We don’t usually cover straight-up news as such here on the floss, but this particular item was so out there — and so geeky at the same time — I just couldn’t let it fall through the cracks. For the first time ever, Vatican astronomers have admitted the possibility — even the probability — of intelligent life on other planets. Vatican official Father Gabriel Funes, a respected astronomer in his own right, released an article titled, literally, Aliens Are My Brother, detailing various extraterrestrial scenarios as they relate to Christian theology. He compares the potential multiplicity of life forms in the universe to that here on Earth, and goes on to speculate that such alien life forms could even be “free from Original Sin … [remaining] in full friendship with their creator.” (In short, expect to hear lots more conspiracy theories about how Jesus and the angels were aliens in the near future.)

But it’s not just the Catholic Church that has aliens on the brain — also this week, the British government released years’ worth of newly-declassified documents pertaining to UFO sightings in British airspace. “The Ministry of Defence does not deny that there are strange things to see in the sky,” one internal memo explains, “but it certainly has no evidence that alien spacecraft have landed on this planet.” (Suuuure, guys.) You can check out the newly-released records here, the most hilarious bits of which, in our opinion, are the vigorous and exceedingly formal tiffs between various dukes, lords and viscounts in the British House of Lords regarding UFOs, like this one from 1982:

Viscount Long: My Lords, if the Noble Earl is suspicious that the Ministry of Defence is covering up in any way, I can assure him … the sole interest of the MoD in UFO reports is to establish whether they reveal anything of defence interest.
Lord Wynne-Jones: My Lords, does the Answer given mean that since there has been a Conservative Government the UFOs have done a U-turn and departed?
The Earl of Kimberley: My Lords, as my noble friend said that 600 UFOs had been officially reported or acknowledged by the MoD in 1984, may I ask him how many of those sightings still remain unidentified?
Viscount Long: My Lords, we do not have the figures. They disappeared into the unknown before we got them.
Lord Hill-Norton: My Lords, may I ask the noble Viscount whether or not it is true that all of the sighting reports received by the MoD before 1962 were destroyed because they were deemed “to be of no interest”? And if it is true, who was it who decided that they were of no interest?”
Viscount Long: My Lords, my reply to the noble and gallant Lord — I was wondering whether he was going to say the the Royal Navy had many times seen the Loch Ness monster — is that since 1967 all UFO reports have been preserved.

Conspiracy/comedy gold!

With most of the artists I discuss in “Feel Art Again,” there are so many great works of art available that it’s hard to decide which painting to include in the post. I’ve rounded up 5 such artists who really deserve a second exhibition.

5. Cornelis Saftleven
The angry growl of “A Lion Snarling” is a stark contrast to the whimsical nature of “An Enchanted Cellar with Animals,” though both were drawn in chalk by this little-known Dutch painter.

4. Sir Edward Poynter
“Corner of a Villa” depicts a luxurious intimate indoor scene, while “Israel in Egypt” is a sweeping and graphic historical scene. In his day, Poynter was a well-respected authority in the art world, and he remains well-known today.

3. Gustave Moreau
Moreau believed only in what he did not say, and solely in what he felt; as a result, his artwork focused on mythological and Biblical scenes, such as “Young Moses,” and even his more historical scenes, such as “The Triumph of Alexander the Great,” are more mystical than realistic or accurate.

2. Henry Lerolle
“Femme à sa toilette” is softer, more intimate, and more colorful than “The Organ Rehearsal,” but Lerolle’s skill is quite clear in both.

1. Sir John Lavery
The Irish artist perhaps known more for his role in Anglo-Irish interactions produced both “The Glasgow Exhibition, 1888” and “Spring,” despite their markedly different color schemes and clarity of details.

For more art fun, check out Tuesday’s Best of ‘Feel Art Again’ and the ‘Feel Art Again’ quiz!

‘Feel Art Again’ appears every Tuesday and Thursday.

The National Woman Suffrage Association was formed by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton 139 years ago today. To mark the anniversary, Chris Connolly is here to discuss the role of the bicycle in the women’s movement.
Susan B. Anthony once said, “I think [bicycling] has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.” A woman on a bicycle, the equal rights champion observed, presents “the picture of free and untrammeled womanhood.”

Susan and her fellow 19th-century women had been severely trammeled their entire lives. Forget the glass ceiling; women in those days were trapped under the glass floor. Battles like “equal pay for equal work” were decades away. The Victorian woman’s cause was more along the lines of, “We’d like to leave the house, sometimes … please … if it isn’t too much trouble.”

The fashion for women at that time tended toward helplessness and frailty. Consider the image of a Victorian lady: She’s sickly and pale, relies on men for everything, and occasionally peeks out from behind an ornamental fan (usually before touching her wrist to her forehead and fainting). The frailty of a “lady” was such that preventing females from studying, working, voting and doing much of anything at all seemed a rational measure.
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I’ve always been fascinated with the psychology of twins and their relationships. Today’s Brain Game is a “related” riddle (pun intended) that we hope you’ll enjoy:

Click here for the answer.

Amputee animals have a hard life. In the last few years, more and more disabled creatures of different species are being helped by modern technology, and by the researchers and volunteers who go the extra mile.

Fuji’s Rubber Tail

Fuji is a dolphin who lives in an aquarium in Okinawa. A mysterious illness in 2002 caused her tail to rot, and it was amputated to stop the spread of the disease. Without a tail, a dolphin can’t swim. Engineers from Bridgestone Tire Company worked to design a new rubber tail for Fuji. The first designs did not work properly or had some other drawback. Finally, Fuji accepted the third tail design, made of silicon rubber with a foam padding, and was able to swim almost as well as an intact dolphin.

Uzonka and Beauty and their New Beaks

When a bird’s beak is damaged, it may not be able to eat, drink, or hunt properly and could die as a result. Uzonka the stork had her bill damaged by human assault. She received a prosthetic beak after five preparatory operations and is in the care of an animal hospital in Uzon, Romania.

Beauty is an Alaskan bald eagle whose beak was shot off several years ago. She was found in 2005, unable to properly hunt or eat. She was taken to a refuge, but her beak did not grow back. Beauty will receive a nylon-composite beak next month. A new beak attached with screws would enable her to hunt, but the animal experts in charge of the surgery decided against it, because the screws would have to be dangerously close to her eyes and brain. Instead, her prosthetic beak will be attached with glue. Beauty must stay in human custody, where she will be fed and protected.

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Today I’m reviving a long-lost feature scant few of you might remember: Thingamajig Thursday. The basic concept used to be that every thursday (give or take), I’d take a close look at some interesting thingamajig - or thingamabob, if you prefer – and let you know the real name of it so you could appear a tad smarter than the next guy, who’s still foolishly calling the thingamajig a thingamajig.

I’ll spend some time reviving a few of my favorites from the blog’s incipient summer days of 2006, and then start with a whole bunch of new ones. This time around, however, I’d love it if you all would join me in trying to rename the thingamajig in question. Most of these have rather lame sounding names. I know you guys love to show off your creative sides, so have at it! I’ll pick one or two of my favorites and post them the following thursday for the whole world to see. Who knows? Maybe you’ll even succeed at coining a new thingamajig word.

So let’s start with the aglet or aiglet, as it’s sometimes spelled. An aglet is that funny plastic or metal cap thingamajig at the end of your shoelace, which is supposed to keep the lace from unraveling. (Though try telling that to my 9-month-old Jack.) The word itself, which can be traced back to the Latin, acus, or needle, is pronounced AG-let, with the accent on the first syllable, not ag-LET. Were the accent on the second syllable, it might be fun to substitute the word into that Frank Sinatra song and sing, “Aglets, I’ve had a few….”

Now: if you’ve got a heck of a lot of free time on your hands, you might want to learn how to repair broken aglets here, at Fieggen.com.

And I’ll leave you with Wiki, who has some additional interesting info on the little aglet, as well:

Before the invention of buttons, [aglets] were used on the ends of ribbons to fasten clothing together. Sometimes they would be formed into small figures. Shakespeare calls this type of figure an “aglet baby” in The Taming of the Shrew.

So, had I invented this thingamajig I’d have called it a fraynot. How about you guys?

25 of the Strangest Collections on the Web. Yes, there is someone out there who collects anything you can think of, even belly-button lint.
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A history of the eugenics movement. Thousands of “undesirables” were sterilized in the US, decades before (and after) the Nazis endorsed the idea.
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Portion Size, Then and Now. Large quantities of cheap food have distorted our perceptions of what a typical meal is supposed to look like. Even our plates are larger than they used to be!
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The first telephone switchboard operators were teenage boys, which was a disaster. So telephone companies hired women, who were more pleasant and patient, would work under draconian conditions, and could be paid as little as $7 a week.
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Familiarity Breeds Contempt. Contrary to intuition, we like other people less the more we know about them. This explains the rarity of the second date.
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15 Infamous Top Secret Bases & Compounds From Around The World. Looks like they aren’t secret any more!
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Greensburg, Kansas was destroyed by a tornado a year ago. They are rebuilding as the first entirely green town in the US.
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Drinking Games of Yore. Who knew drinking games had such a long and sozzled history?

Ten years ago this week, 76 million viewers tuned in to watch Seinfeld say goodbye. (Most of them immediately started complaining about the finale.) But the show didn’t really go anywhere—a quick check of my local listings turned up over 50 different episodes on in the next week. That syndicated ubiquity should help you here.

Since the last episode, many guest stars have gone on to enjoy rather impressive careers of their own. Inspired by Pete McEntegart’s SI.com story on this topic and with a major assist from IMDb, our quiz asks you to match the actor to the Seinfeld character he or she portrayed.

Take the Quiz: Seinfeld’s Guest Stars

Cherries are everywhere in our cultural landscape—from Cherry Coke to Chekhov’s famous “The Cherry Orchard” to Mary Poppins, where the Banks family lived on Cherry Tree Lane. And who can forget about old George Washington and that whole chopping thing? (Whether it’s true or not, we all remember!) Cherries are everywhere, so let’s find out a little bit more about this fragrant fruit.

• Cherries share their genus, Prunus, with almonds, peaches, plums and apricots, and can grow in nearly every climate and condition in the world (including, apparently, the tundra). Edible cherry varieties originated primarily in Europe and western Asia. Although around 75 percent of world production originates in Europe, the United States also produces a number of species, with which you can acquaint yourself here.

• My personal introduction to cherries came with the Maraschino, probably the most fake-but-still-edible “fruit” to exist, or as this article puts it, “the artificially flavored brine cherry, survivor of red dye cancer scares, that sits at the bottom of a Manhattan cocktail or at the summit of an ice cream sundae.” Maraschino cherries were developed at Oregon State University in the 1920s, and the school still offers a course in the matter: Food Science and Technology 102—the Maraschino Cherry. Food for thought!

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I’ve been obsessed with playing Mario Kart on the Wii lately, so you’re going to have to forgive my preoccupation in making today’s list. Guess which lovable plumber is #1? I prefer Waluigi when I’m racing, though…

The 10 Top-Selling Video Game Franchises by Number of Units

1. Mario, with sales of more than 200 million since 1981.
2. Pokemon - sales of 175 million since 1996.
3. The Sims, in a distant third place with 100 million since 2000
4. Final Fantasy, 80 million since 1987.
5. Grand Theft Auto - 70 million since 1997.
6. Madden NFL - 70 million since 1988.
7. Tetris - 70 million since 1985.
8. FIFA - 65 million since 1993.
9. The Legend of Zelda - 52 million since 1986.
10. Tom Clancy, including Splinter Cell, Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon - 52 million since 1998.

Not far behind are Nickelodeon (with SpongeBob games), Gran Turismo, Donkey Kong and Sonic the Hedgehog with 50, 50, 48 and 45 million respectively.