“A quick video explaining the process behind a lightning strike. As always subscribe to my channel if you like my stuff.” — MisterFlops

“Two escalators go up, but for some reason nearly everyone takes the same one, leaving the second one empty. I’m sure there’s an ‘official’ psychological term for this crowding, but I just call it the ‘escalator phenomenon.’ This video was taken on the second day of the 2012 Midwinter Meeting, but I’ve been seeing the same thing happen since the event started.” — Thalmann

“Shoes are basically practical objects, yet they can also be worn as adornment, for comfort, or even for pure delight. They can be the black pit sucking up a woman’s salary, or the subject of a passing compliment, little more. But take them off our feet, tie the laces together and toss them up into the fathomless blue sky… and suddenly those down-to-earth soles are dangling from a power line, like lonely wingless birds, steeped in mystery. Such far-flung footwear can be found the world over — from urban centers to deserted country roads. Wherever the shoes on a wire happen to be, speculation and burning questions follow. Why are they there? What story do they tell?” w/ photos

“Amateur stargazers have discovered an intriguing object jutting out from the surface of Mars. The seemingly perfectly rectangular, upright structure, found in NASA images of the Red Planet, bears a striking resemblance to the monoliths planted on Earth and the moon by aliens in the classic sci-fi film ’2001: A Space Odyssey.’ The object in question was first spotted several years ago after being photographed by the HiRISE camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, a NASA space probe; every so often, it garners renewed interest on the Internet. But is it unnatural — a beacon erected by aliens for mysterious reasons, and even more mysteriously paralleled in the imaginations of Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, creators of ’2001′? Or is this rock the work of nature?” w/ photos

“That’s why people never win! The workers always scratch the winning tickets!” — metra

“So there are these tins that heat themselves up. HotCan. ‘No microwave. No kettle,’ they seem to scold from the label. They’ve been around for 30 years but the company has just started to promote them more intensively: rebranding the tins, opening a new factory, releasing new flavors and so on. There’s something almost alchemical about them. The tins are fixed in thick, insulated pouches. You take the plastic lid off and there’s a sort of pointy Allen key inside, which you use to pierce three little holes in the insulation surrounding the tin. Then you wait a couple of minutes, an ominous bubbling begins, steam starts to hiss from the holes, and you panic the can is about to explode and shower you in shrapnel and lava. So you gingerly reread the label through slitted fingers, and it tells you you should have opened the tin first. You hold it at terrified arm’s length like a bomb you’re trying to defuse, lift its ringpull with a spoon, and give everything another 10 minutes to warm through. Or at least that was my experience.” w/ photos

“I would totally eat a sheet of potato.” — barisaxman2

“Now how is the sauce made? And the cheese? And the pepperoni? HOW ARE THE MACHINES MADE? MACHINES MAKE MACHINES? it never ends.” — starryblah1

“Are you feeling virtuous about your healthy breakfast of wholegrain cereal washed down with a glass of orange juice? After all, it’s better than an artery-clogging fry-up. In terms of fat, at least. But few of us realize that a bowl of Bran Flakes plus juice will account for half our recommended daily amount of sugar. We all know the dangers of too much salt, fat and calories in our diet, but health professionals warn that not enough of us stop to consider our sugar intake… We set out to find out how much sugar is lurking in our favorite foods and drinks — including those many would consider healthy. The results, shown below, were shocking.” w/ photos

“The moon may be 1.3 light-seconds away, but why on earth do we measure distances using time?” — minutephysics