Everyone wants to come up with the Wii, which means everyone wants to come up with a new video game idea that so out-of-the-box that everyone will want to buy it. Which leads us to some strange and frankly dumb innovations. Like Biotic games, developed by Stanford researchers to teach children about biology.

Biotic games look just like old school video games, only instead of pixels, they are made out of living organisms (paramecia) ... which you control by zapping them with electricity. For example, in the game Enlightenment you guide a bunch of shrimps across a small box in order to light up all the squares:
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What you're watching is a fluid chamber charged up with an electrical field -- a charge that the player can shift from positive to negative by pressing the buttons in a small NES-like controller. The tiny paramecia inside the chamber react to the electricity by fleeing in the direction that you command them to. The chamber is also hooked to a small webcam that transmits the images to a computer in real time, instantly transforming them into video game screens for our perverse amusement.

That one won't be available soon at your local game store. See the rest of seven strange game innovations at Cracked. Link -via Unreality

2011 has been another year of internet surfing for amusement. What will we remember about this year on the 'net in the future? Maybe some of the top memes. Even now, considering the shelf life of an internet meme, going through the 2011 list is like a stroll down nostalgia lane. Ranker lists the top 50, which you'll want to bookmark, as it is quite extensive. Link

How fast can a cannonball travel? Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage were tackling this question yesterday for an episode of their TV show Mythbusters when things went completely wrong. The cannon misfired, and the cannonball went up into the air over Dublin, California. The next question they will probably tackle is whether the footage will be used on TV.

“This cannonball was supposed to go through several barrels of water and through a cinder block, and then ultimately into the side of the hill,” said J.D. Nelson of the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department.

Instead the cannonball flew over the foothills surrounding Camp Parks Military Firing Reservation, before spiraling back toward Dublin like a cruise missile.

It flew straight though the front door of a home on Cassata Place, and bounced around like a pinball, flying up to the second floor before blasting through a back bedroom wall.

The wayward cannonball then blasted across a busy road and through a second home some 50 yards away, demolishing roof tiles.

The story doesn't stop there, and neither did the cannonball. It finally came to rest inside a minivan. The driver had just left the vehicle minutes before. Incredibly, no one was injured in the incident. Ta da! Link -via reddit

Do you have a LEGO Death Star hanging from your tree? Or a LEGO Millennium Falcon? You could, you know, because the web has instructions for putting these together from LEGO bricks you already have! They are part of a roundup Jill Harness put together on The 20 Geekiest Christmas Decorations Ever at Rue The Day. Some are handcrafted, some are available in the NeatoShop, and some, like these, will have your own personal touch. Link

Actor Harry Morgan, best known for his roles as officer Bill Gannon in the TV series Dragnet and Colonel Sherman Potter on M*A*S*H, died today at his home in Los Angeles. There are 159 acting credits listed in Morgan's IMDb entry. He began acting on stage in 1937 and tackled a wide variety of roles over the next half-century.

Mr. Morgan attracted attention almost immediately. In “The Ox-Bow Incident” (1943), which starred Henry Fonda, he was praised for his portrayal of a drifter caught up in a lynching in a Western town. Reviewing “A Bell for Adano” (1945), based on John Hersey’s novel about the Army in a liberated Italian town, Bosley Crowther wrote in The New York Times that Mr. Morgan was “crude and amusing as the captain of M.P.’s.”

He went on to appear in “All My Sons” (1948), based on the Arthur Miller play, with Edward G. Robinson and Burt Lancaster; “The Big Clock” (1948), in which he played a silent, menacing bodyguard to Charles Laughton; “Yellow Sky” (1949), with Gregory Peck and Anne Baxter; and the critically praised western “High Noon” (1952), with Gary Cooper. Among his other notable films were “The Teahouse of the August Moon” (1956), with Marlon Brando and Glenn Ford, and “Inherit the Wind” (1960), with Spencer Tracy and Fredric March, in which he played a small-town Tennessee judge hearing arguments about evolution in the fictionalized version of the Scopes “monkey trial.” In “How the West Was Won” (1962), he played Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.

After a personable performance as Glenn Miller’s pianist, Chummy MacGregor, in “The Glenn Miller Story” (1954), starring James Stewart, he often played softer characters as well as his trademark hard-bitten tough guys. There were eventually a number of comedies on his résumé, among them “John Goldfarb, Please Come Home” (1965), with Shirley MacLaine and Peter Ustinov; “The Flim-Flam Man” (1967), with George C. Scott; “Support Your Local Sheriff!” (1969), with James Garner and Walter Brennan; and “The Apple Dumpling Gang” (1975), a Disney movie with Tim Conway and Don Knotts.

Harry Morgan was 96. Link -via Metafilter

The folks at Collector's Weekly scoured eBay to find the ugliest Christmas sweaters ever. These have everything you'd ever want in a Christmas sweater: pompons, jingle bells, tinsel, clutter, and even music! They're ranked from bad to the worst. And you're in luck -some are still for sale! Link

Humans love to hold a warm, furry cat in their arms or in their laps (with some exceptions, of course) but humans aren't the only primates who like pets. Monkeys and apes seem to have a similar affinity to cats, as you'll see in a gallery of cute pictures at Environmental Graffiti. Link

(Image credit: Flickr user Salim Virji)

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Seventy years ago today, the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor Naval Base brought the U.S. into World War II. Franklin Roosevelt announced a declaration of war on Japan the next day. Wired has a synopsis of what happened. Link

Today, about 120 survivors of that attack have returned to Pearl Harbor in Hawaii for a commemoration service, including a moment of silence at 7:55AM local time. In previous years, thousands of veterans attended such events. Fewer veterans remain each year, and age has caused many to forgo the trip. Link

You can also read more about the attack on Pearl Harbor in the Neatorama archives:

The Truth About Pearl Harbor

Dustbin of History: The Pearl Harbor Spy

The Pearl Harbor Spy, Part II

Doolittle's Raid

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Mace the ninja dog takes on his arch enemy the plush turtle. His greatest assets are his stealth and amazing self-control. -via I Am Bored

Once a week, Cake Wrecks takes a break from humorously awful cakes to post a roundup of great cakes. The latest collection is about painted cakes.

Cake-painting is just like regular ol' painting, except the artist must work extra quickly when using food-grade paints, and must also be ok with the fact that his or her masterpiece will surely be sliced up and devoured by the end of the night.

This gorgeous African wildlife-themed cake is from Rising Flours. See a bunch more artistically painted cakes, including cake reproductions of famous works, at Cake Wrecks. http://www.cakewrecks.com/home/2011/12/4/sunday-sweets-painted-cakes.html

Scientists know how to do it. Cloning the extinct mammoth is just a matter of inserting mammoth DNA into an elephant egg cell, prodding it to divide into more cells, and implanting it into an elephant for gestation. Russian scientist Semyon Grigoriev announced a joint Russian/Japanese project to do it starting next year, using the bone marrow from a recently-discovered mammoth femur. It makes you wonder why they haven't done this already.

What's been missing is woolly mammoth nuclei with undamaged genes. Scientists have been on a Holy Grail-type search for such pristine nuclei since the late 1990s. Now it sounds like the missing genes may have been found.

In an odd twist, global warming may be responsible for the breakthrough.

Warmer temperatures tied to global warming have thawed ground in eastern Russia that is almost always permanently frozen. As a result, researchers have found a fair number of well-preserved frozen mammoths there, including the one that yielded the bone marrow.

We are getting nearer to the "can we do it?" part, but the question "should we do it?" remains. Link -via Metafilter

(Image credit: Wikipedia user WolfmanSF)

It's once again time for our collaboration with the always amusing What Is It? Blog. Can you guess what the pictured item is? Can you make up something interesting?

Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many guesses as you'd like in separate comments. Post no URLs or weblinks, as doing so will forfeit your entry. Two winners: the first correct guess and the funniest (albeit ultimately wrong) guess will win T-shirt from the NeatoShop.

Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize, okay? May we suggest the Science T-Shirt, Funny T-Shirt and Artist-Designed T-Shirts?

For more clues, check out the What Is It? Blog. Good luck!

Update: the mystery item is is a check protector, it's a security device that marks the check when it's paid so it can't be cashed a second time and also prevents attempts at altering numbers. The first commenter who knew that was cbellamy, who did not select a prize t-shirt. The funniest answer came from Elim, who guessed it to be an antique squid ink extractor. Doesn't that draw a picture? For that, he wins a t-shirt from the NeatoShop! Thanks to the What Is It? Blog, where you'll find this and several other mystery items this week, all now revealed.

The official Vatican website has a panoramic view of the Sistine Chapel. If you don't have the opportunity to go and visit it yourself, this could be your best chance to get up close and personal with Michelangelo's ceiling and the works of other Renaissance artists. Take your virtual tour with or without music. Link -via Dark Roasted Blend

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Soon to be a full-length feature, TimeScapes by photographer Tom Lowe is a breathtakingly beautiful video.

This is production footage from my forthcoming debut film, "TimeScapes," a portrait of the American Southwest. This video was filmed and edited at 4K (4069x2304) resolution, four times greater than regular 1080p HD. A 4K DCP file is available upon request. Shot on Red Epic and Canon RAW still cameras.

I can't decide which part I like best: the landscapes, the rolling stars, the music, or the dancing VLA dishes. You’ll want to watch the trailer twice; the second time in full screen. -via Geekosystem

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British sailors aboard the amphibious assault ship HMS Ocean lip-sync to Mariah Carey's Christmas recording while on their way home from what was originally supposed to be a seven-week deployment -but then they were diverted to Libya, and seven weeks turned into seven months. After a 225-day mission (176 at sea), they are stoked to get back to the UK by this Friday, in time for the holidays! Link