The YouTube page says, “Welcome to Official YouTube Channel for the British Monarchy.” Queen Elizabeth of England has just launched her official YouTube channel. It already contains historical film footage and broadcasts, and the first new video will be the palace’s Christmas Day greeting.

Announcing the launch of the channel, a spokeswoman for Buckingham Palace said the Queen "always keeps abreast with new ways of communicating with people".

She added: "She has always been aware of reaching more people and adapting the communication to suit.

"This will make the Christmas message more accessible to younger people and those in other countries."

Link to story. http://www.youtube.com/theroyalchannel to YouTube channel. -via Metafilter

Super secure doors, artistic doors, secret doors, deputydog has a rundown of some of the most interesting. These lifelike faces grace the door to St. Nicholas’ Cathedral in Slovenia. http://deputy-dog.com/2007/12/17/9-intriguing-doors/

(image credit: Mr. Jez)

	I received 64 credits on The Sci Fi Sounds Quiz How much of a Sci-Fi geek are you?
Guess the Sci-Fi Movie Sounds here

Can you identify a science fiction movie from a short sound clip? Hw about fourteen of them? Take the quiz and find out! My results said, “You're a major sci-fi geek! Do you speak Klingon?” http://www.shegoddess.com/q/sf/index.aspx -via I-Am-Bored

He wanted to make a personal gift for a friend who is a big Dr. Who fan. So he took an old Dalek toy, a teddy bear, and a musical hamster, and constructed the funniest version of Davros, {wiki} creator of the evil Daleks ever. For our amusement, he has posted the building process and a video of the finished product. Link -via b3ta

Handbell Hero challenges you to play holiday songs on your heyboard with your left hand. Since I’ve never played Guitar Hero, this reminds me of Dance Dance Revolution. If you play well, you get smiling faces. If you don’t, you get frowns, criticism, and your snowman keels over. Hint: start with Jingle Bells, it’s the easiest. Link -via Metafilter

Flickr user Marcello Poletti posted a set of stills from Star Trek (the original series) featuring the beautiful women who appeared in the show. There are 67 photos so far. He says the set will be complete soon. http://www.flickr.com/photos/poletti/sets/72157602965392887 -via Dump Trumpet

The ABC World News Webcast has the report from Neatorama on the Top 5 Viral Videos of 2007. These are the videos that you helped select. The final 5 includes Leave Britney Alone! at the request of ABC. The video was never posted at Neatorama, but it was one of the year’s biggest.

Link to the Top Viral Videos feature.

Link to the entire webcast (you can scroll down and select the video segment alone).

Pul the virtual lever and generate a random but festive holiday message. My first one said “May your New Year be relaxing and filled with turducken.” Then you can send your greeting to friends via email. For each message sent, a donation is made to Rotary First Harvest, an organization that connects farmers and food banks. Link -via the Presurfer

Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories has a tutorial on building your own little walking robot out of a toothbrush and a pager motor. The result is cute and will impress the kids. You can build several and make them race -if you can get them all going in a straight line! Link (with video)

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