Who has more bacteria in their navel -Carl Zimmer of The Loom or Peter Aldhous of NewScientist? The swabs have been taken, and the cultures were grown. You can see the results in petri dishes. It's part of the Belly Button Biodiversity Project led by Jiri Hulcr of North Carolina State University.

The project was conceived as a device to interest the public in microbiology, and to counter the common view that bacteria are nothing but causes of disease. "This fear is based on a lack of awareness that we live in a microbial world," says Hulcr, who notes that even some "self-described germophobes" have confronted their anxieties and given swabs.

Hulcr also aims to extend a scientific frontier: researchers are realising that the human "microbiome" - the diversity of microorganisms that inhabit our bodies - is a key influence on our health and physiology. The skin remains poorly explored territory, and the belly button is an ideal sampling point because it doesn't get as scrubbed and sprayed with chemicals as much other, more accessible parts.

See more navel microbes growing at NewScientist. Link -via Carl Zimmer

(YouTube link)

Imagine an ice cream truck rolling into your neighborhood playing that tune -wouldn't you run to it as fast as you can? Admiral Snackbar, indeed! This is an advertisement for Star Wars Popsicles, one of many April Fool's Day items from Think Geek. Link

All children need toys, but not all toys are created alike. While most bad toys are simply a bit boring, these eleven are the absolute worst of the worst. In fact, you’ll notice a lot of these are so ridiculous that they have actually taken on a cult collector’s item status and now cost quite a pretty penny.

1. Toy Tazer

There are toy guns, toy bow and arrow sets, toy swords and more, but somehow a toy tazer still seems to take things a touch too far –particularly considering the “Police Electric Baton Shock” actually gives out real shocks.  On the upside, it’s only $3.50, so it’s much cheaper than most kid’s toys.

2. The Kaba Kick

Russian Roulette is a ton of fun, but it’s unfortunately completely permanent. If you want to practice the game without those deadly consequences, then you’d better go ahead and start out with the Kaba Kick and the more gentle pink hippo kicks that replace bullets.

3. Cleaning Trolley

It’s totally normal for kids to pretend to do grown up jobs, after all, some kids play house, some play doctor, some play superhero and some play with chemistry sets, but who wants to be a janitor? Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like a better idea to push your kids towards an intellectual pursuit than a job in the cleaning industry.

The Playmobil Apple Store is a preschool geek's dream toy! It features the Genius Bar, kid's corner, sales floor, and a conference room -and comes with over 60 accessories! And get this -you can slip your iPhone in place behind Steve Jobs and animate his presentation! The Playmobil Apple Store is a new item introduced today at ThinkGeek. Link

(YouTube link)

YouTube combines vintage footage, special effects, and modern memes to salute the viral videos of 100 years ago with this top 5 countdown. Somehow this video has 7,200 likes and a few hundred dislike, but only 489 views -but it's their website, so I guess they can do that. The YouTube page has links to the videos that inspired this compilation. -via Buzzfeed

Graffiti Cocktail Shaker - $19.95

Are you on the lookout for an unusual cocktail shaker for your next rave? You need the Graffiti Cocktail Shaker from the NeatoShop.  It's bound to be a big hit with your gang of extremely artistic friends!

Be sure to check out all the shockingly fun Cocktail & Barware available at the NeatoShop!

If the eggs of free range chicken taste better, what about those of hipster chicken? Well, while you ponder that, take a look at this modern chicken coop called nogg by Matthew Hayward and Nadia Turan.

Stylish, fox-proof, and ovoid? Check. Check and check. What more can you ask for? Link - via homedit

Photo: Geoffrey Cottenceau

When a sawmill did that to timber, you get lumber. But what happens when an artist made the object you see above from polystyrene and resin? Art, my friend, that is art. Behold, "Billon" by Vincent Kohler: Link - via Core 77

From the twisted mind of Tokyosexwhale (who mentioned that his name is actually derived from a real guy named Tokyo Sexwale. Laugh all you want, but Tokyo's the current Minister of Human Settlement in South Africa). Link

What good is all those fancy chemistry lab equipments if you can't benefit humanity, say by improving our cocktails? Analytic chemist Neil Da Costa decided to dissect the chemistry behind making the perfect Bloody Mary:

With gas and liquid chromatography, Da Costa isolated the wide variety of compounds that give the bloody mary its unique flavor. The drink covers much of the taste spectrum: sweet, salty, sour and umami — the savory taste of glutamic acid.

And, Da Costa says, the order of these sensations is appealing: first cool and refreshing, then spicy, and finally a sinus-clearing horseradish kick.

So what lessons can amateur bartenders glean from all this analysis? Make it fresh and make it cool, Da Costa says. Many of the ingredients are chemically unstable, so it's important to make your bloody mary from fresh ingredients and keep it iced to prevent deterioration.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/03/29/134931452/cocktail-chemistry-parsing-the-bloody-mary - via Nerdcore

Are you serious about winning pillow fights? Matthew Borgatti is, so he made this mace-shaped pillow for an upcoming flash mob pillowfight in New York City. He writes:

Surprisingly it took a good yard of cushion foam and two bags of poly-fill to do this one up right and get it nice and spherical. In other interesting news this may be the first dodecahedron I’ve ever constructed.

Link via Super Punch

Do we really need government? That's not an idle Tea Party-esque question in Belgium, where they've gone nearly a year without one:

Belgium tied Iraq on Tuesday for a very special world record: Number of days without a new government. (It's been 289 days since the inconclusive June 13, 2010, election.) Has living without a government made any difference to the Belgian people?

Not really. It's not quite accurate to say the country is without a government. In parliamentary systems like that of Belgium or the United Kingdom, the existing ministers remain in office when Parliament is dissolved in anticipation of an election. In the event that the elections are inconclusive, the ministers continue to perform their functions. They can't undertake controversial new initiatives, because they don't have a parliamentary majority to approve it, but they can accomplish administrative tasks.

Link

Artist Michael Kalish and the architects at Oyler Wu Collaborative teamed up to create ReALIze, "the greatest" sculpture of Muhammad Ali EVAR!

The piece consists of an immense, two-story steel framework, more than five miles of cable, and more than 1,300 suspended speedbags.

This feat of gravity, with the bags hovering like hundreds of upside-down balloons, is enough to enthrall those passing through the plaza, but there's an even more powerful message. From just the right vantage point, the punching bags line up to create a giant pixelated image, a convincing portrait of the man formerly known as Cassius Clay.

Alissa Walker of GOOD magazine has the story and video clip: Link

Remember the drug smugglers' submarine that was captured by Ecuadoran police last year? The 75-foot boat was capable of shipping about 9 tons of cocaine. Jim Popkin of Wired wrote a detailed look at its design after reading a report by the US Navy:

The hull, they discovered, was made from a costly and exotic mixture of Kevlar and carbon fiber, tough enough to withstand modest ocean pressures but difficult to trace at sea. Like a classic German U-boat, the drug-running submarine uses diesel engines on the surface and battery-powered electric motors when submerged. With a crew of four to six, it has a maximum operational range of 6,800 nautical miles on the surface and can go 10 days without refueling. Packed with 249 lead-acid batteries, the behemoth can also travel silently underwater for up to 18 hours before recharging.

The most valuable feature, though, is the cargo bay, capable of holding up to 9 tons of cocaine—a street value of about $250 million. The vessel ferries that precious payload using a GPS chart plotter with side-scan capabilities and a high-frequency radio—essential gadgetry to ensure on-time deliveries. There’s also an electro-optical periscope and an infrared camera mounted on the conning tower—visual aids that supplement two miniature windows in the makeshift cockpit.

You can view several pictures

Link via Nerdcore

Matthew Cusick composes collage portraits and landscapes out of maps, such as the above Red & Blue. Each work at his gallery at the link includes a detail image, demonstrating the remarkable work that Cusick put into selecting map colors and shapes.

Link via Dude Craft