So far, three Republican presidential hopefuls have won one state primary or caucus each. Eventually, only one will be selected for the presidential race. Mental_floss looks back into previous election races for today’s Lunchtime Quiz. You will be given ten politicians who ran for president unsuccessfully in the past, and you try to recall whether they ever won a state primary race or not. It’s not easy! I was surprised to score 60%. Link

On the morning of August 16, the eight remaining planes queued up for their opportunity. They drew lots for flight order and took off one by one. As people cheered, things went bad in a hurry.

One plane, the El Encanto, simply shot off the edge of the runway, and tumbled over her wing. Another the Pabco Flyer got into the air… until she didn’t, landing some 7000 feet away in a marsh. Three more planes took off only to promptly return with technical difficulties.

Of the fifteen planes that had entered the race, only four planes, the Golden Eagle, Aloha, Woolaroc, and Miss Doran, were actually able to attempt the journey. The results of the ill fated race would soon be known.

The carnage didn’t stop there. Nor did it stop once the race was over. Read more about the deadly Dole Air Race at Atlas Obscura blog. This story is part of a regular feature they call Morbid Monday. Link

You go, girl! This 600 meter sprint was part of the 2008 Big Ten Indoor Track and Field Championships. Heather Dorniden of Minnesota went into the race as the favorite, but the odds changed along the way. -via TYWKIWDBI

Vets at the animal charity examined Jack and realised a rare condition had left him completely blind in his left eye and with only 20 per cent vision in his right.

They diagnosed him with Chorioretinitis, a swelling and irritation of the middle layer of the eye, which is irreparable.

Kate Brewster, 27, of  the Dogs’ Trust, said Jack would have been ‘terrified’ racing with no vision in his left eye – used by dogs to follow the rabbit.

She said: ‘We don’t think Jack’s racing owner realised the severity of his blindness and it would have been terrifying for him to race because of the noise.

‘He must have followed the other dogs or maybe used his sense of smell to get around the track. He clearly had no way of seeing the rabbit.’

Jack stills runs very fast at the shelter, where he knows exactly where the fences are. The animal charity says Jack will make a great pet, and hopes to find him a home with no small children or other pets. Link -via Arbroath

(Image credit: SWNS)

36 teams participated in a boat race during this year’s Milk, Bread, and Honey Festival in the town of Jelgava, Latvia. Each boat was homemade and amazingly creative. While that might be impressive enough, they were also made entirely out of empty milk cartons!

Link -via TreeHugger | See also Artist Sailed in Giant Paper Boat

Pastor Joe Nelms offered this prayer before the Nascar Nationwide series race in Nashville last Saturday. Boogity boogity! -Thanks, Bill!

During the championship at Magny-Cours, two motorcycles become entangled, apparently by their accelerators. Or maybe they just like each other. -via The Daily What

New York comedian and filmmaker Mark Malkoff (who drinks a lot of coffee) wanted to illustrate how slow MTA buses are. So he raced against a bus while he rode …a child’s Big Wheel! The race went a mile down 42nd street. Can you guess who won? -Thanks, Mark!

Vasaloppet {wiki} is an annual 90km cross-country ski race that is billed as the largest in the world. This year’s race took place March 6th between the towns of Sälen and Mora in Sweden. See a video of the more than 15,000 people who took part this year. Link -via Dark Roasted Blend

We haven’t heard much from Neatorama author StacyBee lately. A new baby takes up a lot of your life, but Stacy managed to find the time to run the Disney Princess half-marathon at Walt Disney World in Florida. The event raised money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

Yeah, ignore that time. It’s awful. But I finished!

And I had a good time – I got to run through the Magic Kingdom before the park opened. I got to limp through Epcot before it opened. I got to gaze at 17,000 women (and some men… really, I saw a very hairy Cinderella) in tutus, tiaras and even nude-colored leotards with shell appliques over the boobs (an homage to Ariel, of course).

And she got a tiara! Way to go, Stacy! Link

The Gadget Show staged a foot race among various toy robots from all over the world in Manchester, England. The robots were controlled by audience members, which led to utter chaos. Some robots eventually made it to the finish line. See the whole thing at Technabob. Link

Remember the game SNES game F-Zero? (Oh, how I love F-Zero). Well, it’s back – in spirit anyhow and with weapons – in this new anime called Redline. And boy, it looks AWESOME!

Redline is a new Japanese animated movie brought to us by Takeshi Koike, the director of the Animatrix. Redline took 7 years to make, apparently using 100,000 handmade drawings, it was no minor task and it looks to have paid off… Bigtime. The animation is just spectacular. It was released in Japan on October 9th, with a nationwide subtitled release planned for 2011 in the States, having some small screenings here and there. So we may have a bit of time to wait, but it looks well worth the wait.

The whole thing has the feel of a mix of Speedracer on methamphetamine and Madmax. You can tell this one was made with a beautiful attention to detail as soon as you see some of the explosions. When there is a lot of detail to something like a fiery explosion, then you know there was some juice behind this baby. But truly, words do not do it justice.

Cool-O-Rama has the trailers: Link [embedded YouTube clips]

Talk about inspirational -Ben Davis lost 120 pounds! But that’s not all he accomplished, as you’ll see in this video. Davis also chronicled his progress on his blog. Link -via reddit

It’s Woodward the tortoise against a rabbit named Lady Bunbun. How the winner is declared can be a point of controversy, but as you will see, the old fable is true. The tortoise keeps a steady pace while the hare barely shows up. -via Buzzfeed

It may only be skin deep, but having only Barbie pink to color in the skin color in the drawings of people sure gets kind of annoying in today’s modern, multiethnic society. Fear not! Crayola has the solution: a set of "multicultural" crayons.

From Flickr user nathangibb’s photo, the multicultural crayons are composed of black, sepia, burnt sienna, mahogany, tan, peach, apricot, and white.

In celebration of today’s Boston Marathon, the Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss pits celebrity marathon runners against each other. From ten matched pairs of celebrities, you decide which one could best the other in a marathon race. The secret is that they have all participated in marathons at one time or another and have recorded times, but they didn’t necessarily run in the same year, or at the same age. I scored 50%, which tells you I am not a particularly good guesser. Link

WILLIAMS Syndrome (WS) is a rare neurodevelopmental disorder caused by the deletion of about 28 genes from the long arm of chromosome 7. It is characterized by mild to moderate mental retardation and "elfin" facial features. Most strikingly, individuals with WS exhibit highly gregarious social behaviour: they approach strangers readily and indiscriminately, behaving as if everybody were their friend. And, according to a study published today in the journal Current Biology, they are the only known group of individuals who do not form racial stereotypes.

Link

Depending on the crowd, four to five of these exciting turtle races are held every Saturday night around 10 p.m. Every drink purchased gets the buyer one raffle ticket. Come race time, the tickets are drawn to see who is assigned as an honorary jockey to each of the six turtles. (The turtles, by the way, have clever names like Salisbury Strutter, Bermusa and Butkus.)

First place gets a T-shirt that reads “My turtle got lucky at Bucky’s,” and last place gets a complimentary shot. In some cases, coming in last place is probably harder than coming in first.

The only person to actually handle the turtles is a licensed reptile handler. Link -via Buzzfeed

(image credit: Wendy Rose Gould)

(YouTube Link)

Similar to what has been done before, but Orphans of Rwanda has made a stop motion video of a race directed by Matthew Harding of Where the Hell is Matt? fame.

The workshop, which took place in Kigali, gave students an opportunity to develop their own ideas for a brief video and then film it. Over the next few weeks, we will be publishing the students’ videos on our website. In the meantime, enjoyRwandan Grand Prix – a new video that Matt himself directed and which stars two of our students, Janvier Kwihangana and Nicholas Rutikanga!

Link

Sarah, a cheetah at the Cincinnati Zoo, set a world record for the 100 meter dash today by covering the distance in 6.13 seconds. The event was held at Mast Farm, the zoo’s cheetah breeding facility. The race is a remote contest between Sarah and Zaza, a cheetah at Cheetah Outreach in South Africa. Zaza is expected to run her race later this month. To compare, the human world record is 9.58 seconds, held by Usain Bolt. Link to story. Link to Sarah’s blog. -via Metafilter

When they went to trial, the judge found them guilty and sentenced them to a jail term of one to three years. However, the judge told the Lovings that he would suspend the sentence if they agreed to leave Virginia for a period of twenty five years. Given the choice between imprisonment and banishment, they chose banishment. The Lovings moved to Washington, DC.

The Lovings filed a suit challenging the law. After a nine-year battle, on June 12, 1967, the US Supreme Court handed down a decision in the case of Loving vs. Virginia that did away with the remaining miscegenation laws. The Loving Day project promotes the celebration of this milestone on or around June 12th. Link -via Drug Monkey

When his workplace offered a £1,000 competition for employees to fulfil a dream, he won after proposing a children’s film about Midge’s peculiar talent.

The result, The Great Race, has been selected for the Short Film Corner at Cannes and Mr Humphreys, who wrote, directed and penned the theme song for the eight-minute production, is flying out to the French Riviera to show it to Hollywood executives. It is believed to be the lowest budget offering at the festival – the opening night film, Pixar animation Up, cost $150 million to make.

Midge is not attending the film festival. Link to story with film trailer. Link to video report. -via Arbroath

“You could bring your mother’s minivan. You can bring a pure racing car. It doesn’t matter,” said Officer Jose Ayala with the Medley Police Department.

“We’re actually getting a lot of kids and adults alike come here and say, ‘We used to race in Davie. You probably used to chase us around, and now we’re here on the track and we want to race your car,’” said Officer Ron Bradley with the Davie Police.

Officers said they have seen a drastic reduction in illegal street racing since Beat the Heat started in 2007.

The next Beat the Heat race is May 23rd. Link -via reddit

Then one morning, Cochran came upon his solution – and with the help of population geneticist Henry Harpending, he immediately touched off a charged debate in the scientific community: some genes make Jews smarter.

Cochran, 55, and Harpending, 65, say there’s no question that as a whole, Ashkenazi Jews — those of European descent — have an abundance of brain power. (Neither man is Jewish.)

Psychologists and educational researchers have pegged their average IQ at 107.5 to 115. That’s only modestly higher than the overall European average of 100, but the gap is large enough to produce a huge difference in the proportion of geniuses. When a group’s average IQ is 100, the percentage of people above 140 is 0.4%; when the average is 110, the genius rate is 2.3%.

Though Jews make up less than 3% of the U.S. population, they have won more than 25% of the Nobel Prizes awarded to American scientists since 1950, account for 20% of this country’s chief executives and make up 22% of Ivy League students, the pair write.

"People are perfectly willing to admit that some people are taller or some people are shorter," Cochran said. "But no one wants to say ‘This group is smarter.’ "

That, said another scientist, is the rub:

"What are their theories about those on the opposite end of the spectrum?" asked Neil Risch, director of the Institute for Human Genetics at UC San Francisco, who finds the matter so offensive he can barely discuss it without raising his voice. "Do they have genetic theories about why Latinos and African Americans perform worse academically?"

Karen Kaplan of the Los Angeles Times has the rest of the story: Link

We tend to think of Neanderthals as one species of cavemen-like creatures, but now scientists say there were actually at least three different subgroups of Neanderthals.

Using computer simulations to analyze DNA sequence fragments from 12 Neanderthal fossils, researchers found that the species can be separated into three, or maybe four, distinct genetic groups.

The evidence points to a subgroup of Neanderthals in Western Europe, another in Southern Europe near the Mediterranean, a third in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and possibly a fourth in Western Asia. These groups have been postulated before, but this is the first study analyzing DNA data to look for genetic variations differentiating the subgroups.

Link

(Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

This July, I will be driving from London to Mongolia, in a piece of #### car, all in the name of charity.  I’m taking part in the Mongol Rally.  It is, in fact, as ridiculous as it sounds. 

What: The Mongol Rally is an annual charity race across Eurasia where 500 cars traverse 1/3 of the world in 1-liter engine vehicles and, with a lot of luck, make it all the way to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. There’s no route and no help, but a whole lot of road and good deeds along the way.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by ahammel.

The fit looking 65-year-old said he was feeling ‘amazingly good’, considering he had traveled a massive 4115km on foot.


Taking in about 70 towns along the way, Mr Baird said he pushed the wheelbarrow for between 10 and 12 hours a day. [...]

While he never had any doubts he wouldn’t complete his journey, he admitted each day “was hard”.

“My most concern was my survival with the traffic, he said. That was quite horrendous.”

Link

(Photo: POST Newspaper Online)

Alison said: “I was shocked when I first found out I was pregnant with twins again — but I never thought for one second they would turn out the same as last time.

After the babies were born they weren’t breathing properly, so they were taken to a special care unit.

It wasn’t until about five days after they were born that we saw them side by side for the first time.

And when they were together it was clear that one was darker than the other. It was unbelievable.”

The babies are now home and reported healthy. Link -Thanks, Sharyn Bramscher!

(image credit: Solent News & Photo Agency)

One day, a 61-year-old Australian potato farmer named Cliff Young entered the race …

In 1983, a man named Cliff Young showed up at the start of this race. Cliff was 61 years old and wore overalls and work boots. To everyone’s shock, Cliff wasn’t a spectator. He picked up his race number and joined the other runners.

The press and other athletes became curious and questioned Cliff. They told him, "You’re crazy, there’s no way you can finish this race." To which he replied, "Yes I can. See, I grew up on a farm where we couldn’t afford horses or tractors, and the whole time I was growing up, whenever the storms would roll in, I’d have to go out and round up the sheep. We had 2,000 sheep on 2,000 acres. Sometimes I would have to run those sheep for two or three days. It took a long time, but I’d always catch them. I believe I can run this race." [...]

All of the professional athletes knew that it took about 5 days to finish the race. In order to compete, one had to run about 18 hours a day and sleep the remaining 6 hours. The thing is, Cliff Young didn’t know that!

When the morning of the second day came, everyone was in for another surprise. Not only was Cliff still in the race, he had continued jogging all night.

Eventually Cliff was asked about his tactics for the rest of the race. To everyone’s disbelief, he claimed he would run straight through to the finish without sleeping.

Cliff Young won the race, and became a legend: Link – Thanks Ali!

Anyway, in the spirit of my newfound motivation, I thought I’d write about interesting races. Whether it’s the cause that seems questionable, the costumes people wear or an interesting race route, the races below are sure to catch your attention.

1. The Oatmeal 5k – Lafayette, Colo.

Lafayette holds the Oatmeal Festival every year. In addition to a health fair, Oatie the Quaker Oats Mascot and a giant, inflatable bowl of oatmeal, the Oatmeal Festival hosts the Oatmeal 5k. The best part really comes post-run though – all runners get to eat their fill of oatmeal with all of the trimmings. Considering the race occurs in January in Colorado, I bet a nice warm bowl of oatmeal is greatly appreciated after running 3.1 miles. Photo by Cliff Grassmick

2. Beat Beethoven 5k – lots of places

When I first read about this, I got a mental picture of a guy with wild white hair dressed up in period clothing running his heart out. But no. The point is to beat Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. At 33 minutes long, this would mean the runner would have to run slightly under 11 minute miles. A challenge for some, totally easy for others. Beat Beethoven is often held as a fundraiser for music departments. I bet some people dress up like Beethoven though. At least, I hope they do.

3. Living History Farms Cross Country Road Race – Clive, Iowa

This one is my goal for the year. It’s only seven miles, but the tricky part is the terrain you’re running on. You’re running through waist-deep ponds, through trenches, off small cliffs, using rope to pull yourself up steep inclines – it’s insane. And people dress insane. Check out this photo gallery from the Des Moines Register – in just one quick run-through, I spotted Superman, Santa Claus, Snow White and a number of ballerinas. There’s even one dude running with no shirt on – in late November in Iowa, that’s just asking for pneumonia (Oh God… I think I just channeled my mother). Photo from fitnesssports.com

4. Tower of Terror 13k – Orlando, Fla.

This is my other goal for the year, but really it’s just an excuse to get to Disney at Halloween. I LOVE Disney World at Halloween. In fact, I’m a lover of all things that are campy-creepy, so the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror 13k (get it… 13?!) is perfect for me. It starts at 9:30 at night and gives runners the chance to run through Disney properties late at night. Afterward, the Tower of Terror and several other rides at Hollywood Studios are open for the sweaty runners to enjoy. I. Can’t. Wait. Let’s just hope I can run eight miles by then. Photo by Stacy Conradt

5. The Doughnut Run 5k – Ames, Iowa

I’m not sure that it’s a great idea to run while stuffing your face full of glazed doughnuts, but the Iowa State Triathlon Club seems to think it’s not a problem. Here’s how it works: at each aid station along the route, you have the opportunity to scarf down doughnuts. If you eat one doughnut, you get to take 15 seconds off of your time. Two doughnuts gives you another 30 seconds off. Three doughnuts gets you 45 seconds off. So if you run the race in 20 minutes and eat two doughnuts, you get a total of 45 seconds off your race time – 15 seconds for doughnut #1 plus another 30 seconds for doughnut #2. But only the weak eat a mere two doughnuts. For every five doughnuts you eat past the first five, you get a bonus two minutes off your race. The catch? You have to keep the doughnuts down at least past the finish line.
Graphic from the Iowa State Triathlon Club

6. The Badwater Ultramarathon – Death Valley

It’s 135 miles, folks. ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-FIVE MILES. I’m in pain just thinking about it. Add that to 120 degree temps in the shade and you’ve got a marathon only the most hardcore runner would even consider running. Even then, 20-40 percent of participants don’t complete the race. The first time this race was completed was 1977, after several attempts by Al Arnold. Successful try #2 didn’t happen until 1981 when Jay Birmingham put himself through the torture. It became an official race in 1987, but only five runners completed the race. Making this race even harder is the fact that there are no water stops. Each runner has to provide his or her own pit crew complete with water, ice, food and first aid. You might think there’s a fantastic prize for finishing 135 miles in Death Valley, but not really. Runners who finish in 60 hours or less get a medal. Runners who complete the course in 48 hours or less get a belt buckle. Suffice it to say people are running for the glory, not the winnings. So far, no one has died. Photo by Geoff Tripple via badwater.com.

What crazy races have you participated in? OK, forget participation – what crazy races have you heard of?

Here’s something you don’t see every day. This drag racer lost his axle on take-off. Notice the driver’s reaction as he gets out of the car in this funny video.

Link: maniacworld