Here’s a delightful collection of vintage Soviet Christmas cards celebrating Russia’s space program.

See as Santa Ded Moroz rides a space rocket Sputnik while small boys in the space suites send a New Year greetings to all people of the Earth.
In a picture at the left Santa steers three Soviet space vehicles at once - Vostok, Voshod, Souyz. All design very much reminds Pod Racers from the Star Wars. May be he goes to Tatooine? ;-)

Ded Moroz is the Russian name for Santa. There are four pages of aerospace cards, and other vintage cards can be accessed through the postcard index at the bottom of the page. Link -via Cynical-C

A Baobab tree in Limpopo, South Africa is so big that it’s been made into a bar! The tree has a 155-foot circumference and is hollow. The bar can seat 15 people comfortably, and once held 54 people (although not comfortably). Baobabs begin to hollow out at about a thousand years of age; this tree is estimated to be 6,000 years old. When owners Doug and Heather van Heerden set up the pub in the late eighties, they found artifacts indicating that Bushmen and Dutch pioneers had been inside, and had possibly lived in the tree. Link -via Arbroath

Making your own marshmallows is easier than I thought it would be! Design Sponge has a video with instructions. These, combined with homemade hot chocolate mix, make a thoughtful yet inexpensive Christmas gift for someone who doesn’t need any more doodads. http://www.designspongeonline.com/2007/12/diy-wednesdays-dec-18.html -via Unique Daily

(YouTube link)

The only thing stranger than making a video trailer for a magazine article is the subject of that article... Killer Parasites. Ransom Riggs at mental_floss created this trailer completely out of public domain footage he found.

Link to Killer Parasites article (warning: not for the squeamish).
Link to video article.

Dark Roasted Blend has part five of a series of posts on the World’s Scariest Roads. These hairpin curves are part of a military road in China, and there are no guardrails. Click the links at the bottom of the post to see scary roads in other parts of the world. Link

(YouTube link)

I didn’t know sloths could swim, but according to Wikipedia, most mammals can swim by instinct if they need to. This little guy does a pretty good job, although slowly as you would expect. The video was recorded near Isla Cristobal in Panama. -via Arbroath

These handy stickers will increase the visual appeal of many different items. If you happen to take them to any big box electronics stores, please bring your camera and post pictures in the Evil Mad Science Auxiliary. We want to see those action shots!

For sale by Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories, ten for $2.50. Link

The iPond is an iPod accessory the combines a speaker with a tiny aquarium! A single fish lives in about 650 millilitres of water. It’s all the rage in Australia, but some consider it animal cruelty.

RSPCA spokesman Hugh Wirth said despite the fighting fish's ability to breathe air from the surface, the tank was far too small for it to receive adequate oxygen. The small volume of water would lead to rapid temperature change and this meant the tropical fish would not live long, he said. The iPond should be banned, Dr Wirth said.

Link -via Metafilter

(photo: Rebecca Hallas)

An unidentified father was proud of himself when he scored a hard-to-find Wii Guitar Hero game, just what his 15-year-old son wanted most for Christmas. When he came home from shopping, he caught his son smoking pot in the backyard with friends. It made the father so angry that he auctioned off the Guitar Hero game on eBay. How much did the $90 game sell for? A cool $9,100!

The naughty son, however, will not go without a present on Christmas.

"I am still considering getting him a game for his Nintendo. Maybe something like Barbie as the Island Princess or Dancing with the Stars ... I know he will just love them," the father said, tongue-in-cheek.

Link -via Fark

Mental_floss has a collection of outrageous drinking stories involving sailors, patriots, pioneers, and even elephants! Don’t miss the story of the town that was flooded by beer. It even sparked a riot at the local hospital, among patients who wanted some beer themselves! Link

An Imperial Stormtrooper commando broke into Santa's Factory on the North Pole yesterday evening, killing an undetermined number of elves, arresting the owner and confiscating his sled. Joe Kwazansky, local spokesman for the Evil Galactic Empire in Los Angeles, appeared in a press conference this morning confirming the rumors of an Imperial takeover of Christmas' celebrations.

Read the rest of the story at Gizmodo. Link -via Fark

What of someone redesigned old and familiar corporate logos in Web 2.0 style? Someone did, and the results range from meh to unsettling to downright funny. Link -via the Presurfer

The editors of the Astronomy Picture of the Day have listed their 12 favorite images of 2007.

There was certainly no shortage of breathtaking images to choose from -- with robotic cameras orbiting Mars and rolling around its surface, the Cassini spacecraft at Saturn, space telescopes exploring the cosmos, and ground-based imaging with increasingly sophisticated hardware and software.

One of those selected was this image of the Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1672. Link -via Bad Astronomy Blog

(image credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team)

A three-pound rat was found in the Foja Mountains of western New Guinea, Indonesia. Experts think it may be a previously-unknown species. It is five times the size of regular city rats, and has no fear of humans. That sounds suspiciously like the premise for a horror film. Link

(image credit: Bruce M. Beehler/Conservation International)

Take a look at Why So Serious? The Many Faces of Joker, with images spanning from the first comic book to feature the character in 1940 to Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight. This one is from the 1988 graphic novel The Killing Joke. Link

Bonus: Here’s an image of the even earlier character who inspired the creation of The Joker. http://www.transbuddha.com/content/the-man-who-laughs/