Scooby was made to look like the opposite of a pedigree Great Dane.

Scooby was made to look like the opposite of a pedigree Great Dane.

The creator and artist of Scooby Doo was Iwao Takamoto. Takamoto did a bit of research before creating the beloved character of children and adults alike. He spoke with a breeder of Great Danes who informed him of what a show-ready pedigree Great Dane would look like. 

Takamoto, of course, took this information into consideration, but he probably used the information the opposite way of how the breeder might have expected him to use it. Instead of making Scooby, a perfect show dog, he gave Scooby several characteristics opposite of the show standards. 

Scooby was given completely the wrong colorization as well as a humped back, bowed legs, and small chin. Since Scooby is a cartoon, he was also given some unrealistic characteristics. For example, Scooby’s tail has far more capabilities than any real dog’s tail would have. 

He can use it to hang from or even press buttons. Scooby’s face is also “malleable,” which means that it could be adjusted in unnatural way to communicate emotion. He also has only one pad on the sole of his feet, which is inaccurate, but make Scooby easier to draw. 

(Source)

View the Original article

READ MORE ...

Social pain is similar enough to physical pain that Tylenol can help numb it.

Social pain is similar enough to physical pain that Tylenol can help numb it.

People tend to consider physical pain to be something completely separate from emotional pain. Interestingly, social pain can affect the brain in extremely similar ways. When you experience physical pain, there is the actual “sensory experience” of pain and there is also the emotional reaction to it when your brain decides the extent of pain you are experiencing. 

This same emotional reaction to physical pain is part of the experience of the pain of social rejection. Researchers tested the theory that you might be able to treat the pain of social rejection like you treat physical pain. What they found shocked them. People actually taking pain medication had less pain from social rejection than people who were only taking the placebo pill. 

They also found that people who are more sensitive to physical pain are also more sensitive to social pain. Of course, researchers caution that you shouldn’t just take Advil for everything. Numbing social pain might not actually be a good idea. Social pain does serve a purpose in shaping a person and their actions. 

The research just shows how emotional pain is just as real as physical pain, and could also inform treatment for when social pain is extreme. 

(Source)

View the Original article

READ MORE ...

The movie Old School is a retelling of Fight Club.

The movie Old School is a retelling of Fight Club.

Many movies are retellings of previous successful movies. If it worked once, why not twice? The art of retelling is putting a new spin and perspective on the idea. For Todd Phillips, the writer and director of Old School, the goal was to add comedy to the past movie Fight Club. 

Phillips deliberately modeled his movie after the Fight Club with the hope that viewers would notice the similarities and appreciate his different take on the old movie. He hoped they would appreciate the comedy and satire of Old School. Check out the source for some of the most interesting common plot points

Here are some other movies that are retellings:

• Pinocchio has several influences including a Bible story and a pornographic novel from Ancient Rome. From the Bible, Pinocchio draws from the story of Jonah. Like Jonah, title character Pinocchio also is swallowed by a whale. Pinocchio’s transformation into a donkey comes from the Roman novel.
• Gilligan’s Island was remade off of Robinson Crusoe. The biggest difference between the two movies is that Gilligan’s Island features 7 people, each representing one of the deadly sins. For example, Ginger represents the deadly sin of lust. 

(Source)

View the Original article

READ MORE ...

George Reeves, who starred as Superman in the 1950’s TV series, was frequently assaulted by children wanting to test his invulnerability.

George Reeves, who starred as Superman in the 1950’s TV series, was frequently assaulted by children wanting to test his invulnerability.

 

George Reeves was always cautious when interacting with children who were fans of Adventures of Superman, because on multiple occasions they thought he was really Superman and tried to test his invulnerability. 

Most often, kids would come up to him and try assaulting him, but what one kid did really blew away the rest. At one appearance in costume, George Reeves greeted a young boy who quickly pulled a pistol out and pointed it at him. The boy had taken the pistol, a Luger, from his home. 

It had belonged to his father, who had brought it home after World War II. He wanted to shoot Superman to see if he was really invulnerable like on the TV show. Reeves didn’t want to say he wasn’t really Superman, because it would have ruined the entire appearance and possibly upset the child. 

He managed to get out of it by convincing the child if he shot him, the bullet could bounce off him and hurt someone else. 

(Source)

 

View the Original article

READ MORE ...

Almost half of movies fail the feminist Bechdel test. That means that they don’t contain a conversation between women about something other than men!

Almost half of movies fail the feminist Bechdel test. That means that they don’t contain a conversation between women about something other than men!

The Bechdel test was created by Alison Bechdel as a means of putting numbers to sexist trends in movies. The requirement is basically a litmus test: does it or does it not contain two, named female characters who have a conversation about something other than men. 

It’s important to realize that the test does not necessarily say that a movie is or isn’t sexist based on whether it passes or fails the test. Rather it’s meant to be a way of analyzing movies in broader terms related to feminist themes. What’s truly incredible about this test is that it’s shown that 48% of movies don’t pass the test. 

In general, movies don’t show extended relationships between women. The fear is that most conversations between women characters in movies are superficial, dealing only with the closest hot guy. Basically, our movies might still be sending subtle, sexist messages. 

Movies such as the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Avatar, and the Social Network all fail the Bechdel test. Do you think the results of the Bechdel test are worrisome or irrelevant? 

(Source)

View the Original article

READ MORE ...

An MIT student wrote Newton’s equation for acceleration before jumping out the window to his death.

An MIT student wrote Newton’s equation for acceleration before jumping out the window to his death.

Phillip Gale was a sophomore student at the prestigious school MIT when he decided his life was no longer worth living. His plan to kill himself was fairly methodical and simple. He began with some research, asking fellow students about how he could get onto the roof of the tallest building at MIT: the Green Building. 

With his research done, Gale drew a stick figure throwing a chair and wrote out Isaac Newton’s equation on a blackboard. He signed the message with “Phil was here.” He then threw a chair out the window to break it, since the windows were sealed. He jumped out after it. Some people, hearing the crash of the chair first, looked out in time to see Gale fall to his death. 

His main reason for killing himself was that he didn’t want to “live in mediocrity” any longer. He was tired of feeling “detached” from the world. He felt like he couldn’t achieve his goals and that he didn’t have a future worth looking forward to. It is truly shocking that someone attending college at a highly competitive university would consider themselves mediocre, and that that mediocrity was worth dying for, but it shows that each mind is a world.

(Source)

View the Original article

READ MORE ...

Atomic clocks are proving Einstein’s theory of relativity. The higher you live, the faster you age!

Atomic clocks are proving Einstein’s theory of relativity. The higher you live, the faster you age!

Eintstein’s theory of relativity was a huge leap for the time he came up with it, and it’s only beginning to be proven now. Einstein’s theories were based in the realization that gravity is basically acceleration. 

Extrapolating from that idea, you can come to the understanding that the stronger gravity, the slower time would run. Time actually moves slower at different altitudes. Time is not a clearly defined absolute, rather it is based on relative perspectives, and as we are now discovering height away from the ground, since that affects gravitational pull.

By placing highly accurate clocks at different altitudes, researchers were able to record this difference. These clocks used aluminum atom trapped in an electric field. These atoms vibrated, which caused the clock to measure time to an extremely accurate degree. Researchers found that height actually did affect the progression of time, and would affect the progression of aging. 

They have estimated that for a person who lived 79 years, that person would 90 billionths of a second faster for every foot off the ground. A person in a pent house would age faster than someone living at a low altitude.

(Source)

View the Original article

READ MORE ...