A few years ago, astronaut and science educator Don Pettit joined the crew of the International Space Station. All astronauts are allowed to bring a few personal items with them. Pettit chose to bring candy corn. He used that candy corn to build a sphere in zero gravity.
Why? Because Pettit wanted to teach certain principles of chemistry and physics to people back on Earth. He began his experiment by coating the wide ends of the candy corn with oil and inserting them into a drop of water. The oil-coated ends tended to move toward the edge of the sphere, away from the water. This is a demonstration of how soap works.
Wait, we can't just destroy it! It's so comfortable. Surely it can't hurt me if I rest my head on it for just a little while, right? Surely Robert and Elsa Evans would not have crafted such an excellent pillow if it wasn't harmeless!
This is the neatest thing I've seen all day! Morgan Spence is a 15-year old stop motion animator from Kilbarchan, Scotland. He's loved LEGO since he was a young child. Now he's using it at a highly professional level. This video shows how perfectly he recreates scenes from movies, including Pulp Fiction, The Wizard of Oz, The Sound of Music, Singing in the Rain, and Life of Pi.
The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta is an event filled with glorious sights, including this majestic Yoda balloon. I highly recommend viewing its entire photo gallery. There you can find a pink elephant, a cactus, a sun, and perhaps best of all . . .
Geoffrey Henry's cat Twitter walks like an elegant lady in heels. Is that a carpet in an ordinary house? No, it's a high fashion runway in Milan or a sidewalk along the Champs-Élysées. I'll bet that wherever she goes, the tom cats watch her closely.
This is a white-footed sportive lemur (Lepilemur leucopus). This primate species lives on the southern tip of Madagascar. They're the lemur equivalent of the people who write graffiti in public restrooms. Usually these lemurs live alone, but they use community latrines. Besides the coventional purpose of a latrine, the lemurs use them to communicate.
Researchers Iris Dröscher and Peter Kappeler spent more than a thousand hours watching these lemurs relieve themselves at these facilities. They determined that the lemurs use the latrines as social networking tools by leaving scent marks directed to not only the entire group, but also specific individuals. From Physorg:
Males visited the latrines more often during nights when an intruder invaded the territory. In addition, the males placed scent marks from their specialized anogenital glands preferentially in latrines. "This indicates that latrine use in this primate species should also be connected to mate defense," says Iris Dröscher, a PhD student at the German Primate Center.
"Scent marks transmit a variety of information such as sexual and individual identity and may function to signal an individual's presence and identity to others," continues Dröscher. "Latrines therefore serve as information exchange centers of individual-specific information."
I'd like to think that somewhere among these latrines, there's a lemur equivalent of Neatorama.
Your cat leads a stressful life, what with all the work he does around the house. Doug Savage of Savage Chickens urges you to help him relax while he’s on vacation. You might want to try that recording, too.
As revealed in “Prisoners of Love,” the Ice King has a tattoo of a penguin on his right buttock. That image would make a great tattoo on . . . well, some part of the body.
Chicken and waffles are a staple of American soul food. They belong together just as nature intended. Usually they are not made into a classic dessert. Graham Blackhall, a chef in New Orleans, has now changed that.
Blackhall’s chicken and waffles cake uses a vanilla buttermilk cake as a base. It’s topped with a maple syrup buttercream and a spicy sage caramel. Then it’s decorated with chicken nuggets and Belgian waffles.
This is a great start. To go further, I suggest placing chicken nuggets between the cake layers.
Is that cashmere? No, it’s Persian! Think of your cat’s fur as not a mess, but a decoration that your feline companion gives to you as an act of love. Be sure to share it with your friends by hugging.
The comic strip Peanuts was made into several feature films that are regularly aired on American television--even today. Most prominent among them are A Charlie Brown Christmas and A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. Over nearly 50 years, ABC, CBS, and Fox made more than two dozen Peanuts specials. Some proposals for others were, though, rejected.
#rejectedpeanutsspecials is a funny hashtag currently trending on Twitter. It’s filled with ideas for Charlie Brown stories that were, thankfully, never put into production. Here are a few examples:
It Wasn't Your Fault, Charlie Brown, You Didn't Know About Schroeder's Peanut Allergy #rejectedpeanutsspecials
Redditor MoobyTheGoldenCalf is a generous and crafty parent. S/he writes, “So last year my kid wanted to be a mailbox for Halloween. This year, he wanted to be a vending machine. Here are the results.” They are impressive costumes--possibly enough to fool the inattentive.
The vending machine has a plastic sheet in the front “so that kids don’t run up to him and steal the chips.” Smart thinking, that. The candy deposit slot is on the right. There’s a light on the inside and a mirror film that lets the boy see out, but other people won’t be able to see in.
The mailbox is made of cardboard and foam. There are stated collection times on the front: trick-or-treating takes place between 5-7 PM.
Hubert Rochereau dutifully marched off to war from his home in the village of Bélâbre, France. He served as a second lieutenant in the 15th Dragoons. Rochereau died of his wounds sustained in battle against the Germans in Loker, Belgium on April 26, 1918. For his courage under fire and his sacrifice, France bestowed on him the Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honor.
Rochereau’s parents were heartbroken. They kept his room in their house the way that he had left it. When they moved in 1935, their stipulated in the sales contract that his room must remain as it was for at least 500 years.
The requirement was legally dubious, but the new owners respected the wishes of the mourning couple. So did current owner, who inherited the house from her grandparents. It is a unique look into the past. Anne Penketh writes for The Guardian:
The room contains the spurs of the cavalry officer, his sword and a fencing helmet, and a collection of pistols. A flag is propped up beside the wall. His pipes are on his desk and the stale smell of English tobacco comes from a cigarette packet. […]
On Rochereau’s desk is a vial on which, in keeping with tradition, a label records that it contains “the soil of Flanders on which our dear child fell and which has kept his remains for four years”.
Flamin' Hot Cheetos and bagels! Like pickled pigs' feet and jelly-filled donuts, they're two foods that naturally belong together. Now they are finally united, thanks to Allison Ewing of the BreadHive bakery in Buffalo, New York. Or perhaps the credit properly belongs to a 10-year old who proposed it while hanging out in the bakery. Andrew Z. Galarneau writes for the Buffalo News:
“She was supervising, and asking questions, and eating Flamin' Hot Cheetos,” said BreadHive’s Allison Ewing. "She said, 'You should put these on a bagel.' ” […]
They crushed a bag of the alarmingly crimson processed snacks, and dipped the ready-to bake bagels in them, instead of using organic garlic or one of the usual toppings. They found that the crumbs stay crispy for a few hours, and crisp up again if you toast the bagel.
