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  Water Intoxication Water Intoxication:

  Water intoxication is a potentially fatal disturbance in brain functions that results when the normal balance of electrolytes in the body is pushed outside of safe limits by over-consumption of water. Normal, healthy individuals have little reason to worry about accidentally consuming too much water. Nearly all deaths related to water intoxication in normal individuals have resulted either from water drinking contests, in which individuals attempt to consume high amounts of water, or long bouts of intensive exercise during which electrolytes are not properly replenished, yet excessive amounts of fluid are still consumed. (via @cyberu)

  9 months on
  Best of Wikipedia
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  Apologies

  Hello,

  I must apologize. It’s been longer than I wanted since I’ve updated here, and I need to emphasize that it has nothing to do with my will or ability to find articles. My inbox, Tumblr submission queue and Twitter is overflowing with submissions to cover me well through till 2010. I unfortunately just don’t have time right now—work and work-related travel caught up with me before I could update the queue.

  I’m here, and I am hunting for time. I wish I had time to personally thank the people who’ve contacted me asking for this site to be updated, so here’s a bulk cop-out: thank you! It means a tremendous amount.

  While I’m breaking my rule that this site would post nothing but links and never any meta-information, I’d love to get some help around here. If you can spare a couple of hours a week, I could use the help. Email or Twitter me with a shout-out and we’ll talk.

  Thank you,

  Avinash Vora

  9 months on
  Best of Wikipedia
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  Anscombe's Quartet Anscombe's Quartet:

  Anscombe’s quartet comprises four datasets that have identical simple statistical properties, yet appear very different when graphed. Each dataset consists of eleven (x,y) points. They were constructed in 1973 by the statistician F.J. Anscombe to demonstrate both the importance of graphing data before analyzing it and the effect of outliers on statistical properties. (via @joshmellott)

  10 months on
  Best of Wikipedia
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  Floater Floater:

  Floaters are deposits of various size, shape, consistency, refractive index, and motility within the eye’s vitreous humour, which is normally transparent. They may appear as spots, threads, or fragments of cobwebs, which float slowly before the sufferer’s eyes. Since these objects exist within the eye itself, they are not optical illusions but are entoptic phenomena. (via @revgeorge)

  10 months on
  Best of Wikipedia
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  William Moulton Marston William Moulton Marston:

  Dr. William Moulton Marston (May 9, 1893 – May 2, 1947), also known by the pen name, Charles Moulton, was an American psychologist, feminist theorist, inventor, and comic book writer who created the character Wonder Woman. Two women, his wife Elizabeth Holloway Marston and Olive Byrne, (who lived with the couple in a polyamorous relationship), served as exemplars for the character and greatly influenced her creation. Marston is also credited as the creator of the systolic blood-pressure test used in an attempt to detect deception, which became one component of the modern polygraph. (via DB)

  10 months on
  Best of Wikipedia
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  Sentinelese Sentinelese:

  The Sentinelese are one of the Andamanese indigenous peoples of the Andaman Islands, located in the Bay of Bengal. They inhabit North Sentinel Island which lies westward off the southern tip of the Great Andaman archipelago. They are noted for vigorously resisting attempts of contact by outsiders. As a result, they are likely the most socially isolated people on Earth. (via Sean Farley)

  10 months on
  Best of Wikipedia
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  Kokura Kokura:

  Kokura had been the primary target of the nuclear weapon “Fat Man” on August 9, 1945, but on the morning of the raid, the city was obscured by clouds and smoke from an earlier fire-bombing of the neighboring city of Yahata. Since the mission commander Major Charles Sweeney had orders to only drop the bomb if the target was sighted, he was ordered to proceed to the secondary target of Nagasaki, where the weapon was dropped. Hence the Japanese talk of the “luck of Kokura”. Kokura had been the secondary target of the “Little Boy” bomb, which had been dropped three days earlier by the Enola Gay on Hiroshima. (via jj)

  10 months on
  Best of Wikipedia
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  Action Park Action Park:

  Action Park was a waterpark/motor themed park open from 1978 to 1996 in Vernon Township, New Jersey, on the property of the former Vernon Valley / Great Gorge ski area, today Mountain Creek. Its popularity went hand in hand with a reputation for poorly-designed, unsafe rides; inattentive, under-aged, underpaid and sometimes under-the-influence employees; equally intoxicated and under-prepared visitors—and the poor safety record that followed from this perfect storm of circumstances. (via Ed)

  10 months on
  Best of Wikipedia
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  Pica Pica:

  Pica is a medical disorder characterized by an appetite for substances largely non-nutritive (e.g., clay, coal, soil, feces, chalk, paper, soap, mucus, ash, gum etc.) or an abnormal appetite for some things that may be considered foods, such as food ingredients (e.g., flour, raw potato, raw rice, starch, ice cubes, salt). (via Mario)

  10 months on
  Best of Wikipedia
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  Tijuana Bibles Tijuana Bibles:

  Tijuana bibles (also known as bluesies, eight-pagers, gray-backs, Jiggs-and-Maggie books, jo-jo books, Tillie-and-Mac books or two-by-fours) were pornographic comic books produced in the United States from the 1920s to the early 1960s. Their popularity peaked during the Great Depression era. (via Bruno Santos)

  10 months on
  Best of Wikipedia
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  Not Even Wrong Not Even Wrong:

  An apparently scientific argument is said to be not even wrong if it is based on assumptions that are known to be incorrect, or alternatively, theories which cannot possibly be falsified or used to predict anything. The phrase was coined by the early quantum physicist Wolfgang Pauli, who was known for his colorful objections to incorrect or sloppy thinking. (via Sarah M Bruce)

  10 months on
  Best of Wikipedia