Nifty Niblets

Oldest-Known Footage of US Blizzard Shows NYC, Shot By Edison Co.

Here, via SmithsonianMag.com, is a terrific historical find: the very first time a blizzard was caught on film in the United States:

This film footage is so old it was shot by Thomas Edison's film studio, the Edison Manufacturing Company. It's from 1902, and the scenes were shot at the intersection of Broadway, Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street, where we'd see the Flatiron building today (but not then).

This Dirt Is Behaving Like Jello

I have no idea what the explanation is here, but the dirt at this construction site is behaving like Jello. Or behaving in some fluid-like ways - there is a spot later in the video where large waves ripple out. Very odd. There's a great explanation for this - it's not something that is all that uncommon, really, under the right circumstances. I just don't know what that explanation is. If you do, tell us in comments!

Lovely Video Shows Little Girl's First Time Playing In the Rain

The lovely little girl in this lovely little video is named Kayden, and she is experiencing rain for the very first time. And she loves it. Kayden is only 15 months old, but she toddles out into the front yard and onto the driveway, arms outstretched as if grasping at the raindrops, face skyward with a look of wonder.

"Wow!" she says more than once. At one point one of the adults grabs her up and carries her back inside the front door, but Kayden isn't having any of that - she turns and races back into the rain.

What a simple yet beautiful clip. Watch it:

The video was posted to Vimeo by Kayden's mom, Nicole Byon. (HT: DailyPicksandFlicks.com)

What Happens When You Drop a Super-Strong Magnet Through a Copper Pipe? Weird Stuff, Man ... Weird Stuff

Magnets and copper don't mix. Which is to say, magnets and copper do not attract - try to stick a magnet to a piece of copper, any copper, and the magnet will fall right off.

But what about super-strong neodymium magnets? Will they stick to copper? No! We just told you that copper and magnets don't attract! Pay attention.

But neodymium magnets do interact with copper in a very weird way. If you take a copper pipe and drop a neodymium magnet through it, the magnet will float (not fall) down the pipe - slowly - before dropping out of the bottom. It's like a little anti-gravity tube. It's wild, wacky, weird stuff.

Here, take a look at this clip:

That clip was posted to YouTube by JamesRB1995, who explains what's going on:

"The neodymium magnets are super powerful and even though they are not attracted to the copper, they still produce eddy currents that buffer the fall as seen in the video."

The neodymium-through-copper experiment demonstrates Lenz's Law. What is Lenz's Law? I have no idea. I'm not that smart. But it has to do with electromagnetism, electromotive forces, and magnetic flux.

Magnetism is so weird!

What happens if you use a bigger neodymium magnet, and bigger copper pipes? Here are a couple more videos demonstrating the effect:

(Inspired by TwistedSifter.com)

Get This Cat a Smoking Jacket and a Brandy

This cat will relax wherever and however it wants, thank you very much:

The Late Jonas the Tiger (from 'Life of Pi') Relaxing at Home with Human Friends

Here is friendly, cuddly tiger Jonas making the rounds of his handlers' living room, trying to get some pizza, asking for neck rubs, licking the guys' heads, and curling up on the couch:

The video was posted by Kevin Thatcher, who wrote, "This is how Bowmanville Zoo does it. We love our animals just like family."

Jonas the Tiger was a star attraction at the Bowmanville Zoo, a private zoo east of Toronto, and also a movie star: Jonah was the tiger in the movie Life of Pi. "In the movie whenever you see a tiger close to the actor, or a non-aggressive tiger, that's Jonas," Michael Hackenberger, owner of the zoo, told the Toronto Star last year.

Alas, Jonah is no longer with us. From the Star:

On a warm summer day a few months later, the usually healthy, active tiger became distressed and unable to breathe properly. The zoo veterinarian did exploratory surgery and discovered Jonas had a previously unknown birth defect—a large hole in his diaphragm which his liver had passed through; it was pressing into his lungs. Jonas died on the operating table.
"It was very tragic. He was a wonderful, wonderful tiger," said Mr. Hackenberger. "He was the first tiger my son had ever trained. He was 13 (when Jonas died). I looked up and my son was gone. I ran out and he was walking along Hwy. 2 just bawling."
Jonas, aged four, had been at the Bowmanville Zoo since a few weeks after he was born. He was an unusually social tiger who would go home with the staff and play with their dogs.

That is what we see in the video above.

Death Valley Racetrack's Mystery 'Moving Rocks' Stopped in their Tracks By ... Footprints

Are you familiar with the "mystery rocks" of Death Valley, the rocks that seemingly move themselves across a long, wide playa called the Racetrack?

The rocks, often called "sliding stones" or simply moving rocks, leave long trails in the dirt in their wake, so visitors can see where the rocks started and the path they traveled. Nobody has seen the rocks actually moving, however.

Alas, it turns out the rocks can be stopped in their tracks by the mere presence of ... footprints. Visitors to Death Valley's Racetrack playa can interrupt the rocks' travels if they step onto the playa when it is wet, leaving behind muddy footprints.

Death Valley National Park recently tweeted: "This is why you should not walk on the Racetrack Playa when it is wet." That tweet linked to the park service's Facebook page and to this image:

Accompanying the photo, a Death Valley official wrote: "The Racetrack playa is still wet and muddy from winter storms. Your tracks in the mud will disrupt the rocks' strange activity and ruin photos for years. Take only pictures, leave NO footprints."

So it only takes one person's bad decision to stop a Death Valley Racetrack sliding stone and ruin the scene for years to come. Sad.

Here's another photo showing how cool the Racetrack and the trails of its moving stones can look minus the footprints:

(Photo by Arno Gourdol/Flickr)

So what is going on here? How do these rocks - some of which weigh hundreds of pounds - move, seemingly under their own power, across the surface of the playa? There are all kinds of woo-woo theories (aliens! energy vortex!). But the truth has to do with the geography, topography and specific weather conditions of the Racetrack playa.

It goes like this: There is often water at one end of the playa. Strong winds drive that water across parts of the (usually dry) rest of the playa at very thin depths. Nights in Death Valley are typically freezing, so the water freezes, and ice forms around rocks. The ice-encased rocks then are dragged across the top of playa by the expanding ice, or blown across by very strong winds, leaving trails in the mud behind.

It was a NASA scientist named Ralph Lorenz who finally figured it out:

Lorenz developed a kitchen-table model — using an ordinary Tupperware container — to show how the rocks might glide across the surface of the lake bed.
"I took a small rock and put it in a piece of Tupperware, and filled it with water so there was an inch of water with a bit of the rock sticking out," Lorenz told Smithsonian.com.
After putting the container in the freezer, Lorenz ended up with a small slab of ice with a rock embedded in it. By placing the ice-bound rock in a large tray of water with sand at the bottom, all he had to do was gently blow on the rock to get it to move across the water.
And as the ice-embedded rock moved, it scraped a trail in the sand at the tray's bottom. Lorenz devised his clever experiment by researching how the buoyancy of ice can cause large rocks, when encased in ice, to move by floating along tidal beaches in the Arctic Sea.

Water being blown across the Racetrack playa was only recently caught on video, by Brian Dunning:

Maybe it won't be long until a camera finally captures one of Death Valley's moving rocks in motion. If there are no footprints in the way.

Giant Boulders Plow Through Field, Barn, Narrowly Miss House

Living in a valley between mountain peaks virtually guarantees a life filled with beautiful surroundings. We often don't think of, or even imagine, the possible dangers though. In winter, maybe: avalanche. But yearround, rockslides (or mudslides in places like the hills around Los Angeles) are hazards.

I'm not sure I've seen anything like this before:

That image is taken from video captured by a drone flyover and posted by Tareom on YouTube. The website MyModernMet.com (which is where we first saw this story, via @DavidGrann), explained:

"On January 21st, a giant boulder was set loose from a mountain in northern Italy by a landslide and proceeded to rip through a 350-year-old stone barn in Ronchi di Termeno (Tarmin). Though no one in the four-person family was physically injured in the natural disaster, the owner of the house and accompanying vineyard, Trebo Herbert, has been left with tremendous damage to his property. In fact, more than one boulder came in contact with the farm, making for a huge amount of destruction."

Here is the 4-minute flyover video that shows us the rock escarpment that loosed the huge boulders, their paths down the mountainside and through the barn, and their resting places:

The property damage is huge, but, thank goodness, nobody was in the barn at the time one boulder destroyed it. Another giant boulder stopped inches short of crashing through the main house:

A page has been set up on Facebook for those who wish to help the family recover from this disaster.

Did Bob Dylan 'Sell Out' With 2014 Super Bowl Commercial? Guess You Never Saw His Victoria's Secret Ad

Bob Dylan appeared in a Super Bowl commercial. This fact seems to be confusing many of Dylan's biggest fans. Weird. I thought accusations of artists "selling out" by appearing in commercials died with the advent of YouTube, when we learned than many of them had been "selling out" for years in Japan! Or perhaps even earlier, when first KISS and then The Who decided to give their entire catalogs over to marketers.

At any rate, Bob Dylan's 2014 Super Bowl ad was not even his first TV commercial. Below are a few of his previous efforts on behalf of corporations.

YouTube user dylansmith cleverly starts this clip with a Dylan press conference in 1965. He is asked which commercial interest, if he ever sold out to one, would he sell out to? Dylan answers, "Ladies garments." In 2007, Dylan did a commercial for ... Victoria's Secret: