I have long thought of 'Coke and Mentos' as a less fun 'liquid plumber and aluminum foil' science fair trick, no longer...

okay what the fuck did I just watch pic.twitter.com/Ny2Etsm9Hm

— 𝖘𝖍𝖗𝖎𝖒𝖕 𝖇𝖎𝖓𝖈𝖍 (@shrimpbinch) November 13, 2019

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Uber CEO on Saudi Arabia's killing of Jamal Khashoggi: "It's a serious mistake. We've made mistakes too, right, with self-driving ... So I think that people make mistakes. It doesn't mean that they can never be forgiven" pic.twitter.com/EvinRrh3SE

— BNO News (@BNONews) November 11, 2019

Uber is significantly backed by Saudi investments and the country's sovereign wealth fund controls a seat on its board. In this video, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi is asked by Axios's Dan Primack about the Saudi regime's murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a U.S.-based journalist and dissident.

"It's a serious mistake," Khosrowshahi said. "We've made mistakes too, right? With self-driving, and we're recovering from that mistake ... So I think that people make mistakes. It doesn't mean that they can never be forgiven. I think they've taking is seriously."

Primack challenged his comparison of a political assassination, as described in a CIA report, to the presumptively accidental killing of a pedestrian by a self-driving car.

"I didn't read that part of the CIA report," Khosrowshahi said. "You're obviously deeper in it."

Khosrowshahi, however, is now very deep in something else.

Khosrowshahi later backtracked, telling Axios after the interview had ended that he had misspoken. “I said something in the moment that I do not believe,” said the CEO in a statement. “When it comes to Jamal Khashoggi, his murder was reprehensible and should not be forgotten or excused.”

Do not mess with a Dromedary camel. Their mouths are adapted to eat whole pieces of prickly pear cactus, six-inch long needles and all. Watch this video by Camels and Friends if you don't believe me.

A zoologist on reddit chimed in on how this is possible:

Camel mouths are full of cone-shaped papillae that look like this. These protrusions are partly keratinised - keratin being the hard stuff your nails are made out of - which makes them tough n' semi-rigid, feeling a bit like the middle of tupperware lids when you squish 'em. The plastic-ey cones not only help protect the mouth from internal damage - scratches, abrasions etc. - when they feed on thorns and other nasties, but they also manipulate the food to go down in one direction.

Worth mentioning that modern camels wouldn't be eating cactus like this in the wild either; instead it'd be scrubby, thorny acacia bushes and the like. They also likely do feel some pain and discomfort eating this stuff, as much of their mouths - particularly their lips - are very sensitive, despite the papillae. Being metal as fuck though, camels just get on with it. They have an oddly voracious appetite for prickly pear and similar cacti native to North America, so clearly there's something about those plants that camels love, despite the irritating prickles. Makes them sort of sadomasochistic diners, really.

Anywho, the same sorts of papillae structures have independently evolved multiple times across the animal kingdom; notably inside the mouths and throats of leatherback turtles.

Oops! A driver in Santiago, Chile made two stupid mistakes at once when she tried to park. First, she confuses steps leading into a building for a parking lot entrance. Then she either forgets to put it in park or to apply the emergency brake. Read the rest

In steelworker parlance, a cobble is a bit of steel that catches on a roller during manufacturing.

Cobbles cause the molten steel coming out of the furnace to back up and snake wildly around.

This guy was lucky to be uninjured after a close call with a cobble. Read the rest

In Hamburg, NY, Kevin Karas' home surveillance camera captured a tornado touching down and lifting his car and pretty much everything else around it right up into the air. Read the rest

A group of BBC News journalists had to run for their lives when a volcanic eruption took place while they were filming on Mount Etna. Read the rest

"Check out what the backboard did to the shingles right behind it. Crazy, right?" Here's the uncropped picture: Read the rest

This thrilling stabilized video of Steve Storey tearing down a mountain bike trail reminds me of the speeder bikes ripping through the redwood trees on Endor. Only real.

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