World’s Strangest

By Maggie Koerth-Baker The hottest thing about chili peppers isn’t the way they taste; it’s everything else they can do for you. 1. They Strangle Cancer Human cells aren’t the happy-go-lucky little fellows we’d like to imagine. In fact, our cells commit suicide on a regular basis, via a process called apoptosis. Unlike the messy deaths that [...]

Fifty-nine years ago today was the first time a television audience got to watch an atomic blast broadcast live as it happened. KTLA in Los Angeles hid a crew on the roof of a hotel in Las Vegas, waiting for the top secret Ranger Easy bomb test in Frenchman Flats, Nevada. The blast went off [...]

Imagine creating a tattoo every minute and a half for 24 hours straight. That’s what Jeremy Swan did a few months ago here in Los Angeles to set the new world record for most tatts inked in a 24-hour period. (The old record was 801.) Check out the vid below from the LA Times for [...]

Stone Brewing Co.’s beer bottle tumblers by BottleHood Available from the Neatorama Shop Can you help save the environment, create local jobs and help stimulate the economy? Oh, and did I mention that beer is involved? Two San Diego folks did just that with an idea so simple it’s genious: turn used beer, wine [...]

Los Angeles-based artist Ramon Coronado made furniture from shopping carts. He calls the project “Mercado Negro” and his ambition lies in “reclaiming an ordinary, everyday object and transforming it into a whole new object.” At the link, you can see many more pictures, as well as photographs from his workshop as Coronado constructed these pieces. Link [...]

Editor’s Note: Last fall, Kara Kovalchik wrote a story titled ‘8 Not-So-Famous Firsts,’ which covered such topics as the first auto insurance policy and the first wet t-shirt contest. This year, in our newest semi-regular feature, she’ll be teaching us about all sorts of underappreciated firsts. This week’s topic: aviation. Enjoy! Stewardess The term seems hopelessly outdated [...]

The NFL playoffs continue this weekend with Kurt Warner leading the high-scoring Arizona Cardinals into New Orleans for a showdown with the Saints. There is speculation that a loss could mark the final game of Warner’s career, not for lack of ability (he threw for five touchdowns last week against the Packers), but because of [...]

A bit of nerdy interactive fun for you today: the New York Times has an Interactive Map of Netflix Queues covering 100 “frequently rented” titles from 2009, including very heavily-rented titles like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and less-rented titles like Happy-Go-Lucky and Adventureland. The map is interactive, allowing you to slide or step through [...]

West along I-10, northwest on I-49 and west again along I-20 will take you from the port of New Orleans to the eighth-largest city in our nation, Dallas, Texas. As our On The Road series continues, we look at some engaging, educational and interesting stops along this southern corridor to the west. 1. Where Cultures Coexist Located [...]

Dying usually puts a dent on one’s travel plan, but not Ralph B. White’s. His friends at the Adventurer’s Club of Los Angeles have taken him (or rather, his ashes) to some of the world’s most remote places: In the last 22 months, Ralph B. White’s meticulously logged schedule shows trips to the mountains of Nepal, [...]