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A performance on the Russian Bar, recorded for Chinese television at the Circus Festival of Monte Carlo. The final stunt is unbelievable! -via Cynical-C

It's Lovely! I'll Take It! is a blog with "A collection of poorly chosen photos from real estate listings. With love." Each post is linked to the real estate ad the picture came from. The particular location pictured here is listed at over half a million dollars. For that kind of money, they could have moved the junk pile before taking the picture! I decided against using the picture in another item where the seller neglected to flush the toilet. Link -via Metafilter

Alex posted a picture of the Idea Machine the other day, and now we know who's behind it! Jake Bronstein of Zoomdoggle planted the Fun-O-Meter (also known as the Robofun, the Fun Idea Machine, or Funulator).

I hadn’t planned on posting the details this early, but as some other sites somehow got wind of the project early (I’m not mad, I should’ve figured, I watched dozens of people photograph it), the time is now.

Jake has taken the Fun-O-Meter to many locations around New York City. And it's more of a bargain than you thought -for 50 cents, you get an idea, a standard coin-machine toy, a 25 cent rebate, AND a lucky penny you can leave for someone else to find! Zoomdoggle has more pictures. You'll also find some "free ideas" in the sidebar. Link -Thanks, Jake!

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A Peruvian Rescue and rehabilitation team trains sea lions to reentry into the wild using unique methods. This video shows the astonishing bond that can develop between man and animal.

From BlueVoice.org, an organization dedicated to saving whales and dolphins, co-founded by Ted Danson. Link -via Arbroath

Flowing Data has a map showing the spread of Wal*Mart stores from 1964 to the present (but only in the United States). You can zoom in or out while the video runs. The burst of new locations at the very end is for proposed sites. Link -via the Presurfer

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Marketing to scientists is a cutthroat business. You’ve got to put some imagination into convincing them that they need an expensive new piece of equipment. Eppendorf International rose to the occasion to advertise their... whatever it is. Most of us will never understand what an epMotion is or what it does, but this romantic boy-band ditty makes me want one. Link -via YesButNoButYes

Parcel Post Service was inaugurated in the US in 1913. Soon after, Mr. W. H. Coltharp wanted to build a new bank building in Vernal, Utah. He needed 80,000 bricks that were made about 120 miles away. The freight costs for shipping the bricks was four times what they were worth! So Coltharp decided to take advantage of Parcel Post and mail the bricks. No matter that the bricks had to be packed in crates of 50 pounds or less, and had to be taken on a 400-mile route -it was still the cheapest way to send them! Link -Thanks, Tony!

D. Billy is a graffiti artist who uses balloons and streamers to make an everyday scene into something special. I particularly liked this fire hydrant! See more at And I Am Not Lying. Link -Thanks, Jeff!

Update: Link to artist's site. -via Buzzfeed

Guest of a Guest has a photo gallery of the elaborate topiary and sculptures created for the Beijing Olympic Gardens. Some of them are easy to decipher; others will make you scratch your head wondering what they mean. Link -via Buzzfeed

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Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy Blog explains Saturn's rings. You can't see the rings with the naked eye, but you can see Saturn.

To the unaided eye, Saturn doesn’t look like much. It appears to be just another "star" — brighter than most, but still just starlike. In fact, you can see for yourself: over the next few days, go outside right after sunset and look west. You’ll see two of these "stars" very close together. One is Mars, the other Saturn. It’s hard to tell which is which: from a few hundred million kilometers away, Saturn’s signature rings are invisible with just your eye.

Bad Astronomy Blog has a new home at Discover Magazine. Link

Neatorama reader Hunter Wright was impressed by the Beer Scooter video posted yesterday. He did some further research and found this page from 2002 explaining Bacchus' Beer Scooter.

How many times have you woken up in the morning after a hard night of drinking and thought 'How did I get home?' As hard as you try, you cannot piece together your return journey from the bar to your home.

The answer to this puzzle is that you used a beer scooter.

The beer scooter is a mythical form of transport, owned and leased out to the drunk by Bacchus the Roman god of wine. Bacchus has branched out since the decrease in the worship of the Roman pantheon and bought a large batch of these magical devices.

http://www.chunder.com/blog/bacchus.html

Scientists in Argentina are studying the effect of methane produced by livestock on global warming. To measure the amount of gas produced by cows, animals have been outfitted with pink tanks to collect their farts!

The Argentine researchers discovered methane from cows accounts for more than 30 per cent of the country's total greenhouse emissions.

As one of the world's biggest beef producers, Argentina has more than 55 million cows grazing in its famed Pampas grasslands.

Guillermo Berra, a researcher at the National Institute of Agricultural Technology, said every cow produces between 8000 to 1,000 litres of emissions every day.

Researchers say feeding cows clover and alfalfa instead of grain can reduced emissions by 25%. Link -via Arbroath

I've said before that as much as we enjoy a happy ending, it's the movies with the not-so-happy endings that we remember the most. Not all the 20 movies in The End: the best movie endings ever, from E.T. to Casablanca from the Times Online have happy endings (some do), but they are all memorable. I skipped over the movies I haven't yet seen, but the movies on this list that I have seen indeed have perfect endings. I shouldn't have to warn you that this list contains spoilers. What other movies would you add? Link -via Digg

An onomatopoeia {wiki} is a word or a grouping of words that imitates the sound it is describing, suggesting its source object, such as "click," "bunk", "clang," "buzz," "bang," or animal noises such as "oink", "slurp", or "meow". Las Onomatopeyas is a collection of screenshots of the onomatopoeias you may remember from the Batman TV series. Link -via the Presurfer

(image credit: John A. Pennyworth and Scott Sebring)

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has named eight new natural wonders to the World Heritage List. They are:

* Joggins Fossil Cliffs (Canada)
* Mount Sanqingshan National Park (China)
* Lagoons of New Caledonia: Reef Diversity and Associated Ecosystems (France)
* Surtsey (Iceland)
* Saryarka - Steppe and Lakes of Northern Kazakhstan (Kazakhstan)
* Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve (Mexico)
* Swiss Tectonic Arena Sardona (Switzerland)
* Socotra Archipelago (Yemen)

Live Science has the story, with links to more information on each. Pictured are the lagoons of New Caledonia, France. Link -via Geek Like Me

(image credit: IUCN/Dan Laffoley)