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What Is It? game 318

Now it's time for our collaboration with the awesome What Is It? Blog! What is this thing? You don't have to know to win!

Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many as you'd like. You might know the true answer, but we're going to select two winners who come up with the funniest, most outlandish guesses to win a T-shirt from the NeatoShop. However...

Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize, okay? May we suggest the Science T-Shirt, Funny T-Shirt and Artist-Designed T-Shirts?

Check out the other mystery items, too, at the What Is It? Blog. Good luck!

Update: This is a lawn mower blade balancer.It is used after sharpening the blade to ensure that each half of it weighs the same. You can see a video of the process at the What Is It? blog. We, of course, were looking for imaginative but wrong answers. Tapisbis had a good one,

It's one of the first artificial Christmas trees. Before plastics became common, scientists searched for viable artificial Christmas trees, this early tin example was quite popular although balancing the ornaments on the shelves proved challenging after a couple of eggnogs.

Which is deserving of a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! Another one goes to Warren Auld, who said it was “Archimedes drain plug. Also the reason he suddenly shouted ‘Eureka!’” Ha! Thanks to everyone who played this week, and thanks to the What Is It? blog.


Comments (31)

Newest 5
Newest 5 Comments

First sundial that had the "ish" feature. Times could now be told in the ever so popular "3-ish", "5-ish", etc...

How To Believe in Yourself
large
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First prototyped model of the great pyramid of Giza. Unfortunately, on the day of construction, the lathe got stuck in the sand.

Kamaji natural L
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It's one of the first artificial Christmas trees. Before plastics became common, scientists searched for viable artificial Christmas trees, this early tin example was quite popular although balancing the ornaments on the shelves proved challenging after a couple of eggnogs.

Asterisk Small Black
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While it is certainly a spent Minie Ball (do I get credit for being the first to spell it correctly?). Perhaps it is the famous one that supposedly got a woman pregnant after passing through a soldiers testes.

Mad Scientist XL
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It's a civil-war-era coprolite; further scientific analysis revealed that the individual that made the *ahem* deposit, was in fact full of the stuff.

Typebike, XL, Ash Gray
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Alternate theory, perhaps the marks on it are from it being bitten during some battlefield surgery. Researching famous bullet-bitings right now.

Mad Scientist XL
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That is a long-range cordless drill circa 1860. They were eventually replaced by modern battery powered models due to lack of accuracy in hole position and the need to buy a completely new tool to drill different sized holes.
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Unicorn Coprolite. It is a little known fact that although officially neutral the government of Unicorn Island secretly sent large supplies of the stuff from their ancient prancing grounds to the Union Army for use as ammunition and are at least partially responsible for the victory over the Confederates.

Request Denied Medium Navy.
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It's the lumbar vertebrae from the lesser giant tree hamster of Pago Pago. Thankfully, they went extinct in 1953. Notoriously prone to stowing away, they wreaked havoc aboard wooden sailing vessels by gnawing straight through the hull below the waterline. Great numbers of them were lost at sea, until eventually their numbers could not be sustained due to their relatively long gestation. Since their extinction, boat captains have enjoyed the reprieve from losing their craft.

Occam's Razor T-Shirt
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As others have stated it is a Minié ball (Civil war era ammunition) but more specifically it is a Union one. The Union used ones with 3 groves where as the Confederates used ones with 2 groves.
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Sorry, didn't see the rule not to link to your blog and I don't know how to remove that info. I'm just used to typing it in, everywhere. Not trying to get

Here's my comment without link:

Looks like a minie ball to me, Civil War era, not in the best of shape. The number of grooves (which are kind of hard to see because it's so pitted) make it look like a Union minie ball I own.
eople to link up.
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Oh, it's a minie ball. you can actually buy them, or replicas of them, at the Civil War Museum in Gettysburg, PA. This one looks special though. Is it the one that killed Ms. Wade, the only civilian death during the battle of Gettysburg?

(if it is, can I have a Great Vocab Did Not Save the Thesaurus size S?)
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It's a piece of roman aged fossilized human poo (coprolite), found in Gloucester recently and touched by many school children. And is currently housed in Gloucester city museum, UK. :D

Comic Skull and Cross Bones, Medium - merci
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This an amazing piece of history! A patient was severely constipated, unable to have a bowel movement for almost a year. Doctors tried every remedy they could but to no avail. Eventually P.T. Barnum decided he would have the answer to the poor patient's troubles and brought in a (probably doctored) photograph of Abraham Lincoln wearing his trademark stovepipe hat and a pink mankini. The image was so frightening to the patient his bowels suddenly constricted, shooting out this piece of poop which injured a nurse before embedding itself in the wall. This piece is now in a museum and is the origin of the term "sh*ttin' bricks"!

Average Bear T-shirt
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This is the result of the first attempt to build a paper plane, ever.

Sadly it did not work.

I'd go for the "I Survived The Large Hadron Collider - S"
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Whitcwa is correct. This is NOT Minnie's balls, but one of Mickey's balls. They were removed at mouse-puberty by ol' Walt to maintain Mickey's trademark, high-pitched squeaky voice.

Come to the dark side we have cookies... med, black
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Its a biting bullet. I usually like to make up a wild story, but the teeth marks attest to the human suffering endured by soldiers past, present and future. During the civil war a soldier was gravely wounded and surgery was performed this was used in place of anesthetic. I don't recomend you chew on led, but to leave teeth marks this deep shows you that whatever the poor sould endured, it was bad. Yes , it is a minie ball, a great leap in balistics that tactics failed to make, so the carnage of the times was multiplied.
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This object is pictured smaller than actual size. It is the space vessel used in the Georges Melies' 1902 classic film "A Trip to the Moon" (Une Voyage dans la Lune). It was recovered during the Apollo moon landings by taking it apart to fit inside each lunar module and returned to earth where it was painstakingly reassembled. Send me the "I Do What The Voices in My Wife's Head Tell Me" t-shirt in XL, serene green please.
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This is a mousetrap and petrified cheese from an ancient Egyptian pyramid. It reveals the real reason for the Egyptian's supreme adoration of the feline. And cat's have been riding on this superstardom for too long!
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