(Photo: Robbie Swinnerton)

The famous Danish chef René Redzepi has brought the entire staff of Noma, his restaurant in Copenhagen, to Tokyo. At his new location, he's offering his unique take on Japanese cuisine. He launched the endeavor with a grand 16-course feast that began this dish. It's jumbo shrimp served with black ants. The Japan Times describes the taste:

But it is the seasoning — “flavors of the Nagano forest” the menu calls it — that defines this dish. A dozen tiny wild black ants are carefully arranged on the shrimp, their little pinpricks of sharp acidity acting as a perfect accent for the sweet, pink flesh.

-via Spoon & Tamago

Sarah Showfety of New Jersey is the mother of a 22-month old baby. She's got another one on the way. She's busy, tired, and stressed. In other words, she's the mother of a toddler.

Like any parent, she's taking shortcuts. That's the only way you get through this period relatively sane. Showfety knows that her decisions are not always the best, so she's already writing apology notes to her daughter. The results are quite funny. You can read them all at Dear Baby XO.

Your radiation experiments have finally succeeded! You now have superpowers. Congratulations. But before you try extraordinary feats, you should think about precisely what your powers do and do not do.

Sure, you can fly at supersonic speeds. But you’ll freeze. Also, you’ll get lost.

What other consequences do you need to take into account? Read the rest by Justin Hall at Dorkly.

(Photo: AP/Peter Rowe)

During one part of the famous training montage in the 1976 film Rocky, Rocky Balboa runs up and down the 72 stone steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The movie became famous and those steps became famous as a result.

(Image: United Artists)

Peter Rowe and two of his college friends visited Philadelphia last week. They ate the customary cheesesteaks and decided to run up the iconic Rocky Steps. At that moment, Sylvester Stallone, the actor who played Rocky Balboa, showed up:

At the top, as they celebrated the moment, a voice from behind them said, "You guys got up here pretty fast. You're making me look bad."

They turned around. It was Rocky himself, Sylvester Stallone.

"He was walking around with some of his family," according to Rick Rowe, Pete's father, who posted the item on Facebook, along with a picture the three college students took with Stallone atop the famous steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

-via Geek Tyrant

This is Al the Jumper. He jumps over things and he’s really good at it. If 2 motorcycles are coming straight at you, you might jump to the side. But Al jumps straight up at the last possible moment, barely clearing the motorcycles on his ascent and descent.

(Video Link)

This is just a beginning. Al wants to secure a Guinness World Record by jumping over two cars.

-via Jalopnik

Crummy Gummy, an artist in Orlando, is most well-known for his sculptures made out of gummy bears, such as a Spartan helmet and an Alien chestburster. His most recent creation is this colorful 1:1 scale model of Darth Vader’s helmet. It required over 1,000 gummies and a lot of patience to make the Sith lord this tasty.

-via Geek Tyrant

(Photo: AP/J. Pat Carter)

Chanel Beckenlehner of Caledon, Ontario represented Canada at the Miss Universe pageant in Miami yesterday. She wore a fantastic costume that displays her homeland’s love for hockey. In the place of a tiara, Beckenlehner wore a model of the Stanley Cup and a hockey goal net. Her boots resemble lace-up skates and her wings consist of fans of hockey sticks. And, yes, that scoreboard is part of her dress.

-via Anne Thériault

(Photo: Dick Mulder)

In 2011, a 4-foot long four-lined snake (Elaphe quatuorlineata) swallowed a smaller whip snake (Platyceps najadum) on the Greek island of Corfu. A pet cat then killed the four-lined snake.

Dick Mulder, a Dutchman who lives on the island, snapped photos of the incredible scene that followed. He described it to National Geographic:

"My wife, who didn't like the idea of a dead snake on her veranda, screeched that the snake wasn't dead—she saw it moving," he said in an email. "I reassured her that it was really dead," Mulder recalled—until he took a closer look.

"I went to grab my camera, and by the time I came back I saw the head of a small snake," he said.

The whip snake then fled into the wild. That's one tough little snake!

Guinness World Records says that at 1 foot, 11.28 inches long, this Pleurotus eryngii is the longest edible mushroom in the world. Mad scientists at the Mushroom Research Laboratory of the Hokuto Corporation in Nagano, Japan grew it. It’ll fill up a lot of pizzas, provided that it doesn’t achieve sentience and kill us all first.

(Image: Medici Tigurini Historiae Animalium by Conrad Gesner)

The illustrious Dr. John Pechey was a member of the College of Physicians in London. His book A Plain Introduction to the Art of Physick explains how to treat colic effectively. As you might expect, you’ll need a duck:

If you apply a living Duck, the Feathers being pulled off behind, to the Stomach, it will ease the Pain of Cholick.

So, logically, if she weighs as much as a duck . . . .

-via Ask the Past

Everyone is judging you—and harshly—about everything you say and do. Did they notice that you mispronounced a word? They did, they did! It’s terrible, as Shea Strauss illustrates at College Humor. You can read the rest of her cartoons about social anxiety here.

-via reddit

Your face is covered with cookie crumbs, but don’t brush them off! They could be the basis of some rad mascara. At the age of 16, Katherine Ward is already a skilled makeup artist who improvises with materials at hand. To make mascara from Oreo cookies, she first removed the filling, crushed the cookie ends into a fine powder, then mixed in water and a facial primer. Do that and you’ll be ready to look sharp. Downside: you have fewer cookies to eat.

(Video Link)

-via Craft

(Photo: James Patterson)

Novelist James Patterson has a new book coming out called Private Vegas. It’s an explosive story—literally. He’s selling one special copy of his latest thriller for £194,000 ($294,038 USD) that has a built-in time bomb. The fan who acquires this special copy will have a private dinner with Patterson at an undisclosed location before being presented with the book. S/he has 24 hours to read it before it detonates. The Daily Telegraph reports:

A special weapons and tactics (SWAT) team will also be on hand to handle the explosive thriller. […]

"Twenty four hours after you start it, the book will no longer be there," said Patterson, 67. "I hope this spurs more ways to get attention."

He added: "This seemed like a terrific way to draw attention to a book in a way that has never been done before," he explained. "In the history of publishing there hasn't been anything like this."

(Video Link)

Do you use The Facebook? You should. It’s 1995, so it’s time that you get logged into the future. The Facebook is the best way to communicate with other people, share images, and arrange events. Add you need is a computer, a modem, and a phone line. The Facebook will send you a disk so that you can load The Facebook onto your computer for 10 hours—for free! Comedian Brent Weinbach tells us all about it in this commercial.

-via 22 Words

When super agent Sterling Archer of the hit cartoon Archer needs backup, he calls on TV talk show host Conan O’Brien. Or Conan happened to be handy—but it’s one of the two.

Archer was supposed to be a guest on Conan’s show, but he got delayed by the perennial excuse of every guest: people were chasing and shooting at him. The results were hilarious!

(Video Link)

-via Geek Tyrant