The US produces more oil than any other country, but our oil reserves are tiny compared to the Persian Gulf region, which is split into many countries. The gulf itself wasn't there before major flooding at the end of the last ice age, but people of the region were already using found bitumen for adhesion and waterproofing. Oil as a modern fuel was discovered there in 1908, and drilling for it has fueled our machines ever since. But those massive oil reserves have a history going back 35 million years.  

The abundance of hydrocarbons in the Middle East has to do with the collision of two major tectonic plates. We know that the Himalayas were formed when the Indian Plate crashed into Asia, forcing the mountains to rise. In the Middle East, however, the collision of the Arabian Plate and the Eurasian Plate is (yes, it's still happening) caused mayhem underground instead, bending and breaking rock plates. How this creates oil and gas and room for it to collect is explained in geologic terms at the Conversation. 

(Image credit: CIA/Library of Congress) 

The sculpture known as The Thinker by Auguste Rodin is familiar to everyone. Even if you've never been to France and never studied art, you've seen memes of the statue, often on a toilet. But what inspired this muscle-bound intellectual and his contemplation? Who was he? And what's he thinking about, anyway? 

Rodin had a hard road to artistic acclaim. First his sculptures were not good enough, then they were too good and were thought to be a fraud. After finally securing his reputation in the art world, Rodin took on a project that consumed him, and even though it was ultimately for naught, it inspired The Thinker. It began as just one of many sculptures for the project, but became the dominant element. And although Rodin used professional live models, it is supposed to be a particular person that you know of. This TED-Ed video explain how The Thinker came about.   

We sometimes hear about products that were developed for some other purpose, but eventually became toys (Play-Doh and Silly Putty come to mind). That was the story of the Slinky, which Richard T. James developed to be used as a spring for naval ships. It worked much better as a toy. But did you know that success drove its inventor to leave his wife and children and join a cult? Fabulous wealth can often be a curse. Maybe you also didn't know that the first Barbie was based on a pornographic doll, and that the design of Cabbage Patch Kids was stolen. And there are also cases of not finding out how innapropriate or dangerous a toy is until after it became quite popular. 

Read the dark stories behind eight children's toys, four that had to do with their origins, and another four tales of how the toy itself presented some real world problems. 

(Image credit: Bernard Gotfryd) 

Who Framed Roger Rabbit came out in 1988, making the movie 38 years old. Usually when Screen Junkies goes back to do an Honest Trailer for an older film, there's a reason, like a sequel or a remake coming out. In this case, there's no reason at all besides they wanted to. Maybe they wanted to play with clips of Jessica Rabbit. 

Who Framed Roger Rabbit was a film noir in a world where people and 'toons lived side by side. It was a comedy that showcased special effects never seen before, melding live action with animation. It won four Oscars and became the second-highest grossing film of 1988. It was also notable for including both Disney and Warner Bros cartoons, so it was the first time we saw Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny interacting. Disney was leery of the movie's violence and adult themes that were standard in old Warner Bros. cartoons, and released Who Framed Roger Rabbit through their Touchstone Pictures studio instead of Disney. Kids loved the film as well as a adults, but the movie might have a hard time getting made today. 

The premise of this movie list is to rank space movies from the least to the most scientifically accurate. By "space movies," they mean movies about astronauts traveling from earth in the current timeline or the not-too-distant future, so there are no Star Trek or Star Wars films, or anything that could be classified as space fantasy. What surprised me is that, while it starts with a movie that has a ridiculous and implausible plot, it quickly shifts into the "more accurate than you'd think" movies. The last twenty years or so have given us a bunch of space films with advanced special effects, so there's no reason to talk about "artificial gravity." And they have real scientists as consultants, which tells us that accuracy is important to the producers. 

That said, I immediately (and correctly) guessed what movie would be number one. You probably can, too. Read about 12 space films and how accurate they are at Cracked. 

Sesame Street has changed a lot since I was a kid. The plots are grittier and the Muppets swear a lot more.

Bluesky user @pig'slaundry has lately watched the children's show on Tubi, a streaming service owned by Fox. They noticed that the error-filled automatically generated captions show the characters contemplating existential terror and considering brutal violence.

-via Super Punch

On Easter Sunday, an association of Christian churches in Korea banded together to stage an elaborate celebration called the 2026 Easter Parade in downtown Seoul. There was a procession, but also a dramatic recreation of scenes from the Old Testament, the life of Jesus, and the history of Christianity in Korea, spread across multiple stages. It is estimated that around 8,000 people were in attendance. 

One stage was dedicated to Jesus' ascension into heaven. The actor playing Jesus was supposed to be lifted into the sky to end the show. But the drama went on and on as the crane kept lifting him way beyond what was planned. He flew among the skyscrapers so long that the video is sped up in parts. It had to be terrifying, but since we now know that the actor is okay, it's also funny. The producers blamed the incident on a crane malfunction. -via Boing Boing 

Making fried chicken at home is one of those things that takes experience to get right. Your first few batches might be burned on the outside and undercooked on the inside. Adjust the temperature, and your next batch might be well-done, but the breading is kind of blah. These experiments are expensive, so it's no wonder most people only get fried chicken at restaurants these days. 

So how do restaurants do it? We know Colonel Sanders turned to pressure-frying chicken because it was the only way to prepare fried chicken fast enough for waiting diners. Not all restaurants do that. What they do to make crispy fried chicken is to double fry it. Yes, it's the same tip that makes perfect french fries, although the process is a little different. Read how to double-fry your chicken at home for the perfect crispy coating at Serious Eats. You'll also learn a restaurant's secret for getting that chicken ready fast for a hungry clientele. 

(Image credit: Jiafei Slay Queen) 

In so many movies, the real drama or action happens to men, while women are there as tokens or window dressing, and are often the reward for the hero that "gets the girl" in the end. The notable exception are Disney fairy tales. While the source materials spend little time developing any characters, the Disney animated productions are centered around a young woman who goes through travails and gets her wealthy and handsome prince as a reward in the end. That brings an awful lot of little girls to the movies, and then they buy the costume, the DVD, and all the accessories so they can dream of finding their own prince.  

But who are these princes? In the older films, they have no personality at all. Sometimes they don't even have a name. They have no responsibilities, except for being handsome and waiting for the king to die. Their heroism in only in service to the real star of the show. In the song "Charming," three of them complain about their unimportance, which is a mirror of what a Bond Girl character might say.

Amy Stewart is an artist in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. She works heavily in stained and painted glass. Stewart (or "Amy in the Aether", as she also calls herself) frequently uses motifs from Mid-Century Modern American pop art, including camp, burlesque, and the playfully supernatural.

For around 50 years now, science fiction writers have considered the possibility of terraforming Mars, meaning changing the planet to be more like earth. Scientists have also looked at the idea, and have some plausible ideas. My first thought was water- you need a lot of water to make life work, but apparently Mars has a lot of underground frozen water, so the big challenge is warming it up. This can be done with strategic greenhouses, or putting something in the atmosphere that could cause a greenhouse effect.    

What could possibly go wrong? As of yet, these ideas aren't possible because the necessary materials haven't been developed. But we know they could be in the future. Read up on some of the ways we could change Mars to be more habitable. The more relevant question is "should we?" The time, technology, and money that such a project requires would dwarf the amount we could sink into making the planet we already have more habitable. -via Damn Interesting 

(Image credit: Philip James (University of Toledo), Steven Lee (University of Colorado), NASA) 

Conditions at the Attica Correctional Facility in Attica, New York, were so bad that when a fight between two inmates was broken up in 1971, it started a chain reaction that led to a riot. Critical errors in the guards' containment strategy enabled angry inmates to take control of most of the prison and hold prison guards as hostages. This led to a standoff, and the prisoners took the opportunity to organize, not only to negotiate with authorities, but to run the prison themselves. Their list of demands seemed to be fairly reasonable, and in fact most were reforms they had been requesting for some time and had been ignored. 

The standoff lasted four days and ended with a violent raid that left 43 people dead. The incident shocked America, and the results were a little bit of prison reform and a lot of Americans who learned about prison conditions for the very first time. Weird History explains what happened at Attica.  

Redditor Ok_Illustrator_8711 never met his grandmother, yet he got a glimpse of her personality from a diary she kept from the days when she married his grandpa. The entries are wonderful cartoons she drew of her life events. He shared a few pages from it that start with "Pre-Marital Chaos" as she planned their wedding. They honeymooned in Hot Springs, Arkansas. 



Further entries show us the young couple settling into a home and adjusting to married life, which had both joys and frustrations. 


But eventually, the chronicle takes a dark turn as Art is deployed to Europe in 1944. Grandma went to stay with her parents and cursed Hitler, and her diary entries involved other people and a longing for Art's return. Ok_Illustrator_8711 assures us he returned, and they lived happily ever after, until Grandma passed in 1977. Grandma could have been a comic illustrator, but it was just a hobby for her. See the diary pages at this reddit post, where you can click to enlarge the gallery. -via kottke 

The 911 emergency system was inaugurated in the 1960s, but its rollout was slow, and it took years for smaller towns to fund and implement it. We all knew it was a great idea. Then enhanced 911 came out, and they could locate your landline phone as soon as you called. What sorcery is this? But technology advances, and now cities with the most sophisticated 911 service can even locate the cell phone that made the call. 

We rely on the system, but few of us understand how it works now. Half as Interesting explains what happens when you make a 911 call. I have a bone to pick, though. Back in the day, you never had to dial a ten-digit number to get the local police. That would be a useless long-distance call. Local numbers are seven digits, or four digits if you go back far enough. This video is only 5:27; the rest is an ad. 

The game Star Fling has a really simple premise. You are orbiting a star. You can click and fling an inert ball at the planetary orbit of the next star, and if you hit it, you are then orbiting the second star and can fling at the third. How many stars can you hit? 

The caveat is that the game is over as soon as you miss, but you can start a new game quickly. And you will have to restart a few times before you figure it out. Yeah, a missed shot "falls" to the ground, but hey, it's just a game. I honestly hit eight stars once, but I can't prove it. Those who know say that it's slower and easier on a mobile device, and I was playing on a desktop. Also, I didn't want to play all day before I posted this, so rest assured that you can beat my score if you fool around with this for a while. I found that getting a screenshot of the action was impossible, so all I can show you is my score. I'd like to see the finished star pattern of someone who hit many more stars. -via Metafilter