(Photo: tecking)

PhilosophyOfTheWorld poses one of the most original questions I've ever seen on AskReddit.

SockPuppetDinosaur answers with the Large Hadron Collider on the French-Swiss border:

The first time we collided two atoms in the LHC. Two atoms smash together and a duck happens. Can you imagine the panic?

AFrenchLondoner considers the first Easter morning:

When Mary and co. went to check on Jesus' tomb, but instead of finding it empty, there's a rubber duck sitting there.

jvtech suggests the duck distracting President Kennedy immediately before his assassination:

Shortly after noon on November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy was struck by a rubber duck as he rode in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, Texas.

Crowds of excited people lined the streets and waved to the Kennedys. The president's car turned off Main Street at Dealey Plaza around 12:30 p.m. As it was passing the Texas School Book Depository, an object struck the president's neck and head and he slumped over toward Mrs. Kennedy to retrieve the object from the floor of the car. Gunfire suddenly reverberated in the plaza. Bullets struck the car hitting governor Connally but narrowly missing the president and first lady.

The car sped off to Parkland Memorial Hospital just a few minutes away. Though seriously wounded, Governor Connally would recover.

Police arrested Lee Harvey Oswald, a recently hired employee at the Texas School Book Depository. He was being held for the attempted assassination of President Kennedy. The source of the rubber duck is still a mystery to this day.

President Kennedy is quoted as saying, "I think I'll keep this duck, it's good luck. But if the owner would like to come forward, I'd be happy to return it and give my thanks."

Could the duck also save President Lincoln? thedudethedudegoesto thinks not:

Jon Wilkes booth rushes up behind Lincoln, and pulls out his...rubber duck? Confused, he hurls it it Lincoln and ruptures his eye. It gets infected. Lincoln dies anyway.

sunofabeeeyetch imagines the duck at the atomic bombing of Hiroshima:

On August 6th, 1945, the Enola Gay flies high above the bustling city of Hiroshima, Japan. The pilots glance at each other, each giving the other a grave and solemn nod. In the back, the bay doors open, and the bomber releases its immense and devastating payload of...a giant rubber duck.

Below, the citizens of Hiroshima are bewildered as the immense object crushes a merchant's wares, letting out a mighty yet comically high-pitched squeak. Its beady black eyes stare soullessly into the people's eyes as the local police scramble to identify the object.

Where and when would you place the duck?

Slovenian men, pat yourselves on the back. You'll pulling your load. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Slovenian men do the most unpaid housework per day. India is at the bottom of this chart, which Matt Phillips of The Atlantic suggests may be due to gender inequality in that country.

American men score about 82 minutes a day. That's probably close to my time.

I am curious how the researchers defined housework, which may vary from culture to culture.

-via Nag on the Lake

(Photo: US Fish and Wildlife Service)

Who's higher on the food chain? Let's just say that I don't want to cross an otter in the future. Staff at the Lake Woodruff National Wildlife Refuge in central Florida photographed this scene in 2011. You can see more photos of the incident here.

The agency says that the otter dragged the alligator onshore and ate it:

Yes, the otter eventually pulled the alligator up on the bank and proceeded to consume it, as evidenced by crunching noises. They were no longer visible at that point, but the alligator was done resisting when dragged out of the water. Despite their disarmingly cute appearance, otters are the apex predator of many freshwater habitats.

Now let's match the otter against the snake that ate a crocodile.

Go Team Mammal!

-via Stuff

Here's an original approach to interviewing (warning: auto-start video). The Guardian sat children's books authors down with kids. The kids asked questions while dressed as the characters created by the authors.

The featured authors are Jim Smith of I Am Not a Loser, Jacqueline Wilson of Hetty Feather and S.F. Said of Varjak Paw.

What other authors (adult or children's literature) would you like to see interviewed this way?

-via io9

(Ryan Hudson/Channelate)

Part of good parenting is teaching children to become self-sufficient. Sure, you could answer the question yourself. But what will she do when you, too, aren’t around anymore?

It’s just a pity that the internet is not immediately helpful in this case.

(Photo: Eden Pictures)

The researchers were precise in their methodology:

We excluded cases in which injury was related to swallowing items other than swords, such as . . . jack hammers.

As well they should!

Brian Witcombe, a physician, and Dan Meyer, an executive in a professional organization for sword swallowers, published an article in a 2006 issue of the British Medical Journal. It evaluated the health risks of sheathing a sword inside the human esophagus. They surveyed 46 sword swallowers and determined that performers increase the likelihood of injury by “adding embellishments to their performance.”

Who engages in this performing art? Amy Kraft of The Week attended a meeting of sword swallowers. It was one of many held simultaneously at Ripley’s Believe It or Not locations around the United States. She writes that sword swallowing originated in India about 4,000 years ago. It requires careful and rigorous training:

To get there, you must first learn to suppress the gag reflex in the back of your throat, which sword swallowers work on for years. Then you have to flip back your epiglottis and relax several other involuntary muscles in the esophagus, which winds past major organs, including the heart. Finally, to get the sword into the stomach you have to relax the lower sphincter muscle and repress the stomach's retch reflex.

-via Joe Carter

(Photo: IBM Research)

Watson is famous for crushing human opponent Ken Jennings on Jeopardy! in 2011. Now it’s putting its computational power to work as a chef.

(Photo: IBM Research)

IBM calls the project “cognitive cooking.” Chefs often think of combining different ingredients in different amounts and cooking them at different ways. Watson can do that, too, but much, much faster. IBM researcher Florian Pinel says that Watson can contemplate the effect of trillions of culinary variations in order to devise optimal recipes. The result of Watson’s efforts are a Swiss-Thai asparagus quiche and an Austrian chocolate burrito (above photo).

IBM is exhibiting the recipes with a food truck that it takes on the road. Recently, it was at the IBM Pulse Conference in Las Vegas.

(Video Link)

-via Marginal Revolution

Imgur user caitrose writes, “i should buy a lottery ticket.” Indeed. It’s her lucky day. It appears that she poured a bowl of Lucky Charms cereal and found the leprechaun’s greatest treasure.

Some commenters suggest trying to sell the rainbow bacon on eBay. Yes, definitely. There’s money to be made in a treasure like this. Then caitrose can retire in luxury.

-via Foodbeast

Artists Davide Luciano and Claudia Ficca set mouse traps that could easily trap humans. Luciano came up with the idea after spending a week photographing cheeses for advertisements.

Ficca, a food stylist, designed the miniature dishes. Together, the couple made ten images of traps for mice with sophisticated tastes. You can see more of them at Foodiggity. I’ll probably break my finger in the sushi one pictured above.

P.S. Be sure to check out another inventive project by Luciano and Ficca: using potholes as an artistic background.

(Chris Hallbeck/Maximumble)

Get caught up on your favorite show to hate this weekend. Netflix, like so many internet applications, makes life faster and more efficient.

Chris Hallbeck, the cartoonist who draws Maximumble, adds:

“I’ll give it 2 more seasons to get better or I’ll start yelling at twitter while I continue to watch it!”

(Photo: Ice Castle Fish Houses)

The sturdier fishermen of the Upper Midwest of the United States are fond of venturing out to iced-over lakes. Fishing requires time and patience. Ice fishing requires both while enduring cold temperatures. That’s why many drag shacks onto the ice, where they can enjoy essential amenities, such as beer and heaters.

But now these ice fishermen can enjoy shacks far superior to crude wooden structures. Ice Castle Fish Houses, a company in Montevideo, Minnesota, builds veritable ice fishing mansions.

They come with full kitchens, showers, satellite television and beds. There are even air conditioners, which could really come in handy down here in Texas.

When it’s time to actually fish, just pull up a comfortable chair, open a plug in the floor and drop down a line.

-via TYWKIWDBI

I love these lamps! They're charming, functional and probably terribly hot to the touch. I'm not sure who made them, but my friend Marilyn Bellamy thinks that they can be traced back to a company called Balloonatics Enterprises.

Redditor bitsAndBites01 offers an intriguing discussion topic: 

Ladies: Name a fictional male (book, TV or movie) who encapsulates as many of of the qualities you'd like to see in a man.

That's a great way to look at relationships and what you want out of them. Peevesie offers an answer from the Harry Potter series:

Arthur Weasley (an age appropriate version) - he is strong, kind, brave, caring, loving, capable, curious, respectful, intelligent, responsible, and so many other things. He clearly didn't have a dead bedroom considering the number of off spring. He was an excellent father who nurtured his kids with a gentle and firm hand. He was an equalist. He has his faults but is by far the most real family man I have encountered in fiction. Molly was super lucky

RockOnChicago wants Indy:

When I was little I wanted to marry Indiana Jones, and that pretty much still stands today.

HtheOtherAlex thinks of The Princess Bride:

Unsure why Westley/ The Man in Black/ Dread Pirate Roberts hasn't been mentioned yet...

Pirate + true love + kiss that blows away the best five kisses since the invention of the kiss + "As you wish" + eyes like the sea after a storm = Yes, yes, very much please. Yup.

Several ladies agree with starredwithjejune: Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird would be a great companion. Why? Concernedbitch explains:

For me it's his principles, and the fact that he's so gentle and emotionally insightful. IDK good single dads just do it for me. His brilliance and sense of humor are gravy.

Little Lion continues on that theme about Atticus Finch:

Oh, yes, there are a lot more. His compassion, his drive, his defiance of stereotypes about men (and humans) at that time... sigh

He's so dreamy.

Mypsychoticself has her eyes on Hannibal Lecter:

Hannibal Lecter. He's polite, intelligent, and a good cook. There's the small problem of eating people, but everyone has their flaws.

Which characters would you choose?

-via Super Punch

(Images: Warner Bros., Lucasfilm, Universal Pictuers, Orion Pictures)

(Great Vocab Didn't Save the Thesaurus t-shirt now on sale at the NeatoShop)

In a fascinating article for NPR, Alan Yu writes:

Lera Boroditsky once did a simple experiment: She asked people to close their eyes and point southeast. A room of distinguished professors in the U.S. pointed in almost every possible direction, whereas 5-year-old Australian aboriginal girls always got it right.

They weren't the only ones. Linguist John McWorter explains how using cardinal directions seems to indicate greater intelligence in spatial manipulation:

As an example, he refers to modern speakers of a Mayan language, who also use directions that roughly correspond to compass points, rather than left or right. Researchers asked people, most of whom only knew this language, to do tasks like memorizing how a ball moved through a maze, which would have been easier had they thought about it in terms of left and right, rather than compass points. The participants were just as good at these tasks and sometimes better,leading the experimenters to conclude they were not constrained by their language.

Some linguists think that language can constrain or liberate our thinking, opening or closing mental possibilities. For example, the Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov wrote his first autobiography in English. When a publisher asked him to translate it into Russian, Nabokov started to do so. But he promptly found himself writing a different book. Yu quotes linguist Aneta Pavlenko:

"When Nabokov started translating it into Russian, he recalled a lot of things that he did not remember when he was writing it in English, and so in essence it became a somewhat different book," Pavlenko says. "It came out in Russian and he felt that in order to represent his childhood properly to his American readership, he had to produce a new version. So the version of Nabokov's autobiography we know now is actually a third attempt, where he had to recall more things in Russian and then re-translate them from Russian back into English."

This reminds me of studying Koine Greek, which has a grammatical concept called "aspect." Nothing really corresponds with it in English. The experience made me wonder what invisible mental barriers were in my mind simply because of language.

-via Althouse

(Photo: Moschino)

Moschino is an Italian fashion house that produces everything from high class dresses to luxury handbags. At the recent Milan Fashion Week, the designers unveiled a line of clothing inspired by fast food, especially the iconic shapes and colors of McDonald's.

Other items look like huge food wrappers (complete with nutritional data), beer cans and SpongeBob SquarePants. You can see photos of these fashion wonders at Moschino's Facebook page.

The prices are substantially higher than you might expect for the central theme. The McDonald's-styled handbag that you see pictured above costs $1,265. Or rather, it did--the bag has already sold out.

-via Foodbeast