We’re all gonna die someday. What will be our last tweet before we do? I found this pretty hilarious. Takes a look back at what might have been tweeted had twitter been around in years past.
A day rarely goes by without word of a new celebrity signing up to join the Twitter revolution. Everyone from mainstream personalities, like Shaq and Jimmy Fallon, to YouTube stars, like iJustine and Michael Buckley, are microblogging personal details that were formerly accessible only to the most ardent stalker/fan. Allowing celebrities to reach out to their fan base in such a direct manner must keep their management teams in high alert, which makes us wonder what would’ve happened if troubled stars from years past had known the power of Twitter. We did a little soul/Twitter searching and came up with a collection of “Famous Last Tweets” that sadly never were.
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A grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup always provided yummy comfort on cold days, but gastronomes haven’t stopped there. Check out ten mouthwatering extentions of our childhood favorite during April, which is National Grilled Cheese month. I’m kinda fiending for the first one, the $15 Grilled Cheese.
This stacked creation was born out of Ontario-based chef Randy Feltis’s adoration for exotic cheeses and thick-cut bread. Melted in between the garlic-, parsley- and butter-seasoned loaf lies a brilliant blend of brie, aged Cheddar, Italian Asiago and Havarti cheeses.
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Pluto: Proof that Size Matters (just $9.95) – modeled by Ashton
Almost three years ago, the general public was rocked by science: astronomers at the International Astronomical Union booted off Pluto from the list of planets orbiting the Sun. It’s just a "reclassification," these astronomers insisted, but we all know better. Pluto is Proof that Size Matters 
Okay, so it’s a couple of years late, but it’s still very funny. Here’s a new geeky T-shirt design by Chris Murphy (an excellent illustrator for print and web, by the way, if you’re ever interested in hiring one).
Link | More Fun Science T-shirts (perfect for the geek you love!)
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Star Trek- composed by Alexander Courage
Check out these opening lines: Beyond the rim of the starlight / My love is wand'ring in starflight. Even though the lyrics were never used, Roddenberry still got half the royalties for the theme. (Photo: Listening Post) The Simpsons - composed by Danny Elfman
To see his vision through, Groening approached composer Danny Elfman to write the opus, handing him a mix tape to help him get the idea. Highlights included The Jetsons theme, selections from Nino Rota's Juliet of the Spirits, a Remington electric shaver jingle by Frank Zappa, some easy-listening music by Esquivel, and a teach-your-parrot-to-talk record. After listening to it for a while, Elfman told Groening, "I know exactly what you're looking for." Apparently, he did. The Emmy-winning theme has been covered on screen by everyone from Yo La Tengo to Green Day. Jeopardy! - composed by Merv Griffin
Friends ("I'll Be There For You") - composed by Michael Skloff & Allee Willis and performed by The Rembrandts
When The Rembrandts agreed to record "I'll Be There For You" for the TV show Friends, they were little-known rock band that was happy to get the gig. Overnight, the theme became a sensation, earning The Rembrandts a Grammy nomination. Years later, band member Danny Wilde reflected, "We went from being a cool, cutting-edge band to a pop flavor-of-the-month." And just like that, the flavor was gone. By the end of the 1990s, there was so little demand for The Rembrandts' music that the band resorted to playing shopping malls, opening once for Richard Simmons. It wasn't their day, their month, or even their year. Bonus: The Legendary Soundman Behind Hollywood's Most Famous Noises
After taking his first (uncredited) job on the original Death Race 2000 in 1975, Burtt would go on to turn movie sound into an art. By capturing and manipulating ambient and mechanical noises, he created entirely new aural worlds. Here are a few of his trademark sounds. R2D2's Voice: Most movie fans think that the robot's voice is an elaborate creation of computer synthesizers, but it's actually a combination of Burtt whistling and making fart noises into an old tape recorder. The Clicks of Wall-E's Cockroach Pet: After experimenting with various synthesized animal noises, Burtt settled on accelerating the chatter of an irritated raccoon. The Star Wars Lightsaber: The hum and the clash of the lightsaber came from two malfunctioning devices - a broken television set tuned between two VHF channels and an idling film projector. Chewbacca's Voice: Although the fictional wookie looks all ape, his voice is based on the barks and grunts of dogs, mixed with the growls of lions and bears. Star Wars' T.I.E. Fighter: The roar of the evil Empire's fighters (the name stands for Twin Ion Engine) is actually the roar of an elephant. To add some length to the sound, Burtt layered in the buzz of his car driving on a wet road. Indiana Jones' Whip: The crack of Dr. Jones' whip is just that - the sound of Indiana Jones cracking his whip. During the making of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Burtt recorded Harrison Ford snapping the whip along a rural road in Marin County, California. To add a little more whoosh, Burtt dropped in the sound of a Harrier Jump Jet that flew by. |
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TV Theme Songs That Will Never Die is written by Bill DeMain, and The Legendary Soundman Behind Hollywood's Most Famous Noises is written by John Scott Lewinski. They are reprinted with permission from the Scatterbrained section of the May/June 2009 issue of mental_floss magazine. Be sure to visit mental_floss' entertaining website and blog for more fun stuff!
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The combined ratings were significantly lower — more immoral — when the survey was conducted in the presence of fart smell. Schnall’s team says that this demonstrates that our moral judgment is affected by disgust: we’re harsher in our moral judgments when we’re disgusted (a post-test confirmed that those who smelled the fart spray were significantly more disgusted than the others). Interestingly, the quantity of fart spray didn’t matter: despite the fact that everyone agreed that more fart spray smelled worse, the moral judgments weren’t different depending on how much spray was used.
Warning: Some examples from the questionnaire may be disturbing. Link
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The world’s first transgenic dogs are a litter of four cloned beagles that glow red under ultraviolet light. The puppies were cloned by a team led by scientists at Seoul National University in South Korea. They used a virus to infect canine fibroblast cells with the glowing gene, then cloned cells to produce 344 embryos implanted into 20 dogs, producing seven pregnancies.
A team led by Byeong-Chun Lee of Seoul National University in South Korea created the dogs by cloning fibroblast cells that express a red fluorescent gene produced by sea anemones.
Lee and stem cell researcher Woo Suk Hwang were part of a team that created the first cloned dog, Snuppy, in 2005. Much of Hwang’s work on human cells turned out to be fraudulent, but Snuppy was not, an investigation later concluded.
This new proof-of-principle experiment should open the door for transgenic dog models of human disease, says team member CheMyong Ko of the University of Kentucky in Lexington. “The next step for us is to generate a true disease model,” he says.
See also: Fluorescent cats, fish, pigs, and rabbits.
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The simplest dog trick in the world – but this dog does it exceptionally well!
– via joannecasey
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Got
a neat story? Share it with the world by writing your very own Neatorama
blog post with the Upcoming
Queue. Who knows, you might just win something ... 
Did
you know that the Star Trek theme music has lyrics? Neither did composer
Alexander Courage when he signed a deal to write the music. The fine print
gave the show's creator, Gene Roddenberry, the option to write words to
Courage's tune - and he did. 
From
the beginning, The Simpsons creator Matt Groening wanted his
show's song to be big. Here's how he put it: "The trend in TV themes
for the previous 15 years had been namby-pamby synthesizer schlock that
seemed to whimper, 'We can't offer you much, but please like our pathetic
little show.' I wanted a big orchestrated, obnoxious, arrogant theme that
promised you the best time of your life." (Photo: 
Game
show maven Merv Griffin knew what he was doing when he wrote the theme
song for Jeopardy. He later recalled, '[The Jeopardy
theme] is only 14 seconds. So I rewrote it in another key, [repeated it],
then added the 'bum-bump' to get it to 30 seconds, which was the amount
of time contestants needed for the Final Jeopardy answer. Now, it's played
at sporting events; I've played it with the Boston Pops. It's one of the
most lucrative themes in history." In 2006, Griffin estimated he'd
made $70 million in royalties from the tune.
If
you've seen Star Wars, Indiana Jones, or Wall-E, then
you know the work of Hollywood's most legendary sound designer, Ben Burtt.
(Photo: 
