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This article originally appeared on 10.27.17

.The human body is an amazing organism, to say the least. To watch an athlete dunk a basketball or a ballerina turn a pirouette is to witness an extraordinary machine at work. But the human body is also a biological junkyard of useless ideas it has yet to ditch as we evolve.

If humans have a creator, it has a sense of humor, because why else would it clutter the human body with organs that have no use? Why is the occasional baby born with a tail? These useless body parts are known as vestigial organs.

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Proof of evolution that you can find on your body

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The video above goes over just a few of the vestigial organs we can locate on our bodies if we know where to look. Ten to 15 percent of people can see a tendon in their wrists that connects to the palmaris longus muscle. Although it serves no purpose for humans, it’s essential for primates that live in the treetops and swing from limb to limb.

Humans also have three muscles around their ears that allow some people to make them wiggle. When fully formed in other mammals, the muscles work to rotate the ears in order to pinpoint the source of sounds.

Although these body parts are worthless in a practical sense, they serve as a reminder of our vast evolutionary history and reveal our deep connections to other beings on the planet. That knowledge is far from useless.

This article originally appeared on 09.23.17

Facebook user Savannah Root from Missouri stared at the photo above for hours before she finally figured out what it was. Everyone that sees it either gets it right away or sits there stumped. The picture is so mystifying that after one week, it’s been shared over 33,000 times.

via Facebook

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For the solution, scroll down past the comments to reveal the hidden picture.

via Facebook

via Facebook

via Facebook

via Facebook

via Facebook

It’s a cowboy with half of his face obscured by a shadow. Facebook user Cristian-Dumitru Popescu created a cool graphic that explains it.

via Facebook

This article originally appeared on 09.23.17.

History is full of great stories about bitter battles between loyal opposition. In basketball, there was Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. In the ’80s, harsh political battles were fought between Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill. But all of these rivals respected their opposition as competitors in their respective fields. Now, a year-long battle between a cleaning crew and a street artist can be added to history’s legendary battles between loyal opposition.

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Mobstr is a London-based street artist famous for the sarcastic typographic-based graffiti he’s written across London’s walls and billboards. His cat-and-mouse relationship with an unidentified city worker began on July 17, 2014, and would continue for an entire year.

“I cycled past this wall on the way to work for years,” Mobstr wrote on his website. ” I noticed that graffiti painted within the red area was ‘buffed’ with red paint. However, graffiti outside of the red area would be removed via pressure washing. This prompted the start of an experiment. Unlike other works, I was very uncertain as to what results it would yield.”

Red graffiti

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At the moment, Eternals — Chloé Zhao’s highly anticipated post-Avengers: Endgame Marvel movie about the reemergence of an immortal alien race that has been secretly hiding out on Earth for more than 7,000 years — may be best known as the A-lister-filled movie for which Silicon Valley star Kumail Nanjiani got totally ripped. But the Oscar-nominated actor/writer is hoping that its more lasting legacy will be something much more important: That it will be one of the few movies that totally rejects the stereotypes he so often sees in roles for what he calls “brown dudes.”

As IndieWire reports, Nanjiani (who was born in Pakistan) recently spoke with the Los Angeles Times about his upcoming role in Eternals, in which he plays Kingo, a superhero masquerading as a Bollywood star. In addition to discussing his much tweeted-about physical transformation, Nanjiani also spoke about how it was important to him that his character didn’t play into any of the stereotypes he’s run up against throughout his career, saying the following:

“I’ve been in this industry for about a decade and I looked at the usual opportunities that the brown dudes get. We get to be nerdy. I wanted him to be the opposite of that—I wanted him to be cool. With nerdy goes ‘weakling,’ and I wanted him to be the opposite of that and to be strong physically. Or we get to be terrorists, and I wanted him to be the opposite of that. I wanted him to be this character full of joy. In working with Chloé, we were like, let’s take every single thing that I haven’t gotten to do and make a character who’s the exact opposite of the way a lot of American pop culture see people from Pakistan or the Middle East.”

In addition to being an opportunity to turn an all-too-frequent stereotype on its head, Nanjiani also saw this tack as a way for his character to stand out amongst an enormous, and enormously impressive, cast that includes the likes of Angelina Jolie, Salma Hayek, Brian Tyree Henry, and former Game of Thrones buds Richard Madden and Kit Harington.

“I was very lucky that Chloé was really on board with that,” Nanjiani said. “Because when you have like 10 characters, you’re trying to set yourself apart from the other characters and find your own shadings. You’re not going to get a ton of real estate. So you want it to come from a very specific place. I decided going in, I’m going to have fun during this process.”

Eternals is scheduled to be released on November 5, 2021.

(Via IndieWire)

The complexion of the West Coast rap scene is soon to change as Kendrick Lamar prepares his final album under the Top Dawg Entertainment flag, but rumors of the label’s impending demise are greatly exaggerated. Just as Kendrick announced his departure, TDE launched the career of its next potential star: The Long Beach born-and-raised Ray Vaughn, who introduced himself in impressive fashion with both a three-song EP titled Peer Pressure and an eyebrow-raising debut freestyle for Power 106’s LA Leakers.

Today, he shares the video for “Tap,” one of his three introductory singles from Peer Pressure, a harrowing look at the travails that made him who he is today. As he details his struggles and stories of survival on the streets of East Side Long Beach, the video straight up assaults viewers with images of just what those roadblocks looked like, from drugs and violence to the stresses of having incarcerated friends and zero mental health care.

Like fellow TDE signee Reason, Ray first attracted attention from the label with his “Freestyle Fridays” series of videos on YouTube, building a following on social media that his newly announced connections are sure to supercharge. He was introduced to the crowd at Isaiah Rashad’s The House Is Burning listening in LA, where he proved he’s got the charisma, presence, and performance to justify his inclusion on the storied TDE roster. He’s working on his debut album, with the release date to be determined.

Stay tuned.

Watch Ray Vaughn’s “Tap” video above.

After getting roasted by CNN, you’d think Ted Cruz would have paused before issuing more criticisms of the Afghanistan withdrawal, but nope, the Texas senator was back at it on Monday evening. While sharing a video about a Texas family that the right wing RNC Research Twitter account claims is “abandoned” in Afghanistan, Cruz tweeted, “This is horrifying. And wrong. America doesn’t leave Americans behind.”

However, Americans are not being abandoned. While the military withdrawal is over, the Biden Administration is still actively working to get people out and said as much hours before Cruz’s tweet. Via CBS News:

“The diplomatic sequel to that will now begin,” [General Frank] McKenzie said Monday. “And I believe our Department of State is going to work very hard to allow any American citizens that are left, and we think the citizens that were not brought out number in the low, very low hundreds — I believe that we’re going to be able to get those people out.”

He added, “I think we’re also going to negotiate very hard, very aggressively, to get our other Afghan partners out. The military phase is over, but our desire to bring these people out remains as intense as it was before.”

With that settled, if you know anything about Cruz, then you know exactly where this is going next: Cancun, baby. The Texas senator was lit up on social media for accusing the Biden administration of abandoning Americans when Cruz did exactly that earlier in the year. He famously flew to Cancun while his state’s power grid was frozen during an unprecedented winter storm, and when he got caught, he blamed his kids for the trip.

If Cruz thinks people forgot about that whole debacle, guess again.

Last month, jazz saxophonist Kamasi Washington covered Metallica‘s “My Friend Of Misery” at Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl, bringing in special guests Kirk Hammett and Robert Trujillo to play onstage with him. Now, Washington has shared the studio version of that cover, which does not include any Metallica members but will be available on The Metallica Blacklist, a 53-artist tribute to The Black Album, dropping September 10.

The Metallica Blacklist will also feature tributes from Miley Cyrus (who shared a cover of “Nothing Else Matters“), Elton John, Ghost, Volbeat, Weezer, Corey Taylor, Biffy Clyro, Royal Blood, Pup, St. Vincent, Idles, and more.

“The Metallica Blacklist offers up new dimensions of the record whose gravitational pull first drew the mainstream to Metallica – and provides new insights into the universal and timeless appeal that kept it there: the boundary-smashing influence these 12 songs have had on fans and musicians of all stripes,” the band has said of the tribute project. “The [album’s] 53 tracks find singer-songwriters, country artists, electronic and hip-hop artists sharing their love of these songs alongside punk rockers, indie darlings, icons of rock, metal, world music and many, many more… The Metallica Blacklist is a fitting and limitless homage, one that features bands who’ve shared stages with Metallica alongside artists who are younger than the original album.”

The Metallica Blacklist also joins a fully remastered Black Album reissue, also dropping in September. Pre-order both here.

Hurricane Ida recently tore through areas of Louisiana, leaving a devastating path of destruction in its wake. Communities have begun the task of cleaning up debris from the massive storm, which led to millions without power and was responsible for the death of at least four people. The hurricane also hit parts of New Orleans, which destroyed several businesses, including one of the clubs that helped Louis Armstrong get his start in music.

According to a report from CNN, Hurricane Ida’s winds were so powerful that it ripped through the side of The Karnofsky Tailor Shop and Residence, a historic jazz landmark that’s listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In a video captured by meteorologist Ed Bloodsworth, The Karnosky was essentially reduced to a pile of rubble in the storm’s wake Sunday.

The Karnofsky acted as a second home to Armstrong as he was rising in the ranks of the jazz world. The musician would frequent The Karnosky to eat meals with the owners, and oftentimes considered the site his second home. The Karnosky’s even lent Armstrong money to purchase his first trumpet. While the historic site hasn’t been in the best shape for the past two years, plans to renovate the building had been announced in 2019.

Mike Richards was the host and executive producer of Jeopardy! for one day — now he’s neither. Last week, Richards stepped down as Alex Trebek’s replacement on the legendary game show following accusations of discrimination and resurfaced offensive comments made on a podcast. He was still employed as an executive producer… until today when he was fired from both Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune.

“I’m writing to let you know that Mike will no longer be serving as EP of Wheel and Jeopardy! effective immediately,” Suzanne Prete, executive vice president, business and strategy, for Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! wrote in a message to the show’s staff. “We had hoped that when Mike stepped down from the host position at Jeopardy! it would have minimized the disruption and internal difficulties we have all experienced these last few weeks. That clearly has not happened.”

Here’s the full message:

Richards’ firing comes after a damning Wall Street Journal report that basically no one enjoyed working with him. “Many longtime staffers have not taken to him since he succeeded the beloved Harry Friedman, who ended his long run as executive producer in 2020,” it reads. “Mr. Richards has a force-of-nature type of persona, with sharp elbows that rub many of the Jeopardy! veterans the wrong way, people close to the show said.”

A full-time host for Jeopardy! has not been announced yet.

Oh boy. I’m not sure where to start here because two 1980s pop-culture figureheads began fighting (Monday) on Twitter, and it’s still going strong with a losing party in full view. Let’s back up a little bit.

The situation in Afghanistan’s a disaster, straight-up, and there’s no debate on that fact, but people disagree on where to place the overall blame. Clearly, President Biden didn’t handle the withdrawal aspect well, although pop-music-sensation/hair-icon Richard Marx found himself pointing out (to Happy Days actor Scott Baio, who has “Chachi” in his Twitter bio) that the War in Afghanistan spans several administrations. The right wing would love to blame Biden for all of it, somehow (and Don Jr. has been gloating over the timing), although the right-wing doesn’t want to talk about the dodgy Trump deal that contributed to the catastrophe.

For whatever reason, Baio decided to call out Marx while asking of celebrity leftists to ask, “Where are you now?” about a Fox News headline about reported Taliban targeting of U.S. allies. This led Marx to ask, “When your racist draft-dodging hero was calling our own military servicemen and women ‘losers and suckers’ where the f*ck were you? You disingenuous [redacted] little twerp.” This led to a “Dick Marx” comeback, of course.

And this eventually led Marx to explain that what he’s been doing lately is tending to a family tragedy, which is a significant one. Marx’s mother, singer Ruth Marx, has passed away. She’s been beautifully eulogized by the LA Times‘ Maureen McDonnell.

Scott Baio didn’t stop firing back after Marx’s mention of a tragedy. He went on to call Marx “the barely 5’3 lil man that allegedly f*cked another woman while being married, sh*thead! Your 4 inch feathered hair didn’t fool anyone lil guy……”

In response, Marx wrote, “People actually get divorced without cheating, little Nazi. Multiple sexual assault claims against you, both male and female. All liars? No wonder you love Trump.” He added, “You mocked parents of murdered children, you degenerate fuck. You’re what scum scrapes off the bottom of its shoe.”

Then Marx addressed the height-obsession coming from Baio. “Google also says the great Sammy Hagar is 5’ 10. But seriously…this is some childish-ass sh*t,” Marx remarked. “And Scott Baio is absolutely a guy who would mock the height or appearance that his lord and savior chose for people. Cuz…he’s a ‘Christian.’”

Here’s Baio’s reply: “You’re a tiny angry lil troll.”

That led Marx to put it out there: “Look. At. Your. Responses.”

Well, let’s just say that people are here for it, meaning that they’re here for Marx handily winning this feud (even if cheap shots are being taken by both of them).

We’ll be, you know, “right here waiting” for more.