Here are some of my favorites:

There’s Hadfield’s guide to brushing your teeth in space (and avoid getting toothpaste up your nose).

Here’s how to use a barf bag if the food floating in your stomach decides it wants to resurface.

Here’s how space life affects your vision (and check it out when he lets go of the microphone for a second and it just floats in front of him).

Here’s how to clean up a mess in space (which will just “float around until it runs into something”). Handy pieces of equipment: Baby wipes, goggles, “a Russian rag.”

And finally, here’s what happens when you cry in space. Hint: Tears do not fall on their own!

That was a plot point in the first Hangover movie, and now it’s a real-life story. The Salina Journal reports that last Saturday, a woman who’d gone to the circus went to the bathroom … and there was a tiger “at most two feet in front of me.” The tiger had escaped after its performance. The woman says, “I turned around calmly and walked back toward the door. Someone opened the door and said get out.”

And so she did.

In case this kind of thing should ever happen to you, here’s the advice of tiger expert Philip Nyhus, associate professor of Environmental Studies at Colby College.

1. “Stay calm. The tiger is probably just as surprised as you are.”

2. “You’d want a barrier between you and that tiger. There’s pretty much no good that comes from people and tigers coming together. If you have a door, close the door.”

3.  “Distance would be important. Keep your distance. Don’t get close.”

4.  “Don’t look like food: Don’t run with your back to the tiger. That may actually set off a tiger. A tiger is hard-wired from more than 10,000 years of evolution to run after small things and grab them by the neck and crush the vertebrae. So if you are facing the tiger, it is probably a good thing. Try and look big. Walk backward slowly.”

5.  “Call for help. Make noise.”

6.  If things aren’t going well: “Throw something at it to distract it.”

Above all, hope that the tiger is not a hungry tiger.

A tiger shows off its pearly whites. Photograph by Dilip Mehta, Contact Press Images/National Geographic.

You are an elephant activist.

Five years ago I got involved with elephants here in Los Angeles. There was a bull elephant at the zoo that was living a pretty stringent and brutal life. So I got involved because we were trying to free Billy from the L.A. Zoo. I had read a lot about elephants. I had feelings that elephants shouldn’t be in zoos. Probably no animals should, but least of all the big ones, and the elephant is the biggest. What the elephant endures living in captivity became a symbol to me—a very obvious symbol—of all the suffering we perpetrate.

Do you remember the first time you saw an elephant?

I do. In Detroit at the zoo. It was the Hall of the Elephants. There was only one elephant. I remember he or she was up in a big cage in a dank kind of cement building. I went up some stairs. The elephant was up there at the top. The little set of stairs made the elephant seem bigger and more majestic and yet kind of meager in that cage, in that dank, dark environment. I think it was more scary than enticing, probably because the elephant was indoors in this really confined, strange environment. I never loved zoos much as a kid. I liked the monkeys; kids always like the monkeys, I guess; they’re doing monkey antics. But big cats walking up and down in a cage—it’s pretty grim,

The documentary makes the point that some zoos, like the Oakland Zoo, have created big spaces for elephants to roam. Does that make you feel less anti-zoo?

Elephants should not be in captivity. There’s not enough room no matter what you say. But a zoo can be made better. A circus cannot, because they have to really dominate an elephant to teach them to stand on their head, ride a bicycle.

And now elephants are being slaughtered for their ivory.

All you can say to people is don’t buy ivory, don’t buy ivory objects, and lobby or sign petitions. And don’t go to zoos or circuses either, it just fosters bringing more elephants [into captivity].

What would your little girl character Edith Ann say about elephants?

We did some animated Edith Ann’s and we never got this one animated: Edith reads about elephants and what good mothers they are. And she wishes her mother was an elephant—Edith would be a lot happier, the elephant mother would take better care of her, be kinder. Then she imagines an elephant for a mother. They go to the supermarket, her mother knocks shelves over. They can’t get through the aisles, go out to the mall, she’s ruining stuff and causing havoc everywhere. So Edith Ann gets over [her wish for an elephant mother.] Maybe we’ll get to do it some day.

(Editor’s note: To read about the tragic slaughter of elephants for their tusks, see the National Geographic cover story from October 2012.)

The late, great astronomer, whose birthday is today, February 19, would perhaps be puzzled by Google – but only for a second. Nicolaus Copernicus was never one to shy away from new ideas (get a modern astronomer’s take on Copernicus).

If you’d like a little primer on why Copernicus deserves a doodle, we have one, courtesy of National Geographic’s 1974 salute to “Pioneers in Man’s Search for the Universe,” written by Thomas Y. Canby.

“The earth … lies right in the middle of the heavens,” the Greek astronomer Ptolemy asserted. His concept helped shackle men’s minds for more than a millennium. Then Nicolaus Copernicus, a scholarly and unassuming administrator in the Roman Catholic Church, triggered a revolution that dislodged earth—and man—from the center of the universe.

“Born in what is now Poland in 1473, Copernicus pursued a Renaissance education that equipped him as physician, lawyer, economist, mathematician, and astronomer. While serving as a canon at the cathedral at Frauenburg (now Frombork), he quietly studied the movements of the planets and stars and compiled a massive work propounding his radical views. Word of them gradually spread across Europe, but for religious and political reasons the reluctant revolutionary delayed publication until the year of his death, 1543.

“Then the world read the words that transformed the universe: ‘As if seated upon a royal throne,’ stated Copernicus, ‘the Sun rules the family of the planets as they circle round him.” At the same time he explained the alternation of day and night by the Earth’s rotation on its axis.’

“ ‘The fool wants to turn the whole science of astronomy upside down,’ Martin Luther is reputed to have warned. Copernicus did just that, and in doing so set astronomy free.”

NEXT: Modern Astronomer’s Take on Copernicus

With the exception of one (sensible) woman, the ladies stripped down to bathing suits for a complete (and quick) total immersion, staying under for what appeared to be a matter of seconds, then rushing out.

But one woman, Tierra, began shaking and gasping for air while her lips turned blue. Paramedics carried her off for medical attention. The word “hypothermia” was spoken. Or … was drama queen Tierra faking it for the camera?

Hypothermia is certainly a risk during a so-called “polar bear plunge,” says former Coast Guard physician Alan Steinman. But for most people, core body temperature won’t drop below normal until after half an hour or so, depending on an individual’s weight and body fat.

Assuming that The Bachelor did not edit the plunge segment, Tierra would not have been submerged long enough to develop hypothermia. But that doesn’t mean that she was faking it for the cameras.

A plunge into almost freezing water, Steinman says, will instantly “trigger a number of reflexes, called cold-shock reflexes.”

First there is a sudden gasp for air as the temperature drop significantly decreases the person’s ability to hold their breath. This, perhaps, was what triggered Tierra’s medical meltdown.

“Because of the danger of gasping for air, people should not dive into ice water headfirst,” Steinman says.

The plunge also triggers a sudden release of adrenaline, which increases heart rate and blood pressure.  After about a minute, the cold-shock will gradually fade as the heart rate begins to slow down and blood pressure tries to return to normal.

But the body is still reacting.

The contact between the cold water and the person’s skin will significantly constrict small blood vessels. This is a body’s defense mechanism to keep heat inside the body and preserve the vital organs.

Even if Tierra wasn’t suffering from hypothermia, could she have died from the cold shock?

There is a chance that the sudden outpour of adrenaline could trigger a fatal cardiac arrest, but Steinman notes that this is very rare and is more common for those with heart disease. Tierra not only survived the plunge, she survived the even more hazardous “rose ceremony” and will be back to stir up trouble in next week’s episode—and with no fear of the cold. The group is headed to St. Croix.

-Linda Poon

Product: Skechers GOrun2 shoes

Ad Description: A man comes from behind to stop a cheetah in hot pursuit of a gazelle. He tackles the cheetah and hog-ties the animal with its own tail. The ad ends with a fist-bump (hoof-bump?) between man and gazelle.

Question: Could a human outrun a cheetah?

Answer: Obviously not. But how far off are we? The fastest cheetah recorded, a cat named Sarah, ran 100 meters in 5.95 seconds. The reigning human record-holder for the 100-meter dash, Usain Bolt, ran that distance in 9.58 seconds. Sprinters will need more than new shoes to catch up with the fastest cat on earth. It’s taken Olympians over 100 years to shave about 3 seconds off the 100-meter record. If you want to see how fast a cheetah runs (in real time and in slow motion), check out this Nat Geo video.

-by Katia Andreassi

Product: Volkswagen Beetle

Ad Description: Dave’s carefree Jamaican-infused attitude and accent bewilder his coworkers—until they, too, take a ride in his new car and start talking the same way.

Question: What’s up with the Jamaican accent?

Explanation: The use of Jamaican English by a white character has spawned accusations of racism—but Jamaica’s government embraced the ad’s depiction of Jamaicans as a “hospitable” people. Jamaican English itself is a blend of several West African languages and British dialects of English, including a heavy dose of the Irish accent. And while some Jamaicans speak English with the well-known Jamaican accent, others tend toward Jamaican Creole, which blends English and the West African languages to the point that it becomes difficult for most speakers of English to understand. And how accurate was that accent in the ad? We asked University of Texas-Austin assistant professor Lars Hinrichs, who’s informally known as a “Germ-aican” due to his German heritage and study of  Jamaican English. Not bad, says Hinrichs, but it could use some work. “[Dave] says, ‘Sticky bun come soon!’ He should be saying, ‘Sticky bun soon come,’ ” says Hinrichs of a scene at a vending machine. “Jamaican” Dave does a good job using the so-called “trap” vowel—that “ah” sound that turns American “man” into Jamaican “mon”—and he turns “th” into “t” in the Jamaican way: “everything” Is “everyting” and “thousand” is “tousand.” But according to Hinrichs, Dave’s mention of his “bossman” at the end of the commercial is passé. That word is “no longer ‘cool,’ even though you hear it in reggae songs from the ’90s,” he says.

-by Sharon Jacobs

Product: Pepsi Next

Ad description: A teenager holding an unauthorized party is surprised by his parents, whom he tries to distract from the sight of a guest who’s been duct-taped to the ceiling (but comes loose and falls to the floor).

Question: Is duct tape really strong enough to hold a person to the ceiling?

Explanation: According to Scott Sommers, director of marketing for ShurTech  Brands—makers of the well-known “Duck Tape”—with enough rolls of tape, yes! It is technically feasible to stick someone to the ceiling. An experiment by the company found that a roll of duct tape can hold almost 800 pounds, which is equivalent to the weight of four adult males. In fact, for a 1995 story in National Geographic Magazine on how photographers get their images, natural history photographer Mark Moffett put the product to the test: In Panama for a story on the rain forest canopy, he duct-taped his feet to the platform of an observation tower so he could lean over and photograph his colleague at work. The strength of the tape comes from the layers of three main ingredients, including plastic for waterproofing purposes, a tough cloth mesh to make the material strong but easy to tear, and a rubber based product for the adhesive part. But Sommers warns that as tempting as it is to test the tape’s strength on humans, it is “absolutely not recommended.”

-by Linda Poon

Product: Coca Cola

Ad Description: Cowboys on horseback, a bus full of showgirls, and a motorcycle gang all race for a giant Coke bottle—leaving an Arab man and his camel in the dust.

Question: Is this portrayal of the Arab character an offensive stereotype?

Explanation: After revealing its ad to the public, Coke received complaints from groups including the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee and the Muslim Institute for Interfaith Studies, whose president bashed the portrayal of Arabs as “backward and foolish camel jockeys.” Says Jack Shaheen, professor emeritus of communications at Southern Illinois University, “The difficulty here is that this stereotype is so embedded that even a respectable ad agency failed to see that this is damaging.” Shaheen analyzed onscreen Arab stereotypes in the book and documentary Reel Bad Arabs. Coke has since indicated that additional ads will develop the Arab character—though it’s mum on the details beyond that he’s a movie star and that the ad is an homage to great movies of the past. “The agency was advancing a stereotype without thinking,” notes Shaheen, who is pleased with the response from Coke, as are many in the Arab-American community.

-by Sharon Jacobs

We wanted to recreate existing movie genres—the “age of sail” movie, the World War II flick, the modern “found footage” horror movie—and use them as familiar gateways into this new world of underwater historic fantasy, said the 26-year-old Reynolds.

Orchestrating five underwater film shoots seemed like a natural thing to do for a man with a love of mythology, an abiding affection for the ocean, and a penchant for biting off more than he could chew.

Reynolds’ drive to take on ambitious projects is evidenced by the first film he ever made. “I made my first flick at 17 with a £4,000 loan from the bank,” Reynolds wrote to Pop Omnivore in an email. “It was an hour-long sweeping medieval romance, complete with castles, knights on horseback, and a village that we [built] in a local farmer’s field.”

In film school, he ran into disappointment. “Nobody seemed to have the same desire to create on the same scale. It was all about trying to fit into a predefined idea of an industry. I knew nobody was ever going to give me the job I wanted, so I decided to make it myself.”

Reynolds dropped out after six months and started his own production company, Realm Pictures. Although the company takes paying gigs to keep the lights on, such as producing promotional videos for clients including the BBC and the 2012 Olympics, their primary focus is making the films they want to make. Reynolds’ previous movie, Zomblies, a 50-minute action flick, won Best Editing and Best Horror Film at the 2011 London Independent Film Festival.

“Zomblies was great fun,” wrote Reynolds. But he wanted more myth, more fantasy, more magic.

While trying to push his team to greater creative heights, Reynolds came up with the craziest idea he could think of. “Let’s set the whole thing underwater,” he recalls suggesting. “It was said in jest, but the idea lodged in my head like a splinter.”

The result was a two-year odyssey to create the Atlantis shorts.

“When we started, we weren’t planning on making some big environmental statement,” said Reynolds. “We were fascinated by the [ocean] and by the prospect of telling stories about it.” As the production crew immersed themselves in their new world, they saw more and more of the damage sustained by the marine environment.

Diving in the Red Sea and seeing the difference between unspoiled reefs and heavily impacted ones was an eye-opener, Reynolds said.

Crowd-sourced funds financed much of the work. National Geographic explorer-in- residence Sylvia Earle even contributed money through Kickstarter—a web site where people can contribute to projects they deem worthy.

None of the Kickstarter money went into paychecks for the cast and crew. “Most of that budget has gone on things like accommodation, catering, transport, props manufacture,” said Reynolds.

The shorts, released December 25 on YouTube, are teasers for a trilogy of feature length films Reynolds wants to make.

Reynolds can hardly contain himself when thinking about the seascapes and creatures he hopes to include in the full-length films. He’s especially taken with the football-sized vampire squid (Vampyroteuthis infernalis), which he came across while watching a BBC documentary.

“They’re terrifying. They are absolutely terrifying,” he said. “It has teeth instead of [suckers], it’s blood-red, its [got] glowing blue eyes. You don’t need to make stuff up when stuff like that exists,” Reynolds said.

Everyone involved with these films is tasked with keeping an eye out for anything to do with the oceans that might interest Reynolds and further the story. Sometimes Reynolds can’t believe how much amazing material is out there.

“Two-thirds of our planet is set in [the ocean], this world exists. Why go to a galaxy far, far away when the most amazing world is real and right here with us?”

—Jane J. Lee

Who knows? Well, Santa of course! But how can he possibly keep up with every kid’s behavior record. According to some sources, he gets that information from a middleman: the Elf on the Shelf.

As Christmas traditions go, Elf on the Shelf, is a relatively new addition. The idea, put forth in the 2005 book by Carol Aebersold and Chanda Bell, is that an elf literally sits on a shelf in the house, its eyes taking in all the naughty (or nice) things that children do. Each evening, when the kids are sleeping, the elf flies to the North Pole, is debriefed by Santa, and then returns before daybreak to continue the vigil.  The book and accompanying elf doll, sold as a package for about $30, have become wildly popular in the U.S., surpassed $16 million in sales last year.

Even though Elf on the Shelf is an American mass marketed tradition, it does have its roots in Christmas lore. In U.S. stories, the elves build the toys in Santa’s workshop. In other countries, the Christmas elf has a different sort of role – and definitely isn’t a tattletale!

GREECE

Name: Kallikantzari
Activity: These Christmas elves live under the earth, emerging only between Christmas day and the Epiphany (January 6). While above ground, they try to sneak into human homes and scare people.
Legend: Some say that children born during the Christmas season run the risk of becoming a kallikantzari.he Yule Lads live in Mt. Esja in Reykjavik. Their parents own the Christmas cat who eats children who are not lucky enough to receive new clothes before Christmas.

ICELAND

Name: Jólasveinar, the Yule Lads
Activity: These Christmas elves (sometimes called trolls) start coming to town on December 12, one lad a day, then depart starting Christmas day. They leave presents in children’s shoes.
Legend: The Yule Lads live in Mt. Esja in Reykjavik. Their parents own the Christmas cat who eats children who are not lucky enough to receive new clothes before Christmas.

SCANDINAVIA

Name: Nisse and Tomte
Activity: Often depicted as the stereotypical garden gnome, nisse and tomte are both versions of benevolent house elves who play pranks throughout the year. During Christmas they bring children presents and are left a bowl of porridge.
Legend: Supposedly only cats can see the nisse.

What other sort of creatures lurk about during the holiday season? Leave your ethnic elf tales in the comments.

-Katia Andreassi

Now the verdict is in: It was a hoax, concocted as an art project. Yet even a fake video can spark questions about the behavior of birds of prey. For answers, we spoke with Patrick Comins, director of bird conservation for Audubon Connecticut.

What was your reaction to the video?

I was fooled by it initially until someone pointed out that Kenn Kaufman, author of many field guides, had posted on his Facebook page that it’s not a golden eagle. He believes it’s either computer generated animation or a staged event using a falconer’s bird.

Do birds of prey actually swoop in to grab a snack?

It depends on the species. Some catch things in midair—falcons do that. Other birds dive into cover and grab, say, rodents.

Golden eagles will take their prey out in open country as will red-tailed hawks and the like. They have incredible vision. They can be up very high and swoop down unannounced on their prey and can be quite successful. Not every time but it’s the element of surprise.

How does a bird decide whether the prey is the right size to snatch?

I’m not sure anybody knows how birds think, but I suspect their judgment is based on how hungry they are and what other prey are available. Even for a golden eagle, among the top predators in the bird world, its preference would be things that [present a] very low risk of being hurt: marmots and rabbits and grouse and things like that. But they have been known to take rather large prey. You can find video of golden eagles taking mountain goats off the side of cliffs.

Those videos are real?

They are. I believe David Attenborough showed a clip like that in The Life of Birds. I suspect it’s specialized behavior—and an ingenious technique. The goat outweighs the bird. The bird drags it off the cliff, lets the [fall] kill the animal, then goes down and scavenges.

Do smaller animals have a chance of escaping an eagle’s grip?

[Birds of prey] have talons that are very powerful, sharp and long—as sharp as cat’s claws but much longer. When the bird clamps on [an animal], the bird’s feet lock and have to be actively opened. That grip can kill small prey. BIrds of prey have very powerful beaks as well and will often use that as a killing implement.

Should humans ever fear a bird of prey?

Birds of prey are generally pretty shy of humans, and humans are a much greater threat to them – killing them and [causing] habitat loss. Birds of prey have good reason to be afraid of humans. Most cases [in which a bird of prey attacks a human] involve someone going up a ladder to the nest. Certain birds of prey are quite defensive of their nest.

There is one bird that is considered dangerous to humans. It’s not a raptor at all. It’s the cassowary, from Australia—a large ostrich-like bird with a very sharp toe used for self-defense. They have a reputation for being pretty cranky.

The other one that is sometimes dangerous is a mute swan. There are reports of them breaking the legs of people who get near their nest. They’re very large, with a wing span up to 94 inches and [a weight of] 24 to 26 pounds. They use their wings and bill to attack. They’re not a native species to North America. The rest of our swans are relatively docile.

So humans shouldn’t be too worried about birds of prey. What about our pets?

Great horned owls are notorious cat predators—whether it’s for food or to eliminate competition or because they just don’t like cats.

-Marc Silver

The real-life Quileute Nation faces more risk from flooding and tsunamis than from vampires—rising sea levels threaten the single square mile that comprises the tribe’s reservation, located alongside the Pacific Ocean in La Push, Washington. Barbara Brotherton, curator of Native American art at the Seattle Art Museum, joined the Quileute community on Oct. 25 in celebrating new legislation, introduced nearly two years ago and signed Feb. 27, to return 785 acres of higher, safer land to the Quileute from nearby Olympic National Park.

Brotherton, who is not Quileute, brought an exhibit on the tribe to the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., earlier this year: “Behind the Scenes: The Real Story of the Quileute Wolves.” Pop Omnivore spoke with her and learned a few things about the tribe.

The tribe really does have a wolf connection.

“Wolves are central to their identity,” says Brotherton. The Quileute origin story tells of a “changer” called Kwati who turned a pair of wolves into humans on First Beach—the same beach where, in the “Twilight” story, the Quileute make a pact with the Cullen clan of vampires.

Quileute warriors traditionally belonged to a secret society called the Wolf Society. “They wore elaborate headdresses and had days-long initiations, and their most important cultural ceremonies have to do with being given power by wolves,” says Brotherton. Though other Quileute secret societies used to exist, the Wolf Society is the only one that has endured. New initiates—generally high-school-age, like “Twilight” ’s Jacob Black—learn the rhythmic wolf dance and eventually wear the society’s headdress, shaped like a wolf’s head.

The Quileute do believe in supernatural creatures—just not vampires.

“There are lots of legends about the creation of the landscape and the other supernatural creatures who inhabit it,” says Brotherton. Thunderbird, said to be big enough to carry a whale, lives in the Olympic Mountains, and Dask’iya, a child-eating ogress with kelp for hair, lives in the rivers.

The Quileute speak an endangered language

Jacob briefly says some words in the Quileute language in the “New Moon” installment of the Twilight series. In real life, he’d have a hard time finding a conversation partner. According to Brotherton, there is only one fluent speaker alive. But with help from linguists, the Quileute are doing their best to keep their language from dying out: “The elders started a school in 1970, and since then they’ve had language learning,” says Brotherton. Quileute is unrelated to any other living language—and the tribe has made it a priority to hold onto this singular aspect of its culture.

Reactions to the “Twilight” series have been mixed

In recent years, the Quileute’s La Push reservation has been seeing an influx in Twi-tourists. Many tribe members have welcomed the visiting fans, introducing them to Quileute customs, and the reservation’s small resort has hosted them. But the Quileute community’s feelings about the series vary. “Some of the elders we worked with said, ‘Well, we know it’s fiction, we know who we are,’ ” says Brotherton. Other tribe members were offended by the transformation of their origin story and Wolf Society into a fantasy werewolf connection.

Brotherton suspects “Twilight” helped the Quileute cause in this year’s land legislation. “There were several vocal lawmakers who worked closely with the Quileute and were aware of their notoriety” from the films, she says, “and then because of this, aware of some of their issues.” -Sharon Jacobs