Ripley Entertainment Inc.'s Blog, page 290
February 9, 2019
February 8, 2019
Frozen Ghost Apples Appear In Michigan Orchard
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
[February 3-9th, 2019] Ghost apples in Michigan, a dino that ate its own teeth, Henry VII’s marriage bed and the rest of the week’s weird news from Ripley’s Believe It or Not!
Ghost Apples
Freezing rain in Kent County, Michigan, created an unusual phenomenon for farmers. Andrew Steitsman came across what looked like apples made of glass. The shapes were formed when freezing rain froze around the apples’ outsides. When he shook the trees, many fell off, but a few sturdier ones only lost their insides, leaving a perfect ice sculpture on the tree.
Credit Andrew Sietsema
Henry VII’s Marriage Bed Found In Hotel
Constructed in the 15th-century and serving as the wedding bed for Henry VII and Elizabeth of York in a marriage that celebrated the end of the War of the Roses, an ornately-carved four post bed has recently been rediscovered. In the 500-plus years since it’s royal service, the bed spent much of its recent time in the honeymoon suite of a hotel. They decided to toss out the bed, but it was snatched up by an antique dealer who uncovered the bed’s origins.
Courtesy The Langley Collection
Dinosaur Ate Its Own Teeth
After studying the fossilized dinosaur droppings—known as coprolite—of the Smok wawelski dinosaur, scientists determined that it regularly dined on bones and its own teeth. Roaming what is now Europe 210 million years ago, this T. Rex-like apex predator had serrated teeth that helped it gobble up every bit of its prey, bones and all. The dinosaur crushed the bones into bite-sized pieces, sometimes losing a few teeth of its own in the process. Seemingly unphased, what the giant lizard couldn’t digest simply passed through its digestive system.
Artistic life reconstruction of Smok wawelski made by Jakub Kowalski.
Cat Revived After Being Stranded In Snowbank
A cat in Montana named Fluffy survived getting caught in a snow bank while temperatures dropped to a bone-chilling 8 degrees Fahrenheit. A cat’s body temperature normally sits around 101 degrees, but when Fluffy arrived at the vet office, her body didn’t even register on the thermometer. With fur matted in ice the cat was frozen solid. After hours in the ER, however, the kitten thawed out and was able to make a full recovery!
Animal Clinic of Kalispell
Name A Cockroach For Valentine’s Day
It’s that time of year again, and if you feel like you’ve considered getting your significant other everything under the sun, think again. The Bronx Zoo is continuing its tradition of offering up hissing cockroach adoptions. They’ll let you name a roach in honor of your loved one, and even throw in some Valentine’s swag. If you’re not feeling romantic, the El Paso Zoo is offering to let people name cockroaches after their exes, and then feed the insects to the zoo’s meerkats.
The Woman Behind The Moon Landing
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Fifty years ago, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins made history by landing on the Moon. Though they received the fame and adoration of the country, their voyage may never have been accomplished if it weren’t for one woman—Margaret Hamilton.
Inventing Software Engineering
One of many people behind the scenes who aided in the groundbreaking mission, Margaret specifically wrote the code that took these American gentlemen to the Moon.
NASA initially reached out to MIT in 1961 for help with the Apollo program. The aim was to beat the USSR in a race to the Moon, seeking expertise on building the guidance and navigation system for the Apollo spacecraft. Computer programmer Margaret Hamilton, who—believe it or not—created the term “software engineering,” became head of the Software Engineering Division at the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory that developed the software for the Apollo mission.
In the ’60s, computer science was still in its infancy, and Margaret’s uncompromising attention to detail and rigorous testing was essential to Apollo’s success. She understood the urgency of the mission and that there would be no second chances. She even sometimes brought her young daughter to work while she worked on the project.
There were some problems during the space mission, and the computer software proved itself just moments before the Apollo team was scheduled to land on the Moon. An alarm sounded, indicating that the mission should be aborted. Fortunately, the computer software was built to perform more functions than planned. The code Margaret and her team created used a set of recovery programs to solve the problem and focus on important tasks. The guidance computer ignored less critical tasks to concentrate on steering and providing landing information to the crew. This enabled the astronauts to land on the Moon instead of canceling the approach due to technical issues.
Margaret recently told TIME, “I remember thinking, Oh my God, it worked.”
Margaret’s guidance software was built so well that all crewed Apollo missions experienced zero software bugs. The technology was later applied to Skylab, the Space Shuttle, and digital fly-by-wire systems in aircraft.
Her contribution to science and engineering was so significant, NASA honored her in 2003 with a special prize, the Exceptional Space Act Award. It featured the biggest monetary award the space agency had ever given to an individual up until that time. In 2016, President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom for successfully aiding in the Apollo 11 landing.
Legacy Today
Margaret’s work is particularly notable because it took place just prior to the women’s liberation movement. She was a pioneer in a field that even today is difficult for women to break into. As of 2017, just 15% of NASA’s planetary mission science teams were made up of women.
By Noelle Talmon, contributor for Ripleys.com
Did America’s Largest President Get Stuck In a Bathtub?
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Rumors abound that the 27th president of the United States, William Howard Taft, got stuck in a bathtub at the White House due to his portly size. Specifically, most stories say he was only removed once six people helped pry his naked body out.
While it is true that Taft was America’s heaviest president, the story itself has less evidence. Could the bathtub story be true? Or, is it a lingering bit of a political smear campaign?
Big Bill
By all measurements, Taft was indeed the heaviest president. A wrestler and dancer in his younger years, he stood six feet tall and weighed in at 340 pounds by the end of his presidency. Despite his size, Taft was always commended for his gentle spirit. He was said by many to be the politest man in Washington, and himself admitted that he was much too quiet for the politics of his office. In the same way that George Washington struggled to manage his teeth, Taft struggled to manage his weight for most of his life, participating in a litany of fad diets and weight loss programs.
Though his size could cause problems in the bath, the accompanying evidence for every mention of this debacle is a picture of a custom-ordered, extra-large tub containing four people, installed at his request in the White House.
Though this picture is indeed of Taft’s tub, the porcelain behemoth was one of a few custom additions made to the White House for the 27th president. In fact, the tub was originally installed aboard the ship he took to oversee construction of the Panama Canal. An engineering periodical covered the tub, stating that though Taft enjoyed bathing, but he simply used a shower if his size was otherwise unaccommodated.
Since the tub was ordered before his stay in the White House, it’s unlikely that Taft found himself stuck in a smaller one. One for the purported first-hand accounts of the event is by long-time White House butler, Irwin Hoover, who simply wrote that Taft would sometimes “stick” in the tub, and would have “help” getting out. No details about six people or being embarrassingly stuck are made, however.
Lillian Parks, a daughter of a White House maid, gave a second-hand account in her memoir, but her mother didn’t even begin working in Washington until ten years after Taft had left office.
No one seems to have reported the event when it happened either. Perusing newspapers from the entirety of Taft’s life, only three events revolve around bathtubs. One was the production of a giant tub—as mentioned above. The second incident involved him spilling water out of a tub in his second-story hotel room which subsequently leaked to the floor below.
The final incident may provide the answers as to why this tub story has stuck around so long. Taft didn’t just have a contentious relationship with the size of his bath, but fought a porcelain-fixing ring while president. These toilet and tub manufacturers had colluded to drive up prices and were known as the Bathtub Trust—a trust “broken” by President Taft.
Sadly, his weight and the bathtub story are the two biggest footnotes to Taft’s legacy as an American statesman. In his political career, however, he brought forward 80 antitrust lawsuits, reorganized the State Department, presided over the establishment of the income tax, and became the only president to also serve as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court! Though history remembers him as its chubby president, Taft himself claimed his time as a Supreme Court justice was his most fulfilling.
Does this photo look familiar? Maybe click on it for a clue….
Does this photo look familiar? Maybe click on it for a clue….
Hotel Taft was named in honor of the president, and was even visited by Robert Ripley!
Source: Did America’s Largest President Get Stuck In a Bathtub?
February 7, 2019
Wearing Dresses Made Of Ocean Plastic Underwater
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Karina Oliani, also known as the adventure doctor, she’s climbed Everest twice and is Brazil’s first physician specializing in Wilderness Medicine, a specialty that serves her well as she travels the world as an athlete, explorer, and activist.
Though she’s been diving since she was 12, the waters of São Vicente Port in Brazil made her nervous.
“I never had to dive in such a dirty place. I felt nervous to jump into the stinky water.”
Credit: Kadu Pinheiro
During her dive, Oliani collected more than 65 pounds of plastic littering the seafloor. Deeply saddened by the pollution facing the ocean near her home and across the world, she handed off the rubbish to a designer in her home city of São Paulo named Arthur Caliman. He faced an overwhelming challenge to make this disgusting assortment of materials into something beautiful for Oliani—eventually producing a set of dresses.
Oliani hopes her photo series will raise awareness about the worldwide epidemic of plastics in our oceans. An estimated 70% of plastic used by people ends up in our oceans, leading to pollution that affects birds, marine mammals, fish, and even humans.
Credit: Kadu Pinheiro
While the proliferation of petroleum-based polymers in the wake of World War II have kickstarted a consumer revolution with the ability to create cheap, sturdy, and easily moldable parts and products, private industry, public governments, and technical innovation has not found a way to keep up with the waste created by the use of plastics.
Taking as long as 500 years to breakdown, and often used for a very short amount of time—plastic bags are typically used for less than 15 minutes—plastic has by and large contaminated much of the globe. Even as plastic breaks down into smaller pieces, the so-called microplastics just become easier to enter the food chains of ecosystems. An estimated nine million tons of plastic enter oceans around the world each year. At this rate, plastic will overtake fish by weight in the world by 2050.
Taking the photos required extreme focus and athleticism. Oliani had to hold her breath for minutes at a time all while posing for her underwater photographer, Kadu Pinheiro, and keeping her face “nice and comfortable” while doing so. While at the bottom of the sea, however, Oliani found her mind drifting to the plight of the sea life around her.
“I couldn’t think of anything else than: we need to stop this and save the whole environment while we can.”
Credit: Kadu Pinheiro
While the challenge of addressing plastic pollution is daunting, she has some advice for people looking to change their habits: She asks people to consider rejecting single-use plastics, to advocate for clean waterways and oceans, and to push for accountability of plastic manufacturers.
Photo Credits: Kadu Pinheiro
Video Credits: Juan Quinteiros
February 6, 2019
February 5, 2019
An Ocularist’s Glass Eyeball Collection
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
The first prosthetic eye is estimated to have been produced in the 29th-century B.C. The eye belonged to a woman in what is now Iran. Historians believe it was made using a waterproof paste, then covered in gold and engraved with a sunlike iris. Golden thread held the crude eye in place.
For millennia cultures used various forms of eyepatches—decorated or plain—to hide the disfigurement of a missing eye, but in the early 16th-century, Venetian glassmakers developed something new.
By using ceramic and glass, they were able to make eye prosthetics that looked much more true to life than anything before. A person with a glass eye was even able to pass in public without anyone noticing. Though the first glass eyes were delicate and could break easily—causing even greater damage—glassmakers in France and Germany quickly improved their techniques.
The body of prosthetic eyes is firm, meaning that each one has to match a human socket perfectly. Hundreds of variations in size, thickness, color, and shape have to be made ahead of a fitting, then meticulously tried until one fits just right. Irises painted with excruciating detail, varying pupil sizes and even embedded strands of silk to look like veins make a glass eye look as real as possible.
Ocularists do their best to match a person’s eye color, iris size, and normal pupil size. One of the limitations of glass eyes to this day is that the pupil cannot dilate like a normal eye, and is often a dead giveaway that someone is wearing a prosthetic.
Today, prosthetic eyes are often custom-made for patients. The process isn’t just a medical science, it’s also an art. Ocularists strive to capture not just the look of people’s eyes, but the emotions as well.
Did America’s Fattest President Get Stuck In The Bathtub?
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Rumors abound that the 27th president of the United States, William Howard Taft, got stuck in a bathtub at the White House due to his portly size. Specifically, most stories say he was only removed once six people helped pry his naked body out.
While it is true that Taft was America’s heaviest president, the story itself has less evidence. Could the bathtub story be true? Or, is it a lingering bit of a political smear campaign?
Big Bill
By all measurements, Taft was indeed the heaviest president. A wrestler and dancer in his younger years, he stood six feet tall and weighed in at 340 pounds by the end of his presidency. Despite his size, Taft was always commended for his gentle spirit. He was said by many to be the politest man in Washington, and himself admitted that he was much too quiet for the politics of his office. In the same way that George Washington struggled to manage his teeth, Taft struggled to manage his weight for most of his life, participating in a litany of fad diets and weight loss programs.
Though his size could cause problems in the bath, the accompanying evidence for every mention of this debacle is a picture of a custom-ordered, extra-large tub containing four people, installed at his request in the White House.
Though this picture is indeed of Taft’s tub, the porcelain behemoth was one of a few custom additions made to the White House for the 27th president. In fact, the tub was originally installed aboard the ship he took to oversee construction of the Panama Canal. An engineering periodical covered the tub, stating that though Taft enjoyed bathing, but he simply used a shower if his size was otherwise unaccommodated.
Since the tub was ordered before his stay in the White House, it’s unlikely that Taft found himself stuck in a smaller one. One for the purported first-hand accounts of the event is by long-time White House butler, Irwin Hoover, who simply wrote that Taft would sometimes “stick” in the tub, and would have “help” getting out. No details about six people or being embarrassingly stuck are made, however.
Lillian Parks, a daughter of a White House maid, gave a second-hand account in her memoir, but her mother didn’t even begin working in Washington until ten years after Taft had left office.
No one seems to have reported the event when it happened either. Perusing newspapers from the entirety of Taft’s life, only three events revolve around bathtubs. One was the production of a giant tub—as mentioned above. The second incident involved him spilling water out of a tub in his second-story hotel room which subsequently leaked to the floor below.
The final incident may provide the answers as to why this tub story has stuck around so long. Taft didn’t just have a contentious relationship with the size of his bath, but fought a porcelain-fixing ring while president. These toilet and tub manufacturers had colluded to drive up prices and were known as the Bathtub Trust—a trust “broken” by President Taft.
Sadly, his weight and the bathtub story are the two biggest footnotes to Taft’s legacy as an American statesman. In his political career, however, he brought forward 80 antitrust lawsuits, reorganized the State Department, presided over the establishment of the income tax, and became the only president to also serve as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court! Though history remembers him as its chubby president, Taft himself claimed his time as a Supreme Court justice was his most fulfilling.
Hotel Taft was named in honor of the president, and was even visited by Robert Ripley!
Source: Did America’s Fattest President Get Stuck In The Bathtub?
Ripley Entertainment Inc.'s Blog
- Ripley Entertainment Inc.'s profile
- 52 followers
