Really. Joe Kissell at Interesting Thing of the Day says:

“During World War II, German submarines, known as U-boats, kept very busy blowing up allied ships in the Atlantic—particularly those bound for Europe with supplies from North America. The U-boats’ operations had to be planned carefully and were in part dependent on weather conditions. In order to get the best data about weather systems approaching from the west, the Nazis devised an elaborate network of 21 automated weather stations that were to be installed in secret locations all across the North Atlantic, from Norway to Greenland to Canada. …

Two of the stations were destined for Canada. One of these was station WFL-26, code-named “Kurt.” On October 22, 1943, U-537 arrived in Martin Bay, Labrador. Its crew waited for fog to set in, and then surfaced and quickly ferried 10 large canisters full of parts to shore. On a hill about 300 meters inland, they set up the equipment, which had been labeled as property of the nonexistent “Canadian Weather Service.” They even left empty American cigarette packages lying around to further divert suspicion. Less than 24 hours later, after confirming that the station was broadcasting correctly, the U-boat snuck away. … Soon after U-537 departed, however, something went wrong with Kurt. …

In 1981, [a retired engineer from Siemens named Franz Selinger who was working on a history of the German weather service] located the remains of the weather station. Although some of the equipment had disappeared, the parts remaining had clearly belonged to Kurt. The station’s career had been brief, but it succeeded in staying a secret for almost four decades.”

It’s widely known that King George III was crazy as a loon. His bouts of madness are legendary: between 1780 and 1820 he suffered five serious breakdowns, during which he was known to hold hours-long conversations with trees and clouds and was considered dangerous enough to spend years locked in Windsor Castle’s padded rooms. One popular theory is that he may have suffered from the blood disease porphyria (the effects of which were exacerbated by the arsenic-based powder in his powdered wig), which can cause intense paranoia and hallucinations.

Porphyria has also been called “the vampire disease,” and according to popular legend, is the reason we have vampire stories at all. In 1985 a (now somewhat debunked but then widely touted) expert proposed the following:

• Porphyria victims are extraordinarily sensitive to sunlight. Even mild exposure can cause severe disfigurement. Facial skin may scar, the nose and fingers may fall off, and the lips and gums may become so taut that the teeth project like fangs.
• To avoid sunlight, people with serious cases of porphyria go out only at night, just like Dracula.
• Today porphyria can be treated with injections of blood products. Centuries ago, porphyria victims might have sought to treat themselves by drinking blood.
• Porphyria is inherited, but the symptoms may not manifest themselves until brought on by stress. Suppose a sibling with an active case of the disease bites you to quench his thirst for blood. Très stressful, non? Suddenly your own latent porphyria goes critical and you start growing fangs too.
• Garlic contains a chemical that worsens porphyria symptoms, causing sufferers to avoid it. Just like vampires.

Unfortunately — because it would’ve been a really cool story — much of this was proven to be false: garlic has no effect on porphyria, for instance, and blood ingested through the stomach does nothing to alleviate the disease’s symptoms.

But just because it looks like there’s no logical, medical explanation for vampirism doesn’t stop people from jumping to conclusions — about their heads of state. During late 2002 and early 2003, hysteria about alleged attacks of vampires swept through the African country of Malawi. Mobs stoned one individual to death and attacked at least four others, including Governor Eric Chiwaya, based on the belief that the government was colluding with vampires.

15% off the mental_floss Trivia Game. Just use the discount code “game” when checking out.

They broke up in 1982, after ten chart-topping years and at least five songs I can’t get out of my head, even today, despite hypnotherapy. But just because the band hasn’t released an album in nearly 25 years doesn’t mean they can’t be in our faces — their hit Broadway musical Mamma Mia premiered in 2001 and now there’s talk of a film adaptation. What’s more, the city of Stockholm has just announced that it will build an ABBA museum, featuring personal effects donated by the band, instruments and hand-written lyric sheets. (Whoa, daddy!) As a tip o’ the hat to all this ABBA madness, here are some flossy fun facts about the quartet.

• Most of their music videos were directed by Lasse Hallstrom, who went on to helm The Cider House Rules and Chocolat.
• “ABBA” was actually the name of a Swedish fish canning company. The band started referring to themselves as “ABBA” as a joke, but the name stuck. Foolishly, they assumed overseas audiences didn’t know anything about canned fish.
• In 2000, ABBA turned down an offer of one billion dollars to reuinte for a world tour.
• In 1975, “SOS” became the first song with a palindromic title recorded by a group with a palindromic name to hit the pop charts. For the lyrics to a song which is itself entirely a palindrome, and even the length of which — 2:22 — is a palindrome, click here.

Earlier this month, marine archeologists stumbled upon a once in an aquatic lifetime find off the coast of Spain: a 2000-year-old shipwreck.

According to this AP article from the Toronto Star:

The freight was an estimated 1,500 well-preserved clay amphoras, or two-handled jars, used in this case to hold fish sauce — a prized condiment for wealthy Romans… The cargo probably also includes lead, which the Romans used for plumbing, and copper, which they mixed with tin to make bronze for everything from plates to jewellery.

Incidentally, the amphoras found in the wreckage are similar to the kind the Greeks used to give out as awards during the Panathenaic games. Wiki says, for instance, “The winner of the chariot race received as a prize 140 ‘Panathenaic Amphorae’ full of olive oil.”

[Editor’s note: Is there some kind of shipwreck theme this week that I didn’t know about?] 

Oh, yeah, baby, gimme some of that sweet, sweet video action. No, really — apparently, the reason for the incredible panda baby boom of the last two years is, um, porn:

“It works,” Zhang Zhihe, a leading Chinese expert, said about showing uninitiated males DVDs of fellow pandas mating.

It is one of many techniques tried over the decades to get captive pandas — notoriously poor breeders — to do it, and do it right. The efforts to understand and simulate conditions for mating have paid off in China, the panda’s native habitat.

The audio-visual approach “is the same idea as chimpanzees seeing people smoke and then copying it,” says Prasertsak Buntragulpoontawee, a Thai researcher.

I think the Bloodhound Gang would approve of this development.

In the proud tradition of our upcoming “Mental Floss Presents: Medical School in a Box,” my husband and I are proud to present “What We Did With Our Thanksgiving Leftovers,” or, “The Turkey Anatomy Lesson.” For the sake of the squeamish, most of the pictures are after the jump.

Here you see the turkey after the major surgical incision to open its belly. In medicine (right), this is known as a laparotomy. In the kitchen (left), it is known as “let’s stuff that thing.”

This is the turkey’s backbone. The fibers you see are ganglia and nerves running down the “sympathetic trunk,” alongside the thoracic spine — when you get the fight-or-flight urge, this system is the reason why. If you have chronically sweaty palms (”hyperhidrosis palmaris,” in the literature), surgeons can sever those nerves in what’s called a “sympathectomy.” I somehow doubt that turkeys get sweaty palms, though, so let’s move on.

Check after the jump for the spinal cord, liver, diaphragm, and heart.

(more…)

I haven’t challenged you guys in a couple weeks but I’m back with a good one. Every year at this time the media talks about Black Friday and describes it as the biggest shopping day of the year. But, as Snopes points out, this is a myth. It’s frequently not even in the top 5 shopping days in terms of dollars spent. So, this got me thinking about myths, misconceptions, urban legends, etc. And I’d like you guys to make us all a little smarter by sharing some that really get under your skin - or just ones you think are funny.

I’ll pick my favorite on Friday. Now go, make us all a little less dumb with your crazy knowledge!

Today’s other mental_floss blog column, the delightful Tuesday Turnip, inspired this jet-lagged and sleep-deprived entry. You know the idea: type a word into a search engine and see what “turns up.” Well, as you might expect, this leads to some rather strange results in YouTube Land. People be nuts, like Almond Joy. (That was my attempt to write a rapper-like simile. Day job: keeping it.)

Anyway, as proof of people’s being a wee bit touched, typing in “Harold and Kumar” yields 175 returns. Do we really need that many bootlegged snippets of two guys on a drug-fueled hero’s quest for tiny burgers? Ah, screw it, why not…

Here’s another one, slightly less surprising. The word “parody” gets you 37,719 results, including this one, which isn’t a parody at all but is spelled like it in a foreign country:

Okay, okay, this is more conventional and pretty clever (although it’s hard to watch videos like this without wondering where whoever produced it found the time):

Punching in the name of YouTube’s corporate overlord Google returns 6,166 hits. This one using some Dust Brothers music from “Fight Club” is worth your 30 seconds, though not much more:

“Anarchy” …1,904 results, with some truly sick ones in the bunch. So let’s stick to John Hughes, huh.

And for the big finale, a side-by-side comparison…

“Marcel Proust:” 8 results
“Hardcore Monkey Love:” 282 results

I’m no cultural doomsdayist, so you won’t see me crying into my madeleine. YouTube’s not for the faint of heart, or, it seems, the self-absorbed and French (redundant?). Go figure. Anyway, here’s some Proust and “Hardcore Monkey Love” — neither as tantalizing as it sounds:

Okay, before I sign off. let me give you a reading assignment for next week. There’s an article in this month’s Atlantic about the future of newspapers that talks about a video called EPIC 2014 that’s enjoyed some insider cache on YouTube and elsewhere. Read the article, and next week I’ll show you the video — and then we’ll talk about its merits and false predictions and generally what lies ahead for ink-stained wretches like myself. Let the navel-gazing begin!

Cabbage Patch Snacktime Kids

At the height of the Cabbage Patch Kids frenzy of the 80s came the depths of toymaker foolishness. Designed to “eat” plastic snacks, the Snacktime Kids featured a pair of one-way metal rollers behind a plastic slot and rubber lips. The dolls were withdrawn from the market after several incidents where children accidentally got their fingers or hair stuck in the dolls’ mouths.

Lawn darts

Memo from Isaac Newton to toy manufacturers: what goes up must come down. These foot-long plastic darts sported a weighted metal tip at the end, which (probably unbeknownst to its manufacturers), were perfect for puncturing people’s skulls. After four lawn deaths, lawn darts were banned from sale in the US in 1988.

Clackers

First marketed to kids in the early 70s, the now-infamous toy known as clackers were hard plastic balls that are swung around the fingers, making a “click-clack” noise. Unfortunately, the plastic had a nasty tendency to shatter and fly into players’ eyes. Whoops. The toy enjoyed a brief resurgence of popularity in the 90s, when manufacturers started making them out of light, unbreakable plastic. (Good idea, guys.)

Pez gun

A gun that shoots little bits of hard candy down kids’ throats. (Need we explain why this was a bad idea?)

Mattel Thingmaker

A 60s and 70s-era electric heater designed to melt plastic into funny shapes at high temperatures. Not only was the heater itself a fire hazard, but the hot, melted plastic could impart third-degree burns.