This is the Lycurgus Cup, a glass vessel dating back to Roman Empire of the fourth century. It is made of intricately-carved glass with a strange property. Under normal light, it appears to be an opaque jade green. But lit from the back, it glows a translucent red! This is dichroic glass, and displays different colors because of nanoparticles of gold and silver embedded in the glass. It is the only intact example of such glass, although a few shards of broken glass have been identified as dichroic. This property was only understood more than a thousand years later when scientists recreated it using nanotechnology. However, experts believe that the colloidal gold and silver were introduced into the molten glass by accident, since nanoparticles are too small to be seen by the naked eye. 

The real miracle, as I see it, is that a glass cup from the fourth century has survived fully intact instead of being smashed to smithereens, which is what's happened to most of the glassware I've owned. The Lycurgus Cup is indeed cracked, and held together by its metal rim around the top. The mythology depicted in its carving tells a story in itself, as detailed at the DeBrief. -via Strange Company 

(Image credit: Chappsnet) 

Two brothers play guitar while they pass the time watching their flock of sheep. The sheep appreciate the music, especially the littlest lamb. The older brother, Joseph, attributes his talent to his father's guitar instead of his years of practice. The younger brother, Isaac, is appalled to learn that Joseph is planning to leave home for a career in music. Is he upset at losing his best friend, or is he worried that he won't be able to step into his brother's shoes? Joseph is simply spreading his wings as an adult, but leaving home is never easy. Isaac has never been without his brother, and it shakes his entire world.   

The sweet story called Farewell is Luke Lee's final film as a student a Calarts before he graduates. We wish him well in the animation field. You can see more of his work at YouTube or at Instagram. -via Kuriositas 

Tusken Raiders in Tuscany, my acrylic painting pic.twitter.com/ooIWp1fjRF

Here at Neatorama, we lovethe works of Travis Chapman, a traditionally-trained painter who composes realistic images of pop culture. He usually plays with the source concepts as puns. Here, for example, are a pair of Tusken Raiders, a species from the Star Wars planet of Tatooine.

I've always referred to them as Sand People, but my teenagers say that's no longer acceptable terminology. They're just "Tuskens" (calling them raiders is derogatory).

Anyway, these Tuskens have acquired through their labors sufficient funding for a journey to sunny Tuscany on Earth, where they can sample the local wines.

Closer look at our Masters of the Universe merch coming soon to theatres! ⚔️ pic.twitter.com/FArmxHb5vd

Masters of the Universe, the latest film in the He-Man franchise, premiers on June 5.

Movie theaters have been getting creative lately in their efforts to draw people to brick-and-mortar theaters. We've seen them offer moviegoers inventive popcorn buckets, notably for Dune 2, Despicable Me 4, Gladiator 2, Jaws, and Mr. Fantastic.

Promoters for Masters of the Universe are going even further. Yes, there's a popcorn bucket. It's shaped like Castle Greyskull. But I'm enraptured by the 1:1 scale Sword of Power. Remove the hilt and you can fill the probably not-battle ready sword with soda.

-via Rob Province

Catfishing is a term for nefarious scams involving false identities, but in this case, it's a word meaning fishing in categories. Articles on Wikipedia are categorized, and an article may appear in many different categories. Can you identify a Wikipedia article by its categories? Each category is a clue that narrows it down. The game Catfishing gives you ten chances to show your smarts, and those ten articles change every day. The game does not rely on exact spelling or punctuation, and will steer you if you are close. There's even an option to award yourself half a point for being "close enough." 

It's not easy. I'm not great with remembering people's names, and one was a subject I know absolutely nothing about. At the end, I kicked myself for missing a couple I should have known. My final result was 6/10 last night, but I learned something, and even looked up a couple of subjects. Try out today's game! -via Metafilter 

The most mundane things can have a way more interesting history than you know. Consider the lowly screwdriver. They come in all shapes and sizes, but the one you grab the most has a handle that is comfortable and just plain works for whatever it is you use a screwdriver for. And that's no accident. Its design has more features than you've ever considered, and its development goes back over a hundred years. Every part of it has a purpose from its six sides to the flutes and pommel. Along the way, fancier ideas have been proposed as improvements, but they've never really been able to beat the shape you've come to know. 

Woodworker Rex Krueger knows tools. In this video, you'll learn about not only screwdrivers, but other tools that factor into the story, plus you'll learn how to use the features of a screwdriver to get tasks done more efficiently. (via kottke) 

Sometimes clues to a disease come from the people who don't get it. A 1950 study of the psychological lives of blind people revealed that there are no cases of people who had been blind since birth developing schizophrenia. Double-checking through larger health records confirmed the fact. Those who suffer an eye injury or otherwise become blind after seeing in childhood might develop the disease as much as anyone else, but those who were born with a malfunctioning visual cortex in the brain do not. 

The visual cortex plays a big role in detecting signals from the outside world and sorting them out. The brain spends a lot of energy ranking visual stimuli to calculate which is important and using those signals to make sense of the world. In schizophrenic patients, this ranking seems to go haywire, and the brain cannot ignore random signals. When there is no visual stimuli in the visual cortex, that part of the brain is often repurposed for other tasks. Does this reorganization of brain tasks provide some kind of protection against schizophrenia? The answer may lie in the complex way in which our brains work. Read about this intriguing research at the Conversation. -via Damn Interesting 

(Image credit: Database Center for Life Science(DBCLS)) 

The Takeout has compiled a list of 11 tiny eateries in these United States, including the famous Squeeze-In in Sunbury, Pennsylvania.

This hot dog joint has been in continous operation since 1945. You might want to order your dog for takeout because it measure sonly 8 by 16 feet. If you insist on dining indoors, you'll have to squeeze in next to other customers at the handful of stools available. You can browse the menu here.

After 81 years, the Squeeze In is a cherished local institution with a devoted local fan base.

Photo: The Sqeeze-In

Boxers and other hand-to-hand fighters sometimes get "cauliflower ear", which is referred, medically speaking, as "auricular hematoma." It's a deformity that results most commonly from getting punched in the ear.

So a guy with cauliflower ears looks like someone who's been in some hard fights and is ready for more. From a particular point of view, it contributes to an aesthetically appealing appearance.

Oddity Central reports that some men in Russia are getting cauliflower ears not the hard way, but through cosmetic surgery. When matched with a muscular physique and a confident demeanor, they convey an overall impression of physical dominance.

Perhaps women find this look attractive.

A rat king is an entanglement of rats by their tails. It refers to a rare but real phenomenon among rodents but also a symbol of social and political disorder as outlined by Lucas Reilly in Mental Floss.

In this case, it's a dumpling dish prepared by the girlfriend of redditor /u/Curious_Psychonaut.

The dumplings are artfully arranged to resemble rats, including ears, legs, noses, and eyes. /u/Curious_Psychonaut provides no recipe, but let us hope that the dumplings contain actual rat meat for the sake of authenticity. Since you can buy rats at pet supply stores (people feed them to snakes), this should be an achievable quest.

Trying to contain or control the flow of lava from an erupting volcano seems like a fool's errand. It would be much better to avoid building communities anywhere near a volcano. But volcanos can go millions of years between eruptions, and people don't mind living near what they figure is an extinct volcano. They often have rich soil for crops. So we are occasionally surprised by an eruption, which can be devastating. 

People have attempted several different methods for controlling lava flow, including bombs, water, and dikes (although I'm not sure that would be the right term, since it's lava instead of water), with varying results. Oh yeah, and sacrifices, which isn't addressed in this video at all. It turns out that one method seems to work best, but only when the community is prepared way ahead of time. That's not much help when an "extinct" volcano decides to suddenly resurrect itself, but it's better than nothing. Or as one commenter put it: "Well as long as you stay on the furniture and don’t touch the floor you should be fine."   

The latest food hack going viral online is to combine potato chips and chocolate by pouring molten chocolate into cans of Pringles. After it cools, cut the cans off. Then slice the cylinders into chunks of salty chocolate potato chips about an inch think.

There are different ways to improve upon the concept, such as adding marshmallow to the mixture. But as a Southern boy, I know the right ingredient: pickled pigs' feet. Anyway, I now have plans for the weekend.

-via Sora News 24

Pacific Counter is a chain of tropical-themed Asian cuisine restaurants in the Tampa Bay area. Among their treats are aloha whip, which is pineapple-flavored soft serve ice cream, and hot dogs.

On April Fools' Day, the business promoted the Aloha Hipdog, which is a hot dog inverted and stuffed inside an ice cream cone and then wrapped with aloha whip.

It's a joke, of course. But I suspect that the mixture of sweet ice cream and savory meat would actually be tasty and worth a try. Perhaps it could prove even tastier with whipped cream and a cherry on top.

-via Born in Space

Most of us, I expect, have used electric irons. I've seen in antiques displays "sad irons", which are slabs of metal that are heated in fireplaces and stoves. There were, though, many alternative designs between these two extremes. Among them is this gasoline-powered iron patented in 1936 and sold through the Montgomery Ward mail order catalog.

YouTuber Gilles Messier traces the technological history of the iron before addressing in detail this particular design. The video begins with him pulling on a starter cord like it's a lawnmower with an internal combustion engine, but that's now how gasoline functioned in this iron.

Rather, gasoline (or, in some similar models, naphtha or kerosene) was slowly burned to heat the bottom. These designs had a tendency to start fires and thus came with certain risks attached. But they remained popular in regions where electrification was limited.

-via Hack-A-Day

It's already May the eighth in Britain, and so Sir David Attenborough is celebrating his 100th birthday. Born on May 8, 1926, the British broadcaster and naturalist joined the BBC in 1952, when it was fairly new and few people had television sets. He himself had never seen television before. Attenborough worked on several shows, then became the host (what the British call a presenter) of the show Zoo Quest in 1954. Since then he's brought us dozen of shows on the world's animals in their natural habitats. He also became an executive at the BBC.

Attenborough's nature documentaries have inspired children to become scientists, filmmakers, and conservationists. His shows, from Zoo Quest to Life on Earth to Blue Planet have given us a new way to see the world around us. Read about Attenborough's influence on what a nature documentary can be. 

Tributes to Attenborough's very public and inspiring career are rolling in, and he took time to record a message of appreciation for his fans.