What We Learned This Week
Welcome to "What We Learned This Week," a regular feature where we share all the most interesting nuggets of information we picked up in the past week.
Hollywood Has A Massive Sequel Problem
"Birdman" was a fantastic film in which a famous actor struggles to break out from the massive shadow of his defining role as a beloved superhero. It's a scathing critique on Hollywood, which appears to have abandoned any semblance of artistry and has instead begun to feed and profit off a diet of nothing but comic book films, crossovers involving other comic book films and sequels. Not even Birdman can save us from this fate.
Killing 'The Interview' Could Cost Sony $100 Million
Once again, the terrorists have won. Sony Pictures announced this week that after receiving threats, it would pull "The Interview" from theaters. Nate Silver estimates that the studio will lose out on around $100 million. The American people will lose out on nothing because if we're all being honest with ourselves, it looked like an awful movie anyways.
American Kids Do A Lot Of Pointless Homework
The average American 15-year-old does about six hours of homework each week, more than kids in most other developed countries. That'd be fine, if your average American teen scored higher than your average teen from other developed countries. Spoiler: They don't. Ban homework.
The last year has been a wild one here at Digg. While continuing to grow our homepage offerings, Digg Videos, and Digg Reader, we built Digg Deeper, created Digg In A Box, and launched Digg Originals. Basically, something for everyone (unless you're one of those people who's never satisfied, which, come to think of it, is seemingly everyone on the Internet these days). We have a whole bunch of big Digg stuff coming in 2015, but until then, let's take a look back at the year in Digg.
The Industry Behind Those Viagra Emails
Most emails offering *F^RE$E V*8GA! ends up in spam folders, doomed to rot away unread for all eternity. But sometimes they do get opened. And the consequences can be deadly.
'Tis The Season To Battle Fatbergs
Every day beneath the streets of London, a team of people comb the sewers to remove "fatbergs," the floating, disgusting occasionally massive, blobs of congealed waste that form when people pour discarded fat and oil down their drains. Fatbergs can clog the system and send waste spewing back into people's homes. The removal of fatbergs becomes particularly dire around Christmas, when an extra two Olympic sized swimming pools of fat are introduced to the system.
There's nothing more exciting than opening a beer. There's nothing more disappointing than opening a beer and having to deal with an overabundance of foam. Food scientists have discovered a cure for this most grievous of societal ailments: magnets. By passing the freshly-brewed beer through a tube surrounded by magnets, foam causing carbon-dioxide molecules are broken up, leading to less foam and less wasted beer. Cheers!
The Russian economy is in a shambles at the moment — the Ruble has dropped 19% in 24 hours — for two main reasons: the collapsing price of oil and economic sanctions against the Putin regime. Neither of these two things are new, but over the past week, investors have lost confidence that Putin can right the ship. Frightened investors are now leading a run on the whole country. If you're willing to wait a while to see a return, it's probably a great time to invest in Moscow real estate.
This Is Why Men Should Not Write Tampon Commercials
It's almost like they've never had a period in their whole lives… and never had sex with a woman… and slept through Biology 101.
The NFL's Most Perplexing Trash Talker
Andrew Luck is an extraordinary football player. He's broken NFL passing records and led the Colts to the playoffs in each of his first three seasons. But the most extraordinary thing about this young man isn't his physical skill. It's his baffling habit of complimenting each and every person that successfully smashes him into the turf.
Where All The Sea Trash Has Gone
Last year, the scientific community was baffled when a study could only find a tiny percentage of the plastic they expected to find in the world's oceans. This week, a new study was released that appears to have solved the mystery: the missing plastic is in deep waters, broken down and embedded in the sediment in some of the most remote places on the planet.
If you've ever brushed your teeth and then gulped down some orange juice only to nearly vomit it back up because it tasted so off, you know that your taste buds can be fooled. This is because your tongue isn't without memory. Each time you eat something, it impacts the flavor of the next thing you put in your mouth. If you know what you're doing, you can come up with some pretty interesting and surprising effects. An easy way to try it for yourself is to eat some artichoke and then sip on water.
The Intoxicating History Of Festive Spices
The holiday spirit is seasoned liberally with nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves for good reason. All three mess with our minds in subtle ways. For instance, nutmeg may have a mild hallucinatory effect. But it's most likely that we enjoy these spices around the holidays for a much less nefarious reason: we associate them with pleasant memories of holidays past.
Or at least this is how they do it over at Holland & Holland. Seems like a blast.
The Airlines That Lose Your Luggage Most Often
The consumer's do not fly list.
The World's Most Intense Fitness Program
Take a look around. Do you see anybody wearing brightly colored Reeboks and a tshirt with "WOD" stenciled on it trapping some poor soul in a conversation about their squat PR and personal take on the paleo diet? Run over, drop a copy of this article about Kokoro in their hands and tell them that Crossfit is for pansies. Then run away before they try to pick you up and deadlift you.
Dog Can Run Again Thanks To 3D Printed Prosthetics
Derby was born with deformed front legs. A cart didn't help him experience running — so a 3D printing company designed loop-shaped prosthetics to let Derby do what dogs love to do.