✈️ Need a place for your upcoming event? Don't rent a boring dance hall for your party or wedding - rent Mexico's presidential jet instead! After more than 3 years failing to sell the airplane (it's too expensive to reconfigure into a typical passenger jet), current Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has decided to rent it out for special events.

🍭 Check out this massive 4-story building shaped like a pink lollipop that houses a kindergarten.

🙀 Cat vs treadmill: who wins?

Image: Marco Ugarte/AP

🦏 There are only 80 Sumatran rhino left in the world. Well, make that 81 as a new baby was just born - check out the super cute pics of the baby Sumatran rhino!

🍺 We all want to get away from our family sometimes, but this Chinese man has been living in the Beijing Airport for 14 years to get away from his family. He said that he had a falling out with his family, who wanted him to quite smoking and drinking but he'd rather live in an airport than do either.

Image: Biro Humas KLHK

🎧 Dyson's new air-purifier and noise-cancelling headphones combo named Dyson Zone looks like it came straight out of a dystopian sci-fi novel. The company made the product launch announcement dangerously close to April 1 and had to confirm that it's actually not an April's Fool joke.

✋ If you're sick and tired of "The Slap" stories, skip this. For the rest of you, check out the infamous Will Smith Slap in Tattoo and cake forms. Also: Will Smith Slap Meme: The Ultimate Collection | SNL Skit: Oscar Seat Fillers Meet Will Smith

For more neat-o posts, please visit our new sites: Laughosaurus, Pop Culturista, Pictojam, Homes & Hues, Supa Fluffy, Spooky Daily and Infinite 1UP.

Featured art: Cat-Man by indie artist Chet Minton | More New T-Shirts

The internet is a wonderful place, full of documentation on things you never knew existed. You've probably never considered the testing procedures for manhole covers, grates, and other objects made to be embedded in roads. After all, they have to be tough, or anyone driving over them could meet disaster. The testing process is largely automated and is conducted by a robot that drives over them. This industrial video from the company PAM has no narration and French text, but what information they give is pretty easy to decipher even if you don't read French. The robot drives over the test object ten times a minute, at 50 kilometers per hour, for a total of 5,000 passes, to ensure the manhole covers will last 20 years. At least that's what I think it says. -via Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories

Inspired by the Lego Star Wars trench run diorama, which won't even be available until later this month, Evie Rees made a birthday cake. It's quite elaborate, to say the least! The entire artwork is edible, with the exception of the spaceships and their stands. Using real LEGO bricks as molds, she made the LEGOS out of fondant. The blue pieces were picked out of assorted candy sprinkles. It took two days to get it all done- the fondant decorations came first, and the cake was baked on the second day. One side of the trench is Victoria sponge cake, and the other side is carrot cake. Rees could have made it chocolate and vanilla to represent the light side and the dark side, but bowed to what her family prefers to eat. Yes, they ate it. But the photographs are forever. You can see a gallery of ten larger images of the cake in this reddit post. 

When you think about a cat in ancient Egypt, you probably think of the god called Bast. A god pictured as a cat must mean that cats were worshiped, right? That's the popular notion, but it's a lot more complicated than that. Yes, we've found millions of cat mummies, but my first thought on learning that was that they used cats as practice for mummification. However, that's not part of the story, either. SideQuest gives us the longer, more involved story of how cats were regarded in ancient Egypt. Now, just imagine when archaeologists a few thousand years from now dig up and decipher our internet archives of lolcats and catios and crazy cat lady stories and, quite understandably, assume that we worshiped cats. No, we just treat them like they are our masters and we are their servants. And when they eventually discover toxoplasmosis and its effects, they'll understand why. -via Digg

Letters of Note is a blog that features historically significant, unusual, or sometimes amusing letters exchanged between people. A few days ago, it shared the funny correspondence between Justin Lee of Auckland, New Zealand and the national police force.

Lee received a ticket for speeding. When was he driving 100 KPH on a public road? On June 23, 1974. That was also, coincidentally, the date of his birth.

Lee wrote a letter protesting this ticket. He does not remember the date of his birth, so he asked his mother if she remembered him driving too quickly, or even driving, on that date:

[…] I rang Mum to see if she remembered what I was doing that day. She said that – coincidentally – I was born that day!!

Mum mentioned that I was born at around five o’clock in the evening on that day in Porirua, which is not far from Wellington […]

For me to have traveled from Porirua to the foot of the Bombay Hills just out of Auckland by six thirty, I would had to have crawled into the first car in the hospital parking lot and headed for Auckland at around 1,000 km/h. For this reason, it is entirely possible that the constable who clocked me back in 1974 was holding his laser equipment upside down and instead of doing 116 km/h as per the infringement notice, it is more likely that I was doing 911 km/h.

Lee adds that his Nissan Bluebird, a robust and reliable car, was not, unlike Doc Brown's Delorean in Back to the Future, equipped with time travel accessories, making it even more unlikely that it was indeed his car that was recorded by police radar equipment.

You can read all of Lee's letter and the police response at Letters of Note.

-via Nag on the Lake

Ukraine is so proud of their wheat fields that they designed their national flag around them. You may have recently read that Ukraine is the world's breadbasket, which might come as a shock to Americans. Yes, America produces a huge amount of the world's wheat grain, too, but Ukraine is the reason we grow that productive wheat to make bread. Before 1880, most American bread was made with rye, corn, or low-gluten soft wheat varieties. The vagaries of history and waves of immigration brought the staple known as Turkey wheat to the Great Plains of the US.

This variety of wheat has roots in Crimea, a peninsula that is recognized as part of Ukraine, which was once under Turkish control—hence the grain’s name. It earned German Mennonite stewards in 1770, after Catherine the Great promoted settlement, promising the group they could keep their pacifist values and language. When regime change and conscription came knocking again, these people needed to find a new home.

Of course, wheat continued to be produced in Ukraine long after it spread to America. Read the history of how Ukrainian wheat came to the US at Modern Farmer.

(Image credit: Сергей Марцынюк)

Real actors doing The Simpsons' opening? And it's good? This was created by British Sky Broadcasting as a promotion for the series, which went viral and then was used for the opening of The Simpsons season 17 episode 15 entitled "Homer Simpson, This Is Your Wife," co-written by Ricky Gervais, who also guest-starred. You might be surprised at Bart and Lisa portrayed as redheads, and Marge's hair is not quite so outrageous, but you can't argue that those involved didn't do an excellent job of channeling the animated yelllow-skinned family. -via reddit

Patricia Brennan, a biologist, specializes in animal genitalia, especially female genitalia. She began her exploration of this specialty when she observed the corkscrew-shaped penis of the great tinamou, a bird native to the Costa Rican rainforest. About 3% of bird species have penises, most often shaped like corkscrews. What was less well known prior to Brennan's work was what the receiving female genitals of various animals are shaped like and why.

Her work is the subject of a new article in Scientific American. It includes a lengthy exploration of duck vaginas, which are the most diverse vaginas among birds. The typical duck vagina is a "penis rejection machine" that requires the corkscrew penis to navigate complexly spiralled folds with inner pockets to trap unwanted sperm before it reaches the interior. Mating is enormously difficult and requires the cooperation of the female duck to achieve full penetration.

Brennan looked at mammals as well as birds. She learned that a dolphin clitoris is larger than a tennis ball. Why? It's because dolphins engage in sexual behaviors for pleasure as well as reproduction. It's possible that female dolphins may choose mates based on their ability to stimulate their clitorises effectively.

Why are you just learning these facts now? The author of the article, Rachel E. Gross, explains that biology, a male-dominated field, tends to be overly focused on penises and other aspects of the male, giving less attention to females. This bias can be traced back to Charles Darwin himself, whose Victorian moral sentiments avoided discussions of female sexuality and sex for purposes other than reporduction. Leave Darwin aside when you explore the wild world of animal genitalia.

-via Dave Barry | Photo of a great tinamou by Katja Schulz

Science demonstrates once again what we suspected all along. People who had a rural upbringing have better navigation skills than their counterparts raised in cities. This is most likely due to the lack of standardization of rural roads as they are routed around mountains, rivers, and much older roads -and because country folk often have to travel further for a variety of reasons. Rural travelers exercise their sense of direction out of necessity, while those who live on logically-designed city grids can find their way around much more easily.

To check out this hypothesis, a team of scientists used the video game Sea Hero Quest, which was developed in 2016 specifically to study the effects of Alzheimer's disease. In the game, participants have to navigate around the ocean, and remember where they've been. The results showed not only that people who grow up in the countryside had better navigation skills, but those raised in older, more complex cities like Paris and Prague showed a better sense of direction than those who grew up in cities with a planned grid, such as Chicago. Still, you have to wonder whether it's the grid itself, or the ability to rely on mass transit that makes navigation easier for city dwellers. Read more about this research at The Guardian. -via Damn Interesting 

(Image credit: Jonathan Billinger/Walking up Coppet Hill/CC BY-SA 2.0)

Would you like to have your own Higgins boat? Very few of the 23,398 LCVPs built by the Allies during World War II survive to this day, but you can own a very similar and, in fact, improved landing craft. Hard Drive Marine, a boat builder in Bellingham, Washington, manufactures practical, civilian-use landing craft for people who need to land in places without docking facilities.

Among the company's innovations is the Maxgate, which is an articulated landing gate that drives spikes into the beach, then pulls the entire boat forward. After disembarking people and equipment, just reverse the system to push the beached craft back into the water.

-via Born in Space

Automotive engineer Norman Garrett wrote an essay to any would-be thieves who think they've hit the jackpot just because they found an unlocked Porsche. I started reading it and felt right at home, because I have two very old Camrys that I never lock because no one would want them anyway for some of the same reasons. But his story is more involved, better written, and quite hilarious.  

Welcome to my Porsche 914. I imagine that at this point (having found the door unlocked) your intention is to steal my car. Don’t be encouraged by this; the tumblers sheared-off in 1978. I would have locked it up if I could, so don’t think you’re too clever or that I’m too lazy. However, now that you’re in the car, there are a few things you’re going to need to know. First, the battery is disconnected, so slide-hammering my ignition switch is not your first step. I leave the battery disconnected, not to foil hoodlums such as yourself, but because there is a mysterious current drain from the 40-year-old German wiring harness that I can’t locate and/or fix. So, connect the battery first. Good luck finding the engine cover release. Or the engine, for that matter.

Oh yeah, that's just the beginning. You'll get to know this particular car quite well as you decide whether or not to steal it -or try to. The connection with my own cars was suddenly severed at the end when he recommended that the thief find "a nice, reliable Camry to heist" instead. You'll enjoy this description of automotive adventure at Hagerty. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Norman Garrett)

 

The city of Pompeii is an archaeological treasure, as it is gradually dug out from underneath the ashes of Mt. Vesuvius' 79AD eruption. That means looters, people who steal and trade in historical relics, want to get into the city. To guard the site, authorities are using Boston Dynamics' Spot robots. They can patrol all night without rest, watching and recording any activity, aided by drones that can watch from above. Not only are the robots acting as security guards, they are also monitoring the ruins for signs of change or damage so that preservationists can catch problems with the fragile structures before they completely fall apart. It sounds like a good use for these dog-like robots. They could sure scare a thief away! Read more about the project at Gizmodo.

But what if...  Mt. Vesuvius were to erupt again? The city is mostly restored to its condition from 2,000 years ago. Imagine if it were buried under lava, ash, and rubble again, only to be excavated again in another 2,000 years. These scientists of the future would find Roman roads, ancient homes and businesses, and robots. And that's the kind of thing that causes us to misunderstand history. -via Nag on the Lake

Neatorama has an extensive archive of stories about dead bodies that were not allowed a peaceful rest. However, there are always more stories about earthly remains exploited for obsession, profit, or entertainment. For example, I had no idea that Charlie Chaplin's corpse was dug up and held for ransom, and that happened in my lifetime! It was only a couple of months after Chaplin's death in December of 1977 that Chaplin's body was disinterred from Corsier-sur-Vevey cemetery in Switzerland. Numerous phone calls to the actor's widow, Oona Chaplin, demanded money that would be equivalent to almost $2 million today. Oona refused to pay the ransom, police investigated, and Chaplin's body was dumped in a field to be found three months later. Read how that story turned out, as well as the cases of the restless corpses of Abraham Lincoln, Alistair Cooke, Eva Peron, and those of quite a few other famous people at DiggingUp1800. -via Strange Company

(Image credit: Giramondo1)

😻 Winters can be harsh in Tekirdag, Turkey, so a dentist and cat lover named Şebnem Ilhan decided to build a "cat ladder" so stray kitties can climb into her house for warmth.

🎵 Who sings it better: Led Zeppelin or this rubber chicken?

🦠 Scientists asked participants to rate pictures of people for attractiveness and found something interesting: people infected with "mind-altering" toxoplasmosis are more attractive! So, what's going on? Does the parasite Toxoplasma gondii change facial symmetry by changing endocrine levels, or do attractive people just have a higher chance of contracting the parasite?

Image: Sebnem Ilhan

🏀 Usually, studios pay for billboards to advertise their new releases but HBO decided to do a Euro step. To promote Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, they refurbished a basketball court in Inglewood, south central Los Angeles, and donated $10K to a local school. Now the community can enjoy a game of hoops on a new basketball court. Slam dunk!

🐓 After Hurricane Ida hit Louisiana, a lost rooster showed up at a local Popeye fast food restaurant and the staff there decided to make it into a mascot. I guess that's better than introducing it to the deep fryer in the kitchen!

🚲 Wales found something that works better than ambulances: paramedics on bicycles!

Image: HBO

🍌 This is not a banana, but it is the ultimate in banana dessert. Watch pastry chef Amaury Guichon create an amazingly realistic banana pastry. (Now I'm hungry!)

🏠 Why don't we all live in steel houses? In the late 1940s, steel houses with steel on the outside and the inside was the hot new thing. For a while, it was considered the future of housing ... until it wasn't. Here's the story of the rise and fall of the steel house.

✋ Not tired of the whole Will Smith slap saga yet? Here's the Will Smith, Vladimir Putin and Batman Venn Diagram. Previously: The Wrong Will Smith and Will Smith Slap Meme Generator.

More neat posts over at our new sites: Pop Culturista, Supa Fluffy, Pictojam, Homes & Hues, Laughosaurus, Infinite 1UP and Spooky Daily.

Featured art: No more nasal swabs by indie artist louisros.

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Robots are increasingly taking over the roles and jobs that humans commonly do manually. Now let's get this slime robot inside you to go rooting around and see what it can find.

The Guardian reports that Li Zhang of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and his research team developed this robot out of polyvinyl alcohol, borax, and neodymium particles. It can be manipulated magnetically to navigate narrow confines of machines or bodies to perform repairs or extract foreign objects.

The magnetic particles are toxic, so Zhang explains that it will be necessary to develop a silica coating for the slime before using it inside human bodies. Adding pigments may make the robot more pleasant to look at.

Certainly improving the appearance of what has been called a "magnetic turd" could make it easier for future times when the use of it inside human bodies becomes permissible and, later, mandatory

-via David Burge