The following is a Whodunit by Hy Conrad featuring Sherman Oliver Holmes, a mysterious crime solver and great-great-grandson of Sherlock Holmes. Can you solve the crime?

(Image credit: Flickr user Yumi Kimura)

Here's a little backstory on our hero:

No one knew where Sherman Oliver Holmes came from or how he'd gotten his money. One day, Capital City was just your run-of-the-mill metropolitan area. The next day, a short, rotund millionaire in a deerstalker cap began showing up at crime scenes, claiming to be the great-great-grandson of Sherlock Holmes and offering his expert opinion.
      
Sergeant Gunther Wilson of the Major Crimes Division was irritated by how often this eccentric little man with the southern drawl would appear within minutes of a grisly murder and stick his nose into official police business. What disturbed Wilson even more was the fact that this eccentric little man was nearly always right.
      
"The loony should be committed," Wilson had been heard to say on more than one occasion. "He always has some outlandish theory. I'd sign the commitment papers myself Đ if I didn't have a soft spot for him." But Wilson didn't have a soft spot. What he did have was a phenomenal record for solving cases, thanks in large part to his "loony" friend.
      
To his credit, Sherman wasn't much interested in taking credit. As far as the public was concerned, the Capital City police were simply doing a better job than ever before. So Sergeant Wilson decided to swallow his pride and befriend the exasperating, unique little gentleman who had nothing better to do than pop up like a fat rabbit and do the work of an entire detective squad.

And now, the Bus Station Bomber.

"Where have you been?" Sergeant Wilson stepped around the burned and mangled debris of what had been the rear wall of the Capital City bus terminal. "I thought you must be sick."

Gunther Wilson was secretly dependent on Sherman Holmes's habit of showing up uninvited at crime scenes. He certainly wasn't used to waiting three hours for the odd, pudgy millionaire to make an appearance.

"Sorry, old man." Sherman sniffled. "I haven't been myself. Spring allergies."

Wilson pointed to a four-man squad arranging charred bits of metal on a white sheet. "The bomb was in a locker. It went off at three P.M. There were a few injuries, but nothing serious. The mechanism was an old wind-up clock wired to two sticks of dynamite. It was triggered by the alarm mechanism hitting the '3'."

"Do you have a motive?"

"Not a clue. My guess is he did it for the thrill, like some of the sick arsonists we've dealt with lately."

No words to explain this we have.

Ren Netherland of Animal Photography took these photos below and many other excellent examples of creative dog grooming. He travels thousands of miles each year criss-crossing America to document our country's most extreme grooming competitions.

The Force is clearly with this Yoda dog (who da dog? Yoda dog!):

All of the dogs have been sheared and coloured to achieve the final look. Contestants at the grooming competitions visited by Mr Netherland included a dog dressed as the characters of Sesame Street, one dressed as Yoda from Star Wars and another dressed as different Disney characters.

Other dogs were dressed as tigers, elephants, robots, lions, dragons, and exotic birds. It takes two intense hours for the groomers to produce their masterpieces before facing judges. 

Mr Netherland said: 'The owners have to grow out their dog's hair in preparation for the show - so that it's long enough for them to make something. 'They train and rehearse throughout the year in preparation for the competition, whittling their creation down to a fine art.

'The best thing for spectators is that when the poodles fist come onto the stage, they just look like normal poodles. Suddenly they are transformed before your eyes into something colourful and completely different. The dogs seem to enjoy the pampering and all the attention.' 

View more over at the Daily Mail, which also has a neat Barcroft TV interview with Netherland: Link | Gallery at USA Today's For The Win

(Video Link)

It's the eye of the winter it's the thrill of white walkers...his intense facial expressions really work for this sort of thing.

Via Buzzfeed

Compulsively Awesome Wet Wipes

Attention neat freaks. You are not obsessive you are just compulsively awesome! Celebrate your love of clean with the Compulsively Awesome Wet Wipes from the NeatoShop. This great pack comes with 10 melon and minced cucumber scented wipes for your hand and spot cleaning pleasure. 

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Health & Wellness items. 

Link

The creators of Sesame Street have always kept up with modern issues facing today's children. They've tackled hunger, divorce, military deployment, and even loss of a friend. Now, the lesson turns to incarceration.

Meet Alex, the muppet whose dad is in jail:

According to a Pew Charitable Trusts report, one in 28 children in the United States now has a parent behind bars -- more than the number of kids with a parent who is deployed -- so it’s a real issue, but it’s talked about far less because of the stigma.

That’s why the Sesame Workshop says it created the “Little Children, Big Challenges: Incarceration” initiative, an online tool kit intended to help kids with a parent in prison find support and comfort, and provide families with strategies and tips to talk to their children about incarceration.

Alex is blue-haired and green-nosed and he wears a hoodie – you might think he’s just another carefree inhabitant of Sesame Street. But there’s sorrow in Alex’s voice when he talks about his father.

“I just miss him so much,” he tells a friend. “I usually don’t want people to know about my Dad.”

It’s easier for kids to hear such things from a Muppet than an adult, creators of the initiative noted.

A. Pawlowski of TODAY has more: Link

You've seen those reality TV shows in which someone goes away for a week and some expert team comes in and organizes/redecorates/remodels their home. That's the way I felt when I saw Neatorama's Pinterest site! Jill Harness has remodeled, reorganized, and added a lot of things that make our Pinterest boards easier to see, use, and share. Tell your Pinterest friends about the changes, and get ready for more "Pin to Win" contests coming soon from Neatorama! Link

Narly the Narwhal by Amanda Flagg

You can't go wrong with the unicorn of the sea, especially one as cute as Narly the Narwhal in this nifty T-shirt by Amanda Flagg.

Check out her official website and Twitter then head on over to her Neatoshop page: Link. Your purchase helps support indie artists like Amanda as well as this blog!

Welcome to Woodbury	Hippo Potty Mouth	Diamonds Are Forever	Z is for Zombie

View more designs by Amanda Flagg | More Funny T-shirts

Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop, earn generous royalties, and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!

This great 8-bit Mario cake by DeviantArt user I-Am-Ginger-Pops is so delightfully true to the original game's style that I can't help but get the Mario noises and soundtracks in my head.

Link

Would you wear this pair of stockings? This picture has gone viral on China's Sina Weibo social networking site as an answer to sexual harassment, although the reaction is laughter and quips that they may attract more attention than they repel. Link

Cumberbatch. It's not that hard to spell, right? Cumberbatch. See? Now say it three times into a mirror.

-via Nerd Approved

(Image: unknown)

(vimeo link)

I can't think of anything more intriguing and terrifying than the description that comes with this video.

Bored of being in a dark room, she flips on the light, opens the door and bails.

This particular episode takes place at 1am.

This is why we keep doors locked with her around. We don't need her harassing the neighbors.

And yes, Julius is female, with a male name. Wanna make something of it? -via Metafilter

Temperatures at the dark craters of the north pole of Mercury can dip to
as low as 370 degrees below zero.
Image: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab/Carnegie Institution of Washington

There's Ice in Mercury

Of all the planets in the Solar System, Mercury is the closest to the sun. You'd naturally think that it's also the hottest, but it's not (that distinction belongs to Venus). Oh, no doubt Mercury can get quite hot - its surface temperature can reach up to 800 °F, but at the poles, its temperature never gets above freezing. That's where NASA's Messenger Spacecraft found a large volume of water ice - estimated to be 100 billion to 1 trillion tons of ice, actually.

Maat Mons, the highest volcano on Venus. Image: NASA/JPL

It Snows Metal on Venus

Snowcapped mountains on Earth are majestic, but they're by no means unique in our Solar System. Venus has its own snowcapped mountains, but instead of water, the "snow" is made of heavy metals like lead sulfide (galena) and bismuth sulfide (bismuthinite).

Olympus Mons on Mars. Image: NASA/JPL

Mars has the Tallest Mountain in the Entire Solar System

Let's skip Earth for now and head on over to Mars. If you think our Mount Everest is tall, check out the Olympus Mons on the Red Planet. At about 14 miles (22 km) tall, it's three times as tall as Mount Everest's height above sea level. It's pretty big, too. Olympus Mons is approximately the size of Arizona.

(Video Link)

Volcano photographer Marc Szeglat assures us that this man running up a visibly flowing stream of lava at Mount Etna "was very experienced and knew what he was doing." How do you get experienced at this skill? What kind of learning curve is involved?

Link | Videographer's Website

King of the Who -Monty Python & the Holy Grail Tribute is the latest art print from Chet Phillips. If you are a fan of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, you can probably recite all the lines in the movie, just not in any particular order. The most memorable of those lines are right here in this 11x14 print, available signed by the artist at Etsy! However, if it's not your favorite film, there are also similar tributes to O Brother Where Art Thou and The Princess Bride available, too. Link -Thanks, Chet!

Superman Shield Night Light

Do you know someone who is afraid of things that go bump in the night? Enlist the help of the mild mannered Superman Shield Night Light from the NeatoShop. This great night light is ready to shine the light of justice on the darkest of rooms. 

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Lamps & Lights. 

Link 

(Video Link)

Christopher Jobson describes Anthony Howe's sculptures as "hypnotic." That's just the right word to describe his metal forms that change shape in the wind. This one, entitled "About Face," is my favorite. With 100 spinning copper panels, this face is constantly changing its expression.

You can view many more sculptures with videos at the link--and I suggest that you do so.

Link -via Colossal | Photo: Elizabeth Rudge

(YouTube link)

Two of the most popular things on the internet are robots and cats. So wouldn't it be wonderful to have a robot cat? Researchers at Switzerland's École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EFPL) have developed a prototype robot that walks and runs like a cat. They say it is very stable and fast.

"This morphology gives the robot the mechanical properties from which cats benefit," explains EPFL's Alexander Sproewitz, "that's to say a marked running ability and elasticity in the right spots, to ensure stability. The robot is thus naturally more autonomous."

There is one problem I see …that thing does not have a head! It will be hard to become attached to and serve a feline overlord who can't even turn his nose up at you. -via The Week

TheClayPony created this adorable K9 necklace with polymar clay. I'm willing to bet the late Sarah Jane would be thrilled to get her hands on this great fashion accessory.

Link

This custom console by Arcade Controls forum member griffindod provides a barrel of fun. He made it in the hope of turning his hobby into a profitable enterprise:

Every time friends or family see my builds they always say the same thing "Oh you should make these and sell them", to which my answer is always the same "It's just not worth the man hours for what I could charge". With that being said there are people quite successfully making bar tops and selling them on a regular basis, and, I assume, turning a profit of some kind.

So, I thought I'd have a go at a 'Build-to-sell' project, trying to maximize the value of the finished product while keeping a very tight record of all of my costs and time to see how practical it is to build for profit. The goal is to build something fun and desirable to a decent standard, while keeping costs and man-hours to a minimum.

You can see more photos at the link.

Link -via Obvious Winner

Sure, you admire the Old Masters, but there are plenty of accomplished artists from the past 100 years -enough to fill an alphabet! Andy Tuohy designed this poster featuring 26 modern artists, representing each letter of the alphabet. Some you know; others you should look up. The poster is for sale, too. Link -via Everlasting Blort

DeviantART member Silvia7 went as Lady Rainicorn and her daughter Lizzie as BMO for some cosplay fun. Then they found another, bigger BMO! That's good because sometimes BMO seems lonely.

Link

How much did you pay for your last sneakers? Probably not as much as these sneaker afficionados did. Sneakerheads, as they're called, collect and trade rare sneakers that can run up to the thousands of dollars:

Two teenage boys eye rows upon rows of sneakers, sizing each up for rarity and signs of use. One of the boys points to a pair of limited-edition Nike Yeezys and said he is buying them for a friend.

"How much is he paying for it?" asks the seller, 15-year-old Alex Asfar.

"16," the boy responds.

When they say "16," they mean $1,600.

"16, there you go," Alex said, counting the wad of cash and handing over the shoes.

Darren Rovell and Brandon Baur of ABC Nightline report: Link

(YouTube link)

We now know that many dinosaurs had feathers; the question is, why? They couldn't fly, but for some reason, they developed fluff that eventually became feathers. There must have been some benefits from the plumage that eventually helped birds to fly. One of my favorite science writers, Carl Zimmer, explains how this may have happened. -via Geeks Are Sexy 

I got the drinks like Jabba...I got the driiiiinks like Jabba. Oh, and the cookies that look like Han Solo in carbonite. Of course, if anyone ever tells you they love this coffee break treat, you can only respond by saying, "I know."

Link

To celebrate the milestone of a million Facebook likes, Matthew Inman asked people to post their profile pictures to his Facebook page, so he could make cartoons of them. See the top ten photos and the cartoons he created at The Oatmeal. Link -via Laughing Squid

Poppin' Hot Oven Mitt

Are your cakes and cookies fragile? Pull your delicate delectable delights carefully out of your piping hot oven with the Poppin' Hot Oven Mitt from the NeatoShop. This hilarious oven mitt is designed to look like bubblewrap. The mitt is made from temperature tolerant silicone. 

Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more great Kitchen Stuff. 

Link

Neatoramanaut Anton Hecht shares with us this nifty animation of the Angel of the North, printed across the palms of 350 participants, to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the giant sculpture.

The Angel of the North, a sculpture by Antony Gormley in Gateshead, England, is a gigantic 66-ft tall steel sculpture with wingspan of 177 ft. Why an angel? Gormley replied:

"People are always asking, why an angel? The only response I can give is that no-one has ever seen one and we need to keep imagining them. The angel has three functions - firstly a historic one to remind us that below this site coal miners worked in the dark for two hundred years, secondly to grasp hold of the future, expressing our transition from the industrial to the information age, and lastly to be a focus for our hopes and fears - a sculpture is an evolving thing."

Image: David Wilson Clarke/Wikimedia

Hit play or go to Link [YouTube] - Thanks Anton!

The elevators at the headquarters of Amazon Japan look fun to ride, but you'll regret using them if you haven't secured free shipping. You should also check the reviews before stepping inside.

Link

(Photo: Copy Writing)

(YouTube link)

Last night, Miss Connecticut, Erin Brady, won the Miss USA pageant. But she will not be the contestant that gets the most publicity out of the evening. If you recall the Miss Teen USA pageant of 2007 at all, it's the moment Miss Teen South Carolina, Lauren Caitlin Upton, answered her interview question. She didn't win, but she is still the most famous contestant from that pageant ever. Now it is possible that Marissa Powell, Miss Utah, will go down in history as the most memorable interviewee from the Miss USA pageant. Yes, we all know that it is difficult to collect your thoughts under pressure, but if you can make any sense out of this response, you've got the rest of us beat. -via BroBible

Dorothy Baker-Flugence of Baytown, Texas and two of her children were in her van when a carjacker appeared in the backseat. He threatened them with a knife. Mrs. Baker-Flugence said, "You messed with the wrong witch*" and went into action:

"She got the knife," Flugence said. "She got a cut that goes across her chest. She grabbed the knife and he bit her hand."

Police say the woman ran her van intentionally off the road trying to disorient the attacker. She was hoping that a 911 dispatcher would hear what was going on, and find a way to sent help. But when she saw a telephone pole, she sped up and targeted it, feeling it was a risk she had to take.

"I thought, 'If you swerve and hit the pole, he's not wearing a seatbelt, he'll go through the windshield or at least hit his head, and you can stop him. You can do something to make sure that he doesn't hurt your kids,'" Dorothy Baker-Flugence said. "That's all I was thinking of really, was just to get him away from my kids."

Police add that Baker-Flugence punched the man in the face and when she stopped, he jumped out of the vehicle. That's when she reportedly turned the tables and ran over him.

That's the way we do it in Texas.

Link -via Gawker | Image: KTRK

*She probably used a different word.