The Latest from Boing Boing

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• Maggie vs. the Volcano
• Guatemala: Christmas Day video and audio snapshots
• Hard decisions about cancer
• Elizabeth Pschorr: A Privileged Marriage (Boing Boing Video)
• Turtle farts raise a stink

Maggie vs. the Volcano Posted: 22 Dec 2009 02:44 PM PST Saturday Morning Science Experiment will not be seen this week (or next), while I'm on vacation, traveling in Costa Rica. Instead, I offer you this montage of photos from Arenal, a Costa Rican volcano that ranks as one of the most active volcanoes in the world. By the time you read this, I'll be somewhere around Arenal's base, hiking through the jungle and trying to get some good pictures for BB. Have a happy New Year!

Guatemala: Christmas Day video and audio snapshots Posted: 25 Dec 2009 05:24 PM PST (More photos). ¡Feliz Navidad, yo! I woke up at noon here in la Antigua, Guatemala, bleary-eyed from tamale and ponche-fueled Christmas Eve celebrations that lasted 'til 3am, and all of a sudden? This. One of many random Christmas Day parades along the cobblestone streets here. Children dancing behind a truck blasting merengue dance tunes. Homemade cartoon costumes I spotted included Marvin the Martian, Shrek, assorted zombies and Satans, and every Looney Tunes or Disney persona imaginable. Both kids and bystanders had a blast, and they paraded around all day long. My favorite is the Bart Simpson whose head keeps tipping over because it's too heavy. Video quality isn't super high def, shot it on my iPhone, but was happy to have had something in my pocket to record it with. YouTube video link. Below, three ambient audio snippets (also recorded on iPhone, using the voice memo app... I mention because I'm always surprised at how good the audio quality is). Click the linked descriptions if you prefer to download the MP3s or other file formats. Enjoy, and happy holidays! 1) Christmas Day fireworks at noon. So many going off, sounds like weaponized rain. 2) Choir singing "Ave Maria" inside a church built in 1583. 3) Kakchikel Maya father and son street musicians, performing marimba.

Hard decisions about cancer Posted: 17 Dec 2009 04:20 PM PST Daily doses of special medication can help prevent cancer in high-risk people. But millions opt against that treatment. The New York Times has a fascinating story about the psychology behind why the devil we know (cancer) is often less terrifying than one we don't know (pharmaceutical side effects).

Elizabeth Pschorr: A Privileged Marriage (Boing Boing Video) Posted: 25 Dec 2009 11:49 AM PST (Watch on YouTube, Dotsub, or download MP4) On the eve of the Third Reich, a young woman of Jewish descent married an Aryan man. The Nazis would later classify that as a "privileged marriage," which saved her life while millions died. Her name is Elizabeth Pschorr, and today on Boing Boing Video, we present her story in her own words, with rare archival family photo and film taken as early as the 1930s. A little backstory on how this episode came to be: Ms. Pschorr's grandson, Jason McHugh, has worked with us since the early days of BBTV as a field producer and cameraman. One day when we were on a shoot together, he told me about his grandma, and an autobiographical book she was writing. I asked if we could visit her and record some of her story, and this episode unfolded over the next two years. Jason scanned old photos, love letters, and copied black and white film reels tucked away in boxes at his grandma's home. After the jump, more of those photos, and Jason (who's enjoying the holidays today with his grandmother) shares his thoughts about his family's story, and about the making of the video you'll see above. Jason McHugh writes: My Grandmother, Elizabeth Pschorr, is a major inspiration to me, and to the rest of our family and friends. At age 98, she is still quite on her game physically, mentally and spiritually. Elizabeth lives alone with her small dog Charlie, and has been recently appealing to the DMV to keep her driver's license for another renewal. This week, we are enjoying a traditional German Christmas celebration at her house complete with a candle-lit tree full of tinsel and silver bulbs, rhyming Christmas cards, a table full of presents and a four-course dinner feast! Of course, as you can see in this video (and in her book, A Privileged Marriage), she is in fact Jewish and so am I. This was a surprise to me, until I read my grandmother's book and discovered she didn't know know she was Jewish either until Hitler came to power. Her parents were wealthy non-practicing Jews, who embraced the German tradition of Christmas in an elaborate way, and we are lucky enough to be able to continue that tradition with Elizabeth to this day. Elizabeth was inspired to pick up the pen and take a journey into her past while we were on a family trip in Hawaii back in the late seventies. For her, it was a chance to understand who she really was, and then be spiritually reborn again into her present self after having shut a part of herself off for a long time. For the rest of our family and friends, it has been a chance to understand the dramatic changes and wartime insanity she survived, and absorb a detailed account of our family history and German-American history. A big part of this story, beyond the wartime survival and immigration, is about love. This is the part of the story that my Grandmother is still grappling with: love, and everything that comes with it. She really enjoys philosophical discussions about various aspects of love and has found great inspiration from her favorite philosopher Erich Fromm's book The Art of Loving. This will be the first time that any of the archival family footage has been seen by the public, besides her 90th birthday, where we played the raw footage with a photo retrospective. Since then, her major PR campaign for A Privileged Marriage has been doing book readings at local book stores and libraries in Northern California. The debut of this piece on Boing Boing will certainly be the biggest audience she been able to share her story with to date. It also marks the launch of Elizabeth's film career. She has recently been studying screenwriting books in hopes of adapting her story for the screen as well as encouraging me to get Stephen Spielberg on board for the project! More online: Elizabeth Pschorr Website | Amazon link for A Privileged Marriage (Images from the archives of Elizabeth Pschorr)

Turtle farts raise a stink Posted: 19 Dec 2009 01:21 PM PST Fact: The Great Yarmouth Sea Life Centre in Norfolk, England, gives its Green turtles brussels sprouts as a Christmas treat. Fact: Brussels sprouts kind of make you gassy. Fact: In 2008, the bubbles produced by sprout-induced turtle farts triggered overflow alarms in the middle of the night. Now the Yarmouth turtle tank—12 feet in depth and width holding 250,000 litres of water along with George the 3-ft-long green turtle—has been partially emptied for the festive season. Thousands of litres have been removed to lower the water by a six inches and keep the sensitive alarms clear. Phew. The Telegraph: Aquarium lowers water levels after feeding turtles brussel sprouts (Thanks, Marc Abrahams!) Image courtesy Flickr user pauljill, via CC

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