Chicago resident Micah Uetricht decided to put the Polar Vortex to use and have some fun by throwing a few pots of boiling water in the air and watching it freeze. He did this alongside his girlfriend while standing on his balcony, and each time the water blew back at him (hitting both of them), proving that one thing more dangerous than cold air is cold, moving air.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel fractured her pelvis cross-country skiing over the Christmas holiday. Her spokesman told the New York Times that he does "not believe she was going very fast" at the time of the accident.

It had been a year since Redditor Duncanconstruction last saw his family, and a lot had happened in that time. For instance, he lost 130 pounds.

About one month after Saturday Night Live publicly announced its search to find a black woman on planet Earth, one such woman—Sasheer Zamata—has been added to the cast as a featured player. Deadline reports the Upright Citizens Brigade veteran will make her debut on the January 18th SNL episode hosted by Drake, whose appearance hopefully has already been booked and is not contingent upon Zamata knowing his phone number and being able to get in touch with him because they are both black. She is the cast's first black female member since Maya Rudolph's departure in 2007.

A "terrible cycle of violence and thuggery" is ravaging Omaha, Nebraska, according to the Omaha Police Officers Association. What is a thug, though? Well, the police boosters know one when they see one. In this case, it's a diapered toddler in a crazy cellphone video.

Atlantic writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, who is something of a public intellectual himself, today declares that MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry is "America's foremost public intellectual." Hmm.

With last week's passing of beloved Fresh Prince of Bel-Air patriarch James Avery, all media eyes were on the social networking accounts of the Fresh Prince himself, Will Smith.

If you read only one gripping, short first-person essay trying to make sense of how America's last significant gains in a dumb war were reversed last week, make it "Tell Me Again, Why Did My Friends Die in Iraq?" by Paul Szoldra.

Fox Business reports that AOL tried to buy Business Insider late last year for "between $100 million and $150 million," but failed because BI wanted "a more lucrative offer." Wellll, how about if they threw in a Wikipedia page? Ehh?

On last night's episode of the U.K.'s Celebrity Big Brother, heavyweight champ and Arthur remake actor Evander Holyfield said some barely intelligible nonsense about gay people, namely that homosexuality is a choice, like being "handicapped," and fixable.

It's a question that's been asked since time immemorial: Could a woman create an online dating profile "so loathsome that no man would message it"?

Jet Blue is ending service to all NYC-area airports and to Boston at 5 p.m. today and not resuming until 10 a.m. tomorrow, due to weather. That's more than 300 cancelled flights. Type your tales of woe in the discussion section, travelers.

On Monday, Bao Bao, the National Zoo's new panda cub, made her debut for the Washington DC media. As you can see, it didn't go well. But the five-month-old cub has some time to practice: She won't appear in public until later this month.

Safety is paramount, people. You never point a gun unless you intend to kill whatever you're aiming at. Now, let New York's top public safety official show you how to kill the shit out of that Powerpoint presentation and freak out our friends from Europe.

Politifact would like you to know that no, Obamacare is not going to impose executions by beheadings in America. Yet. Wink wink!

An actor who was hired by the University of Virginia to play a patient so he could be "diagnosed" by medical students turned out to actually have the deadly condition he was pretending to have.

so NAFTA such gateway drug much Colorado wow

"Should Beyoncé choose to settle in the world of Adult Contemporary one day, she'll have most of the legwork already done." - Pitchfork's Carrie Battan on Beyonce's BEYONCÉ, which earned a rating of 8.8.

Greetings from the Polar Vortex! No, that's not the name of your favorite new dubstep band. It's the terrifying swirl of arctic winter currently occupying the Midwest and poised to consume the rest of you poor bastards.