(Image: New Line Cinema)

In The Lord of the Rings, lembas is a special bread made by elves. It's a compact, nutritious food. When eaten thriftily, a small portion can sustain a person for a long period of time. It won't spoil when wrapped in certain leaves. Consequently, it's the perfect trail ration.

The elves of Lothlórien gave lembas to the Fellowship to help the march through the barren land of Mordor on their way to destroy the One Ring. How much would they have needed for the journey if they ate nothing but lembas? Skye Rosetti and Krisho Manaharan of the University of Leicester published a paper in the Journal of Interdisciplinary Science Topics on the subject. They concluded:

For an ideal journey with all 9 members of the fellowship, using the metabolic rates for each species from [2], the total calorific consumption of the 92-day journey was found to be 1,780,214.59 kcal. If the elves of Imraldis had provided the Fellowship with lembas, this would equate to them having to carry a total of 675 pieces, or 75 pieces each. For the different species, this equates to 304 for the hobbits, 214 for Gandalf, Aragorn and Boromir; 99 for Gimli and 60 for Legolas.

-via VA Viper

Jim Morrison's life came to an end far too early, his heart stopped by an apparent heroin overdose, but French law enforcement officials didn't perform an autopsy so we'll never know for sure how the Lizard King died.

All we have to tell us about those fateful days before Jim slipped away in the bathtub are a series of candid photos taken by friend Alain Ronay.

Jim looks clean shaven and happy as he shares some intimate moments with Pamela Courson in Saint-Leu-d’Esserent on June 28th, 1971, a far cry from the image of a dark and disturbed man painted by the press after his death.

See the rest of the Last Known Photos of Jim Morrison in Paris on June 28, 1971 here

-Via Dangerous Minds

When you think of live-action superhero TV shows, you think of Superman from the ’50s, Batman from the ‘60s, Wonder Woman from the ’70s, and, um, you might be surprised at how many superhero shows you watched and don’t think about anymore.

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The good news is that we are experiencing a Renaissance of superhero shows, and there’s more to come. Enjoy this video from Vulture's Secret History of Television series. -via Laughing Squid

Hollywood has been using exploitation films as money making vehicles since the very beginning, but the features we generally think of as exploitation films are those schlocky sci-fi and horror flicks shown in grindhouse theaters beginning in the 1960s.

These films set the precedent for shocking audiences with the use of sex, gore and rock n roll, and they also changed the face of that most important piece of print advertising- the movie poster.

Nicolas Winding Refn, director of Bronson, Drive and the upcoming Neon Demon, has been collecting exploitation movie posters for so long he doesn't know what to do with them all.

So when a friend suggested he share them with the world he decided the best way to do that would be with a book.

His upcoming book The Act Of Seeing will feature over 300 full color plates showing off those colorful early exploitation film posters in all their cheesy glory, with recaps and color commentary by journalist Alan Jones.

See more of these amazing exploitation movie posters at io9

In this Sesame Street parody of Clash of the Titans, Cookie Monster is Fursius, and must pass Moo-dusa to reach Mt. Olympus Diner. To quote Cookie, “Oh, dat weird.”

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And for Sesame Street’s original audience, there’s a lesson in observation and focus. And an appropriate punch line at the end. -via Geeks Are Sexy

The Star Trek saga is presented in a way that causes viewers to assume the Federation is a force for good, helping anyone in need and spreading messages of hope and peace throughout the universe.

But humans aren't very good at taking care of their own planet, so what makes people think they'd be of much use defending other planets throughout the galaxy?

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Cracked's Luke McKinney has compiled 5 Ways Star Trek's Federation Was An Evil Empire, including their blatant human elitism, their valuable resource hoarding ways and the fact that they're basically piloting giant antimatter bombs.

Let the geeky debates begin!

Read 5 Ways Star Trek's Federation Was An Evil Empire here

Sauron is the ultimate antagonist in the Lord Of The Rings series, aka the guy controlling that fiery floating eyeball atop the Dark Tower of Barad-Dur who keeps sending dark forces after our favorite little furry footed halflings, the Hobbits.

But behind that pyrotechnic peeper is a necromantic mastermind with a mighty malevolent plan to rule all of Middle Earth with a little help from the One Ring.

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YouTube champion CGP Grey continued his series on Middle Earth Mythology (the first installment of which Miss C. posted here on Neatorama) with this video entitled The One Ring Explained.

It's perfect for those who have watched the movies but haven't read the books, or those who simply can't stand reading when there are thousands of videos online that still need to be watched!

-Via Dorkly

(Images: Lucasfilm)

Judge Yoda by his size, do you? Well, Dr. Rhett Allain does. He's a professor of physics at Southeastern Louisiana University. In the past, he's calculated Darth Vader's weight and how long it would take for an AT-AT to hit the ground. He wanted to know how much Yoda weighs. And since the Jedi Master is shy about the issue, Allain had to calculate the results from The Empire Strikes Back.

Allain assumes that Dagobah has the same gravity as Earth, that Luke Skywalker is 5'9" and weighs 150 pounds, and that The Force is not in play against gravity while Luke is carrying Yoda. You can read all of his equations and rationale here. Yoda, Allain argues, weights 43.7 kilograms.

-via Lost at E Minor

(Photo: York in a Box)

Now that Disney owns Star Wars, we see the iconic Leia slave outfit crossing over into the Disney Princess universe. In the past, we've seen slave Leia versions of Tinkerbell, Ariel, and Elsa. Now the lineup is filling out even more, thanks to these ladies. That's Ashlynne Dae as Elsa, Elizabeth Rage as Belle, Rianne Synnth as Mulan, and Hendo as Pocahontas.

-via Cosplay America

Everybody knows better than to ask the internet for help Photoshopping a picture by now, and we've seen the droll dorkiness that makes the rounds after these poor victims have asked "for help".

So it's agreed that those who ask “for help” from the internet are doing so knowing full well what lies in store for their image, right?

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Okay good, because I almost feel bad for the guy who asked the interwebs to remove the kid from the background of this romantic picture because people now think of him as a kid hating jerk!

Some of the 'shoppers were happy to help delete the kid from the pic by adding different kinds of dogs to the image

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And then war suddenly broke out all around them...we salute you, Private Smoochface!

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See more from "Can You Guys Photoshop Out The Kid In The Background?" here

The Minions are drawn, modeled and rendered to be utterly adorable, but the one flaw in their character design is they still look horrifying when they bleed.

'If that blood is flowing out of an orifice the horror level increases, and seeing a Minion bleeding out of its eyes is something that's sure to stay with a child until well after they've started seeing a shrink.

Twitter user @AlsBoy, aka filmmaker and strong swimmer Ash Warner spotted this gruesome flaw in the Minions 3-in-1 Body Wash bottle design while soaping up in the shower, but at least the "blood" is strawberry banana scented!

-Via Metro UK

Since nobody can seem to do Superman justice on the big screen these days director/retoucher/drone pilot Barry Craig has taken it upon himself to shoot the Superman film we need.

Barry attached a Superman action figure to the front of his Phantom 3 flying camera drone and let the Man of Steel fly free over Victoria Park in London.

(YouTube Link)

Now all Barry needs to do is add some supervillain figures, sound effects and CGI eye beams to the footage and he's got the makings of a scene for a new Superman film, or at least a part of a sketch for Robot Chicken.

-Via Gizmodo

Kigurumi is big time in Japan, with everything from mascots to cosplayers considered part of kigurumi, but there's one form of kigurumi cosplayer who is a bit creepier than the rest- the Dollers.

Some Dollers dress up to live out their anime fantasies, actually becoming their favorite characters thanks to a full latex mask, costume and zentai (spandex body suit). A lucky few actually get paid for their strange cosplay hobby, hired as entertainers for public events.

Photographer Laurie Simmons found herself fascinated by the world of Dollers, expressing her interest in the strange subculture through her portrait series “Kigurumi, Dollers And How We See”.

Laurie's striking images prove that no matter what you think of Dollers they make mighty memorable subjects for portraits!

See more from Laurie's Kigurumi portrait series at Juxtapoz

(Image: Marvel Studios)

Hulk smash? Yes. But beyond that, Hulk save. The Hulk is male, but the original, real-life Hulk was a woman. Jack Kirby, the comic book artist who conceived of the Hulk, explained in a 1990 interview that an incident in which a mother rescued her baby by lifting a car off him was the inspiration behind the Hulk:

The Hulk I created when I saw a woman lift a car. Her baby was caught under the running board of this car. The little child was playing in the gutter and he was crawling from the gutter onto the sidewalk under the running board of this car — he was playing in the gutter. His mother was horrified. She looked from the rear window of the car, and this woman in desperation lifted the rear end of the car. It suddenly came to me that in desperation we can all do that — we can knock down walls, we can go berserk, which we do. You know what happens when we’re in a rage — you can tear a house down. I created a character who did all that and called him the Hulk. I inserted him in a lot of the stories I was doing. Whatever the Hulk was at the beginning I got from that incident. A character to me can’t be contrived. I don’t like to contrive characters. They have to have an element of truth. This woman proved to me that the ordinary person in desperate circumstances can transcend himself and do things that he wouldn’t ordinarily do. I’ve done it myself. I’ve bent steel.

-via io9

Unless you're looking at an officially licensed Disney tutorial you'd better put your pencils and your eyeballs away and stop looking at the screen, now!

Just kidding, it's nothing more than an innocent comic drawn by a non-Disney artist, to be filed under "satire".

This silly yet oh so true comic by Mauricio Abril shows the not so fun side of that empire Mickey Mouse built, and I know more than a few NeatoShop artists will totally relate to the punchline!

-Via Laughing Squid