38 years ago today, April 17th, 1970 the capsule from the Apollo 13 mission splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, and the whole world breathed a sigh of relief.

Apollo 13 launched from Cape Canaveral on April 11, intended to be the third manned lunar landing. The crew — James A. Lovell Jr., John L. Swigert Jr. and Fred W. Haise Jr. — experienced a slight vibration shortly after launch, but things were going normally until 55 hours, 55 minutes into the flight.

Oxygen tank No. 2 exploded, causing No. 1 to fail and start leaking rapidly. Warning lights started blinking. The astronaut's supplies of air, water, light and electricity were imperiled ... 200,000 miles from Earth.

They didn’t land on the moon as planned, but just making it home alive was an amazing accomplishment. The film Apollo 13 (based on astronaut James Lovell’s book Lost Moon) recounted the story of their close call and McGyver-like operations. Wired has more details. Link

A new teacup called Ceramic For Mix (which appears to be made of glass) eliminates the need for a stirring spoon. This is acheived by a ball installed in the bottom. Designer Florian Dussopt says,

"The ball is put into a slightly protruding base to keep it in place when stirring and drinking.

"Users gently move the cup, like you would when swirling a glass of cognac, and the action pushes the ball around.

"The ceramic ball mixes all various sugars and milk at the same time, thus eliminating the need for a spoon.

"When you drink, the ball is blocked by the gravity in the recess of the glass.”

The company, Ana Gram, has made prototypes and is looking for a manufacturer. Link -via Digg

(image credit: Kevin Collins)
The Flickr group We Demand Donuts was the recipient of 10 dozen donuts at a donut shop in San Francisco today, courtesy of Flickr employee Matthew Rothenberg. The event began as a way of making light of a Flickr protest against the new feature that allows pro users to upload video to Flickr.

We Demand Donuts sprang up long before the video feature was added, but the group never had much of a following until last week, according to Jake Rome, who started the group in 2007. Shortly after the option to include video was added and several groups protesting the new feature emerged, the We Demand Donuts movement gathered steam.

We Demand Donuts had events in other places, but Flickr only organized and bought donuts for the San Francisco “protest”. http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/04/flickr-quells-v.html to story. http://flickr.com/groups/wedemanddonuts/pool/
to Flickr group.

The Lunchtime Quiz today at mental_floss is a little different from the multiple-choice quizzes we are used to. Can you name the ten top grossing movies that did NOT have a theatrical-release prequel, sequel, or were part of a series? You have five minutes, once you get started. I could only think of two, and I gave up before the time ran out. At least I knew the biggest one! http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/14178

Elaine Krajenke Ellison is a retired math teacher who makes quilts. Her patterns represent math concepts in a beautiful way.

Quilts serve as a visual introduction to mathematical concepts that allows students to explore mathematics as they gain geometric insights. My quilts will engage the viewer in mathematical visualization, helping to further the role of problem solving.

The quilt pictured is called Clifford Torus. Link -via Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories

A Norway spruce growing in Sweden has a root system that has been growing for 9,550 years! The tree is only about 13 feet tall, but the trunk is not the first first one grown from the roots. Leif Kullman, professor at Umeå University led the team that discovered the tree’s age.

The spruce's stems or trunks have a lifespan of around 600 years, "but as soon as a stem dies, a new one emerges from the same root stock," Kullman explained. "So the tree has a very long life expectancy."

The age of the root system was determined by radiocarbon dating.

Trees much older than 9,550 years would be impossible in Sweden, because ice sheets covered the country until the end of the last Ice Age around 11,000 years ago, Kullman noted.

Link

Stringwave is a seemingly simple physics toy that can keep you busy for a while! Change the settings and parameters and see what your waves and echos are like. This is something my grandmother would call "a play-pretty" and my father the scientist would call "addictive". Link -via Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories

(Break.com link)
I can’t imagine how much time this took to set up and rehearse. This guy plays the Super Mario Brothers theme on bottles with a remote-control car! Just tuning the bottles would take me all day, then another day to work out the timing, then I’d probably break quite a few. -via Boing Boing

96 years ago today, April 14th, 1912, the last meal was served aboard the Titanic. First class passengers were served a ten-course masterpiece. Later that night, the ship collided with an iceberg. 1517 people died when the ship sank; 723 were rescued. Cooking Monster takes a detailed look at the menu that night and how the dishes were prepared. Link -via Grow-A-Brain

The ‘sandhogs” who dug the subway line between Brooklyn and Manhattan used pressurized air to support their work. Occasionally, a hole would develop, and the response was to stick a sandbag in it. Sometimes this was not enough, as Dick Creedon found out on March 28th, 1905. He was sucked into the soil above the tunnel, pushed through the river, and blasted thirty feet into the air -and lived to tell about it! He later told the New York Times,

“Pooh! Pooh! It didn’t amount to such a lot. There were the four of us, and we were looking for a little trouble with the riverbed. Jack Hughes yells for bags, and as the boys pass them up I grabs them and puts them at the hole when I was drawed into the flow and shot out at the other end. Then all the sudden I strikes water and opens my eyes. I was flying through the air, and before I comes down I had a fine view of the city.”

Creedon had another experience with pressurized air sending him through the mud, when he broke the barrier between the two working ends of the dig. Read the stories of Dick Creedon and other “geyser riders” at Curious Expeditions. Link

The new parking garage at the Sant Monica Civic Center is stunning, and it’s on its way to becoming LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified, too!

A solar photovoltaic array on the roof provides shade for top level parking and on-site renewable energy. The materials used in construction were recycled and finished with low-VOC paints and finishes. The building envelope utilizes low-e glazing to decrease heating and cooling loads and the mechanicals are energy efficient. A storm-drain water-treatment system helps reduce tainted runoff from directly entering the hydrosphere and greywater harvesting provides for landscaping and on-site facilities.

The garage has spaces set aside for electric vehicles, and offers free bike parking. However, Inhabitat points out that a “green” parking facility may be seen as an oxymoron, no matter how many environmentally-friendly features it has. Link -via Digg

(Daily Motion link)
The Giant Amazon Water Lily, or Victoria amazonica {wiki} is the largest water lily in the world. And it throws its weight around, too! Sir David Attenborough narrates this time-lapse video. -via Digg

You may think you know a lot about Star Wars, but how much do you know about John William’s musical score? Try your skills out with today’s lunchtime quiz at mental_floss. I scored 70%, which set the average because I was the first one to take the quiz! http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/14108

You probably prepare yourself for your children asking questions about the facts of life, but children are full of questions about everything, especially things you never thought about the answer to. Why does hair go gray? The first answer you think of is, “because children drive parents crazy,” but that won’t satisfy their curiosity. Why is urine yellow? I didn’t know the correct answer to that one, and I also didn’t know bilirubin was named after William Rueben. Here are eight such questions, with the short answers for each. Link -via Digg

Graffiti artist Banksy was at it again over the weekend, painting an indictment of closed circuit TV in central London. Despite the presence of a CCTV camera, he erected a three-story scaffolding and a plastic cover under which he painted his masterpiece. Not only can the real cameras be seen just to the right of the graffiti, a policeman with a camera is part of the artwork. Link -via Fark