A recently identified portrait of William Shakespeare, if genuine, would be the only true likeness we have of The Bard. The popular face of Shakespeare that we know was taken from a woodcut by Martin Droeshout that was published after the playwright's death. The newly-identified portrait was painted around 1610, when Shakespeare was 46 years old. The painting has been in the hands of the Cobbe family for centuries. Current owner Alec Cobbe saw another portrait that supposedly depicted Shakespeare and saw a resemblance. He then asked Stanley Wells of Birmingham University to help authenticate it.

The two men arranged to have the Cobbe painting subjected to a battery of scientific tests — tree-ring-dating to determine the age of the wood panel, X-ray examination at the Hamilton-Kerr Institute at Cambridge University and infrared reflectography. The tests produced convincing evidence that the panel dated from around 1610 and was the source for the Folger painting, among others. Wells is now sure of it. "I don't think anyone who sees [the Cobbe painting] would doubt this is the original," he says. "It's a much livelier painting, a much more alert face, a more intelligent and sympathetic face."

Link -via Metafilter

Just the other day, I thought about how neato my basement would look with a laboratory set up like Dr. Frankenstein, with beakers and burners and electrical gadgets. Now Wired has a how-to video on just that!

They don't make chemistry sets like they used to -- no more uranium or explosives. What's an aspiring mad scientist to do? Go DIY. In your own smoking, bubbling lair, you can make everything from bouncy balls to rocket motors. Here's a catalyst to get you started.

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The first quiz about fictional bands was so popular, part two is up today as the Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss. How well do you know bands that weren't really bands from movies and TV? I scored 33% despite not knowing any of the answers. http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/23435

You thought a boy named Sue would have to grow up strong and tough? Try overcoming life's obstacles as a girl named Marijuana Pepsi Jackson! Ms. Sawyer (her married name) is a schoolteacher who had parents with a sense of humor.

Sawyer's aunt, Mayetta Jackson of Chicago, clearly remembers when the name was picked in 1972. The newborn's mother and father were products of the post-Woodstock era when reefer was rampant.

"And they would cool off with a Pepsi," she said, which makes you think it's lucky for Sawyer that it wasn't Coke instead. "I thought it was crazy," her aunt said about the name, "but they were such fun-loving people that it suited them."

Ms. Sawyer's story does have some elements of the Johnny Cash song.

She gives a surprising amount of credit to her mother for making her resilient and resourceful. "She instilled in me that fighting attitude - never take no, you can do anything," Sawyer said.

By high school, her name was cool to many. "They were like, 'Oh yeah. Man, I wish I had your name. I love that. I'm going to name my kid after you.' I hear that so much and I go, Lord, please don't do that to that child."

http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/40874017.html -via Fark

(image credit: Jeffrey Phelps)

Pink Tentacle has a roundup of the different types of mummies found in Japan. There are the monks who mummified themselves in order to attain Nirvana, mermaid mummies made from parts of different animals, and supernatural creatures from ancient legends, such as the three-faced demon shown. Link -via Digg

The entire city council loses it and cannot conduct business when some kid uses a fart machine. There's no indication of what city it is, but they moved to recess in order to regain composure. Link

The breed that normally rescues people in cold weather had to be rescued at the Peter Yegen Jr. Golf Club in Billings, Montana. A 16-month-old St. Bernard named Duke had fallen through the ice on a pond, climbed out, and sat down on the ice. His wet backside then froze to the ice, leaving him immobile.

Two firefighters in dry suits pushed an ice rescue sled over about 10 feet of hip-deep water and 10 feet of ice to reach Duke, who was shivering and occasionally whining.

After trying to free the tail with water and a crowbar-like Haligan tool, firefighter Brandon Fleury broke the ice around Duke's tail with a mallet while firefighter Ben Jares held onto the dog by his collar.

They got the shivering animal onto the sled and were hauled back to shore by seven other firefighters who had arrived.

It took four firefighters - one just to hold up the tail with the large chunk of ice attached - to lift the 118-pound dog into a waiting golf cart.

Duke was OK after the staff at an animal hospital removed the ice. Link -via Arbroath

(image credit: Casey Riffe/Gazette)

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This tells the entire story of Forrest Gump in a most efficient way! (via Buzzfeed)

Circuit City is slowly going out of business and liquidating store inventories. Employees at an undisclosed location had fun filling out a chart of store discounts. After all, what's the worst that could happen -maybe they'll be fired? See a larger photo at Gizmodo. http://i.gizmodo.com/5166344/image-shows-circuit-city-employees-still-have-their-sense-of-humor-dignity-is-02-off

An unidentified man was rescued from a waste tank under a rest stop bathroom on Highway 30 near Filer, Idaho on Thursday. He had climbed into the tank to look for his keys. Another driver found him and called emergency services. Police, firefighters, paramedics, and other emergency response personnel responded, and found the man up to his neck in sewage. They summoned highway maintenance department workers, who retrieved the man by opening an access port used to remove waste. Pictured is Filer Police Chief Cliff Johnson, who told the story to local news.

"It took some lifting to get him out, and he had cut himself pretty good trying to get himself out," Johnson said.

The man was allowed to wash off with the fire truck hose at the scene, where he made another painful discovery.

"That's when he discovered the keys were still in his back pocket," Johnson said.

http://www.magicvalley.com/articles/2009/03/06/news/local_state/156587.txt -via Arbroath

(image credit: Ashley Smith/Times News)

An exhumation of a mass grave of plague victims in Venice, Italy yielded the skeleton of a woman who was probably considered a vampire in her time. She was buried with a brick in her mouth. The skeleton was found by Matteo Borrini of the University of Florence.

At the time the woman died, many people believed that the plague was spread by "vampires" which, rather than drinking people's blood, spread disease by chewing on their shrouds after dying. Grave-diggers put bricks in the mouths of suspected vampires to stop them doing this, Borrini says.

The belief in vampires probably arose because blood is sometimes expelled from the mouths of the dead, causing the shroud to sink inwards and tear. Borrini, who presented his findings at a meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences in Denver, Colorado, last week, claims this might be the first such vampire to have been forensically examined. The skeleton was removed from a mass grave of victims of the Venetian plague of 1576.

Link -via Digg

(image credit: Matteo Borrini)

A trip to the Smithsonian Institution inspired a post on the history of meteorite veneration at Curious Expeditions. In a tomb in Mexico, a 2.5 ton iron meteorite was buried with its owner as a treasured possession. Ancient civilizations made statues of the gods from them. Even Abraham kept a meteorite in his home! Link

Truck driver Freddie Mitchell delivered a load of dirt to an interstate construction site and left with an empty dump truck near Talcottville, Connecticut. He entered the highway without realizing his dump body was still in the upright position. The truck soon struck an overhead sign. The sign didn't budge, the dump body was caught, and the truck cab lifted 20 feet into the air!

Mitchell remained there until Vernon firefighters, using a ladder-tower truck, rescued him about 10:20 a.m. Mitchell was not injured, authorities said, but was taken to Hartford Hospital to be checked.

"He was fairly calm," said Vernon fire Lt. Michael Levasseur, who helped rescue Mitchell. "He had the presence of mind to do what we were telling him and to stay still till we got him out of there."

http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-truckrescue0305.artmar05,0,731492.story -via Unique Daily

Ah, remember Compuserve? This 1983 ad says "You'll use Compuserve's Electronic Mail System (we call it Email™) to compose, edit, and send letters to friends or business associates." You also paid by the minute, PLUS long distance phone charges. This is part of a collection of ads for obsolete technology that we thought was the greatest thing since sliced bread ...at the time. Link -Thanks Kiltak!

Take a virtual nano journey by zooming down to ever smaller and smaller levels in all kinds of different environments! Just click your language, then the suitcase to start. Pictured is a mosquito on a man's arm. I zoomed in past him down to the inside of a cell on my first trip. Link -via Dump Trumpet