Those born in the New World may not realize how many monarchies still exist. This list has 28 kings, queens, sultans, and princes across Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East and their official residences. Pictured is Tashichoedzong Palace, the residence of Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuk, the king of Bhutan, who is the youngest monarch in the world at age 28 (and he's single). http://www.hottnez.com/kings-of-the-world-rich-living-monarchs-and-their-royal-residences/ -Thanks, Grzegorz Paslawski!

Psychology professor Stephen Greenspan recently published a book about gullibility. He also lost a lot of money to Bernard Madoff's financial shenanigans.

...I was a participant — and victim — of the Madoff scam, and have a pretty good understanding of the factors that caused me to behave foolishly. So I shall use myself as a case study to illustrate how even a well-educated (I’m a college professor) and relatively intelligent person, and an expert on gullibility and financial scams to boot, could fall prey to a hustler such as Madoff.

Greenspan (no relation to Alan Greenspan) explores the social situations and emotions that lead people to invest their money in scams like Ponzi schemes, and how the Madoff situation got out of hand.

The real mystery in the Madoff story is not how naïve individual investors such as myself would think the investment safe, but how the risks and warning signs could have been ignored by so many financially knowledgeable people, ranging from the adviser who sold me and my sister (and himself) on the investment, to the highly compensated executives who ran the various feeder funds that kept the Madoff ship afloat. The partial answer is that Madoff’s investment algorithm (along with other aspects of his organization) was a closely guarded secret difficult to penetrate, and partly (as in all cases of gullibility) that strong affective and self-deception processes were at work. In other words, they had too good a thing going, for themselves and their clients, to entertain the idea that it might all be about to crumble.

http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/08-12-23.html#feature -Thanks, Eli Schwimme!

(image credit: Dan DeVore)

Do you have a calendar for 2009 yet? There are as many calendar designs as there are days in a year, and DVICE has selected ten of the strangest. I really like this bubble wrap calendar that invites to you pop off each day! Link -via the Presurfer

Norwegian skiier Fred Syversen unintentionally dropped 107 meters (351 feet) off a cliff while attempting a different cliff jump -and survived with hardly a scratch! The jump was nearly a year ago, but video evidence has recently led to measurements that confirm how high the jump really was.

Fred Syversen realized that he missed the correct line. Instead of braking he decided to drop as well as possible. He knew that braking could lead to uncontrolled flying, which could actually kill him. Just before jumping he made a little turn in order to avoid crashing into the rocks on his left side. His position looks well controlled, although (for a moment) he was sure he was going to die.

Syversen's landing buried him in two meters of snow. He was dug out by the helicopter crew and taken to a hospital, where he was found to have suffered only minor liver damage. Link (with video) -via Arbroath

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How would like to be awakened by this long-crowing rooster? There are several breeds that crow for longer than usual. Link -via Boing Boing

Here's an end-of-the-year list you haven't seen a dozen versions of -ten discoveries of money and treasure in 2008. Gold and silver coins, jewelry, antiquities, things that make you say. "I wish I'd found that!" Shown are gold coins bearing the image of Carausius, who declared himself the emperor of of Northern Gaul and Britain (AD 286-93). They were found by Derrick Fretwell in a field in Ashbourne. England. Link -Thanks, Brand!

It's very cold tonight, so we played with bubbles If you blow them upwards enough they have time to freeze on the way down.

Skipweasel took photographs of the experiments in blowing soap bubbles in freezing weather. The pictures are wild -especially when you see a frozen bubble bursting! Link

The hamster runs on his exercise wheel, powering the shredder, which shreds a document and provides the hamster with a bed of clean litter to sleep on. Design consultant Tom Ballhatchet is in the process of getting a manufacturer for this prototype. Link -Thanks, Stu Roberts!

Shoe collector Mark Kurath commissioned a professional orthopedic shoemaker to construct these one-of-a-kind Back to The Future sneakers! The process took six months and cost him $4,000. Sneaker Freaker magazine interviews Kurath about his "McFlys" and the rest of his collection of 500 pairs of sneakers. http://www.sneakerfreaker.com/feature/diy-mcfly-sneakers/1/ -Thanks, Clare Xu!

Dean Durrant and Alison Spooner of Fleet, Hants, England had twins seven years ago, two girls, Hayleigh appearing black, Lauren appearing white. The odds of such a combination are quite high -but now they've done it again! Alison gave birth to twin girls November 13th. Miya has dark skin and Leah appears white.

Alison said: "I was shocked when I first found out I was pregnant with twins again — but I never thought for one second they would turn out the same as last time.

After the babies were born they weren’t breathing properly, so they were taken to a special care unit.

It wasn’t until about five days after they were born that we saw them side by side for the first time.

And when they were together it was clear that one was darker than the other. It was unbelievable."

The babies are now home and reported healthy. Link -Thanks, Sharyn Bramscher!

(image credit: Solent News & Photo Agency)

"Neatorama isn’t a political blog," so here's a t-shirt depicting president-elect Obama riding a unicorn, signifying a wonderful fantasy. $19 from Chris Bishop. Link -Thanks, Andrew Crocker!

Mata Hari was the stage name of Margaretha Zelle, an exotic dancer who was lured into the spy business during World War I. The French, who recruited her, suspected her of being a double agent and sentenced her to death. Read an eyewitness account of her execution on October 15, 1917, from Henry Wales, a British reporter who covered the event. Link -via Cynical-C

Logos are everywhere. Because of this, only a few can rise among the noise -- and often it's the more unique logos that are most memorable. Sometimes to be unique, you've also got to be weird. In this post, we showcase twenty lovably strange logos that work.

The pictured logo is for Rehabilitation Hospital Corporation of America. Makes sense to me! Link -via the Presurfer

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He's got more self-control than any human I know! Yeah, this would be even better without the laugh track. -via Bits and Pieces

Scientists have long pondered an event 12,900 years ago that caused the disappearance of the Clovis people of North America and the extinction of large mammals such as the mammoth, mastodon, saber-toothed cat, and the North American camel. One theory is that a comet broke into fragments and showered burning material over the continent. Now there's some evidence -a layer of nanodiamonds have been found at a layer of sediment buried 12,900 years ago. The diamonds could have only been formed by a high-pressure high-temperature event.

These diamonds are measured in nanometers -- mere billionths of meters -- and one of them would not suffice for an engagement ring unless the recipient had an extremely small finger. Indeed, these diamonds are visible only with the aid of the most advanced microscopes.

The wide distribution of the nanodiamonds could be a sign that the comet broke into pieces in space and that the fragments burned up explosively over a broad area of North America. The heat and pressure from the event transformed carbon on the planet's surface into the tiny diamonds, the scientists said.

"Imagine these fireballs exploding in the air. A Clovis hunter standing and looking at these things would have seen a canopy of fire as these things came in and exploded," said Allen West, a geophysicist and one of the paper's co-authors. "There would have been no sound. There would have been massive explosions. Brilliant light, brighter than the sun. There would have been radiant heat -- it would have been capable, at the very least, of giving him serious burns and, at the maximum, of incinerating him."

This theory would explain the climate change at the time, when the warming planet was plunged into another, shorter ice age. Skeptics cite lack of a crater or other surface evidence in refuting the theory. Link -via Digg