You can download and print foldable paper finger puppets of the US presidential candidates. These would be pretty handy for your next political argument with friends or family, or for staging your own photo-op or debate. Link -via Everlasting Blort

(YouTube link)
Darryl Gold re-edited the classic western High Noon to include killer robots! -via b3ta

(Live Leak link)
You don’t see a crime committed with a crossbow every day. Shopkeeper Mohammed Razaq had just loaded a DVD for his five children when a man with a crossbow tried to rob the store. Security footage shows he appeared to shoot at Razaq, but he either missed or did not have the crossbow properly loaded. Razaq chased the would-be thief out the door with a pole he uses for changing the store’s sign. Razaq feared for his family.

He said: "He tried to load up the crossbow and I could see a big window pole in front of me, so I grabbed the stick and chased him.

"I felt he was threatening me and my family and kids, so I just had to do it.

"As soon as he saw me with the stick, he ran like mad. I tried to hit him, but I think I missed."

The suspect is still at large. Link -via Arbroath

ISWWR is a site that collects and catalogs photographic “evidence” of Star Wars characters and objects in real life. The picture above shows a Spanish peace summit in the 1920s, attended by Queen Jamillia of Naboo. Each photograph has an explanatory history. Link -via Dump Trumpet

Scientists have recreated what they believe to be the voice of Neanderthals.

Robert McCarthy, an anthropologist at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton has used new reconstructions of Neanderthal vocal tracts to simulate the voice. He says the ancient human's speech lacked the "quantal vowel" sounds that underlie modern speech.

Quantal vowels provide cues that help speakers with different size vocal tracts understand one another, says McCarthy, who was talking at the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists in Columbus, Ohio, on April 11.

"They would have spoken a bit differently. They wouldn't have been able to produce these quantal vowels that form the basis of spoken language," he says.

New Scientist has very short audio clips contrasting the Neanderthal and modern human speech. Link -via Yahoo News

(image credit: Anthropological Institute, University of Zürich)

Test your knowlege of world geography with this eight question quiz. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch posted it in response to a survey by National Geographic.

Americans are far from alone in the world, but from the perspective of many young Americans, we might as well be. Most young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 demonstrate a limited understanding of the world, and they place insufficient importance on the basic geographic skills that might enhance their knowledge.

I got all the questions right, but I’m not a young American. http://www.stltoday.com/mds/news/html/1553 -via Geek Like Me

38 years ago today, April 17th, 1970 the capsule from the Apollo 13 mission splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, and the whole world breathed a sigh of relief.

Apollo 13 launched from Cape Canaveral on April 11, intended to be the third manned lunar landing. The crew — James A. Lovell Jr., John L. Swigert Jr. and Fred W. Haise Jr. — experienced a slight vibration shortly after launch, but things were going normally until 55 hours, 55 minutes into the flight.

Oxygen tank No. 2 exploded, causing No. 1 to fail and start leaking rapidly. Warning lights started blinking. The astronaut's supplies of air, water, light and electricity were imperiled ... 200,000 miles from Earth.

They didn’t land on the moon as planned, but just making it home alive was an amazing accomplishment. The film Apollo 13 (based on astronaut James Lovell’s book Lost Moon) recounted the story of their close call and McGyver-like operations. Wired has more details. Link

A new teacup called Ceramic For Mix (which appears to be made of glass) eliminates the need for a stirring spoon. This is acheived by a ball installed in the bottom. Designer Florian Dussopt says,

"The ball is put into a slightly protruding base to keep it in place when stirring and drinking.

"Users gently move the cup, like you would when swirling a glass of cognac, and the action pushes the ball around.

"The ceramic ball mixes all various sugars and milk at the same time, thus eliminating the need for a spoon.

"When you drink, the ball is blocked by the gravity in the recess of the glass.”

The company, Ana Gram, has made prototypes and is looking for a manufacturer. Link -via Digg

(image credit: Kevin Collins)
The Flickr group We Demand Donuts was the recipient of 10 dozen donuts at a donut shop in San Francisco today, courtesy of Flickr employee Matthew Rothenberg. The event began as a way of making light of a Flickr protest against the new feature that allows pro users to upload video to Flickr.

We Demand Donuts sprang up long before the video feature was added, but the group never had much of a following until last week, according to Jake Rome, who started the group in 2007. Shortly after the option to include video was added and several groups protesting the new feature emerged, the We Demand Donuts movement gathered steam.

We Demand Donuts had events in other places, but Flickr only organized and bought donuts for the San Francisco “protest”. http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/04/flickr-quells-v.html to story. http://flickr.com/groups/wedemanddonuts/pool/
to Flickr group.

The Lunchtime Quiz today at mental_floss is a little different from the multiple-choice quizzes we are used to. Can you name the ten top grossing movies that did NOT have a theatrical-release prequel, sequel, or were part of a series? You have five minutes, once you get started. I could only think of two, and I gave up before the time ran out. At least I knew the biggest one! http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/14178

Elaine Krajenke Ellison is a retired math teacher who makes quilts. Her patterns represent math concepts in a beautiful way.

Quilts serve as a visual introduction to mathematical concepts that allows students to explore mathematics as they gain geometric insights. My quilts will engage the viewer in mathematical visualization, helping to further the role of problem solving.

The quilt pictured is called Clifford Torus. Link -via Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories

A Norway spruce growing in Sweden has a root system that has been growing for 9,550 years! The tree is only about 13 feet tall, but the trunk is not the first first one grown from the roots. Leif Kullman, professor at Umeå University led the team that discovered the tree’s age.

The spruce's stems or trunks have a lifespan of around 600 years, "but as soon as a stem dies, a new one emerges from the same root stock," Kullman explained. "So the tree has a very long life expectancy."

The age of the root system was determined by radiocarbon dating.

Trees much older than 9,550 years would be impossible in Sweden, because ice sheets covered the country until the end of the last Ice Age around 11,000 years ago, Kullman noted.

Link

Stringwave is a seemingly simple physics toy that can keep you busy for a while! Change the settings and parameters and see what your waves and echos are like. This is something my grandmother would call "a play-pretty" and my father the scientist would call "addictive". Link -via Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories

(Break.com link)
I can’t imagine how much time this took to set up and rehearse. This guy plays the Super Mario Brothers theme on bottles with a remote-control car! Just tuning the bottles would take me all day, then another day to work out the timing, then I’d probably break quite a few. -via Boing Boing

96 years ago today, April 14th, 1912, the last meal was served aboard the Titanic. First class passengers were served a ten-course masterpiece. Later that night, the ship collided with an iceberg. 1517 people died when the ship sank; 723 were rescued. Cooking Monster takes a detailed look at the menu that night and how the dishes were prepared. Link -via Grow-A-Brain