A return visit to a carbon sink facility
by Nan Swift, Improbable Research staff

The Museum of Burnt Food continues to grow and prosper. Since our last visit to the museum, the collection has moved to a new facility in Arlington, Massachusetts. A small lake next to the building serves as a scenic, yet high-capacity emergency reaction vessel. Curator and founder Deborah Henson-Conant has nearly doubled the museum’s holdings. The photos here represent a small but diverse sampling.

Always a leader in the campaign against global warming—and in particular, the struggle to reduce the amount of carbon accumulating in the atmosphere—the Museum of Burnt Food is the first major museum to develop an in-house carbon sink policy. Every year, every item in the collection is washed in a carbon sink. After washing and drying an item, the museum staff evaluates its condition; in selected cases the item is reburnt.

Cider in Situ #2

Apple cider warmed on a stove ad infinitum. This specimen of Cider-in-Situ is a companion piece to the famous “Free-Standing Hot Apple Cider”—the original seed which grew to become the Museum of Burnt Food. Donated by Gary Dryfoos, circa 2000.

Burnt Whole Wheat Tortilla

What was intended as a “quick snack on a whole wheat tortilla” became this item in the Museum of Burnt Food. Topping unknown. Donated by L. Von Hopper. Acquired in 2003.

Whole Wheat Toast under Glass

Whole wheat toast, burnt. Acquired circa 1995.

“Kruncheroni ’n Cheese”

Remains of attempt by a 14-year-old boy to make dinner from a package of Kraft Macaroni-and-Cheese. On loan from private collection of David and Susan Beno.

Thrice-Baked Potato

Thrice-baked potato (Solanum tuberosum extermino). Acquired pre-1989.

Burnt Lemon

Etiology unknown. Acquired circa 1996.

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This article is republished with permission from the July-August 2008 issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. You can download or purchase back issues of the magazine, or subscribe to receive future issues. Or get a subscription for someone as a gift!

Visit their website for more research that makes people LAUGH and then THINK.

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Surely you remember the useless machine, which did nothing but turn itself off (previously and previously). Here is a variation that made me laugh, from Saskview. -Thanks, Brett!

TV has seen a lot of talk shows come and go -some going faster than others. That can really hurt if it's one of your favorite celebrities trying out the talk show format. If you remember those less-than-successful series, you'll do well in today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss. I scored 75% -beat that if you can! Link

Illustrator Kevin Kidney once reminisced about the wonderful tree that was the center of the Disney film The Swiss Family Robinson. One of his readers responded by not only tracking down the location of the tree, but taking several pictures of it as well!

"Kevin, I stumbled upon your post of March this year "Some Really Big Roots" which mentioned the original Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse from the movie of 1960. I live on the island of Tobago in the Caribbean and did research on the tree and actually found it still very much alive in Goldsborough!

Link -via Metafilter

How would you advise a student who decides she wants to go for a PhD in English literature? Not that it matters; the student doesn't really want advice, just a written recommendation. Despite the computer generated audio, this animation made me laugh. Warning: it might hit disturbingly close to home. Link

Chopsticks can be just two plain sticks, or they could be works of art, clever conversation pieces, or engineered to make eating simpler. You'll find some of each (except for the plain sticks) in a roundup by our own Jill Harness at Oddee. The chopsticks shown make learning to use them easy and fun for kids! Link

Pure Organic has an infographic with several ideas for what to do with your Jack-o-Lantern after Halloween. How about giving it to the birds?

Instead of throwing your pumpkin away, fill it with bird seed and let it serve as a feeder for birds. When it starts to get soft then compost it or refill with seeds and throw it into the woods.

I normally just paint ours for Halloween, so I can cook it later. Link -via Buzzfeed

The tallest piece in this set is only three inches tall! Kiva Ford makes hand-blown miniatures of many types of glassware and jewelry. Personally, I am a sucker for the cobalt blue glass creations. See more at the Etsy shop. Link -via Evil Mad Linkblog

A large rock stands out in the middle of a plain in Mongolia. The Taikhar chuluu is covered with inscriptions dating back as far as Turkic rule in Mongolia. Those inscriptions were followed by more in the Mongol language, then Tibetan, and even more modern graffiti.

Of course, the rock itself did not come here by itself, the legend says. Long time ago there lived a hero here called Bökebilig (“Strong and wise”). Suddenly a large snake started to come out from under the earth. Bökebilig did not like this, and he pushed back the snake from where it came, and then he closed the mouth of its cave with this rock which has been standing here ever since. Not far from the rock there is a small mountain called Altan sandali (“Golden throne”), of which tradition says that Bökebilig took a rest on it, while washing his hands in the nearby Tamir river.

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Allie Brosch, the mastermind behind Hyperbole and a Half, sends out entertaining but infrequent Tweets. This one was illustrated as a Twaggie, which (like all Twaggies) can be made into a t-shirt if you like. Link

The following is an article from Uncle John's Triumphant 20th Anniversary Bathroom Reader.

These hoaxes are so absurd, it's hard to believe that anyone was fooled ...but lots of people were.

WHAT A HELLHOLE

The Story: In early 1990, the Trinity Broadcasting Network reported that Russian geologists on Siberia's Kola Peninsula had discovered Hell. They were using a giant drill, said TBN, to test how deep into the Earth they could reach. In November 1989, nine miles into the ground, the drill suddenly stopped spinning -it had hit air. The team lowered a thermometer into the hole. The temperature inside was 2,200°F -five times as hot as it should have been at that depth. They lowered a microphone down to record the sounds of shifting plates, and heard human screams. Then a black, spectral figure in the shape of a bat screeched and flew out of the hole.

The Hoax: TBN claimed (on the air) that the source for the story was Ammennusatia, "Finland's Most Respected Newspaper." They'd gotten the article from a Texas minister who sent it in, claiming it was from Finland's top scientific journal. Actually, Ammennusatia is a paranormal newsletter (it is from Finland). They got the story from a staffer who wrote it from memory after having read it in Etela Soumen, another Finnish newspaper, which ran the piece in a section where readers were invited to publish anything they liked -including fiction. Someone had sent the story to Etela Soumen after reading it an another weird Finnish newsletter called Vaeltajat. That paper got it from an obscure American religious newsletter called Jewels of Jericho, which had completely made it up. TBN reported the story without bothering to find out if it was true. A few months later, they announced that because of the story, 3,000 people had converted to Christianity. Ironically, the story was rooted in fact: from 1970 to 1989, Soviet scientists were involved in a project called the Kola Superdeep Borehole. The point was to drill as deep into the Earth as possible. They got about 7.6 miles in, but never encountered any fiery air holes, human scream, or ghostly bats.

VIVOLEUM FOR EVERYONE!

The Story: At the 2007 Gas and Oil Exhibition, Canada's largest annual oil-industry convention, a National Petroleum Council representative named Shepard Wolff and an Exxon Mobile executive, Florian Osenberg, unveiled "Vivoleum" -a revolutionary process that turned human flesh into gasoline (very handy, should oil reserves ever dry up). The executives then played a film about a deceased Exxon janitor who had volunteered to be turned into Vivoleum, and passed out candles to be lit in the janitor's memory. That's when they announced that the candles were the janitor- transformed by Vivoleum.

The Hoax: After the two men passed out the "human candles," the event's organizers realized that "Wolff" and "Osenberg" were phonies.They were really Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno, two members of the Yes Men, an anti-consumerism group that stages high-profiles stunts to embarrass corporations with poor environmental or human rights records. Bichlbaum and Bonanno had set up a fake Exxon website (vivoluem.com), through which they got themselves invited to the Oil Exposition. Convention organizers threw them out and threatened to have them arrested. A few days later, Exxon demanded they shut down the Vivoleum site. They declined, saying it was a parody and thus protected under the First Amendment. (The web site has since shut down.)

MOSTLY CLOUDY

The Story: On a Sunday morning in June 2007, CT2, a television station in the Czech Republic, was airing a weather update. As weather stats scrolled along the bottom of the screen, a camera panned the country's scenic Krkonose Mountains. Suddenly, off in the distance, a fiery mushroom cloud filled the sky. The screen went black -the Czech Republic had just been nuked.

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The Hoax: A Czech performance art group called Initiative Ztohoven had hacked into CT2's feed and replaced it with its own footage -undetectably similar ...up until the bomb part. The mushroom cloud was just simple video editing done on a computer. After the initial blackout, CT2 came back on the air to reassure viewers they they weren't under attack. Members of Initiative Ztohoven are under investigation by the Czech government and may face terrorism charges.

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This article was reprinted with permission from Uncle John's Triumphant 20th Anniversary Bathroom Reader.

Since 1988, the Bathroom Reader Institute had published a series of popular books containing irresistible bits of trivia and obscure yet fascinating facts.

If you like Neatorama, you'll love the Bathroom Reader Institute's books - go ahead and check 'em out!

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Halloween home decorations have come a long way. See the other songs programmed for this house at the YouTube channel. I have to wonder what the neighbors think! -via Metafilter

Matthew Inman at The Oatmeal made a chart of how different age groups celebrate Halloween. I have experienced all these phases, with the difference that when I was younger, teenagers had lots more fun! Link -via Geeks Are Sexy

Pier Francesco Orsini, a 16th-century mercenary and nobleman, built a garden of huge sculpted monsters and other fantasy figures at his estate in Bomarzo, Italy. You'll find the story of this remarkable project and more pictures at Kuriositas. Link

(Image credit: Flickr user zak mc)

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A young owl practices pouncing on imaginary prey. Or else he just wants to show off how cute he is! -via Arbroath