Karol Lu entered a contest that challenged chefs to come up with a recipe for ramen noodles that was both delicious and creative. Her idea? Ramen noodle pizza crust! Would you try it? Link -Thanks, Geekazoid!

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You read here about Brenden Foster, the 11-year-old whose last wish was to feed the homeless. In addition to local friends who took sandwiches to the tent city he was concerned about, Brenden's story inspired projects all over the country.

A TV station in Los Angeles held a food drive. School kids in Ohio collected cans. People in Pensacola, Florida gathered goods.

And here in Western Washington, KOMO viewers from all over took part in the Stuff the Truck food drive in Brenden's honor. Hundreds with generous hearts donated six and a half huge truck loads of groceries and more than $60,000 in cash to benefit Northwest Harvest and Food Lifeline.

Brenden touched hearts all over the world. His wish came true, and he lived to see it.

Brenden died on Friday, November 21st in his mother's arms. http://www.komonews.com/news/34851839.html -Thanks, AliS

21-year-old Owen Lewis found a way to charge his iPod -with an onion and an energy drink!

Owen, from Portsmouth, said the idea was a foolproof way of staying green as the onion decomposes and the drink bottle can be recycled once finished with.

Phil Stubbles, a physics lecturer from St Vincent College in Gosport, Hampshire, said almost all vegetables could power iPods because they contain ions which react with energy drinks to create a charge.

'The only problem is you have no control over how long it may work for ... and it can be smelly,' he added.

Has anyone here every tried this type of battery? Link -Thanks, Allison!

The 3G iPhone doesn’t come with a dock , unlike the 2G version, instead you have to spend an extra $29 on an Apple iPhone 3G Dock.

So we decided to make our own iPhone dock, that was easy for anyone to make and can be made from readily available materials.

We decided to make our dock out of cardboard, and wanted anyone to be able to print one off on their printer so we kept the size to A4.

Geeky Gadgets has a pdf pattern and a video tutorial. This will give you a place to put your iPhone as you recharge it with vegetables. Link -Thanks, Roland!

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Do you think he'll ever catch it? -via Cynical-C

Back in the day, you could order a "small", a "medium", or a "large" of just about anything. The names have changed! Today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss will find out how well you know the cutesy and creative names companies give to their sizes. I scored 60%, which is better than I expected, since almost none of these chains exist where I live. http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/20461

Attention: If you have lost a piano, police in Massachusetts would like to talk with you. A mysterious piano in good working condition was found sitting in the middle of a forest near Harwich, Massachusetts.

Discovered by a woman who was walking a trail, the Baldwin Acrosonic piano, model number 987, is intact -- and, apparently, in tune.

Sgt. Adam Hutton of the Harwich Police Department said information has been broadcast to all the other police departments in the Cape Cod area in hopes of drumming up a clue, however minor it may be.

But so far, the investigation is flat.

Police took the piano and bench into custody. Link -via Arbroath

Gizmodo has assembled a list of gadgets that could cause time to stand still, because you'll spend yours staring at them. Each has a link to the product page. Some could make really nice Christmas gifts! This picture is of designer Camilla Diedrich's fiber optic wallpaper. Link -via Gorilla Mask

In a survey of really rich people, the Wall Street Journal found that 80% of millionaires who have secret lovers will be cutting back on gifts and financial support during the economic crisis.

The survey–a subset of a larger wealth study–polled 191 individuals with a minimum net worth of $20 million who said they had lovers of at least a year or more (this to screen out the one-night stands, etc.). About two thirds of the respondents were men and one third women. All were married and all had personal control over their finances, meaning the women and men surveyed were the primary wealth holders in their homes.

The most surprising stats in the study relate to gender and what might be termed “length of service.” Fully 82% of men in the study said they planned to lower the allowances to their mistresses, while more than three quarters planned to provide fewer gifts, less expensive gifts and fewer perks, like jet rides, resort vacations and top restaurant meals.

Women were far more generous to their paramours in the face of financial crises. Less than 20% planned to lower allowances, gifts and perks, while more than half planned to raise them.

It appears that in hard times, it's better to have a sugar mama than to have a sugar daddy. Link -Thanks, Mark!

He's seven meters tall and weighs three metric tons. He is WEEE Man! This sculpture stands at the Eden Project in Cornwall, after his debut at the South Bank in London. The British Royal Society of Arts had WEEE Man built out of discarded electronic components and household appliances to symbolize how much of this material each person contributes to environmental waste. Link -Thanks, RJ Evans!

(image credit: Loz Flowers)

Mark Johnson traveled the world to record musicians all performing the same song. The result is an uplifting and entertaining music video of Stand By Me. There will be a documentary film "Playing for Change: Peace Through Music" about the project next year. The Playing For Change Foundation is dedicated to connecting the world through music by providing resources to musicians and their communities around the world. Read about projects established in South Africa and Tibet at the website. http://www.playingforchange.com/episodes/2/Stand_by_Me (embedded YouTube video) -Thanks, Robin!

A team from the University of St Andrews in Scotland has developed a machine only 2 millimeters wide that can fire a tiny laser beam so accurately that it can puncture individual cells!

The device was developed by Professor Kishan Dholakia from the university's school of physics and Dr Frank Gunn-Moore from the school of biology.

Dr Gunn-Moore said: "You could think of these as tiny light sabres like they had in Star Wars inside your body.

"We can use lasers to punch tiny holes exactly where we want them. We can produce a rod of light - sometimes described as a sword - that can even go around objects. It really does sound like science fiction."

The new device relies on a method called "photoporation", allowing insoluble compounds such as genes and drugs to be injected into individual cells with the assistance of light.

Link -Thanks, Yash!

The Poitou region of France spawned the Poitou donkey, a large hairy breed that almost died out thirty years ago.

The Poitou comes from the Equus asinus species and is - basically - a donkey with dreadlocks. It looks as if it could have been genetically engineered to satisfy the faddish longings of a billionaire's daughter but has in fact been living and working
in this region of France for hundreds of years. The Poitou was bred exclusively to be used in the breeding of mules (one of the traditional activities of the region) and as such was exported throughout the world in numbers.

In 1977, there were only 25 Poitou donkeys in existence. Now, thanks to a conservation program and the donkey's gentle nature, there are over a thousand worldwide! Link -Thanks, RJ Evans!

(image credit: dynamosquito)

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) administered a 33 question basic civics test to 2,500 randomly-selected people. Included were some who identified themselves as "elected officials", although the story does not say how many elected officials there were, or what offices they held. The elected officials scored only 44% on the 33-question test, compared to a 49% average score for the rest of the respondents. One of the questions was "name two countries that were our enemies during World War II."

Sixty-nine percent of respondents correctly identified Germany and Japan. Among the incorrect answers were Britain, China, Russia, Canada, Mexico and Spain.

Forty percent of respondents, meanwhile, incorrectly believed that the US president has the power to declare war, while 54 percent correctly answered that that power rests with Congress.

Asked about the electoral college, 20 percent of elected officials incorrectly said it was established to "supervise the first televised presidential debates."

In fact, the system of choosing the US president via an indirect electoral college vote dates back some 220 years, to the US Constitution.

Link -Thanks, Geekazoid!


You can take the test yourself. Link -Thanks, AJ!

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Nice fireworks! What's the occasion? It's the grand opening of The Atlantis, a luxury resort on the man-made Palm Jumeirah in Dubai. To get a scale of the fireworks, keep in mind that the "trunk" of the palm island is five kilometers long!

One million fireworks – almost 10 times the scale of the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony – lit up the Palm, with the organisers claiming the display was visible from space.

Even in Dubai, a part of the world renowned for excess, there had never been a party like it.

"We built something that's quite extraordinary. We've got to tell the world about it," said Sol Kerzner, the South African billionaire hotelier and casino tycoon.

The 1,539-room Atlantis took two years to build and cost £1 billion. Mr Kerzner admitted that the global economic downturn would have an effect on business.

The launch party cost £15 million ($30 million). Link