Several movies and TV shows have featured the plot line of someone heading to Washington, DC to become involved in the business of running our nation. Today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss features trivia about nine of these stories. I scored 67%. http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/26287

In Pixar's new film Up! a homeowner refuses to sell when development moves in to the neighborhood. This situation occurs quite often in real life, and the remaining property is called a "nail house" because it sticks out like a nail among the newer (and almost always bigger) buildings. deputy dog has the stories of six such property owners. Shown is the home of Edith Macefield in Seattle (featured previously at Neatorama) which was festooned with balloons recently as a promotion for the Pixar film. http://deputy-dog.com/2009/06/6-extraordinarily-stubborn-nail-houses.html

A bottle has been unearthed in Greenwich, England that contains urine and objects believed to have been put there to combat witchcraft. It was completely corked, so the contents were available for analysis, unlike other bottles found from the period.

An Old Bailey court record from 1682 documents that a husband, believing his wife to be afflicted by witchcraft, was advised by a Spitalfields apothecary to "take a quart of your Wive's urine, the paring of her Nails, some of her Hair, and such like, and boyl them well in a Pipkin."

The excavated bottle appears to have been made according to those, or similar, instructions.

CT scans and chemical analysis, along with gas chromatography conducted by Richard Cole of the Leicester Royal Infirmary, reveal the contents of the bottle to include human urine, brimstone, 12 iron nails, eight brass pins, hair, possible navel fluff, a piece of heart-shaped leather pierced by a bent nail, and 10 fingernail clippings.

So far, they've found the urine was from someone who smoked, and the fingernails were in good shape, indicating a person of high status. Link -via Unique Daily

(image credit: Mike Pitts/British Archaeology)

Scientists have found a new way to track colonies of penguins in the Antarctic by satellite. Normal satellite imaging doesn't show penguins well because of their natural camouflage. So instead, British penguin-trackers are looking at penguin poop.

"We can't see actual penguins on the satellite maps because the resolution isn't good enough," said mapping expert Peter Fretwell. "But during the breeding season the birds stay at a colony for eight months. The ice gets pretty dirty and it's the guano stains that we can see."

The method helped scientists identify 38 penguin colonies -- of those, 10 were new. Of previously known colonies, six had re-located and six were not found.

Link -via Simply Left Behind

(image credit: Flickr user Carles-FlashOnTheBlog)

Previously at Neatorama: Penguin Poop.

Curt Carish of Kaua‘i, Hawaii was at Port Allen beach when he spotted a fish swimming awkwardly. He grabbed a bamboo pole and beat the fish until it went limp. Carish put the fish in his cooler. When a friend opened the cooler and looked at the fish, it had a gold watch hanging out of its mouth!

“And the funniest thing is that the watch was on time and still ticking,” Carish said.

Carish, who often hangs out at the private Port Allen Club with many other members, said in all of his 30 years on Kaua‘i he has never encountered anything this bizarre.

Link -via Fark

In 1943, a volcano began growing out of a cornfield in San Juan Parangaricutiro, Michoacán, Mexico. It erupted for eight years, growing to a height of 336 meters. The lava flow buried the town, but the inhabitants were able to evacuate. Of all the buildings, only the church is now visible, rising half-buried from the new rock. Link -via Dark Roasted Blend

Theo Gray (featured previously at Neatorama) cast this fish out of a metal you rarely see made into sculpture -mercury! To keep the shape, he had to cool it to –320°F (-212°C) with liquid nitrogen. When mercury is cooled that much, it acts like tin or other metals we are more familiar with. http://www.popsci.com/mercuryfish -via Boing Boing

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Corey McKenna created this unique stop-motion video as an invitation to his wedding to Rachel. The music is M79 by Vampire Weekend. More detailed directions are in another video. Do you think anyone will show up? -via Arbroath

People around the world are marking the 20th anniversary of what became known in China as the June 4th Incident. In April of 1989, students and intellectuals gathered in Beijing's Tiananmen Square to mourn the death of communist party secretary Hu Yaobang, who advocated government reform. The gathering grew into an anti-government protest and lasted until June 4th when government forces cleared the square. Official Chinese records say 241 died in the incident, but the Chinese Red Cross initially put the figure at 2,600. Frontline aired a 2006 documentary about the protest and its aftermath called The Tank Man. That episode is now available online, along with a timeline and other features. Link -via Metafilter, where you'll find more links

Anthony Gardiner of Wellington, New Zealand bought an engagement ring for his girlfriend, but she turned him down. He can't return the ring and doesn't want to keep it as he considers it bad luck, so he's staging a treasure hunt!

Anyone keen to pick up the ring, valued at NZ$5,000 ($3,268), will need to be in New Zealand's capital city, Wellington, on Saturday to join the hunt, the Dominion Post newspaper reported.

Clues to the ring's whereabouts will start being posted on social networking site Twitter (http:/twitter.com/donoogle_com) at 8 a.m. local time on Saturday (2000 GMT on Friday).

Link to story. Link to Twitter feed.

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Harrison Ford has it all over Tom Selleck, if you ask me. If you are too young to remember Magnum, P.I. then you may not realize how closely this mashup follows the original opening sequence. So watch this side-by-side comparison.

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-via YesButNoButYes

The founders of Curious Expeditions and the defunct Athanasius Kircher Society have teamed up to start a new website called Atlas Obscura, "A Compendium of the This Age's Wonders, Curiosities and Esoterica." or in simpler terms a guide to world's most unusual places. Users are invited to suggest odd places and add to information about existing entries. Many of the weird and wonderful places you've read about on Neatorama are listed. The example pictured is the Kindlifresser, or “Child Eater” of Bern, Switzerland.

The disturbing sculpture is no modern work of art, built in 1546, it is one of the oldest fountains in the city of Bern.

Strangely, no one is exactly sure why it’s there. There are three main theories.

There are 277 strange places already listed, which gives me a lot to read about! Link -Thanks, D!

Wired has a recipe for an exploding drink called the Manhattan Project. You can try to make it taste like a Manhattan, but its not really necessary. The point is that there will be a delayed-reaction explosion to surprise your guest. Link

Hairstyles in the 18th century were regimented, over-the-top, and difficult to achieve, especially for women. The styles calmed down a little mid-century, but that didn't last long.

However somewhere from mid 70-ies the hairstyle started “growing up” again. It emerged into a complex structure and was was as high and unimaginable as ever before. Ingenious women used almost everything they could find to make their headdress ,including most popular belts, jewelry, fabrics, flowers, fruit. Of course, their own hair was not enough to make such a piece of art and they used the hair of their servants and even the horse’s mane.

Link -via Dark Roasted Blend

Three US soft drink companies own more brand names than you probably were aware of. In today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss, you are given eleven soda names. Can you identify whether it is a product of Coca-Cola, Pepsico, or Dr Pepper/Snapple? I failed this quiz miserably, probably because I don't drink soda pop. Give me another cup of coffee! http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/26113