What Were We Thinking? The Top 10 Most Dangerous Ads

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Vintage advertising campaigns often steered consumers into dangerous territory, espousing misleading half-truths to convince people that toxic products were actually good for them. We may feel we're far beyond the bad old days of deceptive advertising, but our current obesity epidemic suggests exactly the opposite.

Here's a look back at 10 colossally painful advertisements, which make you wonder: What modern 'health' products might look a little more evil in the future?

(thanks Hunter)

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The 10 Stupidest Criminals

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Every once in awhile, we find proof that there's not much to understand of the criminal mindset. Here are the stories of the 10 Stupidest Criminals and their stupid crimes that are just too bizarre not to be true.

(thanks Casey)

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10 Most Impressive Polyglots In World History

Polyglotism is the ability to speak several languages with a high degree of proficiency. There is no consensus on exactly how many languages a person has to speak to be a polyglot. One could say 'four or more,' since speakers of two or three languages are commonly called bilingual and trilingual, respectively.

Throughout history, a few intrepid language enthusiasts have taken on the challenge of learning not one or two but dozens of languages. A few have even purportedly mastered as many as 100 distinct languages and dialects. Learn more about a few of these astonishing language learners, who just might inspire you to step up your own language learning game.

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Bacon Is Done

Stick a fork in bacon, Internet. Bacon's done.



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(thanks Cora)

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What Happens While You Sleep And How It Affects Your Every Waking Moment

The Ancient Greeks believed that one fell asleep when the brain filled with blood and awakened once it drained back out. Nineteenth-century philosophers contended that sleep happened when the brain was emptied of ambitions and stimulating thoughts. Even today, sleep remains one of the most poorly understood human biological functions.

In Dreamland: Adventures in the Strange Science of Sleep, journalist David K. Randall explores 'the largest overlooked part of your life and how it affects you even if you don't have a sleep problem.' From gender differences to how come some people snore and others don't to why we dream, he dives deep into this mysterious third of human existence to illuminate what happens when night falls and how it impacts every aspect of our days.

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Google Maps Travels North To Canada's Arctic

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Google has embarked on a trip to build the most comprehensive map of Canada's Arctic region to date. It is the furthest north that the Google Maps Street View team has traveled in Canada, and marks the first time that it has set foot in the Canadian territory of Nunavut.

Residents of Cambridge Bay (picture above), a small northern hamlet, used Google Map Maker to add roads, rivers, lakes and other points of interest to the area's map. The tool, which allows locals to add their knowledge directly to Google Maps, supports Inuktitut, one of Nunavut's official languages.

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Joe Rinaudo On The American Photoplayer

Joe Rinaudo performs 'Ghost Parade' on the American Photoplayer, a type of player piano specifically developed to provide music and sound effects for silent movies.



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(thanks Cora)

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What A Surprise

(via Criggo)

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Polymer Tone Shrine For Your iPad

Georg Dinkel from Germany has looked at polymer for many years in his job as a photographer for Staedtler, the maker of Fimo. This year he picked up a couple of leftover blocks and he was hooked.

Except for a wooden frame and the electronics, the rest of his Tone Shrine is polymer. Three speakers and an iPad are housed inside the structure which took three months to complete.

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Amazing Buildings Devoured By Sand

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The deserts and sands are the best landscapes for finding old and abandoned buildings. The arid climate lends itself to preservation, and there is little danger of serious decay or damage from flooding.

At the same time, the sand is an ever-shifting geographic feature that can swallow whole towns both quickly or slowly. This article deals with the partially buried buildings in sand, some of which were abandoned for hundreds of years, and some only a few years.

(thanks Bosko)

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The Page Turner

How to turn a newspaper page. The Page Turner is a contraption by Joseph Herscher.



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(thanks Cora)

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Stories Of A Hollow Earth

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In 1741 the Norwegian-Danish author Ludvig Holberg published 'Klimii Iter Subterraneum,' a satirical science-fiction/fantasy novel detailing the adventures of its hero Niels Klim in a utopian society existing beneath the surface of the earth. Peter Fitting, author of Subterranean Worlds: A Critical Anthology, explores Holberg's book in the wider context of the hollow earth theory.

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The Paralympic Games: Resourcefulness, Determination, Spirit, Courage, Integrity

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The Paralympic Games are a major international multi-sport event where athletes with a physical disability compete; this includes athletes with mobility disabilities, amputations, blindness, and cerebral palsy. Wednesday, August 29, 2012 sees the start of the Paralympic Games.

The Paralympics have grown from a small gathering of British World War II veterans in 1948 to become one of the largest international sport events by the early 21st century.

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How Children Learn: Portraits Of Classrooms Around The World

Since 2004, Julian Germain has been capturing the inner lives of schools around the world, from England to Nigeria to Qatar, in his large-scale photographs of schoolchildren in class.

Classroom Portraits is a poignant lens on a system-phenomenon that is both global in reach and strikingly local in degree of peculiarity, revealed through more than 450 portraits of schoolchildren from 20 countries.

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Apex Predators

Short video by Sarosh Jacob of gray reef sharks, shot in Nassau, Bahamas. The sharks hang around a shipwreck called the Ray of Hope.



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(thanks Cora)

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When The Wild Imagination Of Dr. Seuss Fueled Big Oil

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Ever had an encounter with a Zero-doccus, a Karbo-nockus, a Moto-raspus, or a Moto-munchus? These fantastical creatures are some of the first Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, introduced to the world in the 1930s. But the beasts didn't romp through the pages of his well-loved children's books. No, instead, they were badgering hapless drivers and boaters in motor oil ads and bug spray.

(thanks Lisa)

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The Bodélé Depression

The Amazon rainforest with all its plant and animal life, and all its astounding biodiversity could not exist as we know it without a patch of African desert. The soil the rainforest is producing isn't very nutrient rich. All the minerals and nutrients that fertilize the rainforest have to come from someplace else.

Scientists have known for a while that this natural fertilizer is crossing the Atlantic in the form of dust storms, but science writer Colin Schultz ran across a 2006 paper in the journal Environmental Research Letters that not only produces evidence for a much larger trans-oceanic transfer of dust than was previously assumed... it also pinpoints the exact (and astoundingly small) location where all the fertilizer in the Amazon is coming from.

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A Brief History Of The Recession

A Brief History of the Recession provides a short explanation for the 2008 financial crisis. Written and directed by Don Sherwood.



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10 College Mascots That Are Really Strange And How They Came To Be

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Forget about what's happening on the college playing field. The real action is often on the sidelines or in the stands as team mascots, often costumed as fierce animals, drive fans to a screaming frenzy against the opposition and lead them in shouting their favorite team to victory. They're everywhere.

And they are animals! Well, many of them are, anyway. All during the contest, no matter what the game, the crowd is fired up by the likes of bulldogs, panthers, eagles, tigers, squirrels and anteaters. Some college mascots simply are truly weird... and every one of them has an interesting story to tell. Here are 10 of those most interesting college mascot stories.

(thanks Kat)

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Could A Man Handle Pregnancy?

This infographic questions the assumption that men are stronger than women by asking: Could a man handle pregnancy? While many have speculated, this infographic relies on science to examine whether men are structurally and psychologically tough enough to withstand the physical, emotional and chemical changes that a woman undergoes during pregnancy.

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