Bubble Spinner is not that difficult. You can work out your strategy after only a minute or two, but the rest of your day may be sacrificed to this simple game. The object is to cluster three or more of the same colored balls together to make them disappear. Yes, you've seen games like that, but this one moves around on you! Link -via Buzzfeed

(YouTube link)

Now, no matter what you think of rock-and-roll, I think you have to keep a nice open mind about what the young people go for; otherwise the youngsters won't feel that you understand them.

Buddy Holly was one of the hottest rock-and-roll stars of the late 50s. He chartered a plane from Clear Lake, Iowa to Fargo, North Dakota, two stops on the Winter Dance Party tour. It took off around 1AM on February 3rd, 1959. That was 50 years ago today. The plane encountered a snowstorm shortly into the flight and crashed, killing the pilot, Holly, Richie Valens, and J.P. Richardson AKA The Big Bopper. The date became known as The Day The Music Died. Link

Five-year-old Beatrice Rienhoff suffers from a rare genetic disorder that leaves her with very little muscle mass and a range of medical problems. Doctors don't know exactly what's wrong, nor how to help her.

Families facing this kind of medical uncertainty are often paralyzed by their distress. But rather than give in to his anguish, Hugh Rienhoff made an extraordinary decision: He would dig into Beatrice's genetic code and find the answer himself. A biotechnology consultant by day, Rienhoff has been an avid student of clinical genetics since he earned his medical degree nearly 30 years ago. Now he has used this expertise to transform his Bay Area home into a makeshift genetics lab. Surrounded by his children's artwork and bookshelves loaded with his wife's political literature, Rienhoff set about sequencing a number of Beatrice's genes, preparing samples using secondhand equipment and turning to public databases to interpret the results. On the desk in his attic workspace are a pair of white binders stuffed with charts detailing 20,000 of Beatrice's base pairs; the data for nearly 1 billion can be accessed from a nearby PC. Whenever he has a spare moment, Rienhoff sequesters himself in this cluttered, carpeted room and sifts through his daughter's DNA, one nucleotide at a time. He is hunting for the single genetic quirk responsible for Beatrice's woes—an adenine in place of a guanine, perhaps, or an extra cytosine in a key location. If he can find the culprit, he figures, maybe he can find a treatment, too.

Reinhoff's research hasn't cracked the mystery yet, but he has found a treatment that helps his daughter somewhat. Along the way, he also became an advocate for other parents who are looking for answers to their children's baffling conditions. Link

(image credit: Ye Rin Mok)

A duvet cover goes over an ordinary blanket to turn it into a comforter. Forum member cherry_blossom55 made this awesome duvet cover for her boyfriend, who is a chemistry major. It has the entire periodic table of elements on it! She ran each square through a printer to attach the proper element. See lots more pictures of the process at Craftster. Link -via Unique Daily

You know about the Miss America and Miss Universe beauty pageants. You are probably also aware of child beauty pageants, bodybuilding contests, transexual pageants, and pageants for married women. Then there are the odd beauty pageants. Last August, an Italian priest proposed an online beauty pageant for nuns. One day later, he rescinded the idea under pressure from local and religious authorities. But there are plenty of other beauty pageants that stray far from what you are used to.

Miss Klingon Empire

The Miss Klingon Empire beauty pageant has been held annually for ten years now at the Dragon*con event in Atlanta. This image of the 2006 winner is from Flickr user elemess. Also see a video report of the most recent pageant.

Miss Hooker

The Miss Hooker 2008 pageant was what you'd think -a beauty pageant for prostitutes, but there were no real prostitutes in the running, just actresses putting on a show, arraigned by artist Natalia Fabia. But what a show! The eventual winner went by the name Miss One Dolla No Holla. See more pictures here.

Miss Plastic Surgery

A Miss Plastic Surgery pageant was held in China in 2004. It was a one-time-only event, in which all contestants were required to have undergone some type of plastic surgery. The pageant was launched in reaction to an earlier scandal in which a contestant was disqualified from another beauty contest because she had used cosmetic surgery.

Ms. Pregnant

You don't have to let a little thing like pregnancy stop you from entering a beauty pageant. The Ms. Pregnant pageant celebrates beauty with a bump. And yes, they parade in bikinis!

Miss Subways

A New York advertising agency held a pageant from 1941 to 1976 called Miss Subways. The winner was featured in ads on trains and stations. The tradition was revived in 2004, when Caroline Sanchez-Bernat was crowned Miss Subways.

Zombie Beauty

A Zombie Beauty Contest is held annually at the Phoenix ComiCon. This year's pageant was just a couple of weeks ago. Heather, the winner, is pictured here. See pictures from last year's zombie pageant at Flickr.

Most Beautiful Bottom

The Most Beautiful Bottom in the World contest was launched in 2007 by the underwear manufacturer sloggi. It is open to both men and women, and the winner for each category gets a modeling contract. See a video of the 2008 competition in Paris. This photo is from the 2007 contest in Munich.

Miss Landmine

Miss Landmine is a beauty pageant for women disabled by landmines and other war-related injuries held in Angola. The pageant, created by Norwegian artist Morten Traavik, celebrates pride and empowerment over physical perfection.

Prison Pageants

In the Miss Spring beauty pageant held in a Siberian prison near Novosibirsk, participation can mean freedom, as the parole board takes community activity into account when deciding who to release. A 2006 film, Miss Gulag is a documentary about the Miss Spring pageant. Other prison beauty pageants include Miss Captivity, held in a Lithuanian prison, Miss Prisoner held in Bogota, Colombia, and Miss Prisoner in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (image credit: Fabio Cuttica)

Miss Jumbo Queen

Thailand hosts the Miss Jumbo Queen pageant for big beautiful women. The pageant grew out of an elephant conservation project.

The aim of the contest is to select the contestant who best exhibits the characteristics of an elephant, by virtue of her grace, elegance and size, to help promote elephant conservation causes in Thailand.

However, it appears that the last Jumbo Queen was crowned in 2005.

Harvest Festival Queens

Local harvest festivals have the funniest names for ordinary beauty pageants. Who could resist putting such gems as Miss Meat Pie, Miss Hell Hole Swamp, or Miss Worm Gruntin' Queen on their resume? Pictured is the Gilroy Garlic Festival queen.

This looks almost too good to eat! This football stadium was made from common snack foods. Holy Taco has an ingredient list and illustrated instructions. Link -via J-Walk Blog

Tommy Tutone made the phone number 867-5309 {wiki} one that everyone remembers -if they were around in 1982 when the song was a hit. Now that phone number is up for sale, available to someone who lives in the same New York area code. A disc jockey who had the number for years is selling his business and the phone number on eBay. http://fe19.story.media.ac4.yahoo.com/news/us/story/ap/20090201/ap_on_fe_st/odd_jenny_s_number to story. Link to auction. -via Fark

After graduating high school, three Japanese buddies decided to follow their dream of a year-long cross-country road trip, from the northeastern island of Hokkaido to the southwestern one of Yakushima. But before they set out, the trio built one of the coolest road trip cars ever conceived, from a decrepit mid-80s Toyota Toyoace.

The men are neither carpenters nor engineers, so the project took two years. The truck has two stories: the upper deck is a sleeping area, and the bottom has a fully-functional kitchen and bath. It even has a full-size bathtub! http://japanesenostalgiccar.com/blog/2008/12/04/japanese-road-trip-in-transforming-toyota-truck/ -via the Presurfer

Why settle for chips and dip when you can watch the game noshing on Beer Ice Cream with Pretzel Crust and Dipping Sauces, or Puffed Sauerkraut, or Pizza Pebbles?

Wired Science asked leading molecular gastronomists for their own preferred finger foods recipes. Inspired by the experimental spirit of science, they've come up with new variations on old standbys, from Wylie Dufresne's pizza pebbles to Homaro Cantu's olive dipping chips.

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/01/superfoods.html

A woman gave birth to octuplets in California on Monday. Seven of the babies are breathing on their own, and all are expected to survive. The mother already had six children, the oldest only seven years old!

Although the successful births at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Bellflower have received worldwide attention, they also have prompted disapproval from some medical ethicists and fertility specialists, who argue that high-number multiple births endanger the mother and also frequently lead to long-term health and developmental problems for the children.

Under the guidelines of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, U.S. doctors normally would not implant more than two embryos at a time in a woman under the age of 35. After that age it is more difficult to become pregnant. The mother of the octuplets is believed to be 33, based on available public records.

Doctors were surprised by the eighth child, as they only knew about seven of them. Link

This handy flow chart explains how Star Trek (The Original Series) adventures were written. Looks like a lot of them were based on budgetary restraints! Above you see just a small part of the huge flow chart at io9. Link -via Gorilla Mask

Has it really been twenty years since the fall of the Berlin Wall? An architect in Leipzig, Germany opened an apartment to prepare for renovations and found it had been virtually untouched since at least 1989!

It appears the inhabitant of the humble flat fled in a hurry and shrivelled bread rolls still lay in a string bag.

Grocery brands from the Socialist state filled the kitchen.

"When we opened the door we felt like Howard Carter when he found the grave of Tutankhamun," Mark Aretz told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper.

"Everything was a mess but it was like a historic treasure trove, a portal into an age long gone."

Documents show the flat had been occupied by a 24-year-man who had been in some trouble with East German authorities, and must have fled before the Berlin Wall came down in November of 1989. A wall calendar was turned to August 1988. Link -Thanks, Paul!

Electric rock-and-roll meets Victorian technology in this steampunk guitar!

Built for the 2008 Jersey City Artists Studio Tour by Mark Dalzell, the Steampunk guitar, Organum Insolitus features a television with Fresnel lens magnifier, onboard phaser, an amplifier and uses clockwork gears, hand hammered brass, cloth wire and wood for its making. The freakin’ guitar can also be attached to an external amp via a standard ¼-inch cable, setting up the beastly guitar as game to steam some endless music.

http://www.gizmowatch.com/entry/steampunk-guitar-with-clockwork-gears-and-a-lot-more/ -Thanks, Samiksha!

28-year-old Brett Kerr attempted to rob a home in Christchurch, New Zealand, but messed the job up in so many ways. The victim's son, Greg Kitson, was amazed at the incompetence of the caper.

Mr Kitson sped over to his parents' house after his wife noticed a fire in the kitchen. When he got there, he did not know who to call first. “We had a fire, we had a burglary and we had someone injured so it was like an all-play.”

He believes it all went wrong for Kerr when he tripped taking a drum set down a narrow spiral staircase, and apparently knocked himself out.

“This might be where he done himself in, then he thinks, 'Ah! It's a good time to get the plasma TV when I’m knocked out and totally out of it.'”

Bleeding profusely, it seems Kerr then set fire to the kitchen before deciding it was time for a lie-down.

The burglar’s actions puzzled Mr Kitson.
“Why would someone come in, light a fire, go upstairs and fall asleep?”

Link -via Arbroath

The lineup of the Justice League of America has changed many times over the years. Can you name the original founding members that debuted in comic books in 1960? In today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss, you have four minutes to name all seven. I got six of them right off. I had to wait until the four minutes were up to find out the seventh -one I would have never thought of! http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/22148