A Tokyo art collective known as ChimPom recycles exterminated rats as art objects. These rats have been painted and posed as the Pokémon character Pickachu. Is this weird or what? See more pictures at Smart Stop. Link -Thanks, Dan!

What does astronomy have to do with Halloween? You'd be surprised!

Halloween is coming, and while people are out trick or treating or enjoying a costume party, the Universe will continue to go about its business.

The business of DEATH, that is. Black holes will continue to tear apart stars and gorge themselves on the tasty, gooey insides; galaxies will erupt with high-energy radiation, blasting out killer rays for hundreds of thousands of light years; giant clouds of gas will collapse, form stars, and promptly have their interiors eaten out from within.

Bad Astronomy Blog has a gallery of creepy astronomy pictures that appear to have sprung from our nightmares, but are actually things that exist in our universe. The picture here is of the flaming skull of Perseus: actually Perseus A, a huge galaxy that blasts out x-rays. Link -Thanks, Phil!

The world population is expected to reach seven billion within the next few days. Wonder what number you are? A calculator from the BBC helps you find out approximately where you fit in. I have a relatively low number, as there weren't even three billion people when I was born. Link -via Breakfast Links

Orange County Deputies in Laguna Hills, California were summoned by residents who heard screams from a creek bed Tuesday morning. They arrived to find an unnamed man stuck inside a tree trunk.

Firefighters and deputies said they are not sure why, but the man climbed into a narrow hole located near the base of the tree. The hole led inside the hollow tree trunk and about four or five feet underground, said Battalion Chief Kris Concepcion of the Orange County Fire Authority.

It took firefighters about 90 minutes to get the necessary equipment and safely cut through the branches of the tree to free the man from inside, he said.

The only body parts visible outside the tree truck were the man's head and arms, he said. Part of the body was underground.

The man was checked for injuries and mental health. Link -via Arbroath

This, friends, is a shrimp. Yes, it's called a harlequin shrimp, for good reason because it doesn't look like any shrimp you've ever been served. They're too small to eat, but are deadly predators to starfish. The harlequin shrimp is one of 6 strange-looking species you'll find in this list at Environmental Graffiti. Link -via the Presurfer

(Image credit: Flickr user MoToTo)

You can spray a coat of gold (or silver, or red, or blue) on your food, and still eat it! Each can of this tasteless color coating will cost you €24,80, but hey, that covers shipping, too. Link -via Buzzfeed

Once again, it's time for our collaboration with the always amusing What Is It? Blog. Do you know what the pictured item is? Can you make a wild guess?

Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many as you'd like. 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: No one guessed the correct answer for this one! According to the What Is It? blog, this is a raisin seeder. How effective it was in real use, I do not know. Most raisins these days are made from seedless grapes. As for the funniest answer, Thomas said this is a pair of salad tongs designed by M.C. Escher for his 'Relativity' salad. If you noticed the odd way the ends of this thing would match up, you'd think that, too! So Thomas wins a t-shirt from the NeatoShop.

Until about fifty years ago, the town of Guanajuato, Mexico, had a grave tax. If you didn't pay, your loved ones were dug up and displayed in a museum! The climate is very arid, so the disinterred were already mummies. In fact, the museum and the mummies are still there. But that's not the most bizarre part of this story.

Santo or "the Saint" is "one of the most famous and iconic of all Mexican luchadores" Over his life he produced numerous B-Horror/Action films for Mexican cinemas. In 1972 he may have made his greatest film ever. Co-starring Blue Demon and Mil Mascaras, the plot is fairly straight forward. The wrestlers stop in Guanajuato and all the mummies come alive to attack them. Obviously. (There is a motive. Something about one of the mummies avenging his defeat by Santo's grandfather… or something…)

The film proved to Santo's most successful, and the mummies even got their own series, starring in such films as Robbery Of The Mummies and Castle Of The Mummies.

Atlas Obscura has clips from the movie, in which the real mummies appear, but they do not perform in action sequences -they have real live stunt doubles for that. Link

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

In the New York Times Magazine, 72-year-old fitness guru Jerome I. Rodale had declared proudly sand defiantly: "I'm going to live to be 100, unless I get run down by a sugar-crazed taxi driver." The very next day, the confident health guru made an appearance on the then-popular TV talk show The Dick Cavett Show. The date was June 5, 1971 and I repeat (with apologies) "health fitness guru" Jerome Rodale was chatting amiably in front of a studio audience with the always clever host, Dick Cavett.

If a comedy writer was writing a sketch for a sitcom, and he or she wanted to write about the funniest, most ironic person who could possibly die in the middle of a talk show, what profession would they write the character in as? Hmmm ...a health expert? The gods, merciless as they apparently are, must indeed have a sense of humor. Obviously, no man's death is funny or amusing, but "Tragedy plus time equals humor." (I once politely argued with Tim Conway over whose quote that was: I said it was Steve Allen's, but Tim said it was Carole Burnett's. Whoever.)

Rodale was a slight man, he looked like Leon Trotsky with a goatee. He was extremely friendly with host Dick Cavett for a half-hour, chatting about health foods, and soon he offered Cavett some of his special asparagus, which he said was "boiled in urine." Cavett, always a ready wit, remembers asking, "Anybody's we know?" Cavett enjoyed the interview and made a mental note to invite Rodale back. The next guest came out: Pete Hamill, a columnist for The New York Post. It was during the interview with Hamill that Rodale suddenly made a snoring sound, which got a laugh from the audience. (Comics sometimes make this sound sarcastically, as if the other person talking is dull or tedious.)

(YouTube link)

No, I don’t want to wear a pumpkin on my head. No. Never. What? What’s that? You’ll let me eat chicken if I wear it? Hmm… What? You’ll hand feed it to me? As much as I want? Gimme that pumpkin hat!

This cat is named Jumbo Pillow. Isn't that perfect? The food is boiled chicken dipped in pumpkin. (via Cynical-C)

While searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, US Forces found some pretty interesting things in the desert, like this MiG-25 Foxbat interceptor. It was hidden underground with its wings removed. Military personnel dug it up by hand in 2003 and transported the jet to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio for examination. Eventually, it will go on display to the public. Read the story of this reclamation project, and see more pictures at Urban Ghosts. http://www.urbanghostsmedia.com/2011/10/buried-mig-25-foxbat-jet-uncovered-in-iraqi-desert-preserved-us/

An Elvis tribute at the Holiday Inn in Rochester, Kent, England was held Saturday night to raise funds for Macmillan Cancer Support. An unplanned event was added when a malfunctioning smoke machine set off a fire alarm, and the building was evacuated.

Guests leaving the hotel were stunned to see a group of around 60 impersonators, dressed in wigs and full rhinestone costume, gathered in the car park.

"I was in a bit of a state getting out of my room," one guest told the Daily Mirror. "But I was more confused when I got outside to see all these people dressed as Elvis.

"There were people in full Elvis jumpsuits and wigs standing by a roundabout, looking a bit worse for the wear."

About 250 people attended the event. Link -via Arbroath

(Unrelated image credit: Flickr user adm)

Those funny false teeth that move on their own -it seems like they've been around forever. But they were the invention of Eddie Goldfarb in the 1940s. They were called Yakity-Yak Talking Teeth. Collector's Weekly has everything you ever needed to know about chattering teeth, from their inspiration, how they work, and how they became a hit. Link -Thanks, Ben!

Admit it, you've experienced this scenario yourself at one time or another, haven't you? From the webcomic Loading Artist by Gregor Czaykowski. Link -via The Daily What

(YouTube link)

C.G.P. Grey explains how Daylight Saving Time works -and doesn't. It seems like an awful lot of hassle twice a year for a tiny payoff. In the U.S, DST ends on November 6th. -via I Am Bored