The Mars Analogue Research Station (MARS) Programme has two sites used to simulate the conditions of living and working on Mars. One is on Devon Island in the Arctic; the other is in the desert in Utah. Participants have a strict protocol of Mars simulation conditions they follow as they test equipment and develop procedures for Mars exploration. Link ~via Dark Roasted Blend

Photographer Craig Nelson bought a batch of intriguing photos from a shop in Arkansas. They were taken in Vietnam in 1967 and 1968. Nelson posted them on Flickr and searched for the original photographer. He found Darrell Hill, who discarded the pictures 30 years ago in an Arkansas dumpster, and is now an artist in Hawaii. Link to story. Link to photographs. ~via Metafilter

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A busker playing Indonesian music on many instruments on the street in Oxford. I recognize the hang drum and some kind of squeezbox. The horn looks like a cross between a digeridoo {wiki} and an alphorn {wiki}. Can anyone identify it? ~via Unique Daily

Dark Roasted Blend has a gallery of beautiful photographs of exotic insects by various photographers. This one is an Idolomantis diabolica, or a Devil's Flower Mantis. Link

(Image credit: Igor Siwanowicz)

A vertebrate “food chain” fossil has been found in Germany. It was a shark that had eaten an amphibian that had eaten a fish. Scientists compared the fossil to Russian nesting dolls.

The fossilized trio lived 290 million years ago in the shallow coastal waters of a freshwater lake in the Saar-Nahe Basin of southwestern Germany. The lake had previously been linked to the sea but was landlocked for millions of years before the three animals lived and died.

Several pieces of evidence suggest the animals must have formed part of a single food chain.

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The Edmund Fitzgerald {wiki} was a lake freighter that sank on Lake Superior on November 10, 1975. Gordon Lightfoot immortalized the incident in a song in 1976. Here is the song in tribute to those who died on the Edmund Fitzgerald 32 years ago today. ~via Viral Video Chart

I received this picture via email. The subject line was “Why trampolines are dangerous.” ~Thanks, Jan!

You can turn just about any website into a LOLcats site with LOLinator. Enter the URL of the targeted site, and see the LOLcat version. You can even LOLinate an individual post, like this recent item at Neatorama. http://lolinator.com/

The video clip at Japan Probe tells the story (in Japanese) of a Thai man who lost his wife and his job, then met a baby crocodile and bonded with him. Link ~via Gorilla Mask

LOLsaur is just what it sounds like, image macros featuring dinosaurs. Rawr! http://lolsaur.com/ ~via Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories

An animated song from ytmnd. A silly, sadistic, somewhat gory song. Poor hamster, poor hamster, why must your life be so tough? Link ~via b3ta

License to Rant is a blog of license plates, particularly vanity plates that cause you to scratch your head and wonder what they were thinking. This one was inspired by the wedding scene in The Princess Bride. Others are so hard to decipher that commenters leave their best guess. Link ~via Grow~A~Brain

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This cat apparently didn’t read the cat manual. At least the page that states cats do not learn tricks. ~via Unique Daily

You may have guessed that Sir Isaac Newton and Stephen Hawking have high IQs, but some of these may surprise you. This post gives some background on IQ (Intelligence Quotient) and has a list of people alive today with high IQs and estimated IQs of people from history. Link ~via the Presurfer

Six-year-old James Scowcroft came up with the idea of a talking schoolbag, which can remind students of the things they need to pack.

James devised his Robo Rucksack, with flashing antenna and five buttons to allow the owner to pre-record messages, as part of a museum competition.

James's bag was judged the best and turned into reality by design firm Innovate.

James said he is keen to keep on inventing in the future, with a rucksack that helps with the cleaning next on his list, along with a time machine to allow him to see the way his mum looked "in the old days".

The Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, England sponsored the competition. I want two, as I repeat myself too many times about packing a schoolbag every morning! Link ~via Arbroath