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Between 1929 and 1945, Okunoshima Island was used by Japan as a site for producing chemical weapons. Now it's a tourist attraction where people visit feral rabbits that began living there in 1971:

Today, the island is uninhabited, but the remains of the facility buildings, including gas containers and a power plant, are still there.

It is believed that rabbits were first taken to the island in 1971, after an elementary school in Takehara found it difficult to keep the animals at school. According to the Kyukamura Okunoshima resort hotel, most of the visitors to the island consisted of students on school study trips and senior tourists.

However, as the island became known as a rabbit habitat, the hotel began to receive more reservations from young women and families. The rabbits became popular for their adorable gesture asking for food.

Link via Nerdcore

Santa's Rocket Ship was one of five custom buses made with a Christmas theme. They were built by Lloyd Laster of Tyler, TX, who used them as advertising venues:

The vehicles traveled all over the southern and southwest parts of the country taking Holiday Shoppers on joy rides while making appearances at shopping centers and malls. Each of the Santa's Rocket Ships traveled with a crew of five; a driver, two attendants, a hostess, and of course Santa Claus. Laster started in the 1950s with one Santa's Rocket Ship and had gradually built up the fleet of five Christmas vehicles by the time he retired in 1974.

Laster sold the business to another man who continued to use the vehicles for several years before it ceased to be a profitable activity. So what happened to Santa's spaceships? Tom Joslin of Jalopnik tracked down the one surviving bus at Mukluk Land, a small amusement park in Tok, Alaska.

Link | Photo: Mukluk Land

British defense contractor BAE Systems unveiled a concept image for an unmanned armored vehicle that was inspired by the Batmobile as it appeared in the 2005 movie Batman Begins. Project leader Hisham Awad directly attributed the design to Batmobile:

While Awad was showing one of his team’s concept vehicles, the unmanned skirmisher known as Raider, another of the assembled journalists gave a low whistle.

‘I like that,’ he said. ‘Looks like the Batmobile.’

‘Ah!’ Awad replied, with a grin. ‘Glad you said that. That’s what we based it on.’

Pardon?

‘Yes, we liked the look of that, so we designed something similar.’

What, the Batmobile in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight?

‘Yes, that one. You see, it turns like a motorbike and it has the same wheel configuration.’

Link via CrunchGear | Image: BAE

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A company called Bottoms Up Beer designed a beer dispenser that fills up cups from the bottom. Presumably the dispenser opens and then closes a perforated hole in the bottom of the cup. Or it's magic.

via reddit | Company Website (warning: self-starting sound)

Pam Fleming, a police officer in Glasgow, UK, is a Jedi. She's one of eight Jedi officers on the force, and she claims that she uses her supernatural abilities while at work:

She even admits to using Jedi mind tricks during interviews with suspects in 'an effort to achieve the truth', although she tells industry magazine Police Review that she does not use 'The Force' to influence what suspects say or do.

Jedi mind tricks are used in the Star Wars movies by characters Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker to 'influence the minds of weak-minded sentient beings' to get them to do what you want them to do.

PC Fleming, who is one of ten police workers - eight of them officers - at Strathclyde Police who have listed their religion as Jedi, said her faith helped her 'fight crime and disorder on Glasgow's streets'.

Link via Hell in a Handbasket | Photo: Daily Mail

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Freddie Wong, an independent filmmaker of great action scenes, is back with a live-action depiction of a first person shooter video game. Wong made this short film in response to numerous requests from fans.

via GearFuse

This welded steel piece by Etsy seller Supertrone holds toilet paper while flashing the iconic red Cylon lights. At Technabob, you can watch a video of it in use.

Link via Technabob

While studying a human brain, researchers at Newcastle University (UK) found a blood vessel that looks like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer:

Claudia Racca, of the Institute of Neuroscience at Newcastle University, who performed the experiment with colleague David Cox, said: "Biology can throw up things like this, but it was a nice surprise to find this image.

"We were looking at a section of the tissue and noticed this strange but familiar shape. "It was intriguing and we noticed the similarity to a reindeer.

"We then took an overexposed picture of it and the red blob for the nose and the white antlers showed up even better.

"We got distracted from the science at that point and had a bit of fun with the pictures of Rudolph instead.

Link via Geekologie | Photo: Newcastle University

Dark Roasted Blend has a follow up to its previously posted gallery of exotic motorcycles. This time, you can view strange and wonderful motorcycles of the past. Among them is this 1937 military prototype with tracks in the front. It's one of three built by France. You can view these and other marvelous motorcycles at the link.

Link via Make | Photo: Kneeslider

Master Sergeant Mark Morgan of the U.S. Army Rangers is, according to the World Association of Chefs, among the three best pastry chefs in the world. He won this affirmation in Luxembourg at a competition held every four years:

“I’m not as good as I used to be – it’s been 10 years,” the Bronze Star recipient said, referring to the past decade that he served in the 75th Ranger Regiment. He deployed twice to Iraq and four times to Afghanistan in support of Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom.[...]

His peanut butter ganache earned him third place among 55 pastry chefs. Morgan also prepared four desserts, which together, were called “Pumpkin and Spice”. They included a spiced pumpkin custard; walnut cake inside a coconut blossom; red currant compote; and a cinnamon beignet on poached pumpkin petals, a trio of cranberry, and honey, yogurt and pumpkin sorbet with a pumpkin-thyme essence.

http://www.peninsulawarrior.com/casemate/article_325d6848-06cd-11e0-8914-001cc4c03286.html via Marginal Revolution | Photo: American Culinary Federation

The Technische Universitat in Munich has slides on campus. TreeHugger has pictures of this and other enormous slides that are increasingly appearing in non-playground environments.

Link via DVICE

Sure, an ordinary toilet seat can withstand most, uh, loads. But if you need a toilet seat that can really take punishment without breaking, try this one made out of 550,000 psi tensile carbon fiber.

Link via Jalopnik | Photo: Carbon Fiber Gear

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The marching band of the University of Hawaii performed this carefully choreographed piece during halftime at a recent game against the University of Southern California. The band members formed a stick figure football player moving across the field and kicking a ball.

via Geekosystem

Donald, an electrical engineer in El Paso, Texas, made this mech inspired by Yoshi from Super Mario Bros. You can see more pictures at the link, as well as similar past projects at his website.

Link via DVICE | Artist's Website

Researchers at the University of Nottingham created a special birthday present for Martyn Poliakoff, a professor of chemistry. It's a periodic table of the elments inscribed on the surface of a hair from Poliakoff:

Professor Poliakoff said: “Although the application was lighthearted I felt that it enabled us to show people how such nano writing is done. Our microscopist, Dr Mike Fay, made the whole operation seem so simple and really demystified it in a most appealing way.”

Link and Video via Kotaku Previously: Periodic Table of Videos