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

Improv Everywhere made lasting memories as they threw a surprise wedding reception for a random couple getting married at City Hall. There are lots more pictures, details, and video at the website. Link -via I Am Bored

Saddam Hussein's palaces in Iraq are now being used as temporary quarters for US military personnel. Photographer Richard Mosse captured the disconnect between the old residents and the new in a series of pictures. See the photographs and read an interview with Mosse at BldgBlog. Link -via the Presurfer

(image credit: Richard Mosse)

The Bay Area R2 Builders showed off four fully-functioning R2D2 units at Maker Faire. They cost around $10,000 to build, and take a couple of years of work. http://www.wired.com/video/builders-construct-10000-fully-functional-r2d2/24892334001 to video report. Link to website.

Steve Herzfeld confronted the decisions that haunt most of us eventually. His elderly parents needed round-the-clock care, but he couldn't afford the quality of nursing home he wanted for them in Florida. So he sent them to Puducherry, India!

Looking back, Herzfeld says the main thing he would have done differently would have been to hire staff before their arrival: it took him five difficult weeks to find a nurse.

But once staff had been found, he could give his parents a much higher standard of care than would have been possible in the US for his father's income of $2,000 (£1,200) a month. In India that paid for their rent, a team of carers - a cook, a valet for his father, nurses to be with his mother 12 hours a day, six days a week, a physiotherapist and a masseuse - and drugs (costing a fifth of US prices), and also allowed them to put some money away.

Could this be the wave of the future? Herzfeld, whose parents died a few years after moving to India, knows this plan would not work for everyone, but he admires the caring way that his parents were treated in India. Link -via Arbroath

(image credit: Steve Herzfeld)

Keeping bees is illegal in New York City. That doesn't mean there are no beekeepers in the city; they just keep their bees hidden on rooftops. Now a resolution to legalize beekeeping is on the table, and many are interested in starting a new hobby.

Beekeeping classes in New York City were brimming with students this spring, partly because of publicity after a city council bill was introduced to legalize beekeeping.

On one Sunday in April the student beekeepers gathered for a live demonstration of hiving.

Afterwards they got two boxes; one with about 20,000 live bees, and another smaller one with the queen bee inside.

National Geographic has a video report, including an appearance by an underground beekeeper who is allergic to bee stings! Link -via Digg

Some TV infomercials play so often that you can't help but memorize their slogans. Others, not so much. Today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss will test your memory on 12 products "as seen on TV". I scored 67%, even though I only knew one answer. http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/25941

(YouTube link)
Zeke has a basketball jones. Sign him up for the pros! -via Bits and Pieces

Set your kids on the path to Star Wars fandom early by teaching them the ABCs using Star Wars characters! This Flickr set by illustrator Michael Fleming made me smile. Link -Thanks, Bairman!

You read about fast foods of Europe and Asia and Australia, now in the third part of the series, HealthAssist takes a look at fast food from South and Central America. For example, in Panama:

Fondas are one of the most popular places to grab a meal on the go. These small kiosk-type restaurants serve their food from glass boxes heated by a light bulb. Most, if not all of the food served in fondas are fried - rice, hojaldres, pork chunks, empanadas. Fondas also serve a soup called sancocho. Sancocho is a type of chicken soup flavoured with onion and cilantro.

Link -Thanks, Karen!

A new procedure to help people with damaged corneas is showing promise in three patients so far. A team from the University of New South Wales in Sydney takes stem cells from the patient's good eye and cultures them in a contact lens. When the cells have multiplied, they place the lens over the patient's affected eye and leave it for around three weeks. During that time, the cells begin to grow into the damaged cornea and help regenerate it. In effect, it's a stem cell transplant from one eye to the other.

Researcher Dr Nick Di Girolamo said: 'The procedure is totally simple and cheap.

'Unlike other techniques, it requires no foreign human or animal products, only the patient’s own serum, and is completely non-invasive.

'There's no suturing, there is no major operation. You don’t need any fancy equipment.'

The contact lenses used in the operation are already widely used after eye surgery.

The researchers hope the technique can be adapted for other parts of the eye, such as the retina, and even elsewhere in the body.

Link -via Digg

65-year-old Hou Guoying recently had a bullet removed that had been lodged in her face for 42 years! She was shot accidently during the Cultural Revolution in China in 1967.

The bullet apparently hit her when it ricocheted through a wall during a fight in between rival factions of Red Guards.

But doctors initially told her that her wound was only superficial, the Chongqing News reported.

Constant headaches and difficulty eating eventually led to an x-ray in 1978 that revealed the bullet.

She had refused an operation because of poor medical facilities in Chongqing at the time - resulting in three more decades of discomfort.

This year, the pain began to spread to the rest of her body, so the bullet finally came out. Hou is recovering from the surgery. http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Bullet-In-Face-China-Housewife-Hou-Guoying-Has-Op-To-Remove-Bullet-Stuck-In-Her-Face-For-42-Years/Article/200905415289930?lpos=World_News_First_World_News_Article_Teaser_Region_4&lid=ARTICLE_15289930_Bullet_In_Face%3A_China_Housewife_Hou_Guoying_Has_Op_To_Remove_Bullet_Stuck_In_Her_Face_For_42_Years -via Arbroath

Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails is doing something special during the band's final tour. By offering special concert packages and encouraging donations, they have raised over $850,000 to help Eric De La Cruz get heart transplant.

De La Cruz was turned down from transplant lists because of the lack of transplant centers in Nevada. Reznor became aware of his situation after De La Cruz's sister, former CNN.com news anchor Veronica De La Cruz, began a fundraising campaign on her website. The campaign is as much to raise money for Eric as it is to raise awareness of Nevada's limited transplant opportunities, and to petition Senator Harry Reid and other Congress members for improved legislation.

Link to story. http://store.nin.com/helperic/ to donation information. -via reddit