Luxury Property Blog looks at the most expensive Christmas trees ever! This one, in Singapore, featured 21,798 diamonds, 3,762 crystal beads, and 456 lights, for a cost of over a million dollars! How does that compare with a cut evergreen that costs as much to select, fell, and ship? You'll also see expensive ornaments, unusual Christmas trees, the Europe's "most pathetic tree". Link -via Dark Roasted Blend

Trees and shrubs can grow into works of art in the hands of someone who knows how to bend, sculpt, and graft. The result is arborsculpture, and Web Ephemera has some really nice examples of the art. Link -Thanks, RJ Evans!

(YouTube link)
Whipper is a parakeet in New Zealand. A fluffy mutant parakeet who was abandoned by his mother because of his bizarre looks. No doubt he'll be quite popular with people! -via Unique Daily

Deck the hall with loaves of poultry!

Celebrate your love for (or just fascination with) the Turducken (turkey stuffed with duck stuffed with chicken) with this handmade Christmas tree ornament. Order yours today! Link -Thanks, Dana!

You want to talk about a niche blog? Here's one for tattoos of owls. And nothing else. Owl Tattoos has an extensive collection. Pictured is a tattoo by Valerie Vargas. Whoooo knew there were so many owl tattoos? Link -Thanks, Patrick!

Students at Parkside and Coleridge schools in Cambridgeshire, England sent two teddy bears into space! 21-year-old Henry Hallam led the project to send a helium balloon up to monitor weather conditions in the stratosphere, and enlisted the help of the Space Flight science club, a club for schoolchildren sponsored by Cambridge University.

The soft toys MAT and KMS were named after the first initials of the pupils who helped make their space suits.

Along with their two intrepid colleagues, they were strapped to a beam attached to a foam-padded box containing instrumentation and cameras on Monday.

After rising to an altitude of around 100,000ft, a webcam caught their 'space-walk' for posterity before the helium balloon burst.

They then fell to Earth before a parachute opened automatically to provide a soft landing.

Link -Thank, Charles Hog!

(image credit: Cambridge University)

Discover Magazine has a gallery of ten awesome photos of the visual effects created by sky conditions, explained in the accompanying text. Pictured is a sunset over Chile, which appears flattened due to light refraction. Link -Thanks, Sara!

(image credit: Luc Arnold)

The view is breathtaking, but... do you feel safe? deputy dog has a roundup of scenic overlooks that are as safe as can be made, but still make you feel like you may fall at any moment. Pictured is The Top Of Tyrol overlooking a ridge of Mount Isidor in Austria. http://deputy-dog.com/2008/12/6-vertigo-inducing-viewing-platforms.html

These orange slices are made of jello! Instructables tells you how to make them. This might be neat with lemons and limes, too. It would certainly impress guests at a holiday party! Link -via Unique Daily

The Museum of Communism in Prague has some delightfully funny advertisements. Don't miss the posters featuring Stalin, Lenin, and Marx! Link -Thanks, bubu!

PetFinder has posted their annual lists of the 10 most popular names for dogs and for cats. In addition, they have lists of the 10 most unusual pet names, and the 10 most unusual names for groups of pets. The most unusual individual names are:

1. Woe Izmee
2. Gwyneth Poultry (a duck)
3. SoSueMe
4. 54cent Swee'T
5. Iamaredneckwoman
6. Angry Chef Soup
7. Ms. Cornflake Especially
8. Bon Jo Flea
9. McLovin
10. Joe the Plumber

A shelter had a dog named Buck up for adoption and didn't get any response. They changed his name to Joe the Plumber, and he had a new home in no time! Link -Thanks, Katy!

MARIO KART (REMI GAILLARD)
by nqtv

(Daily Motion link)
The popular video game comes to real life in this video by Remi Gaillard. -Thanks, Matt!

A 2,700-year-old grave unearthed in the Gobi Desert near Turpan, China revealed the world's oldest marijuana stash! The grave belonged to a blue-eyed Caucasian man buried with a number of valuable items.

Scientists originally thought the plant material in the grave was coriander, but microscopic botanical analysis of the bowl contents, along with genetic testing, revealed that it was cannabis.

The size of seeds mixed in with the leaves, along with their color and other characteristics, indicate the marijuana came from a cultivated strain. Before the burial, someone had carefully picked out all of the male plant parts, which are less psychoactive, so Russo and his team believe there is little doubt as to why the cannabis was grown.

Nearly two pounds of pot were found in the grave. No, it's not fresh enough to get anyone high. Link -Thanks, Jorge Garcia!

(image credit: David Potter/Oxford University Press)

Casey Pugh wired LED lights to a motorcycle helmet and programed them to flash patterns, a la Daft Punk! This was his Halloween costume. See a time-lapse video and a discussion of how he did it at Vimeo. Link -Thanks, Gene!

You may recall the famous photograph known as "Migrant Mother", taken by Dorothea Lange of Florence Owens Thompson and her children in 1936. It was used over the years to illustrate the Great Depression. Thompson was a migrant worker with seven children who also worked the fields. 77-year-old Katherine McIntosh was the girl burying her head in her mother's shoulders in the photo. She was four years old at the time.

"The picture came out in the paper to show the people what hard times was. People was starving in that camp. There was no food," she says. "We were ashamed of it. We didn't want no one to know who we were."

The photograph helped define the Great Depression, yet McIntosh says her mom didn't let it define her, although the picture "was always talked about in our family."

"It always stayed with her. She always wanted a better life, you know."

McIntosh talked to CNN about what her life was like in those days. She now lives in Modesto, California. Link -Thanks, Geekazoid!

(image credit: Gregg Canes/CNN)