Six baby ducks fell into a storm drain in Gosforth, Newcastle. The mother duck couldn’t fit through the grate, so she walked along the path of the sewer pipe, following the sounds of duckling cries. She had to cross highways and a railroad to keep up with them. The journey stopped at a manhole, where the duck quacked for help for hours. Passers by lifted the manhole cover with a crowbar and brought all six ducklings to safety.

Northumbria Water staff used a laptop showing the sewage layout to work out where the babies had got into it — and how far the mother had walked after them.

They fell into the system at the Three Mile Inn in Gosforth and were swept along the Great North Road before going beneath two schools divided by the Metro line.

They were then washed below a sports field, a hospital and an estate before ending up under the manhole in Barrasford Close.

The mother and ducklings were taken to a nearby pond. Link -via Arbroath

Joshua Heineman of Cursive Buildings has been collecting and altering archived images from the New York Public Library. He makes them wiggle, which creates a three-dimensional effect. You’ll have to click the link to see what I’m trying to explain. In the short term, the pictures seem to come to life. If you stare at any one of them too long, you may become dizzy. Link -via the Presurfer

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I well remember the horror that was Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. I had nightmares for weeks afterward. Ha! This trailer illustrates again how important a film’s soundtrack is. -via Viral Video Chart

A group of children in Terra Haute, Indiana were robbed of $17.50 at their lemonade stand. 18-year-old Steven Tryon grabbed the money from Dominique Morefield’s hand and ran off. Morefield chased the thief while calling police on her cell phone.

Tryon ran into a house down the street where police spent more than 45 minutes trying to coax him out. When he finally came out, police arrested him. The kids were able to identify him because they said he came to their street corner earlier that same day and tried to sell them a knife.

Tryon was taken to the Vigo County Jail. He's due in court Tuesday. He is facing a felony robbery charge.

The kids say they will continue to sell lemonade, with adult supervision. Link -via J-Walk Blog

It’s usually easy to figure out the city with the biggest number of people in any US state. The second-most populous city doesn’t get as much press about that fact. Can you guess the second most populous city in 15 states? Take the Lunchtime Quiz today at mental_floss! I scored 73%, which is below the average so far (but before the quiz was made public). How did YOU do? http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/15840

The “solstice moon” will be visible tomorrow night. It just might be the biggest thing you’ve seen in quite some time!

There's no better time to see it. The full Moon of June 18th is a "solstice moon", coming only two days before the beginning of northern summer. This is significant because the sun and full Moon are like kids on a see-saw; when one is high, the other is low. This week's high solstice sun gives us a low, horizon-hugging Moon and a strong Moon Illusion.

NASA explains how the illusion works. Link

(image credit: Edmund E. Kasaitis)

You see pictures of misspelled or otherwise wrong road marking on the internet all the time, but you don’t know how old they are or whether they are altered, and you rarely find out where they are. But this lane marking in Florida is well-documented. You’ll find it on the John F. Kennedy Causeway in Miami, Florida -at least until they fix it. Or fix them. Joe Petrone couldn’t believe his eyes when he drove through the newly-painted causeway.

''I pulled in the right lane and I saw it,'' Petrone said of the stretch between Harbor Island and Pelican Harbor Park. ``Then I saw another one and another one. . . .''

The mistake -- still there -- is repeated not once, not twice, but four times.

http://www.miamiherald.com/460/story/572680.html -via Fark

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The Trons are a band of robots from New Zealand. They had a MySpace page earlier but the link isn't working right now. -via Viral Video Chart

Update 6/18/08 by Alex - here's an interview with The Trons, by David Farrier of TV3 Nightline: Link [YouTube] - Thanks David!

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Recorded at the 2008 Star Wars Weekend Hyperspace Hoopla show at Disney's Hollywood Studios. (via Everlasting Blort)

Make your own silly receipts online with the Custom Receipt Maker! Link -via The Generator Blog

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A puppy in Evansville, Indiana was smashed in a cardboard compactor! The female lab-pit bull mix may have been compacted more than once. The crew who found her at the recycling company is looking for a permanent home for her. Link -via Arbroath

Wouldn’t you love controlling the Empire playing games or even (gasp) working in this workstation from the Dark Side Novelquest? Available in July. Link -via Gizmodo

If you watch sports on TV, you should breeze through this. Today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss asks you to identify theme songs for sports shows. I only knew two of the themes, but I managed to get three of the questions right for a dismal score of 38%. http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/15693

There are often countries that you automatically discount when planning a vacation because, like, there’s a WAR or something going on there! (Unless you’re Bono, who will go anywhere anytime.) Then when the situation improves, you don’t think about them again. Pro Traveller takes a look at six nations you might want to reconsider as travel destinations. Pictured is Indonesia, birthplace of Neatorama’s webmaster. Link -Thanks, Andy!

On June 12th, 1942, a young girl in the Netherlands named Anne Frank turned 13 years old. She received a cloth-bound blank book that she had requested for a birthday gift. Anne intended to use it for a diary, although she didn’t think anyone would ever be interested in reading it.

For someone like me, it is a very strange habit to write in a diary. Not only that I have never written before, but it strikes me that later I, nor anyone else, will care for the outpouring of a thirteen year old schoolgirl.

Anne wrote about her life and how she and her family went into hiding in 1940 to avoid the Nazi death camps.

The little autograph book/diary that Anne had received less than a month before going into hiding, became a mirror into the soul of the teenager. As the world around her was increasingly crumbling, she began to pour out her heart and soul in her diary. She also used several other notebooks and individual pieces of paper when the book was filled.

The entries in her diary record the thoughts of the girl. She records the growing tensions in their hideout, and even despises her mother, although later she chastises herself for having such thoughts. She records her first kiss, from a 16-year-old boy whose family was in the hideout with them, but then squelches any possible romance. All in all, she records the ups and downs of budding womanhood, under the most adverse of situations.

She continued to write until their hiding place was discovered in 1944. Anne died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Her father found the diary after the war was over. Millions of people have been touched by Anne’s writing in the years since. Anne Frank would have turned 79 today. Link -via the Presurfer