What're these mystery obejcts? The answer (in a few days) will surprise you! Go ahead, guess what these are.

Update 1/4/06 - Answer: TravelMate. Guessed right by NE Philly in just 18 minutes.

The news story said it best:

Police in Kentucky are looking for a customer who succeeded in paying for a $2 order at a fast-food restaurant with a phony $200 bill like the one passed in Pennsylvania. The back of the bill features lawn signs saying things such as “We like broccoli.”

Link

Mark Ho's Zoho Artform No. 1 is a metal sculpture that can take any number of natural human poses because it has the same joints, giving it the same range of motions humans have.

It took Mark six years to create this sculpture, his first artwork.

Link

If you only read one thing from Neatorama today, read BBC's 100 things we didn't know this time last year.

Some highlights:

No. 14 - It's possible for a human to blow up balloons via the ear.

Wei Mingtang, 55, a factory worker from Guilin city, Guangxi province, discovered his ears leaked air over 30 years ago reports Nanguo Morning News.

He then came up with the idea of using them to inflate balloons with the aid of a pipe.

On a recent city Spring Festival Party, Wei also blew out 20 candles in a line within 20 seconds using a hose leading out from his ears reports the paper.

(Link to OddlyNews about Wei's awesome super power)

No. 20 - The queen has never been on a computer, she told Bill Gates as she awarded him an honorary knighthood.

"It's not as natural [using computers] for the Queen as it is for young people," he said.

Wait, wait - Bill Gates? A knight? Link

No. 23. - In America it's possible to subpoena a dog.

They sent out a subpoena, and the five-year-old Shih Tzu duly appeared at the Benton County Prosecuting Attorney's Office, led by the defendant's brother.

Prosecutor Robin Green told the Associated Press news agency she apologised to the brother for any inconvenience, adding: "The dog was friendly enough and probably would have been a very co-operative witness."

Link

No. 78 - One in 18 people has a third nipple.

The gene - named Scaramanga after the three-nippled JamesBond villain in The Man With The Golden Gun - was found by an Institute of Cancer Research team.

... sometimes something goes wrong and leads to fewer, extra or misplaced breasts and nipples.

One in 18 people has an extra nipple, which can look like freckles or moles.

Link

Your inner geek ... er, jedi wants a Star Wars Force FX Lightsaber. Link

David Frank and collaborators spent 26 years translating the Bible into Gullah, a language of slaves still spoken by about 10,000 people in Sea Island, South Carolina. The result? De Nyew Testament.

No matter how often he read Psalm 23, Emory Campbell never could understand that line. "I shall not want: What does that mean?" he'd ask himself.

Then he joined a project to translate the Bible into the language of his ancestors — the language of slaves who toiled for centuries in rice paddies off the Carolina coast.

That first line became: "De Lawd me shephud. A hab ebryting wa A need." I have everything I need.

LATimes Article

A drunken passenger who insulted cabin crew and fellow passengers after he was denied a drink was "frogmarched" off the plane, on a barren (but nice) volcanic island 300 miles from his destination.

According to police, the new addition to the island's population of just 5,000 people was not detained in a cell and was released to enjoy the island's famed tranquillity for 36 hours.

While there is little vegetation on Porto Santo, home to Christopher Columbus before he set off to discover the Americas, the island boasts several luxury hotels and a golf course.

Link

Colorado police is investigating the death of a man who accidentally slipped into a large wood chipper!

Gruesome! Link

Now your kid can go ape sh*t in style with this King Kong electronic fist! Just $29.99 (not counting the other damage to the house he'll do!) Link

Two fish tales to tell today:

First: David Reznick of UC Riverside and colleagues found that female guppies go through menopause, just like humans (and gorillas, as blogged here before)!

Guppies typically reproduce about every 30 days and lay eggs approximately 20 times throughout their lives. The researchers found that as female guppies aged, they began to skip litters or even stop reproducing for extended periods of time, effectively ceasing to reproduce after a certain age. In other words, the guppies were going through a fish version of menopause.

Second: Molly Morris of Ohio University found that young female swordtail fish prefer males with symmetrical patterns, an indicator of good genes - however, their mating preference changes as they age - older females prefer males with asymmetric markings.

The reason for the "switch" is not yet understood. The researchers are planning experiments to determine if it’s simply part of a female’s development over the course of her lifetime, or if it is in some way due to the experiences females have. "Older, larger females will have had more mating experience," Morris said.

Fish menopause story | Fish mating preference story

Farris Hasan, a 16-year-old high school student from Florida decided to go to Iraq after 1 week of "immersion journalism".

As luck would have it, the teenager found himself at the Iraq-Kuwait line sometime on December 13, and the border security was extra tight because of Iraq's December 15 parliamentary elections. The timing saved him from a dangerous trip.

"If they'd let me in from Kuwait, I probably would have died," he acknowledged. "That would have been a bad idea."

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/12/29/teen.iraq.ap.ap/index.html (via Boing Boing)

This puzzle grows on trees! Check out the nut from the Patience Tree (aka Cannonball Mangrove or Xylocarpus granatum).

The number of seeds can vary apparently, with anything up to 16. However the particular interest for us is the fact that they interlock so beautifully. However putting the pieces back together is not so easy! Another name for this is the Monkey Puzzle Nut, or I suppose you could think of it as nature's own Rubik Cube!

Link

Now you can own your own killer rabbit, inspired by classic movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Link

The Internet is taking China by storm, and as a result, there is a growing number of internet addicts - and treating these internet addicts is becoming a booming business!

Wang Yiming, 21, is a self-confessed internet addict, one of a growing number in China. He used to spend hours online each day, often going without food or sleep. His face is drawn and sallow.

A month or two after I started surfing the internet, I failed some of my school tests, but I was too afraid to tell my parents. When my father found out, he was very angry.

"But I couldn't control my addiction. Friends were also telling me that I was on the net too long, but I thought: 'It's my life, I can do what I want.' I became a real loner, was withdrawn, and wouldn't listen to anyone."

I wonder what they're doing to his face, though - is it part of the treatment? Link

Ariel Atom is built by craftsmen with a 40 year manufacturing history building F1 race cars to sports prototypes. It's a beautiful piece of engineering that can be yours for only £35,000. Link