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FOUND: One Planet, Rocky, Relatively Close, Potentially Habitable

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Part of Ophiuchus (Image: Rogelio Bernal Andreo/Wikimedia)

At the rate that astronomers are finding potentially habitable exoplanets, the universe is starting to feel almost neighborly.

A team in Australia just found another such planet, in relatively close proximity. It's called Wolf 1061c, it's just 14 light years away, and it's circling a star that, like our sun, is pretty chill—as in, it's not so prone to spurting X-ray bursts or death-dealing flares.

The star, a red dwarf, is in the constellation Ophiuchus and is about half as hot as our sun. The astronomers found three planets orbiting it, including Wolf 1061c. Based on their size and mass, they're likely to be rocky planets, like Earth. 

Wolf 1061c is in the star's habitable zone. But there are some key differences from Earth. It's much, much closer to its star. (It orbits the star every 18 days, compared to Earth's 365-day orbit.) And it's probably tidally locked, meaning that one side of the planet always faces the star.

So, to review: a year lasts 18 days, and there's a choice between a very cold side of the planet and the very warm side of the planet. But there could be the proper conditions for water to exist. Hm. It's not ideal, but in the case of a catastrophic, world-ending event that forces all of humanity off of planet Earth, we'll take it!

Bonus finds: Demon burialsa photo of Robert Johnson

Every day, we highlight one newly lost or found object, curiosity or wonder. Discover something unusual or amazing? Tell us about it! Send your finds to sarah.laskow@atlasobscura.com. 


'What a Christmas Present! Deportation!': The Revealing History of Ellis Island's Holiday Parties

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Children at Ellis Island in the early 1900s, displaying their Christmas gifts. (Photo: AP Images)

In 1931, Sam Lee traveled 7,000 miles from his native China to begin a new life in New York City. On the grueling journey, Lee acquired a strange cough, and when he arrived at Ellis Island, immigration officials detained him while they determined if he was healthy enough to enter the United States. As he lay in bed one afternoon, a rotund man with a white beard, red suit, and giant bag suddenly loomed above him. 

A startled Lee ducked under the covers, while the nurses chuckled and told him the news—Santa Claus had arrived at Ellis Island.

The New York Herald Tribune’s (perhaps exaggerated) retelling of Sam Lee’s story claimed he recited an ancestral prayer when surprised and that the nurses “convinced him that Santa Claus was a beneficent old gentleman of the Western World.” But if these seemingly stereotypical details are hard to confirm, the story did underscore one important point—for immigrants, U.S. authorities, and relief workers throughout New York City, Christmas at Ellis Island was a big, often baffling, deal.

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A group of immigrant children in front of a Christmas tree inside the registry room at Ellis Island, 1920. (Photo: Granger NYC)

Visits from Santa were only one element of the strange pageant of patriotism, evangelism, and humanitarianism at America’s main port of entry. Ellis Island operated from 1892 to 1954, and was a media staple throughout the 20th century, as about 80 percent of all immigrants to the United States passed through its doors. Just 1.5 miles off the southern tip of Manhattan, inspectors, doctors, and other government authorities sifted through the masses of new arrivals, separating desirable from undesirable immigrants.

If Ellis Island is remembered today as America’s welcoming gate, the media coverage of the time created a more complicated picture. There were joyful stories of the immigrants allowed into the U.S., alongside exposés of discriminatory procedures, terrible food, and arbitrary exclusion decisions. Several Ellis Island commissioners identified interacting with the media as the single most taxing element of their job. But the press Ellis Island received during the holidays was especially colorful and, in the island’s early years, extremely positive.

“Everyone from the tiniest baby to the oldest man received a gift, candy, oranges, toys, soap, handkerchiefs, etc. Not one was overlooked or passed by,” journalists glowed.

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Immigrants on the SS Patricia arrive at Ellis Island, c. 1906. (Photo: Library of Congress)

The Ellis Island Christmas parties often incorporated a range of cultures; one particularly extravagant event in 1931 included a Hungarian dance, Russian Gypsy songs, Italian folk songs, a Japanese xylophonist, a Spanish tenor, and a German Christmas Carol. The day concluded with “Holy Night” sung in every language spoken at the island—a reporter wrote that since the Chinese did not have words for the tune, they “assisted by humming.” Annual yuletide festivities became an opportunity for the United States to present an idealized vision of American inclusivity—one that celebrated diverse traditions and warmly welcomed newcomers into the fold. Yet organizers of these celebrations also saw the holidays as a means to introduce the new arrivals to the middle class, Protestant customs and character of the United States—bibles, tracts, and American flags were frequently given as gifts and religious hymns rung through the vaunted halls each December.

Perhaps the holiday celebrations veered between heartwarming and heavy-handed because the stakes of these celebrations were so high. Christmases at Ellis Island served an important role in creating the public perception of the site. The holidays were a public relations challenge for the Bureau of Immigration—with hundreds of immigrants in detention or quarantine, at no other time was the lack of freedom at the inspection station so jarringly on display.

Because on Christmas, especially, no one was staying at Ellis Island by choice. 

“A Truly Christian Christmas”

During Ellis Island’s peak years from 1900 to 1914, the winter scene inside the immigration station was, by all accounts, spectacular. The Great Hall, with its soaring vaulted ceilings and glossy tiled halls, featured nine Christmas trees, each decked with colored lights. At one end of the hall a giant, glowing electric sign read “Merry Christmas”—likely the first electric sign many of the immigrants had ever seen. Each balcony railing and pillar was wrapped gracefully in evergreen wreaths and American flags. The largest tree in the room, often topping 30 feet, stood at the opposite end of the gallery; under its branches, immigrants peered at the hundreds of neatly wrapped packages, one for each person held at Ellis Island on Christmas Day.

For the immigrants arriving at Ellis Island at the turn of the century, the first building they entered in the United States was quite a sight to behold. 

An Ellis Island Christmas didn’t just mean flashy decorations; it meant a day-long extravaganza celebrating both the holiday and the glories of America. The day began with an address by the Ellis Island commissioner (which, of course, very few of the immigrants actually understood) followed by speeches from dozens of local clergy in multiple languages. Then came a variety of musical acts—in some years a full orchestra or a professional opera singer performed, in another, a single detained immigrant played an organ—and immigrants and workers joined in singing Christmas carols, along with the national anthem and “My Country Tis of Thee.” Finally, the organizers distributed a gift to each immigrant and invited them into the Great Hall for a multi-course Christmas dinner. 

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New arrivals at the "pens" at Ellis Island, New York, aound Christmas, c. 1906 - note the decorations. (Photo: Library of Congress)

Woman ran the show during Christmas. During the Progressive Era, the first two decades of the 20th century, middle and upper middle-class women became newly involved in the plight of the downtrodden—and in particular, of the immigrant masses. As industrialization swept through the country, progressive reformers grew concerned with how the expanding slums in American cities, the influx of new immigrants, and the mounting strife over labor conditions would shape the U.S. To make matters worse, the new immigrants were thought to be quite culturally different from previous arrivals—swarthy, backwards, and comparatively untamed. Women were frequently at the forefront of “civilizing missions” in New York City and other urban areas. The Home Missionary, a journal documenting reform and relief efforts in the U.S., reported on missionary women’s efforts at Ellis Island: “The Government and the missionary world joined hands to make the whole day a truly Christian Christmas.”

If immigration officers saw the celebrations at Ellis Island as good public relations, missionaries and local aid organizations approached them as a decidedly evangelical endeavor. How better to preach the gospel to new immigrants then with a big party and a literally captive audience? Missionary journals proudly described distributing copies of the Scripture to immigrants like “the Persians” who had little knowledge of Christianity. They also reprinted letters from immigrants effusively thanking them, such as one correspondence from a Swedish immigrant who wrote, “I shall always keep the Bible as a dear remembrance of my fist step on American ground, and will never forget the American people’s gentle ways to treat strangers.” In 1907, the New York Observer confidently predicted that the immigrants “will be happier and stronger all the year, they will be better citizens in the years to come, because over the door to the new land hung the Christmas Star and because the ‘Man at the Gate’ interpreted for them the genius of American life—the spirit of Christian brotherhood.”

Not all Christian denominations were created equal, however. The National Catholic Welfare Conference didn’t host its first Christmas mass at Ellis Island until 1924, after decades of jockeying for influence. Worse still (at least from the perspective of the Protestant evangelists), Catholic charities were willing to acknowledge the religious diversity of the new immigrants. In asking for donations of gifts, Catholic organizations specifically requested that parishioners not send religious items such as rosaries, because the gifts would be distributed indiscriminately and it would be difficult to say which immigrants were Catholic. This was a far cry from the missionary work.

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A Dutch family arrives at Ellis Island, c. 1900. (Photo: Library of Congress)

And the media offered few reflections on non-Christian holiday celebrations at Ellis Island—a glaring omission considering the large number of Jewish immigrants moving through the island. At the first Ellis Island Christmas party in 1903, one observer said that “a peculiarity of the celebration was the number of Jews who attended, for, as the ceremonies were religious in character, the Jews had been given permission to remain away and special provision had been made for them in the way of gifts.” A few New York Times pieces made reference to Hanukkah observations, and the 1940s saw the first Hanukkah dinners and religious services take place on the island.

If the predominately European immigrants were viewed as sympathetic figures, immigrant children were the most sympathetic of them all. For the holiday, each child on Ellis Island received a toy—dolls for the girls, rubber balls for boys, and rattles for the smallest children—as well as candy and other treats. Onlookers used the Christmas festivities to show the pure, perhaps even morally superior character of the poor immigrant children. A long essay in the 1921 New York Times compared the behavior of children at a Christmas party at the Ritz-Carlton to that of the children at Ellis Island. The wealthy children appeared bored and unimpressed while their mothers flitted around the swanky party in silk and velvet gowns, showering them with impressive gifts, the paper reported. Meanwhile the immigrant children were delighted at their “plainer tree” and unelaborate presents. The article suggested that the immigrant children might be the Ritz-Carlton guests of tomorrow, swiftly inserting them into the national narrative of upward mobility and opportunity.

Overall, Christmases provided an effective tool in fostering a humanitarian image of Ellis Island. Few articles failed to mention the smiling faces of immigrant children, the voices singing together in their many foreign tongues, or the families looking on in awe at the bounty and modernity of an American celebration. “To make such captives happy on Christmas Day seemed a miracle,” a reporter from the Boston Daily Globe wrote.

'The Saddest Christmas in Ellis Island History'

As Ellis Island’s role changed, so too did the holiday celebrations. In the peak years of Ellis Island, immigrants’ stays on the island were brief – generally under a week– while immigration authorities reviewed the cases of immigrants that looked too sick or poor for admission. But by the time Ellis Island closed in 1954, it primarily served as a site for holding deportees, “enemy aliens,” and those accused of subversive (usually communist) activities.

As detentions grew longer, and deportations became the norm rather than the exception, the tone of the holidays shifted. Rather than a marker of America’s welcoming spirit, the holidays became a marker of increasingly extended captivity.

On May 19, 1921, President Warren G. Harding passed the Emergency Quota Act, the first federal law to limit the immigration of Europeans to the United States. In the preceding years, the demographics of American immigration had changed, with the majority of new arrivals coming from southern and Eastern Europe—many Americans argued that these immigrants were not of the same high stock as previous waves of western and northern European immigrants, and could not assimilate into American life with the same ease. (Arguments that, ironically, had been made about the “old stock” immigrants just a few decades prior.) Nativist sentiment had been mounting throughout the 20th century and World War I brought new concerns about a potential mass exodus of European refugees. There was near consensus in Congress that America could no longer keep its gates open; the discretionary sifting of immigrants by Ellis Island officers was replaced by the blunt instrument of quota law, capping the number of immigrants that could enter from each country. 

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Immigrants eat at Ellis Island, c. 1902-1913. (Photo: New York Public Library/flickr)

The immigration officers of Ellis Island predicted that 1921 would be “the saddest Christmas the island has ever seen,” as over 1,000 disappointed men, women, and children who arrived in excess of their national quotas would spend the holiday at Ellis Island awaiting deportation. Media coverage was often empathetic towards the immigrants’ plight, drawing stark contrasts between the joy of the holiday season and the bleakness of their predicament. As the quota law predicted, many of the excludable immigrants came from regions of Europe that had been devastated by World War I. The media reported that many of these detainees, particularly those from Italy and Poland, had fled oppression and sold all of their worldly possessions to book passage on a ship to the United States. If in the past immigrants spending the holidays at Ellis Island were “buoyed up by the thoughts of the land of promise lying beyond the welcoming Statue of Liberty” they would now be “made only more bitter, by the realization that they are unhappy in the midst of rejoicing.” 

In the hailstorm of bleak media attention, Secretary of Labor James J. Davis, himself an immigrant from Wales, made an unprecedented (and by all accounts, totally unilateral) decision to temporarily free the immigrants held at Ellis Island. Just two days before Christmas, Secretary Davis announced that all of the deportees, save a few with contagious illnesses, would be released into the U.S. for 90 days. He wrote to Ellis Island Commissioner Robert E. Tod in December 1921:

“This is the Christmas season and I am going to do what I can for these poor people who have ben brought here and left here in defiance of the law. It is no fault of theirs; they sailed from home in good faith and have landed here to face the bitterest of hardship at the time of the year when the rest of humanity is given to good cheer.

After three months had elapsed, the released immigrants were expected to return to Ellis Island to board ships back to their home countries. “The cheerful tidings from Washington came so unexpectedly that the delight of the aliens became almost a frenzy,” wrote the Los Angeles Times, “Many had been in downcast spirits at the prospect of a penned-in Christmas followed by deportation from the land to which they had come with high hopes.” 

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Inspection room, Ellis Island, New York, between 1910 and 1920. (Photo: Library of Congress

Masses of immigrants, primarily Hungarians, Poles, and Greeks, signed paperwork to be released on bond then embarked upon ferries for a short ride into New York City. Authorities alerted local immigrant aid agencies of the incoming arrivals, and the pastor of a local Hungarian church telegrammed President Harding to personally thank him for releasing his countrymen from detention. Those who did not have the means to travel to family were treated to an enormous—and distinctively American—turkey dinner; the menu consisted of “a ton and a half of Vermont turkey and a big hogshead of New Jersey cranberries to go round.”

Davis’ radical act was lauded by the press as a bold humanitarian gesture, in the truest spirit of the holiday (“Davis Plays St. Nicholas!” “Holiday Liberty!”)—but it also made the Bureau of Immigration’s internal conflict on the quota legislation clear. This was an ongoing concern for the U.S. government—the astounding discretionary power wielded by immigration authorities in dictating admission and exclusion. Secretary Davis expressed discomfort with the notion of extended detention for people who were not criminals, and by his estimation, had not intended to come to the United States illegally. Davis argued that the steamship companies, rather than the immigrants themselves, were at fault for bringing more passengers than the quota allowed, and demanded a full investigation into steamship practices.

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A representative of the New York Bible Society distributing bibles and religious literature at Ellis Island. (Photo: Library of Congress)

Immigration policy would swing to even more restrictive pendulums in the future but for one year, over 1,000 immigrants had been freed to enjoy the holiday—by the merest Yuletide whims and the quickest flick of a pen.

'What a Christmas Present'

The quota law was strengthened in 1924 with the passage of the Johnson-Reed Act, one of the most significant immigration laws in American history. Many historians have credited the law with creating the idea of the “illegal alien,” and signaling that the immigration service’s role would permanently shift away from processing new arrivals and towards policing and deporting those who had no legal right to stay in the United States. While ships of immigrants continued to dock in Ellis Island, the character of the station had completely changed. Ellis Island Commissioner I.F. Wilson described the shift:  “Whereas previously [Ellis Island] was regarded as the gateway to America, it is now the port of expulsion, and our Law Division and Deporting Division are the two most important at the Station.” With stricter laws, and an expanding force of immigration officers, no one would be releasing ferries full of deportees any holiday season soon.

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The detention pen at Ellis Island. (Photo: Library of Congress)

Two years after the passage of the 1924 law, the New York Herald Tribune noted that while Christmas celebrations still occurred at the station, they had taken on an “unusual,” almost awkward, tone. Though Ellis Island officials and social workers continued many of the hallmarks of the Progressive Era celebrations, including carols sung in multiple languages and small gifts from local relief organizations, it was hard to escape the reality that nearly all of the detained Christmas revelers would soon be deported.

While the majority of those detained at Ellis Island were being held for violating immigration law, the New York Herald Tribune also noted that a portion of the deportees had criminal records in their home countries. The Ellis Island Commissioner expressed hesitation about releasing the men from their holding cells for the brief festivities, telling the Tribune, “I like this idea of getting all the nations together on Christmas, but I’ll have a more complete Christmas and breathe easier when I know these warrant men are back in their rooms.” Many of the immigrants seemed similarly uncomfortable with the paradoxical charity of the United States; some of the detained foreigners “looked wearily about” and “ignored gifts from the country that was turning them away.” Another newspaper declared that after America “proved (its) generous attitude towards immigrants” via offerings of toys, ice cream, and Christmas carols, “it will send away the 1,100 in batches.”

As detentions at Ellis Island became longer and Americans grew increasingly concerned about the conditions facing the detained, public relations gestures like Christmas parties became even more widely publicized, and the gap between practice and publicity widened. 

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Immigrants getting approval to leave Ellis Island. (Photo: Library of Congress)

In 1931, the celebration was broadcast over a national radio network, and was also transmitted by short waves for the reception of listeners in foreign countries. Broadcasting officials told Ellis Island Commissioner Edward Corsi to direct his annual speech not only to the immigrants on the island, but also to say something to the international audience listening across the globe. While Corsi greeted performers from the Metropolitan Opera and NBC, one of his aides came to him in a panic. He pointed at the concert program; it read, “Given by the Fellow Countrymen of those Immigrants who wait at our Gates.” When Corsi questioned what the issue was, his aide replied: “I’ve just come from a look-in on the Deportation Division. There are only three immigrants on the Island—but I have just seen the guards march nearly 200 deportees into the concert room.” A remorseful Commissioner Corsi later recalled,

“(When) I faced that audience and the microphone, when I was telling the unseen audience in foreign lands how their countries had contributed to the upbuilding of America, I must confess that I felt a tinge of shame. And over and over the words dinned in my ears, “What a Christmas present! Deportation!”

With the end of World War II, the island primarily detained small numbers of “foreign subversives” and media coverage of Ellis Island celebrations became almost non-existent—there was simply no extravagant Christmas production to report on. Brief mentions reflected the changing demographics of the island; in an article inexplicably titled “Christmas Fiesta” the New York Times observed, “All the aliens took part (in the fiesta), except six communists.” By the 1950s, the American Society for the Protection of the Foreign Born began encouraging its supporters to write holiday greeting cards to the dozens of long-term detainees at Ellis Island. The Society also sent a letter to the detained immigrants, hailing their “heroic struggle” and insisted “(this) Holiday Greeting is our way of letting you know that we shall not rest until your freedom is assured.”

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A group being deported in 1952 wave goodbye to the Statue of Liberty. (Photo: Library of Congress)

Thus, in the station’s final years, the Christmastime captivity of foreigners became a rallying point for more modern forms of immigration activism, rather than fodder for evangelist missions. But had the island stayed open into the 1960s, the answer would likely have changed again.

Christmas on Ellis Island turned out to be a litmus test for American attitudes on immigration, a referendum on the political, social, and even spiritual obligations this country has to new arrivals. The tradition continues. This week, after immigration officials announced the continued detention of three Syrian families in Texas, news outlets seized on the story. One headline read: "Syrian refugee families denied parole, now face Christmas in Texas detention facilities."

Cheer Up, The Saddest Day of The Year Is A Hoax

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Is one Monday in January the most depressing day of the year? Probably not. (Photo: SevenLittleThings/Flickr)

The days are getting shorter, the nights are getting longer, and it is seriously bumming out the over 10 million Americans (1 in 3 British adults) who suffer from some form of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). According to press accounts, this yearly malaise reaches its peak on one day in January, known as “Blue Monday.” The thinking is that a confluence of factors ranging from weather to debt turned this Monday into the saddest day of the year.

But cheer up! As it turns out Blue Monday is nothing more than a fabricated, pseudo-science marketing stunt.

While the concept of the saddest day of the year is only a few years old, the term “Blue Monday” dates back much further. In an etymological text from 1908, the phrase is linked to a tradition where churches are traditionally decorated with blue altar cloths on the Monday before Lent. However it goes on to say that some of the meaning may also be associated with excessive drinking. “Blue” as a descriptor was once used to talk about being drunk, so the meaning of a “Blue Monday” could also be any such day when the weekend’s excessive imbibing extended to the work week.

Today, other than being connected to a hit song from the 1980s, a Blue Monday usually refers to that disappointment you get when returning to work after a weekend (possibly still feeling ill from getting too “blue”). Seeing an opportunity to take advantage of a pre-written catchphrase, ad agencies decided to turn Blue Monday into a thing, using math. Crazy math.

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January may be the cruelest month. (Photo: Joe Penna/Flickr)

The leader of the charge was a one Dr. Cliff Arnall, who at the time was employed by the University of Cardiff, teaching evening classes in psychology at the adult education center. In 2005, Arnall released a seemingly groundbreaking equation that proved January 24th of that year (more broadly, the third or fourth Monday of the month), was the most depressing day of the year. The complicated-looking equation he used to come to this was as follows:

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As NBC explained in their coverage of the announcement that year, the variables translated to, “(W) weather, (D) debt, (d) monthly salary, (T) time since Christmas, (Q) time since failed quit attempt, (M) low motivational levels and (NA) the need to take action.” To put this strange calculus into laymen’s terms, it is saying that January’s bad weather combined with the stress of holiday bills are compounded by the dwindling memories of the holidays, and piled upon by general doldrums. If you are thinking that many of these factors seem like arbitrary metrics that are too personal to quantify in any general sense, you are not alone.  

Off the bat, outlets like the aforementioned NBC and The Guardian (which would later go on to tear the pseudo science apart in a number of articles over a number of years), gave Arnall’s work some straight-faced press, but the troubling truth of the matter was that the whole thing was blatantly an advertising stunt. Arnall’s work had been released via a press release dreamt up by U.K. PR firm Porter Novelli as a tactic to sell travel packages for now-closed British travel agency, Sky Travel. The idea was that by selling the public on the worst day of the year, they could incentivize them to improve their lives via travel plans.

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Is this how your soul feels in January? You aren't alone, but it has nothing to do with Blue Monday. (Photo: Johnathan Nightingale/Flickr)

In addition to the uncomfortable concept of using a real, and often devastating condition like SAD or general depression simply to sell travel tickets, according to one of the campaign’s most vocal critics, Ben Goldacre, the equations didn’t even check out on a mathematical level. In a 2008 article about Arnall’s work, Goldacre call his equations, “dimensionally half-cocked,” and “stupid,” noting that the variables in one of Arnall’s theorems relating to how to experience the perfect weekend can easily be manipulated to essentially cancel itself out. In other words, these math-ish theories, said to be developed by a supposed psychologist (although Goldacre suggests that it is the PR companies that develop the equations, simply finding an academic stooge to put their name on them) are simply smokescreens that they hope the public won’t look too closely at in their fervor to sate their sadness with a little retail therapy.

All of this could even have just been another failed ad campaign, but the myth of Blue Monday continues to persist. Each year, companies ranging from Ferrari to Pret a Manger are still using the idea of the saddest day of the year to hawk their wares. Since the declaration of Blue Monday, Arnall has also announced “the happiest day of the year,” a date in June, this time on behalf of an ice cream company.

The true saddest day of the year is unknown, and likely unquantifiable in any real way. So if you find yourself getting depressed during the grey days of the coming winter, try to take solace in the fact that no matter what day it is, it’s not Blue Monday.

Reindeer May Not Be Able to Fly, But They Do Have Ultraviolet Vision

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What do those eyes really see? (Photo: Alexandre Buisse/WikiCommons CC BY-SA 3.0)

Glen Jeffery started getting curious when people started sending him reindeer eyeballs. 

The eyeballs were being sent to Jeffery, a professor of neuroscience at the University College London Institute of Ophthalmology, by a researcher in Tromsø University's department of Arctic Biology who wanted his input. When he examined the eyes, Jeffery saw that the ones belonging to reindeer killed in summer were profoundly different from those belonging to reindeer killed in winter. Those killed in summer had a golden reflection at the back while those killed in winter had a deep blue reflection. The color of the reflection will have a profound influence on the animal's vision.

He was suddenly hooked. The research community had long been interested in how animals cope with long periods of extended darkness in winter compared to extended light in summer, but it wasn’t until that moment that the subject grabbed Jeffery’s attention. 

Over the past seven or eight years since those initial eyeballs, Jeffery has taken annual mid-summer and mid-winter trips up to the Arctic. He and a group of researchers began with reindeer and then looked at hooded seals; most recently, Jeffery’s team put out a call for the eyes of polar bears, which are occasionally shot on Svalbard, an archipelago between Norway and the North Pole. With each of these animals, the team is looking at the reflective surface at the back of their eyes to examine how they perceive ultraviolet (UV) light.

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Winter in Norway means living in a deep, deep blue for 24 hours a day. (Photo: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen/WikiCommons CC BY-SA 3.0)

Having ultraviolet vision means that an animal’s eyes can pick up on shorter wavelengths of light, measured in nanometers, and are thus sensitive to a greater proportion of light in the atmosphere. Ultraviolet wavelengths go beyond the boundaries of the so-called visible spectrum of colors—the red through violet that are visible to humans.

This means that during those deep winter months, reindeer eyes are capturing light that we humans can't see. Jeffery’s team of researchers discovered that a reindeer’s ability to see UV light, which greater enables it to spot food and predators, is crucial to its survival in the Arctic. Because lichen, fur, and urine all absorb UV light, to a reindeer they appear black, contrasting rather than blending in with the snow.

Seals are also sensitive to UV light because they spend most of their time down in deep oceanic waters. “A seal is not going to let one photon of light get away, irrespective of its wavelength,” says Jeffery. The ability to see UV also comes in handy at the water’s surface. While a polar bear on an ice sheet to us may just look like white on white, to a seal, it’s probably a predatory mass of deep grey.

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A reindeer hangs out in the snow. (Photo: Manfred Werner/WikiCommons CC BY-SA 3.0)

Jeffery also mentions snow blindness, which is caused by UV light burning the cornea. No mammals other than humans really seem to suffer from that, he explains, so they're all seeing some UV at some point. However, reindeer and seals are particularly impressive.

The Arctic is most commonly defined as the area north of the Arctic Circle and includes Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, the United States (Alaska), Canada, and Denmark (Greenland). It’s a region of long, dark winters and short, bright summers with limited animal and human life. Jeffery's research station is based in Tromsø, Norway, and in winter, checking out the weather from a London webcam, he really misses it. 

Winter in the Arctic is peaceful and vast. “You travel for hours and hours and you don’t see a house, you don’t see a person, you don’t see anything,” he says. “It’s not in fact dark, but an incredibly deep blue, a totally saturated deep blue.” The landscape’s fragility is evident in the receding snow line, which has been creeping further back with each year.

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Arctic beauty captured within our familiar visual spectrum. (Photo: Moyan Brenn/flickr)

Collecting the data for this research is not a simple task. The experiments involve giving the animal an anesthetic and then putting a little piece of gold foil onto its eye to record what type of light the eye is responding to. More specifically, they use what’s called an ERG, or electroretinography, to record the retina’s electrical response to light.

Though the process is painless and involves a quick recovery, reindeer and seals, both used to extreme environments, tend to have extreme reactions to anesthetization. Reindeer overheat under anesthesia, so researchers pack them in ice when taking recordings; also, because reindeer burp all the time due to the fermenting grass inside their stomachs, their stomachs have to be vented if they begin to blow up. As for seals, they go into a dive response when stressed and close down a lot of the organs in their bodies. When that happens, the vet doing the anesthetics instantly revives the animal. “I certainly wouldn't want to anesthetize another seal again,” says Jeffery. “They’re big, they bite, they stink."

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 This reindeer seems surprised by what it sees. (Photo: Andy Mabbett/WikiCommons CC BY-SA 3.0)

Jeffery says that primates’ loss of UV vision was a rare event in the animal world. Humans’ lack of UV vision is the exception rather than the norm in the animal kingdom. All insects see UV; their visual range is shifted downwards so they tend not to see deep reds, but they see deep into the blues and UVs, which they use to discriminate between flowers with different types of pollen contents. Birds are categorized as either violet-sensitive or ultraviolet-sensitive, which can benefit them in their foraging and courtship. 

But humans don’t see UV, even though vision is our main sensory modality. Our eyes rarely pick up light at wavelengths shorter than 400 nanometers, but they don't need to, says Jeffery; the human species uses vision intelligently, for more than just avoiding predators and finding food. Human eyes are capable of perceiving ultraviolet light, though only when the lens is removed. But depending on what you're looking at, that might not be as exciting as it sounds. When Jeffery and several colleagues got UV cameras, sat down, and looked at them in their office, Jeffery says their first reaction was: “Oh, bloody hell, it doesn’t look any different.” 

And it doesn't, if you're doing human things like reading a book or playing Candy Crush. But for creatures like reindeer and seals, that extra bit of super-powered vision could mean the difference between life and death.

The First Woman to Publish a Book in English Lived in One Room, Walled Off From Society

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A statue of Julian of Norwich (Image: rocketjohn/Wikimedia)

In 1413, Margery Kempe was embarking on a dangerous quest. She and her husband had agreed to be celibate: she was going to begin to live her life as a woman devoted to God, a mystic. She was about to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. And she knew whose spiritual guidance she wanted: Julian of Norwich, the most famous anchorite of her day.

In England, from about the 12th to the 16th century, an estimated 780 people chose to live permanently shut up in a room attached to a church. They were called anchorites, from a Greek word meaning to “withdraw,” and most of them were women. They left little record of their lives behind, and they’re little remembered today.

But, in their way, they were powerful women. Julian of Norwich wrote the first published book attributed to a woman in all of English literature. And although they had just two or three small windows letting a sliver of the outside world into their chambers, anchorites were influential. They could give counsel from the wisdom they accrued in their contemplative lives, and in this way, have an outsized impact on the places and communities they lived in. 

Before anchorites retired from the outside world to dedicate their lives to religious devotion, a priest would say a rite of enclosure, akin to a funeral rite. The sealed rooms they lived in were not unlike tombs. (Some scholars have also likened them to wombs.) The small spaces were called “anchorholds,” and they were perhaps 12 feet by 12 feet, built onto the side of a church. They would have been sparsely furnished and dark: an anchorhold was supposed to have, at most, three small windows, sometimes called squints or hagioscopes.

One of these windows would have had a practical purpose: an attendant would pass simple meals and other necessities through it. One window would have given a portal into the church itself, so that the anchorite could receive the Eucharist and hear the services inside. The last window would have provided the anchorite with the only connection to the rest of the world.

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A hagioscope in a French church (Photo: Jean-Marc Pascolo/Wikimedia)

The tradition of solitary asceticism goes far, far back into Christianity: some of the earliest devotees of Jesus Christ fled persecution for the freedom of the desert and the trials that came with it. What distinguished the anchorites was their choice to stay in one place and never leave. To enter this practice, an anchorite had to apply to and be approved by a bishop; they also needed to be wealthy enough to rent the anchorhold and provide themselves with food, or have a patron who would underwrite their devotional life. Once they were walled into their anchorhold, they were never supposed to leave.

In the idealized version of this life, at least, anchorites spent much of their time in prayer and religious contemplation, in seclusion. The Ancrene Wisse, a sort of handbook for anchorites and the most studied text of the practice, suggests that an anchorite would wake at 3 a.m., spend the hours until about 1 p.m. either in personal prayer or listening services in the church, have a meal, rest from 2 to 3, pray again until 5, have another light meal, and sleep at 7 p.m. During winter, anchorites had only one meal. That was just a template, though: An anchorite called Wilbrig, for instance, lived a more punishing life, which involved fasting three times a week, possibly wearing an iron chain and performing other aggressive penances.

But the lives of some anchorites might have had more variety. The Ancrene Wisse also had a long list of practices that were forbidden–a sure sign that some anchorites had tried them. The Ancrene Wisse warned anchorites not to write letters, teach classes, pass gossip, or keep valuables in their chambers. While traditional scholars usually imagined anchorites as women totally immersed in contemplation, more modern scholars tend to see them as somewhat active people, who may have chosen the anchorite lifestyle to, in some cases, increase the opportunities and respect available to them.

In the Netherlands, Bertken of Utrecht, who had enough money to build her own anchorhold, spent part of her time writing tracts and songs, which were circulated in the city. She was well known enough that when she died, six guards had to manage the crowd of people who came to pay their respects.

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St. Julian's in Norwich (Image: Public domain)

There were anchorites all over Europe, but the lifestyle particularly caught on in England, and, within the country, in Norwich more than anywhere else. These days, the 133,000-person city is one of the least religious in the U.K., but in the middle ages, while York had 10 recluses at the height of the trend and London had twelve, Norwich had 35. Back then, Norwich was one of the largest cities in England, second only to London, and it was distinguished by the number of unusually devout people living there.

Part of the reason the city had that reputation was Julian of Norwich, who lived in the 14th century in an anchorhold at St. Julian's Church. When she was 30 years old, in 1373, she experienced a series of visions that inspired her to leave behind her previous life and dedicate herself to contemplation. Her own name is not known, but she was a famous enough anchorite that there are many records of people bequeathing her money–a rarity. 

Julian's fame came in part from her mystic visions. She described them in a book, Revelations of Divine Love, that is the first book in English credited to a woman. In it, she describes the sixteen visions she had, and gives an expansion interpretation of what they communicate about Jesus Christ’s love in the world. It's a warm and beautiful text that's ultimately positive about the world. One of the most often-cited parts is her vision of God with all of creation:

“In this same time our Lord shewed to me a ghostly sight of his homely loveing. He shewed a littil thing the quantitye of an hesil nutt in the palme of my hand, and it was as round as a balle. I lokid there upon with eye of my understondyng and thowte, What may this be? And it was generally answered thus: It is all that is made.” (In the original)

“And in this vision he also showed me a little thing, the size of a hazelnut, lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed to me, and it was round as a ball. I looked at it with my mind’s eye and thought, ‘What can this be?’ And the answer came in a general way, like this: ‘It is all that is made.’” (Translation)

Her visions, devotion and writings made her well-known enough that Margery Kempe sought her out. Kempe was a sort of wild mystic who was dedicated to Christianity but performed her own spiritual vision very publicly. She wanted a sort of blessing from Julian of Norwich, and, according to her own account, she got what she wanted.  Julian told her to obey the will of God, to follow what he had put in her soul, to ignore what the world might say, and to have patience. Kempe would need this advice, as following what God put into her soul drew criticism from men in places of power; she was sometimes described as a madwoman.

There were few ways for women to make a mark on medieval British society, but religious devotion allowed both of these two women to do so successfully. Despite this, the evidence and records of their lives are scarce. Even Julian of Norwich's anchorhold is gone; it may have simply been left to crumble as the Reformation made this lifestyle less popular. 

Often, when anchorites lived out their time, their anchorholds would be destroyed if no one took their place. In 1539, Henry VIII ended the practice in England. Today, there's little trace of this medieval tradition. There are just a few anchorholds left in the country, and many of them are used for storage.

Golden Pigs, Jesus-Shaped Bread, and 5 Other Delightful European Christmas Customs

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A Christmas market in Talinn, Estonia (Photo: Wikimedia)

American Christmas has its own basic formula: Tree, ornaments, stockings by the fireplace, Santa Claus, presents, feast. (Plus, for observant families, an actual religious rite.) Most of these traditions are vaguely European. But there are plenty of European Christmas rituals that are less familiar to adherents of American Christmas.

Mix together pagan-influenced beliefs, outdated Catholic rules and old-fashioned regionalism, and out come very unique, very delightful Christmas customs–many of them connected to the traditional feast. 

Christmas is about a lot of things–gift-giving, family, light in the dark of the winter, demons coming to visit your house–but like all good festivals, one of the key elements is what should be put in one's mouth and how, exactly, it should get there.


7. Fast all day, then try to see a golden pig

Before the 20th century, the Catholic Church considered Christmas Eve a fast day. A day of abstinence, though, often ends in a celebratory meal, and in the Czech Republic, traditional Christmas Eve dinners feature fresh carp, butchered on the street by the fishmonger or kept in the bathtub until it's time to prepare it, then fried and served with potato salad.

Before eating, however, the custom is to try to see a golden pig–a vision or hallucination projected on the wall. If you do see it, presumably you'll have good luck for the year. A Christmas tradition that's become popular in its own right is a commercial for a Czech soda that features the story of the golden pig. In the commercial, a father tells his daughter the story, and...the pig appears. (Sort of.) This commercial is so well-liked that it's been aired each year since its debut, a decade ago.


 6. Bake a loaf of bread in the shape of baby Jesus

 

A photo posted by @instalice84 on

This bread has many names: cougnou, queniolle, pain de Jesus, coquille, and more. But the basic concept is always the same. The bread's meant to look like a swaddled baby.

There are three parts to the loaf, a head, a body, and feet. It's a sweet bread, often dotted with raisins, and the idea was thought to originate centuries ago, in the area where northern France now borders Belgium. It's kind of cute, but maybe a bit creepy, too.


5. Leave Rice pudding for magical creatures

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Rice pudding! (Photo: Rudi Riet/flickr)

In Scandinavian countries, people often prepare a batch of rice pudding on Christmas Eve, with part of the porridge set aside for some magical creature, whether it's the barn gnome who looks out for the animals, the house (or sauna) elf that watches over the family, or, more commonly these days, for the local version of Santa Claus. 

But the porridge also has a surprise in it: one whole blanched almond. Like the person who finds the bean or plastic figure in a king cake down south, the person who finds the almond receives a present. 


4. Try not to hear animals talking

This tradition's not tied to one particular country: in many places in Europe, it's said that animals are given the power to talk just as Christmas Eve becomes Christmas, at midnight. There's some disagreement about whether one should try to listen to what they say. Sometimes it's considered bad luck to eavesdrop. But sometimes the animals gossip about who has treated them badly, so it's worthwhile to listen in.


3. Eat a 12-course Christmas Eve dinner 

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Twelve dishes of Christmas (Image: Jacques Hnizdovsky/Wikimedia)

In many Eastern European countries, Christmas Eve dinner is a serious ritual, which follows a day of fasting and includes no meat. The table might be strewn with hay, as a gesture to the manger where Jesus was born and in some places the first food that's eaten is a communion-like wafer.

The 12 dishes are meant to represent the 12 apostles, or the 12 months, and they might include borscht, mushroom soup, potatoes, braised sauerkraut, pierogi, cabbage rolls, herring, smoked eels, small biscuits, or gingerbread. Everyone must at least taste each dish, or risk bad luck in the next year.

Some of these dinners also have a connection to the dead, or death. Some families perform a ritual at the end of the meal, where a candle is blown out and the direction of the smoke–up or down, towards the door–augurs good or bad. Some people leave an empty plate for their deceased relatives; others leave the leftovers of the meal on the table for the whole night so the dead can come and partake.


2. Eat 13 Christmas desserts

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In Provence (Photo: CRTPACA/flickr)

A less somber tradition in the south of France dictates that Christmas Eve supper include 13 desserts, in reference to the 12 apostles and Jesus Christ.


1. Bake just one dessert, but give it 18 layers

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A Kransekake (Photo: Elaine Ashton/flickr)

In some Scandinavian countries, Christmas dessert is Kransekake, a tower of pastry rings, stacked one on top of another. It's not exclusively baked at Christmas, but it's magnificent.

'There’s a County Mounty at the Pickle Park,' and More Creative Trucker Slang

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A truck driver uses a CB radio at the National Museum of American History.  (Photo: Kārlis Dambrāns/flickr)

"Smokey in the bush," says a fuzzy voice coming from a box on the dashboard. Any trucker sailing down Interstate 91 in New England would know the drill: press the brakes, slow down, and look for cops on the horizon. 

Such cryptic warnings, which come from other drivers nearby, are sent out over a radio frequency known as Citizens’ Band Radio, or CB Radio for short. Over the last 70 years, dashboard CB devices have become ubiquitous among professional drivers, leading to truckers developing their own lingo for communication.

Though there are now sleeker digital ways for drivers to navigate traffic hazards—such as the Waze cell phone app—CB Radio persists as an emblem of decentralized and uninhibited motorist dialogue. CBs, first invented in the ‘40s as short-distance communication devices, are similar in appearance and operation to ham radios, but use different frequencies and do not require individual exams to get a license (which most other radio devices do). They can be used for both business and personal reasons, which is likely why truckers glommed on to the machines in the mid 20th century.

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A CB radio on the dashboard. (Photo: ^ Missi ^/flickr)

It took a while for the technology to find an audience among drivers, mostly due to the hefty cost of the machines. For the first few decades, hobbyists predominately used the radios. But as they became cheaper, CBs became better known among truckers. They really began to catch on in the 1960s, when “the price of the equipment dropped considerably leading many more people to participate,” writes Kristen Haring in her book Ham Radio’s Technical Culture. In fact, by 1963 there were almost half a million licensed CB operators. The devices provided the easiest way to connect with others in the area and alert of any upcoming travel hiccups. And as these solo drivers began conversing with each other, a dialect of sorts arose. 

During this time, what became known as “trucker slang” was canonized over the radio waves. While the slang used to this day is associated with CB radios, the lexicon actually predated CBs. “Much trucker slang arose with the advent of the interstate highway system,” writes the Encyclopedia of American Folklife. The drivers started using their own words to describe the open road. “Bumper lane” meant passing lane, “super slab” was the highway.” But it was more palpable warnings that truckers preferred to talk about, namely the authorities. For instance, if one driver saw a cop in a speed trap, he or she would alert others within radio distance. The most common name for a cop was some kind of “bear,” although other words cropped up like “Evil Knievel” and “County Mounty.”

For years CB Radio use remained a way for truckers to pass the time. And over time more words formed. Most of the slang described things you’d see on the highways. For instance, moving trucks became known as “bed buggers” and “pickle parks” were rest areas. In the 1970s CB culture began to transcend trucking, which led to a national interest in the new slang.

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Trucks parked for the night in the UK. A State Highway rest area is called a "pickle park."  (Photo: Roger May/WikiCommons CC BY-SA 2.0)

Then came the 1973 oil crisis, in which embargoes in the Middle East saw the price of the black sludge rise from $3 to $12 a barrel. To help reduce oil consumption, the U.S. government passed a 1974 law that restricted highway driving speeds to 55 miles per hour. Naturally, truckers—whose livelihood relied on driving long distances for short durations—were perturbed. The drivers didn’t want to slow down, but they also didn’t want to risk getting speeding tickets. Thus, more professional truckers began buying CB equipment to more easily communicate about potential speed traps. It was their way to be anti-authoritarian in the face of a national law restricting their speed. And thanks to this one-off bill intended to curb gas use, CB sales boomed in the mid-1970s and the radios became a must-have for drivers, write academics Tyler Watts and Jared Barton in their paper I Can’t Drive 55: The Economics of the CB Radio Phenomenon.

As more radio users entered the fray, a more robust slang emerged. Everything that appeared on the road was given an on-the-air euphemism. A school bus became a “cheese wagon;” an ambulance passing by was a “bone box.” Even going to bathroom was given the moniker of “paying the water bill.” These and hundreds of other words and phrases entered the trucker lexicon, and over the years have become memorialized in websites and books. Popular TV shows like The Dukes of Hazzard, where characters would regularly use the devices, giving CB slang a permanent pop-cultural grounding. By 1974 alone there were over six million CB radio operators in the United States, the London Economist reported at the time.

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A truck with no trailer, known in trucker slang as a "bobtail". (Photo: Raunet/WikiCommons CC BY-SA 3.0)

Of course, the CB radio craze declined over the years, as fads are wont to do, but the practice persists in modern trucking. To this day truckers use the same words to warn of upcoming traffic woes, and continue using the old machines. “The CB is still the best way for truck drivers to communicate with each other while they’re rolling down the road,” explains the trucker-centric website Truck News.

All the same, technology is trying to disrupt this now obsolete relic. In the last few years, more than a few trucker-focused smartphone apps have been released—with names like Truckers Tools—hoping to give drivers better routes and easier access to nearby stops. But even the New York Times admitted that the use of CB slang at a local truck stop indicated that “not everyone was on the smartphone bandwagon.”

Until these apps can allow for fun words like “loot limo” and “redneck radio,” why would the drivers want to stop using CBs anyway?

Fleeting Wonders: Cowboys Rescue A Drowning Arizona Deer Via Lasso

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One of the anonymous hero cowboys nabbing the distressed deer. (Image: Arizona GameAndFish/Youtube)

When a mule deer falls into a canal, he's usually done for. But this past weekend, one Arizona ungulate survived a long swim, thanks to symbiosis with another local species—the cowboy.

The Arizona Game and Fish department received a tip that a deer was paddling furiously up and down a canal near Lake Pleasant. The deer, like many before him, had approached the canal for an easy drink and slipped in. When authorities got to the scene, a couple of cowboys were sauntering along the canal, assessing the situation, and the two forms of law enforcement put their heads together. After the officers herded the deer toward a bridge using a rope and buoy, one of the cowboys was able to calmly lasso the deer's antlers and pull him to shore.

The deer was "panicked and very cold," said Game and Fish Officer Reuben Gonzales told AZ Central. "We kept talking to him and saying 'You got this.'" The cowboys and officers trucked the wet and disoriented animal to a nearby park, where he gradually regained his footing and scampered off. 

Thirsty deer often get into trouble in the West, and thousands have drowned in the many miles of concrete-lined canals that web the region. Ramps, fences, and other blockade and escape structures have met with little success. Maybe it's time to instate a cowboy patrol. 

Every day, we track down a fleeting wonder—something amazing that's only happening right now. Have a tip for us? Tell us about it! Send your temporary miracles to cara@atlasobscura.com.


The Story Behind the Famous Portrait of André the Giant Clutching a Beer Can

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Andre the Giant holds a 12-oz can of Molsons beer. He is positioned next to the restaurant manager of the wrestler's own cafe. It was shot for a 1981 issue of Sports Ilustrated. (Photo: Sports Illustrated Classic/Getty Images)

This is part of an occasional series called Camera Obscura, a deep dive into a photograph that is seemingly inexplicable. If you have any suggestions for future stories, send them to pitches@atlasobscura.com.

There are 42 half- or full-page ads in the December 21, 1981 issue of Sports Illustrated, and 29 of them are for alcohol or cigarettes. But that two page photo spread featuring what appears to be a new miniature version of the Molson beer can? It’s not an ad at all. It’s the opening image to an amazing story about one of the largest characters the world has ever known: André Roussimoff, aka André the Giant. 

The resulting photo makes the beer look so comically small that when the out-of-context image made the rounds on Reddit and Buzzfeed three decades later, many commenters insisted that it must have been a product of Photoshop. But Photoshop didn’t exist until six years after the photo first appeared in Sports Illustrated and more importantly, Roussimoff’s hand was actually that big. The writer who penned the piece, Terry Todd, noted that Roussimoff’s wrists are more than a foot in circumference—“about average for an adult male western lowland gorilla”—and that you can pass a silver dollar through his ring, which would make it around a size 30. In the accompanying 8,000 word article, “To the Giant among Us”, Todd takes the reader on a rollicking journey with the amiable Roussimoff from New York to Montreal, where they finally end up in the wrestler’s own French cafe, Le Pitcher. There’s a photo of Muhammad Ali holding Roussimoff’s fist up next to his face; they’re roughly the same size. 

While the iconic image might seem obvious now—and carries significance for Roussimoff outside of the realm of the posed picture—the beer was not the first thing the wrestler held. Once the group arrived at the photo shoot, the photographer Stephen Green-Armytage struggled to find an object that would to properly show off Roussimoff’s proportions. “Obviously we chose an item whose size is familiar to the magazine's readers,” he told me. “I also photographed André with the restaurant manager, and although the giant towered over him, the reader would not know if he was a particularly small man or of normal size.” Another photo with the wrestler posing with Central Park horse also proved unsatisfying—“one wouldn't know if it was a pony or a Clydesdale.” So when Todd suggested the beer-centric staging, Green-Armytage put aside his worry that the photo would be mistaken for an ad and snapped away.

After all, while everyone’s hands are different, a 12-ounce beer, he noted, is always the same size.

article-image A close-up of the famous shot. 

Green-Armytage and Todd were by no means the first to fixate on Roussimoff’s appendages. Andre’s father’s first words upon meeting his son were, “Such hands.” Roussimoff was born in rural France to normal-sized parents Boris and Mariann, and his gigantism, caused by extra growth hormone from a pituitary tumor, was evident from birth. By age 11, André was said to be 6’3” and more than 200 pounds. He eventually grew to be 7’4”, but his height wasn’t the most remarkable thing—there are dozens of people in the world taller than him. Instead it was his incredible bone density and muscle tone. Without the help of much extra body fat, Roussimoff often weighed in at more than 500 pounds, and was incredibly strong and athletic. Before he became a professional wrestler, he was a dominating rugby player.

The Sports Illustrated article focused on his wrestling career. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, he was the main attraction in the rapidly growing World Wide Wrestling Federation; the charismatic showman went 15 years without ever “losing” a match. The WWWF’s owner, Vincent McMahon Sr., commissioned a custom-made vehicle to carry his star in comfort to matches all over the Northeast. As Todd writes in the article, this means that McMahon “bought a heavy-duty van, had the ceiling raised about a foot and installed an oversized couch.”

Todd joined Roussimoff in the van for much of the article, and it’s quite the ride, as Todd regales readers with stories of Rousimoff’s incredible appetite and energy. Todd was an inspired choice to write the piece. A former national champion powerlifter, he was a large man himself at 6’2”, 335 pounds; that’s his huge-though-diminished hand holding the glass in the top image. (At one point, Todd could squat more than 700 pounds and bench press more than 500 pounds.) When he pitched the story idea to Sports Illustrated, he emphasized his access. After all, many fellow powerlifters had become wrestlers and promoters, and one of them was willing to vouch for him to McMahon. 

As a result of his background, Todd’s fascinated by Rousimoff’s capabilities, and can’t help but imagine what the giant (or “Brobdingnagian Frenchman” as he refers to him) could do if he really started training for power. Todd quotes a record-holding weightlifter who says, “I honestly believe that if André took a couple of years away from the game to train like the top lifters do, and if he developed a close personal relationship with his friendly neighborhood pharmacist, the world powerlifting records in both the squat and the deadlift would fall.”

The story quickly diverts from talk of hypothetical steroid use, though, to Roussimoff’s actual chemical vice: alcohol. His capacity for booze was amazing. Modern Drunkard magazine (what, you don’t subscribe?) claims that no other human has ever matched Roussimoff as a drinker. His most amazing (if lightly sourced) feat? The time he chugged 119 beers in six hours, a pace of roughly a beer every three minutes.

Todd doesn’t witness that level of debauchery, but what he does see is impressive enough. “During the week or so I was with him,” he wrote, “his average daily consumption was a case or so of beer; a total of two bottles of wine, generally French, with his meals; six or eight shots of brandy, usually Courvoisier or Napoléon, though sometimes Calvados; half a dozen standard mixed drinks, such as Bloody Marys or Screwdrivers; and the odd glass of Pernod.” That adds up to roughly 7,000 calories a day in alcohol alone. Green-Armytage wryly notes that beer was an appropriate subject for the image, “since he drank a lot of it, and had tremendous capacity.”

Oddly enough, though, Roussimoff never once seems drunk to Todd, and instead uses his hours of drinking time each day to chat with his ever-growing circle of friends and fans. Todd was among them. When Roussimoff died 12 years after the article appeared, at the young age of 46, from congestive heart failure likely related to his gigantism, Todd spoke at his memorial service. By then, Roussimoff had endeared himself to the next generation of fans with his role of Fezzik the gentle rhyming giant in the movie The Princess Bride. Rousimoff knew his life was likely to be shorter than most. “If I were to die tomorrow,” he said in the article, “I know I have eaten more good food, drunk more beer and fine wine, had more friends and seen more of the world than most men ever will.”

Tumblr's #Boneghazi Meme And the True History of Robbing Louisiana Graves

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A (thankfully) dry day at Holt Cemetery, a rare New Orleans below-ground burial site. (Photo: Mark Gsothl/Flickr)

Last week, a user in a private Facebook group for witches advertised some rare wares–human remains they had found in a nearby cemetery. The spot was "where I go to find my human bones for curse work and general spells that require bone," the user, who was based in New Orleans, explained. The community member was offering to ship them at cost to people with similar needs. "I know human bones aren't easy to come by and I usually have left overs," the user wrote. 

When the conversation was posted to Tumblr, it blew the place up. Some were concerned about the legality of selling human remains; others, the morality. Some worried for the safety of the original poster, who quickly became a target for everything from run-of-the-mill online callouts to legal threats to aggressive doxxing (in addition, of course, to a whole slew of memes). Users disappeared, reappeared under new names to defend themselves, and then disappeared again, like zombie-ghost hybrids. (Most of the relevant posts were screenshotted for posterity in this exhaustive walkthrough from Digg.)

Meanwhile, spectators who do not frequent the more macabre corners of Tumblr were surprised to learn that any of this was even possible. Why are bones ending up on the surface of the earth? And why do people want them?

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The ornate crypts of New Orleans's Metairie Cemetery. (Photo: Atlas Obscura/Public Domain)

It turns out that the witches aren't the only ones with access to bones in the bayou. “You can’t really bury people below ground in New Orleans,” says writer, former Atlas Obscura staffer and cemetery tour leader Allison Meier, "They’ll be back." Due to the city’s notoriously high water table, most of New Orleans’s dead are now buried in secure structures above ground. The thought of all these bones sleeping on the same level as the living has given the city a spooky reputation–one part of town, the famous City of the Dead, features a whole block’s worth of mausoleums, and Metairie Cemetery is studded with sculptures and marble pyramids.

This wasn’t always the case, though: settlers originally buried their dead along the banks of the Mississippi, where the river had built up tall soil deposits over the years. “During the frequent floods... the bodies of the dead would wash out of their muddy graves and come floating through the streets of town,” writes Troy Taylor in Haunted New Orleans: History & Hauntings of the Crescent City. Citizens tried weighting coffins down with stones or boring holes in them, also to no avail–the coffins, too, would pop out of the ground. (These scenes were eerily reprised en masse in 2006, when Hurricane Katrina tore thousands of their bodies from their resting places, regardless of altitude). Those cemeteries that did offer underground real estate, up on hills and on the edges out of town, filled up rapidly, until only the wealthiest could afford plots.

This was an unsustainable system, and eventually, below-ground graves were largely abandoned in favor of sturdier structures–ornate crypts, or smaller, economy-style vaults stacked on top of each other. Such vaults are often crowded, with several family members inside each–a local ordinance allows for new bodies to join vaults every two years.

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An alleyway in the City of the Dead, aka Lafayette Cemetery. (Photo: Allison Meier/Atlas Obscura)

But just re-opening one of these vaults can run you upwards of $150, not to mention the cost of the real estate itself. Those in New Orleans who can’t afford these precautions are left to the whims of the water–and of whoever finds them when they wash up.

“The older the grave the more you find” in this “poor man’s graveyard,” the original Tumblr poster wrote. “You can literally walk around and see femurs, teeth, jaws, skull caps, etc.” (In a later post, they said that they had found the bones in question after “an old man digging with a shovel and a backhoe” unearthed them, and they tumbled onto the street. “I went through the grave yard and picked up ones I saw on my path knowing they were either going to be crushed or swept away,” they wrote.)

The maelstrom surrounding this post can be partly attributed to how it takes the idea of the stereotypical Tumblr user to its (semi-)logical extreme–how posting skeleton war gifs and swapping spells can lead quickly down a rabbit hole to grave robbing. But skeleton-snatching isn’t solely the purview of online teens, says Bess Lovejoy, author of Rest in Pieces.“My first thought is that it’s totally illegal and totally unethical, but also not at all unusual from a historical perspective,” notes Lovejoy.

Also, death used to be a lot closer to life. In many cultures, she says, bones are “spiritual walkie-talkies–you can communicate to God through the bones, and he communicates back to you.” Early Catholicism held that every altar needed at least one holy relic, usually a bone of a saint, which led to raids on catacombs throughout the ancient world. Families used to keep their loved ones’ bones close, and famous remains still occasionally end up on display."It’s only been within the last 100 years that people have gotten skittish about the idea of interacting with human remains,” says Lovejoy. But many of those who aren’t skittish about the “grave” part are not so enthusiastic about the “robbing” part. The best (and really the only) thing to do if you find a bone, says Meier, is to call the police. “There’s no guarantee that a bone that you have in the cemetery is from the cemetery,” she says.

If you’re tempted to keep it, Lovejoy says, the safest thing is to instead go to an antique dealer (who probably got them from an old medical school, where they were used to teach anatomy, or Freemason’s lodge, where they were used to scare newcomers). Even these, though, likely didn’t leave the ground willingly. “There was so much grave robbing and body snatching that the medical schools were doing” in earlier centuries, says Lovejoy, “even the oldest skeletons around probably weren’t put in the ground by somebody who left [bone donation] in their wishes.”

"As far as I’m concerned, we should respect the wishes of the dead, because we hope that our wishes will be respected," says Lovejoy. And odds are no one, living or dead, wants to become a Tumblr meme.

FOUND: Mysterious Gold Object in a Jerusalem Cemetery

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The object in question (Photo: Israel Antiquities Authority/Facebook)

A few months back, a maintenance worker was in an old building in a Jerusalem cemetery and spotted an abandoned package in the structure. Naturally, the person called the cops, the Jerusalem Post reports. But once they determined the package wasn't a bomb, they were confronted with a greater mystery: what in the world was the golden thing inside?

Almost a foot long and weighing about 19 pounds, the wand had knobs on either end and rings around its bulbous center. For months, the Israel Antiquities Authority puzzled over it. Was it old? Was it new? What was it? 

Finally, this week, the government agency threw the question to the masses of Facebook. And in short order, the object was identified as a gilded Isis beamer—a New Age tool that's sold by a German company. It comes in sizes large and small, and is meant to "strengthen the body's own energy field" and also harmonize radiation or other energy fields. According to the company that makes it, about 25,000 have been sold. 

It may not be an ancient treasure, but it's valuable to someone. A large one of these things retails for more than $400.

Bonus finds: Charlemagne insigniaa galaxy with a tail, 39,000 cannonballs

Every day, we highlight one newly lost or found object, curiosity or wonder. Discover something unusual or amazing? Tell us about it! Send your finds to sarah.laskow@atlasobscura.com.

Fleeting Wonders: SpaceX Successfully Recycles A Rocket Booster

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Launch, re-entry, and landing traces from last night's Falcon 9 victory. (Photo: SpaceX/Flickr)

The Falcon 9 rocket, the star of Elon Musk's SpaceX endeavors, has taken its share of bruises, most notably a dramatic launch failure in June that ended in disintegration. But on the evening of December 21, the world watched as it did something no machine of its kind has ever done before—it came back from space and landed on its feet

The Falcon 9 lifted off at 8:29 p.m. from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. It separated, sending 11 commercial satellites hurtling into space on the smaller, second-stage part of the rocket. Then the enormous booster part touched back down, 10 minutes later and six miles away, at SpaceX's new crash pad, Landing Zone 1. 

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Falcon 9 awaits takeoff. (Photo: SpaceX/Flickr)

This is not the first time a rocket has stuck the landing. Last month, Jeff Bezos's rocketeering outfit Blue Origin vertically landed a much smaller rocket, and SpaceX itself has pulled off a soft landing at sea. But the Falcon 9 is the largest and fastest rocket booster to manage a hard landing—large and fast enough to actually deliver goods or people into space. This brings the ultimate goal of low-cost space flight much closer, and makes for a one-small-step-for-rocket, one-giant-leap-for-rocketkind type of accomplishment.

TheNew York Timescalled the evening "a threefold success" for SpaceX—besides this unprecedented rocket-recycling, the company also introduced an upgraded design that incorporates colder fuel and liquid oxygen.

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A human awaits the new rocket overlords at Landing Zone 1. (Photo: SpaceX/Flickr)

You can watch (or re-watch) the entire launch on SpaceX's YouTube channel

Every day, we track down a fleeting wonder—something amazing that's only happening right now. Have a tip for us? Tell us about it! Send your temporary miracles to cara@atlasobscura.com.

Object of Intrigue: Two-Wheeled Transport for Regency Dandies

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Regency dandies drag-racing their draisines at the Jardin du Luxembourg in 1818. (Image: Wikipedia/Public domain)

This holiday season, millennials will be unwrapping futuristic-looking hoverboards, taking to the sidewalks, and incurring a mix of confusion, awe, and ire from people over the age of 30.

These sentiments echo those expressed almost 200 years ago, when another contentious youth-focused form of two-wheeled transport was introduced: the Laufmaschine. It was the first human-powered, two-wheeled transport device; it pre-dated the penny-farthing, a type of early bicycle, by more than 50 years.

Also known as the swift walker, the pedestrian hobby horse, the draisine, and the first velocipede, the Laufmaschine (“running machine”) was invented by German forester Karl Drais in 1817. It consisted of a pair of equally sized wheels topped with a wooden beam, which held the whole thing together. A leather saddle on the beam gave the rider a place to sit and a tiller-style steering post gave control over the direction of the front wheel.

There were no pedals—the rider would sit astride the Laufmaschine, let their feet touch the ground, and take long strides to get moving. To stop, riders dragged their legs along the ground.

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A drawing from Drais' three-page pamphlet on his 1817 invention. (Image: Wikipedia/Public domain)

Patented in France in 1818, Laufmaschines “soon became status symbols among young noblemen,” wrote Tony Hadland and Hans-Erhard Lessing in Bicycle Design: An Illustrated History. The contraptions were priced above the means of the working class, leading them to become a toy for pleasure-seeking dandies—hence another one of the velocipede's nicknames: the "Dandy Horse."

London caricaturists had a fine time lampooning these cravat-wearing sidewalk menaces who trotted along on their running machines. The riders faced a "storm of ridicule," according to an 1883 edition of cycling magazine The Wheelman“Nothing could well have looked more absurd than a gentleman, exquisitely dressed in the fashion of the times, going along the muddy streets in this guise,” it noted. 

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A draisine at the Kurpfälzisches Museum in Heidelberg, Germany. (Photo: Gun Powder Ma/Wikipedia)

In the dying days of 1818, London carriage maker Denis Johnson released an improved version of the draisine, which he termed the "pedestrian curricle." It had larger wheels, a simpler steering mechanism, a lighter overall weight of 40 to 50 pounds, and an adjustable seat.

Convinced of the mass appeal of this modified Laufmaschine, Johnson opened a riding school in Covent Garden. There he taught fashionable young men how to cruise along on his curricles, and custom made the contraptions for each buyer, taking their weight and inseam into account to create the most comfortable ride possible.

It wasn't just men who got to go on velocipede joy rides—in 1819, Johnson debuted a version of the pedestrian curricle with a step-through frame, specially designed for ladies' comfort and modesty. By this time, however, the draisine fad had already peaked.

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The lady version of the pedestrian curricle had a step-through frame. (Photo: Ian.wilkes/Wikipedia)

Velocipedes made it to the United States by 1819, but their popularity was modest. About 100 of the machines circulated in the country, which was enough to warrant the establishment of riding rinks in the east. Those who couldn't afford to purchase a two-wheeler outright could rent them.

"Riding downhill at high speed was a particularly enjoyable activity," notes the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, which holds a draisine from around 1818 in its collection.

By 1820, the Laufmaschine fad was over in both Europe and the U.S., having incurred the ire of pedestrians protective of their sidewalk space. Another issue leading to its demise was the fact that the draisine caused occasional rearrangement of riders' internal organs. “The defects of the velocipede, its rigidity, and the strain on the rider in propelling it by muscular thrust, besides rendering it impracticable for general road travel and subjecting the rider to a severe jolting, were a frequent cause of abdominal hernia,” noted The American Cyclopaedia

On the bright side, draisines did not have a tendency to burst into flames.

Searching for the Mystery Lights of Marfa, Texas

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Tumbleweed rolling down N. Highland Ave, Marfa. The building in the far left is the historic Hotel Paisano, featured in the classic film Giant with James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson. (All Photos: Peter Ash Lee)

This photo essay is one of a five-part series with Atlas Obscura and Olympus. We asked some of our favorite photographers to take a quest with an Olympus E-M5 Mark II camera, and these are the results of their adventures. All photographs in this story were taken with a Olympus E-M5 Mark II with a 12-40mm Pro lens. To see the full series, go here.

The town of Marfa, situated in the high desert of West Texas, has a population of just 1,981. It is difficult to get to—the closest airport is three hours away—and yet, despite its small size and relative in accessibility, it has become famous for minimalist art, and the mysterious Marfa lights.

The art scene began in the early 1970s, when artist Donald Judd moved to Marfa. He bought properties for his installations and collections, and Marfa is now home to the Judd Foundation and the Chinati Foundation, along with numerous other galleries. The heritage of the Marfa lights dates back further; under local lore, it was a cowboy in 1883 who first spoke of seeing the lights as he herded his cattle across the plains. They are described as either stationary or mobile bright lights seen in the desert, which may “pulse on and off with intensity varying from a dim to an almost blinding brilliance.” Witnesses to the lights often attribute them to paranormal activity such as UFOs and ghosts.  

With this in mind, it’s no surprise that photographer Peter Ash Lee wanted to visit Marfa. He was intrigued by its history and culture, and hoped that maybe he could also chase down the elusive Marfa lights. In late November, Lee made his way to Marfa from New York via two flights and a drive, to photograph this isolated and most unique town. 

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A classic Valiant with Texas license plates parked in Marfa.

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In this sign for Marfa, the beautiful font, and the shadows it created, caught Lee's eye. 

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Lee drove out of the town’s borders on Pinto Canyon Road, which led to beautiful rolling hills—apparently the same countryside as featured in the film No Country for Old Men.

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Prada Marfa, a permanent sculpture by artists Elmgreen and Dragset. "Right after this photo was taken, two other tourists ran in to pose in front of it wearing nothing but their cowboy hats," Lee says.

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The train tracks across the street from the Prada Marfa exhibition.

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A sculpture spotted by Lee as he walked around the town. 

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A mural painted outside the Thunderbird Hotel office.

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One of many beautiful vegetations growing in the desert.

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Lee visited the Marfa Lights Viewing Center, and watched the sunset—and waited for the mysterious Marfa lights. 

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Local flora silhouetted against the setting sun. 

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An alien-like face is formed from the binoculars at the Marfa Lights Viewing Center.

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The Marfa Lights? At the Viewing Center, Lee was told that the white light above the red light is indeed one of the Marfa Lights, and he managed to capture it on film. "It would appear randomly every few minutes and change and then slowly fade away," Lee recalls, "One of the other viewers told us that it was probably a reflection off a headlight from a nearby highway. No one seemed to really know what was and wasn't part of the Marfa Lights."

Meet a Master Tarot Card Designer From Milan, Birthplace of Tarot

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Osvaldo Menegazzi's supply-laden desk. (Photo: Lakshmi Ramgopal)

Want to divine the future by looking at beautiful drawings? Pick up a tarot deck. These symbolism-heavy illustrated cards have been helping people make psychic predictions since the 15th century. But where did those cards come from before they hit your local witch store?  Perhaps from a master tarot artist who has devoted his life and livelihood to crafting occult imagery.

Osvaldo Menegazzi is one such master. A resident of Milan, Italy, the white-haired, bright-eyed septuagenarian has spent decades designing and selling tarot cards, or tarocchi, in his shop, Il Meneghello di Osvaldo Menegazzi. Decks of them form bright, teetering towers on every surface of the store, stacked alongside posters and calendars boasting tarot imagery. 

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Menegazzi's shop and studio in Milan, Italy. (Photo: © Cristina Dorsini)

As a creator of sumptuous tarot cards in Milan, Menegazzi holds a special place in the history of tarocchiMilan was a major center for tarot in Renaissance Italy. What we call tarot descended from playing cards that came to Milan and other European cities from the Islamic world in the 14th century. In the early 15th century, Milan’s reclusive Duke Filippo Maria Visconti asked the artist Michelino da Besozzo to make him a version of playing cards that included trionfi, or trumps.

These new cards eventually gave rise to the modern tarot deck. In addition to trumps, da Besozzo’s deck contained figures called princes and barons that were divided into categories called the Virtues, the Riches, the Virginities, and the Pleasures. This deck was probably more luxurious than most of the ones we would find today. Known for his fresco and stained glass work, da Besozzo was no novice. The cards he made for the duke may have been as opulent as his paintings, which sparkle with gold leaf to this day.

Other parts of Renaissance Italy also produced lavish cards around this time. Records from Ferrara describe an extraordinary deck that Bolognese painter Jacopo Sagramoro had made as a gift for Visconti’s 15-year-old daughter in 1441. According to the documents, Sagramoro had painted and even gilded the cards by hand.

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Boxes for storing tarot cards in Menegazzi's shop. (Photo: © Cristina Dorsini)

With his lavish, handmade cards, Osvaldo Menegazzi is clearly preserving the tradition of his predecessors in present-day Milan. As Menegazzi tells it, making tarot cards is no hobby. It’s a calling. He is the first in his family to be a tarot artist—his father, Aurelio Menegazzi, was a track cyclist who competed at the 1924 Olympics. A self-described “born painter,” he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Brera. After graduating, he decided to combine his love of art and with his love for antique playing cards, the early ancestors of tarot, by founding a publishing house for out-of-print cards. But he also wanted to make his own designs. He published his first deck, inspired by seashells, in 1974.

The process, Menegazzi shares, isn’t always in his control. The images on his cards are often inspired by history, and ideas can appear without warning. Sometimes he finds himself stopping and sketching during a walk through the streets of Milan, or even while dining at a restaurant. But most of the work takes place in his shop, where he has a studio space full of paints, brushes, cardstock and discarded designs. Since Menegazzi researches every theme, some decks take up to a year to develop and print.

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Cards from the deck developed by Menegazzi in collaboration with his niece, Cristina Dorsini, in honor of Expo Milano 2015. (Photo: © Cristina Dorsini)

That means his shop boasts an endless variety of cards, making it a treasure trove for lovers of the occult in the Italian North. Some decks depict the major and minor arcana (tarot's “face card” and “number card” equivalents) in Cubist shapes. Others portray them as animals or even flowers, inspired by vintage science books. One deck reimagines traditional iconography with old maps that Menegazzi finds at Milanese flea markets. 

Menegazzi also sells the work of other Italian tarot artists in addition to his own. One of those artists is Anna Maria D’Onofrio, whose limited-edition watercolor decks are a unique example of modern Italian tarot. Menegazzi also carries Les Tarot Noirs, a deck by his Milanese friend Franco Coletti. Featuring stark black-and-white illustrations, Coletti’s cards depict the Magician as Osvaldo Menegazzi himself.

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Stacks of tarot decks by watercolorist Anna Maria D'Onofrio. (Photo: © Cristina Dorsini)

 Though he doesn’t read tarot himself—for him, it's all about the artistry—Menegazzi is immersed in the history and symbolism of the cards. And he’s no longer the only one in the family to make tarot cards: his niece Cristina Dorsini shares his passion, too. In addition to handling art direction and public relations for his shop, Dorsini studied art history at the University of Milan and aspires to follow in her uncle’s footsteps. This year, she collaborated with him on a deck celebrating the 2015 Expo in Milan by designing the Angel and Hanged Man. She’s looking forward to creating a full deck of her own in the coming years. The future of Milanese tarot is looking bright.

 


The Uncertain Future of Santa’s Village, An Abandoned 1950s Christmas Park

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The former Good Witch's Bakery at Santa's Village. (All Photos: Sandi Hemmerlein)

Christmas in Southern California is a funny thing. All the usual tropes of the holiday season just don’t apply—sleigh bells don’t ring, and no one dashes through the snow or walks in a winter wonderland. Sometimes, you can barely tell it even is winter, unless you go to the mountain ski resorts (and even then, you’re not guaranteed to see any real snow).

But that hasn’t kept Southern Californians from trying to create some Christmas magic. Case in point: Santa’s Village, a storybook-style pastel-hued Christmas theme park near Lake Arrowhead that opened just six weeks before Disneyland in 1955. Shuttered in 1998 after struggling to compete with neighboring rollercoasters and high-tech attractions, the park may yet be reopened—but fans of the original holiday wonderland aren't holding their breath.

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Santa's Village opened in 1955 one week before Disneyland, and closed in 1998.  

Even though a lumber operation used much of its open space as a staging area for a few years, most of the fantastical structures—The Good Witch’s Bakery, The Chapel of the Little Shepherd, Santa’s house—managed to remain standing. Still, the living ruin tended to attract the usual suspects: vandals and thieves.

As the park stood there abandoned, nostalgia for it began to grow. One day, somebody’s Christmas wish came true: in 2014, the logging operation sold the property—Santa and all—to an independent investor, who vowed to reopen Santa's Village. There was just one catch: its new identity would be “SkyPark at Santa’s Village,” featuring ziplining and mountain bike trails and other activities that you’d never see at the North Pole. 

This could be a dream come true for many—but how much of the original merriment would be preserved at Santa’s Village? Two years later, it’s still unclear. Santa’s Village still hasn’t reopened, and its new owner, Bill Johnson, is being mysteriously tight-lipped about it. In emails sent earlier this December, SkyPark at Santa’s Village announced, “We tried folks, we really tried to get the Park open this year.” After bumping the opening date from May 2015 to Summer 2015, now they are projecting Summer 2016.

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The former bee hive. Some of the old attractions will not be able to be used when—if?—the park is restored. 

So what is it about the original Santa’s Village that people want back? A visit to the Facebook fan page for the original Santa’s Village, created and run by local designers Kevin Kidney and Jody Daily, gives a glimpse into the magic of the mid-century theme park. Because they both grew up going to Santa’s Village, Kidney says they wanted to create a forum for people to share their memories and reminisce.

In addition to sharing memories, the admins for the Facebook page also get asked a number of oddball questions—including about the theme park’s famous "Pixie Dip”—a packet of seasonings from the Mrs. Claus’ Kitchen that you could stir into sour cream to make a dip (and various other recipes). “People are crazy about it,” Kidney says, “and constantly ask us if it's still available somewhere.” (It’s not…yet.)

“The original park had such great design and a wonderful color palette,” said Kidney, who’s one half of the design team better-known as Kevin and Jody. They both worked as art directors for Disney, and they were designers for Disneyland for many years. “We've found so much inspiration from those miniature buildings, bridges, turrets, and candy canes. It had so much whimsy and charm….” he said, noting the collection of Santa’s Village memorabilia he’s amassed over the years, including View-Master 3D reels, a record album, a jigsaw puzzle, and a lot of postcards. “For years, we thought these things would be the only thing left of Santa's Village that we could ‘return’ to.”

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The park's original color palette has been praised by designers. 

Despite all the suspicion and intrigue surrounding the new SkyPark at Santa’s Village, Kidney says he’s very excited about the possibilities, noting: “I don't think any of us ever expected that even a portion of the park could be reopened.” 

To those contemplating a trip to the site to check on its progress, SkyPark has advised via email that the place is "in 'No Peeking' mode and will remain so until opening day." And they're not just saying that—pop-culture historian Charles Phoenix, who has contributed to much of the online storytelling of the park’s days of yore, was denied access when he tried to visit unannounced on December 18.

Though information on the park's reincarnation is scant, we do know that all of the original Santa's Village stores and buildings remain on the property, as do some of the rides. New safety laws, however, will not permit the use of some of the old attractions in their original ways (like the bumblebee monorail). The rest of the rides were sold off years ago. Santa's house has been restored, and Santa is promised to be at the park year-round. There will also be new characters introduced to the wonderland.

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The former bumblebee monorail. The park is slated to reopen in the Summer of 2016, as "Skypark at Santa's Village".

The longer that SkyPark at Santa’s Village keeps the details of its rejuvenation enshrouded in secrecy, the more that nostalgists are inclined to speculate. “People can only be excited about some new paint and a few piles of old rubble removed for so long before they start doubting, you know?” says Rick West, founder of the website ThemeParkAdventure.com, who has been following the Santa’s Village story closely. And he makes a bold prediction: “You're in for a huge let-down,” he says, “If it does eventually re-open, it's not going to be the theme park we all want back….I don't see any Christmas miracles saving Santa's Village at this point.”

Fleeting Wonders: Octopus Plants Invade England

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A lot of non-native plants and animals at least seem like they belong–starlings and dandelions in North America, squirrels in Europe, rats around the world. But some introduced species seem truly alien.

Meet clathrus archeri, your friendly neighborhood tentacled fungus that erupts from a slimy egg and smells like rotting flesh. Originally from Australia and New Zealand, the fungus crossed the ocean with military supplies during World War I and has been popping up around Britain over the past couple of months.

C. archeri has a variety of well-earned common names, including "octopus stinkhorn," "devil's finger," and "phalloid fungus." When deposited in a suitably decaying environment, its spores turn into clusters of gelatinous eggs, each about the size of a ping pong ball. Eventually, large pink fingers burst out of the top, covered with spore-filled brown goo. The stinky gunk attracts flies, which roll around in it, whizz off, and spread the spores to other spots, beginning the cycle again.

Lately, the octo-phallo-devil-shroom has been making cameos in the New Forest of southern England. It has also been known to visit North America, Asia, and other parts of Europe. If you see one, wave with five fingers to make it feel welcome.

Every day, we track down a fleeting wonder—something amazing that's only happening right now. Have a tip for us? Tell us about it! Send your temporary miracles to cara@atlasobscura.com.

Can Bunnies Play? A Deep YouTube Investigation

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Bun Bun, a creature we seek to understand. (Image: Amanda Engle/YouTube)

It's been a long year, filled with tragedy and heartbreak, but balanced somewhat by the gift that keeps on giving—incredible animal videos. No 2015 list would be complete without the inclusion of a new classic, titled "Bun Bun, Destroyer of Leaves!" The basic action is sublimely simple: a human throws dry leaves on a bunny, and, over and over, the bunny flings herself through them, like a skateboarder off a rail, or a soccer goalie going for a top corner shot.

But these 50 glorious seconds bring up unanswered questions. It's an oddly emotional video. What is going on with the bunny, cognitively? Can bunnies really play games like dogs, cats, or other more traditional companions? What does the bunny know and when does she know it?

The video begs for a close reading; we need to find out exactly what this this bunny was doing, thinking and feeling. 

Faced with this display, we did what any investigative journalist would–called someone who knows a lot about bunnies. Our expert today is Nancy LaRoche, founder and manager of the Colorado House Rabbit Society and co-author of Rabbits: Gentle Hearts, Valiant Spirits. LaRoche has been rescuing, placing, and living with bunnies for 24 years. Below you will find a transcript of our conversation, time-stamped for your convenience. Let's begin.

0:00 First things first–is this bunny playing? Do bunnies play?

Yes, absolutely! They’re incredibly social and intelligent. Most of us see rabbits in pens or crates or something like that, and they just look like they just sit there, and they don’t attract our interest. If you put a human in that kind of environment and left them, we wouldn’t last very long. We would seem dumb to people that came by, because we wouldn’t be getting any mental stimulation or social stimulation. But when you have them in your home–as long as you rabbit proof and things like that–they can be just great. They play, they interact with you, they're like a family member. They’ll even use a litter box.

0:02 We can assume from the bunny's clear investment in the situation that this video starts midway through playtime, so we’ll have to fill in the blanks here. But in your experience, what inspires bunnies to play? Are there certain things that get them in the mood?

There are. One aspect of that is their sleep cycle. They typically sleep from midmorning through the afternoon, so of course during that period of time, they don’t really like to be bothered. That’s one of the reasons that rabbits make terrible pets in schools–a rabbit should never be in a classroom. They’re most active at dawn and dusk in nature, and they modify that slightly so that they’re most active around breakfast time and then again in the evening. A lot of people have their rabbits out in the mornings when they’re getting ready to go to work or school and the bunnies may run around the breakfast table and beg for Cheerios and things like that. Then in the evening as they’re allowed around the table, they’ll be begging for bits of salad. They love when the family gathers, whether they’re watching TV or doing homework or whatever, and at that point they sometimes will initiate play. 

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0:10 The bunny now runs into the corner of the cage in order to get into the path of the leaves. This seems like the opposite of a normal prey response–prey animals typically run away from threats, not towards them. So this leads me to ask, do you think the bunny sees the leaves as a threat, or as something else? 

I think it’s just experience. The first time somebody threw the leaves at the bunny, she probably thought “What’s happening!” and panicked. And then it didn’t hurt, and it was kind of fun feeling it just fall around her, and it became a game quickly. They learn to trust certain people. In general, if people have not worked with the rabbit, the rabbit is going to be primarily fearful and cautious… but it’s amazing how quickly some of the rabbits suddenly realize that there are some people who are friends, and they can trust.

0:14 Here the bunny stands on her hind legs and waggles her front paws. I didn’t realize rabbits could stand up on their own–why do they do that?

I think it’s a way for them to get higher than the weeds around them or the grass, to see further and see what’s out there. They tend to like to go up high.

0:20 The man throwing the leaves scoots around the fence. Is the bunny aware that she’s playing with someone? Do bunnies prefer to play alone, or with humans, or with other bunnies? 

We always place them in pairs, because the wild European rabbit, which is what our domestic rabbits are descended from, bond for life. They raise babies together and all of that sort of thing–they’re not at all like native cottontails in this country. The domestic rabbits inherited all of that social and intellectual ability. 

This couple had adopted a pair from us, and the bunnies had grown fairly elderly, and the female was a little debilitated, she couldn’t get around very well. The human mom came in with treats, and the male rabbit stood up, took the treat from her, ran it to his wife, and went back over and got his and then they sat there and ate together. It’s things like that—people get accustomed to seeing a rabbit in a small crate or hutch, and they don’t get to express themselves that way. But when they’re in your home and they run around and interact with you, you get to see a whole lot more what they’re like.

0:28 A very impressive move here–the bunny refuses to get faked out and only jumps when the leaves are thrown and maximum payoff is possible. This leads me to wonder, can rabbits be trained to be better at their favorite activities?

One thing I have to say right away is, I do not like contests for any animal–if it’s trying to see how high a rabbit can jump, people keep trying to push them higher and higher until they end up getting injured. I do like the ones where there’s not that aspect and it’s just done for fun. They have some really cute obstacle courses, and rabbits can learn to do that.

Clicker training is a really good way to train rabbits to do almost anything you want. We had one adopter who, the day he got his rabbits, he started clicker training them. One of them would stand on their back feet and walk, and the other would stand on his back feet and hop, or they'd run in circles. They would even use the litter box on command.

0:32 Here there’s a pause in the action and I can’t help but notice the swinging rope on the fence. If this were a different small animal (say, a cat) they would obviously be attracted by very different parts of this situation. What kinds of toys and play interest bunnies?

It’s just amazing to me the things that bunnies will do. A lot of bunnies like to sit with their human dads and watch football. They love things like cardboard and paper to chew on. We often get a box and cut a couple of holes in the sides so that they could go in and out. it doesn’t take them more than a week or so to just about destroy it. Throwing games–we’ll toss something to them, and they’ll try to toss it back. It usually goes sideways, but they understand what they’re doing.

via GIPHY

0:39 Here the bunny does get faked out a little. What sense is paramount in terms of letting her know what’s going on? Sight? Hearing? Smell?

Their sense of smell is incredible, it’s very very good. Their sense of hearing is extremely good. Their eyesight is primarily to spot predators at a distance—motion and things like that. I don’t think their eyes play as much of a part in play as much as other senses do. They can’t judge distance–those of us with two eyes in one plane can judge distance, but animals whose eyes are on the sides of their heads can’t judge distance. You’ll sometimes see them bobbing their heads or moving them back and forth, and they’re using parallax to get some idea of what’s closer and what’s further away. I think that influences some of the way they play.

0:45 At this point it seems like the bunny could likely play forever and everyone would be fine with it. Can a bunny learn a game? Would this bunny be excited for Leaf Cage Match Part Deux with this guy?

I’ve seen a cat and a rabbit where they became friends, and the rabbit discovered what chasing was. And the cat would chase the rabbit, and the rabbit would turn around and chase the cat. It didn't come naturally, but they learned how to do it. And they learn from each other. We often have bunnies that come in, and we always give bunnies some toys, and a bunny who has never been introduced to toys will look at it like “What on earth is this for?” But then they see other bunnies playing and they catch on. 

0:51 In this video overall, laughter is omnipresent. Why is it so much fun to play with bunnies?

I've always felt that rabbits get bad press. Over the years, there have been cliches like “dumb bunny,” things like that, that would lead you to expect them not to be much of an animal, but they are incredible. But you’ve got to get to know them. 

How a Homeless Woman Rescued a Brazilian Murder Castle

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The abandoned Castelinho da Rua Apa in Sao Paulo. (Photo: Eli Kazuyuki Hayasaka/flickr)

It was May 12th, 1937. Elza Lengfelder, the housekeeper of a rich family in São Paulo, was putting her sons to bed in the back room where they lived when she heard a loud noise from the main house.

Lengfelder ran to the street, found a watchman, and led him to the house, but it was already too late. Splayed on the floor in a pool of blood were the bodies of the recently widowed owner and her two sons. It was the beginning of a crime case that remains an enduring mystery in Brazil's largest city nearly eight decades later.


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Sao Paulo in 1902. (Photo: Public Domain/WikiCommons

To better understand the case, we must go back a few decades. In the 1910s São Paulo was already a big city with a steadily growing population. The rich coffee barons and other prominent families built their mansions in the neighborhoods surrounding , the city’s first church. Dr. Virgílio Cézar dos Reis did the same; he chose Santa Efigênia, one of the most noble areas of the city, to be the address of his new home.

In 1912 he brought architects from France to build a mansion that resembled a medieval castle–it was a gift to his wife, Maria Cândida Guimarães dos Reis. Five years later the 7,500-square-foot house was finished, with marble stairs, carpets imported from India and luxury in every detail. It became known as the Castelinho da Rua Apa, or Little Castle of Apa Street.

Dr. Virgílio and his wife had two sons. Alvaro was a lawyer and professional ice skater. He was well known for being a playboy–very outgoing, laddish, and always surrounded by women. Armando, two years younger, was also a lawyer, but he had little else in common with his brother; he wasn't very fond of socializing and had an introspective personality.

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The Castelinho, designed to look like a medieval castle, in a state of considerable disrepair.  (Photo: Natalia Naomi Aoi B./flickr)

In 1937 Dr. Virgilio died, leaving the family business, a movie theater called Cine Broadway, in his eldest's hands. At the time, Alvaro had just gotten back from France and was passionate about the idea of transforming the cinema into an ice skating rink. Armando was pointedly against it. But there wouldn't be time to solve this disagreement, because two months after the patriarch passed away, the whole family was murdered.

One year after the crime, investigators announced their theory: Alvaro and Armando had gotten into a discussion about the business, and the older brother had grabbed his gun. Their mother tried to separate her sons and was shot by accident. Scared, Alvaro shot Armando and killed himself.

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The Church of Santa Ifigência, Sao Paulo. (Photo: Diego Torres Silvestre/flickr)

But the police’s version had too many gaps. First, two types of bullet were found inside the bodies. One was from Alvaro's gun, the other was from a different gun model–and this second weapon was never found, implying in a fourth person may have been present at the murder scene. Plus, Maria had four shots in her body, implying that she was not shot accidentally. And even stranger: Alvaro, who supposedly committed suicide, had two bullets in his chest.

Despite the obvious weaknesses of their theory, the police considered the murder case solved. The Brazilian laws of that time didn't count aunts or cousins as eligible for inheritance, so the Castelinho became government property, ushering in a period of no maintenance and no use.

The medieval-looking murder scene soon became the focus of urban legends. There were widespread accounts of screams coming from the house and open sinks every May 12, the anniversary of the murders. A Brazilian horror movie director suffered an accident while shooting there, and people readily blamed the spirits of Dos Reis family members.

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A restoration project for the Castelinho received preliminary approval in 2007, but the work has yet to begin. (Photo: Natalia Naomi Aoi B./flickr

Though there’s no reason to believe the mansion was actually haunted, one can't say it attracted good luck either. By the ‘80s, the Castelinho was a deteriorated building, known as a drug dealing and garbage disposal site. It wasn’t out of place: the neighborhood of Santa Efigênia, once so upscale, had become a collection of abandoned houses and cheap hotels where prostitution was the main activity.

Not very far from Apa Street was the Cracolândia (or Crackland)–a block where hundreds of addicts not only bought and used the drug, but also lived together in tents on the streets. Maria Eulina was one of São Paulo’s many homeless during that period, though she was not a drug addict. Every day she gazed at the big castle across the street–empty, dirty, unused.

Eventually, Eulina got back on her feet. In 1990, she filed a request to have the building declared a historic landmark. The city, uninterested, just filed the papers away. Eulina did not stop trying to save the distinctive building, though. In 1997, she received government permission to operate an organization called Clube das Mães (Mother's Club) in the Castelinho's back room.

After that, things began looking up for the mansion. In 2004 the Castelinho was finally declared a landmark, and in 2007 a restoration project received preliminary approval. This year the Castelinho finally received permission to start raising funds for the restoration, estimated at five million Brazilian reals (or about $1.5 million).

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Sao Paulo skyline today. (Photo: Leandro Neumann Ciuffo/flickr)

The architects tasked with restoring the mansion are aiming for a historically accurate recreation of its interior–which, ironically, is only possible because of the pictures taken during the murder investigation.

Eulina's Clube das Mães is still operating in the back room, teaching homeless and vulnerable people how to make purses and decorative objects out of trash, so they can sell it and generate income. The garbage that once filled the Castelinho is now used as raw material to make its surroundings a better place.

It’s yet to be determined when the Castelinho’s restoration will actually begin, but it looks like the castle is slowly transitioning from a horror story to a rags-to-riches tale.

The Toothbrush That Grows On Trees

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Toothbrush and paste. (Photo: Jeremy Hockin/flickr)

As you eat away the rest of 2015, consider this: the fancy electric toothbrush that you spent $100 to clean the holidays off your gums on might be no better than a stick.

In the West, the toothbrush comes in hundreds of styles. Think: stiffer or more pliable bristles, tongue scrapers, rubber paddles placed alongside bristles, different colors and thicknesses of bristles, jagged patterns and curved heads pledging to reach parts of your mouth that have heretofore been horrendously, embarrassingly unclean. But throughout much of Africa and the Middle East (and exported to the Muslim world elsewhere, notably Southeast Asia), the toothbrush is grown as much as bought.

Called a “miswak”, it is the king of the teeth utensils—its simplicity does not impinge upon its effectiveness. By peeling the bark from the stick, you also eliminate the need for toothbrush’ sister consumer product, toothpaste.

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Traditional miswak sticks. (Photo: Middayexpress/WikiCommons CC BY-SA 3.0)

As the oldest of the five major dental tools (toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, gum, and mouthwash), the toothbrush has probably gone through the most change. It’s also, according to dentist and Harvard faculty member Lisa Simon, the most important. “The toothbrush is a pretty great tool,” she says. “You have lots and lots of bacteria in your mouth, they're always going to be on your teeth. But in terms of removing stuff that could get stuck in your teeth, they're very good at their job.”

A stick-like tool with a bristle-y end dates back to well before recorded history; they’re commonly found in Babylonian ruins dating back to 3500 BC. The modern Western form, which is typically a plastic rod with nylon bristles on one end, dates back to 1938, when DuPont invented the nylon bristle, but before that, various other materials were used as brushes: animal hair (usually horse or hog), fabric, leaves, basically whatever was around.

The miswak is a version of an older toothbrush called a “chew stick.” There are trees throughout the world that, when chewed, sort of split into bristly soft fibers, very similar to a toothbrush. In India, the “neem” is very popular, but the miswakis used throughout the Muslim world.

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A horse-hair toothbrush made for Napolean Bonaparte. (Photo: Science Museum London/WikiCommons CC BY-SA 2.0)

Miswak (or sometimes “siwak”) is the name of the chew stick, but it comes from a tree called Salvadora persica. (Its non-Linnaean names include “arak” and, helpfully, “toothbrush tree.”) S. persica comes from the same broad order as the brassicas, which include most of the best vegetables: broccoli, cauliflower, kale, mustard greens, cabbage, brussels sprouts. But S. persica might be the most amazing of all.

A miswak is a short stick from S. persica, about the size of a toothbrush. You peel the last inch or so of it so there’s no bark, and then chew on it until bristles form. Then you brush your teeth with it, the same as you would with any toothbrush. Except: no toothpaste necessary.

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Examples of toothbrushes in 1916. (Photo: Public Domain/WikiCommons

Here’s where miswak gets amazing: the World Health Organization, along with dozens of studies conducted by scientists around the world, have declared that miswakis at least as good at maintaining oral hygiene as a plastic toothbrush. It contains, naturally, everything that we force into a tube of toothpaste. There’s fluoride, to reduce the risk of tooth decay; abrasives, which are inserted in toothpaste to provide some more friction to scrape plaque off teeth; detergents, to whiten teeth; and an astringent flavor, somewhere between ginger and mint, to freshen breath.

A quote from a 2003 study comparing miswak to the toothbrush: “It is concluded that the miswak is more effective than toothbrushing for reducing plaque and gingivitis, when preceded by professional instruction in its correct application.” Here’s another: “Miswak embedded in agar or suspended above the agar plate had strong antibacterial effects against all bacteria tested.”

And you can grow it yourself.

 

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