Geographers from Kansas State University have plotted the seven deadly sins of the nation. They began with Nevada only, but expanded the project for the entire United States, using statistics for each county on crime, income, STDs, and other data. They call it "a precision party trick — rigorous mapping of ridiculous data." The results show that the area I live in (Southeast Kentucky) is only high in gluttony, which is calculated by the number of fast-food restaurants per capita. At the link, you can pull up a map of each of the seven deadly sins. In this map of the lust "hot spots", red is above average, while blue is below average. Link -via Metafilter

TIME magazine has announced the winner of their World's Most Influential Person poll.

In a stunning result, the winner of the third annual TIME 100 poll, and new owner of the title world's most influential person, is Moot. The 21-year-old college student and founder of the online community 4chan.org, whose real name is Christopher Poole, received 16,794,368 votes and an average influence rating of 90 (out of a possible 100) to handily beat the likes of Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin and Oprah Winfrey. To put the magnitude of the upset in perspective, it's worth noting that everyone Moot beat out actually has a job.

Link

Andrew at Southern Fried Science tell the story of how he made beer with limited resources while at sea.

You’re six days into a 2 month expedition, and if you were lucky enough to not be on a dry ship, it’s de facto dry by now anyway. You’re eying the ethanol stores, the crew is eying each other, and all hell will break loose if y’all don’t get some sweet water soon. This is no time for artistry.

This is not, as a rule, a terribly good beer (though, with a good brewmaster on board, it can be). This is a beer to pass the time. I can guarantee that if you are careful, it will be at least as good as the cheapest commercial alternative.

A complete list of ingredients and instructions are included. Your results may vary. Link -via Terra Sigillata

Eleven years ago today, Koko the gorilla used American Sign Language to communicate with her fans via AOL chat. It was the first known interspecies chat on the internet.

Roughly 8,000 AOL subscribers joined the chat, which featured Koko, who signed her answers; Patterson, who interpreted them; and an AOL chat facilitator.

As the transcript clearly shows, Koko’s responses were a bit vague, but no more inane than some of the drivel littering Facebook pages these days.

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2009/04/dayintech_0427

Also check out Koko's website, which includes a transcript of the AOL chat. (Thank, Gauldar!)

Alfonso De Marco was seven years old when he emigrated from Italy with his family. They settled in Eastbourne, East Sussex, England where they lived in an apartment above the ice cream shop his father ran. That was in 1909, and the family had occupied the building for many years already. De Marco still lives in the same apartment 100 years later. De Marco ran the ice cream shop himself until he retired in 1973. Although he could go live with any of his three daughters, he prefers to stay in his home, even at 107 years old.

'My daughters grew up here, and my father lived here, so I cannot imagine living anywhere else, or anywhere better.'

DeMarco's daughter Pierina said,

'He can still get up and down the stairs on his own, and he still laughs and jokes about.

'His sisters lived to ripe old ages as well, so he must have good genes – either that or all the ice cream he has eaten has done the trick.'

I'll go with that last idea! Link -via J-Walk Blog

This photo from 1956 shows Henry Behrens, the smallest man in the world at the time, dancing with his pet cat. Henry Behrens was only 30 inches tall. Link -via Arbroath

(Image credit: Harry Kerr/BIPs/Getty Images)

Victor Gonzalez of Oregon City had a really bad day on Friday. He found out he had lost his job as an emergency department social worker. Then he went home to find his house on fire! Gonzalez's 12-year-old daughter Audriana helped to get her sister and cousin out of the house, then called 911. Firefighters got the blaze under control in 30 minutes. Gonzalez looked at the bright side.

"If I hadn’t gotten fired from work, I wouldn’t have come home, and I don’t know how far the fire would’ve gotten. So I guess that’s a good thing," he said.

http://www.kptv.com/news/19276320/detail.html -via Unique Daily

The fictional TV doctor Doogie Howser Kept short entries in his journal that resemble Twitter updates. In today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss, can you identify which blurbs are from the show Doogie Howser, MD and which are actual Tweets? I couldn't confidently peg any of them! http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/24977

When Christine England married Keith Green of Barnstaple, Devon, England, she took her new name as Mrs. Green seriously -they took their vows dressed as Shrek and Fiona from the Dreamworks movie Shrek! Their 100 wedding guests were also in fantasy costumes.

'It was funny because when we said our vows Keith had these green ears sprouting from the top of his head.'

She tried to get her 18-year-old son to dress up as Donkey, another character from the offbeat cartoon fairytale, but said 'he wasn't having any of it'.

Mr Green, a builder - who doesn't seem to mind being likened to an ogre - added: 'It was a very strange experience to say the least, but a thoroughly enjoyable one. We love the films and my wife tells me I bear a resemblance to Shrek.'

The couple hired a make-up artist to make them look like the characters - voiced by Mike Myers and Cameron Diaz - in the hit films.

Christine's mother Annette England, 66, said: 'It's not necessarily how you imagine seeing your daughter get married but it was great fun.'

Link -via Unique Daily

Howie Woo crochets "creations inspired by life's fun oddities". Like this bundle of dynamite. Then he made a photo essay of the process of blowing it up! Link -via Everlasting Blort

(YouTube link)
Maru, the curious but easygoing cat who entertains us with a box or a bag finally has a box that is worthy of him. -via Buzzfeed

Researchers gave a questionnaire to college students, in which they are given a scenario and asked to rate how immoral the situation is. Some students just answered the questions. Others had to do it with a secret fart canister nearby! The results? The students who had to smell farts rated scenarios as immoral more often.

The combined ratings were significantly lower -- more immoral -- when the survey was conducted in the presence of fart smell. Schnall's team says that this demonstrates that our moral judgment is affected by disgust: we're harsher in our moral judgments when we're disgusted (a post-test confirmed that those who smelled the fart spray were significantly more disgusted than the others). Interestingly, the quantity of fart spray didn't matter: despite the fact that everyone agreed that more fart spray smelled worse, the moral judgments weren't different depending on how much spray was used.

Warning: Some examples from the questionnaire may be disturbing. Link

Imagine the reaction when people see you taking a sip from a urine specimen container! Formula P and Blood Sample are sour candy liquids packaged in specimen bottles. Guess which one is lemon and which is cherry. Link -via Unique Daily

The world’s first transgenic dogs are a litter of four cloned beagles that glow red under ultraviolet light. The puppies were cloned by a team led by scientists at Seoul National University in South Korea. They used a virus to infect canine fibroblast cells with the glowing gene, then cloned cells to produce 344 embryos implanted into 20 dogs, producing seven pregnancies.

A team led by Byeong-Chun Lee of Seoul National University in South Korea created the dogs by cloning fibroblast cells that express a red fluorescent gene produced by sea anemones.

Lee and stem cell researcher Woo Suk Hwang were part of a team that created the first cloned dog, Snuppy, in 2005. Much of Hwang's work on human cells turned out to be fraudulent, but Snuppy was not, an investigation later concluded.

This new proof-of-principle experiment should open the door for transgenic dog models of human disease, says team member CheMyong Ko of the University of Kentucky in Lexington. "The next step for us is to generate a true disease model," he says.

Link -via Buzzfeed

See also: Fluorescent cats, fish, pigs, and rabbits.

Today is the 445th anniversary of the birth of William Shakespeare. In honor of this occasion, today is Talk Like Shakespeare Day. Here are some ways to do it:

1. Instead of you, say thou. Instead of y’all, say thee.
2. Rhymed couplets are all the rage.
3. Men are Sirrah, ladies are Mistress, and your friends are all called Cousin.
4. Instead of cursing, try calling your tormenters jackanapes or canker-blossoms or poisonous bunch-back’d toads.
5. Don’t waste time saying "it," just use the letter "t" (’tis, t’will, I’ll do’t).
6. Verse for lovers, prose for ruffians, songs for clowns.
7. When in doubt, add the letters "eth" to the end of verbs (he runneth, he trippeth, he falleth).
8. To add weight to your opinions, try starting them with methinks, mayhaps, in sooth or wherefore.
9. When wooing ladies: try comparing her to a summer’s day. If that fails, say "Get thee to a nunnery!"
10. When wooing lads: try dressing up like a man. If that fails, throw him in the Tower, banish his friends and claim the throne.

Forsooth, 'tis a pity methinks, if no one deigns to understandeth me. Link -via the Presurfer