Best Of MetaFilter

"Everyone's favorite mystery text, the Voynich Manuscript, is finally getting careful attention from leading medievalists": Pleasant_confusion posted A new approach to the Voynich Manuscript.

pursued by a Hartz?

chavenet's post on I Understand Thee, and Can Speak Thy Tongue: California Unlocks Shakespeare’s Gibberish, is not only a cool theory about the mystery language in "All’s Well That Ends Well," it also sets the stage (the STAGE, get it?) for the official winner of this week's Best Dad Joke Pun Using Third Person Plural Present Tense Latin in 16th Century Stage Instruction. Congratulations, Ishbadiddle!

Nextplay Glitz and Glitter Boombox

For more than two years, the world of lost media has been flummoxed by 17 seconds of grainy audio uploaded to a small name-that-song site ... until now.

oneirodynia asked about their persistent, shifty, Mystery House Smell, and answerers have offered an alarming number odorific tips, including sol's experiences with sewer or waste water/drain pipes and a great link to a related article (see the Metafilter post on Man Called Fran, the best article on forensic plumbing you ever likely to read), and samthemander's link to their own successful obnoxious odor outcome. Our noses await new news on this one!

keyhole face 2 by leketoys (cc by)

In Ask Metafilter, darchildre is looking for locked room mysteries in any medium

This week for Metatalktail Hour, the primroses were over asks about local mysteries.

Recommended: Magpie Murders

In Ask Metafilter, I'm an Agatha Christie adaptation addict, who's run out of Agatha Christie adaptations to watch. Please help. Unicorn chaser is looking for "that Christie vibe."

image via Miss T.Horn

My great-uncle was in a cell in the French Resistance during WWII ... An intriguing question about a 50-year old mystery photo location from Miss T.Horn, and a fabulous answer 37 minutes later by essexjan.

Photo by whitewall

An interesting discussion on the origins of some printed mystery notations in a 1966 Penguin book: "The bottom of page 33—and only page 33 – in my 1966 Penguin edition of Saul Bellow’s “Seize the Day” has “T—S.T.D.—B” written on the bottom left, opposite the page number. What does it stand for?"

The Songsmiths Quartet

Great detective work to chase down a vintage musical mystery in Ask Metafilter!

LBJ by Michael C Clark (cc by)

In Ask Metafilter, "Diseases can be idiopathic. Archaeological artefacts can be for ritual purposes. What are some other technical-sounding terms from other fields that means 'we're really not sure'?"

Scene of the crime (novels) at Hay on Wye by Ian-S (cc by-nc)

In Ask Metafilter, There have been many mystery novel questions but this one is mine...

HSBC advert by Arenamontanus (cc by)

In Ask Metafilter, what's more fun than a mystery list?

A bold face: 266 West 11th Street (1887), Greenwich Village, New York by Spencer Means (cc by-sa)

In Ask Metafilter, Fiasco da Gama has an illuminating answer for jolenex4's investigation into the mystery of Miss Strange and the fanlight over the door.