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A group of GIs stationed in Afghanistan lip sync and dance to Lady Gaga's song "Telephone". They did a great job, but you can almost feel the boredom that inspired this. -via YesButNoButYes

Racing is in the spotlight as the annual Kentucky Derby is set for tomorrow. Horse breeding and racing are expensive businesses which can pay off big or turn out to be a money pit. Mental_floss has several stories of studs that were duds, and some that succeeded way beyond the investor's expectations.

When the auctioneers brought a colt who was only known as “number 153” to the auction block, a fierce bidding war broke out. Buyers weren’t afraid to open their wallets for a colt that was described as “perfect,” and when the hammer dropped the horse went for a record $16 million. The winning bidders quickly christened the colt The Green Monkey, and excitement to see how the horse would do in races began to build. After all, the colt had run an eighth of a mile in a blazing 9.8 seconds in pre-auction workouts, so anything was possible once he started racing.

How did The Green Monkey perform? Read and find out. Link

Ken and Carol Marcoux of Boulder, Colorado were parked on the side of a road to watch planes take off from the local airport. They saw a small plane approach, buffeted by the wind.

To the couple's horror, the plane -- whose pilot was later identified as Joe Curtis, 67, of Commerce City -- was pointed right at their car and approaching at what Marcoux estimated was 100 mph. Carol Marcoux screamed "Ken!" and her husband stepped on the gas, moving the Prius forward just enough to spare them a potentially fatal hit.

Carol Marcoux said she heard "a big sound of glass breaking" as the right wingtip of the plane slammed into the back of the car -- shattering the rear passenger window and denting the rear quarter panel -- just inches behind her head.

The plane stopped in a field. Pilot Joe Curtis grabbed a mysterious bag, jumped out, and ran toward the airport! Curtis contacted the FAA about the accident hours later. Link

(image credit: Marty Caivano)

Noëlle took her favorite fortune found in cookies and made it big enough to wear as a scarf! You can get one at her Etsy store. Link -via The Daily What

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On this date in 1939, the New York World's fair opened. One of the exhibits was a ride called Futurama, sponsored by General Motors. Visitors got a glimpse of what life would be like in 1960, particularly the vision of an interstate highway system and urban planning. Separation of industrial, commercial, farmland, and residential areas were presented as an admirable goal. Curiously, new highways bypassing the slums was proposed as preferable to improving those neighborhoods. Read more about Futurama and Futurama II (at the 1964 World's Fair) at Wired. Link -via Metafilter

An overwhelmed young woman wrote to ZeFrank and asked for a pick-me-up. She sounded depressed, so he wrote a song for her. Then he got other people to sing it as well, and then mixed the voices into a lovely choral affirmation. It made her feel better. It might make you feel better, too! Read the story of how the project came about. Link -via b3ta

History is full of events that would have ended quite differently if some previously unknown person (or animal, in one case) hadn't seized an opportunity. Here are four such stories.

The slave you don't mess with in Texas

Big Tex may owe its independence day to a small slave named Emily West. According to some sources, when Mexico's General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna marched into the area in 1836, Emily noticed him leering at her.She dispatched another servant to warn the Texas army of Santa Anna's battle plans and stayed behind to exploit the general's weakness. On the morning of Sam Houston's attack, she distracted Santa Anna between the sheets, leaving his army leaderless and ineffective against the much smaller Texan force. When Emily's owner learned of her bravery and sacrifice, he freed her, and Emile (known as the Yellow Rose of Texas) lived out the rest of her life as a free woman.

The soldier who took out an entire army

During the war of Spanish succession, the French army had nearly taken the citadel at Turin, in present-day Italy.But then an undistinguished Italian soldier named Pietro Micca devised a clever plan. In the tunnel where the French had made their breach, Micca armed a mine, lured the French closer, and then blew himself up along with his enemies. The event turned the tide of the battle and, ultimately the war. It's now thought that Micca didn't intend to sacrifice himself, but there's a museum in Turin named after him anyway.

The beverage vendor who helped Buddha reach Enlightenment

Before achieving Enlightenment, Siddhartha Gautama explored the extremes of hedonism and asceticism. For the latter, he meditated alone in a cave for 40 days and emerged nearly dead from starvation. Upon seeing him, a local village girl named Sujata approached Siddhartha and offered him some milk and rice pudding. The meager sustenance gave him the energy to walk to the tree under which he meditated and achieved Enlightenment. Although the story is likely apocryphal, it's possible that Sujata was the most important beverage vendor in history.

The mole that made a mountain

When William of Orange and his wife assumed the English, Irish, and Scottish thrones in 1689, the Jacobites labored to overthrow him and restore the House fo Stuart. But what a gang of ornery Scotsmen couldn't accomplish, one proud ittle mole did. Legend has it that a clump of dirt created by the rodent's burrow tripped William's horse, throwing the rider off and shattering his royal collarbone. As he tried to recover, William caught pneumonia and eventually died. Amazingly, the mole's hard work was not forgotten. For years, the Jacobites continues to toast the "Little Gentleman in Black Velvet" who helped eliminate their nemesis.

Image credits: Flickr user TakenByTina, Flickr user el patojo, and Wikipedia user Mikiwikipikidikipedia.

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The article above, written by Graeme Wood, appeared in Scatterbrained section of the Mar - Apr 2008 issue of mental_floss magazine (the excellent "The Future of Sex" issue!). It is reprinted here with permission.

Don't forget to feed your brain by subscribing to the magazine and visiting mental_floss' extremely entertaining website and blog today!

Adam Gontier, lead singer of the band Three Days Grace, commissioned artist Chris Conte to make him a microphone stand. What he got is something straight out of The Terminator! Link -via The Daily What

(image credit: Dennis Blachut)

A Canada goose landed in a garden in Toms River, New Jersey with an illegal hunting arrow stuck through its chest. The garden happened to belong to retired veterinarian Bernard Levine. Dr. Levine captured the goose and removed the 26-inch arrow, which was lodged six inches deep in the bird's flesh. Then he took the goose to a bird rehabilitation center.

"This is a smart goose," said Dr Levine, 82. "He happened to come into the yard of a veterinarian that could take care of him."

After it recovered at The Raptor Trust, the goose was released last week into a stream in a wooded area on the trust's property.

"It feels great to see him free and liberated, enjoying life the way a goose should," Dr Levine said, as the goose preened and waded downstream.

Levine also removed several air rifle pellets from the goose. Link -via Arbroath

Last week we showed you a video of the sun's surface flaring up on March 30th. It was captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory space telescope. Bad Astronomy Blog has new footage taken on April 19th of a solar flare with amazing detail. Looks like things are really happening on our sun! Link

Neatorama is proud to be a co-sponsor of the latest How Did You Know? contest at mental_floss. You could win prizes from the Neato Shop, mental_floss, Motionbox, or Roku. Day three of the five-day trivia hunt is up at mental_floss. Solve today's challenge and find out how you can win a prize from Neatorama! It's not too late to figure out Tuesday's challenge, Wednesday's challenge, or Thursday's challenge as well, which will help you figure out the overall challenge on Monday. And you might win a prize just for playing, even if you never get any of them correct! Jump over to mental_floss for all the contest details, and play now. Then check back on Monday for the final and biggest challenge of all! Link

Neatorama is proud to be a co-sponsor of the latest How Did You Know? contest at mental_floss. You could win prizes from the Neato Shop, mental_floss, Motionbox, or Roku. Day three of the five-day trivia hunt is up at mental_floss. Solve today's challenge and find out how you can win a prize from Neatorama! It's not too late to figure out Tuesday's challenge or Wednesday's challenge as well, which will help you figure out the overall challenge on Monday. And you might win a prize just for playing, even if you never get any of them correct! Jump over to mental_floss for all the contest details, and play now! Link

Symbion pandora is a species of animal that lives on the whiskers of a lobster, feeding off the crumbs of its meals. Discovered in 1995, Symbion is so different from other species that it was assigned its own phylum, Cycliophora. It is only a half a millimeter long, but has reproductive habits that belong in science fiction. An adult can produce any of three types of offspring: pandora larva, prometheus larva, or female.

The Pandora larva develops into another feeding adult – a straightforward case of asexual reproduction. By contrast, the female remains inside the adult and awaits a male – but, attentive readers will be crying, what male?

The answer lies in the Prometheus larva. This attaches itself to another feeding adult, then produces two or three males from within itself. These dwarf males, which are even more internally complex than the other stages, seek out the females and fertilise them – though the details are unknown.

Once the female has been fertilised, she leaves the adult's body and hunkers down in a sheltered region of the lobster's mouthparts. Her body, no longer needed, turns into a hard cyst. Inside this, a fertilised egg develops into yet another stage: the chordoid larva.

In due course this larva hatches and swims off to colonise another lobster. Once it has attached itself to one, it develops into another adult and the cycle begins again.

So that's adult, male, female, pandora, prometheus, and chordoid, all stages or sexes of one species. Got that? Link -via Metafilter

(image credit: Peter Funch)

BUILD takes a serious look at dozen of structures built from couch cushions in a two-part post. Each are carefully graded. For the above fort:

The crisp, clean, white planes, drawing clear influences from Richard Meier, are balanced with a splash of color offered by the roof membrane. The disciplined interiors offer relief to the eyes with a subtle yet intentional blue tone. Grade B+

Link -via Laughing Squid

The Boy Scouts of America has introduced an award (though not a merit badge) for video games, available to Tiger Cubs, Cub Scouts, and Webelos Scouts. After you earn the Belt Loop, here are the requirements for the Academic Pin:

1. With your parents, create a plan to buy a video game that is right for your age group.
2. Compare two game systems (for example, Microsoft Xbox, Sony PlayStation, Nintendo Wii, and so on). Explain some of the differences between the two. List good reasons to purchase or use a game system.
3. Play a video game with family members in a family tournament.
4. Teach an adult or a friend how to play a video game.
5. List at least five tips that would help someone who was learning how to play your favorite video game.
6. Play an appropriate video game with a friend for one hour.
7. Play a video game that will help you practice your math, spelling, or another skill that helps you in your schoolwork.
8. Choose a game you might like to purchase. Compare the price for this game at three different stores. Decide which store has the best deal. In your decision, be sure to consider things like the store return policy and manufacturer’s warranty.
9. With an adult’s supervision, install a gaming system.

Every one of my kids could CLEP this award from previous experience. Link -via The Daily What