With the assistance of a grant by the Office of Naval Research (USA), engineering students at Rutgers University in New Jersey developed a drone that can fly through the air, submerge underwater, travel through the water, then surface and return to the sky again. It's a remarkable achievement, as most amphibious vehicles cannot return to a previous environment once they've left it.

As this press release by Rutgers describes, drones like this one could serve a wide variety of purposes. These amphibious drones could inspect bridges and provide information to assess oil spills. More importantly, they could advance naval warfare capabilities. Prof. Javier Diez explains:

“Mines are probably the biggest problem for the Navy,” said Diez. “They need to map where mines are. Now there are a lot of false positives. This could be a better technology to rapidly investigate these potential threats.”

And in naval warfare, a fleet of drones could be stationed out of sight in an underwater base or on a submarine. The drones could emerge quickly from the depths, get a quick glimpse of enemy ship deployments, and then hide again.

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-via Gifsboom

(Cyanide & Happiness/Kris Wilson)

You have made the Gingerbread Man. You have made him as a monster. He cannot be anything beyond his original form. His reality is confined to a world that he cannot differentiate from himself. And his agony ends only when you eat him.

But the Gingerbread Man is not the true monster. You are.

-via Tastefully Offensive

In the United States, many high school seniors purchase class rings that indicate their accomplishments and identities. For example, a varsity sports player may get a ring with a symbol of that sport. An accomplished student may note his or her best subject.

What did your teenager accomplish in high school? Well, yes: sending a lot of text messages. Let's include that option, too.

I don't know where this image came from, but the ring company Balfour does offer a texting side on its brochure. It's on page 15 between Student Council and Accounting.

-via Kevin D. Williamson

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The pooch on the end has reasoned out a pattern: the human delivers treats along a line. All that he has to do is switch places in the line to get extra treats. He can keep this going all day--especially with treats to keep him fueled.

What kind of dogs are these? They book a bit like Shelties and a bit like Border Collies.

-via Nothing to Do with Aborath

He's Santa Sparrow. You've heard of him, right? The's the most famous Santa on the seven seas.

Sparrow Style Entertainment is a Jack Sparrow impersonation service in Madison, Wisconsin. Its crew is lately dressing as a more festive Captain of the Black Pearl. He might not bring you presents this year.

-via Cosplay in America

You might think that they're made of some of soft, malleable material. But José Manuel Castro López, an artist from Spain, carves them all from solid rock. The result is a series of surreal forms that look like reality is something you can turn and twist with your fingers. You can see more photos at Ignant.

(Photo: eBay)

I was never cool, but I think that I did have one of these beauties. Yes, a top-end pop culture lunchbox was the way to impress other kids back in the 80s. Not just any lunchbox would do. Why have a lunchbox if it associates you with a low status entertainment franchise?

Beau Coffron of Lunchbox Dad has photos and analyses of the 15 best lunchboxes that the cool kids of the 80s carried. His ranking is correct, especially his #1 pick. If you wanted to be the center of attention in the lunchroom back then, that is one that you needed.

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Tina Calderin and Gracie, her Dachshund, went kayaking in the Banana River near Cape Canaveral, Florida. Gracie sat on the bow and watched a dolphin swim by. She got very excited and decided to become a water dog. Without warning, Gracie jumped in and gave chase.

Content warning: foul language.

-via Nothing to Do with Aborath

(Photo: Amazon)

What tools do you need? At a minimum, you need WD-40 to make it move and duct tape to make it hold still. But what if you want whatever you are trying to fix to smell nice, too? Then Duck Tape brand duct tape has options. You can buy orange cream, bubblegum, grape, and cupcake. This particular flavor has an "aroma of oranges that have been swirled with a vanilla twist." Yummy!

-via The Worst Things for Sale

Costa Magarakis says that his work "can be expressed as a gothic wonderland illuminating the gray area between truths and lies." His inner mind juxtaposes against the real world to form surreal scenes of people, technology, and nature. I find his work with shoes to be particularly striking, such as this platform shoe that looks like the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.

Twitter user @Belcorno, a Japanese latte and pancake artist, appears to be totally psyched for the release of Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. He's been populating his feed with photos of lattes that he's made with characters from Episodes I-VI.

Han Solo had enough trouble from one Mandalorian bounty hunter. Could he survive if eleven were hunting him?

York in the Box and Fat Man Photography took photos of a vast assembly of cosplayers who mashed up Disney princess characters with the Star Wars bounty hunter Boba Fett. They are:

Mulan: Rian Synnth
Pocahontas: Hendo Art
Ariel: Traci Hinds
Rapunzel: Maid of Midnight
Snow White: Amber Arden
Sleeping Beauty: Panda Cat
Tinkerbell and Peter Pan: Miley Tiny Thunder and Chris Villain
Anna and Elsa: Life of Shel and Ashlynne Dae
Hans: Erbele

-via Cosplay in America

When Batman leaves Gotham to travel to Tokyo, this is his ideal abode. The Batcave is an apartment available for rent on Airbnb. It costs $75 a night. For that low price, you get a suite that is decorated with Batman paraphernalia, including posters, hundreds of original comics, bedding, and furniture.

It does not come with a butler, though, or batpoles or bat shark repellent. These are serious oversights that probably explain the low price.

If you wear high heeled shoes often, then you know how hard it can be to traverse difficult terrain, such as the deserts of Jakku. That's why you need this modification by Instructables member Mike Warren. His BB-8 heels make good use of the droid's spherical locomotion to keep you on the move.

Warren first removed the heels and replaced them with long bolts. Then he shaped wood spheres into our newest favorite droid, making sure that they rotate freely. Warren also decorated the rest of the shoes in BB-8's colors and graphic patterns.

-via Toxel

What kind of art does Red Hongyi make? Everything--including media you've never thought of. In the past we've seen a portraits that she with coffee cup stains, socks, chopsticks and a paint-covered basketball dribbled on canvas.

For her most recent project, Hongyi assembled objects that, when silhouetted from the right angle, reveal characters from Star Wars. She used a wide variety of materials, such as leaves for Yoda, circuit boards for R2-D2, and, appropriately, chocolate for Darth Vader.

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-via Geek Tyrant