33 years ago, April 4, 1975, 19-year-old Bill Gates and 22-year-old Paul Allen joined forces to create a partnership called Micro-soft. The company incorporated in 1981, and went public in 1986. If you had invested in Microsoft in 1986, the value of that stock would be worth 280 times as much today! Wired has an extremely short version of the history of Microsoft. Link -via Digg

(image credit: Doug Wilson/Corbis)

Think Geek displayed an April Fools Day ad for a product that didn’t exist. The Personal Soundtrack Shirt has a built-in speaker and can play various mood themes to make your real life as dramatic as a movie. The item proved to be so popular that they are now scrambling to produce a real shirt!

Looks like we're the fools here. The Personal Soundtrack T-Shirt was originally an April Fool's Prank... but due to overwhelming positive response and hundreds of e-mails screaming to "make the damn shirt already" we're putting this item in to production ASAP. Keep in mind our army of robotic factory monkeys are a bit slow, and it might take them some time to make the real version of this nifty product. Also although we'll try to keep the Personal Soundtrack T-Shirt as close as possible to what you see here, the final version might deviate slightly in appearance, features or price. Capiche?

No word as to when it will be available, but you can sign up for an email notification. Link -via Geek Like Me

OMG Lists details 7 Weird Superheros Who Won't Ever Hit the Silver Screen (But Should). Would you believe Arm-Fall-Off-Boy, whose superpower is that he can pull one arm off with the other? Or the Chlorophyll Kid, who can stimulate plants to grow fast? These superheroes apparently appeared in some comic book somewhere, since there are panels, but no explanations of their origin are given. Link -via Digg

Lenore Skenazy writes about her son’s first solo subway and bus trip in the New York Sun. He had been preparing for the chance, and knew how to read a subway map. The 9-year-old made it home just fine, but half the people who heard about it thought it was too dangerous. What do you think? How can we balance the remote risk of crime with the necessity of teaching children to negotiate the world on their own? Link -via Reddit

The Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss is on American money. How well do you know the faces on your money? I got 11 out of 12 right; I only missed a bill that I’d never seen before. To be honest, there are several I'd never seen before, but I guessed right on some. http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/13888

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I’m Walking is an ad for a seal to certify Germany’s organic farm produce. Six chickens take part in a wacky hurdle race. Written and produced by Bodo von Braunmuehl. See a hi-res version at Soulcage Department Studio. http://www.soulcage-department.de/New/Index-E.html -via Ursi’s Blog

People will do anything to look younger and more attractive, including eating, drinking, and applying placenta, also known as afterbirth. Japanese company Nihon Sofuken sells placenta products for the anti-aging market. Inventor Spot takes a look. As strange as the products themselves are, the attempts at translating from Japanese by machine are even stranger! Link -via Dump Trumpet

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Russian tennis player Mikhail Youzhny became angry when he hit into the net during his third round match Monday against Nicolas Almagro at the Sony Ericsson Open in Key Biscayne, Florida. He reacted by hitting himself in the head -and drew blood! He later won the match, and also became a YouTube hit. Link -via Viral Video Chart

New York City's GreeNYC campaign has a logo that looks like an apple. It makes sense, as the city is known as The Big Apple. But Apple Inc. says it infringes on their trademark. The computer company has filed in injunction in New York’s trademark application.

The Cupertino, California, company calls for the trademark to be denied, claiming the city's logo will confuse people and "seriously injure the reputation which [Apple] has established for its goods and services."

New York says: Getdafugoutaheya.

"The city believes that Apple's claims have no merit and that no consumer is likely to be confused," says Gerald Singleton, the intellectual-property lawyer representing the Big Apple. "This well-known city is using its new design in a variety of contexts that have absolutely nothing to do with Apple Inc."

The dispute is likely to take several months to resolve. http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/news/2008/04/apple_vs_apple#

(image credit: NYC & Company)

Here’s a wonderful gallery of painted hand art inspired by and a tribute to the work of the late Mario Mariotti, which you have probably seen in email forwards. Produced by Tidò Communication in collaboration with the Archives Mariotti and Edizioni Corraini. In Italian. Link -via J-Walk Blog

The Cleveland Indians found the playing field covered with snow on opening day 2007. Grounds crews went to work, and so did Dale Omori with the Cleveland Plain Dealer, who took this time-lapse video. As the snow kept falling, the crews kept working. Link -via Metafilter

The Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss is a sequel to the earlier Dot Dot Dot Com quiz. Do you know who the generic-sounding URL belongs to? These 15 aren’t so obvious. Although I had to guess at all of them, I scored 73%. http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/13842

Scientists are working on making teeth regrow the crystals that make up dentin and enamel. This process could eliminate drilling and filling to combat tooth decay. Sally Marshall, a professor at the University of California at San Francisco, is looking for a way to catch decay early and cause teeth to start “remineralizing”.

Marshall's newest work, which has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Structural Biology, focuses on regrowing dentin in damaged teeth with the help of a calcium-containing solution of ions (electrically charged particles).

By putting a layer of the solution on individual test teeth, Marshall has already been able to remineralize some parts of the teeth. The challenge is to get the crystals to regrow throughout the dentin.

To heal properly, the crystals need to form from the bottom of the tooth up to the enamel. Marshall isn't sure whether that's happening yet, but she is confident that she'll find a way to restore dentin functionality over the next few years.

When this technology progresses to popular use, our grandchildren won’t believe our stories about the dentist’s drill! Link

(image credit: Hollingsworth/Corbis)

The recent video of a velvet worm may have given you the willies, but you’ll love the tiny whimsical paintings of Nathan Mazur!

While browsing through an art supply store, local cartoonist and animator, Nathan Mazur, came upon some tiny canvases about the size of a Zippo lighter. Though meant as a novelty item, he purchased a few and used them to paint cartoony, life-sized pictures of bugs.

Wee Beasties is an exhibit of 50 miniature paintings (2” by 2.75”) of insects, worms, and other creepy crawlies. They depict everything from the common cockroach, to the cryptic water bear, all in the artist’s seemingly innocent, saccharine-colored, cartoon style.

The velvet worm is on the left. To the right is (you guessed it) a lightning bug. The exhibit in Pittsburgh runs through April 5th. Most of the miniatures are sold, but you can see them all in Mazur’s online gallery. Link -thanks, Nathan!

A four-month old kangaroo was in his mother’s pouch when she was killed by a car in Torquay, Victoria, Australia. The unharmed joey would normally have died, but Rex the mixed-breed dog took the roo to his owner, Leonie Allan.

"I'd taken Rex for a walk and we'd gone past the dead kangaroo that morning, and later I was working out the front and he started pointing," Ms Allan said.

"I was worried he'd found a snake and called him back, but when he returned he dropped the joey at my feet.

"He obviously sensed the baby roo was still alive in the pouch and somehow had gently grabbed it by the neck, gently retrieved it and brought it to me."

The kangaroo was calm and even snuggled up with Rex. Now named Rex Jr, the joey is under the care of the Jirrahlinga Wildlife Sanctuary, and will be released at 18 months of age. Link -via Arbroath