Monday links

Yesterday was the anniversary of the Wright brothers' first flight in 1903.

Why Is Your First Instinct After Hurting Your Finger to Put It in Your Mouth?

The Scientific American Guide to Cheating in the Olympics.

How to Have a British Christmas.

So, it's not just humans - High-Ranking Male Primates Keep Wafting Their Sex Stink at Females, Who Hate It.

5 Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Someone: Backed By Research.

ICYMI, most recent links are here, and include how rats conquered New York City, a ‘smart condom’ that will give you more insight into your sex life than you (probably) want, and calculations showing that, if spiders worked together, they could eat all the humans in a year.

Monday links

In honor of Columbus Day, here’s a list of the top 10 accidental discoveries. Related: Columbus cleared of importing syphilis from the Americas to Europe. Plus, that time Columbus tricked Jamaicans out of supplies using knowledge of an upcoming eclipse.

Nose hair extensions are the next hot beauty trend everyone needs to try. Well, maybe not everybody.

Seven Body Organs You Can Live Without.

Gorgeous remastered and colorized images from the Civil War era, including Lincoln and Mark Twain.

Related to the above link: By the end of the Civil War, 4.5 million pieces of undelivered mail, which contained thousands of photos, had piled up in the Washington, D.C. Dead Letter Office. More on the DLO here.

Inflatable dummy tanks were a critical tactic in battlefield deception.

ICYMI, Friday's links are here, and include a UFO detector, a collection of vintage ads you would never see today, Hitler's boxers bought at auction, and how nutmeg, cinnamon, and black pepper set off bloody conflicts and the discovery of the New World.

Friday links

It's Beatrix Potter's birthday: in addition to Peter Rabbit et al, she produced some gorgeous botanical drawings.

The Invention of the Chilean Sea Bass.

The Proper Names of 17 Bodily Functions.

Some examples of bad taxidermy.

Medieval Fashion Trends.

Meet the Woman Behind New York’s 1800s School For Crooks.

ICYMI, Wednesday's links are here, and include a history of prosthetic limbs,  Aldous Huxley's birthday, why monks have strange haircuts, and what happens when you leave a tetherball hanging in the forest.

Here’s What's Happening When You Hiccup

In this short TED-Ed video, John Cameron explains exactly what’s going on in your body when you find yourself with a case of the hiccups, and summarizes a few theories regarding the seemingly pointless phenomenon’s origins - some scientists think it might help nursing babies keep milk out of their lungs (only mammals hiccup), while others think hiccups got their start millions of years ago, before animals even made the transition from water to land.

The longest recorded case of hiccups lasted for 68 years … and was caused by a falling hog. While that level of severity is extremely uncommon, most of us are no stranger to an occasional case of the hiccups. But what causes these ‘hics’ in the first place? John Cameron takes us into the diaphragm to find out.

via Laughing Squid

Tuesday links

This 1938 Film Shows How Sound Effects Were Made for Old-Time Serial Radio Shows. (Note how the dress code has changed since then.)

Photos of the Skinniest House in the World  - it measures 5 feet at its widest point and 3 feet at its narrowest.

10 Incredible Tales Of Real Life Castaways.

Supercut: 100 Greatest One-Liners Before The Kill.

Why Do We Even Have Toes?

"Queen Elizabeth has 10 times the lifespan of workers and lays up to 2,000 eggs a day."

ICYMI, Friday's links are here, and include lots of April Fool's Day stuff: history, best and worst pranks and hoaxes, and tricks to play on your kids (and vice versa).