A recent New York Times/CBS News poll about the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy asked the same question in two different ways and got significantly different answers.

The results highlight the importance of wording on the issue. In a test, half of the poll’s respondents were asked their opinion on permitting “gay men and lesbians” to serve, and the other half were asked about permitting “homosexuals” to serve.

The wording of the question proved to make a difference. Seven in 10 respondents said they favor allowing “gay men and lesbians” to serve in the military, including nearly 6 in 10 who said they should be allowed to serve openly. But support was somewhat lower among those who were asked about allowing “homosexuals” to serve, with 59 percent in favor, including 44 percent who support allowing them to serve openly.

The poll was taken by telephone and included responses from 1,084 adults. Link -via Fark

(image credit: Flickr user splorp)

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A praying mantis is trying to catch the cursor on a computer screen! After the video was recorded, the insect was taken outside and set loose. -via Arbroath

The H.R. Giger Cake is a creation of Jet City Cakes. The cake is named for the designer who gave us the Alien from Alien. Perfect for the wedding of two avid sci-fi fans, this confection features two Chestbursters dressed for matrimony on top! Link -via Geeks Are Sexy

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At the opening ceremonies for the Vancouver Olympics Friday, Robel Teklemariam will carry the flag for Ethiopia. Teklemariam is a cross-country skier from a country that has no snow. He came to the United States at age 9 while his mother worked for the UN in New York City, and attended the University of New Hampshire on a full scholarship. This will be his second Olympic competition. http://www.theskichannel.com/news/skinews/20100208/Ethiopian-crosscountry-skier-Teklemariam-to-compete-in-his-second-Winter-Olympics

What goes together better than neuroscience and LOLcats? It doesn't matter, because they are together in this handy study guide, complete with a sparkly title and lots of sweet sugary cuteness along the synapses. Link -via Metafilter

Nick and Anna Berte of Bel Air, Maryland built a giant snowman and rigged it with a flamethrower inside! Link

Becci Lomax of Plymouth, England encountered a baby duckling that was going to be put down because of a lame leg. She took the duck in and nursed it back to health. As Lomax gave the duck, now named Ming-Ming, a dose of physical therapy every day, her 4-year-old son Finlay, who was born with cerebral palsy, watched and learned.

"This is the most amazing thing because in doing physio on the duckling, the same as I do for my son, Finlay took his first three steps after watching me doing the physio with the duckling.

"I was brimming with pride.

"Finlay uses a frame at home but even that's increased. He said 'I walk like the duck Mummy'," says Becci.

Is this quack medicine? We'll see when she gets a bill. Link -via Fark

*ducks*

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Another musical remix by Nick Bertke, also known as Pogo, this time composed entirely of sounds found in the movie Terminator 2: Judgment Day. -via Laughing Squid

Previously at Neatorama: Expialidocious and Alice.

The New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust is restoring the shack used by explorer Ernest Shackleton during his Anarctic expedition of 1907-1909. In 2006 they discovered two cases of whisky, but only recently have they been able to free those crates from the ice. Then they discovered another case of whisky and two crates of brandy! Although the crates and most of the contents must remain with the historical site, a sample of the whisky will be retrieved for the distiller.

Richard Paterson, master blender at Whyte & Mackay, whose company supplied the Mackinlay's whisky for Shackleton, described the find as "a gift from the heavens for whisky lovers".

He added: "If the contents can be confirmed, safely extracted and analysed, the original blend may be able to be replicated. Given the original recipe no longer exists, this may open a door into history.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5jLreLzu5m5Sg1E66PBBoCQ0onxsA -via Arbroath, where'll you'll find a video report.

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How many times have looked in a mirror and saw someone you didn't realize was there with you? Never? Well, it happens a LOT in the movies. -via FilmDrunk

I would have to agree that the Olympics would be improved with sports that people actually participate in during snowy weather. Snowball Fights, Snowman Building, and Hot Toddy Drinking are right up my alley, but I will leave Dogsled Racing to those who are more experienced. Video examples of each are included. Link

Kevin Van Aelst create artworks inspired by biology from a wide variety of mediums. I particularly like this set of chromosomes made from Gummi worms. Link -via The Sciencepunk Blog

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Beaker tries for YouTube fame. It's not as easy as he thought! -via YesButNoButYes

Edgar Parker opened his dental practice in 1892 and found business was not that great. So he took his practice on the road and became "the P.T. Barnum of dentistry." Dentistry as entertainment?

Working in the 1890s during the height of ‘humbugs,’ ‘dime museums’, and rational amusements, Parker did what any natural-born-showman would do. He took a cue from the best and hired one of P.T. Barnam’s ex-managers to help him take his practice on the road. From his horse drawn office, amid his show girls and buglers, Parker promised that he would painlessly extract a rotten tooth for 50 cents. And if the extraction wasn’t painless, he would give the customer $5.00, the equivalent of roughly $115 today. Parker’s band actually served a three way purpose. First it drew a crowd. Second, it distracted the patient whose tooth was being pulled (along with a healthy cup of whiskey or an aqueous solution of cocaine he called “hydrocaine,”) and third, it drowned out any possible moans of pain emitted from a patient.

Parker even legally changed his first name to Painless. Link

We are often told we must learn from history, and that we should learn from the experiences of others, but how often do we learn about forms of government from scientific experiments? MIT economist Benjamin Olken got the chance to run a field study on direct democracy in three Indonesian districts: one predominantly Muslim, one predominantly Christian, and one with a mixed population.

In fieldwork involving 49 Indonesian villages, Olken arranged to have major decisions on public-works projects in some settlements decided by plebiscite — in which all citizens get a vote — rather than by the traditional small councils of village leaders. Unexpectedly, the types of projects selected by majority vote were nearly identical to those picked by village elites; the voting public did not try to redistribute wealth to themselves. And yet when people were allowed to vote, they expressed greater contentment with the results than when decisions were simply handed down by the elites. The conclusion was that even if democracy doesn’t make a material difference in people’s lives, it creates greater civic cohesion.

Of course, this experiment only compared direct voting to village councils, in which the leaders are close to the citizens. Whether the results of this study can be extrapolated to a comparison with larger governments is unclear. Link -via Digg

(image credit: Benjamin A. Olken)