(Photo: James Lee)

Cheetos--they're nature's perfect food. Still, people try to improve nature's design and have succeeded, advancing the culinary wisdom of humanity. Here are 12 unconventional ways to cook and serve Cheetos.

1. Deep fried Cheetos! Tom Pizzica of the Park Slope Chip Shop in Brooklyn deep fries everything, including these Cheetos.

2. Marshmallow treats...flavored with Cheetos! Becky McKay made Rice Krispie treats, but replaced the Rice Krispies with Cheetos.

3. Cheetos donuts! To mark National Donut Day (an important religious holiday), Donut Prince in Burbank, California made donuts with dulce de leche and Flamin' Hot Cheetos. That Cheetos flavor, by the way, has sent people to the hospital.

4. Caramel-coated Cheetos are popularly known as "coyote droppings." I think you can see why. Instructables member Puero made these with corn syrup. Just don't eat one offered to you by a practical joker.

5. Cheetos macarons! The Macaron Parlour on Manhattan is dedicated to that sweet cookie. They've got a vast number of varieties, including one that's flavored with Cheetos.

6. Cheetos ice cream! Although we all use Cheetos as a garnish for ice cream sundaes, they can also go into the ice cream itself! Becky McKay chopped Cheetos and chocolate into her ice cream recipe!

7. Chocolate-covered Cheetos! But Ms. McKay didn't stop there! She also melted chocolate baking bark--that's a sheet of chocolate that breaks easily for baking use. Then she dipped Cheetos in to make the perfect breakfast meal.

8. Chocolate chip Cheetos cookies! Christina_S added whole Cheetos to her favorite double chocolate chip cookie recipe and served them with ice cream.

9. Hot Cheetos-crusted fried mozzarella sticks! Zach Wilkins and Jason Medina made a Tabasco sauce egg wash and used it to bond crushed Hot Cheetos to mozarella sticks. Then they deep fried these delicious little heart attacks.

10. Cheetos grilled cheese sandwiches! Michelle made this classy-looking sandwich with homemade sourdough semolina bread and provolone cheese. 

11. Macaroni and cheese Cheetos pie! Kansas City BBQ Source posted a recipe for mac-and-cheese pie that uses Cheetos. Now all you need to add is chocolate syrup.

12. Cheetos quiche! Cheetos are the mark of the refined gourmand. This vegetarian quiche from Pacificlectic uses gruyere cheese and chanterelle--a fancy-shmancy fungus.

Looking for a little variety to spice up your candy corn consumption this Halloween? Then check out We Do Fun Here's great collection of candy corn party favors. It's not all foods like the candy corn corn above though, there are also great party favor ideas like candy corn bath salts.

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It's the ferret version of a ball pit! Simon and Garfunkel take advantage of a large carton with plenty of stuff to tunnel under. -via Laughing Squid

I thought we were an autonomous collective. I just can't keep up with the changes that John McNamee describes.

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We've seen plenty of cool geek quilts, but it's rare to see one that's actually queen size -especially when it's a pixelated quilt of Captain Picard. The squares are 2" big, meaning it took about 4500 squares to complete. The writer at Candy Coated Quilts made this amazing creation for two Trekie friends as a wedding present.

Link Via Geek Crafts

NY Terror Dogs by Matt Parsons

When you need a cool T-shirt, who you gonna call? Matt Parsons, of course! Send boring ol' T-shirts back to hell and wear this killer NY Terror Dogs T-shirt. The Gatekeeper and Keymaster will surely approve.

Check out Matt's official website and Facebook page, then visit his NeatoShop page for more "hot" T-shirts.

The Iceman Cometh	Bear Hug	Timey Wimey Sweater	Big Trouble in Little Kanto

View more designs by Matt Parsons | More Funny T-shirts

Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop, earn generous royalties, and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!

(Photos: Kaigai no Omira)

The deer in Nara Park in Nara, Japan are famously polite. They even bow to visitors respectfully. They also obey the law. A tourist snapped photos of this deer, which approached the crosswalk. It stopped until the signal turned green, then crossed. You can see more photos of it at the link.

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A British TV station was beginning its local newscast on the night of November 25, 1977. In the broadcast studio, nothing unusual happened. But in homes, the video signal of the regular newscast was accompanied by a strange voice that did not make sense. 

    "This is the voice of Vrillon, a representative of the Ashtar Galactic Command, speaking to you."

It was now ten past five in the evening. With the news report still continuing on the screen, the deep, oscillating voice continued with his message.

    "For many years you have seen us as lights in the skies."

None of the evening staff at Southern Television were aware of the intrusion to their signal. International Broadcasting Authority engineers in Croydon, Surrey did not hear the rogue signal, nor was it detected at the main transmitter site in Southampton.

The message from “Vrillon” continued for nearly six minutes as stunned families across South-East England tried to comprehend what they were hearing. Some panicked, believing that aliens really were communicating through the television.

In all the years since that stunt, no one has come forward to take responsibility, and clues point to anyone in particular. But there were a couple of UFO cults gaining followers in the 1970s, and the word Ashtar pops up now and then in their beliefs. Read about the broadcast incident, and the cults it may have referenced, at The Kernel. Link -via Metafilter

Tea Duckie Tea Infuser

Tea Duckie, you're the one. You make tea time lots of fun. Tea Time Duckie, I'm awfully fond of you. Woh woh, bee doh!

The tea duckie is a tea infuser shaped like a yellow rubber duckie that actually floats as you brew your tea. This tea infuser is a real quack up. 

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Coffee & Tea Stuff. 

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(Video Link)

To propose marriage to Rebecca, Joe Wakim compiled a film trailer using scenes from movies, most of them superhero movies. Watch him steal an engagement ring from Spider-Man and prepare for action at Superman's Fortress of Solitude.

I can't wait to watch the sequel!

-via When Geeks Wed

Here's a research paper that reveals the mechanism for Wolverine's amazing ability to heal and regenerate after deploying his adamantium claws, or after he is wounded by an enemy. It's because he's part amphibian! Or at least produces an amphibian protein. Here's the abstract:

Wolverine, a mutant from the X-men team, possesses super healing abilities. Wolverine’s healing abilities have striking similarities to that seen in axolotl, an amphibian with the capacity to regenerate amputated limbs. In this study we sought to determine the mechanisms by which Wolverine regenerates. Widentified a novel protein, dubbed Howlett, that is nearly identical to the Amblox protein in axolotl which is known to be responsible for the amphibian’s limb regeneration. siRNA knockdown of the howlett and amblox genes demonstrated decreased replication in Wolverine and axolotl, respectively, and Howlett was found in all Wolverine tissues. Using mass spectrometry and x-ray crystallography, we identified an S2 pocket in the Howlett protein that we postulate contributes to the 5.66-fold increased specific activity observed over Amblox in cleaving a large substrate analogue. Our findings show that Howlett is a major contributor to Wolverine’s incredible regeneration capacity, and further investigation of the signaling  and regulatory mechanisms associated with this novel protein could provide outstanding advances in the field of regenerative medicine.

There's six pages of "science" in the paper. Link (pdf) -via Boing Boing

While Yoda's right, "truly wonderful, the mind of a child is," I can't help but be a little jealous that kids get all the awesome bedrooms like this one by a friend of Reddit user mcalis2. Well, at least we have a lot of cool Star Wars home decor in the NeatoShop.

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MIT physics professor Edward Pickering was an early advocate of astrophotography and also had a relatively enlightened (for the time) attitude toward women in science. But he was an outlier in both fields.

In 1881, Edward Charles Pickering, director of the Harvard Observatory, had a problem: the volume of data coming into his observatory was exceeding his staff’s ability to analyze it. He also had doubts about his staff’s competence–especially that of his assistant, who Pickering dubbed inefficient at cataloging. So he did what any scientist of the latter 19th century would have done: he fired his male assistant and replaced him with his maid, Williamina Fleming. Fleming proved so adept at computing and copying that she would work at Harvard for 34 years–eventually managing a large staff of assistants.

So began an era in Harvard Observatory history where women—more than 80 during Pickering’s tenure, from 1877 to his death in 1919— worked for the director, computing and cataloging data. Some of these women would produce significant work on their own; some would even earn a certain level of fame among followers of female scientists. But the majority are remembered not individually but collectively, by the moniker Pickering’s Harem.

A slightly more respectable name for those women was the "Harvard Computers." Find out what they did and how they were rewarded at Smithsonian's Past Imperfect blog. Link


(Image source: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)

We've written about Pablo Stanley of Stanley Colors blog before on Neatorama, but the man is on a roll! Great job, Pablo! In this new panel, he illustrated one of the most iconic songs ever recorded, Imagine by John Lennon.

It's probably impossible not to read the cartoon and have the song not pop into your head. It's now probably going to get stuck in your head for the rest of the day, but hey, at least it's a catchy tune!

Sing it with me, "Imagine there's no heaven ..." (Love this song? Did you know that the lyric and concept came from Lennon's wife Yoko Ono? But Lennon said that, "in those days I was more selfish, more macho and omitted to mention her contribution." Read more about Imagine in this article by Eddie Deezen, "Imagine: John Lennon's Signature Song.")

If you wonder who the guy named "Milk" in the fourth from last panel, that's San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk, who was the first openly gay person to be elected to public office in the United States in 1977. Milk was assassinated in 1978, just 11 months after taking office.

The woman named Anna in the third from last panel is Russian journalist, writer, and human rights activist named Anna Politkovskaya. She reported about the Chechen conflict and published several books critical of the current Russian government. In 2006, Politkovskaya was shot and killed in her apartment complex. Her murder remained unsolved until today.

The meaning of Imagine is a hotly debated topic, but Pablo noted in his blog, "This is NOT an anti-religion/atheist propaganda comic. The comic and the song (at least as I understand it) [try] to communicate that no matter your faith, we should all share the world in peace ... As silly as that sounds."

View the original comic over at Stanley's website.

Redditor anastasiabeverhousen writes, "So, I know a guy who makes 'Stumpkins.'" I love the idea! They look like fantasy movie monsters.

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The following is a Whodunit by Hy Conrad featuring Sherman Oliver Holmes, a mysterious crime solver and great-great-grandson of Sherlock Holmes. Can you solve the crime?

(Image credit: Flickr userJef Harris)

Once a year, on his birthday, Sherman Holmes threw a dinner party. The cream of Capital City's eccentrics would gather in his large, comfortable home, along with neighbors and other friends, to eat and drink and laugh.

At this year's celebration, after everyone else had left, Sherman and his three last guests sat over brandies in his living room, discussing the one inexhaustible topic, the Sherlock Holmes mysteries.

"What exactly is a carbuncle?" Dora Treat asked. Someone had brought up "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle," and the nurse practitioner was curious. "The only carbuncle I know is a skin infection, like a boil."

Buddy Johnson, a jeweler, chuckled. "It's a gemstone, a deep red garnet. Carbuncles are never blue. That was a figment of Conan Doyle's imagination."

Sherman puckered his round face into a frown. "But there is a blue carbuncle. Dr. Watson wouldn't lie about a thing like that."

"Yes, of course," Sam Pickering stammered. Their host seemed so rational in every other respect, it was easy to forget his fixation. "What Buddy meant was there are no other known blue carbuncles, just that one."

"Exactly," Sherman said. "That's why it was so expensive. Would you all like to see it?"

His guests were flabbergasted. "You mean you actually own the blue carbuncle?" asked Sam. "The one from the story?" The newspaper reporter had already done two articles about the unconventional millionaire and he could sense a third one in the making.

"The gem dealer assured me it's the real thing. Come into the library and I'll show you."

The room they walked into looked more like a junk room than a library, with first editions strewn on the chairs along with stacks of old papers and magazines. Sherman took three small boxes down from a shelf. He rummaged through the blue one, flipped through the red one, and finally found what he wanted in the green box.

"Here it is."

From among a pile of receipts and marbles, he pulled out a blue gem, about the size of a pea. Buddy Johnson pulled a jeweler's loop from his pocket and gave it a quick examination.

"It looks like a garnet," he said. "How amazing."

Each guest examined the strange stone, then returned it to their host.

While Dora excused herself to use the powder room, Sherman dropped the carbuncle into the red box and returned all three boxes to the shelf.

"You leave a priceless gem in a simple box?" Sam asked with a disapproving smirk. "With no security?"

Sherman puffed out his chest. "I am all the security it needs."

The guests stayed for another hour, then left at the same time. Normally, Sherman would have gone directly to bed. But some instinct led him back into the library.

He was shocked to see all three boxes lying open on the library table. Sherman went directly to the red box, then to the others. Sure enough, the carbuncle was gone.

He thought back. In the hour following the display of the jewel, each of his guests had wandered off, at least for a minute or two. It would have been chancy, but any one of them could have sneaked back into the library and stolen it.

Sherman was disappointed to think that one of his friends had robbed him. But his disappointment ran deeper. "Did the thief have such little regard for my detecting skills? How insulting! Would they have stolen from my great-great-grandfather and expected to get away with it?"

WHO STOLE THE BLUE CARBUNCLE?

WHAT GAVE THE THIEF AWAY?

Show Answer

The whodunit above was provided by American mystery fiction author Hy Conrad.

In addition to his work in mystery and crime puzzles, Hy was also one of the original writers for the groundbreaking TV series Monk.

Currently, Hy is working on mystery novel series "Abel Adventures" as well as the Monk series of novels, starting with Mr. Monk Helps Himself (published by Penguin, order from Amazon here)

Check out Hy's official website and Facebook page - and stay tuned for more whodunits puzzlers on Neatorama from the master of whodunit mysteries himself!

Out of This World by ClSantos

Now that's an out of this world design by artist ClSantos - now on the NeatoShop. Check out ClSantos over at her Facebook page, then visit her NeatoShop page for more sweet T-shirts:

War Worlds	Time Travel is ART	Cookies X-Ray	Magic Wands

View more designs by ClSantos | More Funny T-shirts | New T-Shirts

Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop, earn generous royalties, and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!

(YouTube link)

The Shironekoshiro cats sit up in their chairs, as if they were human. Sometimes I feel like those cats are made of fur-covered Play-Doh with pipe cleaner armatures you can bend whichever way you want, but here they eventually look for a more comfortable cat position. Bonus: Shiro himself walks by, with his eyes open. I think it's the first time I've seen those eyes open. -via Tastefully Offensive

Shorter days, leaves changing color and colder weather used to be the ways we can tell that fall is coming, but lately there's a new sign: Pumpkin Spice Latte is back at Starbucks.

PSL card over at someecards

Pumpkin Spice Latte, or PSL as it's known to afficionados, is a seasonal drink that Starbucks trots out every fall. Each year, the release becomes more highly anticipated than the previous one, and the cult following of the drink continues to swell. Last year, there were reports shortages of the PSL at some Starbucks locations, which caused a flurry of panicked tweets. The instant version of the popular latte popped up on eBay at double the price ... and promptly sold out. Thankfully, Starbucks was able to ship more of the PSL ingredients to its stores and averted a pumpkin riot.

This year, Starbucks released a secret code that you can whisper to your barista to get the Pumpkin Spice Latte before its official release date of September 3, much to the glee of its fans. But who exactly are those PSL fanatics?

White women in yoga pants, according to Flavorwire and the Interweb:

So. If PSL is your BFF, know this about your favorite drink:

1. Starbucks Has Sold 200 Million Pumpkin Spice Latte Drinks in the Past Decade

You read that right. Starbucks has sold more than 200 million of the PSL. At the basic price $4 and 300 calories for a 12-ounce tall size, that's $800 million dollars and 60 billion calories that we've spent and consumed on the stuff.

2. Vegans Are Hopping Mad

... because it turns out that the PSL can't be made vegan. Turns out, the Pumpkin Spice Latte contains condensed milk. Vegan and Starbucks afficionado Brent Caldwell of Ferndale, Michigan, had even started a Change.org petition to get Starbucks to create a vegan-friendly version:

I am a huge fan of Starbucks. My girlfriend and I will visit our favorite location up to four times a week. We are also both vegan. Normally this is not a tremendous issue at Starbucks because so many drinks can be made with vegan and dairy-free ingredients, which generally just means using soy milk instead of cows milk.

Sadly, in the case of the seasonal Pumpkin Spice Latte, this does not hold true.There is currently no vegan option for this drink mix, which is a total bummer. [...]

Many people are shocked to hear that the mix contains condensed milk because there's no way anyone would be able to tell walking into a store and placing an order. Employees don't even realize it has milk in it!

As of this morning, the petition has garnered over 9,000 signers. If that's not a First World problem, I don't know what is.

3. PSL: The Drink That Almost Wasn't

Ten years ago, Starbucks created the Pumpkin Spice Latte as a concept drink and pitted it against 19 other drinks in a market test ... and people said "meh."

The PSL didn't perform well: it wasn't the worst performer, but it was definitely outshined by chocolate caramel and cinnamon spice drinks. But Peter Dukes, an espresso brand manager at Starbucks and co-creator of the PSL, saw the drink's potential. He stuck to his guns and the rest is history.

4. Now Here Comes the Shocker: the Pumpkin Spice Latte Contains No Real Pumpkin

via That's Nerdalicious

What, exactly, is in the PSL? Starbucks' website said that it is a "handcrafted signature espresso beverage that features freshly steamed milk, rich and creamy pumpkin flavored sauce, and warm seasonal spices such as cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and clove. The beverage is finished with a dollop of whipped cream and Starbucks pumpkin spice topping ..."

Turns out, there is NO actual pumpkin in the Pumpkin Spice Latte. But don't worry, Starbucks isn't going to change a thing. Peter Dukes later said, "If we changed the recipe now, we'd have a revolt."

Undecided about the PSL? Before you go to your local Starbucks and plunk down $4 for a tall (that's Starbucksese for "small"), TV talk show host Jimmy Fallon of Late Night has the pros and cons:

Kissing Unicorns Salt & Pepper Shakers

Are you looking for a salt and pepper shaker set that can hold its own against your legendary meals? Invite the Kissing Unicorns Salt & Pepper Shakers to your table. This enchanting set is made of glazed ceramic and held together by magnets.  

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Salt & Pepper Shakers. 

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Truly, if George R.R. Martin had been writing Breaking Bad, half of these people would be dead and Arizona would be planning an invasion of New Mexico. Otherwise this Joy of Tech comic is correct, especially by matching Tyrion Lannister with Jessie Pinkman.

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I would be pretty content with a cheese wheel or sushi cake wedding cake...but a cheeseburger or pizza one just wouldn't do it for me. That being said, I think it might be kind of awesome to have a wedding where all the foods are presented in traditional cake shape.

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If you want to go see Westeros, you're out of luck, because it's a fictional place. But the TV series Game of Thrones uses settings from all over, despite its reliance on special effects. Where are those wonderful places? It began in Stirling, Scotland, which is also where Monty Python and the Holy Grail was filmed. There are also filmed settings in Malta, Croatia, Northern Ireland, Iceland, and Morocco. Travel to these fantastical locations is just another perk of working on the HBO series. See all these places at The Luxe Travel. Link -via Daily of the Day

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Two years ago, I mentioned that the Husky Jackal Theater in Nashville re-wrote the script for the movie Terminator 2 using only lines from the works of William Shakespeare. The creative team has completed the project. This video shows scenes from the glorious result.

Link (warning: auto-sound) -via Kuriositas

Photographer Greg Anderson attended the National Beard and Mustache Championships in New Orleans to take portraits of the entrants. Those turned out so well, he's going to publish them in a book. Beard Team USA will be seen again at the World Beard and Mustache Championships in Germany. Anderson will also be there, as the official photographer of the event.

Link | Full Gallery -via Metafilter

Terrible Real Estate Agent Photos is a Tumblr blog filled with hilariously ghastly examples of pictures of homes for sale.

If you're selling your own home, it may be worthwhile to hire a professional to take photos of the property. Or, at least, put on some pants before taking pictures of a room with mirrors in it.

Link -via David Thompson

If you already follow the Lifestyles of the Cute and Cuddly, then you already know that we love seeing critters acting like people. But when you manage to find them in vintage photos, things are all the more delightful. That's why you really shouldn't miss this great collection of vintage pictures of intellegent animals over on io9.

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The A.V. Club posted a list of shows in which the lead protagonist is the least interesting of the main characters. It happens all the time, to all kinds of TV shows. The list includes current shows like The Walking Dead and Boardwalk Empire as well as older shows like Barney Miller and The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. I would add Seinfeld and Bewitched and Northern Exposure and …well, it's such a standard fact of TV that TV Tropes calls it the Designated Protagonist Syndrome, featuring the Standardized Leader. (Warning: following links from TV Tropes can cause you to lose the rest of the day.)

I first noticed the trend when The Mary Tyler Moore Show ended and spun off TV shows for all its other characters. Those wacky characters we all loved then became the main character, and they lost their quirkiness by having to corral a whole new cast of wacky characters. Happy Days, which is on the A.V. Club's list, revolved around the generic Richie Cunningham for the first half of its run. The more interesting character Fonzie was the real draw, but when Richie left the show, Fonzie lost his juvenile delinquent status and settled down with the Cunningham family. P.E. teacher Roger Phillips was brought in as the Standardized Leader, but few remember him as such.

When a lead character is played safe, it is because the viewer is expected to see the action through his/her eyes, so writers can't afford to take too many risks lest the viewer find they can no longer identify with the character. That is especially true if the show was built around the generic lead and the producers hope to make the series last a long time.

My guess is that the inspiration for this list is the success of Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones, two shows that defy the trope in a big way. Breaking Bad very deliberately introduced the main character Walter White as someone the audience could identify with, and then took him into frightening territory to make viewers consider how such a transformation could happen. And the show was always meant to be a story that ends. Game of Thrones is truly an ensemble show. Try to recall who was considered to be the lead character in the series' first season. Both shows prove that the audience can handle having the rug pulled out from under them.      

What other shows would you add to the list? Link

Patrick Stewart, Leonard Nimoy and Ian McKellen met at Coney Island in New York City. Why? Leonard Nimoy doesn't explain in his Twitter feed, but it's obvious that they're reuniting to pull off one last heist.

I'll bet that William Shatner will appear in the third act.

Link -via The Mary Sue

The following is an article from the bookHistory's Lists from Uncle John's Bathroom Reader.

America's great westward expansion took place between 1807 and 1912. It took a lot of people with a lot of gumption to tame the Old West, but those adventuresome types wouldn't have stood a chance without some important enterprises and contraptions.

1. TRADING POSTS

The first explorers of the North American frontier were interested in one thing: making money by hunting the pelts of wild animals. Trading posts gave the fur hunters a market and supplied them with provisions. From the late 1600s to about 1850, posts were built along a vast arc of wilderness from Canada to the northern border of Mexico, mostly on waterways that linked them to the East Coast and the shipping lanes to Europe. Pockets of civilization grew up around the posts, a melting pot of Native Americans, Spaniards, french, Dutch, and English, all bartering with each other.

Significance: Believe it or not, it was fashion. European high style at the time was all about fur -beaver in particular- and North America had a seemingly endless supply.

Story: England's Hudson Bay Company got exclusive trading rights to the watershed of Hudson Bay in Canada in 1670 and constructed the first trading posts on the Western frontier. The posts hired white frontiersmen to trap animals, since the Indians had little interest in doing it. The traders shipped the fur to Europe to rake in huge fortunes. By the late 1700s, rival companies set up trading posts deep in the interior of Canada and points south. By 1808, John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company -with its own frontier posts- dominated the West and made Astor the richest man in America. Many major North American cities began as trading posts, such as Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis, New Orleans, Edmonton, Quebec City, Winnipeg, and Montreal.

Demise: The demise of trading posts was due to a shortage of animal furs, caused by overkilling in North America and the introduction of silk as the new stuff of haute couture in Europe.

2. CONESTOGA WAGONS

From the late 1700s to the early 20th century, these famous covered wagons were as common on trails heading west as today's tractor-trailers. The average 21-foot-long, 11-foot-high, 4-foot-wide wagon could carry two tons of cargo. Some freighter wagons with seven-foot-tall wheels were capable of carrying a massive eight tons. Designed like boats, with ends that were higher than the middle, once the wheels were removed the heavily-caulked wagon body could be floated across Western streams. The ride wasn't as smooth on land: pulled by horses, mules or oxen, the Conestoga moved over roads so rough and mountainous that most people preferred to walk alongside. But they kept inside at night for protection against inclement weather and wild animals.

Significance: At the time, the wagon was the only means of transporting heavy cargo to settlers in the remote West, far away from any navigable rivers. Wagon handlers also brought the only news from the outside world, even if it was outdated by the time they got where they were going.

Story: James Logan invented the Conestoga in 1716. As William Penn's commercial representative in the colony of Pennsylvania, he established freight service between Philadelphia and the Conestoga Valley in Lancaster County 60 miles away and named the wagon after its valley destination. It's believed that Logan based the design on army supply trains then used in Europe. In the wagon's heyday, big factories like future carmaker Studebaker in South Bend, Indiana, could turn out a complete wagon in seven minutes. The Fort Smith Wagon Company in Fort Smith, Arkansas, built 10,000 in a single year.

Conestogas were also called "prairie schooners" because they appeared in the distance like sailing vessels with their weather-resistant canopies of white canvas stretched over wooden hoops and billowing in the wind as they moved across the Great Plains. The expectation was that each animal hitched to a wagon could pull a payload equal to its own weight, and thus the modern expression "pull your own weight."

Demise: Railroads and motor vehicles ended the reign of the Conestoga wagon. The last one was manufactured in 1952 at the Springfield Wagon Company in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

3. THE STEAMBOAT

Until the steamboat's arrival on the frontier in 1820, it took skilled oarsman piloting flatboats downstream to get goods to market. Since it was too difficult to paddle back upstream, the flatboats were normally broken up for firewood and the return trip was made by horseback or on foot. The steamboat changed all that.

Significance: Their speed and ability to carry huge cargos made them indispensable to the frontier economy at port cities along the inland waterways. By the mid-1800s, steamboats were seen everywhere on all the rivers to the frontier -the Cumberland, Tennessee, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri, and Mississippi. The month-long trip upriver 700 miles from New Orleans to Louisville in 1820 became a mere jaunt of four and half days by 1854.

Story: On August 22, 1787, John Fitch demonstrated a steam-powered watercraft on the Delaware River before members of the Continental Convention in Philadelphia. He patented the idea and went into the steamship business, carrying passengers and freight in either direction on the Delaware at four times the sped of previous riverboats. But it was Robert Fulton, who usually gets the undeserved credit for the invention, who saw its commercial potential in settling the West. Fulton partnered with wealthy New York politician Robert L. Livingston and inventor Nicholas Roosevelt to begin building large steamboats in 1817 in Pittsburgh. The result was a ship that could make the round-trip to New Orleans on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, setting a speed record of 10 miles per hour downstream and 3 miles per hour upstream.

For the first 30 years of their development, steamboats were an extremely dangerous way to travel: an estimated 500 vessels were lost, causing 4,000 deaths. Accidents were so frequent -due to fire, steam boiler explosions, and running aground- that the average life span of a steamboat was about five years.

Demise: Railroads began taking business away from steamboats in 1870. By 1880, steamships had given way to the 93,000 miles of rail lines that served all corners of the United States.

4. THE TELEGRAPH

The telegraph was an important form of long-distance communication in the Old West. Its birth meant that news from the outside world no longer arrived by horses or riverboats after weeks and months of travel; over telegraph wires strung from wooden posts, communication became almost instantaneous.

Significance: The telegraph was vital to both sides in the Civil War and was used effectively by law enforcement to hunt down desperados in the Old West. By closing the gap between east and west, it also helped unify the nation well into the 20th century.

Story: In 1831, Samuel Morse invented a way of sending messages over a copper wire based on a series of dashes and dots that could be decoded by the receiver. Yet it wasn't until 1844 that he sent the first message over a telegraph line: "What hath God wrought!" Within six years, a group of businessmen in New York organized the New York & Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company. Meanwhile, Ezra Cornell, who would go on to found Cornell University, organized a competing system, the New York & Western Union Telegraph Company in 1856 and the first transcontinental telegraph line came together on October 24, 1861, in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The first transcontinental message was sent by Stephen J. Field, chief justice of California, to Abraham Lincoln in Washington, assuring the president that the western states would remain loyal to the Union during the Civil War.

Demise: The telegraph died by inches as telephones steadily gained a foothold in the 20th century. On January 27, 2006, Western Union sent its last telegram.

5. THE RAILROAD

Railroads were the primary means of long-distance transportation from the 1830s to the mid-20th century. As far back as 1836, the idea of a nation-spanning rail line began to catch on -one that would shrink the travel time from Washington, D.C. to San Francisco from months of arduous journey by sea or wagon train to a mere eight days in passenger cars pulled by steam-powered locomotives. But the steep and rocky terrain, especially through the high sierras, seemed insurmountable.

Significance: The speed and safety of trains and their ability to carry huge quantities of cargo at low cost made them preferable to riverboats and wagons. Whereas a Conestoga might make 25 miles in a day, an "iron hose" could pull a train that same distance in less than an hour.

Story: In 1826, John Steven, the "father of American railroads," demonstrated that steam locomotives were feasible by running one on a circular track built at his estate in Hoboken, New Jersey. Small steam railroads sprang up in the East to displace canal boats, but the people who dreamed of a transcontinental railroad would have to wait until the 1860s. President Abraham Lincoln saw the military advantages of such a railroad and as a means to bond the Pacific coast to the Union; he supported California railroad engineer Theodore D. Judah, who convinced some wealthy partners to back a transcontinental railroad as a means of exploiting gold and silver mines in the West. Judah hired 13,000 immigrant workers from China to drive construction of the Central Pacific Railroad over the 10,000-foot high Sierra Nevada Mountains and across the boiling deserts of Nevada and Utah. At Promontory, Utah, on May 10, 1869, the Central Pacific linked up with the Union Pacific line heading west. the driving of a ceremonial "golden spike" memorialized the moment: the creation of the first transcontinental line in North America.

Sherman William George Crush lured a reported 40,000 spectators to a temporary town called Crush in western Texas, to see a publicity stunt: the crash of two trains. On September 15, 1896, Crush sent two six-car trains pulled by steam locomotives racing toward each other from a mile away. The engines collided head-on, causing their boilers to explode and sending shrapnel high into the air. At least three spectators were killed and many were injured.

Demise: Though far from dead, passenger travel was death near-fatal blows by the emergence of air travel and the interstate highway system developed in the 1950s. Freight is still carried by rail, but tracking has become the main way to transport cargo.

6. THE GUN

The liveliest debate over what won the West is about firearms. Did the Colt six-shooter or the Winchester rifle tame the wilderness? Law enforcement officers and peace-loving settlers in the Old West typically owned both -something like the army-issue .45-caliber Colt single-action revolver and the .44-caliber Winchester lever-action rifle. Revolver handguns were standard fare for close-range self-defense, but most experts agree that the Winchester rifle ruled because of its long-range accuracy and firepower.

Significance: To survive in the Old West, especially from 1800 to 1892, you needed a gun. Firearms were necessary for hunting and self-defense, especially in lawless areas -and it was a rite of passage to manhood to become skilled at shooting a gun.

Story: Two men gave their names to guns that ruled the West: Samuel Colt and Oliver Winchester. Colt, the son of a textile factory owner, patented his idea in 1836 and established a factory in Patterson, New Jersey. The Colt handgun became popular after soldiers reported success with it in the war with Mexico in 1846. It was standard fare during the Civil War and quickly took hold in the West, particularly the Colt .45 pistol.

Oliver Winchester improved on someone else's design. In 1848, Walter Hunt patented a "Volition Repeating Rifle" -the forerunner of the rifle made famous as a Union army firearm during the Civil War. One Confederate soldier called it "that damned Yankee rifle that they load on Sunday and shoot all week!"

As a safety measure, people who carried six-shooters loaded five rounds into the cylinder and left the hammer down on an empty chamber. There was no way to fire the gun without first cocking the hammer to advance to the loaded chamber. Gunslingers in the Old West customarily stuffed a rolled-up $5 bill in the empty chamber to pay for their burial if they lost a showdown.

Demise: Law enforcement and time tamped down gun violence in the West, but today there are more guns in more hands than ever.

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The article above was reprinted with permission from Uncle John's Bathroom Reader History's Lists. Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts.

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