(YouTube link)

The International Space Station (ISS) occasionally has to boost itself into a higher altitude to counteract the effects of microgravity drag. Recently, the ISS boosted itself about two miles up, and video cameras caught what happened inside to Commander Mike Fossum and Flight Engineers Satoshi Furukawa and Sergei Volkov. The physics of the process are explained at Bad Astronomy Blog. Link -Thanks, Phil!

Suzanna Bolton of Darwen, Lancashire, England, has an African Grey parrot named Sam and a Pomeranian named Sally. Sally was due to deliver puppies in a week when she went into premature labor in the middle of the night. Sam responded by jumping into Bolton's bed and saying "Come on, come on," in Bolton's voice.

“That night he seemed to know what was going on and came looking for me to help.

“He’s never been in my bedroom before in the eight years I’ve had him, but he came up the stairs, climbed on the bed and started talking to me in my own voice with the words “come on, come on”, which I often say to Sally.

“I wondered what on earth was going on and took Sam back downstairs to his perch, but then he looked at me and squawked.

“It was then I looked in the kitchen and saw the puppies. One had died and the other five boys were all very, very cold and wet. I quickly got the heat pads out for them and got them next to a radiator, and luckily they’re now doing well.

Sam is 18 years old and is able to mimic several of the family member's voices. Link -via Arbroath

I didn't know it, but there have been more than 50 movies that featured the character of Cleopatra! Unreality magazine looked up some of the best-looking actresses in their portrayals of the Egyptian queen, and presented them in a gallery for your enjoyment. Pictured here is Claudette Colbert in the 1934 film Cleopatra. Link

Author Sam Harris writes about the possibility of violence and how one should respond to it. Real-world crime is different from what we are used to seeing on TV dramas. The article lines out three principles of self-defense, with the overreaching goal being to avoid violence if at all possible.

If someone puts a gun to your head and demands your purse or wallet, hand it over immediately and run. Don’t worry about being shot in the back: If your attacker is going to shoot you for running, he was going to shoot you if you stayed in place, and at point-blank range. By running, you make yourself harder to kill. Any attempt to move you, even by a few feet—backing you off a sidewalk and into an alley, forcing you behind a row of bushes—is unacceptable and should mobilize all your physical and emotional resources.?[8]

If you find yourself in a situation where a predator is trying to control you, the time for listening to instructions and attempting to remain calm has passed. It will get no easier to resist and escape after these first moments. The presence of weapons, the size or number of your attackers—these details are irrelevant. However bad the situation looks, it will only get worse. To hesitate is to put yourself at the mercy of a sociopath. You have no alternative but to explode into action, whatever the risk. Recognizing when this line has been crossed, and committing to escape at any cost, is more important than mastering physical techniques.

Of course, there's a lot more to consider, but you won't have time to think these things through if the situation arises, so read the whole thing and think about it ahead of time. Link -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Flickr user Pensiero)

(YouTube link)

How many internet memes are in this song by the GAG Quartet? All of them! Well, according to the YouTube page, there are forty -in case you want to try to find them all. -via The Daily What

(YouTube link)

This catchy video was created by Joe Sabia and Bryce Yukio Adolphson and set to the music of Paul Simon. It is the second video of a campaign called "Stop the Pity. Unlock the Potential Campaign" from Mama Hope, a nonprofit organization working to improve the living conditions of people in Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana and Uganda. http://www.mamahope.org/ -via Boing Boing

Before The Muppet Show, before Sesame Street, there was Sam and Friends, a 1955 series of local TV sketches created by a college student named Jim Henson.

Despite getting top billing, the star of “Sam and Friends” was not jug-eared Sam, whose round nose and bald head suggested Popeye. No, the show’s heart was an olive-drab, lizard-like creature named Kermit, who was sewn from one of Henson’s mother’s cast-off wool coats (that’s him, Sam, and a few other Friends at the top of this article, with Henson circa 1956 or 1957). The original Kermit had rounded feet instead of flippers, lacked Kermit’s classic crenellated collar, and viewed the world through a ping-pong ball that had been sliced in half and painted. Henson lined his creation with denim from an old pair of jeans.

Collector's Weekly talks to Smithsonian curator Dwight Blocker Bowers about the history of Kermit and Henson's other puppets, and gives us a glimpse at the collection of Muppet memorabilia on display at the Smithsonian Institution. Link

(YouTube link)

One way to breathe new life into a meme is to autotune it. This was made from the original Rhett & Link ad for Ojai Valley Taxidermy plus the Kids React to Chuck Testa video by the Fine Brothers with audio treatment by the Gregory Brothers.  -via Blame It On The Voices

Before the varicella vaccine became widely available in 1995, some parents would encourage a case of chicken pox in their children, as enduring the disease would cause immunity and it is less dangerous in children than for adults. Decades ago when I was young, no encouragement was needed as chicken pox, measles, and mumps swept through schools every year -the same way smallpox and diphtheria spread before vaccines were developed. Since most children are innoculated these days, it's not so easy to find a case of chicken pox to catch, so some vaccine-wary parents are going online to have it delivered ...by mail!

One post from a Facebook group called “Find a Pox Party in Your Area” (a closed group, but with pictures of its hundreds of members) reads, ”I got a Pox Package in mail just moments ago. I have two lollipops and a wet rag and spit.” Another woman warns, “This is a federal offense to intentionally mail a contagion.” Another woman answers, “Tuck it inside a zip lock baggy and then put the baggy in the envelope : ) Don’t put anything identifying it as pox.” Very clever.

I'm sure employees of the postal service appreciate such subterfuge. The fact remains that the practice is illegal. And didn't we learn back in the '80s that sharing bodily fluids with strangers is dangerous? Link

(Image credit: Jelene Morris)

(YouTube link)

Here you get a sneak peek at National Geographic's new book Visions of Earth. The focus is on photography, but there are plenty of facts and information about our world. Link -Thanks, Carrie!

A year ago, Taras Lesko made a four-foot-tall Freedom Gundam out of paper. Where do you go from there? A bigger model, of course. This papercraft Gundam is seven feet tall! It was constructed of 1250 parts printed from 720 sheets, with a total weight of ten pounds. See pictures from the construction process and videos as well at VisualSpicer. Link

Did you know that there was a serious film produced about Karen Carpenter that used Barbie dolls instead of actors? That the first pressing of the Thriller LP was much longer than the finished product? That Quentin Tarantino's first film was ruined by a fire at the film-processing lab? There are plenty of pop culture recordings that you might never get a chance to experience -or by luck, you just might. Read about a lot of lost art at Wired. Link -via Dark Roasted Blend

By the way, the Carpenter biopic is available online.

Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website.

Some Like It Hot, besides being the most famous film made by legendary sex symbol Marilyn Monroe (her signature performance) is a comedy classic in its own right. In 2000, it was voted by the American Film Institute as #1 on its list of the 100 Funniest Movies (interestingly, the #2 choice was Tootsie, making both the #1 and #2 choices cross-dressing films).

Besides the great Marilyn (and Billy Wilder's awesome direction), the brilliant gender-bending performances by Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon make it, without a doubt, one of the most entertaining comedies ever filmed. Let's take a look at a few facts you may not know about a truly hilarious movie: Some Like It Hot.

* The "almost cast" list is almost as great as the final choices. Director Billy Wilder originally wanted Bob Hope and Danny Kaye to play the Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon roles. Frank Sinatra was another early choice the play the Jack Lemmon "Daphne" role. Perhaps the strangest actor to audition for Lemmon's role was a young Anthony Perkins (rejected. He was to star in Alred Hitchcock's Psycho the next year).

* Jerry Lewis was also offered the role of the zany "Daphne." Lewis turned down the role because he "didn't think drag was funny." Lemmon, who earned an Oscar nomination for his performance, sent Lewis chocolates annually in gratitude. According to Jerry, every time he ran into Billy Wilder, Billy greeted him with, "Hello, Schmuck!" Jerry later admitted he regretted his rejection of the role. 

* Actress Mitzi Gaynor was the original choice for the female lead "Sugar Kane" role, but as soon as Wilder found out Marilyn Monroe was available, he offered her the role.

* The film's original working title was Not Tonight, Josephine. * Marilyn wanted the film to be in color (her contract actually stipulated that all her movies be filmed in color), but after looking at Curtis and Lemmon in the color film tests, they were deemed to be too grotesque-looking (they photographed with a green tinge).

It's once again time for our collaboration with the always amusing What Is It? Blog. Can you guess what the pictured item is? Or can you make up something interesting?

Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many guesses as you'd like in separate comments. Post no URLs or weblinks, as doing so will forfeit your entry. Two winners: the first correct guess and the funniest (albeit ultimately wrong) guess will win T-shirt from the NeatoShop.

Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize, okay? May we suggest the Science T-Shirt, Funny T-Shirt and Artist-Designed T-Shirts?

For more clues, check out the What Is It? Blog. Good luck!

Update: Rob at the What Is It? blog admitted that he doesn't know what this tool is for. It's an enduring mystery. Since we don't know who is right (if any one is), we selected TWO winners with the funniest answers! Galen said this was a specialized whisk for making wavy gravy. That's funny! And Augie explained:

After a horrible zipper accident Stan "Soprano Singer" Stevens spent 20 years and his family fortune designing and developing this tool to remove stray body parts from pant zippers.

Stevens patented the device, but allowed other companies to freely manufacture, distribute and sell them for the common good (i.e. pro boner).

Both will get t-shirts from the NeatoShop!

Scientists sometimes have an experiment in mind that would be unethical, or more likely too dangerous, to ask volunteers to submit to. If the scientist wants to know the answer badly enough, he (these six are all men) may just use himself as the experimental subject, no matter what the danger. You'd have to be pretty curious to inject yourself with a deadly disease like cholera.

Pettenkofer was a late 19th century medical researcher and public health advocate who developed the very first large-scale pure-water system in Munich, Germany. And even though that's probably very impressive, from now until the day you die, if you remember anything about Pettenkofer, it will be this: Max Josef von Pettenkofer drank a steaming cup of cholera bacteria that he cultured from a patient's diarrhea bombs.

Yeah, he got sick. But he didn't get sick enough to die, and Pettenkofer considered that proof of his theory that the cholera bacterium needed a victim who practiced poor sanitation. Of course, one could argue that without poor sanitation, the bacterium wouldn't be spread, outside of scientists who ingested it on purpose. Anyway, read about Pettenkofer and five other scientists at Cracked. Link