Page 48 - Best of the Month

Beards keep you healthy!

A study from the University of Southern Queensland published a study in which they found that beards block 90 to 95% of UV rays. Beards slow down the aging process and reduce the risk of skin cancer.

Not just that, they found that beards also reduce the number of pollens and dust that cause asthma attacks. Beards also protect your face from the wind, keeping you looking young.

Other studies have also shown that women are more attracted to men with beards than without. Although those claims might not be 100% scientifically proven, it seems like there's a pretty good case for all you guys out there to grow out that facial hair.

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Stalin and Hitler were both nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize!

Unbelievable as it may sound, both of these shady characters were nominated for the most prestigious award given to people who work towards world peace. Stalin was nominated in 1945 and 1948 for his efforts to end World War II.

Hitler's nomination, however was supposed to be a joke. In 1939, a member of the Swedish parliament, EGC Brandt, nominated Hitler for the peace prize. Brandt never intended for the nomination to be taken seriously.

Brandt intended for the nomination to be satiric criticism of the current political climate in Sweden. The nomination was, obviously, not well received and was swiftly withdrawn.

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Mickey Mouse's trademark white gloves have racist origins!

Mickey's Mellerdrammer is a short film released by Disney in 1933. The premise is that of Mickey and friends putting on a stage production of Harriet Beecher Stowe's famous anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin.

In the production, Mickey plays Uncle Tom. Mickey was dressed in blackface: Exaggerated orange lips, bushy sidewhiskers made out of cotton, and his now-famous white gloves.

This film, along with other films released by Disney, led to the belief that Walt Disney himself was racist. However, most Disney scholars agree that Disney was not racist, but rather racially insensitive, as many people from his time were.

In either case, now you know where Mickey got his white gloves. The cartoon was probably not controversial at the time, but the perception changed as time passed and people's attitudes towards racial insensitivity changed.

<a data-cke-saved-href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey" s_mellerdrammer'="" target="_new">(Source)

Scientists have produced brain cells from pee!

You read that right. A team of Chinese researchers have found a way to extract ordinary cells from human urine and repurpose them into fully functional neurons. They hope that this advancement will lead to the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.

This is a particularly big breakthrough because it eschews the use of embryonic stem cells, which pose ethical dilemmas, but most importantly, have been known to cause tumors. Other types of stem cells are not as easily obtained, so they're not as viable for treatment as either embryonic stem cells or these new urine cells.

The method produced usable cells within 12 days, which is half the time required using the second fastest method. The cells were then acting like functional neurons with no tumors or mutations. The urine cells can be taken from almost any patient's urine.

Learn more about this exciting development at the source.

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YouTube intentionally freezes view counts of popular new videos at 301 views!

If you're ever one of the first people to see a YouTube video that's gonna get a lot of views, you might have noticed that the video can have thousands of likes, yet only about 301 views. People always comment on how stupid it is, or how little sense it makes. In reality, it's an anti-fraud tactic that YouTube has enacted to prevent cheaters.

When a video becomes really popular, YouTube tries to verify that every view is a real view. This is to prevent illegitimate views. What is an illegitimate view? Views from bots are not counted. They also want to prevent people who are baited into a video and leave after a few seconds.

Why is this a big deal? Views are viewed as currency on YouTube. It helps YouTube stars get sponsors, and actually make a living off of a YouTube channel. This is why YouTube wants to keep the views as legitimate as possible so that only people with real talent rise of the top of the YouTube ranks.

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