English has a lot of words that people rarely use in general conversation, but they flourish in text. You may know a word for years and never hear it pronounced. One such word is "biopic," a movie that's the story of one person. Do you pronounce it BY-oh-pic or by-AH-pic? The word is short for biographical picture. Mental Floss argues that it is pronounced BY-oh-pic, and I have heard movie critics pronounce it that way, so I guess they are right. It used to be spelled with a hyphen: bio-pic. Still, the pronunciation by-AH-pic is what I've always heard in my head, and maybe you did, too.  

Then they go into why we mispronounce the word in our heads. It's an example of a misle, or a word with a spelling that doesn't make the pronunciation clear. English is full of them! When we encounter new words in print, we have a tendency to pronounce them like similarly spelled words that may have nothing to do with the word you are seeing. Read some common examples, and the varied reasons we hear them incorrectly in our heads at Mental Floss.

(Image generated with PhotoFunia) 

Millions of years ago, the grassland of North America was a brutal place. There were huge animals like rhinos, camels, horses, and elephants. And there were predators that evolved to take them down. These were canid borophagines, bone-crushing dogs. Borophagine species ranged from the size of a large coyote to larger than the biggest wolves, up to more than 300 pounds! They had short muzzles and massive teeth, and may have resembled hyenas. The borophagines consumed plenty of bone, but evidence from fossil feces show they weren't great at digesting them. Tearing through bones, however, was an efficient way for a pack to get its fill of a mastodon.  

The last of the borophagine species died out 1.8 million years ago, and were replaced by true canines that didn't crush bones, like coyotes. Wolves came even later. Saber-toothed cats hung around until about 10,000 years ago. So what happened to the borophagines? Read what we know about these ancient dogs at Smithsonian. 

(Image credit: Ghedoghedo) 

When Batman debuted in comics in 1939, his alter-ego Bruce Wayne was made a billionaire to explain how he had the remote location Batcave, the Batmobile, all kinds of technological wonders at his disposal, and the free time to fight crime in Gotham City. Readers had no real concept of a billionaire back then, except that they were rich. Now we have plenty of real billionaires in the news, sucking up resources and exerting power over our everyday lives. They give rich people a bad name, which just gets worse when we learn how they came to have more money than many national economies. That knowledge kind of puts a different light on Batman, don't you think? In this short video from Dorkly, Batman's usual nemeses -the Joker, the Riddler, Two-Face, and Mister Freeze- realize who the real villain is. The story is only 2:40; the rest is an ad. -via Geeks Are Sexy 

Car & Driver reports on a curious legal battle in Ohio. Tiah McCreary purchased on loan a car from a Kia dealership in the town of Lima. A month later, the dealership concluded that there was not enough information to continue the loan and so repossessed the car while McCreary was at work.

McCreary discovered that the dealership company did not own the name "Taylor Kia of Lima", which is the name under which it operated. So she registered a claim on that name and her attorney sent a cease-and-desist letter to the dealership, ordering it to stop using a name that was McCreary's property. The outcome of the case is still in progress.

-via Instapundit | Unrelated photo by Lee Stockton used under Creative Commons license

In 1993, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine aired. Like The Next Generation, it took a couple of years to find its narrative rhythm. But once DS9 adopted a serial format, it became the greatest series in the franchise.

To promote it, Paramount released many promotional items, including this rare TV/VCR combination kit. The curves reflect the Cardassian aesthetic that is foundational to the design of the Deep Space 9 station--what the Cardassians referred to as Terok Nor. The package included photos, headshots of actors in costume, and a VHS tape to complete the press it. Perhaps a handful were made.

-via reddit

Jim Ashworth-Beaumont is an orthotist at the Royal National Orthopaedic hospital in London. He builds and fits prosthetic limbs and cares for patients using the devices, as he has since the 1990s. In a cruel twist of fate, he was riding his bicycle and was struck by a truck in 2020. The truck wheels sliced through his body and ripped his right arm off. Ashworth-Beaumont spent six weeks in a medically-induced coma as doctors saved his life by repairing his lungs and liver. The loss of an arm was a lower priority at the time. However, in another twist of fate, Ashworth-Beaumont's surgeon, Edmund Fitzgerald O’Connor, is a plastic surgeon who had been on the lookout for a patient to try a new type of prosthetic limb. 

Osseointegration is the process of implanting a titanium rod into an amputee's stump that can be attached to a prosthetic. The process is commonly used to implant teeth, and we have seen it used in animals. It has been used in people, but now bionics has progressed to allow osseointegration to be combined with electronic sensors to control a limb's movements with the patient's brain. Ashworth-Beaumont received his implant last October. Read his story at The Guardian. -via Damn Interesting 

Children love to play with their food. Tula-Tu is no exception. The Asian elephant calf at the Oregon Zoo celebrated her 6-month birthday on Friday- or would you call that a half birthday? Either way, Tula-Tu would rather play than eat, so she kicked a birthday watermelon around as if she were training for the World Cup. It's all fun and games until Mom steps in to show her what a watermelon is really for. Tula-Tu is still nursing, but trying out regular foods one at a time. Watermelon may have to wait, at least until she is hungry enough to stop playing. She's already tripled her birth weight and is now 650 pounds. For a six-month-old, she's more accomplished than most of us, having appeared on national television more than once and serving as the Grand Marshall of the Rose Festival’s Grand Floral Parade. See more videos of Tula-Tu at Laughing Squid. 

A Chinese surgeon named Hua Tuo was born around 140 CE and became famous for his talents in compounding natural herbs into medicine. The most amazing of his creations was called mafeisan, a plant-based anesthetic. Administered as a drink, mafeisan would render a patient unconscious and numb enough to undergo serious surgery, such as resecting damaged intestines. The patient would awaken after 24 hours or so, and recover from the anesthetic in a few days. We don't know how accurate that is, since all accounts of Hua Tuo's work are from later, secondhand writing. Unfortunately, Hua Tuo fell out of favor with a warlord he had previously saved. The doctor's mafeisan recipe was lost when he was executed, and surgery in general fell out of favor in China. 

Much later in Japan, surgeon Hanaoka Seishū was inspired by Hua Tuo and spent decades developing an anesthetic called tsūsensan. In 1804, he performed a mastectomy on a cancer patient which is credited as the first documented surgery using general anesthesia. He went on to perform hundreds of surgical operations using tsūsensan, and taught his methods to medical students. Read about the development of surgical anesthesia before ether and chloroform at Amusing Planet. 

(Image credit: Nat Krause) 

Nik Bentel is a product designer in New York City. His whimsical designs attract attention, especially if worn with mesh shirts, as his Dinner Bag is photographed here. It comes with a plate, knife, and fork strapped to the outside to make dining an immediate option.

Gabi Rizea is a Romanian artist who wields a chainsaw as his sculptor's blade. The above work from a few years ago is what has most captured the Internet's attention and drawn appreciation from around the world. As an optical illusion, the pouring bucket of water supported by the liquid creates a surrealistic impression.

There are parts of rural Vermont without consistent cell service. So, ABC News reports, an electrical engineer named Patrick Schlott refurbished old pay phones and installed them in public locations so that people can, when needed, call the outside world.

Schlott finds the pay phones for sale on auction sites for a few hundred dollars. With modification, they will transmit sound over the internet. There are now three in place, one at a general store and two at public libraries. One of those library locations has experienced at least 370 calls, thus demonstrating a real need for this old fashioned technology.

-via My Modern Met | Photo: RandTel

Scientists in the Atherlton tablelands of northeastern Queensland, Australia have named this insect Acrophylla alta. At 15 inches long, it may be the heaviest in Australia. Its huge size may serve as an evolutionary advantage by making it more durable in cold weather.

 The Guardian reports that researchers captured a female from the forested canopy and harvested its eggs. The scientists hope to also capture a male, although these have been so far difficult to locate. The implication is that these scientists have a great interest in breeding giant insects for research purposes. There's no way this project could have negative, unintended consquences.

-via Aelfred the Great

Tell us what you hate most about television shows these days, and Ryan George has that covered, plus a whole list of other annoyances that infest our screens. TV shows can exist on network TV, premium cable, streaming services, or just plain YouTube, and there's no way you can keep up with them all. And if someone convinces you their favorite show is worth a watch, you discover it's on a service you're not yet paying for. If it's a show that's been going awhile, you have to catch up. How long can you stay with it hoping it gets better? Or if you jump into a popular show in season three or four, you may notice that the writers have run out of ideas and the cast is getting bored -or getting hired away. Let's take a look at Plinker Donkle, the TV series that stands in for all of them.

This past Monday, Cécile Dionne (left) died at the age of 91. That leaves her sister Annette Dionne (right) as the sole surviving member of the Dionne quintuplets. While Annette has family members, her identical sisters were the only constant in her life. 

The Dionne Quintuplets were born on May 28, 1934, in a farmhouse near Callander, Ontario. They were the first quintuplets to survived infancy. The five sisters were born prematurely, so after first being warmed in a basket by the stove, antique baby incubators were shipped in because the house had no electricity to power modern versions. Their parents, Oliva and Elzire, already had five children and were desperately poor. To prevent the five girls from being exploited, the Canadian government took custody of them, and promptly exploited them. A nursery was built to house the quints, and soon was expanded to accommodate the thousands of people who flocked to see them. Yvonne, Annette, Cécile, Émilie, and Marie were Canada's biggest tourist draw, eclipsing Niagara Falls for some time. 

Their parents fought to regain custody, only achieving that when the quints were nine years old. But they never felt integrated into the family, which by then included another three children. Émilie died in 1954, Marie in 1970, and Yvonne in 2001.  

 -via Fark 

These guys are the epitome of a certain engineering stereotype- young, bright, tech-savvy, and disconnected from normal life. They don't want to extend the effort of putting their garbage directly into the waste baskets, nor do they want to take out the trash. But instead of getting a larger trash can, they design and engineer waste baskets with cameras, motion sensors, servo motors, and wheels that will move to the spot where the trash is being flung. Yes, that's the equivalent of driving a hundred miles out of your way to avoid making a left turn. But while they are impressing you with their clever technology, they are also quite funny, and that makes the whole project worthwhile. 

Once their labor achieved a waste basket that will follow you around and position itself under the garbage you are dropping, they went ahead and outfitted all the waste baskets with different kinds of high tech silliness. Being a mother who wanted to shake these young men for their sanitation habits, my favorite is the can that wants to destroy you for not throwing away your own trash. -via Born in Space