is there anything in science that explains why a middle-aged bachelor might burn down to his sneakers without warning?
In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Julie and I enter the dubious world of spontaneous human combustion– including an alleged recent example at an adult film store in San Francisco. Where does the science end and the nonsense begin? We’ll walk the line with you and you’ll learn just what it takes to make something go up in flames.
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