The lollipops are shaped like the head of communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin, and they taste like cola! He would be rolling in his grave if he were in a grave instead of on display in Moscow. Link -via Ectoplasmosis

The USA's Independence Day holiday is Friday, but most people refer to it as The Fourth of July, or just The Fourth. None of the questions on today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss have to do with the holiday, but they all have to do with something that is the fourth. I scored 50% because I knew half the answers, but all my wild guesses were wrong. http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/16201

Kurt Vonnegut's new book Armageddon in Retrospect is about war and peace. Included is a letter he wrote to his family in 1945 explaining the late author's stint as a POW in Dresden. His experiences became the basis of the book Slaughterhouse Five.

On about February 14th the Americans came over, followed by the R.A.F. Their combined labors killed 250,000 people in twenty-four hours and destroyed all of Dresden—possibly the world's most beautiful city. But not me.

After that we were put to work carrying corpses from Air-Raid shelters; women, children, old men; dead from concussion, fire or suffocation. Civilians cursed us and threw rocks as we carried bodies to huge funeral pyres in the city.

When General Patton took Leipzig we were evacuated on foot to Hellexisdorf on the Saxony-Czechoslovakian border. There we remained until the war ended. Our guards deserted us. On that happy day the Russians were intent on mopping up isolated outlaw resistance in our sector. Their planes (P39's) strafed and bombed us, killing fourteen. But not me.

Read the entire letter at Newsweek. Link -via Grow-A-Brain

Years of copper mining left behind a toxic waste pit near Butte, Montana that is so massive the EPA's Superfund is relying on containment instead of cleanup. It was thought that nothing could live in that water -even migrating birds on a short stopover died by the hundreds! But in 1995, a chemist spotted clumps of green slime growing in the pit.

After examining the slime under a microscope, the researchers identified it as Euglena mutabilis, a protozoan which has the remarkable ability of being able to survive in the toxic waters of the Berkeley Pit by altering its local environment to something more hospitable. Through photosynthesis, it increases the oxygen level in the water, which causes dissolved metals to oxidize and precipitate out. In addition, it pulls iron out of the water and sequesters it inside of itself. This makes it a classic example of an extremophile. Extremophiles are organisms that can tolerate and even thrive in environments that will destroy most other living things. Some can even repair their own damaged DNA, a trait which makes them extremely interesting to cancer researchers.

Eventually, over 160 species of extremophiles were found in the pit -many never seen anywhere else before! These microbes may be able to clean up toxic waste and possibly even cure cancer. Read the story at Damn Interesting. Link

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The latest from filmmaker Lasse Gjertsen (featured many times on Neatorama) is a short animation featuring a friendly game of Rock, Paper, Scissors... and other things. Contains brief cartoon nudity.

Imagine coming home from work to your new home and finding everything gone!

Bobo and Joy Dickson bought a house had been headed for foreclosure, but JPMorgan Chase apparently didn't get the message that the former owners had moved out and the new owners were in residence. So, naturally, they hired a firm to drill the Dickson's locks and take everything they owned, including their food. Now JPMorgan Chase is "taking it seriously."

The prosecutor's office declined to press charges against the reclamation firm, Field Asset Services Inc. saying there was no criminal intent. The Dicksons have filed suit against JPMorgan Chase. Link -via Digg

(image credit: Deborah Cannon/AMERICAN-STATESMAN)

It was 71 years ago today that aviator Amelia Earhart, along with navigator Fred Noonan, disappeared over the Pacific, never to be found. It was Earhart's second attempt at flying around the world.

The disappearance of the celebrated flier remains perhaps the most tantalizing unsolved mystery in aviation history. In the age of Charles Lindbergh and other daredevil fliers, Amelia Earhart became a household name in 1928, after becoming the first woman to fly across the Atlantic. True, it was as a passenger with a male pilot and copilot, but she soloed across the Atlantic in 1932.

Wired has the story of what happened on July 2, 1937. Link

I received a bottle of foaming soap as a gift and had wondered if I could refill it, since it measures the proper amount for hand washing so well. A comment at Consumerist led me to an Instructable on exactly this question. Foaming soap costs more than regular liquid soap, but the difference is the container. And the secret is that the foaming soap you pay more for is regular liquid soap that has been watered down! Now I know what to do with all this "bath gel" my family got for Christmas. Link

Today is Canada Day, {wiki} formerly Dominion Day.

On June 20, 1868, a proclamation signed by the Governor General, Lord Monck, called upon all Her Majesty's loving subjects throughout Canada to join in the celebration of the anniversary of the formation of the union of the British North America provinces in a federation under the name of Canada on July 1st.

Please leave your favorite Canada Day traditions in the comments. http://www.pch.gc.ca/PROGS/CPSC-CCSP/JFA-HA/canada_e.cfm

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Skype is putting together a laughter chain, and you're invited to be a part of it! Watch the chain (the latest version is much longer than this video) and record yourself laughing along with those who've gone before. You'll recognize the distinctive laugh from the guy in the classic video Dad at Comedy Barn. Look under "help" for the instructions. Link -Thanks, Alex!

I don't know if these are posted in rank order or not, but they are the most common things kids tend to stick up their noses.

1. Crayons
2. Beads
3. French fries
4. Fingers
5. Marbles
6. Spaghetti
7. Tissue
8. Cheerios
9. Small toys
10. Beans and peas

Babyzone has more information, such as what you should do in each case. Link -via Bits and Pieces

10-year-old Cameron Delonde was retrieving a dropped toothbrush from the toilet when he found a set of diamond rings! Cameron and his father traced the rings to the former homeowner who had lost them 12 years earlier. The rightful owner's daughter, Mary Trainor was delighted to see them.

Trainor said her mother passed away five years ago and she and her brother searched in vain for the family heirlooms, to no avail. She said she was thrilled to have them back and still can't believe they've been returned.

Cameron's father said he'd had a ring stolen years ago and remembered how that loss felt. He said he was determined to return the rings.

Link -via Arbroath

The name of the window dressing business is Nets2go, but that is not usually interpreted as "internet". One customer, however, asked for very specific designs on all the different window blinds in his home. Besides the Digg blind, he also commissioned blinds with the logos from Facebook, StumbleUpon, Firefox, Wordpress, YouTube, and more! His 'net blinds didn't go over well with his wife; the two are now separated.

“It was coming anyway”, Mr Schofield told us, “but my design choice for the blinds was pretty much the nail in the coffin. She doesn’t understand the intense geek in me. And anyway, the only one she’d even heard of was Youtube”

Link -Thanks, David!

Adorable subatomic particles you can cuddle up with! The Particle Zoo is made up of quarks, neutrinos, gluons, and others that each have their own personality. Meet the muon, who lives fast and dies young, the up quark and the down quark, who are best friends, and Higgs boson, who everyone wants to meet. Pictured is the strange quark and the gluon. Link -via Metafilter

Today's Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss will find out how well you know the places where televisions sitcoms took place. I scored 67%, which surprised me because there were a lot of shows in this quiz I have never seen. http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/16124